The Cadet Under-Officer

by Christopher Cummings

  Zap!

  There was an enormous blue flash and then white and gold sparks on the transformer and fence. A loud cracking noise caused Graham to jump with fright. The sparks stopped and all the lights went out. Some switch or fuse had blown. There were shouts of alarm just the other side of the shed.

  Graham ran, scooping up his rifle on the way. He splashed through a spreading pool of water and past the water tower. Water was spurting out in at least three huge gushes which would empty the reservoir tanks within minutes. Hodgins was there dancing up and down and chuckling aloud.

  “Come on Hodg, run!” Graham cried, grabbing at the cadet’s sleeve. They raced into the bush followed by shouts and threats. As soon as they were safely in the bush Graham halted and faced about, ready to fight off any pursuit. He could see no-one but he could hear several. They were shouting to each other about what had happened. He heard Bargheese’s voice.

  Graham fired his rifle.

  The sound of the shot was followed by that of breaking glass. The voices stopped. The only sound for half a minute was his own laboured breathing and the gush of water, now accompanied by a gurgling noise up in the tanks.

  Graham reloaded and shouted. “Bargheese! Let our cadets go and we will let you go! If you harm them I will make sure none of you gets away with it.”

  There was silence for a moment, then Bargheese’s angry voice came from the middle of the camp. “I will kill them if you don’t go away. I will torture and mutilate them one at a time. I will start on one now to show I mean business. You listen for the screams.”

  At that moment there were screams. Roger and his group had closed up on the front of the camp and began yelling from the bush and two shotgun blasts shattered the night. There were more cries of alarm from inside the camp, now apparently under attack from two sides.

  At Graham’s command both he and Hodgins both fired again, aiming at the iron roof of the shed. There were shots from inside the camp but not in their direction. Graham called again. “You other crooks, don’t listen to Bargheese. You are in enough trouble already. Don’t make it worse. Let the cadets go and either surrender or start running.”

  That provoked swearing from someone and then more yells and shots sounded from the other side of the camp. Graham and Hodgins both fired again. Then the noise died down. Graham yelled, “Ok Mr Bargheese, we’re leaving now. You get some sleep and think about it. If you want to leave just send the two hostages down the road to the roadblock and we will withdraw. But I warn you again, don’t hurt them.”

  He walked back with Hodgins following till they rejoined Margaret’s anxious group. After a quick whispered explanation they all set off on a compass bearing going North East away from the river and towards the mine. Graham tried to calm his fears that Bargheese was bluffing but he knew he was taking a fearful risk and depending on presumed disunity in the gang to prevent a tragedy.

  At 0220hrs in the morning they came to the gravel road leading from the camp to the open-cut mine, which was another kilometre to the North. At that point they were right on the far side of the mining camp, directly opposite Roger’s roadblock. Here Graham again divided his force, although not without some anxiety about it possibly being poor tactics. He left LCpl Walsh and Hodgins with orders to light another fire as a diversion. They were made to lie in the bed of a small dry creek while their route home and compass bearings for it were checked with a shaded torch.

  Graham then led the other three due East, navigating more by the dark mass of Mast Hill against the moon than by his luminous compass. When they were north of the hill he turned towards it and cautiously approached. ‘If I was the enemy I would have held the hill,’ he thought, ‘if only to keep a clear route to the airfield, but also because the buildings of the camp are quite indefensible.’ However he doubted if the crooks had, just from lack of numbers if not from untrained habits of thinking that buildings meant safety.

  Just in case there were some enemy lurking there Graham again led the way, scouting cautiously up from rock to rock, his face low to the ground. He risked possible snakes to try to get any watching enemy silhouetted against the moon or stars. Every few steps he stopped to listen, straining his tired eyes, peering into the blackness between and under large boulders.

  They came up to the centre of the Mast Hill between the highest point and the line of rocks marking an eroded granite dyke. At this point Graham waited, crouching in cover, till the others joined him. He then sent Cactus, Rosemary and Rebecca on to a clump of rocks just past where the mast had been. He and Margaret then went and looked at it.

  The radio mast was down alright, its steel latticework twisted across the rocks and small trees. Graham moved on down towards the rocks nearest the camp. He was very cautious now, using every bit of fieldcraft skill cadets had taught him. It took him ten minutes to move 50 paces. There was no one there. The buildings of the camp were below him, the nearest only about 150 metres. They showed clearly as silver or whitish oblongs in the moonlight.

  Graham climbed up onto a large flat rock for a better vantage point. Margaret tried to follow him but had shorter legs. Graham turned and took her rifle and lay both weapons carefully down. Then he took her left hand and helped her up.

  Her hand felt very warm and smooth. They both straightened up and somehow he didn’t want to let go of her hand and nor did she. He stood looking at her in the moonlight, his heart thumping even faster than it had been. His body and emotions then took over from his mind.

  Very gently they came together, all webbing and dirty, sweat-soaked clothes. But they were oblivious to this. Graham put his right arm up and around her and she nestled in against him so that her hair touched his cheek. With something like wonder he brought his hand up and gently stroked her hair and then her cheek.

  Margaret looked up, her eyes sparkling in the starlight from tears of joy. Hesitantly their lips met in the inexperienced first kiss of young love.

  Then they drew their heads apart and stood for several minutes in silent wonder.

  ‘I’m in love!’ Graham thought. He wanted to whisper it to her but was afraid it would sound silly. Then he became very conscious of the warmth and curves of her body as their hands, still clasped, were now between them. He flushed with embarrassment at his own thoughts and removed his hand to behind her back and without any word spoken they came together in another kiss - hotter, more certain, more passionate.

  Then they stood apart, holding hands. Graham’s heart was thumping even harder than when he’d been shot at. He was unsure of what he should do or say but she helped him by simply embracing him in a fierce hug for a third time. He held her tight and she put her head on his shoulder.

  At last he found his tongue in a hesitant whisper, “Margaret.”

  It was all he could manage. She smiled and was content.

  He shivered and looked around. It was good to be alive. ‘My God! What an idiot I am! We are only a few hundred paces from the enemy camp and standing on a prominent rock in bright moonlight. I must be mad,’ he thought.

  Shaking his head he whispered, “We’d better get down in case we are seen.” She nodded but neither let go for a long minute and then reluctantly. They lay side by side on the rock and Graham retrieved the rifles.

  The cold metal of the weapons helped cool his ardour. He felt a bit ashamed of himself and his adolescent military pride was hurt when he realized just what a risk they had taken. In their passion they had been almost oblivious to where they were!

  “We shouldn’t do that Margaret,” he whispered.

  “Why not? I love you,” she whispered back.

  “Because...well, because I’m a CUO and you are a corporal and I’m supposed to set an example.”

  “I’m only a corporal because I want to be with you. Anyway it’s only a few weeks to the end of the training year. You’ll be leaving school soon and I won’t be staying in the cadets.”

  Graham was a bit hurt by that because to him Cadets was the most important thi
ng in his life. “Why not? You’ve got two more years at school. You are a good NCO.”

  “Because there are sixteen corporals in the company and only room for eight sergeants next year, so eight of us must miss out and without you I don’t want to be here. I just want to be with you. Now let’s get on with the war!” she replied. She was a bit hurt and angry with him.

  Graham sensed this and gave her arm a squeeze and smiled. She smiled back. He said no more but looked at his watch. He had allowed himself thirty minutes to get into position and it was just as well. It was 0250 and even as he watched there was the flickering of tiny flames on the plain off to their right.

  Walsh and Hodgins had the job of setting fire to the grass in the triangle formed by the small creek, the road from the camp to the water pump and the road from the camp to the mine. Graham didn’t think it would cause much of a bushfire. Nor did he believe it would jump the roads to spread. But he hoped the flames would keep attracting Bargheese’s eyes, drawing his thoughts away from Whaleback Hill.

  A line of fires appeared along the small creek and slowly began to spread and coalesce. There was no wind and it soon became obvious the fires wouldn’t amount to much. There wasn’t enough grass. Some fires went out in a few minutes and others flared fitfully but did not develop.

  There were voices in the camp and the sound of boots on gravel. The fires had been seen. ‘That will keep them guessing for ten minutes anyway,’ he thought. Walsh and Hodgins should be on their way to join them now. Graham lay watching the small flickering flames and glancing at his watch. As the last minute came up he grew tense and worried. Margaret was to do the shooting and he realized how deeply he did care for her.

  A torch shone out from the camp towards the fires. Graham smiled. ‘It has them worried alright, wondering what else is about to hit them,’ he thought. Then he nodded at Margaret who had raised her rifle expectantly. 0300hrs.

  Crack!

  The whiplash noise of the .22 going off wasn’t very loud but it produced immediate results. The bullet smacked into the corrugated iron roof of the transport workshop with a ‘ting’ audible even to them. In the camp there were voices raised in alarm and curses.

  Crack!

  Margaret fired again. She felt elated and quite unafraid.

  Crack!

  The small bore rifle made no noticeable flash. There was the sound of running boots among the huts. A powerful electric torch came on and began sweeping the rocks. The two cadets lay flat for a moment. Margaret then wriggled back and slid off the rock, taking up a fire position with her rifle between two rocks. She fired again. This time she aimed at the light, quite prepared to shoot the man holding it as he threatened Graham.

  The torch beam settled on their rock pile and two rifles began firing - high velocity sporting stuff Graham thought, judging by the savage ‘snap’ as the bullets went through the air. There was the spine-chilling whine of a ricochet off the rock next to him. Spurred by fear he also crawled back and down, worrying now about being outflanked as he could see nothing because of the light. Margaret fired three more carefully aimed shots but she was half blinded and the torch was a small target at long range.

  Graham decided they had risked enough. “Go on Margaret. Work your way back up the hill quickly. I’ll cover you. Sgt Dunning’s mob should be making a diversion any moment.”

  Margaret was reluctant, fearful for him, but she went, crawling from rock to rock in the shadow of the rock pile. The crooks continued to fire as though they had unlimited ammunition. Graham feared this was to pin them down while the position was outflanked. But even to his partly trained ear it was obvious the crooks were just firing at the hill. ‘They can’t see us,’ he thought.

  Bang! Boom!

  Two shotgun blasts from near the dry creek smashed windows in the Accommodation Block nearest Dry Creek. Flames flickered in the bush and then flew through the air in an arc of fire to explode in a lurid fireball. Roger’s group had struck. They had made some Molotov Cocktails from the wrecked truck’s fuel supplies and beer bottles found in it. Another flew out of the scrub. The petrol bombs burst well short of the buildings and only set fire to the grass but the diversion achieved its aims.

  In their glow Graham glimpsed the silhouette of two men between the two buildings on the left hand end. He fired high, aiming at a vehicle parked in the street. The torch went out and the men vanished. Graham turned and walked back, half blinded by the light but with just enough glow from a third petrol bomb to see his way.

  The torch came on again and he heard shots hit the rocks, one whimpering past close enough to make him go cold, then hot. Other shots were fired at Roger’s team. Then Graham saw Margaret’s anxious face just ahead and he vaulted some rocks to join her. They could easily withdraw safely from that point as the reverse slope of the hill was now dead ground. ‘And I doubt very much the crooks will hurry,’ he thought. ‘I know I would be very cautious of chasing armed enemy up the hill in the dark.’

  He grinned to Margaret. “We are back where we started at sundown,” he said.

  It was a good feeling. Graham thought he still had the initiative and wondered what the crooks must be thinking after being hit from three directions in fifteen minutes. He was sure it was a better tactic for keeping his base safe (or was it Miss McEwen?) on Whaleback Hill than sitting up there in a little defensive circle.

  Silence settled. The fires burned down. A vehicle engine came on and its headlights were faced out towards Dry Creek. The torch began shining up towards Mast Hill again but it was no threat to them now.

  Bargheese’s voice came: “CUO Kirk! I know you are out there. Pull back or I will torture and kill my prisoners.”

  ‘That means he hasn’t done it yet,’ thought Graham. It made him hope that Bargheese wouldn’t. ‘Or that his cronies won’t let him.’ “You touch them Bargheese and you’ll pay! Let them go and we will withdraw and you and your crooked mates can clear out!”

  “There are two Kirk. I will execute one so that you know I mean business,” Bargheese shrilled.

  Anxiety and anger both surged in Graham. “You’ll find out I mean business then you slimy rat! I haven’t hit anyone yet but I assure you I can shoot straight.” He then boasted of his ability to hit a 15cm circle, “The size of your face Mister,” with a single shot at 300 metres.

  At this Roger butted in, yelling from Dry Creek. “You’d better believe that Bargheese. The only reason none of you have been hit is because we’ve made sure we missed.”

  Graham called again: “You other blokes down there had better see sense. You’re in enough trouble with your smuggling. Don’t add murder to assault and kidnapping. You want to clear out while you can.”

  Bargheese yelled back: “I want the brown notebook Kirk. Give me that and I will let them go.” His voice was very high pitched though whether from fear, anger or strain Graham couldn’t tell.

  “Ok Bargheese. I’ll think about that. But I won’t swap in the dark. I don’t trust you or your scaly mates. I’ll call you at sunup.”

  Graham felt easier now. He looked at his watch - 0320 - only about two hours to daylight. He was confident that nothing would happen to Morrow or Anderson before then. Bargheese called more threats but Graham shouted back. “Shut up and plan your escape Bargheese. I’ll call you in the morning. And don’t try leaving the camp. We’ve got it surrounded and you could get shot by a nervous cadet. Oh, and by the way, you’ll have to cook your own breakfast. We’ve captured your cook.”

  This last brought hoots of laughter from Roger’s group who seemed to be spread all along Dry Creek. They also whistled, jeered and banged empty kerosine tins. This led to some more shots from the huts which in turn provoked more jeers and laughter which ended abruptly on a whistle blast.

  Silence settled. As part of his plan Graham’s group had to wait until Walsh and Hodgins rejoined them. At the same time Roger’s group were to withdraw. ‘They should be pulling back now,’ Graham thought. Their orders were to wit
hdraw from the roadblock and to take up a new roadblock position 300 metres south at the junction of the road to Charters Towers and the track to Canning Downs. Graham did not want them exposed out on the open country near Dry Creek when daylight came. It gave up the grip on the road to the airfield but he reasoned that it no longer mattered. ‘And the crooks won’t know we have pulled back anyway,’ he told himself. It was certainly safer and from there Roger could secure their withdrawal route and be in position to meet the police.

  Graham had a long drink and sat on a rock. Then he reached out and rested his hand on Margaret’s shoulder. She looked around and smiled and put her left hand over his. Neither spoke. Both remained alert and listening. The torches went out. The stars seemed more brilliant than ever.

  CHAPTER 38

  IN THE CHILL OF DAWN

  The minutes passed slowly. As the excitement ebbed out of his body Graham felt exhaustion take its place like a physical weight. Overworked muscles started to form whole masses of aches and pains. His eyes were so sore he closed them and tried to force tears. That was only partly successful. They felt so scratchy he used water from his canteen to wash them. The salt from his sweat stung fiercely. He then rested them but felt sleep start to creep up on him. ‘I dare not sleep,’ he told himself so he stood up and stretched.

  There were faint scraping noises and gentle thuds down to the right and Graham turned and aimed that way. A figure moved from shadows into moonlight, then through the dappled shadows of a tree. It was Hodgins. Walsh was following. Graham called softly and they froze for a moment in alarm, then walked over to him. He sent them on twenty paces to more rocks where they settled in cover. More tedious minutes of waiting passed. ‘Nearly time to move,’ he thought.