The Cadet Sergeant Major

by Christopher Cummings

  “I know. That’s no problem. Good luck.”

  Graham made a face. “I hope we don’t find anything. I’ve seen enough dead bodies to last me a lifetime.”

  Peter nodded. It made him feel ill just thinking about it and he was very relieved he did not have to go with the search. Vivid images of the murdered man they had pulled out of Lake Tinaroo in July caused him to shiver. With an effort he shook off the feelings and moved over to the bivouac area. There he began worrying about inspecting Kate. As soon as he got there he ordered HQ into line with their gear and began the inspection. As he got closer to Kate he became increasingly nervous. But when he got to her she just stared through him with a wooden expression on her face. He gave her and her gear a perfunctory scrutiny and quickly moved on.

  Peter had HQ in their positions on the contact course ten minutes early. Then there was nothing to do but wait. He and LCpl Martin sat in the shade and kept a lookout along the track. There was no danger of them being surprised as there were two incidents before theirs and they clearly heard the yelling and bang! bangs! at the first.

  “Sounds like the medics getting cleaned up,” Peter commented.

  LCpl Martin grinned. “I’d like to clean them up,” he said with a leer. “They are a pair of real horny chicks.”

  “You reckon?”

  “Too right. And they are both ‘goers’,” Martin added.

  “So people say,” Peter replied, his voice heavy with scepticism.

  “They do. They went off with Crane an’ Brown last night,” Martin insisted, more than a tinge of envy in his voice.

  “When was that? I saw them walking around,” Peter replied.

  “They did. I seen ‘em. Well, I seen ‘em go off together- an’ they didn’t come back for about an hour,” Martin said.

  Peter bit his lip. ‘Poor Graham!’ he thought. Then he remembered his own transgressions and blushed. Another unpleasant thought surfaced. “What about Erika Goltz?” he asked.

  “Aw her! What a troll!” Martin cried. “She’s even hotter.”

  “Where was she last night?”

  “Her an’ Costigan were together; or so I heard,” Martin replied.

  That made Peter feel even worse. He knew how much the OC and Graham wanted a trouble-free camp, yet all this was going on. And the chief perpetrators of the mischief were the very people they were most depending on to stop it: the sergeants. It made him burn with shame. A wave of nausea swept up from his stomach.

  Movement in the rubber vines ended the conversation. A patrol was coming. Peter sent Martin to his hide and sprawled himself in the middle of the grassy glade.

  A few minutes later a person appeared around a rubber vine- a girl. She saw him at once and crouched back under cover. Out of his half-closed eyes Peter recognized her. ‘Graham’s girl,’ he thought. As Graham’s best friend he had known Margaret for years and thought her a very nice person. He knew from seeing her in some desperate situations that she had plenty of guts. ‘A good kid,’ he thought. He met her eye and she grinned. Peter smiled back then remembered he was supposed to be a dead body. A body! That gave him a jolt.

  ‘Graham is looking for a real body right now.’ It made him queasy just thinking about it. He noted a second head peer through the rubber vines- Cadet Robinson. Margaret gave the silent signal for the section commander to come and look. Then she looked carefully around, a frown creasing her usually cheerful, freckled face.

  ‘I wish I had a girl like Margaret,’ he thought wistfully. ‘Graham is a mug if he lets her go.’ That made him think of Graham’s little sister Kylie. She was Margaret’s best friend and he knew she liked him. But Kylie had not joined the cadets. She was more into ballet and that sort of thing.

  More movement. Cpl Brassington appeared briefly. Peter watched with interest as she took very firm control on the situation. From under cover Barbara signalled up her gun group and gave them quick instructions while pointing where she wanted them to go. Peter watched as LCpl Leroy began to speak back and pointed the other way.

  “Don’t argue LCpl Leroy!” Barbara snapped. “Just do what you are told.”

  Leroy did, though with ill-grace. A smile touched Peter’s lips. ‘Good, Graham was right.’

  The section did a very good job and did not fall into the trap. The scouts were sent to circle around behind the bushes and not in the clearing, covered by the machine gunners. Margaret spotted Martin’s boots, signalled ‘enemy’, then, a little hesitantly, went “Bang!”

  Peter complimented them on their effort after the area had been searched. “That way Corporal Brassington,” he said, pointing along the flood channel. “And well done.”

  As they moved on Peter noted Clayfield in the rifle group. He looked tired but determined. Even better Peter noted the girl ahead of him turn and smile, then signal to Clayfield to follow. ‘He seems a bit happier with that section,’ Peter thought. He knew Barbara would not tolerate bullying or harassment. ‘She’s a good corporal. She will make a great sergeant, or even a CSM,’ he mused.

  Peter became the sniper for the next patrol. This was Fiona Davies’ section. Her scouts were Cadets Tully and Livingstone and they let her down badly. Tully saw the body and signalled. Livingstone joined him. But, instead of signalling up the section commander they both walked forward into the clearing and stood over the ‘body’.

  Peter saw Fiona’s annoyed expression when she rounded the bend in the track. She opened her mouth to call them back. Too late. “Bang! Bang!” Peter cried.

  Later he summed it up. Fiona made a good effort to regain control. She positioned her MG group correctly and led the Rifle Group through in a flank assault.

  ‘She’s got what it takes,’ he decided.

  Then it was his turn to be the body again. ‘Should be Roger’s section next,’ he thought. ‘I hope he doesn’t muff it.’

  Roger didn’t. He had good scouts: Walsh and Szelag, and a really good 2ic in Pat Sheehan. The section worked well as a team.

  “That was good,” Peter told them afterwards. “A real workmanlike job.”

  Anne Hopewell’s section was next. Peter was the sniper. They didn’t do very well and got themselves all mixed up. Anne got flustered and it took her a while to sort out the confusion. Finally they got it right. Peter took his turn as the body and waited.

  25 minutes later Lofty Ward’s section suddenly materialized behind Martin. Peter had not even heard them coming.

  “Good job Lofty. Well done,” he complimented. Lofty turned to Wendy Werribee, his 2ic, and grinned. They both put up their left hands and clapped them together. Her eyes sparkled with pleasure. ‘Hmmm,’ Peter thought. ‘They are a good team too. I just hope Lofty isn’t getting too close to Wendy.’

  Peter moved into the vines to be the sniper. Time dragged by. 1100 arrived. The air in the hollow became quite hot. There was no breeze. Bees hummed and cicadas whined. Peter felt drowsy. He perspired and was annoyed by flies. He wriggled into a more comfortable position. For a while he watched a line of ants trekking along a branch and up a vine. Something scuttled in the dead leaves. Only a lizard.

  Where was the next section? Peter listened. Was that whispering he could hear? He wasn’t sure. He swivelled his eyes. He thought he heard more rustling somewhere behind him. He lay still, eyes searching. A cramp began to develop. Time dragged by.

  There was the sound of a twig snapping behind Peter. He screwed his head around. Cadet Hodgins was there, a grin all over his face, the stick he was pretending was a rifle held only centimetres from Peter’s back.

  “Gotcha Sarge!” he cried.

  That was Charlie Cox’s section. Hodgins had seen the body and they had crawled quietly into fire positions. It had been a good bit of scouting.

  Peter was then the body again. He had a big drink before stretching himself out on the grass. It was very still. A crow ‘caaarked’ in the distance. Insects hummed. Sweat trickled down his back. He went to sleep.

  He could not remember the
details of the dream, just that it was dark and horrible and the dead body was stumbling as it chased him. The corpse had outstretched, clawing hands of rotting green flesh. Peter tried to run and was ensnared by the rubber vines. A revolting claw reached out to grip his shoulder. He tried to scream but could only manage a groan.

  “Sarge! Sarge! Are you alright?”

  Peter opened his eyes and looked up. Cadet Bragg was shaking him by the shoulder. Peter blinked in the bright sunlight and rubbed his eyes. He felt awful: a foul taste in his mouth, throbbing headache, skin sticky with sweat. The shade had moved and he was lying in the sun. Cpl Scott and two others from his section stood next to Bragg.

  ‘The body! No- just a dream. What about our ambush? Why doesn’t Martin fire?’ Peter wondered. He rolled over and looked around. Martin stood under guard.

  “He was asleep too,” Cpl Scott said.

  Peter sat up and groaned.

  “You OK Sarge? You look like death warmed up,” Scott said.

  “Yeah. Just a bit tired,” Peter replied. He thought of The Body. Had they found it? “Is Doyle back?” he asked.

  “Dunno. Don’t think so,” Cpl Scott replied.

  After Scott’s came Laidley’s section. Peter thought they were a disorganized rabble. ‘The real leader of this mob is the 2ic,’ he decided. He noted Dave Kenny down as worth promoting.

  Then came Erika Goltz’s section. They did everything wrong. The whole section crowded into the clearing to look at Peter, who was taking his turn as the body. Martin fired at them and cadets went in all directions. They ignored the corporal’s orders and back answered her.

  ‘Well,’ Peter mused. ‘That’s what they think of her. The book is right. Familiarity breeds contempt!’

  Gallon’s section came through next. They managed, except for Cactus, who got all tangled up in the rubber vines. Gallon shrieked at him and LCpl Wakely yelled, “Get a move on, you stumble bum!” Cactus glared at him and then sulked.

  Frederick’s section made a good job of it. The scouts were the two girls: Wallis and Morrow and they suspected the plot instantly. Tracey Rowley, the 2ic, then took control and it all flowed.

  ‘Good teamwork,’ Peter decided. ‘Even if the boss wasn’t really in charge.’ He made more notes, before taking over as ‘body’.

  It was 1400 by then. Peter nibbled biscuits and had a drink.

  Martin look back along the track. “That is all of them, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “No. Doyle’s section still has to come through,” Peter replied with a shake of his head. “We will get ready anyway.”

  Cpl Doyle’s section did arrive, half an hour later. Peter could hardly restrain his curiosity. As soon as the action (bungled!) was over he asked Doyle. “Corporal Doyle, was it a body you saw?”

  Doyle appeared to change colour to a sickly white. His eyes opened wide. “Too right it was! It looked even worse in the daylight. The OC reckoned he’d been dead only a day or so. It...he, hasn’t really started to smell yet.”

  Peter felt bile rise in his throat. “It was a bloke was it?” He felt gripped by a morbid fascination.

  Doyle nodded. “Yeah. It was a man’s arm. Had some tattoos on it. The OC reckoned he’d been buried in the mud and the wild pigs came along and rooted him up, just enough so the arm was exposed. They had a bit of a chew on it.”

  “Doyle!” Martin cried in horror. He looked very pale.

  “Did you dig him up?” Peter asked.

  “No fear! The OC went and had a good look then took us all away so we wouldn’t disturb things too much. He and Lt Hamilton are there with the police now.”

  Peter felt his stomach turn over. A nagging sense of dread settled in the bottom of his chest. This was followed by a feeling of chill which made him break into goose bumps and his hair stand on end. While he had been pretending to be a ghost and using dummies to scare people there had been a real corpse nearby!

  “Where was it... is it?”

  “You know the big slimy waterhole where the CSM was?” Doyle replied. In response to Peter’s nod he added, “Well it was in the next flood channel over, away from the river.”

  Peter shivered. Only about a hundred metres from where they had been! “You’d better keep going Corporal Doyle,” he instructed. Doyle took his section off and Peter sat down to discuss the find with Martin.

  At 1445 Lt Maclaren came along with the other ‘enemy’ from the start point of the circuit. “We can roll things up,” he said. An outburst of yelling and noise indicated that Doyle’s section had encountered the next contact, so they walked along, collecting Henning on the way. They arrived just as CUO Bates sent Cpl Doyle’s section on. Checkpoint 3 was just ahead and they found Capt Conkey and Graham there.

  “Time to finish 2ic,” Capt Conkey said. “Corporal Doyle’s section has completed three quarters of the circuit and everyone else is finished and back getting ready for a swim. We will end the exercise now.” Capt Conkey turned to look. “Corporal Parnell, would you mind going on around the circuit and telling all the staff and enemy to move in? Take Corporal Martin with you.”

  Capt Conkey led the others along the dusty track through the rubber vines and across the main grassy channel towards the bivouac area. Peter looked at Graham, hardly able to restrain his curiosity, then followed him along the track. At the first opportunity he moved up beside him.

  “What did you find Graham? Doyle told me it was a dead body; a man’s.”

  Graham nodded. “That’s right. Here, come with me. I want to inspect the latrines before I go back.”

  The pair turned and headed along the flood channel in the direction of the boy’s latrine. Graham looked very serious and said nothing. Peter wondered if he had instructions to remain silent.

  “Aren’t you allowed to talk about it?” he asked.

  “Mmm. Yes. Yes I can. It’s no secret. It just hasn’t been very pleasant,” Graham replied. He then went on to describe how he, the OC and the QM had waited for the police. “First the local coppers from Charters Towers; then another two hours for the detectives from Townsville.” He described how they had taken several police over much of the exercise course while the area around the body had been photographed and searched.

  “We got back just as they were dragging the body out. I didn’t really want to watch but I did. It was horrible. I was nearly sick. I don’t think I will sleep for a week. The officers wanted to send me away but one of the ‘D’s asked If I could have a look to see if I could identify the bloke.”

  Peter looked hard at Graham and nodded. The friends had stopped walking and faced each other. Graham looked very pale under his freckles.

  “Did you know him?”

  Graham shook his head. “Never seen him before in my life. He was stripped naked. All his clothes were gone- to make the body harder to identify if it was ever found the detective said- that’s why he asked me, just in case I’d seen him around the area.”

  Graham paused, pressed his lips together, then continued. “The body was all covered in mud but he was a real mess. The pigs had been at him; and it seems that whoever murdered him had also smashed his face and mouth up; broke out most of the teeth- to make it harder to identify from dental records.”

  Peter nodded. “He was murdered then?”

  “The coppers think so. They reckon he was shot in the back of the head with a twenty two.”

  Peter thought hard. “Sounds like an execution. I wonder why they did it?”

  Graham shrugged. “Don’t know. The cops are glad we found the body though. They reckoned that, but for Doyle getting lost, it might have been years before some stockman or prospector found the bones. And without clothes or teeth they said it would have been virtually impossible to identify the man, never mind find out who killed him.”

  “Can they identify him then?”

  Graham scratched his chin. “They think they might be able to because he hasn’t decomposed much, and he’s got some very distinctive tattoos.”

&
nbsp; At the word ‘tattoos’ Peter felt a stab of cold shock. The back of his skull seemed to tighten up and he had a vivid flashback. “What sort of tattoos?” he asked, finding it an effort to speak; and hoping he sounded normal and only casually interested.

  “He was a skinny little bloke,” Graham explained. “He had fair hair and this wispy, straggly little beard. On his left arm was a tattoo of a snake, a cobra ready to strike. The cops reckon they can identify him from that.”

  Peter was stunned. His mind seemed to blur, then refocus on moving images:- naked Kate, the river bank, the big brute, also with tattoos; a thin, pale-skinned man with the tattoo of the cobra; and a third man, a hard-faced man with a .22 rifle. Peter realized Graham was staring at him.

  “Pete, are you OK?”

  “Yeah....yeah. I just felt nauseous and went giddy. I was thinking about the body and... and us being near it all night,” Peter gasped in reply. His heart hammered and his vision blurred. ‘It was them!’ he thought. He had seen the murderers and their victim, of that he was sure. But what to do about it?

  Graham grabbed his arm. “Here! Don’t faint on me! Sit down on the grass.”

  Peter flopped down. He felt devastated. What should he do? What could he do?

  CHAPTER 30

  PETER’S PATROL

  Graham looked down at Peter in surprise. It wasn’t like him to crumple up because someone else had found a dead body, even if he had been in the vicinity. ‘Pete’s seen plenty of stiffs,’ he thought. ‘There was that old bloke we fished out of Tinaroo Dam back in June. He was shot in the back of the head and Pete didn’t collapse over him. And there were the people shot later by those Kosarians on the Herberton Range. There must be more to this. I wonder what has upset him? He hasn’t been himself all camp.’

  Graham leaned down and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Are you sure you are OK Pete? Is there anything I can do?”

  “No. I’ll be OK. It’s upset me a bit, that’s all,” Peter replied. He looked up and Graham was shocked by the look in his eyes.