To Ride the Wind (31 page)

Satisfied that the German officer had been fooled by his camouflage, Tom very slowly levelled the foresight on the man’s head and took a deep breath, exhaling naturally and increasing pressure on the trigger at the same time. The rifle cracked and Tom saw the man’s head jerk back violently as he disappeared behind the earthen works. Tom did not feel any emotion at his first kill as the company marksman.

When the sound of the shot rolled away, Tom resumed his pose as a corpse among corpses, praying that he had not been detected. His ruse worked as he heard a machine gun open up, spraying a slight rise to his left. It had been too obvious a place for a sniper to make his post, as Tom knew.

Now the German machine-gun post had revealed itself Tom knew his next target. The Maxim had to have a slit to fire through. The former stockman from Queensland cautiously let his eyes slide along the trench line until he found the tiny opening in a section of sandbags. He knew that the machine gun must be manned at all times and very slowly moved the barrel of his rifle until it was pointed at the slit. Then he waited, not taking his eyes from the tiny aperture until he could just focus the merest portion of flesh. Part of a man’s face. Tom fired again and the white disappeared. It took a few minutes for the machine gun to open fire again, spraying the area with bullets, some passing very close to Tom and thudding into the already dead men around him. It was obvious that the gunners were extremely wary of manning their weapon from the way they fired, intent on killing the marksman who was taking their comrades with deadly stealth.

Tom fired again and was rewarded with the gun falling into silence as the dead gunner’s fingers fell away from the trigger. Three men in three hours. Before the sun went down on no-man’s-land, Tom Duffy had accounted for nine men. With the dark it was time to slither back to his lines where a hot cocoa awaited him.

‘How many?’ Jack Kelly asked as he stood by Tom in the deep trench.

‘Nine,’ Tom answered. ‘Including a Hun officer.’

‘You can’t take up the same position tomorrow,’ Jack said. ‘The Hun will be smart enough to see that one of the dead has miraculously got up and left the battlefield.’

‘I know,’ Tom replied, cradling his mug in his gloved hands to warm them. ‘But I couldn’t see any other possie out there.’

‘I think I have a position for you,’ Jack said. ‘I had a good look today. We will move you down the line, away from this part of the front. Hopefully your reputation there is not known among the Hun.

Reputation, Tom thought. He had already established himself as an unseen killer on this section of the front. He had not thought of himself developing a reputation as a hunter and killer of men. Nor did he think of the men he had shot as people but rather as targets. He knew he would never allow himself to consider the full reality of what he was doing. That was the way of war.

That night, Lance Corporal Tom Duffy curled up in a corner of the trench and slept soundly. At least his duties as the company marksman got him out of sentry duty. He knew that he was bloody good at what he did but still he did experience an unusual dream that night as he lay curled in the alcove carved out of the side of the trench, wrapped in a pile of mud-stiffened blankets. He was a young Aboriginal warrior, crouching in the scrub near a creek. There were women and children screaming, as a troop of blue-uniformed Aboriginal men rode down the helpless community of Darambal people. He had a spear gripped in his hands and knew what he must do to defend his clan.
It is time to take back the land
, a voice said
.

The dream forced Tom awake. Not so much a dream but a nightmare, he thought, as he lay in the shadow of a star shell fired into the sky. Lying on his back, Tom tried to make sense of what he had dreamed. He could have sworn that he had gone back in time and seen something terrible, but recalled the stories his father had told him and knew it must have only been a bad dream.

‘Wallarie,’ Tom whispered. ‘You were the warrior by the creek.’

But what did the dream mean? How could he take back the lands that Wallarie had once hunted in the days when his people lived in harmony with the brigalow scrub of the semi-arid plains? He was on the other side of the world and did not expect to survive. But while his white blood inferred that he was only having a nightmare, something in his black blood told him that what the Aboriginal warrior had said in the cave before he enlisted was coming to fruition on the snow-covered fields of France and Belgium.

17

K
arolina Schumann sensed the hostility towards her as she went about the monotonous routine of life behind barbed wire. Only Pastor Karl von Fellmann offered a warm smile when he greeted her. Herr Bosch was cool in his greetings and Karolina had heard the rumours that she had betrayed the patriots in the camp to the Australian authorities, and that she was now collaborating with them as a spy for the Allied cause. She had, however, remained friends with the cobbler whose tiny store was piled with shoes to be mended. He was a Jewish man in his late eighties, stooped from the years of his work bending over his awl. Karolina would sit with him as he worked, sharing the precious supply of coffee brought in by her daughter.

‘You should be careful, Mrs Schumann,’ the little cobbler said, tapping in a row of tiny tacks to the edge of a well-worn shoe. ‘There are people I hear say that you are a traitor.’

‘I know,’ Karolina sighed, staring out across the dusty road between the ramshackle shops that had cropped up within the camp. ‘It is not true.’

The cobbler took another tack from between his lips and tapped it into the leather. He had the ability to carry on a conversation with a row of tacks between his teeth. ‘It does not matter to them,’ he said. ‘Just be careful.’

‘I have the friendship of the Christian pastor,’ Karolina replied. ‘He is a good man who ensures that I am left alone.’

‘I think that the pastor is in love with you,’ the cobbler chuckled, using the last of his supply of tacks to mend the shoe.

Karolina looked at the little man who now sat up straight on his stool, his hunched back prominent. That Karl had any romantic feelings towards her had not occurred to her.

‘Do you think so?’ she asked, looking over the rim of her chipped enamel mug. ‘He is a Christian minister, and I am a Jew.’

‘I have been on this earth for many years and I have found that love can be a stronger emotion than religious conviction,’ the cobbler said, stretching his weary limbs.

Karolina wondered at his perceptiveness. She had in fact found Karl attractive in his own way. He was respected by the people in the camp, as well as by the enemy guarding them. He had a moral strength she admired and was rather handsome, although he appeared to be a man who would turn the other cheek rather than stand up to any act of violence. She had not thought about Karl as a lover – until now. Finishing her coffee, she bid the cobbler goodbye.

Karolina unfurled a battered parasol to walk along the street towards her quarters. She passed Bosch, who was sitting at a chessboard playing a game with a stocky, scarred man. She knew the man to be a sailor taken from a captured German merchant ship and imprisoned in the camp. It was rumoured that he was violent and Karolina shuddered as she passed them as the brutish, former seaman appeared to be friendly with Bosch. He glanced up at her and in his eyes she could see something that made her afraid. Karolina hurried on, and decided to visit Karl – if for nothing else the assurance that she had a protector in the camp.

She found him poring over a pile of paperwork in his tent. So engrossed was he in his work, he did not seem to be aware of her standing in the entrance. He had his coat off and wore only a shirt and tattered trousers with braces. Karolina noticed that his trousers had a long tear down the leg.

‘I could repair your trousers,’ she said by way of greeting. He looked up at her smiling face. ‘I am a good seamstress. It is something that I was able to master, while living on our plantation in New Guinea.’

‘I would be very grateful,’ Karl replied. ‘I have little time for such things and I am afraid I must look rather shabby to my congregation.’

Karolina stepped inside and found herself noticing the broadness of the pastor’s shoulders, his slimness of waist and fine features. He was very Germanic with his blonde hair and blue eyes and the cobbler’s comment had sparked mixed thoughts about the man standing before her.

‘Please, have a seat,’ Karl said, pulling out a chair he had made from scrap timber. It was sturdy and had the touch of elegance one would associate with a qualified cabinet maker.

Karolina sat down, furling her parasol. A sheen of perspiration glistened on the smooth skin of her cheeks. Age had been good to Karolina, despite the fact that she had lived most of her life in the tropics.

‘I presume that you crafted this chair,’ Karolina said, causing Karl to look slightly alarmed.

‘Is something wrong with it?’ he asked.

‘Oh, no!’ Karolina exclaimed reassuringly. ‘I was actually admiring your versatility. You excel at many things.’

Karl resumed his chair and stared through the entrance to his tent. ‘When I was ministering to my flock at Glen View station I was forced to learn how to survive in this land that can be so harsh,’ he sighed. ‘One learned to be everything from doctor for the poor Aboriginal people, to negotiator with the Europeans who owned their lands. Carpentry was an essential skill for a missionary.’

‘Did your wife like the missionary way of life?’ Karolina asked boldly.

For a moment, Karl did not reply, as if considering his dead wife’s feelings. ‘She was a good wife, but I think that she yearned to return to the life we once knew in Prussia. She did not complain, however, and her passing is still something of great sadness to me. I feel that I let her down by remaining among my people and not heeding her feelings.’

‘Your wife must have loved you to remain with you.’

‘I suppose she did,’ Karl answered softly, remembering the beautiful sunsets and sunrises in central Queensland. ‘But God has taken her to his bosom for her selfless work among our people.’

Karolina could see the pain in his eyes as he remembered the past. ‘You knew that I spied for the Fatherland,’ she said softly.

Karl turned his attention to her. ‘Yes, I knew,’ he said. ‘But I am a man of God and do not concern myself with the issues of whose side God is on in this terrible war. He is taking so many good men from both sides. But I do know that I have always loved you.’

Surprised, Karolina rose from her chair and moved towards him. She could see tears in his eyes and was not certain if they were for his declaration of love to her or the memory of his dead wife. ‘Karl, I have feelings for you but I do not know what the future has planned for me. I cannot bring myself to tell you of what I have had to do for the sake of the Fatherland.’

‘I think I know, and I do not care,’ Karl said, reaching up to take her hand. ‘What you did was motivated by your need to serve your country, but this country is where I will die. People may not be able to choose where they are born but they can choose where they eventually die. For me, I have fallen in love with the vastness of this country’s far places, where one can reach up and touch the face of God when the night sky reveals the beauty of the universe. I would not expect any woman to ever share that loneliness a g a i n.’

‘Karl, I . . .’

The pastor cut her short with his finger to her lips. ‘You do not have to tell me,’ he said sadly. ‘I am a fool to think that a woman of your great beauty and position would even consider a life with a poor missionary.’

‘We both share this life behind the barbed wire,’ Karolina replied with a bitter smile. ‘There is no social line drawn in the sand here.’

‘When this war is over I will return to my outpost at the Glen View station to be with my old friend, Wallarie,’ Karl said. ‘I will always hold you in my heart to the day I become part of the night sky as Wallarie has promised is my fate. There, he tells me, we will wander with friends hunting the kangaroo which will be in abundance, and we’ll never know starvation or pain again.’

Karolina felt her tears running down her face and wondered if they were for herself or this man sitting before her. She pulled away gently. ‘I should be going now,’ she said, wiping the tears from her face with a small handkerchief. ‘People have enough to gossip about and any rumours that you have feelings for a Jew might ruin your reputation.’

‘I don’t particularly care what people think,’ Karl said. ‘My love for you is true, and times have changed because of our situation.’

‘I must go,’ Karolina said, turning and unfurling her parasol to step into the heat of the day.

She walked quickly, head down and past the men playing chess. She did not give them a glance but Bosch noticed her pass. He turned to his chess opponent who, it was rumoured, was a murderer who had escaped Germany by signing on as a merchant seaman. He preferred to be addressed only as Sailor and was a good chess player.

‘She is the one,’ Bosch said, returning his attention back to the game and moving his bishop. ‘And tonight you will act.’

The sailor nodded, ruminating on his next move. Bosch had supplied him with the knife to carry out his killing of the perceived traitor. Not that he cared for politics, but Bosch was able to pay him in a large amount of British currency, which he could use while in internment to purchase a few luxury items.

‘You must be very careful. The Australians will consider the killing of any one of us as murder under their law, and hanging is the penalty for that crime in this country. Needless to say, you will not mention my name – if you happen to be unlucky enough to be caught.’

‘I will not be caught,’ Sailor replied irritably. ‘I know what I am doing.’ He moved a pawn, knowing it would be lost but putting his opponent in a compromised position.

‘Good,’ Bosch said, not falling for his opponent’s move. ‘Frau Schumann will be alone tonight and there will be no moon.’

Karolina lay on her rickety bed and stared at the canvas ceiling. Her emotions were in turmoil. The sun beat down, and she reflected on Karl’s expression of his feelings towards her. The heat of the day had made her weary and before long she fell into a deep sleep, awaking late in the evening when a noise alerted her to the fact that someone was in her darkened living space, looming over her bed. Struggling from her sleep-induced stupor, Karolina attempted to scream but felt a callused hand clamp over her mouth. She could smell the sweat of an unwashed body and knew that death was a mere few seconds away as the cold steel brushed her cheek. Instinctively she knew Bosch had sent his assassin to kill her.