A Few Right Thinking Men (19 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

New Guard Would Not Touch Lang's Carcase

Eric Campbell's High Words

SYDNEY, Saturday

“We are not going to interfere with Lang's carcase. Suggestions have been made that he should be kidnapped and hanged to the nearest lamp post, but we do not want to do anything like that,” said Col. Eric Campbell, addressing a meeting of the New Guard to-night.

He added that if Lang was prepared to go to the people, the New Guard would see that he got a fair hearing.

“My desire is for peace,” said Campbell. “We have been told that certain organisations are armed. The time is rapidly coming when the New Guard will be called upon to uphold the principle for which it stands.”

The Sydney Morning Herald
,
February 14, 1932

Rowland chewed the end of his brush as he scrutinised his work. He swatted impatiently at the fly that seemed intent on embedding itself in the wet paint on his canvas. It was the most irritating aspect of working outdoors. He wondered idly if Van Gogh had plastered insects into his masterpieces…perhaps the need to completely bury the odd winged intruder was what had inspired the impasto techniques of the Impressionist masters.

Rowland's easel was set up on the broad back verandah of Woodlands House. Edna sat at a small table in front of him, hand-building with terracotta clay. She chatted about her plans for the piece without lifting her eyes from what she was doing.

Clyde came through the French doors. He rummaged through the tubes of colour at the top of Rowland's paint box. “I'm out of burnt umber,” he said eventually.

Rowland picked up a tube from the ledge of his easel, and tossed it to him. “Remind me to order some more; I'm low too.”

“What are you painting?” It was not like Rowland to work outside.

“Me.” Edna murmured, still focussed on her sculpting.

“Fully clothed?” Clyde walked round to have a look. Given Edna's reputation as a life model, it seemed a waste to paint her with clothes on. There were any number of models who could do that.

“This is for Selwin.” Rowland stood back so Clyde could see the canvas.

“Surely your father knows that you…”

“Of course, he knows.” Edna made a face. “Doesn't mean he wants to hang me on his wall in that fashion…he's still my father.”

Clyde glanced at Rowland. He'd often wondered what Selwin Higgins thought of the life his daughter lived.

“Ed, hold your hands still for a moment,” Rowland directed. He had left her hands till last so she could work while he painted her. “What do you think?” he asked Clyde.

Clyde saw a portrait of a sculptress absorbed in her clay. Her eyes were lowered and her face beautiful, deep in concentration. The sun bathed the piece she was sculpting and cast a gentle glow around the sunset colours of her hair. He looked at Rowland. “She's fatter than that, isn't she?”

Rowland smiled. “You're right—I'll get some more paint.”

Edna responded fiercely without moving her hands. Her reputation as a model was well-deserved.

“Rowly, where are you?” The shout was Milton's and came from inside the house.

“Out here.” Rowland returned to Edna's hands. He turned as Milton stepped out.

The poet grinned at him. “Brought you a present.” He dragged on a rope so that what may once have been a greyhound emerged soon after him. It was a bedraggled animal, malnourished and dirty. All the bones of its ribs and hips were visible. Its muzzle was scarred. It shook, and it had only one ear.

“What the Dickens is that?” demanded Rowland.

“You said you wanted a dog.”

“That's not a dog.” Rowland leaned his head to one side and considered the shivering thing. “I'm not really sure what it is.”

“Where did you get it, Milt?” Edna twisted her neck to see the creature without moving her shoulders or hands.

“At the track,” said Milton. “He's not much of a runner and they were going to shoot him. I remembered you were looking for a dog.”

“When did I say that?” Rowland squatted to pat the poor frightened animal. He really did like dogs. It nuzzled his hand tentatively.

Clyde too bent down to show the dog some kindness. “You've let worse things move in.”

“But the poor dog in life the firmest friend, the first to welcome, foremost to defend. Whose honest heart is still his master's own, who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone.” Milton had apparently decided the hound's case was best presented by poetry.

“I think you'll find that Lord Byron was talking about an animal actually identifiable as a dog,” Rowland said as the greyhound rolled onto its back and looked up at him. “What are we going to call you, mate?”

“I've already named him.” Milton's smile was sly. “This fine fellow is Lenin.”

Clyde called the poet an idiot, but Rowland didn't think Lenin was such a bad name. “Fine, Lenin it is. Milt can you go find someone to wash him…? But get Mary to feed him first.”

Milton hesitated.

“For God's sake, Milt, Mary isn't going to hurt you…She won't approve, she'll probably sigh a lot, but she's not going hurt you.”

Milton moaned and led the dog away. Edna complained her fingers were getting stiff.

“Very well, you can get back to whatever you were doing,” Rowland said, finally putting down his brush. He rubbed the face of his watch with a cloth to remove the paint, and read the time. “I'd better go or I'll be late for this thing at Belmore.”

“You'll have to shower,” said Edna looking at him. “Your hair's green.” Rowland cursed. He'd been so careful not to cover his clothes in paint, but he hadn't checked his habit of running his fingers through his hair—mainly to keep it out of his eyes. Coloured hair was often the result.

“Go.” Edna, stood and wiped her hands with a rag. “I'll clean up your brushes.

***

Rowland climbed into the backseat beside the Colonel. If Eric Campbell noticed the odd fleck of viridian green in the younger man's hair, he did not mention it. Instead, he introduced his driver, Hodges. Poynton sat in the front beside Hodges as he drove them to Belmore, in the south-west.

“What you will observe today, Clyde,” began Campbell, “will give you an idea of what the New Guard stands for. We are no mere social club of like-minded men, but an army of patriots.”

Rowland raised a brow. Just what was it that Campbell wanted him to see?

“Of course, what you will see today is not a public exercise.”

“I understand.”

They drove through Belmore, past the small shopping district. The area was semi-rural, a collection of small orchards and holdings. The houses were humble, mostly weatherboard. Empty paddocks fringed by natural bushland broke the built-up areas. To Rowland, Belmore seemed a great distance from the urban congestion of Sydney, or the gracious elegance of Woollahra.

Hodges pulled into the driveway of a large house on an orchard. Campbell mentioned it was the property of a New Guard member. De Groot strode out to greet them. “This way,” he said, after the customary handshaking had been seen to.

They walked down a path that branched away from the fruit trees toward a paddock. Within minutes, what they had come for came into view. Standing to attention in military formation were hundreds of men each wearing an armband to affirm his allegiance.

Rowland stared, silent and stunned. His opinion of the New Guard as “rhetoric with cocktails” evaporated. This was something else altogether. It was eerie, unnerving—so many men in suits, bearing guns, standing in a suburban paddock, poised for battle. Campbell walked the lines with De Groot, inspecting his troops, stopping for a word with the occasional man. That done, he returned to stand next to Rowland and Poynton while De Groot shouted commands. The Guardsmen broke into units and drilled. They were a well-trained group, obviously some of the A-class men of whom Campbell had spoken previously.

On command, they dropped and advanced, manoeuvring, crawling, and preparing to fire.

Then began the vehicle drills. It appeared the New Guard had a fleet of motorcars at its disposal. The Guardsmen practised what Poynton called “lightning strikes.” The exercises involved men jumping in and out of moving vehicles and riding on running boards as the motorcars moved at speed. Of course this was accompanied by a great deal of shouting and fist-waving.

Amazed, Rowland squinted through the billowing dust as armoured trucks, fitted with metal plating and makeshift gun turrets emerged from behind a rise. Good lord—the New Guard was preparing for a full-scale offensive.

“Well, Clyde, what do you think?” Campbell asked after they had watched the exercises for an hour or so. “This force of seven hundred is but a fraction of the men that I have at my disposal.”

“It is an impressive display of firepower,” Rowland chose his words carefully. He was starting to get more than a little worried that Campbell may actually manage to pull off his threatened coup.

Campbell patted him on the back. “I say, I forgot you didn't see service—it would seem like rather a lot of guns to you, I suppose. But the enemy is armed too, Clyde. Of course, we have no wish to shoot our fellow Australians…not unless absolutely necessary. Our boys have orders to use other weapons first.”

“Other weapons?”

Campbell rocked back on his heels and opened his mouth to say more, but he was interrupted by the rumble of even more cars, a convoy pulling into the driveway behind them. He looked perturbed—it seemed the new vehicles were unexpected. Campbell strode over to alert De Groot.

“What's going on?” Rowland directed the question at Poynton.

The bodyguard moved to place himself in front of Eric Campbell as several men ran down the path from the cars toward them. They were armed, but with cameras—and for a moment, Rowland was blinded by the flashing bulbs.

“Reporters!” bellowed Poynton.

“This is private property,” Campbell declared, pushing Poynton aside as the cameras continued to snap. “Leave now! You are trespassing on private property!”

De Groot shouted and two dozen Guardsmen broke away from the rest and descended upon the cameramen. The reporters held their ground, shouting questions at Campbell:

“Mr. Campbell, are you preparing for an offensive?”

“What is the New Guard planning?”

“Do you feel you have the support of the people, Mr. Campbell?”

“Get off this property now!” Campbell stood before a wall of Guardsmen, all wielding pick-axe handles.

But again the bulbs flashed. The Guardsmen responded by advancing, swinging their weapons without reserve. Cameras were smashed. Rowland blanched as shattered lenses and bulbs flew in all directions. At first the reporters resisted, and then as the Guardsmen fell upon them, they disintegrated into a panicked scramble in retreat. Their assailants were undeterred by the attempt to withdraw, the battle a welcome application of the preparation in which they had been engaged. Men threw punches in earnest and the pick-axe handles descended brutally. Eventually, Campbell ordered his men back. The reporters fled, hobbling and bloodied back to their vehicles, amid the deafening cheers of seven hundred men.

Rowland looked on, astounded, disturbed by the side on which he found himself.

The Guardsmen returned to their drilling with increased vigour. “Bloody hell,” Rowland muttered to Poynton.

The bodyguard grinned. “I wonder how the reporters knew we were here.”

Campbell came back over, mopping the perspiration from his brow with a large handkerchief. “I'm afraid the boys run away with themselves sometimes,” he said. “This is a covert exercise—spies of any sort are not looked upon kindly. Still, nothing more than a few sore noses.”

Unsure, Rowland merely nodded. De Groot obviously didn't share his commander's nonchalance. He barked at his officers, demanding to know how their location had been leaked to the press. Eventually, he took Campbell aside to discuss the consequences.

Campbell tried to calm him. “I don't think any of the cameras, let alone the photographs, survived, Frank.” De Groot looked anything but comforted.

After another hour's drill, Campbell addressed his men. His speech followed the usual themes—patriotism and preparation—but this time he included an additional rant about the threat posed by the Australian Labor Army, which he seemed to think was controlled by Soviet interests.

Rowland listened. For the first time he was beginning to believe that the New Guard could be dangerous on a large scale. Perhaps Milton was right, after all. Perhaps he was starting to care about Campbell's politics.

He leant over to Poynton. “John Dynon's not here?” he said.

“No.” Poynton exhaled loudly. “He thinks his unit is too specialised for this nonsense.”

Rowland decided to come out and ask. “What exactly does he do?”