Behind Mt. Baldy (40 page)

After several minutes of careful
stalking Graham stopped and pointed ahead. Roger joined him and cautiously
peered through the bushes. On the edge of the clearing about fifty paces away
were two mango trees. Parked under them were three Toyota Landcruisers. These
were painted a dull green. Men were busy around them and even as the friends
watched one vehicle started up and reversed into the clearing. Men climbed into
the others and they were also started.

The clearing was a rectangle of
lawn. On the uphill side were a concrete fire place and some fruit trees. Roger
looked around for the ruin. There was no sign of any walls. He surmised that
the fireplace was all that remained of whatever building had once stood there.
A short access track led through long grass past a line of tall hoop pines to a
gravel road. Roger knew this was the same road they had camped beside the
previous night. On the other side of the road was a wall of dark jungle.

In the clearing
stood a group of Royal Guards with their packs and webbing.
Six of them Roger counted,
including their officer. Even as he watched the soldiers began loading their
gear into the backs of the vehicles. Two more soldiers came walking into view
through the ferns on the opposite side of the clearing. Roger recognized the
sentries.

These collected their gear and
clambered into one of the vehicles. The officer looked around, walked to the
first vehicle and spoke briefly on a radio, then climbed in and slammed the
door. With a growl of motors the three vehicles drove down to the road, turned
right and accelerated. The road curved left and around the side of a small
hill, jungle on the left, open forest on the right. In a minute the vehicles
were out of sight over the crest, heading north.

After waiting a few minutes
Graham walked forward into the clearing, searching the ground. Roger followed
more slowly, shaking with reaction and cold. Marks in the grass showed where a
row of small tents had stood and there was some litter but it was all packets
and tins of locally purchased food. There had been a fire in the old fireplace
but it was now just grey ash.

“Not much of an army,” Graham
said derisively, although whether he was referring to their evident poor
discipline; or their small numbers Roger wasn’t sure.

“Eleven of them, including the
officer,” Roger commented.

“Twelve if you count the officer
we caught. Not even a full platoon.”

“But, if this is 6 Platoon there
may be more in other camps,” Roger pointed out.

Graham nodded. “That’s possible.
But why two officers?
I reckon this organization is only a
cadre and they will bring it up to strength when they get back to Kosaria.”

“What do we do now?” Roger asked.

“Wait for the police I suppose. I
don’t know what is delaying them. It’s ten to nine. That is two hours since
Peter left,” Graham replied. He began walking towards the road.

Roger followed. There was a
spatter of raindrops and cloud swirled around them. He shivered and swore and
put his hand up to turn up his collar. The hand hurt as the stinging tree bite
was aggravated by the damp. “Strewth it’s cold! I wish I’d left my jacket on,”
he grumbled.

Graham laughed. “Well, we are on
top of the Herberton Range,” he commented. “We are about as high as you can get
in this part of the world.
Eleven hundred metres.
And
Herberton is the coldest place in North Queensland.”

“Yes, well... Aargh!
Uuk!”
Roger cried out. He scraped at his neck and stared
aghast at the bright red blood drenching his fingers.

Graham turned in alarm. Then he
smiled.
“Leech.
Big bastard too,” he said. “Hold still
and I’ll get him off. No.
Too late.
You’ve scratched
him off.”

“Urk!
Ah
yuk
!”
Roger cried as he flicked a bloated leech the size of his little finger onto
the grass. With a savage grunt he ground it under his boot heel. Blood spurted
to mix with the mud and grass.

Graham smiled. “He had a good
feed out of you mate. Hold still while I look at the bite,” he said. The leech
bite did not hurt but it was bleeding profusely, bright red blood.

Roger pulled out his handkerchief
and pressed it over the bite. He wasn’t really worried. Over the years the
friends had experienced so many leeches that they were just accepted as part of
the deal. “I bet I picked it up in those ferns,” he commented. Ferns were a
favourite habitat of the creatures.

Graham flicked another leech off
Roger’s shirt. “There's another of the little mongrels. Huh. Is that a
vehicle?”

“Yes.
Coming
this way.
Must be the police,” Roger replied.

The two boys stood beside the
road and listened to the sound of the approaching motor. Roger dabbed at the
bleeding and kept looking in amazement at how much blood there was on his
handkerchief. Then an awful thought came to him.

“What if it’s not the police?”

“Strewth! I never thought of
that. Quick, hide!”

The boys ran back up the short
track.

“Here it comes. Get down!” Graham
cried as he threw himself flat in the grass beside the track. Roger did
likewise, aware that if the vehicle turned into the clearing they would
probably be seen. In fact he was horrified to discover he could easily see the
road through the grass. But it was too late to move. Heart thumping and mouth
dry with fear he lay still.

A dark green Land Rover roared
across his field of vision, accelerating as it reached level ground. As the
vehicle raced past Roger saw green shirts and green caps with gold badges:
Kosarian Royal Guards!

‘And we were just standing in the
middle of the road!’ he thought with a shudder. The vehicle tore through a
puddle and hit several potholes so hard the men in the back all cried out as
they were violently bounced around. The driver slowed, but only fractionally.
The vehicle vanished over the crest heading north.

Graham stood up.
“Royal Guards.
We would have looked a prize pair of geese if
we had flagged them down.”

Roger shuddered again and wiped
his brow. He thrust his handkerchief away and began walking out onto the road.

Graham called, “Where are you
going?”

“Something fell off that Rover
when it hit those bumps,” Roger replied. He walked down past the line of pine
trees to where a bundle lay in the grass beside the road.

“It’s a pack,” he called,
kneeling to examine it.

“They might come back to look for
it,” Graham cautioned as he joined him. They both listened but the only sound
was the wind in the trees and the spatter of rain drops.

“You keep watch while I have a
look,” Roger replied.

“Not out in the open. In the
jungle just there,” Graham said, pointing to his left.

Roger lugged the pack over into
the cover of the jungle and crouched to open it. Graham stood nearby, rifle at the
ready. It was a soldier’s pack similar to their own. Inside the bottom half was
a groundsheet and sleeping bag. “Someone is going to bloody cold tonight,” he
said, very aware that he was starting to shiver himself. He opened the top
flap.

In a plastic bag were a field
jacket, a dirty green shirt, spare socks and underpants and other personal
items. Most had name tags sewn inside them. “The owner’s name is Zumpitch,”
Roger read. He then looked inside one of the side pockets. It was full of tins
of food. He pulled out the top one.
“Braised Steak and
Onions.
I could go them. I’m starving.” He was also aware he had not yet
had breakfast.

Graham laughed quietly.
“Anything else?”

Roger opened the other side
pocket and dug his hand in. There was a small pocket of some sort sewn on the
inside. He pushed his fingers in and fished out a cloth cap.

It was a blue forage cap, quite
unlike those worn by the Royal Guards which had a peak and a brim, similar to
the Austrian ‘Bergmutze’. This one was meant to be worn ‘fore and aft’ and on
the front was pinned a red star. Roger fingered the metal star in puzzlement
and looked at Graham.

“This is odd. I thought these
were Royal Guards but this is a communist badge. Aren’t the Communists their
enemies?” he asked.

Graham nodded. “Yes they are.
Perhaps it is a souvenir; or a disguise; or used to mark the ‘enemy’ in
training exercises?” he suggested.

Roger opened the cap and looked
inside. “It’s got the same name sewn into it as the other clothes: Zumptich.”

Graham shrugged. “I don’t
understand it. Keep it. The Inspector might find it useful.”

Roger opened his basic pouch,
rolled the cap up and pushed it in. He then turned back to the pack and dug
into it again.
“A battery.
Radio battery I reckon.
And this.”
He held up some papers in a plastic bag.

Graham crouched to look: “Let’s
see what it is.”

Roger dried his fingers on the
shirt then extracted the papers. Immediately a heavy rain drop went splat on
them. Roger swore and hunched over to keep the papers under the brim of his
slouch hat. “It’s another code book. And this looks like instructions on how to
use some sort of radio.” He passed the printed booklet with its pages of
diagrams to Graham.

“The bloke must be a sig,” Graham
said.

“And here are some notes- in
German though.” Roger held up two pages torn from a pocket notebook with
handwriting on them.

Graham took them. “S. O. Is,” he
said.
“Signals Operating Instructions, from a set of Orders.
Look. It says ‘5.
Komd.
und
Sig.’ Command and Signals; same as in our ‘Headings for Orders’. And this,
under ‘Funk’, that’s ‘Radio’. It must be a Net Diagram.”

Roger looked and saw that there
were five small circles in a semi-circular pattern, all connected to a larger
circle underneath with 34WF printed inside it. The circles on the ‘net’ were
numbered: 34R, 34M, 34S, 34W, 34Z.

Graham said: “These will be their
call signs. And these are the frequencies
:-
‘Primary;
44.60; Alternate; 46.90’. And the code to use: ‘Ratsel Nummer Fier’.”

“Parole,” Roger read. “That’s
French. It means- pass, or...”

“Password.
It is the same word in German,”
Graham cried. “Falke Festung
:-
Falcon’s Fortress!”

“Great. I hope we don’t get close
enough to need to use that,” Roger replied. “What is this where it says:
‘Standort vom HQ’? Oh! I can read the next bit: ‘Karte
:-
Atherton 1:100 000.
Grid Reference 324868.
Is ‘Karte’
a map?”

“’Karte’?
Yes. A chart or map,” Graham
replied. “But I can’t remember what ‘Standort’ is.”

Roger felt a surge of excitement
as he pulled out his map and unfolded it. “I can work it out.
In our ‘Headings for Orders’ the heading would be ‘Location of
Headquarters’.
That’s it. We know where their HQ is.”

“Only until 12:00 hours today,”
Graham replied, pointing to the timings.

Roger ran his finger over the
map. “Here, where this road along the top of the mountain range dips down to
cross the headwaters of the Walsh River. It’s only about four kilometres in a
straight line.”

“Look how that road wriggles
along the crestline. It would be twice that.”

Roger replied: “Eight kilometres.
We can do that in two hours.”

Graham looked at him in surprise
and grinned. “Is this really
Roger ?
Wanting to march
eight Ks over the mountains in the rain?”

Roger ignored him. He was too
excited. “Come on. We can make it in time.”

“Slow down Roger. Firstly there
is no guarantee they will stay, now they know, or think, that the army is in
the area. Secondly there are other roads by which they can leave. Look, there’s
one that loops out to the west then comes back as two roads on either side of
the Walsh. And there are those two going east to join up at the ‘Hope of
Atherton’ mine. There’s another road that goes down the mountain to Atherton
past the rifle range. And thirdly; we should wait for Peter and the police. We
can’t just charge off into the jungle.”

“We could leave a note,” Roger
suggested.

“They might not find it.”

“What if we put this pack in the
middle of the road and pin the note to it?”

Graham shook his head. “Great!
What if those Royal Guards come back looking for the pack? They get the note
and come hunting us,” he said.

Roger felt a bit sheepish. He
cast around for an idea. More than anything he wanted to follow the Royal
Guards. “Could one of us go and one
wait
here?”

“No. You’ll just get bloody well
shot. We were lucky earlier; and I was stupid. We should both walk back down to
Stephen. He must be worried sick. It is only a ten or fifteen minute walk.
Besides, he might be in trouble. That other bloke might have watched us leave
and come back to rescue his boss.”