Maralinga (25 page)

‘Who the hell do you think you are?' Pete hissed. ‘Who the hell do you think
they
are? Casualties of war? You think you can justify their deaths for some noble cause? I've got news for you, mate. We're not at war.'

But we are, Nick thought. We're at war with communism. We're at war with mother Russia. The race for nuclear power is a whole new war, Pete, unlike anything you and I have known. This is the very purpose of Maralinga. It's why we're here.

He rose from the table. ‘Go to bed, Pete,' he said.

‘Sure.' Pete rammed his cigarette butt into the overflowing ashtray, stood and skolled the rest of his beer. He needed something stronger anyway. ‘What a pity you can't threaten
me
with a cosy little private
court martial, Colonel. You'd have to take me to the Supreme Court, and that'd make it a matter of public record. I must be a real cause for worry.'

Nick made no reply, and Pete didn't push the confrontation any further. Hell, why bother? They both knew he was no cause for worry. Pete Mitchell never made waves. Pete Mitchell looked after number one.

Nick watched him go. What a pity, he thought. Pete had lost his objectivity; he was verging on unstable. It appeared the army had made the wrong choice in Pete Mitchell. But he felt sorry for the man nonetheless.

 

An hour and a half later, when Daniel arrived back at the donga, Pete had drunk himself into a near stupor. He was sitting on his bunk, barefoot and dishevelled, necking the whisky straight from the bottle.

‘Come and join me, mate,' he said. ‘Come and have a drink.' He held out the bottle, then realised it was all but empty. ‘Hang on a minute, hang on.' He leaned over and started ferreting between his legs for the cardboard box he kept under his bunk.

‘I don't want a drink, thanks, Pete.'

‘Course you do, course you do.' The cardboard box appeared and, taking out a fresh bottle, Pete handed it unopened to Daniel. ‘There you go, be my guest.' Then he pushed the box back under the bunk with his foot.

Daniel could see he didn't really have much option. Pete had now decided he was in the mood for company and wasn't prepared to take no for an answer.

‘Thanks,' he said, opening the bottle and fetching a tin mug from the dresser. He poured himself a
modest whisky, left the bottle on the dresser, and pulled up one of the donga's two chairs. ‘Cheers.' He raised the tin mug in a salute and hoped that Pete would pass out soon.

‘It's a bugger of a thing to happen, isn't it?' Pete said blearily. ‘A real bugger of a thing.'

‘Yes, I suppose it is.' Daniel didn't bother asking what the bugger of a thing was.

‘You know what Crowley and his mob'll do to those poor bastards?'

‘Nope. No idea.'

‘They'll dissect 'em – just like they do the
sheep
and the
goats
and the
rabbits
and the
mice
,' Pete gave added emphasis to each word with a wave of the bottle, ‘and any
other
living creature they can irradiate. They'll cut up their bodies and grind up their bones in the name of science, and they'll love every bloody minute of it.' He drained the dregs of the whisky. ‘Jesus, they must be over the moon now they've scored a few humans. Crowley sure as hell is – you should have seen the look on his face. Grab us that bottle, will you.'

Daniel fetched the bottle from the dresser and handed it over. He wasn't sure if he understood what he was hearing, but Pete had certainly gained his attention.

‘You know what the really bad part is though?' Pete fumbled with the cork of the bottle. ‘At least
I
reckon it's the really bad part, and they would too if they had a say in it, which of course they don't because they're dead.' The cork finally came free. He tossed it on the floor and took a swig of whisky. ‘The really bad part is the cutting-up part.'

Pete leaned forward, elbows on knees, fingers firmly clenched into a fist around the neck of the bottle. He had an intense desire to communicate with Daniel. Young Dan, unlike the average soldier at Maralinga, had actually shown some concern for the Aborigines. Although, Pete had to admit, even in his addled state, that such a judgement wasn't quite fair on his part. The average soldier at Maralinga had been fed a load of bullshit when all was said and done. They'd been told the local population had been removed from the area – that is, if there'd ever been any local population in the first place. The average soldier could hardly be expected to show concern for those who didn't exist.

‘The worst thing you can do to these people, Dan,' he said ponderously, trying to choose his words with care although he was having some trouble, ‘the worst thing you can possibly do to them is to cut them up. That's the really,
really
bad part. You understand me?'

‘Not exactly.'

The kid wasn't getting his drift, Pete thought. He took another swig of whisky and then spelled it out. ‘You don't mutilate them, that's what I'm saying. You don't chop these people up when they're dead! Dismemberment is worse than death. These people have to go to their ancestors intact. Am I getting through?'

‘Who exactly are we talking about?'

‘The dead family.' Pete was exasperated – who the hell did Dan
think
he was talking about? ‘Mum and dad and the two little kids, that's who.'

Dead family? What dead family, Daniel wondered. Pete was rambling in his drunkenness. He must mean
the family who'd been put through the decontamination unit. Good God, if there'd been deaths reported, it would have been the talk of the mess.

‘I haven't actually heard of any dead family, Pete,' he said carefully.

‘Well, of course you haven't, and you won't tomorrow either, or the day after that, or next week or even next year. They've threatened to court-martial anyone who talks – violation of the Official Secrets Act – a treasonable offence, mate. Jesus Christ, I could cop a bullet through the brain for telling you this.' Well, that had certainly hit home, Pete thought with satisfaction. He laughed, enjoying the shock on the kid's face. ‘Ah, they're a ruthless bunch your employers, Dan.' He raised the bottle in a toast. ‘Here's to the army, mate, yours and mine. A pack of bastards every one of them.' Then, head back, he guzzled long and hard, whisky spilling in rivulets down his chin.

Daniel was indeed shocked, but more by the very suggestion that such a thing could happen than by his actual belief that it had. This was surely no more than the lunatic ravings of a drunk.

‘So there you are, that's the way it goes.' Pete was close to passing out now. ‘A nice young family finds a cosy hole and curls up for the night and, before you know it, they're being cut into bits. Doesn't seem fair to me … Doesn't seem bloody fair at all …'

The bottle slid from his grasp and hit the floor. Daniel rescued it.

‘Oh, thanks, mate, thanks a lot.' Pete put his hand out for the bottle, but Daniel placed it on the dresser.

There was a moment's pause while the hand hung
uncertainly in the air, then Pete seemed to forget all about the whisky. He flopped back on his bunk. ‘Bugger of a thing to happen,' he said. ‘Bugger of a thing …' He kept muttering for a while, and gradually his mutters became snores.

Daniel hefted Pete's feet up onto the bunk and then sat on his own bunk, deep in thought.

It couldn't have happened, he told himself. None of it could have happened. He couldn't afford to believe that it had. Pete was a disturbed man. If Aborigines had been discovered dead, word would have got around, surely. But then, Daniel thought, what word ever
did
get around about Aborigines? He'd only heard about the family who'd been contaminated through Pete. Everything he knew about the Aboriginal predicament at Maralinga he'd learnt through Pete.

He remembered the day he'd gone out in the patrol truck, the day he'd seen the woman and child, and he remembered how the two had seemed to disappear before his very eyes. There
are
local people in the area, he thought, and they
are
difficult to locate, and they
are
in danger. All this he knew to be a fact. So if the dreadful but plausible scenario of the family's death was true, could it be possible that the authorities were so bent on keeping the fact a secret that men were being threatened with court martial? Violation of the Official Secrets Act, no less – a treasonable offence? Daniel found it impossible to believe.

He looked at Pete, whose snores were by now stentorian. He'd confront him in the morning, he decided. One way or another, he must find out the truth.

But in the morning Pete was gone. Daniel waited for him to return from the ablutions block, but he didn't.
He didn't report for breakfast either. The confrontation, Daniel realised, would have to be postponed until the evening.

 

Pete had left Maralinga before daylight. He'd driven out of the township in his FJ Holden wondering if he'd ever go back, but knowing deep down that he would. If he were really on the run he'd have packed his belongings, wouldn't he? But then he hadn't wanted to wake Daniel. No, that wasn't the truth either. He hadn't
dared
wake Daniel. He had some vague idea that he'd spewed out the whole story last night. Or had he just dreamt that he had? He hoped it had been a dream. If it hadn't, then he'd opened a whole can of worms, and he really didn't want to face that right now.

Dawn was breaking. He pulled up the car and got out to watch the beauty of the sunrise. The land was waking afresh, as if newborn in the first clear light of day, and as he squatted in the dust looking out over the rolling, red Nullarbor sandhills, he thought that this could be the beginning of time. Then he recalled the Aboriginal family. He saw their bodies lying there, so accepting of a death they should never have suffered. What had he done to prevent it? What was he going to do to avenge it? What meaning could he offer for the sacrifice of their lives? One word answered every single query that came into his mind.
Nothing.
The same word summed up his entire existence. What purpose did his life serve? What had he achieved? What did he believe in?
Nothing.

Pete no longer saw the beauty of the dawn. The miracle of a desert sunrise had never been lost on him
before, but it was this morning. His head was throbbing, he had to stop thinking.

He climbed back into the Holden and started the engine. He needed oblivion, and, apart from whisky, oblivion came in just one form. Ada.

He took his time driving to Watson – no point in arriving before the fettlers had set off for work – and as he drove he thought of Ada. Even thinking about her was enough, the anticipation of her body and her mouth successfully clouding his mind.

Two hours later, he pulled up at the siding. Watson appeared as deserted as always. The fettlers' truck used for track maintenance in nearby areas accessible by road was gone, but that didn't mean all the fettlers were. Men were transported by rail for work well down the line and would camp out, often for days. Pete was not so distracted that he couldn't think clearly. Harry Lampton might be down the line, or he might be waiting for the next train. There was no way of knowing which.

He got out of the car, leaned against the tray, and took a packet of Craven A from his top pocket. All he could do was follow the normal procedure and hope that she may be watching. This was the first time he'd arrived unexpectedly. As a rule he and Ada made their assignations well in advance, but their last meeting had ended acrimoniously and no plan had been set in place. The plan was always very simple. He would arrive on a given day at a given time and, if the coast was clear, she would step out onto the cottage's small front verandah. If things had gone awry and she'd been unable to get rid of Harry, she would not appear. He would
wait long enough to smoke one cigarette and then he would leave. He had never, as yet, smoked the cigarette. She had always appeared before he'd even lit up.

He took out a Craven A and returned the packet to his shirt pocket. Then he ferreted about for his matches, buying time, each step in the ritual slow, methodical.

 

Inside the cottage, Harry was having his breakfast – damper topped with thick slices of tinned camp pie and lots of pepper. It was the same breakfast he had when he was out bush, always accompanied by a mug of strong tea, black, scalding hot and with plenty of sugar.

‘Hurry it up, Ada, for Chrissake.'

‘Keep your shirt on. I can't make tea draw any quicker than it wants to, can I?'

It was a no-win situation either way – she'd cop it if his tea wasn't strong enough. Oh well, too bloody bad, she thought, picking up the cheap tin teapot with a dishrag, but still managing to burn her hand in the process. She poured his mug of tea and dumped it on the table in front of him.

‘There,' she said.

‘Did you sugar it?'

She dumped the sugar bowl on the table and slammed the spoon down beside it.

‘Watch it, Ada,' he said as he piled in four spoonfuls. ‘Watch it.' The bitch was still sulking, he thought. As if she had a right to. Christ, she was lucky she'd only copped a black eye. He'd had every right to throttle the life out of her.

Harry had returned home three days previously and, in bedding his wife, had discovered a large bruise on her left breast.

‘Where'd you get that?' he'd asked, instantly suspicious.

‘I fell against the dresser,' Ada had replied, which had been the absolute truth, but there'd been something smug in the way she'd said it.

He'd messed her about a bit to teach her a lesson, and she'd goaded him as she always did, hinting that he wasn't the only bloke she could have if she wanted to. But this time, with the bruise on her breast as proof, Harry's suspicions had been raised beyond the normal jealous rage she managed to provoke. He'd started ransacking the house for proof of his wife's infidelity and he'd very soon found the case of whisky. He'd belted her to within an inch of her life. A blackened left eye was only the outer manifestation of the beating; she'd also suffered two fractured ribs from where he'd got the boot in.