The Godson (49 page)

‘Dunno,' shrugged Ronnie. ‘When I told him what was going on as we were leaving, he said he'd get here as soon as he could. That was over two hours ago.'

There was a hiss, the blade in front of the tractor dropped and Ronnie started bulldozing the earth piled up by the sides of the hole. Norton washed his hands and joined Ray and Lennie going through the dead Irishmen's personal effects.

‘I might go and see if I can find where they left their car,' said Lennie.

‘Righto, mate,' said Ray.

Les got two Coronas from the fridge, handed one to Ray and watched quietly as Ray began stacking separate piles: wallets, cash, ID, jewellery etc. Norton couldn't quite come at touching it so he sat there in silence. It didn't seem long before Lennie was back. He was jubilant.

‘Hey, it's better than I thought,' he said. ‘There's two near new Holdens down by the main gates. The keys are still in them and everything. One's only got 12,000 on the clock.' He looked at the piles on the table. ‘How are you going?'

‘Grouse,' replied Ray enthusiastically. ‘Six good watches. Around four and a half grand in cash. Three Australian driver's licences. Some of this jewellery's not bad either.' He winked at Lennie. ‘At least we'll get a good drink for our trouble.'

‘Reckon. What a ripper.' He went to the fridge, got a beer and drank it while he watched Ray reading a piece of blood-smeared paper.

Ray finished it and shook his head. ‘Fuckin' idiot,' he muttered, and handed it to Lennie.

Lennie read it and shook his head too. ‘What a nice fuckin' dill,' he said, and handed it to Les. ‘Here. Read this.'

Norton took the piece of paper: it was printed neatly in biro.
My dear Stephanie. How goes it old pip
it started. It was as good as a detailed map on how to get to Cedar Glen. That was bad enough. But when Norton got to the part that said…
He's a complete wally
he was less than impressed.

‘No wonder they knew where to find him, the dill,' said Ray. ‘That must have been on the card he sent his sheila. And somehow those IRA blokes have intercepted it.'

Norton's jaw set. ‘Do you mind if I keep this?' he said mirthlessly.

‘Go for your life,' replied Ray.

They sat and drank beer while they watched Ronnie filling in the hole; Les was more inclined to sip his and think, the other two were ripping in. There was plenty of earth piled around the sides of the hole which had been softened by the previous night's rain and the little caretaker knew how to handle a tractor with a scoop on the front. It didn't seem like all that long before the hole was filled in and levelled over, Ronnie had switched off the motor and was joining them for a beer.

‘I hope you bastards haven't drank all the piss,' he said, adding his usual wheezy laugh.

‘There's still plenty there, mate, don't worry about that,' said Ray.

Ronnie got a bottle of Gosser and poured about half of it down his throat. ‘S'pose we may as well sit around and see if Eddie shows up,' he belched, as he took a seat next to Lennie.

‘How long did he say he'd be?' asked Les.

Ronnie shrugged his shoulders. ‘Dunno. But knowing Eddie, it won't be all that long. Doesn't worry me though, how long he takes,' he added, with another wheezy laugh. ‘I'll sit here and drink piss all night.'

‘Yeah. Me too,' said Lennie.

‘Well, there's no shortage,' said Les. ‘In fact, how would you boys like a nice chilled bottle of French champagne?'

‘Hey, shit! That sounds all right,' said Ray.

‘Coming right up,' said Norton. He hustled up four glasses,
opened a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and topped them up. ‘Well,' he said, raising his glass. ‘Here's to… I don't know. What do you want to drink to?'

The three vets looked at each other. ‘I dunno,' said Ronnie. ‘Let's just drink to drinking piss.'

‘Righto,' said Les. ‘To drinking piss it is.'

They raised their glasses and all took liberal swallows. ‘Hey, this bloody stuffs all right, ain't it?' said Lennie.

They knocked that bottle off, plus another one and some more beers. It wasn't long before Les was half drunk and in a much more relaxed frame of mind. The boys exchanged yarns about the war and life in the Tweed Valley. Les told them different things about life in Sydney around the Cross and Bondi and how he'd got the job of minding Peregrine. He told them about some of the funny things that had happened to them on the trip and how he'd ripped off Benny Rabinski and his brother years ago. Les was telling them about how Peregrine had almost drowned at Cabarita on Wednesday when he noticed not far up in the night sky a bright white light and a small flashing red one fast approaching the farm from the south-west. A few seconds later came the unmistakable swoosh-swoosh-swoosh of a helicopter's blades. The vets' ears pricked up and they appeared to stiffen at the evocative sound. They stopped drinking momentarily then turned to see where it was coming from.

‘I reckon that's Eddie now,' said Ronnie.

The little caretaker walked across to where he'd filled in the hole as the helicopter roared overhead, banked a few hundred metres and came back. Ronnie started making criss-cross motions with his arms above his head then brought them down by his sides motioning the helicopter to land. The helicopter hovered a few metres above him for a while as if the occupants were checking everything out; in the still of the night it seemed to make a dreadful racket tossing up leaves and dust and the landing light seemed to bathe the whole valley in its white glow. Eventually the pilot brought it down not far from where the hole used to be, sat there for a moment and killed the engine. The blade whined for a few seconds as it slowed down and once again there was silence. The passenger side opened and out jumped Eddie in his customary black jeans and black leather jacket. Slung under his shoulder was a Uzi machine pistol. The pilot's door opened and Les couldn't mistake the neat moustache, the black leather jacket and scarf and the World War II, peaked leather pilot's cap. It was Kingsley Sheehan.

Eddie had his arm around Ronnie's shoulders as they walked across to where the others were sitting. He hesitated for a moment as if he didn't quite know who to speak to first. ‘G'day Ray, Lennie,' he said to the two vets, who greeted him back. Then Eddie turned to Norton. ‘Hello, Les,' he said, a little more slowly. ‘How are you mate, you all right?'

‘Yeah, terrific Eddie,' replied Norton. ‘It's been great. I wouldn't have missed it for anything.' Les looked at the pilot who was now standing alongside Eddie. ‘G'day, Kingsley. How are you, mate?'

The usual impish smile crinkled the corners of the pilot's eyes. ‘Hello, George,' he said. ‘Long time no see.'

‘Yes,' replied Norton. ‘It's been a while. I didn't know you owned a helicopter?'

‘I don't,' replied Kingsley Sheehan. ‘Eddie made me steal the bloody thing.' He turned and smiled at the three vets. ‘Hello, fellahs,' he said. ‘Haven't seen you for a while. How have you been?'

‘Pretty good, Kingsley,' was the general reply.

Well, thought Norton, at least everybody seems to know each other. He could see Eddie looking at him and the blood on his face.

‘I got here as fast as I could,' said Eddie. ‘But it looks like you've got everything under control, thank Christ.' His eyes ran across the four faces at the table. ‘So, what happened? Where's all the Irish?'

‘You just walked over them,' said Ronnie, nodding to where the hole had been.

Eddie had a quick look at the freshly-turned earth. ‘And where's dopey fuckin' Peregrine?'

‘Still asleep,' said Les.

‘Still asleep? What do you mean —
still
asleep?' Eddie noticed the RPG-7 and the bullpups stacked neatly near the table. ‘Shit!' he said. ‘Where did all this crap come from?'

‘Why don't you have a beer?' said Ronnie. ‘And I'll fill you in on what happened after I rang you.'

‘Yeah, righto,' replied Eddie, as Ronnie got up and went to the fridge. ‘At least it's a bit warmer up here. It was bloody freezing when we left Sydney.'

‘Ohh I don't know,' said Kingsley. ‘It was all right back at my place with the Lufthansa stewardess — till you dragged me away.'

Eddie and Kingsley found a couple of chairs and sat down while Ronnie told them how he, Ray and Lennie had come
over the hill just in the nick of time, and about the quick gunfight and how they'd stripped and buried the bodies. Les then told them his side of it, how he'd got Peregrine pissed and full of Normisons and put him to bed. He showed Eddie the piece of paper with the copy of what Peregrine had sent on a postcard to his girlfriend in London. Eddie was far from impressed and said he wouldn't have minded going up and putting a bullet in Peregrine's aristocratic arse right there and then. Les took them upstairs and showed them where he'd held off the Irishmen till they rocketed the windows. The power was on but all the globes in the kitchen and dining room had been shattered; by the light from Norton's torch they could see the damage and the spent cartridges strewn amongst the debris on the floor. The little Robinson was still lying where Les had dropped it; Eddie picked it up and put it back in the blue bag. Les took them down to the gatepost where the shooting had started, then back to the barbecue area via the driveway and where the two Irishmen had shot the windows out when they got in under the house. Back in the barbecue area Eddie and Kingsley were quite impressed. So were the others.

‘That was a bloody good effort, Les,' said Eddie. ‘One bloke against six, with just an old World War II machine pistol.'

‘It was a bloody good thing I had that,' replied Les.

‘I'm only sorry it had to come to all this,' said Eddie, then turned to the others. ‘You too, fellahs. Thanks for everything.'

‘Ahh, that's all right,' said Ray.

‘Anyway,' said Eddie. ‘You haven't done too bad on the night. You're four and a half grand in front. You've cracked it for two near new cars. There's enough bloody guns there to start a revolution. And here's something to have a drink with.' Eddie threw a large envelope full of money on the table. ‘There's another six grand. That ought to keep you going for a while.'

‘Shit, thanks Ed,' said Ronnie. There was a chorus of thank yous from the others.

Eddie took a look at his watch. ‘Well, it's all over here,' he said. ‘If you blokes want to get home to bed, you may as well get cracking.'

‘Yeah, it's not getting any earlier,' said Lennie, yawning and stretching. ‘And I am getting a bit tired.'

‘At least we don't have to walk home,' grinned Ray.

The three Vietnam veterans rose from the table, picked up the Irishmen's weapons as well as their own. Before they took
the two garbage bags full of clothing to burn back at their place, Les removed two small articles, saying he wanted to keep them for a souvenir. There were handshakes and goodbyes all around. Eddie said he'd ring them later in the week to make sure everything was okay and he'd more than likely call back up before long. Ronnie told Les he'd probably call round tomorrow. He did have to go to Murwillumbah, but if not, he'd call round for sure on Tuesday. Les thanked the boys once more and they were gone.

It was quiet in the barbecue area after they'd left; the stars had reappeared and once again the nightbirds were calling to each other across the valley. Eddie said they'd have time for one more beer then Kingsley had to get the helicopter back before the owners — some mining company — missed it.

Les took a mouthful of beer, reflected into it for a moment then looked at Eddie and Kingsley. ‘Jesus, Eddie. That was bloody close,' he said seriously. ‘Another half a second and I could've been fuckin' dead. I'll be seeing that gun coming up at me for the rest of my bloody life.'

‘Yeah, I know just how you feel,' replied Eddie. ‘It's scary all right.'

‘But bloody little Ronnie the caretaker.' Norton had to shake his head. ‘He was the last bloke I was expecting to see.'

‘Ohh, don't worry about Ronnie Madden. He was a bloody good soldier. One of the best.'

‘Yeah. He was telling me you were his platoon sergeant in Vietnam. Did you know Harcourt too?'

‘Sort of. I used to get him stuff for his troops. Camouflage uniforms. Rations. Booze. This and that.'

‘I lined him up with a couple of Australian sheilas once,' said Kingsley. ‘Couple of entertainers. They said they wanted to see some fighting. So Harcourt got me to fly him and the two sheilas into the middle of a battle. He was a good bloke.'

Norton took another swig of beer. ‘But bloody Ronnie. I can't get over it. I mean, he's the biggest pisspot I ever seen.'

‘He wasn't once,' said Eddie reflectively.

‘Did it happen over there?' Eddie nodded. ‘You want to tell us what happened?'

Eddie looked at his watch. ‘All right. I'll tell you while I finish this beer then we'll piss off. It was at a place called Nui Ba Dinh. Up in the Tay Ninh province. We were on a patrol. Funny thing was, we weren't even supposed to be there. The yanks had the place. Our platoon was going through this valley looking for VC and NVA regulars, who we were
sure were in the area. Anyway, there's this old house almost like a bunker, off to our left. Some noggie's taken a shot at us from a tree and we thought it came from the bunker. So Ronnie's charged it, lobbed a grenade in the window and shot the joint up inside. At almost the same time the NVA artillery opened on us and a shell hit the house, burying Ronnie inside. Next thing, a regiment of NVA regulars hit us from the mountains. We were there for two days before the yank airforce and the NZ artillery bombed them all out. When we dug Ronnie out of the house, all that was in there was a Vietnamese family. Mum, dad, grandma and five kids. Ronnie had killed the lot and got buried in there with them for two days. Two of the little girls had died with their eyes open and Ronnie was pinned alongside them. Two days and two nights. Two dead little girls staring at him. I reckon that'd be just about enough to unnerve anybody. It unhinged Ronnie.'