To Ride the Wind (33 page)

Jack could see that his enemy was a man in his late thirties with the look of an experienced soldier.

‘Don’t move and put your rifle down!’ he shouted in German, temporarily confusing the soldier standing three steps above him.

But the German quickly recovered, bringing his rifle barrel up to fire. In desperation, Jack dropped the live grenades, which rattled down the steps behind him. At the same instant he attempted to throw himself at the enemy but fell short instead. Jack’s sudden lurch forward had distracted the man, however, and the shot went high, missing him. Virtually unarmed, Jack heard the rifle bolt chamber another round as he lay on his face on the steps, knowing the second shot would not miss.

Then the blast of the grenades at the bottom of the stairs tore at Jack and the man standing over him. Jack knew he had taken shrapnel but in the confined narrowness of the stairs the man standing over him had taken the full brunt. Jack felt him tumble over to slide down the steps. He twisted around, his ears ringing from the twin explosions, to see the German soldier attempting to rise to his feet. Jack grappled for his Luger, removed it and fired into the dying man, each bullet plucking at the grey, bloodied uniform. Satisfied that the soldier was dead, Jack attempted to stand, but screamed in pain. Some of the shards of iron had ripped through his feet and up his legs. He collapsed and fell on the body of the dead German.

Jack did not have to wait long for rescue. Men from the company had advanced and brought up stretcher bearers to litter him out and back to a medical aid station. Jack knew that he would live. Maybe it was a blighty – a wound that got a man sent back to the comforts and safety of a hospital in England – but somehow Jack also knew he might be treated in a French hospital, to rejoin his battalion when his wounds healed.

The stretcher bearers carried Jack out past Tom Duffy, now sitting in the street and apparently arguing with the company commander. Jack requested the stretcher bearers to stop beside Alex and Tom. Tom turned to Jack with a pleading expression.

‘Boss, please ask Major Macintosh to allow me to remain with the company, and not go back to an aid station. I am all right and the wounds are just bad cuts. The bleeding will stop soon enough.’

Jack was stunned that the wounded marksman would want to stay at the front when he had the opportunity to be taken out of the firing line. ‘Don’t be a fool, Corporal Duffy,’ Jack said. ‘You could die from your wounds.’

‘You have to get treatment, Corporal,’ Alex said. ‘That’s an order.’

‘Sir,’ Tom pleaded, returning his attention to his company commander. ‘I beg you in the name of an old man who lives in a cave on a hill to let me stay. I cannot tell you why I must stay but to do so might change the course of a lot of lives back home.’

‘What old man?’ Alex asked scornfully.

‘His name is Wallarie, and he is a blackfella,’ Tom answered. ‘He is kin to me.’

Alex paled, visibly shaken by the name he had heard his cousin Matthew Duffy mention so often when they served together before the war. ‘Wallarie is kin to you,’ he whispered with a tone of almost reverential deference. ‘I know of the man. He lives on my family’s property at Glen View.’

Now it was Tom’s turn to look surprised and both men’s eyes met in an instant of understanding, leaving Jack Kelly sensing that something outside his understanding was occurring. He felt as if he was intruding.

‘You do what Major Macintosh tells you to do, Tom,’ Jack said, asking the stretcher bearers to continue with him back to the regimental aid post at the battalion. ‘And good luck, old chap.’

With a smile on his dirt-covered face, Alex stared at the wounded marksman sitting in the dust of the street. ‘If you say that Wallarie has a hand in you wanting to remain with the company instead of going back to division for hospitalisation, then who am I to argue?’

‘You know about Wallarie?’ Tom asked.

‘Let us just say that he is one of the most important people in my family’s history,’ Alex said, waving off the stretcher bearers. ‘You stay, but if I see even the slightest twinge from you because of your wounds I am sending you back. We clear on that, Corporal Duffy?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Tom said, raising himself unsteadily to his feet and gripping his side. ‘I will get the RMO to look at my wound and inform him you have given me permission to remain with the company.’

‘I am sure the RMO will consider you a shell shock case for wanting to stay and send you back for psychiatric treatment anyway,’ Alex said, grinning.

Tom retrieved his rifle from the road and made his way painfully rearwards towards battalion HQ to have the battalion’s doctor look at his wound. He was sure the bullet from the German marksman had passed cleanly through his side and now infection was the greatest concern. But of the most importance to Tom was that the four bags of diamonds would remain undetected. Had he been evacuated as a wounded soldier they would have certainly been found by the medical staff treating him and forfeited to the British government – or simply stolen by a rear echelon soldier. Tom had to remain with the company until he had the opportunity to dispose of the precious stones in a way that ensured they were transported to Australia unseen – or converted into hard cash in France.

There was only one man Tom trusted to help him, but he was now being carried back to the regimental aid post. Jack Kelly had once been a gold prospector and must know something about the disposal of precious stones. In the meantime, it was his duty to protect the small fortune in any way he could.

18

T
he flat of the blade slid across Karolina’s cheek and she could feel the weight of her assailant press her down. She could even smell his foul breath and forced herself not to vomit.

‘It’s been a long time since I had a woman,’ the man hissed. ‘It would be a waste to kill you without a sample of what’s under your dress.’

Karolina wanted to scream but knew he would surely kill her if she did so. She was going to die and so had nothing to lose but her scream was strangled by the hand clamped over her mouth. Unsuccessfully she attempted to bite him as he crushed her lips with the pressure of his arm. Even as she prepared for death she was thinking about her beloved grandson whom she would not have the opportunity to see grow to be a man.

The attacker had massive strength. Karolina could feel his free hand groping under her long dress and calculated that he had put down the knife. She used all her strength to resist him but to no avail. He was too strong and Karolina continued to pray for her death to be quick when her desperate struggles failed.

Suddenly, the man on top of her went limp. She thought she had heard a loud crack a split second before her attacker lost his strength. In the dark she sensed the presence of another and for a moment thought it was an angel sent to save her.

‘Are you hurt, my love?’ a voice asked gently as the body of her attacker was pulled off her to thump to the ground next to the bed.

‘Karl!’ Karolina gasped. ‘Is it you?’ She felt a hand stroking the loose hair away from her face and strong hands lifting her into a sitting position.

‘I am sorry that I was not able to be here for you earlier,’ Karl apologised. ‘But a loyal member of my congregation just informed me that Sailor was on his way here.’

Karolina flung her arms around Karl’s neck and began to sob. ‘Oh, Karl, I love you,’ she said with passion. ‘I think I may have loved you from the first time we met but had always denied that feeling. Please, never let me go.’

Despite her pleas, Karl gently untangled himself from Karolina’s embrace. ‘I have something to do – if you are to remain safe,’ he said softly. He reached out for a kerosene lantern which he lit, illuminating the would-be rapist and killer who now lay sprawled on his face beside the single bed. The back of the man’s head was caked in blood and Karolina then noticed the heavy, wooden club Karl had obviously crafted. When he noticed her gaze fixed on the makeshift weapon, he explained almost apologetically, ‘I made it for the rats that plague our living quarters.’

‘I am glad you did,’ Karolina answered with a short, bitter laugh. ‘Not all rats have four legs.’

Karl noticed the assailant twitch and groan. ‘He lives, but will have a bad headache when he comes round. He is a very tough man.’

‘What should we do?’ she asked, the gravity of the situation replacing her initial terror and then relief at her rescue by a man whom until now she had secretly considered too gentle for such a violent act.

‘You will leave it to me,’ he replied, straightening up and looking around at Karolina’s few possessions until his eyes fell on a small patch of linen. He picked up the cloth and tore it into strips, using them to tie Sailor’s hands and feet. Satisfied that the bindings would hold, he reassured Karolina that her attacker would not be long in her tent, and disappeared with his club into the darkness.

When Karl located Herr Bosch’s tent he was not surprised to see he was still awake and playing cards with one of his cronies. Without invitation Karl stepped inside the tent and swung his club down on the tiny wooden table between the two men, smashing it into fragments and sending the cards flying. Both Bosch and his companion leaped to their feet, seeing before them the terrible spectre of an avenging angel, not a meek Lutheran pastor.

‘The blood on this club belongs to the sailor,’ Karl snarled. ‘If anything happens to Frau Schumann it will also be coated with yours, Herr Bosch. Now, go and retrieve your man from her tent. He is barely alive and will require medical attention.’

Bosch recovered quickly from Karl’s sudden fury. ‘I don’t know what you are inferring, pastor,’ he said.

‘I don’t care, Herr Bosch,’ Karl snapped. ‘If anything bad should happen to Frau Schumann I will hunt you down and kill you regardless of the consequences. That is all I have to say.’

Bosch glanced at his card partner, and could see real fear in his eyes. The other man nodded politely. Karl turned to him. ‘You can spread the word among all those you speak to that Frau Schumann is a loyal and dedicated German for the Fatherland, and is under my personal protection.’

Satisfied that he had made his point, Karl stepped out and strode back to join Karolina, who met him outside her tent. ‘He is conscious,’ she said, her arms folded over her breasts.

‘Then you should stay with me tonight,’ Karl said. ‘Until Herr Bosch has someone remove him from your tent.’

Karolina did not baulk at the pastor’s suggestion, slipping her arm through his as they made their way down the narrow street. ‘What will your congregation say about you having a single woman stay with you tonight?’ she asked, half in jest and half out of concern.

‘That I am a sinful man not worthy of my office. But, I do not care. My real congregation is much further north of here.’

Karolina shook her head, puzzled. Karl was a complex man with so many sides to his character. One, which she had witnessed this night, she hoped she would never have to see again.

For Lance Corporal Tom Duffy the possession of a fortune in diamonds was becoming more of a concern than even death itself. He had grasped the chance to sit back in the relative protection of the trenches and clean his rifle. It had been two weeks since he was shot and the wounds had commenced healing under the care of the RMO who kept a careful eye out for infection, and rubbed garlic on the bullet’s entry and exit points. ‘Wog stuff,’ the RMO had muttered. ‘But it seems to work.’

With his wounds healing, Tom volunteered to continue as the company and battalion marksman, but now under the supervision of the battalion intelligence officer, a young second lieutenant who proved to be competent in his job. Tom’s comrades respected and admired him for his cold-blooded courage. To creep out into no-man’s-land and kill with a single shot took a very special breed of man and Tom was becoming something of a celebrity among those who knew of his deadly reputation along this stretch of the front. Some even said that he might eventually rival the legendary Billy Sing himself, who had killed his first two hundred men before leaving Gallipoli. Tom had refused to keep tally of the number of enemy who had fallen victim to his marksmanship, although his comrades did. Unbeknown to Tom they kept a book on how many enemy he would kill in a day, and the nearest to the number would take the pot on the final tally.

Tom knew that keeping the diamonds concealed was difficult and so secreted them in his meagre kit whenever he went out to take up a hide for the day’s sniping. He had made the young intelligence officer promise him that his kit would not be disturbed if he appeared overdue from a mission in no-man’s-land. The IO promised that his wish for privacy would be kept. He wondered why his marksman should be so obsessed with his kit, but kept his word.

Eventually the battalion was pulled back for a badly needed rest behind the lines and Tom was able to obtain leave from the company commander to visit Captain Jack Kelly in a nearby French hospital. Jack’s wounds had been ascertained not serious enough for him to be evacuated back to England and he had already been notified that when he recovered he would be posted to another battalion where a company commander was desperately needed.

When Tom found Jack Kelly, he was in a bed between a wounded South African officer who had taken shrapnel in his stomach and a New Zealander blinded by mustard gas. The Canadians, New Zealanders and South Africans were very much like their Australian counterparts, enjoying a reputation as being among the best soldiers on the front.

Jack was sitting up in bed with a copy of CJ Dennis’s latest release on the exploits of Ginger Mick and his mates. He greeted Tom with a broad smile. ‘Well, Tom, I thought you would have been sampling the wares of a pretty mademoiselle, rather than visiting the man who tried to get you killed every day.’

Tom held out his hand and grinned at his friend and superior officer. ‘The battalion has someone else doing that now,’ he said. ‘Figures he can do a better job of getting me sent west.’

‘From the look on your face I get the feeling your visit is more than social,’ Jack said, losing his smile as Tom pulled up a chair beside him. The ward was clean and bright and the French nurses in their stiffly starched uniforms moved among the wounded men with gentleness and competence.