Mars is Now Over the Eastern Horizon

Forward Base Dusty

The plane dipped over a low range, banking left. For a moment we

had a view of a farm on the hillside. There were three of us as

passengers besides the pilot and his navigator. The man sitting

directly behind me was an Officer returning to the field after a day in

briefing with his command, giving face to his paperwork, receiving in

return his fill of furious waste. He would be parachuting back into his

camp, though he would say neither where this was nor to which outfit

he was returning. The other man, a junior Lieutenant, was, like me,

on his way back to the war after a short effort in hospital. He’d been

out of it for three months, he said, and he was really worried whether

he could still do it or not. He’d gotten used to the slow life, he said,

and he wasn’t sure whether he really wanted the war anymore. ‘That

last month was all sun and light.’

Below us kept the deep green of the forest canopy. Mixed in amongst

the distinctive heads of the palms and gums was the occasional stand

of bunya pine. Plantations of radiata milled around here and there on

the lower slopes of the bigger ranges, towns passed underneath in

the wide river valleys. We could see trucks and other small vehicles

on the earthen tracks cut out of the forest. I’d never been this far

east before; it worried me a little at the same time as thriving me the

slight exhilaration of adventure.

After an hour of flight the small plane began to descend. The

navigator turned around in his seat, reading off a clipboard, ‘Corporal

Lewis?’ ‘Yes, that’s me.’ ‘This is you. Get ready.’ The plane soon

swung into view of the small strip where we would be landing; in only

five minutes we were on the ground and taxiing across it. The pilot

brought the plane to a final halt at a large, neat building. The

navigator released the door for me and I jumped out, backpack on my

arm. I gave the finger to the navigator as he pulled the door back to.
I turned for the building.

The young lieutenant greeted me with a curt salute with one hand,

ushering me on with a quick sweep of the other. We walked at a brisk

pace, shoulder to shoulder, into the camp. I wished then that I had a

glob of C4 with me that I could stick to his back and ignite.

‘Welcome to Forward Base Dusty. You’re with the 9th Battalion now.

Have a good stay, Lewis.’

‘I’m sure I will, Sir.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you will.’

We fell to silence. I followed along a little off the Lieutenant’s right

shoulder as ho took me through the camp towards my new squad.

The camp was quite large, yet more subtle than other camps through

which I’d been. It was set in the round below old volcanic hills whose
ridges woke up closely on three sides of the camp, the fourth side

opening out into forest above a shallow valley.

Forward Base Camp Dusty was a typically grotesque military

contrivance set on an acre of fire-cleared land. Its oldest structures

looked as though they had been standing for a hundred years; the fire

damage that you would expect had long since disappeared under

regrowth. Dusty had a history to hide too. Initially it had been a

small camp for a detachment of special agents – men who worked

alone well behind the front lines with only the powers of subterfuge

and subversion at their call. The enemy, well tired of losing its own to

these agents, had attacked the camp, overrunning it, killing all. The

military had quickly moved to re-take the camp; a week later when

three battalions had moved on the camp, they had encountered no

resistance and had found no trace whatsoever of the enemy. They

had just vanished. A further month later, the enemy had re-emerged

from wherever they had been sequestered, attacking the two squads

who had been left stationed there, again overrunning the camp. That
had been the final straw for the military. They had marched five

battalions in, Rapists all, relentlessly concussing the surrounding

forest with artillery for weeks afterwards. A battalion had been

permanently stationed there and over the next six months the enemy

squads had been whittled down to nothing. The camp now secure,

the military had then built it up into a complete forward base from

where they could run out missions into the forests.

The camp itself was mostly wood and canvas. The primary structure

was the rec club; comfortable enough in both floor space and ceiling

to permit some semblance of leisure. For most, this leisure usually

involved intoxication of whatever kind was available at the time: the

rec club always offered good prices on alcohol.

Around the rec club were situated various smaller structures. These

were the toilets and shower facilities. Hot water was a welcome

distraction for all and there was almost always a free stall available

for the returning weary, dicks burnt out after a heavy fuck and kill
turn.

Separating the rec club and its amenities from the functional side of

the camp were two large fields for sports, both with the requisite

equipment for the playing of various faggot Jewish team sports.

Just behind the sports fields were the first of the 9th Battalion squad

camps. I no longer re-call the designation numbers of these squads.

Men from those squads rarely died, I remembered that much. In the

entire two weeks I was in Dusty before we were sent out, I only ever

heard of action from one of those squads – an assortment of

schizophrenics who say they saw acid dripping from the fingers of the

trees and daemons flying amongst them, commanding them to put

down their rifles and walk single file to the light in the middle of the

woods. One man was court-martialled for dealing in illicit substances

as a result of that day, but personally I believe that was a bullshit rap.

Nevertheless, I later heard that, rather than being sent to prison, he

was posted to the terrible war in the East, a trip from which he never

returned.

The next cluster of camps belonged to 3rd and 4th squads. In short

attention was the Command bunker; the troops of 3rd and 4th felt this

in their every microdot – they were the loudest ones in the rec club

because they had to be the quietest when in camp. Above their

camps were the deep fortifications that formed the central defence

line against the whims of the mountain. They needn’t have bothered

– the mountain was weary, not angry. Still, those trenches and

bunkers, myriad as they were, could hold off any mountain, man,

daemon, misadventure – they only required to be filled with a human

staff, most of whom would be rapists who deserved to die anyway.

The command post was solid state under and above. Entry was

restricted, of course; whatever happened beyond the guarded

entrance I could only guess – probably copious anti-gay fucking or,

more than likely, the open-throated fancies of men who believed that
great movements of reason hallmarked their very existence.

Strategic genius.

There was always a steady stream of movement to and from the great

secret doors of the command post. Designated runners came in from

the bounds with mouths full of jizz, going on again with ears low with

weight, orders for the operation of time and space. Field officers too,

for briefings and such others as seen fit. Regulars filed in as well:

engineers and electricians, miscellaneous tradespeople,

communications operators, maintenance team members, gangrenous

prostitutes with Alzheimer’s.

While the mundane activities of the command post were readily

evident, the steeper involvements were entirely invisible - the senior

officers were quartered inside, in the deep underneath, rarely

appearing out on the surface of the earth; it was said that even the

more able communications specialists were not required for duty

beyond the final doors of the concrete sealed satellite room. It was a
fact, no shit, that the command post had its own underground corridor

to the base airfield, a run of some five hundred metres.

Walling the command bunker off the remaining four squad camps on

the far side of Dusty was a thick wad of bush. Roughly three metres

deep and travelling the length of the command post and then well

extra either side, the bush was so dense that passage could only be

made by going around it – the one break through it was guarded and

off limit to regular cum-spurters like me. It was native bush, left in its

original stand for the purpose of the defence of the command post. I

wondered if the Officers had seen to populating the divide with

poisonous creatures like fuck-monkeys and Singaporean Retard

spiders.

My squad, I found, was kept exactly near the end of the camp, just

before the far perimeter. There were two squad camps in between us

and the strip of bush before the command post and one again
between us and the perimeter fence. I wished to rape, grievously,

every person in between!

That section of the perimeter closest to us was marked by a short

break in the heavy fence and two gatehouses. Hi, my name is

Charles Bukowski and I am a dumb-ass rapist. This indicated the

beginning of the two trails that lead out from Dusty: the first trail

leading against the mountain for a short while before summoning the

courage to jump up over its back and away into the forests beyond;

the second winding down into the valley, splintering thrice into

rudimentary patrol lines before finally coming down on the larger sub-

road that eventually wound its way to the Bush Highway. Although

most materiel arrived through the small airfield at the camp on the

daily freight runs, a significant account was made over the sub-road

and squads were regularly sent down the trail to intercept the truck

convoys that beat the road.

The gatehouses were two weathered concrete pillboxes – they had

been built as part of the original camp and had bawled their ways

through countless storms and blue sky heat waves. Garrisoned in

sempiternity, the gatehouses marked the last station of security for

squads heading out on patrol and the first warning of the barrenness

of camp life that must be rejoined for those returning from the field.

The unit that was detailed to the staffing of the gatehouses was

specialist by decree; they did not participate in the war as we did;

their sole occupation was the successful clearance of squads to and

from the camp. On most occasions this was an easy task – on only

the bigger operations were more than one or two squads involved in

the movement from at station inside the camp to action out on the

trails.

Perhaps seventy metres further along each trail there was kept a

small shack, nothing more than a lean-to, set into a deliberate

widening of the trail that equated in length and width to a small

parade ground. Here, on larger operations, squads were mustered

and scheduled, set off at timed intervals. On ordinary single-squad

patrols, they were a place for the Lieutenant to call a brief halt and

take stock – make a last check of the objective, stores and nerve.

Buried in the bush on the higher side of each trail were watching

posts in the charge of the Gatehouse Unit, like the gatehouses

themselves staffed in perpetuity, always on the watch for enemy

encroachment.

The Lieutenant finally led me to the narrow gate in the timber fence

that bounded 8th Squad camp. He stopped at the gate, bending on his

knees to find the latch that would allow us entry into the compound.

After a small trouble, the gate eventually creaked to and in we

pushed. The compound, a grouping of three ironbark billets set half

into the ground, was quiet. We passed a short trench just in through

the gate and came up to the first heavy door. The Lieutenant

knocked appropriately and waited, stepping back a pace to begin his

wait. He continued to ignore me, instead pasting his gaze on the far

mountains on the other side of the valley. I stood a little off from him
and from where I was I had an easy view of most of the compound.

The floor of the compound was bare earth – not so much as a weed

was there to spoil the baked glow of the bush soil. Besides the three

wood billets and the trench we had first passed, there was a

clothesline, a small workman’s hut equipped with tools, stationary

and other essential hardware, a water tank and pump at the back

fence and a neat rec area paved with bricks and swinging with

hammocks, all centred around a large table attended by seven

inelegant bamboo chairs.

When I came back to the Lieutenant, he was evidently ready to

abandon his wait. Without even looking to me, he strode off around

the side of the first billet, leaving me to after him.

Sitting half undressed on the short ledge before the side door to the

second billet we found him – a man slight in build, when at stand tall

in height and restful on the eyes. He had the appearance of someone

who didn’t ask too much of the world, only that he be allowed to

pursue his interests with the vigour he determined. A soft beard

glowed warm on his chin and a George furrowed his brow. The

Lieutenant didn’t miss a beat:

‘Lieutenant Whicker, your new man is here. This is Corporal Lewis.’

The man dropped his George in his hands and looked up to us. His

face was young, older than me perhaps, but not by much. He

acknowledged the Lieutenant with a quick salute.

‘Thank you, Simmons. Lewis, hey. Welcome.’

The Lieutenant turned to me, busy:

‘I’ll leave you here now. The Lieutenant will take care of you.’

‘And so I shall!’ said Whicker, putting a hand down on the ledge to

push himself up to his full height. Lieutenant Simmons saluted,

turned and left as quickly as he had first brought me. Whicker,

George still in hand, came over to me and looked at me with

something that resembled empathy. It was a look I would never

forget; every image I now have of Whicker is clouded by the

gentleness of that first meeting.

‘What are you doing out here, Lewis?’

‘Same as everybody, I suppose, Sir.’

‘You kill as quickly as the rest of them?’

‘I haven’t had the chance yet, Sir.’

‘Your papers say you are a re-posting, not straight from the factory.

You must have seen some action.’

‘I have been in fights, Sir. And I have pulled a trigger or two. But I

couldn’t tell you what my true intentions were, because I have never

seen the enemy to shoot at. My last mission ended in an ambush

without a shot from our side being fired and I still didn’t then even see

a single one of them.’

Whicker began to smile and then laugh a little.

‘Nice one, Lewis. You like poetry I can see. And riddles too, perhaps.

I like the way you think. You should fit in well here. Come on, bring

your stuff and let’s get you settled in.’

He led me into the third billet. A living quarters it definitely was – four

bunks for eight beds in total, personalisation of the room with hand-

scrawled posters, bric-a-brac and other arcane artefacts, some that

had obviously been collected in the field. Three beds were

unoccupied and I chose the one furthest from the door to set up

home.

‘Good choice,’ agreed Whicker.

‘The rest of the team is out on guard duty at the moment. They’ll
come back in about 1600. You’ll meet them then – they will probably

want to take you down to the rec club this evening. It’s not too bad

down there. Anyway, you get un-packed and then have a breather.

When you’re ready, come and have a chat. I’ll be out here.’

I put my duffle bag up on the anointed bed, mattress of cold and grey,

and loosened open its drawstrings. I deliberately carried light and it

took me all of three arm movements to remove the insides of the bag.

A feather-weight down sleeping bag, a small trail pillow, a few special

items of clothing, several non-descript articles of underwear and the

like and an old leather-bound noteGeorge and pen I took with me

everywhere for the writing of thoughts, ideas and images.

I stretched the sleeping bag out over the mattress and fitted the

pillow neatly into the hood. I had faced my bag feet towards the door.
I then stuffed everything else back into the duffle bag, pulled the

drawstrings to again and placed the bag under the bed. Having

nothing further to do, I left the billet for the ledge and the Lieutenant.

He was exactly where he had been first found: with his George, deep

in read.

I walked over to opposing ledge and sat down. His peripheral vision

tracked me and he was notified. Slowly, as though wishing to finish a

final paragraph, he drew the George from his eyes. Slowly, mind you.

With a final nod of completion, he closed the George around his

forefinger, withdrew said finger and put the George down on the

ledge behind him. Turning back to face me,

‘Lewis. That was quick.’

‘Not much to do, Sir. I try to travel light.’

‘A good idea...You’ve always done that?’

‘Right from the start.’

‘Didn’t take you longer to figure out the constant flux of life out here

then. Most of the squad are still relatively fresh to the field and still

weigh themselves down with superfluity – junk their Great Aunt sent

them and other useless odds and ends. Me – I just take whatever

George I’m reading and my 9mm when I’m travelling. This is my fifth

posting, Lewis, and the merry-go-round never stops.’

‘Where else have you been, Sir?’

He looked over to the far ridgeline in remembrance, then slowly came

back to me:

‘You may know some of them, maybe not. My first posting was to a

large base called Forest West up by the North Rynds...’

He searched me for any sign of recognition. I had never heard of it.

‘...That was my first regular command – a squad of five men assigned

primarily to freight logistics. Basically, I yelled at them while they

swore at me under their breath loading and un-loading all manner of

transports. I was there four months before my second posting took

me to West-Over-Nigh.’

‘I know it,’ I said.

West-Over-Nigh had loomed large in the conversations of living rooms

and coffee houses for over three months of the last year. It was a

small town in a quiet corner roughly ten kilometres behind the tall

border ranges of the North-East. The enemy had moved small

squads near the town and begun raiding it by night, slowly

exterminating the townspeople who had made the ill-informed choice

to remain after evacuation had been ordered months before. The

enemy squads were primarily interested in ransacking foodstuffs and

hardware from the two big stores in town, but removal by any means

necessary of the incumbent population was also high on their list of

objectives. They wanted the town as a staging base, a firm foothold

from where they could begin a larger push. Isolation initially worked

in their favour, but the Government, embarrassed by the situation,

made the town’s liberation their highest priority. Whicker had

evidently been one of those who had hiked in from secret points away

in the east, tasked with the recovery of West-Over-Nigh.

‘I’ll never forget that day, Lewis. We had hiked for two days and

finally on the morning of the third we summitted the last mountain

and saw for the first time the outlying buildings of the town. By lunch

time we were down off the mountain and coasting through the dark

rainforest on the outskirts. We set camp that afternoon and slept

until midnight, beginning our recon of the town under the lowering

light of the moon. We crept through the town, house by house. We

met nobody and saw nothing. After the third night of this, we decided

to venture an operation during the day. We rested until early

afternoon and then set off again through town, this time with the

brilliance of the sun showing us all. The town was deserted alright,

but where we were expecting to find all the decay of war, we found

almost nothing out of place save for a dog with its head shot out near

a farmhouse. The town was neat, clean, sterile. Later that evening

we found the graves – the enemy must have been precise with their

hits and always cleaned up afterwards. There were a hundred and

forty-eight of them in all...

‘The following day a recon squad engaged and killed six enemy and

discovered their encampment. There, they found papers that detailed

the big plans the enemy had had for West-Over-Nigh – they had had

major works scheduled with a large engineering unit to be sent in, as

well as a full two battalions. We had a restless night that night

knowing that somewhere near us all this might lay ready to spring

forth. In reality, and as we would discover a short time later, the

enemy, for some inexplicable reason, had already abandoned the

plan and moved their engineering unit and battalions away from the

area sometime ago.’

‘My third posting was to Forward Base Camp Rivertown, and here I

finally saw action. Six months of near constant patrolling, frequent

skirmishes with the enemy and a slow but steady loss of life amongst

the regulars. After that, I felt like a big something of nothing and I got

sent to the Office for three months to cool off. Now I’m out here.’

‘Is there much action here, Sir?’

‘Not really. There is not nothing, but there is not a whole heap of stuff

going on either. I’ve only been here a month mind you, and in that

time only two squads have engaged the enemy. We’ve seen them, on

a patrol a week ago, but they were gone as soon as that.’

I gave a gentle set of nods, timed in their metre to acknowledge his

authority on the matter and then to further indicate that was

conversation enough for me. However, I adjudged by the slow play of

his hand on the dusty concrete of the ledge that he wasn’t finished

with me yet. And it wasn’t long before he asked of me:

‘So where are you from, Lewis?’

‘Phosphorus Waters, Sir. At the back of the Westway Riverlands.’

‘Yes, I’ve been through that way once. A long time ago, in happier

times you might say.’

‘The sunset on the reed waters still make for happy times, Sir’

‘I don’t doubt that, Lewis. You have all the gracious confidence of the

true defender and I don’t doubt that, as your memory allows, the

waters of your home will never fade in magnificence. I, for myself,

have seen such places fade – waters, if I am permitted to keep with

the image, that were once a veritable roadstead and sparkling now

dried up and choked with weed.’

Whicker threw a lazy point at the valleys away off in the distance. I

noticed the ending of a tattoo just appear from under the sleeve of his

shirt on his right forearm. I didn’t make it.

‘Sir, does your cynicism make decisions?’

‘Not on patrols, Lewis, if that’s what you’re asking. In here, yes,

maybe. But not out there.’

His arm swept in reverence of the forest.

‘Never.’

I nodded blankly, chastened perhaps. He lifted himself up off his

perch with a strong left hand and turned his full body towards me. He

was tall, though not in victory of me, with a short pasting of tight
brown hair. He wore a light beard which well offset the gentle

features of his small face. He was a good-looking man but not in an

obvious sense – he had the light of charisma to guide his way through

dark places to new friends and of this possession he would have been

aware and thankful. He was lean without being frail and he probably

carried his gun well.

‘Lewis, we have a patrol in three days. I’m not going to lay a curse of

platitudes on you. I only ask that you keep it tight and have some fun

out there. A few smiles never went astray, no matter what your own

personal opinion of the war might be. I can see you’re not one for too

much chat, at least before your comfort, so go and have a look

around the camp and see what’s up. Just make sure you’re back here

at squad at 1600 for the briefing. The team will probably take you

over to the Rec club after that.’

He began to walk off.

‘Oh, Lewis, if you need me, I’ll be in my billet with the papers. Enjoy.’
I went out the gate at the front of the compound and followed a

daydream around the camp for most of the rest of that afternoon.

Though the camp itself was in a perpetual state of excitement, there

was never much of substance to actually do or see. Eventually I

ended up having a few preliminary drinks at the Rec club in wait for

1600. There was nobody in the club at that time and I spent a lonely

two hours overlooking the rainforest below, imagining I saw men

stalking around between the trees a long way below me, distant but

by reach of arms, the albatross of a sailor far from home.

For some reason I was able to avoid dedicating much thought to the

imminent patrol. Three days hence I’d be back naked under sun and

star. The memory of the ambush had faded in potency and the worse

I imagined this time around, rightly or wrongly, was being assigned to

a special role within the squad. I had no need of the responsibility of

navigator or radio operator or something far worse – I simply asked

the freedom to drift along at the back of the column, taking my own
thoughts as I saw fit.

Here, at twenty-two, I sat. I thought about all the serious decisions I

had had to make thus far in my life. I believed I had been tested. But

what if I had, had already finished my final exam? If I had really

already survived life, there would be little need to wait out the

remaining five or six decades left to me in total boredom and

disinterest, complacent and fat with a success that was not going to

deepen further. I thought about suicide, the impatient desire for

transformation and rebirth: to cast in my entire lot and start again

anew from scratch. It could be done, I thought. Ignorance was my

grand betrayer and yet still I couldn’t take up the gun to my own

head. Some small shelter in me protected the idea of there being

something more: this could not be usurped so easily.

By and by 1600 came close and I travelled back to the squad

compound. Whicker already had the troop out at his ledge when I

made my final steps of return. There were four men besides the
Lieutenant making weight on the ledge and steps and they greatly

eyed me as I came to.

‘Lewis, right on time. I’ll introduce you to the boys.’

Hansen was the first name I was given. He was tall, well I guessed

tall from the difficulty his displayed in trying to find a comfort for his

resting legs, and well-built with the body of a natural athlete. War-

work had cut him down to the bare essentials of muscle, ligament and

tendon and the veins snaked his arms like strangling vines. Not a

deep slice would be needed to let forth a lot of blood, I thought. He

had a youthful face, handsome, symmetric features and a bright yet

disinterested and/or insensitive/desensitised hue to the dance of his

eyes. He was not a deep man, but a wily one.

George was from a large town to the East of the Cattlefolds and he

had done well to avoid service in that area where the fights continued

to rage terribly and lives were lost as a matter of course. However,

this looked lost on him and whether my guess was right or not, I

quickly saw that he had not the wit to dispel my summation. A

shorter man with thick glasses, his weight was only moderated by the

constant patrolling. George kept a lot of notes jammed down in his

pack and he was forever scribbling out more. I don’t think he was a

writer – I think he just wanted something to keep himself away from

everything else, away from the people who had no trouble in

admitting they were fighting in a war. He was soft yet at the same

time detached, aloof from the humanity espoused in others. He could

watch other people take bullets but if he so much as got a scratch...

The war was going on around George while he, for the most part, took

only its most direct intrusions upon his life and used them to

delicately measure out his self-image.

Marley I instantly approved of. He had such a complex heart, valves

releasing in all directions of the universe. Tall yet slim and elegant, he

wore a novelty of rag on his head and had many inane commentaries

and derogatories marked onto his fatigues. Calm invective was his
world and the cynicism ran dry from his lips. Handsome much as

Hansen but with a deeper charisma and a more sensitive eye. He was

from the Fern Marshes and the city of Hamel. It was a university town

and I imagined him of such a lineage, the son of professors. In a fight,

I had been told he was want to scream inanities and fire his gun

randomly at nothing in particular. Deep down though, I knew he was

just trying to cope.

The Sergeant was to first appearances anything but. Serious and a

little conservative in dress and gait, he was the Sergeant of the squad

and its old man. He was involved in a war and he understood what

that meant for his conscience. His absolute belief in duty would

compound his suffering and raise it way beyond the collective norm –

if this was war, then he would make sure it lived up to its terrible

name. He would do what it required of him. Of medium height and

build he suggested not but a little to me – take me as I am before you

and nothing more. I would postpone further judgement.

‘Lewis is a welcome replacement for Marsh. He is field ready so you

needn’t worry about having to break him in. You’ll all have time to

get to know each other better later, but for now I want to jump

straight into the briefing.’

Whicker put a reach down and grabbed up a clipboard that had been

sitting against his leg hitherto unseen and unnoticed.

‘Command wants us out in three days time. We leave Dusty at 1800

hours the night after next under cover of darkness and camp a little

ways outside the Gatehouses.’

‘Sir, what’s all that about?’

‘Command has decided to vary patrol departure times in order to

defeat coordination by the enemy.’

‘Are we under observation?’

‘You know I’m not privy to that information. Just keep your weapon
close, Hansen.’

Whicker was enduring the constant interruptions with good humour,

always keeping his line straight.

‘The following morning we decamp and take the mountain track over

the back towards the east for four kilometres or so. We then turn

from the track and make our way over land to our first objective, a

rendezvous with a scout team. They will re-supply us and from there

we have a forty kilometre patrol to the direct north before we finally

turn and head for home.’

‘Eighty kilometres, Sir? We can’t carry that much store.’

‘We can and we will. I have budgeted for an eight day inability to re-

supply and I figure we can just make it.’

‘With gear too, Sir?’

‘We can do it, Hansen. We are cutting space so there will be no radio

on this trip. Navigation all by compass and map and lucky guess.

Hansen, you’re my right hand on that. Sarge, I’ll leave you with field

organisation and Marley, you’re taking store, so make those eight

days fit! I want everybody to have their packs to Marley by 1800

tonight.’

‘Sir, should we expect a fight?’

‘As always, Hansen. You know I don’t have a clue what we are going

to encounter out there. All I can tell you, as it ever is, is that we have

no specific brief to engage the enemy. We walk and walk and walk

and what ever happens between the first step out of the Gatehouse

and the last one back in, well, your guess is as good as mine.’

‘Sarge, what do your guts tell you?’

‘The Lieutenant hasn’t finished speaking, Hansen.’

‘Thank you, Sergeant. Squad, you have the night off as I promised so

enjoy it. If you’re heading to the Rec, make sure your pack is with

Marley before you go. 1800 guys. If there are no questions...’

Even a man with a question knew better than to ask it now.

Questions could be asked anytime, and the hungry and dirty team

fresh back from a day’s labour had other things on their mind beyond

mission logistics. Nobody spoke.

‘...Dismissed. Sarge, a quick word if you may.’

Whicker led The Sergeant off for a quiet chat while the others began

to break up. George turned straight for the billet, leaving me to fall in

with Hansen and Marley. They lingered for a moment where they

were and they offered me room in their conversation. Marley first:

‘Eight days, Lewis. You ever packed eight days into one pack?’

‘Can’t say I have.’

‘Well, I’m not even going to bother about it tonight. Let the morning

sun shine me a way.’

He then gestured to Hansen.

‘What are you still doing here? You put in for that transfer weeks

ago.’

‘Where do you want to transfer?’ I asked.

‘Basic – I reckon I can teach the kids a bit about field navigation now.

Might be a good ticket out of this thing, you know, ask to help them

and they might just put me where I want.’

‘It’ll never happen,’ said Marley.

‘Probably not.’
Marley and Hansen then both began asking me my circumstances.

They took the faces of the accursed when I related to them of the fate

of my previous squad. But they eased a little when they learned I was

already one-year in – Hansen had five months and Marley only three.

‘What about George?’ I asked them.

‘Nine months I think. He has been at Dusty the entire time. He

doesn’t offer much and gets shifted around the different squads as

they get sick of him. He’s learned enough in his time to be a

reasonably safe soldier, but he is just a chore otherwise. He won’t get

you killed, Lewis, but neither should you place any faith in him.’

‘Yeah, he is not a coward, but he just doesn’t offer much,’ agreed

Hansen. ‘I was posted here from Marshall Bricks about four months

ago, and the Lieutenant only arrived here about a month ago. I’ll

never forget the downturn on his face when he was told George had

been posted to us. Took him days to recover. The other officers just

told him it was his turn.’

‘Come on guys, we have all day tomorrow for this kind of chat. Let’s

get ourselves to the Rec club!’

And so at Marley’s willing, we turned from our stand for the billet,

leaving Whicker and the Sergeant still at conference by the run of the

fence.

I helped Marley gather all the packs ready for the next morning and

when this was done, I agreed to meet them over at the Rec club, as

they both wished to shower and clean up first.

And so I found myself back at the Rec Club, only this time I was not

alone. Many men had come in from the day and the room was wet

with conversation and alcohol. The ten large mess tables were all

occupied, their seats operating under the weight of a hundred and

twenty screaming souls. Standing room too was rare and the

constant industry of the traffic between the tables and the bar made
things more than a little unstable. The pool tables at the far end of

the club were also very busy. The whole club was teeming with life - a

mill pond; the spill ran out over the large open veranda that traversed

the cliff side of the club. Men and women of all kinds were meeting in

congregation – nurses, soldiers, engineers, technicians, acrobats.

Even through the haze of the rudderless assembly, I heard from an

angle somewhere behind me the story: it was being shared by two

engineers, leaning up against a thick hardwood beam. Of course I

had heard the story before – it was the one that everyone remembers,

the one that would appear in every war biographers’ case notes: ‘to

be used in Chapter 6. No attributable source.’

It was westering on the Fairbanks, north and north again where the

earth was rich but the land was starving. Our houses were marked

none but the home of the enemy, few, were abroad. God Spellers of

southern latitudes had gotten up a collection and made out of this

sum a light aircraft. Fitted with flaming death, the missionaries flew
their little plane against the heathen enemy, strafing whatever little

they could find.

‘They should stop those bastards. Un-professional.’

I got a drink and found a seat near the centre of the room underneath

one of the giant hardwood crossbeams that bore the weight of the

great roof. I was not alone to my thoughts for long before a

bespectacled man joined next to me. He was built thin and wiry with

muscles that twitched constantly with some nervous agitation. He

wore his fatigues with disrespect and draped himself long in what

looked like a cotton-blend shawl. He sat and then he placed his

weapon on the table. I instantly felt a discomfort and a cold line took

up along the back of my neck. Weapons were, for obvious reasons,

not permitted in the Rec club and I wondered what fool had let him in.

‘My Lord, I pronounce you,’ he said.

I cupped up my drink and pretended he wasn’t there. But presently I

could no longer ignore him:

He had taken off his shawl and was fingering his weapon, his eyes

stamped closed and mumbling. It had the picture of a mystical

worship – the sacred object informing the disciple through union. This

went on for a minute or so until finally he gripped the weapon

strongly in his hands and his eyes shone awake and clear as crystal.

Something took him, suddenly and violently. He threw his head back

once, the weapon shaking in his grip even as he did. Then he was still

again. The mumbling stopped and he relaxed both his grip and his air

and he sunk back into his seat. He turned to me.

‘Inside this gun is an incubus. I have named him my Lord for he must

truly love all men.’

‘And how do you know that?’

‘Every time I go to shoot a man, he stops me. This trigger will not

depress. He will not let me kill a man.’

Finally, I assumed he was away on some work of delirium and did not

have me fixed for his conversation; when it came to it, I had no

trouble at all in disengaging from him. Only minutes later I watched

with a low chuckle as he was dragged off cursing by his commanding

officer.

Marley and Hansen eventually appeared and as soon as they had

arranged for their drinks, we sat down at a newly vacated table on the

long veranda and began to talk. The forest far below us walked in the

near dark and the pale moon was here and there able to enlighten a

wavering finger of palm or myrtle.

The enemy could never have attacked the camp from the forest below

us, but a single, well-aimed bullet might have reached us quickly

where we were on the veranda. Down in amongst all those roots,

trunks, vines, and tendrils, both monocots and dicots, herbaceous and

woody, continued their growth upwards, outwards; onwards towards

their final bloom. Filling material needs was enough goal for most

men, but not for any man who could claim roots down into this fertile

earth, blended as it was with equal parts of life and death. Radium

could cure cancer and barbiturates could cure virus of grease, but still

you’d need a man who could figure this. The scythe blades of the

grass knitted in the wind that gently blew from the south-east. I was

there, on the hilltop. The soft slopes ran up to me, the tree line

melted below. Stars were appearing lightly in the darkening sky.

Trails across the ecliptic as night ventured. My earth was swirling,

patterns shattered across my field of vision and then re-formed with

new aspects to each other. A shift came over me, quiet and still. I

felt beckoned. And finally I was broken from my thoughts:

‘Lewis, what do you make of all this?’

‘The war?’
‘Yeah.’

Hansen had me fixed in his eye. Marley leaned back away from him,

smiling out at nothing.

‘Why bother with an opinion.’

‘That’s what I think, too. Marley here seems to dislike it, though.’

‘I said nothing of the sort!’

‘It’s nothing you’ve said. It’s the way you watch her…all cold and

mean.’

‘And she kisses you gently, does she?’

‘The Sarge has got her figured.’

‘And you’re going to follow him through this thing?’

‘No, you got me there. I’m transferring out of here as soon as I can…

you know that.’

‘Well, don’t let the Sarge catch you talking about her like that. You’ve

seen the way He watches Her.’

‘Yeah, well that’s for him.’

‘Lewis, where are you from, anyway?’

Towards Departure
The hills were sunning themselves. About their faces many unseen

things were happening. Rodents scurried about, insects smelt, felt or

guessed their way along the grassed floor, larger animals too

amongst the undergrowth. The war had gotten lazy. This was my

sixth day out of the hospital and still nothing had promised me war.

Those hills were safe enough though, no matter what it was possible

to imagine being up there. Their animal life was surprisingly rich and

diverse and readily encountered should you venture amongst it. I had

been up to the hills a few times since I had been posted to Dusty.

Marley had accompanied me once - from the highest ridge he had

pointed out several items to me: the east road which wound its way

through the hills 6 kms north of us on into enemy land (some years

ago this area had hosted the first fighting of the war); the Wasps’

Nest, a box canyon to the south of the ridge where so many dreadful

actions had occurred; several of the nearby outposts, quiet and

resting on fire-etched hilltops; the site of the last encounter any

squad from Dusty had had with the enemy, 12 kms to the south-east
and separated from us by two outposts.

‘2 Squad lost Michael in that one. Just when he thought he had solved

the riddle of why the enemy were fighting us and ‘bang’. He was the

only one they lost that day.’

Finally, Marley had pointed out his favourite place, a patch of

rainforest that existed in a small pocket on the steep ridges that

made up a celestial mountain.

The evening of our departure finally came. Whicker called us to the

outside and briefed us a last time. Then the Sergeant inspected all

our packs and took a general inventory, querying Marley as he did

this:

‘Yes, Sarge, I packed it yesterday.’ ‘No, Sarge, I knew you would say

we wouldn’t need it.’

Marley turned and rolled his eyes to Hansen and I several times. The

last item on the agenda was a weapons check and when this was

done, Whicker had us take up our packs and ready to move out. The

Sergeant gave the file order and we arranged ourselves thus: Hanson

was to walk point and behind him would follow the Sergeant. George

and Whicker took the middle two places while I was to march just in

front of Marley at the rear. We were ready. Whicker gave the order to

Hansen to move out and we did, Marley clicking the gate to our squad

compound to one final time.

In the last half hour of sinking light, we walked through the

remainders of the camp towards the Gatehouses. Few men marked

our passage; most were probably already tippling themselves at the

Rec club. Those we did pass sunk their gait in a solemnity usually

ordained for the observance of death. One or two ‘good lucks’ were

called out, but otherwise it was quiet.

We quickly came to the last compound – just beyond it laid the

perimeter defences and the Gatehouses. The Gatehouses could only

be approached in an indirect manner, a loose zig-zag through the

perimeter trenches conceived for the defence of the camp. Hansen

took us first left and then right through some tight corners as he

found his and our way through to the Gatehouses. Most of the

trenches were unoccupied – they would be necessary only in a

defence – deep and slick I thought with compounded earth, giant

empty baths waiting for their fill of blood. Small steel ladders dove

down into each one; clear lines of movement marked the way towards

these ladders, engineer precise, worn solid with panicked flight.

Several of the outer lying trenches were concerned by members of

the guard unit. These men waved us on and then radioed us back to

the command post.

Hansen stopped us in front of the Gatehouses and Whicker broke file

to give his orders to the Gate Master. The Gate Master was a short,

stocky man and he concluded matters with Whicker very quickly,

accepting the papers Whicker offered him with a salute, waving us all

through. Whicker fell back into file in his place in front of me just as

the heavy wire gate was opened to our passage. We left Forward

Base Camp Dusty.

The Mountain Trail

The sun had westered and was calling its Venus home, the evening

star now for only a moment longer. Mercury had, like a wheelsome

spark, already been throw on ahead in the set by the giant fire that

had ridden it all day across the ecliptic. Jupiter was an orb of golden

light 45 degress before descent, a focussed point of solid ore, belying

its true nature. The over-ripe moon diatribed in the lower eastern sky,

aware of its waning skin like any organism that regenerates over with

the beginning of a new cycle, perhaps even already thinking ahead to

its next power. Even for now though, we had enough light under its

guidance to make our way to first camp.

Hansen took us left at the first truncation of the trail and we were

soon climbing up a short series of stairs cut fast into the mountain.

My recent inactivity quickly made itself obvious; my calves began to

stress with the upward exertion. The trail itself was firm underfoot

from constant use and this made the going relatively easy. The

forest, now a dark arrangement of unknown photosynthesis, kept

close company, though twig and branch held back from the reach of

the trail, curtailed thus perhaps only in remembrance of a work

previously rendered.

Quietly we passed the organic structure of the pooling shack. A

stumpy corrugated-iron water tank stood by to take a line from its

gutters and in the gloom I could make out the little brass tap that

could water many a thirsty soldier. The shack itself was no larger

than standing room for five. It had been hastily constructed out of

vagabond hardwoods, weatherproofed with an off-white enamel paint.

It was no target for the enemy – a single man with a machete could
have had it down in less than a minute if the fancy so took him.

Two mintues further along the trail we began another section of climb.

The first two days of this new activity would be the worst; from the

third my body would begin to make the necessary adjustments. This

conditioning should last me through to the end of the patrol.

Thirty steps later and I had to rest. George was also breathing quite

heavily – I could hear him almost gagging up in front of Whicker. But

the Lieutenant wouldn’t stop – not yet. There was no reason for such

a young squad to halt before making camp.

‘That would just be embarrassing!’

On we went. The trail levelled for a time as it skirted around towards

the southern ridge. We dipped down momentarily into gentle gullies

bedded with dry earth and rock, blanketed by the ongoing watch of

the bracken fern, rising again on the far bank to confront yet another

corner. Where the tree line had been pushed back or was absent

altogether, we received ruinous views of the valley and the lights

shining thereof, ruinous in the sense that it could make you realise

that there was a world which you need not enjoy with a weapon in

your hand.

In several places weather had moved a mess over the trail and

though at no point did these prove any great obstacle, the constant

quadrupedal action that was requisite in passing these small slips did

nothing for my growing fatigue.

Just into another little gully terraced with myrtle, bangalow and

stranglers, Hansen called a stop. He stooped down, calling as he did

for Whicker to come forward. The rest of us began to mill until the
Sergeant thundered an order to hold our file. Whicker joined Hansen

at stoop and they shared a few words before Whicker summoned the

Sergeant to join them. I could not hear much but could make out the

fervent gesturing of the three stooping figures. The Sergeant seemed

to point away down into the valley while the other two nodded their

agreeance. Presently, counsel having been taken, they stood up

again and Whicker called us all together.

‘Hansen has found tracks here. We think they are new and they seem

to lead down the mountain. Whoever it was has not been following

the trail but rather just simply come across it and crossed it on his

way down from the mountain. That’s our reading anyway.’

‘Sir, just the one track?’

‘Yes, unless we find more further along the trail it looks like just the

one. We can’t radio this in obviously so we have no way of telling if

it’s one of ours. However, the track was not left today, we are sure,

as the print seems to have set when the trail was wet, which it
couldn’t have been for some time. We will take that as a sign that the

trail is safe and continue on, though I think we will set a watch

tonight, a day earlier than I had otherwise hoped. And a total fire-

ban.’

‘Sir, more than likely it was one of the Gatehouse unit.’

‘Yes, Hansen, I agree. Particularly given that the Gate Master himself

reported a code green situation along all trails within a five kilometre

radius. We are still two kilometres inside that radius. Nonetheless, I

won’t begin this patrol with a risk. We will camp on just a little

further.’

Unfortunately that little further involved another climb, this time

bringing us up to eye level with the great wall of the southern ridge.

The climb began almost immediately on passing over the boot track

Hansen had awoken. First a series of ten steps, then a brief levelling,
then a further series of forty or fifty steps up onto a shallow clearing.

The clearing itself was merely a narrow shelf of grass that could sleep

about ten and maybe no more. I reached up the last step and

stumbled out over the clearing, dropping my pack from my shoulders

as soon as I could.

Hansen was already out at the edge of the clearing grasping down

into the lithe falls of the mountain and on into the valley, searching

for the solitary light of a solitary walker.

‘He’s sitting down there in the dark under some bush with a scope

and you right in the crosshairs right now, Hansen.’

‘Yeah, let’s just hope for him that I don’t find him before he finds me.’

‘That’s some pretty aggressive talk there, Hansen. What are you

going to do to him when you find him?’

‘Bake him up in a cake and send it on his mother’s birthday.’

‘Whoa, you’re scary.’

‘That’s enough, Marley. Hansen, get your stuff set up. Sergeant, set

the watch rotation for tonight.’

After we had set up our tiny shelters, we joined Hansen on the first

watch. He had walked the first point shift so it was only fitting that he

be the first to finish his watch duty and get to sleep. We had all eaten

as large a meal as possible in the Rec Club before we had left Dusty,

so a hot cooking fire wasn’t missed. As an officer, it was the only time

Whicker entered the Rec Club – to share a last meal before patrol with

his squad. He had been quite animated during this meal, as he often

can be, though I hadn’t been able to get him to open up about West-

Over-Nigh, a story I was for some reason particularly keen to hear in

detail. He had just kept saying, ‘you don’t want to hear about that

one...not before a patrol.’ He had eaten and drunk with us for an

hour, sharing humour with Marley and Hansen, frivolities with George
and shop-talk with the Sergeant. He had even saved a wink for me

before he had finally gotten up and gone to ready himself in his own

quiet way, setting and re-setting alone both his pack and his heart.

There was a jump of light but it burnt out too quickly as it floated

down on a parachute into the forest across the valley floor, into the

mess of nothing but death, both understood and not. We went in

again and again, and every time we’d get hurt just a little bit deeper,

better. The system worked best that way – you just kept going until

you could go no more.

When the light went out – and sometimes you couldn’t tell whether

the light was for better or worse – that was when you wished the

system did not the power it did, when you could be free of all the

doubt that came with the darkness. From where did the system’s

power arise? Was it a natural power, ordained as growth is by the sun

and the rain? Or was it contrived - illusory and mutable? What grain

is in my hand except the one that binds the earth? Naught! The
grains our corporeal bodies dissolve, weather, ache, return into on

death heed no mastery in the words of the living.

‘What do you think they are painting with that flare?’

George had joined us at sit on the edge of the clearing. We had a

potent view of the lower flanks of the mountain as well as the wide,

open valley and the ranges distant on its farther sides. The flare had

dropped near the bottom of the valley, directly below an artillery

outpost bright with generator light.

‘Probably just a training run. There hasn’t been much live action

around here for a while.’

Suddenly there was a spray of sparks from the outpost and the thin

phosphorescent line of a tracer round dived down into the forest

where the flare had landed. There was a muted explosion as the shell

hit the ground. Seconds later the acoustic report of the charge
reached us.

‘Hard to tell, but I’d say that was a test fire,’ Hansen again.

‘What’s going on down there?’ Whicker called over from his rest. He

had set himself up against the bank of the clearing where the

mountain continued on up. Beside his shelter he sat, with a mess of

maps and papers in his lap.

‘We think it’s a test firing, Sir. From one of the outposts.’

‘Let me know if it gets interesting.’

‘Will do, Sir.’

Just then another two rounds came thundering down into the valley,

both landing right on top of the tracer round. The two rounds

amalgamated their charges for one serious fireball, far away and

impotent though it seemed.

‘Those weren’t tracers.’

‘Yeah, that was for real.’

‘Sir, they aren’t using tracers anymore. Those last two were live.’

‘Any action from any of the other posts?’

‘No, Sir. Not yet.’

‘How far away do you make it?’

‘I’d say ten kilometres, Sir.’

‘No small arms fire?’

‘None that I’ve seen.’

‘You ever seen an action without small arms fire? If that outpost was
firing in support, you would have heard ground fighting. That is a test

firing.’

‘You can be sure, Sir?’

‘Don’t get too nervous, Marley. I was briefed about it. Didn’t want to

ruin the surprise though so I kept it to myself. Enjoy.’

‘Aw, come on, Sir. Here we were thinking we were watching mega-

death and you go spoil it for us.’

‘This is the last show you’ll see this time around. We’ll be behind the

mountain tomorrow night and in a few days we’ll be in wild forest, in

the no-mans-land between Dusty and the battle area around the town

of Mead.’

‘How many times have you all been behind the mountain?’ I asked.

Marley answered for everyone. He dug a stick into the ground as he

spoke. Hansen kept up a rhythm with nods.

‘Most of the patrols out from Dusty service the valley and the

outposts. A squad only gets an outside mission every so often, just to

keep them on their toes. I have never been out yonder, Hansen has

once, I think, the Sarge has been a couple of times and the

Lieutenant, same as you.’

Marley turned around to George.

‘George, you ever been behind the mountain?’

‘Three times,’ he said with a silly pride.

‘A fourth trip is stretching it a bit then. Probably be your last.’

‘Hansen, keep it shut,’ Whicker interjected. Then, picking up from

Marley, he continued:
‘The stretch of forest between here and Mead is directly accessible to

enemy troops – they can infiltrate straight from the border without

challenge. But for whatever reason they have never sought to build

up a strength in there. When I had my briefing with Mission Planning I

asked them about possible contact points. Seems that the majority of

patrols that have run out from both Dusty and Mead have ended

uneventfully. There are staging trails in there I believe, and a few of

you have already probably seen them, but not a lot of action.’

‘I have no problem with uneventful patrols, Sir.’

‘We’ll see,’ said the Sergeant. ‘I’ve always killed a few over behind

the mountain.’

And with that another two rounds went firing off from the outpost

across the valley, momentarily beautifying the night with the lines of

their trajectory before ending in the same tungsten release of energy

as their older siblings. Four more rounds were fired that night.
Hansen’s watch passed onto Whicker’s and soon we were all asleep

bar the watch under the drifting moon.

At 0300 hours I was shaken awake by the Sergeant. He grumbled me

my watch and quickly went off to his own shelter for sleep. It took me

a minute to orientate myself. Pulling yourself away from sleep at

three AM was heavy work; I had been on the threshold of deep REM

sleep and I was not comfortable at having been torn from it while it

was still nascent. Yet, I managed somehow to set myself for my

watch. On the mountain the air was cool and I wrapped myself in the

one thin blanket I had. And then, I sat there and daydreamed.

Nothing moved above or below us, only the hues became ever so

lighter as dawn began its slow approach. Sometime after 0400 I

could make out the thin smoke trails from the test firing last night

gliding up from below the thick canopy into the low sky where they

dissipated on the wind. Edging on towards the end of my watch birds

began to call even around us and I saw a cockatoo across the great

valley. When finally at 0500 I had aroused Marley for his watch, I had

daydreamt a many different things. I had even visited an entire little

story, the characters and plot of which had been pure invention:

The boy had been alone, again, waiting at Campbell Rocks for the

next intake of gatherings and things, cane, rocks, produce –

gatherings from the outlying farms and villes. Campbell Rocks had

already been past the edge of nothing, beyond the most puritanical

interpretations of what was ours and the most liberal reaches of

civilization; the boy had only served as a collecting post for those who

had been further out, beyond hope and redemption. The farmers and

others had trucked in their loads and he had prepared them for their

journey to the towns on the once-monthly train service. He had also

handled all their supplies and the week both preceding and following

the appearance of the train had always been a constant forklift blur.

The people who had lived out here – well, the best the boy could say

was that they all had had their differences. He hadn’t had much to

do with them outside of his job and that had been the way he liked

them.

You could say the boy had been a little restless. He had been
finishing up there in two weeks, going back on the next train. He was

going home. Some other poor company kid would be taking over

from him and that’s all he had cared. His call had come on the last

train. The boy had been here for sixteen and a half months, exactly

two weeks short of the compulsory seventeen months all new station

managers had to spend at a remote outstation. Campbell Rocks had

been only one of seven, the nearest, Jubilee, 480 kilometres to the

south-west. Apart from the boredom and isolation, the post at

Campbell Rocks had been easy. There had been only one worrisome

case he had had to be aware of – the Kennedys who had lived fifty

kilometres down a harshly cut jungle track. He hadn’t known exactly

how many Kennedys there were, though he had heard rumour there

had been only a mother and son. The son had been seen once, about

six months ago, running around naked with an automatic rifle.

The boy had written a letter home to his little sister. She had had

enough cool and logic for both of them and she had been yet only a

child! Sometimes cold hunting calm she had slapped the boy like a
thundercleft – enough reward for disappearing too far down a line of

emotion. He would see her soon. This world is old, he had thought.

Every quick idea has already been thought and all the slow ones have

been stolen.

In her last letter to the boy, the sister had written of a friend with

pale, bitten lips. ‘You wouldn’t like her,’ she had assured him. The

boy had thought not to ask of the faults of people. That had been two

weeks ago and today her letter had been rotting with the air. Mail

only came and went on the train. Everything only came and went on

the train.

In morbid silence does dust settle best. Wretched thin, captive of the

system, under kerosene light, feeling away the nights. Everything

only came and went on the train.

The boy had a herb garden. Fennel and comfrey, coriander and basil,

rosemary and lemon grass, mandrake, nightshade and datura. Now

he had been in a state, walking the rows of his garden with a drunken
gleam, fueling the planted beds with forklift diesel. He runs

manically, shouting for all which must burn to do so and he lights it all

up with a match. He walks calmly to the front garden, takes a hand

spade and digs into the flower bed set against the wall of his

lodgings, on finishing a small divot, he gets back up and disappears

into the forest with a machete. The boy returns later and returns to

his divot, plating in it a strangler fig. ‘To strangle this house.’

Well, the boy had written his letter. Had told his little sister about the

nights and the fixed stars that tracked across his sky no matter how

fixed. Had told her about the leaking taps in his house and the

broken window in his bedroom which let in draught all over his sleep.

Had told her the company’s final wish: that he watch his airspace for

the passage of a particular aircraft on such and such a day at such

and such a time...’

‘Lewis, you are hard to wake!’

A strong hand shaking at my left leg. I tried with my bleary eyes to

make out this attack. It was Marley.

‘Morning, soldier. 0710. You’re the last one up. Got something to

show you.’

And with that he retreated his head from my shelter and went off to

somewhere. I wrestled off the last of the sleep and crawled out of my

shelter to find him. He was standing over by the edge of the clearing,

where we had all sat last night watching the test firing, the valley

before him.

‘Come on, Lewis. Check this out.’

I ambled up next to him.

He pointed out the scar where the rounds from the test firing had

shattered the canopy.

‘Look at it through my scope here.’

I took his weapon and lifted the lightweight scope up to my eye. It

took me some time to track the scar but when I had it finally, I could

have almost laughed. There were men scrambling all over it, naked

against the upturned and blackened earth. Some were busy trying to

erect a marquee while others were laying down tables, stocking them

with cutlery, glasses and foods.

‘There’s some freaks over there.’

The Sergeant came up next to my shoulder and nearly spat:

‘That’ll be the higher-ups. Take advantage of their destruction and

put on a party. Hope they all get killed.’

Whicker took charge of his squad:

‘You’ll see plenty of that in your lives. We move out at 0745. I

suggest you all get your breakfasts down now. Code green to all fires.
If the freaks can make a scene, so can we.’

He winked at Marley and I.

‘Better do as the boss says,’ I said.

‘Definitely.’

I took one last look at the scar in the forest and the nihilism that was

upon its face. Then I turned for my pack and breakfast.

Behind the Mountain

Two hours on and we were nearing the summit of the mountain. The

southern ridge had proved as great as it had promised and I was

spent. Its powerful roots moored it tight, its core ran like an iron rod
as a spinal column just below its soils; it had its own mechanism:

always building, repairing, re-building where necessary.

I had rotated to the rear of the file which meant I would have last

watch tonight and which further meant I would have point duty

tomorrow. I traipsed along at the back, George’s shaved head

bobbing along just in front of me, remembering things, dwelling on

them and then being swept up off another tangent. We stopped just

below the summit to take some water and the squad milled around,

some talking, others too close to expiration to do other than sit on a

loose rock and clamber for air. There was only a scattered view of the

valley now for we were deep under a close canopy. Lichen and moss

prevailed and bracken fern too stubbed the toes of the mighty trees.

The air was cool again as the morning had been. The trail was now

stabbed through with small rocks - shale to the appearance - and its

soils were reddening and run over with leaf litter. Large grey roots

protruding as constant obstacles and no escape could be made from

them.
We continued on. I looked above at the five men ahead of me, always

keeping to their red guide. Not one of them deserved death, no

matter how much they may have they required it in order to be whole

again. Not one of them possessed a black heart like an ended coal.

Not one of them was evil such as tale is made of men in war. They

were beautiful and they were confused. If the world ever got back to

normal, Hansen and George would make the best of it. Hansen’s

monochromatic take would allow him to process things quickly and

without fuss. George would be simply too shallow to notice a

difference at all; he would most likely function then as he did now.

Marley and Whicker would probably never forget their pains and

though they might come to terms with them, they would remain

forever more chastened by their experiences, wary and cynical of

much of the workings of the societies to which they would return. The

Sergeant I thought the most in peril. He had given too much of

himself to the war and the separation, I thought, might be too

fantastic for him to manage. He would likely splinter as a man,

diminish and maybe finally even disappear altogether.

I stopped at this and clasped at my own chest, feeling myself for

weaknesses. They were everywhere.

Finally, we summitted. After a brief collapse, I slipped off my pack

and got up to enjoy the view. A small clearing had been cut out of the

summit and this allowed for a magnificent panorama. Dusty was

hidden behind the south ridge we had traversed but much of the rest

of the valley was on full display. However, everyone’s attention was

much more drawn to the east and to the north and the squad had

congregated where the view of these directions was best. Whicker

moved off a little further around to the north to take up the offer of a

large boulder. Deftly climbing, he was soon up. I went to join him.

‘Mead is away over there, behind that distant range. With a scope

you would be able to make out some of the outposts firing in support

of the big bases there. And up to the north, well before the horizon,
you hit the border. Not much now between us and them.’

‘I see what you meant about the channel between Dusty and Mead,

Sir. They could run an entire army right through here right down to

the cities.’

‘If they were quick enough they could, but movement of that size is

slow and readily observed. Dusty and Mead would go to war on them

before even their lead units could leave the area.’

‘They could move their men single file and in different locations –

scatter them.’

‘That’s exactly why the military has one or two Bushrangers operating

down there. Ever tried to get past a Bushranger? Whatever enemy is

down there, they will be keeping a low profile and they certainly won’t

be moving openly.’

‘I guess that makes it all the more dangerous for us then.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. That down there is where my greatest test as a

leader will be, Lewis. I will need all my wits about me, lest we fall into

a game of cat and mouse with the enemy. My first aim is to avoid

them until we have a clean kill. To do that I need to work hard and

fast to find traces of them before they find traces of us.’

I stood silently next to him. He turned to me and put a hand on my

shoulder, knowingly.

‘This is war, Lewis. And I haven’t forgotten West-Over-Nigh. Half

measures get innocent people killed.’

He went away from me again and stood alone at the end of the rock,

welling up with the view of his challenge below.

‘It’s going to be fun down there, a real hoot. But I feel like it’s my

time, you know.’

‘No, I don’t know. What do you mean, Sir?’

‘My time to stare this thing down, grin right in its face. We’ll see,

Lewis.’

‘Didn’t you do that at West-Over-Nigh?’

‘You mistake me, Lewis. I was an observer then, observer to all the

worst of man. Maybe this time round, life will make me the villain.’

‘I don’t follow, Sir.’

‘I’ve seen action before, as you have. Not had it driven into me like a

stake through the heart.’

I saw him smiling off into the valley below us.

‘Don’t worry, Lewis. I promised you I wouldn’t let my strange take on

life get anyone killed. I’ll keep my promise.’

And with that he turned to begin the climb back down the boulder,

leaving me with a sore head and a toothache. I followed his climb

back down after him. At the very least, I resolved, I would from now

on walk my weapon closer for the firing.

The day had come up quite warm now that we were out in the open

under the sun. Hansen had taken off his shirt and was cavorting bare-

chested in the sun. George had changed over to tinted glasses which

made him look decidedly suspicious. I stripped off my field jacket and

made to lie down. Whicker would have no more time for that though.

He called us ready and within five minutes we were back pounding

the trail. We stepped off the summit and back down into the cool

forest of the eastern slopes of the mountain.

Matters Darken

We had only gone a further half an hour winding down the gentle face

of the mountain when Whicker called a halt and went forward with

Hansen and his map. The two men stood in conference for quite

some time while the Sergeant had us wait in guard. It was the first

time I had noticed within myself a feeling of insecurity, standing there

quietly, watching the approaches of the forest. The Sergeant

wandered off back down the trail a little, skipping past the boot tracks

we had only just made, his weapon levelled by his side. Marley came

up next to me and gave me a quick raise with his forehead.

‘This is for real now.’

Whicker and Hansen finally finished their conversation, Whicker

folding up the map, calling on George to get the Sergeant for him.

Then both he and Hansen walked back to join Marley and I.

‘This is the place. We leave the trail here and head left into the

forest. I want to go carefully though. We’ll have the Sergeant cover

for us to make absolute sure we are still alone. We’ll keep our order

but I want our intervals to be much longer. Keep things about twenty

metres. Marley, five hundred metres in we are going to stop and drop

to wait for the Sergeant. We need some cover for that, so keep going

as far as you have to.’

‘Got it.’

‘Marley, I don’t think we have anything to fear yet, but for god’s sake

keep your eyes open. We are off the trail now.’

‘Got it.’

Marley shifted nervously. His face betrayed him.

‘Marley, I’m not expecting trouble. Just find me that cover.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

The Sergeant and George arrived and the whole expedition was

explained once more. No one asked any questions. This was where

we had to put our trust in Whicker. Marley went off first. He put a

foot off the trail into the nestling bracken and followed it with the

other. He kept his pace consistent, slowing only when he had to

navigate a fallen branch or a stubborn outreach of growth. Soon he

was deep in and Whicker began after him. Then Hansen, George and

I. The Sergeant had continued walking the trail, the idea being that

he would follow it up until he was out of sight of the place we had left

it ourselves, turning there off the trail to the right, coming back to the

original point overland, keeping a watch from there for half-an-hour to

make sure we were not being followed.

With the others gone, I felt naked on the trail alone, only George’s

back disappearing through the forest for any kind of comfort. I

guessed twenty metres and then made my own steps off the trail and

into the wide, yawning forest. Back into adventure. I felt it now,

finally, the true bush under my feet and chlorophyll tight on the air.

The valves of my heart rang in sympathetic vibration to the organic

frequencies that were now all about me. I felt alive and well. My walk

took me on, through the little grasses and bracken, around the grass

trees and shrubs, over the mess of leaf litter and surrendered twigs

and branches below me on the forest floor, by the great trees with

years of rain and sun spent in their build. Even past a shallow gully

trickling with that morning’s dew, algae attendant in amounts.

‘Lewis!’

My name. Behind a further log were hidden Marley, Whicker, George

and Hansen. I quickly went over to them and sunk down with them

behind their log. Half-an-hour to wait. The clouds sailed over, distant

and broken by the canopy tall above us.

I came out of a heavy thought when we first heard the rustling away

in the bushes. Whicker checked his wrist watch and nodded to

himself.

‘Right on time. That’ll be the Sergeant. Hansen, Marley, scope him.

Finger off the trigger.’

And sure enough, from behind a tree, out came the Sergeant. Hansen

and Marley lowered their weapons.

‘Nothing, Sir. Not even a wallaby.’

We had lunch there, shuffling on afterwards through the forest

uneventfully until nightfall. The only hazard we encountered had

been, having come off the mountain, a large swamp of sedge which

had forced us to detour around for an extra kilometre. We struck up

camp by a narrow creek where the flat grassy banks at least allowed

for the erection of our shelters. We warmed our dinners with the two
lightweight shellite burners we had, then relaxed into the first watch.

When the moon came up, Whicker pulled a set of flares from his pack

and set them ready with their gun.

‘Red for notification, blue as Tuesday’s password. Got to let the

Special Unit know we are here. Don’t want them coming on us as the

enemy. Hansen, come with me. We’ll get away a bit from the camp

before we send these up.’

They disappeared into the night forest and half-an-hour later we heard

the dull thuds of the flair gun. I was asleep before they arrived back.
Colonel Angus

It was early morning and already lightening when the Sergeant woke

me for my watch. A light mist hung suspended like a spider net from

the fingers and trunks of the forest giants, shrouding the smaller

shrubs and saplings in ghost light. It was nearly time for the late-

skinned moon to burn off its final sebum in that clear white light

before its descent. Its rays draped down on us in a warm, liquid

sensation. You could feel like you were home, home where your heart

remained connected to your system and pumped out nothing more

vile than blood. That moonlight also made me open to feeling all the

different kinds of love. I’d always experienced love as an erratic

source of tension, sometimes pulling up, then sometimes pulling

down. Love under these trees, these stars, this moon, was little

different I felt. It gave me the same rising sensation of blood through

the system. I imagined what it was like to be someone without love,

thinking back on myself five years – alone, depressed, aching. Not

that I had any great love now, only that the edge was off, mitigated
by experiences between times.

I would count that day’s progress on point. We moved in lurches –

Whicker halted us incessantly for a new look at this or that map. He

seemed to be working off three, taking the references from one and

then transferring them to the second or third. He was playing for the

Special Unit.

At lunch we stopped by a brackish waterhole, waters stained by the

net of leaves that lay on its surface. We sat ourselves beneath an

ironbark, sedges escaped from the confines of the waterhole, running

between our legs as we sat, mosquito air hot about.

It was Spring, a lovely November, my favourite time. Warm nights

and hot days mostly and the cordial royal bloom of the ten thousand

jacarandas in the town in which I’d grown up. The forest was alive

with comings and goings too; the last of the wildflowers were taking

their bloom, dragonflies winged about the water - in fact a whole host
of myriad flying insects was contorting in the air around us - water

dragons were at sun by waters edge, the sun itself at ninety degrees

was radiating all below it with every percent of its available spectrum.

It felt a lazy day. None of us at recline wished to move from this

position although Whicker eventually found motivation enough within

himself to move us on.

‘Hey, Lewis, how you going?’

‘Yeah, no worries. It’s not like I’ve never walked point before. Just a

bit out of shape, that’s all.’

‘You ready?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

The afternoon went by quietly. We went from dry sclerophyll to wet

as we mounted a small hill and returned to dry again when we

summitted and passed over its back. Again we stopped and started
in fits as Whicker measured up our movements.

Then, in late afternoon, things stopped going by quietly. They

stopped suddenly and forcefully. I was leading the squad through a

deep gully when I was ordered to a halt. Not by Whicker. The voice

shot at me from the far rim of the gully, a vantage point some two

metres above the bed of the gully we were walking. I froze, daring

not to twitch even in my heart and my blood left off where it was in

my body, nothing moving, all transportation down. The owner of the

voice did not show himself. Whicker from just behind me called to

him in code and he was answered:

‘Operation name and authorisation?’

‘Patrol Gold Blue Blue. CmdC Fame.’

And with that three men appeared out of the brush, camouflaged.
‘Welcome, Lieutenant. Hope you’ve had a nice wander through the

bush.’

‘You saw our flares last night?’

‘We see everything, Lieutenant. Come, let us go to camp.’

We mounted the bank of the gully and were soon following along

behind our three guides, babbling along under the weakening light of

a late afternoon. Our guides kept us on for about another hour until

we all felt ready for a collapse. Even the Sergeant seemed to be

wilting on his feet.

Suddenly, our guides disappeared through a curtain of foliage, as

though they had vanished into thin air, and if I hadn’t seen them

actually separate the folds of the curtain and move through them, I

might have thought they had indeed been apparitions of some sort. I

led the squad up to the curtain, hoping it would part as easily for me

as it had for our guides. The curtain itself was in fact a loose
construct consisting of the big, palmate leaves of the elephant plant,

strung together with a simple twine. I put a hand through a rib in the

structure, stabbing it straight through into air on the other side. I

retracted my hand and pushed on through with my body. The squad

followed me through.

Where there had been naught but forest, we were now suddenly

standing in a grotto reclaimed from the forest by the necessities of

war. The grotto itself was small, a fire-cleared piece set down in a

hollow. It was their camp – the special unit. Shelters were working

underneath the trees, a command tent had been erected centrally

and men were sitting around, watching us. The floor of the camp was

all earth, hewn of undergrowth, the ground compact underneath,

holding a dull shine. The perimeters of the camp were all made to

camouflage, an entire set created from the materials of the forest.

‘Welcome, Lieutenant.’
A man large in girth and deep in voice had pushed himself up from his

sit and was making his way over to our small huddled group of six.

Whicker stepped forward and saluted.

‘Lieutenant Whicker, Sir. Thank you for the reception.’

The man returned the salute and then stuck out his hand to shake.

Whicker obliged summarily.

‘Forget about it. We were expecting you. How have you travelled?’

‘Not too bad, Sir. It’s been quiet.’

‘Yes, it’s always quiet coming from the trail. We keep our end tight.

You were never in any danger. The lands between here and the trail

are impregnable. The enemy would have to march a battalion on us

first.’
Whicker nodded with respect.

‘Come, sit your team. You must be all tired, and you will need as

much rest as you can now, before your patrol is all done.’

‘Sir?’

‘It’s been a strange few weeks. Even the Bushrangers are edgy. We

haven’t seen such quiet for a long time. Come though, we will talk

later.’

The Commander stood then, gesturing for us to do same and with a

quiet show of his left palm, further gestured that we should remain

where we stood. He then walked away over to an older man, the unit

Sergeant I assumed, briefly talking with him. With the same favoured

hand, he then gestured us to follow him, taking us back across to the

far side of the camp near the northern perimeter. He had us sit on
the polite ground underneath a tall gum and before we could begin

be-wondered conversation amongst ourselves, two men had brought

us a full dinner consisting of bread, corn soup and beef stew. As we

began ladling out the servings, the Commander took his leave:

‘Excuse me, Lieutenant, for a few minutes. I must set my orders for

the night. I’ll be back later to have that chat and get you sorted.’

We all thanked him for his hospitality and thus he left us. We were all

greedily spooning for the bottom of our bowls and the need for

seconds was quickly revealed. I took to breaking off chunks of the

thick bread, floating it in the stew, enjoying it heavy with soak. The

men had also brought us cans of soft drink and we fought serious

battles over who would have which.

‘Only two days into the patrol and we’re already being spoilt.’
‘Enjoy it while it lasts.’

‘Yeah – our last supper.’

‘George, give me a mouthful of that you’ve got there.’

‘Sir, this is an amazing unit. Look at this place. It’s like we are in

some kind of vacuum, like we have temporarily left the world.’

‘Yes, they know what they’re doing.’

‘And the CO is one great guy.’

‘He’s a Colonel. Been working the war for years apparently.

Sergeant, you’ve met him before, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, Sir. I have. Colonel Angus. Saw his work up in the Staging

Grounds. He’s thorough. And subtle. Not like one of these bulldozer

units that go running around. I’ve got a lot of time for men like him.’
‘You fought with him, Sarge?’

‘No, not directly. His team bailed out our sister squad against orders.

They were getting shot up on a flood plain and couldn’t retreat. He

and his team were billeting in our camp when the word got out that

there was a squad in trouble. Angus wanted to go to their aid

immediately but command ordered his unit stand down as the

location of special units are always a classified and permanent secret.

They didn’t want the enemy getting sight of them. But Angus went,

and our squad followed. He destroyed the enemy to a man,

deliberately and without hesitation – none would ever tell of the

sighting of a special unit – and then vanished himself, leaving us to

report to command that the secret remained intact.’

‘He’s that good?’

‘Look around you. What do your eyes tell you?’

‘That there’s a lot going on in this war that I don’t want to know

about.’

‘Maybe, but that’s the case not only in wars. But this man is not the

product of clandestine planning. He is a policy unto himself.’

I looked at the squad around me. Hansen was scraping up what was

left of his second helping of stew. He was intent on the action of his

spoon, though this may have been a simple nervous response.

Marley had finished and was leaning back. He had been quiet

throughout the entire conversation and I wondered whether this was

from fatigue or something else. George was still eating, holding the

bowl down low in his lap, almost spilling every spoonful he laboured

up towards his mouth. Whicker was in between drinking and eating

and resting back, his arms stretched out behind him like girders of

meat. The Sergeant sat staring, bringing spoonfuls of soup up to his

mouth without acknowledgment. I had looked at the others in turn

and now I finally noticed that the Sergeant was different to them. I

couldn’t say what, it was just a nondescript feeling. But it was

something, and it was more to the side of discomfort. What strengths

ran under that taut skin? I had already postulated that this man could

not break from the war, his heart alienated in liquid nitrogen and then

sent to a fall. Was this process further along than I had guessed? I

hoped Whicker would not frail before a maddened Sarge, because it

might be only his assertion of control that keeps him from crippling.

What am I saying? I’ve only known this man less than a week. Still, a

feeling of discomfort in his presense nonetheless.

It was only now that we realised we were largely alone – the men of

the special unit had disappeared. We had all been so distracted by

our hunger that we had been entirely oblivious to their absenting.

‘Got quiet around here. Where’s everyone gone?’

‘Probably to station.’
By and by the Commander returned to us.

‘Men, you have eaten? All satisfied?’

‘Yes, Sir. Thank you very much.’

‘Good. Then I shall sit down with you.’

He sat down next to Whicker. The Sergeant made to put his bowl

aside but the commander urged him to keep eating with a platitude

about keeping up strength. George took that that edict also applied

to him and he kept at his bowl as was. Marley in a moment of

etiquette retreated from his backwards rest and sat, back strong, to

acknowledge the Commander. This was going to be good.

‘Sir, where’s everyone gone?’

‘My men are out scouting tonight. They’re preparing for our move.’

‘Move, Sir?’
‘Yes. We were really only waiting on you before doing so. As I said,

contact has become an issue for us here recently, so we are

relocating further towards Mead. The enemy know we are here, or at

least have guessed it.’

‘How long have you been here, Sir?’

‘Three months.’

‘You hinted that something strange was going on earlier, Sir. What

did you mean by that exactly?’

‘The enemy are waiting for us to move. I feel their recent quiet has

more to do with forcing us on than any great fear of us. They want to

get back a bit of control. Get us moving. Now, Lieutenant, can you

spare two or three of your men to see to your stores while I brief you?
We will be gone before morning and we have much to organise for

you before we go.’

‘Marley, George, Hansen.’

The three men stood up quickly. The Commander sent them off to the

field kitchen to look for Smith, who was briefed and awaiting them

with the stores. Marley, Hansen and George gave an energetic ‘Yes,

Sir’ and then jogged away to their task.

The Commander then looked at me.

‘And you must be the favoured one, allowed to hear the higher

voices.’

I didn’t know what to say. I think I may have just smiled shyly, hoping

business would soon take him away from me.

‘Now, where was I? Yes, show me your route.’

Whicker went into his pack and claimed one of his maps with a short

reach. He unfolded it on the floor to share with the Commander,

fingering points all along the course to match with his verbal

description. The Commander was nodding for some, shaking his head

at others.

‘You want to stay away from there. Leads by a steep gorge. If you

encounter trouble, you could get driven up in there and then that

would be the end for you.’

When Whicker was done with his explanation, the Commander

grabbed up the map and looked at it hard.

‘So this is your objective?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Well, you want to make straight for it. Don’t waste anytime skirting
around here. Just go direct. It’ll take you close to this little village, a

little strange this one. Although a good distance from the border,

they have sided with the enemy. You want to be careful near there.’

‘Sir?’

‘This whole world is full of conundrums. Just another little oddity. You

could meet a Bushranger anytime between here and here. I will wait

for my scouts to come back in with their reports before I say anymore

of your path – just go directly and do not delay for any reason. I will

leave you now – I have my own preparations to make – but light a fire

if you want and enjoy it. Make yourselves as comfortable as you need

for the night. You are safe here. No light escapes this hollow and

there are none near enough to see it anyway. I will be back for a final

word before we set off.’

‘Sir, you are leaving in the night?’

‘Yes, tonight we move. When you wake in the morning, we will be

long gone.’

‘One final question for now, Sir, if I may.’

‘Yes?’

‘When do you see this war ending?’

‘I hope it never ends, Lieutenant.’

And with that, he walked away.

The rest of the evening passed quickly. Marley, Hansen and George

returned and we filled our packs with the stores that were provided

us. Hansen was wearing a large knife and an out-moded handgun

slung low below his waist in a faded leather holster with which Smith

had apparently furnished him. For an hour or so he played up to his

new image, swaggering around like Neptune. We got up a fire,

positioning our shelters around it, prone and one by one we fell

asleep.

It must have been sometime close to dawn when hushed voices

awoke me. The Commander was leaning down into Whicker’s shelter.

I couldn’t hear much of it, but it was obviously the final word he had

promised. As hard as I strained my ears for any bit of information, I

could get none. I lost myself to the soft noise of their voices and fell

back into sleep.

When I awoke again, it was 0700 and cloudy. We all awoke fresh, safe

in our bower. No watch had need been set and the unbroken sleep

had done us all well. We breakfasted, packed and made ready. True

to word, the special unit had deserted the camp in the night: not a

single trace could be found of them bar the engineering of the hollow

itself. It was disconcerting – we were on our own again, lost to the

one man whose protection we had felt so keenly.

And so we struck out again into the forest, this time only with nothing

steady before us, set forth from our last mole with the parting words

of the Commander still travelling our immediate thoughts. We were

set out at last, into real adventure; the patrol, as stated, to engage

the enemy where encountered.

A Bushranger

The forest ate hard at us and progress was slow. The land did not

change all morning, passing us under foot in tones ranging from old

grey-greens to hard browns. A narrow undulation was present, the

steady rise and fall barely perceptible. The few times we did crest a

steeper climb, the view was always of more of the same. Descent

again, back under heavy canopy, the ephemeral world of green

digestion and watery decay. Another swamp went by, staffed by

paperbarks and sedges, nutrients were everywhere – smeared on the

ground, in the water, in the air. Blurred in there somewhere, lunch.

On into afternoon.

I had lived on a side channel of a river that had aneurysmed into a

deep series of cascades and pools. The channel had filled in season,

choked with sedge and bulrush when in wax and stopped up with low
grasses in the dry. Our house had waded in part into the channel - at

its widest on stilts - and as the waters had come up, the generous

decking overhanging the channel had become a launching pad for

myriad adventures. My brother and I had enjoyed a youth washed

through with clean, mountain waters. Once we had followed the river

as far as it was navigable by raft, close up to its source.

Our house had been set in a wide flatland repaired only by a dozen

small hills. The flatlands themselves were contained on the north and

west by a range of iron rust, the valleys beneath which were

rumoured of fevers and non-potable water that flowed from the black

creeks through old lead pipes to the shacks of the hermits, the

darkling tips of the razorback above them perpetually threatening to

hurl its rocks down on them. The hermits had been ever on the

watch, watching in moments of fleeting terror as the sun ran over the

razorback and cast its fires cold against the new sky. To be ill in the

face of these nights, the hermits had trembled, when the razorback

awoke. Such a danger was something resplendent on to those

peasants of the earth. Though some creatures might shout finishing

glances at his eyes, the death-fixated hands of the razorback grumble

on the source. The hermits had felt their legs weaken and their

hearts ride down into their ankles and then they had been left cold

and melting again. The wind had sucked on the marrow of their

bones, claimed their names and then slipped off through the trees.

Curious, my brother and I had been chased once from the small

market garden of one of these hermits. He had seen us just passed

his rusted old clothesline and had begun the pursuit there. We had

been chased as far as the dam pumpworks, a maze of piping and

holding ponds with hedges of bulrush and scythe grass – a place

dangerous for its loose footholds and serpents. And then it had

rained.

A day of downpour is a moment of light,

that antiquated feeling from the seat of your breast,

outside your eyes,

the clouds are the sea and the sea is the sky.
 Look in the millpond, fresh, cold, new:

Your own light dashed back for you.

A depression came on in the afternoon. Beautiful, thin afternoon, wan

in the descending light. Whicker called a break and began playing

fingers over his maps. George sat down on a dried out log, red with

exhaustion. The Sergeant wheeled away on his own, checking

forward. I took up my canteen and moved over to join Marley and

Hansen.

‘We’ll be making camp soon. This day is almost done and we’re still

alive. Good stuff.’

‘How’s it been up on point?’

‘My nerves are shot. Particularly with the Sarge right there behind

me.’
‘You wouldn’t want anyone else there if something happened though.’

‘True. How far do you reckon we’ve come so far?’

‘Good question. Maybe thirteen or fourteen k’s. Get a couple more

done before tonight, too.’

‘Well, how ever far we’ve come, one thing’s for sure – we are way out

of range of Dusty. We’re really on our own now.’

Whicker called for Hansen and the Sergeant. I continued briefly with

Marley before we fell silent in wait for direction:

‘It’s starting to get spooky, isn’t it.’

‘Yeah, that’s for sure. I’ll be glad for the night to come on soon.’

‘George isn’t saying a lot.’

‘He never does. He’s a sad piece of shit.’

Whicker walked us a further kilometre before ordering camp. We set

up our shelters in the round of a small hollow, camouflaging them

with flora stripped from bushes a safe distance away. The Sergeant

ordered the watch and the first was set for 2100 hours.

At 0700 the next morning, watch concluded without incident. The

next two days passed in the same manner, uneasily but ultimately

uneventful. One morning the Sergeant snapped at George, calling

him a coward and taking his point duty for the day. On the fourth day

out from the special unit camp, we finally met a Bushranger. He was

waiting for us on the top of a small boulder, weapon stretched out

behind his head, shoulders open to us:

‘Good morning. Follow me quickly.’

With that he sprung down the side of the boulder like a cat and lead

off noiselessly into the forest. He took us on for an hour or more,

finally into a steep gully, up its rough climb, setting us into a narrow

shelf midway up its run. He then let two large rocks roll down the

short fall before us, back into the forest we had just left, letting the

rocks go at an interval of a minute or so.

‘Get your weapons ready. They will be here soon.’

‘Who will be here soon, Sir?’

‘The squad that’s been tracking you the last day.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t worry. You always had me in between you and they’re not so

clever these ones. Should walk right into our trap here. I’ll give the

fire orders.’
What happened next was largely a blur, the entrapments of a

sensitive conscience. Men appeared in the scar of the gully below us,

scratching around, looking up towards us, not seeing. They began

their climb, slowly. We were waiting on the Bushranger. He held off

his order until the last, until they were just below us, some ten metres

only, until they had seen us. Perhaps he had wanted to enjoy the

looks on their faces when they realised they had been caught. Then

he shouted for us. Fire and noise and weapons caught up into action.

The men rolled away easily, back down to the bottom of the gully,

into the forest and forever out of sight of sun and moon and home.

We were done. I felt faint, dis-associated. The Bushranger was

congratulating us, but I couldn’t focus. I drifted into a dream-state,

where the sub-conscious steered and I thought involuntarily. We

camped with him that night.

‘You boys did well today. I don’t want any of you feeling bad about it,

because they were coming for you. You couldn’t have evaded them.
You would have all been killed. These guys were good enough to

track you without your knowing, but they had no idea I was watching

them. Old mistake that one – become so fixed on your prize that you

forget the world is still going on around you. Easy. You want to find

their designation numbers, go back and search the bodies for papers.

You won’t find any. Nobody this far deep carries papers. And

numbers and names and reputations don’t mean anything out here,

either. If you find, you kill. If you’re found, you get killed. That’s all

that matters. It’s basic mathematics. Cause and effect. Karma,

whatever you want to call it. All you need to know is that you’re in

the clear now. They were the only ones I’ve seen for weeks. How far

are you going?’

‘North another day and then west back to Dusty.’

‘Wow, really? They’re sending you guys deep. Should be quiet

though. If you’re heading north, you’re a day’s walk from this crazy

little village. You don’t want to go near them.’

‘Yes, we were warned about them.’

‘Just stay away from them. They’re freaks. Squatters from over the

borders. Apparently took the war as a sign to grab for land. They’re

civilians, so I don’t bother them, but if one of them even thought

about picking up a weapon, that’s all the excuse I would need.’

‘The village has never been ours?’

‘What, way out here in the middle of nowhere? No, these freaks

shipped in only three or four years ago. Decided on that place and

built a little village there. From what I’ve seen, not even the enemy

have much to do with them. They stop there occasionally to pick up

supplies or rest, but otherwise they avoid them. Shoot them if you

like. Personally, I’d just give them a miss. There is a little hall outside

of the village where you can sleep. I wouldn’t stay anymore than one

night, but it’s generally safe. The freaks don’t go there much – only
for town meetings and the like. I’m off east at first light. Due to

rotate back to base in a month and I want to see the lands around to

the north-east before I get stuck in the office.’

What power this man must have that he can walk the forests of this

war with such impunity. I remembered the Commander had said even

the Bushrangers were uneasy, but I couldn’t imagine this man ever

feeling uneasy. Nothing without could cause this man fear. Only from

within perhaps – disease, old age... Even then maybe not.

We camped a starless night, each keeping to themselves in memory

of the day’s action. Twigs and heavier grasses rifled up through the

ultralight base of my shelter, marking out the aquaducts and pits of

an industry, I’m sure, in my back. I didn’t sleep much that night, for

fitful reckoning came on me in doses, tearing strips of long-built tissue

and muscle off my heart, sending them down to the liver and kidneys

as waste, metabolism in a starless night. My legs shifted from

position to position, never finding rest. Why was this war come on

me? I could no longer control what was happening in my mind –

images, words, fear, panic came up on me and had free reign, urging

on the violent atrophy of my blood pump. A raw energy, negatively

charged, surged my body almost to overload and my head swam with

a vile mix of off-whites, fleshy pinks, sour yellows, burnt oranges and

olive greens – the colours of nauseas language. I longed for the sun

to rise and burn off this bitter taste from my tongue. I rode it for

hours, shivering with fever and panic until eventually my mind rested

me and I drifted into black sleep.

Hall

Morning broke but my aches persisted. I was tired, languid and in

pain. The others, with the obvious exception of the Bushranger, were

to the eye no better. The Bushranger ate and packed quickly, wishing
us luck before disappearing into the forest. Gone as quickly as he had

come, leaving us with blood to wash from our hands.

‘He was right – we did what we had to.’

‘He was good, Sir. Up that alley and then, ‘bang!’, we got all of them.’

‘George, you’ve got point today. We move out in twenty.’

And so another day began. Eat, pack, hike, break, hike again. We

were stopped early-afternoon by a spring storm; not a particularly

potent one but enough to send us searching for cover. After the

violence of the front had passed, the rain subsided to a warm drizzle

and we went on, all of us hoping that we could find a dry night in the

hall the Bushranger had mentioned. We entered a thicket late-

afternoon, an orange light pervading its musty walls, westering sun

filtered through light woodfire smoke. We were near the village.

The thicket ran deep, growth so close that knives were needed to
make passage.

‘I see ghosts in here.’

The Sergeant raised his weapon and pulled George back. He then

crept on forward through the thicket, exiting it on our right, leaving us

behind. I looked to Whicker.

‘Let him go. But keep your weapons ready.’

We pushed on through, aware of the noise we were generating.

Suddenly, there were two shots. We froze, dead.

‘Lewis, Marley, cover me. I’m going out.’

But before Whicker could make the treeline, the Sergeant returned

with a serious face.

‘Two spies, Sir. Down in a field. They’ve been watching us. We

should move on quickly.’

‘What spies, Sergeant?’

‘Two of them, Sir. Down there, in the field. Armed.’

‘Very well, Sergeant. I hope for your sake they were spies, because if

you just killed two civilians, you just made yourself a war criminal.’

‘Sir, whose side are you on? They were two spies. The Bushranger

said we could kill them if we liked.’

Whicker stared at the Sergeant, thinking, not knowing how to react.

‘Ok, well done, Sergeant. Let’s keep moving. George, back on point.’

I slipped back to the Lieutenant. There was strain written all over his

face.

‘Sir, you want me to witness the bodies?’

‘No. No, Lewis. Leave it. I don’t want to know who he’s killed out

there.’

‘Thank you, Sir.’

He looked up at me, giving me a small smile.

‘This is getting weird, isn’t it?’

‘Seems about right to me, Sir. The whole world is weird. We’re just

trapped in a place where things have been compounded and

exacerbated.’

‘You maybe right, Lewis. I can feel that stake right in me now.’

‘Then we’d better keep away from this village, Sir. Everyone has

advised us to keep our distance.’

‘Yes, we will. I have no intention of walking ourselves into trouble.

Let’s go.’

We cut on through the thicket, the confinement of the thicket pushed

the vegetation to breathe all over each other and from this

suspension a rot grew its roots. Scoliosis. George stopped to wipe

down his glasses. Here, he seemed as out of place as I’d ever seen

anyone look. I could fall and I would become part of this thicket, my

bones sunk in the earth, my nutrients shared by all the hungry,

competing cells at live here, phloems and xylems transpirating

desperately for the one true success. But George – his body would

not decompose here.

Hansen stepped past Marley who had knelt down and was checking

his weapon.

‘You think you’re going to need it soon?’

‘I just don’t know what else to do.’

‘Keep moving, Marley. I don’t want to get caught in here,’ said the
Lieutenant from behind.

‘Sir, I just want to finish this.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Just adjusting the strap.’

‘You can do that later. Let’s go.’

‘Almost finished.’

‘Very well, Marley.’

‘Shit, Sir. I see my ghost everywhere in here.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing in here but leaves and these

damn woody stems.’

‘Sir!’
George called back from point.

‘I think we found the hall.’

And sure enough, through the dim of the last few metres of thicket,

the lonely stand of a small timber structure could be gleaned. It was

traditional in design; a short flight of white painted steps guided by a

single hand rail lead up to the hardwood construct, again white in

paint, clambered over by a thin corrugated iron roof. Rectangular

prism conjoined with triangular prism. This was no great architecture,

but it would suit our needs for tonight, a place out of the light drizzle

that continued to fall sporadically in defiance of the opening in the

western sky. The hall itself would only just accommodate our party,

brief in size as it was. A pipe vent erect over the roof served as

evidence of facilities inside, most likely a toilet.

‘Lewis, come with me. We will go and check it out side, make sure
there is no one there. Sergeant, cover us, but remain here.’

‘Sir.’

Marley tipped me on the arm as a gesture of good luck. I slunked

through the last of the thicket, breaking open skin on a recalcitrant

twig. Blood crawled down my hand, knotting as it coagulated, soon

oxidized. I caught my foot on a vine, pulling frantically with all my

weight, finally jarring it loose, stumbling out into the open before the

hall. There was a light path running off from the steps into the forest

below. I brought my weapon up to my shoulder and scoped the path.

Nothing. Whicker passed me on my left, indicating for me to follow

him. At the steps, he halted, calling for me to go around to the back

of the hall to check for a back entrance. I did this; there was no back

entrance. It was time for us to move into the hall. Whicker went up

the steps first, weapon raised. He put a hand out for the door knob.

It turned easily.
‘Not locked.’

‘Shit.’

The door catch disengaged and the door became loose in Whicker’s

hand.

‘You ready, Lewis?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Right, I’ll swing this open and go in. You cover me.’

‘Sir.’

He sucked up a breath and pushed in. I had my eye welded to the

scope. Through the darkness I could make him out moving backwards

and forwards through the hall. It was empty, only one room and a

little toilet stall to sweep. Two rows of chairs dwelt, but there was
nothing else. I watched as Whicker melted into one of the chairs. I

dropped the weapon from my shoulder and went to call for the others,

leaving Whicker to his silent release.

‘Sarge, it’s all clear. Come on in. Nobody’s home.’

I waited while the others appeared out of the thicket, fighting similar

battles with the growth that I had only moments before.

‘The Lieutenant still inside?’

‘Yeah. No sign anyone has been here recently. No fresh footprints on

the path over there. I assume that leads back to the village.’

‘I’d love to mine that path. Keep them away. Well, I’m going in.

Beats standing around here in the rain.’

We all followed the Sergeant into the hall. Whicker had since picked
himself up off his chair and was looking out of the one window. I

joined him at the view. The darkening forest waved cruel hands at us,

the last of the light glistening in cold taunts that would have inspired

a lovely melancholy would it not be for the terror and madness that

currently metastasised in its cells. Like a compass magnetised to find

true north, we were looking out over true despair, all the way north.

Could we blame the enemy for all this? I looked at Whicker.

‘I’m not doing this again, Lewis. When we get back to Dusty, I’m out.’

‘Sir?’

‘Look at that forest. It’s impenetrable. We have been working

ourselves to the bone to get through it and still it doesn’t relent.

We’ve achieved nothing.’

‘Not nothing, Sir. We engaged the enemy and destroyed them. Less

of them now to move on towns like West-Over-Nigh.’

‘We didn’t engage them, Lewis. We baited them and they walked

right into us. We couldn’t lose. Nothing fair about it.’

‘We are alive, Sir. Would you consider that fair?’

‘I don’t know anymore, Lewis. I am becoming more and more of an

act. That forest knows all of our weaknesses. We fall before it and it

watches on, silent and disinterested in our calamities. The frailties of

men are trivial to those trees; none would ever bother to make a

study of us even once in their thousand years of life. Perhaps that is

what is fair.’

We dropped our ruminations there, leaving the trees outside the

window and walked back over to the others, who were by now setting

up for the night.

‘We’ll set a watch by the door, just to be safe.’

The night grew on. We lay around the hall, conversation nothing,

each listening to the low patter of rain on the roof, each listening for

anomalies in our heart beats, the tell-tale signs of arrhythmia and

atrophy. I looked at Marley. He looked at me for a second and then

looked away. The same again with Hansen and Whicker. I daren’t

have looked at the Sergeant.

A sound like the crashing of thunder began to grow in the south.

Louder came the noises of aircraft until they were almost above us.

Running outside for a view, we saw the silver and red lights of an

attack squadron flying low overhead, six in total.

‘Bombing mission?’

‘More than likely.’

‘I wonder what their target is.’

‘Probably some base or depot.’

‘Damn they go fast. Gone already.’

The last of the navigation lights passed from view over the northern

tree line. Just then, a burst of machine gun fire rang out from the

forest. Someone was shooting at the aircraft. Calling but once, the

machine gunner quickly again fell to silence.

‘The village.’

George’s watch passed and mine followed. It was quiet. The rain had

stopped and the forest was still. I scoped outside the door one last

time and then woke Marley for his watch. IV line flushed and running

with diprivan, I feel straight asleep, pulled hard into a heavy

unconsciousness.

‘Shit, what’s that?’

We all splattered from our sleep, all at once turning to Marley on

watch for a report.

‘Another squadron just went over. Someone shot at them again.’

‘Damn they’re flying low.’

‘Wait, I can hear another coming.’

There was a piercing shrill as a fighter swept in over us, barely above

the roof of the hall it seemed. This was followed by a series of loud

explosions, distant, but not so. The aircraft flew on, silence returned.

‘They dropped a load on that machine gunner. They must have got a

fix on him.’

‘The village?’

‘Probably. I doubt there’s much left of it now, if it was.’

We slept on, with the exception of those called to watch, until the

dusty rise of the magnificent sun.

Inhospitality

Marley stood in the doorway of the hall, looking out into the thicket.

He looked desperately sad. I left my sleep and went to join him, but

his heart had already lost so much blood.

‘Smoke. Fuck this shit, Lewis.’

I left Marley and went over to the Sergeant and Whicker who were

standing together near the head of the little path that lead away into

the forest and, we had presumed, to the village. Their eyes were

fixed to the forest distant, smoke persecuted, easily discernible howls

of destruction.

‘Shit...’

‘Fucking fire bombs. We should get moving.’

‘I think you’re right, Sergeant.’

 We ate a solemn breakfast and began to pack. The first of the

victims appeared at this point. A boy, dragging behind him the body

of a girl, pained up the path just as the sun rounded the tops of the

trees. Marley rushed out to the boy, but the boy fell dead even as

Marley reached him. We lay the two little bodies out for burial,

keeping the loving grip the boy had had on the girl’s hand for them. I

went for flowers and even as I did a man came screaming out of the

forest, burnt and smouldering still. In a fright, Hansen shot his head

off. To be sure, what pain the man had been screaming from could

have only been ameliorated, negated by death, yet Hansen fell to his

knees, shaking. The Sergeant picked him up, throwing him back on

his feet, telling him he was a soldier. Whicker turned and walked

away.

More arrived before we had finished packing. They bustled into the

hall, sitting, not saying a word, staring at us but not with hostility.

Their eyes were glazed. They did not register us correctly. They had

horrible wounds. The Sergeant stirred:

‘You fired at the aircraft? Hey? This is what you get! Just leave it

alone!’

The villagers ignored him.

‘This is a war. You made yourselves a target. You’ve got children.

You’re fucking dumb.’

They continued to stare at him blankly.

‘Well, you going to answer for yourselves or what? Shit.’

The Sergeant through his hand at them and turned around towards

the window. Whicker looked at me, giving me a ‘let’s go.’ He began

to walk over to the Sergeant.

‘Sergeant, let’s go. Men, I want you all outside and ready to move.

Let’s go.’
With the exception of the Sergeant, we all began towards the door.

‘Sergeant, let’s go I said.’

But the Sergeant didn’t come. He simply spun around from the

window to face the villagers, raised his weapon to his hip and fired on

them. There was no screaming, shouting, remonstrating. The

villagers accepted their deaths with peace. The bodies stretched out

on the floor of the hall, bloody yet comfortable. We stared at the

Sergeant. He lowered his weapon and gave the scene a cursory

glance, walking past us and out through the door.

‘Come on, let’s go. Let’s get the fuck out of here.’
Endings

The hall fades to black and we find ourselves again deep back in the

forest. The Sergeant works point, already one hand on the handle of

his weapon. Marley troops next, weapon slung around on his back,

disregarded. Whicker and then George, Hansen and finally me. Mid-

afternoon now, on the way back to Dusty. On return, the Sergeant

would be charged with murder, evaluated for fitness to stand trial and

then buried in a barracks somewhere, unfit for duty, his story never

heard, the war tumbling on in its eternal wheel of disconnection,

separate from all that human activity has goaled towards. Power

violently sought was no power at all, in fact a relinquishment of true

power to the other. The aggressor allows, through the actioning of

violence and with the consent of time, any enemy to attain the moral

power. And with this moral power so shall all fall behind the enemy.

It is a lesson not taught in military schools, where tactics are of killing

and maiming, rending and worsting. Power given is a power worth

kept, the books might have more aptly read. And a power worn justly
is a power for all time, undefeatable, a power that will be there on the

final day of man to mark for all history the meaning imbued in him,

marking his ultimate success or failure as a system of existence.

We camped that night in open forest, shelters set between the piston

rises of the trees. We had used all our shellite; our meal was cold and

cheerless. I sat alone, cleaning my weapon. It was barely

manageable in the dark, but I did it nonetheless, a dark feeling of

coming need growing on me. I didn’t care now if we met the enemy,

none of us did.

‘Lewis?’

Whicker joined me.

‘Yes, Sir. I’m just trying to clean this thing. Think we might be

needing it soon.’

‘That’s black talk.’

‘Maybe. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking.’

‘You’re thinking we need to be punished for what happened today,

what happened yesterday. Then why clean your weapon? Why not

just take death as your punishment?’

‘I can’t, Sir. I’m tired and I’m leaving this war, but I’m not going to

submit to it. It doesn’t deserve me.’

‘Then you believe what I cannot, Lewis. I should have stopped the

Sergeant today, by whatever means necessary. But I couldn’t. I

watched.’

‘Is the Sergeant not also an innocent? Frailed and out of his mind,

like the rest of us?’

‘Yes, that’s true. But he is a killer too, always has been. I should have

shot him.’
‘And then what? What could we have done for those people? Sir, you

haven’t done wrong.’

‘Let me be the judge of that, Lewis. Anyway, I’ve got something to

show you. You were asking me about West-Over-Nigh…’

Whicker handed me a folded piece of paper.

‘A friend wrote this for me. I wanted to remember what I felt about it

all, so that I would never forget. But I couldn’t get it down myself. As

a sympathy, he wrote it out for me, but it’s my story. I don’t want it

anymore – the meanings have become too painful for me now. Take

it, if you like.’

I put the paper in the front pocket of my pack. There was no point

trying to read it now in this light. It would have to wait until I got

some time under the sun.

And that was the last conversation I ever had with Lieutenant
Whicker, for at mid-morning of the following day he was dead, shot by

a single enemy bullet while walking point through a glade trimmed

with nut grass. He had entered the glade a little way ahead of us and

when the single shot had rung out and he had fallen silently into the

grass, we were all still fifty metres behind him. We dropped into the

grass, crawling ever so slowly and carefully up towards the place

where he had fallen. Marley and Hansen went directly to help him

while the Sergeant, George and I fanned out through the glade,

looking for targets. There were none; all was immaculate in its

quietude. We buried the body beneath a ghost gum, offering up his

store of nutrients to this single white skinned god. We knew then that

the enemy were afoot and that we would remain their targets. We

didn’t have enough store left to wage war against them; we would

have no choice but to bolt for the safety of Dusty’s northern

perimeters and hope that we could evade them long enough to reach

the outer perimeter. To quicken our flight, we discarded everything

we didn’t need, keeping only water and a few easy condiments to last

us until tomorrow lunch time. And with that we set off, changing
direction immediately and thereafter every so often under Hansen’s

guidance in order to lose any pursuit.

We walked for hours through scrub, the Sergeant on point, Hansen

close behind him as navigator. Down over a little creek padded with

mosses and bracken fern; up a small hill burnt black with fire and

fragmented with artillery craters; along its leeward ridge, heading

ever closer to the great roots of the mountains and Dusty, cut into the

western slopes as it was.

We ambled up a short embankment, finding at the top the remains of

a recent camp. There was little doubt who had been at camp here.

‘I hope that Bushranger’s come back this way.’

There was a flash off in the forest, like someone reflecting the sun

with a mirror in signal to another.

‘They are going to attack us soon. They can’t leave us get too close
to Dusty. The further we get today, the better. I say we dump

everything but the water and a clip each and run.’

‘We don’t even know that they’re on to us. And what if they pin us

down? We won’t be going anywhere with a single clip each.’

‘Tomorrow we’ll come in range of Dusty. If we make a sprint now we’ll

have the greatest chance of getting back. We’ll rig up some booby

traps here with our grenades and the excess ammo, dump everything

but the water and just flog it home.’

‘Sarge?’

The Sergeant hadn’t been part of the conversation, having drifted off

on his own. He turned around to us.

‘You make for Dusty. I will stay and hold them off.’

‘Sir, then we will all stay.’

‘No, you will not. Go, before I shoot all of you. You won’t have much

time if they come soon.’

We dropped our packs, loading a single full clip each into our

weapons, taking up a canteen each of water, leaving all else for the

Sergeant. We scrambled away into the forest without comment, our

last view of the Sergeant a man standing alone, facing down an entire

jungle. We kept up as fast a pace as we could through the forest;

close now to the mountains the forest had begun again in density,

roots pushing out everywhere, undergrowth largely impenetrable,

sudden and often trunks stopping all our direct movements.

An hour later we recoiled with the noise of war; the Sergeant’s

position was alive with the explosions of grenades and the staccato

bursts of rifle fire. Then all was silent again, the cold sweat rolling

down our faces.

We never made camp that night. I would never see the bodies of

Marley and Hansen. George would die next to me. I would nurse his

body in my arms for an hour before passing out into oblivion myself.

We were ambushed in a dark hollow. Hansen on point went down

with the first bullets, never even having fired a shot. Marley opened

fire at the tree tops and was soon cut down. I got George behind a

rotted log, but he had already been shot, losing life fast. I shot from

behind the log, hoping for something blissful to occur. When I had

used everything I had, I threw the weapon out at the darkness. I

turned then to George. He was dead. I took him up in my arms while

the enemy continued to probe the fire zone. I turned and lay back

against the log and waited, nothing to do.