Torn Apart

I resisted the impulse to have a drink in one of the Wisemans Ferry pubs, crossed the river on the cable ferry, and pushed on up a road that degenerated from tarmac to dirt to gravel and clay. The country looked lush after recent rain and the river had a strong flow. The road skirted the edge of the national park as the land rose with every kilometre west. I rounded a bend as the road veered away from the river and Battle came into view-from this distance just a collection of tin roofs with some smoke rising in the cold, still air.

The place consisted of a general store with a petrol bowser attached and a handicrafts shop. The shop was closed and looked as though it only opened at its owner's whim, but the store was open for business. It served as a DVD hire, post office, fast food outlet, bottle shop and pool hall. A gossip and information centre if ever I saw one. I was in cords, boots, a flannel shirt and denim jacket and the car had acquired a coating of mud and dust on the trip. I hadn't shaved that morning and I fancied I didn't look like a city slicker.

A man and a woman were working behind the several counters-both overweight, both talking loudly to the four or five customers needing their services. Loudly, because a TV tuned to a game show was blaring. The patrons divided their attention between the TV and their orders, and they ignored me after a cursory glance. Both shopkeepers were flat out, and I wandered around, inspecting the DVDs, a rack of second-hand paperbacks and the pool set-up: two tables with battered surfaces, the cloth lifting in some spots and worn almost bare in others. It was a fair bet that the cues were warped.

Toasted sandwiches, loaves of bread, litres of milk, beer and cigarettes dispensed, the customers filed out one by one after taking last looks at the screen. I was about to approach the counter to buy a six-pack and ask my question when I heard the scrape of boots on the coir mat at the door. A tall man, heavily bearded and wearing a bush hat, modified military fatigues and a Driza-Bone walked in. He saw me, mock saluted, and pulled off his hat.

'Paddy Malloy,' he said. 'What the hell are you doing here?'

16

I must have gaped and my jaw probably dropped. It took me a beat to recover, but by then he'd grabbed my hand and was shaking it hard. He ran his other hand over his bald skull.

'It's Colin Kennedy. Didn't recognise me without the mop, eh, Paddy? Well, it's been a while and some of us've got more testosterone than others, eh? You're looking great, Paddy. Bit greyer, but fit.'

He was a big bear of a man, wide and thick with shoulders like the old-time blacksmiths. There was a tattoo on the back of his left hand. Not a prison job: a flag and a chevron- army.

'Gidday, Colin. Yeah, it's been a while. How long would you say?'

'I'd have to think. Look, I just have to pick up some mail for the camp and then we can have a beer and a yarn.'

'Right, I'll buy the beer. What's your go these days?'

'Fosters, same as ever. Hang on.'

The woman behind the counter was waving a thick stack of envelopes at him and he went across to collect them. I approached the man scraping grease from the hotplate.

'A six-pack of Fosters, thanks, mate.'

'Col only drinks long necks.'

'Six of 'em, then.'

He opened the fridge, took out the bottles and put them in a plastic bag. Kennedy gave me a thumbs-up and we went outside.

'Clem doesn't mind if we crack a couple out here,' Kennedy said. 'The local copper doesn't mind either if he gets one.'

We sat on the bench on the porch outside the shop. Kennedy found a bottle-opener among the metal objects dangling from his belt and whipped the caps off two bottles. We clinked them and drank.

'You mentioned a camp, Col. Wouldn't be the Western Warriors' place, would it?'

'Sure is. Hey, d'you remember that stoush we had with those poofy sailor boys in Townsville? That was a go, eh?'

I never liked Fosters, too sweet, but I downed a bit and undid the top buttons of my shirt to show the scars from my heart operation.

'Fact is, Col,' I said, 'I had a heart attack a while back and it knocked me around a bit. Fucking eight-hour operation, would you believe? They pulled me through it but I lost a bit along the way. Memory's not that flash. Sorry.'

'Shit, mate, sorry to hear it. You were one of the fittest blokes in the unit. Fittest officer, that's for sure, and you didn't pull rank on us NCOs.'

I grinned. 'Yeah. 'Less I had to.'

'When the word came down from above. Right. Well, we were a wild bunch all right, but that was what we were supposed to be.'

I nodded. 'So what're you doing now?'

He had the level of the bottle well down and some of the ebullience was seeping out of him.

'Ah, got into a bit of strife after I left the army. Wife trouble, grog trouble, money trouble, you know.'

'Tell me about it.'

'I'm in with this Western Warriors mob. Bit of a Mickey Mouse show to be honest, but they like a bloke with experience of the real thing. Hey, you haven't said what you're here for, Paddy.'

I thought. I didn't know how long I could sustain the charade. Colin Kennedy obviously hadn't been reading the newspapers. If there were other former comrades of Patrick at the Western Warriors camp it was better than even money that one of them would know he was dead. But if it got me into the place it was worth the risk.

'I'm trying to catch up with a bloke I want to talk to. I heard he was one of this mob, and I thought I'd come up to take a look.'

He drained his bottle. 'Yeah? Who would that be?'

'Frank Szabo.'

'Frankie? Yeah, he's here. How'd you hear about him, Paddy?'

I tapped the side of my head. 'Like I say, I'm a bit vague about where and when.'

His voice took on a solicitous tone. 'You been inside, Paddy?'

I nodded. 'Berrima. While back.'

'Hard case, Frankie, or was. I reckon he'd be glad to talk to you. How about you follow me up there? I'm in the Land Rover. That yours, the Camry?'

'Hired. How's the road?'

'Okay since we put some work into it. Just take it easy.'

I gave him the bag with the remaining bottles. 'For the mess.'

A battered khaki Land Rover stood a few metres from my car and a couple of others that had arrived while we were talking. I'd noticed it, but hadn't seen the 'WW' painted on the door, half covered in mud, until I got closer. It had a vaguely military look, like Kennedy himself.

He reached the 4WD, tossed the mail inside and put the bottles on the passenger seat. He turned back to me and I tensed, because his manner had changed a little.

'You were always a crafty bastard, Paddy. Thinking of joining up, are you?'

I shrugged. 'Probably past it.'

He brushed the side of his nose in the old soldier's gesture. 'We'll see. Stay back a bit and steer round the puddles.'

After a few kilometres the road deteriorated and Kennedy's advice about staying back made sense. Then the surface improved with gravel filling in the potholes and a slight camber on the bends. The bush was thick on both sides as the road sloped up and the air got colder. I had the window down to enjoy the smells and the sounds. A little bit of country air, however cold, does you good. Kennedy speeded up on the better surface; we rounded a bend and the camp came into view.

We crossed a narrow, shallow creek on a concrete ford and then a cattle grid in front of a high gate in a high cyclone fence. Electronic. After a brief pause, the gate swung open; the booth I'd seen in the web photo looked less formidable in reality and was unoccupied. We entered what once must have been a farm of some kind: a few hectares of cleared, flattish land, with a scattering of buildings-an old timber house, a demountable that looked like a schoolroom and two Nissen huts flanking a bituminised square with a flagpole in the middle. Kennedy swung the Land Rover around to where another bitumen strip was marked out as a parking bay. I followed him, stopping beside a canopied truck that looked even more military than the 4WD.