I love you. I always have. Always will. Tell Rupert to be good to you, or I’ll haunt him — that is presuming there’s some sort of a life after. I don’t want you to think I’m falling back into black pessimism; it’s just that I have to be realistic. I count my blessings that we had these days together, yet I’m sad the world couldn’t be different so we’d live happily ever after -like in the best of magic fairy tales.
If you should ever meet my father, tell him I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt him. We were different people, going our different ways. I know he’s strong; he’ll survive. And my mother — you should meet her. David said nobody’s mother should look as young and beautiful as she does. God bless, my love.
It was a wondrous time.
THIRTY TWO
‘I’m sorry,’ the attorney-general said, ‘my department advises there can be no question of a writ of habeas corpus. The prerogative to enquire into the lawfulness of restraint does not exist.’
William Patterson tried to contain his anger.
‘What do you mean, does not exist? If you consider yourself a lawyer, you know perfectly well habeas corpus is a right that has existed since Magna Carta.’
‘The National War Precautions Act overrules common law in this case.’
‘But that’s a Federal act. We’re applying under State law.’
The attorney studied the man sitting opposite him. Tall and vigorous, still in his late fifties with neatly groomed greying hair, accompanied by a well-dressed and handsome wife, ex-Senator Patterson was a complication the State Attorney could well have done without. No one in Adelaide quite knew the extent of his influence these days. The file on his son-in-law was in front of him, the police reports blunt and unambiguous.
The man was an agitator, and had threatened the local police inspector with a bayonet, while a rifle was later discovered hidden on his property. He ran what was apparently a thriving vineyard, but had been a constant source of trouble for some time. It was all closely documented. He had also made defamatory speeches against the Crown, and tried to circulate a petition that would have undermined police and government authority. There would certainly be no habeas corpus here.
On the other hand, the file had a note in the Premier’s own handwriting. Handle this with courtesy and caution.
‘I’m truly very sorry, Senator …’
‘You’re not the least bit sorry, and I’m not a senator any longer,’ William interrupted frostily, ‘so let’s stop this humbug and hypocrisy.’
‘I think you’re being unfair, sir,’ the attorney said, trying not to show his resentment. ‘I didn’t create this law. I may not even be in favour of it. But my department has to administer it.’
‘Your department that decided Stefan Muller has no rights.’
‘I wouldn’t exactly put it like that.’
‘Well, how would you put it?’
‘I’ve done my best to accommodate you. I’ve allowed you to see copies of the police reports.’
‘My daughter says they’re untrue.’
‘She may well be biased.’
‘I expect she is, Mr Langford, since they’ve had a friend vanish and others attacked, without the police showing any interest.’
‘I’m afraid my decision stands. The case is closed.’
‘It can hardly be closed, while the man remains imprisoned. If you want to talk legalities, at least speak like a lawyer.’
‘I mean,’ the attorney was becoming terse, ‘there will be no further enquiries. No more meetings. No application for release.’
‘May I see the Premier?’
‘He’s delegated the matter to me.’
‘Washing his hands. Well, that’s apt. The Pontius Pilate of the City of Churches.’
Hannah could feel the anger in his voice, his rising temper, just as she could see the attorney-general’s growing intransigence. Nothing would be achieved here. It was the end of a long and bitter battle, ever since the night of the first telephone call interrupted by the storm, and a tense thirty-hour wait until the line had been repaired and Elizabeth was able to inform them of what had happened. There followed months of frustration which had seen William rebuffed by former political colleagues, first in Sydney and Melbourne, now here in Adelaide, as he vainly tried to seek help.
In this spring of 1917, with a second referendum on conscription due, nobody was interested in the plight of any German emigrant, not even one well connected by marriage and long since naturalised, whose wines were known on affluent tables. As for William — those in power knew he had been active in the narrow defeat of the first vote on conscription. Others had personal vendettas. In his heyday he had been a ruthless debater in New South Wales’s notorious parliamentary bearpit, a noted performer with an acerbic wit and a sharp and corrosive tongue, and some who had felt his trenchant invective had long memories.
Hannah badly wanted to salvage something from this debacle, for William’s sake. They had come so far for such a total failure. ‘Mr Langford,’ she asked politely, ‘perhaps my step-daughter could at least visit her husband?’
‘It’s not normally allowed, Ma’am.’
‘Which is a pity, because then it leaves us with the feeling nothing is normal about this case. Whereas if she was able to visit, she could at least assure us he was being fairly treated.’
The attorney hesitated. She was a gracious and charming woman, and it might get this political albatross of his back.
‘I’ll have to take advice, Mrs Patterson,’ he said. ‘But I promise you I’ll do my best.’
Stefan still remembered the day he came to the island. He wore the same clothing in which he had been arrested, and moved stiffly and in great pain from the repeated beatings the police had given him. The last of them had been two days earlier, and apart from having a bucket of water thrown over him each time they had battered him unconscious, he had not been allowed to wash. He felt grimy, and knew he smelled. He was handcuffed, and his feet were manacled. It was chilly on deck, the wind off the river was brisk, and the small craft rolled and plunged. The engine slowed, as they drifted in towards an isolated landing stage. A deck hand caught a rope thrown from the wooden jetty, and secured it to a bollard. Stefan was told to step ashore. He found it difficult, with the riverboat swaying and his legs chained, and when it seemed as if he might slip between the boat and the mooring, two guards grabbed his arms and hauled him onto the wooden planks.
Thus he arrived on Langley Island face down. He had already been warned it was to be Langley and not Torrens Island, and informed with relish that the latter was a holiday camp. Langley was where the intractable cases were sent. Guards dragged him to his feet, unchained his legs, and told him to proceed. There was a pathway that led towards a compound strung with barbed wire. Inside the prison area were wooden huts. Prisoners sat around with looks of despair or sullen defiance. Stefan saw a familiar face; for a wild, hopeful moment he thought it was Gerhardt, but the man turned and it was Horst Krausen, a shopkeeper from Nuriootpa.
The man nodded in recognition.
‘Horst,’ Stefan said involuntarily, but before he could continue, received a jolt in the small of his back.
‘Keep moving, you German bastard,’ the guard ordered. ‘And no talking.’
He was made to wait until more new prisoners arrived later in the day, and they were all ordered to strip naked. Warders hosed them, laughing as they directed the powerful streams of water at their genitals. When the hoses were finally turned off, they were each thrown a strip of rough towelling.
A craggy-faced man who had been watching this, and who was clearly in charge, shouted at them in a broad Scottish accent that was difficult to understand.
‘Ye’ve got thirty seconds to get dry, get dressed, and get the fuck oot of here.’
He came past Stefan, and paused as he saw the livid bruises all over his body. He studied them, as if they might be of future interest.
‘A troublemaker, are yer, laddie? Well, for your
sake, ye’d best not cause trouble here.’
Since that day Stefan had lost track of how many months had passed. He had heard nothing from Elizabeth, nothing of the outside world. Clearly the war continued, because they all remained prisoners. In his first weeks, he learned the rules the hard way. To speak in German, if overheard by the guards, was punishable by a hundred metre run, barefoot, over coiled barbed wire laid out like an obstacle course. It had happened to Stefan once; he hoped it never would again. The pain was extreme, excruciating, his feet raw and bleeding by the time he reached the end of it. He could barely walk on them for weeks, and there remained scars that would be permanent on his soles and ankles.
It was one of many disciplines for minor infringements.
The chief warder, McVeigh, was a despot, who ran the camp in the most stringent and authoritarian way. He informed Stefan that as he had been arrested and not merely interned, he was confined to a hut that contained the dangerous subversives. The traitors’ quarters, McVeigh labelled it, and its occupants were allowed only an hour of exercise daily in a caged yard.
Boredom was their greatest enemy. Sometimes they were marched out to other parts of the island, and put to work digging ditches. When they were dug to the satisfaction of the supervising warder, the party was ordered to fill them in again. To men who had worked long and hard to achieve positions in the community, as many of them had, this fruitless endeavour caused anger and distress. Which was, they soon realised, the intention. Among the group of traitors’ there was a Lutheran missionary, a teacher of music, and a wealthy pastoralist. Daily, they were bullied and humiliated by guards their social and intellectual inferiors.
After one harangue by McVeigh because a prisoner had kept a diary in German, they were paraded to witness its destruction, an act which took an hour, while each page was ripped from the diary and burnt. The man was then stripped naked, and bound with barbedwire. Prodded by sticks, he was forced to move about the camp, and Stefan and his group were made to watch. Each step was agony; he bled copiously and screamed with pain, until eventually convulsing.
A former lecturer, Professor Adolph Linke, dismissed from the Adelaide University because it was alleged he was indoctrinating the young with Prussian principles, risked a dose of the same punishment by murmuring to Stefan a translation from Goethe: ‘In time of war, the devil makes more room in hell.’
Elizabeth could still not believe it. She was going to see him in a few minutes. Hannah — dear, wonderful Hannah — had worked the miracle. And a miracle it was, for no one was allowed to see or correspond with those in custody. Even her father admitted he had been able to achieve nothing, and it had been Hannah’s quick thinking which brought about the agreement for her visit.
She stood on the deck of the small river craft, and watched as it approached the jetty. On the wooden landing stage was a smart, uniformed figure, who saluted as she prepared to step ashore. ‘Mrs Muller? Chief prison officer McVeigh. The Governor has asked me to supervise your meeting with the inmate.’
At first glance she felt instant dislike. Inmate?
‘Thank you,’ she said formally. He extended his arm, but she stepped ashore without his help.
‘This way, Ma’am.’
He conducted her to an administration building. She was asked to sign a document attesting that she was the legal wife of the prisoner, Stefan Muller, and she did so with a feeling of distaste, certain that this was a charade designed to humiliate her.
‘There are certain rules, since this is irregular,’ McVeigh said in his Scottish accent, and she knew then that he resented her. ‘You will not touch the inmate. You will not make statements relating to his crime or anything other than personal remarks. Is that clear?’
Inmate, she thought again. I distrust this man already.
‘Did you hear me, Mrs Muller?’
‘I heard. You said my visit is irregular. On the contrary, it was sanctioned by the State Attorney-General.’
‘If you’re ready,’ he said, avoiding a reply, ‘we’ll proceed.’
He opened the door and walked ahead of her into a room.
Stefan sat on a chair in the far corner. A guard stood close beside him. As he rose, and Elizabeth instinctively moved towards him, McVeigh was between them.
‘Personal contact is forbidden. Muller, resume your seat.’ The guard already had hold of his arm. Stefan subsided into the chair.
‘Mrs Muller, please take this chair.’
It was on the opposite side of the room. ‘Can’t we sit together?’
‘Sorry.’ McVeigh did not sound it. ‘Official instructions.’
She sat down. There could hardly have been more distance between them. The guard and McVeigh remained.
‘For God’s sake,’ she said, ‘aren’t we to have any privacy?’
‘Regulations.’
McVeigh was poker-faced, but she sensed he was smiling. ‘Try to pretend they’re not there,’ Stefan said. ‘That’s what I often do. You look wonderful-lovely.’
You look pale and thin and threatened, she wanted to say, but knew it would not be wise. She could feel the gaze of the senior warder, waiting for her to respond.
‘Maria sends her love. So does Carl.’
‘How are they?’
‘Angry. My father’s doing his best. And Hannah — she was the one who managed to arrange this.’
‘Thank them both. Tell them — it must be over soon. When it is, there’ll be enquiries made, and questions to be answered about places like this.’
‘Careful, Muller,’ McVeigh said. His hand tapped his thigh with nervous regularity. Like a metronome. It betrayed his inward anger that this visit was taking place at all.
‘Is Gerhardt here?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘No. If Gerhardt had been arrested like they said, then this is where he’d surely be. Which means that Gerhardt’s dead.’
‘I’ll tell my father.’
‘What can he do?’
‘I don’t know. Make a fuss, perhaps. He’s good at that.’
‘Tell him then. Gerhardt was a kind, decent man, with the courage to speak his mind. A fuss should certainly be made.’ McVeigh stepped forward.
‘This is not personal conversation,’ he said. ‘You will speak only of domestic matters.’
‘There was a letter from Harry. He said he met Kate Brahm by chance in London,’ Elizabeth said, hating the way they were being made to talk in front of these men.
‘I’m glad. Does she still play the cello?’
‘Even better, he says.’
‘What other news?’
‘Sigrid’s a bit better, but she still has the scars. Dr Hardy is worried about Oscar. He’s deeply depressed. We all miss you. People in the town feel ashamed now, wishing they’d been braver and supported you. Everyone is angry that our corrupt police tricked you into being arrested, and sent to this place.’
‘All right, Mrs Muller!’ McVeigh shouted.
‘Time’s up.’
‘What do you mean, time’s up? I’ve only just got here.’
‘And now you’re leaving. Say goodbye to him.’ He gestured, and the guard hauled Stefan to his feet.
‘This is a farce.’ She was incredulous.
‘Rules. I told yer. Yer were warned.’ The warder’s voice became shrill, his Glaswegian accent so pronounced, it was difficult to decipher. ‘I said only to talk of personal matters. Yer fault, woman, ye’ broke the rules. Get him out,’ he shouted at the guard.
‘Elizabeth …’
McVeigh yelled violently, drowning whatever Stefan was trying to say. ‘Go on, out! Get the bastard out!’
The guard secured Stefan with an arm tight around his throat; pulled open a door beside them, shoved his prisoner forward, then used his foot to propel him into the adjacent room. Stefan went sprawling and landed heavily on the floor. It took only seconds. Elizabeth could see nothing more, as the door slammed, but she heard a cry of pain. She stared at McVeigh, and realised with revulsion t
hat he was not even trying to conceal his satisfaction.
‘What are you? Some kind of filthy sadist?’
Now he was in control of his voice again he ignored her anger. ‘Now you see, lassie, why we don’t approve of visits. Why it was unwise to allow it. Some silly emotional female like yourself just brings the laddie a whole lot of trouble. The Good Lord alone knows how much trouble.’
It was even worse when he smiled.
She felt an animal hatred for him — and pure terror for Stefan.
‘Listen to this,’ Marry Renshaw said, reading from a torn and mud-stained copy of The Times.
‘Too late in moving here, too late in arriving there, too late in coming to decisions, too late in starting enterprises, too late in preparing. In this war the footsteps of the Allied Forces have been dogged by the mocking spectre of too late. Unless we quicken our movements, damnation will fall on the sacred cause for which so much gallant blood has flowed.’
‘Bloody right,’ Corporal Shortland said. ‘Who said it?’
‘Lloyd George, in the House of Commons.’
‘Good for Lloyd George,’ Harry Patterson said, ‘but we could have told him that. Everything in this theatre of war — as Shakespeare used to call it — has been a fuck-up. When you get a good general like Monash, they try to give him the push.’
‘Who did?’
‘The British. And King George V.’
‘You’re kidding? Tried to get rid of Monash. He’s the only bastard who gives a stuff about us cannon fodder.’
‘Why did they try to get rid of him, skip?’ Shortland asked.
They were cramped together in a dugout, waiting for the guns to begin. Harry, Sergeant Renshaw, Corporal Shortland and the platoon. Thirty minutes from now, when it was dusk, they would go over the wire. The enemy — since the artillery barrage and charge was a tactic used constantly by General Haig — would be cleaning the barrels of their rifles and oiling their machine guns in readiness.
A Bitter Harvest Page 37
