‘It’s like we’re being let out of jail,’ Frankie whispered to Taz as their ranks thinned.
‘In a way, we are,’ said Taz, smiling.
Frankie didn’t expect anyone from his family to be outside. He hadn’t written to them in the end. Although, urged by Taz, he had decided to go home to Gympie and try to make amends with his father. As for Taz, he planned to go home to his family in Tasmania, and Richard had accepted an invitation to accompany him. If he could find work in Tasmania, Richard planned to save for a few years and then perhaps return to New York City. The three of them were resigned to waiting until the last Queensland family reunions had taken place beyond the wire. Only then would those men with no one waiting for them be permitted to depart.
But two-thirds of the way through this process, the trio received a surprise.
‘Archibald Browning Rait,’ called C Company’s acting sergeant-major, who happened to be the promoted Frank Hanson.
Taz, Frankie and Richard looked at each other in alarm.
Hanson came to stand in front of Richard. ‘Come on, Rait. One step forward, man!’ he commanded.
‘But there must be some mistake, Sergeant-Major,’ Richard returned, not budging.
‘You’re Rait, aren’t you?’ said Hanson. ‘You haven’t changed your name since the last time I saw you, have you?’
Richard’s face flushed red. ‘No, Sergeant-Major. But I have no family here. There is no one who knows me.’
‘Well, this bit of paper says different,’ Hanson retorted, crossing the name of Rait off his list. ‘One step forward!’
Reluctantly, Richard lifted up his kitbag and took a pace forward.
‘Dismissed!’ Hanson barked. When Richard failed to move, the sergeant-major snapped. ‘Move it, Rait! Out that gate you go! Someone out there’s panting to see you.’
Anxiously glancing back at Taz and Frankie, Richard slowly began to make for the gate.
‘Thanks for the school lessons, mate,’ Frankie called after him.
‘See you outside, Archie,’ called Taz.
Richard nodded and kept going. The gate was opened by a corporal, and Richard walked out into Australian civilian life. Even though a number of men had already departed with their loved ones, and the crowd had reduced, Richard was still confronted by hundreds of people who stared at him intently as they tried to determine whether he belonged to them.
‘What’s your name?’ asked the corporal at the gate, when no one rushed to welcome Richard.
‘Rait. Archibald Rait.’
‘Archibald Rait!’ the corporal yelled. ‘Anyone for Archibald Rait?’
A woman now made her way to the front of the crowd. Middle-aged, her hair greying, and well dressed, she looked Richard up and down with a severe expression on her face. ‘Archibald Rait?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I am Archibald Rait,’ Richard replied with a gulp.
‘Archibald Browning Rait?’
‘Yes.’
The pensive look on the woman’s face gave way to a wide smile, as if she had come to a realisation. ‘Archie, darling! How wonderful to see you!’
Richard, dumbfounded, stood there as the woman hurried forward and embraced him. From what Taz and Frankie had told him, he looked nothing like the real Archibald Rait.
The woman took a step back. ‘Don’t you recognise your Aunt Bess, dear?’ she said, holding him by the shoulders.
‘I . . . I . . .’
‘I know, dear,’ she said, smiling again. ‘It has been a long time since we last saw each other.’ She put an arm around him and, smiling in the direction of the corporal at the gate, said, ‘Come along, Archie, I’ll take you home to your Uncle Erich.’
As the woman steered him away through the crowd, Richard looked back to try to catch sight of Taz and Frankie, but he couldn’t make them out in the remaining ranks of the 26th.
‘We’ll catch a bus and then take the train to Toowoomba,’ Aunt Bess informed him.
Richard, rather than deny he was Archibald Rait, for fear of being thrown into an Australian prison, decided that, for the moment at least, he would play along with this strange woman.
They sat on hard wooden railway carriage seats, the only occupants of a small side-door compartment on a train heading for Toowoomba. Aunt Bess, sitting beside him, had not spoken a word since they’d boarded the train, and Richard had spent the time gazing out the carriage window at the unfamiliar dry Australian landscape. He felt Aunt Bess move closer to him, and tensed as she took his arm.
‘You know, dear,’ she began, ‘there’s no need to be afraid. I know your secret and it’s safe with me.’
Richard’s face paled. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he protested.
She smiled. ‘Now, we both know that you aren’t Archie Rait. You look nothing like him, and nothing like his mother or father. Besides, you’re too young to be Archie.’
‘But . . .’
‘No use denying it. I don’t care who you are . . . or were.’
Realising that it was pointless trying to keep up the pretence, Richard decided that he was now reliant on Aunt Bess’ mercy. ‘Please, do not tell the police,’ he implored. ‘I will be locked away. Perhaps I will be shot as a spy! I am German. My good Australian friends Taz and Frankie saved my life and helped me come to Australia . . .’
‘German?’ She nodded. ‘When I heard you speak, I suspected as much.’
‘Taz and Frankie and myself, we told everyone that I was Dutch.’
‘You can be Martian for all I care, dear. But the fact that you are German is perhaps a blessing.’
Richard frowned. ‘How so? I do not understand. I was told that Archibald Rait had no family.’
‘Is he dead?’ she asked. ‘The real Archie?’
He nodded. ‘I am sorry, yes. Killed on the Somme. He –’
She put up a hand to stop him. ‘I don’t want to know the details, dear. The real Archie came to stay with Erich and myself once, but the two of them didn’t get along. Archie was really not a very nice boy. I had hoped the war might have changed him, made him more agreeable. You see, my husband and I have no children. And when I read that Queensland soldiers were being demobilised at Lytton Quarantine Station, I checked with the authorities to see if Archie was among them. And sure enough, there was his name on the list. But instead of Archie, I found you. And something about you touched my heart. I couldn’t turn my back on you. Where are your parents, dear? In Germany?’
‘No, they died some years ago in America.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. But then perhaps this was all meant to be.’ Aunt Bess paused for a moment, casting her mind back to her past. ‘When Archie’s mother – my sister – was alive, my husband would not allow her into our house or into our lives. She had her child, Archie, out of wedlock, you see. And Erich von Hippel is a devout man – and a stubborn one.’
‘Von Hippel?’ Richard exclaimed. ‘Your husband is German?’
Aunt Bess smiled. ‘You can now see the serendipity of our meeting today? You know, it’s wonderful how fate sometimes changes the way we see life. My husband is the local doctor in the small town outside Toowoomba where we live. He is a very good doctor and was spared internment when many other Germans in Australia were locked away at the start of the war. For two decades, he was well liked and trusted by the local people. But then the war came and many people who had been his patients for years would not see him because he was German. Some even refused a ride when he offered it. And we could not get anyone to help me about the house. One horrible man even spat on Erich. Two years before, my husband had saved the life of that man’s wife.’
‘That is terrible! How can people be so ungrateful?’
She shrugged helplessly. ‘The war changed people. It changed my husband. He confessed to me only recently that he regrets never having had a child.’ She smiled at Richard. ‘So will you come and work for Dr von Hippel and myself? Chopping wood, looking after my husband’s two fine horses, the chi
ckens, the pigs . . .?’
Richard broached a faint smile. ‘Pigs? I know quite a lot about pig farming.’
‘Well then, you will fit right in.’
Richard grew thoughtful. ‘I was hoping to study.’
‘Oh? Study what?’
‘Science. Chemistry, perhaps.’
‘Well, anything is possible, dear,’ said Aunt Bess, impressed by his ambition. ‘Come and stay with us. If you don’t like it at our place, you are free to go. Whatever happens, I will keep your secret. I promise.’
And so Richard Rix, alias Archie Rait, went home with Aunt Bess to tell Dr Erich von Hippel his secret. And to start a new life.
No one recognised Taz as he walked down Weld Street, Beaconsfield’s main street. Soldiers had been coming home from the war for many months, and the novelty of seeing returning AIF heroes in khaki and slouch hats had faded. Besides, the Tasman Dutton who was returning was very different from the youth who had departed two years before. He had the worn face of a middle-aged man.
Turning up a cross-street, he walked to the neat cottage in the shadow of Cabbage Tree Hill where he had grown up. Through the wooden gate he passed, and along the path down the side of the house. In a strong breeze, washing flapped on a rope strung between posts in the backyard. It was Tuesday, and Taz knew that on this day of the week his mother always brought in the washing to iron by the kitchen fire. Beneath hanging bedsheets, he saw the legs of a woman.
‘Mum?’
An attractive, greying woman appeared from around the washing, a wicker basket cradled against her side. ‘Taz!’
The basket fell to the ground as mother and son rushed to wrap themselves in each other’s arms.
There it was. Mephisto. Smartened up with fresh grey-green paint, and with its red devil motif shining. Some of the fittings were missing, souvenired long ago by Australian troops. But it looked impressively ready for action. As Taz Dutton walked slowly towards the world’s only surviving German World War I tank, he calculated that it was sixty-eight years since he had last seen this monster. Now aged eighty-four, Taz was feeling the weight of his years. Mephisto, on the other hand, looked almost brand new.
It was 1986. The new Queensland Museum had recently opened in South Brisbane, and in pride of place among the exhibits, near the front doors, stood Mephisto, which was receiving its very own unveiling ceremony. Taz had been handed a leaflet when he arrived as an invited guest for the opening of the new Mephisto exhibit. It chronicled how Mephisto had first been taken to London in 1918, destined for Britain’s Imperial War Museum. However, in a joint effort, Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes, Queensland Premier Tom Ryan and Lieutenant-Colonel Rocks Robinson had managed to convince the British Government that Mephisto should be displayed in Australia because it had been captured by Australian troops. Hughes had intended that Mephisto go to Canberra, for what would be the Australian War Memorial’s collection. But in June 1919, while the ship carrying Mephisto was docked in Brisbane en route to Sydney, Mephisto was clandestinely unloaded. The Queenslanders had hung onto the tank ever since.
A crowd of a hundred or more guests had turned up for the unveiling. As Taz sipped orange juice, one face in particular caught his eye – a portly man who was entirely bald. The man’s wrinkled brow failed to disguise a scar that ran across his forehead. ‘Frankie Pickles!’ he exclaimed, walking towards the man with hand outstretched.
The bald man, beer in hand, turned from his conversation to look around. And then his jaw dropped. ‘Taz? Is that you, Taz Dutton?’ Setting his beer aside, Frankie vigorously shook Taz by the hand and embraced him. ‘Of all the people . . .’ he said, choking back tears.
‘It took Mephisto to bring us back together,’ said Taz, grinning. They hadn’t seen each other since the day they’d parted in Brisbane in 1919, after being discharged at Lytton Quarantine Station. ‘So, you’ve done well for yourself.’
Frankie shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. ‘Can’t complain, mate.’
‘The owner of Pickles Transport, no less. Australia’s largest trucking empire.’
‘Yeah, well, I tinkered with engines for a while, then started carting stuff with a little second-hand Ford truck I bought in 1923, using money I borrowed from my dad.’
Taz raised his eyebrows. ‘You and your father reconciled then?’
‘Yeah, we made up. Thanks for making me go home, Taz. Turned out Dad had been worried stiff that his only son would be killed in the war. We ended up real close.’ Frankie fell silent for a moment then, clearing his throat, asked, ‘What about yourself?’
Taz smiled. ‘My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but I found teaching history much more rewarding.’
Frankie nodded. ‘I’ve seen some of your books in the shops. You always said that’s what you wanted to do.’
‘My father understood that I wanted to chart my own course in life; he was a very understanding sort of man.’
‘Sounds like it.’ Frankie paused. ‘I’m sorry now that I never tried to track you down, Taz. But I wanted to put those terrible, terrible years behind me. We saw things that no sixteen-year-old should ever see. That no human being should see.’
Taz nodded. ‘I know. I felt the same way. It was as if I put those years in a box and locked it away, along with the guilt I carried for being the only one of my brothers to survive. It’s only now that I’ve had the courage to open that box again. And you’re the only person in the world I’d admit that to.’
Frankie laughed, then burst into tears. Taz pulled him into another embrace, and they stood holding each other for a long time.
‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ came a voice from the podium. ‘To officially unveil the Mephisto exhibit today, it is my great honour to introduce Emeritus Professor A. B. Rait. Professor Rait’s subject is, of course, chemistry, on which he speaks with famed oratorical power. But he is our guest speaker today because he was one of the thirteen men who captured this tank on the twenty-second of July 1918. Professor Rait . . .’
Taz and Frankie parted from their embrace and, standing arm-in-arm, listened as a trim, white-haired man of their age came to the microphone and told of the night that Mephisto had been wrestled from a shell crater in Monument Farm’s orchard. He told it with impressive detail and eloquence, and neither Taz nor Frankie could fault his account.
Once the professor had cut the ribbon that stretched in front of Mephisto, officially opening the exhibit, Taz and Frankie approached Professor Rait as he was deep in conversation with several reporters.
‘So, Archie,’ said Taz, ‘we meet again.’
The professor looked around and frowned. ‘I’m sorry, do I know you gentlemen?’ he asked.
‘Just a bit,’ Frankie said with a chuckle. ‘We shared a few experiences on the Somme together. Whatever happened to that other bloke? What was his name? Richard something?’
The professor’s face lit up in recognition. ‘Frankie! Taz! My goodness me!’ Excusing himself from the reporters, the professor put his arms around the shoulders of the pair and guided them to a quiet corner. There, Richard Rix, alias Professor Archibald Rait, shook both their hands vigorously. ‘So we have all lived long lives,’ he said with delight.
‘And you became a chemistry professor after all, mate,’ said Frankie.
Richard nodded. ‘I think I must have been fated to do it after Professor Biltz urged me to follow a career in chemistry. You know, after the war, Biltz went back to chemistry and became highly regarded in the scientific world. He died in Hamburg during an Allied air raid in 1942.’
‘There’s irony for you,’ said Frankie. ‘Surviving one terrible war only to be killed in another.’
‘But at least he made a great contribution to science,’ Richard added. ‘And what of you, my friends? What have your lives amounted to?’
‘Six kids, thirteen grandchildren and a lot of trucks,’ Frankie answered with a grin.
Richard looked at Taz. ‘And you, Taz?’
‘
A good wife and thirty books on history,’ Taz answered.
‘And thanks to the reading lessons you gave me on the Port Lyttelton, Rich–, er, Archie,’ said Frankie, ‘I’ve read a couple of Taz’s books.’
‘You have?’ said Taz with surprise.
‘Oh, yeah. You write well, mate. I could hear your voice when I read them. It felt like you were in the room talking to me. It was almost as if we hadn’t lost touch.’
Taz turned to Richard. ‘And you never went to America?’
Richard smiled again. ‘No. I came to realise that for a long time I was a lost soul, never quite belonging anywhere. But here in Australia I found myself – with the help of a pretty Brisbane girl named Peggy. I met Peggy when I was studying at the University of Queensland. We married, settled down and had several children. Peggy passed away ten years ago. Aunt Bess came to our wedding – she was the woman who took me away from the quarantine station that day. I lived with her and her husband until I married. And after Erich died, Aunt Bess came to live with Peggy and myself for the rest of her days.’
‘Tell me,’ Taz asked, ‘did your wife know your secret?’
Richard seemed amused by this. ‘Oh, yes. I told her before we married. She urged me to keep my adopted name, so I did. We named our first son Richard Rix Rait. When he became an adult I told him the story behind his name.’
‘Crikey, what did he think about that?’ Frankie asked.
‘He thought it was wonderful. Up to that time, he’d thought me a rather boring and straight-laced old fellow. My story seemed to change his opinion of me.’
Frankie and Taz laughed.
‘Ever been back to the Somme?’ Frankie asked. ‘To the old battlefield?’
Richard shook his head. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Too many ghosts waiting there for me. You?’
‘No,’ Taz replied definitely.
‘Not me, either,’ said Frankie.
Tank Boys Page 19
