Craig Cormick is a multi-award-winning science communicator and author. He has published over 30 works of fiction and non-fiction, and has been a writer in residence in Malaysia and in Antarctica. He enjoys messing with history just about as much as history enjoys messing with him.
Years of
the Wolf
By Craig Cormick
This is a work of fiction. The majority of events and characters portrayed herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the publisher.
Years of the Wolf
All Rights Reserved
ISBN-13: 978-1-925759-71-6
Copyright ©2018 Craig Cormick
V1.0
This ebook may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover photograph: photographer unknown; source: Migration Heritage Centre; not subject to copyright.
IFWG Publishing International
Melbourne
www.ifwgpublishing.com
To all those who have ever endured
the madness of internment.
Trial Bay Gaol (Photo: Photo Australian War Memorial)
Roll call at Trial Bay (Photo: Karl Lehmann. National
Library of Australia
Trial Bay Guards, c1917 (permission: Trial Bay Gaol Visitor Centre)
German internees dressed for a performance
(photographer unknown; source: Migration Heritage Centre)
German internee in woman’s costume (photo: Paul Dubotzki, Australian War Memorial)
German internee in woman’s costume (photo: Paul Dubotzki, Australian War Memorial)
This story is true.
Except for the bits that aren’t.
They are a different kind of truth.
German internees changing into women’s costume (photo: Paul Dubotzki Australian War Memorial)
“The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a word he went straight to the grandmother’s bed, and devoured her. Then he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap, laid himself in bed and drew the curtains.”
Little Red Riding Hood – by the Brothers Grimm
1
A New Day
1917
In the two years he has been interned in the old stone prison, Arno Friedrich has shared many of the feelings of those men who live in close confinement about him—boredom, fear, anger, desperation—but he had never felt terror until the night Hans Eckert was murdered.
And he alone had seen the killing.
Arno had stirred in the night and seen the dark shadow moving along the stone wall of their prison. It paused at each cell and peered in, then moved on, dragging its feet like a half-human, half-beast might. A tall furry man-thing come for blood.
It found it in Herr Eckert’s cell.
The elderly man was tossing restlessly in his sleep, fighting off some dark nightmare of his own, as the beast stepped through the open doorway into his cell and stood over him. It paused there, taking in the scent of him. Smelled fear in the sweat on his skin. The beast then reached down one hand and clasped it over Herr Eckert’s mouth. Saw his eyes open. Saw him stare in terror. Then it slashed at his throat. Its talons as sharp as a trench dagger—ripping the life out of him.
The man-beast stood there until the blood stopped flowing, and then moved back from the bed, stepped outside and merged into the shadows and was gone.
And Arno Friedrich sat up in bed in his own cell, his heart beating madly in fear—recalling the terror of that night they came for him in his sleep. The night he first felt the violent touch of a world gone mad.
They had also come for him in the night, during the hours of deepest sleep, so that he always had trouble afterwards remembering what was a dream and what was not. They knocked upon the door once and then kicked it in. Heavy boots marched into the small room and they shone a bright light upon him. Dazzling him. Then they kicked the bed. It rocked beneath him while he struggled to open his eyes properly.
There were six of them. Tall. Darkly dressed. Helmets tilted low. Pale faces scowling. No emotion showing in their deep-set eyes. Like six dark angels, he would later recall them.
Then an officer stepped forward, motioned to the soldiers to stop, and he threw back the bedclothes. Arno Friedrich was nearly naked and he tried desperately to cover himself with his hands. Tried to hide his erection from them. The officer stared at him a long moment, as if he could read the intoxicatingly sweet dreams that he had been embracing. Then he stepped back. The six soldiers lowered their rifles at Arno. Long sharp bayonets pointing closely at his skin. So close he could feel the chill from the steel. More menacing and effective than the blank empty rifle barrels, they knew.
Arno blinked up at the six men. He shook his head a little, like trying to shake away a bad dream. Like trying to swim up through warm water and trying to reach the surface. He blinked again. The six men didn’t move. But they seemed suddenly closer. The bayonets pressing into him.
Then the officer spoke, “Up!”
Two of the soldiers moved their rifles, leaving a space for him to rise from the bed. But he lay there, still not fully awake. Still flailing as if in deep water. Still trying to reach the surface.
“Up!” said the officer again. Louder. The soldiers took it as a command and two of them reached forward, grabbing him by the arms. They lifted him quickly to a sitting position, almost dragging him onto the floor. The officer turned to a chair by the wash stand and lifted Arno’s clothes up with a short stick he held. He flicked them at him in a quick whipping motion.
“Get dressed!” he said. Softer now. But still a command.
Arno had trouble sorting out the clothes. He struggled to turn them the right way around, to line up the buttons and button holes, to get his legs cleanly into his trousers. The soldiers kept their bayonets close as he fought to dress himself.
Then the officer said, “Go!” and turned and walked out of the room. One soldier now grinned—just enough to show a glimpse of white teeth—and he grasped Arno firmly by the arm. “Up!” he said in a vicious imitation of the officer, and hauled Arno to his feet. Then he whispered, “You filthy Hun!”
Arno looked back at him, as if not understanding the words. The soldier gave him a rough shove. “Out!” he said. Arno fell to the floor boards. The soldiers’ bayonets followed him down. He turned on his back and stared up at the soldiers. He looked into the faces and slowly reached up one arm. Pointed to the crutches leaning on the wall by the head of his bed. One by one the soldiers turned to look at them until one seemed to get his meaning. He was harmless. He was a cripple. They could have no use for him, surely. And Arno, still young enough to think that his wit could save him from petty authority, said, “So if I close my eyes you cease to exist, yes?”
Nobody laughed. One soldier took the crutches and threw them to him. “Up!” he commanded. Arno struggled to rise with them until two of the soldiers grasped him by the arms again and hauled him up. They let him fit the crutches to his armpits and then led him out of the room.
The truck stood way out the middle of the yard. Its engine was idling softly. It sounded to Arno like distant thunder at the coast. Soldiers stood by the tailgate, looking across at him. Arno could see other men sitting in the truck. Ha
lf-dressed. Heads bowed.
Then he heard a quick knock and the kicking in of a door to his left somewhere. He tried to turn his head and see whose place they were entering now. Tried to see who else they were after. But he stumbled. Landed heavily in the dirt.
The soldiers were quick and had him by the arms again. Hauled him up and dragged him to the truck, leaving his crutches on the ground. Arno tried to turn his head and protest. Tried to call out. Tried to tell somebody what had happened. But they grabbed him by the hair. Tilted his head back. Hissed, “Quiet! No noise!” Then lifted him into the truck and levelled another bayoneted rifle at his face and waited for him to bow his head. And sit there silently.
Presently the truck was full of silent men. And with a sudden lurch it moved off into the darkness.
In the morning, those who had not been taken peered cautiously out of the doors of their small migrants’ huts, and saw Arno Friedrich’s crutches lying in the yard—as if he had limped out his open door and suddenly cast them aside and either walked away or perhaps even flown up into the sky.
It is an early June morning today, and Arno Friedrich is standing up against a chill rock wall of the prison courtyard, searching for traces of Herr Eckert’s death. For two years he has risen in the darkness and made his way out into the prison yard, past the many unlocked doors, to await the light of the new day in the imprisoning walled courtyard. For two years he has stood there to ensure that the many dreams of his fellow German internees that fill his mind each night return to the rock and do not escape into the light of day.
He does not know how it happens, but the most fervent and fevered of the men’s dreams come to him. Their fears. Their passions. Their longing. Their troubles. And he finds it increasingly hard to tell what is real and what is dreamt, in this prison where every day is so like the one before it, unless he stands at the rock wall at the start and end of each day, and feels the dreams retreat into the hard granite each morning. This prison where 400 or so men have been interred for no other crime than having been born German. Or Austrian. Or having been born in Australia, but to German parents—as was Arno’s case.
His parents died when he was young, and German is a language he speaks imperfectly. So to the camp internees he is not German enough, but to the authorities he is too German. Officially he is an enemy alien. He, himself, is no longer sure what he is. A protector of them all, he would like to think. The one who keeps the nightmares contained.
As the youngest of the civilian internees by many years most of the elder men think of him as a boy, and treat him with something akin to fatherly affection. Others tend to ignore his presence altogether.
Arno is happy to be ignored and to be left alone to observe, for he knows the darkest secrets of them all, and what hides behind the smiles or aloofness of the men. He knows who dreams of dressing in women’s clothing. Who dreams of going to school with no pants on. And who dreams of wetting the bed. And he knows who has the worst nightmares of creatures that come into their rooms at night and drag them from their family beds and cart them off into the darkness.
He is the keeper of those dreams and nightmares and knows that he has the task of keeping those two different worlds—of light and darkness—apart.
Herr Eckert’s nightmare is still fresh in his mind and he needs to ensure that it has fully returned to the dark rock and does not seep into their prison. He stands by the wall for some time, feeling its re-assuring hardness. Then he turns and begins making his slow way around the prison walls. He limps along in the shadows, clasping his crutches close to his body so they won’t creak. But this morning he moves too close to the stone wall and feels the knuckles of his hand scrape against the rock. A sudden sharp point tears the skin. He stops and looks at his hand. Feels the wound. Feels the thin trickle of blood. That could be thought of as a bad omen, he thinks, but sometimes, things are just things.
He looks at the blood on his knuckles and thinks that he will write that word later in his diary—Blut—to remind himself that it has happened on this day. He only writes single short words or phrases—the language of confinement. Just enough to mark it from all the other days of sameness.
He grasps his crutches again and continues on his way. He stays close to the wall, keeping to the darkness. He stops again under the southwest watchtower and looks at his wrist-watch, straining to see the hands. 6.45am precisely.
He tilts his head back and looks up over the grey walls, his neck bent far back, peering beyond the cold granite that encircles him. Waiting for the light to come to the sky. Waiting for some colour to fill the day.
He can hear the guard moving in the watchtower above him, and he steps in closer against the wall. Standing silently in the shadows. Waiting. There is something different in the way the man up there moves, he thinks, as if he is not peering out towards the ocean today, as is his custom, but looking into the prison yard.
Any change in a life of sameness unsettles him.
Then he hears a low warning rumble of faraway thunder. Arno tilts his head a little to listen to it. Then he inhales, searching for the scent of rain. But there is none. He waits, but he does not hear it again. He stares at the sky. It is still too early to see if there are clouds today, so he continues on.
He makes his way along the southern wall, clinging to the shadows, and stops at the corner of the cells there. There are two large cell blocks for all the internees, both running out from the main hall, which lies in the very centre of the prison, like the shape of a large V. The internees are two to a cell. There are 50 cells on the lower level of each wing. Another 50 on the upper levels. Over 400 men interned together.
Arno stands by the wall and listens for the sound of Herr Schröder singing softly within. He can hear the deep bass voice echoing lightly, as if it is coming from the stone itself. It is Wagner. Herr Schröder’s favourite. Herr Schröder has a recurrent dream of flying. Or floating. In his dream he is able to lift off the ground and float graciously over the prison walls, and then above the long rocky peninsular by the Macleay River. And from there he drifts along the coast back to his family in Sydney. Arno enjoys his dreams the most, even if they fade before he has ever gone too far southwards. One day, he likes to think, he will make that long journey all the way back home, and Arno will be there with him. He wonders what he would do when he reaches home? Sit down with his family to a formal dinner, or take his wife upstairs to their bedroom—to ravage her or to just curl up in her arms and cry?
Arno looks up towards the sky again. Like he is watching the words of the song float up into the slow growing blueness. He looks at his watch once more. 6.55 exactly. In the next cell Herr Schultz and Herr Schmidt will still be sound asleep, worn out from another night of arguing philosophy. Both men have nightmares of being lost in dark forests. They are the only two cell mates who share similar dreams. In the cell next to them, Herr Voigt will be awake, softly muttering his morning rosary. His dreams are more fearful. He dreams of dark angels come to punish him for a life-time’s accumulation of petty sins.
Arno knows that if he were to press his ear close to the stone there, he could just about make out the words. Like he knows the early morning routines of most of the 400 inhabitants of the prison. He has stood outside their cells in the dark of morning and in the shadows of night. Has listened to their private lives seeping out between the bars, escaping into the darkness. As he has shared the dreams and nightmares of so many of them. Memories of children. Lustful imaginings of wives, girlfriends or unknown women. Dark creatures in dark places. And so many dreams of confinement. Being buried alive and unable to escape. Drowning. Trying to run from pursuers and unable to make any progress. Being surrounded by fierce creatures. Or attacked by wild beasts.
He knows the prison and the internees like none of them know it. As none of them know he is their protector.
He grasps his crutches tightly and limps on, pausing every few steps to reach
out and lightly touch the walls. The stone is dark and cold beneath his fingers, but by mid-day it will be warm as the sun’s bright light brings colour and texture to it.
Arno Friedrich makes one lap of the prison walls every morning, before the full light of day arrives. Before the other internees are awake. And he makes one lap the last thing at night. Before the light has faded. Ensuring the world is safe for them all. Knowing that it is only through his vigilance that the dreams and nightmares are kept in their proper places to only emerge at night time. He runs his hands over the dull granite walls as the sky turns dark above him and the light goes out of the world. And then he goes back to his own cell, closes the barred door and lies down on his bunk, confident that he has protected everybody one more day. And perhaps writing some key words of events that have happened in his diary. Trying to remember particular details or words spoken to him. Trying to make that day different from every other day of the two years he has spent inside the old prison as an internee.
Each day trying just a little harder to distinguish the memories from the dreams.
Arno moves past the kitchen now and can hear the rattle and clatter of the kitchen staff preparing the morning’s meal. He pauses and inhales deeply. Bread and porridge again. He stays there awhile tasting the fragrance of the warm bread in the air. It has an aroma that makes him think of comforting dreams and warm clouds.
The kitchen staff arise each day at 6.00am and make their way in the darkness out to the old kitchen. There they begin cutting vegetables, rolling dough, heating up the ovens and boiling water. They prepare enough food to feed the 400 men, and for what gain? Some of the internees shake their heads at the kitchen staff who toil long hours for no pay. They are prisoners of the kitchen, they joke, calling them the washing up warriors
The Years of the Wolf Page 1
