Fireshadow

by Anthony Eaton

  Anthony Eaton is the award-winning author of 11 books for children, young adults and adult readers, including A New Kind of Dreaming, The Darklands Trilogy and Into White Silence. Fireshadow won the Western Australian Premier’s Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction and was a Children’s Book Council of Australia Honour Book for Older Readers. Anthony currently lectures in Creative Writing and Literary Studies at the University of Canberra.

  www.anthonyeaton.com

  Also by Anthony Eaton

  Young Adult Fiction

  A New Kind of Dreaming

  The Darkness

  Into White Silence

  Younger Readers

  The Girl in the Cave

  Nathan Nuttboard Hits the Beach

  Nathan Nuttboard Family Matters

  Nathan Nuttboard Upstaged

  The Darklands Trilogy

  Nightpeople

  Skyfall

  Daywards

  For Imogen

  In the bush, we are the only silence.

  Always in the background drifts

  the hum of insects,

  distant chirp of tiny birds,

  stir of leaves against warm air,

  raucous cries of cockatoo and kookaburra.

  And beneath all, edging subtle

  around the depths of consciousness,

  Hidden in the gentle disquiet,

  You can feel ghosts,

  Spirits of land, fire, sky,

  Watching over changing ages,

  Standing silent guard over those transients who pass,

  Feeling the pain of ravaged trees and scarred earth,

  Who know the quiet footsteps of the hunter

  and the jarring scream of white metal.

  They are all that remains of time gone before.

  They do not judge.

  They do not condemn,

  Merely watch –

  And that is how it should be.

  PART ONE

  ONE

  Vinnie

  Old spirits walked here. Ghosts as old as time. Vinnie stepped into the clearing, the leaves of the eucalypts trembled in the midday heat and the occasional insect chirped. Otherwise, the bush stood silent. In the trees behind, the black cockatoos which had been shadowing him through the treetops for the last two hours ceased their cries, and an unusual eeriness descended.

  The silence was unsettling. Strange. Not a real quiet, but a kind of gentle restlessness that Vinnie sensed rather than heard. Not since the hospital had he felt so tranquil. And here there was no disinfectant smell, this was no sterile silence – here was not so much absence of sound as lack of noise.

  He stood still. During the hike out, he’d become accustomed to the crunch of his footsteps on the gravel path, the gentle labour of his breathing. Now, with a jolt, Vinnie was aware how far he was from other people.

  Refreshing, yet at the same time frightening. Walking, his eyes on the path, he had not been touched by the immensity of the forest, the overwhelmingness of it. The trees had closed in, their branches a dim green canopy shutting out all larger perspective. Now though, at the edge of the clearing – because of the clearing – his sense of scale returned and the forest took on new dimensions.

  Vinnie moved from the end of the path and took a few steps out into space. The clearing was enormous. It sloped away from where he stood, dropping in rough terraces for about five hundred metres, to where a creek ran hidden through thick brush and scrub.

  He glanced back towards the trees. The wall they formed was broken by patches of darkness – undergrowth not yet trodden flat. The path stretching away out of sight, an insignificant curve against the wild.

  This would do.

  The decision to run had not been difficult. Home was cold and lifeless now, his mother introspective, his father bound up in the hatred of loss. And Vinnie knew that despite their assurances, their empty protestations, his presence there would do nothing to exorcise their grief. Just the opposite. As long as he was around, with their pain etched in the scar tissue on his face, they would look at him and see not their son but their daughter. Would imagine the screams of their eldest child, trapped in her coffin of burning steel, and would resent him.

  And what of him? Vinnie wasn’t stupid. He knew that his life was never going to be as it was. Not now. The moment he’d made the decision to crawl alone from the flames – to let the monster engulf Katia – he knew he’d changed everything. In many ways it was only fitting – the scarring – so that for the rest of his life he would be reminded, each and every day, of his cowardice.

  ‘You let your sister burn.’

  Later on, his father had apologised for those words. But why? He was right, wasn’t he? The proof was there, in the livid red tissue that covered the right half of Vinnie’s face. His own personal mark of Cain. How could he stay in the house knowing that every time he entered a room his dad would think of Katia?

  Unconsciously his hand lifted, fingertips tracing gently over the ridges and valleys of his skin, searching for the point where the old met the new.

  No, the decision to run had been right. The thought of being in a place without people was appealing. The only difficulty was working out some way of doing it that wouldn’t cause his parents any further grief, so they wouldn’t search for him. But in the end even that hadn’t been too hard.

  Vinnie picked his way down the terraces, towards where the creek trickled among thickets of thorn bushes. The day was hot, the pack heavy, and he was out of shape from months spent lying immobile, wrapped in bandages. Still, the sun felt agreeable, and the sweat, and the dirt. After all that time in the clean sterility of the hospital, it was good to feel real again. To be alive once more.

  Perhaps that was why he’d ended up here in this place with its dusty colours and persistent sense of restive life, standing alone in the middle of the bush, two hours walk from the nearest town. Perhaps he had needed to come somewhere like this to replenish himself.

  Vinnie knelt and examined the water. It was running, seemed clear, but he’d boil it before he drank it. He sluiced some onto his face and tasted the tang of dried sweat mixed with icy creek water. Then he stood again and looked around once more.

  The clearing was the site of an old forestry town that had burned in the nineteen-sixties and never been rebuilt – that much was written on his map. But he’d have thought by now the bush would have reclaimed the old town site – wasn’t that what was supposed to happen? Shouldn’t there have been a few lumps of concrete and tin and perhaps a stone chimney or two dotted between the trees? But nothing remained, not even ruins, and the forest still stood aloof, leaving the scar of the old town site as an empty, grassy slope, punctuated only by a few sparse shrubs and a couple of scraggly trees. It seemed almost as though this particular place, once home to loggers and millers and their families, was no longer fit to be forest. Perhaps this land too was being punished.

  Even so, it would do. A thick-branched pine stood on higher ground, just a little away from the creek and Vinnie decided to set up camp there, in the deep shade. In his pack he had his sister’s hiking tent – no one would even know it was missing – and food for at least a few days. Eventually, he’d have to walk back into town for more supplies, and there was always the risk of him being noticed, but he’d deal with that problem when it arose.

  Vinnie sat for a few minutes, letting the unsteady silence of the afternoon settle around him, and, when he felt that the bush was getting used to his presence, he started to quietly set up his camp.

  May 1943

  The pale light of pre-dawn was filtered by the fog that
lay across the clearing. Kangaroos feeding by the fence line were little more than ethereal shadows as they grazed. In the surrounding trees the birds stirred and with the first rays of sunlight the mist began to burn away and kookaburras and magpies launched into strident greeting.

  Their cry was answered by the unlikely sound of a bugle, and as the reveille echoed through the trees, wraith-like shapes emerged from the huts, bleary-eyed and stretching, moving automatically towards the latrines and the mess hall, where smoke already drifted from the chimney.

  Erich watched the scene dispassionately from the steps in front of Hut Seventeen, German division. His first morning. The cold air bit through the thin material of his desert-issue uniform and he stifled the urge to shiver. No weakness. Not here. Not in the enemy heartland.

  ‘Morning.’

  The speaker, in a heavy reddish overcoat, emerged from the haze of sleeping men in the hut and stood in the doorway at the top of the steps, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Want one?’ His German was rough and his accent coarse. Nothing like the high language Erich was accustomed to. He shook his head, no, and the man looked him over.

  ‘Get any sleep?’

  ‘A little.’

  Erich had arrived late, the only German in a shipment of Italians, and the guards who had shepherded them off the truck were disinclined to process a single prisoner at that time of night. Instead, he’d been given some bedding, scrounged together from what was available outside of the store, and escorted to Hut Seventeen. His bunkmates had all been asleep when he’d been shown in. After the long ride, with the truck lurching through the dark along rough gravel roads hewn into the forest, Erich had been exhausted and expected sleep to come easily. Once alone in the darkness though, the night sounds of the surrounding bush, so alien, so foreign, had worked their way into his consciousness, holding sleep at bay. Each distant screech and howl startled him with its primal aggression, until eventually he rose in the first gloom of dawn and crept from the hut to watch the morning slink between the trees.

  The other man sat heavily on the step beside him and drew on his cigarette, the smell slightly nauseating in the clean morning air. The stranger took in Erich’s brown uniform and high boots.

  ‘Afrika Korps, eh? Not a lot of sand here.’

  No reply was forthcoming and the two sat in silence until the other man stuck out his hand.

  ‘Günter. Günter Bote. Wehrmacht.’

  ‘Erich Pieters.’ He shook the offered hand.

  ‘Welcome to Australia.’

  Erich didn’t reply.

  ‘They issue you with a kit yet?’

  ‘Like yours?’ Erich nodded at the magenta greatcoat wrapped around the other man’s shoulders. It was far too big for him, and the sleeves were rolled up. ‘I’d rather wear my uniform.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Günter shrugged. ‘You’ll freeze in a month or two.’

  ‘I’m happy to suffer a little for the Fatherland.’

  The other man laughed, his mirth striking a blaze of embarrassed anger into Erich’s cheeks.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘You.’

  Erich was on his feet, ready to fight, but the other man just laughed harder, until Erich stepped away.

  ‘Your disrespect for your country is a disgrace.’

  ‘Settle down, youngster. You might be young, but that’s no excuse for being stupid. You want to get thrown into the detention cells before you’ve even been processed?’

  Turning sharply on his heel, Erich stalked off in the direction of what he assumed were the latrines. He could still hear the other man chuckling behind him.

  When he returned a few minutes later the hut was empty, all five men up and gone. Erich looked around, confused, until he noticed movement down at the cleared parade ground, a hundred metres away. Rollcall. They’d mentioned it briefly last night. He strolled towards the lines of men.

  On the other side of a fence the prisoners in the next section – Italians, he guessed – were also lining up for the morning count. There didn’t seem quite so many of them as there were in the German ranks.

  ‘You there! Hurry up!’

  The order was barked through a megaphone, the speaker an Australian army guard not much older than Erich himself. Throwing a bored glance in the direction of the guard, Erich continued towards the parade at the same steady pace and joined the end of the back line.

  ‘New bloke, up here. Now!’

  There was some sniggering among the gathered men, but no one laughed out loud. Erich fell out and walked to the spot indicated, in the middle of the front row. For the next ten minutes the young one with the megaphone announced the names staccato fashion and the men replied with a simple ‘here’ – most answering in German. Another Australian checked the speaker’s identity and a third marked a clipboard. The whole process was quick and efficient, the men cooperative. Erich’s name was not called.

  At the end of the roll, a German officer, older than most of the others in the compound, stepped forward from where he had been standing beside the Australian officers and spoke in German.

  ‘Another fine day at the office, my friends.’

  A few men chuckled obligingly. Erich guessed that this was a standard joke.

  ‘Not too much to report this morning. There will be a concert this Saturday evening and the Commandant has generously invited any interested men to attend. Günter will take your names after breakfast. Other than that, have a nice day in the woods. Sick parade in twenty minutes, work parade at seven thirty-five as usual. Enjoy your picnic lunch. New boy’ – a nod at Erich – ‘stay behind for a couple of minutes, please. The rest of you are dismissed.’

  Again there was some quiet laughter as the men drifted off in the direction of the mess hall. The officer chatted amiably in broken English with the guards for a few moments, before crossing to where Erich still stood at attention.

  ‘Stand easy, young man.’

  Resentment flared in Erich but he didn’t let it show. Hadn’t he stood up for himself in Libya when the bastard English had stormed in to their little encampment from all directions? And this man couldn’t see past his age.

  ‘I’m Heinrich Stutt. Ranking German officer.’

  ‘Erich Pieters. Afrika Korps.’

  ‘Welcome to Marrinup.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  The man was middle-aged, wearing a regulation naval uniform beneath his magenta greatcoat. His flashes indicated that he was a first officer.

  ‘I understand that you haven’t been processed yet.’

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘Fine, then. We’ll have breakfast and then get you organised with a kit and some supplies. Where did you spend the evening?’

  ‘Hut Seventeen, sir.’

  ‘Günter’s house. You could do worse.We might leave you there for the moment.’ A bell sounded from the door of the mess hut. ‘Come on, breakfast.’

  Erich followed.

  ‘We organise our own meals and do our own cooking. The Australians keep us supplied with the basics, and we have a vegetable garden for extra nourishment. You won’t need to worry about going hungry.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Stutt stopped mid-stride and turned to him.

  ‘You’ll also get along a lot better with everyone, including the guards, if you relax a little. We tend to remain reasonably informal here, within limits, of course. The Australians like it that way, and it certainly makes life a lot more bearable for all concerned.’

  ‘Informal, sir?’

  ‘You’ll work it out. Hungry?’

  A nod, and they entered the mess hut. At one end stood a rough wooden table where Erich was handed a plate, a boiled egg, and several pieces of bread.

  ‘You can toast the bread through there, if you wish.’ Stutt nodded in the direction
of a small kitchen, built off the main eating area. ‘And there’s coffee in that urn. This mess is also our main recreation area so we keep it tidy. You’ll do your own dishes.’

  The food was good, filling the emptiness that had settled, heavy and insistent, upon him. Throughout the quick meal, Stutt carried on telling him the rules and regulations of camp life.

  ‘This isn’t a bad place,’ he concluded. ‘Not too bad at all. A bit foreign, but there’s not a lot we can do about that.’

  It was hard to be certain whether the man was trying to be funny.

  Outside, a siren shattered the peace and the last remaining men bolted down their coffees and headed for the door. Stutt seemed unconcerned.

  ‘One of the good things about being the ranking officer – no work detail. Come on, let’s get you processed.’

  As they left the mess Stutt pointed out other buildings in the compound.

  ‘Canteen – you can buy supplies and cigarettes there with the credits that they pay you. The latrines you’ve already found, I imagine. School room and hospital. You have any medical skills?’

  ‘Not really, sir.’

  ‘Pity. We need a new orderly. The doctor’s having to make do with a stretcher bearer we borrowed from the Italians and he’s proving less than satisfactory. You sure you don’t know anything about medicine?’

  ‘Only what I picked up in the field, sir.’

  Stutt stopped. ‘And what was that?’

  ‘When the British took our position we had a lot of dead and injured, sir, including our medical officer. I was one of two who didn’t get shot, so it fell to us to tend to the wounded.’

  ‘What sort of tending?’

  ‘Fishing out bullets, mainly. Administering morphine, bandaging. At least until we ran out of dressings.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Made more bandages out of the dead men’s uniforms, sir.’

  ‘Not a pleasant task.’

  ‘They didn’t need them any more. In the end it was pointless anyway.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Infection. We were in a fenced compound. Most of the men already had dysentery and there was no way to sterilise the material. The British wouldn’t even allow us to boil water, for fear we’d use it to scald the guards.We lost as many men to infection as we did in the initial attack.’