The Cadet Under-Officer Read online

  Elizabeth felt a spasm of terror. She glanced at the speedometer. Over 130 kph! “Can we slow down Uncle Jack?” she asked. Her throat had gone dry and she hung on tightly to the briefcase in her lap.

  “Sorry,” was all he said, glancing nervously at the mirror as he did. The other car was now close behind them. It went to overtake but Jack was ready and pulled out in front. They roared up a long slope straddling the double lines. A truck appeared over the crest coming the other way. They swerved and just missed it. So did the car behind but it went off onto the gravel and slowed down as its driver fought to regain control.

  It was a small gain - 150 metres - a few seconds. Jack didn’t know how long he could keep it up. They raced on, over another small bridge, past a little brown car going the same way, then up another slope. The brown car helped them keep their short lead as the NORMAC car waited until it was safely over the next crest before pulling out to pass. It then rapidly overhauled them again.

  Jack tried to push his car to go faster but it was now on 140 kph and his foot was ‘flat to the floor’. The machine was wobbling dangerously on the uneven road surface. The pursuing car again tried to overtake. Again Jack pulled in front of it. His hands were slippery with sweat and he was breathing hard and fast. The car behind tried to cut in on their left but he blocked that too. They went up another long hill and over. A truck coming the other way kept both cars in their own lanes until the bottom.

  Bump! The car behind surged up and nudged theirs with its fender.

  “By Christ! That’s a bloody dangerous game,” snarled Jack between clenched teeth.

  “What Uncle Jack?” croaked Elizabeth. She was panting with anxiety and on the edge of tears.

  “He just tried to knock us out of control. If he does we’ll crash! I believe they mean to kill us! We know too much. Sorry I got you into this girl." Jack was sick with foreboding. He felt tired and his eyes blurred. He wiped the sweat away.

  Snap!

  A sharp report sounded. They both stared at the hole in the windshield.

  A bullet hole!

  Just like in the movies!

  With a little spider’s web of cracks radiating from it in the laminated glass!

  Elizabeth couldn’t believe her eyes. It was like a nightmare. She’d just got off a bus on the first day of the school holidays looking forward to a fairly boring two weeks with her uncle and aunt and here she was being shot at! Men were trying to murder her uncle (and probably her as she would be an inconvenient witness!) It was too unlikely and unreal to credit, but that bullet hole was real and her fear was real.

  Something struck the car behind her. Another bullet.

  Jack was truly appalled at the situation he had unwittingly placed the girl in. It had seemed for the best at the time. He reached for his handkerchief to wipe the sweat which was blurring his vision and felt the butt of the automatic pistol in his pocket. He pulled it out and passed it to her while swerving again to block the pursuers. They raced down another long slope towards a creek. There were open paddocks on the right and at the bottom, near a creek, were some farm buildings and a house. A car coming the other way gave them another minute’s respite.

  Elizabeth looked at the gun Uncle Jack was holding for her to take. It was black and ugly, a thing of evil. She shrank from touching it.

  Uncle Jack glanced at her and shook his head, then said, “Take it Elizabeth. Those men mean to kill us and we must defend ourselves.”

  Reluctantly she took the pistol. She had never touched a real gun in all her life and it lay heavy in her hand, cold and slightly oily. “I… I don’t know how to use it,” she said. The words almost come out as a wail. She was on the edge of being hysterical and only controlled herself with effort.

  They raced down another long slope towards a creek. There were open paddocks on the right and at the bottom, close to the road, were some farm buildings and a house. They were the first houses she had noticed that were close and now hope swirled up. She pointed and said, “Can we stop at that farm? Surely we will be safe then.”

  Uncle Jack shook his head. “I doubt it. And it would only place innocent people at risk. No, we need the Federal Police,” he replied, his face then setting in a determined frown.

  The car raced past the farm and on across a small bridge. A sign reading Midnight Creek flashed by, the name barely registering in Elizabeth’s mind. The road curved up a long open slope with an old, run-down farm on the left. Jack tried to explain how to use the gun, pointing with one hand while he steered with the other but he got a wheel off the bitumen and the car swerved sickeningly. There was another shot from behind and something stung Elizabeth sharply in the neck. Another bullet hole appeared.

  She cried out and put her hand up to her neck. A little piece of glass was embedded in her skin and blood was trickling down. She looked at the redness on her fingers. A wave of cold shock swept over her. Death had clipped her in passing! Then fear was replaced by hot anger. ‘I’ll show them!’ she thought.

  Uncle Jack had regained control of the car now. The road curved to the right over a crest. On the left was the roof of a small farmhouse a hundred metres from the road. On the right were a small overgrown cemetery and a natural grove of trees. Now the road went down a somewhat steeper hill for half a kilometre. In the distance, at the top of a long open grassy slope, was the railway siding and tiny settlement of Bunyip Bend.

  Uncle Jack weaved the car slightly on the bitumen to block their pursuers and to spoil their aim. Travelling at close to 150kph they roared down the hill. Elizabeth twisted in her seat and looked back. She could see a black-skinned man leaning out of the car holding a black object which must be a gun. She looked at the pistol she held and was about to try to cock it when the car gave a sickening lurch.

  She looked at Uncle Jack in alarm. To her dismay she saw that he had gone a horrible grey colour and as she watched his eyes rolled. “Uncle Jack, what’s the matter?” she screamed. “Have they shot you?”

  The tyres squealed and the car shuddered and slithered. Uncle Jack moved his foot off the accelerator and onto the brake. Elizabeth cried out in fright and forgot the pistol.

  “Heart!” Uncle Jack gasped. Then he clutched his chest and his face contorted in pain. He tried to apply the brakes gently but the stabbing pain shot through him and his vision blurred. In a spasm of agony his foot pushed hard.

  The brakes locked and the car went into a screeching skid at over 100kph just as it reached the bottom of the hill. The back wheels slipped away to the left, hit loose gravel and then rough ground. The car rolled. Elizabeth screamed and hung on. ‘I’m going to die!’ she thought, terror freezing her muscles.

  Elizabeth experienced a terrifying sequence of apparently slow motion impressions - fence posts snapping as the car roof hit them - the grass inches from her face – again the thought that she was about to die - regret at not having lived - then a terrific whack as the front of the car hit the white guide rails on the bridge.

  The car was violently spun outwards and over and landed with a massive crunching crash in long grass and weeds in the bed of a small dry creek. Broken glass, dust and odd items like sunglasses and pens showered Elizabeth as she sat stunned and shocked.

  Then she looked at Uncle Jack. She saw that he was alive but in great distress. His eyes were bulging and his face was convulsed by pain and almost blue in colour.

  “Sorry ..... old girl” he gasped, “Run for it ... while you can. I’m ... I’m done for.. See ... see if you can get that stuff to the ... aah ... ahh! ... to the Federal Police ...” He choked and slumped forward.

  Elizabeth looked at him in horror. She had never seen a dead person but she was sure he was dead!

  She looked at the pistol in her right hand and the briefcase still clutched in her left. ‘I’m alive!’ she told her self in stunned amazement. To her relief she seemed to have survived the crash unhurt apart from some bruises and shock.

  Then it hit her! ‘If I didn’t escape I wil
l end up dead too! I must move!’

  But where to?

  She undid her seatbelt, and scrambled out. Luckily the car door had burst open on impact. Feeling very shaky she stood up in prickly weeds that were waist high. Fear and panic welled. ‘Where should I go?’ she worried. Ahead of her she could hear a car engine. The crooks had obviously overshot the bridge as they slowed down under control but she reasoned that they would be back in a few moments. Desperately she looked along the weed-choked creek bed. That was the obvious escape route, but which way? Up or down?

  Two sounds decided her - the car racing back, and a train whistle. She scrambled around the battered wreck and under the small bridge, heedless of the prickles scratching her legs. Above her she heard the car pull up, then doors slamming and men shouting. Her heart pounding with fear she ran out from under the illusory shelter of the bridge and up the narrow strip of sand which marked the actual stream bed.

  She pushed through some lantana and was shocked to encounter a barbed wire fence - of course! - the one beside the highway. There was a gap where the creek had scoured under the fence and fear overcame her scruples. She flung the briefcase under the fence and dropped to her hands and knees. Gasping and trembling she crawled through, scratching her back and tearing her blouse and catching her skirt in her haste. The sharp stabs of pain gave her a moment’s pause.

  Through eyes misted with anxiety Elizabeth looked back and saw she was just out of sight around a slight bend. The men had gone down to the wrecked car. It was a slender lead but, having no choice, she took it. She could have left the briefcase and dropped the gun but her blood was up and the memory of Uncle Jack’s dying words caused her to snatch up the briefcase. Her grip tightened grimly on the gun. She turned and began running as fast as she could along the creek bed.

  She covered fifty paces and came to the junction of two creeks. The left hand one headed towards the sound of the train. With no other obvious hope she ran that way, tripping several times. Looking back she saw, with some consternation, that she could see the car parked on the highway. Another car, a blue one, was just pulling up but she didn’t know who that could be. The creek shrank in size to a mere water runnel which was all overgrown with spear grass. The ground levelled out on either side into a wide saucer shape offering her no cover.

  Elizabeth was no athlete, being a typical schoolgirl who was now more interested in her ‘looks’ and in romance than in sport, so after only a hundred metres she was gasping for breath. She had to slow down as she started to get a stitch. Her breath came in painful gasps. She looked fearfully back.

  ‘There are men on the road near the cars and they are pointing at me!’ she noted. Fear coursed through her. She had been seen!

  Once again she broke into a run, heedless of the scratching grass. Cattle which had been quietly chewing their cud rose to their feet and lumbered off. She was dimly conscious of yells and of a car engine but had to wipe sweat from her eyes to see.

  A backward glance showed two men climbing the fence two hundred metres behind her. A truck was pulling up but she doubted if the driver would be able to help her.

  Her heart was now beating fit to burst and every breath was a hot needle but she kept on running. She went into a shallow, flat depression full of weeds and scattered some more beef cattle. Then ahead of her she caught a glimpse of the railway line at the top of a hundred metre gentle grassy slope. Grimly she set herself at it but began to doubt if she could do it as she was now in real pain.

  She came to a barbed wire fence bordering the railway and it baulked her. A glance showed her two men running across the depression only 150 metres behind. Frantic to escape she threw the briefcase over the fence then dropped flat and crawled under the bottom strand, getting several burrs in her hands, elbows and knees in the process. Scrambling to her feet she, grabbed the briefcase and staggered across the railway line.

  The train was visible now. It was stopped about a hundred metres to her left, a long goods train of grey cattle wagons. Elizabeth paused for a couple of deep breaths then set off running beside the gravel of the permanent way towards it. She had no idea what she would do when she reached the train.

  ‘There might be men who will protect me,’ she thought hopefully. But the going was uneven and she stumbled, then tripped and fell flat on the gravel, skinning her knees and palms. Sobbing with distress she grabbed the briefcase and pistol again. To get as better grip on the briefcase she thrust the pistol into the pocket of her skirt, clutched the briefcase with both arms, and ran.

  A stitch began sending sharp twinges of pure agony through her. Her felt that her mouth and throat were dry and on fire. She heard a shout and looked back. The men were through the fence and on the railway only a hundred metres back. “Oh help! They are catching up!” she gasped.

  Still fifty metres to go to reach the back of the train. She forced herself to keep running. Then, to her horror, she heard the diesel locomotive’s air horn blare out and saw the train begin to move. At that she almost gave up. It would have been easier to stop running, she was in such distress but some urge to survive kept her going.

  The train moved slowly and she saw she was overtaking it. A glance back. The men were closer! They were rapidly overtaking her! She fixed her eyes on the buffers and red tail lights of the last wagon and ran as she had never run before - her mind and vision a hazy red ball of pain.

  The red lights got closer. She almost tripped, lost her right shoe on a signal bar or something but recovered and ran on. To dodge some levers and steel rods at a set of points she scurried across the tracks to the right hand side. Now the train was much closer. “Keep going, you can do it, keep going!” she told herself.

  With a desperate burst of energy she closed the last few metres and drew up level with the back of the train. She was hoping for an open door or a man or something but there was none on her side. She considered trying to cross the track but the train was now picking up speed and was going as fast as she could run. She realized that if she didn’t get on she would lose the chance and the men were not even twenty or so paces behind her, yelling for her to stop.

  It was a frantic glance at their angry faces which decided her. She saw some steps leading to a closed door and, reaching up for a handrail, jumped onto a running board. In doing so she almost fell as she had only one hand to grab with but she managed to hold on and not drop the briefcase.

  As she clung to the outside of the train she looked back. The nearest man was only a few metres away and as she watched he reached out to grab at her. She shifted her grip, resolved to kick out at him. Suddenly he tripped on some steel pipes which came out under the track. He went down in a swearing heap.

  The train was picked up speed by then and began drawing away. Thankfully Elizabeth saw the second man give up and stop to help his companion. Then she discovered a new peril. She was trapped on the outside of a speeding train with a locked door and no idea of how long she must hang on!

  CHAPTER 3

  BUNYIP RIVER BRIDGE

  Emmanuel Bargheese cried with satisfaction as he watched Jack Schein’s car go out of control and crash. “Good! We’ve got him! Look out you fool or we’ll crash too!”

  This last was directed at Vyajana who was driving. As the other car hit the bridge guard rails Vyajana had to swerve and their car rocketed on across the bridge. Vyajana took time in slowing down to avoid a similar skid so they were a good two hundred metres past the bridge before he tried to do a U-turn.

  Bargheese swivelled his head to look back while at the same time pushing at the driver. “Hurry up, hurry up!” he shouted.

  Vyajana swung the car into what looked like weeds but was actually a hole scoured out by rain water. The front left wheel dropped and began to spin.

  “Fool! Get us out!” Bargheese screamed, waving his loaded pistol in front of the driver.

  That flustered the already frightened Vyajana and he struggled to find the most suitable gear. It took nearly a minute, with much roari
ng and revving and wheels churning gravel to get the car out of the hole and on the bitumen facing the way they had come. Once there they drove quickly back to the bridge and stopped. Bargheese jumped out and in his haste was almost hit by a van which had come racing down the hill behind them and which sped on across the bridge.

  “Come on!” he shouted. The others followed, pistols at the ready. They slithered down through the weeds to the crumpled and battered wreck. A glance showed them the driver still strapped inside.

  Bargheese gestured at the body with his pistol. “Get him out you two. Amos, look for a black briefcase,” he ordered. Then he bent down and peered in through the hole where the windscreen had been. There was no sign of the briefcase on the seat or on the floor. He went to a back window and tried to open the door but it was jammed. Reversing the gun he used it to smash the glass. Careful not to cut himself he thrust his head in.

  As he did Berzinski, one of the security guards, called to him, “He’s dead Mr. Bargheese – Schein’s dead.”

  That shocked Bargheese. He turned to stare at Jack Schein’s crumpled form. “Eh! Did we hit him? If we did we must burn the car to destroy the evidence.”

  Berzinski shook his head. “Can’t see any blood or bullet holes - must have been killed in the crash,” he replied. He and Vyajana dragged the body out onto the weeds and rolled it over. There was no obvious wound.

  Bargheese shook his head irritably. “Never mind him, look for a black briefcase. Berzinski, open the boot!”

  A blue car had pulled up and a man called down: “Been an accident? Do you need a hand?”

  Bargheese looked up. He still held the pistol in his hand and the man looked at him in a queer way. On the spur of the moment Bargheese called back, “No, this is police business. I want you to move on. Get going!”

  The man nodded and took the hint. Bargheese was aware that he and Vyajana, with their long trousers, white shirts and ties could appear to be plain clothes detectives, while Berzinski and Amos in their blue shirts with security badges could pass for policemen.