Banjo and I were on lookout patrol near North Point when we heard the noise. At first it sounded a bit like a seagull but then became deeper and more urgent.
After we’d found the Jap helmet, Colonel Hurley, the army commander, said we should be official army scouts. He gave us each a pair of old field glasses and a whistle, and an army survey map of the island in a leather folder. On weekends and after school we were supposed to watch out to sea and report anything we saw. Most of all we had to watch for the invasion fleet.
Colonel Hurley had also given us slouch hats with emu feathers, just like the 10th Light Horse Regiment. Mine was far too big but Mum had padded the rim with newspaper. We called ourselves the First Light Bike Regiment and attached small flags to our handlebars. The flag design was a drawing of two circles, like the view through binoculars, and inside the circles a Jap battleship being blown up. Underneath we’d printed in red: 1st LBR. We’d also made ourselves majors in the regiment. Whenever we came across the soldiers from the barracks—the artillery regiment—they ribbed us about being Light Horsemen and made rude jokes, but we knew they were just jealous because they were only infantrymen with ordinary slouch hats and no emu feathers.
‘There it is again, Major Paterson,’ I said to Banjo. ‘That noise.’
‘Hello? Is there someone there?’ a voice cried. It came from way down below the cliff, on the beach.
Then I saw Mr Palmer’s walking stick by the edge of the rocks and his bird-watching log lying by the edge of the path. ‘It’s old man Palmer. He’s fallen down there.’ I peered over the rock overhang to the beach way below. Mr Palmer lay propped up against a driftwood log. He saw me and immediately waved up at me, the relief on his face obvious.
Suddenly I heard a noise behind us and Dafty stepped out from behind a bush. For once he wasn’t grinning.
‘Hello, Banjo. Hello, Jack,’ he said. He stood guiltily kicking the sand with his big toe.
‘Dafty, what’ve you done?’ asked Banjo.
‘The teacher shouldn’t have hurt you, Banjo.’
From below the cliff we heard Mr Palmer groaning again.
‘We have to help him,’ I said. ‘Quickly.’
‘I learnt him. With this.’ Dafty pointed to a large branch about three feet long. ‘To learn him not to hit you. And he fell off the rock. He shouldn’t have hit you, Banjo. That’s not right. You’re my bestest friend.’ Dafty smiled slightly. ‘That sure learnt him though.’
‘Oh, Dafty.’ Banjo’s shoulders slumped. He knew Dafty was in real trouble this time.
First there was the grenade, then the dunny truck and now this. Dafty would face attempted murder, at the very least. What if Palmer died? Then it’d be full-blown, premeditated murder. Dafty might hang. Did they still hang kids? They did once. We saw a plaque at the old Roundhouse Prison in Fremantle about a kid who got hanged back in the convict days for murdering his boss.
‘You get down there, Jack,’ Banjo said. ‘See if you can do anything. I’ll ride for help. I’m quicker than you are.’
‘You are not!’ I protested but he was already running for his bike. Even at times like this he knew how to wind me up.
I made my way carefully down the crumbling cliff face, stepping cautiously to avoid slipping on the loose sandstone rocks.
‘Jack. Thank God you came.’ It was the first time Mr Palmer had ever called me Jack. It was usually Jones. Or Mr Jones if he was mad at me. He hauled himself up against the washed-up tree stump. The marks in the sand were dark with blood.
‘Mr Palmer, are you hurt?’ I ran across the sand to him.
‘Nothing fatal, I don’t think,’ he said quietly. He looked terrible. One side of his face and both hands were grazed, and blood had soaked his torn trousers near both knees. ‘But my leg’s given out, I think. Young Dafty might finally have done for it where the bloody Boche couldn’t. Can’t seem to walk.’
It was the first time I’d ever heard him swear.
‘I was lying here thinking how ironic, the whole might of the Kaiser’s army couldn’t quite cripple me but ... a simple boy with a branch of tea-tree...’ He leaned back, obviously exhausted. ‘Poetic justice, I suppose.’
‘Banjo’s gone to get help, Mr Palmer. He shouldn’t be long,’ I said, trying to make him feel better. I sat down beside him to wait.
After a while he spoke again. ‘Jack, you know Banjo’s father. What’s he like?’
‘Oh, he’s a bit like all our dads, Mr Palmer. Always at work. Always grumpy. Always tired. Bit too keen on the razor strop,’ I answered too quickly before I remembered Mr Palmer’s own keenness for his cane.
‘And his mother? I’ve not met his mother.’ He didn’t seem to notice my comment. ‘She’s back on the mainland?’
‘No, she shot through when he was little. I don’t think he remembers her very well.’
‘So there’s just the two of them?’
I nodded.
‘I see,’ he said quietly. I wondered what was going through his mind.
I went down to the water’s edge and wet my hanky to clean his face up. Little bits of sand were stuck to the blood. He winced in pain as I dabbed at his cheek.
‘You’d better rest, Mr Palmer. They won’t be long, I’m sure.’
And Banjo must’ve ridden back like fury to get help because within minutes we heard the far-off wail of the army ambulance’s siren.