The Long Green Shore (15 page)

We possessed the bay.

Connell was on the phone: ‘But my boys don't want it, sir,' he said. ‘We can push on tomorrow—they're in the pink of condition.'

‘Listen, Connell,' said the Brig. ‘We're not in that much of a hurry. They're going to rest whether they want it or not. You'll be relieved tomorrow.'

Connell slammed the handset down and strode outside his tent. He stood glaring around for a moment and then yelled: ‘Sergeant Hino! Sergeant Hino!'

The little fat RP Sergeant came scrambling up through the trees and stood saluting agitatedly: ‘Yes sir! Yes sir!'

‘Get a party and clean the scrub away from around my tent,' said Connell. ‘It looks like a brothel.'

‘Of course,' Tubby Hino tells us later, ‘I thought of an answer to that one—it was on the tip of my tongue to say it too…'

The Second Battalion came through and relieved us. We rested ten days at the bay.

Sickness and battle had thinned us down. That hill had cost our own group Slapsy Paint, Bishie, Cairo—young Griffo with a smashed leg, Dick the Barber with a stomach wound. Old Whispering John had a long, shallow knife slash down his back from the attack on the hill—but it was only a scratch. He sniggered about it with great satisfaction: ‘The old soldier gets through, eh?'

Once we stopped the malaria struck us. The Atebrin hadn't stopped it much, though we took the little yellow tablets faithfully twice a day. Harry Drew went down, Regan followed him. We met the Log one afternoon coming down from the hill—he was shivering violently from cold and the sweat was beaded on his brow. Back he went.

The surf was good and Pez and the Laird swam slowly about a mile out to catch a big shoot.

‘You're mad,' Janos said. ‘I wouldn't go out there for a thousand pounds—it's too dangerous.'

Pez and the Laird swam slowly—climbing up the great, long swells and bursting through the smother of foam at the top. Every now and then when the wave carried too much white on top they duck-dived under it and were dragged down—pounded and smothered joyously under the broken waters.

Out in the deep swell they lay rolling slowly with porpoise delight in the great depth of cool, clean water. There is an odd sense of comfort mixed with loneliness, swimming so far out. It is as though a man drifts in an alien—but not hostile—environment and really only a small grey ghost of fear and loneliness can rise in his mind.

The Laird called softly: ‘Hey, Pez! Look over there—do you see what I see?'

A shark was cruising slowly about fifty yards away—the triangular fin cutting smoothly towards them—tacking away—then cutting back.

‘Nothing we can do,' whispered the Laird. ‘Keep still—and if it comes, splash like hell.'

They watched and waited—the fin cutting away and tacking back—then it disappeared.

They waited—it seemed a long time…

‘Come on, boy,' said the Laird. ‘Let's catch a shoot in.'

They swam with painful slowness back into the line of breakers. They waited three or four waves until they caught one that broke at the right time.

Like seals on that foaming crest—the wild exultation of speed and foam and spray—the swift rush of swimming to catch the weight of the wave—the gradual balancing of power as you reined on to it and the swelling, roaring rush; flung a long age down the cooling, soaring breast of the wave—closer and closer and closer to the shore where it destroys itself on the broken mouth of the rock—they slide off before the thunder.

Connell went down to the RAP and found Maguire. ‘Come for a walk with me, Mag,' he said.

‘Just a minute,' said the Doc. ‘Try the sulpha on that one,' he told his orderly, ‘and make sure he gets back early in the morning to have it dressed again.'

He came out of the tent. ‘Where do you plan to take this constitutional?' he asked.

‘Let's go along the beach,' said Connell. ‘I want to get away from it.'

‘From what?' enquired Maguire mildly.

‘From this—from everything!' said Connell.

They went down the track through the trees and onto the white sand of the beach.

‘This damned sitting still gets on my tit,' said Connell. ‘Brig's orders—silly old bastard.'

‘Relax, Cliff,' said Maguire. ‘You can't keep going all the time—why, anyway? What makes you want to run all the time?'

‘We're here to do a job—let's get on with the bloody thing!'

‘You're not fighting the war by yourself. Something troubling you, or are you just leading up for me to prescribe a mild sedative?'

‘I don't want your pills!'

‘What are you afraid of, Cliff?'

‘What the hell do you mean?'

‘I mean what's worrying you—what's the trouble?'

‘Nothing.'

They walked on some distance over the sand in silence.

‘What do you want from life, Cliff?' asked the Doc.

‘I don't know, Mag,' said Connell after a moment.

The Doc nodded his head and murmured aloud, but to himself—‘Sad people.'

When you are sitting still you have time to think—when you think your brain rusts and sheds flakes of despair. It is blind ahead—discontent and self-disgust—run, run—it's no fiend that close behind you treads—it's yourself.

‘Most people,' said the Doc, ‘are running from something—from the past, the present or the future.'

‘I don't need a psychiatrist,' said Connell. ‘Save it for a thesis.'

Remember how the old house had stood back deep in the grounds, and the long, gravelled drive that had been a coachway when the house was built? A wonderful drive where a boy could come in through the big iron gates coming home from school at the end of term—drop the suitcase on the grass and run—a long wonderful way with the gravel crunching and splattering under his flying feet—wonderful running with the wind in his face—and there would be Mother standing on the porch waiting, as she always was for him when he came home, laughing and crying and holding her arms out to him as he ran…

There was that soft, secret thing between them—something that instinctively was hidden from Father. Remember those slow solemn walks around the grounds, with Father all sober black and gold watch chain—the Sunday morning walks after Church—with Father discoursing ponderously on Life and Responsibility and the Things a Man Did and Did Not Do. He would talk interminably overhead—pausing now and then to snip a dead flowerhead or pinch off a withering twig. And always during the walk Father would pick a single bloom, the most perfect he could find, and at the end of the walk he would take it in and present it to Mother with the same ritual phrase every Sunday morning, year after year: ‘For you, my dear. Clifford and I have been talking.'

Father was inordinately proud of the two elms that grew at the entrance of the drive—they had been planted by his father before him and he often spoke to the boy about how he must care for them—as though in some way they were the living symbol of the House and the Family, and Life and Responsibility and the Things a Man Did and Did Not Do. The elms had begun to die in the year that he died…It was raining when he died—the Melbourne skies had wept for many days before he died. The boy had had to walk down the long stairs in the grey light of the afternoon and stand beside the open coffin and look at the terrible loneliness of the dead.

And then it was found that things were never quite the same after—Father's Responsibility had not carried on beyond his death. The elms died and the House died…

‘That's a sunset,' said the Doc.

‘What?' said Connell. ‘Oh, yes.' The gravelled drive was gone and the white sand was heavy underfoot. The elms were dead and the jungle trees grew savagely.

Still, influence and tradition were enough to get some scraps of preferment. Outposts of the empire—life in the islands—heat, boredom and sterile lives—the wide-verandahed house—the natives in white—keeping up appearances and squabbling privately about money. He remembered the day he had come back from Moresby—a day earlier than he had told Phyllis…

‘Where belongim missus?' he asked his headboy.

The boy, grinning, had held up the newborn kitten. ‘Picaninny belongim cat come up along kai kai time.'

‘To hell with the cat,' snarled Connell. ‘Where belongim missus?'

‘Catchim lik lik walk longa Boss Rannerson.'

Drinking—drinking alone and heavily—and then on the impulse striding out of the house—through the frangipanis and across the little board bridge across the creek and up towards the hill where Rannerson's house stood. Standing in the shadows watching the darkened house and listening to the smothered laughter and breathless murmuring and small cries. Life is savagery and despair.

‘Look at that,' said the Doc. He held a scarlet branch of coral, curiously smooth and shaped like a stag's antler. Antlers, horns—the cuckold horns.

‘What?' said Connell. ‘Oh, yes.'

He could remember Rannerson coming to see him. Rannerson—big, brutally sensual and coarse with joviality.

‘Look here, Connell, you're being a fool. What do you want to do: challenge me to a duel? Look, it's your own damn fault, coming home a day early—never come back home unexpected up here. It's the heat—they all get arse-end itchy—they go looking for it. On the other hand, you do the same thing—or wouldn't you care for me to mention Mae Thompson? You see, I'm not a gentleman, Connell—I'm not public school, or officer-and-gentleman or anything like you—I don't mind mentioning a woman's name in the mess. Look, come off it—we've all got to do something to fill in time here. I've had her, you've had her—and very nice too. Only we three know about it. Forget about it. Have a drink.'

Rannerson had called the boy himself and ordered the whisky. And Connell had drunk with him and hated himself. He and Phyllis had been together for a year after that, before the war separated them.

Lots of people try to run—from the past, the present or the future. What is the future? Thought rusts the brain and it sheds flakes of despair.

‘As a matter of fact, I've got a flask of brandy,' said the Doc as they went back up the jungle path from the beach to the RAP. ‘It's supply—I'll prescribe you a dose.'

‘I'll take it, Mag,' said Connell. ‘And after that—I will take a couple of your bloody pills, too.'

Pez and Janos and the Laird were lounging beside the muddy road at the bay when the General's jeep got bogged. She swung, roaring along the track, and came to rest belly-deep in mud. Pez and Janos and the Laird disappeared into the bushes instantly.

They saw the brass hats get out and walk around the stranded vehicle pontifically.

‘Watch this,' whispered Pez. ‘This'll be good.'

The General made a masterly military assessment of the problem. ‘I think we'll have to dig it out,' he pronounced.

The Colonel pondered this gravely. ‘What we need is a shovel,' he decided finally.

The Captain went and got the shovel—and gave it to the driver and he started to dig.

‘That's the way of it,' rumbled the Laird. ‘Right through the goddam army—everyone else makes the decisions, the poor bloody private does the job.'

Later, on their way back to the doover, they passed Connell on the track. He was looking particularly pleased with himself.

‘I know what that means,' grunted the Laird. ‘We'll be on the move again in a day or two. He's only happy when he's in a blue.'

We got ourselves a new lieutenant before we set out. Minnie, his name was—Minnie the Mouse. He'd been a Q bloke mostly and we'd left him at our base camp down the shore. But we'd lost so many officers they dragged him out and shot him up to us.

He was a funny little bloke—physically slight and extremely timid. He'd won his pips by passing brilliantly in theoretical work at an officers' school—if they'd left him at a desk job somewhere around Victoria Barracks he'd probably have given good and valuable service during the war.

It was his own fault, of course. He wanted to be a soldier—a fighting soldier—but he lacked all the equipment except that desire. It had got him as far as a commission in an infantry battalion and now it had finally got him a fighting platoon—but the job was not for him.

Minnie was an only child and he had a fond mother and father. Pez met his old man in town one leave…

He was strolling down Pitt Street and this old bloke in civvies pulled him up.

‘I saw your colour patch,' he said. ‘My son's in the same battalion as you—I thought you might know him—Sullivan's the name—Lieutenant Sullivan.'

Pez scratched his head—Sullivan—Sullivan—suddenly he remembered: ‘Oh, God yes! I remember but mostly we call him…Oh, you know, we've got nicknames for all the officers.'

Near as dammit he'd said Minnie the Mouse. The old bloke probably wouldn't have liked that—he seemed proud as hell of Minnie being a Loot. A nice old bloke he was, too, but with those kind of soft rabbity eyes, just like Minnie.

The old bloke wanted to know what we called him and that had Pez worried for a bit.

‘Munga,' he told him finally. ‘That's what we call him—Munga—it's an old one from the Middle East.'

The old boy was pleased and proud.

‘Oh yes, he was there, too,' he said. ‘He was in the Middle East.'

Minnie had been a good son. He'd never whored around or got drunk and he'd lived all his life in timid frustration. He had paid court to a respectable young lady in a perfectly respectable fashion for years—the theatre on Thursdays, a dance on Saturdays, and a salad and cold meat dinner at her mother's place every Sunday. Her mother thought he was a nice boy and it was generally understood that they would marry when his bank balance and clerkly salary reached the proportions thought respectable.