The Story of Danny Dunn (24 page)

‘Not on your life, mate. One of them is George Patterson, the advertising agency I told you about that needs a despatch boy. I'll call them, tell them your parents can't make it and your sister is expecting any hour, but that I'm a very close friend of the family. I'll ask them if I may deputise. Remember, this is a war zone.'

George Patterson agreed to Danny accompanying Lachlan, but the second company, a prominent city law firm, refused, the very officious man at the other end of the phone demanding to know if the non-attendance of either parent indicated a criminal record. Danny had retaliated by saying, ‘Yeah, they're related to Ned Kelly on the mother's side,' upon which the phone had promptly gone dead in his ear.

The following day Danny presented himself at Concord Military Hospital for his compulsory check-up and assessment, an all-day affair he wasn't much looking forward to. But he couldn't be demobbed without undergoing a final medical to determine his ‘future prospects', or so he'd been informed.

‘What does that mean?' he'd asked at the time. ‘All I want to do is get out of the bloody army.'

‘We need to check your medical condition and assess what we can do for you,' the clerk at the other end replied smoothly, adding, ‘You may need help for years to come, Sergeant Major. Ten hundred hours; be on time.' Danny heard the phone click at the other end and grinned; poor bugger probably had smart-alec remarks like his coming at him all day.

Danny took a taxi to the hospital, arriving just after nine-thirty in the morning for his ten o'clock appointment. The ride in the taxi had made his back ache and he decided a walk might ease it. He could have a decko at the hospital grounds at the same time.

The hospital was laid out along the Parramatta River and buildings had obviously proliferated around the multi-storeyed red-brick main building. Dozens of single-storey buff-painted timber huts were connected by a spider web of covered walkways spreading over acres of lawn that was just starting to brown in the heat. The whole complex was an army builder's dream: infinitely expandable, utterly dull, a dead-set clone of every military base he'd ever seen. Halfway into his wander it occurred to him that finding the correct hut might take up the remainder of his time, and as it happened he came across it with only five minutes to spare.

He made himself known to the desk corporal, who ticked him off on a clipboard. Danny noted that his name was first on the medical assessment list for the day. The corporal pointed to a second room. ‘We're an hour behind, Sergeant Major. There's a tea urn in the waiting room.'

‘How come, Corporal? I'm first on your list; ten hundred hours is commencement,' Danny said, using the correct army jargon.

The corporal sighed and shrugged. ‘Don't blame me. Only following orders.'

Nothing had changed. It was the same old junior-rank disclaimer. Danny poured himself a paper cup of black sugarless tea and prepared for an even longer day.

An hour and a half later he was still waiting and had been joined by three other men, all wearing their army uniforms. The last of the three to enter the room had lost both hands and the bottom half of his chin. Danny noticed as he walked to the centre of the room that he had no gaiter on his right trouser leg, which hung loose over his army boot. He looked around, cackled with laughter, then declared, ‘No limbs missing, hey? Tough luck, fellas!'

The two other men in the waiting room remained silent. ‘What's the lucky part, mate?' Danny called, thinking that with his own broken mug he could get away with the question.

‘Sheilas, mate. Yer don't have to do the work. Lie on yer back and the jig-a-jig is free!' He started to giggle. ‘See what I mean? No arm, no puff needed, get me?' Then, jumping in front of Danny, he pushed his chinless mug right up into his face. Danny smelt the soldier's stale breath as he asked again, ‘Get me?' Then, not waiting for an answer, he danced over to the next bloke. ‘Get me?' he asked again, this time waiting for a nod before repeating the same performance with the last soldier. Holding his handless arms to his stomach he laughed uproariously, then, as suddenly as he'd started, he fell silent, looking around like a frightened animal.

It was all too familiar to Danny. ‘You on the Burma Railway?' he asked.

The soldier snapped to attention. ‘Speedo!' he yelled in the Japanese manner, answering Danny's question. He then performed a smart about-turn before marching across the room, stumps swinging in the approved manner. At the far corner of the waiting room he barked, ‘About-turn!', faced the three of them again and cried, ‘Stand at ease!'

‘Explosives?' Danny asked, indicating his own hand but keeping his voice and manner casual.

‘Boom! All fall down!' the soldier shouted, jumping backwards into the corner where he sank slowly to the floor, then pulled his knees up to his chest with his arms clasped around them and his eyes closed. When he next looked up at the three of them he immediately began to shriek:

Blow up his hands,

cut off his chin.

Then throw what's left

in the loony bin!

Whereupon his head sank onto his chest and he began to sob piteously like a small child.

‘Jesus! Poor bastard,' Danny whispered. The two men waiting beside him, eyes downcast, nodded. Danny rose and left the room, walking over to the corporal at reception. He explained the situation briefly and requested a doctor.

‘No can do,' the corporal replied airily, not in the least sympathetic. ‘He hasn't been assessed yet.' Glancing at his clipboard he declared blandly, ‘He's fourth on the list.'

‘Look, the poor bastard needs to be sedated. He's going through a bad patch. I've seen it before,' Danny said, angry but holding himself in check.

‘They try it on all the time – bludgers. They're after a permanent disability classification,' the corporal said smugly.

‘Corporal, the poor bugger has no hands – he already qualifies!' Danny had witnessed two similar accidents with his own men, both due to faulty fuses going off prematurely. Neither man had survived the shock of the operation to remove what was left of his hands. It was all the more reason to help this poor bastard, who'd somehow miraculously survived.

‘Oh, is that so? You one of them trick-cyclists or something, then?' the corporal smirked.

‘No, mate, a prisoner of war under the Japs, and let me tell you something else, sonny boy. You wouldn't have lasted a month where that poor bugger's been!'

‘He'll still have to wait his turn . . . mate,' the corporal said mulishly.

It was the ‘mate' that finally did it for Danny. He very nearly grabbed the smug little twerp by the shirtfront and hauled him over the desk. But then, without being conscious of the change, he grew very calm, his will, cold and resolute, replacing his sudden anger. He was back in the camp, back in the combat zone. It was his ability to control himself without cowering or raising his voice that the Japs had learned to respect. His opponent was once again a soldier of inferior rank who nonetheless seemed to have the power to destroy him or one of his men. The fact that the ingrate seated at the desk in front of him wasn't a Japanese or Korean corporal but a recalcitrant Australian one meant nothing to him; he was no less the enemy.

Danny spoke quietly in a measured tone. ‘I may be in civvies, Corporal, but I'm still your superior. You call me mate again, not only will you be on report for insubordination but I won't stop until they tear those two pathetic and ill-considered stripes from your shirt sleeve. You're a disgrace to the uniform I fought in to save your miserable arse.' Keeping his eye on the corporal, Danny pointed at the waiting-room door. ‘There's a man in that waiting room not much older than you who has no hands and is dealing with demons not of his own making. He deserves our help – your help.' Danny's voice grew very quiet. ‘Now, be a good boy and get on the phone and request a hospital orderly, or a nurse or doctor to attend to him at the double.'

The kid obviously had more balls than commonsense. ‘No!' he said, just the single word, his eyes downcast, his jaw set.

‘Where's your internal phone list?' Danny barked. The corporal jumped at the sudden change of tone.

‘What's going on, Corporal?'

Danny turned to see an officer – a major in the army medical corps, he noticed – almost certainly a doctor.

The corporal leapt to his feet and stood to attention, saluting. ‘This man wants to abuse the system, sir,' he shouted.

‘At ease, Corporal.' The major flicked his right hand, barely raising it to his shoulder. Turning to Danny he asked, ‘Are you a civilian, sir?'

‘No, Major,' Danny answered, ‘not yet.'

‘Then why are you not in uniform?'

‘I am trying to adjust to civilian life, Major. Wearing a uniform doesn't help.'

The major nodded. ‘Well, you seem to have grasped the fundamentals quite well. No more “sir” or saluting, I see?'

Danny, assessing his man, grinned. ‘That was one of the easier bits, Major.'

A small smile played on the officer's lips. ‘Now, what seems to be the problem? You need an earlier assessment time, is that it?'

‘No, no, I'm first on the list. I was attempting to get a hospital orderly to attend to one of the men in the waiting room, an amputee who probably needs sedation, and your corporal is refusing to cooperate, in fact is being a thorough-going bastard.'

‘And you'd be competent to make such an assessment?'

‘Yes, in both instances,' Danny replied. ‘I was a Japanese prisoner of war for three and a half years. I can tell when a man is undergoing a mental collapse.' He glanced meaningfully at the corporal. ‘I can also tell when an NCO isn't up to the task he's been given.'

The major turned his attention to the corporal. ‘What's your name, Corporal?'

‘Hoskins, sir.'

‘Corporal Hoskins, call Emergency and have them send over two orderlies and a gurney, or an ambulance if there's one available, then get the duty nurse to bring in my medical bag from the surgery.' He turned to Danny. ‘Come, let me have a look at this man of yours.'

An hour later and two and a half hours after Danny should have begun his assessment it finally got underway, although Danny was happy enough at the delay. The poor bugger with no hands or chin had been helped. And when Danny had to return to the waiting room to await the result of an X-ray, he noted that Corporal Hoskins had been replaced by a pleasant-looking medical corps sergeant. He grinned to himself. The incident in the waiting room would almost certainly be the final influence he would exert as a military man, but it was a fitting and satisfying conclusion. That it should involve someone he would have regarded as one of his own pleased him mightily. When the ambulance orderlies lifted the sedated soldier onto the gurney, his right trouser leg with the missing gaiter rucked up to reveal the unmistakeable purple scars of the tropical ulcers that had once clustered above his ankles.

Late that afternoon when his assessment was all but completed, Danny was ushered by the cheerful and pleasant-looking sergeant receptionist into the surgery of the major who had ordered the ambulance. To Danny's surprise the officer rose from his desk and came from behind it to shake his hand. ‘I apologise for this morning, Sergeant Major Dunn,' he said smiling. ‘I neglected to introduce myself: Rigby . . . Roger Rigby. How do you do?'

‘It's Danny, Major. Thank you for trusting my judgment this morning.'

‘Ah, poor devil. I shall see to it that he gets the right care. As to your judgment, I've since read your records and, I must say, you're better qualified than most of us. Remarkable that you and so many of your men survived,' Dr Rigby paused, looking directly at Danny, ‘though at some real personal cost, I observe.'

‘I guess it's all a matter of opinion, doctor. An ugly mug and bad back come a poor second to no hands and a mangled head.'

‘Hmm. You're adjusting well to civilian life, then?'

Danny laughed ruefully. ‘I can't say I don't have my moments, occasions when my head is pure mashed potato and I'm a tad less than rational.'

‘We're hearing that all the time,' Roger Rigby observed. ‘I've read Dr Woon's Rangoon Hospital notes in your medical record and I'm inclined to agree with him. This shell shock, war neurosis, whatever you want to call it, needs a lot more psychiatric investigation. We have half a dozen names for it, yet it remains a stranger to my profession, a medical enigma,' Rigby said. Then, indicating the chair across from his desk, he added, ‘Please take a seat and we can go through your assessment.'

Danny seated himself while Major Rigby returned to his desk, reached for several single-page reports and busied himself collating them. Finally he looked up. ‘You don't smoke, do you? It must have been a small blessing among a great many disasters. Most of the POWs under the Japanese claim that giving up cigarettes was harder than adapting to a starvation diet of rice.'

‘I was a reasonable footballer and played water polo before I enlisted, so happily I never got around to cigarettes,' Danny grinned, recalling, ‘although getting used to nothing but rice was bloody awful. One of my men went three weeks without a shit.'