The Turning Tide (11 page)

‘Show us your eyes,’ he said. ‘Okay, no jaundice. If you start pissing black, say something straightaway, we’ll need to get you down to the doc.’

‘When did you become such a malaria expert?’ I said.

‘Since the day I got to this bloody island.’

‘Well I’m feeling much better today, Dr Flynn,’ I said. ‘Going to have a look at that broken radio in a minute, brought plenty of spare parts.’

‘Great. Anything left over we can use. Whippet’ll help, he’s good with that model.’

He stood up and looked at me, a half-smile on his face. ‘Corporal Erikssen and I are going up the track for a lookout. Back in a while.’

‘You be careful, young man,’ I said, waving an admonishing finger. ‘There’s nasty little men with guns out there.’

He grinned. ‘Jeez, Mike, your jokes are awful. Glad you’re okay, you silly bastard.’

Whippet and I worked on the radio set for half an hour. We were lucky because it was only a broken component and could have been a lot worse. Afterwards, over cups of tea, I looked at him and said, ‘Whippet, you’re so scary now anyone gunning for you’d run a mile. Don’t think you’ll be in much danger back in Collingwood.’

He almost blushed, which didn’t quite suit the scraggy black beard. He wanted to play two-up then but I knew I’d lose and couldn’t afford it. He just smiled. He’d find some other bunny.

Later that afternoon Johnny and Alan came back along the track, alert, professional, rifles over their shoulders. They reported a number of Japanese moving west away from us, otherwise nothing to worry about.

Next morning, Alan and Whippet left for Alsai. Jorges and I went with them to help carry the radio spares – poor Bullock was out for the count that day with dysentery. We had a quiet trek to Alsai, A Platoon’s headquarters.

On the way back in the afternoon, Jorges and I stopped near the top of a mountain for a breather. In the sudden quiet we heard the murmur of voices and the clank of metal. We clambered our way to the high side of the track and found a hiding place behind trees.

After a few moments a group of about twelve Japanese passed below us in single file. Breathing slowly, silently, I lifted my Tommy gun and waited until they were almost all past and we could take them by surprise.

My finger tightened, tightened: then noise was everywhere. I saw the last two men fall, horribly damaged, and the man in front of them collapse, screaming. Then we took off.

I thanked all the gods I knew (and we’d got to know quite a few in Timor by then) as we reached the top of the mountain and galloped through the bush down the other side. For a time there was the noise of pursuit, then it faded away. Jorges and I stopped for a moment, gasping for breath.

He was grinning fiercely, delighted by the attack. ‘Tuan Mike, we kill Japs, good, good!’

I grinned too. Yes, it was good, good; my first blood. I felt nothing more than intense relief my training had come into play when I’d needed it. And although I searched my heart for guilt I had taken someone’s life, it simply wasn’t there.

That night Johnny and I were lying in our sleeping bags in the hut.

‘Do you get to spend time with Alan often?’ I said. I’d decided I wasn’t going to be coy anymore.

‘Not often enough,’ said Johnny with a small sigh. So he’d decided not to be coy either. He turned over to face me.

‘Mike. Thanks for – I dunno – not giving me a hard time about it. I used to be scared of anyone finding out, but now? I don’t give a damn. Either of us could be dead tomorrow.’

‘Have the other blokes given you a hard time?’

‘Funny, most know but couldn’t care less. The brass whinge about immorality, bad for morale, that bullshit, but the fighting men just want mates who’ll keep ’em alive. They don’t care if you fuck pumpkins.’

‘You fuck pumpkins, then?’

He aimed a thump at my arm.

‘Johnny,’ I said. ‘You and Al, pumpkin-fuckers or not, you’re the best mates a man could have. I don’t care what you do behind the woodshed.’

‘Thanks, fella.’

I added thoughtfully, ‘Come to think of it, what
do
you do behind the woodshed?’

He laughed. ‘Ah, that’s between us.’

‘I’ll say it is,’ I said salaciously.

‘Broome, get your mind out of the gutter. Nah … hard to explain. It’s like nothing else matters, it’s Alan, it’s just him. And me. It feels so good, so easy to be together. Not like with Helen.’

A long silence descended.

He sighed. ‘Mike, I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have got married. But she was pregnant. I had to do the right thing.’

‘I know.’

‘But you want to know something else? The baby, when I saw his face in that photo . . . I dunno, I just loved him. No matter what happens to me, he’s there now. He’s beautiful.’ Johnny shifted onto his back. ‘Mike?’

‘Hmm?’ I said. I was tired.

‘If anything happens to me, you’ll look after them, won’t you?’

‘Don’t say that, Johnny. Bad luck.’

‘Come on, Mike. I’m serious.’

I gazed towards him in the darkness. ‘Johnny, I promise. Whatever happens, I’ll look after them.’

He sighed, long and slow. ‘Thanks.’

Chapter 11

It’s the day after the anti-nuclear march. Lena comes up beside me as I walk into the union and I feel a grim sense of inevitability.

‘Want coffee, Mike?’

I’d prefer intravenous alcohol, but coffee sounds all right.

We go into the cafe. She orders and I pay.

‘You can’t purchase my favours, young lady,’ I say.

‘You’re not actually in my department, it’s a waste of time.’

‘God, your jokes are awful, Mike.’

‘I’ve heard that once or twice before,’ I say.

We sit down. She stirs sugar into her cup and looks at me, determined. ‘This is the last time I’ll ask, Mike.’

I wait.

‘My dad Ian’s visiting. I told him about you, how you were a soldier with his father. He’d like to meet you, say hello.’

I gaze at her, unable to think of an answer.

She looks at me, exasperated. ‘Nana’s gone away. Camping at Alice Springs.’

‘Camping? Helen?’

She laughs. ‘Yes, camping. She’s a painter. She likes to go painting in the outback, with some old Aboriginal ladies. They paint together. And she camps there, she’s got a van.’

‘She drives a van, herself, to Alice Springs?’

‘Mike. It’s the 1980s, for heaven’s sake. Yes, she drives a van. A good one. To Alice Springs.’

‘Oh,’ I say.

‘The point is, she won’t be there. We’re having a big barbecue this Saturday. You can come along without any fear of having to face your dark past.’

I feel trapped, furious, overwhelmed. She can’t imagine the dark past that torments me.

‘Jesus, Lena. Why? What is this? Why do you keep doing this to me?’

‘Mike, you feel like part of my family, I can’t explain it.’

‘But I’m bloody
not
.’

‘No. You’re not,’ she says sadly. ‘You’re not part of anyone’s family.’

I’m incredulous. ‘I’ve got a family. The kids are grown up, my wife’s dead, but … I’ve …’ I can’t speak.

She looks at me, her eyes gentle. ‘Mike, you’re the loneliest man I ever met.’

I stand, carefully, and leave.

At first I’m outraged. She’s a twenty-year-old kid, for God’s sake. What does she know about life, about people? About me? I walk and walk, up and down the streets near my house. My teeth are clenched. Occasionally I pass someone and they keep their distance.

Gradually my fury eases. My hands loosen. My throat opens. I start trembling. I make it to my front door and get inside. I lean my forehead against the wall: that seems to help, a point of stability.

From the centre of my chest a groan forces itself up through my aching throat. Great choking sobs follow, one upon the next. I fall to my knees, and slowly to my side, and then to the welcoming floor; toppled by grief.

All storms pass.

A long time later I open my eyes. I see dust and the skirting board. I’m cold, the floor is hard. Slowly I get up, find some tissues, mop my face, put the kettle on.

I sit on the couch holding the warm brew, my mind empty. I can’t focus on a single skittering thought, but then, I don’t want to. They all hurt. Later, I go to bed and sleep, grateful for the grace of unconsciousness.

In the morning I have tea and toast in bed. I’m hypnotised by the sunlight on the sheets. My face is tight, my eyes swollen, my head sore.

It’s Tuesday. I don’t have to give any lectures. There’s a class I can postpone and a faculty meeting I’d love to escape. I ring the department and take a sickie, then roll over and fall asleep again.

That evening I get up and make a sandwich and pour a glass of wine. I sit in the courtyard. The last of the day’s
light is high on the walls, the air is mild. I eat my sandwich and sip my wine. I haven’t had anything since this morning so it all tastes good. I look at the creeper Marion planted that’s spread all over the back wall, its leaves going gold and red.

I can’t avoid thinking anymore.

I’d promised Johnny. How could I have buried that under layers of memory?

I sigh. It hasn’t been a simple life. There was a lot I wanted to forget. But the easy wartime promise – yes, I’ll look after your people – I’d given it and I’d forgotten, until Lena came along and forced me to remember.

And there’s the other thing. She’s right. I am lonely. Terribly lonely.

I love my kids but they aren’t really mine. They have their own contented lives: at best I’m an affectionate obligation.

Betty? Gone so long there’s only fragments now. Golden skin, teasing eyes, blossoms on a glorious, dreadful day.

Marion? I miss her terribly. It was almost a marriage of convenience, but we grew together for twenty-two years. She was the scaffolding of my life and I’m gutless, spineless, without her.

And Helen: who am I kidding? We had a fling forty-two – dear God, forty-two – years ago. We had a bitter, agonising parting. Today she wouldn’t know me in the street and I wouldn’t know her.

I put my head in my hands and groan.

A long time later, resolution emerges. I need to keep my promise to Johnny. And I need to accept the hand of friendship when it’s offered.

I track Lena down next day and say, to her surprise, I’ll come to the big barbecue.

The Japanese brought in more reinforcements: by November 1942, a mere seven hundred commandos had thousands of the enemy committed to Timor. But it couldn’t last. The boys in the 2nd Company were on their last legs, horribly thin and sick, and we were going the same way.

Timorese tribal warfare was an ever-mounting horror. Darwin finally sent us some rifles to arm our
criados
, but it was too late. We kept finding rotting bodies scattered in the ruins of razed villages, beautiful spots where once we’d been welcomed. I started waking up with nightmares.

The Japanese controlled most of the country now, forcing us back to the south coast. They’d ordered the Portuguese to assemble at camps in special areas but we all knew what that meant. The 2nd Independents and the remaining Europeans had to get away, but it was clear the 4th wouldn’t be going with them: we had to mind the shop while everyone else scarpered.

On 30th November 1942 a little ship called
Kuru
picked up eighty Portuguese women and children, and a few days later the destroyer
Tjerk Hiddes
took hundreds more to Darwin.
Tjerk Hiddes
came back for the 2nd Independents, but their
criados
were strictly forbidden to go with them. There’d been ugly words from Darwin about letting even ‘half-caste’ Portuguese into White Australia.

Tjerk Hiddes
returned a third time and over those few weeks carried a thousand people to safety. But when the corvettes
Castlemaine
and
Armidale
tried to save more
refugees and bring us Dutch troops as reinforcements,
Armidale
was bombed and sunk with massive losses.

In the end, a mere twenty extra soldiers were landed. Just three hundred of us were left to carry on the fight against twelve thousand Japanese.

Tjerk Hiddes
also brought mail from home. It took time to pass along the pony trail, but before Christmas 1942 I held the first letters I’d seen in a long time. Their writers, of course, had no idea where we were or what we were doing. I carefully opened the envelopes and read gentle, innocuous reports of family and friends: no one wanted to send bad news to the front, so I had to read between the lines.

Mum and Dad were well, living in Perth with Mum’s sister Rosa and her husband Anton, who were artists too, like Liam. (Could be trouble – Dad and Auntie Rosa had never been fond of each other and it wasn’t a large house.) My sister Anna had taken up nursing (that’d be a surprise for someone so disorganised), while Liam’s flat feet had kept him out of the army so he’d become an ambulance driver instead (good, my gentle brother didn’t belong in any army).

There was also a letter from the O’Briens in Foster. They were well. The Erikssens were well. Helen and her baby, four months old by now, were well. That was it. Just about everyone on the continent of Australia was well.

Even if it were possible to send letters home, I couldn’t imagine what I’d write. That I’d lost two stone I could barely afford to lose? That I didn’t even notice my fleas and lice anymore? That my boots were so worn through it was like going barefoot? That every few weeks I’d collapse,
delirious? That tribes of mad natives were after me, aided and abetted by regiments of homicidal Japanese?

That night I lay in my sleeping bag, thinking of Helen. Exhaustion and illness and fear of sudden carnage left little time for erotic fantasies, even of lovely, unobtainable Helen. But I remembered our astonishing moment of passion, her fury when she thought I was lying, her sadness the day we went to war, her contented face with her tiny baby, Ian.

Helen was my first love and I still yearned for her. But young as I was, and trapped on that sad island, I wondered for the first time if I might find other joys in my life. I felt a feather touch of hope.

I was sent to the East Observation Post again because their signalman was sick. Even though the 2nd Independents had gone, accurate bombing told the Japanese they were still being watched and their raids around the countryside had become breathtakingly vicious.