The Turning Tide (7 page)

When the brass were recruiting for the first few independent companies they’d deliberately chosen men from the outback who were used to shooting and living off the land. They were supposed to become commandos in
the eccentric mountain-climbing, Tibet-exploring style of their British trainers. But come the Pacific War, they were willing to give a go to whoever volunteered, from clerks to hard-eyed criminals. The boys from the outback were fine but, as it happened, rat cunning and quick reflexes made for rather good commandos too.

It was supposed to be a secret but Davo knew from his brother that the 2nd Independents had gone to Timor in December, soon after Pearl Harbor. Then we heard in late January the Japanese had swamped New Britain, where the 1st Independents were deployed. It was hard not to wonder: had they fought and, given the appalling successes of the Japanese so far, had they survived?

By the end of January, Singapore itself was under siege and by mid-February the British had surrendered their ‘impregnable fortress’. On 19 February 1942, Darwin – Australian soil! – was bombed. It was announced that fewer than twenty people had died, but word of mouth said the real toll was hundreds.

Our training was almost complete. When would we get to use it?

Johnny came back from leave in Foster and flung himself down on my bunk laughing, throwing his hat at me. I ducked. Alan followed calmly behind.

‘Jesus. Mike, oh Jesus, Jesus.’

‘What’s with him?’ I said to Alan.

He sat down on the next bunk, his hands clasped, and said mildly, ‘Our young Johnny’s decided to move on from mere engagement and plunge into the state of holy matrimony.’

It took a moment for the realisation to hit and I could feel Alan’s eyes on me.

‘Really, Johnny?’ My throat was dry. ‘And how’s the lucky lady taking it?’

‘Running around, getting a dress. You know women.’ He laughed with happiness. ‘The CO’s given me permission. Next week, and we get two days’ honeymoon. You’ll come, you bastard, won’t you?’

‘The honeymoon or the wedding?’ I said.

He laughed again, then jumped up and grabbed his hat. ‘Gotta fix things with the quartermaster.’

Alan and I were left in the quiet and I was glad when he got up to go too. He gave me a half-smile. I noticed his eyes weren’t happy. I knew he and Helen always got on well but surely he wasn’t in love with her too? Join the bloody queue, mate. I felt sick with misery.

I didn’t have time to wallow because that evening about twenty of us were due to leave on an exercise. With a curse I loaded up my gear and assembled. We hiked away from camp for about four miles, then were told to hand over our compasses, navigate by the stars and get back to camp. Once there, we were supposed to go into strict concealment around the mess hut and at a signal ‘ambush’ it. It would have been fun if I’d been in a happier mood.

When we were told to get going I moved away impatiently and soon left the others behind. One benefit of my hikes was knowing the area well, including a useful shortcut to camp. I found it and by the time I got back I estimated I was probably fifteen minutes ahead of everyone else.

I took up a position hidden in the bushes near the mess hut and got comfortable against a tree. Window blinds
stopped any light shining from inside, but in the moonlight I could clearly see the rear of the building. After a few minutes I heard a murmur of voices and footsteps and two men came around the corner of the hut, perhaps twenty feet away from me.

I grinned as I recognised Johnny and Alan but held back from calling out, partly from concealment discipline and partly surprise, because I suddenly realised Alan was saying something angrily to Johnny.

Johnny stopped and lit a cigarette. I could see him looking – sadly? – at Alan in the light of the match. He took a long draw of the cigarette, then gave it to Alan. Alan smoked for a moment then dropped the butt and ground it out with his boot.

He didn’t seem angry now. He didn’t say anything, just looked at Johnny. He put out his hand and rested it on Johnny’s chest. Johnny took it and kissed the knuckles. Alan touched the side of Johnny’s head and gently pulled it towards him and kissed him on the mouth. They embraced for a long moment, then slowly moved apart, looking at each other.

I could see Johnny’s face clearly, lit up with his slow smile. He shrugged ruefully and Alan shook his head, tenderly, in resignation. They turned and walked back the way they’d come.

I’d lived through five years of boys’ boarding school. I knew what happened between the big boys and the smaller, prettier ones. Once or twice a prefect had tried to bend me to his will, getting into my bed at night or backing me up
in the bathroom, and had discovered how vicious I was, how agile I could be. When I was one of the big boys myself there were those who said I was mad not to take advantage of the eager lads. It wasn’t strong will or virtue on my behalf: I just didn’t want to.

At the same time it didn’t bother me. It was part of that secret male world – the one women were shielded from – of tossing off in public toilets, blow jobs behind trees, games of buttocks and bum holes, pricks and balls. Games of quick relief, easing for a moment the aching lust that animates young men, and quite a few older ones too. They didn’t care whose mouth was around their knob, they said. It was probably true most of the time too.

When I first joined the army I thought how like a gigantic boarding school it was – the lack of privacy, the hierarchies, the nakedness, the endless, anxious jokes about cocks. And of course, in the organised absence of women, did anyone but me wonder if the military was the ideal of a poofs’ paradise? Apparently not.

What I mean is this: I’d seen sex often enough between men. It was a given, an insistent driver of male guffaws, from dirty ditties to secret practices.

But how rarely, if at all, had I seen love between men. And I knew without the slightest doubt what I’d seen between Johnny and Alan was love.

Chapter 7

As a reward for my success at getting back to camp so quickly that night I was given a day’s leave. I sat in the back of the truck bouncing over the dirt road to Foster and wondered what on earth I should tell Helen.

Perhaps nothing at all. If I’d seen Johnny with another woman, would I have told her? Probably not if it wasn’t serious. But would I tell her if I thought Johnny’s heart was pledged to someone else? Yes, I would. Or I should. Probably.

Jesus. That was something else again. Why was he
marrying
Helen now? I’d already realised Johnny’s reputation as a great lover had more to do with image than substance. Clearly he was attracted enough to Helen to play the part, if not entirely to her satisfaction, but could he keep the pretence going for a lifetime?

And dear God. I put my head in my hands and groaned. We were off to bloody
war
in a matter of weeks. What kind of mess was Johnny dragging Helen into? Oh shit, I had to tell her. I just didn’t have the faintest idea how.

I borrowed Harry’s truck and waited, leaning on the bonnet, till she’d finished her afternoon shift. She hugged me, smiling shyly, and my heart turned over. We hadn’t spoken since that astonishing moment of passion almost three months ago.

‘Mike, oh Mike. They’ve finally let you out of camp! Johnny told me you were always being kept back for some wickedness or another. It’s so lovely to see you.’

I laughed with relief. Good old Johnny, covering for me, even though he’d been puzzled why I never wanted to take leave. (I’d made up some story about avoiding Delia but he wasn’t taken in.)

‘Come for a drive, gorgeous girl,’ I said, ‘and we can catch up with everything.’

We drove onto the highway and up the steep hill a few miles back towards Melbourne, to the place with a panorama of the Prom and Corner Inlet. I stopped the truck and Helen sighed, looking at the view.

‘Oh, I never get tired of that,’ she said. She turned to me, her cheeks dimpled. ‘Dear Mike. I’ve so missed talking to you. How are you? What’s training like?’

‘I’ve missed you too. Training? Good fun. Bloody hard work but good. I’ve run up and down too many damned mountains but I’ve learnt a lot. Can lay wires and demolish things with the best of them now.’

‘I can see you’re looking very brown and healthy.’ She hesitated, toying with a glass button on her jumper. ‘Did Johnny tell you our news?’

‘Yes. Congratulations.’ I felt like banging my head on the steering wheel. I took a deep breath.

‘Helen. I have to ask you something. We’re being deployed soon. Are you certain? Don’t you think perhaps you should wait? Not rush into anything? Especially after you and me …’

‘Mike, no, stop it.’ She was staring out the window. ‘I’m marrying Johnny.’

‘Look, I know you’ve always had your heart set on him, but Helen, what if … what if he’s in love with someone else?’

There was a terrible silence.

‘What do you mean?’ she said slowly.

Oh, Jesus. ‘I think … Johnny is in love with someone else.’

To my surprise she laughed. ‘Oh come off it, Mike. Who could that be? Delia, perhaps?’

‘No.’

She looked at me. ‘Are you serious? Johnny’s in love with someone else? Mike, this isn’t funny.’

‘It’s not meant to be.’

‘Then tell me who, damn it,’ she said, her eyes furious, ‘Tell me!’

‘Helen –’

‘You liar. It’s not true at all, is it? You’d do anything to come between us, wouldn’t you?’ She turned away, folding her arms around herself.

I looked at her in despair. ‘All I’m saying is, for God’s sake, wait a bit. Don’t rush into this, Helen. Don’t marry Johnny, at least not now.’

She was very still. ‘We’re getting married.’

‘Jesus, Helen, haven’t you heard a word –?’

‘
You
listen. We must. I’m pregnant.’

I was speechless. My mind was a jumble of confusion, then suddenly it hit me.

‘It could be
my
baby –’

She shook her head. ‘No. There’s no chance of that.’

‘How do you know?’

She faced me, her eyes gentle again. ‘After that night … my monthlies began a few days later. It’s simply not possible for it to be your baby, Mike. Then Johnny came home and we were careless. My monthlies stopped, I’ve been sick, and soon I’m going to show and I must get married. Now do you understand?’

‘Yes.’ I could hardly breathe for sorrow.

She looked at her hands and slowly straightened her ring.

‘I don’t understand how you could say such a thing about Johnny. I can’t imagine why you’d stoop as low as that, Mike. You’re usually so kind.’

‘I wanted to save you –’

‘From what? Johnny loves me. We’re getting married, we’re having a baby.’

She looked at me sadly, firmly. ‘Take me home. Don’t come to the wedding. Don’t tell me lies about the man I love. Please, don’t
ever
mention that foolish mistake I made with you. Stay out of my life, Mike.’ She turned away.

I got blind drunk that night and went back to camp next day. Then I picked a fight with the nicest, most inoffensive bloke in the unit, but he wasn’t called Bullock for nothing. I got in one lucky punch that opened my hand and his eyebrow, but otherwise he beat me half-senseless, apologising all the while. I didn’t mind. It gave me something to
think about and it meant I was confined to camp and had a good excuse for missing the wedding.

On Sundays there was usually a brief service, then we had free time for a few hours. I mooched around aimlessly then went down to the beach and sat in the shade of a bush and watched the surf. My wounds hurt, especially my knuckles. Jesus, if this hurt, how would a bullet hole feel?

A shadow fell over me and I looked up. Alan was there, holding two bottles of beer.

‘Sunday treat,’ he said. ‘You need a bit of anaesthesia by the look of it.’

I smiled. Part of my punishment had been no beer ration for a fortnight. ‘Al, you’re a godsend.’

He sat down and handed me a bottle, blessedly cold. ‘We should toast the happy couple.’

‘It went off all right, then?’ In my heart I’d been hoping someone would jump up and object to the marriage but clearly no such luck.

‘Oh, yes. They’re on honeymoon at Port Albert for two days now.’

I grunted and took a swig, then we sat in silence, watching the waves. Despite what I’d seen that night I didn’t feel uncomfortable. Alan was such a familiar presence to me.

‘Mike,’ he said thoughtfully after a while, ‘something we need to clear up.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Look. I know you saw me and Johnny the other night.’

I nearly dropped my bottle. ‘Oh. Yeah? How?’

He looked at me half-exasperated. ‘You were awarded leave for getting back to the mess hut before anyone else.
You’re pretty good at concealment but I sensed – unfortunately too late – that someone was watching. It must have been you.’

I tried desperately to be casual. ‘Jeez, mate. None of my business.’ Then my pain and indignation boiled over. ‘But why the hell is Johnny getting
married
when you two … He bloody shouldn’t be!’

Alan took a swig. ‘Buggered if I know.’ I caught his eye in amazement and we both burst out laughing.

‘Okay. Poor choice of words,’ said Alan. ‘Listen, Mike. It’s different for me. I’ve always been this way. I fancy women, I fancy men. Bisexual, they call it. I never meant to fall so hard for Johnny but I’m not ashamed. I yam what I yam,’ he said in a Popeye growl.

‘Women
and
men?’ I said, astonished. ‘Both?’

‘Well, not at the same time, mate. Don’t start giving me ideas.’ He drank again. ‘But it’s different for Johnny. He likes women well enough but he really wants men. He’s terrified of anyone knowing and he needs to hide behind marriage.’ He shook his head. ‘There’s more blokes like him around than you’d imagine. And she’s pregnant too – changes everything.’

‘Yeah. She told me. Round about when she was telling me to piss off out of her life forever.’

‘Yeah?’

I sighed. ‘I tried to suggest Johnny might’ve had a broader range of interests than just her.’

He chuckled. ‘One way to put it.’ Then he shook his head regretfully. ‘You poor bastard, caught in the middle. Sorry it got so messed up. But my prospects don’t look too bright either, don’t forget.’