The Yellow Papers (18 page)

Edward took leave from work and returned to Walpinya Station. He wanted to see his mother and make sure everything was in order before leaving for any length of time. Julia had taken up his suggestion and she and Charlotte were already there. He also wanted to call in on Chen Mu.

He found him at the back of the cottage, polishing a bicycle.

‘Yours?' he asked, expecting to be told it belonged to one of Macoomba's children.

‘Yes mine. What do you think?'

‘I think you're too old to be riding a bike.'

‘Not too old. Old is only as old as you want it to be. Seventy-four's not old. Anyway, there's a war on, you know. Soon everyone will want one – no petrol. I thought it wise to buy mine before the price went up. Good exercise!' Chen Mu chuckled. ‘But come, let's go inside and I will make you a cup of tea.'

Once Edward was settled at the kitchen table and tea had been poured, Chen Mu went to a cupboard and came back with a fruitcake. He cut them both a slice, then took a bite with a satisfied expression. Something about his manner told Edward there was more to the cake than apparent. He decided to play along.

‘Nice cake.'

‘Very nice. Thank you. Not too many fruit, not too few.'

‘Did you make it?'

‘Me? No, not me.'

‘A gift then?'

‘Not a gift as you mean it, but a gift just the same.'

‘A gift that's not a gift – you talk in riddles. All right, who made it?'

‘Your daughter.'

‘Charlotte? But why? I mean, why bring it to you? I wasn't even aware she knew you.'

‘She didn't. I ran into her and your mother in the general store. Your mother was kind enough to speak to me.'

‘But why the cake?'

‘I wondered too when I saw Miss Charlotte on my doorstep. But then she explained you'd often spoken of me. She remembered stories …'

‘But that still doesn't explain why she would want to make you a cake.'

‘She's worried. She's only eleven, Master Edward. And when you're eleven, and don't know much about the world, your imagination can make it a frightening place.'

‘What does she have to be worried about?'

‘The war, of course! She thought someone as old as me would have known many wars. She needed to talk. The cake was an excuse – a bribe.'

‘She could have talked to her mother. Her grandmother. Asked me—'

‘No, she couldn't. She believes there is a good chance you'll be killed if you enlist and so doesn't want you to think of that possibility. And she can't ask her mother. She said her mother had locked herself away in her room and will probably not come out again until the war is over.'

‘But her grandmother …'

‘… sent her to me. We had a good talk, Miss Charlotte and I. I told her to feel free to visit me anytime. I think we'll become friends.'

‘What did you tell her?'

‘That no one can predict what will happen. That war makes cowards out of heroes and heroes out of cowards. And that you will buy her a bicycle before you return to Sydney.'

Edward stayed on at Walpinya station for another nine months. Most of the jackaroos had left to enlist, and Edward hired a number of Aboriginal men to replace them; while many had enlisted as soon as war was declared, others went along with William Cooper, the Secretary of the Australian Aborigines' League, who believed the Aborigines should not fight for White Australia until things improved for them at home. Walpinya's overseer, who'd been with them for close to twenty years, was too old to enlist and so stayed on. Edward knew that he could trust the man to do what was best for both the station and his family.

As the months passed and nothing much seemed to be happening, people began calling the war a phoney war, unaware of the strict media censorship that the Government had put into place. Julia relaxed and joined the Country Women's Association. She convinced them to throw dances twice a month to help raise funds for the service men and women sent overseas. Charlotte became bored with helping her mother and decided to follow her father around the property instead, and their relationship changed for the better. She asked Edward for permission to take the local bus on her own once a week, for the short ride to Macoomba so that she could visit Chen Mu. But for Edward, being at Walpinya felt like purgatory. The only place he wanted to be was Shanghai; the only person he wanted to be with was Ming Li.

A meeting was held one night in the town hall, and people were asked to join the Voluntary Defence Corp. Chen Mu was one of the first to volunteer.

‘Don't know if you can, mate,' the man at the desk said. ‘Don't think we can let you Aliens join. Can't be sure what side you're on, now can we?'

The town postmaster was less prejudiced. He offered Chen Mu the position of telegram ‘boy' to replace those who had left. After all, Chen Mu already had a bicycle, and he figured there'd be much need for telegram boys in the months to come. As he was also in charge of the local National Emergency Services, he made Chen Mu an air raid warden as well. When Chen Mu received his tin helmet, gas mask and armband on graduating, he hung the Air Raid Precautions Certificate of Examination over the mantelpiece.

When France fell in June of 1940 Edward realised he could no longer wait if he was going to volunteer for overseas duty – the maximum age for enlisting in the AIF was 35 – even though he knew now that Australia was not sending troops into China. He bought Charlotte a bicycle and returned to Sydney.

He was posted to the 8
^th
and sent for officer training to one of the new special entry classes at Duntroon that, because of the war, had been shortened to 12 months. On graduation late in July of 1941 he was immediately promoted to Captain, discharged from the 8
^th
and transferred to Force 136 of the British Army and told that, because of his knowledge of China, he was being sent to Burma to join a top-secret mission, codenamed ‘Tulip Force'.

Mission 204 was being established to teach the art of guerrilla warfare to Chinese soldiers. Chiang Kia-shek had confided to Churchill that, though they outnumbered the Japanese and had enough ammunition to last a year, the Chinese were no match for the Japanese. In response, the British Army were setting up the Bush Warfare School in Burma, providing equipment, supplies and some men – Australia would provide forty. But Edward cared little of these details – for him, all this meant was that he would be in China once again, and China meant Ming Li.

‘You killem, you pay! You pay now! Now!'

Edward rose from his coir palliasse and climbed down the raised platform that was his bed. It was late and he had only just managed to fall asleep, so that he didn't appreciate being woken by some screaming woman. But whatever was going on, it was his duty to sort out. And what on earth was a woman doing in the camp, anyway?

They had been in Burma for months now – six Commando groups in all, half, raw recruits and half, seasoned units. It was fair to say that the men all got on well, and both the Commanding Officer and the three captains were liked and respected, but still the constant strain of training, when combined with the heat, eventually wore down even the most good natured and easy-going disposition. It was the monsoon season and though the temperature had dropped and the night air felt soft and less humid than during the day, still Edward knew tempers were easily frayed.

Outside his cane-thatched hut everything was mud. He found the woman outside one of the enlisted men's hut, battering one of the British corporals, named Winston, with her umbrella. She looked hot and sweaty, and her feet were coated with red sticky mud – it was obvious she had walked from Maymyo, the town about three miles from their camp. Winston, a spindly man dressed in nothing but his underpants, was trying to fend off her attack, whilst around him enlisted men laughed and cheered and urged her on.

‘What the hell's going on here? '
Ttention!
'

At the sound of Edward's voice the woman stopped hitting Corporal Winston and turned. Edward recognised her as the madam of the Minshan Hotel, a brothel in Maymyo he knew some of the men visited.

‘He killem, so now he pay!' she said, poking the corporal with the point of her umbrella. ‘He pay me now.'

‘Be quiet, woman. And stop that!' Edward took the umbrella from her, then turned to Winston. ‘Now what's all this about?'

‘I don't know, Sir.'

‘Don't lie to me, man! Who did you kill?'

At this, the rest of the men burst out laughing. From the back of the group someone imitated a chicken.
Buuuck! Buckbuckbuckbuck buuuck!
This infuriated the madam, who grabbed the umbrella from Edward and made to go for the group.

‘I said enough!' Edward grabbed the woman by the arm and took the umbrella back. ‘Okay,
you
tell me what's going on.'

‘He kill my chickens. Now he pay me!'

‘He killed your chickens? How did he kill them?'

‘He shoot them. Bang bang. All dead.'

Once more the men burst out laughing, but a look from Edward silenced them. ‘All of you except Winston, back to your huts. Now!' When the men had left, he turned back to Winston, still standing at attention. ‘Did you shoot her chickens?' he asked. ‘And you'd better be telling me the truth!'

‘He shoot! All dead!'

‘Be quiet, woman! Corporal Winston – for the last time – did you shoot this woman's chickens?'

‘Yes, Sir!'

‘Why?'

‘…'

‘I asked you a question, soldier. Why did you shoot her chickens?'

‘The pox, Sir.'

‘Explain yourself.'

‘Her girls gave me the pox, Captain.'

Edward sighed. They may well be learning army intelligence, incendiary and guerrilla techniques, as well as demolition and sabotage, but when they found themselves surrounded by the exoticism of golden-roofed pagodas, cheroot-smoking women and saffron-robed monks, and Burmese men with erotic tattoos from their waists down to their knees, these men forgot any scruples they may have had back home when it came to women, and behaved like teenagers who had just discovered sex. And though they may know how to drive locomotives and how to sabotage them with a minimum of equipment, and how to blow up bridges and lay booby traps, when it came to sexually transmitted diseases many had the ignorant attitude that it only happened to the other guy. But syphilis was rampant in Burma, and since first arriving in the camp, the men had been given lectures twice a month on the prevention of venereal diseases, including the use of prophylactics. In addition, the condoms they were given were the newest type, disposable and much thinner than before and only available to the military, so they had no reason to complain. But many still insisted on using them as if they were the older rubber ones, washing them and slathering them with petroleum jelly, then storing them till needed again, instead of throwing them away after one use.