Fire in Summer

by JH Fletcher

  ‘Nobody gives a bugger about us.’

  It was Gwen Lindsay, whose father was a builder, who eventually came out with the news. Kath was in the shop, handing over her food tickets, getting the pathetic scraps that were all the government allowed.

  ‘Dunno how they manage in the cities,’ Laura Dannenberg said. At least it was easier on a farm. There were inspectors to make sure you didn’t eat everything you produced (‘your own food,’ said Laura, who held a diploma in moans, ‘grow it but can’t eat it — whatever next?’), but no-one saw much of them.

  In came Gwen, puffed robin-bright with the news that she couldn’t wait to display for the edification of the town. Mary Williams had been right; it was the Americans. Her Dad was building huts for them, although they’d sent in their own contractor, too.

  ‘From Texas,’ Gwen said, eyes round.

  It all sounded unbelievably exciting: a group of Americans who sent a construction crew ahead of them, although how Bert Lindsay fitted into that scenario no-one could quite see.

  Laura, malicious as well as a moaner, had never forgiven Bert for doing a runner twenty-five years earlier, when she had given him one of her smouldering looks. ‘Giving them a hand, is he?’

  Gwen sniffed but, wiser than her years, said nothing.

  Later, carrying baskets that were still half-empty with all the goodies they were not allowed to buy, she and Kath strolled down the street together. ‘Old bag,’ said Gwen, still fuming. Then brightened. ‘Why don’t we go round by the station, take a look?’

  There wasn’t much to see, just the new perimeter fence, shiny-bright, a succession of lumber-built huts, nearly complete, the construction-site smell of sawdust and shavings, of tar for the felt roofs. ‘Very classy,’ Gwen said.

  They strolled, hopefully, Gwen eager to waggle her bottom, just a little, if a suitable target emerged. They saw only her old Dad, who had never been near Texas in his life.

  ‘Oh well …’

  Kath called to him through the wire. ‘When are they getting here, Mr Lindsay?’

  Bert Lindsay, if he knew, wasn’t saying. Not that it mattered; the town would find out, soon enough.

  A week later, Kath got on her bicycle and rode down the hill to post Hedley’s weekly letter. Mrs Coogan barely let her get her nose inside the post office door. ‘They’re here …’

  No need to ask who she meant. ‘When did they arrive?’

  ‘Last night, Larry said. Reckons there’s about a hundred of them.’

  ‘So many?’ It was a lot for the town to absorb. With so many men away, it seemed sometimes as though there were hardly that number of locals.

  ‘What are we going to do with them all?’

  ‘I daresay we’ll find something,’ said Kath.

  With a community stuffed with girls and so many men away, that seemed highly likely — which no doubt would mean trouble, for some, anyway. Depending on your definition of trouble.

  ‘They’ll be pretty busy, I daresay,’ Mrs Coogan said. ‘All they gotta do.’ Although neither she nor anyone knew what that might be.

  ‘If they’re from the city,’ Laura said, her voice rubbing its hands, maliciously, ‘they won’t know what’s hit them, coming to a dump like this.’

  ‘They’ll find something,’ Kath said again.

  Indeed.

  After the excitement, reality came as a bit of a disappointment. The town hardly set eyes on them. They always seemed to be away, training at the coast or in the hard country further north.

  ‘I thought they come here to fight the Japs,’ complained Fritz Dannenberg, a bit of a moaner himself.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Japs live in jungles, don’t they? These blokes want to practice, they should be up north, Cape York way.’

  Kath had an idea that the Japs didn’t live in jungles at all, but was not about to argue. Fritz knew it all; even his questions were statements.

  ‘I ask you,’ he said. ‘Do we want them here? Causing trouble?’

  In truth they caused no trouble at all, less than some might have wished, perhaps. The locals saw them from time to time between training trips, groups of two or three walking softly in their rubber-soled boots. They were quietly spoken, their vowel sounds so unfamiliar that most people had difficulty in understanding a word they said. They were polite fellows, tall in their well-made uniforms, so different from the rough battle dress of the Aussie boys. Of whom, perhaps fortunately, few were ever seen. There were no orgies, no drunken fights. The locals hardly knew they were there and soon came to accept them as part of the landscape, a novelty no longer. Kath felt mature and matronly, sorry for Mary Williams and others like her, who had no doubt hoped for more exotic things.

  The kids had a footy match. Walter was far too young, but Kath decided to park him with her mother and go anyway. At least it was something to do.

  Gwen was there. She was alone, her fiancé also away although, in his case, safe: a corporal at the Canungra Jungle School in darkest Queensland.

  It was a nippy day. There had been frosts for several nights, and patches of white still lingered where the sun couldn’t reach. There was a sort-of sun, but the air got chillier as the afternoon wore on. At three-quarter time, they marched briskly around the perimeter of the Oval, stepping out to get themselves warm.

  Gwen clutched Kath’s arm. ‘Look …’ A small group of Americans had arrived and now stood together, a little apart from the locals. Kath saw the smoke from their cigarettes in the still air, heard a blink of laughter. Then the game re-started and she thought about them no more.

  When it was over she looked across, but they had gone.

  ‘Poor things.’ At twenty-three, Gwen was a motherly soul. ‘Probably lonely.’

  ‘Wonder what they thought of the game,’ Kath said. ‘Bet they couldn’t make head or tail of it.’ She didn’t know a great deal about Yanks, but doubted they would have been taught much about Aussie Rules.

  Everyone had seen them, of course, but no-one had spoken, waiting for the strangers to make the first move. Now it was too late, the opportunity missed.

  ‘Pity,’ Kath remarked as they walked back to where they had parked their bicycles beneath trees now almost stripped of leaves.

  ‘What is?’

  She couldn’t explain, nor felt up to trying. On impulse she said, ‘Our boys losing.’

  ‘They always do.’ As far as this season was concerned, that was usually true.

  ‘Not many going to play in the VFL, that’s for sure.’ Not that it mattered. It had been a chance to get out, catch up with Gwen and the rest, get a handle on the local gossip. Something to do, as she had told her mother.

  It was a long haul up the dirt road to the farm, almost two miles of it, and in places the gradient was steep. Cold air or not, by the time she reached the farmhouse Kath was hot and breathless.

  You’re twenty-two, she told herself, and as old as the hills. She felt disgusted, resolved to do something to get back in shape. Those kids this afternoon, she thought. Ran all the time and thought nothing of it. You could have done that yourself, couple of years back. Now look at you.

  She stuck her bicycle in the shed and went into the house. Her mother was in the kitchen, surrounded by a warm smell of cooking. Lamb. Again. Still, one shouldn’t complain. Millions — how often did they hear it? — would have traded their souls for lamb.

  ‘Good time, dear?’

  ‘Yes, thanks. Gwen was there. We had a nice chat.’

  ‘Did our boys win?’

  ‘No. They got walloped.’

  ‘Never mind, dear,’ her mother said, her mind on lamb. ‘Check the potatoes for me, won’t you? Tea’s just about ready.’

  ‘Walter been a good boy?’

  ‘No trouble at all.’

  Suddenly, there he was, thirty pounds of healthy child, flesh hard-rubbery, boy-smelling, hurtling through the doorway.

  ‘Steady!’ She clutched him, swinging him round. ‘Pleased to see me?�
��

  That was too abstract a concept for two-year-old Walter. ‘Grandpa shot a fox,’ he informed her, importantly.

  ‘Did he?’

  She sat on the kitchen stool while Walter told her all about it. She watched her son, her mother moving about the warm, food-smelling kitchen, and was conscious of the peaceful darkness beyond the curtains of the brightly-lit room.

  This is real, she told herself. This is everything worthwhile.

  But it wasn’t everything and she knew it. For the thousandth time, she fretted over the time that was passing even as she sat and waited and did nothing. Days and weeks and months, so precious, gone beyond recall.

  ‘Lay the table, won’t you, dear?’

  Walter was still on about the fox. She put him to one side, gently. ‘Tell me about it later, all right?’

  She got the knives and forks from the drawer, set them out on the table. For something to say, she told her mother, ‘There was a bunch of Yanks at the footy.’

  ‘Really, dear?’

  To Thora Schulz, having Americans in the mid-north was madness, as the war was madness, best ignored. In time things would get back to normal, the Americans would disappear back to their own country. The sooner the better. Not that she had anything against Americans; had never spoken to one in her life. Nor had any plans to, although she enjoyed a trip to the pictures as much as anyone.

  ‘No-one spoke to them,’ Kath said. ‘I thought it was a pity.’

  ‘Perhaps they don’t speak English.’

  ‘Of course they speak English! They’re Americans, not Russians.’

  ‘Maybe there’s more than one type.’

  ‘Honestly, ma, you’re hopeless.’ But with affection, smiling at the parochial eccentricities of the older generation.

  ‘I know, dear. Go and tell your Dad tea’s ready.’

  She went out into the darkness, crossed to the shed where, under a dim light, her father was banging away at a piece of metal.

  ‘Tea, Dad …’

  ‘Right.’ He straightened himself, easing his back. ‘Have a good time, girl?’

  ‘It was nice.’

  ‘Our blokes win?’

  She repeated what she’d told her mother. ‘They got walloped.’

  He nodded, wiping his hands on a piece of sacking. He switched off the light. ‘I never reckoned much on their chances.’

  He smelt of grease, of raw wool, of the earth. It was the smell of home, of her life. They walked side by side to the house.

  ‘Larry Coogan dropped by today.’

  Sometimes the postie delivered what mail there was, to save them the drag into town. Her Dad said no more; she knew what he was not telling her.

  ‘Nothing from Hedley, then?’

  Two cards in two years, she thought. Perhaps it’s not his fault. They went indoors together, to the lamb.

  Two weeks later her father took some ewes to the Kapunda market. Kath went with him, taking Walter to make a bit of an outing out of it. The boy was in his element, exploding with questions, with energy. He wanted to know about everything, badgered and badgered until he was satisfied with the answers she gave him.

  A woman she knew by sight gave her a smile. ‘He’s enjoying himself …’

  Her father’s ewes came up early and were knocked down to a farmer from Hamilton. It was a good price, although Max Schulz, farmer to his bootstraps, wouldn’t admit it.

  ‘We’ll be in the workhouse yet …’

  ‘Come on, Dad. The bloke who bought them’s probably saying the same thing.’

  ‘Him?’ Indignation. ‘He’ll be laughing all the way to the bank, that one. Know him from old.’

  They watched while a ram, a fine beast with impressive horns, was knocked down to someone they didn’t know, then they strolled for a minute between the shove of people.

  Her father saw an old mate. ‘Need a word with him …’

  And disappeared pubwards, although what they were hoping to drink when they got there, after almost five years of war, Kath couldn’t imagine.

  She called after him. ‘Half an hour, all right? Then I must get Walter home.’

  There was a stall selling home-made goods. Kath had a look at what was on offer, dug a few shillings out of her purse, bought a pair of mittens for Walter, for herself a long knitted scarf in a bright mixture of red and green and gold.

  ‘To cheer myself up,’ she told the woman behind the stall, while behind her the auctioneer’s voice gabbled bids amid the uneasy lowing of cattle.

  Kath wrapped the scarf around her neck and drew it tight, feeling the texture of the wool warm against her throat.

  ‘Suits you,’ the woman said, ‘it really does.’ Kath beamed, thinking she was right.

  She strolled on, Walter peacock-proud in his smart mittens. She saw Beth Cousins, a mate from schooldays, and stopped to chat. They agreed the war looked like going on forever.

  ‘Ever hear from Hedley?’

  ‘Card last Christmas. Nothing since.’

  ‘He’ll be right,’ Beth consoled, although both had heard the rumours about how the Japs treated their prisoners. ‘At least he’s safe.’ Which was more than you could say for her husband, somewhere in the mincing machine of Europe.

  They looked at each other brightly, helplessly. ‘At least we’re winning …’

  The news was certainly a lot better, although it made you wonder whether they were kidding you, what with meat rationing coming in last January, and Mr Curtin warning of more sacrifice, more struggles to come.

  ‘All right for him,’ declared Beth, who wouldn’t have voted Labor in a fit. Kath thought that, on the whole, the Prime Minister was doing a good job, but didn’t intend getting into an argument about it. She looked around for Walter. Who had disappeared.

  ‘Where’s he gone?’

  They looked, turning on their heels, but somehow, in the mysterious way of boys, Walter had vanished.

  ‘Drat the boy!’ Kath was not unduly concerned. He couldn’t come to any real harm, she told herself, not here. All the same … ‘I’d better see what he’s up to.’

  ‘Want me to give you a hand?’

  ‘Don’t worry. He won’t be far.’

  And went looking. It was busy, as market day always was, even these days, but not what you’d call jam-packed. It was funny, though, how a small boy could manage to dissolve into thin air.

  Perhaps, Kath thought, he’s gone back to the auction ring but, when she got there, could see no sign of him.

  There was a marquee where morose men browsed among pieces of second-hand equipment; there were sheep dogs, black and white border collies, kelpies with intelligent eyes. Still no sign of Walter. She turned on her heel, beginning to panic. Suddenly, she saw him coming towards her, hand in hand with a man.

  He saw her at the same moment, broke free, came running.

  ‘Mummy, Mummy!’

  She picked him up, acknowledging for the first time the anxiety she’d felt, delighting in the wriggling, puppy-warm body of her son. ‘Where have you been?’

  An amused voice. ‘Looking for you, I’d guess.’

  The man was about the same age as herself, tall and rangy, with a pleasant smile and eyes the colour of sapphire. His accent was slow and soft. He was wearing one of those smart uniforms. An American.

  The man had brought back her son, safe and sound, just after she’d started to worry about him. She should have been pleased to see him and was, yet looked at him with a sudden sharp gulp of uncertainty, even of apprehension, without knowing why.

  ‘It’s very kind of you …’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  She looked from the stranger to her son, back again. ‘Did he speak to you, or what? I hope he wasn’t any trouble.’

  As though she really cared about that. Yet was curious, all the same.

  Again the American laughed. ‘I guess we sort of collided with each other. I was just coming around the corner of the machinery tent yonder when he kind of ran into me.
By the time I picked myself up, it struck me he was a bit small to be by himself. He told me he had a mother around some place, so we decided to come and look for you. And here you are. Mission accomplished.’

  He seemed a nice young man. ‘I’m grateful,’ Kath said. ‘Take your eyes off them for half a second and they vanish.’

  The soldier smiled gravely, but said nothing.

  She could not simply walk away and leave him standing, but could think of nothing to say.

  ‘Do you have any children of your own?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I can’t say I have that pleasure.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s just as well.’

  Meaning, Since you’re in the middle of a war, so far from home. Could not put words to it and smiled, helplessly.

  He seemed to understand what she had not been able to say. ‘Perhaps it is.’

  ‘It was really very kind of you. Thank you very much.’

  They stared at each other across a gulf; Australia on one side, America on the other, painfully aware of the strangeness separating them. The soldier broke the spell.

  ‘My pleasure, ma’am. Entirely my pleasure.’

  He flipped his fingers to his cap in what might have been a half-salute, turned and walked away through the crowd.

  For a moment Kath looked after him. I don’t even know his name, she thought.

  She looked at her watch. ‘My goodness …’ And grabbed Walter’s arm. ‘Grandpa will be wondering where we’ve got to.’

  By the first week of August, the papers were full of the business at Cowra, in New South Wales. Japanese prisoners had tried to break out of a prisoner-of-war camp. It was a crazy thing to have done; what could they possibly have hoped to gain from it? Now it was reported that over two hundred of them had been killed.

  ‘Serve ’em right!’ Beth Cousins said.

  Most people agreed but Kath, with a war prisoner of her own, wasn’t so sure. ‘They’re such a long way from home …’

  ‘If they had any sense, they’d be thankful they’re out of it.’

  For the lost two hundred, it seemed, it was too late.

  ‘Still nothing from Hedley?’ The ritual question, with the ritual answer. ‘Not since Christmas.’