Soldier on the Hill

by French, Jackie

  ‘He could give himself up,’ said Myrtle.

  ‘The Japanese don’t. They think we shoot prisoners. That’s what they’re told. They’d die rather than surrender.’ Joey hesitated. ‘I keep thinking of Dad,’ he said softly. ‘Maybe Dad was all alone, trying to hide from the Japanese. I keep thinking how much it would have meant to him, to have someone give him something, anything, just to know that one person cared about you a bit, that you weren’t quite all alone.’

  Myrtle was silent. ‘Fred was killed in an air raid,’ she said finally. ‘His captain wrote to Mum and Dad. It was quick, he said. Fred wouldn’t have known what happened. I’m glad. I’d hate for Fred to have been scared or hurt. He’d have hated to be alone. Fred always liked his mates around him. Even if he went for a walk he wanted someone to come too …’

  ‘How’s your Mum?’ asked Joey at last.

  ‘Getting better. She still wants me in the shop all the time though.’

  For a moment Myrtle looked like she might cry. ‘You know, it’s funny. I always wanted them to pay more attention to me, and now they are, and I hate it. They want to know what I’ve done all day at school and where I’m going and everything. Dad’s even up when I come home from school now. He sits down at the kitchen table with me and tries to smile … I mean I love them and everything but …’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ said Joey. He gave a half grin. ‘Mum hates it when I say “yeah” and “okay”. She says she doesn’t want me to get yankified.’

  ‘We’re all going to get yankified,’ said Myrtle. ‘Dad says there’s some Americans going to take over the garrison on the road down to the coast. I bet even your Aunt Lallie’s going to be saying “okay” by Christmas. Have you ever seen an American?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Do you think they’ll look just like on the movies?’

  ‘Suppose so. How’s your Mum now?’

  ‘Not too bad. She’s arguing with Aunt Lallie again, so she must be feeling better. I think she felt all along that Dad was dead, so it wasn’t really such a shock.’

  ‘How long since you’d seen him?’

  ‘Over a year.’ Joey looked at the rest of his sandwiches. Vegemite and lettuce, but he wasn’t hungry now. The pigs could have them. ‘You want to come out to Joe’s this afternoon?’

  ‘I can’t. Mum expects me in the shop. Maybe I can come this Sunday afternoon, if they decide to let me out of their sight. I like being alone sometimes,’ cried Myrtle softly. ‘I’m used to it! Dad’s even talking about coming down to the vegie gardens with me. I’ll be a laughing stock, having my Dad along.’

  ‘They’ll understand,’ said Joey unconvincingly.

  Myrtle snorted. ‘Are you going to eat that sandwich?’

  ‘No. Do you want it?’

  ‘May as well. I can’t seem to eat anything out of the shop anymore. It reminds me of Fred …’ Her voice broke off. ‘What’s Joe think of your taking stuff up the hill all the time?’ she asked in an obvious effort to change the subject.

  ‘I hide the biscuits in my pocket. Joe thinks I just want to be by myself after Dad … after the telegram. Like Joe wanted to be after his accident.’

  Myrtle nodded over the Vegemite sandwich. ‘He’s not so bad now, though, is he? And the scar’s not so pink, either.’

  ‘I suppose things do get better,’ said Joey wearily. ‘Hey, do you want me to ask Mum for more sandwiches tomorrow?’

  ‘Maybe we could swap,’ offered Myrtle. ‘You take mine and I’ll take yours.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Joey.

  chapter twenty - nine

  Presents

  * * *

  From the Biscuit Creek Gazette, 1942

  AUSTRALIAN POW’S ON ‘DEATH RAILWAY’

  Three thousand Australian prisoners of war among the 15,000 Australians captured by the Japanese in the fall of Singapore have arrived in Burma to work on a Japanese railway linking Burma and Thailand. The Australians led by Brigadier A. L. Varley, have been weakened by starvation in the camp where they have been held at Changi.

  * * *

  The postman’s whistle sounded just as Joey cut an apple neatly into quarters for himself for afternoon tea. Apples tasted better cut up, he always thought.

  ‘I’ll get it, Mum!’ called Joey. Aunt Lallie had got a letter from Merv two days ago, but she was still hoping for one from Uncle Don.

  He dashed down the stairs just as Mr Wilkins blew the whistle again.

  ‘Parcel,’ explained Mr Wilkins.

  ‘Goodoh,’ said Joey, interested. Maybe it was another jumper from Aunt Sheila. She was always pulling old ones apart and knitting them up again for someone else. Mr Wilkins fished it out of his bag and handed it over.

  It was too heavy to be a jumper, thought Joey. It didn’t look like it came from Aunt Sheila at all. This parcel was large and lumpy and sewn up in canvas, with foreign stamps and a roughly printed address in indelible ink. It looked just like the packages Dad used to send.

  ‘What is it, Joey?’ Mum stuck her head out the bedroom window.

  ‘It’s a parcel,’ said Joey slowly.

  ‘Who’s it addressed to?’

  ‘To you and me.’

  ‘To us? It must be from Auntie Sheila. Bring it up then.’

  Joey climbed the front stairs slowly.

  ‘Bring it through into the kitchen.’ Mum pushed a bobby pin absently back into her hair. ‘Goodness gracious, it’s a big one. Thank heavens Lallie’s off at Red Cross and we can open it in peace. It looks like …’ her voice trailed away.

  ‘It looks like it’s from Dad,’ said Joey slowly.

  ‘It can’t be,’ whispered Mum. She bit her lip. ‘Fetch the scissors, Joey. In the top drawer, next to the knives. Give them here — no, you do it.’ She clasped her hands together as though to stop them shaking.

  Joey cut the stitches slowly. Had Dad stitched these, sitting in his tent? They were close, seaman-like stitches. It took a while to cut them. Inside were two packages, each wrapped in brown paper tied with string. There was a letter shoved under the string of one of them. Mum pulled the letter out slowly and opened it. Her face was expressionless.

  ‘Mum? Who’s it from? Is it from Dad? It can’t be from Dad.’

  Mum’s voice was expressionless too. ‘It’s from your father,’ she said softly. ‘It’s from him.’

  ‘Then he’s still alive! Mum!’

  ‘No, Joey. Joey no, be quiet, you don’t understand. He posted this … he posted this before he died. The letter says …’ her voice choked and she began again. ‘He said he wanted to be sure that we got these for Christmas. Mail takes such a long time to come nowadays, Joey. It has to wait for a ship … but cables and telegrams take hardly any time at all.’ She closed the letter again and held it close against her. Far down the road the postman’s whistle sounded again as he slipped the afternoon delivery into someone else’s box.

  ‘What does the letter say?’ asked Joey at last.

  ‘I … the last page is for you.’ She subtracted it from the others, and held it out slowly, as though unwilling to part with it.

  Dear Son,

  I hope this finds you as it leaves me. It’s been a hot old few months up here, but I’d better not say much more about it or the censor will have his scissors out. How is school going? And your cricket? Bowl one for me. We’ll have a real good go at it when I get home, won’t we? Remember that time down at the park you hit a sixer right across the road? You work at that bowling.

  Look after your mother, son.

  Your loving father, Dad

  Joey read it in silence. He hesitated, then held it out to his mother. She reached out to take it, then pulled back her hand. ‘No. You keep it. It’ll be the last …’ She stopped suddenly. ‘What about these presents then?’

  ‘But … but shouldn’t we wait till Christmas?’

  ‘No. There’ll be everyone around then. Your Aunt Lallie and Don maybe and … Let’s open them now. Just you and me. Our private Christmas,’ said
Mum softly.

  Joey cut the string on the first parcel, then the second. ‘Which one is yours?’ he asked. ‘The one with the letter I suppose.’ He handed it to her.

  Mum held the parcel motionless for a moment, then began to open it. One layer, two layers. There was a fold of cloth inside.

  ‘What is it? Oh, it’s just material,’ said Joey, disappointed.

  Mum shook her head wordlessly. She shook out the material. It was finely woven, a pale blue shot with gold and deeper green, with a border of gold and a flower pattern along one side. ‘It’s a sari,’ she said finally. ‘Indian women wear them. Maybe they wear them in Singapore, too.’ She trailed her fingers across the cloth.

  Joey touched it dubiously. ‘What’s it made of? It’s awfully soft.’

  ‘Silk. Fine, fine silk. Your father always said that silk reminded him of …’ She stopped. ‘Open yours now, Joey,’ she said in a different voice.

  Joey pulled the paper away. But under the first layer were more packages, four of them, all wrapped separately, all different sizes. Joey unwrapped the smallest first.

  It was an elephant — a baby elephant, made of some dark black wood and polished so it shone like Aunt Lallie’s furniture. It had tiny tusks brilliant white against the black. The tusks were glued into tiny sockets in the wood, and red eyes and ear-holes, and red toe nails.

  Joey unwrapped the next. It was an elephant too. A larger elephant, the baby elephant’s big brother maybe, thought Joey. And then another elephant and a still larger elephant, the mother and father elephants — all with their white tusks and silly painted toenails, their trunks raised up in the air. Joey arranged them wordlessly in a line on the table, each one following the other.

  ‘It’s a family,’ he said finally. ‘A family of elephants.’

  Mum nodded. ‘Joey … Joey I’m sorry. I need to lie down for a bit. Do you mind staying out here? Lallie won’t be home for an hour yet and I …’ Her face screwed up suddenly, so it wasn’t like hers at all. She gathered up her sari and ran down the hall. The bedroom door slammed behind her.

  Joey sat at the kitchen table, looking at his elephants.

  ‘Goodbye, Dad,’ he whispered.

  chapter thirty

  Accident!

  * * *

  From the Biscuit Creek Gazette, 1942

  Mutton’s Drapers still have most of the goods you need to keep body and soul together! Some lines you used to buy in past years are unobtainable: do not grumble. Our service might not be quite so prompt as it used to be. We would like to remind those who might have a complaint against us that we have three men out of this store in the fighting forces, and are not allowed to replace them.

  Our boys are doing their job. We are keeping their jobs for them here with your co-operation.

  Coupon Free Goods at Muttons!

  * * *

  Joey sped down the road to Joe’s, the cold air whistling in his ears. Riding a bike must be a bit like flying, he thought; the singing of the wind too loud to hear the noises from below. The cattle turned to watch him curiously as he passed, hoping he might bring hay, then lost interest and bent again to the sparse grass.

  The farm looked still and cold in the winter air. The bare poplars raised naked fingers up to the sky. The chooks chuckled in the distance. A hint of smoke eddied behind the aerials on the roof, then was gone.

  Joey wheeled his bike through the gate. ‘Hey Joe, it’s me,’ he yelled.

  No answer.

  Joey clattered up the steps and crossed the verandah to the back door. ‘Hoy, Joe …’ he began again, then stopped.

  The door at the end of the verandah was open.

  Joey walked quietly along the verandah floorboards. But there was no need for silence, he realised. There was no way Joe would hear him now.

  Joe sat on a chair at a table, his back to the door and headphones clamped about his ears. Meg slept at his feet. There was strange-looking wireless equipment in front of him, but not like the wireless in the lounge room at home. This was bigger, with many knobs, dials and switches. Joe seemed to be listening intently as his hand moved the dial slowly … slowly … slowly …

  ‘Joe,’ said Joey.

  There was no response. Joey touched him gently on the shoulder.

  Joe jumped. ‘What the blazes … oh Joey, it’s you.’

  Joe slipped off the headphones. ‘You frightened at least thirty year’s growth off me that time.’ He glanced at the door behind him. ‘I usually lock the door behind me, but I was burning off earlier and I wanted to keep an eye on it.’

  ‘Joe, what are you doing?’

  ‘Listening, boyo. Just listening.’

  ‘But what for?’

  Joe shot him a glance. ‘Subs. That’s what I’m listening for. Enemy submarine transmissions. And anything else that shouldn’t be there either.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s all I can do for the war effort now. Sammo, all the rest — any one of them might be on a ship that gets blown up by those subs.’ He nodded at the table. ‘That’s an amateur radio transmitter and receiver, Joey. One day, who knows, I’ll hear something important and be able to report it, and if I’m lucky … Well, who knows how many lives I’ll save.’

  Joey looked at the radio equipment, fascinated. ‘But why do you keep the door locked?’ he demanded. ‘Why haven’t you shown it to us before?’

  Joe sighed. ‘Because what I’m doing is illegal.’

  ‘Illegal!’

  Joe nodded. ‘Dad should have turned this in at the start of the war. Everyone got a telegram ordering them to turn in their amateur radio equipment. Then Dad died and Mum turned in some of his stuff, but she didn’t know about this one. It was mostly in bits, you see. Dad was always tinkering around with things.’

  ‘But why did you have to hand them in?’

  ‘In case the enemy got hold of them,’ said Joe impatiently. ‘To stop people transmitting stuff the enemy might pick up too.’

  Joey suddenly felt weak. ‘But … but Joe … Joe that’s it!’

  ‘It’s what?’

  ‘That’s why the soldier’s been staying up on the hill! That’s why he tried to break in here! He must have known about your radio thing somehow.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be hard,’ said Joe shortly. ‘He’d have seen my aerial wire up on the roof. Sergeant Williams thinks Mum and I just didn’t bother to take it down. But that bloke up there would see it. Chances are he’d recognise what it was.’

  Joey suddenly didn’t know what to say. ‘All this time I thought there was nothing the soldier could do up there,’ he said slowly. ‘He was all by himself. Even if he found out anything he couldn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t even signal to be rescued. But now …’

  ‘Now what?’ demanded Joe.

  ‘Joe, you have to get rid of it! It’s too dangerous to have it here!’

  ‘No, it damn well isn’t! That’s a good solid door there, and I keep it padlocked.’

  ‘But he might break in.’

  ‘He tried it once, and he didn’t make it, did he? And I moved my bedroom next door after that. No one can sneak down here now without me or Meg knowing.’

  ‘Meg’s deaf!’

  ‘Well, I’m not. And you’d have to make a hell of a lot of noise to break in here.’

  ‘Joe, you don’t understand!’ urged Joey. How could Joe possibly keep the radio now? ‘It just isn’t worth the risk!’

  ‘Sure it’s worth the risk! What’s one bloke up on the hill compared to the lives I might save if I hear something!’

  ‘But Joe!’

  ‘It’s all I can do now! Don’t you understand?’ Joe flung himself out of the chair. ‘Ah hell, there’s no point talking about it.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I said be quiet about it!’ He’d never seen Joe like this before, Joey realised. He was furious, the blind shaking anger of a man who knows he’s wrong.

  ‘Joe? Where are you going?’

  ‘Do
wn to split some wood. I’ve had it with talking.’ Joe’s boots clumped down the verandah, Meg at his heels.

  Joey sat on the steps. What was he going to do? No matter what Joe said, it wasn’t right to leave the radio here, not with an enemy soldier so close by. No matter how kind the soldier up on the hill was, this was different.

  What could he do? Tell Sergeant Williams? But that’d get Joe into trouble — maybe a lot of trouble.

  It’d be better if Joe handed it in. He could say he’d just discovered it among his father’s things. Or even if Joe disabled it in some way … like unplug some of the valves …

  Of course, if the soldier on the hill wasn’t there, Joe’s radio wouldn’t matter so much. If the soldier was captured …

  Joey shut his mind to that.

  Joey sat at the table and looked at the radio. It looked such a simple thing to be so dangerous. Maybe if he waited till Joe calmed down.

  ‘Arrrrh! Oh ’struth, oh …’

  ‘Joe! Joe, what is it?’ Joey raced down the steps as Joe staggered round the corner. His hand was held up to his chest. His shirt was streaked with red.

  ‘Joey, little mate …’ Joe swayed. His shirt front now was bright with thick red blood.

  ‘Joe, what happened?’

  ‘Slipped — my ruddy hand, the axe. Joey mate, you’ll have to …’ Joe collapsed.

  Joey knelt over him. All that blood! He tried to lift Joe’s hand but that made the bleeding even worse. The blood welled in dark, thick blotches like something was pumping it from below.

  ‘Joe, I don’t know what to do!’ he whispered.

  Tie it up somehow. But with what? Would any bandage help a wound like that? Joe’s face was white and still.

  Get help. But where? There was no phone, no one to hear. It would take half an hour maybe on his bicycle and by then Joe might well be dead.