Soldier on the Hill

by French, Jackie

  Slowly, the noise ebbed, the thrashing of hail up on the roof, the shuddering thunder. Finally, there was only rain and a strange new smell, as though the gates of hell had opened just a little, then slowly shut again.

  Joey left the window and went back to the warm brightness of the kitchen, Meg snuffling for pastry scraps under the table, and Mum and Joe.

  chapter thirty - six

  After the Storm

  * * *

  From the Biscuit Creek Gazette, 1942

  SINGAPORE HEROINE GETS GEORGE MEDAL

  A Victorian army nurse, Staff Nurse Margaret Anderson, has been awarded the George Medal for bravery and devotion to duty during the evacuation of Singapore. Sister Anderson was attending to wounded men on board the motor vessel Empire Stay during bombing and machine gun attacks by Japanese planes on February 12. The Governor General, Lord Gowrie, said Sister Anderson remained on deck during the attacks, sheltering the patients, who were very badly injured, and protected one by throwing her body across him.

  * * *

  Fog dusted the hilltops behind the farm. The rain had gone, leaving behind only the mutter of the creek below the house and new gutters in the track. The air smelt like soap and gum leaves.

  Joey stared out the window of his bedroom. It was a funny time of morning, he thought. A moment of utter stillness, the dawn chorus finished and the activity of the day not yet begun. Even the trees were still, as though the weight of fog was too heavy for them to move.

  It was too still. Too … too … too what? he wondered. Something niggled at him, like a mosquito on your neck before you knew that it was there, just a vague itch you almost had to scratch. It was like last night’s thunder still echoed in his brain, that mighty burst that had rippled across the sky.

  ‘Joey! Joey, breakfast!’

  ‘Coming, Mum.’ Joey thrust the comb through his hair and splashed water on his face to get the sleep out of his eyes.

  Mum was bending over the firebox of the old wood stove, toasting bread on a fork. ‘Tell Joe his breakfast’s ready will you, love? The toast will be hard as a rock if he doesn’t come soon.’

  Joey nodded he trudged down the hall to Joe’s room and stuck his head around the corner.

  ‘Mum says breakfast’s ready. The toast’ll be hard if you don’t come now.’

  ‘Crikey, she’s only been in the house a month and she’s ordering me about already. I knew a Sergeant Major who was softer than her.’ But he was grinning as he wiped off the last of the shaving cream with one hand. Joe had shaved every day since he was back from hospital, Joey realised. He looked different without his stubble.

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Nah, I’m right. You can tie me bootlaces later if you like. That’s if her Ladyship allows me out of the house. Treats me like a blooming invalid,’ said Joe happily. ‘What’s for breakfast besides burnt toast then?’

  ‘Scrambled eggs, I think,’ said Joey. ‘How come your eggs are orange inside and the ones in town are yellow, Joe?’

  ‘’Cause I keep forgetting to buy any wheat for the poor sods and they have to live on leftovers and weeds,’ said Joe. ‘Not that the leftovers aren’t pretty good round here at the moment. Pass me my sock will you, matey … No, the other drawer, that’s it. The green ones. Don’t see why everyone doesn’t keep chooks,’ he added. ‘My Mum always kept chooks, and my Grandma, too. All the cackleberries you want and muck for the garden as well …’ Joe headed out into the corridor.

  ‘Joe, your shirt’s still undone,’ interrupted Joey.

  ‘So it is,’ said Joe. His face was faintly red.

  ‘I could do it up for you if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, cobber. But if it’s undone at the table then your Mum will …’ Joe stopped. ‘Joey, was your Mum really cut up when she found out your Dad had died?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Joey.

  ‘You were too, I reckon,’ said Joe. ‘It was a right cow, wasn’t it? But life goes on, doesn’t it? That’s what you told me months ago. Life goes on.’

  Joey nodded.

  ‘Well, then if me and your Mum … I mean if one day … Well, it’s too soon to talk about it I reckon. Too soon to even think about it, but I dunno, things seem to go so fast since the war. Ah, the heck with it, let’s go get those scrambled eggs. There’s a war on, you know. No time for stragglers.’

  Joey nodded.

  The kettle steam had fogged the windows. They were clean and the curtains were freshly washed. They hadn’t really looked dirty before, but they looked different now. Mum and Aunt Lallie had moved through the house like a willy-willy getting it ready for Joe to come back.

  Joey looked down at his scrambled eggs, slowly soaking their way through the toast. They were good, but he wasn’t hungry. There was still the prickly feeling, the he-didn’t-quite-know-what sort of feeling …

  ‘Joey! Joey!’

  ‘Sorry, what Mum?’

  ‘That’s “beg your pardon”, not “what”. I don’t want people thinking you were brought up in a barn. I was just asking what you were going to do today?’

  ‘Is it all right if Myrtle comes over? I was going to ride into town and give Mr Gleeson a hand stacking the wood for the oven, then give Myrtle a lift back here. She only has to work in the shop till lunchtime. We were going to go for a walk. I mean if that’s all right with you.’

  Mum nodded. ‘As long as you bring the wood in before you go and collect the eggs. Just make sure you stay away from the mine shafts though and —’

  ‘Mum! It happened once, that’s all. I know what to look out for now. I won’t let it happen again.’

  ‘Well, you just see that you don’t. I suppose you’ll be wanting sandwiches. No sense eating at home when you can have a picnic. I’ll cut enough for both of you before we go.’

  ‘You going shopping?’ Joey took a small bite of egg.

  Mum shook her head. ‘Joe and I thought we’d go through his shop. See about opening it up again. It’s a crying shame to keep it closed, what with all that stock.’

  Mum’s eyes gleamed the way they always did when there was something new to organise. ‘I could work out the front like I did in Sydney and Joe could repair things out the back like his Dad. All it needs is a good scrub and a dust and a stocktake and Joe knows all the suppliers, and maybe a new name, too, something more up-to-date …’

  He hadn’t seen Mum look so bright since before Dad enlisted, thought Joey, as he listened to her rattle on with plans for the shop. Now that she had something concrete to do, nothing worried her as much, as though the war and anguish had faded, behind her plans for the shop, and Joe and the farm …

  ‘And we need to do something about a new window display … and maybe a grand opening. Not too flash, of course, not with things the way they are.’ Mum thrust a loose bobby pin back into her hair. ‘But we’ll be back this afternoon in time to put the roast on.’

  ‘Roast what?’

  ‘Emu,’ said Joe. ‘There was this emu trotting down the track yesterday, see, and I said to Meg, go sic ’em, and she said …’

  ‘Roast chicken,’ said Mum grinning. ‘Joe, stop being silly at the breakfast table. One of those chickens is a rooster. I heard it trying to crow the day before yesterday. And no …’ as Joe opened his mouth. ‘I don’t want either of you trying to chop its head off. I don’t want you even looking at an axe, Joe Reardon, till that hand of yours is better and you’ve done all those exercises that Sister said you should’ve been doing right from the start. I’ll do it myself this afternoon. Oh, and Joey, if you want to ask Myrtle to stay to tea, there’ll be plenty. I’ll have a word with her parents if you like.’

  ‘God bless all bossy women,’ said Joe softly, as Mum moved over to the sink with the empty plates. But he said it softly, so only Joey could hear. And he was still grinning.

  chapter thirty - seven

  The Soldier on the Hill

  * * *

  From the Biscuit Creek Gazette, 1942

  ROLL OF HO
NOUR

  Sebastian, Charles. In loving memory of Charlie Sebastian, who was killed at Tobruk 13/8/41.

  They never die who fall in a great cause.

  Inserted by his brothers, sister-in-law and friends.

  Tjakis, Elias …

  * * *

  The air was cool, but the ground was warm. You could feel its breath against your ankles while the mist stroked your face. Myrtle puffed beside him, her breath white as the fog.

  ‘Stop for a rest? Hard to believe it’s nearly summer,’ said Joey. ‘It was as hot as billyo yesterday, now this.’

  ‘Doesn’t it get cold like this in Sydney?’

  ‘Not in September.’

  Myrtle shrugged. ‘The hotter it gets the more the mist comes in. Christmas before last we all wore jumpers. And the Christmas before that there was a bushfire down the river. Look, you can see your place from here. Is that your Mum and Joe?’

  ‘Must be. They must’ve got the old car going. Hey, I forgot. Mum said you could stay for tea if you like — it’s roast chook. Well, rooster anyway.’

  Myrtle nodded. ‘I haven’t had roast chicken since Dad’s birthday. What are we going to do today? Just leave the food on the rock again? I brought some date scones. They’re yesterday’s, but I don’t suppose he’ll mind.’

  Joey hesitated. ‘I don’t know. I suppose.’

  ‘It’s a good day for a walk anyway …’ said Myrtle equably. ‘Not too hot, not too cold. The grass orchids’ll be out soon with all this rain. Terry told me once the Aborigines used to eat the roots, just like potatoes. Hey, look, there’s a wallaby. No there, you dingbat. Behind the tree, pretending it’s a stump or something …’

  The mist slowly lifted as they walked, till finally it hung like a tablecloth above them. ‘Like the angels are shaking out the crumbs,’ said Myrtle, taking off her cardigan and tying it round her waist. ‘Look, that branch must have come down in the storm last night, and all the leaves …’

  ‘The hail must’ve knocked them down,’ said Joey.

  Myrtle nodded. ‘You must have got the worst of it out here. We hardly even got any hail back in town. It must’ve been really wild up here on the hill. Oh, Joey. Joey, look! The horse tree! Look!’

  Joey followed her gaze up the hill. Where the horse tree had once stood there was now a blackened ruin, the top burnt away as though it had never existed.

  ‘It must’ve been struck by lightning —’ Myrtle began.

  ‘No … no …’

  ‘Joey, what is it? What’s wrong?’ Myrtle ran after him.

  Joey couldn’t answer. There was no answer. He didn’t know what was wrong. But there was something. Wrong, wrong, wrong …

  ‘Joey, wait for me!’

  Joey hesitated, then stopped for Myrtle to catch up with him. They walked up to the crest of the hill and the tree.

  You could smell the charred wood from here, thought Joey. If it hadn’t been for the rain there might have been a bushfire. The flames might have swept along the ridges … but the rain had put out any fire before it even had time to flare. Would the tree feel hot if you touched it, or had the raindrops cooled it?

  The world was quiet, as though the hilltop was still suffering the shock of the lightning. As though the animals had fled and the birds had been stunned to silence. You could hear the treetops whisper way down on the flat, and the distant thrum that was the swollen creek.

  ‘Joey,’ said Myrtle softly.

  Joey nodded.

  The soldier was lying a little away from the burnt tree. One side of his face was charred, red as the ants’ nests lower on the hill. But the burns weren’t severe. It wasn’t the burns alone that killed him.

  ‘The lightning,’ whispered Myrtle. ‘Just like Lee Chong’s cow. You remember.’

  The blaze of yellow splitting open the black sky. The smell of sulphur in the air. The moment of utter silence as though the whole world sat in shock.

  ‘Yes,’ said Joey quietly. He gazed at the dead man before him.

  He was shorter than he remembered, not much taller than Myrtle or himself, though maybe he looked smaller lying down. His skin was different, too.

  He’d always thought that it was yellow — the Japanese had yellow faces didn’t they? That’s what they said at school. But no one there had ever met a Japanese, thought Joey, in spite of all their talk.

  This face was brown, just like you’d expect from someone who’d been living out of doors, except where the skin showed below his collar. That skin was pale, like Joey’s.

  The eyes were shut. Maybe they’d look more foreign when they were open, thought Joey. Kind eyes, lonely eyes.

  The soldier wore the same clothes that Joey had seen before: the once-white trousers, torn and wrinkled, splashed with red and brown, the too long, faded shirt. But by the rock nearby were other clothes, more brilliant white than the stained trousers, neatly folded with other things on top.

  It seemed wrong to leave him there alone while they went to look. He’d been alone too long, thought Joey.

  The clothes by the rock seemed to be some sort of uniform. A jacket perhaps. It looked as if it had hardly ever been worn. Neither of them wanted to unfold it. Joey touched the other items gently.

  There was a round shiny thing, a medal of some kind maybe, thought Joey, or maybe a coin. There was a long, thin-bladed knife, almost a dagger, with an ornate casing on the handle. The blade was badly chipped in two places, but it was still useable.

  There was a photo under the jacket, or what was left of one. The picture was too spoilt by water to be easily made out. Seawater, thought Joey, not rainwater. It was quite dry in spite of the storm. He looked at it more closely.

  ‘His wife?’ asked Myrtle softly.

  ‘Or his sister. Or his girlfriend. Who knows?’ said Joey. He hesitated … ‘The boy looks about our age.’

  ‘Maybe that’s who he was thinking of when he saved you,’ said Myrtle. ‘His son. Or his nephew.’

  Joey glanced back at the body on the hill. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘He didn’t need a reason to save me.’

  ‘You never knew him.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ said Joey. He picked up another item. ‘What are these?’

  ‘Dog tags. Identity bracelet maybe,’ said Myrtle. ‘How about that?’

  Joey unfolded it. It was the size of a handkerchief, white cloth with the Japanese flag in the centre, and painted Japanese writing all over. It looked like it had been written by many people, thought Joey. Signatures perhaps, or good wishes from those he’d left behind.

  Joey picked up the final item. It was a piece of blue gum bark, stripped from a tree or just fallen and retrieved from the ground. It had rolled itself back into a cylinder, so the inside was dry, but at some stage it had been opened flat. Joey unrolled it.

  There were markings on it. Strange markings, in pale pink. Japanese script, he realised, just like on the flag. They looked like they’d been painted on.

  ‘Ink bush berry juice,’ whispered Myrtle. ‘Look, there’s the stick. He’s sharpened a stick with his knife and softened the end — chewed it maybe — to make a brush.’

  The marks were fuzzy, but legible … if you could read Japanese. What did they say? wondered Joey. A goodbye, an explanation, a message to him …

  Joey looked back at the body. It seemed so peaceful, there on the warm ground below the mist. How long since the soldier on the hill had had peace like that?

  ‘What should we do about him?’ asked Myrtle quietly.

  Joey was silent.

  ‘We could go down and just say we found him. No one would need to know you’d been taking him food or anything.’

  ‘No,’ said Joey.

  ‘But then everyone’d know that you hadn’t been making things up! That you hadn’t been delirious. That you’d been speaking the truth.’

  ‘No,’ said Joey again. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’ And it didn’t. The town had forgotten all about it now. There were bigger things to worry about.<
br />
  ‘Why not? He could have a proper grave and everything.’

  Joey hesitated. Because the town was scared enough without the fear of an enemy in the hills. Because … because people shouldn’t be buried by strangers, but by friends. And he and Myrtle were the only friends the soldier had.

  ‘Just because,’ said Joey.

  Myrtle nodded. Almost, thought Joey, as though she understood.

  ‘I’ll go down and get a spade,’ he said. ‘We have to bury him. Here, where he died.’

  ‘No,’ said Myrtle. ‘I’ll go. You stay here. With him.’

  Joey looked at her inquiringly.

  ‘You knew him longer,’ said Myrtle.

  She did understand, thought Joey. But all he said was, ‘All right.’

  It was quiet on the hill. Above him the mist shredded into a thousand wifts, faded, then was gone. Slowly, the birds’ singing filtered through — a currawong, two kookaburras yelling alarm calls, as though they had just realised he was there; a million tiny chirps and chirrups.

  Who knew what they were, thought Joey. Maybe the soldier knew all the bird calls. He’d lived with them for so long. Did he like the birds? Some people hardly noticed there were birds around. Were the birds company while he was alone?

  Why had the soldier come up here to the very crest of the hill? To watch the house, hoping it might be left alone again, so he could go down and use the radio? But he knew the radio was gone. There was no way the soldier could have sent a message now.

  For company, to feel the presence of other people, even if they were so far below? To see the farmhouse lights in the darkness? But why come out in the storm? He must have known the lightning could be dangerous. He was a sailor, even if he sailed below the sea.

  Joey looked at the silent face. There was no answer.

  There were the clothes. The folded clothes, out in the rain. The painted bark. And suddenly he knew. That’s why he’d come.