Billy Mack's War

by James Roy

  ‘You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you, Stan?’ Granddad replied. ‘Go home, mate, and sort yourself out. There’s nothing here for you, all right?’

  Stan held his hands up as he waited for his mouth to start working. ‘Righto, righto, I get it, boss. Well, if I’m not welcome …’

  As he wandered out into the sunlight of the yard, I heard Granddad mutter, ‘You got that right, you souse.’

  ‘What’s that all about?’ I asked Granddad.

  He picked up his spanner and went back to work. ‘He’s drunk, that’s all,’ he said.

  A telegram came a few days later, on the Friday. I was at home when it arrived, and we read it together, me, Granddad and Nan:

  FREDDY RIGHT FOR HOME STOP WILL REACH

  DEVONPORT NEXT THURSDAY LOVE ALICE

  Nan looked at me and beamed. Her eyes were filling with tears. Then she threw her arms around me and squeezed. ‘Next Thursday, Billy,’ she said into the top of my head. I could feel her breath warm in my hair. ‘That’s less than a week away.’

  ‘Can I come with you to the boat?’ I asked Granddad once I’d managed to free myself from Nan’s hug and she’d moved on to the twins. ‘I can help with the cases and trunks and stuff.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, mate, there’s not enough room in the truck. Besides, I need you to look after the place for me. No, you’ll see your old man next Friday, just as soon as I get him back here.’

  That Saturday Granddad tools me to the pictures in town to celebrate. It was only a little picture theatre, but it was big enough for Evansbridge. As usual, they showed the newsreels before the main show started. For the last five years we ’d been watching the newsreels to find out how the war was going, how our boys were getting on, that kind of thing. Over the last couple of months it had been all good news — victory parades in America and England and France, Japanese and German soldiers surrendering, all great stuff. For the first time in my life I felt good watching the news at the pictures.

  This day the newsreel featured prisoners-of-war. LOST AND FOUND, said the title. Then came a grainy image of the interior of a hospital, beds in rows. In those beds were thin men, a few wearing slouch hats. Some of the men were propping themselves up on their elbows, others rested their heads on crisp white pillows. Most were smiling. ‘These brave young chaps have been reluctant guests of the Imperial Japanese Army,’ the narrator’s voice said. ‘What an ordeal they’ve faced, but now at long last they can look forward to coming home to their loved ones. With the best care money can buy and the help of these lovely ladies’ — here a couple of pretty nurses in white uniforms grinned bashfully at the camera — ‘these fellows will soon be up and about and ready to head on home. Well done, chaps! It’ll be great to have you back!’

  A man sitting behind us snorted. ‘Don’t look all that crook to me,’ he said to his friend. ‘I thought they were supposed to be starving.’

  His friend agreed. ‘They looked a bit thin, but other than that …’

  Granddad looked down at me. I guess he must have sensed my fists clenching, because he said in a low voice, ‘Steady, Billy. They don’t understand.’

  ‘Then we should make them understand,’ I said through tight lips.

  ‘You can’t, mate,’ Granddad said. ‘Just leave it.’

  The men weren’t quite finished. ‘Give them a couple of weeks off and they’ll be right.’

  ‘Yeah, well, like I said, they don’t look too crook. The paper said they were all skin and bone, but look at them! I mean, they could use a couple more pounds, sure, but at the end of the day —’

  ‘All right, that’s it,’ Granddad muttered, rising in his seat and turning to face the men. The black and white light of the projector flickered on his face, and he ignored the murmured complaints from the audience. ‘Oh, I should have known. Morning, Darcy,’ he said. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the screen. ‘Did you think maybe they’ve had a few weeks to feed up? A few decent meals might make a difference when you’ve had nothing but rice and cholera for years, what do you reckon?’

  ‘Steady on, Tom, we’ve all done it tough,’ someone called out.

  ‘Done it tough? You wouldn’t know tough if it smacked you in the rear end, John Lowry,’ Granddad retorted. ‘Just spare a thought for those blokes, eh? That’s all. That’s all.’

  ‘We are, mate,’ yet another person said, his voice rising above the murmur in the theatre. ‘We understand.’

  Granddad shook his head. ‘Is that right? Well, I hope the rest of you understand a bit better than these two lugs when our Fred gets home. He’ll be here in a few days, and I’d better not hear any talk about him and his mates bludging off while everyone else did the fighting.’

  The noise had died away as Granddad spoke. He was a popular and powerful man in Evansbridge, and it took someone very brave or very stupid to stand up to Tom Carlyle.

  ‘Sorry, Tom, mate, we meant nothing by it,’ Darcy said.

  ‘Yeah, Tom, nothing at all,’ his friend added.

  ‘Come on, Billy, let’s go,’ Granddad said to me, reaching his hand towards me. ‘I’ve lost interest.’

  We stepped out into the sunshine, and Granddad squinted at the bank of clouds off to the west. ‘Sorry about that, mate,’ he said, taking out his pipe. ‘I don’t want you to have to hear that kind of talk.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I know that’s what they’re saying anyway.’

  ‘Of course you do, but it’s still not on. Those boys on that newsreel have been having three meals a day for a couple of weeks now. They probably weigh a stone or two more than they did when the Japs scampered off.’

  ‘Is my dad as thin as that?’ I asked.

  I’d say so.’

  ‘Gee.’

  The rest of that week was full of frantic activity, with my grandfather and me doing pretty much whatever Nan told us to do. This was on top of all the jobs we’d have ordinarily had to do. I’m talking about getting both houses — ours and the big house — perfectly tidy and spotless for Dad’s return. Even in late spring it can get pretty cold in Tasmania, but that didn’t stop Nan insisting that all the windows had to be opened so that the houses could air.

  She made Ma’ s room — soon to go back to being Ma and Dad’s room again — as comfortable as she could, with every surface dusted and polished, the linen washed and put back on the bed, fresh flowers in vases. She spent hours over the copper and at the line as she washed and dried practically every piece of clothing and linen in our house. She stocked the pantry as best as her coupons would allow, so that everything would be just right. ‘Your Ma won’t have to worry about a thing,’ she said.

  Then she moved on to the big house and did it all over again. She set a room aside as ‘Freddy’s room’ so that if he felt weak or tired he wouldn’t have to walk the quarter-mile back to our place to go to bed. She took some heavy sacking and sewed a hammock, which Granddad and I slung between a couple of willows down by the creek, and she borrowed a friend’s deckchair for the front porch.

  ‘Slow down, woman,’ Granddad would say from time to time, but Nan would just give him a look that’s hard to describe. It was a look that said, ‘You know it has to be done. You know it’s the right thing to do.’

  It’s very hard to argue with a look like that.

  Chapter 10 Billy

  Granddad left early on the Thursday morning, when everything was still asleep, even the currawongs. I’d asked him to wake me up, but I think that maybe he forgot, because I awoke to the sound of the truck idling in the yard.

  I sat up in bed, pulled the curtains aside and wiped the condensation from the cold glass. The sky was just beginning to lighten, and Granddad was standing beside the truck talking to Nan, who was wearing her dressing gown and hugging herself against the early-morning cold. Then Granddad leaned down and kissed her before climbing into the truck. He revved the engine and pulled away — he’d said the clutch was on the way out, and the engine roared as h
e started off down the long driveway — and Nan waved a couple of times. She watched until the tail-lights had disappeared over the crest, then she turned and came back into the house.

  I lay back in my bed and listened to the sounds in the house — the front door closing, Nan’s footsteps on the floorboards, the clink of plates in the kitchen, the sound of one of the twins mumbling in her sleep. I was wide awake now, and it would soon be time to get up and sort out the milking, anyway. Besides, I was too excited to go back to sleep.

  I really wished I could have gone with my grandfather. It would have been fun, just him and me in the cab of the truck, out on the road in the early morning with the sun coming up behind us. But I knew that my job was to stay on the farm and make sure it all kept running smoothly. I could hear the low murmur of cows, and knew that they’d be starting to line them-selves up behind the milking shed. I briefly thought about getting dressed and starting the milking a bit early, but at that point I must have dozed back off.

  I didn’t go to school that day or the next. I was looking after the farm, and this time Granddad hadn’t asked Stan Whittaker to come over and check that I was all right. I suppose he thought I’d proven myself the last time.

  The twins definitely knew something big was happening. They’d been a bit of a handful for Nan the whole time, but for some reason they chose those two days in particular to really play up. Maybe it was made worse by the fact that Nan was like a bull with a migraine as she tried to get everything shipshape for Ma and Dad’s return. On that last day she was attempting to make a cake and a roast and a pudding, all the while trying to watch the twins and keep the house in some kind of order. I was grateful, then, when she handed me a shopping list and asked me to go into town for her.

  ‘Not in school today, Billy?’ Mr Dalhousie the grocer asked me.

  ‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘My dad’s coming home today.’

  ‘So Freddy McAuliffe’s finally coming back, eh? Yes, I’d heard that.’ He scooped out some sugar into a paper bag and made a kind of clicking noise with his tongue as he adjusted the weights on the scales. Then he took his pencil from behind his ear and wrote some numbers on a scrap of brown paper. ‘It’ll be good to see him around here again, top bloke like him.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied.

  ‘Must have missed him, eh? Most of us thought he was dead, if you want the truth. I can tell you that now, can’t I?’ Mr Dalhousie put a line through a couple of items on the list. ‘Still no soap flakes, tell your grandmother. Tea we can do, if you’ve got your coupon handy.’

  I passed over the coupons for the tea and the sugar.

  ‘Is that all for today, Billy?’ he asked as he crossed off the tea. ‘I’ll just stick it on the account, all right?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

  ‘Wait up,’ said Mr Dalhousie as I turned to go out the door. He went to the big square biscuit barrel, took off the lid and picked out a few of the broken pieces of biscuit, which he put in a small paper bag for me. ‘These are for you,’ he said with a wink. ‘And tell your dad to come and say gidday, won’t you, just as soon as he’s feeling up to it?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I will,’ I said.

  Nan’s mood was no better by the time I got back to the house, but I had chores to do anyway so I made myself scarce. My first job was to clean out the mare’s stable. I was just coming out with a full bucket when I heard a voice behind me.

  ‘Hey, Billy-o.’

  I turned around. Stan Whittaker was standing outside the door, leaning against the wall and smoking. ‘Oh, gidday, Stan,’ I said.

  ‘What, no “Mr Whittaker”? Become the big man on the farm and suddenly you call grown-ups by their first names, eh? That how it works?’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Whittaker,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think.’

  ‘No harm done,’ he said. He dropped his cigarette in the dirt and ground it out with his boot. ‘It’s just manners, that’s all.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, Mr Whittaker,’ I repeated. ‘Uh, Granddad’s not here, and Nan’s a bit busy. I think she’s around —’

  ‘Your granddad’s in Devonport, yeah? Mum coming home tonight, I hear. That right? With your dad, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I said.

  ‘How about I come over tomorrow, say gidday to your old man? Been a while.’

  ‘He might need a few days,’ I said. ‘Just to kind of get used to the place again. Maybe next week —’

  ‘Yeah, I reckon I’ll see him tomorrow,’ he said. ‘And there’s one more thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘Tell your granddad to be nice, eh? Tell him I’m only being neighbourly.’

  ‘Why can’t you tell him that yourself?’ I asked.

  He spoke slowly, like I was thick or something. ‘Because it’s better coming from you. Right then. Bye, Bill y-o.’ He turned and sauntered away with a quick glance towards the house.

  I thought no more about Stan Whittaker. I was far too busy helping Nan get everything totally right for the Big Arrival, as she kept calling it. I wanted to ask her why it was that after a week or so of tidying, cleaning and re-cleaning, she should decide on the very last afternoon to do it all over again. But I didn’t ask her. Of course I didn’t.

  We finished at last and Nan made us a cup of tea. The twins were in bed and the evening was still as we took our tea out onto the porch. Sighing something about her ankles, Nan sank into the deckchair, while I sat on the step.

  ‘I wonder where they are now?’ I said, and Nan simply smiled at me.

  ‘Did you get the milking done?’

  ‘Yes, Nan.’

  ‘Good boy.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll be here soon?’

  Again she smiled. ‘I hope so, Billy.’

  ‘Yeah, me too.’ She took a sip from her cup and carefully rested it back on the saucer.

  ‘Do you think he’ll remember me?’

  Nan looked at me for a long time. ‘Of course he’ll remember you. And if he doesn’t, it’ll just be because he thinks you’re a hired hand. He’ll be amazed at how big you’ve grown. So tall! He’ll be … he’ll be very proud to see you again at last, Billy.’

  It grew later and later. Nan got out the jar of dripping and made me a sandwich at about eight o’clock muttering the whole time about the spoiled roast, and at about ten she finally suggested I go to bed.

  ‘But I’m waiting up for my dad,’ I protested. ‘Don’t make me go to bed, Nan, please!’

  ‘The cows aren’t going to milk themselves in the morning, Billy,’ she said. ‘You’ve still got to be up early. Besides, there’s no certainty that they’ll even be home tonight. Anything could have happened to hold them up, like the boat running late, or —’

  ‘Can’t I wait up just a little longer?’ I begged. ‘Just in case?’

  ‘Half an hour more, then it’s bedtime, no argument. All right, Billy?’

  ‘Yes, Nan,’ I reluctantly agreed.

  They still hadn’t arrived when the half-hour was up, so after another brief argument I went to bed. ‘Can you wake me up when they get home?’ I asked Nan.

  ‘Of course, love,’ she said.

  I lay there for what felt like a very long time, trying hard not to fall asleep. I was determined not to close my eyes. I’d waited three years for this moment. I wasn’t going to miss it now just because some stupid cows needed milking.

  Later on, Nan would swear that she tried to wake me up. I don’t remember it, so I’m not sure how hard she tried. All I know is that when I did open my eyes the sky was light and the birds were up.

  I figured that they mustn’t have come home yet, until I pulled the curtain aside and saw the truck in the yard. Then I knew. I knew that my father was home at last.

  I pulled my clothes on and hurried out into the kitchen. Granddad was sitting at the table drinking his tea and gazing out the window, and he smiled as he saw me come in.

  ‘Morning there, Bill,’ he said. ‘You missed the milking
, Mr Farmer.’

  ‘Where is he?’ I asked.

  ‘Where’s who?’ he replied. ‘Oh, your old man!’ He broke into a grin as I scowled at him. ‘Hang about there, Bill. Alice,’ he called, and Ma came in from the front porch, the twins in close pursuit.

  ‘Billy!’ she said. Then it was all hugs and kisses for a few minutes, until I was finally able to untangle myself. ‘Where is he, Ma?’ I asked. ‘You did bring him home, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Billy, I brought him home. I think he’s just waking up. But before I take you in there, I’ve got to warn you about something.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, trying to prepare myself for whatever she was about to tell me. A missing leg, maybe, or horrific injuries. Terrible burns? Or perhaps it was his mind — I’d read about soldiers who came home and couldn’t sleep a full night without waking up screaming. Maybe he had that.

  Ma held my shoulders as she looked at me. ‘He’s real thin, Billy, and he’s weak —’

  ‘Yes, Ma, I know all that. Can I see him?’

  ‘He might struggle a bit with loud noises for a while —’

  ‘Yes, Ma, all right. Can I see him?’

  ‘Just wait, Billy! Let me finish. He doesn’t look quite the same as you knew him. His face is different.’

  Here it was — the bad news. ‘Different how?’ I asked.

  ‘A couple of months ago his eye was injured, and … and, well, it’s not very pretty. He’s got a dressing over it at the moment, but it’s quite nasty.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ I said impatiently. ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Very good. Well, come with me quietly, and I’ll just check that he’s awake.’

  I followed her down the hall to the bedroom. She stopped and held up her hand to me. ‘Wait here,’ she said. Then she quietly opened the door and slipped inside. I heard her say something, and a man’s voice replied, very low, in words I couldn’t make out.

  Ma came back to the door. ‘All right, Billy, in you go. Don’t be too long, though.’ She stepped back and gestured for me to go in.

  The room was dark the heavy curtains drawn against the morning light. I could see the shape of my father’s body under the covers, his back turned to me. Even under a couple of blankets I could see that he was very thin. I took a couple of hesitant steps towards him. Then, gathering my courage together some more, I walked around to the foot of the bed.