Billy Mack's War

by James Roy

  My father placed his glass on the bar and stepped into the man’s path. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing you want to say there, friend?’

  ‘Like I said, Scotty, nothing to you. Lost your eye, did you? Too bad.’

  ‘Aye, that’s right,’ Dad replied. ‘And you lost something too, I see.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. In combat.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry,’ ’ Dad said. He held out his hand. ‘Freddy McAuliffe.’

  ‘Not in a camp,’ the man said, keeping a firm grip on his crutches.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lost me leg in combat. You’ve got your stories, haven’t you, Scotty? Jap brutality. Yeah, I’ve heard you telling your mates here, impressing them with your stories.’ He patted his chest. ‘Very heart-rending.’

  Dad lowered his hand. ‘I don’t think you heard straight there, friend. I’m catching up with my mates after three years, that’s all.’

  ‘Combat,’ the man repeated. ‘Palestine, Syria, New Guinea. Lost this just outside of Rabaul,’ he added, pointing at the space where his leg should have been. ‘Combat, you see?’

  By now my father’s friends had all stood up as well, and were beginning to look menacing. ‘Don’t like what you’re suggesting there, Long John,’ one of them said.

  Dad held up his hand. ‘It’s all right, Vic.’ He turned back to the bar. ‘Not worth the bother.’

  With similar murmurings and a few dirty looks the others also returned to their drinks. The one-legged man made another snort, mumbled something under his breath and headed for the exit. He reached it and began to struggle with the heavy door.

  ‘Billy, the door,’ Dad said to me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get the door for the man.’

  I frowned at my father. After what he’d said? After what he’d suggested?

  ‘Billy! The door! Speedo!’

  I shook my head, and Dad raised his eyebrows at me. The man had tucked both crutches under his left arm and was still wrestling with the door.

  ‘Billy! Speedo!’

  Again I shook my head.

  Dad stood up then, fired a look of fury at me and went over to the door himself. He held it open for the man, who stepped out onto the footpath without a word. Dad walked back to the bar, picked up his glass and finished his beer with one gulp. ‘So long, lads,’ he said. ‘Billy, let’s go.’

  He didn’t say a word to me all the way home. He just drove silently. Then, as we reached home and he stopped the truck, he said in a low, cold voice, ‘If I ever see you repeat that kind of disrespect to anyone, but especially a returned soldier, I’ll knock you into the beginning of next week, do you hear?’

  ‘But he was saying —’

  ‘I know what he was saying!’ he roared, the veins in his neck and his forehead bulging. ‘Do you think he’s the first to think those things? Do you think I need a twelve-year-old to defend my honour?’

  I wasn’t brave enough or stupid enough to try answering either of these questions.

  ‘Conduct yourself with dignity, Billy — that’s all I ask. Courtesy and dignity.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied.

  ‘Which is not what I saw today.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Go in the house now.’

  A couple of days after that, Dad came to church for the first time since he’d been back. Granddad was driving the truck, Ma and Nan were in the cab with him, and Dad, the twins and I were in the back sitting on a couple of bales of hay pushed hard up against the back window.

  ‘This is fun, eh Dad?’ I said, looking up at him.

  He nodded, but I didn’t feel that I had his full attention.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked him.

  ‘Eh? Oh, nothing, laddie, nothing at all.’

  ‘Don’t you want to go to church?’ I asked.

  ‘Church is fine,’ he replied. ‘Nothing wrong with church.’

  ‘Then what?’ I pressed.

  ‘It’s what churches are full of, Billy-boy. People, that is. A lot of people. Not mates, not kin, but … but regular people. Ask-a-lot-of-questions type of people.’

  It was strange watching the way everyone at church reacted to my father. It was good, too, to see that the attitude of the little man in the pub seemed to be the exception. Most of the church folk came up and shook him warmly by the hand, wishing him well. ‘Glad to see you back, Freddy,’ they said.

  ‘Good to have you back.’

  ‘You look really well, Mack, much better than we thought you would.’

  To each of them Dad would smile and answer, ‘Thanks, it’s good to be home.’

  Even Mr Morrie the bank manager shook his hand and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come and see me any time, Freddy,’ he said. ‘At Central and Northern we’ve got some special financial deals for returned servicemen.’

  ‘Thank you, Robert, I appreciate that.’

  ‘And of course, I imagine there’ll be the matter of your other affairs — the ones related to your decoration.’

  ‘Aye, well, that will take some managing, I reckon,’ Dad replied.

  ‘And it would be our great pleasure, mate.’ Mr Morrie cast a nervous glance at me, as if he was worried that I’d tell my father what he’d said. Or maybe he was fearful that I’d leap at him and punch him in the mouth. ‘Well, I’ll be seeing you, Freddy.’

  ‘Aye, I’m sure you will,’ Dad replied.

  Doug was there. I spotted him over near the door of the church, just watching us. I tried to catch his eye, but the one time I thought I’d managed it, he looked away so quickly that I couldn’t be sure.

  During the service the reverend offered a special prayer, thanking God for preserving his children through times of turmoil and despair, and for returning a long-lost father and husband to his family. He asked Dad if he’d like to say a few words, but my father shook his head. It wasn’t his way, I guess.

  ‘There is one more detail which bears mentioning,’ the reverend said. ‘Our brother Fred not only suffered greatly in a right and just cause, but was recently awarded a very great honour by His Excellency the Governor-General. This will in no way erase the painful memories of endured suffering, but can be seen as a token of the gratitude of king and country.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ the congregation said, while Dad simply looked embarrassed.

  As I was leaving the church after the service, I practically walked right into Doug, who was leaning against the wall by the main door. ‘Gidday, Doug.’

  He mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out.

  ‘My dad’s back,’ I said, which seemed like an obvious thing to say, but I couldn’t think of anything else at the time.

  ‘I can see that. He looks awright.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s going okay,’ I replied. ‘Still a bit thin.’

  ‘Is he? Hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘Well, he is. Did you see the paper?’ I asked.

  ‘Which one?’

  That stumped me. I didn’t even know which newspaper had mentioned Dad’s medal. ‘What the reverend was saying,’ I said lamely.

  ‘Oh, that? So it looks like he’s a hero after all,’ Doug said flatly.

  ‘Yeah. He got a VC.’

  There was a long and unpleasant silence between us, until I said, ‘You know, Doug, that VC he got —’

  ‘Don’t,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘I know what I think, Billy.’

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked.

  ‘You wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I persisted.

  He fixed me with his eyes. ‘It doesn’t really prove anything,’ he said.

  ‘Sure it does! It proves that he did something real brave.’

  Doug shook his head. ‘How come one really brave thing beats heaps of smaller things?’

  ‘What? Are you talking about —’

  ‘Like I said, you don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘But it’s not a contest,’ I said.

  Doug l
ooked away at the people standing around in front of the church. I saw the muscles in his jaw tighten, and I knew that there was no point pursuing the argument.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ I said as I walked away.

  The next day Mrs Grayson asked me to wait behind after school. She watched the other children file out, before turning to me. ‘I hope I can say something to you without upsetting you, Billy.’

  This sounded a bit ominous. ‘What is it, Mrs Grayson?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s about your father. I saw him at church yesterday,’ she said. ‘He looks well.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s okay,’ I replied. ‘He still gets tired, but he’s not too bad. He’s getting stronger.’

  ‘And I heard about his me dal. Isn’t that special, Billy! You must be so proud.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Grayson,’ I replied.

  ‘Maybe you could ask him to come in some time and talk to the class about how he won it.’

  ‘He doesn’t like to talk about it very much,’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘I understand. Anyway, will you say hello to him for me? Tell him that my mother sends her best wishes too.’

  I wondered why she couldn’t have told him herself when she saw him at church. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Just hello? Is that all you want me to say?’

  ‘Yes, just say that Eileen Grayson and Heather Tierney send their regards.’

  Chapter 16 Danny

  ‘Hang on,’ Danny said, suddenly sitting up straighter. ‘Did you say Tierney?’

  Mr McAuliffe nodded and sipped his tea. ‘Yes, that’s right, Heather Tierney. Why?’

  ‘Captain Mack — I mean your dad — used to talk about someone called Tierney. He kept talking about him, and saying that I had to look out for him. He wouldn’t tell me much, though, so I tried to find out who he was.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Not really. And then one day your dad said not to worry about it any more, because Tierney had died.’

  ‘Is that so? Well, that makes some sense.’ Mr McAuliffe thought for a bit. Then a quick smile twitched at the corners of his mouth as he rested his teacup on its saucer. ‘That makes a great deal of sense, actually.’

  ‘Can you tell me about Tierney?’ Danny asked.

  ‘I don’t know everything.’

  ‘Can you tell me what you do know?’

  Mr McAuliffe gazed out the window and scratched his chin. His voice was a bit distant. ‘Everything I know about Tierney. Yes, all right.’

  Chapter 17 Billy

  I told Dad what Mrs Grayson had said, and he looked kind of sad when I mentioned Mrs Tierney’s name. ‘Thanks, Billy-boy,’ he said. ‘He was a good lad, her Duncan.’ And that was all he’d say about that.

  In those days immediately after his return home, Dad used to get a lot of letters, sometimes half a bagful a week. When dinner was over, he’d sit on the front porch drinking his tea and smoking his strong-smelling cigarettes, and he’d read all of the letters one by one, separating them into two piles: those he was going to reply to, and those he wasn’t.

  The letters in the first pile were from people he’d known in the camps, who just wanted to keep in touch. Friends, I suppose you’d call them. The others were from people who didn’t know Dad at all. They’d just learned somehow that he was a former prisoner of war and wanted to find out if he knew Harry this or Bert that or Jack someone else. I guess they were family members who hadn’t had any definite word about their man yet, and wanted to know if he’d died on the Railroad or in a jungle somewhere, or if he might have escaped and be still finding his way home. Any information at all would have been useful, I suppose.

  Dad didn’t reply to those letters. Maybe he’d been told not to. It would have been too hard to keep up, anyway, if he’d sent a reply back for every letter he received. The other thing I noticed was that going through his mail always got him down. But he still read them all, one after the other, quietly folding each one when he’d finished it, before placing it in one of his two piles.

  I was sitting on our front porch with him one evening as he went through this sorting process. I was reading the funnies from the paper — I knew I wasn’t to disturb him — when I heard him sigh. When I looked up, he was gazing out at the fading sky, an opened letter dangling from his hand. Then with another sigh he stood and went into the house, just as if I wasn’t even there.

  He didn’t come back out for a long time. He’d been talking to Ma, but I hadn’t heard anything clearly. When he did return it was still as if I wasn’t there.

  ‘Dad?’ I said. ‘Is everything all right?’

  He picked up the two piles of letters and went back into the house. No answer, no acknowledgment of me, nothing.

  I went inside and found Ma folding the washing on the kitchen table. Often when Ma cried she tried to hide it, either by turning away or wiping her eyes, but this time she did nothing to disguise the fact that she’d been in tears.

  ‘Ma, what’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing you need to worry about,’ she replied, going on with her folding.

  ‘No, Ma!’ It wasn’t quite a shout, but that was only because I made a real effort to control my voice. I sure felt like shouting. I hated the way everyone went about their adult stuff as if I didn’t have eyes and ears. Or a brain, for that matter. ‘It’s not nothing.’

  She folded a pair of pyjama pants and slapped them down on top of the pile. ‘I said it’s nothing you need to worry about, Billy. Now get ready for bed.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  She frowned at me. She wasn’t used to me talking back, and although I knew I’d crossed the line, I didn’t care.

  ‘Billy, I said it’s time for you to go to bed. Now do it. At once!’

  I looked at my feet. ‘No. Not until you tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘It is so my business,’ I replied. ‘I live here too, Ma.’

  ‘Tell him, Alice,’ Dad said from the doorway. ‘We should tell him.’

  Ma and I turned to look at him. He was standing there in the half-light, still holding the letter at his side.

  ‘Are you sure, love?’ Ma asked him.

  He took a couple of steps towards me. ‘I’m going to Launceston, Billy-boy. I got a letter from a friend. From a friend’s mother, rather. I’m going to see her.’

  I looked back and forth between them. I didn’t understand why this was such a big deal.

  ‘I have to tell her what happened to her boy,’ he explained. ‘I was there, you see.’

  ‘What was his name?’ I asked.

  ‘Duncan Tierney. We served together in the Highlanders. His mother wants to know what happened to him.’

  ‘Was Duncan Tierney Mrs Grayson’s …’

  ‘Her brother, aye,’ he replied.

  ‘Couldn’t you just write her a letter like you do with the others?’

  Dad shook his head. ‘Not this time, laddie. No, this story I’ve got to tell to her face.’

  ‘When are you going?’ I asked.

  ‘Haven’t quite decided that, Billy-boy. I’ve got to get in touch with her, sort out a time.’

  That night I heard them discussing it after I’d gone to bed. I stood at the crack in my door and listened.

  ‘Where will you meet her?’ Ma was asking Dad.

  ‘Her place, I suppose,’ he replied.

  ‘What are you going to say to her?’

  ‘Just what happened. It’ll be hard, Alice, but I have to do it, for him as much as for her. I owe it to him. And her. I promised, see?’

  ‘You should take the boy.’

  ‘Why would I want to take him?’

  ‘Because he’s your son,’ Ma answered.

  ‘Aye, but why this time, of all times?’

  ‘He’s never been to Launceston. He’s twelve, and he’s never been. You’ll have to get a room anyway, so take him with you, show him some sights, spend some time with him.’

  ‘I do spend time wit
h him.’

  ‘I don’t mean mending fences and feeding calves — I mean special time. You’ve been away for a long while, Fred, and he’s missed you.’

  ‘Aye, and I’ve missed him. But where would he go while I talked to Heather? Have you thought of that?’

  ‘He’s not a child, Fred.’

  ‘Aye, he’s a child! He’s twelve years old, Alice — you just said so!’

  ‘Yes, a twelve-year-old who can keep a farm going when the other men are away. He was a child when you went away, Fred, but not any more.’

  ‘I didn’t miss his childhood,’ Dad said. ‘I didn’t.’ His voice was quiet, barely loud enough for me to hear. He didn’t sound like he really believed what he was saying. Who was he trying to convince?

  Ma sounded like she was close to tears again. ‘You did miss it, Fred, through no fault of your own. I think you should take him. It would be good for both of you.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Do,’ Ma said.

  So it wasn’t that much of a surprise when a couple of days later Dad asked me if I’d like to take a trip with him to Launceston. ‘We’ll go next week. School will be over by then, so you can come with me without worrying about that.’

  I had to act ignorant then, pretending that I’d never overheard any of the things they’d said. ‘Why are we going to Launceston?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve got to see someone about something,’ he answered.

  ‘Who about what?’

  ‘I’ll explain on the way,’ he said.

  That Friday was the last day of school for the year. We made Christmas cards for one another, and I also made one for Mrs Grayson, just in case no one else did. I didn’t want her to feel left out. When the time came to hand them out, I went straight up the front. She was sitting at her desk, gazing out the window, already thinking about her holiday, I suppose. ‘This one’s for you,’ I said, holding out her card.

  ‘Why, thank you, Billy,’ she said, her eyes bright and her dimples appearing. ‘That’s very kind.’

  ‘That’s all right. Hey, we’re going to see your ma next week,’ I announced.

  She tipped her head slightly, and her eyes narrowed, just a bit. ‘Really? Who is?’