The younger officer’s unused sleeve was tailored flat to the side of his tunic. In the close silence, Quinn attempted to ignore the sewn-down section of material. Yet the ‘wings’ badge on the torso next to it rather drew the eye.
‘What position do you play, son?’ the officer enquired as if long-since bored.
‘Wing, sir.’
‘Ah, Wing.’ His tone remained flat. ‘The team’s agile and rugged individualists…’
Quinn snap-caught the pencil flung at his nose.
‘…Reflexes OK,’ breathed the man, already writing something in a file. He spoke up again as he did so. ‘What do you see yourself flying?’
‘Well… Fighters, sir.’ Quinn couldn’t believe he was being asked so soon.
The Squadron Leader looked up, his expression pained. ‘Spitfires, obviously…’
‘As we all do, sir.’
‘Yes. As you all do. …Ever killed anything?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What. Flies?’
‘Rabbits and wild pigs, sir. On my uncle’s property.’
‘How’d that make you feel?’
‘Sort of… strange, sir.’
‘NEXT,’ exhaled the officer, slumping back in his chair.
‘…I mean as in relieved, sir. They charge you to kill.’
‘What? The rabbits?’
‘No, sir. The pigs. Survival instinct.’
‘Fascinating. Could you kill a man?’
‘A German, yes, sir. If he was trying to kill me.’
‘What about if you’d snuck up on him?’
‘If that would deprive him the chance to kill me later.’
‘What if he was floating down in a parachute?’
‘If you ordered me to, sir.’
The officer paused again. ‘What if you knew his mother?’
‘But I wouldn’t, sir.’
‘Say you did…’
‘Then I’d know she was a German mother and that Germany just invaded Poland.’
The Group Captain almost suppressed a grin: The boy wasn’t being rocked.
‘Quite,’ the Squadron Leader resumed. ‘Cigarette?’
‘No thank you, sir.’
‘Good for you.’
Quinn watched the officer’s single dexterous hand extract a silver case and lighter from an inner tunic pocket, snap it open, draw a cigarette to his mouth, flick the lighter, close the case, then set it and the lighter in delicate alignment on the table.
‘Got a girl?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You’re not a homosexual, are you, Daniel?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Have to ask that, I’m afraid… Don’t see what difference it makes, myself, but it’s not only contrary to God’s Regulations,’ ashing the cigarette he coughed, ‘it’s contrary to King’s Regulations.’
He wafted a huge cloud of smoke into the room, plus more as the cigaretted hand opened a new folder. ‘You don’t have to go through with this.’ His voice had softened. ‘You can walk out now.’
‘I intend to proceed, sir.’
The Squadron Leader considered the 20-year-old before him. Eyesight – above average, the physical report had claimed. He’ll need it, reflected the Squadron Leader, taking time to ash his cigarette. Leaving it poised on the rim of the ashtray, he selected one of two rubber stamps before him, stamped it firmly on an ink pad, then on a form, closing the folder slowly over it. He then looked up afresh.
And extended his arm.
‘Best of luck.’
The face had softened as well, Quinn noticed, now almost pleasant. Quinn leant forward, and shook his hand. Of the stamp imprint, Quinn had caught solely its colour – in the low light of the room, a dark red ink.
‘Well then,’ chimed in the Group Captain, ‘that all seems satisfactory,’ finally deferring to the civilian, ‘…Anything you’d like to ask, Dr Isaacs?’
The man’s bespectacled eyes had never left Quinn.
‘No.’
‘Good. Well, Mr Quinn…’ The senior officer moved to stand. ‘You’ll be receiving signals from us in the not too distant future. … Advising yay or nay of course,’ he added, shaking Quinn’s hand. ‘If yay, we post you some rather nasty homework. Trigonometry, algebra, physics, terrible business. Anyway, you need a gold star on it or we scrub you. Do see the Warrant Officer again on your way out, oh and send in the next chap will you?’
Quinn stood, excused himself, and made his way to the door. He’d never imagined it could be all over so quickly.
As the door clicked shut, the doctor removed his spectacles, and the handkerchief from his coat pocket. ‘There…’ he said, breathing on a lens, polishing it, ‘…is one decision you don’t have to make.’
The Squadron Leader circled Quinn’s name on a list before him, and looked up to the door – the Warrant Officer was evidently asleep. The top of his lungs should do it…
‘NEXT!!!’
CHAPTER TWO
November 1940
Quinn coasted the car down Bondi Road. It might be his last opportunity for some time. It hadn’t seemed so until a week ago, when the buff envelope came in the post. At times during the year, it had felt to Quinn as if the Air Force had forgotten him…
Back in March, with no sign of the Group Captain’s ‘homework’, Quinn had no other course but to enrol for and begin 4th Year as normal, feeling anything but – as if in a sort of limbo. The sensation was only compounded by the homework’s arrival in late April, a hefty package which over a week of late nights he struggled through, completed and returned. Additionally enclosed had been the official gold wings lapel pin of the ‘Empire Air Training Scheme’, as it was now called, according to the newspapers concurrently underway in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Rhodesia and Jamaica. Then there’d been no further word.
The rugby season came and went. By the time it had, Quinn thought he really had been forgotten.
But they hadn’t been: Tim McCarthy’s ‘call-up’ letter arrived in early October, then Quinn’s last week. It was only upon opening the letter and reading the words on the page that Quinn was gripped with a sense of his whole world being drawn out from under him: Report Number 2 Initial Training School, Bradfield Park. Royal Australian Air Force – ironically, just a mile or two from his Killara home. In one way, the call-up came as a relief – Finally, it was all about to begin. In another, he felt an excitement, albeit a nervous one, poised, as he was, on the verge of a world new and unknown to him.
Quinn shifted the MG down a gear through the long curving left. He couldn’t see the beach fortifications down the hill as yet. Just the little village of Bondi approaching, glimpses of ocean flashing to the right.
As Quinn race-revved it on the change, his younger brother, Matthew, shot him a smile – at that serious face that always made things fun for him. Now Danny gunned it through the final right-hander, never missed it, maybe a little faster than usual, a hint of squeal from the tyres. Yet Matthew felt only what his brother always gave him: That thrilling security – Danny knew what he was doing. The sound he always got from the little sports car, that glorious exhaust now reverberating off the shops as they slowed.
Now, Matthew grinned, fresh prawns and D.A! Since his last birthday, Danny always got him a beer – Though he hadn’t told Mum and Dad about the big secret switch from apple cider. At fifteen, Matthew knew how lucky he was, also that most people took the tram their whole lives. There were even fewer cars on the road now with petrol rationing on, yet he rode open top in his brother’s MG.
Another brilliant blue Saturday… There weren’t many swimming though, just a handful in a gap in the barbed wire newly strung all along the beach. Anyway, it was interesting with the soldiers about, guns and sandbag emplacements instead of beach towels and umbrellas. Matthew spoke up over the gurgling engine as Quinn coasted for a spot. ‘So when are you in uniform then?’
‘Could be as soon as tomorrow, I guess.’
‘It starts tomorrow, d
oesn’t it.’
‘Certainly does, mate.’
‘…How come it took so long to get the letter?’
‘Everyone applied.’ Quinn turned across the seaside main street and pulled the handbrake with the beach straight ahead. ‘Right,’ he smiled to his brother. ‘I make it Beer O’Clock.’
‘I wish it was me,’ said Matthew as they climed out of the car. ‘I’d give anything to fly. …In my own Spitfire.’
In Matthew’s schoolyard, for months now there’d been talk of little else: “The Battle of Britain”, the newspapers called it. It had got more and more exciting every day until last week they’d run Mister Churchill’s victorious headlines – Hitler’s first defeat… Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
‘Matt, I may not even get the chance,’ returned Quinn once they’d crossed the street. ‘I hear actually going up in a plane’s a long way off… Course after this one, if I make it that far.’
‘So why’d they give you the gold wings pin already?’
‘For volunteering. And so no one gives you the White Feather while you wait.’
Of the battle recently won, Quinn saw it as no more than that, Britain a country deep in a war, practically alone, and feeling strangely victorious for an island now being fire-bombed night after night: “The Blitz”, it had been termed. Another lesson his father had taught him early on was not to read newspapers, but to interpret them: No matter how hopeful the papers and newsreels made it sound, the progress of the war so far had been nothing short of dismal. Since April, Hitler had wrapped up Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Norway. The French had surrendered, Italy had thrown in with Germany, the British driven back to the sea at Dunkirk. Yes, the evacuation there and the ensuing air victory had offered hope, but how long could the British survive being so cheerfully bombed and torpedoed? As far as Quinn could make out, the situation was worse than desperate. They needed all the help they could get. If it wasn’t too late already.
He saw there were less people out strolling since this time last year. What they were staying away from the coast for, he couldn’t rightly figure: The war seemed so distant. True, since mid-year the Royal Australian Navy had done well in the Mediterranean – against the Italians… There’d been some Australian pilots in the Battle of Britain but the closest the war had come was the Middle East, where the Australian Army hadn’t seen action yet. So what were Sydney’s coastal fortifications guarding against exactly?
Against the German U-boats rumoured off the Heads every pub closing time?
As they reached the pub, Quinn saw the little girl sitting on its outside step, white cotton dress and socks.
‘You’ve got a Violet Crumble,’ he said down to her.
A face under a ribboned sun hat looked up. ‘I went on the tram with my dad,’ she informed with a chocolate smile. ‘He’s inside talking.’
‘That’s good,’ replied Quinn. ‘You be a good girl.’
‘Yes. He says I am.’
Matthew waited with her as Quinn clambered his way in through the front doors – into the shadowy tiled palace thick with smoke, spilled beer and a hundred older men in hats. All in best grey trousers, shirts and ties though, no error. No Ladies, mind: protected by Law from this cacophony of beer breath expletives and a thousand other things echoing off the tiles that the little ladies, God bless ’em, were never designed to hear…
‘You’re a mongrel, Simpson.’
‘I’ll ’ave you for that.’
‘The Japanese?! If you reckon the Japs’ll come in against us you’ve got shit f’brains. They were on our side last time, weren’t they?!’
‘Doesn’t matter; they need the oil. They just invaded Indo-China, waddya call that?!
‘Chinks killing Chinks – who gives a toss?’
Quinn pretended he hadn’t heard the man as he worked his way past: Today wasn’t the day for pub arguments; today was for his brother.
‘Y’wanna put some money on Doonside, young fella?’
‘No thanks, mate,’ returned Quinn. ‘Just here to see Mr Phelan.’
‘Coupla sly grogs, eh? Fairgo, fellas. You enjoy ’em!’
‘Master Quinn,’ greeted a warm smile.
‘Mister Phelan.’
‘’Ow are ya, son?’ The man behind the bar pumped Quinn’s hand.
‘Very well, thank you, sir.’
The publican wrapped two cold bottles of beer in newspaper, tilled Quinn’s pennies, then turned back towards him, sleeve-banded arms on the bar. Somehow his lowered voice cut through all the clatter.
‘Air Force take ya yet?’
‘I go in tomorrow. Initial training anyway – I’ll probably wash out.’
The publican looked at him sternly. ‘No you won’t. Not you…’
Something seemed to well up inside the older man as he stood surveying Quinn. As if his blood was rising. His voice resumed in an urgent whisper.
‘Now you listen ’ere, son. You watch yourself alright? Get the picture? You bloody-well watch your arse.’ He halted, swallowed. ‘You know I was in the last one and I know what a fucken shambles it was.’
‘I will, sir.’
‘Y’promise me? Cause if y’don’t I’ll come over there an’ knock y’block off. Righto? …Righto.’
His leathered face melted back to a smile, though he gripped Quinn’s handshake like a rock.
‘Good luck, son.’
This was echoed by a few men who’d caught the exchange as Quinn plied his way back towards the light from outside. He never saw the old soldier’s last look.
‘Young bloke off tomorrow?’ one asked Phelan.
He nodded grimly. ‘Pilot, that one. Dead cert.’
‘Shit, eh?’
‘Another bloody ANZAC.’
*
The brothers stopped in at the old fish shop, crossed the road, and walked down the grass slope towards Matthew’s favourite spot, the rocks of the beach’s southern end. Matthew squinted at the line of sand down ahead, beyond the surf the ocean deep blue, a convoy of ships on the curve of the horizon. Reaching the boardwalk, his eyes followed the lines of barbed wire stretching to the far end of the beach.
He remembered the rock pools, towards which they now headed, and how, when they were younger, his big brother had taken him round them, telling him what not to touch. Matt smiled as they walked – the giant boy-eating squid, the Blue-Ringed Platypus…
They found a spot on the rocks, sat down, peeled the prawns and swigged the beers, the surf crashing just near enough to sprinkle them now and then.
Matthew looked out at the waves rolling in toward them. ‘… Good, isn’t it.’ His childhood summary of existence, he never minded reprising it around his brother.
Quinn fluently beer-burped: ‘ And – no – error,’ making Matt fall about as always.
*
Ambling back up the boardwalk towards the north end of the beach, passing a few pretty girls here and there, it was still a postcard of a Bondi afternoon, thought Quinn, though, for a Saturday, it was deserted: Gone were the colourful hordes of the beach, just a few diehards bobbing in the surf, and a knot of soldiers down by the wire.
They wandered out to the point of the rocks at the north end of the bay, a place called Ben Buckler, the breakers rolling past them back in towards the beach. There the seaside village nurtured shadows, the sun lowering atop the hill. Evening clouds now held its golden colour.
Matthew stared out to the horizon. The convoy ships were gone. He’d never forgotten how his brother had pointed out to him, when just a tot, how the horizon actually curved. In its long, long line from left to right. The Curvature of the Earth he’d said it was called, and that it was so important because it showed that where they stood wasn’t whole world – though it felt that way sometimes – because the world was just a round thing they were riding on and the Curvature proved it. Matthew scanned it now, the line his brother would soon be somewhere far beyond.
Side by side, the
brothers remained still, both looking out, hands in trouser pockets. Until a thought struck Quinn and he was fishing for something.
‘Almost forgot…’
‘What?’ Matthew enquired sidelong.
Quinn moved to place something in his brother’s palm.
‘Aw, Jesus, Danny…’
‘Yours, mate.’
It was the gold wings pin.
Quinn knew his brother was choked up, but pretended not to notice.
They stood a little while longer as the colours deepened, eyes fixed forward out to sea. Quinn spoke up finally, his tone awkward.
‘Um… Matt. Remember that thing I told you about the horizon that time? I was shittin’ ya. …It’s flat.’
‘You bastard…’
‘Yeah, y’go right off the edge…’
*
Quinn woke to the hellish racket and the screaming, forty-nine pairs of eyes stung by the light as the cohort of Corporals ran truncheons down the lines of metal lockers. The Sergeant did the screaming.
‘O-4 HUNDRED AND 8 SECONDS – IF I DON’T SEE YOU ALL UP SHOWERED, SHAVED AND DRESSED BEST BLUES ON THE PARADE GROUND IN 4 MINUTES 52 THEN CONSIDER YOURSELF OUT OF THE FUCKING AIR FORCE!’
One poor lad had slept more soundly than the others, now at least in various states of sleep-walk panic. The Sergeant beamed.
‘Sleeping Bea-uty.’
As Quinn was hit with where the hell he was, he saw the man squat down beside his victim’s pillow, his nose mere inches from the boy’s right ear. Quinn lunged for his locker – service-issue tunic, trousers, soap and towel – the Sergeant continuing for those closest to hear.
‘The subconscious mind of this young gentleman informs him this is merely a bad dream. But that’s not quite right. No. No it’s not. Only half right, I’m afraid…’
The Sergeant clearly lived for such moments in life.
‘BECAUSE IT’S YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE, YOU WORTHLESS SACK OF SHIT!’
From the fluent violence of the man’s next actions, it very clearly wasn’t the first time his boxer’s frame had uprooted an iron stretcher bed and flipped it clean over, the boy now scrambling like a hunted animal across the floor.
Nor the Years Condemn Page 2