After Gloria had stopped blubbering, she kept saying, ‘You’re skin and bone, Jacko! What did those mongrels do to you?’ Sue just cried and hugged me and cried some more, sniffing and bursting into tears, and then drawing back and looking at me, and then doing it all over again with me patting her on the back and ‘there-there-ing’ her each time. Finally, between gulps, she managed to say, ‘Jacko, you look bloody awful!’ Then off she’d go again. Some nurse, eh?
A little girl of about five with a pink ribbon in her blonde hair and wearing a matching pink kewpie-doll dress, who should have been asleep hours earlier, came forward with a large bunch of gladioli that almost obscured her. She hastily presented it to Jimmy, then dashed back and grabbed her mum by the skirt and stuck her thumb in her mouth.
It was then that Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan stepped out of the crowd. I was leaning on my crutches with a bottle of beer someone had thrust at me in one hand, grinning like an ape, completely overwhelmed, trying to introduce Jimmy to everyone, being hugged by the women and patted on the back or grabbed by my free hand by the blokes. When Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan came forward the babble of voices around me seemed to go silent and I was alone, a little boy sitting cross-legged staring nervously down at the library floor. Oh Christ, what now? I could feel the panic rising in my stomach. What’ll I do if she kisses me? Oh, Jesus, I’ve got this bottle of beer in my hand!
I forced myself back to the present and smiled as she drew closer. ‘Welcome home, Jack,’ she said in her stentorian headmistress-style voice. The mob started to crowd in. She took the bottle of beer from my hand and handed it to Cory, who was standing beside me, then reached out and hugged me. She smelled of some sort of perfume, roses maybe or something else, some flower anyway, quite nice. ‘Congratulations – you’re a hero, Jack,’ she said. There was more clapping, and she shook Jimmy by the hand. ‘My goodness, you are a big boy! Welcome to the island,’ she said warmly.
Jimmy smiled, recognising her from my numerous references over the months. ‘Thank yoh, ma’am, I done bring Brother Fish back safe an’ soun’.’
‘Brother Fish? Oh. I see, you mean Jack! Thank you – I can’t say how much we’ve missed him.’ Then she turned to the crowd and held her hand up for silence. She may not have been the librarian any longer but she was still the justice of the peace and the owner of the Queen Island Weekly Gazette, and seemed to command as much respect as ever – even Father Crosby shut up, prepared to share the limelight in her case.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she began, ‘at precisely eight this evening, news came through on the Australian Associated Press wire service to the Gazette office from Canberra.’ She paused to let the importance of this statement sink in. It wasn’t very often anything came from Canberra to the island, and when it did it was usually bad news. Then she started to read from a slip of paper. ‘The Minister for the Army has announced that Private Jack McKenzie has been awarded the Military Medal for outstanding bravery while serving with 12 Platoon, D Company, 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, in the Battle of Kapyong in Korea.’ She looked at me, beaming. ‘Congratulations, Jack!’ she said.
Well, you should have heard the carry-on. If I’d won the Victoria Cross they couldn’t have cheered any louder. As for me, I was completely gobsmacked. There were lots who’d fought better than me in that battle – brave warriors deserving recognition long before I did. The first night of the battle I’d sat on my arse in a weapon pit next to Ian Ferrier, our company radio operator, watching the fighting take place below me. I even wondered momentarily if they’d got the wrong McKenzie, but as I was the only one of that name in our battalion and they’d nominated the right company and platoon I guessed it had to be me they were referring to.
Jimmy grabbed me by the hand and I thought he might tear it off at the wrist, he was that pleased for me. ‘Brother Fish, yo’ da best! Da bravest and da best!’
Gloria once again burst into tears, and so did Sue. Cory and Steve kept walking around and shaking their heads and exclaiming, ‘Shit, eh?’, ‘You beauty!’ and words to that effect.
For the moment, anyway, I was a far cry from the little bloke who’d slunk off to war with his tail between his legs and his head full of ideological bullshit and jargon about fighting to defend the free world from communism. I wondered briefly if the medal might mean that the McKenzies were no longer worth only a pinch of the proverbial in Gloria’s eyes, or if Alf’s disgrace ban would finally be lifted. Gloria was a hard woman and it might take more than a tin medal from the queen to lift the curse and cancel out the ban. Besides, bravery never got us anywhere. Alf had been the bravest little bugger you could ever meet and would’ve taken on a wounded buffalo with his bare hands if it meant defending Gloria. All it got him was a regular thumping down at the pub of a Saturday night. Then I thought of the chemist in Launceston. You’re the same gutless wonder you always were, McKenzie. The medal ain’t gunna change that, mate.
A welcoming party had always been planned at the dockside. Later I learned that the pub had donated four wooden kegs of Boag’s Draught as well as three flagons of McWilliams’ Sweet Sherry for the ladies, but now the party really got going and it was dawn before people started to go home – dawn being only a coincidence and the empty kegs being the real reason for departure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen half the island, including Father Crosby, motherless all at the same time. People piled onto the backs of trucks laughing and shouting to the drivers, who were just as pissed as they were. In one instance I saw a kid who couldn’t have been a day over twelve years old, his little sister beside him in the cabin, driving a four-ton truck, the two kids the only sober ones among the couple of dozen adults piled giggling in the back. In the island tradition you could be quite sure more than one future islander would be born out of wedlock nine months after my and Jimmy’s arrival on the island.
When – after much drunken back-slapping and sloppy-kissing – we were finally ready to leave, Busta Gut staggered up to me. ‘Jeezus, Jacko, I nearly forgot, mate!’ He waved his arm unsteadily above his head, and I saw that it contained a mangled envelope. ‘Telegram f’yiz!’
He handed the envelope to me.
‘Can’t be for me, mate,’ I replied. ‘Must be the one I sent Mum from Launceston.’
‘Nah, me mum said that was about yiz comin’ ’ome in the boat. She sent me right off to deliver it urgent.’ He pointed to the crumpled envelope in my hand. ‘It’s f’yizorrite.’
I was too tired to open it, and so I stuffed it into my pocket just as Steve drove up in the fish co-op truck. When there was any driving to be done Steve was always at the wheel, because he was the mechanical whiz in the family and could fix anything – as well as drive in just about any state of inebriation. They’d placed a bench against the back of the driver’s cabin so that Jimmy and I could sit with our plaster casts straight out in front of us. Fixed to the radiator were crossed flags – the Stars and Stripes and ours. Trailing on one side of the back of the truck were streamers of red, white and blue crinkle paper and on the other, green and gold. I’m sure the truck had been scrubbed and hosed down thoroughly, but it still smelled vaguely of fish.
Jimmy and I were hoisted up onto the bench in the back of the truck, and those still standing climbed in – and one or two who weren’t were hoisted into the back. Even before we pulled away Gloria, who sat in the front holding Jimmy’s bunch of gladdies clutched to her breast, was fast asleep with her nose buried in the orange and pink flowers. Off we went in low gear, doing a full fifteen miles an hour up the hill from the harbour.
Along the way we had to stop to pick up Father Crosby, who’d fallen off his bicycle and was snoring at the side of the road. We dropped him off at the presbytery in time for mass. I thought about waking Mum, who never missed early-morning mass, but then decided to let her sleep and to cop the flak when she woke. Later she would explain that Father Crosby had arranged a special dispensation from God and had cancelled six o’clock mass in anticipation of the gran
d welcoming event. ‘We’ll transfer mass to the evening,’ Father Crosby had promised. ‘God won’t mind a twelve-hour delay.’
I think it was Mum’s proudest moment, even more so than the announcement of the medal, when he’d come up to her the previous morning after mass and said, ‘My dear, the Good Lord has brought Jacko home safely and as a hero, which is the next best thing to being a saint. I have thanked the Lord for your son’s safe return and I clearly understood Him to say that, as his humble servant on earth, I should drink a cup or two of kindness in the lad’s honour. Now, I couldn’t be doing His will and taking early mass tomorrow morning, could I?’
Old Mrs Scobie, who hadn’t missed early-morning mass in thirty years, came up to Gloria and told her it was iniquitous and that she’d be punished by God. Gloria replied, ‘Agnes, it’s such a pity you’ll be too pissed to attend evening mass. God will not be happy, my dear.’
Every once in a while someone would bang on the truck’s cabin roof as we reached one or another home on the way. I reckoned most of Livingston would be closed until pretty late in the morning, as this mob was certainly in no shape to go to work. Several people had passed out and were still on the truck when we reached home, so Steve drove it under the big old fig tree so they’d have shade, as the sun was already well up by the time we arrived. Then Cory, pissed as a newt himself, carried over a bucket of water and a tin mug, spilling half of it over his head as he lifted it onto the back of the truck. When the drunks finally woke up they’d be spitting cotton.
By the time we got home I felt like an ageing labrador at the end of a duck shoot. My leg hurt like hell – and the grog mixed with the antibiotics we were still taking wasn’t doing my head a favour, either. We’d been up around twenty-three hours, but I don’t think I’ve been happier in my life – happy for myself and happy for my mate, whom the island had well and truly taken to their hearts. Sue wanted to cook us breakfast but Jimmy and I were too buggered to stay up any longer, and we staggered to the back of the house where I’d built the indoor shower and extension bedroom when I came back from New Guinea.
As he pulled off his boots, Jimmy said to me, ‘Brother Fish, yoh got good folks and lotsa fine love, an’ yoh done share dem both with me. I thank yoh from da bottom of mah heart.’ To my astonishment he turned away quickly, though not before I saw the tears well up in his eyes. Like me he was pretty pissed, but I knew he meant it. I guess Jimmy’s life had been way short on love, and it was a safe bet he’d never been presented with a bunch of pink and orange gladioli before.
‘G’night, mate. We’ll go out tomorrow with Cory and Steve and get us some crays for . . .’ but I don’t remember completing the sentence before I was asleep.
The following morning Sue demanded our clothes for laundering, and a few minutes later returned with the crumpled envelope Busta Gut had given me at the welcome-home party. ‘It’s a telegram. You haven’t opened it yet!’ she said accusingly. I explained how Busta Gut had handed it to me as we were about to depart. ‘Probably been in his bag for days,’ Sue said. ‘Open it – it could be important,’ she demanded. Telegrams were not often received in our family and when we did get one, it was never good news. I could see the anxious look on Sue’s face. ‘At least it can’t be about you being dead or wounded like the last one we got that said you were missing in action,’ she said. I smoothed out the window envelope, removed the telegram and quickly read it, then began to laugh. ‘What’s so funny?’ Sue asked, relieved.
‘It arrived three days ago!’ I began to read it to her.
CANBERRA ACT
PRIVATE J. McKENZIE
4 december 1953
DESIRE TO CONVEY CONGRAT ULATI ONS THAT YOUR SERVICE HAS BEN RECOGNISED BY BEING DECORATE D WITH THE MILITAR Y MEDAL SIGNED JOSHUA FISHER MINISTER FOR THE ARMY.
As I said to Sue, the date the telegram had been sent was three days prior. Obviously Ma Gutherie hadn’t thought it worth a gee-up for Busta Gut, whereas the news of my arrival home on the boat had got urgent priority. In fact, the telegram from Canberra must have arrived at least a day before the one I’d sent to Gloria. Nothing much had changed on the island.
Jimmy was a big hit and we had cousins and distant relations turning up at all hours to visit, bringing eggs or a couple of bottles of beer to show they hadn’t come empty-handed. I reckon every single sheila on the island dropped by in the first week, ostensibly to welcome me back. I’d been at school with several of them. They all left having given Jimmy their address and extracted a firm promise from him to call by soon.
Clothes – well, trousers anyway – were a big problem for Jimmy, and in the end Gloria cut a pattern and made two pairs of long pants from some good blue cotton she’d ordered from McKinlay’s in Launceston. They also sent some grey flannel, sufficient for a couple of pairs of good trousers, and Gloria wasn’t game to just run them up like the blue cotton ones so she unpicked a pair from his dress uniform, cut a pattern from them and then sewed them back together again. Then she made the two flannel pairs, all on her trusty table-model Singer sewing machine. Jimmy was still skinny from the POW camp, so shirts were no problem, and nobody wore a jacket on the island in summer anyway.
Christmas came and Jimmy flew Gloria and Sue over to Launceston to stock up on supplies, and paid for all the goodies we’d never before had at Christmas-day lunch – including the first turkey the family, excluding myself, had ever tasted. He also paid for all the grog. This was no mean gesture, as just about every rello on the island turned up after lunch, ostensibly to wish us Merry Christmas, but really so that the various Kelly and McKenzie single girls could have another go at persuading Jimmy to call around some time.
The first month back home went by quickly and the time came for us to have our plaster removed, so we took the Douglas DC3 over to Launceston with Sue accompanying us. At Launceston General Hospital they got rid of the plasters and X-rayed our legs, and the young quack showed us how the bones that had been rebroken and properly pinned when we’d come out of the POW camp had this time grown straight. He said they’d done a good job. I then asked him about the limp both Jimmy and I had been left with after the Chinese had removed our plaster the first time. He said that provided we walked up to our waists in the surf every morning for an hour for the next month to strengthen our leg muscles, he saw no reason why the limp would return. Afterwards, Sue and Jimmy went to the museum while I visited Mr Walsh at the chemist shop.
I was in a bit of a quandary as I couldn’t tell Bluey Walsh’s old man that the last words his son had muttered before he died were ‘Oh shit!’, but I couldn’t think of any words he might have said that would comfort his old man. If I told him Bluey had said nothing he’d be disappointed, because as a soldier you’re always supposed to have last words when you’re about to die. I couldn’t just say Bluey had died in my arms saying, ‘Mum, Dad, I love you,’ because he may have sisters and brothers and he wouldn’t have left them out, would he? Besides, if he’d said those words as he died I should have told his Dad when we’d first met despite my hurry at the time to catch the bus.
Jimmy and I had once had a conversation about last words. According to Jimmy, most American soldiers cried out for their mother. I guess ours did as well, although I hadn’t witnessed this. Ted Shearer, for instance, had died in the weapon pit in the Battle of Kapyong without me even knowing, and Johnny Gordon, in the village where we’d been ambushed, hadn’t uttered a word. If Ted had had any last words I wouldn’t have heard them in the clatter of machine guns, mortars landing and rifle fire. When Jimmy told me about blokes calling out for their mum he’d speculated, not knowing his mother, that he wouldn’t know what to say when he bit the dust. He’d laughed. ‘Hey, maybe I gonna say, “So long, Gobblin’ Spider!” because it don’t sound right foh me to say, “I love you, Frau Kraus!”’
As for me, I guess I’d have to send my love to the whole family, not just Gloria. If I didn’t she’d maybe add me to the disgrace ban for not including Sue, Cory and Steve
in my last thoughts. Anyway, it seemed only natural that you’d include the whole family if you had enough breath left.
I arrived at the chemist shop still not sure what my words of comfort and Bluey Walsh’s last words should be. Mr Walsh recognised me immediately. ‘No more crutches, hey! That’s good, son.’
I grinned. ‘G’day, Mr Walsh, it feels strange walking more or less normally again.’ I noticed for the first time that he had hair the same colour as my own but turning sort of salt-and-cayenne-peppery, which accounted for Bluey. I’m normally pretty observant, but I’d been that anxious to get the condoms in a hurry last time that I hadn’t noticed very much about him.
‘Come in for more supplies, have you?’ he asked.
‘No, sir, I came in to see you – as I promised.’
He looked relieved. ‘I was hoping you wouldn’t forget – the family is very excited.’
Shit, I didn’t even phone ahead to say I was coming. He’s obviously told his family about my last visit and how I rushed out, and here it is a month later! What if I’d chickened out? ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come in sooner, Mr Walsh.’ I wanted to make some plausible excuse but couldn’t think of one – you can’t exactly say you were too busy to see a bloke about his son’s death.
‘Would you mind if we nipped home?’ he asked. ‘My wife would like to be with us, and Harry’s brother and sister could be there in a few minutes as well. Is that okay?’
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