Billy Mack's War (11 page)

Chapter 14 Danny

Danny straightened his school tie and checked his hair. He'd gone with his uniform in the end, mainly because it helped him avoid the issue of what to wear to a funeral.

‘You ready, Dan?' Dad asked from the bathroom doorway. ‘It's time we were going.'

‘I'm ready. You didn't have to take the day off, you know. I could have caught the train. I don't need you to hold my hand any more.'

‘I know, but I'm being supportive, mate. Is that okay?'

‘Sorry, Dad. I'm just feeling a bit —'

‘I know. Come on.'

It took almost an hour to drive to the funeral chapel, which was surrounded by lawns and brightly flowering gardens. Dad found a spot for the car under a tree a short distance from the chapel. ‘We're a bit early, Dan,' he said. ‘What do you want to do for half an hour?'

‘It looks like they're already here,' Danny said, spotting the cars and people gathered near the main building.

‘No, mate, that's someone else's funeral,' Dad replied. ‘A big place like this will be doing two or three at a time, all day, every day.'

‘Are there that many people dying?' Danny asked.

‘All the time. People are born, and people die. It's a cycle. Remember
The Lion
King? We all get our turn at each.'

‘That's what Mr McAuliffe said.'

‘It's true. Do you want to get out and look at the plaques, Dan?' Dad asked, but Danny shook his head.

‘I'd rather wait in the car.'

They sat and waited silently, watching people coming and going. Most were dressed in black, a few wore colours. Some carried flowers and wreaths, others simply patted their eyes with tissues or blew their noses. People leaned on each other, hugged, held hands. It was a sad but peaceful place. Danny tried not to think of his mother.

But it wasn't easy, sitting in a place like that. Danny looked at the mourners comforting one another. He wondered if his mother had tried to fight the cancer, or if she'd just given up when she knew that she had no hope of beating it.

‘How long before she died did Mum know?'

‘About the cancer? Almost a year,' Dad replied. It was as if he'd been reading Danny's thoughts.

‘And how long before she died did she know that she was definitely going to die?'

Dad thought. ‘She knew that almost from the beginning. But she always believed deep down that it was worth fighting.'

‘Why didn't she just realise that there was no hope?'

‘She
did
realise. She realised all too well. What she didn't do was accept it. She knew that her choices were to fight and lose, or not fight and lose. Which isn't much of a choice. So she kept fighting.'

‘Why?' Danny asked. ‘Why fight if she knew that there was no point?'

‘Because of you, Dan. And me too, but mostly you. She couldn't bear to think of you growing up without a mother. So she hung on, she kept fighting, for every last minute. Which was her way, that's all. She was in so much pain, but she hung on.'

‘If I'd been older, I would have told her that it was okay to go,' Danny said. ‘Because I think that sometimes it's all right to stop fighting if there's no hope, don't you?'

Dad smiled at him. ‘I told her it was okay to go many times, Dan, but she wouldn't do it. It just wasn't her way. It was awful to watch, but there was nothing I could do to make her say, “That's enough. I've had enough.” Choosing to hang on was the only choice left to her.'

They said nothing again, until finally Dad said, ‘All right, mate, it's time,' and they got out of the car. Dad straightened Danny's tie and tugged gently on the lapels of his blazer. ‘You right?'

‘Yeah, I'm fine,' Danny replied. ‘Come on, let's just go.'

They crossed the lawn to the buildings. A large group of people were standing in the sun in front of one of the chapels. Mr McAuliffe was there, next to the long black car. A woman with a walking stick was with him, and they were talking to a man and a woman.

Danny waited for Mr McAuliffe to finish speaking with the couple before going over. He'd been starting to wonder if he was still welcome, until Mr McAuliffe smiled and held out his hand. ‘Daniel,' he said.

‘I came in the end,' Danny said.

‘So I see, and you're very welcome. And this is your father?'

‘Yeah, this is my dad, David Snell.'

‘I'm sorry about your father,' Dad said, shaking Mr McAuliffe's hand.

Mr McAuliffe nodded. ‘Thanks, David,' he said, before introducing his wife, who was the woman with the stick.

Danny looked at the casket in the back of the hearse and tried to imagine the body of Captain Mack lying in that shiny wooden box, but he found it impossible. He still found it hard to imagine that he was gone. After everything he'd been through in the jungles of Burma and Thailand, all that training, fighting, resisting, he just stopped breathing in his sleep. That seemed pretty typical, really, knowing the stubborn old bloke the way he did. He'd have done that just to prove that the last thing he ever did would be done
his
way.

There was quiet music playing in the chapel, and Danny and his dad found a seat towards the back.

‘Are you all right?' Dad murmured.

‘Yes, I'm fine. Why do you keep asking?'

Dad just shook his head.

As soon as everyone was seated, a sudden whining, howling kind of a sound came from the doorway of the chapel. Taken by surprise, Danny turned his head to see a man in full Scottish dress, kilt and all, with bagpipes, and as he played, Mr McAuliffe and five other men carried the coffin slowly down the aisle and placed it carefully on the table at the front of the chapel. Danny suddenly found it very hard to see, and he noticed that Dad seemed to be swallowing a lot. This struck him as a little strange, since Dad had only met Captain Mack once.

When the casket was in position, two old ladies who looked exactly the same as each other came to the front and placed flowers on the lid. Then Mr McAuliffe rested a dark cap beside the flowers. It had a tartan band and a silver badge.

‘That's his regimental cap,' Danny whispered to Dad, who nodded.

Danny had expected that people would talk about Captain Mack's life, and he knew that he'd find that interesting. What he was really hoping to hear was how he'd won his Victoria Cross. But that didn't happen. People talked about how he'd joined his beloved Seaforth Highlanders, how he'd fought in Burma and been captured, how he'd worked on the Railway and at Hellfire Pass, how he'd longed to go back and see it but had never managed to make the trip. They talked about how many children he had, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. They were quite talkative about the huge contribution he'd made to the Tasmanian dairy industry in the early 1960s. But no one mentioned how he'd come to believe that his nursing home was a prison camp and had therefore arranged an escape, and they didn't mention what he'd done to win his VC. They just said it. ‘Fred was awarded a Victoria Cross for extreme valour in combat in Burma.' And that was it. Extreme valour in combat.

Then Mr McAuliffe stood up. He arranged his papers on the lectern before looking up at the mourners. He smiled, quickly, then cleared his throat. ‘Thanks for coming,' he said. ‘Dad would have been proud to see so many of his friends and family here.

‘I don't have a lot to say that hasn't already been said. I'm told that Dad was never the same after he came back from the war, but I was young enough at the time that I didn't know that. So to me, and Hattie, and Margaret, he was just Dad. We have a lot of memories of Dad, but I would like to relate just one today.

‘I remember one day when we were milking the cows together, he and I, and he saw that a cow had been left behind in a nearby paddock. The gate was a fair way down the fenceline, and rather than walk along and go through the gate to herd the cow in, Dad climbed through the fence. There was nothing remarkable in that — farmers do it all the time — but I did notice that, before he climbed through, he glanced behind him, first to the right, then to the left. It was a very quick, practised motion, almost as if he was checking that he wasn't being watched. Only then did he duck through that fence and keep walking, calm as you like, towards the cow.'

Mr McAuliffe paused, staring hard at his pages for a moment. Then he looked up again. His eyes were shiny. ‘It seems to me that Dad spent a lot of his life looking over his shoulder. Later in life he didn't seem quite sure what it was he was looking at, and it was only through the help of certain friends that he managed to gain any kind of perspective.' Here Mr McAuliffe looked straight at Danny and smiled through his tears. ‘But he did find some kind of peace in the end, and we're all grateful for that. And now he's found real peace at last.' Mr McAuliffe's voice cracked and choked as he picked up his papers. ‘Bye, Dad. Rest easy,' he said before sitting down next to his wife, who slipped her arm around his shoulders.

Danny took off his glasses and blinked the tears out of his eyes. He glanced up at Dad. He had tears in his eyes too.

Afterward, when the curtains had closed in front of the casket and the bagpipes had piped them from the chapel, Danny and Dad stood in the sun and waited their turn to say goodbye to Mr McAuliffe. Eventually the group of people around him had thinned enough for them to go across.

‘Daniel, thank you for coming,' Mr McAuliffe said. ‘Dad would have been glad you came along.'

‘That's okay.' He cleared his throat nervously. ‘Uh, I wanted to ask you something.'

‘Of course, Daniel.'

Danny wondered if it was the right time to ask about the VC. Then he saw the two identical old ladies standing nearby, their arms around one another, their eyes red and their white hankies at the ready, and decided it was entirely the wrong time.

‘I was wondering if we could meet again,' he found himself saying. ‘I want to talk to you some more about Captain Mack … I mean, your father.'

‘Yes, of course. I should like that very much indeed,' Mr McAuliffe replied.

‘Should I call you sometime?'

Mr McAuliffe held out his hand. ‘I'd be delighted. Please do. You have my number.'

As Danny and his father walked back to the car, Dad said, ‘I know you're okay, so I won't even ask.'

Danny nodded. ‘I'm okay, Dad. Only just, but I am okay.'

Danny and Caleb walked slowly along the edge of the field as some of the bigger boys tried to break each other's ribs in the name of football. ‘It was weird,' Danny said. ‘I couldn't really believe that it was him inside that box.'

‘Maybe it wasn't,' Caleb suggested.

‘Don't,' Danny replied, and something in the way he said it made Caleb close his mouth, which was just as well, since Danny had the distinct impression that something smart and not very funny was about to come out of it.

‘Here, check this,' Caleb said instead, pointing to a tree near the end of the field. ‘Isn't that your friend?'

‘I hardly know him,' Danny said, seeing Henry Butler and Jonathon Spivey sitting in the shade, their chessboard between them. ‘Near a footy field —
that
makes sense.'

That Saturday, Danny called Mr McAuliffe. The phone rang five times before it was answered.

‘McAuliffe.'

Instantly all the feelings of nervousness Danny thought that he was over came rushing back. ‘Uh … uh, hi, this is Danny Snell here,' he stammered. This was a mistake, he thought. Why would he want to hear from me? He was only being polite when he said I should call him.

‘Daniel, hello. It's good to hear from you.'

‘Really?' Danny replied.

‘Yes, of course.' There was a pause.

‘Um, I was talking to my dad, and he said I should call you. He thought we should invite you over for afternoon tea.'

‘Because we have some unfinished business, Daniel?'

Danny hesitated. How did he know? ‘Yeah, I guess that's it. I did have some more stuff I wanted to ask you.'

‘When did you want me to come over?'

Danny swallowed. ‘I was thinking maybe tomorrow?'

‘Tomorrow? I believe I'm free. All right, what time?'

Danny caught himself frowning down at the phone. It wasn't meant to be this easy to organise. ‘Um, three o'clock?'

‘Very good, three it is. I'll see you then.'

Danny held the phone to his ear for some time after the line had gone dead. The last time he'd finished talking to Mr McAuliffe on the phone he'd wanted to throw up. This time he found himself feeling quite excited.

The doorbell rang, and Danny paused his game.

‘I'll get it,' Dad said, standing up.

‘It's okay, I was bored anyway,' Danny said as he turned off his Playstation.

He heard Mr McAuliffe's deep voice at the door, talking to Dad. Then he was in the doorway from the hall into the sitting room, tall and a bit scary all over again. ‘Daniel,' he said.

‘Would you like to sit down?' Dad invited him.

Mr McAuliffe chose the couch under the window. ‘You have a very nice home,' he said, looking around.

Dad smiled. ‘Thanks. We do all right, I suppose, considering that there's none of that woman's touch people are always going on about.'

‘Yes, Daniel told me about his mother. I'm very sorry.'

Dad nodded. ‘It's been five years now. It still keeps you awake sometimes, but what can you do? I don't suppose you ever really get over it.'

‘I don't suppose you do,' Mr McAuliffe replied.

‘Well, you two relax and I'll make tea. Tea, William?'

‘Thank you,' Mr McAuliffe said, and Dad left the room, leaving Danny and Mr McAuliffe face to face. ‘So, you wanted to talk some more about my father?'

‘Yeah, I guess.'