Brother Fish (11 page)

I have been the recipient of a few honours in my life, not all of them deserved, but I count this one above most and, I confess, at the time I was hard put not to shed a tear. Jimmy would later confess that he felt much the same way. The publican then instructed us to leave the sum of one pound in our respective wills for the purpose of shouting drinks for the house when the time came, as he put it, ‘to hammer in the nail'.

‘One pound! That's two bucks, not much of a shout,' I said, amused. He'd paused, unnecessarily wiping the surface of the mutilated bar, ‘Yeah well, that's what it was way back in 1920 when we hammered in the first nail and we've never bothered to change it; the house shouts the rest.'

I'm now sitting directly in front of my carved initials lamenting the fact that I made a proper botch of them when I feel a hand the size of a soup bowl on my shoulder. Jimmy has arrived. ‘Hiya, Brother Fish, how 'ya been, buddy,' he announces in his cement-mixer growl. ‘Sorry I'm late, mate. Couldn't get a taxi from the airport, bunch of nuns commandeered the lot.' He grins. ‘Extra! Extra! Giant black man slams nun to sidewalk and hijacks taxi!'

‘Footpath, not sidewalk,' I correct him, grinning.

‘Nah, footpath don't sound dangerous,' Jimmy laughs.

I have often wondered why other nationalities so easily pick up an American accent while Yanks, no matter how long they remain away from their birthplace, never lose theirs.

The barman, hearing Jimmy shout, appears a moment later from somewhere out back and pours him a draught beer, checks the level of my own, which I've barely touched, places an ashtray in front of Jimmy and returns from where he came.

‘Cheers, Brother Fish,' Jimmy says.

‘Here's to being mates, mate.' I sigh. ‘The thirty-third time, the saddest of them all.'

That's about it. The formalities are over. It is the being here together on this day, the 9th of August, that matters, and we don't need any further ceremony or fanfare. Besides, there isn't anything to say that isn't already known between us. We remain silent for a while, easy in each other's company. I guess, like me, he is thinking back, gauging the distance travelled and the ups and downs that measure the sum of the lives we've led together.

He's been flying all night on the Qantas red-eye special from Hong Kong and he's failed to remove his coat – that's not like him. Jimmy, like me and most kids who grow up poor, is careful with his clobber, and accustomed to stepping off a plane after an all-night flight and walking straight into a board meeting. He produces a soft pack and a lighter, takes out a cigarette and places the rest on the bar. He lights up and takes a short, sharp drag, then places the fag into the lip of the glass ashtray and blows the smoke out through his nostrils. He turns to me and says, ‘It's been a long journey, Brother Fish.'

‘No longer than usual. I'm the one can't sleep on planes – you always look like you've just stepped out of Johnny Chang's tailor shop in Kowloon.'

‘Nah, not da trip – da journey.' He picks up his glass. ‘Our Countess,' he says, his voice low and gentle. ‘Hell, man. I done love her so much.' Jimmy, his beer halfway raised to his mouth, is crying, softly, without a sound – just tears running down his ‘high-yella' face.

CHAPTER TWO

K Force

Army training is much the same whatever war you are about to fight, and Puckapunyal is where it usually happens if you come from the bottom end of Australia. The major premise behind training a man to fight hasn't changed much since Alexander the Great and probably even predates that: do as you're told and never question a superior. In the history of warfare humans have achieved the most valiant as well as vainglorious outcomes by not being required to think for themselves. History is redolent with fools in command, field marshals, generals and brigadiers who have managed to send legions of men to their deaths on the principle that the greater force knows better than the individual soldier, and that dying needlessly is a peculiar privilege granted to the lower ranks.

It worked at Gallipoli when young Australians, untested in war, set out to prove their valour at a time in our history when fighting and dying for King and Empire was regarded by society as the highest possible ideal. In the Second World War Australians no longer felt the need to establish our fighting credentials, although this time Australia itself was threatened and it became necessary to defend our country against a possible invasion from the Japanese.

Korea was different – it was a conflict where the North, under a communist regime championed by Russia, and the South, ostensibly an elected democracy under the watchful eye of America, were separated by the 38th parallel with the United Nations acting as referee. When, in a deliberate act of aggression, the North invaded the South, the communist troops proved far too strong for the poorly equipped and under-trained South Korean Army. Within a week the South had lost almost half its effective fighting force. With the Americans and Russians already deeply committed to the Cold War, the Americans were not prepared to allow this to happen and called on the United Nations to intervene.

The UN Security Council met and decided that the time for a diplomatic solution was over and the North couldn't be allowed to ride roughshod over their southern brothers. They called for member nations to volunteer to send troops, the aim being to drive the communist army out of South Korea. Our government, an early and eager participant, sent in the RAAF 77 Squadron with their Mustangs as well as two naval ships, HMAS
Shoalhaven
and
Bataan
. After some little hesitation they decided to add an infantry battalion of around 1000 men to our contribution. At the time the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR) was stationed in Japan as part of the occupation force. The men in Japan were a mixture of World War II veterans holding most of the rank and pretty well-trained recent recruits to the Australian Regular Army, but the battalion was only at half strength. The war in Korea was going badly and men were urgently required at the front, and there simply wasn't sufficient time to train an additional 1000 recruits required to bring 3RAR up to full strength and provide a pool of reinforcements. The government hit on the idea of recruiting ex-army civilians, preferably with combat experience, who'd served in World War II and would only need a short refresher course to be combat ready. They called us ‘K Force'. This, of course, meant that those of us who joined K Force were somewhat older than the Regular Army recruit.

When I arrived at Puckapunyal for the first time in late 1944 I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed eighteen-year-old anxiously waiting to turn nineteen so I could get into World War II before it ended. The huge military camp teemed with thousands of Australian and American troops with rows of ribbons on their chests that spoke for themselves. These were warriors, hardened in the furnace of war, while my ribbon-free chest testified to my status as a neophyte – the original virgin soldier.

At night the mess halls and canteens seemed to vibrate with light and raucous laughter as men threw back beers and competed with each other to talk of their experiences. I listened silently as they swapped stories of exotic places – Cairo, Palestine, Alexandria, London, Paris, Rome – or told of battles won – Tobruk, El Alamein and others less known. This huge military camp was definitely the most exciting place I'd ever been.

It was here that I attended my first evening at the theatre. It was a variety show billed as the ‘All Sports Concert Party' and seemed impossibly glamorous to a kid from Queen Island whose previous theatrical experience had consisted of the open-air cinema where you reclined in a faded canvas deckchair if you were an adult or, if under thirteen, you sat up front, cross-legged in the ‘sixpenny dirt'. Despite my usually good recall, I don't remember a great deal about the show, though there is a reason for this. But two things are forever emblazoned on my mind. The first, the moment when the red velvet curtain rose and the sweeping, swirling spotlights illuminated a row of motionless long-legged dancing girls smiling down at me. I had never seen such beautiful creatures in the flesh and they fair took my breath away. Then the music started and they danced and sang a song called ‘Hello, Puckapunyal'. As I wrote in a letter home, ‘I have never seen such grace combined with beautiful legs that moved as one.'

The second memory from that night was far more serious. She came on directly after the chorus line and is the cause of my lack of recall of the other performances. There was a drum roll and a clash of cymbals and a disembodied voice announced: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, so young yet still Australia's leading torch singer, please welcome the very talented, the lovely, Miss Pat Brand!'

Raised up in front of me on the stage under a single spotlight stood the loveliest woman I had ever seen. She wore a white evening gown and red lipstick and the spotlight gave her hair a kind of a halo. This was the nearest I'd ever been to an angel in heaven and, I'm ashamed to say, I could feel an instant stirring in my army strides.

‘Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly,
I gotta love one man till I die,
Can't help lovin' dat man o' mine.'

I was in love, tumbling down the full vortex, head over heels in love, the full quiver of Cupid's bewitching arrows piercing my thumping heart. Fifty years later I'm not sure I've completely recovered.

‘Tell me he's lazy, tell me he's slow,
Tell me I'm crazy – maybe I know,
Can't help lovin' dat man o' mine.'

The rest of the concert was a blur – even the return of the long-legged dancing girls did nothing for me. I was Pat Brand
ed
for life. The following morning, still in a zombie-like state, I waited near the entertainers' lines with the hope of catching a glimpse of my celestial object of desire. I was not the only one – several dozen soldiers, a number of Yanks among them, all trying to look nonchalant, were gathered for the same purpose. My heart filled with dismay – their faces wore the unmistakable lines of experience, both of war and women, their chests a veritable fruit salad, exploding with campaign ribbons. It was at once obvious to me that the kid from Queen Island didn't have a snowball's hope in hell. I stayed, head down, the toe of my boot kicking at the dirt.

When at last Pat Brand appeared, she gave us the briefest of smiles and got directly onto a bus, which moments later disappeared in a cloud of famous Puckapunyal dust. Later I would deconstruct her speedy departure, reassembling it to suit my fevered imagination. For months thereafter I would interpret her fleeting Mona Lisa smile as a message specially intended for me. Had she not looked directly at me? Straight into my eyes, in fact. It was obvious she couldn't give me the full twenty-four pearlies because she didn't want to hurt the feelings of the other men. My heart ached for her, the loneliness she must feel, her being a professional entertainer and me a man tragically going to war, with whom she couldn't allow herself to fall in love. I lived off that enigmatic smile for the remainder of the war.

Now, six years later, I was back in Puckapunyal, though this time I carried one pathetic little ribbon on my chest, more an embarrassment than anything, it was known in the vernacular as ‘every-bugger's ribbon' because you got it if you served twenty-eight days or more in the army. Our incoming truckload of K Force volunteers drove past row upon row of empty huts. They seemed like the barracks of the dead, with windows cobwebbed and crusted with dust, old newspapers and twigs had gathered, blown against some of the doors, and once in a while a slab of corrugated iron had come loose from one of the walls allowing a dusty glimpse inside of a rusty bed or steel locker.

Feeling like intruders in a graveyard, we took up occupation in a small corner of the once-great military base grateful that we wouldn't be staying long – our instructors having been given the task of knocking the rust off us in the hope that some sound metal still lay underneath the corrosion caused by five years of indolent civilian life.

It was obvious the army was in a hurry, for we started training the following day with weapons and range practice. While it didn't do to show too much enthusiasm – after all, we were all supposed to be war-weary veterans – I loved the almost-forgotten feel of the rifle clamped into my shoulder. A .303 is a fairly heavy rifle and I'm a little bloke, but if handled properly, I could hold it as steady as anyone and fire just as accurately. Pulling the butt hard into the hollow of my shoulder while clamping the rifle steady with hands and arms, then seeing the foresight rising through the ‘U' of the backsight, I'd hold my breath, taking the first trigger pressure. Then squeezing the right hand round the small of the butt until the pressure on the trigger fired. The kick of the recoil was like greeting an old and trusted friend after a long absence.

Notwithstanding the satisfaction of rifle, Bren gun and Owen gun range practice, the rest of our training was, to say the least, onerous. Sweating like a pig for hours on end, my lungs ached as we clambered over wooden walls, clung to ropes overhanging deep ditches meant to be rivers, and leopard-crawled, elbows hard into the ground, through obstacle courses. My feet burned and my shoulders were rubbed raw from carrying a heavy pack as we route-marched, sometimes for twenty miles, with only an occasional rest to use our water bottles.

At night we hobbled around our huts cursing and grumbling, nursing stiff, aching muscles we'd forgotten existed and treating our blistered feet with methylated spirits – although Rick Stackman, who'd been a prisoner of war under the Japanese, scoffed at the meths and used his own piss. He claimed it worked a damned sight better, although admitted the one disadvantage was that you couldn't drink it in an emergency.