Some Here Among Us (3 page)

‘My uncle,’ said Morgan, nodding, as if acknowledging good conversational grammar. ‘He was there. He was in the war. He was in the same camp.’

‘OK,’ said Race. He nodded as well, accepting the formal role of listener.

‘So Leslie’s after the thief. They’re both running over the sand. Maybe the moon is shining, I don’t know. Leslie’s not shouting. He’s saving his breath. He can hear the thief panting and the thief can hear him. And Leslie’s gaining on him. He’s faster. He’s catching up! But then, just as Leslie reaches him, the thief turns. He has a revolver. He fires. He hits Leslie. The shot attracts the attention of the guard. The guard arrives. Leslie is lying on the ground, dying. He’s taken a bullet in the heart. No one else is there. Leslie says nothing, and then he dies. The alarm is sounded. The camp is roused. The soldiers mount a search. There are two settlements nearby. One is called Richon le Zion, where Jewish settlers live. The other is called Surafend, an Arab village. The soldiers follow footprints across the sand for two hundred yards but then the ground turns to rock and the trail is lost. But it seems to have been leading towards Surafend. That makes sense. The Jews of Richon le Zion have no form at all when it comes to pilfering from the army camp. They are delighted with the ‘English’ as they call the Anzacs. They love them. They adore them! The Anzacs have defeated the Turks and sent them packing after four hundred years. ‘The day of deliverance has arrived!’ the Jews say. They sing hymns, they put up an obelisk to commemorate the battles, though they take it down later.

‘But the Arabs – they’re another matter. The soldiers already hate them, or the Muslim Arabs anyway. They’re gloomy and suspicious, and they steal, they even dig up the bodies of dead soldiers and strip them naked. That’s what the soldiers say. Maybe it’s true. And now the footprints of Leslie’s killer are leading towards Surafend. So the soldiers put a cordon round the village and send a message to headquarters to report what’s happened.’

All this was recounted, with several stops, as Race and Morgan climbed the steps of Allenby Terrace, then turned and came up the stairless part of the lane between old wooden houses whose windows were dark. It was nearly four in the morning. The fog had become thinner as they climbed. A few stars could be seen above the chimneys. Race and Morgan were taking their time. They both felt a kind of false sobriety – the nightclub, the fog, the business with the milk bottle and the broken window and jewels, possibly rubies – all that seemed a long time ago. Here they were on Allenby Terrace at four in the morning, enjoying the experience, almost political, of being the only people awake among many dark houses.

‘The troops wait all night,’ said Morgan. ‘Morning comes. Nothing is moving in Surafend. The village is holding its breath. Then the order comes from army HQ.
Withdraw
. Remove the cordon, stand down, go back to camp. The men obey. And as they leave, they see some men slipping out from Surafend, away into the desert.
There goes the murderer!
That’s what the soldiers think. And they’re enraged. One of their mates is dead and nothing is to be done. HQ doesn’t want any trouble with the Arabs. The British have just conquered Palestine, and already offered the Jews a national home there, and the Arabs are in a state of alarm. They’re gloomy and suspicious and frightened. The British want to soothe their fears. The last thing they need is an Arab revolt. They’re prepared to overlook minor matters. Any pilfering in the camp is blamed on Australians. But our boys can’t agree with that. Leslie Lowry is not a minor matter. He’s their mate. He’s a 21-year-old. He’s been shot dead in the sand-hills and the killer’s going scot-free. So they decide to take matters into their own hands. The next night a hundred of them, maybe two hundred, slip out of camp and surround Surafend. No one knows exactly what happened next. The troops said they sent for the headman at sunset and told him to hand over the killer, but either he wouldn’t or he couldn’t – well, how could he, if the killer’s run away, which the soldiers think he has, so the whole thing makes no sense in fact – but, in any case, no killer is produced and then the soldiers go in. They go on a rampage. No firearms are used. They don’t want to wake HQ. They’re armed with pick handles and horse traces – iron collars covered in leather – you know, the weapons of a lynch mob. The Arabs are outnumbered and disorganised. The soldiers later said they spared the women and children, and the old men, but they would say that, wouldn’t they? What really happened? All the reports in the soldiers’ own words use the same language – horrible language that won’t state the facts but has a grin on its face: “We
taught
them
a lesson
. . . They needed a little
discipline
. . . They were
dealt with
. . .” In other words, it was a massacre. They hunted the men down and beat them to death with axe-handles. Castration is mentioned. Rape. Bodies are thrown down wells. The figures are all over the place. Forty dead. Maybe a hundred. Maybe more. All for good old Leslie. Then the troops forget to be discreet and set fire to the village. Finally, the screams and the flames are noticed at HQ, but by the time the MPs arrive, it’s all over. The troops have gone and the villagers have been killed and the village is in ruins.’

‘Wait a minute. Where’s your uncle in all this?’

Morgan stared at him, his eyes light.

‘He stayed in camp. He had nothing to do with it.’

‘How do you know?’

‘If he had been there he’d hardly have told us all about it, would he?’

‘OK,’ said Race.

‘He was probably on the side of the Arabs by then. And so was Allenby. Allenby was in a fury. The next day he paraded the troops and refused to return the salute of the New Zealand commander. That was unheard of. And then he laid into them.
Cowards
he called them,
cold-blooded killers
. They had to stand there and take it. Everyone was terrified of Allenby. If you wanted someone to play the Minotaur, Allenby could have done it without the mask. He had a huge head and tiny little eyes like mica chips. Bull Allenby he was called. They’re all there, standing at attention in the sun. “
Brutes. Cowards. Killers. Scum
.” This was incredible to them because they saw themselves as world-class heroes. They were the heroes of Gallipoli. They were the heirs of the Crusaders. Richard the Lion-heart. They had conquered the Holy Land. They marched into Jerusalem through the Jaffa Gate. And now they’re the scum of the earth. He never retracted, he never forgave them. And they never forgave him. Yet here we are now, boys, on Allenby Terrace!’

Morgan was suddenly quite light-hearted. They were sitting on a fence consisting of a series of posts connected by smooth wooden planks just wide enough to form a seat. Morgan in his fisherman’s jersey and Race in his black Renaissance costume were sitting there, each with his leg crossed on his knee, just before the dawn.

‘And that was it,’ said Morgan. ‘That was the massacre of Surafend. And that was the start of the Middle East crisis. When you hear about Arab attacks and terrible Israeli reprisals – massacres and demolitions and all the rest of it – and you think ‘Who taught them that?’ – there’s the answer.
We did
. It was us. The Jews at Richon le Zion had been plagued by the Arabs of Surafend for years. They were delighted with what happened. “So the Arabs needed a
little lesson
?” they said. “Now we know what to do.” ’

They walked on up to The Terrace. The fog had almost gone. The streetlights high on Brooklyn hill could be seen quite clearly, and even those far away on Miramar and along the Petone shore.

‘It was us,’ said Morgan again.

He looked up and down The Terrace.

‘That’s where the party was,’ he said suddenly, pointing south along the street. He stood looking down the hill.

‘You know,’ he said with an air of detachment, ‘maybe I knew Butterfly was a boy all along.’

‘Really?’ said Race.

‘Well, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? I mean there is a major difference here. She sort of reminded me of some kid I used to know. Maybe she
was
that kid.’

Here we go again, Race thought.

‘Maybe that’s why I broke the window,’ said Morgan. ‘I had to make amends.’

‘Amends?’

‘I had to make it up to someone,’ said Morgan.

‘Who?’

‘Liddy. I thought: “I have to give Liddy something beautiful.” ’

‘Who’s Liddy?’ said Race.

‘Lids, Liddy, Lydia my girlfriend,’ said Morgan. ‘I had to make it up to her. Going to a party and kissing Butterfly! What would she think? What would I think if she did that to me?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Race. ‘I’ve never met her.’

‘Of course you’ve never met her,’ said Morgan.

‘I’ve never heard of her before,’ said Race.

‘She lives a hundred miles away – there’s your reason,’ said Morgan.

‘Oh,’ said Race.

‘Palmerston North,’ said Morgan, ‘is where she hangs her hat.’

‘Her hat?’ said Race.

‘Yes, her hat,’ said Morgan testily. ‘She’s going to be a vet,’ he added, as if spelling out the link.

‘I don’t know anything about her,’ said Race.

Morgan looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I know her better than most,’ he said. ‘And I know one thing: she loves me.’

He paused.

‘And I thought, “I’ve done her a grave harm,” ’ he said.

The dawn was in the sky. It was time to go. They were near the corner of The Terrace and Salamanca Road. Morgan crossed the street but Race stood where he was.

‘I go this way,’ said Race, pointing towards Brooklyn hill where his parents lived.

Morgan looked back at Race.

‘Or maybe I harmed my
idea
of her,’ he called out among the silent houses.

They watched each other on different sides of the street.

‘Maybe it’s the same thing,’ said Morgan.

3

Morgan came in late. Everyone else was getting ready to leave, putting on hats and coats. It was cold outside and was just starting to rain, although the rain was so fine it looked like mist through the window. Out in the corridor there was a great clamour: the whole building seemed to be humming and ringing with voices and footsteps. Across the park, crowds were gathering by the law library steps.

‘Morgan, you’re late,’ said Candy. ‘He’s late,’ she said to Race. ‘He’s always late. Make him a sign.’

Candy was the driving force of their group that day. She had organised the boards and sticks, hammers and nails, the pots of paint and brushes to make their placards. Race was still on the floor, on his knees, painting the last signs. ‘Stop The War’ ‘Stop The War’ ‘Stop The War’. He was getting bored with this train of thought. He was kneeling on the floor in FitzGerald’s room, one of the two which FitzGerald shared with Adam Griffin. Fitzy had done very well in the room department. He had installed himself – how had he managed it? – in the best set of rooms in the whole hall of residence. He, naturally, had taken the inner of the two, while quiet, shy Griffin had to be content with the outer, but they each had a tall window that opened onto a balcony looking out, beyond high pillars, to the harbour and the city and the eastern ranges across the sea. The only drawback to the rooms was their central location. There on the T-junction of the ground-floor corridor, Griffin and FitzGerald had an endless flow of visitors – anyone coming back from lectures or on their way to the dining room or the common-room after dinner or even going to the showers with a towel round their waist tended to drop in . . . it was Grand Central in FitzGerald’s room or Grand Bloody Central, depending on FitzGerald’s mood. Right now there were ten or twelve people there – FitzGerald, of course, and Griffin and Griffin’s new girlfriend, Candy Dabchek, and both the Gudgeon sisters, Rose and Dinah, and Chadwick, who was from California, and Race Radzienwicz, and handsome Rod Orr who couldn’t care less about the war in Vietnam but who hated to miss out on a party and who thought this might turn into one in due course. Even Lane Tolerton was there, and who ever expected to see him on an anti-war march, in his brogues and Prince of Wales tweed? And now here was Morgan, coming in late. He, alone, was hardly ever seen in those rooms, which was odd because Adam was his closest friend, but Morgan didn’t like a crowd. Or perhaps he didn’t like
this
crowd. But here he was, slipping through the door as if to say ‘Well, I’m here – but not really.’

‘Make him a sign,’ commanded Candy. Race, kneeling on the carpet, picked up his brush. He looked at the signs the others had painted. They were more interesting than his, he had to admit it. ‘
They make a Desert and Call it Peace
’ said Griffin’s, in letters of yellow and green.
Fuck Off Maxwell!
FitzGerald had written in psychedelic swirls to excite the police. General Maxwell Taylor and Clark Clifford, special envoys of the US president, had arrived in the country that morning. At that very moment they were down at parliament, trying to persuade the government to send more troops to Vietnam. The city felt electric, there was gloomy exhilaration in the air, as before a storm. Down on his knees on the old brown floral carpet, Race picked up his brush and started to paint, in the shape of an arch –