The Turning Tide (13 page)

He was horribly thin, heavily bearded, in ragged clothes. Alan said, ‘Corporal Erikssen, you’re a disgrace to the company,’ and hugged him, groaning with joy. It was such a relief we were all there, safe, together. Going home.

Before midnight, three signal fires were lit on the beach. It seemed like a long time before we saw faint flashes out at sea. The storm was still raging, the surf pounding on the beach.

Jorges flung his arms around me crying, ‘Tuan Mike, do not leave me!’ I cried too. Dear God, he was just a little boy. His village was burnt, his family dead. I couldn’t imagine what he’d do now. Apart from my shorts I gave him everything I had: money, clothes, pack. I tried to tell him in a
mix of Tetum and English and sign language that if he saw any Japanese to throw my things away, never to be caught with them. I prayed he understood.

I could see the same thing – tears, regret, farewells – all over the beach. Alan was right. We’d brought nothing but destruction to this quiet place, these generous people.

At about one in the morning the first boats arrived, flimsy, unstable canvas things. The sickest were loaded first and somehow pushed beyond the breakers, where motorboats towed them to the ship, destroyer
Arunta
. Getting the little boats through the thundering breakers in faint moonlight was slow, hard work and time was running out: there were hundreds of commandos waiting in suspense on the beach.

Johnny and I were helped into one of the boats with about twenty others, and a group of men pushed it out. We didn’t capsize but came pretty close. It was frightening. I only had one working arm and Johnny was so frail he couldn’t have kept afloat in a bathtub.

Finally they manhandled us up the nets and we were safe on the ship. By now perhaps two hundred others were aboard, but eighty men, Alan among them, were still on the beach. It was almost dawn and we had to leave, urgently, before the morning spotter flights.

The captain signalled the shore, ‘Sending final lot of boats with orders to stand-to outside breakers. Swim for it.’

On the ship Johnny and I waited, side by side, watching desperately for the boats. The sky kept getting lighter and every moment we expected to hear the engines start. Suddenly there they were, the last boats!

Alan and the others were still halfway up the nets when the engines roared into life and we took off like a rocket: it
was 6.30 a.m. and the sun had risen twenty minutes ago. We could hear the drone of Jap planes above, but God-given cloud cover protected us.

The sailors gave us clothes and blankets and offered far too much food, but Alan said to eat sparingly or we’d find ourselves hanging over the side bringing it back up. As
Arunta
thrashed at high speed through the storm the three of us found a half-dry corner and sat huddled with cups of tea.

‘At the end, most of the men couldn’t swim but they still helped each other through the breakers,’ Alan said, exhausted. ‘And finally one boat came back for the very last of us. I’d almost reconciled myself to joining the stay-behind party, but oh, Jesus, Jesus.’ He closed his eyes. ‘We got off.’

‘I heard a lot of the Portos didn’t,’ said Johnny wearily. ‘And none of the half-castes. The Japs’ll put them in camps now.’

‘A few of them
shot
themselves, right there on the beach, rather than face that,’ said Alan. ‘Poor terrified bastards.’

I thought of little Jorges and kind Aida and felt sick with despair.

Johnny put his head on Alan’s shoulder and fell asleep in moments. I ignored the warnings and ate something delicious I shouldn’t have. I went to hang over the side with the others.

Ten hours after leaving Timor we stood and watched the Australian coastline growing on the horizon. In the late afternoon sunshine,
Arunta
entered Darwin Harbour and moved slowly to her berth.

Chapter 13

Lena meets me at the door, a simple brick house in Pioneer Street, lots of trees.

‘Mike! I didn’t believe you’d come.’

‘I said I would.’

‘Yeah, well you’ve said
that
before now.’

‘Here’s some flowers for your mother.’

‘They’re gorgeous! Oh Mike, I’m so glad you’re here.’

I can’t help smiling, she’s such a nice kid.

‘It’s Mike, Mum. Mike, this is my mother, Liz.’

And what a nice woman Lena’s mum is too! Within about thirty seconds she’s got me a drink and introduced me to her nice partner Mitch and a bunch of nice guests. I look around warily for a moment to be certain Helen is not here, then think, I can do this. I can meet people and ease my loneliness and help Johnny’s family too. Easy as pie.

I say hello to Lena’s boyfriend Pete, who I met that day at Tidal River, and greet her study buddy James, who’s a good lad. In the living room are Steve and Angel and Greg, the older students I’d seen with Lena at the march. They’re standing, glasses in hand, apparently frozen at the horror of attending a social function without dope.

‘Lena,’ I murmur as she passes by. ‘What are they doing here?’

‘Don’t be mean, Mike. They’re my friends. I wanted them to come.’

‘They clearly didn’t.’

‘Come and meet my dad,’ Lena says shyly.

Outside the back door is a long, leafy garden that runs down to Stockyard Creek. There’s a barbecue sizzling and a cluster of blokes around it, loudly talking football. To one side is a man looking away down the garden, holding a can of beer as if it’s his best friend.

He’s a good-looking bloke of about forty. His cheekbones remind me of Helen. Sandy hair, rangy, tanned. Green eyes like Lena’s turquoise, but they’re hard, not merry, as he gazes at me.

‘Dad, this is your father Johnny’s old friend, Mike. Mike, this is my dad, Ian. I’m sure you’ve got lots to talk about.’ She dashes away.

Ian drinks from his can. After a pause he says, ‘So you’re the professor taking such an interest in my daughter.’

‘I have hundreds of students I’m responsible for. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say she’s taking an interest in me.’ (I get a bit academic under pressure.)

‘So why would that be, mate?’

‘Dunno, mate. Maybe she needs a father figure,’ I say, watching his knuckles go white on the can.

He looks at me levelly. ‘You old bastard. What would you know about it?’

I’m suddenly sick of jousting. ‘Not a lot. I’ve only got stepchildren.’

He takes a long slow breath. ‘Yeah. Well. They don’t come with an instruction book.’

‘Would’ve helped. I had no idea.’

His face eases. ‘Nor me.’ I realise he’s tired, not angry.

‘She’s a good kid,’ I say.

‘You can thank Liz for that,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t around much. Navy. Vietnam.’

‘How long all up?’

He looks at me. ‘Four years on and off, ’66 to ’69.’

He must see in my eyes what I see in his. ‘You?’ he says.

‘Four as well. Too bloody long.’

After a moment he says, ‘You knew my father, Lena tells me.’

‘Yeah. He was a great bloke.’

‘Don’t bullshit me. What was he like, really?’

‘He was,’ I say. ‘Johnny was someone special. Always had a joke, helped blokes when they got sick. Worked like a demon. Cool-headed in a fight. Never complained. Just … always there. Fair, professional. Good friend. Good man.’ My eyes sting.

‘I knew someone like that once,’ he says, looking down. ‘Would have died without him.’

‘Yeah.’ After a moment I say, ‘Meeting Lena’s brought back a lot of memories. Another friend of mine died recently. Left me a bit on edge, you know?’

‘I know. Jesus, I know.’ He smiles wryly. Suddenly he’s overwhelmingly familiar. Ah, Johnny, there you are.

‘So,’ he says. ‘Lena. How’s she doing? Is she all right?’ He seems to be asking about more than academic achievement but I answer the easy part first.

‘She’s doing very well. First class, second class honours.’ ‘Yeah, but physics? What kind of training is that for a girl?’

‘You’d be surprised. Lot of openings, especially in the medical field.’

‘What do you think about those dickheads?’ He jerks his thumb in the direction of the lounge room.

I can’t help laughing. ‘Dunno. I think she’s just met them. Probably a passing phase.’

‘Hope so.’ He looks at me. ‘You’ll keep an eye on her, then?’

‘Yes. She’s a great girl. Kind, smart, determined. You can be proud of her.’

‘I am. I wish …’ He shakes his head. ‘Okay. Let’s get another drink.’

After the enjoyable barbecue, Ian and I are sitting on a bench in the garden, the evening mild, most of the guests gone. I can see Lena and her mum Liz through the kitchen window, washing up. Liz is slim and chestnut-haired, lovely smile.

Ian sees me looking at them. ‘Sometimes I can’t believe how I screwed up,’ he says.

There’s nothing I can say to that so I don’t. I think he’s had a bit too much to drink.

He looks at the sky. ‘They were two really different wars, you know,’ he says philosophically. ‘Yours was the honourable one. You had a bastard of an enemy that had to be beaten. Ours? Most of the time we weren’t even sure who the enemy was.’

‘You did your best, what was asked of you.’

He laughs cynically. ‘When we came home, everyone ignored us.’

‘Are you kidding? They ignored us too. They ignore every soldier once a war’s over. They don’t want to know what you’ve really done.’

‘At least you didn’t have bloody demos going on against you. You had support at home.’

‘Support at home?’ I say in disbelief. ‘Words, mate. Empty words. Not support. Not boots. Not weapons. Not anything to keep us alive.’

‘But they called us murderers to our faces,’ he says bitterly.

‘Yeah. Well, you were.’ I’m getting cranky. Vietnam vets seem to think they’re the only ones who ever went to war. ‘Look. We were all murderers,’ I say. ‘I was. Johnny was. That’s what we were trained to be. Sent to do a filthy job, left with scars and rage and guilt. But in the end, we were the murderers. Us. No one else.’

‘But we did it for our country.’ He’s puzzled.

‘And Jesus, weren’t we naive and patriotic and stupid. But that wouldn’t be much of a defence if you killed a bloke down at the pub.’

‘It’s not the same thing,’ he says, standing up, angry.

‘Mate,’ I say. ‘The only way I’ve retained my sanity these long years, is by seeing that it is the same thing. By not covering it up with clichés and self-justifying bullshit.’

‘
Fuck
you.’ He strides off down to the end of the garden in the gloom.

That went well, didn’t it, Johnny?

At Darwin we disembarked from
Arunta
– gaunt, bearded, half-naked and mostly barefoot. Some men were carried straight into ambulances. The rest of us lined up, gave a ragged cheer for the ship’s brave crew, then climbed slowly into trucks.

They took us for a meal and showers. They incinerated our lice-ridden clothes and gave us fresh shorts and boots and blankets, then put us on a train for Larrimah and medical isolation. I heard one-third of us had malaria. Almost everyone had tropical ulcers and dysentery and weighed two or three stone less than before.

We rested. Most men slowly recovered but a surprising number left the company because they didn’t. Whippet had a nervous breakdown and was discharged. Davo the sniper walked out of camp one day and went AWOL. Johnny stayed in bed for three weeks. Alan’s egg-deep tropical ulcer needed serious treatment and I had another bout of malaria.

After about a month Johnny was healthier, though he still tired easily. Alan’s leg had a cratered scar and I’d swallowed a lot of exotic drugs. We were shaven and clean and gaining weight. We had nothing to do but sleep, eat, drink and play cards. In Timor we would have given anything to be here: now we were almost bored.

Johnny was changed too, perhaps the most of us. He was quiet and sometimes grim, angry because he never
got to fight the Japanese properly. The brass had thrown his section into tribal wars between pro- and anti-Jap Timorese until they’d flatly refused to take part anymore in the bloody score-settling. Although he didn’t say much, he’d often wake us, groaning in his nightmares.

We heard the company would soon be reinforced with a lot of raw recruits, so some of us more experienced blokes got a shove up the ladder. Johnny and I were promoted to lance sergeant and Alan to sergeant, a step above us.

‘They’ll be sending you off to officers training school soon, mate,’ said Johnny. ‘You’ll be so exalted we won’t be able to look you in the eye when we’re tying your shoelaces.’ ‘How it should be, fella,’ said Alan lazily. We were lying around the tent after enjoying the benefits of the sergeants’ mess for the first time. Outside, someone said, ‘Knock-knock’ at the tent flap. It was Kanga, a wild-haired, pointy-nosed young sig, fond of silly noises.

‘Come in, Kanga, you drongo,’ I said.

Kanga poked his head through the flap and said, ‘We’ve just heard. Leave! We’ve got twenty-one days’ leave. Brmmbrmm!’

In late February 1943 we started on the four-day truck drive to Alice Springs, followed by two days on the Ghan to Adelaide. From there I was going to Perth, Johnny to Foster and Alan to Sydney.

In Adelaide we marched in formation through the main street, proud as roosters in our uniforms – glamorous, blooded young warriors. Pretty women in the crowd smiled at us and we thought, Oh yes, girlie. What we’ve seen, what we’ve done. We could show a smart little piece like you a thing or two.

That’s what I thought, at least. Can’t vouch for anyone else.

We sat for official company photographs, our hats at the right rakish angle, tanned and handsome, stern and boyish, arms folded, side by side, row after row. The dead and the sick were out of the picture in more ways than one.

It was exactly a year since we’d left the Prom. It felt like five.

Chapter 14

I walked along the familiar suburban street. I could see Mum in the front garden of Auntie Rosa’s house, cutting flowers. She looked up and smiled as if to a stranger, then her face stopped in shock and she dropped everything.

I opened the gate and hugged her tightly.

‘Mike, Mike, darling –’ She was crying.