David Malouf - The Great World

‘I dunno.’ Doug offered him the pack of Ardaths. ‘Long as the war, could be. How long d’you reckon?’

‘Well,’ Vic said, ‘I heard they want to exchange us. Right away, one bloke says.’

‘Go on! — You hear that, Mac? — What would they exchange us for?’

‘Wool, I heard. They want wool.’

Doug laughed outright. ‘They’ll need a lotta bloody sheep in exchange fer this lot,’ he said, looking out over the mob of them. ‘So howdaya reckon they’ll do it — by weight? I’ll be oright, they’ll do pretty well outa me. You too. But waddabout Digger? Hardly be worth tradin’ a mingy little bugger like that. Waddaya weigh, Digger?’

‘Eight eight,’ Digger laughed.

‘I can just see it,’ Doug said, ‘It’d be like the bloody day a’ judgement. I don’t know whether I could be in that .’

‘Well,’ Vic said uncomfortably, ‘it’s on’y a rumour anyway. You know, ya hear all sorts a’ things. I don’t suppose it’ll happen.’

‘No,’ Doug said, ‘I don’t think so either. You can breathe again, Dig, we’ve scrapped that plan.’

Vic watched the exchange of smiles between them. He wasn’t a fool. He caught Digger’s eye on him. Scornful. Digger was the one he would have trouble with. He looked like nothing, there was nothing you would notice about him; but of the three he was the one who considered longest, said least, and would be the hardest to win.

‘I wish he’d bugger off,’ Digger was thinking. ‘Can’t he see we don’t want him? He spoils things.’

He was one of a large number of replacements who had only recently arrived on the island.

Three weeks before, they were still being seasick on the way up from Perth, or, in baggy shorts and boots, their shoulders blistering, had been leaning far out over the rails to sight flying fish. They had been recruited and shipped straight here, it being the intention of the service chiefs to train them on the spot. Their kit and a week’s rifle practice on the range at Bukit Timar was the sum total of what made them soldiers.

The voyage, the adventure of leaving Australia, the tales they brought with them, heard from old-timers in country pubs and on the job in timberyards and sales rooms, or from uncles while the women were washing up after Sunday dinner, had raised them to a pitch of heroic impatience, a keenness untempered by any contact with army regulations or the rigours of drill. All fired up and ready for conflict, they had walked down the gang plank into this . Captivity.

Vic had taken the turn of events as a personal affront. Since ten o’clock on Sunday night, all the qualities he knew to be in him were out of fashion. He was among men here who had already been toughened by experience, even those of them, like Digger, who were no older than himself. They might think they had the right to despise him, for no other reason than that he was young, raw, and had had no chance to show himself. But he couldn’t put up with that. He knew what he was.

He squatted on his heels looking easy — he was a pleasant-looking fellow, his hands hanging loosely over his thighs, his slouch hat across his back. But he was never easy. There was always some little irritation that pricked at him. Very aware of slights, he stayed alert and watchful.

Doug, meanwhile, had found a new topic to rave over.

‘They reckon Gordon Bennett’s missing,’ he said. ‘Have you heard that? Pissed off home in his own little rowboat and left the rest of us up the creek. Be just like ’im, eh?’

He had a poor view of anyone in authority; officers, bosses, little jumped-up clerks behind a desk who hum and ha and make you feel like shit before they’ll stamp anything for you; all of them eager to lick an arse or kick one according to whether it’s above or below them; all of them determined, like the bloody second lieutenants here who would soon be strutting about in their shoes, to hang on to every last little sign of privilege.

‘Typical,’ Doug said, and spat.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Vic said. He had always to be saying something. ‘D’ya reckon one of our blokes would? I mean, I know ’e’s a general and that, but would ’e?’

Doug said nothing, just sat there with his eyebrows raised and looked at him. The silence was too much for Vic.

‘Well, would you?’

Doug laughed. ‘Are you barmy? Of course I wouldn’t. But I’m a bloody footslogger, I can’t just piss off home. Haven’t got a bloody rowboat for one thing. Neither can Mac here, or Digger. Neither can you. But who’s t’ say what I might do if I was a general? Or you either — well, not you maybe, but I wouldn’t like to swear what I mightn’t do if I had half the chance.’

Vic frowned. He didn’t care much for the line the talk was taking. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘it’s just a rumour, really. Like that wool business, eh? The place is full of ’em.’ There was a beat of silence. ‘So,’ he said, ‘here we are, eh?’

Doug looked about, and the sigh he gave was theatrical. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘How did I get inta this? I was always such a careful bloke. Never put me foot down on cracks — not even when I was a grown-up. Changed me socks twice a week, never went out with fast women or stepped under ladders or broke mirrors, or let ’em give me a ticket with a thirteen in it. Ya can’t be more careful than that. If I saw a Chinaman I’d rush right up, you know, and jus’ tip ’im, like, then duck away, fer luck. An’ after all that I was mug enough to join up. I ask you, what makes us do it? Are we rational beings or aren’t we? Oh Gawd, I thought, they’ll send me to the real war. Greece maybe, Egypt, I don’t want that. But they sent me up here. I ’ad Digger ’n Mac with me. I thought, “This is all right. Tropic nights. Taxi dancers ten cents a go. Chinamen all over. You’ll be all right here, Douggy. This’ll do.” An’ now look what’s happened. I ask you, honestly, is there any logic to it? Do any of us know what we’re doing, even when we’re bloody doin’ it? Is anyone weighin’ it all up in a pan? — and I don’t jus’ mean so they can trade me for my bloody weight in wool!’ He laughed. ‘Still, if it does come t’ that — we oughta start buildin’ you up, Digger —’

‘I’m all right,’ Digger said, laughing.

‘Here, mate.’ He scooped his big hand down, swept up the tin of Ideal milk and flipped it to Digger in a quick pass. ‘You get that down ya,’ he said. ‘You don’t mind, do ya Vic? Digger’s our local flyweight —’

‘Feather,’ Digger put in, to be accurate.

‘No one in this mob can touch him.’

‘Oh?’ said Vic. You could see the little flicker of challenge and interest. He was surprised. Digger was such a mild fellow.

‘On’y ’e wouldn’t be worth a ball a’ nine-ply if they took up that wool business. Wouldn’ hardly make a cover for a coat-hanger or the left side of a kiddie’s cardigan. Sorry, mate,’ he told Digger, ‘but you’re in trouble. Here, gimme that!’

He took the can, spiked it twice with his jack-knife and flipped it back. ‘Ta, Vic,’ he said, on Digger’s behalf.

Digger took a good swig.

DIGGER’S REPUTATION AS a fighter had been established their first week in camp. He had gone three rounds with a state amateur champion, then fought for the unit in the battalion titles. It was Doug who put him up to it. He didn’t let on to them, or not at first, that he was a professional.

For eighteen months before he joined up he had been working the country shows with a boxing troupe, in a street of gaudy sideshows and circus freaks that included a pin-headed Chinaman, a strong man who also ate swords and swallowed fire, a couple of daredevil motorbike riders (a husband and wife team who three times nightly faced the Ring of Death), a fat lady and the Human Torso, a fellow who was just a head and shoulders on a mobile tray. Digger’s job had been to stand among the crowd and, if no other mug did it, offer himself up to go a round or two with one of the troupe.