and Joe followed like little dogs.
Up the road Harry Winterson flicked his fag end, spat in the gutter, and wondered.
Chapter 5
Hush! Here Comes A Whizz Bang Hush! here comes a whizz bang, Hush! here comes a whizz bang, Now you soldiers get down those stairs, Down in your dug-outs and say your prayers. Hush! here comes a whizz bang, And it’s making straight for you And you’ll see all the wonders of no man’s land If a whizz bang [bump] hits you. To the tune of ‘Hush! Here Comes The Dream Man’.
Joe rested his head against the wooden window frame of the tram and gazed west to Mt Cootha. A fingernail of crescent moon hung just clear of the mountain, shrouded now and again by the bloated summer clouds that drifted, hushed along by the failed breeze. The last remnants of daylight dropped from its purple-dark bulk.
Joe knew how it felt.
He was dog-tired too from the afternoon’s shenanigans and so was Molly. Her attraction to violence and therefore Mick always wore her down. The way she insisted on staying with him even though things looked like turning nasty.
Or was it that she was loyal to her friends above all things? He liked that idea better. Even if he and Molly would never be more than friends, to have such a friend was armour against a million woes.
Or perhaps she confused love with compassion? Maybe that’s why she’d been so vociferous when he suggested they leave.
Or perhaps he was grasping at straws to explain why she chose Mick instead of him. There was so much he still could not understand about people, about men and women. Ideas were so much easier, neater, manageable. But … how she’d stood up for him when he vacillated in his speech. He leaned in pleasant reverie.
A lamplighter trudged from post to post lighting the gas-lights across the bridge. The khaki river reflected the yellow glow of the lamps, like brass buttons decorating a uniform.
Ships moored at the wharves along the southern bank hoisted their riding lights. Under the lights a river of wheat flowed on the backs of wharfies, up gangplanks, or into slings to be swung aboard. Grain and bully beef and all the foodstuff the country could produce to feed the war’s hungry mouth.
From the back seat of the tram, Joe smiled at the bitter irony. He knew so many of the wharfies, Mick’s old man to begin with, who were utterly opposed to the war, yet on their backs they carried the food so necessary to keep soldiers alive long enough to kill or be killed for King and Country.
His thoughts drifted to more recent events.
If Hughes sent the army in against Queensland anything could happen, maybe even the break-up of the Commonwealth, or a civil war. Joe shuddered at the thought. As if the current war wasn’t bad enough without another one erupting at home. It could happen. Look at America. Only 50 years since they’d been trying to kill each other. He felt sick at the prospect. However bad this war was, it could be far worse.
Kathleen always told him to redirect his imagination when it took a turn too far into the woes of the world, so he wondered instead what Ted Hill would have to say, when he heard what had just happened at the printing works? Maybe Joe could be the bearer of new intelligence for once. Ted’s network of informants was renowned as the best in Brisbane. Maybe this time Joe would have a scoop.
But more importantly, what did Ted think about his speech? Not that Ted and Kathleen and Uncle Bill didn’t know the content.
They were all up late, night after long night, tossing lines back and forward as Joe scribbled down and crossed out and drew lines from one point to the next – but what about his delivery? He knew it was a bit messy at the end. Did he hit the mark with the Movement? Whether he had or not, he knew from the reaction that he’d sure stirred the possum. Maybe he’d even read about it in the morning paper? That felt good. He looked around for Molly.
She and Mick sat three seats in front of him, billing and cooing like Trades Hall pigeons. He felt sick with hunger. It was strange how, even when the worst things seemed to be happening, when everything stood on the brink, it sometimes seemed that no one cared. Real life seemed to go on unaltered. Workers went to work, housewives paid the grocer and lovers kissed, oblivious.
Molly laughed,
‘No!’
Mick turned to him,
‘If you had the choice between being in the Army or the Navy, which would you take?’ he asked. Molly rolled her eyes.
Joe tried to ignore him, but it was no good.
‘Neither,’ he answered, hoping to shut him up. ‘You wouldn’t catch me dead in any Imperial Forces.’ Joe smiled. Mick and Molly laughed.
‘Caught dead!’ Mick chuckled, shaking his head. Joe laughed too, though the joke was unintended.
He don’t know if he could be so cruel as to damn soldiers outright, even in jest, with so many dying. He wasn’t joking when he’d said his friends were dead. There were a half dozen, some not close, but close enough to have been the furniture of his social day: school and workmates, a bloke from three streets over and the shop boy from the other butcher. The one his mother went to sometimes whose name he always forgot. Weren’t they just ignorant slaves, fighting because they didn’t know any better? Like Ted always said,
“It’s only when a bloke has all the facts that he can make an informed decision.” To which he always added.
“And I mean real facts! Not the propaganda the Tory Press and the Government hand out.”
Joe had drifted again.
‘But what if the Conscription Referendum gets a “Yes” this time?’ Mick pressed. ‘Then there’ll be no choice. You’ll have to join up.’
He’s more persistent than a bloody March fly, Joe thought and resigned himself to answering, or at least making some comment.
‘We’ll beat Hughes again and that’s it. No Conscription. Never, ever!’ Joe tried to make his voice sound final. His heart was not so sure, even after today. It seemed the whole world teetered … in everything. Besides, he knew Mick’ was just ‘taking the Mick’. Molly and he began to whisper to one other. Tomfool was babbling to himself too, so it was hard to hear.
‘Segeyev disagrees,’ Molly turned to say. ‘He reckons Hughes is mad with power and he’ll do anything to make Australians fight.’
‘Look, Moll,’ Joe answered. ‘You know my opinion of Segeyev but he’s not always right you know. No one is.’
‘But he says if Hughes doesn’t win the Referendum then he’ll legislate before the year is out.’
‘Blow it all, Molly,’ Joe exploded. ‘We haven’t got Conscription yet and it won’t happen. Australians have more sense, whatever Segeyev says.’
Molly fell silent before Mick weighed back in.
‘For the sake of the argument just imagine you’re in a time and a place where there is no choice. You have to choose!’
‘I’d take the bloody Army then!’ Joe said, his voice tight. ‘Because,’ he added knowing Mick well
