12
It had started as a tight feeling under his ribs, like a drawstring for his lungs, but then in the thickest part of the night, Leon found himself sweating and gulping like a drowning fish, clamped to the open-air dunny. After the bouts of scorching liquid that shot from his bowels came a moment of wonderful cold. He sat, shitting by starlight, sweat coming off his face while his teeth chattered against the after-frost, and frog song echoed up around him, drowning out the sound of what was going on in the toilet shute. The meaty thick air around the dunny and an ache in his tail bone made him feel worse, but there was no getting off the seat, and he looked up at the cool space of the night sky and wanted that air to come down closer to him. Over by the cookhouse someone smoked, the orange glow of it lighting up a shine on his rifle. Cripes, he thought, if there was trouble now I’d just sit here and let it come. No one’d come near me anyway with the smell of it. They’d have to grenade me.
There was the hollow-wood sound of an owl, beyond that the chirrup and hiss of the night-time things. The moon looked damp nearly hidden by banana leaves. As another cramp struck him in the guts so that he bent forward and a creak escaped his lips, he saw a star move. He panted with his tongue out and watched as the satellite drew, smooth and slow as melting ice, right through the centre of his patch of sky, happy as a larrikin.
At breakfast Pete clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You look crook, mate.’
‘Not feeling great.’
‘They call that acclimatisation. You’ve got the acclimatising shits.’
‘Beaudy.’
Pete turned to face everyone and held up a couple of letters. ‘Post for Clive,’ he said. ‘Won’t be much more of this for a while.’ He wasn’t able to hide a greedy look at the sealed envelopes as he handed them out. ‘Posties are on strike. Hopefully it’ll get sorted out soon, but.’ There was a long silence.
‘F*ck’s sake,’ said Cray and he spat, then held the back of his head with both hands, his elbows far out to the side like he was limbering up for a fight. He stood on the balls of his feet and took his hat off, slamming it down on his thigh. The others swore and shook their heads, stubbed their toes into the dirt and looked at the floor. ‘Who in the f*ck do they think they are?’ Cray walked away, his hat still held at his side; drawing his thumb over and over his forehead, he disappeared behind the cookhouse.
‘All a bloke f*ckin’ needs,’ said Pete. ‘Our own cunting country. F*ck ’em.’ Leon dug in the dirt with his heel. There was nothing he’d expect in the post except maybe another crazy-faced postcard from his mother. But he thought of their own postie, the miserable bastard who’d delivered the conscription notice, with his low unfriendly looks and the way he’d never say hello. He’d get a kick out of it for sure. There was a loud clang from behind the cookhouse where Cray was kicking something hard enough to dent it, but nobody took any notice, because Clive was crying. He was holding the opened letter up to his head with both hands, his eyes closed, his lips drawn back over his teeth and his body rocking in time with the quiet sobs that came out of him. They all moved close, and Pete went and took the letter from Clive’s fist and swept his eyes over it. He nodded, patted Clive on the back and walked over to the noticeboard. He ripped off a flyer that warned about drinking still water, and used the tack to pin up the letter. He took the pen that hung on a string from the board and wrote SELFISH F*ckING BITCH along the side. Clive was still holding his face, and Leon reached out and touched his shoulder, patted it awkwardly, felt the prominent bone that wouldn’t have been there a month ago.
Pete looked at his watch. ‘Right. Let’s get some grog inside this man.’ They all moved, with Clive in among the middle of them, prodded and patted and trundled him on, sat him down on a bench and put a small bottle of whisky in his hand. He drank long and deep from it, his nose ran and he hiccuped.
Later, when Clive was drunk, Leon stood in front of the board and read the letter. Someone had drawn a stick lady with enormous tits that had been turned into targets and a badly drawn weeping dick was pointing towards them. Written underneath it said GET THIS OFF YOUR CHEST, BITCH! In several different hands were the words F*ck HER! and WHAT A WHORE! The letter was written on paper with a drawing of a light pink bow at the top.
Dear Clive,
It’s really not fair to keep on pretending, I know you’d want me to be straight with you. You remember Mike? You met him at the Summer ball at work? He’s an objector, Clive, and I have to say I admire his strength. I just feel like he’s the kind of person I need in my life, and I’m sorry if this hurts you, I just wish there was a nicer way of putting this.
I’ve been to see your mother and she knows how it is, so there’s no need to worry about telling her. I’m sorry if this is all a shock, but I just had to get it off of my chest.
Yours regretfully
Sally
PS Take care.
Leon picked up the pen on the string. Amy Blackwell, what did she think about the war and everything? He imagined her turning up at the shop, all finished up, and seeing it closed. He thought about Mrs Shannon bumping into her, whether she would tell her where he was, what he was doing. Maybe she’d write him a letter. Not like Clive’s letter, perhaps she’d write and say she always thought of him and how terrible it was that he was at war. And how brave she thought he was. Or maybe she objected and he’d get a letter telling him how it was better to tell them to stick it, that he was a murderer. But either way there was no mail any more, so it wasn’t such a problem. He left the pen on the string dangling, the token words he’d written, F*ck YOU, meaning nothing to him and directed at nobody in particular.
He woke to the smack of a gunshot. Sick rose in his throat and someone to the left of him swore and rolled off his bunk to the floor.
‘What the f*ck’s happening?’ someone else yelled, but there were no more shots. Outside there was shouting, the tramp of boots, a thud. The first waves of light had lifted the night sky and peering low out of the barracks with the rest of the men he saw the scuffle on the ground, three men by the noticeboard. Clive was underneath Pete and Cray was crouching next to them. Pete gave Clive a heavy smack across the mouth and Clive lay still. Pete shook his head and looked up at the rest of the men holding on to their rifles uncertainly.
‘Stupid bloody idiot shot the noticeboard.’ The shot was a good one, Leon saw in the morning, a hole right through the pink bow at the top of the letter.