Of course, I am not sure if any book would help them, said Rooster MacNeice, looking around at his other tentmates to avoid looking at von Kessler. They have the fatal stain.
Rightio, Jimmy Bigelow said, having no idea what Rooster was on about, and Rooster just kept on, about how he hated Mein Kampf, how he hated Hitler, and how he hated having to memorise a page of this sausage-eater’s nonsense every day. But in the Javanese POW camp at the time he began this exercise in mental discipline it was the only book he had been able to find; besides, he said, his beard glistening slightly with saliva, it was good to know the arguments of the enemy and, in any case, the content was meaningless for the purposes of his exercise. He didn’t say he was surprised by how much of Hitler’s manifesto made sense to him.
One of the Dutchie wops was on to it, I tell you, Chum Fahey said. I’d trust him. I sold him my greatcoat.
Rooster MacNeice asked what he got for his coat.
Three dollars and some palm sugar. And a book.
A coat’s worth ten at least, said Rooster MacNeice, who also hated Dutchies of any origin. What’s the book?
It’s a good Western.
This infuriated Rooster MacNeice.
You may want nothing better than Murder at Red Ranch or Sunset on the Corral, he burst out, but God help Australia if that’s the Australian mentality.
Chum Fahey asked if Rooster MacNeice would be willing to swap his Mein Kampf for this? He held up a well-thumbed and very grubby copy of Sun Sinking, Sioux Rising.
No, Rooster MacNeice said. No, I would not.
The morning light, though still dim, was slowly bringing their tent into indigo relief. The rising conversation of waking prisoners abruptly halted, and all turned in one direction, looking over Rooster MacNeice’s shoulder. A muted laughter rippled up the platforms, and one after another the prisoners wiped their eyes to make sure that what they were seeing was what they were seeing. Rooster MacNeice turned his head. It was the strangest, most unexpected thing ever. He sucked his whiskers back in.
Many men had begun to worry that their post-war performance would be permanently affected by the complete loss of desire that starvation and disease had brought to almost all. The doctors reassured them it was merely a matter of diet; and with that sorted, they would be fine. But still the prisoners had wondered if they would be functioning men at the end of their ordeals. None of them could remember the last erection they’d had. Some worried if they’d be able to keep their wives happy when they got home. Gallipoli von Kessler said he didn’t know a bloke who’d had a hard-on for months, while Sheephead Morton claimed not to have cracked a fat for over a year.
It was, then, a most miraculous sight—as unmissable as it was remarkable—that they saw rising before them.
Old Tiny, said Gallipoli von Kessler. There he is, knocking on death’s door, and he’s like a bloody bamboo in the wet.
For rising up from the still-slumbering, skeletal form of Tiny Middleton—the once muscular Christian himself, asleep on his back, oblivious to all attention, happily dreaming of some sinful pursuit, his depravity unaffected by starvation and sickness—there stood, sticking up like the regimental flagpole, a large erection.
It was, they agreed, a heartening thing, no less so given how low Tiny Middleton had sunk in recent weeks. The sight was so remarkable that everyone kept their voices down as they wakened others and motioned at them to look. Amidst the low laughter, lewd jokes and general joy the sight brought, one man objected.
Is that the best we can do? Rooster MacNeice asked. Laugh at a man when he’s down?
Chum Fahey observed that Tiny looked pretty up to him.
You men have no decency, Rooster MacNeice muttered. No respect. Not like the old Australians.
I’ll cover him for you, Rooster, said Darky Gardiner. Picking up a large fragment of duck eggshell by his thigh, he leant across and carefully placed it atop the erect penis.
Tiny slumbered on. His hatted cock rose above them like a fresh forest mushroom trembling ever so slightly in the early-morning breeze.
It’s wrong to mock, Rooster MacNeice said. We’re no better than the lousy nips if we do that.
Darky Gardiner pointed at the eggshell, which looked like a mitre cap of sorts.
He’s been promoted to pope, Rooster, Darky Gardiner said.
Damn you, Gardiner, Rooster MacNeice said. Leave the poor man alone and allow him some decency.
He pulled himself up to a full sitting position, stood up and walked to where Tiny Middleton slept. Leaning up between Tiny’s splayed legs, Rooster MacNeice reached out to take away what was to him a degrading joke.
Just as his fingers closed around the eggshell, Tiny Middleton awoke. As their eyes met, Rooster MacNeice’s hand froze on the eggshell, perhaps even crushed it slightly. Tiny Middleton drew himself up with a rage and an energy wholly out of proportion to his wasted body.