The Climate of Courage. Jon Cleary
raised his glass, looking at it and not at Caulfield, took a drink, and just as slowly turned back to the bar. Then Bluey Brown said, “If I called him anything, it wouldn’t be Jim.” He smiled at Mabel, the barmaid, who stood at the taps just in front of them. “You wouldn’t like to hear me using bad language, would you love?”
“Why, what’ve I done now?” Then Mabel caught sight of Caulfield clinging to the edge of the group like a giant limpet. “Hallo, is this another of your boys?”
“No,” said Bluey. “He’s one of our bastards.”
Then Vern felt the touch of his arm and knew what he had feared had come. “Hallo, Vern. How’s tricks?”
Vern could feel the others waiting to see what move he would make. He was the only one who, as far as the Army was concerned, could meet Caulfield on a social level: rank called to rank, the only caste system, outside of money, that Australians had so far had to contend with. Vern remembered with what resentment the Australians had viewed the Officers Only signs outside the hotels in the Middle East, and now here was Caulfield trying to strike up a conversation on an Officers Only basis.
“Hallo, Ape.” It was the first time Vern had called him that, the name the battalion had given him two days after he had joined it; Vern, with a thought for discipline, had never referred to Caulfield by that name even in private conversation with the other men. He stood there looking at Caulfield, wondering why the latter had deliberately walked into such a situation, then suddenly he knew. Caulfield took the insult without a blink, as if he had been expecting it and was prepared for it. He had been slapped across the face with the past and he had taken it without any of the violent outburst that might have been expected. Vern knew then that he was lonely. The man had been invalided home six months before, after the Syrian campaign, and he had found that it was home no longer.
“Ah, we can let bygones be bygones, can’t we?” He licked his thick lips and smiled tentatively. “I’m another bloke altogether now.”
“A leopard can’t change his spots,” said Bluey. “Neither can an arch-bastard.”
“A very true statement, staff,” said Jack. “Your own?”
“Just made it up,” said Bluey. “Inspiration.”
Dad Mackenzie turned round and Vern was surprised at the fire in the heavy stolid face. “You were an officer and a gentleman, Caulfield, while you had a crown on your shoulder. An officer and a gentleman, by the King’s permission.” Dad Mackenzie’s grandfather had been a Glasgow Scot and his grandmother a London Jewess, and he’d inherited all the caution of both races. But he had still been one of those who had suffered at Caulfield’s hands, just as much as the reckless types like Greg Morley and larrikins like Mick Kennedy. There was no hint of caution now in Dad, just a quiet hatred that was more chilling than any display of anger. “The King doesn’t know you like we do. You’re not a gentleman, Caulfield, you’re not even an officer, because an officer is someone who deserves to be in charge of men. You shouldn’t even be in charge of dogs in the council pound.”
There was another silence, then a drunken soldier stumbled out of the crowd and bumped into Caulfield. The latter spun round, anger in his eyes ready to be turned on anyone, but the drunk put his arm about him and hiccupped loudly in his ear.
“G’day, dig. Me ol’ mate, me cobber. Everybody’s me mate to-day. Ain’t it a lovely day? It’s a lovely day to-day, not t’morrer, like the song says. Plentya beer and lotsa people. ’At’s what I like. It’s me birthday, dig. Many happy returns. Thanks. It’s me birthday and everybody’s me mate. Hoo-ray.”
He patted Caulfield on the shoulder, beamed droopily at the others, then stumbled on in search of another mate. Caulfield looked after him, then back at Vern and the others.
“You ought to have gone with him, Ape.” Mick Kennedy spoke for the first time. He had always been one of the loudest in his hatred of Caulfield, and his voice now carried far enough to attract the attention of the policeman who had just come in the door. Vern saw the policeman look towards them, and he hoped Mick Kennedy wouldn’t run true to form and start a brawl. But Mick looked as if he was quite satisfied to use his tongue this time instead of his fists. “He wanted to be your mate, Ape. You ain’t in a position to knock back offers like that.”
Caulfield suddenly threw away the air of friendliness he had brought with him, almost with an expression of relief, as if he had known from the start that it would be useless. He put his hands behind his back and rocked back on his heels; the pose was familiar to the men leaning against the bar, but it was out of place here.
“This is going to be good,” said Bluey. “Company, shun!”
“Righto,” said Caulfield. “So I made a mistake. I tried to be a good soldier, but it wasn’t your idea of what a good soldier should be. All right. But there were some of you who weren’t good soldiers, some of you who were up before me more times than I can remember, who weren’t my idea of a good soldier. Some of you had rank, but I’ll tell you now I only agreed to your promotions because there was no one else. But I’m forgetting that——”
“Generous to a fault,” said Jack Savanna.
“—Those days and those mistakes are past.” He stopped, suddenly lost, as if he had just realised he wasn’t on the parade ground and that the men in front of him couldn’t be dismissed. He brought his hands from behind his back and shoved the right one, with its stumps of fingers, into his jacket pocket. He had dropped his parade ground voice when at last he said, “I was hoping we could make a new start.”
It was Jack Savanna who answered. Vern knew that, with his rank, he was the one who should have answered for the men and while Caulfield had been talking he had been searching for the words to reply to him. But now they wouldn’t be needed. Jack, drawing himself up to his full height, his hat pushed back on his head, his sweeping moustache accentuating the curl of his lip, had taken over.
“I doubt that your brain, Caulfield, shrivelled as a piece of old copra, could understand how we feel about you. You were all right as a soldier, perhaps—at least you had guts, which not all of us profess to have. But you weren’t a man, that’s our complaint. We know something of your background, that you spent fifteen years in New Guinea before you came into the Army, and perhaps that’s to blame. I’m told that only missionaries and fools treat boongs as human beings—and you had some idea that everyone in the Army was a boong.” Jack cocked an eye at Charlie Fogarty. “You will forgive my using the term boong, Charlie? I am trying to speak in this bastard’s language.”
“Go ahead,” grinned Charlie. “In the tribe we’d call him a white boong.”
“Stay out of this, darkie!” Caulfield snapped.
The men straightened up and Vern tense, ready to step in front of Jack Savanna, expecting the latter to swing his fist into Caulfield’s furious red face. He had seen Jack in action several times when he had lost his temper; time and place meant nothing to him if he thought a swung fist was the answer needed. Caulfield seemed suddenly aware that his incautious tongue had gone too far again, and he took a step back. He was pressed against the crowd as against a wall, his eyes flickering over the men without fear but expecting them to move towards him, and Vern waited for the moment to blow up.
“Sock the bastard!” Mick Kennedy snarled.
“Pull your heads in,” Vern said, and tried to sound reasonable and not like an officer throwing his weight around. “He’s not worth the strife it would cause. There’s a copper over there.”
“You’re right, Vern.” Jack Savanna was surprisingly calm. He looked again at Charlie Fogarty. “Although we’ll hit him if you like, Charlie.”
“Skip it,” said Charlie, and looked at Caulfield with a dark, impassive face. He’s got more dignity than the rest of us put together, Vern thought.
Jack turned back to Caulfield. “You’re fortunate, Caulfield. But don’t ever make a remark like that again while