Pennies For Hitler

by Jackie French

  He made a deliberate mistake then, so she won the round, and smiled at him in triumph. When you were the only child left at home and your brothers were in danger, you had to be the best.

  But there were things everyone did talk about: good things, sometimes, like how the Australians had taken Tobruk from the Italians in Libya (the British had been there too, somewhere) and then Benghazi; and how more Australian soldiers were sent to Malaya to the north, to make sure the fortress of Singapore was secure in case this war ever came to South-East Asia.

  But most of the war news wasn’t good at all. Every evening at seven o’clock they sat in the lounge room together by the wireless to listen to the news, the Peaslakes on the sofa and Georg sitting on the carpet, stroking the dogs’ soft ears. It was easier to listen to bad news when you were together.

  Yugoslavia fell to the Nazis; and Greece; then Crete too. City after city after city in Britain became the focus of the Blitz — the German for lightning — where German bombers rained down bombs night after night, trying to break the spirit of the ordinary people. How long could Britain and its Dominions hold on?

  It was a strange year for Georg. The urgencies of the news from Europe seemed to matter less than the crows who attacked a sick lamb, or how he could finally stay on a horse well enough to ride to the bushranger’s cave with Mud. The war was worse, was ever-present, but it was also far away.

  He was George, who the other kids looked up to because he had seen bombs fall, and had sailed across the ocean. He was George, who loved apple pancakes so much that Mrs Peaslake made them for him and Mud nearly every afternoon after school. He was George, learning to throw dried cow pats like discuses with Mud or reading borrowed books by the fire at night, while Mr Peaslake nodded off as he listened to the wireless and Mrs Peaslake knitted khaki socks and balaclavas.

  But it was Georg who looked out his window one morning to see a mob of roos bounding through the winter dew, impossible animals with tails that beat the ground. It was Georg who laid in bed at night and tried to think of stories: stories where Mutti arrived on the bus tomorrow, in her green coat and flowered dress.

  It was Georg too who knew why this story never worked. The story wouldn’t happen in his mind because it could not come true. Not till the war was over.

  The war was far away, but still the background to their lives.

  8th Division AIF Headquarters

  Malaya

  5 July 1941

  Dear Mum and Dad and Muddy Girl,

  I’ve just got back to camp from leave. Three whole days in Singapore with soap that lathers. Had a good time with good mates but it was funny, driving back to camp in the back of the truck, all of us singing, and we passed into a part that was all people’s houses, the lights on so we could see into their windows. I think every one of us in that truck thought of our homes and families just then.

  Anyway, enough of all that tripe. How are things at home? What price did you get for the last lot of steers? Sorry old Brindle passed away. He was a good horse.

  Wish we were doing a real job of work here, instead of just guarding a patch of rubber and jungle.

  Len is well and is writing to you too. He didn’t get leave. Sucks boo. Love to you all, and Auntie Thelma and Uncle Ron too,

  Ken

  PS Muddy Girl is NOT to use my new skinning knife. Tell her that I’ll know if she’s touched it and I’ll give her three times around the shed if she has.

  The new crop of oranges ripened in the winter frost, turning soft and sweet. Frost grew white whiskers on the cattle droppings in the paddocks, and Mud brought in one of her brother’s well-darned old jumpers for Big Billy at school. Mrs Peaslake sent Georg to school with a Thermos of soup to share with Mud. They shared with Big Billy too.

  Mr Menzies, the Prime Minister, called on women to take over men’s jobs, so more men could join the army. People were supposed to grow their own vegetables and keep hens for eggs too. But everyone around Bellagong did this anyway, except for Mud’s family, who shared the bounty next door and in return supplied them with butter, cream, milk and meat.

  To Georg’s surprise he enjoyed gardening with Mrs Peaslake. Even weeding was all right when you could ask Mrs Peaslake questions, like why is the sky blue and are zebras striped all exactly the same. It was hard to find the answers to questions like that in the encyclopaedia, but mostly Mrs Peaslake knew where to find them.

  Picking was best of all: pulling at the green tops of carrots, never knowing if you were going to haul up a whopper or a skinny ’un, all forked and twisted; filling buckets with peas and eating almost as many as he picked with a trick Mud taught him, pulling the pea pods through your teeth so the green peas popped out into your mouth.

  He liked the hens, their clucking song, the eggs warm in his hand each morning, the chooks pecking around the scrap bucket. They liked old bread best and cheese rinds or lumps of sodden porridge. The dogs looked on, envious yet contemptuous, knowing that the best scraps were kept for them.

  Winter stretched endlessly that year of the war, a high blue sky and gold sun that seemed to have hidden its warmth behind the blue. People were cold in Melbourne, said the newspaper, as there wasn’t enough firewood this year — with few men to cut it and not enough petrol to cart it into the city — and gas supplies ran short. But here at Bellagong an afternoon with the cross-cut saw gave wood for weeks. Mr Peaslake and Mr Mutton sliced through fallen trees while Georg and Mud threw the hunks of wood into the cart.

  Clothes weren’t rationed like in England, but shops could only sell three-quarters each day of what they’d sold the same day the year before. Once they’d sold that they had to shut their doors. But, as Mrs Peaslake said, that amount was more nuisance than disaster, and she liked getting her shopping done early anyhow. She’d bought a big bolt of grey flannel before the war, and could ‘run him up’ new shorts or trousers when he wore through the knees or outgrew the ones he had.

  The Germans had invaded Russia and were nearing Moscow now, said the newspapers and the man on the wireless who announced the news with an English accent even though he was Australian. Mrs Peaslake made sixty-three pots of lemon and melon marmalade, some for them and Mud’s family but most to sell at the Comforts for Soldiers stall outside the general store, where the lists of the latest casualties were pinned up in the window so that everyone could see them even if the store was closed.

  Mr Curtin was elected as the new Australian Prime Minister, which made Mr Peaslake glad, though he didn’t exactly explain why, except to boom that ‘the old man was a good ’un’.

  Dear George,

  Mrs Martin says I have to write to you to improve my spelling but I want to write to you anyway. It is bonzer here. That is a new Australian word I have learned. We live on a street with lots of houses and no cows! I do not have to get up till eight o’clock to go to school, it is just down the road. We go to the beach every weekend. There is no barbed wire like at home. At school they called me out the front and said I was brave and everyone gave three cheers for England and sang ‘God Save the King’. I won three marbles off Trevor Wilkes.

  Guess what? Harris lives in the next street. He is called Harry now.

  I hope your family is good like mine is.

  Your friend,

  Jamie Mallory

  Georg was glad Jamie was happy. He thought he was happy too, mostly — except for those whispers in the night.

  Sometimes the pain got bigger, like when Mr Justin the vicar gave a sermon on how Hitler had blotted out the good in all the German people and made their children loathsome.

  He woke up sweating that night, seeing the loving faces of the Peaslakes turn accusing, staring down at him, Mud spitting at him: loathsome German boy, they hissed. Did you think you could fool us forever? Loathsome. Loathsome.

  It took him long minutes to make himself accept that he was safe, in bed; that no one accused him; that no one was even likely to guess, so far away from anyone who had ever known that he was Ge
rman.

  He was safe, with the dogs sleeping by the fire in a house where the inhabitants were so secure they never even locked the doors, even when they were out. ‘What if some poor soul needed to get out of the rain?’ said Mrs Peaslake comfortably. ‘They might get pneumonia without even a chance to make a cup of tea.’

  Georg’s world had narrowed now: school and Mud and flying kites. It was only in the cold well of the night that whispers came to him of enemies and hatred far away.

  He was safe here. They were all safe. A small safe town with hatred (mostly) far away.

  And then it changed.

  Chapter 27

  Bellagong

  2 December 1941

  My darling son,

  It was so good to get your last letter. I’m glad all the socks have arrived safely. I know you’ve only got two feet and can only wear two socks at once, but I am sure your friends will like the socks you don’t need.

  All is good at home. Samson is getting fat — he doesn’t follow Dad out into the paddocks like he followed you, but sits here by the stove. Sometimes I think he plans to sit here till you get back, except for kite-flying of course. He never misses that. But Delilah follows George and Mud everywhere.

  It is a great comfort to have George here. I was worried about Mud, when Len and Ken went overseas. She was getting too serious for a girl of her age, and there was no need for her to work so hard, not with your dad and old Mr Hillman to help your auntie and uncle. It looks like they might get a couple of land girls too.

  Now George is here Mud plays like a normal girl again. Well, she is always a tomboy so she plays cricket and that terrible game ‘defence’ — I have to darn George’s shorts every time they play it at school — but you know what I mean. Your auntie is relieved and so am I.

  There’s not much other news. There’s a bumper crop of peas this year and roses, but you don’t want to hear about my roses! I made thirty-four jars of loquat jam for the Red Cross stall. I didn’t put ‘loquat jam’ on the label, just ‘home-made jam’, so that people who haven’t eaten loquat jam before will buy it thinking it is plum jam and, really, it is just as good or better, and it is for a good cause.

  We miss you and are proud of you, always.

  Your loving mother,

  Mum

  Mud and Georg had been picking cherries after school that Monday out in the orchard, bucket after bucketful, trying to get them in before the storm clouds on the horizon brought the rain. They had to push them through the cherry pitter out in the shed because the cherries spat red juice and Mrs Peaslake didn’t want her kitchen spattered.

  There were so many pitted cherries that Georg and Mud could scoop up handfuls to eat, staining their mouths and their clothes. They were the old clothes they wore for doing jobs around the farm, so a few more stains didn’t matter.

  The rain began to pelt, each drop heavy on the shed’s tin roof. It was getting dark when they raced back to the kitchen with the cherries for Mrs Peaslake to make into jam and bottle. She turned the wireless on and then began to fill the big jam kettle with water and sugar and fruit.

  ‘… And we now repeat, Japan has declared war on the United States.’ Georg listened stunned as the almost-English wireless voice told how on early Sunday morning Japanese planes had destroyed the United States ships at Hawaii, without warning, without even declaring war on the United States first.

  Japanese planes had attacked Malaya, Guam, Singapore, Ocean Island, Noumea …

  He looked across at Mud, her lips still stained with cherry juice, at Mrs Peaslake, her hands still, at the stunned face of Mr Peaslake.

  What did it mean for all of them?

  The Allies had won the last war when the United States joined in — but now most of the United States ships had been destroyed.

  Noumea was near Australia, wasn’t it? He tried to remember the pink splodges on the map.

  The announcer’s voice vanished.

  Mr Curtin’s dry tones filled the kitchen instead: ‘This is our darkest hour, for the nation itself is imperilled.’

  The kitchen was silent, except for the Prime Minister’s voice on the wireless. Even the dogs lay still before the stove. Georg sat back in his chair.

  ‘… We shall hold this country and keep it as a citadel for the British-speaking race and as a place where civilisation will persist.’

  Georg looked at the shock on the Peaslakes’ faces, at their dawning anger too. Mud clenched and unclenched her fists. The Japanese had bombed Malaya, where her brothers were. England and its empire were already battered by the German and Italian forces. Now England — all Australia and the empire too — were at war with Japan as well.

  ‘The treacherous Japanese swine,’ boomed Mr Peaslake. ‘Attacking without warning. Well, we’ll show them what’s what. Won’t we, Mother?’

  Mrs Peaslake looked down at her knitting. She didn’t answer.

  The enemy was coming here.

  Chapter 28

  Malaya

  14 December 1941

  Dear Family,

  I am writing this in the darkness of my tent. The blackout is the blackest ever and everything is quiet except when a plane roars overhead. After the bombing of Singapore on Monday everyone stops and listens when we hear a plane.

  We are all waiting but we don’t know yet what we are waiting for. We get four hours off in thirty-six. I should be trying to sleep now but am too keyed up to even lie down; and anyway, the mosquitoes are droning loud as aircraft and will have at me as soon as I shut my eyes. Don’t worry, Mum, am drinking my quinine like a good boy so no malaria here.

  Bad day today. Could hear gunfire across the sea. Thousands of refugees, Chinese, Tamils, with everything they own on bicycles, in trucks, on foot.

  Suddenly I think maybe I do need that sleep. Just to say, don’t worry. Len and I are still in the land of the living. We have clean clothes, dinner in our tummies, and a tent to sleep in. But when this war is over neither of us ever want to see another swamp or rubber plantation in our lives.

  Love to all,

  Ken

  Georg looked at himself in the mirror. George looked back at him.

  George wore too-big shorts, discarded by one of Mud’s brothers. His skin was brown; his hair was streaked gold by the sun. His feet were tough, so tough that even bindi-eyes didn’t stick into them these days. His knees were scabbed from playing ‘defence’ in the rutted playground — he’d held the ball yesterday so Mud had dragged him and it over to the fence that was their ‘goalpost’.

  He didn’t look like Georg now, but he wasn’t George either.

  He headed to the kitchen and took the writing paper out of the dresser drawer, and a bottle of ink, blotting paper and a pen.

  Bellagong

  15 December 1941

  Dear Alan,

  Thank you for saying I can call you Alan, not Lieutenant Peaslake. I hope that you are well. Everything is good here but everyone is angry at the Japanese treachery. We are not going to let them beat us.

  The hens are moulting so we don’t have so many eggs. Mud and I collected the feathers. Your mum baked the feathers in the oven to kill the mites and has made a new patchwork quilt with them. They are going to raffle it for the Red Cross. Mud and I have made patches too from two of Mud’s old dresses, so it will have to be a quilt for a girl as it has flowers on it.

  We flew kites yesterday. I think the sea eagle laughs at us. We are stuck on the ground and can only lift sticks and paper into the sky. But Mud says people can put planes into the sky so we are better than eagles.

  I hope it is not too hot and you do not get sand in your sausages. We had a picnic down on the beach and I ate sandwiches. (That is a joke.)

  I hope it is a good Christmas where you are. I will wish the dogs Merry Christmas for you and make sure they get a big bone each for Christmas dinner.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Your foster brother,

  George

  He was folding th
e letter into its envelope when Mrs Peaslake hurried in through the laundry. Her face looked strange.

  ‘George, can you help?’

  He nodded. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Mud’s up in the pear tree.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked slowly.

  ‘It’s … it’s her dad. He enlisted this morning.’ Mrs Peaslake’s face looked tight as though she wasn’t letting any emotion show; as though, perhaps, she wasn’t yet even sure what she did feel. Mr Mutton is her brother, thought Georg, as well as Mud’s dad. ‘Didn’t even tell the family: just took the early train to Wollongong and announced it to everyone at lunch.’

  ‘But farmers aren’t allowed to fight.’ Many men who wanted to join up weren’t allowed to if they were in ‘reserved occupations’ — ones that were needed to keep the country going and fed during the war.

  ‘He convinced the board that the place will be all right without him. He’s arranged for a couple of land girls to help too.’ Mrs Peaslake looked helpless. ‘I’ve called for her to come down. But she pretends she doesn’t hear me.’

  ‘I’ll go out to her.’

  Mrs Peaslake looked like she might cry. ‘Thank you, George. Father’s off at the Bushfire Brigade meeting or I’d ask him.’

  Georg doubted Mr Peaslake could get Mud to come down if she didn’t want to. Neither could he.

  But he could go up to her.

  Samson looked up from the rug by the wood stove as Georg went out. The room felt breathless in the heat, despite the open door and windows. Delilah bounced around his heels, leading the way self-importantly to the pear tree.

  Georg stared up into the branches. ‘Mud?’

  No answer. She sat with her back to the trunk, her arms around her knees, huddled like a koala like she’d been when she thought they wouldn’t sing carols. But this was worse. Georg pushed his toes against the trunk and grabbed a branch, then heaved himself up beside her, but she kept her face resolutely turned away.