Eddie was a twenty-four year old private with the 52nd Signals Battalion, posted to Tocumwal as part of the support units for the 3rd BG. Born in New Jersey, he’d lived most of his life in Manhattan and spoke with a thick New York accent. It would’ve been exceptionally kind to have called Eddie handsome, but neither was he unattractive all the same and he often displayed a wide, toothy smile that could sometimes seem quite disarming. Of little more than average height, he was nevertheless a fit man possessed of substantial strength, and when out drinking he’d sometimes show off with feats of agility by executing handstands on the bar and ‘walking’ its length while upside down.
Eddie certainly thought of himself as a good looking man and was the first to admit that he liked the company of the ladies. He was also completely undeterred by the fact that he was at least six years Maude’s junior: a fact that made him particularly attractive to Maude Mildred Morris. There were very few locals in the main bar that night – the town residents generally preferred to keep to themselves when the Americans were ‘off-base’ and looking for entertainment – and it would’ve left Maude quite mortified had she known exactly how many of the townspeople were actually aware of her regular indiscretions and silently despised her for it.
“Let’s get another drink eh, love…?” She asked brightly, wriggling a little on his lap as a faint thrill of excitement rippled through her. Turning her head, she sought out Eliza, serving behind the bar, and raised her hand to draw her attention. “Bring us some more beers for the boys over here would ya, Lizzie… there’s a dear…!”
Again forced to hide her intense disgust, Eliza could only nod simply without looking up, and hurriedly took a handful of clean glasses from a nearby drying rack.
The exterior of the Junction was typical of Australian pubs built in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Situated at the corner of Bridge Street and Deniliquin Road and directly opposite the Tocumwal railway station and cargo terminal, the hotel was a two storey, red brick building with accommodation upstairs (presently unused) and a wide, covered balcony reaching around on the two sides that faced onto the intersection. The balcony served a dual role in that it also acted as the verandah for the bar below, with both floors given good amounts of protection against the hot Australian sun. The balcony and roof above it were supported by narrow metal posts placed at regular intervals, each decorated with intricate, wrought iron arches of a colonial style.
It was dark already as the burgundy Ford V-8 sedan pulled into the kerb on Bridge Street that evening opposite the hotel. A 1933 model, it’d been built at the company’s Norlane plant in Geelong, near Melbourne, and mounted a 48kW eight cylinder engine beneath its long, narrow bonnet. Fourteen-year-old Briony Morris sat in the front passenger seat with the window down, having enjoyed the cool night breeze during the drive back from her evening reading session. Tall and already well-developed for her age, Briony displayed the same slim, athletic build and lighter indigenous skin tones of her mother, but also carried with her some of the genetic traits of her father’s Anglo-Saxon heritage.
To begin with her long hair wasn’t completely black: in the right sunlight it could sometimes take on a faint hue of dark brown that matched her large, bright eyes, while her high, well-defined cheekbones complimented a small and slender nose that was almost pointed in shape rather than one of a more rounded, typically indigenous appearance. As unwanted and uninvited as the assault that created her had been, it couldn’t be denied that the genetic mix she’d been left with as a result had made her a strikingly attractive girl even at such a young age as she still was. It was a fact that Eliza recognised all too well and her insistence that Briony wear the most modest styles of clothing did little to hide her natural beauty: something that was a constant source of concern for a protective mother working and living in an environment that left both of them regularly in the company of men under the influence of alcohol.
“I can’t wait to find out what happens to Marius and Valjean at the barricades,” Briony declared excitedly as she gathered her woollen cardigan in preparation for leaving the vehicle. As part of her regular extra-curricular tuition, she’d been given a copy of Les Miserables, and although she’d found it to be heavy reading at first, Hugo’s seminal work had quickly captured her imagination and now held her completely in its thrall, leaving her eager to return to it each week and discover more about the wondrous world of 19th Century France.
“We’ll need to read fast then if we’re to finish it completely,” James Brandis replied with a knowing smile from the driver’s seat beside her, leaving the engine idling in neutral, but engaging the handbrake as the car stood at the kerb. “You know I’m due to leave again early in October… I don’t know when I’ll be back after that…” His accent was unusual and impossible to define. It seemed at the same time bland and yet somehow also quite distinct, and hinted at traces of several European ethnicities but admitted allegiance to none.
“Aww…!” Briony responded in dismayed protest, genuinely disappointed as she was reminded of the bad news. “Every time you go off on one of your trips, you’re always gone for so long…!”
“…And Mrs Tuttle will keep reading with you the whole time,” he replied, still smiling despite the sadness he also inwardly felt.
“Mrs Tuttle’s all right… but she’s not as much fun as you are…!”
“The business I need to attend to won’t be anywhere near as much fun as keeping you company either, I can assure you,” Brandis shrugged in resignation, “but I’ve no choice in the matter, unfortunately.”
“But dad’s not due for leave until next year… who’s going to look after me and mum while you’re gone?” She asked plaintively, and although he managed to cover up the sudden stab of guilt those words produced within him, Brandis felt it terribly all the same.
“There’ll always be someone to watch over you,” he managed to blurt out before he caught himself and hastily changed the subject, fighting to control his own emotions in that moment. “Come on, you… Liz’ll be wondering where you’ve gotten to by now…”
“I love you, Uncle James,” Briony responded immediately, leaning across briefly to kiss his cheek and, as always, far too smart to argue a lost cause when Brandis had that particular tone in his voice.
“…Love you too, kid,” Brandis replied, forcing a smile as he tousled her hair and gave her a playfully gentle push toward the passenger door.
She’d called him by a first name he’d not used for over two years – not since he’d destroyed all his documents and signed his own death certificate in the loft apartment of a London warehouse that like the rest of Great Britain was now completely under Nazi Occupation. Yet he’d known both the girl and her mother for so many more years that there was no way he could explain to them his sudden change of outward identity, and it was for that reason alone that he maintained with them the pretence of his ‘old’ identity.
Stepping from the car, Briony dragged out the small, canvas satchel that had lain between them on the seats and slung it over one shoulder as she closed the door, leaning back in through the open window for a moment.
“If I ever get married, I hope he’s someone just like you, Uncle James…!”
“When that happens,” Brandis shot back, managing a tone of dry sarcasm as he lifted his fingers to the small, exposed section of white clerical collar at his throat, “I sincerely hope he’s not wearing one of these…!”
“Uncle James…!” Briony laughed guiltily at what to her seemed quite a risqué joke.
“Off you go now,” he directed, grinning now. “I don’t want your mum on my back for keeping you out too late…” With that final command, Briony blew him one last, innocent kiss before running excitedly around the front of the Ford, skipping across the road and onto the footpath as she made her way toward the front gate of a small residential property directly behind the hotel.
Brandis wasted no time jamming the sedan into gear and pulling away from the kerb, hea
ding off south on Bridge St and keeping one eye on his wing mirror to watch as she entered the house. The moment she’d disappeared from sight, he pulled over to the side of the road once more and barely managed to drag up the handbrake before bursting into a long, terrible bout of sobbing that lasted several minutes. Overcome by feelings of guilt and rage, he released a grunt of fury and slammed his clenched fist against the sill of the open driver’s window, repeating the blow over and over until he was forced to stop because of the pain with the lower edge of his hand left raw and bleeding.
“She’s going to be all right!” He hissed wildly, as if in conversation with the demons within his own head.
And what of Liz and the others… what about them…? The thoughts came to him as powerfully as any accusation, piercing his heart as he bowed his head, eyes tightly shut.
“We’d have done things differently a long time ago if there’d been any alternative…!” He snarled, trying to convince himself of the validity of the terrible things he knew were about to come to pass: things he wasn’t going to raise a finger to prevent.
We’ve told ourselves that so many times over the years haven’t we…? So many innocents sacrificed for our ‘Grand Plan’… our ‘Doomsday Book’ that we follow to the letter. How many hundreds – thousands – have we allowed to suffer, when ‘The Book’ told us everything and we just went along with all of it? Jeremiah and Jonas… Mahmud, Rhiannon and Maeve… Kemal, Ismail and Kimiko…? There was a moment of silence as they considered the enormity of it all. Alpert’s already gone, and still so many yet to come… Liz and Briony… poor bloody Rupert… and then there’s Donelson, Ritter and the others to be thrown to the wolves too… even Thorne himself, in the end.
Brandis lifted his head at the mention of that last name – one he’d not dared utter in so long – and stared unfocussed through the windscreen into nothingness beyond.
“You’d hold Thorne’s fate equal to that of the others? After everything he’ll do… everything we’ll help him do… you’d still consider his life thrown away… sacrificed…?” Although he still felt the pain of guilt deep within him, the tone of his words was calmer now as the one-sided ‘conversation’ took an unexpected turn.
He loses everything he ever was in the end, doesn’t he…? Even his own existence… How much more can a man give to have experienced sacrifice…?
“Sacrifice or not, everything he did was of his own free will: how many do we know who’ve lost their lives, or are yet to, who could say the same thing…?” Brandis asked the question sharply, a faint tone of petulance creeping into his words as he straightened in the seat and wiped the tears from his eyes.
We could choose to do anything we like also, should we find the courage… destroy The Book and walk away from it all… let the cards fall as they may…
“But we can’t… won’t…” Brandis corrected sourly, being honest with himself as always. “Not now… not with so much time and so much effort invested on all of this. Impossible to just wash our hands of it all and walk away… how many millions – billions – will suffer if we do…?
Free will’s not so simple a concept, is it…? The response came as he slotted the vehicle into gear and began to pull out into the street, this time in a slower and far more cautions manner. We’re going to spend the next few years pushing Thorne in the right direction, making sure he does exactly what’s expected of him. Look on his fate fairly and tell me his ‘choices’ will be the actions of a free man any more than those of the others… Brandis could swear he felt the sensation of a wry smile as the next thought echoed in his mind …certainly no more than ours…!
“I think sometimes that our little discussions are all that keeps me sane…” Brandis admitted as he drove on, turning left into Browne Street at the next intersection and heading back toward town.
Exactly which part of this conversation would you classify as ‘sane’, in the literal sense…?
“Smartass…!” Brandis shot back with a faint smile, but the jibe had accomplished its task in lightening at least some of the tension that’d been building within him.
Do you think any of the others are starting to hear voices yet…? It was an honest question that time, with genuine curiosity behind it.
“Doubt it,” Brandis shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe the subtle beginnings for some, but it’s only been two years after all. More likely to be happening with Reuters and his mob – they’ve had almost a decade’s head start.” He shrugged again. “Strauss didn’t mention anything about voices while we were sending him insane.”
We weren’t exactly asking him anything along those lines either… I suspect his mind was on other things at the time… like actually surviving. Another pause, then: anyway, some of those Neo-Nazi bastards were so fucked in the head that I suspect they were hearing voices before they got here! That dry thought drew a chuckle from Brandis before the subject changed back to something a little less light-hearted. I think we need to at least do some ‘reading’ tonight… perhaps even some amendments to The Book: we’ve not made any revisions for a few months and I can’t be expected to keep remembering everything we need to put down indefinitely.
“I think you’re right,” Brandis agreed, nodding slowly as he drove. “It also might help to reassure myself about what’s going to happen, if I’m going to make it through the next few months without putting a gun in my mouth.”
You’ll manage… the tone was matter-of-fact now, with no hint of uncertainty. You always have… always…!
“I know,” Brandis agreed, his tone sour as he thought over the events of the days ahead with a renewed sense of objectivity and detachment.
The home of Bruce and Maude Morris was a small, double-fronted bungalow standing directly behind the Junction Hotel on Bridge Street. With two bedrooms at the front of the house and a narrow hallway between leading back toward a sitting room and a tiny kitchen, the rear of the building looked out onto a small yard that was barely large enough to hold an Aeroplane-brand rotary clothes hoist and the obligatory outside toilet at the back of the property, connected to an underground septic tank. The house itself was modestly furnished, with items that had mostly been bought new over the years since their marriage. The home’s single fireplace was in the middle of the structure, built into the outside wall of the sitting room, while pride of place within that room was held by the huge bulk of the AWA Duoforte 90 combination gramophone and radio set positioned against the adjacent wall, surrounded by a semi-circle of worn but comfortable couches and armchairs.
The couple had originally purchased the house in the early 1930s with the intention of raising children, a dream that was eventually dashed when it was discovered not long after their marriage that Bruce was infertile – news that left him devastated and left Maude bitter and resentful. It wasn’t long after that she was forced to accept an even more unpleasant situation, with the revelation that her husband’s younger brother, who’d recently been accepted into the Australian Army, was also soon to be married.
Arthur Morris had never truly taken much of a liking to his older brother’s new wife, and the fact that he’d been living in their spare bedroom – the room that’d originally been intended as a nursery for the children they’d now never have – hadn’t endeared him to Maude all that greatly either. With Arthur’s acceptance into the army, Maude had thought them soon to finally be rid of their troublesome house guest and she was again devastated as the shattering news was revealed. Arthur – a far more devout and practising catholic that either Bruce or Maude – had met a young woman at the local St Peters Church and they had decided to marry. Not so much of a controversy in itself, the real shock of the situation came as it became clear exactly to whom the young man was about to be wed: Eliza Smith, the unwed Aboriginal mother of a four year old half-caste girl fathered by land-owner Alex Bolton in the greatest ‘hushed-up’ scandal the community had experienced in decades.
Maude had been thrown into a self-righteous fury and had voiced he
r unequivocal displeasure over the whole thing to her husband, making it quite clear she had no interest in having anything to do with an unwed Aboriginal mother or her illegitimate offspring and that she wouldn’t stand for either of them living under her roof. She laid down an ultimatum that either Arthur’s new wife and child left or she would. Maude had already had at least one affair with someone from a nearby town at that stage that her husband was aware of – and possibly more of which he wasn’t – and although he felt bad enough about his own infertility to tolerate his wife’s indiscretions out of a sense of personal guilt, Bruce wasn’t about to be swayed in his decision regarding Eliza and Briony living with them while Arthur was away with the navy.
A line had been ‘drawn in the sand’ at that moment, and Bruce Morris made it quite clear to his wife that he did know what she’d been up to while he’d been working and that she would accept the situation he’d presented her with or he’d happily help her pack her bags right then and there and send her straight back to her parents that very night. For Maude – who’d never gotten along with her deeply-religious parents – the thought of being divorced for adultery and sent back to them with nothing was a terrifying prospect. She’d of course acquiesced in the end and had (barely) tolerated her new sister-in-law and niece ever since, although even she’d have to admit that things had become more difficult since Bruce – a member of the Citizens Military Forces – had been called away to active duty when war was declared.
It was completely quiet that night as Eddie lay beside Maude in her double bed, staring up at the ceiling and feeling incredibly pleased with himself. The extended session of repeated intercourse had left him exhausted but completely satisfied, and in the almost total blackness of the bedroom he could feel her naked body pressed tightly up against him as she slept. He grinned at no one in particular and congratulated himself on having found such a willing diversion with whom he could while away his free time when not on duty. In the three weeks or so since they’d first gotten together, Maude had proven herself to be an incredibly eager and energetic lover who was more than happy to cater to every sexual whim or desire her fit, younger paramour could devise.
Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2) Page 14
