While the Moon Burns

by Peter Watt

  *

  Sarah was not happy. She threw her handbag on a side table in the foyer of her mansion and stormed towards the stairs, with her estranged husband stumbling after her.

  ‘Hey, what’s up?’ Charles slurred.

  Sarah froze on the stairway. ‘Your damned drinking,’ she snapped. ‘You’re an embarrassment to me when we’re in public. I have had enough, Charles.’

  Charles gripped the banister to prevent himself from falling and attempted to climb the stairs after Sarah. ‘I’m sorry if I have caused you shame in front of your friends,’ he said, slumping onto the first step.

  Sarah stared coldly at him from the landing. ‘You should learn to get over the war and act like a real man.’

  ‘Real man,’ Charles echoed, untying his neck tie and struggling to remove his suit coat. ‘Like that bastard Billy Price.’

  ‘Shut up, Charles. You made it plain that we are only husband and wife in name for the sake of my public image. All I expect is for you to do your part as the war hero and stay sober.’

  ‘I don’t mean to embarrass you,’ Charles said, slumping further in his drunken stupor. ‘But I have problems forgetting the war. I don’t expect you would understand.’

  ‘A real man learns to cope,’ Sarah said from the landing. ‘You’re not a real man.’

  ‘Not like your Billy Price, who I know you’re still sleeping with,’ Charles said. ‘Where was he when I was fighting in the skies over Darwin? Safely in your bed when good friends were dying around me. Is that your idea of a real man?’

  ‘He is twice the man you are,’ Sarah snapped. ‘You and I have an arrangement and all you need to do is act the doting, sober husband in public. For that you are paid generously by my companies.’

  ‘Mother?’

  Sarah turned to see her son next to her on the landing and looking down at his father lying at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Is Father hurt?’

  Sarah regarded her son. He was five years old and when she looked at him she could see a younger version of David. ‘Michael, return to your room. Your father is just drunk.’

  Michael didn’t move, continuing to gaze down at Charles.

  ‘I said get back to your room, young man.’ Sarah repeated, raising her voice angrily.

  ‘I will take him, Miss Macintosh,’ Val Keevers said quietly. She had heard the raised voices and gone to protect the boy. ‘Michael is a little bit upset at all the noise.’ Val ushered him back into his room and remained with him.

  Sarah was shaking with rage. The man who should be with her was thousands of miles away in some godforsaken war, helping the damned Jews. David Macintosh was destined to be by her side. Oh but if he could only see that, she thought in her obsession for the man who had rejected her advances. She glanced down at her estranged husband curled below and felt nothing but disgust.

  ‘Do you know that you’re not even Michael’s real father,’ she shouted. ‘David is Michael’s father, not you.’

  Her angry words fell on deaf ears as Charles had fallen asleep. But Val heard her employer’s words.

  *

  The two men stood side by side. Before them was a row of newly dug graves and headstones inscribed with the Star of David. Spring was once again bringing blossoms to the orchards and wild flowers dotted the fields around the kibbutz.

  David wanted to cry but remained stony-faced, staring at the headstone inscribed with Rachel’s name. He had been too late arriving in the war-torn country to take up arms for the worst of the fighting. But he now stood on Israeli soil, and for some strange reason he recalled the words his German grandmother had often quoted to him when he was a boy growing up on the family copra plantation in New Guinea.

  By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, and also wept, when we remembered Zion.

  ‘Rachel would always talk about one day going to see you in Australia,’ Elliot said quietly. ‘I think she was in love with you.’

  ‘Where was she killed?’ David asked as he kneeled to gently touch Rachel’s headstone.

  ‘She died fighting for the old city in Jerusalem,’ Elliot replied. ‘Eventually our defenders were forced to surrender to the Arab Legion.’

  ‘How did she die?’ David asked, and Elliot shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘Witnesses said she died instantly from a rifle shot. I don’t think she experienced any pain.’

  How often had David written to families of his men killed in action and said ‘he felt no pain’ when he knew it was a lie. How could he tell a mother, wife, sister or brother that the person they loved had died screaming in agony. The lie had always been to protect the living as he had now become the voice of the dead. For now he hoped Elliot was telling the truth but he also remembered that Elliot had been an officer with the British army in Italy and had probably written the same kinds of letters to grieving families.

  ‘Are you going to remain with us?’ Elliot asked. ‘We could do with your experience. This war is far from over as I receive continuing reports of armed intrusions across our borders.’

  For a moment David did not answer, contemplating a future in a land so far from Australia. ‘I don’t think so,’ he finally replied, rising to stand. ‘I think the nation will be in good hands, and I’m not really very religious. My home is under the Southern Cross.’

  ‘I think we should return to the settlement and share a good bottle of Scotch I have stashed away,’ Elliot said, placing his hand on David’s shoulder. ‘We will raise a glass to the sacrifice we have made for Israel’s birth.’

  David walked with Elliot towards the cluster of buildings reinforced by sandbags and barbed-wire encirclement. Behind was a row of headstones marking the resting place of many young men and women he had trained. Rachel was in good company. Something else came to David’s mind, then. Lucky in war, unlucky in love.

  *

  ‘Has the mail been delivered?’ James Barrington Snr called from the library. Every day for almost two years the old man had waited impatiently for the postcards from all over the USA. He would read eagerly his grandson’s latest location and casual job. The postcards had come from logging camps, building sites and fishing trawlers. James had worked his way around the country, meeting men like himself who had returned from the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific, and worked shoulder to shoulder with them in tough and dangerous jobs.

  ‘No, Mr Barrington,’ the old valet called from the front entrance. ‘But Mr Duffy has returned.’

  Barrington almost bolted from his favourite leather chair. Had he heard correctly?

  He walked as quickly as he could to the front entrance where he looked out and saw James standing by his motorbike, wearing his father’s flying jacket and saddlebags over his shoulder.

  ‘Sorry I didn’t call to say I was coming home today, sir,’ James said with a broad smile.

  Barrington went down the steps and embraced James. ‘Welcome home, son,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long time, and no doubt you have experienced many places and things in your travels.’

  James disengaged himself from the hug. ‘You look well,’ he said. ‘I missed you.’

  Barrington fought back tears of joy and took his grandson by the arm, guiding him into the house. ‘I will give you time to settle in before we sit down and discuss your future plans.’ he said.

  James excused himself and went directly to the room he had left so long ago. It had not changed as he had. Still the same high school sports pennants on the wall and one or two movie posters. He threw his saddlebags on the bed and sat down by the window overlooking the manicured lawns below. James could smell the crisp freshness of spring in the air and hear the distant sound of a tennis racquet connecting with a ball. It was so peaceful compared to his past life and a lot less exciting than being on the road riding to the next town or city. He knew that his grandfather would want to convince him to resume his life in
banking, and James had promised he would do so upon his return from his journey in search of America. There would be the expectation that he would meet a nice girl with a good pedigree and settle down to an office job, a house, three kids and a dog.

  James sighed as he looked to the future. He was single, facing thirty and assured of a rich and comfortable life. What more could a man ask? It was not as though there would be any more wars for America and a man still on the marine reserve.

  James had hardly heard of a place called Korea.

  *

  It was desperately racing towards a cutting in the foothills like the hunted thing it was. Smoke plumed from its funnel and the engineers in the locomotive piled on as much coal as they could. From a few hundred yards above, the war bird circled, manoeuvring for a perfect shot at the locomotive trailing a long line of carriages containing men and munitions. The speeding train was not defenceless and small-arms and anti-aircraft fire flew up in an attempt to destroy the American USMC Corsair fighter bomber.

  Captain James Duffy ignored the deadly puffs of smoke and long lines of tracer bullets arching into the clear blue sky over the Korean Peninsula. He and the others of his squadron prepared to pounce on the speeding railway train below. James was first in line to attack, and he released his rack of rockets from beneath his wings, watching them trail thin streaks of smoke towards the locomotive. He was already peeling away when they struck their target, and his low-flying aircraft was hit by the concussion of the exploding steam engine of the locomotive. Over the headphones he could hear the whoop of his wingman, ‘You got him, Jim!’

  But James had also got something else. A heavy calibre, armour-piercing round had ripped through the belly of his bent-winged fighter bomber and slammed into his right leg. He had felt the impact and quickly realised what it was when pain suddenly swamped him. It was so intense that he almost lost consciousness but he realised that he must fight the pain if he was to return to his carrier out in the South China Sea. James transmitted his situation, peeling away from the squadron now strafing the North Korean soldiers who had escaped the jumbled wreckage of the train below, while his wingman escorted him back to the aircraft carrier.

  James kept his aircraft on course and swept his instruments to see if anything of vital importance had been knocked out by the AA fire. He thought how ironic it was that only three months earlier he had been sitting in conference rooms of his grandfather’s banking empire, wearing the latest fashion in suits, and flirting with the young women he came into contact with. Then the call-up order had been delivered and he was back in the cockpit of a Corsair flying ground-support missions over the hills and rice paddies of some country most of the world had not heard of. The newly formed United Nations Security Council had voted to send in a multinational armed force in a police action to resist the North Korean invasion of South Korea. Uncle Sam had been caught with his pants down: five years of peace had lulled the Western World into an apathy, even living with an uneasy Cold War between the superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States. The Cold War had grown hot when the Chinese- and Russian-backed North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel in June 1950 during the country’s monsoonal season. Men who had thought they had seen their last war were called up to fight, and the situation was desperate for the United Nations.

  ‘Keep your nose up, Jim’, a voice said in his earphones, and James fought to focus on his flying. He knew he was losing blood; he could feel the squelch of it in his flying boot.

  Then he was over the coast, and the blue sky fell down to join the grey sea. On the horizon he could see the cluster of escorting warships around his carrier.

  ‘Not far now, Jimmy boy,’ his wingman said in his earphones, encouraging James to remain conscious. James used the last of his reserves of strength to concentrate on making his approach to the deck of the aircraft carrier. He could see the figures of the crew scurrying to take post and guide him down. James had daylight and the wind in his favour as he made his approach. Everything lined up and with relief he could feel the undercarriage lock into place. Despite his wound, James touched down on the deck, the arrestor cable snatching the hook in the tail, bringing his aircraft to a sudden stop.

  James hardly noticed the men clambering up his Corsair to drag him from the cockpit. All he could remember before he passed out was the smell of his own blood mixed with aviation fuel draining from a jagged rip in the wing of his aircraft, and the smell of salt air blowing across the deck of the aircraft carrier.

  *

  Jessica Macintosh-Duffy hated being away from her husband and two sons, Bryce aged four, and Kim, now one. Jessica had always loved the Rudyard Kipling book, Kim, and had named her second son after the main character. At least Donald was with the boys on Glen View, and she had just learned that she was pregnant again on a visit to her Sydney medical practitioner. She had come to the city to consult with one of the most trusted people in her life, Sean Duffy.

  She sat in Sean’s office, glancing around the room and smiling at how little it had changed in all the years she had known him. It was obvious from the expression on the aging lawyer’s face that he was pleased to see the daughter of one of his best friends.

  ‘Your dad must have had a crystal ball,’ Sean said. ‘The war in Korea has caused an explosion in wool prices, and the investment Tom made in wool production is paying off in a big way. The way things are going, the Duffy companies will catch up to the Macintosh family enterprises before the decade is out.’

  ‘I guess it’s not the return on Dad’s investments that counts as much as seeing Sarah Macintosh always looking over her shoulder, knowing that I’m close behind.’

  Sean raised his eyebrows. As pretty as Jessica was, there was a deadly coldness in her eyes that could be frightening to those who did not know the gentleness and warmth of her real nature. ‘You should consider moving yourself and Donald back to Sydney,’ he said. ‘Your business holdings are growing, and I feel that you’re the best person to be at the helm. I know it would be hard to convince Donald.’

  ‘No, it would be harder to convince me,’ Jessica smiled. ‘My experiences during the war taught me one very important lesson: there is more to life than making a fortune. Nothing can replace the serenity of sitting with Donald and my two boys on the verandah at the end of a hard day, watching the sun sink over the plains. Money cannot buy that feeling of being one with the universe. Besides, we have you here to look after things.’

  ‘Ah, but that I was younger,’ Sean sighed. ‘I’m thinking of selling out my share in the firm and retiring north.’

  ‘Donald mentioned that David has re-enlisted in the army,’ Jessica said. ‘He and Donald have been in contact on a regular basis.’

  ‘David is a lost spirit,’ Sean said sadly. ‘He met a young Jewish woman when he was in Palestine . . . I should say Israel now. He was forced to leave but kept up a correspondence until the war for their statehood. Her letters stopped coming and he travelled to find her. Sadly, she had been killed. When he came home, his life seemed to fall apart, and he told me that he was returning the only life he knew. His last letter came to me from Japan where he was serving as a corporal with one of the newly established Royal Australian Regiments. A bloody travesty as he should have been recommissioned.’

  ‘Poor David,’ Jessica sighed. ‘After all that he has suffered over the years he deserves something better out of life.’

  ‘For a short time while he was up north painting he found peace. But David was born one of those restless men who doesn’t realise how much his attitude costs those who love him,’ Sean said sadly. ‘All I can ever do is be there for him when he needs me. To young Patrick his Uncle David is a hero, but Patrick is only just in his teens and doesn’t know anything of war – except in the comics he reads. I have meant to thank you and Donald for having Patrick during the school holidays. He loves Glen View and its way of life.’

  ‘He’s not
a bother, and Donald treats him like an older son,’ Jessica said. ‘Patrick loves to work with the ringers mustering the cattle. He has a real knack for it.’

  ‘I just pray that when Patrick finishes school he doesn’t follow in David’s footsteps.’ Sean said. ‘The good fathers at his school are pleased to tell me that Patrick is in the top academic three of his class, and that he is probably going to make the first fifteen rugby team and the rowing team. Even so, it’s as if Patrick has blocked out his past, and that worries me a little.’

  ‘The Duffys and Macintoshes seem to have had their fair share of tragic stories over the years,’ Jessica said. ‘I guess the old ones of the sacred cave haven’t finished with us yet.’

  ‘That story is almost forgotten,’ Sean chuckled. ‘By the time your boys have grown up, old Wallarie will be well and truly forgotten. His memory will be swept away on the hot winds of the central Queensland plains.’

  ‘I will tell my children about their ancestral roots, and to be proud of both their European and Aboriginal blood.’

  ‘Spawned by two peoples, spurned by both,’ Sean said, and was silent for a moment. ‘Back to business,’ he sighed. ‘I know you have a plane to catch this afternoon.’

  Jessica smiled. ‘Yes, it’s not only Donald and the boys waiting for me. I also suspect that Wallarie and Dad miss me too. We see the two eagles flying around the homestead on a regular basis.’

  Sean smiled. The legend of the old Aboriginal warrior would always exist so long as the great wedge-tailed eagle lived.

  *

  When David Macintosh first heard that Australia would be sending troops to Korea it had hardly rated a mention in the papers. The terrible flooding of northern New South Wales had dominated the news. But David had known that the understrength Australian Army would need volunteers.

  He had been holed up in his beach house, watching the rain bucket down. He had put aside his half-finished canvases and packed a few personal belongings. Then, when the waters had receded, he had locked the door behind him and walked down to the railway station with his old kitbag over his shoulder.