While the Moon Burns

by Peter Watt

  *

  Sean sat by the hospital bed gazing at its occupant. According to the ward sister he was a difficult patient and impatient to be discharged.

  Harry Griffiths woke up. ‘G’day cobber,’ he said, reaching out his hand to Sean’s. ‘Who told you I was in here?’

  ‘When the legendary Harry Griffiths has a stroke, it makes international news,’ Sean joked. ‘Your son called me.’

  ‘The little bugger should mind his own business,’ Harry said. ‘But it’s good to see you, old mate.’

  ‘From what the medical people told me here, your stroke was not too severe. You should be out of here soon, and we’ll be back working together before you can say Jack Robinson.’

  ‘You got a fag?’ Harry asked. ‘They have all my stuff locked up somewhere.’

  Sean produced a packet of cigarettes, lighting one for Harry, and saw the expression of contentment on his friend’s face at the first puff.

  ‘You remember old Inspector Wren?’ Harry asked after exhaling a stream of smoke.

  ‘Yeah, he was a bloody good copper,’ Sean replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, his son is in the job and I ran across him last week. He’s working uniform in the city and dropped in to ask me a few questions about some stolen goods trafficking from the wharves. He said that an informant had pointed out my gym as a place to fence the goods. I told him he was free to search the gym. One thing led to another and I told him that I had worked with his dad when I was in the job before the first war. He got a little friendlier and accepted a cup of tea. I told him about the times that his dad and I had went after the gangs before the Great War. I don’t know what prompted me but I asked him if he knew anything about a hit-and-run a few years back on VJ day. Lo and behold, he said that he was the investigating officer and remembered it well. He went on to say that he had been discouraged to investigate further by an Inspector Preston. My ears pricked up when he said that. Young Wren said that had come about as a result of identifying the vehicle as belonging to the Macintosh companies.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Sean muttered. ‘That confirms my suspicions that Sarah Macintosh had something to do with Allison’s death. I never thought it was just a mere hit-and-run by some drunken idiot.’

  ‘So it was premeditated murder,’ Harry said. ‘We have to prove that.’

  ‘About as easy to do as removing Mount Everest with a garden shovel,’ Sean sighed. ‘David has enough problems just staying alive in Korea. At this stage we can’t tell him our suspicions.’

  ‘How is our boy?’ Harry asked.

  ‘I got a letter last week to say the war is not going well for the UN,’ Sean replied. ‘But, he has Irish blood, and I hope, their luck.’

  For a moment both men fell silent with their memories of the boy they had virtually raised together.

  ‘How is young Patrick faring?’ Harry asked. ‘He should be spending a bit of time in my gym.’

  ‘The boy is currently up on Glen View station on his school holidays,’ Sean said. ‘I have to admit I miss him.’

  ‘He’s a good kid,’ Harry agreed. ‘You have to admire his guts, when all he has known is the loss of his mum in Changi and being shuffled around relatives since then.’

  The two old warriors of the Great War sat together for a couple of hours, chatting about events and people they knew, until the ward sister came and told Sean that it was time for Harry to have his bath.

  Sean left the hospital, stepping into the heat of the summer sun. It was ironic to think that his beloved David was currently living in a world of intense cold, shattered by small-arms fire and artillery. Sean was not a religious man but he said a short prayer that David would survive yet another war and return to Australia without any physical injuries. He already knew he could not say the same thing for the mental injuries David already carried from the years of fighting on so many battlefields.

  TWENTY-NINE

  James and Isabel took every opportunity to spend time together. For Doctor Isabel Sweeney, United States Navy, it was a time to explore what was being rebuilt of Tokyo. She and James took photos of the imperial palace and rejuvenated public parks. Huddled together against the biting cold on a small bridge that crossed a stream, Isabel completed the kiss she had attempted in 1945. This time James did not resist.

  ‘That was a long time coming, buster,’ she said, her face against his chest to ward off the cold.

  ‘I wanted to do that when I saw you in that bar,’ James said. ‘I was nuts not to admit that there has always been something very special about you.’

  ‘I knew that,’ Isabel teased. ‘You are just another dumb male who needed to be prompted into admitting how you really felt. I knew that even when you resisted my kiss back at my dad’s bar. It was in your eyes.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure I was going to survive the war,’ James said. ‘But by supporting you through medical school I knew I would have done one good thing in my life if I didn’t make it back.’

  ‘Well, here I am, Captain Duffy, all grown up and prepared to admit that I have always loved you, from the very first time I saw you as a little girl. That little girl never forgot how a white knight came to her rescue. But she was from the wrong side of the tracks and held out little hope the knight would return for her. When he did, he proved his love in a way that got her a ticket to cross the tracks. I kept tabs on your life while I was at college. I could see that you weren’t married, and was even delusional enough to think that you might be waiting to meet me again. I didn’t think it would be a war on the other side of the Pacific that would bring us together again. When my time is up with the navy I intend to return to New Hampshire and set up a practice. What will you do after the war? I know your grandfather wants you back. But I also know how you love flying combat mission, and doubt that you’ll not try and return to the cockpit of your beloved Corsair.’

  James hugged her to him. ‘You know, with an attitude like that, I might even propose to you.’

  ‘Why not right now?’ Isabel countered, pulling away from him to stare directly into his eyes.

  James was stunned. But at the same time he recognised he had suppressed the attraction he had felt towards Isabel from the moment he had first laid eyes on her. ‘Would you really marry a messed-up marine flyer?’ he asked.

  ‘Is that your proposal?’ Isabel asked. ‘If it is, then the answer is yes.’

  An old Japanese woman scrounging in the almost deserted street looked up to see two foreign devils laughing and hugging each other on the bridge. It was bitterly cold, and she shook her head before returning to her task of foraging for anything useful that may have been discarded by the occupying troops. Why would anyone be happy in this bitter cold, she asked herself.

  Before Isabel shipped out to the Korean war zone, she and James made plans to marry when her tour was over. They would marry in Australia so that her parents could be present. Isabel explained that after they had fled the USA her mother and father had set up what the Australians apparently called a sly grog shop – ‘A bar,’ she explained to James – in a soldier settler region of western New South Wales. Apparently they were happy with newly made Aussie friends, although the business only provided a frugal existence. James liked the idea as he was half Aussie on his dad’s side and had distant relatives in Sydney. He even knew who could stand in as his best man.

  Isabel left Japan, and within weeks James was able to convince the medical board that he was fit to fly. They agreed, and James found himself on a flight back to a war. The United Nations was not winning against the might of a newly emerging superpower – China.

  *

  The beginning of 1951 was not a good year for Sarah Macintosh. Already in the corridors of the Macintosh empire mutterings could be heard from board members. It was not a secret that profits were falling.

  Sarah was in a bad mood when she met with her principal accountant, who h
ad prepared a spreadsheet listing the profit and loss of every company Sarah owned. He sat behind his desk smoking one cigarette after another, and Sarah sat opposite, waiting for him to speak.

  ‘It seems that from the money we invested in building firms and materials, only the supply of materials for reconstruction appears to be turning a profit,’ he finally said, cigarette ash falling onto his white shirt.

  ‘I thought we had both tied up,’ Sarah said.

  ‘We did, Miss Macintosh, but there is a large group of building companies undercutting our tenders,’ he said. ‘From what I can see they are doing so at a loss, but they are still keeping us out of the market. We are losing tradesmen to the other group as well.’

  ‘How can that be? Is it possible that our rivals will run themselves into liquidation?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ the accountant said. ‘I asked around and it seems this other group – Glen View Holdings – is subsidising its losses with a generous input of cash from the record sales of the wool they have invested in. From what I can gather they are certainly riding on the sheep’s back. Do you know anything about this company, Miss Macintosh?’

  ‘That bitch, Jessica Duffy,’ Sarah hissed under her breath. Sarah knew she was in a financial war in which whoever blinked first was the loser. She could almost admire her sister-in-law for the ruthless way she had entered into the market. How ironic that she should be a member of the family through her marriage to Donald.

  ‘What, sorry? I missed what you said,’ the accountant asked, looking up from the horror of the company’s situation laid bare on the balance sheets.

  Sarah reached into her expensive handbag and pulled out her silver cigarette holder, withdrawing a cigarette. She dragged in the smoke and then filled the air with white cloud. ‘Glen View is the name of my family’s traditional property in Queensland,’ she said bitterly. ‘My brother is married to the woman behind this attack on us.’

  ‘Oh, my Lord!’ the accountant exclaimed. ‘I didn’t know any of this. Surely your brother wouldn’t set out to destroy his own family businesses? I know he still draws funds, as does Mr David Macintosh.’

  ‘I regret to say that they cannot be stopped,’ Sarah replied, puffing on her cigarette.

  ‘The good news is that we are still turning a profit on the other company investments,’ the accountant said, attempting to cheer his employer. ‘But I’m afraid to say that wartime taxes have taken a toll on our capital.’

  ‘That bloody Curtin government,’ Sarah said, shocking the accountant with her unladylike language. ‘My brother was well connected to the politicians in Curtin’s administration. I am sure that we can support Mr Menzies in the future.’ She leaned over and stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray on the accountant’s desk. ‘I don’t want the figures known to anyone outside this office,’ she said as she rose from her chair. ‘I need a little time to present the board with a new strategy to counter Glen View Holdings. If they are at war with us, I know who will win. I thought her father was bad enough, but it must run in the blood.’

  Sarah left the office, fury in her step. Her sister-in-law was an adversary she had never expected. Sarah knew her brother and guessed it was not his brains behind the plot to destroy her. It had to be the daughter of the man she had conspired to kill years earlier – Tom Duffy.

  The corridor was empty of any staff, and suddenly Sarah felt the warmish air chill. She paused in her walk along the hallway and glanced behind her fearfully. It was as if she was being followed by something unseen and dangerous.

  ‘Superstitious rot,’ she said under her breath, and continued towards the elevator. But the chill remained. It had been the mention of the enemy company, Glen View Holdings, that had sparked her imagination, she told herself. There was no such thing as ghosts.

  *

  Only days earlier David and his battalion had been enjoying good food, rest and a chance to pick the colourful azaleas growing wild on the hillsides for wreaths to be used in the ANZAC day commemorations of 1951. Spring had come to the countryside, sweeping away the bitter cold of the winter. This was a place where the battle-weary 3rd battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment were meant to have some respite. But now David sat in a slit trench on the side of a low hill named 504 on the maps, facing the Kapyong Valley under a clear blue sky.

  Beside him in his trench was the youngster who stared down at the steady stream of refugees fleeing towards the South Korean capital of Seoul.

  David scanned the columns of men, women and children with their ox carts and bundles of personal possessions moving ahead of the advancing Chinese army. David could see the men of the 2nd battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry digging in on a steep ridge named Hill 667 to their west. David knew from experience that they should have been up in the more defensible position, but it had been deemed that the Australian battalion was far more seasoned and so were given the lower knolls to defend. David knew that his battalion was thinly spread and he had been able to calculate they would be facing an enemy roughly a division in size. David felt sick in the stomach as he knew they would be outnumbered at least five to one. He did not convey these thoughts to his section because, at those odds, the chances of them surviving were next to nil. Would this be his last battle?

  All David could do was quietly move amongst his small section of men, chatting cheerfully and checking their weapons. He also made sure their supply of grenades were fused for instant use.

  ‘Have we got any arty in support?’ the young soldier asked when David crouched near his trench.

  ‘The Kiwis have some 25-pounders,’ David reassured, ‘and we have some Yank Sherman tanks, and a Yank mortar platoon to give us fire support.’

  ‘I heard a rumour that the big nobs have put us here to stop the whole bloody Chinese army,’ the young soldier said with a worried expression.

  ‘They won’t be able to come at us all at once,’ David said, gazing down the valley. ‘The hills will channel them. All you have to do is stay calm and listen to my orders and we’ll be all right.’

  The young soldier did not reply but checked his supply of bullets for his .303 rifle.

  David was joined in his trench by the section 2IC, Lance Corporal Mackie, with his Owen submachine gun. ‘What do you think, Davo?’ Mackie asked, resting his weapon on the edge of the earth parapet. ‘You think the Chinese will come tonight?’

  ‘I would if I were them,’ David answered. ‘Use the darkness to assault up the hill and swamp us with their superior numbers. I suspect they have mixed in a few of their troops with the refugees.’

  ‘You’re a cheery bastard,’ Mackie said, peering down at the valley. ‘Did you hear about the poor bloody Gloucesters at the Imjin River? Hardly a survivor got out alive.’

  David had heard of the courageous battle put up by the British battalion. Only forty-six men out of six hundred and twenty-two had been able to rejoin the Commonwealth Brigade. Their brave stand had slowed down the massive numbers of Chinese advancing towards Kapyong but had not stopped the advance of the relentless Chinese army. Now it would be the turn of the outnumbered Canadians and Australians, supported by a handful of New Zealand gunners and American armoured men, to face the vanguard of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

  It was after the sun began to set that David returned his attention to the main road below and noticed that the flood of civilian refugees had turned into a rout when their ranks were joined by panic-stricken South Korean troops fleeing the advancing juggernaut of the Chinese army. It was then that David knew they were about to face the greatest battle the Australians would experience in this police action as the official order came down from the US IX Corps to defend the valley at any cost. If the Canadians and Aussies failed, then there was very little to prevent the Chinese capturing the capital of South Korea and turning the war in their favour.

  *

&nb
sp; Patrick Duffy sat under the raised tank stand beside Glen View homestead, reading one of the small war comics he collected. Beside him Terituba was looking over his shoulder, attempting to follow the words in the balloon captions. Patrick had patiently taught his friend to read from the comics and, as Terituba was a highly intelligent young man, he had learned quickly. Both were in their early teens and the hard manual work required on the cattle station had turned their puppy fat into muscle.

  ‘You got a ’lation fighting in that place up north of here,’ Terituba said, as Patrick closed the comic book.

  ‘My Uncle David is in Korea,’ Patrick replied. ‘He’s a real war hero with medals, and a cobber of Uncle Donald.’

  ‘I’m going to be a warrior like Wallarie one day,’ Terituba said quietly. ‘My dad says that Wallarie fought here against the whitefellas a long, long time ago.’

  Patrick smiled. ‘Yeah, but that was in a different war and now blackfellas fight on our side.’

  ‘Mebbe we could go and join the army then,’ Terituba said. ‘Us brothers fighting together. You an’ me are the best riders and shots in Queensland.’

  ‘Maybe we could,’ Patrick said. ‘But I don’t think the army uses horses now. They have tanks like in the comics. But I am going to join the army when I am old enough – like all my family have.’

  ‘Then you and I will be warriors together,’ Terituba said. ‘We will join up together.’

  ‘A promise,’ Patrick said, spitting on his hand and offering it to Terituba, who also spat on his hand, and the pact was sealed between the two young men.

  *

  ‘You should accept your brother’s invitation to allow Michael to visit his cousins in Queensland for Christmas this year,’ Charles said across the dinner table.