Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms

by Anita Heiss

  The men look tired from long days of hard work and years of worry about protecting and caring for their women and children. Except for Kevin, whose cheeky eyes and smile have somehow helped him maintain his youthfulness. He’s not only got a reputation with the goothas across the Riverina for being an engaging storyteller, but also has a reputation for being a bit of a ladies’ man, wooing women with his dance moves, smooth singing voice and charm. Banjo doesn’t like his brother’s philandering ways and Kevin doesn’t like the fact that some men travel across country to Cowra because the town is known for its beautiful Black women.

  The men are listening to Banjo, who is usually good for a yarn and a laugh, but today the mood is serious.

  ‘I’m just sitting there, having my morning smoke, and KB starts making a racket, which isn’t unusual but you know a man needs some quiet time in the morning.’ Banjo taps his tobacco pouch on the table and the other men nod. ‘I tell the mirri to be quiet but he’s sticking his nose under the hut and growling. Of course I think it’s going to be a rabbit, or another mirri or maybe a snake, but he just keeps going, so I crouch down as best I can with this gammy leg, and you won’t believe what I saw. What I found.’ Banjo can see high expectations on the other men’s faces. He looks around to check there’s no one else in earshot. ‘It was a Jap,’ he says. ‘A Japanese soldier, from the camp up there,’ and he points in the direction of the camp miles away.

  ‘What?’ Kevin asks loudly.

  ‘Shh,’ Banjo implores. ‘He’s on the run, obviously.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Kevin asks.

  ‘I’ve hidden him,’ Banjo says with a frown at how loud Kevin is speaking.

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘Will you stop it, Kev? I didn’t know what to do. He was terrified. I mean, he looked terrified – we didn’t speak. I just took him quickly to the air raid shelter and made him climb down there. My leg won’t let me get down the ladder. You know it’s never been the same since that tree fell on it when we were out cutting.’

  Kevin shakes his head in disbelief. ‘But why d’ya do that with the Jap?’

  ‘I didn’t know what else to do. He needed my help. If he’s on the run, I’m not going to put him in. That’s not our way. It’s over four miles from the camp to here in a direct line – if he’s on the run and came the long way round, skirting the east of town around Taragala, he would’ve run over six miles. The man deserves a medal for that.’ Banjo speaks fast, almost without taking a breath.

  ‘And some rest!’ Sid adds, rubbing his large belly.

  Kevin clenches his fists. ‘We can’t hide him here! No one in the community will want to hide a Jap.’ When no one responds, he raises his voice. ‘We’re at war with these mongrels.’ He looks at Sid and Fred, blood boiling, and slams his fists on the table. ‘We’ve got our own fellas at war. Are you mad?’

  Banjo’s wife, Joan, comes cautiously into the hut carrying clean bed sheets she’s washed by hand in a galvanised tub out the front. The windy day has dried them quickly. ‘Shh, I can hear you outside. King Billie will be here if you don’t keep quiet,’ she says, looking at Kevin. She walks over to her husband and leans low to whisper, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s in the air raid shelter,’ Banjo whispers back. ‘He’s safe.’

  ‘He’s safe!’ Kevin slams both fists on the table again. ‘He’s safe! What about us? Are we safe?’

  Joan walks around the table and puts her hands on the shoulders of her brother-in-law and says, ‘Kev, we need to be united on this.’

  Kevin is momentarily placated, lowering his voice out of respect for Joan. ‘We have to be united the other way round.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sid asks.

  ‘We shouldn’t even be talking about this. The Japs are the enemy in this war. Do you think they’re treating Australian soldiers well? I heard the Australian soldiers captured by the Japs were sent to Singapore and other places to work for their army! Our men are being forced to work for the enemy. And you, you want to work for their army! Traitors, all of you!’

  Banjo knows that Kevin is right in most respects, as does everyone else. Australia is at war and there are Wiradjuri men fighting too.

  ‘Jim told me that it’s common knowledge the Aussies are beaten with leather whips and clubbed with bats to make them talk, even if they have no information to give. They are brutal, and this fella you want to save, he’d probably do the same, given the chance.’ Kevin keeps shaking his head.

  Banjo doesn’t believe that; he saw the man’s eyes, saw the fear and warmth in them.

  ‘We’ve got nearly a dozen men – our people – in this war.’ Kevin looks each man in the eye. ‘We don’t even know where they are. You think the Japs are protecting them? They’re probably bloody eating them. The bastards.’

  Joan shakes her head at Kevin and his suggestion that the Japanese are cannibals. Kevin has always been the dramatic one in the group, so Joan lets the comment pass without a reaction, as do the others.

  Banjo is quiet. He has always been the thoughtful one and as his younger, more aggressive, sibling rants, he is thinking of how to respond in a way that will dull the fire in his brother’s belly.

  ‘What do you reckon we should do then?’ he asks, knowing that giving Kevin a chance to offer suggestions is the right thing to do.

  His brother leaps at the opportunity. ‘Why don’t we ask old Tommy Mack what he thinks? Ask someone who’s actually been to war what they think about hiding an escaped Jap prisoner.’ There is so much venom and sarcasm in Kevin’s tone that the room becomes uncomfortable. The likelihood of the escaped prisoner lasting even one more hour is dwindling rapidly, the way the conversation is headed. ‘Or why don’t we ask the Coes what they think? They lost men to war in the past – I bet they won’t want to hide any of the enemy in this war.’ Again he looks at Banjo, Fred and Sid one at a time, waiting for a response.

  ‘And why don’t we ask the Newtons about Dooley and Bibby,’ Kevin continues, referring to Lindsay and Reuben, the brothers who are both fighting in the war. ‘Bibby’s in Malaya, but no one’s heard from him for yonks.’ He stops short of suggesting the man is dead, but everyone already believes that. ‘Rueben’s in Bougainville, or is he? He could’ve been fighting the bloody Jap you’re hiding.’

  ‘Shh,’ Joan says angrily. ‘The goothas might hear you. They play with the Newton kids and I don’t want any of that getting back to the family.’

  They all remember the two Coe men, and each Anzac Day the whole community pays tribute to them. The men remain well respected and will always be remembered for fighting a war for a country that denied them the right to be Australian citizens, or to earn equal wages or marry without permission of the Manager.

  ‘You mob are traitors,’ Kevin repeats. ‘Where’s your loyalty to your own people? Sometimes I can’t believe we’re related.’ He lights up another cigarette. ‘Aren’t we going to respect our brothers?’

  Banjo finally speaks. ‘This fella is someone’s brother, Kevin. What if he was our brother?’ He puts his hand to his heart. ‘What if our brother escaped from a POW camp like this bloke? Wouldn’t you want someone to look after him and treat him like a human being?’

  Unconvinced, Kevin stands up and pushes his chair so hard it falls over. He can’t believe what he’s hearing, and blows smoke through his nostrils.

  ‘And wouldn’t you want to escape the prison if you could? Wouldn’t you escape this prison if you could?’ Banjo addresses all three men. He knows what he’s doing, he just needs the others to understand and agree. ‘This fella just wants his freedom and probably wants to see his family.’

  ‘Can’t argue with that,’ Fred says, gently.

  One down, two to go, Banjo thinks. He already knows Joan is with him.

  ‘The government is fighting the Japanese – the same government we are fighting. We’re fighting for a better life. I feel like I’m at war every day with all those who control our lives. I’m sick of living in
this hut without water. I want the same wages as the whitefellas doing the same job. I’m tired of us living in fear of having our kids taken away, while white people don’t have to worry about anything: they have enough food and they have water and electricity and get paid properly for their work.’ Banjo’s voice is not loud but it is firm. ‘If we are at war with this government, then, to my mind, this fella and I are on the same side.’

  Banjo has conviction in his voice and Joan has never been more proud of her man.

  Sid and Fred look at each and raise their eyebrows in understanding and agreement, but Kevin is not giving up easily. ‘Okay, well, let’s vote then,’ he says.

  Banjo nods and says, ‘I vote we protect him. All in favour, raise your hands.’

  Sid and Fred slowly put their hands in the air, but a belligerent Kevin shoots both his arms straight to the ground like a child. ‘You win again,’ he says, which is a vague but ongoing reference to the fact that they both once competed for the woman Banjo married. Kevin has never stopped loving Joan and the three of them know it. She is still the only one who can calm him down when he gets aggressive. The only one he will listen to. The only one he could never have because of his wild ways.

  ‘Three votes to one,’ Banjo says. ‘So it’s agreed – we’ll hide him in the air raid shelter for as long as we can. For as long as it’s safe, and if that’s until the end of the war, then so be it.’

  ‘What are we going to feed him, then?’ Kevin asks, knowing there is little food to go around and that rations are already stretched beyond what’s acceptable. ‘It’s bad enough we have to work for our rations – the bread and tea and sugar – but now you want to give it away?’

  ‘We share, Kev, you know that. We always have. Sharing is not new to us. Stop acting like we’re doing something bad here. We’re being ourselves. This is what we do.’ Joan’s voice quivers.

  Banjo puts his arm around his wife’s shoulder. ‘We’ll get by,’ he says. ‘We have the vegie garden and we can spare a little each, enough to keep him alive.’

  ‘There’s only potatoes in that patch, and not a lot of them!’ Kevin argues, walking to the window.

  ‘We have pumpkin and cabbage too,’ Joan says. ‘You’re just never around long enough to enjoy them.’ Even Joan is getting testy with her brother-in-law’s insistence on being difficult.

  ‘We can’t tell anyone,’ Sid says anxiously. ‘I understand your logic, Banjo, but there will be some who don’t and King Billie will tar and feather us if he finds out.’

  ‘I agree, we tell no one, not even your wives.’ Banjo looks at Fred because everyone knows Fred’s wife, Marj, is the queen of the Black grapevine and if she knows what’s going on, then it’s all over. Fred and Marj live next door, and Marj has eyes in the back of her head – she knows who’s doing, saying, thinking what. And with no fence between the huts, she can see right down to the opening of the air raid shelter at the back of the Williams’ lot. Everyone loves Marj, but they also know she has a mouth, a big, uncontrollable mouth, and sometimes a bitter tongue. Fred loves his wife, but even he knows she’s got the loosest lips this side of the Great Dividing Range.

  ‘I won’t tell Marj,’ he promises.

  ‘I won’t tell Ivy either, but what about Jim?’ Sid asks of the local Wiradjuri lad who’d returned from the First World War and was now part of the 22 Battalion acting as a guard at the POW camp. ‘We need Jim to find out information about what’s going on, how this fella got out and why, but he can’t know we are hiding an escapee.’

  ‘I think he needs to know,’ Kevin says. ‘Surely he has a right to know.’

  ‘No! We can’t compromise his livelihood,’ Banjo says. ‘We can’t put him or his job in danger with the authorities. What do you think they’ll do to him if they find out he knows about this? They’ll court martial him.’

  ‘There’s also that other Aboriginal fella who leads the Italians out to the farms,’ Fred offers.

  ‘He’s a Charles,’ Fred says.

  ‘That’s him, he’d have to know something about what’s going on. I hear he also rolls cigarettes for the soldiers, so he must get on well with them.’

  ‘I don’t understand why there’s no real security around the Italians,’ Kevin says. ‘It’s like they run this town – bike riding, going to the movies and the pubs. I even heard they’ve got grappa stills in the camp and the guards swap leftover meat for alcohol. I’d trade some rabbit or some watermelon for some grappa, that’s for sure.’

  Banjo wishes his brother would just stick to the issue at hand instead of mouthing off about everything that upsets him. Before he gets the chance to get back to the Charles fella, Kevin is off again.

  ‘I’ve even heard that they built a proper stage and made costumes and printed programs for shows they do in there. And they get given musical instruments and supplies to paint. Can you imagine, that? They’re prisoners and they’re treated better than us. I wonder how that Charles fella feels about that, seeing them having a good life and all.’

  ‘We need to leave him out of this,’ Banjo says adamantly. ‘We need to keep this as quiet as possible, can’t go snooping around too much and drawing attention, especially if anyone is working at the camp.’

  ‘Well, how long do you reckon we can hide him in the air raid shelter? What if there’s a bloody air raid?’ Kevin will not concede defeat without making it difficult for his brother. The rivalry is one-sided, but it is there. He sees Joan frowning. ‘Sorry,’ he says, knowing that profanity and blasphemy are not allowed in her home.

  ‘The war isn’t coming to Cowra,’ Joan says with a twinkle in her eye. She pulls him up when she deems it necessary, when no one else would even try.

  ‘We could hide him at Ryan’s Place. It might be safer there than having him here on the mission,’ Fred offers.

  ‘Yeah, let’s put him down where he can have fun, singing and dancing with the mob there. Bloody parties most of the time.’ Kevin’s bitterness flows easily. ‘He can even get a drink down there too!’

  ‘You’d know,’ Joan says with a hint of sarcasm.

  ‘What?’ Kevin assumes shocked innocence but if he’s going down, he’s taking his brother with him. ‘It’s not just me – Banjo’s been there too. And I’m sure I’ve seen you both dancing there.’ Kevin doesn’t like Joan judging him even though he still needs her approval all these years later. ‘Anyway, there’s nowhere to hide him there, with only those few huts.’

  The door bursts open and the Williams kids race in full of energy and laughter. The adults immediately stop talking. Mary, the eldest daughter, is seventeen years old. It took a long time for Banjo and Joan to fall pregnant with Mary, and they didn’t think they would again – it was nine years before the next girl came along, and then another two, before the only boy was born.

  ‘Take the goothas into the other room,’ Banjo instructs Mary. ‘Mum will come get you all in a minute. We just need to finish some business here first.’

  Mary knows something is up but she obeys her father and walks the kids out of the front room which is the kitchen, through the lounge room of sorts to the bedroom, which leads to the back sleep out. Banjo and Joan sleep out the back with the kids: Betty, Dottie, Jessie and the baby of the family, James, who was a surprise to them all three years ago. Mary sleeps in the front room, which has a fire place, so she’s warm in winter. Compared to other huts, Banjo’s is one of the best, with a fence, a small vegie garden and morning glory vines hanging on the verandah and around the hut to offer protection from the sun in the summer and the wind in the winter. The tap at the front of the hut provides all the water the family needs for cooking, cleaning and washing. The bare corrugated iron walls don’t provide much insulation from the frosty winter weather, but the black stove in the kitchen offers some warmth.

  As soon as Mary and the kids leave the room, Banjo leans across the table and says in a low voice, ‘It’s settled, he’ll stay in the air raid shelter. It’s the only place they won�
�t look given it never gets used, and people outside of Erambie wouldn’t even know it’s there. Joan’ll gather whatever leftovers she can without suspicion. We’ve got more mouths to feed than you lot and it’s normal for people to share with us. Mary can take them down to him at dusk each night when she comes back from King Billie’s.’

  ‘Why Mary?’ Sid asks. ‘Is it safe for her to do that? I thought we weren’t going to tell anyone else.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Kevin growls, ‘you just finished ordering us not to tell anyone, and now you’re breaking your own rule. Why don’t you or Joan or one of these fellas take it down?’ He points to Sid and Fred.

  Banjo taps on his gammy leg. ‘I can’t climb down a ladder with this leg. And you fellas seen in our yard a lot will only draw suspicion.’

  ‘But why Mary? She’s so young,’ Sid says, concerned.

  ‘Yes, she’s young, but King Billie trusts her, everyone trusts her. If there’s ever any suspicion here they will never look at Mary.’

  ‘Banjo!’ There’s a thump on the door. ‘Banjo! Open up, it’s John Smith!’

  ‘What does he want?’ Kevin mouths to Sid and Fred, who both shrug their shoulders.

  John Smith is the Manager of Erambie. Behind his back, everyone refers to him as King Billie. There is a version of King Billie on every reserve and mission in the country. Few Managers understand the resentment that Blacks have towards them, and even fewer would care if they did – being a mission Manager requires one to have no sense of human rights or justice. It’s only Black humour and making fun of the Manager that sustains the locals at Erambie through the misery being no one in your own land can bring.

  Everyone sits to attention as Joan looks around her kitchen to check it’s tidy.