Chapter 26

On the second week of our stay in Dunedin, Wilf seemed more content and began to show other strengths that I was unaware of. I think they call them hidden talents nowadays. Patience is not a virtue that I possess, but Wilf seems to have an infinite amount, probably all of mine and lots of other people’s too. This was evident when we heard Dad swearing at the tractor as it refused to start again. My father was not a violent man normally however if any piece of metal dare defy him, his tolerance levels plummeted and swearing became his first act and the second usually involved a hammer. Wilf offered to help and Dad reluctantly agreed before storming off after kicking the tractor’s tyres and hurting his foot in the process. Wilf was not one of our designated mechanics in the Z force unit but to my amazement he set to work and began to strip down and clean the motor, checking plugs, firing order and fuel. Over two hours of patient almost clinical surgical work on it, he fired it up and the motor just hummed. At least I thought it did. It sounded as good as when Dad first bought it. Wilf wasn’t happy and another half hour of tinkering and it was almost singing. I think Dad would have adopted him on the spot if that was possible.

Wilf then offered to check the ute out as well and the ‘good car’ which was rarely used. As wonderful as that was, it meant that I got to do all the menial jobs. There was no point in complaining because you just didn’t do that to my father. I must admit that Dad became a bit more flexible later in the week and Wilf and I had a day free to explore Dunedin. One of the first ports of call was the Otago University where I was sure I might find out some information. Albert Fletcher was the head of the geology department and luckily, he was free and didn’t mind a chat. He wasn’t quite sure what I was after and I wasn’t either though I was certainly not going to tell him about the island of *****.

“Wilf and I had this rock and when we went past a special box up in a university up in Auckland, it started clicking. Someone came along and asked us for the rock and didn’t tell us what it was or what the clicking was. We just gave it to him because it was just a rock. We were wondering if it might have been valuable and whether we should go back and get it,” I said hoping it all sounded plausible. Luckily the expert teacher came out in Professor Fletcher and the credibility of my story was never was raised.

In his croaking voice, the stooped old man waved his finger at me. “If you had a rock as big as this room it might have been worth something. It probably had some uranium or radium in it or maybe even some polonium. That box was called a Geiger counter, named after Hans Geiger who is a German, but don’t hold that against him. Tell me, what do you know of Marie Curie?” Wilf and I shrugged our shoulders in unison so Professor Fletcher continued in his lecturing tone, “Last century she made some famous discoveries. For centuries people didn’t know much about elements and how they were made up. We knew there was iron and gold and nickel and silver and tin and lead because they were metals and we knew about some of the gases, but not much more. In the late 1800’s people began to suspect there was more and that some of these combined would give us new compounds. How very tiny atoms worked to make up these elements and compounds became clearer and Marie Curie found some that were radioactive. This meant that some of the parts of the atoms didn’t work all that well or get along with each other and gave off rays. Uranium and radium were two such elements that did, but they were found to be not much use and still aren’t much use as far as I know. Uranium was used to colour glass however you needed a lot of it. Radium was supposed to have healing qualities and it was put in medicines and toothpaste. Its biggest use was in watches and clocks because it glowed in the dark. I’m not sure that it is such a good thing as people have died from using the toothpaste and makeup. It is said that Marie Curie died from being exposed to too much radioactivity. That box you saw was probably a Geiger counter and it measures radioactivity. That rock probably wasn’t going to harm you and I suppose it was taken just in case. Where did you get it?”

“On the side of an old volcano. It just looked interesting,” I replied.

“Far better that it looked expensive and was a diamond than useless uranium,” Professor laughed. “I’ve got some samples of different rocks that are far more exciting.”

It took us another hour before we could politely get out of there, but we were both still left wondering what the big wigs in the army were thinking sending us to that island after finding out about the radioactive rock. “Maybe where there’s radioactive rocks, diamonds might be found,” Wilf suggested. I knew that industry used diamonds but that still didn’t make sense. There was a war to be won, yet the powers that be were interested in some radioactive rocks on a remote island in the western Pacific that was behind Japanese lines. They were willing to throw away lives on the faint hope that a few diamonds might be found. It all seemed ludicrous but then the whole bloody war did too.

It bugged me but it didn’t worry Wilf too much. We joined Katherine for lunch, catching her by surprise at the hospital. The matron wasn’t overly keen, however I reminded her that she had been on duty when both Katherine and I were born and that Wilf and I only had a few days of leave left. Begrudgingly she let Katherine join us. The discipline in the hospital seemed far stricter than I had ever experienced in the army. Katherine began to apologise for the clothes she was wearing, but Wilf said kind of seriously, “I sort of fancy women in uniform. Your brother and I are going to go looking for some WAAF’s after lunch.”

I didn’t notice the look of despondency in my sister, however when Wilf’s face broke up in a huge grin, she punched him in the upper arm. She may be quite good looking, but deep down there was a tom boy alive and well. We finished our lunch in the lounge bar where drinks were dearer than in the bar where men only were allowed. Katherine kept looking at the clock and had stuck to just lemonade because being late and smelling of grog would see her doing bed pan duty for the next fortnight. She quickly kissed both Wilf and I on the cheek and then raced out carrying her coat, leaving us a bit bewildered. I don’t think my sister had ever kissed me before. Was this a new habit she had picked up? It certainly made Wilf blush a very deep shade of red. We downed our beers and walked through to the bar where someone recognised me and shouted a beer each for Wilf and I as “Heroes of the war”. I watched a dark cloud settle over Wilf as he politely drank his beer, then casually checked his watch and indicated we should be going.

The dark thoughts had accidentally settled on Wilf again and he was very subdued as we drove back home. Having spent so long with him, I could read his mood, if not his mind. I remembered my father’s words about a coiled spring and carefully chose my topics of conversation on the way back. In two more days, Katherine would be off and then we would leave on Monday. I was pretty confident that Wilf would ‘keep it together’ while he was a guest, but how long after that I wasn’t sure. He was the bravest man I had ever met and if anyone suggested that he was being gun shy and suffering from shell shock because he was a weak coward, they would be eating through a straw for years to come.

When we got back, he begged off dinner and went to his room. Mum seemed a bit put out, but as I spoke about what Wilf was going through and some of the issues he had to deal with in Malaya, Singapore and on ***** she kept glancing over at my father. I saw the tears form in my father’s eyes and she went up to him and put her arms around him. I knew they were a rarity and that he felt ashamed of them, so I said nothing. He had obviously been through a lot during the last war. Now was not the time to ask and he wouldn’t have told me anyway. Eventually he composed himself and looked me directly in the eye with that piercing stare that I had been afraid of all my life.

“And you were with him on that island, weren’t you? How are you coping? How have you managed to keep going through all the shit that goes on?” he asked.

“Dad I just put one foot in front of another. That’s all I can do. That’s all anyone can do. I’m lucky. I haven’t had to kill anyone on any mission yet. I haven’t had to plunge a knife in up close, or look down the sights of a rifle and pull a trigger and see the person I was looking at die. I was there with Wilf. I had to order others to do that. That is something that I just have to deal with. Wilf has had to do it a lot worse. He says he is responsible for all those deaths on that island. I know he also had to kill in Malaya. But he’s not responsible for any of that. It’s the people well above us who tell us what we have to do. Worse still it’s those people who decided we needed to have a war in the first place who are to blame. I use them to excuse myself and that helps a bit. Wilf can’t do that yet and come Monday the army is expecting him to go back and start it all over again. Pardon my language Mum, but right now the world’s fucked!” I said staring out through the window at the darkness beyond.

Mum left the room and I thought that she was angry with me. However, she came back with a bottle of Dad’s scotch and three glasses. She poured three hefty shots in each, took one herself and held it aloft saying, “Someday, someone will realise that they have fucked up this world and a number of generations along with it. I probably won’t see it in my lifetime, but I live in hope. That’s what Wilf has to learn, as your dad and I had to; you’ve got to live in hope or it all becomes pretty pointless.”

I still remember the fire in her eyes, the vehemence of her voice and the perfect choice of words. I certainly didn’t expect it of her. I certainly had misjudged all of my family for so long. It would be sad to leave on Monday when I was just at last getting to know them.