Listlessly, Bolt opened his other letters, unaware that Grout and Farrow were also doing the same on the room’s top bunks. Most of the letters mulled over whether or not Bolt had survived. Many mentioned the ‘tragedy’ of Pam losing a leg. Her parents reported briefly that she had married her surgeon. Bolt’s aunt had kept a newspaper photo of the wedding at Scotch College’s impressive chapel but had not sent it to him. However, she noted Pamela was on crutches ‘waiting for a new prosthetic leg, which the army said was quite sophisticated, given the number demanded because of the war’.
Later over a cup of tea in the barracks, he, Grout and Farrow sat on the sofa and chairs discussing their news from home. Red Lead jumped on Bolt’s lap and began her rhythmic knead on his thighs. Bolt said nothing and just reacted to the others’ news.
‘Essendon won the flag,’ Farrow said, delighted. ‘It’s their seventh.’
Grout grunted dismissively. ‘Who won the Brownlow?’ he asked.
‘They didn’t have one. It’s suspended because of the war,’ said Farrow.
‘Yeah, well, it’s not a true competition with so many fellows away fighting.’
‘I dunno, they got 49,000 at the grand final. It was held at Princes Park.’
‘What? Why not the MCG?’
‘It’s an army barracks for the war’s duration,’ Bolt commented.
‘Dick Reynolds kicked four for us. Best on ground,’ Farrow said.
‘Dan’s best mate dated his sister, didn’t he, Dan?’
Bolt nodded.
‘My sister had a baby,’ Grout said, changing the subject.
‘Congrats!’ Farrow said. ‘You’re an uncle!’
‘Yeah, I guess I am,’ Grout said with an embarrassed laugh.
‘What?’
‘Only one trouble, Dicky Pugh, my brother-in-law, has been out of the country for a year fighting in North Africa.’
‘Oh!’
‘I heard a couple of jokes about blokes in the machine-gunners getting “Dear John” letters.’
‘Shit!’ Farrow said. ‘Wish I’d had one. Me and my missus were fighting so much. It’d be a blessing for me.’
‘Kids?’
‘Nar. We hadn’t had sex for a year.’
‘I got one of those letters,’ Bolt admitted.
‘Yeah, I heard about that,’ Farrow remarked. ‘Pamela Steer. She married her doctor after an accident. It was all over the papers. A clipping was sent to me. I am really sorry, Dan.’
Bolt said nothing.
‘Gee,’ Grout said, ‘I’m sorry too, Dan.’
‘Yeah, well …’
‘It was reported she said she thought you had gone down with Perth.’
There was a long silence before Grout said, ‘You always said all things happened for the best.’
‘Can’t quite see that at the moment.’
‘You will, mate. You will.’
Bolt stood, picked up Red Lead and walked out of the room.
‘Funny, isn’t it,’ Grout said to Farrow. ‘You’d be pleased if your missus married someone else. He’s devastated.’
‘Yeah, well,’ Farrow responded, ‘he wasn’t married, was he?’
Grout thought for a moment, then grinned. ‘I guess that Pamela’s dancing career is over,’ he said. ‘Unless she goes back to ballet and specialises in the pirouette.’
They were joined by Wallis and Nadler, who had passed Bolt in the square. The story of his being jilted had been a talking point. Another six sailors and a few in the machine-gun battalion had not heard from their wives or girlfriends, but Bolt’s predicament was the most high-profile due to the publicity in Australia concerning his fiancée. In the manner of Australia’s, at times, caustic male culture, which was heavy on gallows humour, the news resulted in some crude and cruel jokes. Grimness and irony were their hallmark.
‘Heard the one about the one-armed paper-hanger marrying the one-legged dancer?’ Wallis said.
‘No, what?’ Grout said.
‘They had a whirlwind romance.’
‘I wouldn’t be telling that one in front of Dan,’ Farrow said.
‘He’s a Collingwood supporter, isn’t he?’ Nadler said. ‘He might like one I heard this morning.’
‘Go on,’ Wallis prompted.
‘Heard about the one-legged bloke who wanted to play for Collingwood? When kicking for goal, he always ended up on his arse.’
‘Not that funny,’ Grout said. ‘Why don’t you try that one on Dan?’
Nadler didn’t respond.
‘Guess you wouldn’t want your jaw smashed again, eh, Bob?’
Farrow laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’ Nadler said in his intimidating tone.
‘Nothing really. I just thought Dan might want to get wide-eyed and legless tonight.’
They all sniggered.
‘I have another one,’ Wallis said, enjoying the fun. ‘His girl will have a distinct advantage at Christmas parties and charity events,’ he said.
‘Go on,’ Grout urged.
‘She’d win all the one-legged races.’
There were several groans.
‘Don’t think of a career as a stand-up comic,’ Grout said, ‘on one leg or two.’
‘Aw, fuck you!’ Wallis snarled.
Word spread quickly about the need for the best rifle shots among the POWs to attend a secret meeting run by Chicken Smallhorn and Peter Chitty, two former Victorian Football League stars, who had set up a competition in Changi, which was attracting more spectators from the 75,000 British and Australian inmates than all the other sports combined. But they were in need of more footballs. Whereas the other sports were friendly affairs, the Aussie Rules games were angry and physical. The participants were putting all their pent-up feelings into hard body clashes.
Chitty cajoled him into attending the meeting on the top level of one of the blocks. They had beer for the twenty men who turned up. Most were from the gunners, who reckoned they knew a thing or two more about firing weapons than any other part of the armed forces.
‘We need more balls,’ the diminutive Chicken Smallhorn said. He had won the 1933 Brownlow Medal as a rover for Fitzroy.
‘I could have told you that,’ Grout said, ‘you’re Victorians!’
The others jeered and laughed. It relaxed the atmosphere.
‘No seriously, fellas,’ the square-jawed, supremely fit Chitty said. ‘We need to shoot wild boar in the middle of the island.’
The room fell silent.
‘You’re kidding!’ someone said.
‘No, mate,’ Chitty said. ‘The bladders are made from rubber, which we can easily nick from the plantations around the place. But we need boar or wild pig skin for the ball’s casing.’
‘We can acquire the rifles from the Chinese traders,’ Smallhorn added. ‘They’ll guide us into the jungle in the middle of the night.’
There was another silence.
‘You telling us the Nips will allow that?’ Grout asked.
‘Hell, no,’ Chitty said. ‘They’d behead or shoot anyone caught with a gun. It’s bad enough going AWOL all night.’
‘Would the traders dob us in?’ another gunner asked.
‘No,’ Smallhorn answered. ‘They hate the Nips even more than us. Remember they’re Chinese. The Japs have been murdering them by the millions in China ever since they first invaded on a grand scale in 1937. Besides, we’ll pay them for the use of the guns.’
Grout leaned close to Bolt.
‘You want to be in it?’ he asked. ‘You’re the best shot I’ve seen.’
‘You want to make Red Lead an orphan?’ Bolt said.
‘C’mon, nothing to lose.’
‘Except my head.’
Grout knew Bolt was in a careless, reckless mood after the bad news about his fiancée.
‘I’m going,’ Grout goaded.
‘Okay, I’m in too.’
The next day at 4 p.m. Bolt, Grout and two 8th Division ambulance men, Chitty and Len Lemke, were smuggled out of Changi in a food van and met meat traders in Singapore town. They were taken in a truck to a small valley near a hill north of Bukit Timah, in the middle of Singapore. The four POWs were handed rifles.
It was a nervous time for them, knowing that if the Japanese happened to catch them there would no escaping execution. The Chinese traders led them to a stream in the jungle and told them to wait, hidden in the jungle, until near sundown.
At about 5 p.m. a herd of 250-pound boars came snorting and thrusting down to the stream for an early evening drink. Bolt got two shots off for two kills. Grout got a third. A fourth was wounded. It turned its attention to the hunters, pawed the ground and charged. The Chinese scattered, two shinnying up trees. Chitty stepped forward, propped, aimed and fired from 20 yards. He hit the animal between the eyes and killed it.
He, Bolt and Lemke stalked three more and made it seven kills in all. The rest of the herd lumbered off, growling. The Chinese traders did the butchering, keeping the meat for themselves. They took the skins to Singaporean craftsmen, who would create the leather for the footballs.
The four Australians were transported back to Changi the next day after spending a lazy six hours in the town near the docks where many POWs were working. The guards did a rollcall mid-afternoon. With all present and accounted for, Bolt and Grout returned to their block for a wash and a meal. Red Lead was at the door waiting for Bolt like a faithful dog.
He picked her up and nuzzled her face into his like a lioness with a lion.
‘Why did we do that, risk our necks—for what? Bloody football!’ he asked Grout over a drink at the canteen.
‘I think it was all part of you getting over your loss.’
‘Maybe. But I’m over it now, I hope.’
‘No, you’re not, but think of it this way,’ Grout said, with a smirk that everyone now recognised as the precursor to a cynical or comical remark, ‘You’ve always got Red Lead, and she’s got two extra legs!’
Bolt shaped to thump him but managed a rueful smile. This was psychological therapy, Australian-style, mid-war.
Tait’s radio buzzed, crackled and whistled in the middle of most nights and no one complained in the room. His news was becoming encouraging, even inspiring. The Australians were holding the line in New Guinea and Papua and now pushing the Japanese back. The news electrified the Changi POWs, and the Japanese guards were aware of clapping and cheering in some sections of the prison camp. Guards and officers searched the camp looking for radios.
Tait and the others heard them banging on doors in the block in the middle of the night. He quickly jumped from his bunk, took Red Lead from her basket under Bolt’s bunk and placed his radio under her cushion. Bolt placed the bewildered cat back on her cushion, stared at her and told her to ‘stay’. This was often a sign for Red Lead to do otherwise, but at this moment she obeyed. The armed Japanese guards knocked hard at their door and were let in. They rummaged around, looked under mattresses, in cupboards and in packs.
Tait and Farrow lit cigarettes in the corridor outside the rooms. They smoked without making eye contact with the guards, who left.
‘You must put that thing behind the toilet cistern as you did at the bicycle camp,’ Bolt told Tait when they were inside.
‘Sorry, sir,’ Tait said. ‘It’s a pain in the arse having to stick it and unstick it.’
‘You won’t have an arse if those buggers find it.’
There was silence as everyone contemplated how close they were to serious trouble.
‘Hey, Dan,’ Grout said, ‘look on the bright side. The Nips are obviously shitting themselves after the news from New Guinea.’
‘I agree,’ Bolt said. ‘But try not to make remarks to the guards. They’ll twig that we’re well-informed and raid again.’ The next day, Wallis and Nadler were leaning over the fence to a sports field where a Japanese soccer match was being played.
‘What’s it feel like to be losing?’ Wallis called to a Japanese spectator. He looked confused and discussed what was said with others. Three guards stood, picked up rifles, and moved to the two Australians.
‘What you say?’ one guard said. ‘These both Japan teams.’
‘Oh,’ Nadler said, ‘we thought one team was Korean.’
‘Sorry,’ Wallis said, ‘my mistake. I thought Japan was losing.’
Nadler nudged Wallis, and indicated they should leave.
‘You’re a stupid bugger,’ Nadler said. ‘They’ll work out what you meant, and then they’ll raid us again.’