The Rebels voted that Horrie should become the sole responsibility of Moody, although they all made a pledge to do what they could to protect the dog, should there be trouble over their schemes to secrete him into Australia. As soon as Moody was granted leave in mid-April 1942 he took Horrie by train to Melbourne to stay with his father Henry in East St Kilda. Henry had taught his son much about dogs and he had an immediate rapport with Horrie, despite his civvies. A companion of Henry’s, Dianne Winslow, wasn’t so fortunate. Horrie still had a blind spot about females, or as Moody pointed out, ‘anyone in a dress.’
‘Remember, he only ever knew “family” from men in Australian uniform and slouch hats,’ Moody tried to explain to Dianne, who disliked being cornered by a growling, snarling Horrie. ‘His vision of the enemy was anyone in Arab garb—you know, long flowing robes—and by extension, people in dresses.’
‘I’m not switching to long pants for him or you or anyone,’ Dianne said with some indignation.
‘He’s a real war dog; a true warrior,’ Moody told Henry and Dianne. ‘He has been bombed, strafed, and probably beaten in his first few months. He is on a state of war footing just like me, except that I can’t take him with me any more. We’ll be fighting up in the islands pretty soon, or at least that’s the drum.’
‘Well I wish you’d take him with you,’ Dianne said. ‘Those eyes when he is angry! They are aflame, like the devil’s!’
It took much cajoling by father and son for Dianne to come around to accepting Horrie’s hostility. The dog was not coming halfway and refused to go near her. It was fortunate that Dianne did not live with Henry and only he could feed or take him for a walk down to nearby Green Meadow Gardens. Dianne made sure she was never alone when she visited the Moody home. She was not the only one experiencing Horrie’s wrath. The local milkman, in his white uniform, and his horse and cart received a working over. The postman on his bike had to run the gauntlet every day in the otherwise aptly named Meadow Street. Horrie would streak out of number 28 and make a dive for the postman’s ankle. The postman complained and, when Horrie was kept in the house one day, he asked Moody about the dog’s breed.
‘He’s a er … terrier-cross,’ Moody replied, being careful not to add the word ‘Egyptian.’
‘I’d call him a very cross terrier,’ the postman remarked, his eyes flicking to the Moodys’ front yard, as if he expected the low-flying white missile to appear any moment.
‘He’s only been around since you’ve been home,’ the postman added suspiciously. ‘You didn’t pick him up in Africa or the Middle East, did you?’
‘No. It’s a family pet left with us now.’
‘Pet? Mate, I’ve been nipped by plenty of dogs, but yours has the sharpest teeth. He left me with lacerations last time. If it happens again, I’ll have to tell the police and they’ll put him down.’
Henry and Moody responded by making sure that Horrie was kept inside or chained up when the postman made his daily run.
The serious threat from Japanese invasion, first on Australian-controlled territory in New Guinea and Papua, and also on the mainland, continued through April and Moody received orders to make his way to Ingleburn south of Sydney for a reassembling of the battalion. His parting from Horrie was a difficult moment. Man and dog had been more or less inseparable during nearly all of the dog’s 15 months of life. Moody was consoled by knowing that Horrie had a good home and would be looked after royally. But the little dog remained agitated when he noticed Moody preparing his kit. He tried to climb into the pack, and was annoyed not to be allowed to do so. Horrie refused to eat his food and had a mournful expression on his sensitive face the evening before Moody was due to leave. The next morning, when an army truck arrived, Henry had Horrie on a leash. The dog barked and howled in protest as Moody boarded the truck and waved goodbye.
On 4 May 1942, the Rebels were together again, except for Murchison, whose fate or whereabouts were still unknown, although the group had heard rumours that he had been in action in Java against the Japanese as a member of the 7th Division. But still, half a year after he swapped divisions to see action, there was no definitive word on his fate or whereabouts. Rumours in war were so frequent that they were often discounted.
Just after some heavy rain on the Ingleburn camp, Moody, Gill and Bruce McKellary went for a long walk on a bush road. It was a cool May evening. Bush smells of eucalypts, acacias and other flora mingled. A kangaroo bounded from the bush 30 metres ahead. A kookaburra made its distinctive cry and another answered.
‘Isn’t it great to be laughed at by birds again?’ Moody remarked.
‘Not for long,’ McKellary responded. ‘You blokes will be pushed up to Moresby. But I don’t know what will happen with us. The Japanese prefer bikes to tanks. Our regiment may even be disbanded.’
‘Don’t think so,’ Gill said. ‘They won’t use tanks in New Guinea. But if the Japs hit the mainland you will be needed all right.’
‘You got Horrie in okay, we hear,’ McKellary said with a sly grin. ‘Heard a rumour that you threatened to throw the ship’s captain in the furnace after he threatened to do that to Horrie.’
‘Not quite the way it happened,’ Moody mumbled.
‘That’s the long and short of it,’ Gill said.
‘Jesus! I didn’t have the guts to do that!’ McKellary said.
‘Did you get Imshi in?’ Moody asked.
McKellary looked around as if someone might hear him. But there was nobody in sight. ‘Quarantine officials are bastards,’ he said. ‘We got her off the ship, then took a train to Melbourne and had to make a cops-and-robbers dash with her to a safe house in Collingwood. We just squeezed her out a back-gate when two blokes in suits arrived with two cops to “arrest” her.’
‘Is she safe now?’
‘Oh, yeah. Smuggled her to a mate in the country.’
Moody smiled and clapped McKellary on the back.
‘That’s terrific!’
‘But I can’t be with her. Not while I’m in service.’
‘Same for me. Horrie’s with my father in Melbourne. I miss the little blighter already.’
‘Cops would love to have arrested me, but they had no evidence I’d ever had her. I stuck to the story that she had disappeared on the ship. Told them I suspected someone had thrown her overboard. They asked a lot of questions about how I picked her up; where she had been with the regiment. They took a lot of notes. I kept it vague.’
‘Vague is good,’ Gill observed.
‘Yes, and sticking to a good story and a good plan,’ Moody added.
‘You know, Moods,’ McKellary said, with a smile of admiration, ‘you’d make a good general, especially telling a bastard Yank ship commander you’d throw him in a furnace! You’re a legend!’
‘Pity I’m just a lowly private.’
‘Who loves dogs.’
A second front loomed closer for the 6th Division as a mighty sea fight—the Battle of the Coral Sea—took place on 7-8 May 1942 just off Australia’s north-east coast. The Japanese had been on their way to take New Guinea’s important south coast port at Moresby, but an American-Australian armada intercepted them. While losses were about even, the Allies won an important strategic victory by preventing the enemy from reaching Moresby. It was more than a blood-nose for the Japanese admiralty and the first setback in its six months rule of the Pacific Ocean. Yet it didn’t stop Japan’s relentless military drive and on 31 May, three midget submarines attacked Sydney Harbour with the aim of sinking the battle cruiser USS Chicago. Launched from a mother submarine, the midgets penetrated the harbour’s slack defences. They missed their target but caused much chaos, including the torpedoing of an Australian service ship, Kuttabul, killing 21 on board.
The 2/1 Machine Gun Battalion at Ingleburn was fully operational but was only alerted the next morning after the wild night on Sydney Harbour in which the midget subs attacked and onshore and ship defences retaliated.
When Brooker, Fitzsimmons, Moody and Gill were in Ingleburn buying newspapers in the morning, a breathless newsagent told them the rumours about the subs in the Harbour hours earlier.
‘Yeah, well,’ Fitzsimmons said, looking at the headlines that had nothing about the attack, ‘can’t have been too bad; hasn’t made the front page.’
‘But it’s really serious, isn’t it?’ the newsagent asked.
He and a few other customers in the shop looked surprised, even shocked, by the careless attitude of these men in uniform. Seeing this, Brooker remarked for all to hear: ‘It’s not like waves of Luftwaffe attacking with bombs and machine guns. I mean every day. That’s what we call serious.’