The Naked Island | Page 6

to the accompaniment of howls from all sides of "You'll be sorry, rookie, you'll be sorry," and to the recruiting sergeant's frenzied shouts of, "You're in die Army now. Come on there: pick it up. Left, right, left, right." I wasn't at all sure that this bedlam was what I'd bargained for. Certainly it gave no indication of my ever killing Germans.
Our sleeping quarters turned out to be the pigpens of the Royal Agricultural Showground of Sydney. These had been whitewashed with nice dean whitewash and contained all the usual fittings for sleeping and hanging clothes and storing toothbrushes that most concrete pigpens do. Two men moved into each pen, presumably working on the refreshing military principle that two adult males equal one prize pig.
My companion was the ex-milkman. He was about nineteen, was very little more than five feet in height, sported a green shirt, brown slacks, a thin white belt with a silver buckle stamped "1940" on its front and "Made in Japan" on its back, and he had no teeth at all.
"Don't like them drills," he explained, "so I got em all whipped out. Bloke at Newtown done it for a quid."
I had a brief and shocking vision of the dental gentleman at Newtown whipping out thirty-two teeth for a quid. Meantime, the victim of this atrocity, apparently quite unmoved, asked me my name. Glad of the change of conversation, I said: "Russ, what's yours?" and he said, Cyril, only his friends called him Mick. "You call me Mick," he added sociably.
There was a bellow at the doorway our old friend the recruiting sergeant. "Right," he roared, "five volunteers wanted for a job." And while men scattered in every direction or hid behind the walls of their pens he detailed them off, pointing with a stubby nicotine- stained finger, "You . . . you . . . you . . ."
"Meet you in the dyke," Mick hissed, and fled. Heading for the opposite door, and ignoring the frenzied shouts of the sergeant as he called after me, "Hey you ... that fair-haired blokel" I too fled, and a few seconds later met Mick in the latrines.
"Nice place youVe got here," I told him, as I surveyed the row of thunder-boxes and appreciated the skill with which a long line of military minds had thus contrived to deny the ex-civilian even this his last and most trusted place of privacy.
Mick grunted indifferently. "Glad you tricked old Mud-Guts," he said. "Heard him screaming for you."
I asked had he himself had any difficulty in escaping the sergeant. Mick gave his white belt a contemptuous tug.
"The day that mug cops me," he declared, "I'll take a running jump at meself," and having thus confidently disposed of the ser geant, he added: "Where to now? Can't stop here all day." And, having not the least inclination to dispute this statement, I sug gested a swim. Mick agreed readily.
"See you back at the sty," he said. Without more ado we pro ceeded, independently, back to our pen. There I took my trunks out of the small suitcase I'd brought with me.
"Aw, Jesus," said Mick, "I haven't got any togs." "Hire some down there," I suggested. Mick shook his head. "Can t," he explained, "got no dough."
"That's all right," I told him.- "I've got twelve bob. That should see us through. Come on, let's go." For a second Mick looked quite embarrassed at this offer, and then grinned a completely toothless grin.
"You got a mate with you?" he queried. I said I hadn t.
"What say we stick together then?" he suggested. I said I thought it was a good idea.
"Right," concluded Mick, "let's go for a swim."
We waited only long enough to discuss what we should do with our toilet gear and spare clothes, finally deciding to leave them all together in my bag in the pen, and headed out erf the barracks.
"Leave pass?" demanded the guard at the gate.
"Don't be bloody ridiculous," Mick told him, his expression out raged at this liberty, and off we sailed to BondL
After the last of the day's sun, we returned penniless and happy to the barracks. There the earlier problem of where we should stow our gear we found had been settled forever. Someone had stolen the lot suitcase and all. Also the possibility of our sticking together was abruptly disposed of by the sergeant, who slouched over and asked: "You Braddon?" and, when I nodded, said, "Well, report to the office: you've been requisitioned by the artillery."
"What about Mick?" I demanded.
"Never eard of him," replied the sergeant. "Who's Mick?"
I pointed at the ex-milkman said, "This bloke."
"Miserable little runt, aren't you?" observed the sergeant, looking up and down.
"Least I can see me boots over me guts," replied Mick with spirit.
"Now cut that out, mate," rebuked our warrior