The Climate of Courage. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ keep up appearances till I go back to camp. You won’t have to worry,” he said bitterly, “you can lock the bedroom door at night. When I’m back with the unit, we’ll see about getting a divorce.”

      “You’re taking it better than I’d hoped,” she said very quietly.

      He reached up and switched off the bed lamp. He turned away from her to stare at the dark wall before him, dark and blank as the future.

      “You forget I’m a V.C. winner,” he said. “Brave beyond the call of duty.”

      Next morning they went back to Sydney. The train wound its way down out of the mountains, threading its way through narrow culverts, skirting the edges of deep drops, passing small towns that had once been only holiday resorts and now were the dormitories of munition workers. The grey-walled gorges were as wild and deserted as they had ever been and the ranges still had the appearance of lonely sleeping beasts; but the Blue Mountains, once just a playground, were already caught up in the war. Munition works, stark and utilitarian and temporary-looking, money and materials thrown into tremendous sheds of death, were springing up all down the line. And from the train the roads seemed to be carrying little but military traffic.

      The train itself was crowded, as much as it had ever been when returning from a holiday week-end. The authorities had cancelled all inter-state passenger traffic, unless one had a permit, and had asked people not to travel within the state unless their reasons were urgent. Everyone suddenly seemed to have urgent reasons for going somewhere: it was doubtful if so many people had ever moved so far so often. For the first time in years the New South Wales Government Railways looked as if they might show a profit.

      By one of those unbelievable pieces of luck which seemed to be natural to him, Greg had managed to get two seats. From outside the carriage had looked packed as any cattle truck and almost as packed as any tram going home from a Saturday race meeting. They had just settled back in the seats when two young soldiers came plunging back into the compartment.

      “Hey, those are our seats, dig! We just been out to get a cuppa tea. We’ve had them seats ever since we left Cowra.”

      Greg made no move. “I’m sorry, dig. I’ve got a bad leg——” He tenderly felt the wound he didn’t have.

      The youngster suddenly noticed the purple ribbon on Greg’s chest. “That’s all right, sarge. You’re Sergeant Morley, ain’t you? No, go on, you stay there. Me and me cobber’ll be all right. I’ll just get me kit bag. There. Well, best of luck, sarge. Look after yourself.”

      When the two boys had gone Sarah whispered, “That was cheap.”

      “I know,” said Greg, smiling at the woman opposite, who was looking at him with frank admiration. “I feel like being cheap to-day. Cheap and nasty and don’t-give-a-bugger-for-anyone.”

      He knew that yesterday he wouldn’t have thought of taking the seats from the two kids, nor of putting on the cheap act about carrying a wound. But yesterday he had been another man, a friend to everyone: and to-day he was as badly wounded as any man who had ever stopped a bullet. But if he told that to Sarah, it would only look like another cheap bid for sympathy.

      The woman opposite leaned across. “I heard the other young soldier ask if you were Sergeant Morley. You’re the Victoria Cross winner, aren’t you? That’s the ribbon there, isn’t it? I saw your photo in the papers earlier in the week.”

      “Yes,” said Greg, all at once wishing he had taken off his ribbon this morning and carried it in his pocket. He glanced at Sarah, expecting her to look bored, but she smiled at the woman opposite. She moved her arm, linking it in his, and he knew then she was only keeping up appearances. For a moment he was angry, then with a sense of fairness that had once been foreign to him, he realised she was doing it for his sake. He pressed her hand, but there was no answering pressure.

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