I said, ‘Thanks for the drink, Ken,’ stepped around Eddie and left the bar.
Driving back to North Sydney, I discovered that I was in an evil mood. Barraclough had been an artist in his way, and what had happened to him was wrong. He should have survived intact, or gone out clean, instead of being so badly damaged in mind and body. I was convinced of the mind damage. The Digger Bar and the pseudo-uniforms were grotesque, a sick joke.
I took it out on Astrid. I was morose and drank too much that night and was unresponsive in bed. I tried to make amends in the morning, but only partly succeeded. She asked me what was wrong and I told her a little about it, but she didn’t understand. I didn’t understand it myself, but somehow I didn’t want to see Barraclough running a bloodhouse masquerading as an army mess. It seemed a denial of everything he’d done in the past out of sense of duty and commitment. I rang Bean and told him I’d need a little time.
‘Did you talk to him?’
‘Yes. He’s a sick man.’
‘Thanks very much, Dr Casey. Did you make him see sense?’
‘We didn’t get that far. Look, it’s complicated. If you want me to work on it, I will. But it’s not just a matter of persuading Barraclough to take off the slouch hat.’
‘Shit. The Yanks’re due any day. All it’ll take is for a couple of drunk GIs to go across the road and talk to those fuckin’ ANZAC types Barraclough’s got over there, and it’ll be on! The cops’ll close us both down. Who wins then?’
‘Your thinking’s too simple, Lawrie. He blames the US for what happened to him. He wants a stoush, he needs it.’
Bean swore a few times and then asked me what I had in mind. I told him I needed to find out some more about Barraclough and how he’d got into the state he was in. That got me a silence on the line.
‘Lawrie?’
‘Yeah? I didn’t think I was hiring a fuckin’ trick cyclist.’
‘You were calling me Ben Casey a minute ago. How come you can’t back off on this “all the way with LBJ” shit?’
‘There’s money in it.’
‘Come on. When the fleet’s in everyone makes money. You don’t need the neon stars ‘n’ stripes to make a quid.’
Another silence, then Bean said, ‘I’ve got an American backer. He’s keen on the whole thing.’
‘Without him you’re in trouble?’
‘I’m down the dunny.’
‘Well then, you can see how complicated it is, too. Give me a few days, Lawrie.’
Bean agreed and I got busy. I hadn’t kept up a lot of army contacts, didn’t go to regimental dinners and such, but I knew a few people who knew a few more. After a morning spent mostly on the telephone, I finally got through to the doctor who’d treated Barraclough and sat on the committee that handled his discharge and disability settlement. He was Dr Stuart Henry, now a Reserves major.
‘Very sad case, Mr Hardy,’ the doctor said. ‘A brilliant officer, totally dedicated, who made two bad mistakes.’
‘What d’you mean, doctor?’ I asked.
‘He ignored or refused to believe an advice from US Command that a certain area was mined. That was mistake number one. It was an area he needed to pass through to accomplish his mission, no doubt about that. He could have got a key to the mine placement, but he didn’t. Mistake two. Give him credit, he was up front when they went in. And he paid the penalty.’
I had to frame the next query carefully. There’s nothing the army likes less than to have its judgments questioned. ‘Doctor, you know Barraclough insists that he wasn’t advised of the mines.’
‘Absurd,’ Henry snapped. ‘The Americans’ paperwork was immaculate.’
I could imagine the scene: Barraclough with mud on his boots and in his hair, sweat patches under his arms, anxious to take some position that would afford relief to his men and others. A paper blizzard blowing into his tent and the muddy boots stamping on it.
‘What would you say was his mental condition when he was discharged, doctor?’
Henry sighed. ‘Mr Hardy, I’m only talking to you because people I trust tell me you’re discreet.’
“That’s right,’ I said.
Another sigh. ‘He was a grenade with the pin out-paranoid, depressive, deluded.’
‘Did he get a big payout-compensation, anything like that?’
A snort of derision. ‘No. A standard wounded-in-action allowance, calculated according to rank and years of service.’
I knew what that meant-medical bills taken care of for life, but life still to be lived on a tight budget as the cost of living went up. “Thank you, doctor,’ I said. ‘One last question-did Captain Barraclough come from a wealthy background?’
‘I thought you knew him.’
‘I did, but as a soldier. The soldier takes over the man. I didn’t know anything about him personally.’
‘Captain Barraclough’s father was a soldier settler who went broke and shot himself after his wife left him. He was raised in orphanages and educated in reform schools. He’s a self-made man, Mr Hardy.’
Which left the question-where had Barraclough got the money to operate the pub? I did some ringing around about that, too, but got no answers. As a next step, I arranged to meet Grant Evans, my main police contact, for a drink that evening. As soon as I’d put the phone down I realised that this meant another call to Astrid to explain another late arrival home. It didn’t go over too well.
I met Grant in the Metropolitan and told him the story. We were drinking middies of old and smoking my Drum.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Grant said.
‘Find out if there’s someone dirty behind Barraclough. If there is, you can step in and prevent the bloodbath that’s bound to happen.’
Grant looked at me oddly. We’d known each other since Police Boys’ Club days in Maroubra. I’d been best man at his wedding. We’d been in Malaya, too, although not in the same Company. He knew Barraclough only by reputation, not from personal experience. Still, what I was proposing sounded like a low blow to an old comrade.
‘I don’t know, Cliff. What if he’s on the up and up? What if he borrowed legitimate money to get the pub? You’d be shoving him over the edge.’
‘The man’s off his head. If he goes on with this thing there’s bound to be trouble. He could end up on a manslaughter charge or something like that. Closing the pub’d be the least of his worries.’
‘You’re exaggerating,’ Evans said.
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Grant. Just poke around a bit, will you?’
He said he would and we had a few more beers. Astrid’s reception, when I got back to North Sydney, somewhere around 9.30, amorous and contrite, was icy.
For the next few days I did the routine things, got home in time for dinner and tried to mend the domestic fences. I was half-successful. Astrid accused me of being distracted and wanted to know what was going on. I tried to explain the ins and outs of the Barraclough case, but she didn’t understand.
‘This is 1967,’ she said, ‘not the 1940s. People are different. They’ve been to school longer. Those soldiers aren’t going to take bayonets to each other.’
‘They will,’ I said, ‘if the conditions are right. If they get fuelled up enough and egged on in the right way.’
‘Well, you’ve done the right thing. You’ve alerted the police. They’ll be on the lookout.’
‘I haven’t alerted the police, love. I’ve just had a private talk with Grant’
‘Won’t he pass it on?’
‘Not without talking to me first.’
Astrid smoked Benson amp; Hedges-filters in the gold pack. She lit one now and blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘God,’ she said, ‘it’s like a secret society. You ex-army types. You’re no better than my father.’
‘Was he ex-army? You’ve never told me.’
‘No. He went to Lodge, all tricked out in a dinner suit and carrying a little bag. My mother hated it. After he died, they came around and took the bag away. You’re like savages, you men, with your clubs and games.’