Those words, very little purpose, hung nakedly in the air. I did not like their presence. Dotty Mortmain had been very angry with Rufus for not reappearing by the New Year of 1945, but she said it was due to his desire to keep Doucette out of trouble by following him into it. That axiom or mantra – or whatever you’d call it – took up a solid residence in my mind too, but applied to Leo instead of Rufus. But the words very little purpose threatened to reopen the issue and to revisit the flimsy story I consoled myself with.
They were brave men, Rhonda insisted.
But what for? asked Sherry Danway. After all? What for?
Rhonda said, Men believe they’re born to be brave, and you see hollow men walking round who’ve never had a chance to try it. Or else they failed. But your husband… braver than MacArthur for a start. Braver than any politician. Braver than that old soak Blamey.
And I thought there was something to that, too. To men of a certain kind, not to all men, but to some men in certain circumstances and under the force of certain ideas, bravery was its own end. That comforted me a little when put up against very little purpose. The purpose was to be brave, the purpose was even to be doomed.
Mrs Danway said, I don’t think I want to go to Canberra. I’m sorry. The truth is, I couldn’t care two bob whether they give my husband a medal or not. It has no effect on me or my memory of my husband. It’s certainly not worth risking going to Canberra to hear his name rolled round the mouth of some shitty old official.
She was very firm about that, and I felt embarrassed that I didn’t know my own mind, that I had been shamed into going with Rhonda. Rhonda gave up and said to me, The train into Central’s due in twenty minutes, Grace. We ought to start out.
In fact, the station was in sight when Sherry Danway came running after us. I’ll go, she called after Rhonda. What time should I meet you at Central?
Rhonda yelled the details as we sprinted for the train. I’ll see you there, she cried, and I asked myself, Who elected you leader? Sherry Danway and I had lost husbands. Rhonda was a wilful, married woman dragging two reluctant widows into a confrontation they didn’t want to have.
The following Tuesday we all met precisely where Rhonda had decided, the country-train indicator board at Central. Rhonda and I had got quite friendly by now. On Sunday, we’d shared a picnic at Bradley’s Point. On Monday, Laurie Burden took us to a five o’clock session of The Third Man at the Regent Cinema. It was a wonderful tale of complexity arising from the war, and was strangely comforting, since it implied we were still stuck in that same territory too, in a land of shadows. I was convinced by then that Rhonda was indeed a splendid woman. I reassured myself she would not let her grief for Pat Bantry trample on my own decisions about grief, or complicate it all for me.
I remember my view of myself in those days with some amusement and with a sense of loss as well. I was at thirty-one considered almost too old to bear a first child. I saw Sherry Danway and myself as already middle-aged, already bowed by history, and as unentitled to girlishness. It was as a coven of senior women that we met by the huge indicator board at Central, and took our reserved seats in a carriage with pictures of the Blue Mountains above the upholstery, and a cut-glass water bottle above our heads, clinking in its brass retainer. We were all nervous and had brought plenty of reading matter of one kind and another. I was reading Evelyn Waugh, his world remote from my experience, and thus a good one to lose myself in.
When we arrived in Canberra, there was no snow on the Brindabellas out to the west, and the town seemed ominously vacant, still mainly populated by eucalyptus foliage, as if everyone who had an answer for us had fled. We caught a taxi to our hotel, and despite enquiries about buses, were forced to take another cab to the Department of Defence in its bark-strewn parkland. Though Parliament was not in session, the minister had agreed to see us here. Mr Philip McBride had been a regular member of the cabinet of Prime Minister Menzies. I had seen his face in the press and on newsreels. His office at the department was a plain big room with a massive desk, for which one or two native cedar trees must have been plundered. The office was heartened with pictures of fighter planes and bombers, an aircraft carrier and a cruiser. The planes in the pictures were at ease with the sky. The ships had the sea where they wanted it.
We three were already seated in there when Mr McBride entered with a young man who carried a number of files. Don’t get up, ladies, said the minister, as he made his way around the desk. We did half stand in honour of his political gravity, but we were not as innocent as we had once been, so did not overdo it.
The minister settled in his chair and the young man sat on a harder one by the corner of the business end of the desk. He began briefing himself on who we were from the notes on his desk.
Rhonda said, Perhaps you remember? We’re the women calling on you about the Memerang men.
Ah yes, ah yes, said Mr McBride. Brave men.
He looked up at us, and caught our eyes. Every one of them, he assured us.
Rhonda explained, I was merely the fiancée of Sergeant Bantry. Mrs Waterhouse and Mrs Danway were married to the officers of those names.
Mr McBride asked, The men were…?
His secretary muttered something. Oh yes, said Mr McBride, dolorously. Terrible, terrible. Members of the enemy were never charged over it, I’ve been told, but I believe that most of the people involved were caught for war crimes of another stripe.
Rhonda sat back to allow Mrs Danway and myself to take up the running. We were both guiltily reluctant, but at last I said, We are all concerned that none of the men have been honoured for that last operation.
Mrs Danway stepped in, anxious to emphasise that she knew it was no substitute for a husbandly presence. Not that it will bring them home, sir. But they did something very adventurous, and it seemed that no one gave them a lot of credit for it.
Mr McBride turned to his secretary. Was it normal for men to be honoured for secret operations? he asked. Were other IRD men honoured?
The young man looked up from his files. Not normally, sir, he told his master. Only in special circumstances.
I said, My husband, Captain Waterhouse, was awarded the DSO for an earlier mission.
The young man rose and whispered further to Mr McBride. The cabinet minister knotted his broad brow as the whispers entered his ear. At last he said, Ah yes, Mrs Waterhouse, that was for Cornflakes.
He shook his head. These names, he said, chuckling a little. But that was exceptional.
Pat Bantry got the Military Medal, Rhonda said. In North Africa. But Singapore was where he gave everything. And yet there is nothing at all for that.
Mr McBride said, I’m sure it was given every consideration at the time. His secretary was passing another file to him which he quickly read. Oh yes, the policy was reinforced in 1943 after the Cornflakes expedition.
But he read further into the file, squinting his eyes up into a frown now and then. You see, he explained, on Cornflakes they all came back. So they were all witnesses to each other’s valour. Sadly, there were no witnesses left after Memerang, and hence no military awards.
He looked up. I know it’s harsh, but it is apparently the rule.
I believe we all became simultaneously annoyed at this pettifogging. Mrs Danway said, But there are enough witnesses now. We know what happened, don’t we? From witnesses. From the records.