SHOWING THE FLAG

                                                        

Choking awake, he found himself coughing, like swimming up from deep underground, breathless but parched dry.  And dared open his blinkers, ungummed them, nice n slow, tentative like.  Breathe shallow, breathe easy.  What’s that smell?  Gas . . . and something other.  Cordite?  What the bloody hell was cordite?

Wailing piercing his head, a roller-coaster of sharp, shrill screams.  Sirens more like, braying.  Move, he couldn’t, not flex even, feelingless.  Until he pressed thumbs hard against each fingertip in turn, just like when the arthritis got too much.

Oglers stinging something awful, unfocussing.  Close up, motes of dust still raining.  Brick dust?  Were his eyes partially blinded or brain dimmed, dumbed?  Or the lounge swathed in darkness, fuses blown?  Mind blown?  What for god sakes lay around the lounge?  Some sort of scatter - Christ, what a scatter! - dark oblongs like bricks or slabs of paving.  Then tensed, sensed his two and a half metre solid walnut bookcase sloped across his back, digging in. 

Books as bricks?  Huh, struck his whole life on a scaffold of bricks.  Wasn’t his dwelling a haven of words and long drawn-out lacunas, lacunae?  Books the ballast.  If ever he’d do away with himself, he’d pondered frequently, he’d treat himself to a cave stacked with piles of bound paper, piles and pyres of them, douse them in petre and oil and slow-burn amid their ashes, spines broken.  Symbol of his journey.  A bookish person they’d say, Who’d say?  Fearful of facing the ferments and terrors of Terra Firma.

Yet face them he did.  Literally.  A Letter to the Editor.  His first ever!  The Morning Post, oft referred to in these times of unreal politik as the Mourning Post.

Sir, Since the Sydney siege, it is scarcely credible how many people believe that Islamic terrorism is the work of a few disaffected individuals with mental issues.  Surely these blinkered Lefties cannot deny that extremist elements within the Islamic diaspora have declared war on our cherished western values.  I appeal to both left-wing progressives, who dare not offend the notion of multiculturalism, and those who believe, such as the P.M., Mal Priestley, that by permitting Australian aircraft to assist the American air force in an attack on the ISIS ‘death cult’, this horrendous cultural conflict will be over in ‘certainly months rather than weeks’.  Oh, really?  Or just another shirtfront by the fakir of facade.

Last night I learned on the six o’clock news that Muslim boys as young as five are being taught to cut off the heads of westerners by slicing slowly through their necks.  And today I read that a clean-living seventeen year old Muslim boy, a former student of a distinguished Sydney grammar school who had won a scholarship to university, has gone off to fight in Syria; an adolescent girl was raped by Islamic State soldiers, then sold at market; and pregnant women were slain for refusing to marry jihadists.  We must remain vigilant.  Terrorist chatter is increasing on social networks.  We are not immune.  It is imperative that we review both our terrorist laws and immigration laws.

Name and address supplied

Disgusted, sickened by that horrific photo of a captured Pakistani pilot he dredged up that angst-ridden time as a god-awful teen, when he himself finally plucked the nerves to immolate . . . emasculate?  Striking a safety match - Swan Vesta? - to light the gas oven with its range of flames in pretty hyacinth blue, leaving the oven door ajar and tuning out the incessant hissing by wallowing in groovy black shellac 45s . . . the Grifters?  No, Drifters, deep throats, all cascading violins and bell sounds, Belsen . . . Nelson . . . Ricky, the Neverly Brothers . . . two long lonely hours lapsed before sticking his scone in the oven, laying it on the bottom blue-mottled metal shelf, his body slumped on that cruddy brown lino . . . but still no easing, releasing pain.  Utterly useless it was, cowardly stuff.  Tedious too.  What else but brew up a cuppa?  How homely was that?

First, though, staggered outside to snatch some fresh air.  Not before spewing up over the bluebells by the back step.  Where the buck stops.  If he’d had the wit to put the kettle on the ring first, he’d have blown roof-high to smithereens or been so badly bloody crippled the physical wounds would have cut as bad as a lobotomy.

When his wandering senses trundled round again, baubles of water seemed dripping down seams and cracks in the ceiling.  Unsealing, splashing on the side of his noddle.  What relief, thank god!  Though throat was dry.  Dry as . . . That’s it!  Keep thinking.  What was the familiar . . . similiar, simile?  Dry as the cocky’s selection after a drought.

Sirens were still . . . whirring?  Moaning?  Belling?  Snatches of vocal utterances far away, real or imagined.  Outside walls licking up the flames?  Whistles pitching in shrieks, then trilling shrill.  


His other war, he recollected in blinding flashes, had been sheer bliss:  running barefoot in shorts, what, five or six years old?  Playing cops and robbers in the camp, squinting up at the air raids, tracers of anti-aircraft fire.  So much larking about, except for gathering firewood or keeping an eye on the washing line, till roll call at evening.  Which was taken by conscripts acting as guards, South Korean or Taiwanese, the Japanese soldiers concentrated on the front line.  That's right, the teachers had all been locked up.  He'd been taught in the mornings only - what, he couldn't remember - the seniors like his big brother Eric did the afternoon shift.  Eric was given a book on the Norse sagas by the librarian, but preferred Zane Grey, Tarzan and the jungle stories of Kippers Kipling.

Pre-war Honkers was but a hazy, lazy blur.  His father was a sales manager for the British air industry.  They could afford two servants . . . amahs? in their apartment.  He and his younger brother, Tom, were greedy readers of American comics, fifteen cents each, which they'd swop:  Superman, Captain Marvel, Batman . . . At the end of their street, a two-dollar shop.

The war he'd only been vaguely aware of, the Japanese invasion of China.  Hong Kong had proved a haven for Chinese escapees from the mainland, but they were treated badly by the locals, so Dad said.  Whereas he was more taken with making bird traps of bricks and twigs to catch sparrows, bulbuls and finches for his mother to cook up.

One day, September, 1941?  A Canadian army unit turned up.  Two thousand men marched up Nathan Road, in readiness for transport to the U.K.  The army camp lay three miles yonder toward the hills.  They marched three abreast, never-ending it seemed, their thick black boots grating, the slogging past lasting a good half-hour.

Dad was in the reserve army then, the Hong Kong defence force, often coming and going without saying much.  Then suddenly disappeared.  December 8 rings a bell, but he can't be sure of the year.  Went off to catch the bus to school.  He heard the ack-ack fire, spied planes winging across the sky.  Only manoeuvres, he shrugged.

But then:  'No school today,' said the conductor in Cantonese.  'The Japanese are coming.'

He was deliciously excited.  But when he ventured home, Mum was sobbing bitterly.  'Where's your father disappeared to now?  Don't tell me he's joined up.  And where were you?'

He skulked off again in spite of the heavy droning of planes and bursts of gunfire.  And, bull's eye!, picked up a big lump of shrapnel that was still hot!

Later that arvo, when Mum had calmed down a bit, she heard on the radio that all British passport-holders should go down to the port with whatever they could carry.  What a bloomin' struggle for him and his two brothers , all those suitcases.  Someone said a bomb had killed ten internees.  Another gasped out Hong Kong's surrender.


Remember, try to remember.  Last fire drill: ‘Testing, testing!’ burst the intercom with a crackle.  ‘This is only a practice.  Repeat:  This is only a practice.  Do not do anything!’

Remember walking homeward back to the Towers one time?  Yes, head clearing the fug a bit.  Must’ve been end of morning constitutional, round eight o’ clock.  Mass of residents clucking about the forecourt, some in dressing-gowns, some with sticks, riffs of gabbling and chuckling.  What an adventure that was, what a hoot, surging down corridors into lifts in carpet slippers!  And he’d missed all the fun.  The wardens of each floor, wearing their silver helmets like Her Majesty’s horse guards with jutting jaw, thumping on apartment doors if a pillow hadn’t been dumped outside to signify evacuation or checking if door locked.  A surge – yes, even lame oldies can surge if need – down the concrete steps to the exit and round onto the forecourt.

‘Eighty people missing!’ he heard the chief warden informing the manager, with a straight face, checking his lists of apartment numbers and names ticked off, obviously dismayed that so many hadn’t bothered to desert their comfy warm beds or even bid him to 'get lost'.

‘That’s alright, Fergus,’ Maeve reassured with the hint of a smile and a pat on the forearm, deeply relieved that the cause was only some duffer’s burnt toast.  Why don’t the buggers use their fans? she wondered.  ‘Here at Chiltern Towers there’s more chance of drowning than burning if there’s a real fire.’

All the same, Fergus thought, eighty people missing, presumed toast, is hardly a commendation for the operation’s success.

Next Maxwell knew, retching and retching, the mess leaking out of his mouth splodging the carpet - Russian salad.  Even shed a few tears at the helplessness of being stripped almost naked, vulnerable as a sensitive nipper four years old groping in the dark.

From the pit of his stomach, he heard spasms of grumbling.  Strained his much weaker, foggier right eye upward to the ceiling.  Flooded, pale yellow, now greyish.  Fractured with seams of water dropping, dripping.  A giant’s jigsaw fretted.

A blinding moment of reckoning!  There was at least one floor above him that could come crashing down on top of his splayed body.  Not to mention eight apartments with extensive gardens up on the flat roof . . . or structural damage from below. But his back he couldn't feel for dead weight.  Was broken already?

Pent up, insides churning.  Try to flex those flaming hands.  Where the fuck were they?  Left arm throbbing, pinioned beneath.  Couldn’t roll off without creasing pain.  Limply lying down beside.  Try to clench fingers, but no, not much sensation there.  Exercise your mind, for god sake!  Tell what happened.  More than just an explosion of gas?  Old brainpan didn’t want to register, but after a long pause, he urged.  Suppose something far worse than an accident, something executed with intent, something political.

Which brought back to mind last month’s residents meeting, some parade  In fact, it had played on his mind, with his mind most nights since.  He had spoken out against the village president -  the resi presi he called him in flippant moments - but could’ve bitten his tongue.  And hated himself for doing so.  In particular, because he had rarely spoken out in his life, except when flaming angry.  In the nineteen-forties you could be flogged by your parents, in the fifties by your teachers, at uni by the brainy bunch; and, in harness, metaphorically by your editor:  ‘Keep your head in, Maxwell!’  Now that he was no longer constrained by the chains of subservience and liberated by retirement, he had resolved to tell it how it was.

‘Your committee,’ the silver-tongued, silver-haired Warwick Holman was saying in doggedly determined mood, ‘has decided in its wisdom to erect the Australian flag in a corner of the front garden.’

There were murmurings from the chairs towards the back of the lounge, some smirks, some eyes flickering heavenwards, some knowing nods. 

Maxwell’s hand shot up.

‘I haven’t finished yet, Maxwell,’ said Warwick tersely, more corpulent than corporate.

‘ All the same, I think . . .’

‘Be so good as to let me finish, if you don’t mind.’

He had never seen the man so steely.  ‘Mr President, I appreciate that your sentiments are worthy.  But we haven’t been permitted a vote on the matter.’

‘Look, we have dickered about for years without making a decision.  You have elected me president and I wish to press ahead.  We had a show of hands at last month’s meeting and the indication was that those in favour were in the majority.’

Maxwell grudgingly admired Warwick’s determination for a cause fervently believed in.  Right, this was the moment.  Stand up and be counted!  ‘I fear I must be frank.  If you raise the Australian flag, you are attracting the attention of any jihadist who feels he must obey the strictures of his imam without question.’  There, it was out!

When the gasps had died, there was quite a stir.  ‘Shame on you!’ the treasurer cried out, waving his treasury report.  ‘You muckraking panic-merchant!’

‘That is a disgraceful thing to say!’ blurted Meg Adams.  ‘Have you no sense of shame?’

‘You are out of order, sir!’ shouted wizened Dr Duffield with dodgy knees, who knocked over his seat as he struggled to his feet.

 

‘You go against the grain,’ said Mary-Jane Walters more calmly, having made a grab for the microphone.  ‘We are fortunate to live in a tolerant multi-cultural society and any wild talk of jihadists will stir the pot.’ 

‘I am quite sure,’ Maxwell retaliated, ‘that in the city of Chiltern we are in no immediate danger from any dissident group, but regrettably we’re not immune from the machinations of the caliphate.’

‘Nor should any of us say anything that can be misconstrued,’ added Warwick, with a fierce look of disdain. 

So why did he bother to attend the ceremony?  At the show of hands Maxwell had opted No to Chiltern Towers flying the Australian flag.  It might signal an exclusive club, a bunch of out-of-touch anglophiles, a promo for the smug plutocracy of yesteryear.  You would never witness on the streets of Chiltern a woman wearing a niqab, not even a hijab . . . of course, the city was a possible target for a lone wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Or might one day - heaven forbid! - harbour a cell of jihadists, that taboo word which left-wing progressives found impossible to utter for fear of appearing critical of Islamic culture, even Islam itself?  Bloody hell, could this be the second home-grown atrocity committed by ISIS terrorists in two weeks?  

Here I am living in a blue riband seat, he thought, ultra-conservative, very right wing.  The residence is plum in the centre of Chiltern, opposite the town hall, whose Australian flag atop the clock tower flies freely, so proudly, whereas ours hangs limp.  Had some bod, some rough with grievance, broken in?  To cause such grief?  Unlikely.  Security is number one factor, why all we resis sold up in the burbs, downsized and washed up here.

Besides, how could you break in?  Well, you for one lost your swipe card, didn’t you?  At least once.  So whose got their thieving fingers on them?  What’s more, don’t the tradies get given swipe cards when they’re on the job?  Not all, but some, specially early starters of a morning.  And forget to hand them back?  No, the office would chase them up.  Hound them till they brought them back.  They’re very expensive:  eighty dollars, an expensive mistake.  Or charged them.  Hopefully, incentive enough.

Occasionally, some scruff would lurk in the recesses of the outside walls, out of sight if residents seated inside the lounge looked up.  Watching, waiting, he would nip in behind a doddery or distracted couple, sneak through reception and lounge, wander over to the café bar, have a gander, then turn his back away from them all, pour himself a cup of coffee with trembling fingers and snaffle a couple of biscuits, then hover in the reception area as if waiting for an inmate about to emerge from the lift.  Sometimes the oldies didn’t care a brass razoo.  After all, you couldn’t be sure who was a newie, unless dressed like some dero.  Other times residents cast suspicious glances, nudged one another and called over the staffer at the front desk.  The cadger would mumble something inaudible.  If pressed, would mutter, ‘Meeting a mate’ or ‘Waiting for apartment 215.  They’re just comin.’  But such transgressions should never happen.

Again, remember when the new blinds were installed in the lounge?  The sliding double-glazed doors went unlocked for a week to make it easier for the workmen laying the new skirting board, kept open for much of the day. The day staff in the office must’ve left it to the caretaker, didn’t inform the night staff at the five o’clock changeover.  Five days passed by before any staffer thought to check that doors now closed were in fact locked.  They weren't!  Yet no one broke in – as far as far we know.  Christ, what a stink if company honchos had known!

Remember that recent notice from the police?  Security alert for all Over 55 Residences.  Lock all bikes and motorised vehicles even in underground car parks.  Beware that incidences of tailgating are growing, so be suspicious of cars driving through the boom-gate on your tail.  Which to his embarrassment he well knew.  While awaiting a friend at the boom-gate, he used his own swipe card to allow what he thought was her buttercup yellow car to proceed down to the basement, only to realize too late that the face of the driver behind the tinted windscreen wasn’t in the least familiar, nor the rego.  But then could any trespasser prowl around beyond the gated car park?  Yes, from the fenced-off visitors’ car park, they could open the fire door and pass along a brightly lit passageway, lined by a few garbage bins.  Concrete steps did lead upwards from there to a locked door, but intruders could simply leave explosives hidden in one of the bins, then exit directly through an outside door into the street without being spotted.  Christ, his own apartment was situated on the third floor adjacent to the lift, just above that fire door in the car park!

So much for security.  Security sucks!

Racking his tired old brain, thoughts proving too hard to come by.  Water now dripping in a steady trickle onto the back of his head far more irritating than refreshing.  Back all clammy and cold as death.  Yawns growing gapes.  Mind going wanderbout like wailing of nearby sirens.  Was he imagining the moans of his pitiful, bed-ridden neighbouring resis?  His body twitched when in his mind’s eye he glimpsed the black jihad battle flag bearing an Arabic inscription in white.  Like countless Australians who read the week’s newspapers, he knew its meaning:

    There is no god but God and Muhammed is the messenger of God.

When he was returned to his senses, he recalled that last social gathering.  In the front garden looking most attractive and refined, with beds of mauvish and pink begonias in full bloom and jacarandas flowering in delicate showers of purple.  Chairs rushed outside by the fish pond.  Photos shot of the nine long-lived vets who’d survived World War II, brandishing their medals on stiffly proud lapels.

In black suit and white shirt, the resi presi, stalks of grey hair buffing up at the collar, was in a bit of a flap, irked as he struggled to speak against the static of erratic mike and whelming hot northerly gusts.

‘For several years now some of us have expressed the wish to honour the fallen with a show of support for our armed forces.  Each time this worthy cause was defeated in a motion.  This very morning Chiltern Towers is proud to declare we have nine brave people who fought on our behalf in World War II.  This year your committee was determined to push the ‘Yes’ vote, especially as today marks the one hundredth anniversary of the beginning of that universal catastrophe, World War I.

I now call upon Reg Burgess to raise the flag at Chiltern Towers for the first time.’

Bidding these gallant heroes to rise and follow him, albeit with slow, measured dignity, the party all but disappeared behind the sturdy frames and arching boughs of a stand of oak trees.

Burgess, the former wartime pilot, balding and bespectacled, wearing a navy blue blazer and squadron tie, swayed from side to side aided by his stick to the flagpole.  A state of apprehension hung in the air.  What if the hoist wouldn’t work?  Slowly, though, the furled flag rose in a clearing between the trees, much to the relief and joy of the president and to the muted clapping from the onlookers trailing behind.

And it was with an image of the starry-eyed Southern Cross that Maxwell drifted off again, bereft of the quarter owed to the British Union flag.

Voices barkng louder, more distinct, whistles more frantic, more shrill.  ‘Hello.  Is anyone there?  Can anyone hear me?’

The crunching sound of heavy boots trampling buckled furniture, bricks and scrap iron being slung aside.

Scarcely daring to believe, Maxwell opened his gritty eyes painfully slowly on the shape of a figure looming in dark ballistic armour.

Michael Small

December 21, 2014-January 4, 2015