Free Billy Mack's War by James Roy

they wanted to know. ‘Is Freddy Mack coming home?’ ‘We heard that Alice has gone to get him.’ ‘How is he? Is there any word?’ ‘When will they be back?’ And on it went.
    Luckily, when most grown-ups looked at me they just saw a twelve-year-old boy, and since twelve-year-old boys don’t know anything about anything, they left me alone. I slid down from the tray of the truck and went to find Doug.
    He was over the back in the graveyard, sitting on a headstone and talking to Barry Morrie, who was also in our grade at school. Doug saw me come around the corner of the church. ‘Hey,’ he said.
    â€˜Hey,’ I replied. ‘Gidday, Barry.’
    Barry was chewing on a stalk of grass. He looked up when I spoke to him. His eyes narrowed a bit, but he didn’t say anything.
    â€˜Gidday, Barry,’ I repeated, in case he hadn’t heard me.
    Barry straightened up and spat the grass out. Then he jammed his hands deep in his pockets and sauntered away. Not a sound did he make.
    â€˜What’s going on?’ I asked Doug, and he looked at the ground. ‘Doug?’
    â€˜Nothing,’ he muttered. ‘It’s nothing.’
    â€˜Like hell it’s nothing,’ I said, suddenly feeling guilty for using that word in a churchyard. ‘Doug, what’s going on?’
    â€˜Look, I don’t want to be the one to tell you this, and it’s not me that’s saying it —’
    â€˜Saying what?’
    â€˜Like I said, it’s not me, but Barry reckons …’ He stopped, shifting uncomfortably. ‘Look, don’t worry about it, awright?’
    â€˜What’s Barry saying?’ I asked. ‘Doug?’
    â€˜Well, he’s reckons that, compared with other blokes, maybe your dad got the easy way out.’
    â€˜The what? The easy way out? The easy way out of what?’ I said, trying not to shout in a church graveyard, but suddenly finding it a bit difficult to control my voice.
    â€˜The war and that. He says he spent the war getting a suntan and drinking rice wine. How do they make wine out of —’
    I didn’t let him finish that sentence. ‘Barry’s a … a flaming liar !’ I spat. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’
    â€˜No, probably not,’ Doug agreed meekly.
    â€˜Do you agree with him?’ I asked.
    Doug shrugged. Then he shook his head. ‘No, mate, I think he’s just repeating what his dad’s been saying. You’re right — he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’
    â€˜What would his dad know anyway?’ I said. ‘He didn’t even join up.’
    â€˜He tried to, but he had flat feet,’ Doug replied. ‘Barry said they wouldn’t let him.’
    â€˜He’s a bank manager, and he wouldn’t know the first thing about fighting.’
    â€˜No, of course not,’ Doug murmured.
    â€˜Do you think he’s right?’ I asked again. ‘Doug? You don’t seem sure.’
    Doug raised his eyes and looked at me. He looked as guilty as anything. I know is what my brothers told me, Billy. They told me about what it was like in New Guinea, fighting in the jungle and that. James said they were almost killed heaps of time, and there were Japs everywhere, and sometimes they had to defend their foxholes twenty, thirty times in one night, and all that. But your dad … well, you know, he was caught years ago and didn’t have to fight, did he? Not once he was caught, anyway. And it can’t have been too hard in those camps, otherwise he wouldn’t have survived, would he?’
    â€˜You’re a flaming liar too, then,’ I said.
    â€˜Billy, don’t say that!’
    â€˜But you are!’ I retorted, so angry now that I’d forgotten not to shout. ‘And so is everyone who says my dad’s not as much of a hero as anyone else who came back.’
    Doug nodded.