Riding the Tiger

By Patrick Harris

Michael Doyle is a former elite SAS officer who leaves the military under a cloud and enters the world of law and business, while he also deals with his experience of war. He is essentially a good man, but capable of the worst in human behavior.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrick Harris
• Release date: Jun 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513027098

Patrick Harris

The author was born in 1950 in Kent and still lives there. He was educated at the Harvey, Folkestone and Chatham Grammar Schools. He has now retired from the petro-chemical industry and is a widower. He has two grown-up children and has recently become a grandfather. This is his first novella, although he has written many short stories and poetry.

Book preview

Prologue

The dream came without any hint of threat, in a mixture of the usual anarchy to be found in sleep – thoughts, ideas, desires, all colliding and becoming confused understandings of what was, or what was not. Images of people and places came and went from Michael Doyle’s mind, all with an ease which did not disturb his sleep. He remained calm, settled, and at peace in a slumber which should have decreed, on his awakening, rest and refreshment.

And even when the dream began to order itself, he felt no alarm. Unfolding scenes were familiar...Men dressed in uniforms like his own, engaged in tasks he knew well, and had himself performed. While Doyle watched the men, the sounds of their cynical humour came to him.

The army says it’s got two hundred and forty different jobs...and we do every fucking one of ’em before breakfast.

Doyle heard their laughter and smiled, feeling a profound association with these men who knew the same awful truths as himself. As he thought on the bond between men who shared the experience of war, he also found himself passing easily among them.

In that passing, their voices were lost to him, even while their faces exhibited their laughter. He had sight, but sound eluded him.

When the men were behind him, Doyle found himself at a juncture formed by the meeting of three paths. Ahead, the route disappeared after only a short distance into thick, jungle foliage. To his right an equally-short path ended at a wall with no apparent door. At his left, a corridor beckoned as the most prospective route.

The place was empty of anyone but himself. He could see to the corridor’s end, where it narrowed and met a door marked with a sign he could not read, yet he could understand. When he reached the door, he lifted his right hand and knocked once.

The door opened not on to a room, but a place outdoors. He could see long grass, trees, and in the distance, a river. He closed his eyes and stepped across the threshold.

When his eyes opened again he was standing at the river. He looked down to see fast-flowing water that foamed white as it met and went around rocks that were its obstacles. In places, the water was stilled, trapped in small ponds which seemed to him to be both within, and without, the river.

The pools had been Doyle’s focus for what seemed a long time when he suddenly became aware that someone was standing behind him. He turned to see a squat, powerfully-built man, dressed in the familiar battle fatigues of jungle-green. The man was completely bald; and his square-jawed face was clean-shaven. Over small, dark eyes he wore rimless spectacles. And on his shoulders, epaulettes displayed the rank of colonel.

The thought came to Doyle that he should salute this superior, but his thinking was interrupted when the colonel began to speak. The words formed doggerel, couched in a farrago of soldiers’ slang.

Can you lock and load, captain?

Can you klik, and shunt?

Can you butt-stroke, captain?

Can you...kill the cunt?

Doyle felt that he should resist, but did not. Instead, he yielded without contest. He offered his superior a simple nod, thus sealing their dark covenant. And with that consent the colonel’s image faded in time with Doyle’s body as it turned back to face the river.

Now, he could feel in his right hand the pistol-grip of an assault rifle. And without the need to look, he knew that a silencer was fixed to the end of the barrel, and that the weapon held a telescopic sight that would allow him to see into the night.

The scope came up slowly to his right eye, and he found in the crosshairs the round, smiling face of an old man with almond-shaped eyes and closely-cropped white hair. It seemed that the old man’s smile was welcoming, as if in recognition of a fellow warrior.

Doyle smiled himself, returning the gesture. And when he did, the look on the old man’s face changed. The generous smile gave way to a scowling visage etched in dark lines, which acted to guide the crosshairs to eyes that were now black, and which held a cold, accusatory stare. He struggled to flee the look, forcing the crosshairs upwards until he found the centre of the old man’s forehead. Then, while he was thinking about what it was he must do, he also knew the answer. He could feel his right index finger squeezing steadily on the weapon’s trigger. And soon he felt the hard thump of the recoil against his right shoulder.

Doyle watched the bullet through the scope as it sped over the water to its target. When the bullet hit, the sound came to him as a dull thud, much like the muffled sound that had followed the bullet from the barrel’s silencer.

When the old man’s head exploded, Doyle saw it as though viewed through a kaleidoscope. Crimson reds tumbled with fleshy pinks and muted grays and shards of white. The confusion of colours and shapes was at first hypnotic, but soon he felt a sense of dread arising in him.

The kaleidoscope’s image changed, splintering and then reforming into what became a succession of faces – faces like and unlike the old man’s – faces which firstly held looks of terror, and then of condemnation – faces which, as they fractured and reformed, howled with the sounds of demons which were not supposed to exist.

With fear came pain. He felt it first inside his head, a throbbing sensation which soon became an agony as it moved quickly through his body and all the way to its extremities. Violent spasms gripped him, throwing his shoulders so far back it seemed his spine was at such an impossible angle that it should have broken. And then, as though his body and its limbs were in the control of an unseen puppeteer, he contorted in thrusting, flaying actions, which might have been a pathetic attempt at combat, or the dance of a man gone mad with pain.

He did not know how long the agony endured. When it had passed he was on his knees, his head was bowed, and his arms hung limply at his sides. Around him, it was cold and it was quiet...like death.

He lifted his head until his face was almost fully up-turned to the night sky. Then his mouth opened wide, and he offered up to his God of War a long and silent scream.

Part One

Voyager

1

Doyle was awake at the first ring of the telephone. It was still dark, though his body clock told him that dawn was close. He reached across to the bedside table and lifted the receiver. Hello?

Is that Michael Doyle?

Yes.

I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, Mister Doyle. My name is Sanders – Doctor Sanders. I’m ringing about your father.

Doyle felt his gut muscles tightening. Is he dead?

No, Mister Doyle, but he’s not far off it. He’s asking for you.

This was a moment Doyle had thought about, the time when someone would tell him either that his father had finally died of the cancer afflicting him for the past year; or worse...that his father would want to see him. An answer was yet to be decided.

At the time of Doyle’s birth in 1944, his father Thomas was better known as ‘Tommy the Hammer’, a nick-name accorded him while a promising middle-weight boxer. But Thomas Doyle’s regular employment was instead the collection of high-value gambling and other black-market debts with the threat, and regular consummation, of physical assault. It was the kind of occupation that paid well, but nonetheless resulted in several prison terms. Not that prison bothered Thomas too much; he was tough enough to cope.

Doyle would like to have believed that he and his father were not consanguine, that Thomas was nothing more to their relationship than the man who adopted him. But he knew that it could not be true. They were the image of one another, separated in appearance only by the tell-tale signs of age. Like the body he passed on to his son, Doyle père was tall and lean, though his lanky frame disguised a wiry toughness which few could match; pound-for-pound, Tommy the Hammer was once considered unbeatable. He had height, reach, speed, and stamina on his side. But he had been wasteful of his martial talents outside of a boxing ring, the place where he might have become a champion instead of a thug. As he aged, Thomas’ hair became heavily flecked with grey, while his son’s thick mane was still coal-black, with eyebrows the same colour, providing a stark contrast to eyes of emerald-green and pale-olive skin. Neither father nor son was classically handsome, but taken in sum, even features and striking colouring yielded an effect which women seemed to find pleasing more often than they did not. And Thomas Doyle never failed to take advantage of it, even before the novelty of his wife Geraldine’s beauty faded from his mind. The principal difference between father and son was that of intellect. Doyle had inherited his father’s physical sameness, but it was his mother’s intelligence that he considered as his gift, awakened in him while an officer cadet.

Mister Doyle, are you still there?

*

The hospital was undergoing a facelift and Doyle had to walk between pallets stacked with bricks and bags of cement. In a few hours, work-men would be unloading the bricks and carting them to the men who laid them. He hoped to be gone by then.

The duty nurse was expecting him and telephoned Doctor Sanders, the young resident who had been on duty for the past thirty-eight and a half hours and was functioning now on instinct more than anything else. Sanders led the way to a small ward containing two beds, one of them holding Thomas Doyle.

When Doyle looked down on his father, he thought that Thomas was a pale imitation of the man he once had been. His father once possessed the well-formed physique of an athlete. His body was firm, his skin taut, and his eyes were clear. Now, little of his hair remained after chemotherapy, and his body had the appearance of a concentration camp survivor, a battered husk with just a spark of life.

Doyle had long felt a loathing for his father. He did not know when it started, save that it was during childhood. He hated him with as much strength as he had bestowed love on his grandfather Donal. And now he wondered whether the hating had been worth it. It was unlikely to have instigated Thomas’ cancer, and probably nothing else that affected the conduct of his father’s life. If the hate affected anyone, it was the hater. But recognising that truth, and ending the hate, was presently in the category of mutually exclusive.

Thomas Doyle opened his eyes and saw a blurred image of a tall, straight, dark-haired shape at the end of the bed. He did not need spectacles to know that it was his son. He tried to lift his head, which prompted the dark shape to come towards him, as if to help. When at his side and lifting his head to place another pillow under it, Thomas could see that it was Michael.

His head higher and his spectacles now covering bloodshot eyes, Thomas watched his son bring a chair closer to the bed and then sit within touching distance. How’ve you been, son?

Doyle winced. Hearing the word son from his father’s lips grated. He thought of it as a form of address a father earns, not has simply by right of blood. But now did not seem like the time to be arguing over titles. I’m okay. It seems we can’t say the same about you.

A wry smile came to Thomas Doyle’s face. That’s true, that’s surely true. I hope this doesn’t happen to you.

Doyle could not help himself with the question. Why would you care?

In the past, Tommy the Hammer would have hit someone for a question like that. But physically, he was long past that behavior. For almost a year he had barely been able to walk. He would not be surprised if ninety pounds was his now body-weight, maybe even less. Another factor that could dissuade him from physical attack on his son was Michael’s service in the SAS during his time in the army. Thomas once learned the hard way that they were men best not to provoke, no matter how tough a man thought he was. I care because you’re my son, Michael.

You think that because your sperm fertilized an egg, that gives you rights?

No, I don’t expect any rights, Michael. We both know I don’t deserve them. I’m just saying that I don’t want you to get this bloody cancer and die like me.

Doyle’s emotions were torn. He was having a conversation with a man who sounded reasonable, rational. Where had that man been before? But he knew it was pointless. There were more questions than there would ever be answers.

A doctor told me there’s a test they can do. You should have it every year, Michael. Will you do that?

Doyle nodded.

I’m not smart like you, Michael...or your late mother, for that matter. But I’m not stupid, either. I’m not going to ask you to forgive me.

"Then what do you want?"

I want a proper Catholic burial.

Doyle learned while a young army officer that too much alcohol made him mean, like his father. Now, it was as though he had reached that same excess, and a cruel tongue came into play. Found religion, have you?

I’ve always believed in God. Do you?

Doyle wanted to answer no, just to spite Thomas. But he was not sure what he believed. In battle, he invented a God of War. It seemed as good as any other. And it satisfied the basic requirement that it was something perceived as greater than oneself. I don’t know what I believe about gods, he replied, his tone flat.

Have you ever believed, Michael?

Are you a fucking missionary looking for converts?

No, son, really, I don’t care about your beliefs. They’re your business. But I’m asking you to respect mine.

Doyle did not want to utter his consent, but he nodded.

Good, Thomas said. His breathing was now shallow. I can rest easy now.

Just before Thomas drifted into a sleep from which he would never awaken, he said softly, Did I say sorry, son?

Doyle sat with Thomas until he died. Three and a half hours had passed. While it lasted, it seemed to Doyle to be endless. He wanted the death to be over with, to never again be called to a hospital or any other place to be in the presence of this man. There were times when he had wanted to kill Thomas himself. Only the realisation of a tough penalty being dished out for someone who was not worth it was the restraining force.

The head nurse pronounced Thomas Doyle dead a little before ten o’clock. It was confirmed and a death certificate was signed by a young resident who had relieved the exhausted Doctor Sanders.

Are you organising the burial arrangements, Mister Doyle? the nurse asked.

He’ll be cremated. I’ll organise an undertaker today.

Doyle turned and left the room. He felt no sense of guilt for not respecting Thomas’ wishes. And if there was a Hell, Tommy the Hammer would get a taste of it while he was in the mortuary oven.

2

There was a time when a company commander thought of Michael Doyle as an alpha male without the war paint, the commander’s wry descriptor for someone of courage, filtered through the prism of a clever mind. In the commander’s view, Doyle was a natural soldier who might one day rank among generals. That recognition took the seventeen-year-old Doyle to the War College, from which he emerged four years later a newly-minted lieutenant with a degree in military science, along with some subjects in modern history and political economy. And, as if to endorse his sponsor’s faith in him, Doyle was awarded the Military Cross during his first combat tour. A glittering career was in prospect, endorsed with promotion to captain by the age of twenty-four. At twenty-six, it came to a shuddering halt. He committed the military’s unpardonable sin when he struck a superior officer; and it counted for nothing that the superior in question knew as little about tactics as he did about leadership. Only an unpopular war, and the risk of discovery by an increasingly intrusive media of a decorated veteran languishing in a military prison, saved him from public disgrace. A pragmatic General Staff decision allowed him to resign from the Officer Corps.

In the first weeks after his exit from the army, he thought it would be a relatively smooth path to civilian employment. After all, he had experience of management under tough conditions. Surely, he’d reasoned, that counted for something. But he was soon disabused of the notion. A personnel recruiter told him that the only experience employers wanted was ‘commercial’. He could forget about a job with commensurate status and pay. At best, he might get a mid-level clerical position. He pondered that, while he also thought about the Circuit, an informal network of ex-commando and intelligence agency types who now did for money what they did once for King & Country. But, tempted as he sometimes was in the face of poor employment alternatives, he did not want to repeat was his father’s history.

It was a chance meeting with a young woman that was responsible for giving him direction. And the meeting had taken place on, of all days, one of the saddest of his life...

Doyle was the last of the small gathering to leave the graveside. One by one, or two by two, the Late Donal Sullivan’s old friends departed and left Doyle to mourn the death of his grandfather, a man who would be remembered for his lively, and often mischievous, wit. Donal had offended those on high, on low, and in-between, and given merriment to on-lookers while he did it. Now, the mercurial life that had been Donal’s was extinguished. His strapping bulk may have shielded him from those aggrieved by his wicked humour, but it could not protect Donal from himself. He would be remembered, too, for his prodigious consumption of whisky, and it was only a matter of time before his body faltered under the excess.

Doyle walked at a slow gait along the cemetery’s narrow paths towards the main gates, his mind concentrated on his grandfather’s death and what it meant. There was the loss of his physical presence, of course. It was Donal who had provided the father-figure, the man who bestowed the affection a boy expected to come from a father. When Thomas was in prison, his mother Geraldine used the time to be with the latest of her lovers; and Donal was the man who housed, clothed, fed, and parented his grandson. He was also the man who chastised him when he felt it necessary.

There had been no rebuke from Donal when he learned of his grandson’s departure from the military, notwithstanding the unhappy circumstances of it. If anything, it pleased Donal. Having his beloved Michael at risk in war was never his wish. Still, he had been proud of Michael’s achievements – becoming an officer, and being awarded a medal for valour. Though, had he known anything of his grandson’s assignments while an SAS cadre, Doyle was in no doubt that Donal’s pride would have been lessened.

Doyle reached the cemetery’s main gates and halted. In fading light, he turned to look back in the direction he had come, to the place beyond the many headstones arrayed before him, to the place where Donal Sullivan now lay...would lay forever...or at least until his corpse and the wooden box surrounding it decayed into nothing.

Outside the gates, he stood for a time, irresolute, trying to decide whether he would wait in a steadily forming queue for a bus, or go to one of three taxis parked and waiting for fares at a nearby cab rank. What occupied his thoughts now was not the matter of cost, but of familiarity. There was something comforting in the memory of bus travel, something he had done in boyhood with Donal beside him as his guardian and protector. With that thought uppermost in his mind, he walked in the direction of the bus queue.

Officially, summer had ended, but weather patterns behaved as though ignorant of seasonal demarcation, with hot days and warm nights continuing into the first weeks of autumn.

Doyle came directly from the cemetery to the hotel nearest his flat. He sat by himself in the hotel’s beer-garden, which in daylight afforded a view of the beach. Despite the heat, the place was barely patronised. Counting himself, only five tables in the beer-garden were occupied, one of them with a young woman who sat side-on to him with her gaze towards the beach. If the night’s heat couldn’t bring out more patrons, he assumed that mid-week obligations must have kept them elsewhere.

He sat along a latticed wall that was overgrown with heavily-matted vines. It had the effect of casting a shadow across the line of eight, two-seater tables against it, a veil welcomed by lovers known to favour the spot. From his position, he could see the solitary young woman’s outline and a little of her features, enough to know that she was familiar to him, but he could not place her. All he knew was that they were, somehow, somewhere in time, acquainted. Not that her identity mattered all that much. Other thoughts occupied his mind, not the least of which was what he would do about a new career path.

He reached into a breast pocket of his shirt and withdrew un-filtered cigarettes and a flip-top lighter inscribed with the winged-dagger insignia of the SAS. When the cigarette was lit he sucked hard, drawing smoke deep into his lungs, then he exhaled slowly through nose and mouth. His mind retraced events of the past decade, and the community of men now lost to him.

The solitary woman had watched Doyle enter the beer-garden and sit. He was immediately recognisable. They had attended the same high school, and Doyle had known her older brother. When she was a school-girl she found Doyle attractive; now, he seemed even more desirable. Out of character with her usual behavior, she decided on boldness, and rose to go to Doyle’s table.

Excuse me, she said on reaching the table, I hope you won’t mind the interruption, but I know you.

Doyle saw the woman’s approach in his peripheral vision, though appeared not to notice, and continued his gaze in the direction of the beach. When she spoke he rose from the chair in his best gentlemanly manner. You’re familiar to me, too. But I’m sorry...I can’t recall your name.

Margaret Urfe...but I prefer Meg. After a moment she added, Robert Urfe’s sister.

Ah. Doyle smiled in recognition of the name. He had been one year ahead of Robert in high school, a place of hell for the hand-some and effeminate boy taunted as ‘Beautiful Bobby’. Their meeting had been brief. He rescued Robert from what would have been an assault by fellow students, and then escorted him home. An ashamed Robert never returned to the school.

How is Robert?

Margaret’s expression appeared pained. He’s dead, Mister Doyle – mugged and killed on his way to buy drugs. Not much of an ending for someone so gifted as Robby, is it. There was no upward inflection in her voice. It was a statement, not a question.

No it isn’t, Miss Urfe. I’m sorry to hear it.

Meg, she said. Please call me Meg.

Michael, he replied, responding with his given name. Would you like to join me, Meg?

Thank you, she said, and sat in the chair opposite him.

He thought that Margaret was an attractive woman, though she did not have her late brother’s classic good looks.

Margaret assumed that Doyle was still a soldier, presently on leave. She had seen a newspaper announcement about his award of the Military Cross, which she had not found surprising. He saved Robby. Why not others? Are you home on leave? she asked.

No, I left the army a little over a month ago. I’m unemployed now.

Margaret found herself relieved with the news, and was a little surprised at her reaction. Why would it matter to her that his life was no longer at risk in a dangerous occupation? Unsure of how to respond to the news, she said, I’m a high school teacher.

He smiled. If the kids you’re teaching are anything like I was, I can only sympathise.

She laughed lightly. Were you a bad student, Michael?

In a way, I was. I liked learning, but I was argumentative. I think I challenged much of what I heard. Most of my teachers didn’t like that.

Oh, that’s a shame. I’d have liked it. Most of my students are only interested in boys. But there’re a few with some promise. Then, changing the subject, she asked, Do you know what you’ll do now?

That was a tough question for Doyle. I really don’t know, Meg, he said. Former soldiers don’t seem to be much in demand.

Have you thought about retraining?

He finished a sip of his beer and returned the glass to the table. No, I hadn’t. It’s so bloody obvious, isn’t it, but I didn’t think of it. Thank you, Meg.

She smiled. And she thought again on the idea of him in her bed. She had watched him withdraw a cigarette from its packet and light it, and she thought that he had the most elegant hands she had ever seen on a man – long, slender fingers which should have been the envy of a concert pianist. She felt a slight tremor pass through her body with the thought of those fingers touching her.

Doyle liked Margaret. He thought of her as a genuinely nice woman, and one who knew what suffering entailed. With quiet dignity, she bore the loss of her brother. And she was intelligent; that, too, was appealing. But, if he was meant to feel more than that, he did not, save lust. As he had often done before, he wondered whether he would ever feel more than that for a woman.

––––––––

It was not hard to find a brothel. A combination of US servicemen on R&R, together with the regular local trade, meant more houses of ill-repute than in times past.

A steady girlfriend was something unknown to Doyle. He reasoned that his occupation was far too dangerous for marriage; and in his generation, that was what young women expected from ‘steady’ relationships. There had been casual sexual couplings in his travels, but his lust had usually been satisfied in brothels. He viewed it as a simple, social transaction, where each party was a willing participant with a price for the service. Still, he knew that society largely thought ill of it.

Margaret Urfe had ignited this sexual urge. Instinctively, he knew that she could have been in his bed that night, or he in hers. And he was sorely tempted. But he assumed that she would want what most young women wanted – a relationship ending in marriage. That was for him a dim prospect, especially in his present circumstances.

In the brothel’s small reception lounge he was met by an attractive woman he guessed to be in her late-forties. Despite her age, she was still desirable, but bedding clients was not her purpose. She was the madam, there to usher him in and aid his choice of a prostitute. From a parade of only two, available girls, he chose the tallest and most buxom of them, who gave the unlikely name of Jasmine. Her blonde hair was a shade that could only have come from a bottle.

When it was done, Doyle felt physically relieved but less satisfied than he would have wished. The sex had been ordinary, despite the pleasing sounds made by the young woman whose job it was to feign delight in her clients. Doyle knew that his awkwardness and early ejaculation counted against any hope of pleasure for the prostitute, or for that matter, for himself.

The room was small but contained a basic shower cubicle. He lathered himself with soap while the water cascaded down his body.

Watching him, the prostitute tried hard to recall why his face was familiar. But the name would not come to her. The marijuana she smoked with the regularity of cigarettes clouded her memory. She judged his body to be nice, if a little thin, especially for someone of his height.

Doyle stepped from the small shower cabinet and reached for a towel on a chair near the bed.

Finally, Jasmine could not contain her curiosity any longer. Do I know you from somewhere, honey?

Doyle shrugged. Not likely. This is my first visit. And, though he would not insult her by saying it, it would also be his last.

No, she said, I mean from somewhere else. What’s your name?

Doyle was not about to divulge that, and steered her away from the subject with a question he thought she had probably heard many times before. What brought you into this line of work?

Jasmine’s drugged mind lost track of her earlier question, and concentrated now on his. Why did I become a hooker, honey? Why not? After all, it’s the oldest profession.

Doyle finished toweling himself and looked down to her, hunched up on the bed with pillows stuffed behind her while she smoked what smelled like a joint. After considering for a time whether he would respond at all, he said, No, it isn’t. It’s the second oldest.

Her look was one of surprise, bordering on indignation. "What is the oldest, then?"

Soldiering, he replied flatly. "Prostitutes were originally camp followers...army camp followers."

3

Lieutenant Joffre Ramage stood on the railway platform in his uniform, thankful for the heavy overcoat issued to all soldiers, regard-less of rank. He was thankful, too, for the walking stick he held in his right hand. Without that, his gait would be even more laboured. He knew that he had been perilously close to losing his right leg; so in that context, a limp could only be preferable.

Ramage stood back from the platform’s edge, almost as far as he could get, until he was just a few inches from the wall that marked the platform superintendent’s office. He lit a cigarette and cast his gaze along the platform.

In small groups, people huddled together in the mid-July cold while they waited for the train. Some of them would remain on the platform when the train departed; they were present only to farewell someone else. Others, like Ramage, would board the train and end their journey six days’ later on the other side of the continent.

Shortly after the journey ended, his new assignment would take effect. The Intelligence Corps would be quite a change from the infantry, and it would end the prospect of future combat tours. But it was the only alternative to a medical discharge. He dreaded that. An army career was something he wanted from the age of twelve, not-withstanding his family’s agricultural interests.

More people had arrived on the platform since he last bothered to look. Where he stood in poor light suffused by shadows he could not see the face of his wristwatch; once-illuminated dials had lost most of their glow. He looked across to the large, well-lit clock hanging from the adjacent platform’s inner-roof structure. Nearly seven o’clock. The train would soon depart.

He could have chosen to fly, rather than endure a long rail journey. But he did not. The last flight he ever wanted to remember was the one that took him from that accursed country where his leg was maimed and his mind scarred.

Ramage dropped the stub of his cigarette and stepped on it to ensure that it was properly extinguished. Then, his gait laboured, he made his way to the train, weaving among people as he went.

When he reached the train he mounted a high step to climb up into the carriage, dragging his bad leg up behind him. Inside, he handed his ticket to the car’s conductor, who smiled courteously and returned the ticket while he gave directions to the designated cabin.

The conductor added, You should know, sir, that the train will be crowded on this trip. Even in First Class. No sleepers, and you’ll have to share.

How many to a cabin?

Six, sir.

‘Thank you."

A pleasure, sir, the conductor said, before turning his smile to the next passenger awaiting his services.

Ramage went along the corridor until he found the cabin. It was about two-thirds of the way along the carriage, which put it close to the dining car. He opened the cabin door and went in to find that only one of the six seats was presently occupied.

An old, white-haired man sat in one of the two opposing seats nearest the window. Good evening, he said. "My name is Charles Cornuga.’

Good evening, sir. I’m Joffre Ramage.

That’s a familiar name, lieutenant. Should I know of your family?

I don’t know, sir.

Where are you from, young Ramage?

Most of my family lives in country New South Wales.

I thought perhaps you were a member of the family which owns Ramage Industries in Melbourne.

I’m not sure, sir. If they’re related, I’m not familiar with that branch of the family. He looked around him. Are any of these seats taken?

So far, none but my own.

Ramage took the window seat opposite Cornuga, after firstly putting his bag in the locker directly overhead with his cap on top of it. Then he placed his walking stick under the window, between his leg and the cabin wall.

A tall, perfectly coiffed, portly man, together with his wife, and a young woman who looked enough like a combination of them to be their daughter, entered and sat.

The man started to introduce himself and his family as the last passenger came into the cabin, a young woman with fair hair under a chocolate-brown beret. Perched half-way down her nose sat gold-rimmed spectacles that did nothing to detract from her pretty face.

The portly man began again with his introductions. I’m Howard Bentine, he said. This is my wife Celia. Then, pointing to the young woman seated opposite them, he said, And this is our daughter Melanie.

Jacqueline Fanning, said the young woman, and then she sat in the only vacant seat remaining, opposite Mrs Bentine. That placed her one seat away, and on the same side of the cabin, as Cornuga. Melanie Bentine sat between them.

I’m Charles Cornuga. I’m pleased to meet you.

Joffre Ramage, he said, introducing himself.

Bentine turned in his seat towards Ramage. You’ve been to the war, lieutenant?

Ramage looked quickly across to Cornuga before answering. I’ve been in hospital, Mister Bentine. My leg...

Bentine noticed Ramage’s walking stick. Oh, I’m sorry, lieutenant. A war wound?

The fellow seemed determined to know whether he had been to the unpopular war which had ended for Australia seven months earlier. Ramage relented. Yes, he said. But before Bentine could ask another question he would prefer not to answer, he asked his own. And what is your business, Mister Bentine?

It was the perfect question to side-track Bentine, who loved to talk about his business – hairdressing – and, by extension, himself. He had not exhausted the subject when the porter knocked and entered the cabin to announce that six places were available in the dining car. By then, the train had been moving for close to an hour, and Perth was a long way behind them.

Cornuga declined a place. He ate only a light breakfast, and a good lunch. Before he slept, he would have a plain biscuit, and a cup of tea from a thermos he brought with him.

Jacqueline Fanning declined, too. She had eaten earlier with her mother before boarding the train.

It’s just you and us then, lieutenant, Bentine said.

Cornuga winked at Ramage, as if to say, ‘Good luck in coping with the windbag.’

When they had gone, Cornuga turned to Jacqueline. Do you travel all the way to Sydney, Miss Fanning?

Yes. I’m to be a university student.

Ah, he sighed. That’s something I’m sure I’d like to have done. I got side-tracked with a wife and children and all the things that go with it."

And you, Mister Cornuga – is that your destination?

No, I’ll be leaving you in Melbourne. Do you know our city, Miss Fanning?

No, but I’ll see more of it when I meet my mother there in two months.

Well, I’m sure you’ll like it. It hasn’t been entirely sacrificed to modernity.

Jacqueline smiled, impressed with his erudite manner. Then she asked, Do you know Lieutenant Ramage?

We met for the first time tonight. A nice young fellow, I think.

Yes. But I think he has a look that’s a little sad.

That’s hardly surprising, my dear. He’s a war veteran...and a damaged one at that. You saw the awkwardness in his walk as he left this cabin.

Jacqueline nodded.

Did you also notice the battle ribbons over his breast pocket?

Jacqueline thought for a moment before replying. No, I don’t think that I did.

Well, my dear, one of them has the mark of a brave man.

‘What does it signify?"

That Lieutenant Ramage is the holder of a Military Cross. Only one award for bravery is superior to it, which is usually awarded posthumously.

Yes, he must be brave, she