The Godson Read Free

crunched the Rolls Royce up onto the gravel driveway and cut the engine.
    â€˜You needn’t bother coming inside, Eddie,’ said Price.
    â€˜Yeah, righto.’ Eddie got out of the car and opened the door for his boss. ‘I’ll see you at five then, Price.’
    â€˜Okay, Ed. Good on you, mate.’
    From the back of the Rolls, Eddie watched as Price went to the front door. It opened before he had a chance to knock and Eddie noticed a tall, willowy blonde in a tweed suit and glasses smile and beckon Price inside. He turned and nodded to Eddie; Eddie nodded back as Price stepped inside and the door closed. Satisfied that everything was in order, Eddie got back in the Rolls and started the motor. Now, he thought, checking his watch, what to do till five o’clock? He smiled to himself as he backed down the driveway. I think I might make the War Memorial starting favourite.
    He pulled up near the western entrance and went straight inside. He had changed his mind about looking at the tanks and the artillery out the front, and as for the old armoured personnel carrier, you’ve seen one APC, you’ve seen the lot. A blast of hot air from the heater above the entrance nearly blew his cap off. He unzipped his jacket, picked up a visitors’ guide and joined the other people heading towards the Gallipoli exhibit.
    Eddie had never visited the Memorial before. His only other time in Canberra had been a quick trip in and out in a Caribou to deliver 200 stolen AK-47s to a major in the Australian engineers when Eddie went back to Vietnam working more or less as a mercenary with the US Army and the CIA. He found the War Memorial absolutely fascinating and, for someone as tough and deadly as him, even moving. The painstaking attention given to detail was nothing short of amazing. Whole battle campaigns were mapped out. There were old letters, diaries with bullet holes in them, officers’ uniforms shredded from shrapnel. Old tins of biscuits and chocolates with Queen Victoria on the front. Guns, bayonets, Turkish uniforms. Dummies in full, original battle dress. He meandered on to the Sinai and Palestine Exhibits, then through the aeroplane hall containing huge, complete planes: Halifax bombers, Spitfires, old RAAF Boomerangs. A tape recording was playing over and over — the voices of an actual flight crew on a bombing raid over Dresden.
    He wandered on through the other visitors taking photos and groups of kids taking notes, into the Middle East section, the South West Pacific, and New Guinea; wherever Australian fighting men and women had laid down their lives for their country. But all the time Eddie was drifting inexorably towards what he was ultimately looking for. He found himself in a small theatrette watching newsreels about the Korean war. He left that, strolled through the Korean section and he was there. Vietnam.
    The first thing that caught his eye was an old black and white Admiral television set sitting in a mock-up of a 1960s style lounge room. On the table alongside were old magazines, Beatles albums and other items from that era of flower power. There was a small record player; the 45 on the turntable was The Seekers’ — ‘I’ll Never Find Another You’. He glanced at some school children taking notes on the brown vinyl lounge, when the TV started. It was ‘Four Corners’ on the ABC, a journalist was reporting live from the battlefield. The kids on the lounge took notes; Eddie blinked in wonder at the film. Those soldiers on the screen, were they familiar faces? Jesus Christ! They were. The newsreel stopped and from behind a helicopter suspended from the ceiling two speakers started up with the swoosh-swoosh-swoosh of helicopters taking off and landing. It was all too real. Eddie closed his eyes and for a moment he was back there. Bin Bah. Xuoc Thoy. Nui Dat. The bodies. The heat. The dust and flies. The smell.Mines, booby traps, tension. Bodies spinning