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passed them across the table.
    That word surreal was still bouncing around Danny’s head. ‘I can’t believe he’s … he’s not alive any more,’ he said.
    â€˜I know, but people die, Daniel. It’s a fact of life. Everyone dies eventually. You will, I will, everyone will. It’s not a happy thought, but it’s true.’
    The waitress was back with the coffee and milkshake. She glanced at Danny, who had taken his glasses off and was wiping his eyes. ‘I’ll just get your bikkies,’ she said as she put the drinks on the table. Mr McAuliffe looked up at her and smiled, quickly, as if to tell her that everything was all right, and she turned away with a slight rise of the eyebrows.
    Mr McAuliffe leaned forward. ‘I’d like you to come to the funeral, Daniel. It’s on Thursday. Will you come? Dad would have wanted you there, you know.’
    Danny shrugged and wiped his eyes some more. ‘Okay, I suppose I can come. I’ll just have to check with my dad.’
    â€˜To be honest, Daniel, I’d like you there as well.’
    â€˜Really? Why?’
    Mr McAuliffe smiled. ‘What you did for Dad — the running away thing —’
    â€˜The escape,’ Danny interrupted.
    â€˜Yes, very well, the escape. Well, that caused me to think about a great many things.’
    â€˜Like what?’
    â€˜Like what he went through.’
    â€˜In the prisoner-of-war camp?’
    â€˜Yes, that too, but when he returned home as well. The battles he had to keep fighting.’
    â€˜Do you remember him coming back from the war?’
    â€˜Oh yes, very clearly, like it was last week. I was twelve in ’45, and we were still living in Tasmania. So Dad was … let me think … thirty-one when he came back from the war. Yes, that sounds right, although my recollection is of him being a lot older than that. I’ve got photos of him when he was forty, after we moved to Sydney, and he looked like an old man then. It wasn’t much different when he first got back.’
    â€˜Did he talk about what he’d seen?’
    Mr McAuliffe shook his head. ‘No, not very much — not at that stage. Later on he did, once his mind started to go and he began to let some details slip, but by then he couldn’t really explain it all. No, he was very careful about how much he’d say. Especially to me.’
    â€˜Was he a hero?’
    Mr McAuliffe smiled. ‘I thought he was.’
    â€˜How about everyone else?’
    His smile was dissolving fast. ‘The Japs caught him, didn’t they? And heroes didn’t get caught. That was how many folks saw it, anyway.’
    â€˜But that’s awful!’ Danny protested.
    â€˜Oh yes, dreadful! But unfortunately that’s how it was a lot of the time. I was there, Daniel, I saw it all. I might have been only a child, but I saw everything.’
    â€˜Can you tell me what happened?’
    â€˜You want to hear? Why?’
    â€˜Because … because he was my friend, that’s all.’
    â€˜Very well.’ Mr McAuliffe shifted in his seat, as if he was getting settled in for a long time. ‘I’m sure Dad wouldn’t mind if I told you.’

Chapter 5 Billy

    It had been raining hard the day before the Suffolk brothers came home, and the strips of clay beside the main road into Evansbridge had become strips of mud. Bobby and James Suffolk had both been in New Guinea, and had walked the Kokoda Track with the fuzzy-wuzzy angels. My friend Doug knew that his brothers were coming back, and I guess he was probably a bit worried about making me feel too bad, especially since we hadn’t had any news about Dad yet. Still, it didn’t stop him being pretty excited, and he didn’t hide it very well, especially when I overheard him telling Pete Hayward that Saturday was the big homecoming. There was one other man coming back as well, a sailor, Ken someone from