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to do?’ Nellie demanded of John.
    John looked evasive. ‘Did you, or didn’t you?’ Nellie shouted, and to her daughter’s astonishment, began raining blows on her brother’s head. She was bigger and still much taller than John. John, the delicate dark boy who, it seemed, never caused anyone trouble. ‘Truth,’ she cried, ‘I want truth out of you.’
    John put his hands up to stop her. ‘He took some money from milk buckets when he was home in May. He told me they didn’t feed him properly down south.’
    ‘Did he just? Well, bigger fool anyone who leaves money lying around these days. What else?’
    John stood up, regarding his mother with his cool, beautiful eyes, seeming all of a sudden to be much older. ‘You didn’t notice he went down to the shipping office every day that he was here?’ he said. ‘I reckon he’s gone off to sea.’
    Nellie sank into the now-battered green armchair. ‘What will I tell your father?’
    ‘So what did you expect?’ John was talking like an adult, the man of the house, as if he were acting a role. He was fourteen but he had developed a certain elegance in his manner. Since the beginning of the year he had gone to King’s College. ‘You think Harold could become a lawyer or an accountant, Mother? You really think he’s that special?’
    Nellie rested her chin on her hand. ‘I thought that he might be able to make something of himself, that’s what I thought. If he tried.’ She corrected herself. ‘If we all tried hard enough. It’s this war, I suppose. Why didn’t you tell me, John?’
    ‘I wanted him to stay away.’
    ‘Oh you did, did you? Why was that?’
    John looked away, a child again. ‘He said nasty things.’
    ‘Nasty things. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words never hurt anyone. John, I thought better of you.’
    This, too, was a moment that marked change. Nellie and John’s relationship slid downhill after that. John, the traitor. Not that it was remarked on again, it was just that the closeness melted away between them, as if John might be as capable of misdeeds as Harold. Besides, Nellie couldn’t afford to keep him at his new school, and so he had the humiliation of returning to his old one. But then, neither could their mother go on paying for Jean at Melmerley. All round, it was a disaster. No news of Harold emerged. Nellie wrote to Fred, but as she said, he could hardly catch a boat home. When some weeks had passed, she decided that perhaps no news was good news. Harold was a big boy and strong. Somewhere, he was sure to be all right.

    SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED.
    An extraordinary lead story in the
Truth
newspaper reported that a twenty-year-old Sydney student, described as looking very young for his age, had appeared in court on forgery charges. He called himself William Sanders but in the box he gave his name as Harold Batten. When arrested, he was found to be carrying several letters he had written to insurance companies, threatening and wheedling them for discharge documents from a merchant shipping company, in exchange for information about threats to blow up their ships.
    ‘I was just being silly the day I wrote those,’ the boy told the detective who interviewed him. ‘Someone did want me to blow up ships, but I wouldn’t do that; I’m British, you know. There’re lots of Germans here that you don’t know about. They’re always plotting to get people to blow up ships. You know, I just wrote those to let the insurance companies know.’
    At his lodgings the police found more letters, and plugs of gelignite, fuse and powder, as well as detonators, enough to blow a hole in the side of a ship.
    ‘It can’t be him,’ Nellie said. The police in Auckland didn’t seem to think so either, although nobody could be sure. ‘His name is Frederick, it’s only the family who call him Harold.’
    But the harm was done. The daily newspaper picked up the story and roaring headlines followed them. At Jean’s new school, the