Going home didn’t appeal to them, Michael knew, but he said nothing, just marched shoulder to shoulder with her across the compound.

It occurred to her that he was nice to walk with. He didn’t bend his head down to her deferentially as Neil did, nor posture like Luce, nor skulk like Nugget. In fact, he took it quite naturally and companionably, almost one man to another. Which sounded odd, perhaps, but felt right.

‘Do you have a civilian occupation, Michael?’ she asked, turning away from the direction of ward X to take a path which led between two deserted wards.

‘Yes. Dairy farmer. I’ve got three hundred acres of river flat on the Hunter near Maitland. My sister and her husband are working it for the duration, but they’d rather be back in Sydney, so when I get home I’ll take over. My brother-in-law’s a real city bloke, but when it came to the pinch he decided he’d rather milk cows and get woken up by roosters than wear a uniform and get shot at.’ Michael’s face was faintly contemptuous.

‘Another bush bunny for X! We’re in the majority, then. Neil, Matt and Nugget are city, but now you’re here, that makes four bush bunnies.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘My father’s got a property near Yass.’

‘Yet you ended up in Sydney, like Luce.’

‘In Sydney, yes. But not like Luce.’

He grinned, gave her a quick sideways glance. ‘I beg your pardon, Sister.’

‘You’d better start calling me Sis the way the rest of them do. Sooner or later you will anyway.’

‘All right, Sis, I will.’

They climbed a small undulating rise, sandy yet spidered with long rhizomes of coarse grass, dotted with the slim neat boles of coconut palms, and arrived at the edge of a beach. There they stopped, the breeze tugging at Sister Langtry’s veil.

Michael pulled out his tobacco makings and squatted down on his heels the way all country men do, so Sister Langtry knelt beside him, careful not to get her duty shoes full of sand.

‘It’s when I see something like this I don’t mind the Islands so much,’ he said, rolling a cigarette. ‘Isn’t it amazing? Just when you think you can’t take another day of mossies, mud, sweat, dysentery and triple dye, you wake up and it’s the most perfect day God ever put upon the earth, or you see something like this, or something else happens that makes you think it isn’t really so bad after all.’

It was lovely, a short straight stretch of salt-and-peppery sand darkened near the water where it was wet from the retreating tide, and absolutely deserted. It seemed to be one side of a long promontory, for it ended against sky and water to the left, and to the right petered out in a mangrove flat reeking of decay. The water was like a thin wash of color laid on top of white: glassy, palest green, profoundly still. Far out was a reef, and the sea’s horizon was hidden by the white spume fans of surf breaking.

‘This is the patients’ beach,’ she said, sitting back on her heels. ‘In the morning it’s out of bounds, which is why there’s no one here. But between one and five each afternoon it’s all yours. I couldn’t have brought you here then, because between one and five it’s out of bounds to all females. Saves the army having to issue you with swimming costumes. The orderlies and the other noncom staff use it too, the same hours. For me it’s been a godsend. Without the beach to divert them, my men would never get well.’

‘Do you have a beach, Sis?’

‘The other side of the point is ours, though we’re not as lucky as you. Matron’s down on nude bathing.’

‘Old killjoy.’

‘The MOs and officers have their own beach too, on our side of the point, but cut off from us by a little headland. The officer patients can swim there or here.’

‘Do the MOs wear costumes?’

She smiled. ‘I really haven’t thought to inquire.’ Her position was uncomfortable, so she used a glance to her watch as an excuse to get to her feet. ‘We’d better head back. It’s not Matron’s morning for rounds, but I haven’t taught you yet how to drape your mosquito net. We’ve got time for an hour’s practice before your lunch comes.’

‘It won’t take an hour. I’m a quick learner,’ he said, reluctant to move, reluctant to break the pleasantness of this truly social contact with a woman.

But she shook her head and turned away from the beach, obliging him to follow. ‘Believe me, it’s going to take you much longer than an hour. You haven’t tried anything until you’ve tried to drape your net the right way. If I knew exactly what it portends, I’d suggest to Colonel Chinstrap that he use the Matron Drape as a test of mental aptitude.’

‘How do you mean?’ He caught up with her, brushing a little sand from his trousers.

‘Certain X patients can’t do it. Benedict can’t, for instance. We’ve all tried to teach him, and he’s very willing to learn, but he just can’t get the hang of it, though he’s intelligent enough. He produces the most weird and wonderful variations on Matron’s theme, but do it her way he can’t.’

‘You’re very honest about everyone, aren’t you?’

She stopped to look at him seriously. ‘There’s no point in being anything else, Michael. Whether you like it or not, whether you think you fit in or not, whether you belong or not, you’re a part of X now until we all go home. And you’ll find that in X we can’t afford the luxury of euphemisms.’

He nodded, but said nothing, simply stared at her as if her novelty value was increasing, yet with more respect than he had admitted yesterday.

After a moment she dropped her eyes and continued to walk, but strolling along rather than striding out at her customary brisk pace. She was enjoying the break from routine, and enjoying his rather unforthcoming company. With him she didn’t have to worry about how he was feeling; she could relax and pretend he was just someone she had met socially somewhere.

However, all too soon ward X came into sight around the corner of a deserted building. Neil was standing outside waiting for them. Which vaguely irritated Sister Langtry; he looked like an overanxious parent who had allowed his child to come home alone from school for the first time.

2

In the afternoon Michael went back to the beach with Neil, Matt and Benedict. Nugget had refused to come, and Luce was nowhere to be found.

The sureness with which Matt moved had Michael quite fascinated, discovering that a small touch on elbow or arm or hand from Neil was all Matt needed to navigate; Michael watched and learned, so that in Neil’s absence he could substitute competently. Nugget had informed him in the bathhouse with much technical detail that Matt was not really blind, that there was nothing at all wrong with his eyes, but to Michael his inability to see seemed absolutely genuine. A man feigning blindness would surely have groped, stumbled, play-acted the part. Where Matt did it with dignity and understatement, his inner self uncorrupted by it.

There were about fifty men scattered up and down the sand, which could have absorbed a thousand men without seeming crowded. All were naked; some were maimed, some scarred. Since there were noncom staff admixed with systemic convalescents after malaria or some other tropical disorder, the three whole healthy-looking men from ward X were not entirely out of place. However, Michael noticed that conviviality tended to confine itself within ward groups: neuros, plastics, bones, skins, abdominothoracics, general medicals; the staff element congregated together too.

The troppos from X shed their clothes far enough away from any other group not to be accused of deliberate eavesdropping, and swam for an hour, the water as warm and unstimulating as a tepid baby’s bath. Then they spread themselves on the sand to dry off, skins powdered with rutile-bearing grains like tiny elegant sequins. Michael sat up to roll a cigarette, lit it and handed it to Matt. Neil smiled faintly but said nothing, merely watched the sure hands as Michael embarked upon making one for himself.