Hank couldn’t help being just a little impressed. His aggression rattled people as a rule, but apparently not Samuel Robinson.

‘Look, Samuel,’ he said reasonably enough, ‘I’m not going to take this idea to HQ – if I did they’d laugh in my face, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you can get some local business to set up a place out of town – call it a club, call it a brothel, what you will – and if it’s run in an orderly fashion, then I think I can assure you that we will turn a blind eye.’ He smiled as he emphasised the ‘we’, but it wasn’t a humorous smile. Hank Henry was not known for his humour.

‘Well, I guess that’s a start,’ Samuel said.

‘I must warn you though, Captain,’ Hank continued, ‘should you be able to pull off such an enterprise, we – and in this case I mean I – will be watching things very, very closely.’

‘Of course.’

So where to from here, Samuel wondered as he left Hank Henry’s office.

As it turned out, Rupe was the one who provided the answer. Upon his return to Kelso, Samuel summoned Corporal Rupert Barrett to the Company C officers’ tent in order to tell him the outcome of his meeting with the provost marshal. The two men had discussed the troops’ predicament in some detail previously, the corporal having voiced his own worries about the men’s morale. Both had agreed it would be an excellent idea if the military could be persuaded to provide some recreational centre for the troops of the 96th.

When Rupe arrived at the tent, young Percy Owen was tapping away at his typewriter in the corner, but Chuck Maxwell was nowhere to be seen. Samuel had known this would be the case; Maxwell was on duty out in the field. Indeed, had the man been present Samuel would have chosen to meet up with Rupert Barrett elsewhere. Any discussion of a solution to the current dilemma was met with scorn by Chuck Maxwell. A scorn that Samuel found disgusting.

‘They’re niggers,’ Chuck had said when Samuel had first brought up the subject, ‘they’re here to work, that’s what niggers are for.’

Rupe listened patiently as his commanding officer recounted the meeting he’d had with Major Hank Henry. Then he said just two words. ‘Val Callahan.’

‘What?’ A pause. Samuel was confused.

‘Val Callahan, she’s the one you should see.’

‘You mean the woman who runs The Brown’s Bar?’

Young Percy Owen looked up from his typewriter. He knew The Brown’s Bar and the snake pen and Val. He’d been there himself one night when she’d pulled a shotgun on a couple of troublemakers and marched them out onto the street.

‘Yep, that’s the one,’ Rupe said. ‘Val doesn’t just run the place, you know, she owns it.’