Strut Stowers actually longed to be at the club. He had a strong link with the club’s major mastermind, Baz Taylor, and knew exactly the delights the men would currently be experiencing, from the heady liquor, to the band and the girls in ready supply. Strut and Baz had been doing business ever since the arrival of the 96th Battalion. Over his years in the army, Strut had always been quick to suss out a good black-market contact keen for US military supplies unavailable to the locals, and a quick check around had proved that here in Townsville Baz Taylor was just the man. The connection had proved most convenient for both, and yet now, frustratingly, Strut found himself unable to openly embrace all he knew was on offer.

Strut hadn’t been among those granted leave for tonight, having been ordered to remain on guard at the camp with so many men gone. Tomorrow night, however, if he put in a request, he’d have to be given leave to attend. No-one would deny him the right. But did he dare risk annoying Chuck Maxwell, with whom he had such a valuable relationship? Keeping on side with the captain worked very much to his advantage. He never saw the part he played as servile, but rather as teamwork that placed him in an eminently superior position. Was it worth threatening such a delicate balance? Strut was in a terrible state of indecision.

Apart from Chuck Maxwell, there was possibly only one other person in the whole of the camp who had no wish to go to the Negro Servicemen’s Club, and that person was Private Anthony Hill.

Ant could have gone to the club with his buddies tonight, he’d been among those troops of Company C granted leave, but he’d chosen not to attend simply because such a night held little attraction for him. He enjoyed the company of his buddies to a certain extent, but he was unlike them. He didn’t drink alcohol, he was painfully shy in the company of women and he couldn’t dance. What would be the point? Instead, he relished the thought of a peaceful evening alone, curled up in the bunk of his deserted tent reading the next of his Just So Stories. He was about to embark on ‘The Elephant’s Child’.

Chuck Maxwell and Strut Stowers continued their rounds checking all was in order. The camp was lit by gasoline-powered electric generators that sat on concrete slabs housed in four electrical huts based at each corner of the camp’s perimeter. Electric wiring ran overhead from poles made of local timber, and as the two men walked among the rows of four-man tents, Chuck searched hopefully among the lights that criss-crossed the camp for something untoward, something suspicious.

There would surely be some thieving nigger taking advantage of the semi-deserted camp and robbing other men’s tents, he thought, none of the bastards were to be trusted. But he was disappointed. All was in order.