‘That’s precisely why we must be seen to take immediate action,’ Hank explained. ‘The Australian Government was reluctant to accept Negro soldiers from the outset. MacArthur himself vowed to respect this country’s racial views, and our own military has been ordered under no circumstances to offend the locals. A complaint like this has to be taken very seriously.’

Recognising defeat, Samuel felt himself slump a little, despair engulfing him. The Negro Servicemen’s Club had been the perfect answer to the troop’s justifiable frustration at being banned from town. Now the club was to close its doors, and after just one night. How was he to face his men? What was he to tell them? That they were too black for this country? They’d felt so welcomed in Townsville.

‘So it seems racism is as alive and well here as it is back home,’ he said drily. He expected no response. In fact, he’d made the remark more to himself than Hank Henry. But the reply that came back surprised him.

‘It would appear so, yes,’ Hank said, not without the strangest element of something that could have been interpreted as sympathy, one would never know.

The meeting was over.

After leaving the military barracks, Samuel headed straight for The Brown’s. It was nearly two o’clock in the afternoon; Val and Baz needed to be told the news as soon as possible.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ Val said disbelievingly, ‘they want to close us after just one night! What’s the problem? Baz here said everything went smooth as clockwork.’

‘It did,’ Baz declared. ‘It did, I swear it did.’

‘So why?’ she demanded aggressively, hands planted on buxom hips, steel-grey eyes smouldering with righteous anger. ‘You tell me bloody well why.’

Samuel stared her down for a moment. ‘There were complaints from some of the locals,’ he said meaningfully.

‘Oh?’ Val held his look, aware he was signalling something.

‘The soldiers weren’t the right colour.’

‘Oh.’ A nod. ‘Gotcha,’ she said. ‘Fucking shame.’

Samuel left only minutes later. Conveying the news to his men wouldn’t be quite so simple.

At The Brown’s, Val and Baz discussed the situation. The girls would be disappointed of course, particularly Betty – ‘she’ll be bloody ropeable,’ Val said – but the principal topic was what to do with the premises after all the expense and hard work that had been put in. Baz, as was to be expected, came up with the perfect answer.

‘We’ll get all our dough back from the US military,’ he said. ‘Given time, we’ll end up making a damn good profit.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Val knew better than to sound overly sceptical, more often than not Baz’s ideas were spot on. ‘And how do you propose we do that?’