The radio crackled. The password Buck sounded. Orders were coming through. They were on the Ross River Road now and had reached the junction where the road block had been formed. Armed troops were already there waiting, along with a unit of US Military Police. They must now take up position, their Bren machine gun and the carrier’s spotlights trained steadily upon the road ahead awaiting the arrival of the mutineers.

‘Crikey, Midge, what’ll we do,’ Paddy muttered as he stood by ready to man the machine gun. He wasn’t really asking a question, more voicing the thoughts of his mates. None of them had killed before, but they’d thought if they were called upon to do so their target would be a Jap, not a Yank.

‘We’ll await orders,’ Midge said, sounding far calmer than he felt – sounding in fact like the fine officer he would have made had he sought a military career.

A further road block had been set up near Corbeth’s water hole on Ross River, another Bren Gun Carrier, together with troops and MPs with live ammunition trained upon the approach to Townsville. And the conversation among these soldiers, too, particularly the three-man crew of the carrier, was along very much the same lines.

‘Shoot to kill,’ the gunner said tremulously to the carrier’s skipper, ‘do you really reckon we’ll have to, Vince? Do you reckon they’ll make us do that?’

‘Just got to wait for the sergeant’s order, mate,’ Vince replied. He’d been thinking the same thing himself, hoping he’d be able to tell his gunner to fire over their heads. Doesn’t seem right to shoot blokes who’ve come here to fight a war with us, he thought.

Then the gunner voiced his thoughts right out loud, practically word for word. ‘Can’t see the sense in shooting our own allies,’ the gunner said.

Nor can I, mate, Vince agreed, nor can I. But he didn’t say anything.

The front doorbell rang.

‘Who on earth could that be,’ Amelia said, ‘and at this hour?’

She and Samuel were having a cup of hot chocolate in the sitting room on his side of the house. She had insisted upon cooking him a meal, which they’d shared in the kitchen, and then they’d adjourned to the sitting room and the comfort of armchairs for what Amelia had referred to as a ‘nightcap’.

He’d never had Milo before.

‘So soothing,’ she said, ‘I find it the perfect bedtime drink. Although why I don’t know,’ she added with a light laugh, ‘it’s pure chocolate and malt, and promoted as an energy booster, so …’ She shrugged. ‘Psychological, I suppose, just the taste of hot chocolate.’

‘It’s delicious,’ he said in all honesty.

‘Yes, very popular with Australians.’

Then the sound of the doorbell.

Even as she rose to answer it, the bell was followed by a thunderous knocking on the front door, the urgency of which signalled cause for alarm.

Samuel stood. ‘I’ll go,’ he said, ‘you stay here.’