‘What the hell do those boys think they’re up to?’ Mick O’Brien yelled angrily, brandishing his pistol. He wasn’t having any of this sort of insubordinate nonsense. ‘Damn them, what kind of dumb show are they putting on!’

Under normal conditions, Chuck Maxwell might have come up with a smug I told you so, but even he recognised this wasn’t the moment. In heading for the road out of camp, the trucks would pass right by the officers’ mess tent. There was no time to lose if they were to stop these drunken troops, who were obviously bent on having a good time.

The trucks were underway now, in single line all three, and as they passed the NCOs’ mess, Rupe, who had raced outside with the others, saw Kasey in the first vehicle, machine gun at the ready.

Oh dear God no, he thought, the kid’s aiming at a full-on mutiny, he’s going to get himself killed. He yelled out to Kase and the troops, but to no avail, his voice useless above the melee, and then the trucks were approaching the officers’ mess, where men waited, weapons poised.

The commanding officers bellowed orders to halt and their lieutenants stood with rifles threateningly raised, but the trucks didn’t stop.

Mick O’Brien fired a warning shot in the air, as did Biff Baker. Chuck Maxwell would have preferred to have taken aim directly at the mutineers, but for all his earlier bravura, he was aware that shooting one or two, even under these conditions, might get him into trouble. At this stage of the proceedings, they were just drunkards showing off and out for a joy ride.

He raised his pistol, about to fire his own warning shot, and that’s when he realised the Thompson machine gun in the first truck was sighted directly upon him.

Kasey had been searching for Maxwell among the officers gathered, and in spying the man and realising he had a clear shot, he’d decided this was the moment.

The action was instantaneous. The rapid fire of the machine gun cracked the night. Maxwell ducked behind the nearest man, and as young Woodsy took the bullet intended for him and fell to the ground, Maxwell raced inside the mess tent, the crack of machine gun following, 600 to 800 rounds per minute, shredding the canvas. Then he dived into the slit trench on the other side of the mess tent and the rain of bullets came to a halt.