‘Glad to hear there were no deaths among the white officers,’ Johnson went on, ‘two injured, no more than that, which is good. But I know darn well FDR will be none too happy about the numbers of black casualties. And I can tell you here and now he’ll want to know why.’ He cast another withering look at John Carter. ‘Being drunk and disorderly hardly constitutes a reason for attempting to murder your commanding officers,’ he said with contempt, ‘at least not to my mind.’

‘Captain Robinson and Corporal Barrett will be eager to answer whatever questions you have,’ Hank assured him. ‘They’re at the stockade awaiting your arrival, together with two of the men who were involved in the riot, and who I’m told have been most helpful.’

‘Then we’d best get started, hadn’t we,’ the big Texan said, retrieving the file he’d dumped on the desk. ‘Whatever we come up with will have to be better than this load of shit.’

The arrival of Congressman Lieutenant Commander Lyndon Baines Johnson in Townsville was no doubt intended to be low key, and his mission supposedly covert, but from the outset the man himself had foiled all such objectives. Johnson had every intention of being noticed, and furthermore of being recognised for exactly who he was. Far more than a mere lieutenant commander, a member of Congress, no less, and under the direct orders of the President of the United States.

Senior Sergeant Bruce Desmond rang his good mate Pete Vickers at the Bulletin that very morning.

‘There’s a bigwig in town, Pete,’ he said, ‘thought you might like to know. An American congressman by the name of Johnson flew in an hour or so ago, fresh from HQ. According to one of my boys out at the airfield, he was big-noting himself the moment he landed. Said he was acting directly on instructions from Roosevelt. Wouldn’t say what of course, but he was driven straight to Hank Henry’s office. I reckon it’d have to have something to do with the riot you were telling me about the other day, you know, the Negro troops out at Kelso.’

‘Yeah, too right it would. Good on you, mate.’ Pete was immeasurably excited by the news. As always, he’d confided his frustration to Bruce.

‘I’ve pretty much pieced things together,’ he’d said over a beer at the bar of the Queen’s Hotel, omitting specific mention of his meeting with the Aussie boys from the 51st Regiment, as promised. ‘But word won’t get out, you can bet on it. The military, the government, they’ll bury this whole sordid mess. And as for the numbers of deaths, the wounded …’ he’d shrugged hopelessly, ‘I reckon we’ll never know, mate. Bloody criminal in my opinion. I reckon it’s something no-one will ever know.’