How many times do I have to hear ‘roll with the punches’, ‘toe the line’, ‘don’t make waves’? he thought. But then old newspaper hacks are all the same. To them, clichés are par for the course.

Pete Vickers was an ambitious young man. He didn’t see himself as a ‘hack’ like Jim Burnet, nice though the man was. Pete saw himself as an investigative journalist with a true duty to serve. And that duty was, above all else, to inform readers of the truth and to expose injustice.

Much of Pete’s passion was due to the birth defect of his clubfoot, these days more than ever. During his youth, he’d managed to disguise his condition as well as was possible, wearing a slightly built-up right shoe, never appearing in shorts even during the hottest of summers, teaching himself to walk with a minimal limp, and upon reaching adulthood he had not considered himself a man with a disability. He hadn’t even considered himself a man with a limp. No, no. He was a journalist, a man with a duty. But things had changed lately. Lately he’d been forced to admit that, yes, he was a man with a disability, which was why he could not be accepted as the war correspondent he so desperately longed to be. The army would never send a journalist deemed to be a cripple into a conflict zone. He’d tried. He’d begged. The answer had been a resounding no. So Pete had decided he’d be a war correspondent working from the home front instead, exposing the wartime truths that people needed to be told. These days Pete’s passion burned with fresh fervour.

‘I’m sorry, mate,’ Jim said. He could see Pete felt let down, but the bloke’s request had been totally unrealistic, he must surely realise that. ‘Exposés aren’t on the menu these days, I’m afraid.’

‘Yep.’ Pete nodded. He knew his idea was futile. He’d known from the outset, he supposed – he’d just let himself get carried away.

‘I tell you what I’ll do though,’ Jim suggested. ‘You write me a personal piece on Tony Baldini. You know, human-interest stuff, his background, his length of time in Australia, his family born here, and you bring up the threat of his internment. You get some quotes from Tom Aikens, too. Tom’s already gone public with his views on the internment of aliens, particularly those with Australian citizenship. I could print a piece like that.’

Pete smiled gratefully, aware there was nothing more Jim could do. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he said. ‘That’ll help, it really will. In fact, I reckon it’ll do the trick. For now anyway,’ he added drily, ‘who can tell what’s going to happen further down the track? And at least it’ll stop those pricks harassing the poor bastard.’