‘Do you think they’re trying to tell us something, Rupe?’

Nineteen-year-old Private William Parker was hanging over the railings of the Santa Clara with his good buddy, Rupert Barrett. It was their first day in port and the men had been informed only an hour or so previously that shore leave would not be granted. The two, like so many others lined up along the ship’s decks, were gazing down longingly at the busy docks; at the bustling humanity that beckoned and the trucks and jeeps that were transporting people to the city only several miles away. Emotions were mixed. The view was simultaneously tantalising, teasing, insulting and hurtful.

‘I’d say they’re telling us something loud and clear, Willie,’ Rupe agreed, ‘though it’s hardly surprising when you think about it.’

‘Yeah? In what way?’

‘Well, they killed off most of their own blacks years ago, they’d hardly want us here would they,’ Rupe said, not cynically, just stating the facts as he’d heard them.

‘Oh. I didn’t know that.’

Willie admired Rupe. Rupe was older and from New York City, and he knew a whole lot of stuff that was really interesting, but he never showed off about it and he never treated you like you were a mug for not knowing stuff yourself. He was a really great guy, Rupe.

They were joined by young Kasey Davis, who’d come up on deck specifically to seek out his buddies. Kasey was also a private and also nineteen, but quite a deal more worldly than Willie, who hailed from South Philadelphia. Athletically gifted, Willie had encompassed nothing but baseball for the whole of his relatively short life.

‘Might as well be home in South Carolina,’ Kasey remarked, the perfect mouth in his perfect face twisting into a sardonic smile. ‘I sure am being made aware of my place.’

‘Rupe says they killed off their own coloured folk years ago and that’s why they don’t want us here,’ Willie piped up.

‘Oh, that right?’ This was news to Kasey, also.

‘Yep, believe so, killed off most of them anyway,’ Rupe replied with a careless shrug of huge shoulders.

‘Well, they can go get fucked as far as I’m concerned,’ Kasey snarled, the light of rebellion flashing in his piercingly green eyes. ‘We travel all this way to help people who don’t even want us to set foot on their soil! Fuck ’em, I say! Fuck the whole damn lot of ’em.’

‘Hey, calm down, buddy.’ Rupe smiled benignly, aware his diplomatic skills were once again being called upon. Kasey was so darn good-looking he was often underestimated. People assumed someone that pretty was a bit of a girl. But they were wrong. Young Kasey was a real firebrand.

‘We’re not exactly embraced back home, Kase,’ he went on, his smile broadening into a good-humoured grin, ‘you of all people should know that … southern boy.’