or possible footprint. But he found nothing and returned to his camp to make a fire.
During the war he had heard of soldiers being driven mad by the certainty they had been selectedâthrough what process no one could sayâby an enemy sniper, and these crazed men would expend valuable energy dodging and weaving through the trenches and across duckboards in the hope of escaping the bullet they were convinced was intended for them. It was a sensation Quinn now understood. Every so often he swivelled in the expectation of spying the looming shadow of the idiot Edward Fitch or, worse, his own uncle and father, come to hang him. It was well known that the bush in these parts sustained creatures undiscovered by natural science, and as a boy he had seen unfamiliar smears and paw prints in the mud by the river, perhaps those of water babies, or frog people, or hairy giants; those beasts created far from the sight of God. The blackfellas said there lived nearby a being who possessed the shape of a man but was red all over, with suckers at the ends of his fingers and toes to drain the blood from his victims.
Quinn strained his hearing. He jammed a finger into his ears. Nothing. Still nothing.
The doctors had told him the loss of hearing was a result of the booming sixty-pounders and there was little they could do for him. They said it would be temporary, but sometimes it felt as if the mud from those damn French battlefields would clog his ears forever. At times he heard the roar of a bushfire, at others a high-pitched keening. Over the past few months he had become accustomed to the noise, but the relative silence of the Australian countryside only made him more conscious of it, as if the war were still going on inside his skull. Indeed, his limited hearing now made him acutely aware of the sounds of his own body working away beneath the skinâof the creak of neck joints when he turned his head, his plodding heart, the gurgle and sing of his blood. Still, he was lucky. He had been told of one fellow who suffered a similar complaint, but for whom the sound in his ears was of a cat purring at his shoulder all day. There were, however, compensations for his diminished hearing; he felt sure his eyesight had improved in order to balance his damaged senses and believed he could now see things others could not. In London, for example, he had been able to spot acquaintances in milling crowds that remained unseen to those with him.
He sat on a log and stared into his fire. A spark corkscrewed skywards, like an angel being dragged back to heaven. It was odd to be alone. During the war he grew used to the press of many bodies, to the whiff of other men and their whispering hearts of fear. They were a brotherhood of terror huddled in the trenches with their foreheads pressed to earthen walls, from which they would pick scabs of dirt while awaiting bombardment or rifle crack. He didnât fear death. He imagined there were few miseries he hadnât experienced, and while those around him prayed for their lives, his prayers were far more simpleâfor release from all this.
Again he circled the immediate area surrounding his camp but could find nothing further and, when he was sure there was no man or creature observing him, he collapsed to the ground and fell into a fitful sleep.
6
T he next day Quinn again made his way to his fatherâs property. As before, he waited behind the low shrubs until certain there was no one else around, then trotted across the yard and crept into the house.
His attention was drawn to the short, horizontal pencil marks on the doorjamb between the kitchen and hallway. They recorded the heights of all three children. Each birthday, his father would brandish a ruler and pencil with ceremony ( No standing on toes! No slouching! ) to measure how much each of them had grown in the past year. Nathaniel, whose tongue always protruded from his lips when he concentrated, saying, Hmmm , not so good
During the war he had heard of soldiers being driven mad by the certainty they had been selectedâthrough what process no one could sayâby an enemy sniper, and these crazed men would expend valuable energy dodging and weaving through the trenches and across duckboards in the hope of escaping the bullet they were convinced was intended for them. It was a sensation Quinn now understood. Every so often he swivelled in the expectation of spying the looming shadow of the idiot Edward Fitch or, worse, his own uncle and father, come to hang him. It was well known that the bush in these parts sustained creatures undiscovered by natural science, and as a boy he had seen unfamiliar smears and paw prints in the mud by the river, perhaps those of water babies, or frog people, or hairy giants; those beasts created far from the sight of God. The blackfellas said there lived nearby a being who possessed the shape of a man but was red all over, with suckers at the ends of his fingers and toes to drain the blood from his victims.
Quinn strained his hearing. He jammed a finger into his ears. Nothing. Still nothing.
The doctors had told him the loss of hearing was a result of the booming sixty-pounders and there was little they could do for him. They said it would be temporary, but sometimes it felt as if the mud from those damn French battlefields would clog his ears forever. At times he heard the roar of a bushfire, at others a high-pitched keening. Over the past few months he had become accustomed to the noise, but the relative silence of the Australian countryside only made him more conscious of it, as if the war were still going on inside his skull. Indeed, his limited hearing now made him acutely aware of the sounds of his own body working away beneath the skinâof the creak of neck joints when he turned his head, his plodding heart, the gurgle and sing of his blood. Still, he was lucky. He had been told of one fellow who suffered a similar complaint, but for whom the sound in his ears was of a cat purring at his shoulder all day. There were, however, compensations for his diminished hearing; he felt sure his eyesight had improved in order to balance his damaged senses and believed he could now see things others could not. In London, for example, he had been able to spot acquaintances in milling crowds that remained unseen to those with him.
He sat on a log and stared into his fire. A spark corkscrewed skywards, like an angel being dragged back to heaven. It was odd to be alone. During the war he grew used to the press of many bodies, to the whiff of other men and their whispering hearts of fear. They were a brotherhood of terror huddled in the trenches with their foreheads pressed to earthen walls, from which they would pick scabs of dirt while awaiting bombardment or rifle crack. He didnât fear death. He imagined there were few miseries he hadnât experienced, and while those around him prayed for their lives, his prayers were far more simpleâfor release from all this.
Again he circled the immediate area surrounding his camp but could find nothing further and, when he was sure there was no man or creature observing him, he collapsed to the ground and fell into a fitful sleep.
6
T he next day Quinn again made his way to his fatherâs property. As before, he waited behind the low shrubs until certain there was no one else around, then trotted across the yard and crept into the house.
His attention was drawn to the short, horizontal pencil marks on the doorjamb between the kitchen and hallway. They recorded the heights of all three children. Each birthday, his father would brandish a ruler and pencil with ceremony ( No standing on toes! No slouching! ) to measure how much each of them had grown in the past year. Nathaniel, whose tongue always protruded from his lips when he concentrated, saying, Hmmm , not so good
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