Chapter 9

“Who’s your new friend, Sarge?” one of the men who had joined them at the long table asked, between mouthfuls.

He was a large man with military-short, dirty-blonde hair. He was just over six feet tall and of some Mediterranean extraction mixed in with Caucasian. He was one of the Artillery Lance-Corporals, called Eddie Russo. He had been stationed near the airport during the raids.

David didn’t particularly like Eddie’s brashness, but he put up with him. “My new gofer and sapper,” David replied. “Everyone, this is Jack...”

David looked at Jax, who replied around the mouthful of bread, “Pickon.”

“Jack Picton it is,” David said, mispronouncing the unusual surname that Jax had said.

Jax swallowed the mouthful of bun loaf. He had smeared it heavily with butter and then with, what he deemed the most wonderful conserve he had ever tasted, strawberry jam.

“What is a gofer?” he asked after he swallowed.

The men chuckled, and one of the men on his side of the table, called Bluey (John) Jackson, said, “You go for this, and you go for that.”

Bluey was an electrician like David. He was a five-foot-nine redhead of the bright copper shade, and his skin was as white as the driven snow wherever the sun didn’t get to touch. He had a generous sprinkling of freckles on his face, arms and legs, and he was on the slim side.

Jax nodded in understanding. He couldn’t speak because he had more of the lovely soft bread in his mouth. David was surprised by the amount of food the boy had managed to consume. He could only guess he was still growing and wondered just how old he was.

One of the other men, Pete Vella, actually voiced David’s internal question. Pete was light-olive in skin tone, six feet tall and of medium build. He was David’s Corporal.

Jax grinned, “Old enough to join up, I guess.”

The men all chuckled at Jax’s joke.

When he was asked where he came from, David intervened and said Jack had bashed his head during the raid and didn’t remember. The fourth man, Tommy Ryley, commented that he wished he didn’t remember either.

The other men chuckled because every time you asked Tommy where he came from, he’d tell you some fanciful story. Russo asked Tommy where he came from this week.

“Well, I’m not from Earth, as you know. I was born on a spaceship a billion miles from this snake-infested soak hole.”

Tommy was actually from Sydney, but he never admitted to that fact. Tommy was about five-foot-seven and had Irish features mixed with a bit of Aboriginal thanks to a grandmother on his mother’s side.

He’d not had a pleasant upbringing and had escaped to the Army as soon as he could, after finishing his apprenticeship that started as soon as he turned fourteen. It had cost him a lot to get his abusive boss to sign the papers to get the apprenticeship. He was a boilermaker, by trade.

“Which planet did your people escape from?” Jax asked with interest.

“Malacandra, of course; we didn’t wish to be sacrificed,” Tommy said blithely.

Jax looked confused, and the other men started laughing.

David came to his rescue, “It is an imaginary planet in one of Clive Lewis’s science fiction books. Tommy loves science fiction and fantasy books about magic and dragons.”

“You never know, they could exist. The Japs believe that magic and dragons were once real,” Tommy added in his defence.

“Oh,” Jax replied and realised that he couldn’t ever tell these people where he did come from, or they would think him as silly as Tommy.

It would make it harder to get home if he couldn’t talk about what he needed. This world didn’t seem to have people who could use magic on it. Jax was rather sad to learn this.

He did learn about the other two men in this group. Stan Green was from Melbourne, and he was their principal builder. He and Ernie Ubobo were both close to David’s height and age. Ernie was half-Aboriginal. He was also a local boy and their carpenter.

Jax felt oddly comfortable with this group of men.

Jax, David and the engineering team had the PABX installed and up and running just after lunchtime the next day.

They were inundated with local calls and Telexes the moment they put the power back onto the system. If David was surprised that Jax was soon an expert at plugging in and disconnecting the calls, as he was at soldering and stripping tiny wires, he didn’t say anything.

Every job that David had given Jax, he had been able to do after being shown just once how it was done. It was as if he just had to be reminded that he had the knowledge. Either that or the lad was just a quick learner.

David smiled at Jax’s pleasant phone manner. He seemed to be able to smooth ruffled feathers with ease. Things settled down once the initial calls were made. At least the higher echelon was happy to be able to connect to Sydney again.

Ian finally found them some replacements to do the evening shift, as being phone-operators wasn’t really their job. Hence, they were able to go and get some dinner.