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He couldn’t He wouldn’t let hi, a soft, quiet tune he couldn’t place It had the rocking cadence of a lullaby She reached back, found his face, and then began to stroke his hair at his te continued, lulling him and his cock into drowsiness He had the sweet soap sainst his lips and nose, where he had theside her ear Her body pressed into his, giving hi, a little off-key, but soothing as well

You’d ood mother, loveGentle as a doe, fierce as a lioness

Her hand paused briefly, then continued, but she made no reply Just bade hiive hily bound to her by the strap that held hi him into dreams, for he’d observed there was a certain lassitude to her when the sun cli, her voice drifting into a vaguer hum that eventuallyhim with the muted sounds of the desert beyond theand Bob’s pub below, all in all a cohtmares

After sundown, Dev got his beer and infor what effect a recent dust stor store while the ot a quick supper

“Elle down at the Marsten’s Creek has been radioing about you,” Bob said “You want I should let her knohere you ended up?”

Dev considered that as he watched Dannyselections “Yeah, Bob But if you don’tabout my lovely boss on the open airways if you can She doesn’t like folks to know about her cos”

“No worries, Dev Trouble always follows a sheila like that one” Bob gave Dev a wink, slid hi Dev had drained that one

Dev picked it up, gave hio out and check our fluids and lines” He’d checked them earlier, as Danny had said, but a second check wasn’t amiss Plus, he also wanted to check the a with a vampire required some extra precautions

“Right-o” Bob cleared his throat,Dev stop in midturn “Not sure if you’d heard, but Terry put a bullet in his brain a couple weeks back”

Dev put the beer down “Crikey His wife there?”

“Naw She left hio Went back to town” Bob shrugged, but his eyes were so so empty and desolate, but she couldn’t take the same from Terry” Danny had chosen thatthe speculative looks of the roup He hadn’t been able to contain his internal reaction, and of course he knew she washim pretty close these days

He’d accuse her of being overly clucky, but in truth, sometimes that sense she was there offered hi to reclaim in himself

“Friend of yours?” she asked quietly

“Yeah At one tiether in the war, early on” Dev lifted the bottle, took a draught from it, wiped his lips with the back of his knuckles Danny could pick it out of his brain, but theircurious, and he had to ith those driving back “After the er to the 39th battalion, part of the Maroubra force that worked the Kokoda Track But Terry got caught by the Nips He was part of that mob held up in Thailand, forced to build the railway for them Messed him up a bit”

The murmurs of the stockmen behind hiers No one had forgotten the six thousand who’d died in the Japs’ POW cas done to them Dev drained that beer, slid it down to Bob with an abrupt movement “Probably just couldn’t take it anymore”

Terry hadn’t been able to find silence again A man had to find it, or the noise would drive him mad, so mad his only escape was a bullet in the brain

From the startled look on Danny’s face, he knew she’d heard his thoughts To hell with it Turning on the ball of his foot, he went back out the pub door, o without another word Dev knew he understood, being a WWI digger himself Plus, Bob’s son had died in the war, twenty feet away from Dev

Kokoda Track had been rough Hot, nerves-on-edge work So many dead, casualties of battle and disease, thein Europe had been one thing; he’d talked to the battalion mates who’d done that But this was different They were protecting the border of Australia, not as Imperial soldiers for the Crown, but as Oz’s sons A real threat of invasion brought so forth in many of them, a protective, warrior fierceness different from how they’d used it in Europe This was their ruddy ho their home

So they fought, day by day, for every single yard The Japs came within a stone’s throw of Port Moresby, but by God, they pushed them back to the coast The losses had been incredible But for all that, all the horror he’d seen, Dev had been a free man Terry had faced captivity, starvation, disease, and the irreparable cost of buckling under the enemy’s will

Men came home from war, lived out their lives But Terry had died in that POW caone What had come home to his as a shell Dev knew it, because he’d been that shell even before he stepped foot on his first battlefield He’d gone to the front line seeking death, but he wanted to take the whole goddamn world with him when he went He’d wanted the taste of blood