by
In 1947, James “Jimmy” Bacon becomes involved in a violent workplace altercation fuelled by a PTSD-induced rage. His boss, a fellow war-veteran, tells him to take a few months off work, have a holiday, go somewhere warm, and get his head together.
Jimmy decides to take a coastal steamer to the northernmost outpost of Australia, Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, to visit the grave of his oldest friend, Sandy, killed during the Japanese bombing of the city in 1942. Upon arriving, he discovers that Sandy’s death is not as simple as military records seemed to indicate. After learning that Sandy’s grave contains only an arm with no distinguishing features, he starts asking questions around town in order to find out what really happened to his mate.
The more he asks, the more he discovers that Darwin is less about post-war reconstruction and more about drugs, gambling, and the excessive consumption of alcohol. It’s a lawless city where 95% of the population is male and prostitution is banned, creating a thriving underworld where rough frontier-town blokes and men from the armed forces are doing more with each other than having a beer and passing the time of day.
While digging deeper, Jimmy discovers a terrible truth, arousing the interest of men who would do anything to keep the past a secret—men who consider his life of little value. Jimmy is forced to rely on quick thinking and his army training when death comes looking for him in the dead of night.
Publisher: Moshpit Publications
Editors:
Cover Artists:
Genres:
Pairings: M-M
Heat Level: 5
Romantic Content: 1
Ending: Click here to reveal
Character Identities: Gay
Protagonist 1 Age: 26-35
Protagonist 2 Age: 26-35
Tropes: In Uniform
Word Count: 18000
Setting: Darwin, Australia
“Whatchew doing here, Jimmy?”
I looked over my shoulder. It was dark still, although the sky above was awash with stars. I recognised his voice. Spiff, he’d called himself, although I knew his real name was something Dutch—tall and skinny with ribs like a xylophone. He’d boarded in Brisbane, bound for Broome to try his hand at the pearling industry. Most likely another lie—he was full of them.
“Waiting,” I said.
READ MOREI tended to be spare with words with people I didn’t take to. I didn’t trust easily, especially blokes like Spiff who I barely knew and who wanted more than just rough and tumble in one of the lifeboats at night, or in his cabin with a chair back wedged under the door handle. I always suspected they had another agenda. He was all right. Nothing to write home about, but he knew what to do and hit all the right buttons, making me smile with the pleasure he gave me. I wasn’t into swapsies with him; I let him do what he wanted. I didn’t like him enough to reciprocate, but it kept the wolves from the door—the wolves were a few of the Indonesian and Dutch staff aboard the ship who leered and insinuated, idly scratching their crotches while they smiled at the single male passengers. I didn’t like that shit.
He leaned on the ship’s rail, our elbows touching. “You off in the morning?” he said, his hand sliding over my arse.
I nodded. He wanted a farewell something. You can always tell, there’s something in the sounds of their voices while making small talk, when really all they want is to get into your trousers. I reached for the packet in his shirt pocket and took a cigarette from it. He lit it with his fancy mother-of-pearl silver lighter. I didn’t resist as he unbuckled my shorts. They fell to the deck, the buckle clanging softly as it hit the wood.
“Is this okay?” he asked, nuzzling my neck.
I shrugged and let him get about it, kicking one leg out of my shorts to move my feet apart. What he did felt nice; I purred in my guts.
“What about you?” he asked when he’d done, wiping his dick with his handkerchief.
“I’m all right,” I said, brushing his hand away as he reached around, squeezing my cock.
“Couldn’t let you go without leaving you with a farewell present,” he said with a small chuckle.
“Gimme your lighter,” I said. Reluctantly he handed it over. “It’ll last longer than what you just gave me.”
I put it in my shirt pocket, took his handkerchief and wiped myself clean, then scrunched it and threw it into the sea.
“Goodbye, Spiff,” I said, giving it a little wave as it disappeared into the water.
He snorted. It was a fuck you sort of snort. Over the past month, he’d tried his best, but no matter how many times we’d done it, for me it felt no more than a casual encounter with a stranger, a familiar stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. People either clicked or they didn’t. It had never stopped me from getting off with guys I’d met even if they didn’t appeal to me. My dick was in charge of those things.
“You’re a right arsehole, Jimmy. You know that, don’t you?”
“Tell me something, Spiff. Was there ever once during the past four weeks since you came aboard in Brisbane that I brushed you off, or didn’t let you do want you wanted? Was there ever once you didn’t have fun? I’m not the bloke for you, mate. Find someone who wants more than a root.”
It was the most I’d ever said to him. For a moment, he squared up to me as if he was going to throw a punch, but I bent down and pulled on my shorts, buckled my belt, then buttoned my flies.
“Jesus—”
“Just go, Spiff. There’s nothing here for you anymore,” I said.
He stomped off in the dark cursing to himself under his breath. I went back to lean on the rail and watched the reflected lights of Port Darwin rippling on the sea.
COLLAPSEThis is a long short story, or a novella; but it packs the punch of a novel. Like most of Garrick Jones’s work, there is an educational factor to this book, especially for an American reader. We have never been taught anything about Australia’s role in either of the world wars. In particular, we were certainly never taught that the Japanese bombed Darwin, Australia, even more destructively than they did the USA’s Pearl Harbor base in Hawaii.
That’s really just the context for this story of vengeance against an unexpected enemy.
Jimmy is a young man, still recovering mentally from his long years serving the Allies in World War II. As part of his road to recovery, he heads up to the distant Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory, and the most isolated capital city in the world. It is in Darwin he hopes to find the grave of his childhood best friend, killed in the bombing of Darwin in February, 1942.
When Jimmy gets to Darwin (a long, long process back then), he finds two things. First, there’s something fishy about his friend Sandy’s death; and secondly, there’s a man named Gordon who sparks something in Jimmy’s humanity that he’s not felt since before the war.
As always, Jones’s writing is tight, journalistic, with just the right edge to make you realize that this would make a great little movie. In a generation before any concept of gay rights emerged anywhere on the planet, Jones’s characters exemplify the ways in which men inclined to other men continued to make their way – and even find happiness – when the situational effects of wartime had passed.
The bottom line here is that not all the evil done during wars is done by the people you’re supposedly fighting. Evil is apolitical and amoral. It is sparked by greed and arrogance. Jimmy becomes sort of a small-town superhero. Not the kind of war story my generation was raised to expect – which just makes it all the more welcome.
