There is no Golden Soak, no tribal area known as the Pukara, nor any sheep or cattle station called Jarra Jarra. The characters are, of course, equally fictitious. I mention this because to those few who know this locality well, I feel some explanation is due for changes in the topography which I...
I felt numb and drowsy. I could hear the wind. But I could not feel it. It was as though I had lost the power to feel. I was shivering uncontrollably and felt damp and chill. What was it I had dreamed about? A hut and a woman’s voice. I opened my eyes quickly and found the outline of a boarded ce...
Dust! That was my first impression of a city whose disastrous birth rate has made it the largest in the world, a vast expanse of concentrated housing broken only by open spaces of baked earth where the wind-blown dust swirled, and far away to port the snow-capped volcanic hulks of Popocatépetl an...
My name’s Ed Lane. Are you by any chance related to a Sergeant Iain Alasdair Ross reported lost when the Duart Castle was torpedoed in February, 1944?’ ‘He was my brother.’ ‘He was?’ The voice had a vaguely American accent. ‘Well, that’s fine. Didn’t expect to strike it that fast – you’re only th...
It was the third day of the trial and David Whitaker had gone into the witness box immediately after the lunchtime recess. Counsel for the Defence had taken him through the salient points arising from my evidence, with the object of showing his relationship with his father in the best possible li...
My footsteps sounded solitary on the cobbles and the years rolled back to childhood, every detail clear-etched on the retina of memory—the house barges moored by the bridge, the flowers set out in pots on the pavement, the newsvendor on the corner. And then the house itself, shabbier than when I ...
And as we bumped across the iron-hard ruts, up out of the camp on to the Tote Road, I began to consider the problems it raised, for I couldn’t just walk off into the bush with this Indian. I’d need stores, equipment, things that only the construction camp could provide. I started to explain this ...