He continued to watch until it disappeared from sight. To Bernie, the aircraft signified their utter isolation. It was a link between everything he couldn’t see. He couldn’t see the homestead beyond the ridge and he couldn’t see the RAAF base far to the south. Bernie looked around at the gunnery campsite. The cookhouse made of bark with dirt floors, the fires where the men did their own cooking, the lean-to shelters with the beds that they’d made themselves from tree forks shoved in the ground and corn sacks. Christ, it was the back of beyond. He wondered about the bloke in the Spitfire. Why did he buzz the homestead? Jeez, I’d love to find out, Bernie thought. Then he had an idea. That’s what he’d do with the two days’ monthly leave he had coming up, he’d pay a visit to the homestead and find out. Hell, it’d have to be better than Darwin. Bernie had wasted his last month’s leave hitching a ride into Darwin with some Yanks on their way through from the US base near Katherine.
