Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms Read Online Free

we’ll hide him in the air raid shelter for as long as we can. For as long as it’s safe, and if that’s until the end of the war, then so be it.’
    â€˜What are we going to feed him, then?’ Kevin asks, knowing there is little food to go around and that rations are already stretched beyond what’s acceptable. ‘It’s bad enough we have to work for our rations – the bread and tea and sugar – but now you want to give it away?’
    â€˜We share, Kev, you know that. We always have. Sharing is not new to us. Stop acting like we’re doing something bad here. We’re being ourselves. This is what we do.’ Joan’s voice quivers.
    Banjo puts his arm around his wife’s shoulder. ‘We’ll get by,’ he says. ‘We have the vegie garden and we can spare a little each, enough to keep him alive.’
    â€˜There’s only potatoes in that patch, and not a lot of them!’ Kevin argues, walking to the window.
    â€˜We have pumpkin and cabbage too,’ Joan says. ‘You’re just never around long enough to enjoy them.’ Even Joan is getting testy with her brother-in-law’s insistence on being difficult.
    â€˜We can’t tell anyone,’ Sid says anxiously. ‘ I understand your logic, Banjo, but there will be some who don’t and King Billie will tar and feather us if he finds out.’
    â€˜I agree, we tell no one, not even your wives.’ Banjo looks at Fred because everyone knows Fred’s wife, Marj, is the queen of the Black grapevine and if she knows what’s going on, then it’s all over. Fred and Marj live next door, and Marj has eyes in the back of her head – she knows who’s doing,saying, thinking what. And with no fence between the huts, she can see right down to the opening of the air raid shelter at the back of the Williams’ lot. Everyone loves Marj, but they also know she has a mouth, a big, uncontrollable mouth, and sometimes a bitter tongue. Fred loves his wife, but even he knows she’s got the loosest lips this side of the Great Dividing Range.
    â€˜I won’t tell Marj,’ he promises.
    â€˜I won’t tell Ivy either, but what about Jim?’ Sid asks of the local Wiradjuri lad who’d returned from the First World War and was now part of the 22 Battalion acting as a guard at the POW camp. ‘We need Jim to find out information about what’s going on, how this fella got out and why, but he can’t know we are hiding an escapee.’
    â€˜I think he needs to know,’ Kevin says. ‘Surely he has a right to know.’
    â€˜No! We can’t compromise his livelihood,’ Banjo says. ‘We can’t put him or his job in danger with the authorities. What do you think they’ll do to him if they find out he knows about this? They’ll court martial him.’
    â€˜There’s also that other Aboriginal fella who leads the Italians out to the farms,’ Fred offers.
    â€˜He’s a Charles,’ Fred says.
    â€˜That’s him, he’d have to know something about what’s going on. I hear he also rolls cigarettes for the soldiers, so he must get on well with them.’
    â€˜I don’t understand why there’s no real security around the Italians,’ Kevin says. ‘It’s like they run this town – bike riding, going to the movies and the pubs. I even heard they’vegot grappa stills in the camp and the guards swap leftover meat for alcohol. I’d trade some rabbit or some watermelon for some grappa, that’s for sure.’
    Banjo wishes his brother would just stick to the issue at hand instead of mouthing off about everything that upsets him. Before he gets the chance to get back to the Charles fella, Kevin is off again.
    â€˜I’ve even heard that they built a proper stage and made costumes and printed programs for shows they do in there. And they get given musical instruments and