Captain Mack by James Roy Page B

I’ll not catch the train. Find another way, Snell. Yer plans are grand, but not that part. Sorry, lad.”
    â€œWhere are you planning to take him on the train?” Dad asked. “Day trip to the zoo or something?”
    Danny had thought long and hard about his answer to this precise question. He always tried not to lie, but this was a tough one.
    â€œWell, I’m not going to be taking him anywhere on the train, since he won’t even get onto one,” he replied, quite truthfully. Captain Mack had been adamant about it. No trains. And Danny was wondering why.
    â€œSo tell me again what he said,” Dad asked.
    â€œHe said that he helped build the train or something. And that friends died on it. Something like that.”
    â€œI think it’s pretty straightforward,” said Dad. “He told you he was in Burma, so he almost certainly worked on the Burma Railroad.”
    â€œWhat was the Burma Railroad?” Danny asked, but the phone rang at that moment, and Dad got up to answer it. Danny knew from the way he pulled the hall chair over to the phone that it was going to be a long conversation, so he went upstairs to bed.
    The next day Danny went to the history room at recess. Mr Cullen was unpacking a box of textbooks at the back of the room.
    â€œCan I ask you something?” Danny asked.
    â€œSure, so long as you work while you’re asking. Here, grab these.” Mr Cullen held out a couple of the books and nodded at the growing pile on top of the low bookcase. “What’s on your mind?”
    â€œWhat was the Burma Railroad?”
    â€œThat’s not a question I can answer in a lot of detail.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause your bell’s about to go.”
    â€œThat’s OK, I’ve got a free period next,” said Danny.
    â€œAh, but I haven’t, you see.” Mr Cullen winked. “The rabble will be pouring in here any minute, so will the short version do for now?”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œOK then. The Burma Railroad was a supply line built through the Burmese jungle by the Japanese army. Or to be more accurate, it was built for the Japanese by Allied prisoners-of-war.”
    â€œWhat was it like?”
    Mr Cullen looked out the window at the oval and tugged at his ear. “I think it’s safe to say that it was truly horrible, Daniel. I wasn’t there, but I’ve spoken to men who were and I’ve read about it, and it wasn’t pretty.”
    â€œCaptain Mack won’t talk about it.”
    â€œThat doesn’t really surprise me. What those men went through was incredible.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œWell, for a start, imagine the hottest day you’ve ever known, like a real scorcher, so hot that you’d rather endure a double of maths than spend five minutes out of the shade. Now imagine hacking through the jungle and digging and moving rocks with your bare hands under that blazing sun for twelve hours or more without a shirt on your back and with hardly any water to drink. Your lunch is a single ball of rice, and if you fall over you get kicked or beaten. Your friends die from exhaustion right beside you and you have to just keep working. Like I said, it was grim.”
    For a long time Danny examined the cover of the book in his hands, but without really seeing it. He remembered getting badly sunburnt at Manly beach the previous summer, and also recalled helping Dad build the rock-pool and fountain in front of their house. He tried to put the two together. It wasn’t easy, especially knowing that whatever picture he could come up with wouldn’t even be close to what Mr Cullen was describing.
    Finally Mr Cullen said, “Your friend was very brave, Daniel.”
    â€œI guess he was,” Danny replied as the bell rang and Mr Cullen’s next class began to assemble at the classroom door.
    Mr Cullen took the book from him. “Think about it next time you see