by Stephen Popple

Created on: May 06, 2008

The Creek

This was Andrews' favourite spot. Down behind the grain silos screened from the house by the three big steel silos as well as the out of control bougainvilleas looming all pink and purple over the house yard fence. The ground sloped away here, running down to the little creek that had never held any water that Andrew could remember.

Andrew came down here to play with his soldiers. He had a pretty good collection now, American, Germans, British and a smattering of Australians all about an inch and a half high and formed of plastic. Each nationality was represented by a different colour. Andrew had found that this was the best place to play soldiers because the ground here was soft and easy to dig but not so soft that the trenches and the dirt forts would collapse too easily.

Andrew would spend hours and hours down behind the silos, after school and on the weekends. His mother did not seem to mind as long as he was out of the house. Most of Andrews friends lived in town thirty minute drive away so Andrew had no one else to play with except his soldiers.

Andrew's father was away at the war. He had been gone for about a year and Andrew sometimes imagined that on of his Australian soldiers was his father, bravely fighting against the evil British and Germans. Andrew would set up all of the soldiers in position and then take turns for each side shooting at the enemy with small pebbles, always taking care not to hit his dad.
Sometimes Andrew had the feeling that someone was watching him play, but when he looked up there was nobody there. Sometimes, when the sun was going down and he walked up to the house for dinner he would see Old Smithy, the aboriginal farm hand, watching him. The old man would look away whenever he saw Andrew looking at him.

Old Smithy had come just after Andrew's dad had left for the war. The government had a program to supply help to farms where men were drafted. That help usually came in the form of women and old men who could help out with basic farm tasks. Old smithy had been a stockman when he was young, but when the old stock routes had closed he had drifted back to his country to live off the land as his ancestors had done for thousands of years. The government had rounded all the Aboriginals living off the country up again and sent them out to work on farms.

Andrew did not have much to do with Old Smithy and, in fact, felt a bit scared of him. Old Smithy had an intensity about him that bothered Andrew, like Mr Rathbone, the school

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