ONE SHALL BE TAKEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 113, 22 August 1941, Page 8

ONE SHALL BE TAKEN

A Short Short Story

By

ETAOIN

HE sun was rolling down: behind the hills when I trudged for the last time along Karangahape Road. I doubt if you would have recognised the place, but I knew every hole and corner in it, from Grafton Gully over to Ponsonby and the salubrious neighbourhood of Freeman’s Bay.: Perhaps that was why I didn’t hurry as fast as I should. It’s strange how attached you can get even to a lousy dump like that and I had met a lot of good cobbers there too. Many of them had gone, as I was going. Some of them were in Egypt already, some were scattered God knew where, but I was leaving others behind and I had a feeling that I would not be seeing them again. It’s difficult leaving your pals behind but you’ve got to do what you're told. And so you swop fags and shake hands and-they wish you luck, And then, after you’ve all found that there’s nothing you really can say, somebody finds a bottle of beer and everybody has a mouthful, all round, and then once again you say, "Well, cheer-oh, fellas, we'll be seein’ you,’ and they say, "Sure, we'll be seein’ you,’ and off you go, And there’s an ache in your belly because you know that they won’t be see-

ing you again, short of miracles happening. And miracles don’t turn up with the rations these days. * * * ND so here I am stumping along Karangahape Road for the last time, and I don’t like it one little bit. It’s ‘queer how you take root even in the stoniest places and queer how sore it is when the roots are dragged up. The place is almost beautiful to-night, looking down on the harbour from.up here. It is nearly dark and the lower levels are lost already, but the shadows are soft of luminous and little points of fire are winking down by the foreshore where the ships are lying. * * * AND the whole place is as silent as the grave. I’ve never known anything so quiet. Even back home on the farm, miles away from anywhere, you could always hear the cows breathing, or a sheep’s cry coming down wind from the top paddock. There were all sorts of noises ‘if you stopped to listen for them, beetles booming along . among the gorse bushes, mice squeaking in the stacks or hedgehogs snuffling and grunting among the vegetables. % * * ERE there are none of these little sounds ‘of life. Once or twice I heard something like broom-pods crackling faintly in the distance. Just the

breath of a sound that seemed to come from very far away. But there are no broom bushes hereabouts and the pods would not be ripe yet if there were, and the féw small trees there are stand gnarled and silent, their hard little grey leaves motionless and unrustling. I feel as if I were standing in an empty room, yet I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave those who must stay behind here when I have gone. Why should I be taken and the others left? * Ls *x KNOW it’s no use asking the question. Orders are orders, whether you like them or not. True, they can always be disobeyed, and the risk might. be worth running to stay with my pals. Some are back there in the hills under thé sunset and I wish I were with them, but it’s a bit late to think of that now. Maybe this move is for the best; maybe I’ll get back here again some other time. % * ES ROM where I am now I can look right down into Freeman’s Bay and it’s time I went down the hill. I can see one or two chaps ahead of me, some of the crowd going off too, apparently. "Come on Dig.," yells one of them, "or you'll miss the bus." So I turn for the last time and look along Karangahape Road. The shadows

have reached the ridge, and I know now that I will never see it again however much it may have become a part of me. But there is no time left for thoughts, for what is to be done had better be-done quickly. So, with a last glance back at the ranges and at Mount Ida, now looming dark over the embers of Canea, I turn on my heel and hurry down to the shore where the destroyers are waiting. And in the west the last shreds of sunset die away.