By Wayne Jessop

The pain was worse tonight. Alfred Willings rubbed his chest and lay back against the pillows as black streaks of pain radiated out from his rib cage and down his left arm.

He had been thinking about his mates in the 27 Machine Battalion a lot lately. Read about them in his war diary. Some of them he hadn't seen for years. He missed the closeness and friendship of his brothers-in-arms more than ever. Each year it became more difficult to keep in touch.

Sweat trickled from his receding hairline, chest and armpits, soiling his night-clothes. A groan escaped from his lips.

'Blood medication's not doing its job so well this time,” he muttered to himself, between efforts to survive this bout of agony. Flashes of brilliant colours flashed across his closed eyelids.

His breathing. Oh God! Just to take one breath without the pain, without crying out. Just one more breath.

Finally something within his chest grabbed his heart in crushing agony; he clutched madly at his chest, arching his back in a massive seizure that rapidly diminished into a feeling of overwhelming peace and blackness.

'How long are you going to lay there, you lazy beggar?” a voice asked as a hobnailed boot nudged him in the ribs.

He opened his eyes and smelt billy tea brewing. Close by a battered saucepan, giving off clouds of tea scented steam was sitting over a small fire in an ammo case.

His number two and best mate Corporal William (Wild Bill) Hiscock was standing over him grinning like a Cheshire cat.

'You took your own sweet time coming back,” he said, handing Alfred a mug of over-sweetened tea.

'We've been waiting quite a while for you.”

'Hey Sarg, I've cleaned up Betsy special like for you,” called out Private Johnny Spears the ammo carrier.

He was squatting by a stripped down Vickers Machine-gun using what appeared to be a piece of Wehrmacht shirt to lovingly apply a light coating of gun oil the feed block.

'Most of the Company has been assembled for a while now. A few stragglers have yet to appear, but they shan't be long,” said Wild Bill sipping his tea.

Alfred sat up feeling more than a little puzzled. The first thing he had noticed was that the pain in his chest was gone, in fact he never had felt better. Secondly the room in which he lay was more of a shell, not his familiar bedroom with its soft-brown painted walls. His bedside table loaded with his war diaries and Battalion History book had also disappeared.

Half the end wall was missing, a gaping hole opened onto a vista of the rolling hills of Tuscany.

He was looking into a sunrise? A sunset? He couldn't be sure what time of the day it was. The sky was bathed in the warmth of a golden sun sitting on the distant hills. The colours were so intense. Golden rays deepening into a soft warm orange, streaks of pink and mauve entwined themselves through the shafts of warm golden light. Alfred felt himself smiling contently, something he hadn't done for quite some time.

Looking towards the light he could make out the shadowy figure of men, squatting or leaning against the olive trees, talking quietly and sharing a cigarette. The feeling of peace and comrade-ship almost overwhelmed him.

Another thing that puzzled him, Johnny Spears – the cocky little beggar. The last time he had seen his ammo carrier, Johnny boy had been a mass of torn flesh, blood and broken bones, sprawled amongst

The debris on the ruined slopes of Monte Cassino. He never figured that anyone could survive a close encounter with a mortar shell.

Looking down at himself Alfred Willings was bemused to find that instead of being dressed in his flannel PJ's, he was in his ragtag uniform.

A pair of Bombay Bloomers held up with a set of civvy braces he scrounged off an old Eye-tie for a bar of Palmolive soap. Military shirt with sleeves rolled up, his sergeant's stripes hanging on by a few strands of thread. A good pair of Thick woollen socks he had won off a Yank playing two-up, mostly hidden by a dusty pair of desert boots and of course his dog-tags.

He gingerly dragged himself up from the mattress and had a closer look around the room. There were other men there besides Wild Bill and young Johnny. Men he had befriended and lost during the four years of fighting.

'Kia Ora Toa,” came from one corner.

Alfred glanced over to see Samuel Te Wai Wai from the Maori Battalion. He was still carving an intricate tiki form the Perspex salvaged from a crashed Dornier bomber.

There was Frank Parker, Willie Samuels and Captain Mikey Sullivan who bought it trying to save an Italian kid who had fallen into a swift flowing mountain stream. He got himself shot by a sniper for his troubles. A darned good officer he had been. Used to take off with a Jeep and a water cart and bring it back full of good Italian vino for the boys. Yes, he was a good bloke, the Captain.

From around the room came the odd friendly wave or G'day Mate. With each greeting, whether just a nod or a few words of greeting Alfred felt more at peace with himself, more needed and accepted.

Arriving back in Hamilton, leaving his mates on the train was the greatest wrench of his life. When a bloke has just spent four life constantly caring for his team, enjoying the comradeship of army life, making sure your mates were as safe as possible and mourning those that death had brutally taken, coming back to civvy street was almost too hard to bear.

He had heard of men that almost had to be dragged off the trains to the arms of their loved ones. More fearful of parting from the mates and returning to civvy life than they had ever been when the Stukas were slinging bombs at them from Al Alamein to Trieste.

It just wasn't worth it to try and explain what is was like. The fear, the smell of death, screams of men crying out for the mothers while they bled to death on some far bombed out hill or wooded valley.

The horror would be too much to remember, to tell, to live through again. Better to shut it out and try and get on with life.

Looking through a shattered window, he watched as men quietly stubbed out cigarettes and poured the remains of tea from mugs and billies onto the small fires. He observed them almost dreamily prepare for a march, trudging down to the road from the olive groves and vineyards. Falling into columns of three.

In the room the men there were also preparing to move out. Webbing slung over shoulders. Helmets placed over woollen balaclavas, rifles carried easy.

Private Johnny Spears had the Vickers assembled and slung across his shoulder. Wild Bill with the tripod and the four gallon water container, looked expectantly at him.

He hadn't heard any orders to fall in. No stroppy Sergeant-Major shouting himself hoarse. Just a quiet urgency coming from deep within each man to form into marching order and prepare to move out.

Sergeant Alfred Willings also felt that urge, that quiet insistence to move, to be with his mates. And the suns colours slowly intensified, brighter, more compelling.

His company left the house and fell silently in with the others.

'Ahh, here's the last of ‘em,” said Corporal William (Wild Bill) Hiscock. Looking back to the house as three more men emerged and made their way through the rubble to the columns of men.

And so they marched. Not knowing where they were headed, but it really didn't matter to them. They were with their mates again and at peace, as they marched towards the Su