Veterans of the Emu Wars

“I’m tired of being made a joke of.”

“We’re not getting any younger.”

“Will you shut up with the ‘we’re not getting any younger’ stuff.”

Anzac Day had come around again and, after the march, three old soldiers were sitting in a cafe. Beneath their table, a blue heeler lay in restless preparedness.

“If the bloody pollies hadn’t’ve got hold of it …” The former sergeant didn’t need to continue. The others nodded at a reiteration that had plagued the last fifty years of their lives.

“Aye, but it’s true enough,” said Snowy McMullan, fidgeting the cutlery into a defensive formation. “I’m thinking this might be my last year.”

The heeler gave an audible sigh.

The cafe was around the corner from the pub on the main street, down which every year marched the local Anzac parade. And every year after the march most of the veterans gathered in the pub, but these beribboned three went to the cafe and had done for as long as they could remember….