Manson Richard - Line of Fire

this is strong stuff. The oppressive humidity of Townsville seems almost to drip from the page and lends Affection a hypnotic, dreamlike quality that is hard to shake... an astonishing novel Vogue

Brilliantly conceived and superbly written... a literary tour de force The Australian

a bona fide page-turner. [The author] has found that thing often eluded by serious literature: a good story The Sydney Morning Herald

I love cricket biographies. I love Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, American realists like John Steinbeck, Faulkner, not that he was a realist really. I like Hemingway. And I tell you what, I read Ian Townsends book. Now that was fantastic. I really liked that book. Really graceful writing. Really interesting, too. A cracker William McInnes, The Advertiser (Adelaide)

An engrossing and skilful debut The Bulletins Books Supplement

A finely crafted novel... there is both humour and pathos here in the broad sweep and the intimate detail The Age (Melbourne)

A beautiful first novel The Canberra Sunday Times

accomplished... downright hilarious at times The Courier-Mail

A stunning work of faction... meticulously researched and superbly written The Gold Coast Bulletin

this is fiction at its dramatic best... By the time the storm strikes, bringing death and destruction with it, I felt I was there in Bathurst Bay experiencing the unstoppable force of Cyclone Mahina... It is history with greater resonance than a text-book The Courier-Mail

The characters remain with the reader long after the tale is told, and that surely is what good writing is all about Sue Gammon, ABC Radio

Hour by hour the story moves towards the worst cyclone in Australian history. Just when the heat and exhaustion of all concerned are becoming almost overpowering to the reader, the cyclone hits... Breathtaking. Far more chilling than any murder mystery Cairns Sun

A fascinating tale of commercial exploitation, inter-racial relationships and a natural disaster. Townsend has done a wonderful job in recreating this terrible event The Examiner, Launceston

Townsend follows in [Thea Astleys] considerable footsteps... [He] draws the force of a cyclone with true authenticity, and the destructive effects on a motley collection of people... Part of the accomplishment of this novel is its use of dialogue, presented without anachronisms, direct as a script, and loaded with covert meaning... The Devils Eye is vivid, complex and assured Sunday Age (Melbourne) Book of the Week

For Kirsty

It is very regrettable that such an incident as mentioned in the sworn statement took place, although it had been carried out upon orders.

Mizusaki Shojiro, commanding officer, 81 Naval Garrison Unit, Rabaul

On the afternoon of Monday 18 May 1942, Richard Manson, Dickie to his family, sat in the back of an uncovered utility truck belonging to the Japanese Navy and watched the river of dust swirl and tumble away behind him.

He might have imagined, as 11-year-old boys sometimes do, that the road was moving and he was not, and that if he jumped it would carry him away to the mountains, where no-one would find him.

Last chance, then, for this story to end differently.

His mother, Marjorie, took his hand and wouldnt let go.

Earlier, as they had been driven from the prisoner of war compound, men had stared after them: soldiers in tattered khaki, a few in grey shirts that once were white. Hed recognised some of the faces behind the barbed wire.

Philip Coote was a grey shape, reduced in size, but still one of the most recognisable figures in Rabaul. His hair was longer, it was no longer dark, and he had a salt and pepper beard. Mr Coote looked older than the same Mr Coote who had handed out lollies to the kids who sat outside his office when their fathers were called inside. It was hard to imagine now that he had managed Burns Philp, the company that once owned Rabaul. In the back of the utility truck, as it swayed down Malaguna Road, it was harder for Dickie to imagine Rabaul was even the same town, until recently the capital of New Guinea, Australian in its accent, British to its bootstraps.

The buildings looked the same, but the people had gone. In the tropical afternoon, Japanese soldiers lounged on the verandahs where white men with red faces once sat. Everywhere, poached egg Japanese flags hung limply beside the black swastika.

Dickie sat between his mother and the man who wasnt his father and whom she called Ted. They didnt say a word, which was unusual for Ted Harvey, who usually had something to say, even if it was only to himself.

Across from Dickie, with a suitcase between his legs, was his Uncle Jimmy, who tried to smile. Dickie desperately wanted Jimmy to say something, to tell him where they were going and that it was all right, but it was as if they were all in the same dream in which they wanted to shout but couldnt.

Beside Jimmy, Bill Parker might have been silently crying.

Dickie turned the other way.

There were six Japanese soldiers who took up most of the back of the truck, three on each side, and they all had rifles. They wouldnt look at him; they stared at some faraway point as if they were on the parade ground. He knew Hamada, one of the prison guards. A surly Jap, Jimmy had said, but he didnt look surly now. He looked like he was going to be sick.

They passed the towns iceworks, called the Freezer, and another white face flashed past, Mr Gordon Thomas from the Rabaul Times, who also had a long white beard, longer than Mr Cootes. Mr Thomas raised a hand, just a little, as if unsure, before he, too, was left beside the river of dust.

Dickie caught glimpses of Simpson Harbour between the foreshore buildings. The water was a grey blue in the afternoon light and the hulls of grey battleships and transports appeared here and there, some beside the wharves. The last of the sunlight caught them and showed holes, dents and scratches from some recent battle. Jimmy and Teddy had shaken hands when they saw them come in a week earlier. Dickie hoped they werent going to Japan on one of those.

The truck rumbled under the canopy of trees where the sun cut the road to pieces. It turned right onto Mango Avenue, the extinct Mother volcano swung into view, and then they stopped in front of what used to be the courthouse but was now Naval Garrison Headquarters. Japanese flags hung from the windows.

The dust washed over the floor of the truck and sank onto his boots. It was an ever-present fine grey dust that would have sent his grandmother in Adelaide mad. It came from one of the smaller volcanoes, the one near the mouth of the harbour, hidden for the moment by trees and buildings.

The dust settled. The trucks engine ticked in the shade. It was hotter now that theyd stopped. No-one moved. The air was syrupy with rotting fruit and a tang of sulphur that Dickie could almost taste. The sulphur smell came in mysterious gusts even if there was no breeze, sometimes even when the breeze was blowing the volcanic ash away from the town.

Of all the volcanoes surrounding the harbour, only one, the smallest, called Tavurvur by the natives and Matupi by the Europeans, was smoking and steaming. Last year it was throwing stones at the town. His Uncle George had shown him when theyd come to town on the plantation boat; a column of black smoke rose from the volcano, and then there was a roar and the smoke shuddered as red rocks crashed down the black slope. Some fell with a great splash and hiss into the sea.