A rare photo of Jack Scott, taken in the trenches in France c.1918. He would
not have looked much different four years later when Lawrence encountered
him in Sydney and Thirroul in 1922.

I AM QUITE CERTAIN that neither Scott nor Rosenthal had any idea that Lawrence was in the throes of writing a book about them and their organisation. Had they had any inkling of this, Lawrence could well have been in some considerable danger.

Nevertheless, Rosenthal and Scott would have needed to know, following the confrontation in Rosenthal's chambers on Saturday June 23 (see Kangaroo chapter 11 and the "Looking Over Lawrence's Shoulder" chronology below), how much of a danger they might be in from the unexpected activities of this funny little foreigner whom they had so-recently, and so-casually, befriended.

So, the following weekend, Scott was dispatched to Thirroul to confront Lawrence, and to find out what he had been up to, and how much he knew.

What transpired is probably accurately reflected in a passage in the "Jack Slaps Back" chapter.

Jack Callcott turns up at "Coo-ee", unexpectedly. But it is a very different Callcott to the one that had come down to "Mullumbimby" a few weeks previously.

(I now quote from the text, as I believe this is a near-accurate account of what happened.)

Somers has just told Callcott that he and Harriett would be leaving Australia in a matter of weeks. The text continues:

"You've found out all you wanted to know, I suppose?" said Jack. "I didn't WANT to know anything. I didn't come asking or seeking. It was you who chose to tell me." "You didn't try drawing us out, in your own way?" "Why, no, I don't think so." Again Jack looked at him with a faint contemptuous smile of derision. "I should have said myself you did. And you got what you wanted, and now are clearing out with it. Exactly like a spy, in my opinion." Richard opened wide eyes, and went pale. "A spy!" he exclaimed. "But it's just absurd." Jack did not vouchsafe any answer, but sat there as if he had come for some definite purpose, something menacing, and was going to have it out with the other man. "Kangaroo doesn't think I came spying, does he?" asked Richard, aghast. `"It's too impossible." "I don't know what he thinks," said Jack. "But it isn't 'too impossible' at all. It looks as if it had happened." Richard was now dumb. He realised the depths of the other man's malevolence, and was aghast. Just aghast. Some fear too - and a certain horror, as if human beings had suddenly become horrible to him. Another gulf opened in front of him. "Then what do you want of me now?" he asked, very coldly. "Some sort of security, I suppose," said Jack, looking away at the sea. Richard was silent with rage and cold disgust, and a sort of police-fear. "Pray what sort of security?" he replied, coldly. "That's for you to say, maybe. But we want some sort of security that you'll keep quiet, before we let you leave Australia." Richard's heart blazed in him with anger and disgust. "You need not be afraid," he said. "You've made it all too repulsive to me now, for me ever to want to open my mouth about it all. You can be quite assured: nothing will ever come out through me." Jack looked up with a faint, sneering smile. "And you think we shall be satisfied with your bare word?" he said uglily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surely Aldington was right. Lawrence could not have worked this up "over an imaginary episode". This is reportage. This, or something very like it, is what actually happened.

(Yet what a liar Lawrence was…how could he, with a straight face, have said "nothing will ever come out through me", when in the next room he had more than 12 chapters of Kangaroo, already written, and waiting to be added to.)