This is an edited version of "A War Story". I was moved to do some polishing for this year, which is the centenary of the start of that terrible, terrible event known as "World War One", or "The Great War".
Souls and Soils
This
story has been written to explore some story-telling ideas, and a point or two.
I have made no effort to check the historical accuracy of the details –
including agricultural techniques and military issues, such as whether any formal
trials were made by Australian forces of infiltration tactics (which had, in
reality, quite a complex history), and, in the case of the references to the
Second Anglo-Boer War, I have deliberately changed the actual timeline of
historical events to suit the story telling.
This
is dedicated to my Uncle Clive, one of the Second World War’s “choco’s” on New
Guinea’s Kokoda Track.
1
The
two boys were as brown as the land – tanned by the sun their forebears had
thought harsh, the sun they barely
noticed. They were of an age their descendants would call teenagers, but their time
didn’t have room for such niceties: in their world, harsh necessity meant they
would be boys till they became men, men hoped to be as hard as the land they
would ferociously try to scrape a living from.
But
that time was yet to come. This day … this day they walked, carefree, on the
dirt road, carrying sticks they described – more in hope than anything else – as fishing
rods, stirring dust with their bare feet, and each other with humour as dry as
the land. They walked, blending into the shade of the occasional grey-green, scrubby
tree as they passed, till they reappeared - apparitions of dust and shade, the deeper
brown of their bodies limned by the red tinged dust as it danced with the sparse
gusts of swirling wind from tree to tree, dodging the occasional shaft of
light, looking for all the world as if some dust devil played with their image
– or, perhaps, their souls.
As
they neared the line of greener, taller trees that marked the creek, the ‘creek’
being a connection of mud-holes and the occasional deeper pool which combined
to create a hope of water, their talk turned to more serious matters. One
struggled during this: his soul had words his brain did not, and eloquence
suffered for the lack.
“Ah yer mad, cobber!”
“Why?
You tell me what’s wrong with it?”
“No-one’s
ever done it – that’s what’s wrong with it!”
“But
they had to start somewhere. You ask Mr Fitzgerald – agriculture started when
people picked up what they were eating, and started growing it on farms.”
“Bu
that’s hundreds of years-“
“Thousands.”
“-yeah
– a long time ago. Why do you want to change what we’ve done for
hundr-thousands of years?”
“They
haven’t here – we’ve only been here a bit over a hundred years. And I saw old
McGuire’s back paddock blow away last year.”
“Yeah,
but that’s just old McGuire - he’s ... odd.”
“He
doesn’t farm any different to anyone else – they all tear the soil apart, and
grow it all different to what happens in the wild.”
“So
… what: you want - us to eat wild wheat?”
“Well,
that’s how it started – and it can still be grown that way.”
“Yer
talkin’ about that scraggy patch of rubbish you grew last year?”
“It
wasn’t rubbish!”
“Was
too!”
“Was
not!”
“Was-was-was!”
Their
discussion descended into a short game of throwing stones at each other, an
early version of the game later known as brandy, but as played in the bush.
After
a few minutes, they picked up their fishing sticks, and kept scuffing through
the dust down to the creek. They slid down the bank, conveniently about their
height, and paced the dust-free shade under it til they found a deeper water
hole that they decided was promising. They had a tin with a few worms, which
they casually sacrificed to a couple of improvised and very rusty hooks, tossed in the creek, and settled back against the
bank under a convenient tree. Frank had been going to join them, but was collared
for chores by his mother – at least he’d got the worms to them before being
caught.
The
proto-soil conservationist was Clive; his friend, Gary.
After
a few minutes of pretending they knew what they were doing in the muddy,
stagnant water, and sagely consulting each other about casting in different
places and changes to hook, line and worm, they settled down to celebrate their
unexpectedly free afternoon.
“So”,
Clive began, “how’s your sister?”
Silence.
Clive
nudged his friend.
“Two
flamin’ odd ones in my life – you and yer save the flippin’ soil campaign, and
Helen and her mad ideas about changing the world even more.”
“Well,
you have to admit, the world hasn’t ended since women got the vote” said a
smiling Clive.
“Ah,
you reckon! I’ve got to listen to Helen, me Mum and all their friends talkin’
about who they should vote for, and why – and they try to drag me into it.”
“Well,
who do you reckon we should vote for?”
“Well,
what’s wrong with the ones we got now?”
“Well,
Mr Deakin’s Commonwealth Liberals are alright, but Mr Fisher’s Labour-“
“Oh
hell – you bin talkin’ to my sister?”
“…
might have.”
As
a light went on in the dim mustiness that was Gary’s still forming brain, he
shrilled “Oh no – you can’t do that. Yer me cobber – you can’t go and get all
sweet on me SISTER!”
After
a few moments, Clive almost whispered “I might, you know.”
They
fished in silence for a few minutes more, until Gary’s attempts to mull things
over was relieved by a strike. Excitedly, the two played it to the bank, and
landed it in a flurry of elbows, slippery hands and scales, and dust turning to
mud.
They
laughed – cackled, would maybe fit better - at the mess and at each other.
Then
Gary spoke “Yeah, ‘spose you could do worse than be me sister’s sweetheart.”
Clive
smiled back: “Yeah, I reckon so.”
2
That
evening, after they ate the fish Clive had solemnly presented to Gary and his
sister Helen’s mother, against his will, Gary found himself listening to his
mother and her friends talking. They were sitting on hard, rough made wooden
chairs, round a rough table, all crammed into a small, poorly lit room – they
couldn’t afford the new electric, even if it had come out their way, which it hadn’t yet, so they made do with a
hurricane lamp turned low - with the odd gasp of wind struggling through their
one, open, small but valiant window. The talking was a worried talking, all
about the growing clouds of war in Europe, and the aggression of the German
Kaiser. After her friends had left, Gary’s mother kept the conversation going
with their father as they prepared and began to serve their evening meal of
stew, with a taste of meat in it, and vegies.
At
a pause in the conversation, Gary piped up, brash and eager, “Good – we’ll be
able to go off and fight them Germans and teach them a lesson, eh?”
“What?!
Don’t you think-”
Helen
was cut off as their mother lifted the pot of mashed spud and smashed it down
on the table. She stood silently, quivering, her routine terseness replaced by
an uncharacteristic, overt anger, and began, her wooden serving spoon waved to
emphasise her points with motion and the occasional spray of the rich, soft
mash Gary so loved.
“Think!
Yes – think! You THINK on it, and think WELL upon the matter. War’s not a game
– and don’t you ever think it’s just
a case of ... of going off and teaching
anybody anything!” She was practically snarling now, and started thumping great
spoonfuls of potato on Gary’s plate, which his eyes matched – the roundness of
the plate, that is, not the potato, nor the bare wooden table plate and potato
sat upon.
As
she pounded potato onto her husband’s plate, his fingers, as if by accident,
gentled the wrist on her angry hand, and his gentle eyes stroked her soul when she
glanced back. She sighed, and put spoon and pot down to speak.
“You
two don’t know I had a sweetheart before I met your father. Oh yes, we each had
lives before our life.” They smiled
at each other fondly, before she continued “He was older, a bit of a wild Irish
lad – very glamorous to the young, impressionable lass that I once was.”
Gary
and Helen sat quietly, Helen motionless and holding her breath, Gary with the
restrained fidgeting of a young lad that passed for being still, both surprised
by both the revelation and the way it had come about. Gary glanced at his
father, unsure about how he should handle this turn in events, but he couldn’t
read anything from his father’s strange face with the unfocused eyes, staring
as if the other side of the table had a distant, vast vista. He looked back to
his mother, now leaning back against the wall, wooden spoon in hand like a
weapon, a rifle to be armed with potatoes but, for now, held safely over her
shoulder, the remaining mash safe.
She
knew both her children well, of course, and chose which unasked question to
answer with characteristic unseen care and tenderness.
“Oh
your father knew him too – he was older than your Da, but they were friends, of
a sort.”
Their
father smiled, and added “He was our king, king of our town, like – all the
lads from the town looked up to him, and what he said went. Mind you, knowing
what I do now, I don’t endorse what we got up to.”
Gary’s
brain was stunned and struggling by all that was happening, but then another
matter overwhelmed his mind. The kids from the town, not the bush?
“But
Da, does that mean you weren’t always a farmer?”
“No,
son, I wasn’t. I learned that for the sake of your mother, out of love for the
good woman she was – and still is, and so she could keep the farm.”
So
MUM could keep the farm. As his world
– or its values, at any rate - started to cartwheel, Gary spoke. “But Mum,
you’re…”, and Gary stopped, unwilling to risk the censure his thoughts were
leading to.
“A
woman? Yes, I am. How did I come to have a farm, that’s what you were going to
ask, isn’t it” – and she gestured for a pause from her husband, who was about
to rebuke their son for his cheek. “It’s alright, Jack, they have to know some
time, and better that it come from us.”
After
a few moments of dark reflection, Jack raised his head and nodded acquiescence,
and she continued.
“Daniel
and I married, and he started working this place with his Da. But then came the
war against the Boers.”
“They
were rotters!” piped up Gary, eager to show his knowledge of world events.
As
their father shook his head under the steady gaze of their mother, Helen wanted
to put her younger brother in his place – she guessed neither parent saw those long-past-cast-as-devils
as being anything of the sort, but she had a more important question, one that
bore directly on her social standing – limited though that be, and one, she
thought, that might unravel this mystery at the nub.
“Mum
… what happened?” She paused, and flushed with the moral horror of the
prospect, whispered “Did you … did you divorce?”
“No,
it was worse than that” she answered, then added “Although it did lead to your
father and I getting together. Don’t worry Helen, we’ve given you no skeletons
to embarrass you with that young Father at church.”
Helen
flushed and mumbled.
Impatient
with Helen’s girly rubbish, Gary asked “What happened? Those rotters needed a
good lesson, didn’t they?”
His
mother looked at him, distraught, and answered “Lessons! Lessons!! He went to WAR – they all did, all that were old
enough. Your father missed by a year or two, which he rued at the time. I
watched them leave, larking about on the train, and them all thinking it would
all be over soon, and being typical, brash young men. Don’t you talk about
teaching anyone a lesson through war, young man – don’t you!”
They
were silent. This show of emotion by parents in front of children was unheard
of in that era, and Helen and Gary didn’t know whether to offer sympathy,
accept it in silence, or – in Gary’s case – flee out the back door.
Helen
took a guess: “Did he not come back, Ma?”
Their
mother sobbed, and choked out “He did – he did”, and then she fled - to her and
Jack’s bedroom.
Their
father motioned for silence, and went into the bedroom. After a few minutes of
Gary’s tense fidgeting and Helen’s tense staring at the door they had gone
through, he came out.
“Your
mother will be fine. As she said, Danny did come back. He’d been attached to a
British infantry regiment, and was wounded at Spion Kop. He came back –
disfigured, crippled and half mad and full of hate for what he’d lost, and for
all the pain.”
“Tell
them, Jack. Tell them!” They hadn’t noticed their mother standing in the
doorway, half hidden by the flickering shadows of the hurricane lamp, her plain
dress and drawn face matching the harsh, bare, wooden wall.
“They’re
young, Molly.”
“Gary’s
old enough to be talking about going off to war as if it’s some … some thing of glory - and Helen’s older!”
Jack
paused, then spoke carefully.
“Daniel
had a face injury-“
“His
jaw, his tongue, and half his face were blown off!” Molly snapped out.
Helen
gasped, and Gary was almost in tears - at the tension as much as the disclosures.
Jack
sighed, and continued “He couldn’t eat. We fed him soup, and gruel, and
whatever we could make soft enough to get down.”
Molly
sobbed out “They said it was a miracle he hadn’t died of an infection – they
said we should pray to God to give thanks he was returned to us!” The last was
almost spat out.
Helen
was silent at this. She saw the church as an inspiration in her struggle, and
had wondered why her mother seemed to attend so grudgingly, and to only
tolerate her enthusiasm.
She
started at another thought, and asked “Who fed him?”
Their
parents glanced at each other, and Jack continued “We both did. I was the only
cobber left who would have anything to do with him.”
Molly
spoke as she returned to the table “Daniel had changed. The boy who was the
life of the town was gone, and all that was left was a raging tyrant who would
fly off the handle without any reason we could see – a tyrant who would cry
himself to sleep and then scream with the pain and nightmares when he was
asleep.”
Jack
added “One small part of the problem was that he couldn’t speak properly, and
he’d never learned to read and write well, just enough to get by, like. “
He
nodded as his wife added “That’s why we’ve made sure you two get as much
schooling as we can get you.”
Helen
loved school and learning, and was grateful for it even if her brother was too
foolish to recognise what he had been gifted with, but she was still feeling substantially
on very shaky moral ground.
“So
did you and Da ... become sweethearts while you were looking after him?”
Gary
was shocked – were they suggesting being unfaithful? He’d heard of such a
thing, and he and some of the lads had thrown stones on the roof of a widow who
was supposed to be open to such things.
“No,
we were quite proper. Nothing happened until a decent time after Daniel had
been buried. … He starved to death, they say – we couldn’t get enough of what
he needed down his throat.” Although not knowing the efforts being made in
other places to discover and isolate “vitamines”, she shook her head and added
“I don’t think the doctors ever really knew
what he needed.”
She
glanced at Jack, and continued “But I think what really killed him was having
his heart torn out at Spion Kop. He’d written, of course, and even through the
bravado and the censorship I knew he was unhappy with how the war was being
fought – terribly, terribly unhappy.” She paused to take a few breaths, and
stood, fists clenched, the spoon now a rifle en guard, and continued. “Do you know, Gary, Helen, what the
British did to women and children? Do you? They locked those innocents up in
appalling conditions – and watched, while they starved to death – HUNDREDS of
them. Women and children! We watched Danny become a living skeleton, him knowing
what was happening, and he’d seen the British do that to women and children, and it tore him apart!”
She
shook her head, laid her spoon down, and paused to take a few more breaths
before continuing “It’s a horrible death, to die by starvation. It leads to …
other diseases, and robs the body of every dignity. Six months after Daniel
died, his father died – of a broken heart, though the doctors wrote pneumonia
on the Death Certificate. Pneumonia – here, in this half desert of a place.
Since he had no other family left, he left the farm to me.”
Jack
started “Daniel had even asked us to-“, but stopped at Molly’s small shake of
her head, almost imperceptible in the gloom. Suicide, let alone euthanasia, was
a moral bridge too far, even for their progressive souls, and their children
were nowhere near being ready to consider such things.
Helen
thought, as her world shattered, disappearing into the gloom and dark dancing
round the walls of the lamp lit room. She didn’t know what to grapple with
first, so she chose the last, as it was freshest, and maybe easiest. Her
conscience fidgeting uncomfortable, Helen almost whimpered “Ma, did they really
do that?”
Their
Da answered “Yes, children, it’s true – and known to many in this town, and
through the Empire, in fact. Women and children, innocents all, taken away from
home and hearth, put behind barbed wire, and left to starve if they couldn’t
fend for themselves. ” It wasn’t quite right, being a bit of a simplification,
but it was all he knew, and conveyed the horror ably enough.
Helen,
tears of horror at the atrocity and shock and the learning of it, continued
“How could they do that … to women, and ... and ... to children – and they’re British?”
Molly
shook her head, and Jack answered for her.
“It’s
hard to say. Your young father at our church would most like talk of the
struggle with evil, with the temptations of the devil. I’m not so sure. Maybe
there are flaws in men, maybe there are weaknesses in some which lead to them
doing evil.”
“Hah!”
spat Molly.
“Molly,
you well know that the young Tommies were out of their depth in that war – in
that whole colony.”
“It’s
not just them – you heard our son – our son! – saying-“ and she fled again to
her bedroom.
Jack
sighed: “This is hard for your mother. She lost someone she loved to a war, and
she hates all violence in consequence. Gary, you talking about teaching people
‘lessons’ through war has upset her. We wound up together as a result, and some
in the town looked askance at that. Others aren’t too happy at what they see as
your mother’s lack of patriotism. You, young Helen, will be tarred by the same
brush in some eyes. You’re young, you’ve the enthusiasm of youth – and the one
sightedness.” Unconsciously ironic, he added “You may not see this yet.”
He
looked from one to the other, and automatically adjusted a lamp wick with
barely a glance.
“Your
young friend Clive … his family isn’t tainted by any of this sort of history. I
can see, Helen, how you’ve been influenced by your mother, and I can see why
she has the beliefs she does – I even share some of them, and view most of the
rest with some favour myself, but where he gets his ideas from … I don’t know.”
Helen
held her chin up, and with some pride said, “Maybe he’s just a decent man.”
“Then
God forbid he should ever go to war, lest the indecency of war drown his!”
She
was silent.
“Da.”
“Yes,
Gary.”
“Weren’t
the Boers … weren’t they …”
“What?”
He continued in a kindly tone “Spit it out boy.”
“Didn’t
the Boers fight without honour?”
Jack
replied softly “There’s not much honour on either side in war, boy.” He
reflected for a moment, and continued. “Daniel told us about Spion Kop. The way
he told it, the Boers fought cleverly – fought, well, like demons defending
their land, he said.”
Jack
shook his head, and whispered, mostly to himself “Said! He had to try to write
everything. He learned that mostly after he got back, in a few hours of extra
hell every day for a few weeks.” He tilted
his head, and reflected “The learning helped for a while, but the pain and
hunger claimed him back again soon enough.”
After
a few moments, he added. “Daniel said the Empire was let down by some of its
officers. Our soldiers fought bravely, but they went into a situation as bad –
or worse – as that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava.”
He
looked thoughtfully at each of his children.
“It’s
late, and we’ve talked about much.” He smiled, “Finish your tea, and then time
for bed – and I don’t want to hear any nightmares tonight!”
They
were hungry enough to eat quickly anyway, as their father finished serving
their sparse repast, and obeyed the command to go to bed without any protest:
Helen to her room, until a few years ago shared with her young brother, and
Gary to his bed in the corner of the main room. As he settled down, he
comforted himself with the thought that he would fare differently – he wouldn’t
be caught out by any Boer or any German; he would be too brave for that to
happen.
3
Some
months later, after the harvest had been gathered, he wasn’t so sure of his
courage.
He
was watching Clive and Helen try to talk to the Shire Chairman at the town’s
annual show. This was nothing like the big city shows, but it drew the farming
folk from the region – and a few of the now rare aboriginals, dispossessed and
oft despised in what had been their own land, although Helen know nothing of
their presence - nor their history. What she did know was that their show had a
vibrancy and excitement of rare human contact that gave even the dust an energy
the more sophisticated city shows lacked. There were a few simple rides and
entertainment stalls, but the main focus was on the livestock and produce on
the co-opted oval, normally used for cricket and football, and the few sheds
nearby.
Gary
was lurking near the corner of one of the sheds, trying to hide in the dust and
milling people. He had grudgingly agreed to come along as moral support as the
two, now acknowledged as sweethearts, tried to talk to Chairman into either
supporting some “agricultural trials” or allowing a woman onto the Shire
Council – the two young idealists, in the bloom of first love, cared little
which got up first, as long as the Shire became, in their love-struck eyes,
more modern. As he tried to edge a little further away– and prayed that he was
invisible if he wasn’t far enough away to get lost in the dust and confusion
and smells - the two were trying every high sounding moral argument they knew
of to convince the pragmatic and politically skilled man. So, long before
distant America’s dustbowl, the far sighted two talked - but against such a
wily old fox that they had little chance on the agriculture and, so close after
women had gained the vote, little chance of more gain for the ‘fairer sex’.
Helen
was trying “Elizabeth was Queen at a time when the Spaniards were trying to
invade: if it hadn’t been for her leadership, the Empire would be speaking
Spanish.”
“Yes,
well that was a long time ago. We’ve now settled into ways that have taken the
Empire well beyond the borders of good old England – and further than we ever could have under the Spanish” he
chuckled. More sombrely, he continued “Are you unhappy with our good King and
all that he is doing for our glorious Empire?”
“N-no,
of course not”, stammered Clive. “We’re loyal citizens of the Empire – that
goes without saying, naturally.”
Helen
could see through this argument, and resolved to speak to Clive about being
duped by irrelevancies - later. “But the principle of leadership by women being
beneficial for the Empire was established by Queen Elizabeth. That principle
still stands today.”
“Ah
well, young lady, unfortunately it doesn’t. When you have some more life
experience, you’ll see. When you marry – and that could maybe even be to this
young man here with you – you’ll find you want to keep a house for your
husband, and you’ll see that as the highest duty and honour of any woman.”
She
flushed, and the Chairman furthered his advantage.
He
turned to Clive. “Well, young man, I hear your oldest brother has joined the
navy. Off to do his bit for the Empire against the Kaiser when war comes – good
on him!”
Clive,
who had listened to his brother as he worked through ever more half-baked
schemes to escape the Shire and what he saw as it’s backwardness, replied “No”,
and cut himself off. He and Helen had agreed to try not to get the Shire
Chairman off side, and Clive was, in any case, reluctant to talk about such
personal matters to people who weren’t family.
“Come,
come – of course he has! Why, I saw him talking to young Ferguson’s lad just
the week he left. We all know how loyal Ferguson is to the Crown – and Ferguson
quite clearly told the town he intends to be ready to do his bit when war
comes.”
This
was true – Clive’s brother had talked to Andrew Ferguson, and then Clive had
heard his brother mumbling about half-wits who had never had an independent
thought and wanted nothing better than go and kill people.
“Now,
you young people have had enough of my time. I must attend to my duties as
Chairman of this Shire.”
A
few moments later, disheartened, Clive turned from the Chairman’s departing back
to Helen. “Well, that didn’t work.”
“Nonsense
– it took the suffragettes years before they won, and some of them had to die
first.”
“You
want some of us to die?”
“No
– of course not.”
Clive
smiled at her “We could always sacrifice our most loyal supporter, your younger
brother looking at that automobile with what our local Father would say is
unseemly desire.”
Against
her mood, Helen laughed. She turned back to Clive. “Well proposed, sir. But, in
the meantime, I will plan and plot my best to free all women from drudgery
while I wash my future sacrifice’s clothes.” Feigning a sweet innocence, she
continued “After all, some day I may wish to marry, and such duties shall
become my greatest desire.”
At
this stage, Gary judged from the laughter that it was safe to re-join his
friend and sister. “Sorry – old Brown wanted me to look at his automobile.
Ended well, did it?”
Mr
Brown was the car’s owner, a severe, elderly gentleman who believed children
should be seen and never heard, who had been 200 feet away from his car,
looking at some stock which were for sale, while Gary had been examining his
car. If Mr Brown had seen anyone under 30 years old within ten feet of his new
pride and joy, he would have stormed over waving his cane and fuming at their
impertinence.
Clive
looked at him solemnly, and replied “We’ve decided, on the advice of the Shire
Chairman, that we should sacrifice a supporter or two.”
While
Helen giggled into a handkerchief, Gary said “Er …” and started to edge away.
What had his mad sister and his equally mad cobber got themselves into now?
Helen
saved him “It’s alright, Gary. He didn’t really – but we do have some more to
plan on our campaign, and we really must meet to prepare our next steps.”
At
this, Clive interjected “But not today. Today, I shall escort you around this Great
Annual Event, while we allow Gary here to escape into whatever mischief he may
find.”
Gary
protested so vehemently that he wouldn’t find any such thing, that Helen’s
protest at wasting time died on her lips, drowned in laughter, and she agreed.
The
hot day passed pleasantly for the three, and contentedly they went their
various ways as dusk claimed the show for another year.
4
A
few months later, Clive started an iron working apprenticeship, and had little
time for planning and plotting with Helen – though they eagerly sought every
chance to call on each other. It seemed little would happen for either’s plans
for changing the world, until one slightly cooler, clearer day in what passed
for ‘winter’ in their hot, dry and dusty town.
Clive
was sweeping the shop floor when he heard an automobile passing along the
street. He paused to watch this rare, fascinating, strange, noisy machine, it’s
smoke almost hidden by the dust stirred by its wheels from the gravel road. As
he watched, the driver looked in his direction, slowed and then stopped in
front of the shop.
“Yer
not here to learn ‘ow to stare – get on wi’ yer work” grumbled Clive’s master as
he stumped out to the car’s driver.
As
Clive resumed his sweeping, and prepared to clean some tools, he contrived a
glance or two, and surmised that the car driver wanted some ironwork repaired -
for a wrought iron gate, it looked like.
“Hey!
Boy!”
Clive
glanced up at his master.
“The
gentleman wants a word with you.”
Clive
placed his broom against the wall with the extreme care born of nervousness,
and emerged from the dark heat of the cave-like shop to the bright warmth outside,
brushing his hands on his worker’s apron as his perpetually unhappy master
steamed back into the shop, carrying the lump of iron as if it were no more
than a paperweight.
“Yes,
sir?”
The
driver had removed his driving goggles, and looked appraisingly at the young
apprentice. He nodded at his car, and asked “What do you think of her?”
‘She’
has an open, four seater with a low windscreen, a Stanley Steamer, rather than
one of the noisier petrol driven cars, or the electric cars which were to be
also found in the big cities. Built using high class carriage skills, she was
narrow, but surprisingly comfortable, albeit so quiet pedestrians had to be
warned by the car’s whistle.
“Very
impressive, sir.”
The
driver half smiled, and said “I see your master has schooled you well in manners
to your customers.”
“Yes
sir.” Then, wishing to do justice where it was due, Clive added “My parents
also taught me manners in a general sense, sir.”
“Our
Shire Chairman seems to think you tend towards being a bit of an upstart.”
Clive
was silent: he hadn’t thought his and Helen’s approach would come back to haunt
him later.
The
driver smiled openly, and said “It’s alright, young lad, I’m Patrick
Fitzgerald’s uncle – your former teacher’s uncle.”
Clive
sighed as he relaxed, but he was still puzzled.
“Patrick’s
– I suppose I should say Mr Fitzgerald in your presence. Well, Mr Fitzgerald
has told me of your plans to try a more natural way of growing crops, of trying
to save the soil. Now, it just so happens that I have some land up here – in
fact, I was the downwind beneficiary of Mr McGuire’s misfortunes which I
understand you’ve used as an example of poor soil management.”
Clive’s
ears started burning, and he resolved to leave names out when he was talking in
future, but he nodded.
“Now,
I’m planning on developing the land I have up here for a new Contract I have
secured with the army for wheat. I’ll be back next spring to oversee the
sowing.”
Clive
nodded, wondering where this was leading.
The
driver continued: “Some in the army are interested in modern developments which
may be of benefit to it in all matters, including provisioning, so I am
proposing to conduct a number of scientific trials into various ways of growing
crops to determine what methods are truly of greatest effect.”
The
driver stared, intense and stern, at Clive.
“I
am a great believer in the benefit of modern scientific method – indeed, my
passion for this is what led Patrick into a career as a teacher, so he could
pass our mutual passion on to future generations.
“It
is my opinion, young man, that you have been somewhat unsuccessful in your
efforts to date because you have failed to combine your passion with due regard
for scientific method.
“However,
despite that, I am prepared to include your proposals as one of my trials when
I come back in the spring.”
At
that, the driver smiled, as did Clive when his nervous brain realised he had
had a win.
“You’ll
have to continue your apprenticeship, of course, young man. An honourable trade
is a fine way to train and occupy the mind, and young lads of your age are
impressionable, but in due course I’d see you being a part of this work – but only after you’ve done your duty here by
discharging your apprenticeship.”
He
paused, gazing intently at Clive – who felt his soul was being examined from
within its innermost recesses by this unnervingly knowing stranger.
“I’ll
have my foreman attend your parent’s house from time to time to discuss this
matter – if that is agreeable to you, of course?”
“Y-yes,
sir – oh most definitely, sir!”
The
driver smiled: “Very well. I shall have young Pat-er, Mr Fitzgerald call on
your parents to make the necessary arrangements. Good day to you, young
esquire.”
The
driver carefully settled his goggles into place, realighted his vehicle, and meticulously
began the somewhat complicated procedure for starting it. Clive would have
happily wound the starting crank if the car had had one, but that was one of
the benefits of steam - at least, until electric start, and a benefit that had
to be weighed against disadvantages.
After
a few minutes, the car slipped silently away.
For
the rest of the day, his master found Clive a most unsatisfactory apprentice. They
came close to words, and both were glad when the time came for Clive to be
dismissed for the day. Eagerly, he ran through the dusk to find Helen, as she
was leaving her afternoon’s work in the garden for the verandah, carrying
freshly picked vegetables for their evening meal.
“Helen!
Helen! Oh – it’s just so wonderful!”
“What
is?”
Words
tumbling over each, he explained the miracle of philanthropy which had come his
way. Helen was pleased for Clive, but he could see there was an element of
sadness there as well.
“Helen:
you are my sweetheart. It’s right and proper that we share our thoughts. I can
see you’re unhappy at something: what is it?”
“Oh
Clive, I don’t wish to take away from your happiness today, but I was just
wishing some such benefactor might look my way, and have a care for my aims for
the world.”
Clive
did feel deflated, but he hid it, and sought to comfort Helen as best he could.
“Maybe-“
“No,
my sweet, don’t say anything. If by some miracle, some act of philanthropic
care comes the way of women, I hope to be alive to see it, but I’ll not hold
any hope against that miracle. Let us think for now on your success.”
The
rest of their brief time together, marked by behaviour that in a few decades
would be considered unbelievably restrained, was a time of pleasure, and
dreams, and certainty that this good fortune would come to be.
But
it would not.
As
spring prepared itself in Clive and Helen’s land, on the other side of the
world, in a distant autumn, a prince was assassinated, and the guns of August
began their slavering feast.
5
Clive
was enthused with eagerness for the coming crop trial, but the pressure to join
the army was intense – especially from his master. Ferguson had joined first,
but that was only because some of his henchmen had held others back to allow
Andrew that ‘honour’. Finally, believing the claims that they would beat the
Boche and be home by Christmas, Clive consented to join – if his master would
consent to release him. That release
came even quicker than the foul temper.
Helen
cried and refused to be comforted when he told her, and she wouldn’t say why. She
could recall the story her parents had told her, but she could also see the
machinations of Clive’s former master and the Shire Chairman and his allies,
and declined to expose Clive to doubts – after all, everyone was so sure this
would be over by Christmas.
Clive
had no way of contacting Mr Fitzgerald’s uncle: he tried to get to see his
former teacher, but the town’s mad desire to be seen to be supporting England
and ‘The Glorious Empire’ swept the best of the town’s lad on to a train in an
almost indecent haste. It would matter little, though, as even the foreman who
was to speak to Clive had volunteered, and Fitzgerald’s uncle would be forced
to hire McGuire, with his ways so wasteful of soil, to fulfil the now urgent
contract with the Army.
After
the dust from the haste settled, a prescient letter, mailed before the
assassination, came from Clive’s older brother. In it, he urged caution and
patience, for the Hun was going to be a fiercer foe than many knew or cared to
admit.
Clive
didn’t find this out for some time: a broken leg followed by illness meant he
missed the horrors of Gallipoli, and it was in a hospital in Egypt that the
letter, by now old news, caught up with him. Clive first found himself in
action on the Western Front. It wasn’t the action he had expected, though –
days spent mostly cowering in mud or dugouts trying to live through
bombardments. They all got used to everything being cold and dreary – grey sky
with an insipid shade of a sun, not the bright searing Sun he had grown and lived
under, grey muck for food, grey mud - rich smelling and thick, grey corpses,
and the occasional bit of blood providing a macabre, mocking relief from the
dreariness, as if to say “You’re here for
me – for the blood and hue and cry of battle, so I’ll rob you of all other
colour so you can see and appreciate me all the more”.
Clive
smelt and saw the richness of the soil, and marvelled: before it had been torn
to shreds, this land would have been a joy to farm – and the plentiful rain and
green plants held the soil most
wonderfully. When he was travelling on troop trains he saw some of what could
be achieved, but, in Europe to serve, his time was divided between cities,
trains and the torn up goop of the front. It was the smell he noticed most when
going back to the front –the stink of the rich mud, a source of life-giving
nutrients coming from decayed life, blended with the stench of death itself -
rotting corpses, human, horse and the occasional dog, all of which created fear
of a future nightmare of guilt to be triggered, he mused, by every post-war use
or even whiff of blood-and-bone fertiliser – if he lived long enough to get
home. For now, the lead-tainted fertility of the land would become renowned for
flowers, especially the poppy, rather than crops …
At
the front, a zone many miles deep across its whole width, he experienced some
patrolling, but was spared major attacks for a while. Despite that, in time
their numbers grew thinner, and then the ranks would be filled with new
recruits and the cycle would begin again.
During
this time came a time he thought afterwards of as “The Day”. A pre-dawn patrol
was returning in the early light. The last man was shot, and fell into a shell
hole near to their trench, a hole that was covered by a German machine gun. He
was alive – they could see him, if they were careful, from the firing step of
the trench, but they could not get to him. He had screamed when he was hit, and
then fallen silent. They thought him dead, but after a half an hour, they heard
moans. A few minutes more, and he was screaming with the pain: that was when
they found they could see him.
There
was half a company in that section of the trench, and some of them hesitantly
started talking about what to do.
“Nothing.
You will leaf him there, or throw a grenade and finish heem – the quicker the
better.” The speaker was a grizzled French veteran, there partly by accident,
partly to ‘liaise’. That was the official euphemism for having him there,
ostensibly to teach them the new French ‘infiltration’ techniques.
He’d
left Clive unnerved the night before. A piece of timber had been dislodged by
the nightly bombardment as they sheltered in their dugout, and it had struck
Clive on the head. When he swore, the French veteran had taken his cigarette
out of his mouth, and laid it on his arm, waiting without flinching while it
burned to the end. Then the Frenchman had smiled grimly, and said “You think
that little steek hurt? You wait till you get shot, boy. You find that little
bit of metal – you know how hot your gun gets? The bullet is hotter – you wait
till it hits you, and burns its way through your guts.”
At
that, the veteran stood, and lifted his coat and shirt to show the scars in his
side.
“You
think that stick hurts, eh? Maybe you think that cig-a-reet hurts? No? You wait
till you get shot, boy! Then you know what hurts!”
Clive
glanced at a few men who had returned from wounds, mostly shrapnel, but some
shot. Most ignored him, one looked back and nodded in agreement with the
veteran’s words. “I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, cobber, but he’s right
enough – it hurts like all hell!”
And
now Clive was looking at it.
He
could see the fallen man – his mates called him Whitey – writhing, trying to
get comfortable, trying to ease the pain, able to move but not to stand. As he
moved he would sometimes scream, sometimes sob. At times he would scream for
them to come and get him.
Around
mid-morning, he begged for water. Their lieutenants had come by now; they shook
their heads. They all knew he could be wounded in the belly, and that meant no
water. One shouted back to him: “Cobber! We can’t get to you yet, mate – you’ve
got to hang in till nightfall! And we can’t give you any water – you know the
drill!”
At
that, Whitey had screamed curses on them and called their mothers all sorts of
insults.
It
made it harder when it was like this, when they couldn’t get to him.
Around
midday, the trapped soldier Whitey started to sound like he was going insane.
He started to talk to his parents as if they were there, and then he started to
bargain with God. He said he wouldn’t go out on that patrol last night, if God
would take away the pain. He even promised, at one stage, to go and talk to
Kaiser Bill himself, and tell him whatever God wanted, if only God would let
him be comfortable for just one damn minute. He screamed with pain and writhed
in that slow way he had after that, and then he apologised to God for swearing.
Clive
avoided all eye contact – hard to do, in a trench, but he knew they would share
the same haunted horror he felt. Afterwards, he thought if they had made eye
contact, maybe they would have seen the horror in the new young recruit in last
week’s batch of replacement cannon fodder, seen him reach breaking point.
“If
you bastards won’t do anything, then I will!”
And
he was gone, over the edge, straight into a sharp burst from the German gun,
and straight into the same shell hole, to join his anguished, frenetic screams
to Whitey’s. He went straight to begging for someone – anyone – to stop it
hurting.
And
now the French veteran handed a grenade to one of the lieutenants.
“You
know what you haf to do.”
Without
a word, the officer took the grenade, herded a soldier from the firing trench
lookout, sighted, pulled the pin, and threw. Moments later, after the blast,
all was silent. It seemed that even the far away guns had fallen silent in
horror, but that was just a moment’s deafness brought on by the blast – and the
relief. The guns had seen too much horror for this small side show to have any
impact.
The
next day, Clive experienced making his first moderate sized attack. They were
trying the new French tactics of infiltration in small numbers – new, raw ideas
which would later become almost universal, but at that time still full of flaws
and misunderstandings. It wasn’t a large attack – two battalions aiming to
knock out an observation post used to direct artillery bombardments, and then
withdraw before the inevitable counterattack. The aim was to take some of the
sting out of the bombardments, while trying out the new tactics.
He
thought he’d experienced the limits of fear - until that attack. He didn’t talk
to anyone else – they were all too tense to talk much, except for a few of the
new replacements who were too nervous to shut up. There was no heroic climb out
and advance across no-man’s land: it was strange, like a big, coordinated
patrol. To a timetable, their officers directed them to move out, or to provide
support, in groups of a platoon or two – scores rather than hundreds, as the
barrage thumped the air and earth, a barrage like a living thing made insane by
what it was doing, playfully grasping his chest with each concussion, saying “I
am here”, playfully tripping his feet as it rolled the earth, saying “See?
Nowhere to hide!”.
There
was no line abreast advance this time: they found gaps in their own wires, and
crawled through the shell holes, past the stinking corpses of those who had
fallen recently, and the scattered, macerated bone fragments of those who had
fallen some time ago, bones and flesh decaying and adding that terrible blood
and bone fertiliser to the already rich land, a land to finish the war blessed
with richness and cursed with lost shells, ghosts and horrors known and
unknown. Carefully, they moved up to their enemy’s wire, to wait where they
found gaps.
It
was terrifying to get so close to the exploding shells – no matter that they
were their own – without the shelter of even a trench. While sheltering in
dugouts they could hear the explosions, and feel the ground shake, but the air
didn’t punch at them the way this did. After an eternity of minutes, the
barrage stopped – and they were up and scrambling desperately, praying to avoid
getting snagged on any stray wire, or stumbling in any of the mud-glue, hoping
against hope to get to the German trenches before the Huns could get out of their
dugouts. They didn’t make it quite in time – the close coordination needed for
that would come later, and the Huns were back in their trenches, firing and
raining grenades as Clive’s unit laboured through the mud and shell holes of
the last score of yards.
Clive
could hear the bullets, but he could also hear his cobbers – and he wasn’t
going to have the humiliation of not being there with them. It could be called
a courageous advance: it could also be called sticking to the cloud of silently
shared fear round you and your mates so you weren’t alone with your own,
unshared fear.
At
one stage, two men, one on each side of him, fell; heart in mouth, he waited
for the punch and burning pain, but it didn’t come. And then he was on the
enemy trenches. A man was looking up at him, anger hiding any fear he might
have had, and swinging his rifle towards Clive. Clive’s rifle was closer, and –
still afraid of that punch and burning pain – he shot first. And then the rage
and horror of the previous day took over, and he was killing, shooting and
bayoneting, whether they were looking at him or not. The last German he shot
had just split open the Frenchman’s head with a trenching shovel. After Clive
shot, the German fell silently onto the still screaming Frenchman, and they
made a pile of gore, enemies united in horror, blood seeping into the rich mud,
reflecting the tangle their comrades and nations were making throughout these
fields.
Later,
the Frenchman would be missed: he spoke a different language, and his English
was scarred by a thick accent, but he had shared the diggers love of cards,
humour, booze and women; of life.
Their
officers were shouting now, and they set up a defence while the artillery
post’s equipment was destroyed. Five minutes, and they were taking rifle fire;
ten, and a machine gun had been moved and was spraying their left flank – on
the other side from Clive’s platoon. The barrage would be coming soon, and
after that the counterattack.
The
orders now were to withdraw. According to the officers report that night, the
withdrawal went well: ‘only’ ten men died in that part of the operation, and
another twenty had wounds of some sort. Clive was one of those – as he slid
into the trench, he felt a burning slice along his calf. It was a relief really
– it wasn’t too bad, and he felt like he’d built up a store of waiting bad
luck, and it had just been bled out with a cut from a modern lead version of
the sword of Damocles.
He
even took little notice of the body which came in behind him as he slid into
the trench – actually, the body flew across the trench, raining blood, and slid
down into an impossible heap of limbs and twisted torso on the other side.
It
was only later that he was told that the last body had stumbled and taken “his”
burst of machine gun fire: if it hadn’t been for that chance, he would have
taken a dozen bullets in full, not a minor graze.
Later,
as he ate some lukewarm gruel at the first aid centre, he realised the first
man he killed had been the first German he had seen close up, after weeks of
bombardments and firing at scurrying shades of grey in the hills and holes of
the grey muck of No-Man’s Land. The man hadn’t looked evil – he’d looked the
same as Clive saw himself when shaving: fear and horror, locked up inside
something else.
The
next day, the artillery post was re-established.
6
After
those two days, his letters to home changed. He’d written once a month to his
parents, and another letter to Helen. They’d been optimistic, and reassuring:
don’t worry about me, I’m OK, I’m here, and I’ll do my bit for King and Empire.
Now
the horror had killed that. Helen felt a chill come over her as she read the
letter he’d written after “The Day”. They hadn’t known the details, or that
there was “The Day”; all they’d known was that there had been a long gap
between letters, after which the letters all started getting tense – although
they’d always had a tension over his struggles to survive anyway, just that it
used to be better hidden.
“It was a fair day yesterday – four dead,
two wounded, and we got some warm food. The ice is a bit much – and I don’t
know if I should wish to still be here to see it melt in the spring. Then
again, maybe we’ll all be lucky and there won’t be a spring. It feels like the
world’s stuck in a bleak winter that won’t lift.”
The
rest – or what hadn’t been blacked out by the censor’s heavy pen – was similar,
and she chilled at the suicidal tinge behind the words. She pulled out his
previous letter.
“We had a good hot feed last night – it
makes a pleasant change from eating what we can get in the trenches. What you
eat back home would seem like a feast to us.
The French winter is coming on us now. It’s
colder than home by a long shot, so I’ve now been in the heat and dust and
flies of Egypt, and soon the snow of Europe. It will be nice to enjoy the
weather at home when I do get back – I’ll not complain about anything, even the
dust storms.
We lost another six chaps from our company
last night. It was amazing in a horrifying way: the concussion from a shell got
them, but they had not a mark on them. It was quick: I hope if my time should
come I will go as easily. I will still do my duty for the Empire, of course.
I won’t end this missive on such a sad note:
I hope instead that you are well, and pray that you will pass on my good
regards to your parents, and to young Gary.”
No
farewells or good wishes this time. His previous good wishes were ironic: they
were struggling, and life was the worst she could remember. Gary had given up
school, and they were working their small patch of land – Gary grudgingly, as
he wished to escape from mundane desperation to the “glorious” desperation of
war - and any stray job they could find, but McGuire’s sales were going up. He
was building a small empire, gobbling up small holdings as they went under –
and doing all the damage that Clive had talked to her so eloquently about –
even she could see it, and wondered how supposedly intelligent and skilful men
could miss it. In the process, almost no-one wanted their produce when McGuire
was undercutting them. Today was going to be the critical day for Helen’s
family: today the Bank Manager had called them in to a meeting.
For
a moment, she imagined that sitting in the cool, dark house must be a little
like Clive and his comrades sharing their last moments of safety in their
dugouts before going out into the harsh dangerous reality of warfare. She gave
herself that luxury for a moment, and then chastised herself severely: her life was not at stake – she wasn’t going to risk death when she
went out the door. It still felt terrible, though, and as she shut the gate she
had to force herself to straighten her back and ignore the sniggers from the
pack of young boys who made unfeeling fun of seeing a house led by a woman come
to grief. She wished she could overcome her anguish and think quickly enough –
and be calm enough and strong enough – to chastise the boys and put them in
their place, but all she could do was keep her back straight and pretend to not
have heard them.
She
had to clear her mind, and focus on the task at hand, she told herself. Gary
was meeting her at the bank – hopefully with her mother, if she had been able
to get some time off from her scullery maid work. Her father wouldn’t be there:
they’d talked over the previous nights, and decided that him keeping his job at
the smithy’s was more important than trying to create an illusion for the bank
that everything was well and the family was united and confident. They had no
illusions that they were not going to be kicked out, and had already found
another house, in the town itself, to live in.
At
least their small holding had the house close to the public road, so they could
gather their few possessions fairly easily, and the humiliating journey would
not be too long.
Ah,
the bank, with its obligatory public institution façade, trying to look noble
despite the tendrils of red dust. Gary was leaning sullenly against one of the
columns, a column that was –as with the rest of the exterior – a poor copy of
the riches of Bendigo and Melbourne’s buildings, and their mother was fanning
herself in the shade of the verandah.
“Hello.”
“Hello
dear. ... Gary!”
Prompted
by their mother, Gary grunted something which could have been hello, or
equally, could have been the number of dogs he’d passed on the way there. Helen
and her mother decided to take it as the former.
“Alright,
let’s get this done” declared their mother. At that they strode in, backs
straight and heads proud and up – Helen and her mother, with Gary scuffing
along in their wake. They sailed serenely through the cool, dark interior,
panelled with rich timbers, to the counter, with its panes of frosted glass and
frosty tellers.
“Good
morning, young lady, would you please be so kind as to tell Mr Whitehead that
the Sutton family is here to see him.”
The
“young lady” wasn’t fooled by their bravado – she’d seen that before, and would
come to see it even more in the decades to come. She politely, but without any
friendliness, asked them to wait, and went to tell Mr Whitehead that his next
victims were here.
After
a few minutes wait – exactly the right length of time to ensure they knew they
were not royalty – Mr Whitehead strode to the counter, opened the access panel
with a thud, and smiled and gestured for them to enter. As they did, and all
walked to the Manager’s office, “Thank you most kindly, Mrs Sutton for being so
kind as to come in. Er, I see your husband – Jack, I believe? - has not arrived
yet?”
“No,
Mr Whitehead, Mr Sutton is engaged
at work, and unable to spare any time.”
“Hmm.
I had rather expected your husband to be present. The matters of this meeting
are of considerable importance, and, frankly, may in fact be beyond the
constitution of a woman to bear.”
Helen
and – to his credit - Gary bristled at the public insult, but they had been
well prepared, and held their tongues.
“My
husband has every confidence in me, Mr Whitehead, and has vested in me the
authority to act on our entire family’s behalf in this meeting.”
“Hm.”
“Do
you wish to dispute my husband’s authority within his family?”
“No,
no – of course not!” Irritation at being outmanoeuvred flickered across his
face. Never mind – the meeting was not yet properly underway.
He
paused outside the office, and made a show of conducting them in. There never
had been any doubt about whether he would accept the authority of whoever was
there – none of them had any authority, and he knew what was going to happen,
just as had happened to others as McGuire built his empire and squeezed them
out.
After
he, Helen and her mother were seated, with Gary standing protectively behind
them, he began.
“I’m
glad you’ve come in Mrs Sutton, as we have noticed some irregularity in the
subject of your payments on your mortgage. Perhaps you would be most kind as to
explain the matter of this ah, apparent ... problem to me ... please?”
“Mr
Whitehead, I’ll save us all some time. As you know, Mr McGuire has been doing
exceptionally well with his recent ventures, and sales of our produce have not
been favoured. We cannot compete with his prices, despite having better
produce. As a consequence, our income has declined.”
“Mrs
Sutton, I am afraid this leaves me in a position of, to not be too indelicate,
some difficulty. I am in the situation of being accountable to my superiors,
and, being somewhat distracted by the terrible events in Europe, they are
somewhat disinclined to pay much more than cursory attention to matters in our
little village. I am dealt with somewhat peremptorily, and given not much
flexibility in these matters.”
None
of Helen’s family believed a word he was saying: his ambition and desire to
climb on the image of being hard was legendary. Other towns were blessed with
bank managers who saw themselves as agents of help or maybe even change for the
better, and fought tenaciously for their customers: the Suttons had had the
misfortune to live in a town with a martinet for a manager.
“Mr
Whitehead, my husband and I have both taken other employment, as has our
daughter and our son.”
“But
Mrs Sutton, when do you work your land?”
“In
the evenings, and the mornings.”
The
manager paused – and Helen’s family vainly hoped they had impressed him with
their frugality and thrift and simple genuine hard work. “I am sure that is
quite admirable, but it is somewhat arguable as to whether it is in the Bank’s
best interests to accept your pleadings and give you yet more leniency. You
have been somewhat remiss for some time.”
“Mr
Whitehead, we have been no worse than others in other towns, and considerably
better than many.”
His
eyes narrowed, displeased at having been so directly confronted.
“Mrs
Sutton, I can assure you I am in touch with our other branches, and in fact,
your situation is amongst some of our worst debts.”
More
barefaced lies, they knew, but the bush telegraph was hardly going to be given
credence in this plush room.
“I
really do feel it was most unfortunate that your husband didn’t accompany you
on this trip. I am sure he would have had the understanding of such matters
that I have found the fairer sex”, with a poor attempt at an ingratiating
smile, “to regrettably lack.”
“Mr
Whitehead. I have managed our finances for all the years we have been together.
I am not an idiot-“
“Mrs
Sutton, I am sure you are a most capable woman in your affairs-“
“Sir!
I am indeed quite capable in my family’s financial matters.”
“Madam:
please do not bring an element of ill-will to this meeting, which has been, I
am sure you would agree has been most civilised and pleasantly conducted to
date, by interrupting me.”
“Sir,
kindly do not patronise me.”
“Mrs
Sutton, I would enjoin you to please be aware of your place in our society -
your God-given role is vital, but women are simply incapable of truly
understanding such matters no matter how much they feel they do!”
They
didn’t know the word psychopath – but they did know the manager was getting
considerable pleasure from their pain, and from hiding the threats behind a
façade of civility. They were still fighting to survive, however, so held their
tongues – Helen and her mother knowing full well that, like bullies and baiters
throughout history and in all societies, he would relish and feed on their pain
and fine tune the savagery and subtlety of his attack in response to their
reactions.
Gary
held his tongue because he had been well briefed – and he wanted to be able to
join up without any questionable charges from having indulged in fisticuffs
with one of the town’s major officials.
“Mr
Whitehead, I suggest you send a message to my husband’s workplace, and have my
husband asked for the truth of this matter.”
She
had called his bluff. Irritated, he decided to end the matter.
“Mrs
Sutton, I am not prepared to send vital resources of this bank on such errands
– and it regrettably matters not, as your family is in such a difficult
situation on the matter of payments for your farm that I have been instructed
to foreclose on the mortgage today – immediately. I am most sorry, but I will
have to declare you as defaulters.”
They’d
lost – and there was little point fighting the war of words further. If they
kept him on side, perhaps they would get some leniency on the time they had to
move out.
“Very
well, Mr Whitehead, so be it.”
“I
have taken the liberty of having the appropriate forms drawn up in case of such
an eventuality. Unfortunately, Mrs Sutton, I will have to obtain your husband’s
signature on these forms.”
She
knew this was true.
“Very
well, Mr Whitehead.”
“I
have some staff who are in a position to begin the process of taking possession
of your farm immediately. I am sure you would not wish to prolong this
unpleasant matter any longer than is necessary.”
“Mr
Whitehead! Are we to be allowed the decency of obtaining our possessions? You
must be aware that you are not entitled to everything – or do you wish women
and children to be turned out onto the street without so much as a decent
change of clothes?”
This
wasn’t quite true: they had moved some of their most treasured possessions
already.
“Of
course, Mrs Sutton. I will arrange some men to escort you to ensure you are
able to recover your possessions, as you may be entitled to, in safety and
decency.”
So
they were to have a guard to make sure they didn’t sneak off with any
implements.
The
rest of the day was as unpleasant as they had expected. The escort took them
out of the bank, past some of the bank’s “valuable resources” – young boys
scratching, yawning and tittering with a pretence of being quiet about it,
already apprentices to their master’s underhanded viciousness. As they all
marched through their gate the boys were there at the gate, unhindered in their
remarks by their guard, until Helen’s mother silenced them and sent them on
their with a few well-chosen remarks, finished with a comment about calling the
police with regard to vagrancy and loitering.
Helen
was almost in tears, wondering how a loving God could allow such bullying and
abuse of authority – was she really meant to turn the other cheek to this evil
manipulation? As she worked, she looked at the vacant expression of their
guards, and realised that not all the abuse was deliberate. She had no doubts
that Mr Whitehead was as evil as the Kaiser, and started to form a coldly
furious determination to right this wrong.
After
several hours of labouring in front of their guard, who had shown no
inclination to lend a hand, they had moved to their new lodgings. It was late,
and their father had helped after he had finished work. They were all
exhausted, hungry and thirsty. As Helen and her mother quickly cooked some
food, they heard a knock on the door.
Their
father picked up a hammer before he went to the door – it had been a bad day,
but none of them would put it beyond Mr Whitehead to do some more mischief,
even at this late hour. As he opened it, he relaxed and asked, surprised, “Jim!
What brings you here at this God-forsaken hour?”
Jim,
one of Clive and Gary’s band of friends who had been returned because of his
wounds, seemed distressed.
“May
I come in?”
“Of
course.”
He
entered, and stood, head down, hat in hand, fidgeting.
Helen’s
mother asked, with a sense of foreboding: “Jim, please tell us: what brings you
here at this hour, on this, the most awful day of this most awful war?”
“I’m
... sorry – I’m sorry. The boys all thought I should be the one to tell you,
and Miss Helen ...”
Helen
paled.
Her
father put his hand on Jim’s shoulder.
“It’s
alright, lad. We don’t judge the bearer of the message.”
“I’m
sorry, but Clive’s missing.”
Helen
sobbed, and half fell before Gary caught her.
“But
he could be a prisoner, couldn’t he?” asked Gary.
“He
could be” Jim replied.
Helen’s
father spoke again “Lad, we’d rather know the truth, hard though it may be.”
“I’m
sorry. It was a major attack, and we already have the names of the prisoners
the Huns have taken. Clive’s not amongst them. With the sort of bombardments
that happen in those attacks, there’s not much chance.”
They
gave Jim a drink, and shared reminiscences, and then bade him farewell into the
night.
Helen
had held her feelings in, but they would hear her weep that night. Gary was the
bigger worry, though: he continued to say “Clive could still be alive.” Two
days later he vanished, and a few days later they received a note saying he had
enlisted.
7
They
would get a few more notes as Gary completed his training. Then they heard he
had been posted.
Some
months later, after a passage on a crowded ship and yet more training, more
intensive than they had had in Australia, Gary’s unit was marched to the front.
It wasn’t much of a journey – marching through trenches and a confusion of
movement with their view limited to a few yards ahead and behind, the
occasional sound of a shell, and the occasional grim faced veteran, or perhaps
a group of veterans. There was no laughter, no smiles, no sense of being
welcomed – not even a sense of doing one’s duty. Just a grim faced survival
that shook Gary’s fervour.
They
knew they were at the front because they were told so. As they looked
uncertainly at each other and their new temporary home, just a score of yards
of trench, unable to see any of the field of conflict, not even sure where to
drop their gear, a couple of shells exploded, one on each side of the trench.
None of them heard the shells coming, but the shrapnel from each blast must
have combined to deflect the violently burning, jagged piece of metal.
Quite
by chance Gary had been looking at a soldier when his face was torn off and his
stomach open by the fragment. The soldier’s screams, slurred through the
disfigurement, didn’t make much sense for a while. Maybe, if the greenhorns
hadn’t been there, some one would have ended it: maybe there was a hope that
the doctors would be able to do something, but even if someone had been able to
put the man back together again, contact with the slush of mud and muck would
have poisoned his insides beyond all hope of recovery.
Gary
found that out later: for the time being, all he could see was a stranger, a
human being, dying and being driven insane by the pain while those around
seemed to ignore him. Gary had not yet developed their protective barriers to
horror.
A
stretcher bearer arrived and looked at the unfortunate man, who was on his
knees now, leaning back as if by balance and leverage to keep his intestines
out of the poisonous gruel. The bearer also shook his head, and looked at a
nearby sergeant, who inclined his head towards those of Gary’s company, and
shook his head. It didn’t matter, blood loss and shock soon silenced the
screams, and the stranger sank back further and died in the mud, no longer
colourless.
It
was about half an hour later someone noticed that the soldier sitting on the
firing step was staring a little too fixedly: the same bursts that had killed the
stranger so noisily had killed this soldier, quietly, instantly. No mutilation
– just a small hole in the skull.
Gary
was to see much of this arbitrary chance of war over the coming months. He
found no signs of Clive, nor even any willingness to talk of the missing
amongst the few surviving shared friends. Eventually, the desperate struggle to
survive pushed aside his vain quest, and he pushed thoughts of his friend to
the furthest reaches of his soul.
8
Helen
would have pushed thoughts of Clive there as well, if she had been able. They
stayed in their little home town for a few more weeks, but she was being
haunted by thoughts of what her Clive could have done to make the town a better
place. It was bad enough seeing what the greed of McGuire had done to the land
around the town, but Ferguson had also returned – mildly injured, still a pain
the backside, and all too willing to cash in on his new-claimed hero status.
She
had the misfortune to have a run in with younger Ferguson just before they left
for the city, where they were going to try for better work. She was tending the
counter in Mrs Jones’ general store when he came in.
“Well,
well, if it isn’t young Helen Sutton!”
“If
you don’t mind, there’ll be not too much of the young and the familiarity,
thank you Master Ferguson.”
“Now,
now – don’t get uppity with me young Helen.”
“I’ll
thank you, sir, not to treat me with such familiarity!”
“And
I’ll thank you to mind your place there, behind the counter!”
“Andrew!
Mind your manners, cobber – you’re talking to a woman!”
This
last came from a slender figure who had just come in: Helen knew him as one of
Ferguson’s pack, and was surprised to hear support from him, albeit delivered
with a pronounced wheeze, as if struggling for air.
“Ah,
no Don, this is-“
“Now
a young lady. Speak to her as such. I know who she used to be, and I know who
you and I used to be. Hold your tongue if you can’t speak a civil word!”
Ferguson
glared at Don, who coughed a couple of times but stood proud and erect, and then
Ferguson limped out, stamping his feet as best he could.
“I’m
sorry, ma’am.”
“Don
... I would never have picked you as one to stand up to ... Andrew.”
“Well,
I’ve changed” he replied, with a light cough and a wheeze.
Helen
moved so she could see Don more clearly, and saw the tangle of scars leading
across his jaw to where his ear had
been.
“Turned
my head at the right moment. If I hadn’t ... I heard about Clive. I’m sorry.”
“Yes.
Gary went to look for him.”
“Any
luck?”
She
shook her head.
“I’m
sorry to hear that, ma’am.”
She
smiled, and said “You can call me Helen, you know – I don’t bite, and well,
with the war, somehow some of the old rules seem ... silly.”
“Yes,
that’s true. Reckon there’s quite a few things’ll never be the same.”
“And
is that a good thing, Don, or bad?”
“Well,
in the case of myself, apart from my ear, I’d say good. Seeing what we saw,
hearing what we did, well ... it just makes the old ideas seem ... stupid. And
I am embarrassed to think how I used to be such a bully.” He coughed again,
more deeply.
“Well,
we all survived that, Don.” Although the nightmares of Whitehead and their
eviction were still too raw to be even acknowledged, let alone talked about.
He
smiled, and then sighed. “I better go and find Andrew. Everyone can see the
limp, but there’s a few other things not quite right with him, and he does need
a bit of looking after. If it was just the leg, he’d have been back doing
something.”
“And
what of you, Don. Will you be going back?”
“No,
apart from my ear, I’ve got a few other problems and have been declared unfit
for duty.”
“You
say that without the shame that other young men would.”
“I’ve
seen more than those as would be ashamed of saying that.”
“And
been blessed enough to learn from it.”
He
nodded, “Aye, ma’am-Helen, that I have.”
“I
hope Gary learns as well. Do you think that’s possible?” She searched his face
for hope.
“I’m
sorry, Helen, I can’t say one way or another.” He paused, coughed, and
continued.
“I
saw men who would be brilliant elsewhere, men who everyone thought would be
great leaders, who fell to pieces – a cruel thing to see, when they would have
been great anywhere else, while others .... well, I would have called myself
mean-spirited before the war, and it changed me for the better. Left me scarred
in many ways, but a better human being. I saw others who you would never have
thought twice of who saved men, or turned an attack with their daring and
courage.”
He
looked at her, and added “But ma’am, I’ve seen your family, and I think you could well be surprised by what young
Gary does with himself.”
As
he turned to leave, Helen said “We’re going to the city soon – to look for
work. I might come back from time to time. If I do, I’d care to look you up,
Don.”
His
face looked pained, and he paused at the door. “Helen, I would be pleased if
you would do so. But don’t be surprised if I’m not to be found. Some of the
other problems are damage inside, from gas, and my chances of seeing the year
out aren’t the best. I’m sorry. I have to go Helen, I can hear Andrew getting
into more trouble. It’s been a pleasure.”
“It
has.”
That
night she cried herself to sleep again – something her family had heard her do
often in the last few months, and something they thought she was starting to
get over.
9
Helen’s
family had hoped the new start in the city would help her to move on, and it
seemed to give her new focus, for a while at least.
She
found, of all things, work in a munitions factory. She’d fought long and hard
to find some other work, and thought of becoming a conscientious objector, but
they needed the money, and fairly quickly she had relented.
It
was a grey world, living in the city. She’d been there before, and admired the
solemn, dignified Victorian architecture from the boom of the 90s. The people,
she thought, looked dignified and stately. Now, she felt as if one of the dust
storms from home, or the clouds of the moody, unpredictable weather here, had
moved into her skull, and all she could see was dreary, dark and sombre.
But
the grey cloud of the factory had a silver lining or two in store for her. All
her life she had wanted women to have a modicum of independence, self-respect
and enough respect to be able to take their place in this modern world. In her
small, dusty home town, she had few fellow souls to share her dreams with –
Clive, of course, but few others. Here, in this noisy, smelly factory, making
the instruments of death being used so far away, she found some kindred spirits
– women who were asserting themselves, women who wanted the world to grasp the
tail of the currents of change and share the world with its so-called ‘fairer
half’.
Occasionally
she laughed at her thoughts – they were so like the pamphlets she, Mary and
Clare so earnestly crafted, conjured out of their burgeoning free thinking. She
often thought of one of Clare’s phrases, about people being shades on the path
that history trod with the choice as to what shadows they would leave on
history’s pages: she would occasionally stir Clare about history being more
like a dust storm which covered those stuck in its path with its dirt.
Helen
was smiling now, thinking of her friends as she curled into herself in the
corner of the tram, comfortable on the wood slat seat, as she made her way to
the factory. They shared their ideas – and Helen, with her determination and
her experience, had much to share. Her friends were particularly touched by her
awareness of the bullying that those in power could exercise, although Helen
took pains to make sure they knew she didn’t know how best to deal with such
abominable behaviour.
There
it was: grey from head to toe, smoke indiscernible in the city smoke and
coastal mist. There was a crowd of women milling round the entrance hall – one
of those scenes where one knew movement was happening, but without being able
to pick out any details.
As
she alighted the tram, a surly man glared at her: for a moment she was taken
aback, but then the man’s companion spoke “Never mind him, luv – he’s just sour
‘cos he can’t get a job, and the army’s been slow in takin’ ‘im on.” He winked,
and continued “I reckon you’re all doin’ a wonderful job, helpin’ our boys stay
over there .” The tram was moving away now, and he yelled back “I’ll be off in
a week, too – I’ll think of you, miss!”
She
stared at the tram. Which was worse – the hostility of a man seeing them as
having taken a job he could have had, or the man who blindly related to what
they were doing only in terms of what he – and other men - could do?
It
was what would later be called a ‘no-win’ situation, and, in the moment, it was
enough to bring tears to her eyes.
She
was glad to see Mary and Clare waiting for her. They were anxious to know what
had upset her, but they had no time to talk until their morning tea break. Then
over steaming cups and sweet biscuits, she relayed the morning’s events, and
was saddened when Clare missed the point and thought it was nice the second man
had been supportive.
Mary,
however, saw why Helen was concerned
straight away.
“No,
my sweet, he stood against the first one’s rudeness, true, but he was still
seeing the work we do, and thus what we are … only in terms of the service it
provides to men.”
“I
don’t understand”, replied Clare. “We’re doing this because it supports the war,
aren’t we?”
“In
the short view, yes. There is, however, a bigger view where one may dare to
hope that the work a woman does is valued for the same inherent value that any
man’s labour has.”
Clare
thought for a few minutes, sipping and nodding to herself, and then replied,
cautiously “Well, I think I understand the issue, then. But mayn’t we
appreciate the support of the nicer man along the way?”
She
smiled, and Mary and Helen smiled back.
Mary
was clever with words and ideas, but as they all trooped back to the factory
floor, it was Clare who asked Helen “Any news of your young man, dear?”, and at
her silent shake continued “No? Don’t worry – you’ll find him on your doorstep
one day, just like my ma found my pa back from fighting the Boers without any
news or warning.”
Helen
smiled thinly back at her, and tried to let the thought comfort her as she went
home - well, to the rented room that was hers for now. Home she still thought
of as in the hotter, dustier plains she had come from, but the family was
returning home for a few days for the annual show, and they had arranged a few
days off – which was quite a miracle, she thought, and one that helped to
offset the morning’s unpleasantness.
10
The
next morning dawned surprisingly clear and was almost warm, and the long
journey by train was almost pleasant. They were staying in a room at the pub –
after bankruptcy, none of their former friends wanted to risk having them stay.
Maybe those people feared a financial taint would drift off them – or maybe
they just feared the bank knowing what sort of people they drew their friends
from.
But
the next day, the day of the show itself, was a pleasant day – even the dust
was as settled as if Clive had been able to get the district to adopt his
strange ideas. In the crowds, people were bolder, and Helen found she was able
to chat happily with the people she knew. Don
had indeed died, but she’d had some practice at hiding the pain of that
sort of loss, and kept the conversations moving along The town had prospered
since they’d left – mostly due to McGuire’s growing empire, though he was a
tight-fisted as he had ever been. The town muttered about the Irishman with
Scottish blood, but they took care to keep their jobs.
They
was a stir now, and Helen found herself drawn close to the hub of the activity.
A dais had been constructed, and what she thought of as the evil trio – the
Shire Chairman, and the two Fergusons, elder and younger – were standing on it.
The Chairman was puffing himself up, believing that fuller lungs improved the quality
of his pompous voice. She hid a smile at his antics, and then listened to a
platitude-filled speech about patriotism. It took a few moments past the actual
announcement before the crowd realised that a memorial to the fallen and their
sacrifice was being proposed. Then the Shire Chairman spied Helen, and cried
“And here we have one of our town’s young women, bravely off supporting our
nation’s war effort in the city, helping to keep our way of life safe, despite
her young sweetheart having so gallantly sacrificed himself to the call of
duty.”
Helen
was appalled.
“Sir!
I ...”
What
could she say? It would take an hour just to get an understanding of the
concepts, before she could start talking to this fool about how she was hiding from her pain – and how could she say
that anyway, in such a public gathering?
The
Chairman was continuing. Helen called, as strongly as she could “Sir! SIR!! I
wish to speak!”
Annoyed
at the interruption to his greatness, but aware that others had heard Helen’s
request, the Chairman gracelessly acceded to her request. “Very well young
lady, in view of your most unfortunate loss, I will permit you to address this
patriotic and loyal gathering.”
No, you idiot, she thought as she
climbed the slightly shaky stairs, I’ll
not be taking your threat to heart.
She
stared at the crowd, some laughing at the upstart girl, well known for her
strange ways, others just bored with the whole deal, and – here and there – a
face which looked as if it might have an interested soul behind it. She
addressed herself to those scattered few.
“Our
esteemed Shire Chairman dares to presume too much. My sweetheart is not dead – he is missing, true, but he is not dead. He did not go off to die – he
had too much to live for. He had
dreams – dreams which some of you knew, and lived for those until he was caught
up in your vainglorious lust for Empire, against
his better judgement!”
“Now,
now, young lady – I didn’t invite you up here to spout your ridiculous
gibberish!”
“Sir!
I will have my say! and you did not ask me up here of your own free will.”
“No
– and I do not have to permit this disruption of a Shire meeting!”
“This
is not a council-“
“No,
but it is a Shire event! Shall I call that constable?”
“I
will not permit Clive’s name to be added to your offering to Death. They are
saying we have lost an entire generation – and you want to build a memorial to
this savagery, this slaughter?”
By
now most of the crowd was clearly baying for her blood – it had gone so much
worse than she’d thought it would, and she hated herself for losing this chance
– and even more for being stupid enough to get up here. She was jostled as she
climbed down and tried to leave, and ended up in the dirt, in tears, and was
rescued by the constable the Chairman had threatened to set on her. The
constable had even helped her find her family, but he was talking to them when
the younger Ferguson, Andrew, red and shaking with anger, found her.
“You
filthy strumpet!”
She
staggered backwards, wide eyed with shock and fear.
“Come
here you slut!” One hand clamped her arm, and he started shaking her as he
spoke.
“How
dare you spout that evil rubbish, you filthy jezebel! I didn’t go to the
Western Front and get wounded and go through campaigns and battles to come back
and have you start on your seditious idiotic tripe! I know you and the rubbish
you think – you want to change everything, when this is what suits the world
best – this is the way things should be!”
She
was trying to talk back, to tell him of the poor, and the women in all classes
of society, who were deprived and kept virtually in servitude; she tried to
tell him of the benefits Clive’s ideas would bring; she even tried to tell him
that there hadn’t need to be the war and all its suffering. She tried, but all
her words were lost in the onslaught of the young Ferguson’s blind rage – he
was a nasty piece of work as it was, but now he had a helpless victim he could
let all his battle rage and fear onto.
But
the constable was there now, yelling at Ferguson, and after a moment using his
baton to bring the raging man to his back.
“Unhand
me – how dare you! Don’t you know I am a returned soldier!”
“SO
AM I!”
At
that Andrew was startled into silence.
“Yes,
I was repatriated back from Gallipoli – and even if I hadn’t been, I’d still
treat you the same way. You have committed an assault upon the person-“
He
raised his voice as the younger Ferguson tried to remonstrate.
“YOU
HAVE COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON THE PERSON OF A YOUNG LADY WITHIN THE WITNESS OF
A POLICE OFFICER – SHALL I HAVE YOU CHARGED?!”
Ferguson
was quiet. “No sir, I shall leave now.”
“And
you shall stay away from this young woman – and her family!”
By
this time, the elder Ferguson and the Shire Chairman had arrived. The Chairman
was wise enough to stay back, but Ferguson wasn’t.
“What
are you doing to-“
“I
am cautioning your son –“
“It
was all that filthy strumpet’s-“
“DO
NOT INTERFERE WITH THE WORK OF A POLICE OFFICER, SIR, OR I SHALL ARREST YOU!”
Stunned,
the Fergusons – and the Shire Chairman -
listened.
“Sir,
I am cautioning your son that I have witnessed him commit a vicious assault on
a young woman. SHALL I HAVE HIM CHARGED?”
The
father shook his head, and the trio retired to the restive crowd, a crowd who
wanted the cheap entertainment to continue.
The
constable ushered Helen to her parents, and glared but once at some nearby
bystanders, who decided they had more entertaining matters to attend to
elsewhere.
“Ma’am”,
he addressed Helen, “Are you alright?”
She
nodded.
“Are
you sure?”
“Yes
– though I’ll have some bruises.”
Her
father spoke, tense with stress and anger “Why didn’t you charge him?”
He
just shook his head, thinking of the closeness of Fergusons to the town’s
magistrate, and something of this must have communicated itself to her father,
who nodded.
Then
the constable turned to Helen.
“You
know, ma’am, there’s different sorts of courage, and I’d be proud to have as
much as you do.”
“I’m
not brave.” She was almost in tears.
“Actually,
ma’am, yes you are. As I said, there’s different sorts of courage. It takes
courage to get up on that dais and speak from the heart that way – and I heard
you trying to talk to Ferguson as he attacked you.”
“I’m
almost in tears, I feel a total failure, and you call me brave?”
“Aye,
I do. There’s no shame in tears – I’ve seen enough brave men reduced to tears,
mostly in hospital, and they were happy to take the care and comfort of the
women nursing them. Those nurses had courage – they saw all the wounds, they
heard the screams, and they kept the place together. You, you stuck to it
against Ferguson’s foul attack. I’ve seen enough courage and fear, and you’ve
got courage, ma’am.”
They
were all staring at her now and she blushed, and managed a quiet thank you.
He
continued “You know, we have lost a
generation of young men – and their ideas. Even the survivors like me have as
many unseen scars as seen.”
The
constable looked directly at Helen: “But maybe we’ve gained a generation of
women, and your ideas instead of ours.”
She
said “Maybe, but that’s only half a comfort for all we’ve lost.”
“Aye,
that’s true, and I’m sorry for it.”
“And
change is not easy, no matter how good the ideas.”
He
smiled wryly back at her “I think we’ve seen that today.”
Tears
flooded Helen’s eyes, and her father put an arm round her shoulders.
“I’ll
be alright – the shock’s still a bit of a fresh.”
The
constable looked sombrely at her, remembering his own trauma.
“Ma’am,
take care – you’ve got the respect of more decent people than you realise.”
His
words comforted her over the next few days, but the scars of the day were also
fighting for her soul – was was the pain of not knowing what had happened to
Clive. During this time, she had received another terrible letter from Gary, a
toneless missive which didn’t even mention Clive. She knew she shouldn’t, but
she raged against Gary for being so thoughtless, for forgetting why he had gone
there.
After
that, she began to close off to her friends at the factory. Desperately, they
both tried to cheer her, but to no avail. She even began to lose interest in
their quest for a better society. After a few weeks, Clare found a quiet moment
to speak to Helen.
“Dear,
you know you’ve got us all concerned.”
“Have
I?”
“Yes.
What’s wrong – is it Clive?”
She
wanted to say no, she wanted to rant and rage, but all she could do was burst
into tears.
As
she sheltered in Clare’s arms, Clare whispered “You know, we need you – you’re
so clever, and so brave.”
At
that, her tears dried up.
“No,
I’m not brave. And .. and I don’t think I’m clever. I try, but … things just
always go awry. I’m not the brave one, the clever one you’re clever – no, let me finish, please. I
think of – of Don, and Clive, and even Gary, and maybe they’re brave, but
mostly I just hurt, and it’s getting too much. Everything hurts, and I think …
I think I should leave your struggle.”
With
that, her world shrank again, into her pain. Despite Clare’s entreaties, she
couldn’t find it in herself to care any more. She didn’t mind, she didn’t need
anything else. She didn’t even mind losing her job, and the painful struggle to
find work helped her nurture her pain.
But
a day finally came when people danced in the streets – strangers kissed, and
no-one cared, for the war, the Great War, the war to end all wars, was over.
She shook herself mentally, and started taking notice of what was happening
around her. Her parents were talking of moving, not to their home town, but to
another where her father could find work, and where living was cheap.
The
day finally came when Gary came home – so stiff and withdrawn that Helen could
see and recognise his pain. In that recognition, she knew, at last, that Clive
wasn’t going to come home, and she knew how wounded she, too, had become.
She
would cry that night, but not now – now, there was work to do. She didn’t have
enough hope to dare try to make the world a better place – that would be left
for others, people like Mary and Clare, the constable, and those soldiers,
angry at the waste of life, who now saw themselves as Australians, not members
of the British Empire. For Helen, for now, she would do what little she could,
when and where she could, and survive.
And
the soils lost or maimed through the still-birth of Clive’s theories would, as
with so many other things, be unsung fatalities of the war, offset to some
measure by some of the changes which had invaded a society at war, and not been
thrown back by the counter attack of the Armistice.
Epilogue
The
room was dusty, and plain – Gary could afford no better, in the struggle to
survive this evil they called the Great Depression. He’d survived the Great War,
he’d survived the terrible Spanish influenza which had killed as many people as
the war, but he was struggling to survive this.
His
family wanted him to come home. Helen had a collection of returned soldiers
there that she mothered, knowing they couldn’t fill the void Clive’s - finally
presumed by all - death had left, but looking after them should - had - to be
done, so she might as well look after some of the other casualties of war. She
even had a German soldier there, brought out by a German family - from whom
she’d learned of the ‘internments’ within her own country.
His
family wanted him to go home and be comfortable with the other cripples – even
his enemy (although he didn’t think of the man as a former enemy), but he
couldn’t stay anywhere for long. When he stopped, the nightmares caught up with
him – and if he persisted in staying they would take him even when he was
awake.
But
for now, the little town he had drifted to was having its annual show, and
there would be fireworks tonight. He switched off the electric light – so easy
to turn on later, and without the flickering shadows - and went to the window:
maybe that joyful, trite display would bring some relief to his scarred soul.
He could hear the crowd, and then they hushed – the big finale was coming.
He
saw the fireworks leap to the night sky, and explode. Then he heard the distant
sounds - cheering, and the whizzing sound like one of the German shells he’d
dodged for so many months. He vomited as he fell, and scrambled to curl under
his bed, shaking and crying. There’d be no rest tonight, and he would stay
there till Helen found him, two days later, and coaxed him out, like rescuing a
frightened kitten, and took him home – home, to join the other tarnished souls
surviving there: scarred souls in an increasingly scarred land, passing a
monument as they left, one of many to ‘the fallen’: not the blown to bits or
tortured, maimed and disfigured beyond reason, the nobly, neatly ‘fallen’.
Copyright © Kayleen White, 2014 (where this date is different to the year of publication, it is because I did the post some time ago and then used the scheduling feature to delay publication)
I take these photographs and undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary or artistic merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit, of course :)