To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  Vivienne had bribed the guard to buy a chicken — half the money to the guard, half to buy the chicken. But when she realised that the other women expected her to share the food equally among them, she bought no more. A week after that Sally had become feverish. The quinine Mrs Hughendorn had bought — the guard again pocketing half the money — had worked. No one else was prepared to buy food now. Not yet.

  No more work. No more food. Why feed mems who could not contribute to the war effort?

  No extra food until the war ended. If it ever ended. Sometimes Nancy lay and watched the sky. But the only planes were Japanese ones, and those infrequent, as if there was no need for planes now to capture Malaya.

  No extra food forever then. How long was forever?

  Hunger nibbled you, like a mouse inside. Hunger made you listless, so you couldn’t think. Hunger was turning her wits to chicken bones. Hunger would kill her sister-in-law, this small courageous woman she now knew she loved, was not just bound to by duty.

  Something moved in the shadows of the hut. Rat! Few rats lived in the camp — there was no food for them here — but the stench of the latrine attracted them, and bamboo walls and thatch would make good nesting places.

  A memory floated into her brain: Gran, sitting still while a goanna lumbered past; her fingers flicking, suddenly, crushing the goanna’s head down. ‘Bush meat’ she had called it, cooking it on a fire by the river for lunch, never taking it back to the kitchen she shared with her daughter-in-law. Nancy wondered if Gran had ever cooked ‘bush meat’ in the kitchen even when the house was solely hers and Granddad’s.

  Goanna, black snake, echidna — echidna tasted of ants — the bush rats that weren’t rats at all and had small sharp teeth and devoured insects, the small hopping creatures that were almost rats as well …

  She raised herself slowly on the bed, noiselessly. The rat didn’t seem to see her, too intent on scratching out a cavity in the wall. She stood, again so slowly as to be almost motionless. One foot, and then another, making sure her shadow stayed behind her. Six feet away, then three.

  Her hand flashed down. The rat wriggled, tried to bite. Her hands twisted. It lay limp in her hands.

  One dead rat.

  She looked at Moira, Mrs Harris and Sally, all still asleep. Would they eat rat? She looked up at the ceiling, at the gecko. May as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. She climbed up onto the bunk and grabbed.

  The gecko didn’t stand a chance.

  She took the booty out into the moonlit night. They had no knives. She found a rock by the barbed-wire fence, chipped it against the stone paving of the outdoor kitchen, and then used her teeth to make a blade, like Gran had shown her. One small cut to the rat’s anus, then she sliced through the fibres up between the flesh and skin. Another cut. The guts spilled into her hand. She threw them into the latrine and began to skin the gecko.

  There wasn’t much meat when she had finished. A few spoonsful each. But a few spoonsful of meat every few days might make the difference between life and starvation. And there were more rats and lots of geckos.

  She headed up to the well to get one of their buckets of water. They were allowed more now, in the dry season. The guard glanced at her, but didn’t yell at her to go back. Dawn was coming. She filled the pot with water and set the meat to cook. The scent of it as it heated almost made her faint.

  She felt an instinctive urge to pull out the half-cooked meat, to gorge on it. She almost hoped the others would reject it. She could feast by herself. And feed it to Gavin too: he was too young to have learnt prejudices about his food.

  The meat was shreds now. She added some of the cassava from the night before, let it bubble to the normal gruel, slightly browner now and dappled with the meat, then let the fire die down, covering it with green wood to keep the coals alight until supper.

  Sally came out, yawning. ‘How long have you been up?’

  ‘A while.’ She waited as Sally went to the latrine. Moira woke next, at the cry from Gavin that announced he was hungry.

  Mrs Hughendorn emerged, adorned with rubies, emeralds, and dressed in yet another suit, of which she seemed to have an endless supply, though they hung lower and lower on her legs as she lost more weight. She sniffed, then came over and peered into the pot. She looked sharply at Nancy.

  ‘The guard gave me some meat,’ said Nancy. ‘I added it to the cassava.’ She tried to keep her voice even, her cheeks from blushing. She had never found lies easy.

  ‘I … see,’ said Mrs Hughendorn. She looked at Nancy’s hands.

  Nancy glanced down. Red fingernails. Rat’s blood, or lizard’s. There was no way to clean her hands till the afternoon’s washing water was released.

  Another gecko scuttled past. Food, thought Nancy.

  Nurse Rogers emerged. ‘Has anyone got a ribbon they could spare? My hair keeps getting in my eyes. Do you think Tojo would cut it for me?’ She too sniffed, came over and gazed down at the pot. ‘Don’t tell me we’ve got meat! What is it? The bones are too small for chicken.’

  Mrs Hughendorn glanced at Nancy, then at Nurse Rogers. ‘Island rabbit,’ she said clearly. ‘We used to eat it now and then.’

  She knows, thought Nancy. Some of the others may suspect, but they’ll follow her lead. This is ‘island rabbit’ as long as Mrs Hughendorn says it is.

  Moira came out, with Gavin on her hip. Nancy smiled at her. ‘There’s meat for breakfast. Not much. But at least it’s meat.’

  And somehow the wind from the sea seemed to breathe Australia, the scent of gum leaves, the scent of Overflow.

  Chapter 26

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 30 June 1942

  New Proprietor for the Gazette

  Your editor is delighted to announce that the Gibber’s Creek Gazette is under new management. Proprietor Mrs Matilda Thompson said today, ‘We hope that the people of Gibber’s Creek will continue to subscribe to the district’s only newspaper, and find in its pages inspiration and information and the standard of journalism that all Australians should expect as we fight together to win this war.’

  Your editor wholeheartedly endorses Mrs Thompson’s words, and looks forward to a stimulating, prosperous working relationship.

  MOURA, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA, 30 JUNE 1942

  BLUE

  The breeze dusted the river as Blue McAlpine bicycled back along the road from the factory, borrowing some of its coolness as it gusted across the paddocks up to Moura, sheltered in its hills. She and Mah had extra petrol rations for the factory, but it would be a pity to waste petrol when they could go by bicycle. And, in truth, she welcomed the ride — the quietness, seeing the sheep on the side of the road, the crepe myrtles growing in the gardens nearer town. Trying to keep herself focused on today, because thinking of last year, or even next year, hurt too much.

  She stopped at the letterbox, tried to slow her heart as she reached in, as she did every day.

  Nothing. Nor had she expected anything. Business letters came to the factory; the monthly letter from Aunt Daisy had come the previous week, complaining about the butter ration, the sugar ration, the behaviour of men in uniform with their brazen hussies, not at all like in the last war, my dear.

  But she had hoped …

  She wanted … anything, except an empty ten-gallon drum pretending to be a letterbox when it couldn’t even produce one page of mail. She shut her eyes. A letter from Joseph, saying he’d been wounded and evacuated with the fall of Singapore to hospital in Darwin, too badly hurt to write to her till now, his records mislaid somehow in the army system, but he would heal and he’d be home with her next week. That would be the most perfect letter of all.

  Second best: a Red Cross postcard saying her husband was a prisoner of war. Even, she thought, trying to swallow the agony, even a telegraph boy with a yellow scrap of paper, saying Joseph had been killed. At least then she would know, would not wake at two am with nightmares of horrors the man she loved might be facing now. She could mourn, as she cou
ld not mourn now, for that would be betrayal if Joseph was still alive.

  But there was nothing. Had been nothing since the letter from Singapore dated January 1942 that had arrived soon after the army informed her he was missing, swallowed up by Malaya after the fall of Singapore with the 9th Division …

  Their army shouldn’t have been lost! Not even lost — handed to the Japanese. The British government had assured them that Singapore could not fall. That Australia could and should send its men, its planes, its tanks to the Middle East and North Africa to defend England against the German armies, in the security of knowing that Singapore would hold the Japanese back.

  And yet it hadn’t. There had been no Dunkirk-like rescue of troops, just a few who managed their own escape, hiding and island hopping. The Red Cross had notified many families that their men were being held as prisoners of war.

  But Joseph had vanished.

  His hat hung on the hat stand. His favourite plum sauce was on the table. She had even put away his summer clothes and got out his winter suit. These objects were talismans assuring her that he was alive, that he’d be back with her.

  Once she had wanted many things: a factory empire greater than the one her grandfather had built, burning a spot upon the world that said, ‘I may be just a girl but I can leave my mark, and it will be etched deeper than yours.’ She would swap it all now for that one thing — her husband’s arms about her in the night.

  Now she was just a woman, not even quite a wife. To be a wife, you needed your husband there, or at least the promise that he would be. Nor was she a mother …

  Why had they waited to have children? Mah hadn’t waited: she’d had a boy and a girl within three years of marrying Andy. When the war was over … when Joseph came back to her … she would have a thousand children, as many as the stars. If she only had a baby now, a warm child to cuddle, because when you had a baby your arms always had something warm to hold, not like the cold nights now …

  A child was life. When there was life, new life, then you had beaten death. Death might march the world, she thought, but we women will fight back. We’ll give you life. We are the uncounted army.

  She squinted at the sun, still an inch from the horizon. She’d chop firewood for half an hour, till dark. Supervising the factory, doing the accounts, managing the army paperwork was no substitute for physical work, the kind she and Mah had shared with Gertrude, Fred and the others in the circus, exercise that left you sleeping deeply and with sweet dreams.

  Though her dreams were not sweet now, and wouldn’t be, no matter how much firewood she chopped. But fires were warm, and she craved warmth now. Fires, blankets, feather quilts, draught excluders at the door, as if by keeping out the cold she could make a small safe hole into which somehow Joseph might creep back.

  She opened her eyes at the sound of a car. An emergency? Most cars were up on blocks in these days of petrol rationing. The driver came around the corner in a cloud of dust. Mah. She pulled up at the gate. Blue ran to meet her. What was so important that Mah used a car, not her bicycle?

  ‘What’s wrong? Has something happened?’

  Mah held out a letter mutely. Blue took it, recognised the copperplate hand, the only gift of the orphanage where Mah and Fred had spent their early years.

  Dear Cousin Marjory,

  How are you all up in New South Wales? Just wanted you to know that your old cousin has joined up. I thought they could run the war without me, but it seems they can’t, even though I’ve been sending them instructions every week. So it’s time to put on the uniform and get them doing it properly. I’ll be a General by next week, or at least by Christmas time. It’ll shorten the war by two feet six inches, you’ll see.

  Give my regards to that husband of yours and a hug to the nippers. One day you might just see me turn up for Christmas with a teddy bear for them.

  Here’s looking at you, kid. Don’t you go worrying about me. Just thought you should know, you being my only family and all, and I have listed you as next of kin, because I had to put something in the space on the form, or they mightn’t have let me in, and then who knows what our boys would do, without your loving,

  Cousin Murgatroyd

  ‘Fred.’ Blue handed it back.

  Mah nodded. Blue watched her hold the letter to her cheek as if it was the brother she hadn’t seen in eight years.

  Fred, he’d called himself, in the days when they were all in the circus together. But his name was really Robert, and he was on the run from a bank robbery gone wrong. When the police had begun to nose around the circus he had scarpered.

  He’d been in love with Blue. Or had he? He’d said he was, but it was hard to know with Fred. He’d said he’d left her for her own good, and Mah too. Hard to know if that was true either. She thought it was, but Fred could have you believing a kangaroo could win the Melbourne Cup.

  ‘He’s found out I’m married to Andy. And about the kids.’ Mah looked at Blue appealingly. ‘You haven’t been writing to him, have you?’

  Blue shook her head.

  ‘He doesn’t know anyone else here who might have told him. Except Sheba.’

  The old elephant seemed as intelligent as a human sometimes, but even Sheba, thought Blue, would find it difficult to wield a pen or send a telegram to tell Fred the news.

  ‘You know Fred,’ she said instead. ‘Probably made ten friends at the pub on the way out of town. Or more likely reads the Gazette,’ she added.

  She and Mah appeared in the local paper several times a year, under the paper’s policy of mentioning everyone in town at least four times per annum and not just in the hatch, match and dispatch notices. And when you owned one of the town’s biggest employers, the biscuit factory, and were members of the CWA, the Red Cross, the Literary Institute, and with Mah teaching at the Sunday school, and both of them riding Sheba in the War Bonds parade, well, Cousin Murgatroyd could learn a lot about his sister and her friend, especially now another woman owned the Gazette, and made sure women’s activities were given due prominence.

  ‘Murgatroyd?’ said Blue.

  Mah’s worried face lifted in a smile. And suddenly they were both laughing, though there were tears there too. Fred could do that, thought Blue, wiping her eyes. Even with a letter he could make them laugh.

  Keep him safe, she prayed. For Mah’s sake, and for mine. Keep Fred safe. And bring my Joseph home to me.

  Chapter 27

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 2 July 1942

  Children’s Evacuation Preparations

  Council met today to discuss arrangements for all children in the district in the event that evacuation to Alice Springs is ordered by the State Emergency Council. In that event, all children are to assemble at the school with two labels, one with his name and other particulars and another for his luggage. A circular will be given to each parent, giving information regarding luggage, clothing, food and other requirements. With regard to the evacuation of aged persons, cripples and invalids, forms are now available at the Town Clerk’s office.

  Councillor Bullant stated yesterday that any person who wished to discuss these preparations might call upon him at an early date. Councillor Ellis replied that if the government wanted to take his kids, they could send a search party to get them. He reckoned neither the government nor the Japanese could find his children if they didn’t want to be found, and suggested that instead of evacuation all children should be sent to pot rabbits to improve their target practice.

  PULAU AYU PRISON CAMP, 30 JULY 1942

  NANCY

  She was dreaming, and knew that she was, the dream too good to let go, even though she could still hear Gavin’s fretful cry, Moira’s soothing voice as she settled him to feed, Nurse Rogers and Vivienne arguing in the next hut, the sound of chittering from unfamiliar insects, a yell and a response in Japanese.

  No. She was in the mountain paddock, rounding up the steers. The noises were the cicadas in the trees, pulsing, swelling, the lowing of the first beast as it
saw her and swung away.

  She was seven perhaps, because she was small and the steer was very large. But there was still that magic moment when it thought, human, and obeyed, swinging around as she yelled, ‘Hyah!’

  And then they all moved, the mob like one multi-legged beast, while a small girl with a stick walked after them, one yell and a sweep of her stick now and then all that was needed to keep them moving. She felt power, and happiness, but couldn’t have named either. This was just how the world was, would always be — the sweet sharp smell of cattle dung, the cicadas drumming, dust puffing up behind the herd, the thud, thud, thud of hooves.

  Thud, thud, thud …

  Nancy opened her eyes. The thuds were the translator’s boots on the hard-packed ground. His face seemed to swim in the heat-soaked air as he bent his head and came into the hut.

  ‘We need a lock on the door,’ said Mrs Harris, as she clambered up off her bed to bow.

  ‘We need a door,’ muttered Nancy.

  She scrambled to her feet and bowed too, next to Sally and Moira, who was holding Gavin awkwardly as she bent her face to the ground.

  The translator’s face and voice were impassive. ‘Japanese officers need company at the officers’ club tonight. Four women. One woman from each house. Two from one house.’

  ‘This isn’t a house,’ said Mrs Harris. ‘It’s a hovel.’

  He ignored her. ‘One woman from each house.’

  ‘Company?’ said Mrs Harris. ‘I have another word for it.’

  She means sex, thought Nancy blankly. She had thought of many things they might face in the next few months before they were freed or found a way to escape. Not this.

  Moira heaved Gavin higher on her shoulder. He clutched her hair, staring at the man in uniform. ‘None of us,’ Moira said, each word distinct. ‘Not a single one of us will keep your officers company.’

  ‘One woman from every house, two from one house. A total of four women. The women will be paid in food or money. If there are not four women, there will be no food for anyone.’