Sunset Ridge

by Nicole Alexander

  She almost resented the young bombardier leaving. There would be a place made for him in the hospital cemetery. Beneath and surrounded by French soil, he would lie in the bosom of her beloved country, forever loved, forever safe. Age should have made her wiser, yet it was experience that tempered Sister Valois’s attitude. What little optimism she once had was now gone, eroded by the years of suffering and the awful, endless waste of human life.

  In the salon overlooking the front garden of the chateau she went about her rounds. The floor-to-ceiling windows barely let in any light such was the thickness of the rain, yet in the dim room men were sponge-bathed, dressings changed and charts checked. Part of the aisle now held cots, and moving from one end of the ward to the other was an obstacle course demanding patience. At the foot of a cot beneath a window she stopped. The young man propped up with pillows was the recipient of a shrapnel wound to the head, and she knew that he hated her twice-weekly administrations as much as she detested performing the task. Saliva gathered in her mouth as she waited patiently for a volunteer to appear with the requested forceps.

  ‘Please, Sister, don’t do it again,’ the soldier pleaded almost inaudibly.

  Soothing him to quietness, Sister Valois prodded at the thick scab that ran from his hairline above the brow to the middle of his skull. Most of the hair had been shaved and the wound, although deep, was healing well. With a scalpel she flicked up the end of the scab and then, taking a firm hold of the crusty flap with the forceps, she pulled the entire scab off in one movement.

  ‘Oh, but you are fierce, Sister,’ he complained through gritted teeth.

  She dropped the forceps and scab in a ceramic bowl. ‘Not as fierce as you.’ She pressed a bandage to the bleeding wound. ‘It will heal faster this way.’ She looked through the window and saw an ambulance approaching along the gravel drive. It halted at the entrance to the chateau, the American Field Ambulance service insignia visible through the curtain of rain. Leaving the soldier in a nurse’s care, Sister Valois went to greet the new arrivals, prepared to tell them that there was no possibility of accommodating more patients unless they put more in the aisles, and then she would be faced with the worsening problem of short supplies.

  At the entrance to the chateau Sister Valois was met by Captain Harrison. For a split second she imagined herself running across the parquet floor into his arms. Instead she cautioned herself against an emotion of which she remained unsure. He smiled at her, his gait hampered by a substantial limp, the shadows beneath his eyes speaking of more than exhaustion.

  ‘I didn’t know where else to go, but I thought you might help.’ His eyes grew moist as he spoke to her in her native language. ‘Please help.’

  Taking his arm, she led the captain to a small settee pushed against the wall.

  ‘I operated, but the wound will not heal and not all the injuries were attended to. If I had not been hit it may have been different, but when we got to the casualty clearing station they would not let us stay together.’

  Kneeling, Sister Valois pulled up the leg of the captain’s uniform: blood and white matter oozed from an untended wound, while a bandage covered a suppurating injury with thirty or more stitches. ‘Speak English,’ she advised.

  ‘They say he saved at least twenty men before the blast got him, Sister.’ An orderly appeared, carrying a stretcher with another man. ‘The captain here begged us to bring him to you. I don’t know if the brass will take kindly to us commandeering an ambulance, but when we heard who it was for . . .’

  Level with the stretcher, Sister Valois turned slowly. Roland the dog stared back, his eyes filmy. For a moment the sense of hopelessness seemed too great for her to contend with. Was everyone and everything to be ruined by this bloody campaign? The captain’s hand was on hers, his gaze willing her to action. Sister Valois gripped it back.

  She called for a senior nurse and orderlies, her clear, firm voice echoing about the aged walls of the chateau. The staff came running at the urgency in her tone and set about following her brusque instructions. The captain was placed on a cot in the kitchen, Roland on a thick blanket on a table only feet away. In minutes the captain’s trouser leg had been cut away and two nurses washed the wound. Sister Valois set up plasma and offered him opiates for the pain.

  Captain Harrison grabbed her wrist. ‘No. No opiate.’ He pointed at the table. ‘Roland. You know what he did, what he has done. You must save him.’

  Sister Valois turned her attention to the injured dog. The lower part of a hind leg was missing and although the suturing appeared strong the wound wept. She set about cutting away the matted hair and then sopped disinfectant on the injury with a rag boiled in water. Roland twitched at the sting.

  ‘You’re safe now, Roland,’ she said in answer to his whining. The wound to the flank was long but neatly stitched. This she covered with a cloth soaked in disinfectant.

  ‘His leg.’ Captain Harrison pointed from where he lay.

  Beneath the dirty bandage on the front leg the wound was bloody and raw. Sister Valois prised apart the hair and flesh, checking for shrapnel. Instead she found barbed wire. ‘There is wire wrapped around his leg,’ she told her assistants. ‘I need tin snips, anything.’

  An orderly rushed out to the salon ward.

  ‘If he loses that leg as well –’ Captain Harrison warned.

  ‘Do not tell me what I already know,’ she snapped.

  The orderly reappeared with wire snippers, and shadowing him was a French soldier.

  ‘Sacré bleu!’ Louie Pascal crossed himself. ‘It’s the Chessy boys’ dog, it’s Roland.’

  Roland wagged his tail and then stilled.

  ‘Light, I need more light,’ Sister Valois demanded as the orderly and French soldier came to her assistance.

  Candles were brought and more water boiled. ‘You should be in bed,’ she said on seeing the Frenchman standing at her side. The boy had lost an arm and was also recovering from a near-crippling case of trench foot.

  ‘This dog, this dog was at Verdun.’

  Sister Valois paused in her ministrations. ‘So was I,’ she replied to Louie Pascal. ‘Roland and I have already met.’

  It took an hour to cut the wire free and then unwind the barb embedded in Roland’s flesh. It had reached the bone, effectively cutting off the circulation to his paw. It was possible that the dog would only have two legs, that he would never walk again – if that happened he would have to be put down. Visions of such a tragedy befalling this intelligent creature caused the bile to rise in her throat. Sister Valois washed the wound tenderly, noticing the red raw paws, and then dressed it. ‘Go back to bed now, Louie, there is nothing more that can be done.’

  ‘Will he live, Sister?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘He needs at least three legs. All we can do is pray.’

  When the kitchen finally emptied, the captain spoke. ‘Will he survive?’

  ‘You should be asleep,’ she admonished, checking the captain’s wound and temperature. ‘You were stupid not to get that attended to sooner.’ The chateau was quiet. Night had come. The captain sipped at a cup of water while she supported his shoulders.

  ‘I could hardly put myself before Roland,’ he explained. ‘Besides, he doesn’t belong to me.’

  They both turned in the dog’s direction. He slept, exhausted.

  ‘You are right,’ she agreed. ‘He belongs to God.’

  The captain took her hand. Sister Valois settled in a chair between the American and the French war dog, not daring to hope beyond the moment.

  ‘I carried him from the field. I don’t know how. Look at him. He is so large and such an ungainly mutt.’

  ‘Shush, you must rest.’

  Captain Harrison squeezed her fingers. ‘With or without Roland, I still would have come back to you eventually.’

  She met his eyes. ‘I wasn’
t sure . . . I didn’t know . . .’

  ‘I wasn’t sure either, at least about how you felt,’ he replied, smiling tiredly. ‘I thought you may think I was rushing you, but I hoped.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said shyly.

  Near dawn Sister Valois awoke in the chair. A mottled daylight seeped through the single window, giving the kitchen shape and shadows. The candles had burned out, leaving a pool of wax on the end of the table alongside a plate of untouched food left by a kind soul. She checked on her patients. Both man and dog breathed steadily. Reaching for the cross about her neck, she prayed aloud to the Saints and the Virgin. Captain Harrison would survive, but Roland? What of Roland’s injury?

  There was a noise at the entrance to the kitchen and she turned, expecting to be confronted by an emergency or a death or a disgruntled staff member. She did not think she could be party to such problems today.

  Before her, a dozen wounded French soldiers sat on the cold flagstone floor. Behind them were a number of men in wheelchairs and two orderlies. Sister Valois touched the cross around her neck as the features of those gathered grew clearer as the sun rose. They bowed their heads, their skin awash with the morning light and then they began to pray.

  Banyan, south-west Queensland, Australia

  February 2000

  Madeleine turned to Sonia. ‘So, your aunt, Julie Jackson, and Corally Shaw were best friends?’

  The kitchen in the weatherboard house was growing hotter by the minute. Sonia’s story of Julie’s father being left lying in the main street after being abused by the townsfolk was startling.

  ‘Yes. Although not even Corally would help the Jacksons. Of everyone in that town, only Miss Waites gave the family a hand.’

  ‘You forget, Sonia, that the entire Jackson family was under suspicion by the local authorities. No one wanted to risk associating with them, not the way people felt about the Germans back then,’ the old woman stated irritably from where she sat in the corner of the room. ‘As for that Miss Waites – well, she wasn’t from here anyway, so she had nothing to lose.’

  ‘And Corally did?’ Madeleine questioned.

  The old woman and Sonia exchanged a hard look.

  ‘But surely you can’t stop someone from buying goods in the village?’ Madeleine exclaimed.

  The older woman pointed at Sonia with a crooked finger. ‘She wasn’t there but I was. Thousands of our boys were blown to bits in the war and never came home and those that did were ruined just the same.’

  ‘It got worse,’ Sonia interjected. ‘Cummins took advantage of the ill feeling directed towards my great-uncle and pursued him relentlessly. He’d wanted to buy the Jackson farm for years and he thought he finally had his chance. Of course as the hatred for the Jacksons intensified, Cummins’ offer became lower and lower. It was late 1917 when my great-uncle was left for dead outside the blacksmith’s. They say it was only because of concern for his family that he lived out the week following the attack – the doctor said his injuries were shocking. Cummins made another offer for the Jackson farm and this time he had no choice but to accept. It was all rather convenient for Cummins.’

  ‘Wait.’ Madeleine touched Sonia’s arm. ‘This sounds as if you believe that Cummins had your great-uncle attacked in order to get his hands on your family property.’

  ‘One of the boundaries on the Cummins property adjoined the Jackson farm and Cummins was desperate to increase his holding and his sheep flock,’ Sonia explained. ‘Cummins was getting quite a name in the industry for his wool at the time. He wanted that land.’

  ‘And he got it?’ Madeleine asked. ‘Through foul play?’

  ‘Whether directly or indirectly, yes, he got it,’ Sonia replied, ‘but we lost far more than that. The Jacksons were ruined. You have to understand, Madeleine, that before the Great War the family had prospects. We owned good acreage and were of respectable, hard-working stock. And Julie was educated and attractive and it was hoped she would marry well – there were few eligible girls in the district at that time.’ Sonia lifted her palms to the ceiling. ‘There was even talk of her marrying one of the Harrow boys.’

  ‘Really?’ Madeleine replied. She looked at the housekeeper, they could have been related if not for the events that had occurred.

  ‘I knew it!’ the old woman spat.

  Sonia ignored her. ‘Well, no one wanted anything to do with the family after that. I guess people were looking for something to direct their anger and grief at, and the Jacksons, with their German heritage, fitted the bill. Aunt Julie moved with her mother and younger siblings – including Nancy, your previous housekeeper, and my father – to a shack in the village after my great-uncle was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave. The owner of the funeral parlour, Snob Evans,’ she glared at the old woman, ‘your dead husband,’ she said sarcastically, ‘refused my great-aunt’s request to pay for a decent Christian burial by instalment. In fact, he wouldn’t even allow the body in the funeral home.’

  Madeleine glanced at the old woman. No wonder the Jacksons felt badly done by.

  ‘And that was the beginning of the end of the Jackson family. Until David Harrow returned from the war.’

  Sunset Ridge, south-west Queensland, Australia

  June 1918

  Lily trotted across the paddock from the sheep yards to the homestead, the winter sun warming her flushed cheeks. The new mare was proving to be a solid purchase and the two of them were now a familiar sight roaming Sunset Ridge. The coming spring looked promising. With the sale of the two thousand ewes last year and G.W.’s original mob of cattle culled to retain only the younger cows for breeding, the native grasses were in good condition. If the normal spring rains graced the property, the grass should come away quickly. With a click of her tongue Lily urged the mare onwards. There was still paperwork to attend to and she was yet to make a choice regarding the cloth required for her new riding pants. True to her word, Lily’s dresses and skirts had been relegated to evening and house wear only. Every time she walked outdoors now she dressed in riding pants. Cook would mumble something about standards and G.W. appeared outwardly disapproving, though he could not always hide his smile. At the back gate Lily dismounted and, wrapping the reins around the fence railing, walked up the path and collapsed into the chair next to G.W.

  ‘Well?’ he asked, peering over the top of a newspaper.

  Shearing was into its second week and, although there were the usual disgruntled employees, the arguments had lessened once the overseer insisted on a dry camp. ‘No problems, my dear, and Mr Cambridge is very pleased with the fleece yields to date and has even given tacit agreement to the slight change in the breeding program that I hope to implement.’ She tugged at the leather gloves, freeing her hands.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about Taylor, or whoever he was.’ Although G.W.’s speech was much improved, he still spoke slowly and deliberately.

  Dropping the tan gloves on her lap, Lily turned to her husband. They rarely spoke of the man called Nathanial Taylor. The incident had brought them together again and Lily was so grateful to have the G.W. of old back that she had not pursued her initial concerns after the shocking event, hoping instead that one day her husband would choose to talk of the incident of his own free will. For her part Lily would never forget the fierceness of her husband’s attack. G.W. had bashed a man to death, a man who had proved indispensable in the management of Sunset Ridge, despite his lies and threatening actions in the music room. On the other hand, her husband’s appalling temper had all but abated since his part in Mr Taylor’s death. It was as if all the anger and bitterness and remorse and guilt that had accumulated within G.W. during his lifetime had been expelled from his body with the savagery of the assault. Confusingly, good had come from the man’s death.

  ‘What of Mr Taylor, G.W.?’ Lily asked.

  Her husband barely lifted his eyes from the paper. ‘If we knew his real name
I would make efforts to trace his family, perhaps make some sort of monetary gift, anonymously of course.’

  ‘An excellent idea, my dear.’ This was the first time G.W. had voiced regret for his actions. His acknowledgement loosened something tight within her. ‘Unfortunately I fear that his identity will never be known.’

  ‘Quite,’ he agreed. ‘Even now I can’t quite fathom what happened that day.’

  ‘Nor I,’ Lily replied. ‘Mr Taylor was a good man at heart.’

  Her husband cleared his throat. ‘My only thought was of you. The thought of losing you after all we’d been through, after what I’d put you through . . .’

  He reached out and briefly took her hand. It was a long time since she had felt such joy.

  ‘It’s done now,’ Lily soothed. ‘Let’s put it behind us.’

  G.W. gave her a grateful smile.

  At the time, Mr Taylor’s demise appeared to be an insurmountable scandal. In the days following the man’s death, the distress Lily felt at his murder was gradually replaced by other concerns. She worried not only about G.W.’s brutality but also the damage that could be done to the Harrow family name. She need not have been so concerned. They repaid the investigating constable’s discretion with a monetary gift as well as a number of sketches found in the dead man’s possessions. The works were instantly recognisable as Miss Waites and although they bore David’s signature and were remarkably life-like, Lily did not hesitate to give them away. The drawings were of little consequence in the scheme of things.