Through the Lonesome Dark

by Richardson, Paddy

The kitchen with the lamp on the windowsill and Mother’s banking the stove for the night the bread’s rising on the rack in the pan with a cloth over it in the morning it’ll be all puffed up ready to go in she’ll rip a bit of the crust off for you the smell of it, the softness and the chewy warmth of it in your mouth the path is clear for the few yards and that’s all right but then it goes through the ferns and the flaxes and the trees and it’s raining and already he can feel the slap of wet leaves on his face hear the crackle of the cabbage tree as the wind moves feel for the dunny door and open it up the seat with the whispers and the crackles and the night and the stink he’s too old now to say it.

  Mother.

  And she was there, the door flying open, and her arms wrapped around him.

  ‘Oh, my boy. Oh, my Clem. Oh, my own dear boy.’

  Acknowledgements

  This novel was written with the support of Creative New Zealand.

  Many thanks and much gratitude to Mieke and Noel Baldewijns, who initially introduced me to the story of the New Zealand Tunnelling Company (and the system the men built beneath the city of Arras with New Zealand place names marking the complexity of tunnels) and then shared with me in that inspiring journey we made together through the past battlefields of World War One in Belgium and Northern France. This book would not have been written without your inspiration and support.

  Many thanks also to Sue Baker Wilson who has encouraged me in writing this novel and has so generously shared her expertise. The New Zealand Tunnelling Company website has been a constant source of information and interest and her passion for this topic has brought this company, which was largely forgotten, into public recognition.

  Thanks to Kevin Chapman for his initial reading and perceptive comments on early drafts and to Kevin and Upstart Press for their support and enthusiasm for Through the Lonesome Dark. Thanks to my agent, Vicki Marsdon, who told me she cried over the book — always a good sign. And thanks to Stephen Stratford, who is everything and more than an editor should be and has unfailing patience and an unfailing sense of humour.

  Many thanks to Simon Richardson for the image of Mila, which appears on the front cover, from the painting of the same name.

  And thanks, finally, to all of my family for their support, interest and love.

  Amongst the many books which have been helpful while writing this novel are:

  Beneath Flanders Fields, The Tunnellers’ War 1914–18, Peter Barton, Peter Doyle and Johan Vandewalle, Spellmount Ltd

  The Regeneration Trilogy, Pat Barker, Penguin

  Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900–1925, Vera Brittain, Phoenix

  Blackball 08, Eric Beardsley, Collins

  A Broken World: Letters, Diaries and Memories of the Great War, Sebastian Faulks with Hope Wolf, Vintage Books

  Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks, Random House

  Good-bye to All That, Robert Graves, Penguin

  Underground Warfare 1914–1918, Simon Jones, Pen & Sword Books

  The Battle Arras 1917, Frédéric Logez, Editions Degeorge

  Through the Eyes of a Miner, The Photography of Joseph Divis, Simon Nathan, Steele Roberts

  All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque, Random House

  The Underground War, Vimy Ridge to Arras, Phillip Robinson and Nigel Cave, Pen & Sword Books Ltd