by Judy Nunn
He waited until her laughter had subsided. ‘The man’s also a liar, Jane,’ he said, ‘and not to be trusted. He cares nothing for your friend Sera and her family.’
‘Yes,’ she said, suddenly sober. ‘I know that. It’s why I want to help them.’
‘And you must, my love. But you can do so without being alone in Marat’s company.’ His concern was not born of jealousy. Martin sensed more than the Frenchman’s attraction to his wife. He sensed that Marat was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted and that, in the pursuit of it, violence would present no barrier. Godfrey Tomlinson had been right, Martin thought. Marat was dangerous. ‘You will promise me?’
‘I already have, Marty.’
Over the ensuing weeks, Martin put aside the questions that tormented him. They were disrespectful to his wife, he decided, and during the fierceness of his days at the hospital, he indeed had little time to ponder the sexual aspect of his marriage. But occasionally in the dead of night, after they’d made love, his insecurity returned to plague him and, delicate as the subject was, he decided finally to confront it.
‘Do I make you happy, Jane?’ he asked.
‘What a question at a time like this,’ she said teasingly, cuddling herself into the crook of his arm and nuzzling her head against his shoulder as she always did after they’d made love. He could feel the soft silk of her chemise against the bare skin of his chest and her breath fanned his neck.
‘I mean it, my love,’ he said, turning his face to hers, although she was barely visible in the darkness. ‘Are you happy with our marriage?’
‘Oh my darling,’ she said, puzzled by the seriousness of his tone and the depth of his question, ‘of course I’m happy with our marriage.’ She raised herself onto one elbow, her other hand stroking his cheek. Why was he torturing himself? she wondered.
She hadn’t understood, he thought, feeling awkward and self-conscious, but determined to continue nonetheless. ‘I would wish to satisfy you in every aspect of our marriage, Jane,’ he said, thankful that the darkness cloaked his inability to express himself; he’d never felt more inhibited in his life. He took her hand and held it against his chest. ‘I want to make you happy, my love …’
‘You do make me happy,’ she whispered. She had to interrupt him, she couldn’t bear the pain of his query. ‘You make me happy in every possible way.’ She kissed him with all the love that she hoped he would recognise and when their lips parted he could see the glimmer of her tears in the darkness. ‘It would be impossible for me to love you any more than I do, Marty,’ she said. ‘You are my life.’
They never spoke of the subject again, and as Jane worked ceaselessly at Mamma Tack’s, she became less sexually demanding, to the point where Martin persuaded himself that perhaps he had been a victim of his own imaginings. That perhaps Jane’s increased desire had been, as he’d first suspected, a direct result of their lengthy separation.
Jane had been horrified at the agony of self-doubt she’d recognised in her husband, and even more so by the realisation that she was responsible for his torment. She was aware that she had initiated their lovemaking, as she never had in the past, that she had made overtures to him when he’d least expected it, that she’d been more urgent and more responsive. She didn’t know why. She herself had wondered at her restlessness since his return. What was it she wanted? she’d asked herself. Was it the frenzy of passion Phoebe had spoken of?
She remembered Phoebe’s words with the clarity of yesterday. ‘I found out,’ Phoebe had said, ‘and it’s wonderful. It’s wonderful, Jane.’ Phoebe hadn’t needed to say more, her face had glowed, wanton and womanly, and Jane remembered, even as she’d been critical, her sense of envy.
Was that what she’d been demanding of Martin? The rapture that Phoebe had experienced? But why now? Why all of a sudden this desire for discovery? And what right did she have to demand Phoebe’s secret? She wasn’t Phoebe. Rapture would come easily to the sensual, flirtatious, sexually liberated Phoebe Chisolm. Martin was considerate, their coupling was warm and tender, and Jane felt content in her womanliness and the fact that she was so loved. It was selfish in the extreme to desire more.
Now, riddled with guilt that her demands had raised such doubt and insecurity in her husband, Jane quelled her desire and concentrated her energies upon the all-consuming tasks that awaited her daily at Mamma Tack’s.
Jane and Martin Thackeray’s marriage remained one of abiding love, and if there was something unspoken between them, something that each occasionally recognised, they refused to allow it to become an issue as they addressed the mutual commitments that claimed their every waking hour.
More and more casualties were arriving from Guadalcanal and the fight against malaria continued. But it was a fight that was slowly being won, and the end was in sight.
‘Fatalities have dropped by forty percent,’ Martin said as he helped Wolf unload the crates of supplies from the jeep.
It was Saturday, Martin’s afternoon off from both his church duties and the hospital, although he was on call should he be needed. Jane had received word from one of the men that Wolf Baker was back and that he’d call in to Mamma Tack’s, and Martin had been there to greet him.
Martin Thackeray had initially felt threatened by the Americans who flocked to Mamma Tack’s. The men socialised amongst themselves at the boatshed, certainly, and mingled with the locals, but they were really drawn there because of Jane, he was sure of it. There was no question that they respected her, indeed if anyone had stepped out of line he would have been physically attacked by his compatriots; and Jane, in turn, treated them like brothers. She knew every man’s name, quickly memorising that of a newcomer, and she would talk to them about their homes and their families and sweethearts. They were lonely, she told Martin. Her own brothers were serving in North Africa and she would like to think that there was a woman in whom they could confide.
Pure in purpose as Mamma Tack’s was, Martin couldn’t help being painfully aware of the fact that Jane was surrounded, daily, by virile young men.
These days, however, he refused to see the servicemen as a threat. He couldn’t afford to. Just as his views on Marat’s sexuality had been disrespectful to Jane, so too was his concern about the Americans, he’d decided. Besides, what was the point in worrying? Most of the young men were quite possibly in love with his wife, or thought they were, and there was little he could do about it but admire their taste. He had even befriended the man who most openly wore his heart on his sleeve. Wolf Baker’s devotion to Jane was plainly evident and he took no pains to disguise it, for which Martin respected him.
The two men had become firm friends although it had been a whole fortnight since either Jane or Martin had seen the American. He looked different, Martin thought. Tired. And he’d lost some of his boyish bounce.
‘Forty percent?’ Wolf was impressed. ‘That’s great, Marty. You deserve a medal, the whole damn lot of you. Hell, the guys have been saying who needs the Japs when we’ve got malaria.’
No-one apart from Jane called Martin ‘Marty’, not since his army days anyway, and at first Martin had been nonplussed by Wolf Baker’s free use of the nickname. His natural reserve hadn’t allowed him to say anything, however, and Jane, sensitive to his feelings, had broached the subject.
‘I’ll correct him if you like, Marty,’ she’d said, ‘but you mustn’t be offended, nicknames are a way of life to the Americans, it’s a sign of affection.’
‘Well, I suppose anything’s better than “sir”,’ he’d said, and now he wouldn’t have had it any other way. Martin liked Wolf Baker.
‘Are you all right, Wolf?’ he asked. ‘You look tired.’
‘Sure,’ the American grinned, ‘forty-eight hours leave up my sleeve, couldn’t be better.’ But as Martin looked knowingly at him, his smile faded. ‘I’ve had a tough couple of days, Marty.’
‘Dinner tonight?’
‘Great. You’re on.’
‘Wolf kambak!’
Ronnie’s robust eighteen-month-old voice shrilled from the playpen in the corner as Mary opened the door wide to Wolf. ‘Wolf kambak! Wolf kambak!’ The child bounced up and down on his sturdy little legs, his arms in the air, and it was obvious he wasn’t going to stop yelling until he was picked up.
Wolf obliged, crossing the lounge room and hoisting the excited infant high in the air. ‘What’s he saying?’ he asked Mary, but before she could answer, Jane bustled in from the kitchen, a bowl of salad in her hands.
‘He’s glad you’ve come back,’ she said, ‘he’s been asking after you every day for the past two weeks.’
Wolf sat on the wooden floor with the child and they played, Ronnie charging at him and Wolf falling flat on his back from the pretended force of the impact.
‘I’m going to have to start learning this lingo,’ he said as Ronnie gabbled away excitedly in his mixture of English and Bislama.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Mary, will you get Wolf a drink whilst I make the salad dressing? He spends so much time with us at Mamma Tack’s,’ Jane called over her shoulder as she returned to the kitchen, ‘that the locals have adopted him. Mary says he’s part-islander.’
Mary grinned at Wolf. ‘He sure is,’ she said. She was very proud of the Americanisms she was picking up and was forever adding a new phrase to her repertoire. ‘You want a beer, Mista Wolf?’ He’d asked her to call him Wolf, but she’d thought it was a little disrespectful so she’d added the Mista.
‘Great, thanks, Mary.’
‘Marty’s at Godfrey’s,’ Jane’s disembodied voice called from the kitchen, ‘they’re choosing some wines for dinner, at Godfrey’s insistence, he wants to show off to you.’ Her head popped through the door. ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you Godfrey’s coming to dinner. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Good God no,’ Wolf yelled above Ronnie’s squeals. He’d met Godfrey Tomlinson a number of times at Mamma Tack’s, and the Englishman had been present at a previous evening he’d spent with Martin and Jane. Godfrey had held the floor throughout the entire dinner, and Wolf had found his stories of the old days fascinating. ‘I could listen to Godfrey all night,’ he called from under the child’s body, which was smothering his face.
‘Just as well,’ Jane said wryly. ‘Now for goodness sake stop overexciting Ronnie, I can’t stand the noise.’
But that night the talk was not of the old days and Godfrey didn’t hold the floor. He was wise enough to know when it was his time to be silent.
The evening started off frivolously enough, with much discussion of the wine carefully selected from Godfrey’s cellar, and the old man accepted the compliments, enjoying his moment of triumph. But towards the end of the meal, when Martin asked Wolf about his trips to the fleet, Godfrey, like Jane, listened in silence.
‘They’re having a bit of a rough time, aren’t they?’ Martin said with his typically British talent for understatement. He knew that the American had flown out to the fleet during the past fortnight, men from Wolf’s unit had told Jane so at Mamma Tack’s.
Martin Thackeray recognised the signs of stress in Wolf Baker, he’d seen them before many times, and the alacrity with which the American had accepted his dinner invitation led him to believe he might want to talk about what troubled him.
‘Please don’t feel obliged to speak of the campaign if you don’t wish to,’ he added, rather regretting the presence of the older Englishman. Fond as he was of Godfrey, it hadn’t been his intention to invite him. Jane had issued the invitation without his knowledge, but then she hadn’t known he wished to talk privately with Wolf.
‘I’d like to,’ Wolf said. He needed to, he realised. It wasn’t something he could talk about with his buddies. They all respected the unspoken pact: you didn’t tell the other guys when you were rattled, everyone had their own case of the jitters, you didn’t need to share yours.
‘It is pretty rough out there,’ he admitted. ‘Well, you’d know that, Marty, you’ve seen the wounded coming in.’
Martin nodded, but said nothing, aware that the American had welcomed the opportunity to unburden himself.
‘I made a couple of trips. First time in a Dauntless. She’s a two-seater,’ he explained for the others’ benefit, ‘and I was taking a journalist out to the USS Wasp. Just him and me, and it was a quiet day, pretty uneventful. I dropped the guy at the carrier, refuelled and came back. Easy,’ he shrugged. ‘But two days ago I flew a Dakota cargo plane out to the Solomons. We were carrying fresh medical supplies and two battle surgeons, emergency stuff, the guys had been copping it heavy.’
Wolf took a sip of his wine. His voice was matter-of-fact and unemotional as he told his story, but the growing tension in him was evident to the others.
‘Well, there was some Jap activity about, but mainly reconnaissance, I figured, and we landed at Henderson Field okay. Coming back was the hard part. We’d unloaded and refuelled and we were preparing for takeoff when everything went crazy. The sirens were screaming and our guys were jumping into their fighters and we had to get up there as quick as we could to clear the airstrip. Then the moment we took off they seemed to come out of nowhere. High-level bombers, dive bombers, fighters. Jap planes everywhere you looked. I tried to hightail it for home, but within seconds there were dogfights all around us, and we were in the middle. A cargo plane’s a pretty easy target and we were copping fire from every direction.’
This time Wolf didn’t sip his wine, he drained the half glassful that was left. He needed to calm down, he was starting to get the jitters.
‘So we had to take evasive action,’ he said, his voice still steady. ‘I tell you, man, I was trying to dodge and weave that damn thing around like it was a Dauntless. I only wish to hell it had been, a Dauntless has got guns.’ He couldn’t help it, he was feeling shaky again, and the frustration was now showing in his voice. ‘That was the real bastard! We couldn’t fight! No bombs, no guns. We were just up there, a sitting damn duck in a sky full of flak.’
He automatically reached for his glass again only to discover it was empty. Martin picked up the wine bottle, but Wolf shook his head. ‘No thanks, Marty, I’m fine.’
He wasn’t fine, Martin thought, putting the wine bottle down. Wolf Baker wasn’t fine at all.
‘We made it back to base eventually,’ he concluded, ‘but my two crew had been hit. My cargo master was shot up pretty bad, and I lost my co-pilot.’ It was a simple statement and his tone was detached, but there was no disguising the pain in his admission. ‘He was a buddy of mine from back home, and I have to admit it hit me a bit hard.’
The others were all watching him in silence. Then Martin said, ‘Shall we have a pot of that wonderful coffee Wolf generously supplied, my dear?’
Godfrey Tomlinson was appalled. The offer of coffee seemed so jarringly out of place.
But, as Jane rose unquestioningly from the table, he realised that Martin wished to talk to the young man alone. He quickly stood himself, before Jane could suggest he give her a hand in the kitchen.
‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘I’ll forgo the coffee, it disagrees with me late at night.’ It was not yet ten o’clock and, although Godfrey did eschew coffee of an evening, he was well known for talking, over copious glasses of his favourite red, well into the wee hours of the morning. It was hardly late at night for Godfrey. ‘So I shall take my leave, my dear.’ He kissed Jane on the cheek. ‘Thank you so much for a beautiful meal. Martin. Wolf.’ He shook hands with both men. ‘Good night to you. And I’m sorry, Wolf,’ he said, holding the American’s hand in both of his for a moment. ‘I’m very sorry to hear of the loss of your friend.’
‘Thanks,’ Wolf replied brusquely. He didn’t intend to be rude; he’d registered the old man’s sincerity, but he’d rattled himself in the telling of his story.
Jane saw the Englishman to the front door. ‘You’re a love,’ she whispered as she kissed him again.
‘I hope Martin can help him,’ Godfrey whispered in reply.
‘
I think a bourbon might be the go, don’t you?’ Martin suggested when Jane had disappeared to the kitchen.
‘But you don’t like bourbon,’ Wolf said.
‘No, I can’t abide it, filthy stuff.’ Martin crossed to the dresser in the corner. ‘That’s why the bottle you brought last time is intact. I meant for you, I’ll have another wine, if you don’t mind.’ He poured the drinks. ‘Shall we go out onto the verandah?’
When they were seated outside, Martin got directly to the point. ‘You blame yourself, don’t you?’ Beneath Wolf’s anger, frustration and grief, all of which had been apparent from the outset, Martin had recognised a far more dangerous emotion. The man was torn apart by guilt.
In the dim verandah light, Wolf stared down at the glass of straight bourbon in his hands, and nodded. ‘He was a good guy, Marty. His name was Joe, but we called him Sonny because his dad’s a big wheel back in the States. Sonny was my buddy, and I should have brought him home.’
‘But you did,’ Martin said softly.
There was a strength and authority in his three simple words, and Wolf looked up from his glass.
‘You did bring him home, Wolf. You brought both your men home. You flew that plane through that battle zone and you landed it safely back at base. It’s not your fault Sonny died.’
It was the truth and Wolf needed to hear it, grief had clouded his perspective, but he was still unable to free himself of his guilt.
‘I know his folks,’ he said shaking his head. ‘I often stayed weekends at their country place. His old man’s a senator and he’s loaded, but he’s not a bad guy, and his mom’s really great.’ He stared distractedly down at his glass again, swirling the bourbon about. ‘Sonny was their only kid. He was their whole world. They’ll be torn apart.’
‘And after the shock of their loss?’
The American looked at him, confused.
