‘Is it because you’ve forgotten me and don’t know what to say? Are you angry with me for being away so long?’
I wouldn’t answer. I’m like that. Mum says I’m sulky. Martha says I’m the best grudge-bearer she knows.
The silence stretched on.
Dad put out his hand and lifted my chin. He looked at me through narrowed eyes. They were grey. I think Martha would have called them flinty. He could be a bit frightening, I thought.
‘What’s up, Nell?’
‘Nothing,’ I mumbled.
Dad seemed to gather himself together.
‘Right! Listen carefully, Nell. There’s enough sadness and worry in this family without you being silly. By the time we reach Perth you had better be over the sulks. We need to talk about things before we get home.’
Dad stopped. Pa stretched over the space between the seats and patted his knee.
Dad gave him a funny sort of smile and went on. ‘Your Mum always said you’d be a handful. I thought you shone with possibility. Now …’
He looked at me carefully, considering. I turned my head away so he wouldn’t see I was hurt. I might be angry with Dad but that was no reason for him to think I was no good.
Pa moved a bit closer to me. ‘Nell’s a good kid, Harry. She’s just upset about something at the moment. Can’t think what it could be, though. No one’s said a word that I know of.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Dad.
THE ENGINE DRIVER PULLED THE WHISTLE, THE carriage jerked, and with a series of little jumps the train set off, slowly gathering pace before settling into a clacking, rocking motion. A small vineyard rolled past the window, pruned canes clinging to wires fading into the misty rain.
‘Reminds me of a vineyard near Charleroi,’ said Dad looking out the window, rocking gently from side to side with the train. ‘It was only a tiny patch of vines like this one. Not enough I’d have thought to even make enough for the family. Still it gave them something to start over with again after the war, I suppose.’
‘Charleroi’s not a place we heard of,’ said Pa.
‘No, you wouldn’t have,’ said Dad. ‘The Germans took it in their first push and it was behind their lines all the time. We were sent there just after the armistice as a jump-off place if we were needed as part of the occupying force. Thank goodness we weren’t. The word was that the British heads thought we’d be too much trouble. Probably right.’
Dad stopped and looked at me. ‘Do you know what the armistice was, Nell?’
Pa poked me gently. ‘You know, Nell. The end of the war.’
I nodded.
Dad turned back to Pa.
‘Well, the armistice saved us, you know. We knew that if we had to go in once more we’d all be done for. Whittled away, we were. Too many men gone. Not enough replacements coming in.’
‘Liz tried her best, Harry, to get you replacements,’ said Pa. ‘Couldn’t wait to get down there in the referendums to get conscripts over there to help you out.’
‘She never mentioned that in her letters,’ said Dad. ‘I’d have told her not to bother. Most of us didn’t want them. Though, not,’ he said after a short break, ‘all for the same reasons. I wouldn’t have sent my worst enemy into the trenches; others didn’t want to fight next to someone who hadn’t volunteered. Wouldn’t be right either way.’
‘Must admit I didn’t vote,’ said Pa. ‘Liz and me had some real ding-dongs over it and in the end, just for peace and quiet, I agreed I’d not go down to the polling booth so that I wasn’t the one who didn’t send the soldier that might have saved you.
‘But,’ he added with a smile, ‘you made it through to the end without conscription.’
‘Just,’ said Dad. ‘We’d been thinking there would never be an end to it even though there’d been furphs for weeks about an armistice coming up. So many we’d stopped listening to them.
‘We were resting up behind the line readying to go up again when we saw Froggies running around singing and dancing. That night we got hold of a newspaper from London and there it was. An armistice had really been signed.’
‘Must have been a good feeling, eh, Harry,’ said Pa.
‘Yes, I suppose it must have been. But, you know, William, we were all too tired to even know what to think.’
Silly, I thought. No one’s ever that tired.
DAD WAS RIGHT. IT WAS A TIME OF FURPHIES. THAT’S A new word made up by the soldiers, but I knew what it meant because Jack explained it to me.
Martha had come in from school one Friday with a big smile on her face. ‘You should have heard the cheering in the street just after lunch,’ she said, putting her bag on the table so she could hug Mum, just like she did every day. ‘We all thought it was the end of the war but Mrs Wragg wouldn’t let us go out to see what all the noise was about. By the time school finished, the word was out that it was a false alarm.’
That’s a furphy, see. A rumour.
‘But surely,’ Martha went on, ‘even rumours must come from somewhere. The end must be close and we’ll have Dad home soon.’
The paper that night said no armistice had been signed, and that when it was official the observatory gun would fire three times.
But when the armistice was really signed, there was no gun. Perhaps, in the excitement, the man in charge forgot to fire it.
On the Monday, Eddie Baker sat up straight in his seat. ‘Listen,’ he called out. And as we quietened down we all heard the fire station bell. ‘Wonder what’s going up?’
Then, church bells were ringing from over Subi way and closer to us the bell at St Barnabas began. Sir must have sent a boy to ring the school bell because, all of a sudden, our bell clanged out over the top of them. Mrs Murphy placed her spelling list carefully on the table and put her hands up to her face. Eddie jumped up onto his desk and started to cheer and Boy Johnson joined in with him. Over and over again they shouted, ‘It’s over, it’s over … hip, hip …’, and we all joined in with the hurrahs.
Our throats were drying out when Sir came into the room. He must have just come from Standard Six because the sound of lids slamming down and desks scraping on the floor followed him into our room.
‘The war’s over,’ he shouted. ‘The armistice has been signed. You might all as well go home for the day. No one should work on the day the war to end all wars finished … don’t forget, it’s a holiday tomorrow.’ And he was off to the next room.
Kids rushed for the door, some of the boys went out the window. I was ink monitor for the week and thought I’d have to stay behind, but Mrs Murphy waved me out. ‘I’ll do it today, Nell,’ she said in a choking sort of way. ‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of time to myself.’ I looked back as I went out the door and she was sitting at the table with her hands over her eyes.
Kids jostled each other down the corridor, squeezed through the big outside door and swarmed into the playground. Some waited under the trees for friends, others just burst out the gates and headed home. It was quicker and nosier than an ordinary home time. Boys punched each other on the shoulder boasting about how we’d showed those Huns, just as if they’d done it themselves. We poured up and down Monger Street like a great dust wave. Groups of kids broke off at each cross street.
It was exciting to begin with, but by the time I’d skipped over the tramline I didn’t feel any different. Dad would be coming back but it hadn’t crossed my mind he wouldn’t. Other kids’ dads had been killed but I never expected anything like that to happen to us. We had Pa anyway and that made our life all right. And, really, I never missed Dad like Mum did, or Martha, or Jack. They were always saying that things would be better when Dad came home, but I didn’t see that they were all that bad now.
Billy Wainright was already swinging on our gate like he did most school days. He’d always come home with Jack until Jack moved up to high school and then he just came on his own, swinging until someone asked him in. Mum always had a cup of tea and a spare biscuit for him. Billy was pretty happy. ‘You watch, Nell
,’ he called out as I got close. ‘It’s going to be all right now. The men’ll be home soon and there’ll be a bit of money around. You watch, we’ll be able to go to the pictures again, and the Royal Show again and … and lots of things.
‘With the men back, things are going to be bonzer.’
THE TRAIN LEFT THE HILLS AND STARTED OFF ON THE flat sandy plain. Greenmount was left behind and now I was really going home.
Dad went on: ‘What was a goodish feeling, William, was when, a few days later, we really understood it was over. That we’d stayed alive long enough to go home. And that’s all we wanted – to go home.
‘Took a while,’ answered Pa.
‘Seemed to take forever,’ said Dad. ‘One thing I’ve learnt over the past few years, William, is that nothing is simple in the army. The news was that they weren’t ready for us in Australia. Ready! What wasn’t ready? Silly ideas of triumphant parades and such nonsense, I suppose.’
‘Well,’ said Pa, ‘parades gave us something to hang onto. They gave us a feeling of being part of it. Em marched in the Red Cross Brigade, you know. We all went down to cheer her.’
Dad gave Pa a sidewards look and went ‘hmmm’. I think that’s his way of saying he doesn’t agree but doesn’t want to hurt Pa’s feelings.
‘Well, we were left hanging around Charleroi. It was cold. Not as bad as our first winter in France but not far off. Lots of blokes took leave to go sight-seeing. I walked a fair bit – kept me warm. Once I took off a few days and made my way down to Villers-Bretonneux to pay my respects at the cemetery, but I couldn’t stay long. Too sad. Bare ground. Long rows of wooden crosses.
‘Some poor beggars had landed the job of digging up the dead from around about and bringing them in for reburial. Lots of bodies under tarps waiting their turn. I suppose they were past worrying, but it worried me.
‘Had to be done but I’m glad I wasn’t one of those doing it.’
Pa leaned forward and put his hand on Dad’s knee again. ‘Have they found Bert? Has he a grave? You know Em’s put aside her money for his words.’
Dad put his hand over Pa’s.
‘She may as well spend it, William. They won’t ever find Bert, believe me. But he’s not alone. He’s with thousands of other blokes who’ll never be found. Em’s going to have to live with that. It’s not right, but it’s the truth. There are just too many of them to even think on.’
‘Em’ll never spend that money, Harry,’ said Pa. ‘She’ll never give up on Bert. Sometimes, I think, she’s still hoping there’s a chance he’s alive somewhere.’
Dad sighed and went on with what he’d been saying.
‘We were still in Charleroi when I came down with the flu and went into hospital again. Spent Christmas there. Lucky enough to be nursed by the same girl who’d patched me up last time. Told me off for wasting her good work only to come back when it was all over. Good girls, those nurses. Knew how to handle us and rarely flinched. Goodness knows how they kept going. I heard most of the matrons were real tartars and kept them up to the mark.’
I could believe that. Look at our matron. A real tartar.
Sister Matthews said one of the hardest things in France was keeping yourself clean enough to keep your Matron happy.
‘We were expected to be in clean clothes every day,’ she said. ‘Try washing yourself and your clothes in a small tin basin on rickety old legs and then drying them in a dripping tent.’
She’d laughed. ‘You should have seen me when I ended up face down in the mud after a bomb landed right next to me. Lucky it was a dud otherwise I wouldn’t be here.’
My admiration for Sister Matthews went skywards.
‘Matron, our matron, Nell – did I tell you we were together in France? – came running and was halfway up to her knees in mud getting me out. I’ll never forget her standing there, holding me up with one arm and shaking her other fist at the sky shouting “Enough!”. Gave me a day’s leave right there and then.’
Dad had stopped for a little think but started up again.
‘We moved out soon after I got back from hospital. Every time we moved on we left good people behind. Most put themselves out to look after us and made us feel as if we were old friends. Hope they’re all right. I miss some of them.’
I looked at Dad sharply. Did that mean he didn’t want to come home?
He must have seen me.
‘I wanted to come home more than anything, Nell, but these were people who really knew what it had been like in the war. We’d shared some truly bad times and I knew I was saying goodbye to them forever. They always said, “Come back. Bring your family. Come back.”, but I knew I’d never be back.
‘It was a mixed-up time.’
WE WEREN’T MIXED UP. ON ARMISTICE DAY MUM HAD me and Billy hang some little flags on the gate. Billy said they’d been selling lots of them in their shop. Every time there was another rumour about the Armistice they’d sell more. You could tell Mum’d been crying, just like Mrs Murphy had. Don’t know why. It meant Dad would be coming home so she should have been happy.
Pa came in early from his rounds. ‘Come on, Nell,’ he said picking up the beer jug and together we walked up to the pub. Pa even did a little jig on the way and made me join him. We must have looked a right pair.
I waited outside while he went into the bar. He took longer than he usually did. Talk about rowdy. Men singing and joshing one another. They only seemed to know one song and it was hard to tell which one it was. I think it could have been that Tipperary one.
Pa backed out of the door with the jug held close to his chest. ‘Old Fred told me he has to close up. The powers that be have ordered all hotels closed for the day. But he tipped me the wink and let us have the beer to toast your dad.’
The singing from inside was changing to yelling and cries of, ‘Come on, Fred. Have a heart. You can’t shut today.’
‘Oh, yes I can, if it means keeping my licence,’ was the reply and we got going before the men started spilling out the door.
Carrying the full jug, we walked home carefully, not spilling a drop.
‘Pop in and see your auntie, Nelly, and see if she wants to come home with us,’ Pa said as we neared home. ‘She might not, so don’t press her.’
But Auntie Em and Mary did come. Like Mum and Mrs Murphy, Auntie had been crying too and Mary looked a bit sad. It must seem a bit unfair to see everyone happy when you knew your dad wasn’t ever going to come home.
Martha was already in the kitchen helping Mum put out the glasses. We all stood around the table and very solemnly drank a toast to ‘The End’. Mary, Martha and I did it in barley water. Mum started talking about home-coming celebrations for Dad.
‘Hold up, Love,’ said Pa putting his arm around her. ‘It’s going to take a while to get them home; so many to come back and not all that many ships. Leave worrying about things like that closer to the time.’
Closer to the time was much further away than we guessed that night.
When Jack finally got home after work, he told us how hundreds, thousands of people were going in to town. ‘Come on, Mum, let’s all go in. There’ll be a train soon and there’s never going to be another day like this.’
We didn’t even get dressed up.
Billy came with us. His Mum and Dad couldn’t leave the shop because too many people were coming in looking for newspapers but they said he should go. Something to remember for the rest of his life, they said.
The train driver kept pulling his whistle as we rattled and wheezed our way into town, and Billy, me and Jack squeezed together leaning out the window shouting and waving to the people who were walking in. Perth was full. People poured out of the train station, trams emptied even more people on to the streets.
Everyone headed for Post Office Square. Rattles were whirring, a band of sorts was playing and hundreds of people were dancing and laughing. You didn’t need to know someone to get a hug from them. Kids were allowed to run around. Nobody told us off when we bum
ped into them.
After a time Mum caught me by the arm as I dashed past.
‘Nell, we’re off to have a cup of tea in the Bon Marche tearoom. Find Jack and Billy and tell them to see us there in half an hour.
‘Can I stay with them?’ I asked
Mum looked thoughtful. ‘It looks like it’s going to get a bit rowdy.’
And that’s when Martha saved the day, or, at least a few more minutes.
‘I’ll stay and keep an eye on them,’ she said.
We found Jack and Billy sitting on the steps of the Post Office. They were counting the lollies they’d caught when a man tossed handfuls of them into the air. Billy said the kids were like a bunch of seagulls squabbling around him to get as many as they could.
‘Doesn’t this remind you of something?’ he shouted pointing around him and he grinned the same grin that he’d had when he’d been talking about the Royal Show before the war. I remembered: there had been crowds there too but I was lost among the legs until, suddenly, I was scooped up and settled on Dad’s shoulders. I’d looked out over his hat at a mass of jostling, laughing people.
It had been a wonderful day of animals and Jack winning a prize for knocking a coconut off a stick. It ended in the tearooms at a table covered in a starched white cloth with a silver stand full of cakes and sandwiches in the middle. Martha and Mum had been very posh using silver forks to eat their cakes with. I ate three in the time it took them to get one down.
Now the crowds had reminded Martha of that day at the show too. ‘You know, Nell,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘that was the first time we saw real soldiers. Can you remember them in their uniforms and their turned-up hats with ostrich feathers on them? Even the ones my age looked like grown men, and they took themselves so seriously. Strutted a bit; thought they were gods. And the other men must have thought so too, almost queuing up to shake their hands. They shone, those boys. I wonder how many came home.’
Martha was quiet for a while and then smiled. ‘You had a lovely new frock, Nell. Mum had spent ages smocking it and she had a ribbon in your hair to match it. She’d even had your hair into ringlets. It’s been a long time since you’ve had to go to bed with your hair in rags, isn’t it?
War's End Page 3
