Two days after we saw the Death Train me and Billy made arrangements to meet late that night so I could see it come back with the bodies.
‘You’re not scared, are you?’ asked Billy.
‘Course not,’ I answered, with my fingers crossed behind my back. I was worried. I don’t like the dark and I’d been having a few bad dreams about the sick people on the train. I was pretty sure that dead people would be a lot worse than just sick people.
I waited for ever until Martha put out the light and went to sleep. She mumbled when I got up but …
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ll manage the lav on my own.’
… and she turned over.
I could get out of the back door as Mum and Pa no longer had to sit up with Jack, but I still had to go through the front gate as the stable was locked up. Billy whispered that there had been no noise. Quietly, we walked up to the station. This time we weren’t going to hide behind the palm tree. It was dark enough for us to stand under the overhead bridge and not be seen. It was misty and cold and I wished very much that I was home in bed. The train came as Billy said it would, and stopped like he said it would. But there was no one there and we couldn’t see into the special carriage.
I felt a bit disappointed. I’d been very brave to even come up and I should have been able to see something. Billy was full of apologies, as if it were his fault that there were no dead bodies, and I very graciously accepted them, but I knew I’d never come up to the station in the dead of night again.
Pa was sitting on the step to the stable waiting for me when I went to get the eggs the next morning. I’ve never seen him angry. His face was red and he was stiff with rage.
‘And what do you think you were doing last night,’ he hissed as he grabbed my arm.
For the first time ever, I was scared of Pa. I was afraid he would never forgive me and I couldn’t bear that.
‘How utterly, utterly stupid. You’re not a little girl anymore, Nell, and if one of the neighbours, or anyone else, had seen you, you’d have been the stuff of gossip forever. Your mum would be so ashamed. I suppose you were with Billy?’
I nodded.
‘Thought so, otherwise I’d have been out there dragging you home. Do that again, my girl, and I’ll forget I don’t believe in laying a hand on females. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
I nodded again.
‘Where on earth did you go at that time of night?’ Pa asked.
‘We went to see the Death Train with the bodies,’ I said, thinking for the first time how bad that sounded.
Pa was astounded. ‘What Death Train? What bodies? Do you mean the funeral train?’
‘I suppose so,’ I muttered.
‘Oh, Nell, what foolishness. You can’t go and gawk at people in their distress, or get a thrill from other people’s misfortune. You’ve not been brought up to do that. What was Billy thinking of?’
‘Have you told Mum?’ I whispered.
‘No, I’ll not upset her. But if there’s another time I’ll be well and truly letting her know.’
‘It won’t happen again, sir,’ said Billy coming through from the stable. ‘I promise. It’s my fault. I’d forgotten Nell was old enough to need to start behaving properly and I shouldn’t have asked her. Honestly, it was just a lark. I hadn’t seen it like you just said and I’m very sorry I even thought of it. You don’t have to worry that it’ll happen again.’
‘But I do, my lad,’ said Pa turning on Billy. ‘And remember I do. And be grateful I trust you. Once, just this once, I’ll put it down to stupidity. But, mark my words, never again … Now, we’ll get on with our work. And no one will mention this again. Do you understand? Both of you?’
Billy and I solemnly shook our heads and Pa and Billy set off with Bessie for the day’s rounds.
I did tell someone, though.
Martha looked upset at first, then smiled a bit and said, ‘You know, Pa’s right, Nell. You’re growing up and you have to be careful what you do. Billy’s parents would be upset and Mum would be horrified. I’m sure Dad would be too. There are too many people around with nothing better to do than gossip. And once they start, they begin embroidering the truth and before you know it you’ll be one of the worst sinners on this earth. You’re going to have to start thinking before you do things. Ask me first, if you’re not sure about anything. I won’t mind. And I won’t tell.’
‘You’d have stopped me, if you’d known,’ I said.
‘Yes, I probably would have. But I wouldn’t have told Mum. I’d have worried, not so much because you were out with Billy but because you don’t know who else was round and about. What if you’d come across a drunk? Or a mad dog? Promise me you won’t do it again without letting me know or I’ll be too worried to go to sleep.’
WHILE I WAS BEING WICKED AND JACK WAS GETTING better, Dad was waiting in Albany.
‘It was a frustrating time, William,’ he was saying.
‘Not much to do but walk around. We’d meet at the pub for a drink each day, but other than that it was up to each one of us to keep ourselves occupied.
‘I went into St John’s to have a look around. Lovely little place it is. Stone and jarrah. Good to see the old timber again. The minister was there when I went in and I found myself apologising again for interrupting someone in church. He wasn’t polishing like Old Bill; he looked more like he was dozing in one of the pews.
‘“Harry Owen, isn’t it?” he said. “Don’t look so startled. I doubt there’s anyone in Albany who doesn’t know the names of all of you and why you’re here.” He introduced himself. “Easy to remember. John from St John’s. In fact, I’m glad you wandered in. One of your compatriots is due any minute. You’ll get on well together.”
‘And we did, William. The “compatriot” was an army chaplain who’d been home for a few years wounded. Nice bloke. Turned out he was hoping to be the next vicar when John of St John’s retired.
‘“You’re just the right man to ask about a thought I’ve had,” he said. To say I was confounded is an understatement. “I’m not a church-going man,” I told him. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can be of any help at all.”
‘“I’m not asking for theological advice,” he laughed. “More like what you’d think of an idea I’ve had for ANZAC day when I take over here. It’s a long way off I know, but you’d be a good man to discuss it with. Do you remember the wait on the boats for the sun to come up?”
‘I must have looked surprised. “I was there,” he said. “On one of the hospital ships lying off the cove.”
‘He nodded towards the big altar and there next to it was one of the small travelling altars the army chaplains used.
‘“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know you’d been there. I’d have kept quiet about not being a church man if I’d known.”
‘“But you’re not,” he said. “So why apologise?”
‘“Because you lot did a sterling job helping out. If you were on a hospital ship, I bet you were in the operating room supporting the doctors or in the wards. I respect that.”
‘Turned out last ANZAC day he’d held a special service in the church and afterwards the congregation climbed up Mount Clarence to sit on the hill where they’d watched the first convoy leave the harbour. A moving experience, he said, that got him thinking more about the concept of ANZAC day. He was contemplating, he said, having his local ANZAC service not during the day as everyone did but just as the sun was coming up.
‘“What do you think?” he asked. “It seems to me to be more fitting to remember that day as it started. By the time most of the services start so many of the boys had already been killed or wounded. Best to remember them as they set off.”
‘That made me think of the power of ANZAC, William, I can tell you. And it made me think on the second time at Villers-Bretonneux. We should have been wiped out we were so under-strength, but just as we were about to go over someone called out, “It’s ANZAC Day”, and I think we all w
ent a bit berserk. I told the chaplain about that.
‘“Well, that’s made up my mind for me,” he said. “I’ll let you know when we get it going and perhaps you’ll make the trip down to be with us.”
‘“Believe me, if I can I will. And my family too,” I promised.
‘We’ll have to look to that, William,’ Dad said, then he returned to telling Pa about Albany.
‘We were talking about the war, where we’d been and that, when a largish woman walked into the church.
‘“Yoo hoo, Vicar,” she trumpeted. “I heard you had a visitor here. The one that won the medal.”
‘John joined us and I’ll swear he shuddered as he introduced me to her. Didn’t worry her in the slightest that I’d heard her, awful old biddy that she was. And talk about airs and graces! She asked me to speak to “her group of ladies”. I said I’d rather not, but I’d think about it.’
I couldn’t help myself. ‘Did you?’
‘Yes, though straight off I wished I hadn’t, Nellie. Must have been the influence of two men of God in the same place. Love and goodwill and all that. Anyway, off I went to their afternoon tea for want of something better to do.
‘There was a young woman sitting alone away from the table. She was in black and wore grief as if it were her whole life. And such a sweet face too. Not pretty, just full of goodness. I took a cuppa and a sandwich over and sat with her.
‘“You had someone over there?” I asked.
‘“Yes,” she said. “My husband. He was killed almost as soon as he arrived in France. I’d like to know if he made a difference. And I’d like to know how he died.”
‘“I can’t tell you that,” I said, “but would it help if I told you a bit about how we other blokes coped?” And she smiled.
‘So I took the mayor’s wife’s offer and told them a load of rubbish. About how we were cheered by women and boys as we left England for France. How we all stood bravely in our trenches, never faltering, never scared. How we cheered as we ran towards the enemy. Some of it was true, though. How when we stood down we gathered together and shared news from home. How we cared about each other. How blokes went out to rescue the wounded and brought them in for treatment. Never mentioned the mud, though, and how long it took to get them in, too long mostly. I told them how the nurses were heaven-sent. How they worked all God’s hours, never gave up on a bloke and were as tough as us. I went on for about an hour.
‘Afterwards my quiet lady told me her husband hadn’t wanted to go; didn’t need to go because he had a weak chest, but someone sent him a white feather and he went. Well, I wanted to get back up and tell those sanctimonious old biddies what it was really like living in mud, in freezing, wet, filthy trenches. Of watching good men die. Of being afraid of dying yourself. One of them must have sent that poor man to his death – a weak chest in the trenches! He didn’t have a hope. I wanted to make them understand that they had committed murder. But I couldn’t. It would have made her even more unhappy, if that were possible.’
‘Did you go because of a white feather?’ I asked.
‘No, Nell,’ Dad said. ‘I went because I thought it was the right thing to do. But that was my choice. And no one has the right to force a man to go through that.’
DAD MUST HAVE BEEN TALKING TO THOSE OLD BIDDIES about the time Jack stopped sweating altogether and started eating a bit more and stayed awake longer. Martha would sit in a chair just outside his door and read to him. Oliver Twist kept them going for days. I’d sit and listen if I could, and soon after Martha had started on it Jack asked her not to read it unless I was there. She made it sound real.
It wasn’t long before he was sitting up.
‘You girls can go and sit with Jack now,’ Mum said, smiling. ‘He’s over it and just needs to get stronger.’
Martha spent lots of time with him, which made me feel bad.
‘You should be studying, shouldn’t you?’ I asked.
‘I do anyway,’ she said. ‘I just stay up a bit longer at night.’
And you could tell. Her eyes sat in dark circles and she moved slowly. Sometimes you had to ask her things twice. But she never said ‘No’ when Jack asked for a reading session.
‘How can I not,’ she said, ‘when we came so close to losing him?’
It wasn’t long before Jack could lean on Martha’s shoulder and walk around the house. We all took turns at being his walking stick and soon he was moving around on his own.
Billy was finally let into the house.
‘Could Jack go out on the front verandah in the afternoons?’ Billy asked. ‘And perhaps,’ he added with a grin, ‘with his leg bandaged?’
Mum laughed. ‘Oh, Billy, you’ve known all along, haven’t you?’
So, if it wasn’t too cold, Billy and Jack sat on the front verandah when Billy was back from school. They waved at people passing by and sometimes Jack limped to the gate to talk to them. He became very good at limping.
Washing went down to the normal once a week and Mum sent Martha and me back to school. Pa went and had a talk to Jack’s boss and he agreed that Jack could have another fortnight off. Billy still helped Pa in the morning before school and on the weekend he came over to help in the garden if his dad had nothing for him to do. It was cold outside and our hands were chapped and our noses pink. But often the sun shone and sometimes we found ourselves warm enough to take off our jumpers.
Mum and Pa pruned Mum’s roses: nasty little cuttings with thorns that caught into you when you weren’t concentrating. We made a bonfire of them because Pa says they don’t rot down and can’t go into the compost.
Jack and me spent some of our time in the stables. Jack looked like that funny man on the advertisements for rubber tyres, Mum had him so rugged up. Pa gave us the dubbin tin and we rubbed and polished all the spare harness while we waited for Bessie to come home. And then we sprang into action, helping Pa unharness her, rubbing her down, drying her poor wet hair. Pa talked to her all the time. We’d already filled her trough and she waffled and snorted over her oats.
Sometimes we’d go in with Pa for a cuppa, but if Billy came around we stayed in the stable and kept talking. Billy loved the horses but he said they weren’t going to be able to stand up to trucks and cars.
‘They stood up to trains,’ I yelled.
‘But they run on tracks, Nell, and you needed horses to take things to the station to load them. Betcha your dad changes over to a truck when he comes home.’
‘Betcha he doesn’t,’ I said.
‘Where would Bessie go if Dad changed to a truck?’ I asked Pa later.
‘There’s probably room for both a truck and a horse for a while,’ he said. ‘Bessie will work out her life with me, but your dad will have to look to the future.’
Sometimes Billy and Jack talked about their plans for the future. I thought back over what Mr Brooks had said.
‘I could be your bookkeeper or something.’
‘You’d have to stay at school longer, Nell,’ Billy warned.
Mightn’t be too bad, I thought. If Martha can do it, why can’t I? Perhaps she’s not the only bright spark. I didn’t mean that nastily. It’s just that I’d never thought I could be like her.
Jack smirked. ‘Perhaps we could all go into business together?’
I didn’t tell Billy and Jack that I’d already decided on that.
‘FINALLY,’ SAID DAD, ‘THE QUARANTINE WAS LIFTED. ALL we had to do was wait for a train to come down. They weren’t running all that often, but when one showed up the town did us proud. Gave us our own little parade to see us off.’
The chaplain had suggested the soldiers assemble at the church. When they did, true to form, he insisted we have our own little church parade. He was in uniform and a couple of returned soldiers joined them.
‘It wasn’t too bad,’ said Dad. ‘Sort of rounded things off for us. Gave us a chance to remember together before the town band arrived and we set off.
‘The chaplain took the lead as
he should and we marched down to the station. The mayor was there, his old biddy with him. They held the train up while he made a speech and thanked us for saving the Empire. Lot of twaddle. My lady friend was there and she gave me a small wave and a smile as we were getting on to the train. The chaplain noticed.
‘“That was kindly done, Harry,” he said and nodded towards her. “And I hope some of those old harridans live to regret their actions.”
‘I laughed. “That’s not the words I expect to hear from a man of religion.”
‘“Ah well,” he said with a smile. “We are all flawed in one way or another.”
‘And we started on the last leg home to the sound of a brass band and the townsfolk cheering.’
We’d had another telegram from Dad: ‘TRAIN 10.00 AM THURSDAY’.
Pa looked at Mum and said, ‘Not again, Lizzie. Just keep it quiet.’
But Mum insisted on a slap-up lunch at least, so Pa killed another chook and I started putting some eggs aside for Mum. Some of the chooks had gone off laying so we were a bit short. It was to be like a special Sunday lunch: roast chicken, potatoes, pumpkin and beans with a trifle for afters. Jack and Billy were to go to the pub as soon as we got home from the station and bring back jugs of beer. Billy climbed onto the washhouse roof and threw lemons down to me so Martha could make lemonade. I didn’t have trouble getting to sleep the night before Dad’s homecoming this time. I was so tired I headed off to bed straight after tea.
And Billy arrived early with the newspaper again. This time the story was ‘War hero home today at last’. They used the old photo of Dad and retold the story of his medal. I heard Mum and Jack exclaiming over it in the kitchen, but I didn’t feel like getting up. When Mum came in to tell me to hurry up, I asked for a few more moments. I ached all over and really didn’t think I could get out of bed. When Mum came back fifteen minutes later I definitely couldn’t get out of bed.
Pa, Mum, Jack and Martha crowded around my bed. Mum was crying.
War's End Page 10
