by Judy Nunn
But the greatest surprise was yet to come. In a matter of months Kathleen realised that she loved Otto. It was not only the sexual satisfaction which she loved, it was the man himself. The big, bullish Dutchman with the guttural accent and the greengrocer’s cart on the corner. She loved him and she was content.
Otto, however, was not. A man with a corner greengrocer’s cart was not good enough for Kathleen. So he worked hard and bought up the lease on a grocery shop at the end of Bourke Street near the docks.
The shop prospered and Otto built an extension to the old house in Woolloomooloo. It left them with no backyard, but a fine room for Robbie and Johann to share. And when Kathleen’s brother Dan moved out, the boys had a bedroom of their own. An unaccustomed luxury for two young Woolloomooloo lads.
Kathleen watched Dan go with mixed emotions, saddened but also grateful. Dan mixed with a bad crowd now, no longer just the push. She supposed she had seen it coming and she wondered if she could have done more. But it was too late; neither she nor Otto could afford to have their young sons influenced by Dan and his criminal associates.
She saw little of her brother these days. He lived at the top of Kings Cross, and rumour had it that he and his woman ran a house of ill repute, and God knew what else besides. Kathleen felt sorry for Dan, but his anger had taken him along a dangerous path and she had the sense to let him go.
‘It won’t last long, the war, and we’ll get married as soon as I comehome. In a church.’
‘And I’ll have a white dress, and a long veil, and bridesmaids.’ Robbie and Aggie said the same thing over and over, each Saturday of his weekend leave, after they’d made love in the little bedroom above the store and were lying, satisfied, in each other’s arms.
‘Oh Robbie, I wish you didn’t have to go.’ She always said that too.
‘But I do, you know that.’
The planned dispatch of troops aboard the Aberdeen liner Euripides had been deferred. The lads were restless. September was drawing to a close, and still they’d not set sail. Robbie O’Shea wasn’t sure how he felt about the delay. It meant he had another weekend leave, another night with Aggie but, like the others in camp, he longed to visit foreign parts and do battle with the enemy.
‘I love you, Aggie.’ Robbie kissed her and ran his fingers over the perfect little mounds of her young breasts. She was the first girl he’d ever made love to and there would never be another. ‘I really do.’
The next day they had lunch with Kathleen and Otto. Little was said of the war, and Johann was barely mentioned.
Robbie tried to offer a comforting word, for Otto’s sake. ‘Johann’s fine,’ he said. ‘They work us hard and he’s getting very fit.’ But Otto just grunted. Robbie decided to leave the subject alone, which was a pity, he thought, because he would have liked to have told Otto that the army was good for his son, that Johann was becoming a man.
‘By crikey, Johann’s a different bloke,’ Tim Kendall had remarked. ‘The army’s doing him good I reckon.’
‘Let’s go to the Domain,’ Kathleen suggested as they cleared away the dishes. Otto was in one of his dismal moods and it would do them all good to get out of the house.
‘Will we take Ernie with us?’ Robbie asked, patting the old dog whose head had rested on his knee throughout lunch.
‘I don’t usually these days,’ Kathleen replied, ‘not to the Domain, the walk’s abit much for him.’
Ernie was nearly fourteen, and he looked every bit of his age. He was mangy in summer and arthritic in winter; his eyes were rheumy and he was partially deaf, but still Kathleen refused to have him put down. It would break Robbie’s heart, she said to Otto every time he suggested it. Besides, the dog didn’t seem to be in much pain, except for the particularly cold days when his arthritis played up. Even then, he never complained, just sat on his rug in the kitchen, looking tired. Kathleen loved the old dog.
‘Let’s give it a go, Mum,’ Robbie said. ‘I’ll bring him home if he gets crook.’
Otto didn’t come with them; he wanted to put in some new shelving at the shop, he said, and Kathleen thought it was just as well. Otto was best left alone when he was in one of his moods. He’d work off his ill-humour with hard physical labour as he always did.
Kathleen, Robbie and Aggie set off through the streets of Woolloomooloo, Robbie resplendent in his military uniform, old Ernie plodding behind. When they reached the steep hill which led to the Domain, they slowed down so the dog could catch up.
‘You’re a good old boy, aren’t you,’ Robbiesaid, squatting beside the dog and scratching his ears when Ernie came wheezing up to them.
‘I don’t know how you can do that,’ Aggie screwed up her nose in distaste, ‘he’s so dirty.’ Aggie never patted Ernie.
It had been the girl’s repugnance towards Ernie which had first alienated Kathleen. A silly and shallow reaction, she knew, but she hadn’t been able to help herself. Now, as they continued up the hill, Aggie refusing to hold Robbie’s hand because he’d been scratching the dog—‘He’s got mange,’ she complained—Kathleen felt irritated.
She was annoyed with herself for feeling so, but something about the girl rubbed her up the wrong way. Try as she might, Kathleen simply could not warm to Aggie, and she wished that Robbie had not settled upon his first love affair. But then that was typical of Robbie. Always deeply affected by the events in his life, his first sexual experience was bound to have had a profound impact.
She was certainly a pretty girl, Kathleen thought as she watched them up ahead, Robbiewith his arm around Aggie’s tiny waist. A little on the slim side in Kathleen’s opinion, but a beautiful body, long slender back and well-shaped arms, and beneath her straw boater, her hair was the colour of corn, thick and curly, framing a pretty, pert face.
Kathleen had felt sorry for Aggie when she’d applied for the job at the shop. Just turned seventeen, the girl had had a hard life. Brought up by her widowed and destitute mother, the main influence in Aggie’s young life had been the Christian workers at the Jubilee School, a charitable institution run by the Sydney Ragged School Movement. The Jubilee School was dedicated to the ‘rescue and salvation’ of children who would otherwise have been destined to a life on the streets, and Aggie had obviously been a model student. She was a well-mannered girl with an air of refinement about her. Kathleen had insisted that they give her the job, even though Otto had thought she was too young.
What a pity Aggie annoyed her, Kathleen thought, she would have so liked to feel affection for her future daughter-in-law. But then perhaps there was no girl good enough for her only son, she reprimanded herself. She really must try harder.
The Domain was more crowded than ever this sunny Sunday afternoon. Hundreds upon hundreds of people mingled in the vast public parkland, some wandering down the rocky peninsula to picnic at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, or to throw a fishing line off the wharf at Bennelong Point which was no longer a military area, old Fort Macquarie having been demolished to make way for tram-sheds. Others explored the Botanic Gardens, or visited the recently built Mitchell Library, or wandered through the Palace Garden where once had stood the magnificent but short-lived exhibition building with its famous giant dome. Most of those who came to the Domain on a Sunday, however, gathered to listen to the speakers.
In the early days the Governor’s Domain had consisted of all the land from the Tank Stream east to Walla Mulla Bay—which shortly became known as Woolloomooloo—and south to an area later known as the Inner Domain. Some of the land was set aside for government buildings, but predominantly the Domain belonged to the people and, over the years it had become the centre of free speech for the citizens of Sydney, the more vocal of whom loudly expressed their views to the crowds, who agreed or disagreed, heckled or simply stood listening.
From their boxes and platforms and ladders—some even sat in Moreton Bay fig trees—the speakers ranted and raved about every imaginable topic from the Gospel and the salvation of the human race, to the damnation
of mankind and the end of the world. There were those against capitalism, those against communism, and those against the current government. There were those for world peace, those for the rights of the working man, and those for women’s liberation.
Always the Domain reflected the people’s voice, and today, as Kathleen, her son and his fiancée mingled with the crowd, the people’s voice spoke of war. Today the Domain was taken over by the zealous call for volunteers. ‘Join the army, boys!’ the speakers screamed. ‘Fight for your King and your Country!’
‘Come on lads! Britain needs you!’
‘Be a man! Sign up today!’
The frenzy of this call to arms depressed Kathleen. Her son’s military uniform was reminder enough that he would soon be going off to war. Now, as people gave Robbie’s shoulder a hearty slap and pumped his hand effusively, saying, ‘Good on you, son, we need lads like you,’ or ‘Kill one of those dirty Huns for me, boy’, she found it offensive and disturbing.
The other soldiers amongst the crowd were receiving the same treatment, and the speakers used their presence to humiliate young men incivilian attire. ‘Shame on you, lad, look at this fine young soldier. Get yourself into a uniform!’
‘I might take Ernie home,’ Kathleen said after an hour or so. ‘He’s very tired.’
During the slow walk home, the old dog bone-weary limping behind, Kathleen gave in to her feelings of melancholy. Please God let him come home, she prayed. Please God don’t let them kill my son. For the first time Kathleen wished she had Otto’s faith. In the early days she had accompanied him and Johann to the Catholic church on Sundays, taking Robbie with them, but the Mass had been foreign to her and she’d felt like a hypocrite amongst such devotion. Gradually she’d stopped going and, to his credit, Otto had never tried to foist his religious beliefs upon her.
It wasn’t so much that she didn’t believe in God. More that she hadn’t given Him much thought. Despite the hardships in her life, and there had certainly been many, it had never occurred to Kathleen to seek God’s help, she had always relied upon her own resourcefulness. That was not enough now. Now Kathleen wished that she’d persevered with the church services. Perhaps God listened more to those who prayed in churches.
Johann’s letter arrived two days before the troops embarked for overseas.
Dear Dad
You’ll probably never forgive me for not coming to see you, and I can’t say I blame you, it was a hurtful thing to do. But to tell you the truth, I was frightened. I was frightened that you’d stop me going. You can be a tough bloke at times and I wouldn’t have been able to stand up to you. I have to go, you see, Dad. I don’t expect you to understand why, I’m not sure I do myself. But I have to be a part of it.
The main thing I wanted to tell you, and this I know you’ll understand, is that God is going with me. I’ve been to Mass each Sunday since I left home and I’ve prayed for you and Kathleen, and for all the lads of course. But most of all, I’ve prayed that you’ll forgive me.
I’m sorry that I hurt you, and I promise that I’ll write regularly while I’m away. Your loving son, Johann.
Kathleen watched as Otto read the letter. When he’d finished, he stood up from the kitchen table and nodded. ‘Johann has grown up,’ he said, passing the letter to her.
He took his mug of tea out onto the back porch. Kathleen didn’t follow, she’d seen the tears in his eyes. But ten minutes later, when he came back inside, she smiled thankfully as he embraced her.
All over Australia the units of the first contingent of the Australian Expeditionary Force were marching through the city streets to the harbours and the transport ships which awaited to take them off to war.
The Australian government had chartered the largest suitable ships in ports. Passenger liners, great wool-carriers and meat-carriers, all had been fitted with mess tables and hammocks; the horse transports had been furnished with endless stalls, spread with coconut matting and secured against heavy weather.
A large fleet of troopships, numbering A1 to A28, had been lying in various ports throughout the country for many weeks now, awaiting embarkation.
Thousands lined the streets of Sydney to farewell their sons, their fathers, their lovers, their friends, or simply to wish the lads godspeed.
Onlookers stood on tram-stop benches or on boxes they’d brought themselves; others sat in the branches of trees or perched on the pedestals of statues, clutching at the bronze and stone limbs of bygone heroes in order to get a better view of the boys going off to the war. Along the route to the harbour, every office building window was crowded with well-wishers showering streamers and yellow wattle blossom upon the troops marching proudly below.
And march proudly they did, in their own special way. A jaunty way. Rifles over shoulder, slouch hats at an angle, chin straps drawn tight, their chests thrust out and their well-muscled arms swinging, theirs was an unconventional march. Neither ragged nor precise, but boyish and enthusiastic.
Every man kept a keen eye out for his loved ones, some even marched with their sweethearts by their side, and there were smiles and winks and waves and hurrahs exchanged as names were called from the crowds, children were raised onto shoulders to wave goodbye to their fathers, and wives and mothers blew frantic kisses.
Robbie O’Shea grinned and waved to Kathleen and Otto. He gave a special wink to Aggie who was crying, but she missed it as she buried her head in her handkerchief.
Tim Kendall and his uncle Billy had no trouble picking their family out from the crowd as they marched. Little Emily, now twelve years old, was perched on Benjamin’s shoulders; Norah was waving wildly, and beside them stood Billy’s wife Marge and their two little boys. If only his mother, Beth, could have been there to watch him march, Billy thought, she would have been so proud, but Beth Kendall had died two years ago.
Further down the line were the Putman boys, Mick and his older brother Geoff. Geoff was nearly forty now but, fit as a mallee bull, he hadn’t even bothered to lie about his age. The army needed men like him. Their mother Nellie, in pride of place on the kerbside corner, having shoved her way through to the front, was giving her boys a grand old send-off. Shrieking at the top of her lungs, her husband on one side—Jack had been out of gaol for a whole two years on the trot—and her eldest son, Spotty, on the other, holding his little sister Lizzie’s hand and not looking too happy. Spotty had wanted desperately to go to the war. He’d volunteered all right, but he hadn’t passed the medical.
‘It’s just a cough,’ he’d said, ‘I’ve always had it, it doesn’t make mesick.’
But they’d told him he had bad lungs—weakened by the smallpox which had nearly killed him as a child, they said. Just his luck. Spotty watched his brothers enviously. They were going to have all the fun, and he had to stay home just because of a bleeding cough.
Otto’s eyes were searching frantically amongst the troops as they passed, he couldn’t see Johann.
‘Can you see him?’ he asked Kathleen.
‘Not yet. I’m looking. Not yet.’ She prayed that they’d not missed him. He couldn’t have passed them by. He couldn’t. Then suddenly, ‘There he is! Look, Otto. There he is!’
Johann has changed, she thought the instant she saw him. Robbie had been right. The skinny young boy was a man now, his body filled out and well formed. And, although his face was the same, deep-furrowed bridge to the nose, square-jawed, thin-lipped—the traits which had always set him apart and labelled him a foreigner—his expression was entirely different. There was a pride in his eyes now, and a joy in the curve of his mouth, there was an openness which had never been there. It was the pride of comradeship. Little Johann, the Dutchie’s kid, had finally become one of the boys.
‘Johann!’ Otto raised his giant hand and bellowed as he waved. ‘Johann!’
Johann heard his father’s voice and their eyes met across the sea of faces.
‘God go with you, my son!’ Otto yelled.
Johann grinned, and as he marched p
ast his father, he saluted.
As soon as Godfrey Streatham found out about Kendle and Streatham’s government contract, he knew immediately it had not been secured by any ethical means. He was astounded that Charles had managed to keep the secret for so long, but then the factories had remained principally his and Stephen’s concern, Godfrey concentrating upon the emporiums and the retail side of the business.
Godfrey was outraged. He called a private meeting in the boardroom of the George Street store. Just Charles, Stephen, himself and Howard.
‘We must even up the numbers, Father,’ Godfrey insisted, although Howard required little persuasion, he was as appalled as his son by the news.
‘Kendle and Streatham has enjoyed an unsullied reputation since your grandfather’s time,’ he said, his bony knuckles clenched upon the ivory handle of his walking stick as he and Godfrey stood in the store’s grand foyer waiting for the lift.
He jabbed his walking stick into the air. ‘Look,’ he said as he pointed up at the emblem emblazoned in pressed metal above the main foyer doors. “‘Kendle and Streatham, Trading on the Wings of Honour”, we have lived by that motto and now he has made a mockery of it.’
Howard was becoming seriously agitated. ‘Calm down, Father,’ Godfrey said as they stepped into the lift. ‘You must not upset yourself, it is not good for your health.’ An emotional outburst from his father would also not serve their purpose. The old man was there simply to back up Godfrey’s plan of action. ‘Calm down and leave it to me.’
The meeting in the giant oak-panelled boardroom of Kendle and Streatham went exactly as Godfrey had predicted it would. Charles ranted and raved; Stephen nodded a little from time to time, obviously agreeing with Godfrey but not daring to say so out loud; and Howard, in whom Godfrey had not confided, wildly applauded his son’s suggestion.
The plan was simple enough. All goods supplied to the army were to be sold at cost price, and all profits made from any previous sales were to be donated to the war effort. ‘As of now,’ Godfrey said, ‘before the press finds out and labels us profiteers.’
