Women and War

by Janet Tanner

  She pulled her head away, looking at him from beneath those long thick lashes, and he felt his stomach contract.

  ‘Perhaps we ought to be going back now,’ she said. ‘But we can come back here again, can’t we? There will be other times?’

  He touched his lips to her forehead again. ‘Oh yes,’ he said.

  When she was adjudged fit enough to resume duties the CO came to see Tara. ‘ Well, m’dear, Bruce Callow seems to think it would do you good to take on some light duties. I explained you were coming to work for me and he agreed it was just the job for you.’

  ‘No,’ said Tara.

  The CO swabbed at his face with a large khaki handkerchief. It was a hot day and the perspiration was trickling down towards his sandy moustache.

  ‘I won’t overwork you – give you my word on that. Make me a nice cup of Earl Grey, keep my desk tidy, generally help about the place and …’

  ‘No,’ Tara said again. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I really would prefer to go back to my old duties.’

  ‘Nursing orderly?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Hmm!’ He snorted, and wiped the droplets of perspiration out of his moustache. ‘I thought you were quite agreeable to the change in duties.’

  ‘That was before …’ Tara broke off. ‘I’d rather stay where I am.’

  The CO folded his handkerchief and placed it in the pocket of his shorts. ‘I could make it an order.’ He looked up, noted the mutinous set of Tara’s lips and continued hastily: ‘ But I won’t. Perhaps when you are feeling quite fit again you will change your mind.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Tara said. And the CO had no way of knowing the vow she had made in the weeks of her convalescence and was making again now as she looked him straight in the eye. Never, never again will I place myself in a man’s power. No, no matter what it costs me.

  The following week Tara went back to work on the wards. Her training was intensified now, she discovered, and she was treated less as a maid of all work and more as a student. Throughout September and October she moved from ward to ward and department to department gaining knowledge and experience.

  Was it because of what had happened, she wondered? Or because of her status as Richard’s girlfriend? Or merely because, with the war intensifying its stranglehold, more men were needed for the front line and more women had to be fully trained to take their places.

  What a year it had been! In Europe, distant in miles but not in thoughts, England and Germany were bombing the hearts out of each other’s cities. In the deserts of North Africa, the ‘Rats of Tobruk’ with many Australians amongst them were holed up defying the might and cunning of Rommel. But it was here in the Pacific, where the Japs were rampant, that the greatest danger to Australia lay. They had suffered defeats in May and June, it was true, in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, but the fighting that had followed, and was still continuing, was fierce and bloody – and oh so close to home shores!

  As changes were made to gear up the medical services to meet the new challenges, there were movements amongst the staff of 138 and faces Tara had become familiar with disappeared from the scene as they were posted elsewhere – one officer to a special burns unit, a detachment of nurses to a fever isolation hospital in the south, and George Marshall, the dental officer who had compèred her concert, despatched to an AGH in Queensland where he was needed to help deal with casualties suffering fractured jaws as a result of battle injuries.

  Kate Harris was seconded to Leaping Lena, the hospital train, an uncertain contraption comprised of converted cattle trucks which huffed, puffed and slithered twice-weekly from the Adelaide River to Katherine and back again. Tara missed her but thought it was probably good for her to be doing something completely different – it would help to keep her mind off the fact that she had still received no news of her fiancé in the hands of the Japs in Singapore.

  What would I do if it were Richard? Tara wondered. I’d go crazy, so I would. Not to know whether he was wounded or sick, alive or even dead. She shivered and the shiver seemed to come from that cold place inside her that lay just beneath the surface, a lair where vague apprehensions and insidious fears lurked and the tiny voice of caution which niggled at her sometimes in the dead of night, warning her that loving a man as much as she loved Richard was an affront to a jealous God.

  Not that their relationship had progressed quite as fast as Tara had hoped. They spent most of their spare time together, it was true, walking in the hills and driving out when Richard was able to get the keys of a ute to explore the countryside within reach from Pine Creek to Edith Falls, where freshwater crocs lived in the deep rock pools. Sometimes, they went for chop picnics with a dozen others, their appetites sharpened by the fresh air and satisfied by the freshly harvested fruit thoughtfully supplied by a local grower. Or they went to the picture shows and mess dances that were arranged by the surrounding camps. But whatever they did Richard remained slightly aloof, treating Tara with an old-world courtesy which was gratifying but also slightly frustrating. It was wonderful, of course, to be placed on a pedestal, to have her wishes considered, to be treated like a lady. But Tara also found it confusing and not a little disconcerting. When a man grabbed you at least you knew he found you attractive – in Tara’s world men took what they wanted or at least tried to. If they did not try it probably meant they did not want.

  But then of course Richard was not from her world. Richard was different.

  Occasionally, he talked about his family and Tara listened with fascination and awe – and just a touch of discomfort. His father was an eminently successful Melbourne surgeon; his mother was the daughter of a family who could trace their ancestry back to government administrators in the days when Australia had been a penal colony; his sister was married to some high ranking official in the diplomatic corps.

  When he asked about her own family she nervously concocted stories of a father who had been a merchant sea captain, drowned when she was a child, and a mother fallen on hard times.

  ‘But sure we don’t want to talk about me!’ she would say, sliding the conversation back to the subject of which she never tired – his ranch-style home in the Melbourne hills with a stable of thoroughbred horses, a house filled with every conceivable luxury and a swimming pool of Olympic proportions.

  ‘We had a swimming pool,’ she said once, rashly, and then added quickly, ‘when I was in Sydney that was. When I was staying with friends.’

  He did not press it and she was relieved. Then later it worried her that he had not. If he was interested in her – really interested – surely he would be as eager to know about her background as she was to hear about his.

  Except, of course, that it was not only love that made her avid for every detail but fascination for a world of which she knew nothing. Oh, Red had been powerful and wealthy, but Richard was something different again, and his heritage and lifestyle were as far removed from her own as the moon or Mars. What would he think if he knew the truth about her? She shuddered, a goose walking over her grave.

  But he did not know and there was no need for him to know. The only people who were aware of her past were far away and Dev, who had suspected, had not been seen since the night of the concert. She thought of him sometimes and wondered what had become of him and when she thought, it was with a pang of regret. The memory of the way she had felt when he kissed her still had the power to bring the colour to her cheeks and it was usually followed by a moment of guilt mixed with anxiety. She had not, she supposed, treated Dev very well. If she was honest with herself she had to admit she had used him just as you often use men, a small voice of conscience whispered. ‘Oh fiddle, I didn’t do anything but get him to help me with the lights for the concert and that gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure,’ she whispered back, but she knew it was more than that, and that when she had ignored him for Richard she had really hurt him. That was one explanation of why she had seen nothing of him since.

  Another, of course, was that he
had found some other way of getting rid of his anger and frustration – a way that had got him into trouble. She hoped that he had not done anything silly, like getting himself arrested and thrown into gaol. The provosts were everywhere and their tempers were known to be nasty if they were crossed. There was no state of marital law in the Northern Territory, but the provosts tried to run it that way and with a gun in their hands argument with them was pointless. Tara shivered, then gave herself a little shake. Sean Devlin was more than capable of looking after himself. Anyone who thought otherwise was fooling themselves.

  And so the days slipped by, the halcyon days of the hot dry winter, when the Northern Territory wove its spell. There were, of course, sharp reminders of the war – a trainload of badly wounded men, news of the death of former patients and a doctor some of them had known – but mostly the conflict seemed very far away.

  If only it could go on this way forever, Tara thought. Not the war, of course, but 138 AGH cut off in a time warp. Never mind the others – she and Richard, the balmy climate and the lovely wild country. Just let her have him to herself for a little longer and she could break through his reserve – she knew she could. She was halfway to doing it already.

  Towards the end of October Matron Swift sent for Tara.

  ‘I don’t know if you have heard the rumours about the formation of a new women’s service,’ she said directly.

  ‘One or two,’ Tara admitted.

  ‘And what have you heard?’

  ‘That if I want to go on working with 138 AGH I am going to have to join the army.’

  ‘Hmm. Well that is one way of putting it, I suppose. The fact is that discussions have been underway at the highest level with a view to regularizing the position of all you VAs who are attached to military units on a full-time basis. There are plans to form a new force of enlisted medical aids – the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service, I believe it is to be called. Naturally, as a serving VA you will be eligible for enlistment.’

  Tara chewed her lip. She was not sure she was keen on the idea of formally enlisting. It sounded too regimented to be comfortable.

  ‘Will I have to?’

  ‘I think you probably will. The VA category is to return to being just that – part time voluntary workers – and I dare say you will find it to your advantage in many respects to enlist in the AAMWS.’

  ‘I see.’ Tara’s mind was racing.

  ‘Not that it’s been formed yet,’ Matron went on. ‘But I don’t think it will be very long before it is.’ She tapped a sheet of printed paper lying on the desk in front of her. ‘This is a directive stating that future VAs will be issued with khaki uniforms similar to those worn by the Women’s Army Service. It seems to me the writing is on the wall, Tara.’

  Tara’s hands flew protectively to her blue dress. ‘Khaki!’ Her tone reflected her horror. ‘You mean I have got to …?’

  A flicker of impatience crossed Matron Swift’s smooth face. Personally she was convinced that khaki would be a much more sensible colour. These blue dresses were all very well but when a VA was wearing a full uniform, navy blue and a white shirt with a starched collar, it was hardly the most suitable attire for long periods of duty or travelling in a sticky, steamy climate. But try telling a vain young girl that. Her only concern, no doubt, was whether khaki would make her complexion look sludge-coloured too.

  ‘You will be permitted to continue wearing your blues as long as they are serviceable,’ she said.

  ‘Phew!’ Tara whistled irreverently.

  Matron glared. ‘That is all I can tell you at the moment but I thought you should know what is being planned.’ She picked up the directive and speared it onto a filing spike. It was a gesture of dismissal which not even Tara could misunderstand.

  ‘Thank you, Matron,’ she said. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  The last week in October was a busy one. A young soldier from one of the US camps had been brought in suffering from a high temperature, head pains, sickness and a neck so stiff he was unable to touch his chest with his chin and meningitis was diagnosed. He had been moved at once into the isolation ward well away from the rest of the hospital but Richard, in whose care he was, still feared the worst.

  ‘I hope to heaven we don’t end up with an epidemic,’ he said fervently.

  Tara, who knew all about epidemics from her days in the slums of Sydney, shivered. Nursing men with a variety of wounds was one thing but being forced into contact with those who could pass on serious illness through invisible bugs and microbes was quite another.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ she asked.

  ‘He might, if it’s the less serious strain. But meningitis is a killer, make no mistake about it. And if he lives it could leave him with serious brain damage of one sort or another.’

  ‘Holy Mother.’ Tara closed her eyes momentarily, crossing herself. She had not seen the young soldier but she could picture him all right – fresh-faced, gum-chewing, crew-cut, no doubt. Perhaps he had come to her concert, watched with eyes that might now be permanently blinded, listened with ears which might be stone deaf … And then again maybe he was the one who … Maybe this was his punishment … Tara shook herself mentally. For God’s sake stop it! Don’t even think such terrible thoughts! How can you go on nursing here when you do?

  Richard reached for her hand and as his fingers curled round hers she knew why she would remain, in spite of the memories – or lack of them – in spite of the epidemics, in spite of the teeming torrential Wet which would soon return to the Territory, swamping them, covering their shoes and clothes with mildew, putrifying bites and sores, driving men mad. As long as Richard was here too she would endure anything – anything! – and still find it easy to smile.

  ‘Take care you don’t contract something yourself,’ she said urgently. ‘You’re looking very tired.’

  He smiled wanly. ‘Am I? Let’s not go any further then – let’s sit down. Here’s an old gum that managed to fall down in exactly the right spot.’

  He lowered himself to the ground, easing his back against the fallen tree, and Tara sat down beside him. They were working a split shift today, both of them, and had snatched the opportunity to take a late afternoon walk along the river before going back on duty.

  ‘The trouble is I didn’t get much sleep last night,’ he went on. ‘If the crisis came I wanted to be there. I should be there now …’

  ‘Hush!’ Tara leaned over and silenced him with her lips. ‘You can’t be there all the time. Besides, he’s not the only one who needs you. I need you too – and I’ve hardly seen you this past week.’

  He did not answer but he slipped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him. She settled in, nestling her head into the hollow between his chin and shoulder and resting her head against his drawn up knee. Then after a moment she turned, nuzzling him and seeking his throat with her lips and teeth. His shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and the skin tasted salty. She kissed it, letting her tongue run in tiny darting circles then looking up at him along the jutting planes of his face. Their eyes met, blue holding blue, and he smiled faintly. Her fingers trailed from his knee to the long hard muscle in the front of his thigh and he moved suddenly, lifting her bodily across his lap. He kissed her as she straddled him, with a depth and intensity that almost took her breath and she strained towards him, her heart beating hard with happiness as it always did when he kissed her this way – he does love me! He does! He must!

  His arms were around her, one hand exploring the length of her bare arm. She took it, moving it to her breast and squirming in ecstasy. Beneath the movement of his fingers and palm her nipple rose hard and erect; without moving his hand she unbuttoned the bodice of her dress and shivered with delight as his fingers slid inside. Now her nipple was rasping against his palm and it was as if a silver thread, so fine, so taut, ran from it to her very core. She moved her legs across his, wriggling and writhing as the hard cap of his knee inserted itself in the soft crooked underside of h
er own. Shivers ran up her hamstrings to join the silver cord attached to her tingling nipple.

  Oh delight, delight! That such tiny touches could give such exquisite pleasure, start such powerful longings …

  She put her lips to his again and felt her own longing echoed there. Tenderness became aggression, restraint was overcome by demand. Gently, he pressed her back so that she was no longer cushioned on his lap but lying on the scratchy turf and he was above her, blotting out the sun.

  The breath came out of her on a sigh. At last – at last! She closed her eyes, waiting for the weight of his body, arching towards it, every nerve singing with longing. When it came it was brief, searingly brief, and she snapped open her eyes to see him sitting up again, running his hands up over his face and through the thick gold of his hair.

  For a moment she could not speak. Hurt and disappointment were numbing her, freezing her vocal chords and thought and reason with them. Her body still tingled with desire, as a light bulb radiates a glow for a few moments after the current is switched off. Then she shook her head slowly, looking up at him with puzzled eyes.

  ‘Why?’

  His knuckles were pressed against his mouth now and he was staring over them unseeingly. The electric charge was still high in him too; she could feel it creating an aura all around him.

  ‘Because it would not be fair to you,’ he said.

  ‘To me?’ The words of surprise were forced from her.

  ‘We have gone as far as we should. Probably further.’

  ‘But why?’

  He turned. His eyes were haunted.

  ‘Tara, you have had a rough time. After what happened …’

  ‘But I love you …’ she was almost weeping with frustration.

  Something flickered across his face. ‘Hear me out, Tara. After what happened to you, you deserve to be treated with the highest regard. If I … make love to you now it would be because I was committed to you. And in war time it is just not possible to make that sort of commitment. I want you, darling, believe me, but that is not the way it should be.’