Women and War

by Janet Tanner

  ‘I just wish I’d known you were coming,’ he said again. ‘If I had known maybe I could have arranged some leave myself.’

  The imp of disappointment and rejection twisted within her to something close to anger.

  ‘I thought you used up all your leave going to Melbourne.’

  ‘Yes – well …’ His eyes slid away from hers. ‘ I’m sorry about that but as I explained when I wrote to you my father has been very poorly. I felt I ought to get down to see him in case he didn’t make it through the winter.’

  ‘But he has,’ she said. Her voice sounded hard to her own ears and she thought: I must not be this way. Richard can’t help the way he is. It’s how he has been brought up – all cold politeness and family commitment, but no real warmth. If I go on like this I shall spoil everything.

  ‘In any case,’ he continued, ‘I have got a day off duty tomorrow. We can spend that together. Maybe we could get right away – down to the Gold Coast. Or even take a launch out to one of the islands. Right now though I ought to get back to the hospital. The bloke who was brought in was in quite a bad way – motorcycle accident. I may be needed.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said dully.

  ‘You look shattered. Did you get any sleep last night?’

  ‘No, not really. I only dozed.’ She had not felt tired before, adrenalin had buoyed her up. Now, she realized her eyes were heavy and a dazed sensation was beginning to deaden her senses and thought processes.

  ‘We’ll see if we can find you somewhere to have a rest then. And by tomorrow you should be fit for a really nice day out.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said again.

  And hoped that tomorrow would not be too late.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Tara pushed her half-eaten chicken piece back into the picnic box, tossed the remains of her bread to the hovering seagulls and rolled over on the sand, resting her forehead against her arm.

  Richard, a beer in his hand, looked down at her with a faintly anxious expression.

  ‘What’s wrong, Tara?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Her voice was muffled.

  He reached across, putting a hand on her sunwarmed shoulder. ‘Come on, something is. You can’t fool me. You’re not yourself. You haven’t been yourself ever since you came. What is it?’

  She sighed. The sand was gritty beneath her cheek. She shifted her head a little farther up onto her arm, hating herself for the mood which she knew was spoiling this precious stolen day, yet quite unable to shake herself out of it. She was on edge and she knew it. All day yesterday the tension had been there, stretching her nerves tight, so that it was an effort to speak naturally to anyone without revealing her fear of discovery. And though that fear had lessened today when he had brought her out to the island, blown away by the stiff breeze as the launch he had commissioned had skimmed them across the waves, there had been a new anxiety ready to creep in – the awful sick fear that Richard had not wanted to see her as much as she had wanted to see him, the growing certainty that something was not as it should be in their marriage.

  It had begun, she supposed, with his cool greeting, yet that could have been explained by his natural reserve. But it was more than that – even when they were alone together there was an awkwardness that made her feel distant from him, as if they were strangers.

  She had wanted him to make love to her the moment they landed on the island; if he had swept her off her feet and carried her into the funny little beach house on stilts, straddling the island’s only river, where he had arranged for them to spend the night, it would have been all right. She could have broken through that reserve, demolished it stone by stone with the warmth and passion and love that flowed through her in great dizzying waves. But he had not. He had been content to talk and swim – and her sense of frustration had thickened until it began to choke her. She had never much liked swimming and talking seemed such a waste of precious time! As for lunch – the food had stuck in her throat, catching on the thickening knot of tension.

  Now, as the touch of his hand on her shoulder stirred her senses once more and rekindled her desire, she turned over again, sitting up and leaning against him with only the dusting of fine gritty sand separating the skin of her back from his bare chest.

  He slid his arm around her, holding her there, and for a moment they sat in silence looking down the deserted beach to where the sea ran in ripples of blue, broad bands of colour which sparkled almost cornflower where they touched the land, until further out they became deep rich aquamarine, blotched in places by dark patches of weed.

  On the far side of the island the huge Pacific rollers pounded in, rollers which a surfer could ride in a dizzying heart-stopping sweep, but here on the landward side they were gentle and rhythmic and the roar and suck as they reached the beach was almost hypnotic in its regularity.

  ‘Have you missed me?’ she asked.

  She almost felt the surprise stiffen the sinews of his arm.

  ‘What a peculiar thing to say! Of course I’ve missed you!’

  ‘No, I mean really missed me. I’ve missed you so much! I’ve lain awake at night thinking what you might be doing and wanting – oh, just wanting you to be near me! Have you felt like that?’

  ‘Tara!’ He turned his head and kissed her face; the touch of his lips on the sensitive jut of her cheek bone sent a tremor of longing coursing through her once more. But still he made no move to go beyond that single chaste kiss and she felt the tears sting her eyes and begin to run in silent rivers down her cheeks.

  ‘Tara!’ he said again and the concern in his voice only made her tears run faster. ‘ What is it? Tell me, please.’

  Still she could not speak. There was nothing she could say for she knew now it went much deeper than just the tensions between them since she had arrived, knew her unhappiness was rooted in her fears that she was not, could never be, the wife he wanted. I tricked him into marrying me, she thought, and this is my punishment. Never to be sure that he really wanted me, except for a fleeting physical attraction. And even that seemed to have faded, now. She had thought that given the chance she could build on that attraction, believed that her love was strong enough to envelope both of them. But it had not worked out like that and with the loss of that one area of common ground, it seemed that everything else was slipping away, too, and turning them into two strangers.

  Please tell me I am wrong, she wanted to say. Please tell me you do love me and you don’t care that I am not sophisticated and cultured and elegant – like Alys. But she could not bring herself to put it into words. Drawing attention to the differences between them could only make things worse.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Just me being silly.’

  He twisted her round and pulled her close.

  ‘It’s been hard on you, hasn’t it? New Guinea hasn’t been any picnic I know.’

  She laid her face against his chest and after a while her sobs subsided. He held her until the tiny pinpricks of chemistry began to stir in them, bringing first one area to awareness then another. His hands moved over her bare sandy back and she sat quite still feeling the desire begin to flow in her once more, yet unwilling to make any move. This time it had to come from him.

  ‘Oh Tara.’ His lips were in her hair where it tangled, sticky with salt and sand, on her forehead and involuntarily she lifted her face. But it was his mouth which took hers, kissing her with an intensity which seemed to have erupted from the very soul of him so that he was now the aggressor and she was drowning in him.

  Almost without knowing how she got there she was lying on the sand. The pressure of his body on hers seemed to release the weight of her heart and senses and she could no longer hold back from the mounting compulsion to respond to him, open like a sea anemone, have him within her. Doubts and anxieties and heartaches were forgotten as the age-old magic transformed her and she could think of nothing but his nearness and her need.

  Afterwards, as they lay still damply entwined hearing the pull and rush of t
he sea and the calling of the seabirds, the doubts began to return but she pushed them away. Don’t let that mood descend again; don’t spoil everything.

  The day and night which followed became a dream, something stolen, unreal almost, in the midst of the continuing frenzy of the war. Now that the barriers had come down they talked and laughed and made love more easily, and Tara found that her appetite had returned so that she was ravenously hungry for the tropical fruit and fresh fish that the island could provide.

  Only the next morning when the launch arrived for them on the wooden jetty did the ache of sadness and anxiety begin to return. It was over. They had to return to the real world.

  On the way back to the mainland she sat close beside Richard, holding tightly to his hand and willing this closeness to go on forever, to transcend whatever was to come.

  Should she tell him now what she had done? Try to explain? But she could not bring herself to do it – it might be unnecessary, she tried to persuade herself. If she left immediately and attempted to find a way back to New Guinea before she was apprehended or even gave herself up to the authorities, perhaps there would be no need for him to know.

  The launch returned them to Brisbane, the car Richard had arranged for was waiting to take them back to the AGH. Tara’s depression deepened but this time she fought to hide it.

  ‘Chin up,’ Richard said, taking her hand. ‘This war can’t last much longer now. It’ll soon be over, you’ll see.’

  She nodded, looking up at him and memorising every line of his face to take with her into whatever lay ahead.

  ‘I love you, Richard.’

  ‘And I love you. Don’t forget it.’

  The moment they drew up outside the AGH and she saw the military police vehicle waiting she knew what it meant. A provost stood beside it and there would be others, she guessed, inside the hospital, asking the questions which would mean the end of her brief freedom.

  ‘You go on in, Richard,’ she said. Her heart was beating very hard, her stomach seemed to have fallen away within her.

  It was over. She knew it with the certainty that she knew the sun would rise tomorrow and that the hot Australian summer would soon follow the spring which had already begun. But she did not want him to be there to see the moment when it ended.

  He glanced at her questioningly.

  ‘There is something I have to do,’ she said.

  He bent and kissed her lightly and she watched him walk away towards the hospital buildings. What would he think when he knew what she had done? She did not know. But he had said he loved her. Pray that he loved her enough to forgive – and understand. With a characteristic lift of her head, Tara crossed to the military vehicle and the waiting provost.

  ‘I am Tara Allingham,’ she said and there was no hint of nervousness in her voice. ‘Are you by any chance looking for me?’

  ‘What on earth were you thinking of, Allingham?’

  Major Rice, seated behind her desk, glared angrily at Tara.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am.’ Tara fidgeted uncomfortably, beneath her gaze.

  ‘Keep still, can’t you?’ the AAMWS officer snapped and Tara came smartly to attention, her rigid stance hiding her quaking heart.

  She had been right in thinking the provosts at 138 were looking for her. They had arrested her and brought her back and their stony treatment of her had been every bit as bad as Tara had expected it would be. But one thing had been worse. As long as she lived she did not think she would forget Richard’s face when they drove away with her. His bewilderment and distress would live with her in nightmares for many weeks to come, his disbelief that his wife could flout the regulations of her service would rankle, for even longer.

  ‘I am very disappointed in you, Allingham,’ the Major continued. ‘A great deal of trust was placed in you and you have let us down. Badly. I am waiting to hear your explanation for your behaviour.’

  Tara hesitated, trying to sum up Major Rice’s mood so as to present her case in the most advantageous manner. The Major’s gaze was frosty and uncompromising and Tara decided upon frankness – and a touch of pathos.

  ‘I wanted to see my husband, ma’am. I hadn’t seen him for nearly a year.’

  ‘There is a war on, Allingham. In times such as these separations are inevitable.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. It was wrong of me. But we have only spent two weeks together since we were married. I just had to see him. I’m sorry. I won’t ever do it again.’

  She glanced up under her lashes trying to gauge Major Rice’s reaction, then snapped them quickly down again as she saw the mouth tighten beneath the fine line of hair which might almost be the beginnings of a moustache.

  ‘Indeed you will not! Or at least if you do you may expect to be dealt with extremely severely!’ Her words heartened Tara as her expression had not. She rifled through the papers on her desk and drew out a sheet covered with handwriting which Tara recognized as Richard’s. ‘I have a letter here from your husband setting out what he thought we might consider mitigating circumstances, but I wanted to hear what you had to say for yourself by way of explanation.’ A pause. ‘ Do you realize the seriousness of what you did? Absenting yourself without leave, taking an unauthorized passage on an Allied transport – you could be court martialled for this, you know.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Tara said meekly.

  The Major looked up. ‘Well, on this occasion I am going to deal with you leniently. I have decided not to take that course of action, justified as it may well be. I am of the opinion it will be sufficient punishment if you are relieved of your responsibilities at the club. Additionally, you will be stripped of your rank and you will return to your former duties as an orderly. And I assure you that should you ever again behave in such a stupidly irresponsible manner you will be dealt with with the utmost severity. That will be all, Allingham.’

  Tara snapped to attention once more. ‘Yes. Thank you, ma’am.’

  Outside the office she relaxed, letting her breath out on along sigh. It could have been worse. She had been lucky, she knew. But lucky to be going back to cleaning latrines – and washing bandages …?

  With a slightly impatient movement Tara lifted her chin: Richard had said the war would soon be over. For goodness’ sake, in this at least, pray that he was right!

  Tara emerged from the latrine, set down her bucket and leaned against the wooden door, pressing her fist against her mouth. The faint smell of disinfectant on her fingers tickled up her nose and seeped down into her stomach, bringing a fresh wave of nausea. She removed her hand hastily, tipping back her head and taking great gulps of fresh air.

  Holy Mother but she felt sick! It was not like her. She was never ill – well, almost never. But these last few days she had begun to wonder whether she might be going down with one of the tropical diseases. Hardly surprising, really, when you took into account the conditions she had to work under. But what was it? Dysentery? No, not likely. The other unmistakable symptoms of dysentery were missing. Scrub typhus? God forbid! Or malaria …?

  She laid her hand against her forehead. It felt sticky and hot. The weather … or a temperature?

  Perhaps I ought to report to the MO, Tara thought. Whatever it is, the sooner they start treating me the better. And at the very least it may mean I can get a few days off from this horrible grind.

  She glanced at her watch. Too late now – the clinic would be closed for the day, except for emergencies. But if she felt no better when it was time to turn out tomorrow morning she would be the first in line at the MO’s door.

  With the prospect of a few days’ rest before her the nausea began to pass and Tara felt decidedly more cheerful. If she could swing it, it would almost be worth being ill! As long as she was not too groggy to enjoy it!

  Tara picked up her bucket once more and humming softly to herself started back down the hill.

  The MO straightened, thrust his hands back into his pockets and stood with his head slightly to one side like a bird,
looking down at Tara.

  ‘Well?’ From her position lying on the couch she had a strangely distorted view of the MO – he was a much older man than Richard, dark hair flecked grey, and from this angle the jowly skin beneath his skin looked looser and baggier than when seen straight on. ‘Well – have you decided what is wrong with me?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was looking at her oddly, she thought.

  ‘Well, what is it?’ she asked impatiently. ‘Is it serious?’

  His face did not alter by so much as a single muscle.

  ‘Nothing that nine months won’t take care of.’

  For a moment she stared back, uncomprehending. Then, as light dawned, she wriggled up into a sitting position.

  ‘You don’t mean …?’

  You’re pregnant.’

  ‘I am!’

  ‘You seem surprised. Hadn’t it occurred to you that you might be?’

  ‘No.’ It had not – not for one moment!’

  ‘You went to visit your husband a few weeks ago, did you not?’ she could hear the faint undertones of amusement in his voice now, but it was still barely registering. ‘I should have thought your condition was a very natural result of that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so, but …’ Oh, the irony of it! When she had desperately wanted to be pregnant nothing had happened. Now …‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

  He turned away, crossing to the basin and beginning to wash his hands.

  ‘As certain as I can be at this early stage. Yes, I would say almost without a doubt that you are going to have a baby. May I be the first to offer my congratulations?’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. She was still dazed. ‘What do I do now?’

  He turned back, drying his hands on a towel. ‘Medically – nothing. As far as I can make out you are a perfeclty fit and healthy young woman. Just make sure you go for regular check-ups when you get back to Australia and there is no reason why you should not present your husband with a bonny baby next Autumn.’ He reached for a pen, doing a quick calculation on his desk pad. ‘Next May, I would say.’