‘Leave it with me,’ he said. ‘I will see what I can find out. I will leave a message with Mr Marshall. If you care to come back in a day or two he will let you know if I’ve learnt anything.’
In a day or two.
‘My father’s worried,’ Jess said. ‘So am I.’
‘As I said, I will find out what I can. I guarantee nothing, you understand.’
He was obviously waiting for her to go.
‘Thank you.’
She headed for the door. Just before she reached it he spoke again.
‘Miss Harcourt…’
‘Yes?’
‘The reason I am doing this is not for your sister’s benefit or your father’s. I am doing it because I admire your courage in coming to see me. Even though your sister’s situation is none of my business.’
An iceberg could not have been colder.
‘She’s your son’s friend,’ Jess said again.
She had almost said Shannon was in love with Hal but at the last moment did not dare. Sir Stoddart had said he admired her courage but she thought it might be safer to keep that sort of remark to herself.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
She went out and closed the door behind her. Only then did she discover how much her hands were shaking.
Mr Marshall was on sentry duty at the head of the stairs. He escorted her down the long polished flight of stairs to the hall, then to the kitchen. His air was that of a man impatient to be rid of an unpleasantness that might cause embarrassment to them all, if a firm hand were not applied. Therefore, Mr Marshall was at his most lordly, nor did he deign to speak.
‘Sir Stoddart said he’d leave a message for me. With you, he said. So, I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?’
Mr Marshall’s flared nostrils were the only sign of concern, but Jess Harcourt didn’t miss much.
‘I’ll say hi to April for you,’ she said.
She walked home down the dusty road. She wondered whether she’d been wise to mention April’s name. Might Mr Marshall try to get his own back on her? Then she decided that he wouldn’t dare; it could cause him a lot of trouble if he did.
It was February, still summer, but there were already signs of autumn, the air russet-coloured in the sunshine where the leaves of trees were beginning to turn. She had found out nothing to allay Dad’s fears but at least enquiries would be made, which was the best they could hope for. And Sir Stoddart had told her she was brave, which made her skip in the dusty road.
She went into the cottage, keen to tell Dad what she had done, and found him unconscious on the floor.
Jess found Doc Rigby in his rooms. He was with a patient but he was a decent bloke so got his nurse to go back with Jess and check for herself what had happened. What she found made her run back to the surgery and phone for an ambulance.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Jess asked.
‘I’d like the doctor to confirm but to me it looks like he may have had a stroke.’
Proserpine had its own hospital so in two twos Travis, who had regained consciousness, was being given a proper going over, with Doc Rigby in attendance as soon as he could get there. Travis could talk properly; he understood what was being said to him; and his arms and legs all seemed to be working as they should. All the same, Doc Rigby’s diagnosis was that Travis had definitely had a stroke.
‘Looks like quite a mild one,’ Doc Rigby said. ‘If there is such a thing as a mild stroke. But I think we’ll keep him in hospital for a day or two, just to keep an eye on him. Any way of getting hold of Shannon?’
‘She’s up in Darwin,’ Jess said. ‘We’ve heard nothing since the raid but we’re trying to find out if she’s all right.’
‘I may be able to help there,’ Doc Rigby said. ‘I’ve got a mate who’s an army medic.’
‘Dad will want to know when he can go back to work.’
Doc Rigby fiddled with a pencil on his desk. ‘Bit early to be talking about going back to work,’ he said eventually. ‘Let’s take it day by day, shall we?’
Shannon
Shannon discovered that the mateship that had flourished immediately after the raid had been replaced by the bureaucratic restrictions and absurdities that Authority deemed essential, not so much for doing the thousand and one things that now needed to be done, but in order to re-establish the hierarchy of orders and obedience, where everyone was expected to know their place.
In the chain of command, the woman driver of a five-ton truck could expect to be one of those subservient to orders rather than someone handing them out. To question that was to challenge the natural order of things and might come perilously close to insubordination.
Therefore, when Driver Harcourt enquired about an officer aboard the sunken American destroyer Peary, she might have expected to be blockaded by the normal wall of bureaucratic indifference.
‘An American officer? John J Gardner?’
The major shuffled the papers on his desk, turning them casually with only superficial scrutiny to demonstrate that he and he alone would decide whether there was any information to give and whether regulations and inclination would permit him to give it.
‘You are a relation?’
‘A friend.’
Eyes sharpened to pencil points. ‘A friend, sir.’
‘Yessir. Sorry, sir.’
‘And your interest?’
‘I want to find out what happened to him. Whether he survived the sinking, whether he was wounded, how I might get hold of him. That sort of thing. Sir.’ As an afterthought she said carelessly: ‘I understand he’s the only son of a United States congressman. Sir.’
Beneath his façade of commissioned rank, Shannon – the new Shannon – saw that the officer was faced with the problem of how to deal with her, not as a driver, but as a woman driver. Therefore, the road block of rank, weakened by indecision, was confronted by the determination of the woman, and determination won.
Unhappily, to little purpose: Lieutenant Junior Grade John J Gardner was not among the handful of survivors who’d been rescued from the sunken destroyer.
‘It’s early days,’ the major said. ‘He may have got ashore somewhere. But I have to tell you the signs are not good.’
Shannon felt really bad about it. She’d liked him. He’d been polite, good company and hadn’t pushed himself on her. He’d wanted to kiss her but she hadn’t let him. She wished she had, now, but that was life, wasn’t it? Too late for kisses, too late for John Gardner. This war, she thought. I hate it so much.
She asked about Sister Hilda Barclay, too.
‘I don’t have anyone of that name on my list,’ the major said.
That was something, but Hilda’s companion she’d only known as Laurie, so there was no chance of finding out anything about him.
As for John Gardner, she felt heart-sick that he was almost certainly dead. She’d hoped to make use of him, to see whether he could fix her up with a job at the US recreation centre in Mackay. Too late for that, too.
Then she thought: Why should it be too late?
He’d given her the name of the man running it. Someone called Petrovsky. What was to stop her approaching him, say she’d been John Gardner’s friend, see if he could do something for her?
What was there to lose?
She’d write to him. The worst that could happen was that he would say no. Like people said, give it a go. She’d certainly not get anywhere in this life if she wasn’t game even to ask.
Game as Ned Kelly, she thought. That’s me.
When Shannon drove into the Oval the following morning a bombardier told her that the Battery OC wanted to see her as soon as she got in.
She looked at him. ‘Trouble?’
‘Couldn’t say, darling.’
It was one of the things you had to put up with.
Lieutenant Winchester’s office had been blasted to hell in the raid. Fortunately no one had been in it at the time but in the absence of more permanent accommodation he had taken refuge in a t
ent.
She’d discovered he was only twenty-three and a lieutenant with no battle experience, yet he was the officer who had commanded 19th Battery during the raid. A lieutenant and in charge; from what she’d heard he’d done a pretty good job, but to her way of thinking it showed the Japs had caught the brass with their pants around their ankles. A lieutenant in charge, a dozen obsolete aircraft and World War I guns against a Japanese battle fleet of over two hundred up-to-the-minute fighters and bombers: it was a miracle they weren’t all dead.
Of course a lot of them were.
She found the lieutenant’s tent. The flap was open. She ducked through the entrance and went inside. There wasn’t much there: a wooden packing case was the desk; Lieutenant Winchester was sitting on the only chair; there was no filing cabinet or as far as Shannon could see any files. A field telephone had been rigged up and stood on the packing case. Underfoot was grass and mud; yet there was an air of quiet determination, too, and Shannon knew that was what mattered. The survivors were not beaten or even dented. They were more determined than ever that they would win and the death and destruction that had descended on them out of a clear blue sky had only reinforced that feeling. The raid had created a debt and it would be repaid. God knew how, but the will was there in the canvas-smelling space that was now the headquarters of 19th heavy ack-ack.
She went through the performance of standing to attention and saluting. She didn’t make much of a job of it but it would have to do. ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’
‘I have bad news for you, I’m afraid,’ Winchester said. ‘The CO has received a message from the Medical Corps who apparently were contacted by your local GP. It seems your father has been taken ill.’
Shannon stared. A cold wind was blowing in the hot tent. One thing after another…
The shock of the raid had settled deep into her bones; now this. But if Teddy Winchester could stare adversity in the face without flinching, so could Shannon Harcourt.
‘Do we know how serious it is?’ Her voice was steady.
‘I understand it’s not life-threatening. That apart, I know no more than I’ve told you,’ Winchester said. ‘Life-threatening or not, I’m willing to authorise leave if you want to go and see him.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘There’s transport leaving for Townsville at ten hundred hours. If you can be ready in time you can be on it.’
‘Would it be possible to get a message to staff nurse Barclay, sir? To say I’ve no time to look her up but hope she and Laurie are both OK.’
‘Staff nurse Barclay? I’ll see what I can do.’
Every form of transport seemed to take twice as long as it had before the war. It took the best part of three days to get to Townsville, only to find that buses heading south were rarer than dinosaurs. Rail traffic was confined to goods services and her attempt to woo the bloke at the train depot fell on ground as fertile as Sturt’s Stony Desert. It was too far to walk although Shannon, determination from nose to toes, told herself that’s what she’d do if there was no alternative.
Luckily she managed to hitch a lift on a truck. The driver looked hopeful when she climbed aboard but was philosophical when he found there was nothing doing. He was heading to Gladstone so dropped her on the edge of Proserpine town where the sugar mill was kicking up its usual racket, the tall chimneys pumping smoke into an otherwise blue sky. It was strange to come home, after all the death and terror of recent days, and find that here at least nothing seemed to have changed and the war might not exist.
Carrying her case and feeling conspicuous in her uniform, she walked through the molasses-scented air outside the mill and into the town. She saw no one she knew and five minutes later she arrived at the hospital.
The hospital building was low to the ground, its gardens nicely groomed. Shannon went in the main entrance and across to the desk where the reception nurse was also low to the ground and well groomed but not nice at all. She was as sharp as a razor blade and quick to cut where she felt circumstances warranted it. She was not someone Shannon had ever seen before.
She looked coldly at Shannon’s uniform and her mouth was as sour as sick. ‘You’ve come to the wrong place, Private. This is a civilian hospital,’ she said. ‘We have no military personnel here.’
‘I have just arrived from Darwin,’ Shannon said, ‘where several hundred people were recently killed there in an air raid. You may have heard about it. I’ve been travelling for the best part of a week to get here. I am tired, out of temper and badly in need of a bath, but I am here to see my father, Travis Harcourt, who is a patient in this hospital. So please let’s have no more talk about military personnel and coming to the wrong place.’
The reception nurse opened her mouth, perhaps to say something derogatory about women masquerading as real soldiers, but at the last moment had second thoughts and shut it again.
‘I will get Nurse Niddrie to attend to you.’
Alison Niddrie and Shannon had been mates from way back so it was smiles all over when she turned up a few minutes later.
‘Jess said you were up in Darwin,’ Alison said. ‘That raid must have been bad.’
‘A lot worse than that. It was hell,’ Shannon said. ‘People who weren’t there can’t begin to imagine it. I heard someone say they were dumping barge loads of bodies in the sea, Alison, that’s how bad it was. How’s Dad?’
Alison gave the sort of smile that old friends give when the news isn’t good. ‘Not what you’d call a model patient,’ she said. ‘Always on about when he can get back to work. As if anyone would really want to work in that damn mill.’ She spoke with feeling; with her father and two sisters working there, Alison Niddrie was chained to it by the throat, like a large proportion of the town.
‘It’s not a question of wanting the work but needing the money,’ Shannon said. ‘How’s he doing?’
Alison gave her the news over a cup of tea. Travis had had a stroke, sure enough. Not too serious but Doc Rigby was afraid that another one might kill him.
‘Is a second stroke likely?’
‘Could be. His blood pressure’s through the roof.’
‘So going back to work…’
‘Not a chance.’
‘For how long?’
‘Forever. His body wouldn’t be able to stand it. The snag comes when we have to tell him.’
‘Meaning it might give him the second stroke we’re trying to avoid?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Someone’s going to have to find a diplomatic way to tell him, then.’
‘You’re right. And to look after him.’
‘And that someone?’
‘Is you.’
‘How do I do that when I’m in the army?’
‘It’s not for me to tell you what to do,’ Alison said.
The way she said it made Shannon think that was exactly what she was going to do. ‘Tell me anyway.’
‘If you want to keep your dad alive, you should get out of the army as soon as you can. He’s going to need a lot of care and Jess is only fifteen. She’s very good; she’s with him now, but I don’t think she’s grown-up enough to cope with a sick old man, do you?’
Shannon wasn’t happy at the idea of getting out of the army when there was so much to be done but Alison was right. ‘I’ll speak to Doc Rigby. He can probably get me out on compassionate grounds. You say Jess is with Dad now?’
‘Every day she’s here, when she’s not at school.’
‘She’s a good girl. I’ll see her in a minute, then.’
‘Before you go, I’m afraid there’s another bit of bad news,’ Alison said. ‘You know Arthur Nimrod? Owns the Regency Hotel in Airlie Beach?’
‘Of course I know him. I used to work for him.’
‘His elder son has been killed.’
‘Oh no…’ She remembered the tall young man, always good for a laugh, working the fishing boats out of Shute Harbour. Full of life; now dead.
‘Where?’
/> As if it mattered.
‘Western Desert.’
That place with the unfamiliar names. Benghazi, Tobruk… The place where Hal might be fighting at that moment. Might be dying at that moment.
‘That’s terrible. Arthur doted on his boys, never wanted them to join up. The second one, Thomas, is still OK?’
‘As far as I know. He was wounded, I think, but not badly. He’s over it now.’
‘Poor Arthur. I must go and see him.’
Alison nodded, her face stricken. ‘This war,’ she said. ‘This horrible war. There was a man in here a while ago with half his face missing. We didn’t have the facilities to treat him properly here so had to send him down to Brisbane Why do we have to have wars?’
‘It’s something men do.’
‘Something we let them do.’
‘When this lot is over,’ Shannon said, ‘there’ll be some changes made. There’s got to be. The world can’t go on like this.’
She went to see Dad, found Jess waiting for her outside the ward.
‘Alison rang through, said you were here.’
They hugged each other.
‘So glad you were able to make it,’ Jess said. ‘He’ll be pleased, too.’
‘I should never have gone away.’
‘You did what you thought was right. You’re here now, anyway. Thank God you survived that raid.’
‘It did seem the right thing to do, but I’m so sorry you were lumbered with this,’ Shannon said. ‘How is he?’
‘See for yourself. He’s waiting for you.’
‘Thank you so much for everything you’ve done.’
It was a two-bed ward but the second bed was unoccupied. Dad was sitting up in bed and, for a man who most of his life had kept his feelings under lock and key, became quite emotional when he saw her.
‘I was sure those damn Japs would have finished you off.’
‘Me?’ She laughed heartily at the notion, still without a clue how the bullets had missed her. ‘I’m indestructible. Didn’t you know that?’
‘Wish I could say the same,’ Dad grumbled.
There were two chairs; she sat in one, Jess in the other.
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