Then peace came and with it the shocking news from New York! The handsome naval officer, this favored man, had been proved beyond doubt to be involved in a worldwide narcotics ring, to which he was himself a slave. By God’s grace he died shortly after the story broke, and now his fishing lodge, more beautiful than ever, stands by the trout-filled Waikato, waiting for other fishermen.
I have known New Zealand in many weathers and I have served with its quiet men in most corners of the Pacific. I have never met people more deeply convinced than theirs in the one good land. But whenever I think I understand even slightly what makes this radical-conservative country tick, I am brought up sharp by some new experience. When I started to write this essay I went for one last look at a city I have grown to love: placid Christchurch with its English cathedral and terribly stuffy manner. Here on the broad plains of Canterbury I felt that I had come at last to the true meaning of New Zealand: English forever, reluctant to move ahead, confirmed in the defense of human dignity. Then I turned one more corner and stumbled upon the fastest-growing religion in conservative Christchurch. There it was! A store-front chapel with the pastor’s Model T Ford parked outside and on the walls the mystical words: PEACE! PEACE! PEACE! FATHER DIVINE!
Until They Sail
New Zealand rushed the cream of her manhood into Africa and Crete; then watched helplessly as Japan crept down the islands.
The last time the family ever met together was in August of 1939, when father returned to New Zealand for Barbara’s wedding. He brought the Nestor into Wellington Harbor, where a great fuss was made over the British warship, for a spirit of great excitement then pervaded the country.
That very night he boarded the South Island ferry and experienced that vague and ancient delight of feeling the old boat pitch and toss upon the first waters he had ever sailed. A stranger approached him as he stood by the rail and said, “My apologies, sir. But aren’t you Captain Harry Neville of Christchurch?”
Neville immediately stiffened to discourage familiarity and grunted that he was. The stranger slapped his arms together in the cold wintry breeze and asked, “Shall we be giving Jerry hell again?”
Captain Neville was not a tall man, but when he drew back his head in British Navy style and stared down his nose at the intruder, the latter could do nothing but apologize for his inquisitiveness and go below. His place, however, was taken almost immediately by a very thin woman who cried, “It’s Captain Harry Neville! You home for Barbara’s wedding?”
He ticked his braided visor and indicated that her guess was correct. The woman laughed and said, “I’ll wager you’ve never met the young man. Let me assure you, Captain, he’s a splendid type. Splendid.”
She beamed at Neville, who against his will, relaxed and asked, “You know the boy?”
“Know him?” she echoed. “He’s my nephew!”
With due modesty she assured the captain that Barbara’s intended husband came from one of Christchurch’s finest families. She said, “Mark’s handsome, like his father. You wouldn’t know his father, but he was my brother. Mark attended a very fine school.” She dropped her voice modestly and added, “In England, you know.” Then she asked apprehensively, “Surely, there won’t be another war, will there?”
Captain Neville stared at her precisely as before and in some confusion she left. For more than an hour he peered into the darkness of Cook Strait. He loved this turbulent water. Even its name was clean and simple. Had a good English ring. As a boy, upon this ferry, he had decided to strike for a commission in the Royal Navy. It would be difficult, he knew then, but he also knew that the best New Zealand men had always struck for the Navy, the real Navy that is, the Royal Navy out of London and Plymouth.
He had made it, an awkward little tow-headed youth from New Zealand competing with the best young men of England. Then, in the succeeding years, he had often returned to New Zealand, always to sail across Cook Strait to his home in Christchurch. It was on this ferry that he had heard of Anne’s birth during First World War. Later, he had been chasing Count Luckner through the South Pacific when he got the leave during which his second child, Barbara, had been conceived. In years of peace he had often left his various commands to spend some time with his family at Christchurch, so that his wife teased him with a quiet joke. “Nine months after Harry’s leave there’s bound to be a new child.”
“Navy tradition,” he had growled. “Dammit, Sara, Englishmen have been serving at sea for centuries.” They had named their first daughter Anne, after Harry’s mother. The second child was Barbara after Sara’s sister. Having started with the alphabet, Sara, who believed in omens, insisted that the third child be Christopher, the next Delia, and the baby Evelyn. At first this nonsense had offended Harry Neville, but on distant stations it helped him to keep the children straight, and during the night watch he could run down the family in order. Anne was his favorite, tall, serious, reserved. Barbara was the energetic one and it was appropriate that she should be the first to marry. Christopher was a good lad, but Harry never mentioned to his family the secret disappointment he felt in Kit. He had hoped the boy might follow him in the British Fleet, but Kit hadn’t the ability. He wasn’t stupid. Harry was first to insist that Kit wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t top-flight either, and the home fleet could accept only the cream; so Christopher was now in the New Zealand Army, a ragtag and bobtail in Captain Harry’s judgment. Next there was Delia … He always stopped at her name. She was the glorious beauty, but no one could ever be certain of Delia. She would be eighteen now, he figured, and vaguely he wished that it were Delia rather than Barbara who was being married, because everyone knew that Barbara could take care of herself. Then he broke into a quiet chuckle. Evelyn! Bright, happy, outspoken, born long after the others. Any father would be proud of such a child. He had last seen her as a pig-tailed girl of eight gravely telling him that Edward was now king and that every good Englishman owed strict allegiance to their new King Edward.
A seaman presented himself, saluted, and said that the ferry captain, hearing that Captain Harry Neville, R.N., was aboard, wished to extend the hospitality of the bridge. At first Neville was disposed to send his regrets, but he felt that as an officer of the Fleet he had certain obligations, so he drew his greatcoat about his shoulders and stamped up the ladder.
“Cap’n Neville,” he mumbled, saluting.
The ferry captin was in no way obsequious. “Shall we be having trouble with the Boche?” he asked directly.
Now Neville felt himself to be talking with an equal. “Jerry’s acting a bit stiff,” he said cautiously. “Knows he can’t whip us, but his aircraft might knock us about a bit.”
“Very determined adversary, the Boche.”
The two sea captains nodded sagely and then Neville excused himself and turned in. The morning was clean and fair. He hurried on deck to greet Littleton Harbor, a deep, winding volcanic cut in the side of a massive hill. It was, he thought, the best harbor he knew. The harbor of Christchurch.
In great excitement he piled his gear aboard a creaking train that tunneled through the hill to deliver the ferry passengers to Christchurch proper. When the whistle blew and the train actually started to move, Neville’s excitement increased, for getting home in troubled times was very good, but when he finally stood before his family—all five children and sniffling Sara—he was as coldly erect as they had always remembered him.
Sedately he shook hands with his wife and then planted a kiss on the forehead of each of his four daughters. With a brisk snap he shook Christopher’s hand and said, “I see you’re in the Army.”
His son laughed. “Hadn’t brains enough to get into the so-called senior service.”
Captain Neville froze to attention. He had always been repelled and offended by Army jokes against the Royal Navy. “I would be pleased,” he said, “if you would not use that ridiculous phrase.”
“Oh father!” Barbara protested. “Sometimes the Navy is a pain in the neck.”
Captain Neville stared at his daughter. Less than a year later Barbara recalled this look when word reached Christchurch that Harry Neville’s light cruiser Nestor had faced up to the Graf Spee and had driven the heavier German from the convoy routes. True, both the Nestor and its captain had been lost, but many navy letters reached Neville’s family, and each said the same thing: “We who knew Harry never anticipated that he would do other than preserve the best traditions of his service.”
His death was a terrible blow to his wife. Sara Neville had never been a strong woman, but she had been so dedicated to her husband that she had always conserved her energy for his infrequent visits. Then she blossomed into a gay sprite, chaffing him, idolizing him, drawing him out about his various exploits. But when he left she relapsed into pregnancy and invalidism.
It now became apparent to the family that she would never recover from her husband’s death. The Nevilles lived in a modest cottage in Ferrymead, a suburb chosen because it overlooked a broad and salty estuary. When they were young, the children had gazed upon this arm of the sea, imagining that they were in contact with their father’s ship. Now their mother sat day after day, staring vacantly at the ocean which had played so powerful a part in her life.
There was an extended family discussion as to whether Anne or Barbara should assume responsibility for the home at Ferrymead, but since Anne had a good job in a Christchurch store, it was decided that Barbara should become the mother, for although she was married she had no home of her own. Her husband had behaved as New Zealand men will. Shy, brave, morbidly attached to England where he had been educated, Mark Forbes had volunteered for duty on the day Germany marched into Poland, and now he served in Africa.
So his wife Barbara took over the cottage at Ferrymead and purchased a large map of Europe—plus the north coast of Africa—and on it she followed the fortunes of war, guessing at where Mark might be. They had known each other briefly, had lived together less than a month, and Barbara sometimes had a feeling of unreality as she placed a slender pin to represent a slender man she scarcely knew.
She had been housemother only a few months when Christopher, too, left New Zealand. At twenty he was a cocky, witty lad quite unlike his father. He astounded his sisters on his last night at home by leaning back with his feet on the ottoman and announcing, “Anne, when you quit work tomorrow I want you to walk along Colombo Street and assure all the sheilas that Kit’ll be home before long.”
Anne frowned and said, “That’s a most beastly word, Kit.”
“I agree,” he laughed. “But all the same, you give the sheilas my message.”
At the station when Christopher left, Anne said, “Now behave yourself, Kit. Remember that people will know you’re Father’s son.”
“You remember to tell the sheilas!” Kit teased, and Anne sniffed in her handkerchief, whispering to Barbara that she was worried about Kit, he was so irreverent.
Barbara didn’t worry about Kit. She worried about her older sister. Anne was twenty-six and knew no young men, preferred knowing none. That night Barbara wrote to Mark in Africa: “I’m sure no man can even understand how a girl feels when her older sister is determined to stay an old maid. Anne is one of the finest girls I’ve known. She was the one who saved me. As you pointed out, I have a beastly temper at times, but it would have been unbearable except for Anne’s patient instruction. If I’m even fifty percent civilized it’s because of her. That’s why it hurts me terribly when I see her shutting up her life like a old house by the sea, closing it against a winter that might never end. Then I think of you, Mark, and of how you saved me from becoming such a person, and I am forever indebted. When I move your straight and very erect pin about at night, guessing where you are, I love you very, very much.”
In the morning after this letter Barbara tried to discuss with Anne this problem of getting married, but Anne blushed deeply and said she would have thought that Barbara would have had other things to worry about. This rebuff, and others, made Barbara wonder if Anne were deficient in emotion, but this likelihood was dispelled when news arrived of Christopher’s death at Narvik, in Norway. Barbara was not at home when the telegram arrived, and the full brunt of it fell upon Anne.
She guessed at once that either Kit or Mark had been killed and for a moment she held the message in her hand. Then, with a deep breath, she ripped it open and devoured the contents in a glance. Quickly, as if caught spying on death, she refolded the telegram and pressed it back into shape. Young Kit was dead. The sheilas on Colombo Street should know of this. Everyone in Ferrymead should know that happy young Kit was dead.
Carefully she stuffed the telegram into her pocket and then dressed for the street. Barbara met her at the door and said brightly, “Where you off to, darling? Before you go, help me with these packages.” Then, seeing the dull look in her sister’s eyes she asked, “Anne! What’s the matter? Is it Mother?”
She dropped her packages and dashed into the front room where she saw with relief that her mother was still staring at the estuary. “Afternoon, my darling!” Barbara whispered, patting her mother’s white hands.
“Hello Anne,” the wandering woman said in a very tired voice. She could no longer differentiate among her children.
“I was afraid you were ill,” Barbara said.
“I’m all right.”
Relieved, Barbara returned to the kitchen, but there she saw Anne staring at her from the doorway, the scattered packages still on the floor. “What is it, Anne?” she cried.
Anne took the telegram from her pocket and carried it, like a ghost, to the kitchen table. She let it fall and then sank into a chair. “It’s Kit,” she mumbled. “He’s dead.”
Barbara unfolded the message with shaking hands and read it twice. She put her hand to her forehead and muttered, “Narvik? Narvik? We hadn’t even a pin at Narvik.” She went to her map and searched vainly for the unknown name. “It’s not on the map,” she said.
At this time Anne began to cry, asking, “What does it matter where they die? They’ll all die in some horrible lost village.”
“Oh Anne! Please!”
“It’s all right with you, Barbara. You don’t seem to have any feelings.”
“Darling!” Barbara cried, falling to her knees beside her striken sister. “I lie awake at night and pray. I know what terror is. I’ve prayed for Father and Kit.”
“And one by one,” Anne sobbed. “One by one they’ll be lost. What is this meaningless business about?”
“You’ve got to have faith that there is meaning to it,” Barbara whispered.
“Why? How? Our men running off to die in Norway and Africa …” She stopped and looked up in horror. “Oh, Barbara! Forgive me. I’m sick with fear.”
“We have a right to go on hoping that there is meaning to it,” Barbara said, hiding even in her own mind the word Africa. “Have you told Mother?”
“No,” Anne said. “Will you tell the others?”
Barbara said that she would, and forthwith started to get supper. She found this kitchen, with its warm and cheery fire, its table soiled with much use, a comforting place to be in time of death. There had been much life and goodness in this kitchen, and she had grown to understand why women came to look upon the least attractive room in their home as home itself. “Please God,” she whispered to herself as she worked, “let me have a kitchen like this some day with Mark.” Immediately she shivered as she thought of telling Delia and Evelyn about Kit’s death.
But when Delia burst into the kitchen, with a fine happy grin there was no thought of death. “It’s happened!” she cried.
“What has?” Barbara asked, lighting a burner for tea.
“I’m engaged!” Delia shouted, twirling about the room. She stopped suddenly and asked, “Isn’t anyone pleased? What’s the matter with you two?”
Quickly Barbara caught up the telegram and said, “We’re delighted, Deel. Aren’t we, Anne? But who’s the …” She stopped, embarrassed that she should have t
o ask the name of the man to whom her own sister had become engaged. “Who’s the lucky man?” she asked weakly.
Delia sensed the impropriety of her announcement and stuck out her thin, firm chin. Raising her blonde head defiantly she said, “Cobber Phil, who else?”
Anne gasped, but Barbara promptly covered the insult by crying, “Cobber Phil! Hell be a jolly sort to have about the house.”
But not even Barbara could force any real enthusiasm into her congratulations. She knew Cobber Phil, an uncouth, unwashed, very un-English young man who had knocked about Australia a bit—whence his name—picking up the worst color of that strange land but none of its character. No one liked Cobber Phil, except possibly Delia, and if Captain Harry had lived or if Sara Neville were in possession of her mind, a man like the Cobber would never have been permitted to enter the house. But war had denuded New Zealand of decent men, and Barbara said, “Cobber’s a jolly sort.”
Then followed a cruel, silent moment during which each sister in the kitchen understood exactly what the other felt. Barbara, sensing this to be a critical moment in Delia’s life within the family, laughed and said, “We’re happy for you, Deel. When will you be married?”
It seemed, for a moment, as if this easy question would permit Delia to swing back into normal small talk about the wedding, but Anne broke the spell by asking acidly, “Yes, when will the marriage be?”
Delia flushed and snapped at her critical sister, “What’s bothering you, Anne? You parading the fact you hate men? I don’t.”
“I know you don’t,” Anne said, adding unfairly, “and the only thing wrong with me is that Kit’s dead.”
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