A Bitter Harvest

by Peter Yeldham

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Rupert.’

  ‘You woke me up,’ she said, and he thought this was one of the strangest conversations he had ever had with her …

  ‘I can see that. May I come in?’

  He realised he was still holding the wrapped prints, and gave them to her, as she stepped back for him to enter. ‘This is for you.’

  ‘Thank you. What is it?’

  ‘Your wedding present.’ She shut the door.

  ‘Didn’t you get my letter?’ Kate asked.

  ‘What letter?’

  ‘The one I wrote, when I decided not to marry Rupert.’

  He wasn’t sure which he wanted to do first — hug her or shout for joy. In the event, he did neither. He just stared at her. ‘You decided not to marry Rupert?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But it was all arranged, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The church, bridesmaids, all that stuff?’

  ‘All that stuff. Flowers, caterers, bridal car, everything.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘His mother got upset. Well, awfully upset. But she had every reason to be.’

  ‘No, I mean what changed your mind? When did you change it?’

  ‘About two weeks before the event.’

  ‘No wonder she was upset.’

  ‘It was worse than that. It took another week bracing myself to tell Rupert. You see, I was very fond of him. Then it took days before he could convince his family. No one would listen. They just smiled and said it was the usual nerves. And then there were the relatives — his relatives, starting to arrive from all over England.’

  ‘Oh, God. Must’ve been absolute hell.’

  ‘It was. In another way it was like a terrible farce, out of control. At one stage I thought I’d have to go through with it, to save all their faces. So that was when I told his parents.’

  ‘Told them what?’

  ‘That I was pregnant.’

  He suddenly realised what he had thought was a robe was in fact a loose-fitting maternity dress. As if to confirm it, she smoothed it against her body, and in profile the bulge was clearly prominent.

  ‘Rupert was a sweet man. He insisted he wanted to do the right thing. I had to explain to them all it would be the wrong thing — because it wasn’t his child.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Harry said.

  ‘And that was finally the end of the wedding.’

  ‘You wrote and told me all this?’

  ‘No. Only that it was off. I didn’t want any nonsense about having to marry me, just because you were going to be a father.’

  ‘And it’s really mine?’

  ‘Half yours. Yours and mine. I can tell by the way it kicks.’

  ‘Can I feel?’

  She nodded, and he held his hand against her body. He looked startled and laughed aloud. ‘It does kick. I just felt it.’

  ‘Of course it kicks. Little bugger.’

  ‘Little bastard — unless we do something about it. If I kneel, cap in hand and ask you nicely, will you marry me?’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘I think it takes three days. Don’t you need permission from your commanding officer?’

  ‘I’m the temporary C.O. I’ve just given my approval.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to kiss me?’

  He did so, gently at first, then with a growing passion. When they reluctantly paused for breath, he remembered. ‘I nearly went to Paris,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I thought London would be unbearable without you. I contemplated spending all my leave in bed with a French tart.’

  ‘I may be six months pregnant,’ Kate said, ‘but there is nothing a French tart can do that I can’t.’

  ‘Six months. Of course.’

  He smiled, and remembered. Six days and nights in this room, six months ago.

  ‘So when did you — realise? How long afterwards?’

  ‘Victoria Station when I waved you goodbye.’

  ‘A few days! That’s impossible.’

  ‘You may think so. But I had a firm feeling that you’d left something behind.’

  Late that night there was an air raid, but it was far to the south, over Crystal Palace, Kate thought, and they stayed snug in bed, with the lamp switched off and the curtains open so they could watch the probing searchlights. There was so much to talk about.

  Above all, the letter he had never received.

  ‘You must have wondered why I didn’t write back?’ She was silent for a moment.

  ‘It’s the only time in my life I’ve been really afraid. All those weeks, then months, and no answer. Every day waiting for the mail to arrive. I began to think you must be dead.’

  ‘I suppose there was no way to find out?’

  ‘None. Unless I wrote home to ask your grandfather or your mother. I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought if you were, they’d write. On the other hand, if I was going to marry someone else, why would they? And they had their own problems. They didn’t need mine.’

  ‘David would have written.’

  ‘I know. But mail gets sunk, or goes astray. I got myself into a bit of a state, but it’s not as if you can telephone Australia, is it? And I didn’t want to send a telegram, asking if you were all right, or mentioning the baby.’

  ‘When you opened the door today and saw me — you seemed so strange.’

  ‘I felt as if I was having a dream. That I’d look again, and find out it was another illusion.’

  He could suddenly, painfully visualise what it had been like. ‘Poor Kate.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘What about your music?’

  ‘That’s another story — for another time,’ she said.

  He applied for compassionate leave. At the Australian army headquarters in Horseferry Road a brigadier studied his application.

  ‘You must mean marital leave, Captain. And permission to wed.’

  ‘No, sir. I have permission to wed. My Commanding Officer granted it. I’m applying for extra compassionate leave, because I’m about to become a father — as well as a husband.’

  ‘I see,’ the brigadier said, frowning. ‘Rather a lot of this sort of thing going on. Giving us Australians a bad name.’

  ‘We already have a bad name, sir. They say we’re useful soldiers, who get drunk and behave badly in Trafalgar Square.’

  ‘Quite,’ the brigadier said. ‘Well, at least you’re tying the knot in time. Any other reasons why I should grant this?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ve been at the front for too long, and it’s starting to show. Also, my father is German, just released from an internment camp at home. It’s been a period of great strain — and I need this.’

  ‘German. Steady on, Patterson. You’re not German.’

  ‘My father says my name is really Muller. He says I’m nearly as German as the King.’

  ‘What King?’

  ‘The King of England, sir.’

  ‘That’s quite enough, Captain Patterson.’

  ‘I agree, sir. But try telling my dad.’

  ‘You can’t be German. It says here you were recommended for the military medal.’

  ‘That just proves I’m a bit barmy, sir. Anyone who wants to be brave in the trenches has got to be crackers.’

  ‘Are you trying to be funny, Patterson?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m trying to make you realise how much I desperately need a month’s passionate or compassionate leave. Call it what you like. Not a week. A month is the least my wife and I deserve; anything less is unfair and I’ll shoot through and take my chances going A.W.L.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that, man. I could have you charged and in the slammer.’

  ‘That would do nicely, Brigadier. I’d survive in there.’

  ‘A month. And what about the war, while you have a month’s nesting with you
r new wife?’

  ‘May I be frank, sir?’

  ‘If you must.’

  ‘Fuck the war.’

  ‘Hmm,’ the brigadier said. He grunted and signed the form. ‘One month’s compassionate leave, Captain. Even though I know it’s complete bullshit that your father is German.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Harry said.

  ‘I see by your record you’re twenty-one. Too young to be a major, although promotion was suggested. You’ve done well. Any ambitions for the future?’

  ‘Only one, sir. To be a civilian.’

  They queued for hours at Caxton Hall, where busy registrars were trying to cope with the rush of American soldiers marrying English girls, and where the state of Kate’s advancing pregnancy drew knowing glances. The next day they took a train to Swanage and a bus to Studland Bay in Dorset. Many of the guesthouses were closed for the winter, but they found one, where a cordial couple made them welcome, and where they spent the nights entwined in a double bed, and the days walking along the crescent sand. Except that the sea was slate-grey, the long empty beach reminded them of Australia.

  ‘So what about your music?’ he asked her. ‘Every time I ask, you change the subject. What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing’s happened,’ Kate said, and took his hand. ‘I topped my finals at the Guildhall, even if I was preggers.’

  ‘That’s wonderful.’

  ‘Pablo Casals came to hear me. It was for an audition, to play as a guest cellist with him in Barcelona.’

  ‘Casals? Isn’t he world famous?’

  ‘The best. I didn’t get it. He preferred a girl who came third to me in our finals.’

  ‘Were you very disappointed?’

  ‘Very. And angry. I even wondered if he fancied her. Which was stupid, because that wasn’t it at all.’

  She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. The breeze off the bay was getting chilly.

  ‘He asked to see me. Told me I played beautifully. From the head — not the heart. The other girl would never be technically as good, but she made him feel sad and want to cry. She had emotion.’

  ‘You had emotion. You made me want to cry, up there on stage when you were about the same size as the cello.’

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ she said.

  ‘People stood and cheered you. That was emotion.’

  ‘I was fourteen. A home crowd, who wanted me to succeed.’

  ‘So what are you saying? Bloody Casals says you’re not good enough for him. Does that mean you’re going to chuck it?’

  ‘Of course I’m not going to chuck it. I was grateful to him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he was honest. He helped me.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Sort out my life. I’ll never give up music, but I won’t mortgage the future for it. I’m not going to live in Europe, be an exile, run the risk of losing you. He made me realise I can be good, but not the best in the world.’ She smiled at his expression. ‘It’s not a tragedy, Harry. I’ll settle for trying to be the best in Australia.’

  ‘When did you decide all this?’

  ‘About six weeks ago.’

  ‘Not knowing if I was alive, but afraid I wasn’t.’

  ‘Hoping you were. If not, intending to take our bun in the oven home and bring it up there, where it belongs.’

  ‘We must stop calling it “it”.’

  ‘When we know what it is. We don’t want to prejudice things by calling it he or she. So let’s call it the bun.’

  He laughed, and kissed her. They walked home to the guesthouse with their arms around each other.

  ‘Dearest, wonderful Kate,’ he said. ‘I’ve been in love with you since I was thirteen years old.’

  ‘My brother tried to tell me you just stood and stared because you were dopey. But I knew.’

  ‘Did you really?’

  ‘Well, I hoped so.’

  Later on he said, ‘It must have been terrible — the past months. After Rupert — on your own, just you and the bun. No word, no reply from me.’

  ‘Not the best of times,’ she said. ‘But it’s nice this month.’

  The days fled. They planned lots of bus trips to see the sights, promised themselves visits to Corfe Castle and Poole Harbour, but never went. The fishermen rugged up against the winter on the beach became used to seeing them trudging the sand in all weathers; waved to them and wondered about the boy in his army officer’s greatcoat, and the girl clumsy and swollen with child, who seemed so private and so happy, in a world apart.

  They considered a move to Bournemouth, to treat themselves to a few days’ luxury at the Grand Hotel, but then rejected it. The seaside guesthouse suited them and they couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it. It was so completely out of season that there were few other guests. At night they ate early, then went up to their room. They needed no one else, wanted no intrusion. They saw no newspapers, declined invitations to join anyone in the lounge after supper, because inevitably there would be talk about the war. Harry was once asked what it was like ‘over there’, and replied that he was attached to a catering corps in Hammersmith.

  They went back to London the day before his leave ended.

  It was a miserable journey, the train unheated, the winter landscape misty with drizzle, and the sky pewter grey. They had a compartment to themselves until Basingstoke, where a well-dressed couple with a French poodle got in.

  ‘This’ll do, Eleanor,’ the man said. ‘Ample room in here.’ They sat down. The poodle perched on the woman’s lap. All three stared at Kate and Harry, and the poodle barked.

  ‘Be quiet, Jessie, or we’ll put you in the guard’s van,’ the woman called Eleanor said, eyeing Kate, as though challenging her to complain. The dog growled, a high-pitched neurotic sound. ‘Ouch,’ Kate said suddenly.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Harry asked.

  ‘The bun in the oven. Little brute.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  She took his hand and placed it on her swollen belly, as if oblivious to the couple exchanging glances.

  ‘Not on the move, is it?’ Harry showed alarm. ‘Not going to launch itself between here and London?’

  ‘I certainly hope not,’ Kate said. ‘Have a listen and see what you think.’

  Harry leaned down and put his ear to her body. The couple with the poodle openly stared. The dog growled. ‘Well? Can you hear anything?’

  ‘Kicking like buggery. Do you think the waters might break?’ The poodle gave a puzzled yap. Kate jumped and clutched her stomach. She seemed finally to notice the couple staring at them. ‘We’re going to have a baby,’ she confided, as if this might not be apparent. ‘Probably any second.’

  ‘It’s about ten days overdue,’ Harry added. ‘Probably brought on by the dog barking in my wife’s face.’

  ‘Jessie is not barking in anyone’s face,’ her female owner said. ‘She’s far too well behaved for that.’

  ‘Jessie has done not much else since you got in. If you can just hang on, darling, I’ll get the guard. He can decide what to do about Jessie, and give a hand with the umbilical.’

  The woman rose, holding her poodle. ‘Charles,’ she said, ‘we can find better seats than this. And decidedly better company.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ the man said.

  ‘Orstralian,’ she pronounced it with scorn, noticing the insignia on the army greatcoat. ‘I should have known.’

  ‘Should have known what?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Colonials. You’re the absolute dregs,’ she said.

  ‘Then you should order us all home, Madame. Not allow us to fight for you a day longer.’

  ‘Charles, dear, no need for us to put up with this.’ She spoke to the man with her, as though Harry did not exist. ‘I’m sure you agree. They’re appalling.’

  Harry would not let this go unchallenged. ‘I’ll tell my friends,’ he said, in a voice so thick with rage that Kate was alerted to the extent of his anger, ‘I’ll tell those w
ho are still alive, and visit the graves of the dead. I’ll tell them all, we met a poodle called Jessie, whose mummy says we’re unfit to die for her.’

  ‘Look, old boy,’ Charles said, clearly embarrassed, ‘fair do’s and all that. No offence meant.’

  ‘Why not do what she says, Charles.’ Kate felt she had to intervene. ‘Go and find somewhere better to sit. You seem like a reasonable man. Take that bitch — and your dog — and spoil someone else’s day.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Harry said that night. There was yet another air raid, this time to the east, somewhere over Bromley and the perimeter of Kent. ‘It was a stupid thing to do, losing my temper over a cow like her.’

  ‘Forget her.’

  ‘How? Bloody colonials. The dregs. Jesus Christ, Kate, what are we doing here, supposedly fighting for people like that?’

  ‘There are lots of fine English people,’ Kate said. ‘As you well know.’

  ‘Of course there are.’

  ‘So while we’re on the subject, what about the Australians back home, sunbaking at the beaches?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Or the crowds at the vaudeville theatres? David says it’s hard to believe there is a war, if you look around Sydney. Shops full of goods, everyone spending, more people than ever at the picture shows, and the pubs and the racecourses are packed.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ he said, ‘just what I needed to know.’

  ‘What you need to know,’ Kate told him, ‘is that this is a selfish, futile war. There are no winners.’

  ‘Terrific. What are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘To remember you’re going to be a dad. So never mind about being a hero. Promise?’

  ‘I promise. You look after the bun.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Please don’t come to Victoria tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I can’t bear waving you goodbye again on that bloody station.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Meet you when it’s over.’

  ‘Whenever that is.’

  ‘It must be over soon,’ Kate said. ‘Please God.’

  THIRTY SEVEN

  The group of men planned it patiently, and bided their time. When it became local knowledge that Elizabeth Muller and her husband had received news of their son’s marriage in England, and that friends in the village were giving a big party to celebrate, they knew this was the night they had been waiting for. The neighbours, all certain to be invited, would be absent. It was a little over a week until harvest time, and the perfect opportunity.