They came in the night by trucks. One of the vehicles towed a tractor. They brought spraying equipment and drums of salt and acid. Two of them, both farmer’s sons, had scythes as well as home-made fuses and 44-gallon drums of petrol. They had strong lights, and carried rifles in their trucks, in case of trouble.
There were seven of them. Six were from German families. All had sons or fathers interned, and for weeks they had brooded at the injustice of Stefan Muller’s early release because of his wife’s influence, while their own relatives remained locked away. Two of them had discussed some kind of retaliation. The conversation had been overheard by a man who informed them he might be able to help. Warily, they asked him why, and he said that, just like them, he had his reasons.
Jim Carson went home and discussed it with his wife. She felt it was dangerous, and might mean trouble with the police. He laughed and said his friend Ed Delaney, now their silent partner in many of their recent land acquisitions, was always going on about how his boss Inspector Lucas had been furious ever since Muller’s release. Carson had a feeling he would be doing himself a favour, and the police would make routine enquiries and be unable to solve the case. He promised his wife he would not contemplate helping this bunch of vindictive huns, unless he checked with Delaney, and was given the sergeant’s nod that it was in order.
He was given a great deal more than that. Equipment arrived one night at the dairy. Rifles, ammunition, floodlights, and most bizarre of all — a new army flame-thrower. They were delivered and the truck driven off without a word exchanged, but it was a clear gesture of assent from Lucas, and encouraged Carson to become fully involved, to ensure that nothing went wrong. On the night chosen by the six Germans, he was the seventh man.
He was also in charge, because he knew the place better than the others, from the days when he and his wife delivered the mail here. The poverty-stricken days, the bitter times when they were dependent upon charity. He was sure that people like the Mullers had despised them. Well, no longer.
He knew where to put the lights and the trucks so that they could not be seen from the road, and the men with the sprayers could begin their work of poisoning the vines.
Bruno Heuzenroader, the blacksmith, had begun these past few months to visit Eva-Maria Lippert, and if she had been able to call herself a widow, he would have asked if he could court her. He was that kind of a man. Simple, and old-fashioned. Built like an oak, gentle as a child.
He would ever after regret the party that was held in his barn, for had it not taken place, he felt he might have been there at the farm, calling on Eva-Maria, and seen the trucks on the adjacent vineyard.
When they first heard the news that Elizabeth had received a cable, and Harry had married his childhood sweetheart, their friends all decided it was the occasion for a real celebration. They needed one. It would be good for Stefan, and they wanted to commemorate the event. Most of them remembered Harry — they had accepted his new name — as a boy who had come back to the valley decreasingly and reluctantly through the years, but that wasn’t what this was about. They all wanted to show their affection for his parents. Sigrid felt she and Oscar should give the party, since she had nursed the bridegroom from the time he was a year old, but Bruno said her quarters above the Apotheke were not large enough to accommodate all those who would want to attend, whereas if he cleaned out his barn, there would be space for everyone from miles around.
It became a compromise; Oscar and Sigrid insisting they would provide the food, Elizabeth saying she and Stefan must bring the wine, and Bruno removing the blacksmith’s forge and decorating his massive barn so that there was a vast space for the musicians and for dancing. Bruno made a speech, startling Oscar who was mentally rehearsing his own, pleasing them all with his charm, saying he hardly knew Harry, and had not met Kate, but it sounded a romantic story, which would be in keeping with the family tradition, because Stefan and Elizabeth’s own life was full of romance and tenderness and love. He said he claimed the first dance with Elizabeth, facing her new challenge of being a mother-in-law; soon perhaps a grandmother, although she was far too young and no one would believe it. Amid laughter and applause, they danced, and then she danced with Stefan, and Bruno spent the rest of his evening close to Eva-Maria. It was almost the first time the town had been festive since the war began.
A light shone on the orderly rows of vines, and the scythes swung in unison, severing the foliage and leaving only exposed and bleeding stems. On the stepped terraces above, the sprays pumped and drenched the bursting grapes with a deadly mixture of arsenic and salt. Another figure drowned the newer plantings with acid. Carson came down from the crest of the hill, satisfied that the neighbourhood was otherwise deserted and it was safe. He told one of the men to start the tractor. It began to tear up the older established grape vines, scattering and shredding them.
In a short space of time it ravaged the work of years.
The lights were moved, guiding the continuing destruction, as other rows of vines were slashed or poisoned. Carson picked up the flame-thrower, and they took turns with it, blackening the leaves, leaving a trail of smoke and flickering fire. Then they wheeled the drums of petrol towards the storage and fermentation sheds. Another hour, if no one interrupted, they would be done with the vines and ready to light the fuses.
Stefan danced several times with Elizabeth, then with Sigrid, and with all the ladies in turn. He even managed to prise Eva-Maria briefly away from Bruno. Smiling and radiating charm, he seemed like his old self
‘Good party,’ Dr Hardy said, dancing with Elizabeth. ‘Thank you for inviting me.’
‘It’s a night for friends, Keith, and you’ve become a friend.’
‘It seems to be a night for graceful remarks, and I thank you for yours. I also thought Bruno was splendid.’
‘Wasn’t he just. Nice speech.’
‘I gather he’s more than fond of Eva-Maria Lippert.’
‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘More than fond.’
‘How does she feel?’
‘Responsive.’
‘He’s a good man,’ Dr Hardy observed.
‘So was Gerhardt. That’s her problem. Until there’s proof he’s dead she feels bound. And unless there is, she remains married.’
‘Poor Eva-Maria, And poor Bruno,’ he added.
‘Yes. It’s unfair.’
‘I wish I could help.’
‘No one can. One day we’ll learn what really happened. Until the war’s over, it’s too dangerous to even attempt to find out.’
‘Sadly, I’m afraid you’re right.’ .
They danced effortlessly together. She relaxed, and began to hum the music, one of the popular songs from the current favourite: Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow.
‘How’s Stefan?’ Hardy asked her. ‘Things any better?’
‘He enjoyed tonight. Like old times.’
‘I saw it. I mean when you’re alone? Day to day, at home?’
‘Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but I feel it’s gradually starting to improve. Not — not everything, but …’
‘Less tension?’
‘Yes.’
‘You talk more?’
‘Sometimes. He still has his dark days.’
‘That’s understandable,’ Hardy said. ‘He was pleased about Harry.’
‘Good. I’d call that promising.’
‘It is. For years they never got on. Now Stefan is eager to see him again, and to meet Kate. We all seem to like Kate, although we’ve never met her,’ she said, smiling.
The music ended; the dancers applauded the band and began to leave the floor. She noticed Carl, surrounded by a group of village girls, and was pleased to see him relaxed and enjoying himself. It was good for them all, this night, and she was grateful to Bruno for arranging it.
‘Come and have a drink with Stefan,’ she said to Keith Hardy, ‘and you can cast your expert eye over him. Subtly, of course.’ That was when she looked around the crowded barn, and re
alised Stefan was missing.
Because moving the tractor was such a slow process, it was first loaded on its trailer, and they waited until the truck towing it drove off, before taking the final step. The driver would be safely back on his farm before any alarm was raised.
The remaining men used crowbars to break the locks on the main storage shed, and shone their lights on the interior. Some of them hesitated when they saw the vats and the oak barrels and thousands of bottles stored there. Vandalising the vineyard had been done in a hasty frenzy, driven by anger, but this was a cold-blooded, callous destruction of vintages that had taken years to harvest. Much of their wrath had been dispelled, and they felt a sense of shame at what they were going to do.
‘A bit bloody late for second thoughts,’ Carson said, defining their moment of uncertainty, and they knew it had gone too far, and they could not leave until this was done.
They rolled the drums inside the shed, and opened the taps. The liquid flowed out. A wave of benzine fumes overwhelmed the soft aroma of the wine, and stung their throats and made their eyes water. It began to flood the floor as they backed out, stringing lengths of cotton waste soaked in full behind them as they went. They lit the fuses, and ran towards their waiting trucks below.
The flames travelled until they reached the swirling petrol, and exploded. Although already some distance off, the men could feel the force of the eruption. Within seconds, the largest storage shed was engulfed by flames. The fire lit up the surrounding countryside, as the group, terrified by their success, climbed into the trucks and drove rapidly away.
At the barn the music wavered, discordant, then stopped when Bruno came in brandishing his arms and yelling for silence, as he raised the alarm. He had gone to collect hams being kept warm in the ovens of the local bakery, and seen the night growing crimson with the distant flames.
‘Somewhere out on the Nuriootpa road,’ he shouted, and there was a rush for the door, to see for themselves. The sky was kindled with a fiery glow, and the stars almost obscured by smoke.
Elizabeth felt as if her heart might stop.
Stefan was driving leisurely, singing and trying to remember the words to one of the Merry Widow songs so favoured by the band. It was such a good night, such a success, that he had made a sudden decision to drive home and get the last few bottles of his finest wine, the 1909 Elizabeth, because what better use could there be for it than to share it with friends in celebration of his son’s wedding.
He was less than half a mile from the vineyard when he heard the blast of the explosion. The shock made him stop in the centre of the winding road, as he tried to grasp what had happened, then he saw the surging flames beginning to rise on the far side of the hill, and knew what it must be.
At almost the same moment, two trucks drove past without their lights, and his own headlamps glimpsed the occupants trying to shield their faces. One of them, he thought he recognised, was a farmer from Rowland Flat. He tried to think of the man’s name, as he drove the last short stretch towards the bridge over the creek. Turning in, the beam of his lights picked up the outline of another truck driving away in the opposite direction, and without having to memorise the number on the tailgate, he knew it was Carson.
He drove up the track, barely registering the chaos where the vines had been uprooted and nothing remained but stumps. He stopped outside the house, and ran towards the blazing shed. Nearly twenty years of his life was in there, burning, and flames were already reaching for the other buildings. In them was stored the wood and sheathing that made the barrels, the equipment, the vats in which the harvest germinated, bottles and labels, all the records and photographs of past years. If they had burnt the house, it could have been rebuilt. But this — all of it — was irreplaceable.
He tugged open the door of the irrigation shed, to turn on the system. As he did, the fire reached the adjoining building, and the windows burst. He felt the pain of the glass shards in his shoulder, then dimly heard the thud as the fermentation shed exploded.
Bruno was the first to reach there, driving like a madman, with Elizabeth and Carl in the utility truck with him. The blaze was so bright now, it revealed the chaos of the ruined vines, and she cried out at the sight of the destruction. They pulled up alongside the car, and Elizabeth was first out of the truck, running towards the inferno of the burning sheds. She saw Stefan lying on the ground, and tried to get closer to pull him away, but the intensity of the heat drove her back. Carl shouted something behind her — he seemed to be trying to make her stop, then Bruno’s voice screamed a frantic warning that was lost in the rapid series of explosions which followed.
Concussion hit her like a hammer blow, and afterwards there was no sound, no fire, nothing but stillness.
THIRTY EIGHT
Maria sat in the train, her eyes blurred with tears as the lush highlands countryside passed unnoticed. She wished her grand-father and Hannah were here with her.
They had left just a few short weeks ago on a bright Sydney day, the band playing, gangways removed, and their ship beginning to drift away from the quayside. Tugs, fore and aft guiding it out, as William flung a streamer and Maria, on the wharf, had caught it. She had seen Hannah laughing and clapping, and blown them both a kiss, holding her end of the streamer until it tightened and finally broke. She gave a last wave as the liner moved out of Woolloomooloo Bay, past Garden Island and turned eastward down the harbour.
Ahead of them was a voyage to San Francisco, via Noumea, Samoa and Tahiti, the first stage of a journey around the world.
It had all happened so swiftly. The cable had arrived early one morning several weeks ago. Mrs Forbes had brought it to the terrace where they were breakfasting, clearly nervous about its contents, and seeing what she was carrying, Maria glimpsed her grandfather’s face and realised he had a moment of terror. In bad dreams, this was how it happened. An official telegram. The Department of the Army regrets to inform you …
But it wasn’t that at all. When he opened it, he had begun to laugh with joy. He read it aloud to Hannah and Maria, and insisted on calling Mrs Forbes and her husband to listen.
KATE AND I TIED THE KNOT. RIDICULOUSLY HAPPY. YOU CAN EXPECT TO BE A GREAT-GRANDPARENT IN 3 MONTHS. REPEAT — THREE MONTHS. FELT YOU SHOULD KNOW HOW SOON IN ORDER TO PREPARE FOR YOUR NEW PATRIARCHAL AND VENERABLE STATUS. LOVE TO HANNAH. TELL MARIA SHE IS ALMOST AN AUNTIE. DELIRIOUSLY … HARRY.
By lunchtime he had completed a series of phone calls, and asked Hannah how she felt about leaving for the United States at the end of the month, and could they, despite the sinking of the American liner Lusitania by German U-boats, risk crossing the Atlantic to see Kate and be there to lend support, not to mention wetting the head of their very own first great-grandchild?
In case she liked the idea, he said, he had tentatively booked a stateroom on the next ship to leave Sydney, as well as rooms at the Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco, a Pullman suite for the journey across America by train to New York, and a week there at the Waldorf Astoria. From New York they would travel on a Cunard liner for Liverpool. With luck, German subs permitting, and the baby not being premature, they should be in London with Kate in time for the birth. What did she think? Hannah thought she should buy a cabin trunk and start packing.
Maria had pinned up a map of the Pacific Ocean on the wall of her room, and each day tried to estimate their progress. After two weeks she knew they were probably leaving Tahiti. By then she had begun her first term at medical school, and discovered that the next five years were going to be a challenge.
Already she had found herself confronted with attitudes that ranged from overt male hostility to furtive flirtation — and if given a choice, would have preferred the former. She was now aware that each time there was a study of human physiology, it would bring smirks and sly glances in her direction. The appearance of the college skeleton had, and doubtless would continue to evoke silly questions about its genitalia, and ribald double entendres that seemed hilarious to her fellow st
udents. She was astonished at their immaturity, and juvenile conduct.
Because she had been at school for so short a time in Sydney, she had no close friends in whom to confide. She missed Hannah deeply, even more than her grandfather, for she needed someone of her own sex to laugh about it, and help her deride their witless and vapid behaviour. But they were not here, and it was probably just as well, for in the end it was something she would have to deal with alone. And deal with soon, before the sneers and leers became custom, and the situation was beyond control. She even wondered about a transfer to Adelaide University, but had a feeling she would encounter the same problem.
One thing she knew. No matter how much of an ordeal each day became, she was not giving up medicine. She had come too far, and worked too hard, to let a bunch of overgrown schoolboys discourage her. But each night she fell asleep pondering on how to cope with and deflect the antipathy. For that’s what it was.
Masculine acrimony. Resentment.
I’m on their turf, she thought, and they feel vulnerable.
It was in the third week, just when she was beginning to feel one or two of the students had begun to tacitly accept her, that the telephone call came from Carl, and her whole world fell to pieces.
THIRTY NINE
Something was soft, like endless folds of silk. It seemed to be wrapped around her, sedating, enclosing her in a protective cocoon. My chrysalis, she thought, and felt akin to the golden pupa of an awakening butterfly. I’ll spread my gossamer wings, arid float and fly.
She tried to tell people this, but no one seemed to hear. When they spoke, it was not to her but to each other, in voices so hushed that she asked them to talk louder, but they did not answer. There was constantly a strange smell, astringent, not unpleasant, but it began to bother her, because she knew it but could not give it a name.
A Bitter Harvest Page 45