To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  The three officers and Mr Shigura marched to the centre of the compound. They bowed to each other, solemn bows and deep. They lifted their left hands. Nancy saw they held small cups filled with liquid. The four men raised these to the sun, and drank.

  ‘Auntie, what are they doing?’ Gavin broke from the line.

  ‘Shh. Gavin, come back here!’

  Nurse Rogers was too late.

  ‘I want to see!’

  The boy ran towards the men.

  The world slowed. Nancy saw small footprints left in the dust by his bare feet, saw Mr Shigura’s look of shock. She hauled herself out of bed with every last shred of energy, hurled herself towards him, pushing her rags of body across the hut, out into the daylight, reached out her arms, yelled out, ‘Gavin! No!’ as she waited for the machine guns ringing the camp to clatter out his death.

  They didn’t. Everything stayed quiet, except for the sound of her feet, and Gavin’s.

  The world exploded.

  The world returned, in waves of agony and too much light. She was alive. She was alive because she hurt, hurt so much she didn’t have the strength to feel the pain.

  The camp had lost its sound.

  No, she thought. I am deaf. The world was going on, because she could see it did. Could see her skin, coated with scattered dapples of dark brown. Could see the shadows of the hut.

  She was inside. Moira lay on the bunk next to her, curled up small, not moving, her face buried in her hands.

  Nancy said, ‘Gavin.’ Her lips made no noise.

  A hand took hers. A face bent down. Mrs Hughendorn’s. Her face too was stippled brown, though tears had washed some of the muck away. Mrs Hughendorn’s lips moved.

  Nancy said, ‘I can’t hear.’

  Mrs Hughendorn’s face came closer. She shouted, which was soft as well as loud: ‘They blew themselves up. The officers and Mr Shigura. They had hand grenades. Nancy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

  Nancy asked again, ‘Gavin?’

  Though she knew.

  ‘He was right next to them.’ Mrs Hughendorn’s too-liquid, too-soft voice. ‘It wasn’t your fault. None of us realised what was happening. Oh, Nancy, I’m sorry. I am so sorry …’

  She couldn’t bear it. Had no strength to bear it. Nor was there any reason to bear it now. Gavin was gone. She should comfort Moira, but what comfort could she give? He was gone, the bright child who had laughed and chased butterflies, who had not registered the horror in which they lived because he had been loved. He had accepted death as part of life, and now it had come for him as well.

  Her reason for survival had gone.

  Why should she stay living now?

  Chapter 57

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 3 September 1945

  Japanese Leaders Sign Surrender

  Seventeen days after the announcement by Japanese Emperor Hirohito, Japanese leaders yesterday signed the agreement aboard the USS Missouri.

  PULAU AYU PRISON CAMP, 3 SEPTEMBER 1945

  NANCY

  Each morning she opened her eyes and thought, I am alive.

  Each morning Mrs Hughendorn brought her ration of watery stew; held it up until she drank it. It took more strength to refuse than to drink, and so she did drink, then lay back and tried to make the world go dark again.

  In those brief glimpses she did not recognise her body. Thin ankles now swollen, as though she had been fed cream cake the entire war. Even her fingers had swelled and darkened.

  Vaguely she was aware of days passing; of morning roll calls she could no longer attend. The enlisted men had not followed their officers’ example and so continued to guard the four starving women. Perhaps they knew no other life to live.

  An aircraft’s roar beat over the hut’s roof. She heard it, but took no notice. Heard screams and could not care. Then thuds around the camp.

  It did not matter. Nothing mattered. Not even when someone cried, ‘Food! Oh, you darlings, food!’

  Later, minutes, years later, another cup was lifted to her lips. She sipped automatically, then spat out the unfamiliar fluid. ‘What …?’ It was the first word she had spoken since … Her mind closed, on both thought and words. She could not bear to finish them.

  ‘Milk, my dear,’ said Mrs Hughendorn’s voice. ‘Powdered milk dropped from the sky. And corned beef and flour and canned cheese. The guards have gone from the gate too. Nurse Rogers has gone to see if she can find the village, exchange some of the canned meat for medicines.’

  Cheese. How could the world have cheese?

  ‘We have won, my dear. I don’t think I truly believed it till now.’ The hand holding the mug began to shake. ‘Oh, my dear Nancy, you have to live now. We have won.’

  It was dark so it was night. She felt someone sit on the bunk next to her, felt a hand soft on her hair.

  ‘Nancy? Can you hear me?’ It was Moira.

  She said nothing. What was there to say?

  ‘Nancy, if I can live, then so can you. There is life beyond this.’ The voice broke, then went on. ‘Nothing … nothing can ever bring Gavin back. Perhaps Ben is alive. Perhaps he is dead too. I don’t know. But there can be more, if we can just live a little longer. Truly, my dear, there can be more.’

  She looked at Moira in the dimness, the moon a flaming coconut in the black outside, this woman who a hundred barbaric years ago she had disliked. How stupid she had been.

  ‘We can’t think of what we have lost,’ said Moira softly. ‘If we do that, we are like the officers who killed themselves. We are more than that, my dear. We are going to live. We will leave the war behind, but keep the good.’

  ‘The good?’ Her voice was rusty, as though she had swallowed nails.

  ‘Friendship,’ said Moira quietly. ‘And generosity and compassion. What we have given each other here. The kindness of the villagers. We must remember that. We must take the good with us and leave the bad.’

  Her voice trembled only a little as she said, ‘I want someone to paint Gavin’s portrait when I get home. I will have to tell them what he looked like. I want Ben to see him. I want his family to see him. If we die here, Gavin will be forgotten. They will have killed him forever, and I can’t stand that. I want a painting of my child laughing at butterflies. Gavin must remind us that even in the worst of times, there can be good.’

  The room filled with silence, except the creak of insects, the scuttle of a rat up on the roof. Moira said at last, ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you live, do you think?’

  Nancy reached out and found Moira’s hand. She said, ‘I will try.’

  The stew changed. It was, if anything, worse tasting than before, a mix of flour, corned beef and powdered milk, with whatever vegetables and coconuts the villagers could supply. Vaguely she supposed it was more nourishing. Equally vaguely, she did not care.

  Voices. New voices. A woman, the accent Australian, bewildered: ‘But where are the rest of you?’

  ‘There,’ said the voice of Mrs Hughendorn, and Nancy felt tears slide through her clenched eyelids at the memory of the graveyard, with that one grave at the side, smaller than the others.

  Hands, men’s hands. For a moment she fought them, remembering years ago the Japanese officers, what she had feared. And then she remembered that was gone. Everything was gone.

  Her body was lifted onto something hard, flat. A stretcher. She was borne out into the glare of light. She forced her eyes open, suddenly desperate. ‘Over there,’ she whispered.

  Two men, Australian uniforms. They didn’t hear her. But Mrs Hughendorn did.

  ‘She needs to say goodbye,’ said Mrs Hughendorn.

  They carried her, the kind uncomprehending men, trying not to show revulsion at the four wretched, skeletal beings they had rescued, who no longer looked like women, dressed in shreds of cloth, mostly bald, bodies grotesquely both thin and swollen. They carried her to the little graveyard. For the last time, Mrs Hughendorn lifted her: known arms, not strange o
nes. Nancy looked down on the graves.

  Eight graves. They had names now, carved with scraps of bone on wood, tied with string made from grass onto crosses made from branches. That last small grave had a name too. Gavin Clancy.

  She heard a dingo howl. But it was her. She hadn’t known she had the strength to weep. The others stumbled from their own stretchers to kneel beside her. Moira and Mrs Hughendorn held her hands. Nurse Rogers put her own hands on Nancy’s shoulders.

  The watchers stood, only dimly comprehending, as Mrs Hughendorn muttered what might have been a prayer or final eulogy. ‘Dear Lord, they are our hearts, forever more. Keep them and cherish them.’

  The watchers helped the women back onto their stretchers. Women who until today had cooked, lit fires and carried water, supported each other and survived were deemed not able to walk even a few steps now.

  Nancy turned her head as her stretcher was carried away, gazing at the silent graves. They will not be lost, thought Nancy. Others will come, and give them proper headstones. Ben might visit here. If she had lived, then Ben might be alive too.

  But I am going to die, she thought. As the stretcher turned the corner to the road, leaving the graves behind, she lay back to do it.

  A shadow crossed her stretcher, so close she felt the breath of wings.

  She opened her eyes again. A heron, pale-topped, grey-backed. Wings rode the thermal up past the trees, towards the sea.

  She had never thought what animal Gavin might belong to. Those things were for the world of Overflow, not Malaya. But now she felt Gavin’s small soul tucked into the embrace of a thousand ancestors, part of the trees, the rocks, the river of his father’s home.

  The heron had gone. But now she saw another bird in her mind’s eye. A pelican, strong-winged, spearing down to land feet first along the river, its wings beating against the spray. A river where swans still nested.

  She only had to live and she would be there.

  She only had to live.

  Chapter 58

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 28 September 1945

  Cheer the Boys as They Come Home!

  Special, pre-war stock of hair curlers at Lee’s Emporium. Buy now before stocks run out!

  MOURA, 28 SEPTEMBER 1945

  BLUE

  Blue strode down to the letterbox, Shadow nosing at wombat droppings or wallaby tracks in front of her, the young dog a gift from Matilda last Christmas. These days Blue could admit that it was impossible to focus on work — on anything — until Mrs Flanagan had passed with the mail.

  There had been no word. Nothing. Or rather there had been many words — men and women starved to death and tortured in prison camps; the extermination camps of Germany; and Japanese slave labour camps of prisoners of war being slowly gathered into hospitals to recover enough to travel. But there were also stories of families told their loved ones were dead, yet they’d come home, unrecorded in a prison camp, hidden by kind people, or those who were not kind but hated those in power.

  Yet not a word of Joseph. He had vanished in the jungle of Malaya. One day, would a headstone be erected over his grave, inscribed with the words Unknown Soldier?

  No! Joseph was known. Was loved.

  She stopped so suddenly that Shadow bounded up, sniffing her to see if anything was wrong. She rubbed his ears, then moved purposefully up the gully again.

  There was a rock, half as tall as she was, with a flat top, as if aeons ago it had split in half, though if there had been a matching piece an ancient flood had shifted it. She had always meant to climb that rock, to sit on it just because it was so flat.

  Why? She didn’t know. But when she had found a foothold, clambered up and sat as Shadow settled himself at the base of the rock to guard her, she knew why.

  It was warm. Warm like Joseph had been the last time she had held him. Warm and solid and here.

  She lifted her face, and let the sunlight stroke it. She put her hands upon the rock. The words that came were not a prayer. Or perhaps they were.

  Please, let me know. If he is dead, my heart will break but I will go on, and live my life even if he is not with me to share it. But please, please, do not leave us wondering, Flinty and Kirsty never knowing if their brother is alive, me not able to be wife or widow. Please, please, let us know.

  A tear fell onto the rock, glinted for a moment, then evaporated. Please, my darling Joseph, be alive. Please.

  She sat till Shadow grew restless; he barked once, then looked up at her. He must have heard Mrs Flanagan’s horse. The mail had come.

  She slid down the rock, patted Shadow, then walked back to the track. For some reason she felt calmer now. Perhaps, she thought, because I have allowed myself to cry.

  Crying was good. Knowing would be better.

  There was a letter. Only one. She knew the writing.

  Joseph’s.

  She did not let herself feel joy. This might be a letter he had written long ago, when he knew that he might die. The postmark was Sydney. If he was in Sydney, he would have called her, not written. This must have been posted by a friend, who had kept the letter till it could at last be sent. Once she opened the letter she would know. My hands should tremble, she thought. If this was a book, my face would blanch. She never had been able to do what was expected of a nice young woman. Yet when she opened the envelope, she had to lean against the letterbox, her legs suddenly — appropriately — weak.

  Singapore

  September sometime or other. No time to find out the date! 1945

  My darling Blue,

  I am coming home. I am scribbling this to give to a good bloke who is being shipped off this morning to hospital in Australia to post to you. If I know the sodding army, they may not have even managed to tell you I am alive, or even tell themselves. My hospital bed had ‘Dr McKenzie’ on it till I noticed this morning and made them change it.

  I am all right. Well, no, to be precise I have dysentery, malnutrition and two interesting tropical ulcers. But I am recovering fast. Most importantly, I am still myself, in one piece, if tattered, and if I know my Blue, you are still you too. I am needed here for a little while longer — while I am officially a patient, some of the men need the assurance of a doctor who knows what they have been through, and privately, some of the medical staff need my insight too. But soon I will find myself on a plane or ship bound for Australia. We will sit in the valley and listen to the cicadas call and, no matter what, my darling, I will not leave you or our valley again.

  I am coming home to you.

  All my love,

  Joseph

  She slid down onto the dust of the road, the plans rushing in like water shimmering down the gully after rain. She would make fruitcake, sponge cake, banana custard … Joseph loved banana custard. Paint the bedroom — there was still a can of pre-war paint in the shed. If she did it now, the smell would be gone by the time he arrived home. She would garland Sheba in paper flowers, like they had done back in the circus for Madame’s birthday.

  I must get a new dress. Thank goodness she still had the coupons. Get her hair done. Another holiday at the factory? No, the profit margins were still too slim.

  Today the factory would be without her. She must send a telegram to Flinty, tell Mah and Andy and Matilda and Tommy, send a telegram to Kirsty, still up north. Go to the stores to choose material for her new dress, paint the bedroom. Get a quarter of hogget from Drinkwater. If Joseph turned up unexpectedly, she needed to make sure she had a roast in hand. Did Matilda have any pumpkins from last autumn still sound in the shearing shed? Roast pumpkin …

  Shadow trotted behind her as she strode back up the path. His mistress was smiling again. And a dog like Shadow was good at guessing that a smile meant a lot of bones soon in his future.

  Chapter 59

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 29 September 1945

  Carlton beats South Melbourne in VFL Grand Final!

  OVERFLOW, 29 SEPTEMBER 1945

  SYLVIA CLANCY

  The letter ca
me to Overflow in the usual cloud of dust. She couldn’t face the kind eyes of the postie, so she waited till the cloud had vanished around the corner before she walked down the track and took it from the old milk can that had been their letterbox even before her father-in-law’s time.

  The address was simple: Mrs Sylvia Clancy, the Overflow, via Gibber’s Creek, Australia. A stranger’s hand. Not good news then. The only good news would be from a hand she knew. She walked back to the house before she opened it, glad that it was empty, the others at the cattle sale.

  Dear Mrs Clancy,

  Forgive a stranger writing to you. By now you will have the news of poor little Gavin, and heard about Moira and darling Nancy. I hope you don’t mind my referring to your daughter in that familiar way, but she was very dear to me, as dear as any daughter. Her courage and her determination helped the rest of us survive. We owe her our lives.

  I am posting this before the ship sails for Bombay, where my husband waits for me. If you wish, the address of the club on this envelope will always find me. Please accept my sincere condolences for the news that you must have found so hard to bear.

  Yours sincerely,

  Mrs Horatio Hughendorn

  Her first thought was, she thinks we already know. There were so many prisoners of war, so much confusion, so few ships or medical staff, so many records destroyed. They’d had no word of Ben, nor Nancy, Moira or Gavin. No word but this.

  Poor little Gavin. The words were wrenched from her as though they were too heavy to stay in her body. Dead then. She had to think the word, accept it. And Moira and darling Nancy. Which implied that Nancy too had died, and Moira also, the woman she had never met, part of her family but gone now too. All of them gone.

  The second thought was, how will I tell them? For she must tell her husband this, and her mother-in-law. The old woman had been so sure that Nancy would return.