To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  Now she would have to give her this.

  Chapter 60

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 4 December 1945

  Australian Wins Nobel Prize for Work on Penicillin

  Australian pathologist Professor Howard Florey has been awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine for his development of the antibiotic penicillin.

  Gibber’s Creek’s only current doctor, Dr Archibald, said, ‘These new drugs mean that for the first time we can truly treat many diseases, instead of simply applying hope and careful nursing.’

  Dr Archibald also stated that he hoped that Gibber’s Creek’s Dr Joseph McAlpine will soon be with us again. Dr McAlpine has been a POW since the fall of Singapore and has been recovering there since his liberation. His wife, Mrs McAlpine, says she believes that Dr McAlpine will be with us by New Year.

  Gibber’s Creek will give him a hero’s welcome when he returns.

  MOURA, DECEMBER 1945

  BLUE

  She couldn’t wait for him. The telegram said his ship would dock in Brisbane, so that was where she was going.

  She packed her white linen with blue spots, bought for his return, half her clothing coupons for the year. Hesitated over sensible shoes, then packed her new high-heeled ‘Yank snatchers’, keeping out a pair of pre-war low-heeled sandals for the journey. She packed the silk nightdress, unworn for four and a half years. His flannel trousers and two shirts, some socks and underpants. She didn’t know if they would let him wear civilian clothes before his demob but he could at least wear them at the hotel.

  His dressing gown — she had almost forgotten. His pyjamas too, soft cotton with the smell of home. Oh, and the photo of Kirsty’s wedding in Darwin, though Kirsty still hadn’t thought to mention her husband’s surname, just the telegram MARRIED JOHNNO TODAY STOP HAPPY HAPPY STOP LOVE KIRSTY and the copy of the photo in the mail a week later for everyone in the family, inscribed Johnno and me and Brownie on the back, the thin young ‘Brownie’ presumably being the best man.

  What else? Flinty’s latest novel, though Joseph never read them, but might like to see it, and she could read it on the way. Our Mutual Friend for him, his favourite and a strange one, a tale of a world he’d never seen nor wanted to. Perhaps that was why he’d liked it.

  Would he still like it now? She looked at herself in the mirror, and thought, will he still like me?

  She took the train to Sydney, two nights at a hotel and seven baths. The last tank at home was half empty and she was saving that water for Joseph — had made do with a soapy flannel and a billy for the last three months, and a dip in the river after work to feel clean. She called the chambermaid three times for fresh towels. She ordered oysters for three people, to get around the austerity rules. Australia might have ‘peace’ but ‘plenty’ was still years away, as factories like hers changed from war production into making goods for home, as the labour force of women and the elderly gave way to returned servicemen.

  A train to Brisbane leaving from Central Station, a blur of uniforms and women in impossibly high heels. She remembered the first time she had seen Central Station, with Mah and Gertrude and poor Fred.

  Would Mah ever know what had happened to her brother? There had still been no word of Ben Clancy either. Even though the war was over, the newspapers still listed more dead each day, as camp after camp was opened, records slowly put together, camps across the Pacific, across Europe, not just prisoners of war but millions more — Jewish, Romany, anyone who had opposed the Nazi regime.

  What did George Green think now of the fine Aryan race? Now the need for secrecy was over, Flinty and Matilda had told her his story. How many families had been lost, not just in war, but through hatred?

  But I know where Joseph is, she thought. He is coming home to me.

  The carriage was crammed, but she got a window seat. No sleepers available now, not with so many who must travel. She managed to doze, while stations slipped by, Grafton, Casino, Kyogle, woke to see Jersey cows and green grass, the first she had seen for more than a year, a river, ten times the size of the one at home. Did they never have droughts up here? A straggle of houses that she thought was Brisbane. It wasn’t, but when the train stopped she managed to buy a cup of strong stewed tea from the station buffet, the same women manning the urns as had fed the troops through the war, still doing sterling service now.

  Brisbane was small. There were no taxis at the smoke-stained station. The stationmaster gave her directions. She picked up her case and walked across a bridge over yet another river, broad and winding, up two streets and then along to Lennons Hotel, where Tommy’s agent had performed his usual miracles, and booked her a room.

  A small room. Hot, even with the window open, but at least that stirred the breeze. The bathroom was down the hall. She had a bath, then room service — roast chicken and roast potatoes, charred pumpkin, no salad offered even in this heat. She spent most of the next day in the bath, and wondered how to get to the docks tomorrow, when Joseph’s ship came in.

  She needn’t have worried. As she stepped out of the reception area, she was carried forwards.

  Every person in Brisbane was heading to the docks today. ‘Don’t know any of the lads myself,’ said the woman next to her, as round as a pumpkin and with a tan much the same colour. ‘What them poor lads have been through! Never thought this day would come. Did you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Blue.

  The woman looked at her more closely. ‘You got someone on the ship?’

  ‘My husband.’

  ‘Oh my, dearie.’ The woman stepped into Queen Street and held up her hand like a policeman. She stuck her head in the window of the first car that stopped. ‘This lady has a husband on the ship.’

  ‘Oh my.’ The man in front reached back and opened the door for her. The woman, obviously his wife, turned to Blue too. ‘We’ll give you both a lift home again.’

  Blue tried to laugh. ‘Home is more than a thousand miles away.’

  They stared. She added, ‘I’m staying at Lennons.’

  ‘We’ll drop you back there,’ said the woman. ‘How long since you’ve seen him?’ She didn’t ask, ‘Does he have both legs? Can he see and talk and walk?’

  ‘1941,’ said Blue softly.

  The woman began to cry silently.

  ‘Our boy was reported killed in ’41,’ said the man, his face to the traffic. Every car in Brisbane was here, it seemed. And every dog. ‘But you never know. Made mistakes, didn’t they? Might have been a prisoner all that time. Might be on that ship.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Blue. What else was there to say? But Joseph will be there, she thought. Joseph.

  The crowd and noise increased as they neared the docks. The ship was in sight, as Blue thanked her benefactors and got out of the car to struggle forwards through the crowd, pushing and apologising, ‘My husband. I’m meeting my husband.’ A hundred small craft accompanied the ship down the river, car horns tooting, two separate and competing brass bands playing, the heat breathless around her.

  She strained to make out faces on the deck. Men crowding over to the rail.

  He wasn’t one of them. But of course, she thought, he doesn’t know I’m here.

  And then she saw him. Thin, looking at the other bank, not at the crowd.

  She waved, she yelled his name, knowing it was futile.

  ‘Joseph!’ she cried again.

  The people on either side of her took up the call. They made it into a chant, like at a football game. ‘Jo … seph! Jo … seph!’ Two tall men and an even taller woman hoisted her above their heads. She held down her skirt for modesty, and waved.

  He saw her. She saw him stare. And then, slowly, she saw him grin.

  The fear that she hadn’t known was there unfroze — that after all that he had seen he might return, but without his smile.

  She waved again.

  They put her down.

  She waited, as she had waited for four and a half years.

  They had four minutes, one long embra
ce, before he was marched off for medical tests. She couldn’t find the couple who had brought her, but another gave her a lift to a barracks behind barbed wire. Ironic, she thought, to put prisoners of war back behind barbed wire.

  She finally found a public telephone box to call for a taxi back to Lennons. She tried to call the barracks once she was back there, but the operator said that the lines were always engaged. So for two days she waited on the footpath outside, on a camp stool lent to her by the hotel, in a broad hat with a Thermos of cold water against the heat.

  On the second day they let him out, for an afternoon, miraculously with an army driver to take him and three others — and her too — into the city. Half an hour to get there, half an hour to get back. Which left them two hours together, spent with the other men, almost strangers, one from Perth, two from Adelaide, all of whom knew no one else in Brisbane.

  Impossible to leave three men in a strange city, especially as the army had, it seemed, forgotten to give them money. They found a Bank of New South Wales with difficulty; with even more difficulty managed to convince the manager the men were who they said they were, and could withdraw a few pounds from their accounts without their savings books. Blue suspected if she hadn’t had her own bankbook and gone guarantor, the men would have been left penniless till they reached home.

  In the remaining hour she took them and the driver to the Ladies’ Lounge at Lennons, where even more miraculously three cold beers were produced, and a shandy for her, before the car carried the men back behind barbed wire. Later, alone in bed, she counted: three kisses in four and a half years, and two whispered ‘I love yous’.

  But she was smiling as she slept.

  A week later they gave him leave.

  They’d still had no time alone together. They were not alone now. Once again, crammed in the train carriage, touching each other at least. Joseph was dozing on her shoulder by the time they reached Kyogle. She stayed awake, watching the miracle of him, alive, gaunt and pale under his tan, but alive.

  The train rumbled below them on its tracks. Alive. Alive. Alive.

  Somewhere in the long tunnel of the night he woke. They spoke, private at last while the other passengers slept. Later, she thought, I’ll cry. I’ll say I’ve missed you. I’ll sob and tell you never to leave me again.

  For now she whispered news, hour upon hour, year after year of it: ‘… then a year later Brenda married an American lieutenant she met at the Anzac Buffet. She’s waiting for a war bride ship. Mick Henderson is back — he managed to get out of Crete. And the Clancys are hoping to hear from Ben any day now. They may have got a letter already —’

  Joseph said in a queer voice, ‘Ben Clancy?’

  ‘Yes. They were notified he was a prisoner of war not long after I received the telegram about you. He even got a message to them using Tokyo Rose. Mr Clancy’s been shining Ben’s saddle …’

  He looked at her, his eyes full of pain. He said gently, ‘Ben is dead, darling.’

  ‘How do you know? Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. I was there when he died. Tried to save him —’

  ‘Of course you tried to save him. Joseph, it’s not your fault.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said quietly. ‘You learnt to accept that or you couldn’t go on.’

  ‘How did he die? I’m sorry. Don’t talk about it if you’d rather not —’

  ‘I want to talk. The brass told us not to, back at barracks. Did I tell you that? They said the Japanese are American allies now, against the communists. They can’t keep it all quiet — too much happened to too many people. But they demanded that we give them any papers or diaries we’d kept — against the rules, but some blokes kept them anyway. I kept medical records at one camp, but had to leave them behind. Anyway …’ He stared out at a glimpse of light in a fibro shack by the railway line. ‘The papers were supposed to be fumigated. But no one got them back. We were told they had been burnt.’

  ‘So it’s all gone? Everyone’s records?’

  His smile was grim. ‘Some of the lads still haven’t learnt to do what they are told. They didn’t hand over their diaries. And we’ll remember, Blue. It won’t be like the last war, when everyone worked hard to forget. The things that have been done in this war, to our lot, the Jews in Europe — if we don’t remember them, they’ll be done again and again.’

  The woman next to her stirred, gave a snore, then a snort, then nodded back to sleep. Blue squeezed Joseph’s hand.

  ‘Ben Clancy?’

  ‘He was in another camp. I only met him near the end. He nearly made it through. The camps were burnt, I don’t know why. Everyone had to walk, even those too sick to stand. If they didn’t … Well, Ben walked. Managed to make it to just outside my camp, then he fell, that first afternoon, soon after we recognised each other. He was just struggling to his feet …’

  His voice stopped.

  ‘Joseph?’

  ‘They cut his head off. Two guards swooped down. They left him there by the track. We all had to leave his body there.’ His voice cracked. When he had recovered he said, ‘I think he’d have made it to the next camp if they had let him keep going. They murdered him, Blue. It wasn’t war. Just murder. And there will be no war crimes trial for his murderers.’ He met her eyes again. ‘I’ll have to tell his parents, won’t I?’

  ‘I can tell them for you if it’s too hard.’

  ‘They’d still need to hear it from me. Should I …?’

  ‘Lie? Say he died quietly in his sleep?’

  He nodded.

  ‘No. If it had been you, I’d want the truth. Want to know you’d fought to live until the end. Want to know every detail anyone could tell me. The Clancys will need that too.’

  He accepted it without speaking, leaning back against the seat.

  ‘Try to sleep,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll sleep later. You don’t know how good it is to talk to you. I used to have conversations with you in my head.’

  ‘I did with you too.’

  They smiled at each other, the moment lengthening. He bent and kissed her, then tucked her under his arm. They rode in silence for a while, the train rattling around them. At last Blue said, ‘The poor Clancys. They have no one now. Ben’s wife and son died, and Nancy. Did I tell you? They didn’t even know they’d been taken prisoner. Just kept hoping. Then they got a letter from someone who’d been in the camp with them, saying how sorry she was.’

  ‘Nancy Clancy? She’s not dead.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Her little nephew died. But Nancy is alive. Her sister-in-law too. Nancy was in the ward next to mine.’

  ‘But … but why hasn’t anyone told her family?’

  ‘Maybe the hospital doesn’t know her name,’ he said slowly. ‘Things were pretty confused up there. Half the beds had no names on them. Half the others were wrong. I used to walk through the wards, a doctor’s habit I think and, anyway, it did me good to move around. I recognised her. We even talked a couple of times, that’s how I know about Moira — that’s her sister-in-law — and little Gavin. Nancy was pretty sick. Nearly died. Maybe whoever wrote to her family thought she had died.’

  ‘I … I don’t know.’ She tried to remember what Matilda had told her about the letter. Had it really said straight out that Nancy was dead?

  ‘She’ll be coming home, Blue. Just like me,’ said Joseph.

  The stationmaster at Grafton promised to send the telegrams himself, when she gave him the words and the money to send them. ‘Reckon people need to know news like that,’ he said, reading her scribble on the page torn from the back of her bankbook.

  NANCY ALIVE STOP ILL IN SINGAPORE WILL RECOVER STOP JOSEPH SAW HER STOP MOIRA ALSO ALIVE STOP WILL TELL MORE ARRIVE TUESDAY BLUE

  More cups of stewed tea, stale buns, and cheese and pickle sandwiches, some warm oranges, shared with the others in the carriage.

  ‘Roast lamb,’ Blue said. ‘Roast pumpkin, roast parsnips, roast potatoes, gravy, apple crumbl
e, baked custard …’

  Joseph looked at her enquiringly.

  ‘Mah promised to have them all waiting for you. Sherry trifle — pre-war sherry, opened but still quite good. Apple teacake.’

  ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘You’ll put me off my crust of bread.’ And laughed and kissed her, while the others in the carriage pretended not to watch, except for a six-year-old girl, who did.

  Blue wanted him to rest in Sydney before they took the train to Gibber’s Creek. He wouldn’t. They sat at the station buffet, drinking more stewed tea, eating a salad of limp lettuce, sliced tomato, a radish rose and half an egg. She apologised for the lettuce, and for the brown paddocks that he’d see at home. He caught her hand again. ‘I’ve seen drought before, darling. More than you have. You see the bones of the land in the drought, that’s all. Beautiful, like a skeleton.’

  Only a doctor, she thought, could think a skeleton beautiful. But she was glad he wasn’t expecting lushness and flowers.

  The train was an hour late leaving the station, waiting for a troop train. They clattered through Sydney and Joseph slept at last, over the Blue Mountains, where mist hung on fire-burnt trees, down onto the plains. A chug a chug a chug …

  He slept till Yass, woke up, then slept again.

  They had nearly reached the Gibber’s Creek station when it began to rain.

  Chapter 61

  Moira Clancy

  Raffles Hospital

  Singapore

  16 January 1946

  My dearest Nancy,

  I have asked the nurse to give you this when my ship sails: to England, not Australia.

  I hope you can forgive me, both for my desertion and for not having the courage to tell you myself. But I didn’t want our last words together to be tears and goodbyes, but of looking towards the future.

  Yours is at Overflow. I don’t know where mine is yet. But I do know that before I find it I need to see my home, my real home, green fields and brown streams and leaves turning yellow in autumn. I need to hear English voices. One day, I promise, we will meet again. Perhaps I will even come to stay at Overflow, if you will have me.