by Kim Kelly
I’ve taken up carving again, whatever I can get my hands on, and sending it back to Francine. But despite the fact that I’m minding my own business, as much as you can with one hundred thousand mates, and despite the fact that everyone’s been tossed around in a cavil to sort the veterans among the new arrivals, which sees half of us sent off as attachments in this other field company or that, seems I’m stuck with Duncan like a bee in my ear. This evening he stands over me as I’m sitting here outside the tent carving, alone for a change, and says: ‘Get up, Ackerman.’
I do, slowly. What now? Like I’ve got something better to do. Well, I do actually.
‘Where’s the button on your left-hand top pocket?’
I’m not even wearing my tunic and there’s no reason why I should be. ‘In the pocket. Sir.’ It keeps falling off, because that’s where France’s picture is. He must have seen the offending absence of button on parade this morning. Jesus. And why leave it till now? It’s hardly his business anyway, and hardly relevant to anything at all. He’s having a special private moment with me.
‘Why is it there?’ he asks.
I very much want to tell him to fuck off, but I say: ‘Because I haven’t sewn it back on yet.’
He lets the ‘sir’ go now, there’s not much call for it in these parts at the moment. ‘Why not?’
Well, to tell the truth, I couldn’t be arsed; the buttonhole’s too big for the button anyway and it always slips. Why are we having this conversation? But I say: ‘I forgot to.’
He says: ‘Don’t forget. It’s the details that count. When we get where we’re going I won’t care a fig about your buttons, but here, practise concentrating on the details you have, will you?’
I do concentrate. He can’t fault me, except with a rifle, and I’m not that bad at it any more; not as bad as some of the blokes just in at Tel el Kabir who’d not even touched a rifle till they set foot in Egypt because the factory back home couldn’t keep up with demand — good on you, Lithgow. And that’s all good enough for the AIF. What’s Duncan’s bloody problem? I don’t answer him, just look.
He says: ‘And you don’t want to lose that photograph either. Do it now.’ And he walks off, on his tiny feet. He’s a fucking nut.
But I sew it on anyway.
Next morning, here he is again, and I think he’s come to check on the button. I am going to tell him to back off, and bugger the consequences.
Except that he says: ‘Get up, Ackerman, and come with me.’ Like I’m really in the shit for something. Well, whoever did it, it wasn’t me. I don’t say anything, just follow, quietly fuming. He says: ‘Don’t salute, and let me do the talking.’
And he’s got me hauled inside the well-kitted digs of this Tommy major I’ve never seen before, who’s a good foot shorter and still manages to stare down his nose as he looks me over. He’s holding a riding crop under his arm, as they do, all polished brass and spotless Royal Engineers red tunic ready for the ball. I don’t salute, as if I would, and he doesn’t blink; clearly he’s been involved with the AIF for a while. He ignores Duncan, whose hand is still falling from his own salute, and says: ‘So, Sapper, you’re rather good at blowing things up, are you?’
How to answer that without talking. Well, yes, but whatever’s blown up recently, I didn’t do it. But I’ve had a lot of practice. Sir. Strangely enough it’s one of the things I am best at, and I would never lark about with it. Best to obey captain and keep my mouth shut, I think.
Duncan says to him: ‘Yes sir, he is indeed, but he doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.’
Don’t I? Apparently not. I’m looking at Duncan, who’s ignoring me.
He says, shaking his head: ‘As I’ve told you, sir, he’s a bit dim.’
Thanks very much. What the fuck is going on?
The major’s still looking at me. Best to look dim? I’m certainly confused.
Major looks a little further down that nose and says: ‘Hmmmm. I see. Oh well, off you go then.’
Just try to stop me. Sir.
Outside, Duncan says, quietly: ‘Sorry about that, but I don’t want you pinched.’
Meaning?
End of conversation. And off he goes; don’t know whether I want to thank him or deck him. One clear lesson here, as if it needed clarity: my opinion, much less my question, does not count.
Still not gone anywhere and I’m not thin any more. I’m practically skinny. There’s just not enough to eat, not for me, and I’m sure I sweat it all out before it touches the sides anyway. Mining is hot work, but you do get to go outside afterwards. Here it’s not just hot but dry as Tommy’s washtub, every day, and it’s supposed to be winter, which we get after dark, when it’s that freezing I have to wear a jumper and two pairs of socks to get to sleep. Come midday, though, and I don’t know what I want more: food or rain. I like the sun, but not this much of it, especially in full kit on parade. At least in the mine you strip off while you’re actually working at something, down to your undies when you have to — and you’re not marching for miles to dig pointless, endless trenches and fill them back in again like you’re going to have trouble remembering how to do it on the day, or getting excited about going out to mend a bit of road or drainage duct. We strip off here, of course, to what’s decent, which only gives the Tommy officers another reason to think we’re uncouth. Fuck them. They must be skeletons under all their gear. I’m so hungry I get myself on kitchen fatigue whenever it’s available, do anything for a sly sausage roll, and I go into Cairo for extras when I can, just straight in and out, and if I eat another date I’ll be sick. The AIF should have height restrictions that go the other way.
But today, when I come back with my sack of oranges and my two loaves of bread, there’s a letter for me. Francine’s first. And what she says spins me round three times and backwards.
FRANCINE
I’ll never forgive you … my mad and dangerous and unforgivable words seep out from where the mould splotch used to be, before he fixed it. Shame bites deeper and louder than the screeching headache I’ve provoked in myself by weeping till dark, as I make my decision now to embark upon some sort of radical course of action to make up for it. Make up for our famous last words too, or at least mine: I think the last full sentences I uttered to him were when I asked if he’d heard that the editor of Direct Action had been arrested for anti-war propaganda. To arms! Capitalists, parsons, politicians, land lords, newspaper editors and other stay-at-home patriots. Your country needs you in the trenches! Workers, follow your Masters! said the poster that an army of Industrial Workers of the World Wobblies had plastered all over Sydney. I said: ‘Didn’t know being cheeky with the truth was a crime.’ As soon as I’d said it, I knew it was the wrong thing to say; and a selfish thing to say. I’d just wanted one last laugh, and it wasn’t funny; I could see that in his eyes, though he gave me his raspy chuckle anyway: ‘Probably about time someone shut him up, the IWW only give the working class a bad name. But something’s got to give, hasn’t it. The revolution’ll just have to sit it out till it’s ended.’ Mmn.
And it’s him who’s giving. So many hims. And quite a few hers, too, going abroad as nurses and drivers and doing extraordinary technical sorts of things with telegraphy and such. While I’m sitting on my bed …
Grand Plan for Radical Change doesn’t go much further than resolve to stop blubbering, resume eating, and start springbeating the carpets; then it takes off very ambitiously with a decision to go to Sydney University to study law, prompted by the first thing Drummond does as soon as he’s aware Daniel is out of the country.
He drives round in his big black Buick to see me; he’s done his own contacting of Messrs Stanley and Bragg, probably a year ago, and now he’s saying on my front doorstep: ‘Francine, surely you don’t need the worry and responsibility of the mine now?’ Meaning so I have more time for pining and prayer? ‘There is a loophole I’ve found that will get you out of it if you want to. I’m prepared to buy you out under very generous terms
.’
Meaning he wants to get rid of me because I have just this minute refused to agree to relax the shift regulations to accommodate the demands brought about by the war and his desire to make even more from it. He’s said that he’ll pay the men well, and that the new manager, a Mr Robbenham, has a good deal of experience in implementing such things smoothly and amicably, but I’ve said no: Robbenham sounds very much like smoothly and amicably robbin’ ’em to me, and it’s dangerous enough as it is down the hideous hole without falling asleep on the job. I know that the ten-hour days he wants will translate into fourteen, as eight translates as twelve, and that’s just not acceptable. I’m sure that Daniel would agree, and that Evan Lewis would too, at least I think I’m sure: it makes sense that most men would jump at the extra money, but it can’t be safe, and I believe it’s unfair. It’s probably against union agreements and whatnot too. I’m too angry to bother with consultation; too angry that the man in front of me has just tried to bully me, in the nicest possible way. Well, this relaxation of regulation is not going to happen while I have a say, and thankfully I do on this matter. As an equal partner such a change would require my signature on a new agreement, via my elderly legal angels in Macquarie Street, and Drummond’s not going to get it.
I say: ‘Mr Drummond, I’m very happy with the way things are, but thank you for your consideration. Must rush, I have a very busy day today.’ And close the door on his open mouth. Listen to his engine splutter away, hope he gets a wheel stuck in the ruts just to rub it in.
But I don’t have a busy day, and I spend part of it pacing round the house muttering to myself, wishing I knew more about industrial laws so that I could have told him his plan was illegal instead of sounding like a petulant little girl. I don’t know if it is illegal or not, but it probably should be. And to come here, after all this time, when I am alone — he is despicable. But Father was right: Drummond is blinkered. He thinks it’s canny business practice. Everybody wins.
Grand Plan stalls as I exhaust myself with it and reality returns. I can find out more about the law easily enough, but I’m not about to go off to Sydney to study it. A few women have, but they’re not permitted to practise. What’s the point of gaining knowledge you don’t have the power to use? Besides, to use a Danielism, I don’t have the bottle to do any such thing. I couldn’t bear to leave Josie’s Place and Calypso anyway, even if I passed the entrance requirements, even if they overlooked the fact that I am married and therefore unsuitable for anything that might require use of a brain. Fact is, I am pining and praying. And becoming frustrated with myself because of it. Back to beating the devil out of the hall carpet.
What are the alternatives? I can’t join a gaggle of women knitting socks and pining and praying together. Bolstering each other with talk of proud sacrifice. I don’t think I’d trust myself to keep my composure; I’ll do my bit for the Sock Fund on my own, where I can bolster myself with the private confabulation that I can knit lucky socks. And I’m not about to head off overseas to be a nurse or other extraordinary sort of thing. I’m not adventurous enough, don’t have the stomach let alone the bottle, and they probably don’t want married women either. What about joining the Wobblies, or the Socialist Party, or even the Feminists — that Women’s Peace Army in Melbourne that’s been in the papers lately for their more genteel call to destroy militarism with their War Against War? Same problem: too little bottle. And I think you’d have to be a devout spinster in the mould of their leader, Formidable Miss Vida Goldstein, to join that club anyway. Not to mention the added conundrum my marriage presents there: husband in voluntary service overseas: how would that look? Not very supportive of My Boy.
So, come Sunday I go to Mass, for the first time in more than a year. I am that desperate for a higher thought. I won’t take communion of course, I’m too brimming with sin; I’m just here looking for signs, smelling the damp bricks. But Father Hurley’s sermon hurtles through me past the Latin: he’s so fired-up he’s almost violent as he speaks of false sacrifice and the tyranny of men who will play God. Sounds like he’s been studying that mad Melbourne bishop, Doctor Mannix, who’s pitted himself against the government, the colonial trade war and, in particular, British imperialism — papers can’t get enough of the scandal. How dare he make such a terrible traitorous hullabaloo. Scandal indeed: this humble parish priest reads the roll of those recently sacrificed from the region and reminds us that the same self-appointed British gods are mercilessly oppressing the Irish as they are failing to liberate Europe from a foe which they, by their imperial conceitedness and greed, created, sending our boys to their senseless deaths, consuming youth and justice till there will be none left to defend.
Too damn right! I want to bang my fist down on the back of the pew in front of me, but I’m too busy quaking all over, oblivious to the Eucharist. This wasn’t a good idea.
I can’t move when everybody wanders out, back to the real world; can’t even look over my shoulder to see if Drummond was here to ignore the condemnation. I just kneel and cry, and Father Hurley, gentle and wearied again, sits down next to me and rubs my back, willing peace into me.
‘Shhhh. We’ll have to find something to keep you from your idleness now, won’t we, Francine?’
Yes please. When I’ve finished being pathetic.
After a while he says: ‘Can you drive a motor car?’
‘No.’ Sniff sniff; I look up at him as if he’s just asked if I can fly. ‘Why?’
‘There are a few lads come back from Turkey, in a bad way, and it’s difficult for them to get about. I’m looking for someone to help them with transport, a particular sort of person.’
‘Me?’
‘I thought it might suit you, but you don’t drive, of course you don’t, so we’ll think of something else.’
Divine intervention shakes the roof and I say: ‘No, I’ll do it. I’ll buy a vehicle and learn to drive it.’ And I can buy a vehicle too, it’s not like I don’t have the money, and it seems a good way to start tearing down this wall of fear in front of me. I’m terrified of motoring and I’m terrified at the prospect of meeting the casualties of war. Perfect.
I don’t tell Daniel any of this when I finally write to him, and I have been putting off writing because I just didn’t know what to say. Beyond I love you, please come home; not very chippering stuff and too much of a temptation for fate. When I put pen to paper now, I don’t tell him about the mine or Drummond, or the great thumping green all-American-made Cadillac I’ve acquired, which is twice the size of Father’s little old Austin and has an electric self-starting thingumy for the engine suitable for ‘the lady-driver’, all arranged for me by my elderly angels in Babel — quick sale and a bargain: a fair few orders not picked up, due to young male drivers heading overseas — or the fact that my terror actually makes me a fair chop at driving, for this job. Young Mr Christopher Templeton and his mother like me driving slowly and carefully, since Chris’s spine is damaged somehow from a bullet so that he’s in constant awful pain and he can barely walk. They also like that my reined-in dread means I don’t pry or chatter on our first trip out, to the hospital for a check-over, but we get to know each other well enough for me to work out that he’s the elder brother of Baby Face from the train. Daniel certainly doesn’t need to know that. And neither do I tell him I’ve had to cut my hair short since no matter how I pinned or plaited it, it kept blowing around in my face too much when I was learning to drive, under the instruction of Doctor Nichols who kindly offered to lose a few hairs of his own till I got the hang of it, and that I now look like a five-year-old playing dress-ups, or Joan of Lithgow, as Father Hurley has taken to calling me. Daniel doesn’t need to know that I really do need to see an optician, and that I’ve made an appointment for tomorrow: I have no trouble whatsoever seeing close up, but my distance vision is appalling I have discovered, now that I have the responsibility of operating heavy machinery carrying delicate cargo. No, I have different news for Daniel. Very, very different n
ews.
DANIEL
‘Oi,’ says Anderson, the pleasant plumber and faithful snorer. ‘Noisy’s happy today — look, he’s smiling.’
I am too, now I’ve got over the shock, a bit.
My darling husband Daniel, she begins and she’s having fun with me, I do hope that you are able to down tools for a moment and find yourself a comfortable place to sit or fall over. Apologies if that’s bad taste in present circumstances, but it is good advice. It appears you have shot straight at least once in your life — for I am with child. How about that!!!!!!!! Our timing, as ever, is impeccable. Can’t say any more than that for now — if I did I’d have to do nothing but touch wood for the duration, you know what I mean — still a superstitious Catholic despite all your good influence. But I can say that I am thrilled to the marrow, obviously, and fairly floating on love for you. Have been since forever and I always will.
Your obedient and dutiful and fruitful wife, France.
I even laugh; not very hard to, she’s a lark.
‘Good news?’ says Anderson.
‘My wife. She’s going to have a baby.’ Yes she is. She’s going to have a baby. Our baby. That’s what she said. You beaut.
‘Congrats, mate. First one?’ He’s genuinely excited for me; he’s got two little sons of his own.
‘Yep.’
‘Well, come on, let’s go and get you good and plastered, then, ay,’ says this bloke Stratho who’s one of the new in with us after the reshuffle and another plumber. He’s not new, though: he’s been here from the start, joined up in September 1914, and has taken on cracking me as his personal responsibility. Likes to call me the DT, the Deepest Thinker, in reference to the not very friendly term applied to anyone who joined up after April 1915.