The supervisor went on. ‘You are all expected at stores at 1500 hours to collect your uniforms. You can pick up your bed linen then as well. Oh, and there is usually a photograph of new recruits in their civvies before you put on your blues for the first time, so I suggest, girls, that you take the opportunity to freshen up and reapply your lipstick. I will see you at stores, which is to the rear of the admin block, in twenty minutes.’
‘Well!’ exclaimed Leila when she’d gone, flopping onto one of the beds and grimacing because the mattress was even harder than it looked. ‘It’s not quite what we were expecting, is it?’
‘And what were you expecting? A five-star hotel?’
This was from a tall, solid girl with dark hair and a cheerful face.
‘No,’ Leila replied, ‘but it’s all very … communal, isn’t it?’
‘I think it’s great,’ The girl said. ‘Sheila Sullivan, from Kaitaia. Where are you girls from?’
Bonnie said, ‘Napier. I’m Bonnie Morgan and this is Leila. We’re twins, before you ask.’
‘You don’t say?’
‘We applied to get in before Christmas but we weren’t called up until just a couple of weeks ago,’ Leila added.
‘It was the same for me,’ said another girl with freckles and huge hazel eyes. ‘I didn’t hear for ages. Oh, sorry, I’m Eileen Parr.’
‘Well, Sheila Sullivan and Eileen Parr,’ said Leila as she got up off the bed, ‘you heard what Mrs Buckley-Snooty-Jones said, get your lippy on and let’s go and have our photograph taken.’
‘Actually, she isn’t really snooty, you know.’
Leila turned to face an attractive, fair-haired girl leaning against the edge of one of the partitions. She was wearing a smart grey-checked suit over a fine, baby blue jumper, and a pair of very good pearl earrings.
‘Is that right?’
The girl nodded. ‘My mother knows BJ really quite well, and apparently she’s quite a good stick once you get to know her.’
‘BJ?’ Bonnie echoed. ‘That’s good, I like that. Much less of a mouthful than Mrs Buckley-Jones.’
‘Quite, but don’t rub her up the wrong way.’
‘Mmm, perhaps not. Any way, what’s your name?’
‘I’m Peggy Buchanan. I live out at Kohimarama, so I haven’t come far.’
Bonnie laughed out loud. ‘Peggy? We had a dog named Peggy once.’
‘Really?’ Peggy replied coolly. ‘When we were kids we used to have a nasty old donkey called Bonnie. Dad said she went to heaven but I think he sent her to the knacker’s.’
There was the briefest of tension-filled silences, then Bonnie and Leila burst into shrieks of hysterical laughter that soon set the other girls off as well.
‘What’s happening?’ someone called from the other end of the hut.
‘Nothing,’ Leila called back. ‘It’s all right, my sister’s just making an ass of herself!’
This set them off again and all five were still giggling as they set off to find stores and their uniforms.
They weren’t feeling quite so amused, however, as they staggered back to the barracks an hour later laden with great piles of clothing and their bed-packs. They had been issued with almost everything the air force had decreed they would need. This included: kitbag; brushes (one hard and one wire); cap badge; two belted jackets and two skirts (of barathea, air force blue); tie; gloves; low-heeled shoes (leather, black); two felt slouch hats; shirts and stockings (lisle, dark grey). There was also a cardigan, which Leila tried on immediately and declared ‘positively dire’. The girls destined to work in the mess or as medical or dental orderlies also received white overalls and shoes, and the drivers blue overalls. The air force did not provide underwear, much to everyone’s relief — they were to wear their own — although sanitary supplies could be discreetly obtained via one’s WAAF supervisor.
It was exciting, though, having a uniform, especially one so smartly tailored and decorated with shiny buttons and buckles, and the girls couldn’t wait to get changed. It made them feel, after more than a year of watching the men in their lives going off, that they were finally doing something for their country.
Tamar was going over the books. At nearly twelve and a half pence per pound of clipped wool, Kenmore was not doing at all badly out of the war so far, contrary to what she had expected. Occasionally she felt vaguely guilty about this, but New Zealand’s wool clip had been commandeered by the British government for the duration and the price negotiated fairly, and she knew the wool produced by Kenmore was destined for military purposes. And, privately, she believed that was only fair; if Britain insisted on dragging her family into yet another war, then it should pay a decent price for the raw materials required to dress them. And especially after what had happened to poor darling Duncan. He always played down the extent of his injuries in his letters home, but Tamar knew he must be in a dreadful way if he expected to remain in hospital for another six months at least.
She was just adding up a final column of figures, squinting at the numbers in spite of her relatively new reading spectacles, and reflecting that it really was time she handed this job over to Owen and Joseph, when she heard Keely calling out to her.
‘I can’t hear you, dear, I’m in the office!’ she called back as she underlined the figures at the bottom of the page.
Keely appeared in the doorway, with a basketful of freshly picked leeks, carrots and an enormous savoy cabbage from the kitchen garden. She put the basket on the floor and sat down on the sofa near the fireplace.
‘Mam?’
Tamar looked up at the plaintive note in her daughter’s voice. ‘Something troubling you, dear?’
‘No. Yes. I’m not sure.’
Tamar put the lid on her pen and swivelled around in her seat.
‘It’s the girls,’ Keely began. ‘You know how we’ve only had two letters from them so far?’
‘Yes, darling, but then they’ve only been gone a month.’
‘I know, it isn’t that, it’s what’s in the letters that worries me.’
‘I thought they were having a lovely time?’
‘They are, that’s the trouble. They seem to be spending more time going to dances and into town and gadding about than they are working at the air base.’
Tamar was amused to hear this, especially from Keely, who had spent as many of her early years ‘gadding about’ as she could get away with.
‘Well, I’m sure they’re doing a wonderful job. Girls have to work very hard in the services, you know. They’re taken very seriously.’
Keely frowned, then nodded resignedly. ‘I expect they are working hard, but I’m still worried, Mam. There are a lot of men in Auckland — unattached men, I might add, looking for a last chance for a good time before they go away — and the girls have never been backward about being forward.’
Tamar could see that Keely really was worried, and she had already been thinking about what could be done to help keep her granddaughters safe.
‘Look, why don’t I telephone Aunty Ri and let her know that the girls are in Auckland? She seems to know everyone who’s anyone up there, and I’m sure she could keep some sort of eye on them.’
Keely eyed her mother sceptically; Riria Adams must be seventy-eight by now, almost the same age as Tamar.
‘Would she be up to it, do you think, chasing a pair of energetic, twenty-one-year-old girls around Auckland?’
Tamar removed her spectacles and let them fall on their chain against her chest.
‘I very much doubt that Riria will chase them around, darling. She may visit them once or twice, or invite them to her house in Parnell for tea, but no, she won’t chase them.’
‘Well, then, what good will that do?’
‘She will give them good advice, and they will listen.’
‘I’m not sure that they will.’
‘I am. You know what Riria’s like. She can be very persuasive when she feels like it.’
Keely certainly did. Whe
n Andrew had died, Riria had come down from Auckland to be with Tamar during her period of mourning. Keely had been in a state herself, with the loss of her father coming so soon after her unplanned pregnancy and hasty marriage to Owen. As Riria had been quick to inform Keely in a private and very pointed little chat, she had been ‘neither use nor ornament’, and the shock of realising the truth of that, particularly when her mother needed her support, had chastened her considerably. She had respected Riria Adams ever since, and had admired and almost envied the lifelong friendship between her mother and the imposing, regal and wise Maori woman.
‘I suppose,’ Keely said after a moment, ‘that if nothing else she might frighten them into behaving well. And if not, then at least she can keep us informed.’
They both laughed, although admittedly Keely’s laugh was not particularly hearty.
‘Good, I shall telephone her tomorrow,’ Tamar said, then glanced at Keely quizzically and cocked her head. ‘Is that someone crying? Is it Henry?’
Keely could hear it now too, the sound of someone wailing in the distance. She rushed down the hall and outside, and stood on the front steps straining to see across the paddocks. And there he was, small and forlorn, trotting all by himself along the track that led from Erin and Joseph’s house on the other side of the hill. As she watched he fell down, then got up again and staggered forward once more.
She leaped down the steps and ran across the lawn. ‘Henry!
Henry! What is it?’
At the sight of her, Henry wailed even harder. By the time Keely reached him and knelt down in front of him he was almost beside himself, his eyes red and streaming and a liberal coat of snot smearing his upper lip.
‘What is it? What is it?’ Keely almost shrieked.
‘Uncle Joseph’s gone all funny!’ The little boy cried. ‘And Aunty Erin won’t stop screaming! It’s awful, Mummy, it’s awful!’
Keely had no idea what he was talking about, but she knew something must be terribly wrong. She gave him a quick cuddle.
‘Can you be a really brave little man and run and get Daddy for me? Tell him to get Gran and come over to Uncle Joseph’s. And then, I want you to go down to Aunty Lucy’s house and stay there, all right?’
Henry hiccupped, sobbed just once more, then nodded.
‘Good man, off you go then. Quickly!’
Keely watched him for a moment to make sure he was all right, then whipped off her shoes and ran as fast as she could up the track.
Erin and Joseph’s cosy and comfortable house looked perfectly normal from the top of the hill, surrounded by Erin’s carefully selected trees and bright flower gardens and Joseph’s neat rows of vegetables, but as Keely hurried down the track she heard something that froze her blood — the sound of a grown woman howling and keening with almost insane intensity. With her heart in her mouth she raced the last few hundred yards and up the front steps onto the verandah.
‘Joseph!’ she yelled, unable to keep the panic out of her voice. ‘Joseph!’
There was no answer, and the keening went on and on. Then Ana appeared in the hallway, her tear-streaked face the colour of uncooked dough.
‘What is it, Ana? What’s happened?’
Ana’s face crumpled, and huge, fresh tears squeezed from her dark eyes. ‘It’s Billy, we got a telegram.’ She ran to Keely and clung to her tightly. ‘He was in Crete, Aunty Keely, he’s been killed!’
Keely thought she might faint, but her arms went around Ana and she began to stroke the girl’s hair, slowly and rhythmically.
‘Is that Mum crying out?’
Ana nodded.
‘Let’s go and see if we can help her, shall we? Where’s your dad?’
‘He’s in the kitchen; they both are.’
Her arm still around Ana, Keely walked down the hall and into the kitchen.
Joseph was sitting at the table, his face whiter than Ana’s, the telegram with its hateful news unfolded in front of him. His green eyes were dry and he was staring steadfastly at nothing at all, although his throat was working violently as if he were trying to swallow something unpalatable.
Erin was standing at the sink. She seemed unable to stop wailing; her eyes were bulging alarmingly and the cords in her neck stood out like taut ropes. Keely let go of Ana, went over to her cousin and slapped her briskly across the face.
The noise stopped immediately; the only sound in the kitchen now was the low buzzing of a fly stranded upside-down on the windowsill.
‘Erin, Erin! Can you hear me?’
Nothing.
‘Erin! It’s Keely.’
Erin turned slowly, and deep in her eyes there was a flicker of recognition. Even more slowly, she slumped into Keely’s arms.
‘Oh, Keely, we’ve lost him. We’ve lost our baby.’
Because there was no body, there could be no real tangihanga. But at Maungakakari there was a kawe mate, a traditional service to bring Billy’s spirit home. As he had been the mokopuna of Kepa Te Roroa, an influential and respected rangatira, and the son of Joseph Deane, the veteran of two wars, the ceremony was well attended by mourners from far and wide, including everyone from Kenmore.
There were haka in honour of Billy’s prowess as a warrior, veterans of the Maori contingents that had served in the Great War came proudly dressed in their old uniforms, and there were speeches and prayers and songs, including a beautiful and haunting rendition of ‘Blue Smoke’, the tune that had so touched Billy when he was away.
There was only one day of public grieving, instead of the traditional three, but it helped those who had known, loved and respected Billy to begin to come to terms with their loss. Even his close family would eventually accept his death, however bitterly or begrudgingly.
What none of them knew, however, was that in a small village in southern England, a young girl still waited for Billy. Harry Tomoana, who knew how deeply Billy had loved his pretty English girlfriend, would eventually write to Violet and tell her about Billy’s death, and how he had saved the lives of two men even while he lost his own in a bayonet charge that would go down in history. But Violet would not receive the letter until after the battalion had been evacuated to Egypt some weeks later and Harry had recovered from his own wounds.
Billy’s death left everyone at Kenmore with a feeling of emptiness and something approaching hopelessness. Duncan was still in England, Liam and Drew were away, Bonnie and Leila were in Auckland, and now Billy would never be coming home. Erin was plummeted into a deep, black depression that lasted for some months until she was able to claw her way out of it, while Joseph also retreated into himself until he realised that his two remaining still children needed him, perhaps even more than before, as did his parents, both of whom had taken Billy’s death very badly.
Robert, nineteen now and old enough to be sent to war, had registered with the National Service Department and was awaiting his call-up for service over seas. He could have appealed against his impending conscription on the grounds that he was engaged in essential employment on a sheep farm, or chosen not to register at all because of his Maori blood, but he wanted to go. And almost everyone who knew him suspected, correctly, that he wanted the opportunity to avenge his brother’s death. In the event he did not have to wait long: his papers arrived one wet and windy afternoon late in August. Three weeks later he was away to camp.
Ana was even more determined to do something for the war effort. At twenty, she was eligible for a range of wartime occupations, but what she really wanted to do, and what she felt she knew best, was working on the land. So when the idea of a women’s land army based on the British model had been mentioned the year before she had been delighted. Opposition from various quarters had ensured the idea came to nothing so Ana had contented herself with working at Kenmore, taking the place of one of the drovers who had gone off with the Second Echelon, and learning more and more as the days passed about the practical business of running a sheep farm. However, the land army idea had resurfaced in January, and n
ow she was merely waiting for the scheme to become official so she could sign up.
Her cousin Kathleen was a different matter altogether. Ana had valiantly tried to interest her in farming and gardening, because normally they got on very well together, but Kathleen had other ideas. James would have loved his daughter to have taken an interest in horticulture, about which he was so passionate himself, but she just wasn’t an outdoors sort of girl. She was certainly industrious, a great help to Lucy in the kitchen and around the house, and a built-in babysitter for her young cousin Henry, but she found the thought of getting dirt under her fingernails totally repulsive. The closest she ever wanted to come to fruit and vegetables was the finished product, on a plate, at the dining table.
James and Lucy had warned her several times already that if she did not find some way of contributing to the war effort, then she could very likely be manpowered into some occupation she would loathe, and then she’d be sorry; it was clear to just about everyone now that conscription of women into essential industries would be inevitable, whether it came this year or the next.
Auckland, August 1941
Tamar’s plan to manage, or at least monitor, Bonnie and Leila’s behaviour in Auckland had been forgotten in the shadow of Billy’s death, until a telephone call had come from Riria herself expressing her sincere condolences after seeing Billy’s name in the casualty lists in the paper. She would have come down herself, she’d said, but she was finding it more and more difficult to travel these days, and then there was the petrol rationing.
Tamar had been very pleased to hear her dear friend’s voice, as always, and had not been surprised when Riria had agreed to the favour she asked of her.
It was a favour that led to Bonnie and Leila sitting at a table near the entrance of the King George Grill and Tearooms in Queen Street one Friday afternoon, waiting for Gran’s best friend to arrive and have tea with them. Riria was late, and the girls were deciding whether they should leave or wait a little longer when there was a small commotion outside.
‘What is it?’ Bonnie asked curiously as Leila got to her feet for a better view.
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