Sunset Ridge

by Nicole Alexander

  ‘The boys have begun checking everything. They are young, those two lads you hired, but willing enough.’

  His long hair was wet and freshly combed.

  ‘And the cattle? With you here, there is no one to watch over them. I’m worried –’

  ‘I already rode out and checked on them today.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lily doubted she had ever seen so much hair on a man; it literally spread like a carpet from his face down his neck, shoulders and chest. Realising she was staring at the youthfully formed body beneath, she continued briskly, ‘The sheep will need to be brought in and checked for fly.’

  ‘There’s a mob in the yards already. Anything else?’ He poked at the fire, and turned the chunk of meat roasting in the pan.

  ‘Yes: we usually join the ewes in March.’

  ‘Where are the rams?’ He dished up the meat and sat the plate on the swag.

  That was something she had neglected to consider. ‘In the ram paddock.’ The statement sounded more like a question.

  He smiled. ‘Well, then, everything is on track. I know what I’m doing, missus. Besides, you offered me this job, remember?’

  ‘I was thinking that, for propriety’s sake, you should move into the quarters at the homestead,’ Lily suggested, her voice strong even if her legs were shaky.

  ‘Propriety’s sake?’ He sounded amused. ‘Why? Are you expecting somebody?’

  ‘Well, no. But it seems ridiculous, you camping out here. The governess quarters are free.’

  ‘Guess you’ve not much use for one of those now.’

  His words stung. ‘I can’t be expected to walk out into the bush every time I need to speak with you, Mr Taylor.’ Lily felt his gaze on her dirt-layered skirt. She brushed a twig free from the folds. ‘Well?’

  ‘I can see that you’re the type of woman that man invented the door for.’ He rubbed his matted beard.

  Lily blushed. ‘So, it’s agreed?’

  ‘And you’ll feed me as well? That will be a bonus.’

  She thought of the lumpy, cold potato and stringy meat awaiting her back at the homestead. ‘Yes, I’m sure you’ll appreciate some good home cooking.’

  ‘Mrs Harrow?’ The manager’s voice was sombre.

  ‘Yes, Mr Taylor?’

  ‘Your boys, did they enlist?’

  Lily closed her eyes briefly. ‘I have no idea.’ Leaving the camp fire, she walked back through the trees into a day grown dark.

  En route to Saint-Omer, northern France

  May 1917

  The small stones hit the windowpane. A group of young children were running along the train platform, the station master shouting and raising his arms in pursuit. As the train pulled through the French village, Dave pressed his nose squarely against the cold glass. Sitting in the cramped confines of the wood-panelled dog-box, he could never have imagined that this perilous descent towards war would prove to be quite so provocative. He loved the fresh new sky and the bracing air of the slowly unfolding countryside, and the heavens both intrigued and unsettled him, for there was no great Southern Cross, no evening star dangling above the red crust of the earth – at least not one that was familiar. Just last night he had lifted the rattling train window and sucked in the windless fragility of a night dark amid the unknown. It was then that it struck him: what he had done in leaving Sunset Ridge; where he was going.

  No one talked of war, not now they were in France. This war they were going to, this rabbit shoot as Luther jokingly referred to it, was now only days away. On the opposite bench seat, Thaddeus and Luther snored in tandem. Three other recruits filled their allocated seating: the man from McInerney’s wool shed, Marty, and the water-tank runaways, Riley and Turtle. All six of them left England with the rank of private. The brass had decided that the Harrow brothers needed some older men with them, although Thaddeus told Dave that he wondered who was looking after whom.

  Dave believed that he could be a good soldier, one disciplined thoroughly in obeying his superior’s orders if they were orders worth following. And therein lay his problem. On revealing his concerns to Marty, the older man had shoved a pointy finger in his chest and reminded him that such a thought was incompatible with a soldier’s reality. He had a moral duty, Marty reminded him, to obey his superiors. Yet were he to be tested, Dave doubted his ability to blindly follow another’s bidding. Hadn’t he left Sunset Ridge to escape such things? That detail aside, Dave reckoned that he possessed some of the qualities needed to take part in a war. He was adept at running and digging, the latter leading him to receive a great deal of ribbing from his platoon of twenty-five men. This latent talent was eventually forgotten, however, when a new, more important ability came to light. The instructor at Lark Hill on the Salisbury Plain in England scored him perfectly on the rifle range, much to his brothers’ surprise. The intensive training had proved him to be an excellent marksman; a result Dave begrudgingly admitted was probably important if they were going to be killing Germans.

  Through the window unfamiliar trees spread out across a landscape that was soft and rounded. The gentleness of the countryside reminded Dave of a woman. Delicate green slopes folded away into the distance and every few minutes another pond or stream glimmered in the morning light. At times the blur of trees fringing the railway line grew so thick the dog-box darkened, yet when the great woody plants thinned, a curl of smoke would be silhouetted against a blue sky and he would glimpse a farmhouse and the neat fields that fanned out from the dwelling. Dave was beginning to understand what it meant to fight to protect what you loved, and he was unexpectedly proud to be helping the French defend their beautiful country. This new land the Australians entered, so old in terms of civilisation, was so unlike his home that it drew comparison immediately. Sunset Ridge was a tangled expanse of rugged bush interspersed with great swathes of land that rippled with varying grasses. It was flat country of mixed soils and numerous red ridges, as if the innards of the earth had been spewed upwards. It was rarely green and lush. Such changes to the land came infrequently, following flooding rains that gouged out the river and carried their precious sheep into oblivion. Yet such devastation brought life to Sunset Ridge. Dormant seeds would sprout from the ground, their livestock would grow fat and smiles would return until the season changed. Then the land would shrivel once again and the animals would melt into the cracked ground. Maybe that was the reason for their father’s fractious personality. At times G.W. too was at war, with the land he loved.

  The breast pocket of Dave’s uniform contained the last letter the Harrow brothers had received from their mother while in training. It was sparsely addressed, care of the Australian Imperial Forces. When it arrived at Lark Hill all three brothers had stared at the postmark, as they had her previous notes. Their eyes had met above the familiar looping letters and for a few seconds they had passed the envelope around their small circle, suggesting one or the other to open and read it first. Finally the task had fallen to Dave.

  ‘We should have written back before this,’ Dave had commented, his fingers carefully peeling back the envelope. He had lost count of the number of letters their mother had written. The first few had been angry and accusatory in tone and, although the contents remained the same, he could sense a growing sadness as the silence stretched on between them. The arrival of each letter made it more difficult for the boys to put pen to paper, and his older brothers grew more sullen with the arrival of each new note.

  ‘But we decided not to,’ Thaddeus had reminded him. ‘We agreed on that. We said we’d write after we arrived in France.’

  Luther had nodded. ‘Don’t l-look l-like that, D-Dave. If w-we’d told th-them before w-we sailed it’s just as l-likely they would have p-put th-the c-coppers on our t-tail to b-bring us home.’

  Dave sighed and then read aloud.

  Boys,

  I hope this letter finds you. With only the scantest of
information I have presumed you have joined up and so I write, once again, as you have not.

  How difficult you have made these past months with your silence. Do you not give a thought to how worried we are? Do you not think about the parents you have left behind and your heritage that is Sunset Ridge? I never expected such indifference and I am at a loss as to how to reconcile your combined actions.

  Forgive me. I am told I should be proud at your eagerness to join up, if that indeed is what you have done. I am not. I know I should forgive all three of you for your careless attitude. I cannot, not when your silence continues.

  I would care to know if you are indeed alive and together. As your mother I am owed that courtesy, and if you have dragged David into some foolhardy adventure, then his safety is in your hands, Thaddeus and Luther. God help you that you do not fail in this regard as well.

  Your mother

  The train rattled onwards. Dave didn’t need to re-read the few lines; they were already memorised. When the boys eventually replied, they shared only a brief paragraph noting they were about to leave for France. It was Luther’s idea to enclose the photograph of the three of them taken at Lark Hill, and Dave knew that in spite of their mother’s anger she would be proud when she saw them in their AIF uniforms. Yet despite the righteousness of their actions, a whiff of guilt hung about them like stale food. Dave wished he could throw the letters away. At times he felt as if they would burn right through him, yet they remained the only tangible link to Sunset Ridge and his mother. Quite simply, he missed the land and her.

  They entered a lush valley, the fields undulating away from them like small waves impatiently waiting to lick fields and hedgerows. Villages dotted the landscape every few miles as the troop train meandered across the countryside and flocks of birds fled from nearby trees. Dave craned his neck to follow their ascending path until they left his field of vision and then he reached for his kit bag. Having managed to purchase some new sketchpads while in England, he was determined that not even war would prevent him from drawing.

  As the Banyan River came to life on the page, his senses conjured up the ancient trees inspecting their stately reflections in the blue-green calm of the water. The charcoal deftly traced the grass-softened banks, scattering fallen timber, darting water fowl and a kangaroo nibbling tender shoots on the far bank. If he had paint he could capture the blue haze of the eucalypts, shadow the stalking long-legged water birds, and cause a shaft of light to dapple the morning-dew leaves of a large gum tree.

  Luther awoke and, leaving his seat, squashed in between Marty and Dave. ‘Th-that’s a b-beauty,’ he remarked loudly, elbowing Dave in the ribs. ‘It’s exactly as I r-remember it.’ Luther ran his hand across the drawing, as the occupants of the dog-box stirred amid a series of grunts and coughs.

  Thaddeus yawned and reached for the sketchpad. Marty, Riley and Turtle peered at the drawing in turn.

  ‘What’d you know?’ Marty exclaimed. ‘We’ve got an artist with us. You kept that quiet.’

  ‘Always did want me portrait done,’ Turtle said, straightening his slouch hat. ‘This is me best profile.’ He turned sideways, displaying a nasty scar that he claimed to have earned in a bar fight.

  Riley smirked and leaned towards Dave. ‘Fell against his mother’s copper, he did, when he was a little ’un.’

  Dave closed his eyes and imagined the river bank.

  ‘Did not,’ Turtle said.

  ‘Did so,’ Riley persevered.

  ‘Anyone would think you lot were going on a round-the-world trip, not to a war,’ Marty complained as he stretched his shoulders and left the dog-box.

  ‘Don’t mind him,’ Turtle yawned. ‘His girl left him for a younger fella. Told him she was embarrassed about him shirking his duty and ending up a thief. He only got word from her the day we left England.’

  Thaddeus stared out the window. ‘Well, it’s not like she’s the only woman on earth.’

  Dave wondered if his older brother had turned sour on women. When questioned about his need to see Corally Shaw the day he left home, Thaddeus had clamped his lips together. ‘There wasn’t any need,’ came the sour reply. Then there was the pretty girl in a village near Lark Hill. Bethany was as keen as mustard on Thaddeus, but Luther joked that Thaddeus had only outed with her to get some experience before telling the girl it was just a bit of fun. That wasn’t the older brother Dave knew. Besides, Marty told him that there were women who would take coin to relieve a man’s need, although, he cautioned, near everyone ended up with venereal disease.

  ‘You never have t-told us w-why you and Joe joined up and th-then b-bolted into th-the scrub, Turtle,’ Luther said, rolling shreds of tobacco between his palms.

  Very slowly Turtle straightened his long neck. The skin on his face had not recovered from the hot summer days spent hiding in the iron water tank; it was patchy with burn marks. ‘I figured it for a bit of a lark,’ Turtle began, ‘until Mother told me about the wounded following a big push back in ’16. Newspaper after newspaper, and the names just kept on coming. She heard from the minister’s wife at her church group that there was a big advance at Fromelles. Well, the lists of the dead and missing and wounded . . .’ Turtle shook his head. ‘I just wondered if it was worth it.’ He looked at Dave. ‘You know, to die over here for another man’s war.’

  Luther slid the cigarette between his lips and pulled his tomahawk out from beneath his tunic. ‘Ain’t no one d-dying on m-my w-watch.’

  ‘Sure there ain’t, kid,’ Turtle said softly. ‘Anyway, we’re here now, so we’ll have to knuckle down and make the best of it.’ He turned to Dave. ‘Have you got a sweetheart?’

  Dave felt heat rise in his cheeks at the thought of Miss Waites. ‘Nuh.’

  ‘Well,’ Riley interrupted, ‘I reckon that’s somewhat of a bonus – for her at least, if you get knocked.’

  ‘Hey, Riley, lay off the kid,’ Turtle protested.

  Riley lit his second cigarette in as many minutes. ‘If he’s old enough to be a soldier, he’s old enough to know the score.’

  Dave had enlisted with the help of a wooden crate, a stuck-on moustache and the threat of his brothers refusing to volunteer if he wasn’t allowed to join up. Marty tried to talk him out of it, but that wasn’t going to happen, not with his brothers by his side. On arrival at the Lark Hill training camp the sergeant-major only cocked an eyebrow and mumbled something about the desperate need for reinforcements.

  Overnight, Dave had been launched into a man’s world and treated as such. He missed Sunset Ridge, but as part of a platoon he experienced a strong sense of belonging. There was no pecking order, no favourites and no mother to baby him. He was his own man. Wedging the sketchpad between the seat and the wall of the carriage, Dave pressed his forehead against the train window. The glass was cold on his skin, the sky slate-grey. When the train stopped momentarily at a siding the low rumble of thunder hovered towards them. A belch of smoke appeared on the horizon, then another and another. Dave’s stomach knotted.

  ‘Well then,’ Luther clasped him briefly on the shoulder, ‘looks like we’re here.’

  Sister Valois tucked a stray piece of hair beneath her cap and stared out the window of the ground floor ward in the temporary field hospital. The chateau was a stone dwelling belonging to a wealthy textiles merchant. Requisitioned by the French army, its eight bedrooms and substantial public areas provided space for a hundred patients. The local villagers believed that the owner had been killed by a shell when his Ypres-based factory had been hit the previous year. There were two sons at the front who were also presumed dead, and a wife and daughter who were thought to be living in Paris. Sister Valois had never resided in such style and wondered at the circumstances that would cause a woman to desert such a building.

  Often she would pause during rounds to stare at the parquet floors, gilt mirrors and ornate clocks sitting on mantelpieces, and wond
er at the lives of the owners and the architect who had constructed such a place. The two-foot walls held deep recesses, and there were corners everywhere, as if the builder could not make up his mind as to the direction it should take. A set of stairs to the upper level creaked and groaned even when not in use, and the younger nurses and aides swore to repeated sightings of shadowy shapes.

  Sister Valois’s quarters adjoined the large kitchen. Into her room she had dragged one of the ornate gold Louis XIV chairs from the dining room and a bow-fronted writing desk, while a tapestry wall hanging pulled from one of the salons took the chill from the flagstone floor. No other senior nurse was afforded such privilege. Most rented out houses in the village or were forced to bunk down in the tents attached to the converted estate. But Sister Valois was now in charge of the hospital, an improbable promotion during peacetime and one only made possible by the recommendation of the doctor she had served with at the Verdun casualty clearing station.

  Through the open window the warming scents of spring carried on the air. Never had she been so happy to see the end of winter. Typhoid, trench foot, frostbite and gas-gangrene battled for supremacy amid the shell and shrapnel wounds, and at least here they were no longer cutting bloodied, muddy and rotting uniforms from maimed bodies. If a patient made it this far he had already experienced both a dressing and a casualty clearing station and perhaps another field hospital. This temporary field hospital was the last stop for the majority of the wounded within its surrounds. Most would eventually be sent back to the front. Others were here to die. Some things, however, had not changed. The hospital staff still waged a continual battle to keep lice under control in the wards. Then there were the shortages: bandages, dressings, sheets, towels, disinfectant.