Sunset Ridge

by Nicole Alexander

  Sister Valois’s fingers caressed the tiny leaves that edged their way from the springy vine on the exterior of the building against the windowsill. Outside, two elderly male villagers tended a straggly vegetable and herb plot. The remains of a substantial garden showed itself in the flowering bulbs sprinkled amid stone footpaths and overgrown hedges, and although the grassy stretch between house and estate buildings had been trampled by the business of daily life, Sister Valois took some comfort in knowing that perhaps one day, when the war was over, both house and garden would be restored to their former splendour.

  The chateau was located on the edge of woodland, and a number of trees had been thinned in a circle that fanned outwards from the rear of the hospital for more than a mile. The cleared area housed a patchwork of buildings, including the caretaker’s farmhouse and stone barn, which had been joined by rows of white tents. Young women walked quickly to and fro, their long skirts and white aprons marking them as volunteers. Some of the girls were undisciplined yet Sister Valois could not fault their enthusiasm. They took on myriad roles, from ambulance drivers and nurse’s assistants to cooks, canteen workers and laundresses.

  ‘Sister?’

  Private Gregory McNeil was the son of a French woman and a Scotsman. He should have been convalescing in a London hospital by now. However, like many of the amputees in this ward, he suffered from an infection of the bone. She walked towards his cot, one of forty in the converted dining room. Some six feet above him, on a painted screen, was an idyllic forest scene of dancing nymphs. Forming a smile, she tried not to look at the flatness of the white sheet where his legs should have been. Like many of the soldiers lining this beautiful room, little by little more of his skin and bone were cut away, until the disease went beyond the surgeon’s skill.

  ‘Yes?’ she said brightly, taking his pulse. He was grey today. Together they had composed a letter to his wife and daughters. She had mailed it a week ago at his insistence, and he still lingered. She had to remind herself that it was a terrible thing to grow used to death, yet here in this ward they lost at least one patient a week. There was a new cemetery filling with neat white crosses just half a mile away. ‘Yes?’ Nurse Valois repeated. Too exhausted to move, the private’s eyes slid to the right.

  Patting his arm, she checked the patient next to him. Francois Chessy’s breathing was ragged. With practised movements she swiftly adjusted his pillow, easing him upwards so that he was partially sitting. ‘Better?’

  Chessy nodded as his breathing gradually improved. ‘Water?’

  He held the glass weakly as she positioned the thinnest surgical tube she could find between his lips. Chessy was at his best in the early morning. He could drink unaided and consume eggs or a nourishing soup, albeit slowly. With his leg lost to gangrene below the knee, damage to his heart and a lung shredded by shrapnel, how he still lived seven months on was staggering. Especially with the bone of his amputated leg infected. It was true that some of the amputees managed to fight off infection, however multiple injuries lessened the chances of survival. One of the volunteers was assigned to sponge bath him daily and Sister Valois knew that massage was vital to ensure circulation and alleviate bedsores. There was little else they could do for him.

  She checked the large gilt clock that sat within an alcove at the far end of the room. ‘One hour,’ she advised him. His course of opiates kept him mildly sedated and, she hoped, would gradually ease his suffering while he waited for death to claim him. She took the glass from his hand.

  ‘No.’

  The strength of his voice startled her. Drawing a stool to the side of his cot, she thought back to the day at the Verdun casualty clearing station: she wished now that she had given him the morphine overdose. ‘It will help.’

  ‘No. How can I fight what I cannot feel?’

  ‘Would you like to write to your mother, Francois? I am sure she would like to hear from you.’

  The young man glanced at the Highlander lying four feet from his cot. ‘I am not dying.’

  ‘Of course you’re not.’

  Chessy had been difficult since the morning of his arrival at the hospital two months ago. He refused to believe that his brother Antoine was dead; refused to write to his mother; refused to accept the severity of his injuries and appeared to be concerned about just one mortal thing in this world – his dog, Roland. The majority of the patients in the ward accepted their fate with stoic resignation, using the few moments of clarity and strength left to them to pass on some final words to loved ones; but not Francois Chessy. Sister Valois reached for the notebook in the pocket of her apron. ‘You are being unfair to your mama.’ A pencil was poised above the thin paper.

  ‘No.’ Chessy lifted a hand. ‘I have told you: I will write when I stand again.’

  ‘Then I will write a few brief lines on your behalf.’ The fine skin between her eyes knotted. ‘A priest, then?’ Sister Valois had learned that a man of the cloth could speak some sense into even the hardest cases.

  ‘No. You think I will die, Sister, and maybe you are right, but what if you are wrong?’

  What could she say? ‘Then I would be very pleased,’ she soothed.

  ‘Have you heard anything of Roland?’ He asked the same question every day.

  ‘I have already told you all I know. When you were transported out of the casualty clearing station near Verdun your dog travelled upfront with the driver. At the first temporary field hospital you were sent to, Roland was looked after by some of the staff. Then you arrived here, alone.’ Sister Valois hesitated. False hope could be more detrimental to a patient than the truth.

  ‘Yes?’ Chessy encouraged. ‘There’s something else?’

  She interlaced her fingers. ‘Yesterday,’ her words were halting, ‘when another intake arrived, one of the Red Cross ambulance drivers told me that there are stories about an American Field Ambulance doctor travelling with a dog.’

  Francois struggled upwards in the bed.

  ‘They say that the animal is a large, rangy beast; wolf-like, I am told.’ She locked eyes with his. ‘They say he has saved lives.’

  ‘It’s him.’ The young man wiped away a tear.

  Sister Valois cleared her throat. ‘We can’t be sure.’

  ‘You were there that day I was injured. You told me you saw Roland. You know what he did at Verdun.’

  ‘I can’t be sure –’

  Francois shook his head, his face filled with pity. ‘Why do you find it so difficult to believe?’

  Sister Valois could not answer. Of course some people doubted the stories surrounding Roland, if indeed it was the same dog, yet there was also truth at the heart of the tale. She looked at the young man propped up in bed, with the crescent-shaped shrapnel wounds on his chest, and observed the faraway look in his eyes. For the first time in weeks, he smiled.

  Banyan, south-west Queensland, Australia

  June 1917

  Catherine’s eyelids drooped. There had been no chance of sleep last night. For a few blissful periods she had drifted off, only to be woken by the eerie howling. She had waited and listened as a low wailing sound drifted about the boarding house, haunting her under the covers until a nervous perspiration layered her skin. Twice she had risen to peer through the grimy window, expecting a westerly wind to be the cause of the peculiar noise, but the night remained still, the wind non-existent, the unsettling noise continuing for over an hour.

  Adjusting the shawl wrapped about her shoulders, Catherine leaned back in the threadbare armchair. The days grew shorter. The boarding house, already shadowed by the timber dwelling next door, was cold. She wondered if Corally would maintain their evening visits once winter was upon them in earnest, for the time they shared filled the long evening hours.

  After Catherine had taken on the role of correspondent on behalf of the illiterate Corally last year, eventually her young charge had been the
recipient of a number of letters from Harold Lawrence. Although the tone of these initial letters verged on brusque, Catherine persevered in her replies and eventually Corally’s absence from the village church on the morning of Harold’s departure last year was forgiven. Concealing her inability to read, Corally simply blamed her father for failing to pass on Harold’s letter in a timely manner. Mr and Mrs Lawrence of Lawrence Ironmongers were unaware that their only son was now engaged to Corally Shaw.

  During this time Catherine had also offered the young woman her services as a governess. It was an arrangement of mutual advantage: Corally Shaw was receiving a most needed education and Catherine now had a project to fill the evenings. Their agreement, however, was not without difficulties. The girl’s reading and writing skills were slow to develop, with significant improvement showing only over the past few months. Initially Corally remained convinced that she was left-handed until Catherine threatened to tie the offending arm behind the girl’s back. Eventually she was capable of forming letters with the hand God intended. Theirs was a fractious relationship, one that Catherine tired of within ten minutes yet missed once her young charge left. This evening, however, would be different.

  The Cobb & Co. coach had delivered mail from France. Finally there was a letter for the forgotten inhabitants of Sunset Ridge, as well as another from her beloved Rodger. Instantly recognisable also were the letters addressed to Corally. Catherine knew the respective handwriting by heart. Had she not leaned over their shoulders, urging them not to press too hard on their nibs as they formed words in their ledgers? Rearranging the mail on the narrow writing desk in her room, she wondered why Thaddeus and Luther had written to Corally. Although her resentment at their communication with the young girl was tempered by relief at finally having proof of their whereabouts, Catherine was saddened that they had not thought enough of her to pen a few brief lines.

  Corally was late as usual and Catherine used the time to re-read Rodger’s letter. He wrote once a month, scanty notes that talked briefly about his new life. Having delayed enlistment due to his mother’s poor health, he had knocked about in Brisbane for a while and then, following her passing and burial, had waited for the will to be read. Eventually he had sailed aboard a troopship that carried him to Great Britain, and in between his training spent his leave in London. He wrote little of the sights and sounds of this great city yet appeared to receive much entertainment observing the toffs shopping at the fancy department stores. Rodger’s voice in his all-too-few letters was at times quite foreign to her. He was clearly enjoying his freedom and, as he was yet to finish training, rather hoped he wouldn’t see action. Great Britain, it seemed, was too much fun. In comparison, Harold Lawrence was now a Lewis machine gunner and had already seen action in France.

  Catherine rearranged the envelopes on the desk. She could only imagine the joy Mrs Harrow would feel on receipt of a letter from her sons. The village gossips talked of G.W.’s continued illness, with Sunset Ridge now being run on a skeletal staff with an unknown quantity at the helm. By all accounts, Nathanial Taylor – he had been pointed out to Catherine when he was in the village collecting station supplies – was the boundary rider placed in charge of the Harrows’ cattle last year; now it appeared he ran the entire property. The proof of this stranger’s ability would come to the fore at shearing time, the matrons of the village informed her at the post office. It was one thing to oversee livestock in the paddock, quite another, the locals mused, to arrange a shearing team and the sale of the clip in a timely manner.

  There was a knock on the window and then a bare leg hoisted itself over the sill. Corally landed lightly on her feet and casually said hello. Barefoot and dressed in cut-off pants and a shirt tied at the waist, her one concession to femininity was the fine woollen shawl she was rarely without. The girl could well have been mistaken for a boy.

  ‘Ye could use the door,’ Catherine chided.

  ‘What, and have that mousy landlady turn her nose up at me?’ Corally sat cross-legged on the timber boards at Catherine’s feet.

  ‘Ye know ye will have to do something about your dressing before Harold returns,’ Catherine said pointedly.

  The girl rubbed at her nose with the back of a dirt-smeared hand. ‘You need coin for that.’

  ‘I have a white blouse and dark skirt that could be cut down to size. We may well be able to sew a second blouse for ye from the material.’

  ‘Goodo,’ Corally grinned. ‘That’s one thing I can do, sew. You look done in.’

  Catherine pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I’ve not been sleeping. There’s this howling noise that’s keeping me awake at night.’

  ‘And you’ve got Mrs Dempsey giving you strife during the day,’ Corally observed.

  Catherine agreed, reluctantly displaying the letters like a fan of playing cards.

  ‘What, all for me?’

  With a tight smile, Catherine opened each letter and scanned them briefly. ‘They are from the Harrow boys. They’re in France.’

  ‘Really?’ Corally beamed. ‘So, they’re all over there, even Dave?’

  ‘Och, I’m not sure. Let’s see. Let me tell ye the general news and then I’ll read each one separately.’

  Corally drew her knees up beneath her chin.

  Thaddeus and Luther talked of the training camp at Salisbury Plain in England, of the things they had seen on arrival and of the great adventure they were having. They also explained why they had run away and the joint pact they had made not to write to their mother until they were in France. Thaddeus also wrote of how they met up with Dave.

  ‘Guid, he’s with them,’ Catherine said with relief, picturing the discarded sketches abandoned outside her quarters at Sunset Ridge.

  ‘I prayed for him. My pa says that praying is a waste of time, for people still get sick and die whether you do or you don’t, but I prayed for Dave anyway, on account of the fact that God’s meant to look after young ones, isn’t he?’

  The rush of words left Catherine momentarily speechless. ‘Yes, I suppose he is. Let’s continue.’

  Dave, the poor lad, Thaddeus wrote after a stilted introduction, had the worst of it. He was roughed up some by the local coppers when he ran away from home. Luckily he ended up on the Western Mail with us. We had to take him with us considering all that had happened, and Luther and I are keeping an eye on him.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ Catherine complained. ‘Those two should have known better.’

  Still, it could be worse. I hope you’ll write to me, Corally. I know Harold has been persistent in his attentions towards you, but you are not yet married and I would put myself forward as a possible suitor should you be inclined. I tried to see you before I left last year but I ended up in an argument with Harold and had to high-tail it out of the village. He told me you and he were outing. I guess I’m writing now because we’re going into action and I wanted you to know what I thought.

  Corally looked slightly abashed. ‘I never knew he wanted to out with me before he went to the war, honest. Harold told me I was in demand because there weren’t a whole lot of girls around – well, apart from Julie Jackson, but no one wants her ’cause of the Germans in her family.’

  ‘Corally!’ Catherine was askance. It was bad enough that the Jacksons were being refused service in the village, but Corally was supposed to be her friend.

  ‘It’s true. I saw her with her mother in the main street and people crossed to the other side.’

  ‘Well, I do hope that ye are not behaving in such a bigoted manner. Ye told me once that Julie Jackson was your closest friend.’

  Corally ignored the comment. ‘It’s not like I see her that much anymore. They rarely come to town.’

  Catherine shuffled Thaddeus’s letter behind Luther’s and read it aloud.

  Dear Corally,

  The war isn’t what I thought it would be, but we’re making our mark over he
re. The boys in our platoon are top drawer and although we’ve lost quite a few already it only makes us more determined to see this thing through to the end. Thaddeus has turned out to be a fine leader. Dave and I think he’ll make an officer in no time, especially as he’s pretty tight with Captain Egan. As for Dave, he has become something of an artist. The boys like his sketches and it’s a real sight to see him drawing in the trenches.

  I think about that day in the cemetery, Corally, and I know you were unhappy with me, but I want you to know that we’re peas in a pod, at least that is what Mother would call us if she could see us together. That’s why I decided to write to you. We made a pact not to tell anyone where we were, especially our parents, but now we’ve been in the thick of things I figured it was best not to waste another day. I’ll not forget the kiss we shared, nor the way you stood up for me in court that day. I knew then there was something between us.

  Catherine’s hand fell to her lap. Corally offered a wan smile and opened her mouth to speak. ‘Don’t say anything,’ Catherine warned. Heavens, she thought, the girl in front of her was not yet sixteen. ‘This letter is from Harold.’ The governess cleared her throat.

  My dearest Corally,

  We are about to go into battle. I’m scratching these few lines waiting for the whistle to blow. I don’t think I’m scared, more concerned that I do my part and not let the men down around me, nor they me. I am here to do my bit yet it doesn’t stop me worrying about what will become of you should I not make it through this next scrape. I would be with you now if I could. Yet I am one for duty. Knowing that you did not desert me that morning makes the time easier. I have something to look forward to on my return. I have our life together.

  With deepest affection,

  H

  Corally swivelled on her bottom and glanced at the writing desk. ‘Is there not another? Is there not one from Dave?’ Her disappointment was palpable.

  ‘No, there isn’t.’ Catherine folded the letters and handed them to the young girl. ‘I think ye had better tell me what’s going on, Corally.’