Two Women Went to War

by L E Pembroke

  The first thing we did was to set up camp close to the chosen house site. It was spring, the evenings clear, stars huge and bright in the black sky. Most nights we slept in a tent. On other occasions the sheer beauty of the night sky and our happiness compelled us to take a ground sheet and blanket outside to fall asleep, arms about one another while gazing at the stars. We improvised a bush shower and cooked on a barbecue of stones.

  We loved one another whether it was morning, afternoon or night. He might be taking a breather while grubbing out a tree root; I might be building up the tangled timber into a pyre; we would look at each other and be instantly revitalised. Dirty with sweat rolling down our bodies, he would pull me hard against him. I was always eager to sink into him, simply unable to get enough of this man I adored. We would fall to the ground unmindful of the hard soil or the stares of the dogs.

  The builders came from town nearly fifty miles away. For four months the three tradesmen slept in a lean-to they built. They went home only at weekends; they didn’t mind that because, in the four years since the war finished, jobs had been hard to come by. There were still plenty of ex-servicemen, men who had never settled back into their former jobs, trudging the roads with their swags on their backs, grateful to find almost any temporary job that paid a few shillings.

  On those wonderful evenings, arms about one another, we walked around the emerging outline of our future home planning all details right down to the books we would choose for our bookcase. While the house took shape we purchased more sheep, strained at fence posts to create paddocks, built holding yards and races, installed the windmill to pump water from the bore and cleared choking weeds from the original dams.

  The property was first established in the 1860s but had been left to deteriorate during and after the severe recession towards the end of the century. Albert, a retired shearer, occupied the small original farmhouse, not much more than a shack. Albert had been at Cooinda for six months. He had to give up shearing because of shaky hands caused by alcoholism. He said he’d sworn off alcohol.

  The house was completed in early autumn, five months before the birth of our baby. Andrew loved farming and gave the impression that he’d been born to it. He was strong and deeply sun-tanned – a far cry from his pallid skin after eighteen months in solitary confinement. His only problem was a lingering cough. Lots of our troops suffered with that.

  He helped to prepare the small bedroom adjacent to ours as a nursery. He decorated the walls with his own watercolour paintings of nursery tale characters – not bad, either. He was also practical and could turn his hand to almost anything. His army life had prepared him well for life on the land – he was used to hardship. After the war, he never regretted his decision to turn his back on the military.

  The homestead we built at Cooinda, even in those early days, was bigger than most, built of timber with an iron roof in the Australian tradition. The house was rectangular in shape with wide verandas surrounding the whole structure. It comprised two wings; bedrooms and bath in one, sitting and dining in the other; between the two a foyer, at the rear of which was the kitchen and utility rooms.

  Back to the present; now was not the time for day-dreaming – a characteristic of mine, according to my mother ‘inherited from my no-good father’. Maybe, when a child, I had been a dreamer, but no longer. Like most who had served in France, I had learned how to prioritise. In pre-war days, day-dreaming helped pass the time. These days there were never enough hours in each day.

  I began to plan the day ahead. The minute Albert arrived, I would tell him to check the ewes. Of course it was probably not necessary to tell him. He would know as well as I the danger they were in. And the lambs. I hoped against hope that none were born during the worst of the storm.

  Time passed.

  I dressed, made the bed and began thinking about breakfast. By the time that was over, it was close to nine o’clock, and no Albert. Where was he? He knew it was his job to keep me informed. Had he gone straight to the ewes?

  Time passed.

  The hollow sound of the chiming grandfather clock in the foyer resounded throughout the silent house. The telephone lines had been down for three days. Unable to contact town or my neighbours, I was forced to wait in the depressing silence while I fumed at being let down by our station hand. It was ten in the morning. Where was Albert? The rain had stopped, although low dark clouds still threatened. Water was dribbling down the slopes, deepening the mud gullies in the driveway that snaked up the hill from the sheds to the homestead, then curved down and away to the front gates. The only road near to Cooinda was narrow, dirt and in poor condition. It led directly east to the closest town and railway line, and west to Bourke and beyond.

  My worries increased as well as my anger. I knew the paddocks would be water-logged, unable to soak up the deluge. I imagined sheep imprisoned in the sticky, squelching mud. Despite his drinking history, about which he’d been so honest, Albert had never before let us down. Yet, with ‘the boss’ away and confined to his tiny home by the weather, he might have taken to the bottle again. My nearest neighbour lived on a station several miles to the north-east as the crow flies, but almost thirty miles by road. The closest town, with a population of fewer than five thousand, was fifty miles to the east; its inhabitants a mixture of white Australians and Kamilaroi Aboriginals who camped in the vicinity of the rivers. It was my habit to drive to town once a fortnight to collect provisions and lately to visit the town’s only doctor, who was watching over my pregnancy.

  I wouldn’t have minded being alone for a short time if the weather had been fine. But confined to the silent house by days of rain was an unexpected and depressing situation. To help pass the time until Albert’s belated appearance, I picked up my knitting for the baby. Knitting was not my forte. My mind was not on my work. Thoughts about the possibility of new-born lambs drowning or freezing to death, especially if any were born in the low-lying paddock containing the main dam, filled my mind. Every minute wasted waiting for Albert could be vital for the lambs and any ewes bogged in the mud.

  *

  It was after midday; I’d had enough and was certain Albert was lying in his one-roomed shack in a drunken stupor. I didn’t expect to see him until tomorrow and expected that he would arrive with some cock-and-bull story about having had a fall or some other accident.

  Ignoring the promise I made to be careful and not do anything rash, I did just that. I hadn’t been on horseback for two months and was of course aware that to ride now was out of the question. Nothing wrong with walking; I needed the exercise, having had none since the rain began. The clouds were scurrying off to the west. Certain the weather was clearing, I planned to go along the track at least as far as the paddock containing the main dam.

  I should have changed into something more practical but, having made up my mind, I was impatient to get started. Wearing a blue wool maternity shift that fell in generous folds to mid-calf, I put on oilskins to protect it, grabbed my gumboots from the veranda and pulled a sou’wester down over my short-cropped hair. I picked up a capacious rush basket and placed my husband’s oldest woollen sweater and a length of rope in it. Rivulets of muddy water still slid down the slope on to the drive, forming puddles in the newly formed ruts and hollows.

  The going was tougher than expected. Always confident that working around the homestead, establishing the garden and regularly walking down the drive to the big mail-box by the road would keep me in good shape, I discovered that that was not so at all. Hanging around the house for the last few days had left me surprisingly unfit. And, although only seven months (thirty weeks) pregnant, I was the size of a house. My husband wondered whether I was having twins; his mother had a twin sister, and there were twin cousins. I didn’t think so. I was confident my doctor would have heard the extra foetal heart sound.

  Dammit. My boots were already heavy with clinging mud. The lower half of my clothing was sopping wet and mud-spattered. I pushed through the soggy, saturated ground,
opened and closed heavy gates and stumbled up inclines never previously noticed. Soon my breathing became laboured; my lungs began to burn.

  On reaching a slight crest overlooking several paddocks I saw that two ewes had separated from the flock, and one was down. That’s what ewes do; they like a bit of privacy when they have their lambs. My heart rate quickened; glancing along the slope further to the west where most of the animals were clustered together under a stand of eucalypts, I saw no other isolated animals.

  Knowing the chances of the lambs’ survival were slight, I hurried down the slope; my breath coming in sobs, more from worry and emotion than from the rough track. What would I find when I reached my destination?

  Just as expected, one was dead, with two ice-cold, new-born lambs by its side. By a miracle they were alive – just. I put the basket down, wrapped them tightly together in my husband’s jumper and placed them in the basket. The other ewe was in desperate straits; locked in mud, blowing hard and with a leg dangling out of its backside. It was making futile efforts to expel the small creature and would have been in excruciating pain. I could hardly bear to see its flanks working so desperately, so uselessly, and wasn’t sure where to start. I threw off my oilskins and pushed the sleeves of the dress high on my arms; then shoved my hand into the birth canal, felt around the slimy blackness and located the other leg caught in the neck of the womb. I manipulated the limb to release it, all the time terrified it would break. While forcing the strong muscular band of cervix to widen I could almost feel the mother’s terrible pain deep down at the pit of my own stomach. Holding on as tightly as possible in that slippery milieu, I then slowly withdrew my bloodied arm. Thank God, now two hind legs were visible.

  The ewe couldn’t help; she’d had enough. Once more, I thrust my arm into her body and pushed past the infant body, which was held back by its neck, jammed and broken. The lifeless head dangled within the uterine walls. Instinctively my searching fingers groped to straighten the head so that I could slowly pull the body through the birth canal.

  With a last desperate effort the ewe pushed, and the dead lamb plopped into my waiting hands. Relieved of her burden, the ewe tried weakly to extricate herself from the mud; she had simply run out of strength. I floundered around her, my clothing covered in mud and spattered with blood, my arm red and sticky. I picked up the rope, tied it behind the ewe’s front legs and around the body and pulled, but the imprisoned animal was a dead weight. It didn’t move. Frustrated, I tossed the rope to the ground and frantically scrabbled at the sucking mud around its feet, throwing handfuls to one side.

  I could do no more. The ewe stood helpless, rocked sideways and shuddered, then, with legs still glued to the earth, stood statue-like in death. Twenty minutes of heart-rending, frenzied work, the only result of which was both ewe and lamb dead. I cried aloud, ‘Oh God, what a nightmare.’ Shaking with exhaustion, I grabbed at handfuls of grass to wipe the blood and muck from my arms. I turned away from the pitiful sight, picked up the basket with the new-born lambs and began the long trek home.

  *

  Reaching the sheds after what seemed like hours, I scrambled up the slope towards the house; my breathing merely noisy, shallow gasps, my gait clumsy; legs like jelly. Sharp burning again stabbed at my upper chest. My hands rested for a moment gently on my protruding stomach: I remember apologising in my mind to my own child: ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have put you through that.’ The pounding in my chest lessened: I took a deep gulp of air and forced my unwilling legs on towards the house.

  On reaching the foot of the steps to the back veranda, another wave of weakness swept over me, and my legs gave way. Somehow I managed to get up the stairs, then sank on to the veranda floorboards. Soon I felt the increasing cold seep through my sodden outer clothing. I simply had to make one last effort to get the lambs into the warmth of the kitchen. I opened the back door and put the basket down in front of the black fuel stove, jerked at a drawer and found the box labelled ‘Teats for poddy lambs’. I made up a milk mixture, something I had done many times when a child, and poured the lukewarm mixture into an empty tomato sauce bottle. Approaching the basket I saw immediately that only one lamb was alive. I grabbed it and pushed the teat into its slack mouth. Weakly it sucked, but it didn’t take much so I decided to try again in another half hour.

  I picked up the dead lamb and walked out on to the back veranda. The body needed to be wrapped in newspaper and incinerated, but not right now; I was too exhausted. I took off my coat and hung it on a wooden peg, then collapsed onto an old canvas chair and began to pull off my boots.

  *

  ‘G’day, missus.’ Out of the deep grey of late afternoon two figures loomed. I thought I would suffocate with fear.

  One man climbed on to the veranda and looked down on me. His impertinence angered me. Ignoring him for a moment, I tried to give an impression of nonchalance as I shook off the second boot. Then I stood up in stockinged feet, probably looking absurdly ineffectual. My wet bedraggled hair and swollen stomach would have added to my appearance of vulnerability.

  The gloom, two men appearing out of nowhere; my thoughts flashed back to that terrible night in 1917 when those disgusting creatures attacked and nearly killed me. Once again, I was almost overcome with fear. I clenched my teeth in an effort to control my body from trembling. ‘Yes?’ my voice squeaked out. I was aware of sounding fearful and intimidated. So I took a deep breath. My voice was firmer, my effort extreme.

  ‘Boss around, missus?’

  He was tall, unusually so, skinny, unshaven and with a swarthy complexion; his wet hat was dirty and greasy. His small eyes, which looked like blackberries, darted back and forth, alert and shrewd. The one hanging behind was short, podgy with a vacuous expression and an obsequious air.

  I lied, of course, said something like: ‘He’ll be back soon.’

  He asked whether we had any odd jobs for himself and his brother. Some wood chopping or work on our drive? This man was sharp and observant. Of course he would have noticed the condition of the drive. The deep ruts and potholes would take days to fill in.

  ‘Sorry; there’s no work here. We have a permanent farmhand.’

  ‘That would be the bloke who lives in the shack two or three miles down the road.’

  Don’t answer him, don’t confirm anything, said my instincts. They must have stopped at Albert’s place. Did he tell them my husband was away? Did they come here because they knew I was alone?

  My fear intensified. I controlled my voice. ‘Sorry I can’t help you.’

  He looked down the slope towards the sheds, then back at the bedrolls they’d thrown on the veranda boards. ‘Rough sleeping out in this weather, missus.’

  I was adamant that my husband didn’t permit anyone to sleep in the sheds.

  ‘Got a bit of spare tucker, missus?’

  I hoped I sounded in control but feared he detected my agitation. ‘Wait there. I’ll have a look in the larder.’

  Heart racing, I went immediately to my bedroom, put on my shoes and tidied my hair. Let them wait. God knows what they would do if they realised I was alone and frightened. I moved into the second bedroom, which was to be the nursery, went straight to the wardrobe and felt in the furthermost corner. My hands closed around the barrel of Andrew’s .22 rifle. There was a box of cartridges nearby. I inserted one into the breech, put five more into my pocket and carried the rifle back to the pantry. I could feel my lips compressing as I vowed that no man would ever attack me and my baby and live to tell the tale.

  I cut a few slices of corned mutton, then sandwiched them between hunks of my home-made bread. I wrapped the food in brown paper and tied the parcel with string. I picked up the rifle, placed it near the back door, opened the door and handed the man the package and suggested they be off before the night closed in.

  He said he would have thought my husband would be home by now – couldn’t work in the dark. I lowered my eyes, determined not to reveal my fear and vulnerability to this person wh
o had appeared out of nowhere and was now challenging me with his musings. They sauntered down the drive, leaving me fearful that I hadn’t seen the last of them.

  I was shaking as I turned away from the door; badly in need of a cup of tea, I walked over to the warm stove. First, I had to give the lamb some milk. I went to the basket. The remaining lamb was dead. After wrapping the body and taking it out to where the other one was lying, I covered the bodies with newspaper and held the paper down with stones. Now it was very dark. Tomorrow would be time enough to incinerate them.

  Returning to the kitchen, I locked the door behind me, still feeling uneasy. The men could be hanging around; they could be murderers. The rifle was beside me. I was not going to let it out of my sight. Better light the lanterns and take something for my headache, but first make sure all doors and windows are locked.

  CHAPTER 37

  It was totally dark inside and out, and as silent as the grave. Although the rain had ceased, the stars remained hidden by low cloud. I lit two kerosene lanterns, placed one on the kitchen table and then, carrying the other, walked shakily to the medicine cupboard in search of aspirin. My whole body ached cruelly; and such a piercing headache – I couldn’t remember ever having one so severe. Knowing how impossible it would be to sleep without going to the lavatory, I became increasingly agitated. Like everyone else in the bush, our lavatory was outside. But I couldn’t risk going out there; the two men might still be about, and God knows what they would do to me if they realise my husband was not on the property. Where was the chamber pot?

  I picked up a lantern, the rifle and the hot water bottle, and shambled towards our bedroom. After shoving the water bottle between the icy sheets and putting the rifle on the floor beside the bed, I finally shuffled along to the bathroom. The chamber was in the bathroom cupboard. I lit the chip heater and waited for the bath to fill; eventually, I eased myself into its soothing depth. Cosy and warm at last, I climbed into bed. It had been a terrible day, one of the worst I had ever experienced and the culmination of a long and lonely week. Exhausted, I collapsed onto the bed and was asleep in seconds. But not for long.