by Judy Nunn
Fully aware of her father’s ulterior motives, Susan did not accept his offer, though she did suggest he support her in a more practical manner by assisting her to set up a business of her own. Susan desperately needed to get out of the family home. Life at Kendle Lodge was claustrophobic and depressing, and at times she felt she was being suffocated by the unhappiness which surrounded her.
She had not realised that her mother was so far gone. Floating on laudanum throughout the day, heavily sedated at night in order to escape the nightmares which plagued her, Amy Kendle was a creature in torment, and it broke Susan’s heart to see her once pretty, flirtatious mother reduced to such a state.
And Stephen. Poor defeated Stephen.
His wife had died giving birth prematurely to their second child, and the doctors had been unable to save the baby, a girl. Stephen had been a broken man at the funeral, which was hardly surprising, but Susan had hoped that time might heal his wounds. He had a beautiful little son, barely three years old. He was not yet thirty, he was a successful businessman with his life ahead of him. But, always prone to give in to adversity even as a child, Stephen had now given up altogether. Life had defeated him and any shred of self-esteem that had survived had been systematically hounded out of him by his tyrant of a father.
Susan grew to hate their father as, each night, she looked at him across the dining table of Kendle Lodge amidst the ruinof his family. She defended Stephen whenever she could, and she prayed that hislittle boy would grow up strong enough to withstand the influence of his grandfather. It would be only a matter of time before the old man would try to get his hooks into the child and take over his life.
She had to get out, away from the misery of Kendle Lodge, and her father’s money was the only way. ‘A loan, Father,’ she insisted. ‘I shall pay you back when the business is established.’
Howard Streatham proved immensely helpful. His contacts were invaluable, and within only twelve months Susan’s gallery and handicrafts shop had slowly and steadily become established.
‘But in Manly!’ Her father had been scathing, of course. ‘Why Manly of all places? It’s a backwater.’
‘You’re quite wrong, Father,’ she had emphatically replied, ‘Manly is a thriving community. Local enterprise is far more supported in the Village than it is in the inner suburbs. Besides,’ she added, ‘artists and craftspeople have moved to the Village for the sheer beauty of the place. It is high time they had a shop and a gallery in which to display their works.’
‘And who the hell’s going to buy them?’ Charles had growled.
‘Visitors. Tourists. Fellow artists. I advertise, you know, and the shop has gained quite a reputation already.’
The lights of Manly loomed ahead. Susan clung to the railings as the ferry pitched and rolled, finally pulling into calmer waters as it approached the wharf. The gangplank crashed into place and Susan was first off the ferry, striding ahead of the stream of disembarking passengers. It was late and she needed to be up early. She always spoke at the Domain on Sundays. In fact, of all the speakers who spruiked their causes at Sydney’s open-air centre of free speech, Susan Kendle’s following was invariably one of the largest. And so it should be, she contended. The women of New South Wales may have won the right to vote a full twelve years ago, but that was only the beginning, there was a long road ahead. They had yet to win the right to be elected to parliament, and in the meantime, the daily struggle went on. Women needed to be told of their rights, not only in the political arena, but in the home and workplace.
Such a lot of work to be done, Susan thought as she strode up Sydney Street through the wintry Saturday night.
At nine on the morning of 17 August, crowds of men gathered on the weather-worn asphalt of the Victoria Barracks parade ground, laughing and jostling each other and talking excitedly like children about to go on a picnic. Men of all shapes and sizes—tall, short, fat and thin. Men of all ages—youngsters fresh from school, those in their prime and those showing signs of age. Men of every type and from every walk of life, but they had one thing in common. The spirit of adventure did not discriminate, and each man’s eyes shared with the next the eager light of anticipation.
Here and there, standing to attention, was a professional soldier inuniform, his taut military bearing only serving to highlight the disorderliness of the motley crowd. It would be his duty to train this unruly horde of excited volunteers who were to become the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Infantry Brigade.
The men were sorted into untidy queues, lists were made, and each man was eventually presented, along with the medical fitness certificate he had received on his previous examination, to the second-in-command who barked out a few short queries before assigning him to the regimental officers.
‘I feel like a bit of a dill,’ Tim Kendall said loudly to Robbie O’Shea as they shuffled forward in their queue, ‘signing up with my uncle.’
‘I’ll bet you do,’ Robbie agreed. Tim’s uncle Billy stood right behind them. ‘Don’t know how he passed the medical, a bloke as old as him.’
Billy Kendall cuffed Robbie over the back of the head. ‘Watch it, you cheeky bugger, I’m in the prime of life I am. I’d take you on any day, one hand tied behind my back.’ It was no lie. Billy, in his early thirties, was a fit man, hardy and ready for action. He would be leaving a wife and two small children behind but he had no qualms. The army paid well, and when he returned home to Marge and the boys, after seeing the world and fighting the Hun, Wunderlichs had promised that his job would be waiting for him. His family would want for nothing.
Young Robbie, too, looked a force to be reckoned with. He was a solid, broad-shouldered young man, with a purposeful demeanour which belied his nineteen years, but then Robbie O’Shea had always been old for his age.
It was young Tim ‘Tiny Tot’ Kendall who was the odd man out. His body had finally obeyed the laws of nature and he’d grown into a man but, to his annoyance, his face had remained the same—boyish and hairless. It was bloody unfair, he thought. Here he was, twenty-one and going off to fight for King and Country, and he didn’t even shave yet. He regularly applied a razor to his face—they said that if you did, it made the hair grow quicker—but it didn’t seem to work for him.
When he’d confided in Robbie, his best mate hadn’t been able to see the problem. ‘Hell, shaving’s no fun,’ he’d said, ‘and the girls are shook on you anyway, so what are you worrying about?’ But it continued to annoy Tim, and his sunny disposition turned quite belligerent, when people assumed he was no more than seventeen years old.
It was true, however, that, like his father Benjamin, Tim Kendall was irresistibly attractive to the opposite sex, but as yet no girl had particularly interested him. Which was just as well when a bloke was going off to war, he thought; he wouldn’t want to be in Robbie’s position.
‘I’m gonna marry her when I get home from the war,’ Robbie had said.
‘You’re mad. You’re only nineteen.’
‘So?’
‘And Aggie’s only eighteen.’
‘It doesn’t make any difference when you’re in love.’
Tim had wanted to laugh, but you didn’t laugh when Robbie had that serious look on his face, which Robbie often had. Robbie was a serious bloke. Sensitive too. And you didn’t want to offend your best friend.
‘So what, are you engaged then?’
‘Yep. I bought her a ring. Not a real one, not gold, but it’s got our names carved inside.’
‘Congratulations.’ Tim hadn’t known what else to say.
‘Is this date of birth correct?’ the second-in-command queried as he looked at Tim’s medical certificate.
‘Yes.’ There was a touch of antagonismin Tim’s reply.
‘Yes, sir!’ the officer barked.
‘Yes, sir!’ Tim stood to attention.
‘Next.’
As the last of the queues were shuffled through, the regimental officers sorted the men, three hundred or so, into eight s
quads. They were called to attention, then dressed, numbered, formed into lines and finally stood at ease.
Having been put through the basics, the 3rd Battalion of Infantry, three hundred and thirty strong—twenty acting officers and three hundred and ten men—marched off in columns of four to Randwick Racecourse where they were to be housed, trained and equipped, the plan being that the Australian Imperial Force should sail in one month’s time.
There was no housing at Randwick Racecourse however. No tents had as yet been erected, so the infant 3rd Battalion slept on the wooden terraced steps of the grandstand. In their clothes, with a blanket and their civilian greatcoats over them.
‘Cripes,’ Tim Kendall whinged loudly, ‘hasn’t anybody told them that winter isn’t over yet?’ Everyone agreed, but no-one cared, spirits were high and the men were in good humour.
The conditions improved, their training intensified and, as they were equipped with their uniforms and kits, the kindred spirit of adventure grew. As did the ranks, men pouring in from the city and the outlying suburbs, eager to be in on the action. Recruiting for the battalion had commenced in the country, and officers were sent to meet the trains and conduct the country recruits to the Racecourse where the battalion was now camped in tents.
By 3 September the battalion was complete—thirty-two officers and nine hundred and ninety-one men—and on 14 September it marched out for the first time to the heathland overlooking the sea at Maroubra. The battalion was now equipped with waggons, horses, two Maxim machine-guns, the brass band was practising daily and, by 20 September when the men’s paybooks were compiled, everyone was raring to go. All they needed now were their orders.
‘It’s official, they say. Any day now.’ Kathleen looked up from the newspaper, but Otto didn’t reply as he downed his mug of tea and rose from the kitchen table. ‘It’s just as Robbie told us on the weekend,’ she continued. ‘They’re hoping to set sail before the end of the month.’
Robbie O’Shea had warned his mother that the weekend might be the last leave he’d be granted. ‘The officers don’t tell us anything but there’s a rumour going round that embarkation orders have been issued.’
‘I must get back to the shop,’ Otto said. ‘Young Aggie will be wanting her lunch.’
Kathleen stood and, reaching up her hands, locked her fingers behind the bull-like neck of her husband. ‘Don’t, Otto,’ she whispered, ‘don’t shut me out along with Johann.’
‘Mijn duif,’ he always called her his dove, ‘never would I shut you out. Never.’ He engulfed her in his embrace and, feeling the fullness of her body against him, wanted to make love to her. But then Kathleen had always had that effect on him and eight years of marriage had not lessened his desire.
Otto De Haan loved his wife passionately, he had from the moment he’d met her. Even when he’d been ‘the Dutchie down the road’ who took her out for a drive with her son—in the hired trap which he’d pretended had been his—even then he’d loved her. Never for one moment, not even in his wildest dreams, had he ever dared hope that she could be his.
But he’d never been good at explaining his feelings. He wanted to tell her now that he did not mean to shut his son, his only child, out. It was not anger at Johann he felt, it was fear. It was anger mixed with fear. And disappointment. And frustration, and helplessness. Otto couldn’t explain it to himself, how could he explain it to her?
‘I must go, mijn duif,’ he said. ‘It is unfair to Aggie that I am late.’
Kathleen felt sorry for him as she watched him leave. She knew he was in turmoil and she wished she could help, but Otto was a private man, not one to express his emotions. Not even to his son, who was his very life. No wonder young Johann had run away rather than face up to the father with whom he could barely communicate. The boy had left a note. He’d joined the army. ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ he’d written, ‘but I knew you’d try and stop me.’
Kathleen was disappointed that young Johann had not confided in her. As a child he had talked to her in a way, she suspected, he had talked to no-one else. A strange little boy who hid his vulnerability behind bravado, Johann ached to be just like all the other kids.
‘I don’t want to talk Dutch, Kathleen,’ he told her. ‘Dad talks Dutch to me in public and it’s awful, people look at us. I’m Australian, I’m not Dutch. I don’t even know where Holland is.’
Kathleen knew that for years following the death of his wife, Otto had clung to Johann. A foreigner, learning the language and the customs of a new land, his only son had been the most precious thing in Otto’s life. And yet daily she watched as he alienated the boy.
On occasions she had been a successful buffer between the two, but not this time. Not now that Johann had run away. This time Otto refused to communicate with him altogether.
On his visits home, Robbie tried to ease the situation. Most of his leave he spent with his fiancée Aggie, who worked in Otto’s shop down the street and lived in the room above, but on Sunday he lunched with his mother and stepfather.
‘Don’t you worry about Johann, Otto,’ he said. ‘Me and Tim are looking after him. He’s doing fine.’
‘He is seventeen.’
‘I’m nineteen.’
‘You are a man,’ Otto said. ‘You know what you do. Johann is a child. And he is a fool.’
Robbie couldn’t really disagree with the Dutchman there. Johann had always been a bit crazy, even as a kid. Forever showing off, pretending to be a daredevil when everyone knew he wasn’t. Of course he was always being teased for being a foreigner, which probably had something to do with it. But he was as Australian as the next bloke now. It was time he grew up.
‘Don’t you worry,’ Robbie said again, ‘the army’ll make a man out of him, just you wait and see.’
‘He will be killed.’
There wasn’t much a bloke could say to that, Robbie thought, so he changed the subject and tried to brighten things up a bit, for his mother’s sake at least. Otto could be a bit dour at times. But Robbieliked him, he always had. Otto was a man who kept his feelings inside and Robbie was like that himself, except with Tim of course, but then Tim was his best mate. Robbie felt that he understood Otto. In fact it had been Robbie who had set the wheels in motion all those years ago.
‘He’s shook on you, Mum,’ he’d said. He’d been eleven years old at the time.
‘Who?’
‘The Dutchie. Otto.’
‘Don’t be silly, he’s just a friend.’
‘Sure. A friend who’s mad for you.’ A little later on he’d said to Otto in a moment of privacy, ‘My mum really likes you. She likes you a lot.’ He’d let them work it out from there, but somehow he’d known the Dutchie’d make a good dad.
As the weeks progressed, the situation regarding Johann did not get any easier.
‘Johann gets a weekend leave like you, Robbie?’ Otto said one Sunday lunch. It was a rhetorical question and Robbie didn’t answer. ‘And yet he does not come home.’
There was no point in lying and Robbie didn’t try. ‘I think he’s too frightened,’ he answered truthfully. He and Tim had tried to convince Johann to visit his father, but he never had.
‘Maybe I will,’ the boy would say airily when his leave came up, ‘but I’m seeing this girl,’ a suggestive wink and a leer, ‘might not have the time.’
There was no girl, and Tim and Robbie knew it. Johann was always telling lies, stupid ones too. Neither Robbie nor Tim could quite work Johann out.
‘It is right that Johann should be frightened,’ Otto growled, and Robbie and Kathleen exchanged a look. They both knew it was Otto who was frightened.
Kathleen helped her husband the only way she could. By letting him know that, whatever happened, she would always love him. For, incongruous pair as they were, Kathleen did love Otto De Haan. Her love had been born through a series of surprises. The discovery that Otto desired her had been the first. A woman normally alert to the lust in men, Kathleen had been singularly unaware of Ott
o’s desire. He was a widower, a devoutly religious man, and his life was devoted to his small son, he had no place in his life for a lover, or so she had thought.
When he had clumsily confessed his affection, she had allowed him to kiss her, and that had been the next surprise. She’d been aroused by his embrace, the strength of his body and the gentle passion of hiskiss. She’d wanted him to make love to her, but he hadn’t. He’d courted her instead, bringing her flowers from his corner cart, taking her for drives in his trap, always kissing her goodnight, always keeping his own passion in check whilst hers mounted to the extreme. She wanted to beg. She wanted to plead ‘make love to me, Otto,’ but she daren’t for fear of shocking him.
Then, finally, his breathless proposal of marriage, his expectation of refusal obvious, but of course she had accepted him. Otto might not have been the husband she may once have hoped for, but she was thirty-one now, and deeply grateful to find an honest man who would support her and her child.
Then had followed the next surprise. Their wedding night. Otto De Haan proved to be the best lover Kathleen had ever experienced. He was gentle and considerate, attentive and passionate, energetic and powerful. All the love and desire he could not articulate, he expressed with his body and his lovemaking, and Kathleen, a deeply sexual woman, was left exhausted by the gratification of her own passion.