To Ride the Wind

by Peter Watt

  ‘I can assure you, Captain Duffy, that when she left me Miss Barrington’s pregnancy was proceeding as expected,’ he said. ‘If all goes well, you will be a father in around three months’ time.’

  ‘I have to find Joanne,’ Matthew finally spoke.

  ‘I am afraid that will not be possible for the foreseeable future,’ Saul cautioned. ‘We have not yet brought the Ottomans to the table to sign their defeat. I don’t think your country will stop the war for you to find your Miss Barrington until the Turks are defeated.’

  Matthew felt his elation rush from him like a breath exhaled. Saul was right. The best he could do was write to Joanne in America and tell her that he would be coming for her when the war was over. He would be able to obtain the address of her father’s residence through the Red Cross. So, there would be a grandson or granddaughter for his mother to hold, Matthew thought. For a moment he found himself reflecting on the irony of life. His own father had been an American citizen and if his child was born in the United States, he or she would also be an American citizen. He did not care whether his child was a boy or girl. All he cared about was that Joanne was in good health and so, too, was the child she carried.

  Now all he had to do was stay alive.

  *

  Corporal Tom Duffy sat on a low stone fence in the village square and stared at the old, Gothic-style church with its gargoyles and angels around the arch above the wide wooden doors. It was cold but he did not feel the chill anymore. Villagers hurried to get inside their little houses or shops, seeing the darkening sky as a prelude to heavy, sleeting rain. Unlike his comrades who were inside the taverns drinking wine while on leave from the front, Tom preferred to roam the town and surrounding peaceful countryside, a landscape so different to the vast and lonely plains of the Gulf country where he had grown up.

  ‘You should get in from the cold,’ a female voice said in heavily accented English.

  Tom turned to see the pale cherubic face of a young woman with large brown eyes and short dark hair, about eighteen years of age. She wore the dress of a farm girl and carried a large basket filled with duck eggs.

  Tom pushed himself off the stone fence. ‘May I help you, mademoiselle?’ he asked, reaching for the basket. She did not resist his gesture and thanked him.

  ‘My name is Tom Duffy,’ he said by way of introduction.

  The girl smiled at him, her eyes emitting a warmth that shone through from her soul. Tom felt himself drifting into that warmth and wondered if there could be any other woman as beautiful as this young French girl.

  ‘You are an Australian,’ she said, staring at the slouch hat that marked him as a digger. ‘My people say that the Australians are very brave but that they steal things,’ she giggled. ‘You will not steal my eggs, no?’

  ‘No.’ Tom smiled. ‘Where are you taking them?’

  ‘To the tavern where your friends drink,’ she replied, falling into step beside him. ‘Why is it that you do not drink with them?’

  ‘How is it that you speak such good English?’ he countered.

  She blushed. ‘I learn from my cousin who live in England many years. One day I will be teacher of children.’

  ‘A school teacher,’ Tom said. ‘But you look like you have come from a farm.’

  ‘My parents have farm a half kilometre from town,’ she replied as they walked as slowly as Tom could to prolong the time in her company. ‘I finish school this year and now wish to learn to teach children, too.’

  ‘You could teach a lot of Aussies how to speak English,’ he said with a wry smile. The young woman looked at him blankly and Tom shook his head. ‘That is a joke,’ he said, his smile widening. ‘I suppose that you are all getting ready for Christmas this time of year.’

  The girl looked away before turning back to Tom. ‘My brother, he was killed this year,’ she said sadly. ‘My parents do not want to, how you say, celebrate Christmas.’

  ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ Tom replied as they reached the tavern. They could hear the laughter of drunken men and the voice of a woman attempting to be heard over the merriment as her drunken audience shouted lewd suggestions at her.

  ‘Place must be full of Poms,’ Tom said. ‘An Aussie would let the singer have a go.’

  Once again the girl looked at Tom blankly. He smiled, shaking his head. ‘I think you should learn how we speak in Australia,’ he said. ‘Much better than learning English. I will escort you inside to make sure that you are not molested.’

  ‘What is molested?’ she asked.

  ‘What I will not have to explain if I go with you inside.’

  While the girl spoke with the tavern keeper, all around them soldiers from the Empire tried to temporarily forget that Christmas was coming and they would not be at home to share it with their loved ones. Cheap, red wine helped kill the homesickness and dampen the fear of what lay ahead for 1918. When the young French girl had concluded her dealings, Tom insisted on escorting her outside. When they were in the street, he handed the empty basket to her. ‘I do not know your name,’ he said.

  ‘Does that matter, Tom Duffy?’ she asked, pulling a scarf over her head.

  ‘It does if I am to see you again,’ he replied. ‘I have four more days until I return to the battalion.’

  The girl stared at him. ‘You will be here for Christmas Day?’ she asked.

  ‘It seems so,’ he replied. ‘I am due back the day after.’

  ‘Then you should be the guest of my family,’ she said with a warm, inviting smile. ‘Just ask the people where the Joubert farm is,’ she continued. ‘I am Juliet and you have been a true gentleman, Tom Duffy. Thank you.’

  She walked quickly away, hoping to miss the rain that was threatening the little village. Tom stood in the street, watching until she disappeared into the green fields behind the village common. When the rain began to fall he decided to seek shelter inside the tavern.

  That night, as he lay in his fleainfested bed in the town’s stables that were being used to billet soldiers on leave from the front, he found it difficult to get to sleep. It was not the biting fleas that kept him awake – he had long grown used to the lice that infested the soldier’s clothing on the front – but the image of Juliet’s beautiful face swimming before him. She had not seemed to notice that he was of mixed race and, if she did, she did not seem to care. The French seemed less discriminating to people of colour. He had seen regiments of North Africans, men as black as the night, who had been treated respectfully by those Frenchmen with whom they served on the front. Maybe Juliet thought all Australians were tanned and had his facial features. Whatever it was, Tom was sure she had shown an interest in him. He hoped so.

  Tom met Juliet and her family at the church for mass on Christmas morning. He was introduced to her parents, whose formal stiffness suggested a wariness about the strange man who obviously had a romantic interest in their youngest daughter. Tom soon learned that Juliet’s two older sisters had married local farmers and one had already been widowed by the war. Neither parent spoke English, so Juliet translated. A couple of times on the walk back from the church to the Joubert farm house, Tom noticed Juliet exchanging annoyed words with her parents. They had glanced at the young Australian soldier over their shoulders but otherwise acted in a courteous manner towards him. They knew of the fierce reputation the Australians had established for themselves on the battlefields of France and Flanders, and the reputation for reckless courage did not bode well with parents who had already lost a son to the war.

  Inside the farm house Tom could feel the warmth of the open fireplace and smell the delicious aroma of a roasting goose in an oven. On the mantelpiece was the framed photo of a young man in uniform. Tom was struck by how much he looked like himself. Even Juliet’s mother had glanced at him with a curious expression on her face whenever she thought he was not looking at her. Tom tried to be as unobtrusive as possible and when they all sat down for the Christmas lunch bowed his head as Mr Joubert said grace.

 
When lunch was over Juliet sat at an old piano in the corner of the small but cosy living room. Tom was pleasantly surprised that she could both play with an expert touch and sing with a beautiful voice. Her sad songs alone enchanted him and he knew that he was falling in love with this enigmatic young French woman. He sat on a sofa as her parents joined in the singing. When their song finished, Mr Joubert raised his glass of brandy towards the photograph of his son. ‘Vive la France,’ he said.

  Tom echoed his words – the few he knew in French.

  That afternoon, aided by the brandy, Mr Joubert softened his attitude to the young Australian soldier and, through Juliet, asked him many questions about his life in Australia. Attempting to identify with his host, Tom said he too was a kind of farmer of livestock, which endeared him a little to Juliet’s father.

  When the Frenchman asked Tom how many cattle he had, Tom extrapolated to what he expected to own when he returned to Queensland. ‘Around 3000 head,’ he said.

  Mr Joubert looked at Tom in disbelief. ‘My father has said that a man with that many cattle would have to be the richest man in the world.’

  Tom broke into a broad smile. ‘I hope to be, Mr Joubert,’ he replied.

  The day went too quickly and soon it was growing dark. It would be cold walking back to his billet but he was to be on parade early next morning before being transported back to his battalion at the front. The men were engaged in patrols into no-man’s-land, attempting to take prisoners for the intelligence people while the Germans carried out similar patrols. It was dangerous work and Tom dreaded returning now that he had found something far more valuable than the bags of diamonds.

  He stood on the doorstep, bidding his hosts goodbye. Juliet watched him with sorrowful eyes. They had not had the chance to be alone in the house but Tom could see from her snatched looks that her interest in him was more than just that of a friend. How badly he had wanted to touch her hand and kiss her face.

  ‘You will write to me,’ she said, her breath meeting his and her large eyes fixing his own.

  ‘Every chance I get,’ Tom replied, forcing himself not to embrace her, as Mrs Joubert stood behind her daughter in the doorway.

  ‘I will wait at the post office every day,’ Juliet replied. Suddenly she stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek, despite her mother’s gasp of disapproval. When she stepped back, Tom walked away into the cold night, the feel of her lips still warm on his cheek. He did not turn back. To see her face would have been more than he could bear knowing that he was going back to a war with no end.

  But between missions of prisoner snatching patrols and lying out in no-man’s-land sniping unsuspecting German soldiers, he did write. By the time 1918 arrived Tom Duffy was yet to face the worst weeks of his life on the Western Front. He treasured the most beautiful words he had ever read in his life, in the fine copperplate handwriting of his beloved French farmer’s daughter. He would fight to stay alive and take home the diamond of his life – Juliet.

  25

  At Glen View the bite of the summer was going from the land. Soon the cold would come, bringing early morning dew onto the vegetable garden.

  Giselle kneeled over the row of newly planted potatoes and pulled at the weeds. Beside her, the Chinese gardener worked diligently to keep his precious plants alive, watering them from a battered can. The heat was losing its potency as the day drew to a close and Giselle could hear the happy laughter of her son, who was playing with two little Aboriginal boys of his own age. The floppy straw hat she wore shaded her vision but she heard Angus call.

  ‘Mrs Macintosh, we appear to have visitors comin’.’

  Giselle straightened her back and gazed across the plains.

  A small plume of dust was spreading on a light breeze in the distance and, from the way it rose, it was obvious that whoever was coming was in a horse-drawn buggy. It was unusual for visitors to come to the station and Giselle kept the dust in sight until she could actually see the outline of the buggy with its driver and passenger.

  ‘Who do you think it is?’ she called to Angus, who from the verandah had a better view.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, shading his eyes.

  After some minutes Giselle could see that the driver was a man dressed in black and his passenger a woman in a long flowing dress. Even before she could clearly see their features, Giselle knew who they were. She ran to the gate, flung it open and ran up the dusty track towards the buggy.

  ‘Mama!’ she screamed, her floppy hat falling from her head.

  The driver flicked the horse with his small whip, speeding it towards the station house and came to a stop beside Giselle. Karolina leaped from the buggy into her daughter’s embrace, holding tight as if planning to never let go. Both women sobbed with joy as Pastor Karl von Fellmann, the reins in his hands, looked down on the scene with a smile. Angus strode up to meet the visitors and, as Karl dismounted, took control of the horse. He held out his hand.

  ‘You must be the pastor,’ he said. ‘Welcome back to Glen View.’

  ‘And you must be Mr Angus MacDonald whom I have heard so much about from Giselle’s letters to her mother,’ Karl said, brushing away as much dust as he could from his coat. ‘I have finally returned home,’ he added.

  When the joyous outpourings of welcome were over, Giselle led her mother by the hand towards the verandah from where young David had stared at the spectacle of his mother weeping and laughing at the same time. He shyly approached Karolina, leaving his companions to watch the meeting with curiosity. Karolina crouched down as the little boy accepted her embrace as she hugged him to her.

  ‘Oh, my little man, you have grown so much since I last held you,’ she said. ‘You are so strong and healthy.’

  ‘Ah, Mrs Schumann, Pastor, I see that you have arrived safe and well,’ Hector said, emerging from the house. ‘I pray that your journey here went well.’

  ‘You knew!’ Giselle said, turning on the station manager.

  He grinned back at her. ‘I’m afraid so, lassie,’ he replied. ‘But I was sworn to keep it a secret until the pastor and your mother arrived. It’s good to have you back, Karl.’

  The Lutheran minister thrust out his hand. ‘Is Wallarie still here?’ he asked.

  ‘Haven’t seen the old bugger in months,’ Hector replied, slapping Karl on the back. ‘But Mrs Macintosh reckons she saw him a few weeks back out in the bush.’

  ‘That is good,’ Karl replied. ‘I fear for my old friend’s health .’

  ‘Wallarie will outlive all of us,’ Hector said, turning to call for a housemaid to assist with the luggage from the buggy. ‘You have arrived just in time for a dinner prepared under the supervision of Mrs Macintosh, so I can promise that you will eat well.’

  That night Karolina and Karl shared stories of the world beyond the vast horizons of Glen View.

  ‘Mr Duffy, the solicitor, was able to secure our release,’ Karolina said in a sombre tone. ‘He is a good man and has friends in the military who helped us put forward our case. Colonel Hughes, Patrick’s friend and yours, argued that we would not be a threat to their security if we were to promise to remain on Glen View. That was not difficult, as I have committed myself to assist Karl in his work with the Aboriginal people of his congregation.’

  Giselle looked at her mother in surprise and then at Karl, whose expression gave away nothing. For a moment Giselle experienced a small shock at what she concluded had occurred between her mother and the Christian minister. Her mother was such a devout follower of her Jewish religion and yet it appeared she would be living with a Christian.

  Karolina noticed the look on her daughter’s face. ‘Oh, dear, don’t make any assumptions,’ she said reassuringly. ‘Karl is a dear friend.’

  ‘Oh, mother, I was not thinking . . .’

  ‘Yes, you were,’ her mother gently chided. ‘But for now the most important thing is that we are all together again and a family once more. God has been kind to me.’

  That night was on
e of the best in Giselle’s memory for a long time. She had lost her beloved husband, but her mother had returned to her in a land she was growing to love for its strange spirituality, one that only those who lived on the vast, semi-arid plains could understand. Here, she knew, her son would grow strong, and one day challenge for his rightful place in the leadership of the Macintosh dynasty.

  After everyone had retired for the night Giselle gently woke her son and took him by the hand. Still drugged with sleep, David rubbed his eyes. She led him to the front yard and there, in the chill of the night, spoke softly to him.

  ‘This land will make you strong, my little man,’ she said, staring up into the night sky. In the distance a dingo howled to its mate and the curlews fell silent. ‘You have the spirit of your father and must make him proud as he watches over us from above. You are all that I love and will always love.’

  David did not understand the words his mother spoke but was transfixed by a terrifying sight in the dark beyond the old bumbil tree. There was a man he had never seen before and he was watching David with great interest. David clung to his mother’s hand tightly. He wanted to tell her about the scary man watching them but she did not appear to see him. Then the strange black man suddenly smiled and David relaxed his grip. He felt safe, as if this man was talking to him.

  Sensing her son’s agitation, Giselle looked down at him.

  ‘David?’ she queried.

  The boy slowly pointed into the dark.

  ‘I don’t see anything,’ Giselle frowned, peering in the direction of her son’s outstretched hand. Then suddenly she gasped. ‘You see him!’ Her frown turned into a smile. ‘He is the good spirit of this land, although I know that only you can see him now,’ she added. ‘His name is Wallarie and he will always be here to look over those who come to his lands.’

  David still did not understand his mother’s strange explanation but sensed her inner peace. It would be many years before this moment would come back to him in a dream.