‘Emily,’ said Alice, in a barely audible whisper while she shook her head.
Emily cheeks flushed a little, partly with anger, and partly in wounded pride. She raised her chin and said, ‘Probably not.’
‘I thought that might be the case,’ replied Doctor Anderson, ‘and I am pleased you didn’t say otherwise. I enjoyed our conversation and your company, Miss Miller.’
‘I have a car in the driveway, Doctor Anderson,’ said Doctor Bainbridge politely. Robert Anderson held eye contact with Emily to the brink of what would be considered courteous, before he acknowledged the older Doctor.
‘Certainly Doctor, Mrs Clark, Mrs Miller… Miss Miller.’
‘Welcome to Gilmurra, Doctor Anderson, ‘said Alice with a smile. ‘If we can help you at all settling in, we would be more than pleased to do so.’
‘How very nice of you, Mrs Clark, thank you.’
‘What a lovely man,’ said Judith, as the two doctors walked away.
‘Yes, he did seem nice, Jude,’ said Alice before she turned to face Emily. ‘My question, Judith, would be how our lovely Emily would manage to get into a disagreement with such a nice person.’
‘What makes you think I had an argument with the lovely Doctor,’ replied Emily, her smile as sarcastic as it was dismissive.
‘Oh—just one of those funny feelings you get, dear, when you have known someone their whole lives… I’m glad you’re home M, let’s grab your luggage.’
***
‘Was that Miss Miller’s family—her mother?’ asked Doctor Anderson as he joined Doctor Bainbridge in the back seat of the Dodge sedan. The young driver started the vehicle after he received a nod.
‘No Doctor, her sister-in-law and aunt; both her parents were tragically killed when she was but a toddler.’
Robert sat silent for a moment, blindsided by the answer to a question he thought was slightly snoopy, but natural enough. ‘How sad,’ he said. He meant the latter word in its truest form.
‘Incredibly,’ replied the older man. Doctor Bainbridge was struck with a vision of two children seated on the kitchen floor at Denman Hill on that most terrible of days. The Doctor had arrived to the Miller home after a call from the police sergeant. The youngsters were mostly oblivious to the scene of shock and disbelief, the tears and suppressed moans while Alice was sedated. The doctor recalled feelings of confusion and disorientation when he was eventually led over the ridge to look at the deceased couple. The image of them side by side in the paddock grass still haunted him.
Robert noticed Bainbridge’s ashen pallor, and wished he had refrained from asking questions on his first day in the small town.
***
‘Robert is a lovely young man, Gordon,’ said Eliza Bainbridge, while she knitted beside the soft light of a lamp. Her hands were stiff with arthritis and worked slowly but steadily. Any discomfort she felt was not revealed through her countenance, a lifetime of hard work had overcome life’s difficulties and instilled resilience in her. ‘You did very well in selecting him.’
‘Thank you, Eliza,’ replied Gordon as he took a seat in the armchair opposite his wife, ‘and thank you for the lovely meal. If Robert had any reservations about his decision while on his journey from Sydney, your cooking sealed the contract.’ Gordon Bainbridge smiled towards Eliza and then let out a bronchial cough that had become chronic over the last six months; it had forced—along with age and wearied bones—the decision to retire. ‘I saw the young Miller girl today,’ said Doctor Bainbridge suddenly, in a slightly different tone. ‘She arrived on the train; I believe she studies at Sydney University. Who would have thought?’
‘Times have changed,’ replied Eliza without interruption to her work. ‘I heard she is a very intelligent young lady, excelled at Saint Catherine’s.’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, his mind somewhere else. ‘I believe she is… the image of her mother, apart from her hair being brown.’
‘Mrs Clark has done a terrific job raising both of them,’ said Eliza, still concentrated on the tips of her needles. ‘What that woman has endured beggars belief.’
Doctor Bainbridge didn’t reply. His mind slipped a little further away, while his conscience dredged the deep recesses that harboured unwanted memories. He reached for a book that lay on the table beside him—the words encased in it had shaped his life. He ran his finger along its leather spine, with horizontal ridges an inch apart. The movement sounded to the old man like a cogwheel that turned slowly to raise the hidden sediment from the past. ‘He killed her, you know.’
‘Excuse me, Gordon?’ said Eliza. She looked up from her knitting for the first time.
‘Clarence Miller,’ said the doctor with a dull even tone. ‘He killed his wife.’
‘Gordon,’ said Eliza, ‘it was an accident, a terrible accident—you said so yourself. What would make you say such a thing now?’
The elderly doctor breathed in deeply while he slowly shook his head. He hoped to clear his mind and his shame. ‘I know now what I knew then Eliza; the convenience of a plausible account delivered by a respected and trustworthy man, itself accepted anxiously by the sergeant, allowed me to come to the conclusion everyone wanted.’ Doctor Bainbridge paused to clear his throat; the tremor in his hand revealed his inner turmoil. ‘It was a difficult… a most appalling situation.’
Shocked, Mrs Bainbridge stared at her husband. The pain on his face was vivid and real. It told her that—whatever the facts—her husband believed his words to be true. ‘My dear, what use is there in dragging this up? Why punish yourself for something that happened so long ago, the events distorted by time and age? What could needless speculation do to young Emily, or the family of Sergeant Thomas, now deceased?’
‘I saw the bruises on her throat, Eliza,’ said the doctor, his voice not raised, but more intense.
Her composure became disjointed and Eliza shifted in her seat. ‘Bruising, dear, why are you doing this to yourself? From my elderly and faded memory, the Millers fell from a horse—together—while at full gallop. What part of their body wouldn’t be bruised?’
‘I took the path presented by the sergeant and did not fulfil the oath I was bound by.’
‘Please, Gordon; you are a doctor of medicine and a fine one at that. Never once from where I sat did you act unprofessionally or improperly. If you choose to spend your retirement dissecting every decision you made while you practised, you will only achieve insanity—not absolution or enlightenment.’
Doctor Bainbridge raised the sacred book to his chest and praised God for his loyal wife. He then asked for forgiveness. ‘It is my one regret, Elisa, and I am resigned to being held accountable for it when my worthiness is ultimately questioned.’
THIRTY TWO
Bardia, Libya, 6 January 1941
The cold desert wind blew without pause, and caused the canvas of Captain Arthur Atkins’s tent to flap. The pile of papers on his makeshift desk required weights to keep them in place, so the captain chose captured bottles of Italian liquor to thwart the determined gusts. The previous three days fighting had been intense in parts, but had gone the way of the Australians. Arthur’s 16th Brigade had attacked the Italian defensive perimeter near Bardia, a seaside village on the Libyan coast, on the morning of the 3rd of January. The initial success of the 16th allowed them to push forward to the town of Bardia itself, which they captured on the afternoon of the 4th. The 17th Brigade had found stronger resistance in the south, which they were able to overcome on the morning of the 5th of January.
Arthur picked up an already opened bottle of wine that he had placed at his feet to avoid detection. He was aware that his fellow officers followed protocols more strictly than he. Arthur didn’t flaunt army regulations regularly; he had just seen it all before. What most of his men had witnessed for the first time in their lives that day, the dead and the dying, the scared and the brave—he had seen before. Arthur placed the cork between his teeth and jerked the bottle back violently while he looked at reports
and casualty lists that had begun to arrive at his tent.
‘Knock, knock,’ said a voice, for want of a door to tap on.
‘Enter,’ said Atkins, while he looked down at some notes. ‘Secure the blasted flap,’ yelled the captain.
‘I have the latest casualty lists for you, Captain,’ said the young man sheepishly, before he saluted and stood to attention.
‘At ease, Lance Corporal,’ said Atkins. He stopped work and casually leaned back in his chair. ‘What’s your name, soldier? I don’t believe I know you.’
‘The name’s Conner, Captain Atkins: Christopher Conner, transferred from the 2/5th of the 17th Brigade today Captain.’
‘Welcome to C Company of the 2/2nd, Lance Corporal Conner,’ said Arthur, as he held out his hand to receive the papers. Whose platoon have you been assigned too?’
‘13 Platoon, Lieutenant Calder.’
Arthur raised his eyebrows without comment, as he took the papers from the young lance corporal. Lieutenant Lawrence David Calder, a product of The King’s School Parramatta, while capable as both a soldier and officer, was less than popular with his men. His abrupt and condescending manner had sent a tingle through Arthur’s fingers as he added the new documents to a pile already held prisoner by a bottle of Italian red.
Arthur reverted to what he was studying earlier, but noticed the lance corporal still inside the tent. ‘Dismissed, Corporal.’
Conner shifted from one foot to the other and then came to attention, before he saluted sharply. ‘It’s an honour and privilege to serve under you, Captain Atkins.’
‘Pleased to have you, Conner,’ replied Arthur a little amused by the lance corporal’s behaviour. This man is serious about being a soldier, Arthur thought to himself. He watched the lad with puffed out chest and steely eyes.
‘You served with my father, sir, in the Great War. Alfred Conner.’
While Arthur had always been a steady character, reliable and honest, good in a crisis, he had changed slightly since his divorce from his wife and retirement from politics. The return to life in the armed forces had also brought changes—as they had in 1915. He had become a little more open in relaying his thoughts. The structured life of private school, University, and law practice, followed by public life, had encouraged measured and emotionless responses—barring his outburst with Margaret in his Gilmurra office.
Captain Atkins rose from his chair. He felt a mixture of shock and elation, as though he was about to greet a long lost and loved kinsman. He strode towards the lance corporal with his hand outstretched, while his face glowed. ‘I can see it, damned if I can’t,’ exclaimed Arthur.
He shook the young man’s hand firmly. ‘I can tell you right now, young Christopher, the honour is all mine. Your father was a great man and a true friend.’ Arthur stared at Christopher Conner. Flashes of Alf Conner’s cheeky smile darted through his mind. The son that stood in front of him seemed like a visitor from another world.
‘I don’t remember Dad.’
‘My apologies, Christopher,’ said Arthur quickly, ‘I didn’t show much tact.’
‘Don’t apologise, Captain,’ replied Christopher. ‘I am chuffed that you hold my father in such high regard. My mother still has the kind letter you wrote her from France. It meant a lot to her... and me, sir.’
Arthur looked at the ground for a moment and clenched his teeth. His toes curled inside his boots as he remembered the hellish night at Fromelles. ‘Well, Chris,’ said Arthur quietly. ‘It’s not hard to write nice things about good men.’ Arthur gave the young man a nod that made his eyebrows pull closer together. He conveyed a message that he couldn’t have hoped to voice at that moment. Arthur glanced to his left and caught site of some boxes—half a dozen in all—lazily hidden behind a greatcoat. Captain Atkins reached under the coat and took a box of cigars from the pile and presented it to the son of his mate. ‘Courtesy of the Dagos, Chris, share them with your mates, but don’t wave them about,’ suggested Arthur with a wink. ‘A real pleasure to meet you, Chris,’ said Arthur, as he offered his hand once more, ‘once we slow down a bit, I will shout you a beer and we’ll have a good chat about your father.’
‘I’d like that, Captain,’ said Lance Corporal Conner. He saluted and then turned on his heel to exit the tent and face the stiff desert breeze. As he bent into the wind, he thought to himself that his mates were right. Arthur Atkins is a top bloke.
Arthur turned back to his desk, invigorated by his meeting with Christopher. His light mood suddenly challenged by another blast of desert air from an open tent flap.
‘Christ,’ yelled Arthur, as loose papers that were not secured danced about like dried leaves.
‘Sorry to bother you Captain Atkins,’ said a rigid and moustached Lieutenant Calder, ‘but it is a matter of some urgency. I apprehended the Corporal outside with this box of cigars.’
Lance Corporal Conner looked straight ahead without speaking, while Calder continued his rant. Arthur was flabbergasted at the lieutenant’s fastidiousness, and ran his fingers through his hair as he attempted to relieve the sudden onset of tension.
‘I gave them to him, Lieutenant, said Arthur, ‘to give to Lieutenant Colonel Lambert, our Commanding Officer, as a gift.’ Captain Atkins reached forward to take the box from the lieutenant in the process.
‘Oh,’ replied Calder, halted for a moment, but not entirely happy with the answer. His elitist nature got the better of him, and he decided to pursue the matter further. ‘Captain, forgive me, but do you think it is wise to encourage the movement of captured goods among the men?’
Arthur felt as though the blood vessel, or whatever it was that pulsed near his temple, might split. He took a deep breath before he spoke. ‘That will be all thank you, Corporal, be sure the CO receives these,’ he said. Arthur passed the box to Christopher, who stood behind Calder. The lance corporal winked at the captain as he took back his cigars.
Captain Atkins paced away from the statue-like Lieutenant Calder while he waited for Conner to exit the tent.
‘Captain, I find...’
‘Lieutenant Calder!’ shouted Arthur, as he spun to face his subordinate in a roar that seemed to quieten the desert gale and make limp the ends of Calder’s manicured moustache. ‘May I remind you, Lieutenant, that not only am I your Commanding Officer,’ continued Arthur with menace that matched his bulging eyes, ‘but I have also seen more battles and encountered more enemy combatants than you have had tailored suits, and I will not tolerate...’
‘But, Captain… ’ said Lieutenant Calder, shocked by Arthur’s intensity.
‘I will not tolerate!’ blasted Captain Atkins, ‘you or anyone else questioning me in front of my men, or so help me, I will take one of those boxes and shove it right up your fucking arse! Do you hear me, Calder!’
Having absorbed Atkins’s tirade, Calder pulled the hem of his tunic to not only straighten it, but to recalibrate his composure. ‘If that will be all, Captain,’ said the lieutenant while he saluted.
‘Dismissed,’ said Captain Atkins without a salute. As Calder turned to leave the tent, Arthur knew he had made an enemy of a well-connected young officer.
Pissed off, Arthur sat back down at his desk—wearier than before. He took another mouthful of Italian wine and picked up the pages that Conner had brought him. Arthur scanned the typed reports. He balked before he read through the casualty list. The task was never pleasant, but he was relieved at the low number of dead and wounded. He read the names quickly and felt a pang of grief for the fallen men, and decided to take one more drink; a quiet toast to the men who had given their lives. Before the bottle reached his lips, Arthur froze. The letters typed on paper were now deciphered into words. His mind had held the cipher key that unlocked what his subconscious was happy to leave scrambled. Arthur Atkins hurled the wine bottle across the tent and then stood. He struck out with his boot, not only in frustration and anger, but in confusion. How does this supposedly beautiful universe work? He felt overwhelmed with
pity and sorrow for a family who had seen too much pain. He smashed the remaining cigar boxes with his heavy boot, and looked once more at the page that read: VX 11891- SGT. Clark. Norman. E. Killed In Action.
THIRTY THREE
Gilmurra, January 1949
Emily negotiated the small flight of steps that led out onto the green lawn at the rear of the Gilmurra Hall. The stillness and quiet of the evening’s summer air contrasted with the lively, fast tempo music played by the band inside. She clasped her long white dress with both hands to keep the lovely gown from being damaged; this job had been performed for most of the day by her matron of honour, Helen Winter. She turned slowly and looked to see the sky gradually change; streaks of amber and grey hovered above brown scorched hills. Only the Tilcan, faintly heard in the distance, provided a vein of growth. The willows, elms and silky oaks that relied on its waters cut a path between the hills that held Gilmurra safely in seclusion.
Emily had only been Mrs Anderson for a few short hours, but she already felt different. The vibrant colour of a sky in sunset acknowledged to her the sanctity of what she had undertaken. When Emily had graduated from Sydney University in the previous year with a law degree, she had felt a surge of pride after almost eight years of hard work. A sense of personal achievement at overcoming a difficult task, made arduous by discriminatory views, and even love. Robert, with his open mind, had made the latter as uncomplicated as a long-distance relationship could be.
The pair continued their romance, which had begun with a dinner invitation in 1941; its true origins had begun the previous year on the train from Sydney to Gilmurra. What Emily knew now was something she couldn’t possibly have known or learnt before this day; the idea of self had taken a subordinate place to the harmonious uniting of two souls.
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