God's Children

by Mabli Roberts

  My mother wore her widowhood as a badge of honour, and saw it as a condition she shared with our queen, and therefore something to be born proudly and stoically. Poverty, on the other hand, or even the contemplation of it, was too much for her mind to absorb. How could we not live as we always had? How could we dispense with a maid? And indeed, we had a duty to the girl, did we not? We could not simply turn her out. Mama’s manner of facing up to our impending poverty was to berate all of us at home, loudly and often, reminding us that if we were not contributing to the household expenses we were a burden upon them. I was fourteen at the time my father died. I quickly learned that my childhood had ended that day. The youngest of eight, two of my siblings had already succumbed to consumption. Our new circumstances dictated that William, Annie, Joseph and Eleanor all leave home to make their own way in the world, so there were only two of us left with Mama. Annie sought to install herself into society, such as it was, in New Zealand. There being so much competition for a good husband at home, and none of us blessed with an abundance of prettiness, she considered the distance worth travelling. We lacked the connections in India so Annie had taken up an offer of accommodation on the far side of the world with a family friend in the hope of it leading to work or marriage. Such was the breadth of our choices. For me there was only one path to follow. I do not recall it ever being decided that I should become a nurse; it was simply all and ever that was meant for me.

  Rose Farley was a natural nurse, if such a thing can be. She had a manner with the patients that put them at their ease. She was not, it must be said, the most skilled at the many tasks asked of her. Indeed some of her dressings were so badly applied that they had to be redone. But her ability to raise the spirits of the most frail patient was invaluable. It was not something that could be taught, and I believe it was, in itself, both a balm and a tonic to those who received it.

  On one occasion I spied her sitting on the bed of an elderly patient. I was on the point of remonstrating with her for such unprofessional behaviour, but as I approached them I heard laughter. The two were sharing a joke, and I think it was the only time I saw real joy on that man’s face in all the time he was under our care. When she saw me the young nurse jumped quickly to her feet.

  ‘Sorry, Sister, I was just…’

  I tried to look disapproving, but I know my expression must have given me away, for she smiled at me then, realising she was not in trouble after all. ‘I’m sure you have duties to attend to, Nurse Farley.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘Hurry along now.’

  She did so willingly, but not without a backward glance and a wink at the patient. A wink! She was fortunate not to have been observed by my predecessor, who would certainly have reprimanded her.

  Later that same day I called her into my office. I remember her standing in front of my desk, her hands clasped behind her back. There was so much youthful energy about her, and a smile always tugging at the corners of her mouth.

  ‘You are popular with the patients, Nurse Farley,’ I told her, ‘but do not allow that popularity to go to your head.’

  ‘No, Sister.’

  ‘There are other nurses here, less experienced than yourself, who are, quite frankly, more skilled than you. Do not set yourself up above them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it, Sister.’

  ‘There is much you could learn from Nurse Wilson, for example. She is adept at administering injections, and her bandaging is first rate. You might take the time to observe her.’

  ‘I will, Sister.’

  She stood waiting a little restlessly, for it was the end of her shift, and she must have been eager to leave. She was a pretty girl, slender, with long limbs. I wondered, suddenly, where she went when she left the hospital. How did she fill her free time? I knew she lived in the nurses’ quarters behind the hospital, but beyond that I knew nothing of her life. All at once I had a fierce curiosity, one that surprised me. I found myself asking, ‘Do you enjoy your work here, Nurse Farley?’

  ‘Yes, Sister, very much.’

  ‘Your family is not from Wellington, I understand.’

  ‘From Knatsford. Up north. It’s not much of a place really. I prefer the city. That’s why I chose to come to the Wellington Hospital.’

  ‘You were tired of provincial life?’

  ‘I wanted to travel, to see something more of the world. My father used to tease me, calling me Rambling Rose! He knew I longed to go somewhere, anywhere besides stuffy little Knatsford.’ She hesitated and then looked at me curiously, ‘Like you, Sister. You have been to so many exciting places, have you not? Turkey, India, Africa, the names alone sound tremendous. I can only imagine visiting such places. You’ve nursed in wars, right in the midst of battle…! What adventures you must have had.’

  She smiled at me then, another of those joyful, bright smiles. In that instant I could not see her as a nurse, nor myself as her superior. I saw her only as a girl, full of wonder at life and what it had to offer her. I felt my composure fracture, and feared that in that moment she could see past my professional facade, through the veneer of the face I presented to the world, and into my heart’s desires.

  I stood up abruptly. ‘War and nursing are not about adventures, nurse, as you will one day come to understand when you are sufficiently mature in your thinking.’

  She dropped her gaze, the rebuke causing her to shrink from me in a minute altering of her stance. It was such a small change, but a telling one, and I hated myself for bringing it about.

  ‘You may go, Nurse Farley.’

  I stood watching her leave the room, and for some time after she had gone I simply stared at the closed door, waiting for my heart to return to a calmer, more sensible rhythm.

  I remember the snow was black. The night sky was full of cloud, absent of the slightest hint of starlight, and yet the land beneath it appeared darker. It was a flat, matt blackness, and I had the sensation that if I were to fall forwards I would disappear into its fathomless depths.

  Our guide indicated that we were to wait. The young Russian soldier, Vladimir, who had been sent to assist us, explained to Ada that the thaw was beginning, and so the ice would have to be tested before we dare travel across the frozen lake. It was past noon, and we had already endured several hours of bruising, jolting travel in the covered sledge. The horses stood and champed at their bits, their necks flecked with foam.

  ‘Should we get out?’ Ada asked me, leaning forwards to peer from the side of the sledge.

  ‘Let us see what is decided,’ I said.

  In truth, the struggle of extricating ourselves from our conveyance in our heavy garments, and the necessary manhandling that would entail, was not a prospect I relished. I had no wish to put us through it pointlessly. I shuffled forwards so that I might watch the inspection of our proposed route. We were a party of fifteen, comprising our guides and porters, our loyal soldier, and ourselves. There were three heavy sledges. Our own was pulled by three bony horses who shared a bad temper that the driver wrestled with every mile. They had begun the day feisty and hard to manage, but the hours had quietened them, so that now they rested, heads low, glad of the break in their work. Through the sweat-steam that rose from their flanks I saw two of the guides walk onto the surface of the lake. Their method of testing appeared to me somewhat simplistic and extremely risky. They had no stick with which to probe or prod, but merely relied upon the reaction of the ice to their own weight. When they found an area they thought suspect, they jumped up and down a little to see if cracks would form!

  ‘What is happening?’ Ada wanted to know. ‘If we sit here any longer my feet will surely freeze.’ She started wriggling her legs as best she could whilst reclining in an effort to encourage circulation.

  The guides shouted back to their fellows. There was much gesticulating and muttering. The soldier listened to what was being said and then returned to the sledge. As he relayed the information to Ada I watched the tension build in her expression. />
  ‘It seems the way forward is useable,’ she explained to me, ‘but only with care. We must disembark in order to lighten the load. They will also distribute some of the supplies from the sledges among the riding horses, and we are all to walk.’

  ‘Walk? Are you certain?’ I looked again at the expanse of lake ahead. The faint line of the nearside shore disappeared into the whiteness of the horizon, and I could neither see nor imagine an end to it. ‘Ask him how long we will be on the lake. How many miles is it?’

  Ada conversed further in Russian and was then able to tell me, ‘He believes seven, perhaps eight. After that we take up another road on land and will be able to use the sledges again.’

  ‘But our progress will be woefully slow. There can be no more than two hours of daylight left to us.’

  ‘Apparently they consider the lake an easy path to navigate in the dark,’ she said.

  We fell silent, both of us keeping our fears to ourselves. At last I felt I must speak to reassure her.

  ‘They are experienced guides, Ada. They would not press on unless they considered it safe to do so.’

  ‘Vladimir tells me there is no other route,’ she said. ‘Or at least, only one that would involve retracing our steps for many miles. We would lose a great deal of time. They are determined to cross the lake, he says, whatever the risks.’

  ‘Then we must join them in their determination.’

  ‘Do you trust them, Kate? Truly?’ There was such naked fear in her voice that I felt at once the burden of guilt, for it was I who had brought her to this dangerous place. Had she ever properly understood what she might face by accompanying me on my mission? Had I played down the risks?

  I patted her thickly gloved hand with my own. ‘God has sent us these men. He is with us, Ada.’

  Vladimir and two of the guides assisted us in clambering out of the sledge. The afternoon was at least devoid of wind, so that we were not assailed by the frigid blasts that had swept us eastwards and northwards for so many days. There was, however, something deeply unsettling about such stillness. It may have been only that we were unaccustomed to it, but it was as if we were in the midst of an eery calm. The snow lying on the ground and clinging to the pine trees that fringed the lake near us subdued all sound and deadened the air somehow. Our breath puffed in front of us, the wetness of it freezing onto the scarves that we pulled across our faces.

  The men worked for an interminable time unpacking and repacking the sledges and horses until the supplies were distributed to their satisfaction. At last the signal was given to move forwards. Our two fearless pathfinders went ahead, a gap was then left, with two more guides leading their horses, Vladimir, Ada and myself, then the first sledge, another gap, and so on. We were strung out over what was considered to be a safe distance, these gaps spreading the weight we were to inflict upon the ice. We all knew, though none of us said so, that this was also a tactic designed to minimise losses should the ice break.

  For we two women the march was made more difficult because of our clothing. We had dressed for another journey in the sledge, wrapped against inactivity in the severe cold. We had anticipated hours of being conveyed over and through snow drifts, into and out of troughs and ditches, being battered and bashed as we were thrown this way and that. We had not envisaged walking, and our garments allowed us little freedom of movement. We waddled inelegantly, each step an effort. I saw Ada struggling as she held onto Vladimir’s arm.

  ‘It is a joy to be out of the sledge, do you not agree?’ I asked her, my words mumbled through my scarf.

  Ada puffed as she spoke, ‘For now, it is, though I suspect I shall be glad to crawl back into it after seven miles of this!’

  She left unspoken the fact that a distance that might ordinarily take two hours was sure to take more than double that in such circumstances as we found ourselves. How endless such time would seem with each step fraught with fear, our bodies poised to evade sudden calamity. How long, how far, could we hold ourselves in such readiness?

  ‘At least we are warm,’ I pointed out, though in truth the clammy warmth of exertion was not a pleasant trade even for the chilly inactivity of riding in the sledge.

  We trudged on, every now and again halting in response to a raised hand from our lead guide. A tense few moments would pass and then we would continue. This was the pattern for over an hour, and as dusk descended we were still a fair way from the point where we could reach the far shore of the lake.

  Suddenly, there came shouts from behind us. Turning, I saw the porters behind our sledge waving their arms and yelling to one another.

  ‘What is it, Ada? What are they saying?’

  Before she had time to respond I had my answer. The sound of ice cracking, as loud as a fork of summer lightning, cut through the thick air. A fissure appeared in the ice between our sledge and the men behind it. Everyone in the party stopped, standing motionless, fearing the least movement would provoke a catastrophe. I could clearly make out the jagged line of the break now. It zig-zagged for several yards, almost touching the feet of one of the porters, who held his horse’s bridle and spoke soothing words to the animal while its nostrils flared.

  The moment was but a hiatus.

  The following second, all was noise and commotion and movement and panic. Two of the guides nearest the break turned and ran, one towards the shore, the other further out onto the lake. The driver leading our team of horses dragged them forwards at a frantic trot, so that we were compelled to stagger aside to let him and the sledge pass. Such a sudden movement caused me to fall, so that I lay helpless upon the ice. One of the riding horses gave way to its terror and bolted, two men running after it. I heard Ada scream as the fracture in the surface upon which we all now clung flimsily to life widened, black water lapping onto its edges. Those at the rear of the line fled back the way we had come. The riderless horse tore away so quickly that its pursuers had to give up and concentrate on saving themselves.

  ‘Kate!’ Ada called to me as she and Vladimir staggered to remain upright.

  I tried to answer, but I had not the breath for shouting. I put all my strength into righting myself and forcing myself to get up. I was on my knees when I saw that the split in the ice now had a twin, and that both were travelling towards me.

  I was aware of my name being shouted, and of curses and entreaties in several languages ringing through the heavy day. I knew I must run or be lost to the depths of the lake, and yet my legs would not move. As I looked up I saw one of the guides backing away from the encroaching water, his feet slipping, so that he must surely be moments away from disappearing into that dark death. His frightened horse would not move without him, so he was able to grab its mane and pull himself up, swinging himself onto its back. In a heartbeat the animal swung around and scrambled for the shore.

  I am unclear about what happened next, but I know that I felt strong arms about me, and that those arms lifted me upwards, and that I was borne away from danger. When all was calm once more, and everyone accounted for, I was sitting at the very edge of the lake close to our starting point. I looked about for the person who had risked his own life to save mine.

  ‘I must thank him, Ada,’ I insisted. ‘You must translate for me, be very clear. He must know how grateful I am.’

  ‘But Kate,’ she said softly, placing a trembling hand on my arm. ‘No one helped you. There was not time. You could not be reached. You escaped harm by your actions alone.’

  On hearing this I was, at first, astonished, but then I understood, and my heart was filled with joy and gratitude.

  ‘Oh Ada,’ I said, ‘do you not know by now that I am never alone?’

  What was it like? When you found the first outcasts in those desolate forests, what did you feel?

  What could one feel but pity?

  You felt more.

  It was heartbreaking, to see such suffering, of course it was. And yet I was pleased to find them, to finally have arrived at the reason for my journey. Now my
work could truly begin.

  Always the work, always practical Nurse Marsden. Doing what needed to be done. Doing what no one else would do. But what did you feel?

  I have answered your question.

  No, you have not. Not completely. You have sidestepped, away from the personal and into the safely practical.

  I have told you, I felt pity for them.

  You felt rage! Fury! Anger beyond thought, beyond reason! Hate surged through you and threatened to burn you up. Hate for the ones who weren’t there for you to scream at: the people who had sent those pitiful, ruined men, women and children into the woods to endure their torment in the harshest and loneliest of places.