Thomas Keneally - The Daughters of Mars

We were just about to eat. I was making shepherd’s pie—with a dash of bully beef I’m afraid. You must be hungry after the trip.

Sally admitted she was.

And what a wonderful accident that you’re both here at the same time.

Carradine put her arm through her husband’s elbow. Come on, let’s all continue this at the table. A separate dining room. Did you notice that, Sally? Wouldn’t get a flat like this in normal times.

In the dining room, Sally and Major Carradine sat down at the table. While Elsie was fetching the meal from the oven, the major looked at Sally a second with eyes that were vacant of interest and recognition.

Was it hard to find this place? she asked.

Oh, we’re subletting it from a notary’s family, said Elsie from the kitchen. They wanted to go down south because everyone believes the Germans will take this city.

Do you?

Well, everyone thought they’d capture Paris once. But they didn’t. Eric and the boys will keep them out.

Eric grunted.

The two women talked about each other’s work while Major Carradine looked at his plate as if trying to work out what was sitting on it. Carradine shot him glances as she discussed her fracture ward a few kilometers away. At least with fractures you’re not waiting for people to die. And the new splints and the traction… much better than the old ways. But I think it’s the busiest work I’ve ever done. Do you have a headache, darling?

Eric said in a narrowed-down voice, Why does a man always have to have a bloody headache if he keeps quiet a second?

Now come on, she said, with the fixed smile of a woman who had had her hopes, but now couldn’t predict anything. I’m just worried your dinner will get cold.

He picked up the wine and drank half a glass. If it were to get cold, he told her, it would not hurt it very much. Then he looked away and said almost as if he were disappointed with himself, Oh damn! I’ve done it again.

He got up, set down but did not fold the laundered linen serviette his wife had somehow provided, and left the room saying, Well, sorry, sorry, Elsie. Done it again. Any whisky in the living room?

Yes, she called. The usual place.

Carradine said, He’s actually better after whisky. Can you believe that? They do everything on whisky and rum up there. Whether they’re breeding a race of drunkards we’ll know when this is all over.

Sally said, If you want to go and…

No. I shouldn’t follow him straightaway. He’ll get angry again. I know all the rules by now. But can you believe he passes muster at the front? He must be a different person there. The question is, will he ever pass muster anywhere else?

She put her elbows on the table, made fists and lowered her forehead on to her knuckles. She grieved for ten seconds but there were no tears. Sally got up and put her hand on Carradine’s shoulder.

I’ve sent the longest telegram of my life to his father, said Carradine. If he was to get attention, he’d have to be forced into it by burly orderlies. But they have to take him home, I told his father. England’s no solution. If we put him there, he’ll be back across that Channel in no time, trying to go to the trenches. I know Mr. Carradine the elder will help—he’s coming to England, you know. On a ministerial visit. The trouble is, Eric’s going back to his battalion tomorrow. Surely his colonel sees that something is wrong? Eric’s his adjutant, for God’s sake.

Perhaps he seems normal up there, Sally suggested. Everyone’s temper must be pretty edgy there.

And his colonel’s a man of about twenty-four. In times of peace a soldier was lucky to command a battalion by the wise age of fifty. Now it’s infants with little knowledge of the world. Look, I’ll go and see him now.

Carradine rose. Her food was untouched. Her thinness was more apparent to Sally. She was not long gone.

He’s asleep, she said—relieved—when she returned. Her voice was more like the normal Carradine.

There might be something pressing on his brain, said Sally.

Maybe. His temperature is normal. He doesn’t have encephalitis.

Carradine was captured by a thought then, and said, as millions did, This bloody war! Surely it must be over within two years.

Earlier, Sally lied.

But Elsie returned directly to the subject of Eric. We went to Paris last month. Had a room looking out on the Tuileries. It should have been perfect. But there were headaches, there was anger. “I don’t want to go and see those stupid tarts and their dogs in the gardens!” There was a scene in the bar with a British officer… A little hidden alcove in the dining room was the only place he felt safe enough to break his bread. Oh, if that bloody conscription vote had been passed, we’d have plentiful new drafts coming in. It would be easy to get fellows like Eric out of the line.

Perhaps, Sally ventured, though because they’d be conscripts, he might have to stay with them to hold their hands or keep them in place.

There was a slight flare of anger in Carradine. You sound like all those Labour people. They say even the ordinary soldiers voted against it—they didn’t want their battalions sullied by conscripts. Well, that’s all right, but they’re all dying, that’s the thing. Some battalions are so small now they have to be squeezed into others. I’m sorry if I sound cross. I’m bewildered. But not as badly as him.

They looked to the door which led to the bedroom.

Look, said Carradine, tonight’s been dismal. But you don’t have to go yet.

I won’t, Sally assented. Let’s have some of the wine.

Now, at Carradine’s table on the edge of the spring of 1918, Carradine poured another measure of wine into both their glasses and uttered an opinion she could not have even given respect to a few years past.

Valor is complicated, she said. Sometimes I think the only brave ones are the ones who flee.

Yes, said Sally. Sometimes I’ve thought that too.

I hope tomorrow morning, Carradine whispered, there’ll be a soft-speaking officer and some orderlies and provosts at our door to help him away to more treatment. Eric will scream at me if it happens. And hate me.

She shrugged.

Carradine was nervous about Sally walking back to her hostel in that town so on edge and full of soldiers. But Sally went downstairs and began the journey with relief and in a fever of anticipation for the meeting at the belfry.

The next morning at nine o’clock Charlie was a sudden apparition outside the door of the bell tower. She saw him before he saw her. His overcoat was undone, he had one glove off and was smoking anxiously. She could tell somehow—even by his movements—that he was nervous both about the chance of her arrival and the opposite. His skin was as harsh as a stockrider’s, his face thinner and his features even more prominent. But he was clearly the same Charlie who had taught her about light and harbored doctrinal reservations about color.

As she got nearer he saw her and his body loosened, then he walked forward. He put out his arm swiftly and gave her an economic hug. Neither he nor she wanted notice to be taken here, with soldiers and officers coming and going. They both wanted to know about time. When was she due back at Mellicourt? When was he due back up there? It was little more than a day and a half in either case.

What will you show me today then? she asked.

But it’s time I asked you. What do you want to show me?

Well, she said, if you would care to look up you will see a magnificent leaden sky.

Oh, he said, I’ve seen one or two of those recently. They’re tending to proliferate.

Well, that’s about my limit. I’m still learning.