Thomas Keneally - The Daughters of Mars

In the night—under the black canvas—Sally was awakened by a hand eagerly exploring her stomach. She screamed at the outrage. She thought of one of those terrifying, sneering, venom-dripping, slash-mouthed orderlies. All the other girls rose up. Half of Freud’s face was seen as she lit the hurricane lamp which hung from the pole. Light was shed. It caught a furious rodent scurrying across the earth floor. A patch of ground was rubbled and into the rubble black fur disappeared.

Oh God, cried Freud. Remember? We were warned. Moles.

Sally covered her eyes. I was scared it was an orderly, she confessed.

Maybe the colonel, suggested Freud to make them laugh. They all gagged with mad hilarity.

I vote we leave the lamp on, Honora said.

I vote with you, said Rosanna Nettice with her weightiness. A considered vote.

A hailstorm came over the island on that same night of the mole. Its edged ice slashed the tent canvas. In the morning Naomi solemnly repaired the hole with sticking plaster inside and out. They would stir at night now and see by the lowered flame of the hurricane lantern small dark shapes scurrying or hear them shuffling rubble on the earthen floor and being busy with their nightly animal duties.

A scatter of mail always lay on a card table by the inside door of the mess tent. Sometimes a parcel dutifully sewn in cloth. The parcels created tremors and cries of joy. People ran to get scissors to undo the stitching. The Durance sisters never looked at this table. In their own minds they had passed through a veil into country that the normal postal arrangements could not reach. Oh, they could write out to others. But others, they presumed, could not write in.

So one morning they needed to be told by some other women that there were parcels for them on the table. When people rushed to put them in their hands, the Durances frowned at each other. Their parcels had been addressed to the Australian Army Nursing Service, Mena House, Egypt, and then sent on to Alexandria, where they had acquired a label on which someone had written, ON THE ARCHIMEDES—ON LEMNOS IF LIVING.

Naomi assessed her parcel and read the writing on its sewn cloth wrapping. Sally took out her penknife from her pocket and began to cut at the fabric of hers. Inside lay a rough wooden box. It looked homemade. She could see her father running it up from grocery boxes. She could as good as hear the scrape of his saw. Inside that box lay so many good things that other nurses gasped with wonder. Condensed milk, delicious in tea. Jugged ox tongue—which they had stated a taste for early in their girlhoods. Their mother had been an expert bottler and pickler of all the earth’s fruits—whether vegetable or animal—but it had been some years before her death that she had given up the effort. The girls themselves had failed to pick up the skill. So their father must have been given the tongue by a neighbor, as well as the other preserves of fruit and jam and the cloth-wrapped fruitcake. The two of them placed the jars and packages side by side and smiled at each other and at the other nurses smiling back.

Inside each package was an envelope. Naomi opened hers while Sally was still showing off her delicacies. Naomi’s lips pursed as she opened the envelope—she seemed ready for dubious tidings. Sally at last opened her own. It had a number of pages and began with “My dearest girls” in her father’s hand. It was dated 30 April 1915. Naomi and Sally compared their mail. The two letters were identical. And so they each read in silence while the other women drifted away to talk and drink tea.

My dearest girls,

I have made two copies of this letter and put one in each of your hampers since others tell me that not all things reach their intended destinations in the area you are in. This letter carries your father’s love. To be honest with you both I miss you a great amount. It has been heavy rain this week. How often Easter is like that! I thought we were for it with a flood again—you know. So I got the cattle into the upper paddock. They’re not happy since the grass is ranker there but not much. Not like pasture the other side of the Great Divide but you would think it was like that to see them mooning and sulking. Anyway, I thought we’d be sitting on the roof pretty soon. But the level of water fell then and some good upriver mud has landed on our lower paddock. Jolly good is what I say. Delivered by nature.

But the main issue—I have very large news to tell you both and my hope is that you will be pleased at it. For I think it first-rate though I understand your feelings for your dear late mother which are as strong as mine still remain. Mrs. Sorley and I have got married by Presbyterian rites. I know we are Methodist but she is firm Presbyterian. No harm done—or so I thought. You girls know her well enough. The widow Enid Sorley. And her husband was killed earlier than his time in that timber-felling accident, poor fellow. Mrs. Sorley helped me put together this hamper which I hope you find pretty A1 and a reminder of your home in the bush. Enid Sorley pickled and bottled the tongue which I know you both used to like and we packed it in amongst the cans so it wouldn’t break too easy.

So now with Mrs. Sorley to look after me I feel a lot flasher than I used to. As for my girls—I pray you are well and in powerful form. I am proud as I read the papers that you are looking after our heroic young fellows. It came through that the Andrews’ son just died of typhoid in Egypt. Such a big fellow, you wouldn’t believe it.

It is your father here then who hopes you are well and happy and that the news is all jake by you. Mrs. Sorley has written you a letter too. I should say Mrs. Durance but am still getting used to the change. So I still say Mrs. Sorley all the time.

Once she had finished reading, Sally looked up. Naomi’s eyes were on her. The murderous children honest with each other now. And their lesser crime—the abandonment of the father. Leaving a vacuum into which Mrs. Sorley had rushed. That reflection made them both hesitate in irrational anger. Naomi raised her eyebrows. It couldn’t be avoided.

So, she said, Mrs. Sorley has become our stepmother. The old man says that in yours?

Sally nodded. She knew there was another letter enclosed behind her father’s and whose it would be, but did not want yet to read it. She heard Naomi murmur, If I were a better daughter I’d be entitled to say, she didn’t waste much time.

Sally said, I feel exactly like that.

But it was two years and nine months, after all, since their mother was gone. An argument could be made that such a delay was just about close enough to the approved-of three years’ mourning not to matter to a reasonable observer.

The envelopes each turned to now were addressed to Misses Naomi and Sally Durance.

Dear Miss Sally and Miss Naomi,

I feel I must call you by formal names because this news will be a shock to you one way or another. I cannot say it more plainly than that your father and I have chosen each other in the eyes of God and I will be to him as good a helpmeet as in my power. I thought a lot about whether you would like to hear this news from me in that distant place where you are and knowing your fondness for your mother who was such a dear woman the whole district loved her. But now that I have had to get the courage to write this letter I hope that you can accept me not as a new mother—which I would dearly love to be considered—but at least as a new friend. It might be happy for you to know that my two sons are helping Mr. Durance a lot though one has just turned seventeen and has his eyes on the army which makes me anxious of course. I cannot think of what else to say but that I beg kind thoughts from you both since I have plenty of them for you and pray for your welfare daily since I know that Egypt is a place of diseases. I hope you like what is in this parcel. I put it together with your father not to be some sort of a softener but as what it is—a sincere gift. I send you all my affection and best wishes.