Thomas Keneally - The Daughters of Mars

At a further table, cloth bags containing buttons and insignia were handed out. These were inspected with more reverence than the list. A silver Rising Sun collar badge lay in there, to be worn at the throat, and silver jacket buttons on which Australia was depicted geographically, and two boomerang-shaped metal insignia which spelled out “Australia” on the tunic shoulders.

Sally had not laid eyes on Naomi until she saw her ahead in the money queue. This was made up of recognizable hospital types—the pretty young ones always in trouble with matrons because their beauty might render them flighty and attractive to registrars and interns. Then plump, wide-hipped little women, aged beyond thirty, medical nuns, in effect, supposed by stereotype to be sour-mouthed but in Sally’s experience often triumphant in their unfettered singleness, and smiling now at the new prospect this milling hall promised. Some severer-looking older women of the rank of sisters, who hid often genial souls but had learned that a neutral face endeared them to doctors and matrons. And, suddenly, sui generis, as they say, Naomi in her good green suit.

It is no humiliation for me, thought Sally, to take the sergeant’s money. But it was strange to see Naomi there—in line with the less august for a small sum of cash. On an impulse Sally asked the girls in front of her whether they minded if she joined her sister.

They flung their arms around each other with a force left unspent from yesterday’s quarrel. And in its compass not all grievance was tamed but at least the residue was put to momentary rest. Naomi stepped back and shook her head.

From now on, Sally promised herself, I reserve the right to be a head-shaker too. I have as much right to be amazed by her.

Then Naomi got to the sergeant and signed for the money he doled out with creaky care from a cash box. He made her sign the accounts book. Next, Sally. Naomi now went to say hello to a friend from her hospital. Sally had walked back about ten paces across the hall, a little confused about what to do next—shop for war at once or go home to her aunt’s for some tea—when she saw an oval-faced, pretty young blue-gray–eyed woman wearing an orange summer dress and a cardigan over it, with a yellow jaunty hat on her head, and her light brown hair piled up. The girl said, Miss… Nurse, I can do it for you for a guinea plus a quid for fabric. Both the jacket and skirt with the cape and the gray working dress and a pinafore thrown in. Got my own sewing machine. Good as shop-bought, I guarantee. No delays. Only got one other order. You’ve got your belt already, no doubt. Hat, veil, and shoes you’ll have to get yourself.

I’ve got the veil already, said Sally, as if this would put an end to the commercial impulse of the woman in the orange dress.

The oval-faced young woman shook her head in apparently genuine bewilderment. These girls’d rather waste their money. I don’t know what sort of homes they come from. Fathers must own a bank or all be country doctors, I wouldn’t be surprised.

The broad, easy humor of the girl’s face made Sally shy. Thanks, but my sister and I are actually on our way to Hordern’s now.

Come on, said the girl, lowering her head, looking up under auburn eyebrows. Some would consider this undue push on her part. Others, businesslike determination. Come on, dear, she whispered. If you don’t like what I do, I won’t charge you for it. I need the quid for fabric, so you’ll have to take the risk and give me that to begin with. I’ll give you that back too if you aren’t thoroughly delighted. I mean gray serge? I run it up all the time. I’ve done gray serge for nuns and they never complained.

Sally hesitated. But the absolute promise of refund fascinated her, and a suspicion of an energetic rectitude in the girl made the issue one of gambling on character as against the bewilderment and boredom of shopping. They both stood there, thinking each other over.

Look, the girl resumed at the end of a few seconds’ silence. I’m the sort of person the shops’d use anyhow, if I wanted to slave on it full-time.

A pound as a deposit then?

No, scratch that, said the girl. I can tell you’re a solid type. I don’t need anything.

But then, as if she were checking up on Sally’s bona fides: Where do you nurse?

Sally told her—a bit like a soldier from a poor regiment forced to admit its name. The other woman nodded though, finding no grounds for embarrassment in the words “Macleay District.”

I’m St. Vincent’s, she said. Nuns took me in on a scholarship. I’m Honora Slattery. Hate being called Nora though. I draw the line at that. Honora . Please observe.

Sally surrendered her name too. This was one of those Irish, Sally knew, who generally didn’t understand the line between good manners and stubbornness. They would take Australia over and downwards, her father always said, with their horse-racing and their drinking and their hidden contempt for the King.

I absolutely promise, said Honora Slattery, as if to allay Sally’s sectarian suspicion, I won’t be doing more than three girls plus mine. You see, I want to lay a bit of money up for Mama and himself. The old fella’s a waterside worker. Sometimes we’re flush, sometimes we’re eating kumquats and lard.

She winked.

And just in case the hospital ship sinks, Honora Slattery ended.

Sally laughed and shook her head at the foreshadowing of this unlikely tragedy. They exchanged addresses. You can call my aunt, anyhow, when you’re finished, said Sally. She’s got a telephone.

Mother of God! said Honora. I’ve blundered in amongst the aristocracy.

No, Sally said. I’m a dairy farmer’s daughter. But, I tell you, you’d better be good.

For what mocking, corrective words would Naomi feel entitled to utter, inspired by Slattery’s failure and Sally’s own gullibility?

Honora Slattery said, You can put the house on it.

Now a woman with a foghorn—who described herself as Chief Matron Appleton—called them to order. She had open features and that easiness of command of such women.

She told them they must meet again in a week at eight o’clock in the morning to be instructed on the army, on issues of soldiers and military units. They would be introduced to the whole gamut of duties affecting orderlies and nurses—from the front line to the general hospitals behind it. For now, they would fill in one more form to entitle them to military pay, and then could return either to their homes or to their civil nursing duties until required. Those who had more than twenty miles to travel could apply for a warrant.

They all took final turns at desks with pens and ink to fill the pay forms, women of forty elbowing their way with twenty-year-olds barely past their exams. Each form was dropped at a desk at the front of the hall where, after an orderly scanned them, they were placed in a cardboard box. The women left uncertainly. The plain dismissal—and the cardboard box where they’d left the record of their years—seemed too flimsy and insignificant to contain the shift they had managed.

At the top of the steps outside, Naomi was waiting, pulling on velvet gloves. Sally thought the question of shopping for kit would come up. Well, Naomi said instead, we must send poor Papa a telegram. He ought to know tout de suite.

Who is going to send it?

I will. That’s only fair.

So Sally pressed telegram money on her and then surrendered herself to the strangeness of looking out over the parade ground to the Georgian gatehouse, where two soldiers in their big hats guarded Victoria Barracks from the malice of the emperor of Germany. There, as well, young talkative men played around and waited in line for their chance to invade the military premises and offer themselves.