Thomas Keneally - The Daughters of Mars

Come and have tea, she told him.

If no ambulance convoy came in before full light they would be able to have a decent talk. And these plain words—these words of no merit at all—seemed the best ones to exchange with a man who must have the terror of the front fixed in his brain. And who had ridden a bike—how many kilometers?—to check if she was safe.

They went into the mess hut.

I can get you whisky, she offered. If you’d like it.

In fact, whisky, stout, brandy—they were all there for the having these days. Nurses could decide that a given patient needed something, and it was there in the pantry. They had begun to use a lot of it in the NYD ward. In a sane world whisky or brandy should not be administered with opiates. But in this world a quick effect was more important.

He said, Whisky would not go amiss by far.

Wait a second, she said, holding up a finger knowingly. She went and fetched him a tin mugful and brought it back. This simple function delighted her beyond measure.

If the matron should come in, she said, pointing to the mug she put down, we can pretend it’s tea.

She poured herself tea and offered her cup towards his.

Your very good health, she said.

She assessed him again. She dared not think that—after all this—he looked like a man who might come through. But that was the case. He always gave her that impression when she saw him, though not when he was away.

It’s a great relief to clap eyes on you, she said.

Relief? he said.

Of course a relief. Here we only see the wounded. It seems—though it can’t be true—that all men must be wounded sooner or later. But tell me again—the sketching… ?

I’m doing a bit in the rest areas. But there’s nothing to sketch up there now. A limited palette, you’d say, for painting as well. Black and brown and slimy green-yellow. Not the stuff of aesthetics. The whisky is very good.

Tell me. How far did you cycle?

I don’t know.

He pointed vaguely northwards. It was good for me. And I won’t insult you by saying I haven’t thought of you a lot.

I’ve been concerned for you too.

He smiled into the mug of whisky. Come on now. Aunts can be concerned . And you’re not my aunt. I will accept something such as, I’ve been thinking a great deal about you too, Charlie. Or else, I haven’t given you a blessed thought.

It’s so hectic here. But I fear one of the men on stretchers might be you. You’re on my mind a lot.

Ah! said Charlie, who had wanted to hear that. On your mind a lot. I’m pretty gratified to be told that, Sally. That’ll suit me.

She was aware of nurses moving busily about them now—fetching breakfast plates and giving the banal nods and winks. Would there be more winking amongst them—and smart-aleck rolling of eyes in her direction—when Charlie Condon was gone again? Well, of course. That price must be paid.

I have a belief that if I think of you too much something will happen to you.

Well, no fooling you clearing station girls. You know enough to know there are some days a man can’t believe he’ll live. And nights, ditto. And if you live through the day and night there’s another impossible day and night to come. Yet… there I was this morning. On my bike. You can’t overstate how important this journey was to me.

It brought Sally herself a kind of exaltation to hear a sentiment like that.

I’m pretty impressed myself, she assured him.

The tent was near empty now. The others had got over their whispers and decided to give the two of them a time to themselves. Charlie reached for her wrist and she wished something more vigorous would happen. But it wasn’t possible there.

I’ll need to be back by seven o’clock this evening. That means I must set out on my bike about half past three. Just to be sure. The roads get a bit chancy towards dusk and there’s a lot of traffic.

It was as if he were explaining why the hand on wrist would have to do her for now.

It’s a pity, he laughed, a photographer from the Macleay Argus doesn’t come in now and photograph us. The two brave Macleay warriors.

She said, It’s hard to believe the Macleay still exists.

But unfortunately its waters now suddenly flowed back into her, washing along on their surface the still not fully absorbed ending they’d given their mother. It had all come back sharply, as she knew it must. No quantity of massacre could reduce it to a small taint. And Sally knew Charlie must be told about it if he intended to take the more energetic journeys she wanted him to take to keep tracking her down in the French or Flemish countryside.

Oh, I’m sure it’s still there, she heard him say. It’s determined, you know. The earth maintains a great indifference to what we do. When you come back to an area of fields like the ones round here, you understand that the mire up there is just waiting to break out into pasture again. It won’t happen this year—it mightn’t happen for another ten. But in the end the tendency won’t be repressed. There’s greenness waiting under all that slime.

The matron appeared briefly and said, Good morning, Sister; good morning, Captain. It was then Sally saw the nuggets of insignia on his straps which showed him to be that. A captain.

He whispered, Don’t be impressed. The way things are just now there are fifteen men to a platoon and sixty to a company. But they are building us up with new blood. Forcing old hands like me up in rank.

New blood? she asked in horror.

I could have chosen better words, he conceded.

They decided to walk to town past the cemetery and a barley field which a farmer—gambling against a movement of the front line—had bravely planted. The road entered the town from the south. A two-storey official building near the mairie had a shattered roof, but people moved normally in the streets. Big-bosomed farmers’ wives shopped and talked to each other in the open day.

I love these little towns, Charlie told her. I keep sketching them. But don’t worry, I won’t be sketching today.

He held out a hand towards the landscape on the edge of town.

You know, I look at all this, so very nice, very ordered. Farmed for thousands of years. And it does call up by contrast where we’re from. I mean to say, what a valley, the Macleay! It’s a valley that deserves a great painter. It’s a place that almost defies a person to become a painter. It says, Come on, have a go, you useless hayseed! And it would explode Cézanne’s palette. He’d have to go reaching for the tubes of paint he doesn’t use here. That’s what we’ve got, the Australians. We’ve got the place but we just don’t have the artists. Up here, gloom and—admittedly—subtlety. And artists? My God. They’ve got wonderful artists to burn. I had leave, by the way, and went to all the galleries.

We saw the Louvre, said Sally. But we didn’t see enough. We didn’t bring the right eyes to it. Look-and-laugh sort of stuff.

Well, said Charlie, grinning, look-and-laugh isn’t bad. I would be happy if in fifty years girls looked and laughed at something of mine. What amazes me is that up there at the front, you have… Well, you know what’s up there, you deal with it daily. Then just fifty miles southwest down the road, acre after acre of pretty astounding rooms. Then the Salon—and someone took me to the Salon des Refusés—the paintings that before the war hadn’t been accepted for the Academy. That was an education. Even the rejected are brilliant. In fact—as someone mentioned to me—it’s the brilliant who get rejected. It all has a funny effect on your ambitions, you know. Part of you thinks, all right, all you’re fit for, Sonny Jim, is to go back home and illustrate the covers of adventure papers and boys’ magazines. And another part thinks, I can do something like that!