Thomas Keneally - The Daughters of Mars

She said, From what I know, at least you’ll give it a great shake.

If she was sure he would exist to take what he had back to Australia and try to see where it fitted in the fabric of the place, she didn’t care too much what difficulties he had fitting it.

I want to give it a shake, he said. Yes, I’d like to. Mind you, one of the war artists I met took me to see some of the new schools—even this crowd called the Vorticists—who are full of a kind of dread, as if everything is going down the gurgler. That seems a reasonable enough idea for these times. But what confuses me is how to take any of it back to Australia. It’s all so different from here. It’s not Europe. It’s non-Europe. And always will be.

They turned into an estaminet of paneled wood and dim glass windows. A townsman and his wife drank together at a table. They were not handsome, but they provided Sally with a parallel to the joy she felt at sharing a table with Charlie. Charlie ordered red wine. She would drink it too, so that they experienced simultaneously its rough strength against the roots of the palate.

Two farmers came in. Both saluted them informally—giving them the credit for being defenders of the township.

Charlie took a deep draught of his red wine when it arrived. She also took a mouthful of this fluid, still mysterious and acrid to her.

Of course, he continued, there’s no substantial difference between us and French people, except in us a kind of innocence. But do you think those farmers over there are giving a hoot about Verlaine or Seurat? They’re just cow-cockies too. So I think the day’s going to come for Australia. Just a bit of a wait, that’s all.

It was a tender hope and she smiled at it. She thought then—as he finished his glass—something so alien to her and as utterly surprising in its arrival as the Taubes. Yet Honora had said it once about Lionel. If I had his son, he could not be lost entirely. And then, if he weren’t lost, there’d be two of them. Men with glittering spirits.

She said, Do you have leave soon?

He lowered his eyelids secretively.

There’s a big stunt on. But… I think by November, maybe some leave.

She noticed they had both drunk their raw red wine down. She had unconsciously kept pace with Charlie. He called for more. With the recent whisky and now this wine, he had become a drinker. It was said they did drink at the front—it was taken for granted there were things best done when a man was part soused.

Listen, she said, I don’t know who Seurat is. I would like to go to Paris and see the paintings with you.

Sally, he said, his face reddening as if he knew she’d read him too accurately—his zeal and desire. I would be so delighted to take you if we could make our leaves coincide. I’ll lecture you mad, the way I did in Rouen. I’ve become an even more obnoxious know-all.

Suddenly it was time to order some stew and bread. When it was eaten they strolled back out of the town. At the crucifix at a shaded corner—the one before the Bapaume Road—he pulled her to him urgently and precisely as she’d hoped and in gratitude she took up the full vigor of the kiss and reimposed it on him, meeting him six-tenths of the way to show that he could hope for something reciprocal. It went on so long as to have the feeling of being a solid entity. If a farmer had appeared on a cart, or a British truck driven down the road with whistling Tommies, it would not have let itself be dissolved.

But there came up again that almost automatic feeling of temporary disqualification from joy. The closer she got to him, the greater the demand to tell him the size of what she’d done. She didn’t disengage herself so violently as to puzzle him or disappoint him. She simply turned her head to one side—as if for breath.

I am on duty tonight, she told him. And you have a long ride.

But we’ll go to Paris?

I hope so, she said. For she did hope so still. Despite the care she had taken not to leave him confused, she could see he was a little confused. But it would not be a jaunt. He would be tested there. She would be.

Well, he told her. It’s back to the bike for now.

He mounted the framework of the cycle and put a boot in one of the stirrups. She could tell once more she’d confused him. So she said, Charlie!

He looked at her and was expectant.

There’s no question, she said, that you’re a man amongst men.

What does that mean? he asked, smiling. Because it doesn’t mean much when you’re in an army.

Well, she said, it means my love, that’s what.

He grinned madly. It was what he had cycled all the way in hope of.

Well, he murmured. That’s a big admission for a girl like you.

Freud confided in Sally. She believed that unless Honora now fell apart there would be no putting her together again. The collapse came. Honora was sleepless and working a continuous shift. Then she entered the phase when she would prop herself powerless against the door of a ward and look at the beds with an anguished frown and be stuck as if paralyzed. It was as if all the wounds appealed so equally for her care that she could attend to none. Her overcommitted body smelled of stale summer sweat. This or that nurse would come up to take her by the elbow and fetch her back to the mess tent. But she was hostile to help and would shake herself free.

At last Major Bright himself came, and on his restrained authority she left her ward in the hands of Sally and Leo, who had washed her and packed her things for her. Sister Slattery was being sent back to Rouen for a rest, Bright told them. When her bag and valise were ready, he helped her to a car. She moved like someone elderly but was half dazed with barbital. Freud, Leonora, Sally, and the matron kissed her good-bye through the car window.

The revelation was that Bright intended to travel with her and then be back by evening for the hours when convoys generally came. He was going around to the car’s far door when he met Sally.

I am no mind doctor, he said to her, but it is not just the matter of her fiancé. What happened to him has been made graver by what she’s seen here.

To Sally it seemed as if he thought he must defend her from people who thought the best of her in any case.

Bright climbed into the car’s backseat and adjusted a travel rug across Honora’s lap. He had the demeanor of a servant. Could the scale of her grief have entranced him? After the car had disappeared, Freud said, He wants her well—amongst other reasons—so that he can talk to her. He doesn’t want her mad grief to put her forever inside the walls—a nun or a lunatic.

Bright was back by the evening. And the convoys did come. This late summer and early autumn assault—gambits designed to bring peace by Christmas and consecrate the numbers 1917 forever in the minds of the human species—were said to be a success. Yet it was hard to judge it that way from the wards of Deux Églises. If these bodies equaled success, one could not imagine the formula of defeat.

But then there arrived suddenly a night when the earth froze again and this time the war appeared to pause to mark the change of climate. Summer now seemed to have lasted mere days, all its chances quickly squandered. In the resuscitation ward—to which Sally had returned—she and the nurses wore balaclavas and the cap comforters the soldiers wore, and had hot-water bottles placed for them on their trolleys to warm their hands before they touched a patient. When the hot water from the bottles went cold and threatened to freeze, it was boiled again for cocoa or Bovril.

Her third winter of war was established now. Amidst the wetness of days and the iciness of nights a letter from Charlie Condon arrived. It nominated the dates of the leave he believed he could get to meet her in Paris. She was grateful the letter did not have to chase her. For there were more rumors their clearing station was to be moved northeast into Flanders towards that curious town named Ypres—which officers pronounced “Eep” and soldiers “Wipers.”