A Mortal Sin (12 page)

“Your parents were both dead by then, Daphne.” Allison’s voice broke. “Having you with me was the only thing that kept me sane after Phillip came back and kidnapped Paul because his wife couldn’t give him children. Go to him, darling. He must be absolutely sickened and devastated. Bring him back to us.”

“You can catch the five o’clock train, Princess. I’ll take you down to the station. Make sure you catch a taxi when you get to Melbourne, though,” Frank instructed. “I don’t want you wandering around in the city trying to catch public transport in the dark.”

Daphne leapt from the bed and hugged both parents. Paul loved her. He had only written that dreadful note so she wouldn’t come after him. She knew it.

“Get yourself tidied up, and your mother and I will be waiting in the kitchen with a cup of tea. You might as well hear the whole sorry tale now. And Allison. Burn that bloody diary, or I will.”

Chapter Nine

On August the 13th 1940, the German Luftwaffe flew over England and attacked airfields, factories and radar stations. By the 7th September, London itself had become a target.

In November 1940, Allison, Frank and Daphne saw Tom embark on the R.M.S. Stratheden, which was joining a convoy of three other ships with H.M.A.S. Perth as their escort.

“Darling, you will take care, won’t you?”

“Of course I will, Mum,” he promised. How handsome he was, Daphne thought. The khaki uniform suited his blond good looks.

“Good luck, son, take care, won’t you?”

They kissed and hugged each other. With tears in their eyes Allison and Daphne watched him stride off wearing his slouch hat at a rakish angle. In single file the soldiers went up the gangplank. When he reached the top, Tom turned to wave his hat, and the sun coming out from behind a cloud, turned his hair silver. Suddenly he was gone, just another figure in a sea of khaki.

“He’ll be fine, Mum.” Daphne linked arms with her mother. “And so will Robbie.”

“Of course they will, dear,” Frank said.

Please God, Allison prayed desperately. Don’t let these boys be doomed like their fathers into becoming cannon fodder.

* * *

As soon as her nursing training finished, Daphne went to enlist for overseas service in the Australian Army Nursing Service. Tom had already sailed off to the war, and Robbie had run away to join the army. Now it was her turn to answer Australia’s call to arms.

“Too young? I’m a qualified nurse. I want to do my bit for the war effort.”

“I’m sorry,” the elderly colonel at the Medical Corps office told her kindly. “Not only are you not over twenty five, my dear, but you don’t have the required years of nursing experience that we expect our recruits to have.”

“Isn’t there something you can do? I’ve got two brothers in the army, and I want to do my bit as well.”

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do. I don’t make the rules. I merely carry them out.”

It would be a fruitless exercise to argue with him. No point in getting into a screaming match with the silly old goat. Could she do as Robbie had done and put her age up? Go interstate to enlist? Change her name? Of course she couldn’t, they would want her nursing records. It wasn’t fair.

She caught the train home to Wangaratta; there was nothing else left to do. Her job at the local hospital would have to suffice for the time being. She closed her eyes and the motion of the train lulled her to sleep.

“How did it go, Daphne?” her mother greeted her when she arrived home.

“No good. Apart from having to be over twenty five, I’d have to have several years nursing experience.”

“I’m sorry, darling. Your father tried to warn you.”

“I know, but wouldn’t you think they could bend the rules a little, offer me service in Australia? I would have taken that.”

“Come on we’ll have a cup of tea. Oh, by the way, there’s a letter here from your doctor friend Molly Gratton in Singapore.” Allison withdrew it from her apron pocket.

Daphne opened the letter and read the few lines written in Molly’s untidy, almost illegible scrawl.

Molly wanted her to come over to Singapore and help in her late father’s practice because she was having trouble finding a suitable nurse.

“Mum, read this, it could be the answer to my prayers.” Excitement tinged Daphne’s voice.

“You can’t go there, it could be dangerous. What about the war?”

“Honestly, I’ll be fine, I’m not going to the Middle East. Singapore is a British fortress. It’s as safe as being here.”

Daphne didn’t like to go against her parents’ wishes, but she couldn’t stay in Wangaratta, either. She had to make a break, try something new. Something so vastly different, that it would stop her dwelling on Paul’s cruel betrayal and her mother’s shock on learning that Paul was her long lost son. Even after three years of trying to forget him, the memories were excruciating. She would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, and in the daytime her eyes would sometimes fill with tears.

She hadn’t told anyone the full story of her mad dash down to Melbourne once they had realized Paul must think he was her brother. She had never thought to tell him that Allison and Frank were her foster parents; most times she forgot that they weren’t her real parents.

Phillip Ashfield must have ice flowing through his veins. Daphne couldn’t believe that he had impregnated Allison all those years ago, and then callously deserted her to marry another woman. To come back after the war and virtually kidnap Paul because his wife couldn’t give him children was the most fiendish act of all. Somehow her mother had survived, gone on to carve out another life for herself. I’m not that brave. I only wish I was.

Her parents probably guessed that Paul might seek solace in the arms of another woman after such a dreadful shock. What they did not know was that Kitty was the women he had been involved with before he met her. It was too awful to put into words what had happened after she rushed to Ian’s house. It sickened her every time she thought about it.

The picture of Kitty in a rumpled nightgown would haunt her for a lifetime, and the woman’s gloating triumph as she said Paul was still in bed. For him to take that woman into the same bed they had shared was filthy, depraved, but she still couldn’t stop loving him.

* * *

Daphne couldn’t believe the condescending arrogance of the local European population in Singapore when she first arrived. Now, after only a few weeks amongst them, she utterly despised them and all they stood for. Typical upper-class snobs, selfish, arrogant and immoral. Just like Paul.

In most cases they had no interest in the war at all. Raffles and all the other favorite nightspots, were crowded with fashionable women in the latest evening gowns and officers in mess dress. No one seemed to care that the Japanese were speedily advancing through Siam and heading straight for Malaya.

She could have left, but decided against it. To cut and run when the going got a little hard was not in her nature. She worked long hours helping Molly in her clinic because every patient seemed to be followed by another one in more desperate need. Without help, Molly wouldn’t be able to continue her father’s life work amongst the poor Malays and Indians.

Her own motives, of course, weren’t completely altruistic. She was honest enough to admit, that helping these unfortunate people eased the pain of Paul’s dreadful betrayal and gave her something to focus her life on. There would never be any other man for her, she thought sadly. He was her one true love, her soul mate, unworthy though he was.

Molly continually went to British Headquarters to report her suspicions that many so-called Malay laborers were in fact Japanese in disguise. Daphne knew she also gave the authorities information on Japanese who owned plantations directly facing major highways, strategic locations where they could monitor troop movements. The answers were always the same. ‘Singapore is the bastion of the British Empire, the Gibraltar of the Far East, and as such, impregnable.

Time and again Molly’s hot temper got the best of her and she clashed with the British hierarchy, both civilian and military. Daphne knew they all poked fun at her friend, hating the fact that she mixed with Malay or Tamil Indians. She was not diplomatic and had a caustic tongue she wasn’t afraid to use.

“There’s going to be trouble, Daph, I know there is. Those Japs are infiltrating everywhere. I don’t care what those bloody snobs at British HQ say. It’s true, the locals know. One old Jap who knew father, as good as told me to get out while I could. There are Jap owned fishing vessels based in Singapore, roaming up and down the peninsula gathering information, and those idiots in the Government think I’m paranoid,” she raged.

Daphne said nothing, just kept preparing a tray containing a pipette for instilling drops, aural forceps and two aural specula, ready for Molly to use on a small Indian boy who had pushed a bead into his ear. It had lodged in the meatus, and she was hoping to syringe it out.

“I’ll be all right now, Daph. You see to the mother. She’ll scream the place down if you don’t pacify her.”

Daphne hurried outside to reassure the mother, as best she could with her limited knowledge of the language, that her small son would be safe, but the woman was inconsolable. There were too many different languages to learn including Tamil, Chinese and Malay. Fortunately, most people seemed to have some knowledge of English.

After the woman departed with her son, the bead in his hand instead of his ear, and Molly left for a house call, Daphne sat down in the surgery and let her mind drift. Molly never went out at night, preferring to stay in the small bungalow they shared.

Daphne sometimes accepted invitations from young plantation owners or even Australian officers, but never an English one. She was off Englishmen for life. She received invitations to tennis parties, bridge afternoons, nightclubs, but none of these activities interested her. I’m becoming a hermit.

Molly had introduced her to Helen Sawyer, an Australian army nurse working at the 113th Australian GeneralHospital in Singapore, who also trained at the QueenVictoriaHospital, and they immediately struck up a friendship. Dark-haired Helen was attractive and vivacious. Sometimes Daphne would make up a foursome with her, only if the men involved met her criteria of not being English.

She had finally met up with Robbie in Singapore when he got leave. His battalion was stationed in Malaya. He was well over six feet tall now, still slim, but starting to fill out. The khaki summer-weight uniform suited his boyish good looks.

He missed their parents. He wouldn’t admit it, but she sensed he regretted his decision to run away and join up. The one letter she received from Tom was full of cheer. He was enjoying himself in the Middle East, taking advantage of the numerous attractions. But not Robbie; women and high times were not for him. Not for me either, she thought wryly. Some British children and women had already left Malaya and Singapore, but for most it was business as usual.

* * *

One evening Daphne made up a foursome for dinner with Helen and two young Lieutenants, Bill and Roy from the 2/30th Battalion. Roy, her partner, was a fair, thickset young man sporting a zippy moustache, Bill a nondescript looking man with a caustic wit.

She liked her outfit, a white frock with a matching bolero top embroidered with green beads. Numerous potted plants were set out around the hotel, she idly noticed as a Chinese waiter showed them to a cane table with matching chairs. Loud female laughter came from a long table set against the far wall.

“Bloody pommy snobs,” Bill hissed. “They won’t have anything to do with us Aussies. Hardly ever invite us into their homes. Who the hell do they think they are, anyway?”

“We should worry, mate, we’ve got the two prettiest girls in Singapore.” Roy glanced at both girls, but his gaze rested longest on Daphne.

“Well, what do you say to that old man? Cut the ground from under your feet, what?” Helen’s over exaggerated, upper crust English accent made them laugh.

“We’ll have champagne,” Bill suddenly decided.

“A lemonade will do for me, thanks,” Daphne said.

“No, champagne for a beautiful flower.” Roy lowered his voice so only she could hear him.

“Roy.” She touched his hand. “Don’t get to like me too much, will you?”

“You’re the loveliest girl I’ve ever met, I could easily fall in love with you.”

“I can only offer you friendship, nothing more, and you’re too nice to be hurt.”

“Is there someone else, Daphne?”

A smiling Chinese waiter brought over champagne in a silver, iced filled bucket, and proceeded to pour for them.

“Not really.”

“Daph gave her heart to some callous playboy who broke it. She’s living in the past,” Helen put in with a sympathetic grimace.

“I wish I could forget, but there won’t ever be any other man for me.” Her heart felt heavy with the regret of what might have been. If Paul’s love had been genuine, they would have been married by now. Just thinking of the babies she would probably have had was excruciatingly painful, sharp as a saber thrust. You’re a fool she castigated herself as she often did. He wasn’t worthy of you. Find yourself a nice, trustworthy Aussie man to love. Oh, God, if only she could.

The orchestra played softly in the background. When Roy asked her to dance, she accepted. As long as he didn’t want to get serious, things could be quite pleasant because, even on such a short acquaintance, she liked him.

The ladies gracing the dance floor, were attired in the most up to date creations that could be invented by the skilled Chinese seamstresses in the city. Men wore dress suits and one or two were in lounge suites, the rest in uniform.

As the evening progressed the place filled up even more. Not actually crowded. That would never do. Too crass. What a farce. Men were dying by the thousands in Europe. English cities had been being bombed into the ground by the German Luftwaffe, the Japanese were hammering on the doorposts, and the European population of Singapore wined and danced their evenings away as if they didn’t have a care in the world.