Sunset Ridge (8 page)

The twins then turned to watch as a well-drilled platoon of British soldiers approached from the opposite direction. They marched four abreast, arms swinging smartly, their strides precisely timed. A staff car was in the lead, slowing as it approached the Australian contingent.

‘Here's a go,' one of the Australians said with a drawl.

Francois and Antoine glanced at each other. Their English had been picked up gradually over the preceding months from the British soldiers billeted at the farmhouse, but they remained intrigued by the Australians' accent.

The shiny black car drew level with the Australians, who paused and stared as if they were holiday-makers. The British troops were close behind.

The officer in the staff car signalled for his driver to stop. ‘You salute an officer, Private.'

The Australian he addressed gave a smirk but kept his hands by his sides.

‘I'm a colonel!' the officer stated loudly.

‘Best job in the army,' the Australian replied. ‘You keep it.'

The officer gave an exasperated sigh and tapped the driver on the shoulder. Francois and Antoine grinned as the shiny black vehicle sped off.

‘The war's
that
way,' a dark-haired Australian said and hooked his thumb in the general direction of Ypres as the British troops marched by. ‘Not very friendly, are they?' he asked the man standing next to him, when he was ignored.

‘Bloody convicts,' one of British soldiers replied from the ranks.

‘Bet you're pleased we're here, though,' the sandy-haired Australian replied, laughing.

The Australians walked on.

Francois shook his head. ‘They're not like the English.'

‘That's a good thing, I think,' Antoine decided. ‘They're free men and they came here freely. As long as they fight, what does it matter?'

‘An army needs discipline,' Francois countered.

Roland looked from one brother to the other and yawned.

Laughter broke out from the tail of the column of men.

‘Bloody hot here. You'd reckon the Frenchies would have a pub nearby,' one Australian said, his slouch hat pushed back off his forehead.

‘Too right. I'm as dry as an old Arab's fart,' his friend answered.

The men moved on, their laughter ringing through the trees.

‘They say they're fierce soldiers,' Antoine said as they turned to begin the two-mile walk back to the farm. ‘Remember that wounded Frenchman at the village last week? Shot through the thigh. He ended up at a casualty clearing hospital about twelve miles from Saint-Omer before he was sent to the hospital there. He talked about the Australians as if they were unafraid of war.' Antoine hesitated. ‘Unafraid of dying.' He stopped walking. ‘Many of them are like us, you know: farmers and villagers.'

‘So, they're brave,' Francois stated with indifference.

‘Yes, that's what the people are saying.' They walked over a series of low, lightly timbered ridges until the country opened up and they were among the neat yellow-patched wheat fields of their neighbours. The area sown was greatly reduced due to the shortage of labour, and some of the wheat was yet to be harvested. Antoine ran his palm across the heads of rustling grain as they walked along the edge of the half-acre area. ‘I would like to see this Great War,' he continued. ‘If we wait until we're of age the whole thing could be over.'

Francois shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I know, but what of Mama?'

‘She's safe here. There are many soldiers in this area, and we are miles from the front. It's like we live in another country.' Antoine glanced at his brother. ‘I want to go, to see what it is like, to be a part of it, to do what Father did.'

Francois rubbed his neck. ‘I don't know. We promised Father . . .'

‘
He
promised
us
he would stay alive and come home,' Antoine countered. They traversed another slight ridge. Roland bounded through the grass ahead of them.

‘Keep walking or we'll be late,' Francois stated.

They crossed a series of small rivulets. Roland led the way, snuffling and barking at anything of interest, including a wary hedgehog, which quickly increased its speed and disappeared into a hollow log.

‘It's not right to feel obliged to stay at home,' Antoine continued, ‘not when others have sailed halfway around the world to fight our battles for us. We are French, we have fought for our liberty. Don't forget, Francois, that we overthrew a king.'

‘And in return we're paupers.'

Antoine cuffed his brother lightly on the shoulder. ‘You've been listening to Mama too much. Those days are long gone.'

His brother gave the slightest of nods. They reached the first of their small fields as the sun travelled to the mid-point of the sky. The wheat had already been harvested and threshed, and the bags of grain had been stacked securely in the cellar with the overflow in the barn. Their mother now worried continually about food, and the boys were just beginning to appreciate her anxiety; two dozen eggs and a round of soft cheese had only given them enough money for a small portion of veal, barely adequate for two people.

At the stream, which weaved its way around the base of the slight ridge on which the farmhouse was situated, Antoine halted. The water was clear and fresh. A single perch rode the current, its body a flash of scales within the glimmering liquid.

‘I worry about leaving Mama,' Francois said quietly as he squatted by the water's edge. Roland appeared by his side, nudging his head beneath his arm. ‘Who will help with the farm chores?'

‘There are neighbours,' Antoine replied impatiently. ‘We could speak with old Monsieur Crotet. His eldest daughter Lisette is fifteen; she could come and help Mama.'

Francois nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I suppose that's an option. If Lisette took on the role of companion and helper, it would certainly ease my worries.'

‘And who knows, Francois?' Antoine clapped him on the back as his brother stood. ‘We will have to start searching for brides on our return,' he winked. ‘This is an opportunity to have one fully trained. Lisette is quite pretty.'

Francois laughed. ‘Always thinking ahead, I'll give you credit for that.'

‘I've had another thought,' said Antoine, this time more seriously. ‘I think that when we return from the war and we're of age, instead of breaking up the farm we should run it together. One-and-a-half acres wouldn't be enough for each of us to survive on.'

‘I don't know.'

‘Come on,' Antoine replied, ‘you don't really think that a family could exist on such small holdings, do you? Why, we have seen the result of such equality.' Antoine grasped his stomach and held his fingers to his mouth.

Francois grimaced. ‘You paint a bad picture, brother.'

‘Then it's done. On our return from the war we will be partners, yes? Perhaps we may even buy more land.'

At this Francois laughed. ‘No one has added to this farm for over two hundred years. In fact, we've
lost
acreage.'

‘Exactly. Time to get it back, I think.' Antoine called Roland. The dog ceased rolling in the grass and bounded towards the brothers. ‘Roland could stay with Mama as well,' Antoine suggested. ‘He proved with the fox that he would protect her.'

‘Yes, I think he would,' Francois agreed.

As they neared the farmhouse Francois gave his customary whistle. Roland ran ahead, springing up the grassy embankment and across the ridge, a flash of muted colours in the midday heat. The farmhouse door opened and the boys watched as the familiar outline of their mother moved to stand in the doorway. Light from the fire glowed softly from within the kitchen as she leaned to greet the dog. Then she was standing again, hands on hips, watching their approach, waiting as always.

Antoine firmed his jaw and met his mother's watchful eyes. ‘It is decided then?' he said softly to his brother, although his gaze never left his mother.

‘Yes, it is decided,' Francois agreed slowly. He suddenly appeared pale and drawn.

As they neared, their mother saw their faces. Her arms dropped to her sides.

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset Ridge, south-west Queensland, Australia
August 1916

‘M
y dear, why aren't you up?' His mother's hand was cool against his brow. ‘Why, you're burning.' She searched beneath the bed covers for his wounded hand, and then with a cry she raced from the room. Dave was conscious of her footsteps falling away like a coin down a well and then there was only silence, a great emptiness that stretched and moulded itself like a blanket. The bedroom wavered as if it had taken on the rippling surface of the river. Pictures merged into the timber walls to slip through joins, a wooden chair seemed to fracture and then reassemble and the ceiling appeared to be only an inch from his nose. At times it seemed as if the world were cracking while he waited in the midst of the unfolding disaster.

A thick haze surrounded Dave and he no longer knew where he was or if he were alive or dead. Muffled sobs punctuated long stretches of unearthly silence, to be replaced by a stream of hushed, indecipherable conversation. One of his brothers drifted above him. He was conscious of light and shade, of movement. At times he believed that his mother sat by his side; at others it was Miss Waites, with her wisps of hair and wide-eyed concern. Images wafted: water being squeezed into a basin, a weight on his chest, the click-clack of footsteps.

At one stage a long hallway beckoned, and at the end through an open door a marvellous rainbow settled above the red dirt of the property. He was about to step outside when a firm arm steered him away. He tried to fight them off, whoever they were, but he did not have the strength. Then the coughing began.

When the hallway beckoned again it shimmered with light. His hands travelled gently across the walls of the narrow tunnel. There were figures ahead. ‘Wait, please wait.' The words stretched over his tongue but made no sound. Something stirred him, trying to gain his attention. The shaking grew in intensity until in annoyance Dave tried unsuccessfully to brush whatever it was away.

‘The fever's broken.'

‘Thank heavens.'

His shadow-eyed mother and a young man in black towered above him. Dave blinked at the light streaming through the window. He could smell lavender water, and something pungent. The stranger removed the weight from his chest and placed a stethoscope against his skin. The cold of the metal caused Dave's drowsy eyes to re-open.

‘Can you hear me, David?'

Dave wanted to answer but the words lay buried in river sand. He imagined digging up the moist soil and searching for the voice he had lost. Instead, a long, racking cough left him exhausted.

‘It will take some time, I'm afraid, to regain his strength. There may also be some initial confusion when he wakes up. The delirium was particularly bad, an effect of the high fever and that cough . . . a most unfortunate coincidence to develop pneumonia. I'll re-dress his hand, Mrs Harrow, and return in a couple of days.'

The man was stippled in sunlight as he unwound a white bandage and dropped the material in a basin. ‘It was a severe infection, and David was lucky that it didn't develop into acute sepsis. Your lad here was very fortunate, very fortunate indeed.'

Ointment was smoothed across Dave's palm and then a fresh bandage applied. He grew dizzy watching the white material as it was wound firmly around his hand.

‘I suggest at least another week's bed rest, and do try to get some nourishment into him. He's skin and bone. Broth and bread for the next couple of days, Mrs Harrow: a small amount every two hours at first until his strength begins to return.'

‘Of course, whatever you think.'

‘And tomorrow another four mustard plasters applied for no more than thirty minutes throughout the day. And ensure that the powdered mustard is combined with only flour and egg white, no water. I shall leave some flannel cloth for the dressing.'

‘Thank you.'

The snap of the doctor's bag and a swish of his mother's skirt signalled their exit.

 

Dave woke disorientated. A deep blackness engulfed the space surrounding the narrow bed. He blinked, trying to clear the strange visions infiltrating his brain, aware of his mind growing clearer, his thoughts becoming whole. A dream of Miss Waites pressing her lips to his brow was mixed with strange shapes. With wakefulness came a sudden clarity, as if a bucket of cold water had been tossed over his head. Dragging aching legs from beneath the covers, his numb feet hit the cold boards of the floor and he stood unsteadily. The room tilted and then slowly resettled itself as he took a tentative step, his arms outstretched for guidance. Through the window above the rumpled bed a weave of stars circled the black sky. He stared at them until they began to move, forwards and backwards, side to side. There was a great void between and around them and he reached out his hand as if he could push through the willowy darkness to see what lay on the other side. The pull of muscles startled him and he leaned against the roll-top desk for support while searching for a sketchpad and a stick of charcoal. Then, on a whim, he pulled the bedclothes free from the foot of the bed and moved a pillow to the timber foot-board. Light-headed, he crawled into bed as his breathing grew even.

The star-filled sky dominated the window. He lay awake watching the glittering dots until the first smudge of light filtered across the sky. He wondered what the day would bring. His mother would visit first, followed by Cook and at some stage his two brothers, but what of her? He lay quietly, remembering the feel of those lips on his forehead as streaks of smoky reds and pinks appeared beneath a washed-out blue sky.

The blank square of the sketchpad sat untouched on the bed. Dave lifted the charcoal and drew a square, then a circle. He flipped the page to start afresh, his mind a whirr of images. A cloud came next and then the sky at dawn, except that it looked like a series of squiggly lines. He flipped the page again: a stick figure, a dog, a sheep with a cloud for a body. Another blank page confronted him. These everyday images stifled him. He dozed, his thoughts returning to his night visions. An image appeared behind his eyes: a chair, fractured, skew-whiff, as if someone had pulled it apart and then reassembled it in a series of boxes and squares. It was a chair but not a chair. Lifting the charcoal to blank paper, he drew.

 

Dave felt like a sissy placed in the middle of the veranda, especially because he was sure that Cook and his mother were holding a competition to see who could check on him the most. Hens pecked their way slowly across the front yard. A handful of poddy lambs frolicked in the tufted grass. Occasionally lamb and chicken would cross paths, and flapping wings and affronted bleats would break the silence that stretched out across the house paddock. The sky was a glazed blue, the stables a shimmering concoction of timber and iron. Dave stared at the hazy structure until it merged with the frill of trees bordering the paddock, then he retrieved the sketchpad from under the blanket and began to draw a chicken.

‘What've you got there, then?' Cook set two warm biscuits and a glass of milk by his elbow. ‘A chicken?' She twisted her neck. ‘I never seen a hen what looked like that.' Tucking the blanket tightly around him, she compared the hen on the paper with the real thing ten yards from the veranda.

The charcoal hen's body was comprised of many different-sized squares, some of which had been obliterated by blobs of crumbled charcoal. ‘I guess you're right, but it's not meant to be in proportion. I wanted it to –' He considered sharing some of his strange night visions but thought better of it. ‘To be different.'

‘I always knew that Miss Waites was a bit off in the . . .' Cook tapped her head. ‘Teaching you boys rubbish like that. Argh, a woman that demands sheep's stomach can't be of normal thinking. You know what I mean? Stomach, she tells me; sheep's stomach stuffed. I've told her on more than one occasion that we ain't poor Scots in this household, no-sir-ee. We're edumacated people and we eat accordingly.'

Dave flipped the sketchbook closed and bit into a biscuit.

‘That's right. You eat that up. Of course, I can be forgiving a person's differences on account of the fact that her countrymen are fighting in the Great War as well.'

After Cook left, Dave considered what a strangely built woman she was. Thin-waisted and wide-hipped, she had stocky legs beneath a black skirt while her torso was thick and long. It was as if she had been stuck at the waist and then pulled beyond stretching point. Dave thought of the chair and the hen – what if he drew a woman like that? What if he drew Cook?

A scatter of leaves tinkled the corrugated-iron roof as Miss Waites stepped smartly onto the veranda. She wore a long brown skirt and a cream bodice with puffed sleeves and covered buttons that ran from the waist to her neck. ‘David, how ar ye? Oh, you're drawing. May I see?' The governess flipped between the pages of the chair, hen and Cook. ‘Och! That's guid.'

‘Really?' A residue of black dust from the charcoal was smeared across Cook's image. David had relegated her to a one-dimensional figure of sparse, curving lines; a saucepan was the only truly recognisable feature. ‘I don't think Father would like them. Mother might.'

At the mention of his mother, Miss Waites looked away for just a second. There was the slightest drop of her chin, before her attention returned to the sketchbook. ‘Artists are experimenting in many different ways these days. Would ye like me to find ye some books on the subject?'

‘You mean there are other people doing things like this?'

‘Yes. There is an artist in Paris who is quite well known.' Her teeth chewed softly on her bottom lip. ‘Oh, his name eludes me at the moment, however he is quite modern in style. I recall seeing a reproduction of a nude woman he drew and . . . oh, but you're blushing. Artists quite often draw the male and female form in an effort to understand anatomy, David. It is not lewd in any way, I assure ye, despite what the less educated and the prudish would have us believe.' She patted his hand. ‘Where was I? Yes, the drawing of the woman. It is a sketch yet quite absolute in expressive force. Everything in the drawing is flat, like the canvas it was created on. There is no depth to the work yet it is strangely compelling. This is what I see in your work, David. Instead of reproducing visible reality, ye have altered it.'

‘Huh?'

‘Well, look at your chair. It's a chair, but it's
not
a chair. It is as if we are looking at it from multiple viewpoints. Ye have reassembled it and created something totally different, yet your drawing is a recognisable object. I really dinna understand enough on the subject, but this work seems quite unique to me.' Her fingers drifted across the angular black lines. ‘I will write away and order some of the latest art journals for ye. In the meantime, to keep the tip of your charcoal pointed and to stop it from crumbling, ye must rotate it constantly.' She picked up the piece of charcoal and pressed it against a corner of the page. ‘Ye see?'