For King and Country (42 page)

Jimmy nodded. ‘You haven’t even had a dance, have you, Sal?’ he said. ‘Pity there’s no partner for you, hinny. What a waste.’ He came to the end of the waltz
and closed the piano lid, then got to his feet and stretched, flexing his fingers before addressing the company. ‘That’s all for a quarter of an hour, folks, unless somebody else wants
to play. I’m off for half a pint.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Sally said, ‘our Ginny might want a hand.’

Frank and Elinor followed them to the bar, along with half the company from the concert room. Sally lifted the hatch and went behind it to help Ginny to serve them all.

‘I don’t see why we can’t stop in Newcastle,’ Elinor was insisting, ‘I don’t see why two tickets should stop us from getting married here.’

‘For the umpteenth time! Because it’s too late to get my money back,’ Frank howled, the longest sentence Sally had ever heard from him.

She was telling herself that she couldn’t let the prof down, couldn’t think of abandoning the pathology department, when her mind was suddenly flooded with the image of that tiny
finch she’d once freed and sent soaring skyward.

Casting away doubts like outworn rags, she looked up and raised her voice above the hubbub. ‘Why, we cannot let that stand in your way, Frank. I know somebody who might be willing to buy
’em, if you’ll knock something off the price, like. You’d get some of your money back,’ she said, and glancing at her mother who stood hardly a yard away, she felt an awful
pang.

S
urrounded by luggage and people on the quayside on a frosty February morning, Sally put an arm round her mother’s shoulder.
‘Don’t cry, Mam, you told us we had to go.’

‘I know I did,’ she sniffed, and dabbing her eyes turned towards Will, whose face was hidden behind both moustache and a full beard, with a cap obscuring most of his disfigurement.
‘Look after her– Max.’

‘Dry up,’ Miss Brewster commanded, standing with her camera sideways on to them. ‘I don’t want to waste any film on people blubbering. And squeeze together a
bit.’

Sally’s mother gave a weak laugh, and Arthur, who was standing behind them with Frank, stretched his arms wide and pulled the three of them hard together. Will turned his scars away from
the camera and as Miss Brewster squeezed the shutter a cab drew up beside them.

Mr Hibbs got out, and touched his grandson on the shoulder. ‘She can’t let you go without saying a last goodbye. Nobody’ll see, if you get in and sit beside her.’

Watching Will slide into the taxi, and knowing Elinor of old, Sally thanked her stars she wasn’t there to witness the scene. That girl had a genius for opening her mouth and putting both
feet in it.

Mr Hibbs nudged Miss Brewster. ‘You go over there and stand with them, and I’ll take your picture.’

She gave him the camera without protest, and placed herself between Sally and her mother, with Frank and Arthur behind them. After that it was Miss Brewster’s turn again, to take the group
with Will’s grandfather. No sooner was that photograph taken than the cab door opened and Will emerged. Oh, dear, Sally had an awful sense of foreboding when she saw him go round the other
side of the vehicle and open the door.

He caught her look. ‘She insisted,’ he said, helping his mother onto her feet. ‘She’s desperate to get a last photograph taken with us. It’ll not take long, and
we’ll get her back in the taxi. It’ll be all right.’

‘Something to treasure,’ Mrs Burdett said, now upright and supported by Will. She’d dressed carefully for this leave-taking from her only living son, and was wearing a
fashionable new hat of fine beige wool to complement her best brown coat, but her stooped shoulders and unsteady gait marred the elegant impression she’d tried to make.

‘Stay there. Don’t come any further. I’ll take you as you are; you needn’t move another step,’ said Miss Brewster. ‘I’ve got the picture.’

‘One with the ship in first, and then I’ll go back,’ Mrs Burdett said, leaning heavily on Will, but showing such determination that none of them dared gainsay her. Seeing that
the sooner they humoured her the sooner they could get her safely back in the taxi, Sally took her other hand to help her to the spot she’d chosen. Miss Brewster moved a few yards away, to
get some of the ship in the background, and then had to wait for people to pass in between them before she could take the photograph. After the first one, Sally stepped away, to let Mrs Burdett
have a last photograph with her son alone, and then stood rooted to the spot.

Like witches in the grimmest fairytale, Dr and Mrs Lowery had appeared from nowhere, and drifted in between Miss Brewster and her subjects. Sally held her breath as Mrs Lowery started, and
touched her husband’s arm.

‘We meet again, Nurse Wilde,’ the doctor hailed her.

She nodded. ‘It looks as if we do, Dr Lowery.’

Mrs Lowery nudged her husband, and nodded towards Will.

‘And you’re reunited with your sweetheart, I see. This is the young man who came to our house, looking for you, I think.’

‘You’re mistaken, Dr Lowery,’ said Sally, and catching his glance she felt the full force of his aversion. She’d seen through him, and he’d never forgiven her.
Despite her care of Kitten, he still hated her for it.

He gave an incredulous little laugh, and raising his voice demanded, ‘Beatrice! Is this, or is it not the man who came looking for Sally?’

Beatrice sounded decided. ‘Yes, it is.’

‘You’re sure?’

She opened her mouth to confirm it, and Mrs Burdett’s knees gave way.

‘Mother!’ Will caught her, and clutching her tightly to him, managed to prevent her from falling, while she raised her eyes to Mrs Lowery’s. Sally felt like someone standing on
the edge of a precipice as the two women stared at each other, and then Mrs Lowery’s eyes moistened as her gaze drifted from the face of the widow to that of her son.

‘No,’ she said, slowly, her eyes still on him. ‘No . . . There’s a superficial likeness, but I’ve never seen this man in my life before.’

‘You damned well have, though,’ Dr Lowery insisted. ‘You know it’s him, and you know him for a deserter. I detest the fellows. I say, you there!’ he turned to
Arthur and, taking a very high tone, demanded, ‘Fetch a policeman!’

Arthur stepped right up to him, closely followed by Frank. ‘What are you bloody talking about – deserter? He’s our Australian pal – Frank’s old mate from
Woolangong.’

‘S’right,’ Frank drawled over his shoulder, right on cue. ‘He’s my old mate from Woolangong.’

Sally was stunned to see the doctor’s wife round sharply on her husband. ‘You see? You’re mistaken, Dr Lowery. I’d swear on oath it’s not the same man. Not the same
man at all. Don’t make a fool of yourself in front of all these people.’ Mrs Lowery walked rapidly on, past the taxi and away. After a final contemptuous glance at Sally, Dr Lowery
followed.

‘Come on, come on!’ Arthur urged, ‘they’ll have shifted the bloody gangway if we don’t get a move on!’

Their mother turned to him, and with disapproval written all over her face gave him a brief embrace. ‘You shouldn’t be going at all. You shouldn’t be leaving Kath and the
bairns. She’s expecting you to go back,’ she said.

‘She’s going to be disappointed, then. I’ll send some money when I get settled, and then maybe she’ll see sense, and come to join me. Or maybe I’ll send nothing,
and that’ll make her see sense a bit sooner, her and her bloody mother an’ all.’

‘You get no better, Arthur,’ she said, and turned to Frank. ‘And I thought you were going to marry Elinor.’

‘He would have done, if Kath had come with me – but she didn’t, and he didn’t want to see the ticket go to waste. So, he’s got a free passage home in that nice big
cabin I got for us and the bairns.’

‘S’right. It’s a bonzer,’ Frank grinned, and picking up his luggage he started for the gangway.

‘So long, Mam,’ said Arthur, giving her an awkward final squeeze before following suit.

Sally held her mother tight. ‘So long, Mam. Say so long to our Ginny and Emma, and the rest of them for me.’

Will gave his mother a last kiss and a squeeze, shook his grandfather’s hand, and ushered Sally onto the gangway. She hurried along, but realizing after a few steps that he wasn’t
following she turned back and saw Miss Brewster on the gangway, preventing the men from removing it while she carefully took the film out of her camera. But it was the camera, and not the film that
she tried to thrust into Will’s free hand when the job was finished.

‘A wedding gift, from a friend, though I won’t be at the wedding.’

‘I cannot take it,’ he said. ‘It must have cost a fortune.’

She hung it round his neck. ‘You’d better, or I shall be very offended. And hurry along, before the ship leaves without you.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Start with thanks,’ Sally suggested.

‘Thanks, Miss Brewster. Thanks for everything you’ve done,’ he said, and impulsively planted a kiss on her cheek.

She flushed slightly and her hand flew to the spot his lips had touched. ‘Get off with you,’ she ordered, ‘and make sure you look after her – not that she’s not
capable of looking after herself!’

They obeyed, Will struggling after Sally with luggage and camera. ‘And I’ll never say another wrong word about spinsters as long as I live,’ he said.

Sally found her cabin among those of the other women who were travelling alone, in that secluded part of the ship designated for their use only and which was forbidden
territory to all male passengers. She dumped her luggage on her bunk, and then made her way back to the deck, to the exact spot where they’d separated. Will was leaning on the rail, watching
the receding coastline.

‘We’re lucky to be here,’ she commented. ‘Your mother was mad, to come chasing after us like that, and you were even madder to let her get out of the taxi.’

‘I was terrified she’d have another stroke if I didn’t let her have her own way, and who’d have thought that pair would have happened by? Anyway,’ he grinned,
‘I could have shown ’em my passport.’

‘With your lovely photo on it.’

‘You’re jesting. But it’s a good job I knew a decent photographer, and somebody with a neat forging hand.’

‘I’m not jesting. And changing 1915 to 1918’s not very complicated forgery.’

‘And the date of birth – you’ve shaved a few years off that, an’ all. But there’s another reason my mother came to see us off,’ he said, holding up a bright
Belgian gold franc. ‘She said she’d have hung on to them if we’d been going to Stafford, but as we’re not, she wanted to give me them with her own hands. She had a dozen,
and she’s given us six. Our Henry left them with her after his last leave; told her he’d found them under a hearthstone that had been turned up by a shell.’

‘Poor people,’ Sally said, resting her elbows on the rail, and gazing misty-eyed towards the shore. ‘Lost everything, a lot of them.’

‘Aye. If there’d been any chance of getting them back to the rightful owners he might have handed them in, but there’d be none. Somebody would have pocketed them, so I suppose
he reckoned it might as well be him.’

Sally shivered. ‘I can’t imagine what those people must have suffered, seeing their whole villages destroyed, and everything gone. I loved Annsdale, just loved it, heart and soul.
But I would have had to leave it anyway, to go to Stafford.’

He turned away from the rail and spun the coin in the air. ‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good though, bonny lass,’ he said, catching it and replacing it safely in his
pocket.

She nodded at the camera. ‘It looks as if you’re doomed to photography.’

‘As long as it’s not in the back of a shop in Stafford, taking bonny faces.’

‘What will it be then?’

‘Interesting faces. Working faces, starting with the sailors on this ship. Maybe I’ll do a portrait of you, and your Arthur and Frank. Then maybe the miners and their families in
Woolangong. And maybe ex-servicemen’s faces, and sheep farmers’ faces, all sorts. Faces with a story to tell, all through Australia. And if I come across any landlords who aren’t
too talkative, maybe I’ll sometimes have a few bottles of whisky to sell. I know what I’m going to do next, though.’

‘What?’

‘Why, your cabin’s a lot too far away from mine, and I can’t go there. I don’t think you’re supposed to be here, either, standing beside me.’

‘Why, nobody stopped me.’

‘I’m going to see the captain, find out if there’s anybody on board can marry us.’

‘There is,’ she beamed. ‘There’s a Methodist minister. I heard him talking to some of the crew as I was coming back.’

‘We’ll soon be Mr and Mrs Maxfield, then,’ he said, ‘and that’s who we’ll have to be for the rest of our lives.’

The morning sun was scarcely three yards above the sea, and the heat was already oppressive. As the minister pronounced them man and wife a shoal of winged fish arose from the
ocean like sparrows from a cornfield, and all heads turned to watch them.

‘They’re unbelievable!’ one of the Donoghue sisters, who’d had the cabin next to Sally’s, exclaimed, as the whole party moved to the side of the ship the better to
see them.

‘Good heavens, good heavens, I’d never . . .’

‘Absolutely incredible . . .’

‘They don’t know whether they want to be fish or birds!’ Arthur said, squinting against the sun.

‘Flying fish! I never believed they existed,’ Will laughed; clean-shaven now they were certain there was no one aboard who might recognize him. Beads of perspiration stood on his
brow as he looked into Sally’s eyes and, not sparing the miraculous fish another glance, he lifted the hand he’d placed the ring on to his lips.

Despite the sailcloth stretched above them to provide some shade, despite the cold bath Sally had taken before being played onto the quarterdeck with fiddles and squeezeboxes, and despite the
lightness of her white muslin dress, a film of moisture covered the face she lifted to kiss the bridegroom’s cheek. Then, drawing him to the rail to watch the strange creatures, she said,
‘I’d never even heard of them, and I can hardly believe it now, even seeing them with my own eyes! Their wings are just like fairies’ wings in storybooks. But aren’t they
beautiful? They’re going to bring us good luck, Will.’