Call of the Kiwi, page 26
part #3 of Neuseeland-Saga Series
“And you can’t stay here anyway,” Sarah continued. “The school is going to be closed indefinitely after summer vacation. Mrs. Lancaster has decided to turn the building into a hospital during the war.”
Gloria looked at her confused. There was a war, of course. But not in New Zealand. Yes, they were recruiting volunteers, but since there were no battles here, why a hospital?
Sarah Bleachum read the question on Gloria’s face.
“Gloria, dear, did you never hear of a place called Gallipoli?”
8
Feeling relieved—if also a little ashamed that he had ended up a “nurse boy” again—Roly O’Brien was transferred to Commander Beeston’s medical brigade. He proved to be exceptionally well suited to the work.
“It seems I owe you another one,” Commander Beeston told Jack when the two men met on the beach on a warm July evening. “Your Private O’Brien is worth two of my nurses.” Paddy leaped about in the waves, and the men were in a festive mood. It had been quiet on the front for weeks; apparently the Turks were waiting them out.
Jack waved the compliment away. “I knew Roly would do good work. But you did me a huge favor.” He looked at Paddy. “He’s acclimated to the sound of gunfire, I see.”
“There’s hardly anything to hear these days. But that won’t last. We’re here to claim the road to Constantinople. Not to splash around.” He pointed to a few young soldiers playing in the water.
“You mean we’re going to attack soon?” Jack asked, alarmed. He and his men had been expanding the trench network on the northern flank. The ground was stony and uneven, and extremely difficult to dig through. Any assault would come at a heavy price. On the other hand, the Turks would never expect it.
“Sooner or later. Reinforcements are on the way. More medical brigades too—so they’re expecting more blood.” Commander Beeston petted his dog. “Sometimes I ask myself what I’m doing here.”
Jack did not answer. At least the doctors reduced the suffering of the wounded. He regretted his decision, though he had certainly reached his goal: he no longer thought of Charlotte day and night. The nightmares in which he struck Turkish soldiers again and again and waded through blood in the trenches had supplanted the bittersweet dreams of his wife—and during the day, he thought first and foremost of survival. War had taught him perhaps not to forget the dead but to leave them in peace.
Like all the men he yearned for letters from home. Jack was as happy as a child when his mother wrote with news of Kiward Station. Even Elizabeth Greenwood occasionally managed a letter, as did Elaine Lambert. There was only no word from Gloria, which unsettled Jack more and more. It had been more than six months since he had sent Gloria his first letter from Egypt. She could have answered long ago.
Jack felt lonely since Roly had been transferred. He hadn’t connected with the other men in his platoon. He was now their sergeant, having been promoted after the slaughter in the trenches, and friendships did not develop between soldiers and their superiors. He spent his evenings largely alone, mulling over the senselessness of his existence.
Over the following days, the signs of an approaching offensive multiplied. New troops arrived, and trenches were being dug and secured around the clock. Water tanks were installed and water carried up to them. The men grumbled that they had to do everything themselves. The few pack animals were not assigned to the front.
“Otherwise the enemy would realize that something was brewing over here,” Jack explained. “That’s why we dig at night. Now go, men, it’s in our own interest to surprise the poor fellows. Fifty yards lie between their trenches and ours. We’ll have to cross that.”
On August 5, Jack and the other noncommissioned officers were ordered to a briefing on the beach. Major Hollander laid out the strategy for the planned assault.
“Men, we’re launching an offensive tomorrow. Our goal is to drive the Turks back to Constantinople, and this time we’ll do it.”
“But, sir, if we jump out of the trenches, they’ll shoot down on us like rabbits,” one veteran said. Jack was thinking the same thing.
“Is that cowardice I hear, Corporal?” the major asked. “Afraid of death, soldier?”
“I have no intention of committing suicide,” the man mumbled, though so quietly that only those standing next to him heard.
“Our goal is to break through their left flank. The distances between the trenches are short there, so we should be able to overrun them. To fool them, we’ll begin with a feint attack tomorrow. Our group will then head for Lone Pine for the real attack the day after next.”
Lone Pine referred to a very secure Turkish battle station. The opposing trench network was broad there, and there was plenty of space for enemy troops to gather.
“Our goal is to have our opponent’s troops concentrate there, so we have an easier time on the northern flank. We’ll attack with the second wave. I expect that you’ll support our comrades at Lone Pine and keep the enemy busy from your positions. The actual assault will take place in the afternoon at seventeen hundred thirty. Three whistles, three waves of attack. Godspeed to one and all.”
What did God care about the way to Constantinople?
On his way back to his quarters, Jack ran into Roly.
“Sergeant McKenzie, have you heard? We’re attacking tomorrow.” Roly glued himself to Jack’s heels. Since Jack had more or less saved his life with the transfer, he had become touchingly devoted and now wanted nothing more than to tell Jack what he assumed would be new information. The medical troops had been made aware of the plan of attack in order to make the necessary preparations.
“Just Jack,” Jack corrected him as usual. “Yes, we were just informed. Be glad you don’t have to move out.”
Roly made a face. “But I do have to go out; I’m with the rescue troops. So maybe we’ll see each other tomorrow?”
“We’re positioned on the north flank, Roly, so we have a day’s reprieve. But why did they send you with the rescue troops? Did you do something?”
Roly laughed. “Nah. It’s just that the medical reinforcements didn’t arrive until today. The commander cursed up a storm. Right off the ships and straight into the fight. They don’t even know the basics. So he’s keeping them in the field hospital, and the rest of us have to go. But I don’t mind. I don’t need to go in the trenches.”
“No-man’s-land is dangerous. It gets gruesome, Roly. It’ll be like before, only this time it’s us running over the open field.”
“But we’ve got our white armbands,” Roly said as if they made him invulnerable. “I’ll manage.”
Jack could only wish him luck. The next day he hardly had time to think about his friend. The noise from Lone Pine was infernal. When Jack raised the periscope over the trench’s ridge, he could see the soldiers falling. The Turks were firing across the entire front. Jack and his men grimly returned fire in hopes of wearing down their enemy.
“If we tire them out today, we’ll have a better chance tomorrow,” Jack explained to his men. The younger among them nodded enthusiastically; the older ones only frowned.
“But they change the men on duty,” a lance corporal asserted.
Jack did not respond.
August 7 was a shining midsummer day on the Turkish coast. The sea shimmered in the sun. The scrub on the mountainsides was bleached—and the blood was drying in the no-man’s-land between the fronts. While Jack was listlessly eating his porridge, considering whether to drink his alcohol ration before the battle or hope to survive and celebrate afterward, Roly came by.
“I’ve got your mail,” he said and threw Jack a bundle of letters for his men. “It should raise the men’s spirits to hear from their loved ones. Mary wrote me too.”
Jack sorted through the mail and found a letter from Kiward Station. Still nothing from Gloria.
“How was it yesterday?” he asked.
Roly’s face went pale. “Horrible. So many dead. Their bombs and shrapnel tear men apart, Sergeant McKenzie. They’re doing almost nothing but amputations in the field hospital. If there’s even enough left to cut off. And some of the Turkish trenches are roofed, so be careful. You have to jump over them and then come in through the communications trenches. I know I’m not very smart. But we can’t do it, Sergeant McKenzie. Not with a hundred thousand men.”
Jack nodded. “We’ll do our best, Roly.”
Roly looked at him as if he were not in his right mind and huffed, “And we’ll die for nothing.”
Jack opened his mother’s letter as soon as Roly had gone. He savored hearing her voice in his mind. Though she was not a gifted writer, strong emotions had clearly guided her pen.
Dearest Jack,
You wrote that it’s peaceful where you are on the front, and I can only pray that it stays that way. Every time I receive a letter of yours, I sigh with relief even though I know the letters often take weeks to arrive. You must stay alive. Jack, I miss you so much. All the more so since our hope that Gloria might finally come home won’t be fulfilled soon, or at least not simply. Yesterday I received a call from Kura. She made the call herself and was absolutely furious.
It looks like Gloria disappeared from her hotel in San Francisco. They’ve ruled out kidnapping since she took her travel documents with her. No passage on any ship was booked with her name, so there’s no proof she’s left America, but Kura assumes that she’ll turn up here. How she thinks that will happen is a mystery to me, but she’s practically holding me responsible for Gloria’s flight. Kura is completely beside herself. In the same breath though she said how ungrateful the girl was and cursed Gloria’s inability to make herself useful. It’s a mystery to me why she didn’t simply send the girl home when she wanted to go. In any event Gloria is missing, and I’m very worried. If only I could hope that you would come back soon.
You needn’t worry about the farm. Everything is running well with Maaka’s oversight. The prices of wool and meat are high; everything seems to be making a profit from the war. But I think about you and all the others, for whom the fighting means only suffering.
Take care of yourself, Jack. I need you.
Your mother, Gwyneira McKenzie
Jack buried his face in his hands. So now Gloria too. He lost whatever he loved.
Jack was totally fearless when the first combat whistle finally sounded. Many of the first attackers who leaped out of the trenches were struck when they so much as raised their heads above cover. Only a few managed to run across no-man’s-land, and none reached the opposing trenches.
Then came the second assault wave.
Jack no longer thought; he launched himself out of the trench, and he ran, ran, ran, and almost made it.
Something struck him in the chest. He reached to wipe it away and felt blood. It was strange; it didn’t hurt, but he could not continue running and felt awfully heavy. Jack fell to the ground and tried to understand what had happened. He felt the heat of the sun, looked into the radiant blue sky. His hands no longer responded but simply scratched at the hard ground. The third attack wave raced over him. Now they were fighting over in the Turkish trenches. Jack blinked into the sun.
And then there was a face. A round, youthful face with hair damp from sweat.
“Sergeant McKenzie.”
“Just Jack,” he whispered. He tasted blood and felt like he had to cough. And then he felt nothing more.
A Long Road
GREYMOUTH, CANTERBURY PLAINS, AND AUCKLAND
1915–1918
1
Timothy and Elaine Lambert had no talent as prison guards. Tim had initially insisted that Lilian’s disappearance be punished with house arrest. After all, she had acted against his express orders by “seducing” Ben into that stroll through the fern forest. But after she had served her sentence, Tim forgave his daughter, and Lilian again enjoyed all the freedoms her parents usually allowed her.
Ben, however, was a different story. Florence Biller assembled all her forces to keep her son away from Lilian. His house arrest lasted for months, and she hardly let him out of her sight. In the morning he rode to the mine with her in the car and completed his office work under her watchful eye. At home he was under constant observation.
One day Ben tried to sneak a letter to Lilian out with the mine’s mail, but it was immediately discovered by his mother.
“What rubbish. The girl must be an idiot to fall for this,” Florence said after scanning the poem that Ben had written. “ ‘My heart flows to you with the raindrops.’ Raindrops don’t flow, Ben, they fall. And hearts don’t flow either. Now get to work on these receipts. Balance them with the delivery orders, please, and enter them into the purchase journal. Without any flourishes or rhymes.” Florence crumpled up the poem and its envelope and tossed them out the window.
The young wife of an office messenger who had stopped in to bring her husband lunch heard Florence’s outburst from the anteroom and was moved by the boy’s art. When she left, she picked up the letter, smoothed it out, put it back in its envelope, and threw it in the next mailbox she passed—albeit without putting a stamp on it first. Thus it fell into Elaine’s hands when the letter carrier asked for payment.
Elaine was torn about what to do. Tim would have undoubtedly destroyed the letter, but Elaine could not bring herself to do that. She finally decided to read the letter herself, and then, if it were harmless, she would pass it on to Lilian.
Lilian was outraged when she finally received the opened, crumpled missive.
“Haven’t you ever heard of privacy?” she hissed at her mother. “You didn’t remove anything?”
Elaine shook her head. “I swear,” she replied, laughing. “Besides, it was already crumpled and not properly sealed when it arrived. By the way, reading that made my hair stand on end. If you’re thinking of living off Ben’s writing someday, I don’t see a bright future.”
“The poems are only for me, you know,” Lilian said. “You couldn’t understand them.”
“And then she disappeared into her room for three hours with Ben’s melting hearts,” Elaine later informed her husband, who was just back from a business trip to Westport.
Tim frowned. He was exhausted after the journey over the largely unpaved roads.
“Lainie, this isn’t funny. We had agreed not to support this nonsense. How could you give her the letter?”
Elaine guided Tim to an armchair, helped him to put up his legs, and began to gently massage his shoulders. “This isn’t a prison, Tim. People have the right to read their own mail. I shouldn’t even have opened the letter, but I was trying to be responsible. You know how I feel about this: puppy love is harmless. If we make a production out of it, it will only get worse.”
Tim snorted. “I, for one, am going to watch her more closely in the future. She can be my chauffeur now that Roly’s gone. It’ll keep her busy, and I’ll be able to keep an eye on her. Please just forbid her from writing back to the boy. If Florence finds out, she’ll be on the telephone in a flash.”
Lilian did not reply to Ben’s letter right away, as she knew her answer would land on his mother’s desk. Besides, she was busy for several days learning to drive a car, which she found enormously fun.
But Lilian continued to dream of Ben, whose poems she kept beneath her pillow. She came up with one idea after another to make contact with the boy and finally landed on a plan. She bribed her youngest brother, Billy, with three licorice rolls in exchange for inconspicuously bumping into Ben Biller on Sunday before church service. Pretending to play a game of tag, Billy ran into Ben, almost causing him to fall, and clung fast to him to keep his balance.
“Hollow of the beech tree, cemetery,” Billy whispered importantly. “Where the branches cross to the right, head height.” Billy then winked and peeled off.
Toward the end of the service, Ben stood up and left the church. Florence initially looked upset, but when she spied Lilian with her parents, she seemed reassured. Ben only had to find the paper now. Lilian prayed with genuine enthusiasm for the first time that morning.
She later saw a conspicuously happy Ben in front of the church. The boy was so radiant that Lilian feared his mother might ask questions. However, Florence was chatting with the reverend and did not even notice that Lilian winked at her son. The hollow in the beech tree was a turning point in their relationship.
The period that followed proved an exceptionally exciting one for the young lovers. True, they only saw each other in church, but they kept up a lively written correspondence. Lilian especially was always coming up with new hiding places where she would leave notes or small presents for Ben. Ben was less suited to conspiracy, but followed suit, exchanging her homemade cookies for bouquets of dried flowers, and her lavishly decorated letters—complete with hand-drawn vines in bloom, little hearts, and angels—for new odes to her beauty and intelligence.
Lilian occasionally included quotes from a poetry anthology, but she mostly reported on her daily life—her horse, the car she loved, and of course her burning desire to see Ben again face-to-face.
“Couldn’t you sneak out at night? Do you have a tree outside your window or something like that?” she asked.
Ben had never considered slipping out of his house at night, but he was so enchanted by the idea that he immediately wrote a poem about how Lilian’s hair must shine in the moonlight.
Lilian found that charming, but she was disappointed. In his poems Ben could go on for hours about the heroic deeds he would perform and the dangers he would face to earn a kiss from Lilian’s lips. But in reality he did nothing. Finally the girl decided to act.
“Thursday night, 11:30 in the stables of the Lucky Horse,” she wrote. That meeting place sent blood to Ben’s face: the Lucky Horse was not only a pub but Madame Clarisse’s brothel. He spent several sleepless nights brooding over how his beautiful, innocent Lily could fall into such a den of sin and whether his conscience could condone such a plan. Lilian had no such qualms about it. As always she was thinking practically. The Lucky Horse was a convenient spot because her father met his friends for drinks there every Thursday, and she chauffeured him there and back. Though she was supposed to park in the light of the streetlamp and stay in the car, Lilian knew the area around the Lucky Horse well. When Lilian was little, Elaine had often taken her when she visited Madame Clarisse, and she had played nearby. If Lilian parked in the back after dropping off her father, there was hardly any chance of attracting attention.
Gloria looked at her confused. There was a war, of course. But not in New Zealand. Yes, they were recruiting volunteers, but since there were no battles here, why a hospital?
Sarah Bleachum read the question on Gloria’s face.
“Gloria, dear, did you never hear of a place called Gallipoli?”
8
Feeling relieved—if also a little ashamed that he had ended up a “nurse boy” again—Roly O’Brien was transferred to Commander Beeston’s medical brigade. He proved to be exceptionally well suited to the work.
“It seems I owe you another one,” Commander Beeston told Jack when the two men met on the beach on a warm July evening. “Your Private O’Brien is worth two of my nurses.” Paddy leaped about in the waves, and the men were in a festive mood. It had been quiet on the front for weeks; apparently the Turks were waiting them out.
Jack waved the compliment away. “I knew Roly would do good work. But you did me a huge favor.” He looked at Paddy. “He’s acclimated to the sound of gunfire, I see.”
“There’s hardly anything to hear these days. But that won’t last. We’re here to claim the road to Constantinople. Not to splash around.” He pointed to a few young soldiers playing in the water.
“You mean we’re going to attack soon?” Jack asked, alarmed. He and his men had been expanding the trench network on the northern flank. The ground was stony and uneven, and extremely difficult to dig through. Any assault would come at a heavy price. On the other hand, the Turks would never expect it.
“Sooner or later. Reinforcements are on the way. More medical brigades too—so they’re expecting more blood.” Commander Beeston petted his dog. “Sometimes I ask myself what I’m doing here.”
Jack did not answer. At least the doctors reduced the suffering of the wounded. He regretted his decision, though he had certainly reached his goal: he no longer thought of Charlotte day and night. The nightmares in which he struck Turkish soldiers again and again and waded through blood in the trenches had supplanted the bittersweet dreams of his wife—and during the day, he thought first and foremost of survival. War had taught him perhaps not to forget the dead but to leave them in peace.
Like all the men he yearned for letters from home. Jack was as happy as a child when his mother wrote with news of Kiward Station. Even Elizabeth Greenwood occasionally managed a letter, as did Elaine Lambert. There was only no word from Gloria, which unsettled Jack more and more. It had been more than six months since he had sent Gloria his first letter from Egypt. She could have answered long ago.
Jack felt lonely since Roly had been transferred. He hadn’t connected with the other men in his platoon. He was now their sergeant, having been promoted after the slaughter in the trenches, and friendships did not develop between soldiers and their superiors. He spent his evenings largely alone, mulling over the senselessness of his existence.
Over the following days, the signs of an approaching offensive multiplied. New troops arrived, and trenches were being dug and secured around the clock. Water tanks were installed and water carried up to them. The men grumbled that they had to do everything themselves. The few pack animals were not assigned to the front.
“Otherwise the enemy would realize that something was brewing over here,” Jack explained. “That’s why we dig at night. Now go, men, it’s in our own interest to surprise the poor fellows. Fifty yards lie between their trenches and ours. We’ll have to cross that.”
On August 5, Jack and the other noncommissioned officers were ordered to a briefing on the beach. Major Hollander laid out the strategy for the planned assault.
“Men, we’re launching an offensive tomorrow. Our goal is to drive the Turks back to Constantinople, and this time we’ll do it.”
“But, sir, if we jump out of the trenches, they’ll shoot down on us like rabbits,” one veteran said. Jack was thinking the same thing.
“Is that cowardice I hear, Corporal?” the major asked. “Afraid of death, soldier?”
“I have no intention of committing suicide,” the man mumbled, though so quietly that only those standing next to him heard.
“Our goal is to break through their left flank. The distances between the trenches are short there, so we should be able to overrun them. To fool them, we’ll begin with a feint attack tomorrow. Our group will then head for Lone Pine for the real attack the day after next.”
Lone Pine referred to a very secure Turkish battle station. The opposing trench network was broad there, and there was plenty of space for enemy troops to gather.
“Our goal is to have our opponent’s troops concentrate there, so we have an easier time on the northern flank. We’ll attack with the second wave. I expect that you’ll support our comrades at Lone Pine and keep the enemy busy from your positions. The actual assault will take place in the afternoon at seventeen hundred thirty. Three whistles, three waves of attack. Godspeed to one and all.”
What did God care about the way to Constantinople?
On his way back to his quarters, Jack ran into Roly.
“Sergeant McKenzie, have you heard? We’re attacking tomorrow.” Roly glued himself to Jack’s heels. Since Jack had more or less saved his life with the transfer, he had become touchingly devoted and now wanted nothing more than to tell Jack what he assumed would be new information. The medical troops had been made aware of the plan of attack in order to make the necessary preparations.
“Just Jack,” Jack corrected him as usual. “Yes, we were just informed. Be glad you don’t have to move out.”
Roly made a face. “But I do have to go out; I’m with the rescue troops. So maybe we’ll see each other tomorrow?”
“We’re positioned on the north flank, Roly, so we have a day’s reprieve. But why did they send you with the rescue troops? Did you do something?”
Roly laughed. “Nah. It’s just that the medical reinforcements didn’t arrive until today. The commander cursed up a storm. Right off the ships and straight into the fight. They don’t even know the basics. So he’s keeping them in the field hospital, and the rest of us have to go. But I don’t mind. I don’t need to go in the trenches.”
“No-man’s-land is dangerous. It gets gruesome, Roly. It’ll be like before, only this time it’s us running over the open field.”
“But we’ve got our white armbands,” Roly said as if they made him invulnerable. “I’ll manage.”
Jack could only wish him luck. The next day he hardly had time to think about his friend. The noise from Lone Pine was infernal. When Jack raised the periscope over the trench’s ridge, he could see the soldiers falling. The Turks were firing across the entire front. Jack and his men grimly returned fire in hopes of wearing down their enemy.
“If we tire them out today, we’ll have a better chance tomorrow,” Jack explained to his men. The younger among them nodded enthusiastically; the older ones only frowned.
“But they change the men on duty,” a lance corporal asserted.
Jack did not respond.
August 7 was a shining midsummer day on the Turkish coast. The sea shimmered in the sun. The scrub on the mountainsides was bleached—and the blood was drying in the no-man’s-land between the fronts. While Jack was listlessly eating his porridge, considering whether to drink his alcohol ration before the battle or hope to survive and celebrate afterward, Roly came by.
“I’ve got your mail,” he said and threw Jack a bundle of letters for his men. “It should raise the men’s spirits to hear from their loved ones. Mary wrote me too.”
Jack sorted through the mail and found a letter from Kiward Station. Still nothing from Gloria.
“How was it yesterday?” he asked.
Roly’s face went pale. “Horrible. So many dead. Their bombs and shrapnel tear men apart, Sergeant McKenzie. They’re doing almost nothing but amputations in the field hospital. If there’s even enough left to cut off. And some of the Turkish trenches are roofed, so be careful. You have to jump over them and then come in through the communications trenches. I know I’m not very smart. But we can’t do it, Sergeant McKenzie. Not with a hundred thousand men.”
Jack nodded. “We’ll do our best, Roly.”
Roly looked at him as if he were not in his right mind and huffed, “And we’ll die for nothing.”
Jack opened his mother’s letter as soon as Roly had gone. He savored hearing her voice in his mind. Though she was not a gifted writer, strong emotions had clearly guided her pen.
Dearest Jack,
You wrote that it’s peaceful where you are on the front, and I can only pray that it stays that way. Every time I receive a letter of yours, I sigh with relief even though I know the letters often take weeks to arrive. You must stay alive. Jack, I miss you so much. All the more so since our hope that Gloria might finally come home won’t be fulfilled soon, or at least not simply. Yesterday I received a call from Kura. She made the call herself and was absolutely furious.
It looks like Gloria disappeared from her hotel in San Francisco. They’ve ruled out kidnapping since she took her travel documents with her. No passage on any ship was booked with her name, so there’s no proof she’s left America, but Kura assumes that she’ll turn up here. How she thinks that will happen is a mystery to me, but she’s practically holding me responsible for Gloria’s flight. Kura is completely beside herself. In the same breath though she said how ungrateful the girl was and cursed Gloria’s inability to make herself useful. It’s a mystery to me why she didn’t simply send the girl home when she wanted to go. In any event Gloria is missing, and I’m very worried. If only I could hope that you would come back soon.
You needn’t worry about the farm. Everything is running well with Maaka’s oversight. The prices of wool and meat are high; everything seems to be making a profit from the war. But I think about you and all the others, for whom the fighting means only suffering.
Take care of yourself, Jack. I need you.
Your mother, Gwyneira McKenzie
Jack buried his face in his hands. So now Gloria too. He lost whatever he loved.
Jack was totally fearless when the first combat whistle finally sounded. Many of the first attackers who leaped out of the trenches were struck when they so much as raised their heads above cover. Only a few managed to run across no-man’s-land, and none reached the opposing trenches.
Then came the second assault wave.
Jack no longer thought; he launched himself out of the trench, and he ran, ran, ran, and almost made it.
Something struck him in the chest. He reached to wipe it away and felt blood. It was strange; it didn’t hurt, but he could not continue running and felt awfully heavy. Jack fell to the ground and tried to understand what had happened. He felt the heat of the sun, looked into the radiant blue sky. His hands no longer responded but simply scratched at the hard ground. The third attack wave raced over him. Now they were fighting over in the Turkish trenches. Jack blinked into the sun.
And then there was a face. A round, youthful face with hair damp from sweat.
“Sergeant McKenzie.”
“Just Jack,” he whispered. He tasted blood and felt like he had to cough. And then he felt nothing more.
A Long Road
GREYMOUTH, CANTERBURY PLAINS, AND AUCKLAND
1915–1918
1
Timothy and Elaine Lambert had no talent as prison guards. Tim had initially insisted that Lilian’s disappearance be punished with house arrest. After all, she had acted against his express orders by “seducing” Ben into that stroll through the fern forest. But after she had served her sentence, Tim forgave his daughter, and Lilian again enjoyed all the freedoms her parents usually allowed her.
Ben, however, was a different story. Florence Biller assembled all her forces to keep her son away from Lilian. His house arrest lasted for months, and she hardly let him out of her sight. In the morning he rode to the mine with her in the car and completed his office work under her watchful eye. At home he was under constant observation.
One day Ben tried to sneak a letter to Lilian out with the mine’s mail, but it was immediately discovered by his mother.
“What rubbish. The girl must be an idiot to fall for this,” Florence said after scanning the poem that Ben had written. “ ‘My heart flows to you with the raindrops.’ Raindrops don’t flow, Ben, they fall. And hearts don’t flow either. Now get to work on these receipts. Balance them with the delivery orders, please, and enter them into the purchase journal. Without any flourishes or rhymes.” Florence crumpled up the poem and its envelope and tossed them out the window.
The young wife of an office messenger who had stopped in to bring her husband lunch heard Florence’s outburst from the anteroom and was moved by the boy’s art. When she left, she picked up the letter, smoothed it out, put it back in its envelope, and threw it in the next mailbox she passed—albeit without putting a stamp on it first. Thus it fell into Elaine’s hands when the letter carrier asked for payment.
Elaine was torn about what to do. Tim would have undoubtedly destroyed the letter, but Elaine could not bring herself to do that. She finally decided to read the letter herself, and then, if it were harmless, she would pass it on to Lilian.
Lilian was outraged when she finally received the opened, crumpled missive.
“Haven’t you ever heard of privacy?” she hissed at her mother. “You didn’t remove anything?”
Elaine shook her head. “I swear,” she replied, laughing. “Besides, it was already crumpled and not properly sealed when it arrived. By the way, reading that made my hair stand on end. If you’re thinking of living off Ben’s writing someday, I don’t see a bright future.”
“The poems are only for me, you know,” Lilian said. “You couldn’t understand them.”
“And then she disappeared into her room for three hours with Ben’s melting hearts,” Elaine later informed her husband, who was just back from a business trip to Westport.
Tim frowned. He was exhausted after the journey over the largely unpaved roads.
“Lainie, this isn’t funny. We had agreed not to support this nonsense. How could you give her the letter?”
Elaine guided Tim to an armchair, helped him to put up his legs, and began to gently massage his shoulders. “This isn’t a prison, Tim. People have the right to read their own mail. I shouldn’t even have opened the letter, but I was trying to be responsible. You know how I feel about this: puppy love is harmless. If we make a production out of it, it will only get worse.”
Tim snorted. “I, for one, am going to watch her more closely in the future. She can be my chauffeur now that Roly’s gone. It’ll keep her busy, and I’ll be able to keep an eye on her. Please just forbid her from writing back to the boy. If Florence finds out, she’ll be on the telephone in a flash.”
Lilian did not reply to Ben’s letter right away, as she knew her answer would land on his mother’s desk. Besides, she was busy for several days learning to drive a car, which she found enormously fun.
But Lilian continued to dream of Ben, whose poems she kept beneath her pillow. She came up with one idea after another to make contact with the boy and finally landed on a plan. She bribed her youngest brother, Billy, with three licorice rolls in exchange for inconspicuously bumping into Ben Biller on Sunday before church service. Pretending to play a game of tag, Billy ran into Ben, almost causing him to fall, and clung fast to him to keep his balance.
“Hollow of the beech tree, cemetery,” Billy whispered importantly. “Where the branches cross to the right, head height.” Billy then winked and peeled off.
Toward the end of the service, Ben stood up and left the church. Florence initially looked upset, but when she spied Lilian with her parents, she seemed reassured. Ben only had to find the paper now. Lilian prayed with genuine enthusiasm for the first time that morning.
She later saw a conspicuously happy Ben in front of the church. The boy was so radiant that Lilian feared his mother might ask questions. However, Florence was chatting with the reverend and did not even notice that Lilian winked at her son. The hollow in the beech tree was a turning point in their relationship.
The period that followed proved an exceptionally exciting one for the young lovers. True, they only saw each other in church, but they kept up a lively written correspondence. Lilian especially was always coming up with new hiding places where she would leave notes or small presents for Ben. Ben was less suited to conspiracy, but followed suit, exchanging her homemade cookies for bouquets of dried flowers, and her lavishly decorated letters—complete with hand-drawn vines in bloom, little hearts, and angels—for new odes to her beauty and intelligence.
Lilian occasionally included quotes from a poetry anthology, but she mostly reported on her daily life—her horse, the car she loved, and of course her burning desire to see Ben again face-to-face.
“Couldn’t you sneak out at night? Do you have a tree outside your window or something like that?” she asked.
Ben had never considered slipping out of his house at night, but he was so enchanted by the idea that he immediately wrote a poem about how Lilian’s hair must shine in the moonlight.
Lilian found that charming, but she was disappointed. In his poems Ben could go on for hours about the heroic deeds he would perform and the dangers he would face to earn a kiss from Lilian’s lips. But in reality he did nothing. Finally the girl decided to act.
“Thursday night, 11:30 in the stables of the Lucky Horse,” she wrote. That meeting place sent blood to Ben’s face: the Lucky Horse was not only a pub but Madame Clarisse’s brothel. He spent several sleepless nights brooding over how his beautiful, innocent Lily could fall into such a den of sin and whether his conscience could condone such a plan. Lilian had no such qualms about it. As always she was thinking practically. The Lucky Horse was a convenient spot because her father met his friends for drinks there every Thursday, and she chauffeured him there and back. Though she was supposed to park in the light of the streetlamp and stay in the car, Lilian knew the area around the Lucky Horse well. When Lilian was little, Elaine had often taken her when she visited Madame Clarisse, and she had played nearby. If Lilian parked in the back after dropping off her father, there was hardly any chance of attracting attention.
