Blue Smoke (13 page)

‘Settle down, Duncan,’ McIndoe said blandly. ‘We’ve turned the lights off. It’s pitch black in here.’

‘Oh.’ Duncan felt even more pathetic now.

McIndoe said, ‘I’m going to turn a torch on, but I’ll keep my hand over it, all right? I want you to tell me if you can see anything. Anything at all.’

There was another tiny click, a pause of the deepest silence, then Duncan started to laugh.

‘Ow!’ he yelped. His bandaged hands flew up to his mouth, freed now of the heavy dressings and unaccustomed to stretching far enough to accommodate a decent laugh, and he swore again as they came in contact with the raw skin of his face.

‘Careful,’ Claire warned. ‘Now, what can you see?’

‘Mostly nothing, but I can just see four pink sausages, or something like that, with lines of red between them. In a sort of a ball.’

In the barely lit room, both Claire and McIndoe smiled.

McIndoe took his hand off the torch and positioned it on the table facing away from Duncan. ‘What about this?’

‘I can … yes! I can see an outline of a chair, and the bottom of some curtains, and a cabinet or something, with shelves on it.’

McIndoe turned the torch around then, so that the room was at least half illuminated.

And Duncan turned himself around, so he could see what he had been longing to look at for weeks now.

Claire Pearsall’s hair was a thick, unruly dark brown and framed a bold face set with sparkling brown eyes, an aquiline nose and a wide, full mouth. Her skin was creamy and smooth like that of so many English girls, and her generous figure looked firm and toned, probably from belting about the wards all day and lifting patients like himself. And she was smiling at him.

Duncan smiled back, but carefully so as not to hurt his mouth.

‘Well, then,’ McIndoe said, ‘I don’t think we have to worry too much about your vision now, do we?’

Duncan couldn’t say anything; he was still gazing at Claire.

McIndoe switched a reading lamp on and the torch off. ‘We have to bandage your face again, although we’ll leave your eyes uncovered. Do you want to have a look at the damage now, or leave it for a bit?’

Duncan took a deep breath. ‘No, now, thanks.’

McIndoe nodded. He took a hand mirror off the implements tray and passed it over.

Duncan slowly raised the mirror to his face and looked into it.

After a minute he lowered it to his lap, where it rested, mirror side down.

Billy Deane also had his eye on a girl.

He nudged his mate, Harry Tomoana, sitting next to him in the bar of a small English country pub, and said, ‘I’m going to ask her out, I’ve decided.’

Harry took a huge drink of his beer, then wiped the froth off his top lip. ‘You’ll be lucky. You’re too black and ugly.’

This wasn’t true. Billy had grown into a handsome young man, with his father’s pale brown skin and striking bone structure, and
his mother’s enormous dark eyes. But Harry could be right — the local people hadn’t seen many dark-skinned men before the Maori Battalion had arrived at Camp 49B, and although they had been friendly, especially after the boys had received their new uniforms with the ‘New Zealand’ shoulder flashes, the village fathers might not take to the idea of their daughters going out with the big, brown ‘Moo-ree’ men.

The battalion had been in England now for several months, and being on dry land after six weeks at sea had been an almost universal relief. The ocean voyage to Gourock near Glasgow in the luxury liner
Aquitania
, requisitioned for the duration of the war for use as a troopship, had at first been exhilarating, especially the send-off in Wellington when the whole ship had sung ‘Now Is the Hour’ when the Governor-General came out in a launch to farewell them. They had then joined up with the rest of the convoy carrying the Second Echelon, and had felt immense pride in the fact that they were all going off to war.

But then had come the seasickness, followed by increasing boredom with the shipboard menu, lavish though it was. Used to fairly basic fare, most of the men had been startled to be presented with such dishes as Salisbury steak served with creamed spinach and French-fried potatoes, or roast beef with horseradish sauce, or pressed beef or Oxford brawn, followed by sago or custard pudding and then coffee. The problem was soon solved, however, by one enterprising entrepreneur who broke into the large supply of mutton-birds stored in the ship’s hold, and sold them at a healthy profit to those who preferred more traditional food.

The convoy had stopped at Fremantle for a couple of days to give the troops a chance to go ashore, but after that the monotony of life at sea began to set in. Then they were told they weren’t going to Egypt after all and that the convoy was changing course, which had disappointed all those raring to go into battle.

There were meal times, and there was frequent training, but the growing heat began to fray tempers even further, which led to fights and worse — two stokers working in the engine room committed suicide by jumping overboard. Concerts and community sing-alongs went some way towards alleviating the lethargy and boredom, and new songs did the rounds like wildfire. The tune adopted by the battalion as their marching song, with its rousing, homegrown lyrics about victory and glory, was very popular. But perhaps even more favoured was a song introduced by a mate of Billy’s, one Ruru Karaitiana, a Ngati Kahungungu man who in peacetime was a piano player in a band.

He called his song ‘Blue Smoke’, and its melancholic opening words — ‘Blue smoke goes drifting by into the deep blue sky/And when I think of home I sadly sigh …’ — could be heard all over the ship at various times. Billy was very fond of it himself, and even went as far as writing down the words and the chords and sending them back to his family in one of his infrequent letters.

There were the official housie games with a heady, threepenny limit, or the unofficial games of poker and two-up, at which Billy excelled, having picked up the skills from the farmhands and drovers who had passed through Kenmore over the years. By the time the battalion disembarked in the UK he had a very tidy sum stashed away in his kitbag.

At Cape Town, the
Aquitania
was too big to go into port, and they were forced to gaze in frustration at the awesome sight of Table Mountain towering above the town. They had already been warned that the white South Africans might be more than a little frosty, and the fact they couldn’t go ashore did little to improve the prevailing mood. When they were able to disembark for less than a day after the
Aquitania
moved to the port of Simonstown, they were taken on a tour of local vineyards in buses, then driven to Cape Town for a cup of tea and a bun. Then those who hadn’t
already absconded were let loose for an hour and a half to explore and spend all their money, though it was actually only twenty-five minutes after they’d sat in a drill hall listening to a lecture on how to behave.

The battalion, though, had its revenge. By the time the scores and scores of huge, green lobsters filched from the clear waters of the bay at Cape Town were discovered on board the
Aquitania
, it was far too late to do anything about it.

Eventually, the convoy was told its destination. Zigzagging through the English Channel, now accompanied by a flotilla of destroyers, the convoy passed the wreckage of torpedoed Allied ships. The New Zealanders watched in awe as an oil tanker ahead of them blazed until it sank in a boiling cloud of steam hundreds of feet high.

On 16 June, the convoy docked at the Scottish port of Gourock, and soon afterwards the Maori Battalion headed for the south of England to begin training for its defence. The four days’ leave in London on the way down had been interesting, especially the underground railway system, which had been a real novelty, but the general consensus had been that the city was big, old, dirty and very expensive, and no one was particularly sorry to be moving on. Ewshott, on the other hand, had been a small, very pleasant village surrounded by gentle fields and meadows criss-crossed by tree-lined lanes. Viscount Bledisloe had visited the battalion there, and so had King George VI himself.

On 9 July the battalion had packed up and marched about five miles to the little hamlet of Dogmersfield, where they were now stationed. Since arriving they’d taken part in endless exercises and manoeuvres designed to thwart and repel the Germans should they land. It was during one of these that Billy’s company fell under a cloud of suspicion when a disgruntled farmer complained that a mature pig had disappeared from its paddock at about the same
time that D Company had passed through. The inference was that the pig had been disposed of in the traditional Maori manner, and the battalion subsequently received a bill from New Zealand Force Headquarters for twelve pounds, to go towards compensating the irate farmer. A newly promoted Colonel Dittmer was compelled to make several visits to HQ to argue that his men would never do such a thing, which increased his mana considerably. Together with the recent memory of an excellent feed of fresh pork, it raised the troops’ spirits markedly.

But between the route marches and intensive exercises there had been time for leave, and it had been on one of these breaks in their training, late in September, that Billy had met Violet Metcalfe. He, Harry and another mate named Rangi were in the village one morning when the alluring smell of fresh bread had compelled them to follow their noses to a small bakery at the end of the row of shops that made up the short main street.

The shop window displayed a selection of loaves and buns, and inside they could see more arranged temptingly on the counter and on the wooden racks behind it.

‘I’m starving,’ Billy said. ‘Let’s go in.’

Ferreting through their pockets they came up with enough change to buy themselves a decent feed, and jostled each other through the doorway to get in first.

The day was already warm, but inside the air was hot and humid, the vicious heat from the big brick ovens permeating the entire shop. A sweating, red-faced man in a cook’s whites was removing steaming loaves with the aid of a long tool like a flat shovel, and at the counter stood a young girl.

‘Good morning,’ she said shyly in a lilting Surrey accent. ‘Can I help you?’

Oh yes, Billy thought immediately, I’m sure you could help me. The girl had shoulder-length hair that was almost white and as fine
as silk, parted to one side and clipped back above her small ears to keep it off her face. Her eyes were the most vibrant blue, and her lips a natural, strong pink, almost matching the flaming patches on her cheeks and neck caused by the heat. Elsewhere her complexion was alabaster, and her eyebrows and long lashes were fair, but not as pale as her hair. To Billy she looked like a patupaiarehe, a fairy, for some reason condemned to stand behind this shop counter flogging loaves of bread to mere mortals.

The three soldiers filled the small shop, but she did not seem intimidated.

‘Morning,’ Billy said. ‘We’d like, um, what do we want, boys?’

‘Two loaves, the ones with the seeds on, and six of those buns with the currants,’ Harry said immediately.

‘That won’t be enough to go around.’

‘No, that’s just for me. You can order your own!’

The girl dipped her head, and Billy was sure she was trying to hide a smile.

‘All right then, we’ll have four of the loaves, and a dozen buns, thanks, love. No, make that fifteen. And two of those custard things, eh? They look nice.’

The girl set about putting the baked goods into bags and lining them up along the top of the counter. When she’d finished, she added up the amount and Billy handed the money over.

‘Thanks, love,’ he said. ‘And have you got a name?’

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Have you?’

Billy whipped off his cap. ‘Billy Deane, Private, D Company, 28 Maori Battalion, Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force, at your service.’

‘A Moo-ree?’

‘No, a
Maori
.’

She blushed then, at having pronounced the word incorrectly. ‘Oh, beg your pardon. Violet Metcalfe.’

Billy thought Violet was the perfect name for her — it matched her eyes. He stuck his hand out over the counter.

‘Pleased to meet you, Violet Metcalfe.’

Her hand was small and damp, but her grip was firm, not at all what Billy had expected.

The man came out then, wiping his hands on his apron. He nodded and said, ‘Lads,’ Then, to the girl, ‘You’ve work to do, Vi.’

Billy took the hint and they left.

Outside, when he opened the bag containing the custard buns, he found that Violet had given him three instead of two. Turning around, he thought he caught a glimpse of her watching him through the window, but couldn’t be sure.

Now, sitting in the pub, after having thought about her almost constantly for four days, he’d made up his mind to go back to the bakery and ask her out, even if Harry did think he was wasting his time.

‘That might have been her old man,’ Harry added unhelpfully. ‘Don’t think he liked the idea of her chatting up the customers, especially us. He was a big fella, too.’

‘Not as big as me,’ Billy shot back.

‘No, not as tall, but he was built like one of your koro’s prize bulls.’

‘So? I’ll just have to make sure I charm him.’

Harry finished his beer, and burped satisfyingly. ‘Away you go then.’

The next time Billy was in Dogmersfield village he made a point of dropping in to the bakery, having first checked his reflection in a shop window a few doors down, slicking down his hair under his cap and making sure his teeth and face were clean.

She was there behind the counter, as he’d prayed she would be.

‘Hello again, Violet Metcalfe,’ he said as he sauntered casually into the shop, although his heart was skittering in his chest.

‘Hello yourself, Billy Deane,’ she replied, a smile lighting up her face.

Billy chanced a quick look towards the ovens, wondering if the old man was there.

‘He’s out, if it’s my da you’re looking for.’

Billy nodded, slightly relieved. He cast about for something clever or impressive to say, but failed. ‘Thanks for the extra custard bun. They were really nice.’