Sunset Ridge (26 page)

‘Which ones?'

An ambulance driver stood before her. His tunic was patterned with dark stains and an arcing scar down the side of his face showed at least forty stitches.

‘You should have that wound covered,' she said. ‘Let me bandage it for you.'

‘Nurse, which ones?' he asked again, ignoring her concern. ‘I can take only eight from this ward. Two of the horse-drawn ambulances were hit by shell-fire, so now we are even more short-handed.' When no answer came he cleared his throat. ‘I'm sorry, it's the best I can do.'

Nurse Duval appeared and with a slight cough of interruption led the driver away by the arm and began to point out the men who were to be transferred immediately. Nurse Valois observed this random selection with weary detachment. It was the same out on the battlefield. The stretcher-bearers were ordered to bring in the least badly injured, with the critically wounded left until last, often to die in the cold from infected, unattended wounds. Trenches could not afford to be clogged up by the movement of the wounded. Priority was given to moving the dead, the troops and the munitions.

As those who were deemed to have the greatest chance of survival were stretchered out of the tent, Nurse Valois resumed her ministrations. The young man with the crescent-shaped shrapnel wounds was shivering. Draping a blanket over him, she checked Francois' pulse. His breaths were interspersed with soft moans. ‘Rest,' she soothed. There was further damage to his body to attend to, namely a bulbous foot with a seeping wound. Her brow furrowed briefly before smoothing into a practised smile of comfort. From a table she selected swabs and disinfectant and slowly began to clean the leg, before irrigating the suppurating wound. The stink of rotting flesh was hard to ignore. There were two phials of morphine in the tray on the bench behind her. They were continually running out of morphine and she knew she should save it for the more critical patients, but as she reached for the hypodermic needle and administered the painkiller she was conscious only of the suffering she would ease in that moment. The man on the ground was so young and Nurse Valois was certain he would not survive. She glanced at the second phial of morphine. By ending this soldier's pain forever would she not in fact be saving him?

A Red Cross volunteer appeared in the tent with a crate. ‘The plasma has arrived. And one of the doctors said to tell you he is beginning to disperse nurses from the receiving marquee to the different wards now the initial rush has passed.'

‘Thank heavens.' Nurse Valois dropped the second phial of morphine into the pocket of her uniform and, taking the box of plasma, placed it on a table. ‘Help me set this up. I have fifteen patients who need plasma immediately.' When she turned around the volunteer was gone. Very slowly she began to unpack the crate; gradually her practised speed increased. ‘Plasma,' she called over her shoulder to Nurse Duval. The younger woman joined her and together they swiftly hung plasma bags on frames next to the neediest patients and attached tubes to veins.

‘You should take some leave,' her friend suggested. ‘You are exhausted.'

Nurse Valois waved away her concern.

‘Why do you not go and see your family in Paris?'

‘Why do you not visit your mother?' Nurse Valois countered.

They were joined by three more nurses, who quickly turned to the as yet unattended patients. Habit made Nurse Valois check each plasma recipient until she was back at Francois' side. He was young, too young. ‘Right,' she said as she squeezed the plasma bag and checked the tubing running into Francois' arm. ‘Let's have a look at that head wound of yours. And what is that?' She glanced thoughtfully towards the tent opening before calling out to Nurse Duval. ‘I have another with those strange marks.'

‘And I,' the younger nurse replied.

Nurse Valois resumed her task. ‘Well, we might try to get you into a cot, my lad; displace one of your companions who haven't got quite so many wounds to contend with.' The nurse rose wearily, holding a hand to the small of her back. ‘I'm sorry I cannot do more for you.'

A massive animal stood in the tent's doorway. Matted with blood and mud, it lifted its wolf-like head and sniffed the air.

The nurse scanned the surrounds for anything she could use as a weapon. ‘Marianne?' she called out to Nurse Duval at the far end of the tent.

The second nurse caught sight of the animal and backed away. ‘What is it?'

‘Keep still.' Nurse Valois stood rigidly by Francois' side and, with a stay of her hand, bade the three new nurses do the same.

The creature padded into the tent and began to walk to each cot. He sniffed briefly at every occupant before finally turning in the senior nurse's direction.

She stood firm by Francois' side, a hypodermic clutched between her fingers as if a stabbing knife.

‘He won't hurt you.' An ambulance driver filled the tent's entrance. ‘That dog chased us nearly halfway here from the front.'

The nurse backed away as the dog sprang to Francois' side. He sniffed him from head to foot, circled his prone body and then stretched out by his side and howled.

‘I knew it,' the ambulance driver stated.

Nurse Valois looked at the dog and then turned back to the man before her. ‘What do you mean by allowing him in here? This is a hospital not a –'

The ambulance driver walked towards the nurse and held out his hand. In his palm lay a set of identity discs. Intrigued, the nurse picked them up and examined the owner's name.

‘They were in the dog's mouth when the ambulance picked him up.'

The nurse stared at the name written on the discs. Antoine Chessy. The exhausted dog snored at her feet, his great pink tongue strung out across his paws, his hips angular and lean beneath the matted hair.

‘But how did –' Nurse Valois turned to the sleeping dog, then looked in confusion back to the driver, who smiled and nodded.

‘No one thought it possible,' he said, ‘but that's because we're not out there, with them.' He gestured to the men lying in the cots and scattered on the floor. ‘We can't contemplate the horrors nor the possibilities, and so we don't believe. Check his identity discs,' the ambulance driver suggested, tilting his neck to where Francois lay. ‘Apparently the dog belonged to two brothers.'

The nurse leaned over and tentatively lifted the discs from Francois' neck. The dog raised his head and then, assured the woman meant no harm, lowered his shaggy muzzle onto the floor.

‘They –' She looked at the ambulance driver. ‘They say Francois Chessy.' She double-checked the discs she still held.

The ambulance driver nodded again. ‘And that is their dog.' Taking Antoine's identity discs from the nurse, he hung them around the great animal's neck. The bite marks were clearly visible on the soldier at her feet. Despite her disciplined, scientific training, Nurse Valois's eyes grew blurry. This was not the first time such marks had been presented to her. There was no other explanation. Kneeling at Francois' head, she studied the puncture wound. The shape of it was indeed representative of a deep bite, and the surrounding bruising and tearing of skin suggested that the creator had latched on forcefully. Her cheeks burned with the enormity of the realisation. ‘So, this animal, he dragged them to safety?' Confirmation was important to her. Such a feat conjured a word lost in a world at war: hope.

The ambulance driver nodded. ‘The men say his name is Roland.'

Nurse Valois stared at the war-weary dog at her feet. The animal's hair was coarse, crusty with mud, his long muzzle bloody. Beneath the plain garb of her uniform a cross nestled in the soft indentation at the base of her throat. She reached for it now. The boy at her feet was dying and his dog was by his side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset Ridge, south-west Queensland, Australia
February 2000

They were driving back from the western boundary. Every time Madeleine got out of the utility to close a gate the sun bit at her skin. The land lay heavy and silent in the afternoon heat, glazed silver by the sun's rays, as if some other-worldly potter had slipped the earth into a giant furnace, turning the land into a ceramic rendering of silver-strewn browns and beiges. The sun moved to rest momentarily on a distant tree line, sending tendrils of red across both sky and landscape. She slid back into the vehicle, relishing the airconditioning yet aware that she was becoming more attuned to the environment around her.

George was still processing everything the woman at the museum had shared earlier that morning, and Madeleine could tell he wasn't happy. Neither of them was. After the excitement of discovering their grandfather's two hidden sketches, a further search of the homestead had proved futile. They both knew they were lucky to find anything at all, and they believed that the location of the sketches showed that David Harrow's talent was far from appreciated in the homestead when he was growing up – an important fact that would create interest at any exhibition. The idea of an artist suffering either mentally or physically or both in the creation of their work was a powerful image.

They still should have been running on adrenalin after the discovery of the sketch; instead, they were driving around the property as Madeleine tried to understand why neither Jude nor George had told her about her father's alcoholism.

‘I'm sorry you had to hear all that, Maddy. Talk about a gossip.'

She looked at him. ‘Was Dad really an alcoholic?'

George turned down the radio. He had been fiddling with it for the past few minutes. ‘I don't know when it started. He never drank that much in the homestead as far as I know. Sure, he had a rum-and-water before dinner, but that's about as much as I remember, unless he got stuck into the grog after we went to bed.'

‘I don't believe it. All these years I thought he had a mental-health problem not an addiction.'

‘Can't they be one and the same?' George replied.

‘I don't know,' Madeleine answered irritably. ‘Why didn't anyone tell me and how did it become common knowledge?'

George changed down gears as they drove over a stock grid. ‘I guess one of the station hands knew, probably by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's how I found out.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I was riding past the cattle yards one day – I think you and Mum were in Banyan shopping for groceries – and I heard this noise, and there's Dad sitting cross-legged by the cattle crush. I knew he was drunk as soon as I saw him. He was singing and laughing and there were two empty rum bottles on the ground beside him. He didn't see me, so I backed off and left him alone.' He turned to her. ‘I didn't know what to do. I was eleven at the time. Three years later he was dead.'

For a moment Madeleine was too surprised to speak. ‘Oh, George. I'm so sorry, I had no idea.'

‘He probably had stashes of rum around the property. He wasn't the first grazier to fall foul of the bottle, Maddy. There are many stories about bushmen, isolation and grog. I remember asking him for a drink out of his waterbag once and he said it was empty. I think it was probably filled with rum.'

‘Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't Mum?'

‘What would have been the point? You adored him, Maddy.'

‘I had a right to know.'

‘Mum didn't want either of us to know. When I told her about what I'd seen at the cattle yards she said that Dad was just going through a rough patch. She made me promise not to tell you. It was important to her that you were protected. I'm pretty sure that she intended to tell you at some stage in the future, but let's face it, Maddy, after he shot himself would you really have wanted to hear that he was a drunk?'

‘So, his mood swings were caused by his drinking?'

‘I don't know, but they certainly got worse as we got older.'

‘I thought his suicide was the reason Jude didn't want to talk about Dad, and I always thought her attitude was selfish. Maybe I've been too hard on her. It must have been so tough for her, so stressful, with a property to run and two young kids to look after.'

‘How Mum and Dad ever thought they would make a go of the property still amazes me. It was already an albatross by the time Mum had inherited it. It still is, I guess.' George changed gears and reached for the packet of jubes he kept on the dash. Even as a child he had liked them warm and squishy. He sighed as he chewed. ‘Sunset Ridge should have made a motza out of the wool boom during the fifties, like everybody else in the business did.'

‘But it didn't; that was plain in the ledgers you showed me.'

‘Exactly. The property was riding a pretty thin line, and when it was left to Mum she had to make a decision: sell it or try to get it back on its feet. I've often wondered if it was a conscious decision to have us both later in life or whether it was something that just happened naturally.'

‘I know the rest, George,' Madeleine responded sharply. ‘She sold Grandfather's legacy to keep this lump of dirt.
Why
, I will never know.'

‘Why? Because Mum couldn't support herself with her painting, Maddy, and the man she adored was an unemployed charmer – her words, not mine.'

Madeleine's bottom lip dropped.

‘Anyway, I don't know if she had an inkling into Dad's character then, but in the end she chose security, her childhood home, deciding it was better to sell the paintings and use the proceeds to get the property back on track. At least then they would have a roof over their heads and the property to manage.'

‘They could have sold the property and kept the paintings.'

‘Jude was an only child. To her, Sunset Ridge was the only security she had left. I understand her thinking, Maddy. Here she had a home and a ready-made job for her husband.'

Madeleine slumped back in the seat. ‘I can't believe that Jude never told me any of this.'

‘Mum said when we were still both under five Dad became obsessed with winning the Champion Fleece competition at the Banyan Show. She guessed he wanted to please her, to do something to repay the Harrows for what he couldn't provide himself. So, they spent a fortune on stud rams, and the flock did improve substantially. When they finally bred a showable fleece, Dad said it wasn't good enough to be entered in the competition, and no amount of argument would sway him. Mum thought he was afraid of opening himself up to public scrutiny. After that episode he began to lose interest in Sunset Ridge, and a year later she began to notice subtle changes. He wanted to sell out and move back to the city. Dad couldn't understand why they couldn't just live off the sale proceeds. Soon after, the mood swings and drinking began.'

They drove on in silence as the sun sank and a slight breeze stirred the trees as they passed. ‘So considering everything Mum has done to retain the property why doesn't she come back to visit, George?'

‘Because even though she loves Sunset Ridge, the memories will always be too raw.'

It was past seven o'clock, and while neither mentioned it, they both knew that Rachael would be annoyed by their late return. Madeleine watched the evening star emerge from a darkening sky as the faintest smudge of crimson fell away over the horizon. A pool of sadness had gathered in the pit of her stomach as she thought of Jude and of her flawed yet beloved father and the all-too-few years they shared.

‘So, Maddy,' George said with forced brightness, ‘any other news from the village?'

She wiped her nose. ‘Well, the gossip at the museum said that Corally Shaw was admired by all the local boys, and that Grand­father liked Germans.'

Switching on the headlights, George slowed as two kangaroos crossed the road in the halo of light. ‘Not exactly a popular sentiment, I would have thought, after the dreadful casualties the Allies suffered during the war.'

‘Are there any German families around here, George?'

‘Not that I know of.'

‘Well, Grandfather must have said or done something at the time for the subject to still be considered gossip.' Madeleine hesitated. ‘There is one more thing that the woman at the museum mentioned.'

George turned to her, watching her for a moment before asking, ‘What?'

‘She said there was a murder out here.'

‘A murder?' George repeated incredulously. ‘When?'

Madeleine shrugged. ‘I didn't get specifics.'

George laughed. ‘Next thing you'll be telling me that there's a ghost on the place.'

Madeleine punched him lightly on the arm.

‘Don't believe everything you hear, Maddy.' As they neared the homestead George shifted through the gears, finally parking outside the house. ‘So, do you feel more confident about an exhibition now?'

Madeleine thought of the three Australian War Memorial portraits, the two river drawings hanging in Jude's apartment and the drawings discovered in the ceiling of her grandfather's bedroom. Most of all, she thought of her mother and the legacy Jude had lost in her attempt to provide for her family. ‘Yes,' she answered, ‘I do.'

 

After another late dinner, Madeleine sat down at the roll-top desk in her room and began to craft a letter to the director at the Stepworth Gallery. Every few sentences she paused and a doodle would form in a corner of the page, then she would lift the pencil and resume, noting the reasons why the retrospective should be held. With the addition of the work from the Australian War Memorial and the Cubist examples, the argument for an exhibition was now far more compelling. There was also Jude's original 1950s sale catalogue, Sonia's newspaper clippings and the photograph of the three Harrow brothers in their First World War uniforms.

Madeleine coupled the facts with an outline of her grand­father's life, reminding the gallery director that the landscape works only surfaced after his death. No one could doubt his ability as an artist, for David Harrow's landscapes, some in watercolour, others oil, drew favourable comparison to the early Impressionists. She re-read the draft letter. It was newsworthy stuff, but would the director think David Harrow had the pulling power to ensure both sponsorship and crowds? Typing up the letter on her laptop, Madeleine connected the telephone line and then hit the send button on the email. Hanging on the wall above was the picture of the three Harrow boys. It seemed to Madeleine that they looked at her with pride.