Women and War (29 page)

‘Home?' Tara's look was puzzled, causing the Colonel to wonder what effect the rape had had on her state of mind.

‘Yes, Sydney, isn't it?' he reminded her gently. ‘I'm sure we could arrange some leave for you …'

‘No!' Tara said quickly. ‘I don't want any leave.'

‘Oh.' He looked at her narrowly. ‘You are not thinking of leaving us altogether, I hope. It would be a great pity. A tragedy. It won't be easy for you, I know, but we shall all be doing our utmost to help you adjust. And you will be working for me. You won't have to face hordes of people and you may depend on me to look after you.'

A knife edge of hatred for all men scythed through Tara. They were all the same when it came to the crunch, weren't they? Maybe she did not know who the bastard was who had raped her but he did not really differ in any way that mattered from all the others – Red, Dimitri, the renegade wharfies, the CO … Only one man is indifferent, she thought. Richard. And if he knew the truth about me, he wouldn't want me.

Weak tears choked in her throat and ran down her cheeks. The CO rose, well meaning but embarrassed. ‘Look, you're still not strong, m'dear. A thing like this can affect you in many ways. It may be that I should get Captain Kylie to have a chat with you.'

‘No, thank you!' Tara said, horrified. Captain Kylie was the psychology expert, the doctor called in when men went ‘troppo' – or worse. The very thought that she might need his attentions was enough to make her want to cry all the harder, but she controlled herself with an effort. ‘No – I'll be all right.'

‘Good. Good.' He patted her on the shoulder. ‘We're all behind you, Tara.'

She nodded and wished that she could take some comfort in the sentiment. At times like this it looked like being a long road back.

Richard Allingham pulled the ute into a clearing beneath the gums and switched off the engine. Then he turned to Tara who was sitting beside him, sliding his arm along the back of the seat and around her shoulders.

‘Would you like to walk for a bit – or just sit?'

‘Oh …' she hesitated, tossing it around in her mind. ‘I'm bone lazy, really. For choice I'd sit and sit, especially since you were lucky enough to get the keys to the ute today. But I suppose we ought to stretch our legs.' She giggled and he thought it was one of the most heartening sounds he had ever heard.

Six weeks now had passed since the attack, six weeks when he had anxiously watched as the cuts and scratches healed on her face and body and wondered what would happen to the scars on her mind.

Oh, what wouldn't he like to do to the bastard responsible if ever he got his hands on him! But he had never been caught. For a time there had been the fear that the monster might strike again but so far at least that fear had proved unjustified. The nurses still walked from the wards to their quarters in twos – all except Anastasia Bottomley who boasted that any man who attacked her would soon wish he had never been born. But then Anastasia was not Tara. Anastasia was a formidable woman, more than capable of taking care of herself, whilst Tara …

Tara needed looking after. He was supposed to have been doing just that on the night of the concert and he had failed. He intended to make very certain he did not fail again.

The Dry had really taken hold now, the lush greenery becoming withered and yellow, and the dry earth spewed up in red clouds from the track. It was hot, but not so hot as to be unbearable, except sometimes between noon and two or three. When he took her out, Richard usually managed to split his duty so that they could get the benefit of the late afternoon. It was safer to drive on the Track during the day – in the dark there was always the danger of hitting a buffalo or kangaroo. But that was not his only reason for choosing to take her out during the hours of daylight – after what had happened he thought that perhaps Tara might be more comfortable in the company of a man whilst it was light. She was, after all, a young and innocent girl – heaven only knew how such a thing could affect her. He had seen for himself the way she shied away from the CO whenever he patted her hand or knee – and been surprised that Adamson had not noticed it himself. But then Adamson did seem to have a blind spot where Tara was concerned. Richard thought back to the night of the concert remembering how he had rescued Tara, and suffered another pang of guilt that he had not completed the duty.

‘Are we going to walk then, or have you decided you can't be bothered?' Tara asked.

She was smiling at him, her eyes sparkling blue behind the dark fringe of lashes, and he thought she looked like an enchanting child. Something not quite chivalrous stirred within him. He moved abruptly, opening the door of the ute.

‘We'll walk.'

She waited for him to come around and help her down, putting her hands on his shoulders and jumping down onto the track. Again he felt that tiny imp of desire, again he turned away too sharply – and failed to see the little frown that puckered between her eyebrows.

For a while they walked in silence. The sun was still high and hot, the trees giving little shade and most of nature seemed to be sleeping.

‘I heard the girls say there's a water hole out here somewhere,' Tara said: ‘If we brought bathing costumes we could swim.'

Richard did not answer. He was wondering how he could bear not to touch Tara if she was wearing a bathing costume.

‘What's wrong?' she asked.

‘Nothing. Perhaps we ought to be getting back.'

‘Oh, do you think so?' Her voice was flat. ‘ We only just got here.'

‘I know …' He glanced at his watch. ‘We came farther out today. It will take us longer to get back.'

Stilt she said nothing. He found her silence unnerving. Tara was always such a chatterbox. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, she caught hold of his arm. He almost jumped at the touch of her fingers on his bare skin and turned to see her looking up at him, a challenge in her eyes.

For a long moment she held his gaze then she took her hand away and he saw the tears leap in her eyes. Tara, who had scarcely ever cried before that damned attack …

‘I'm sorry,' she said abruptly. ‘You can't bear to have me touch you, can you?'

He ran a hand through his thick fair hair. ‘What do you mean?'

‘You blame me for what happened. And you can't touch me because you keep remembering …'

‘No!' he said sharply. ‘No, of course I don't blame you. If I blame anyone I blame myself.'

‘Maybe that's even worse. But whoever you blame, you don't like to touch me. You think I'm not clean.'

‘That's nonsense. But it is going to take a very long time for you to get over what happened. A girl like you, young, inexperienced …' He saw the shadow flick across her face at his words and misread it. ‘If it had been one of the older girls maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, but … No, I shouldn't say that, of course. Something like that shouldn't happen to any woman. But when it's an innocent girl like you …'

She turned her head away but not before he had seen the shadow darken.

‘Tara …' Involuntarily, he put his hand on her shoulder and instantly she turned back, chin lifted, eyes full of … what? Her movement sent his hand sliding along her shoulder towards the nape of her neck; his thumb brushed the skin where it was warm and damp above the collar of her cesarine dress and below the line of her curls.

‘Yes,' she said.

He wondered what she meant, but only for a moment. His mind was too full of the nearness of her. Her upturned face, lips parted; the brush of her breast against him; the whisper of her breath on his chin.

‘Touch me. Please touch me,' she said.

He brought up his other hand, laying his fingertips on her check. It felt soft and rounded, velvelty like a child's though as he stroked upwards he felt the cheekbone coming closer and closer to the surface as he moved towards her ear. Up past her eyes he let his fingers run, touching the edge of silky brow, and across her forehead to the bridge of her nose. It was small and straight, that nose. His fingers moving like the fingers of a blind man he explored it, down to her upper lip, then circled her mouth before moving in to touch her lips.

All the while she stood motionless, but as his fingers reached the centre of her lips she pouted them into a kiss, taking in just the very tip so that he was reminded of a sea anemone opening slightly in the gently moving tide.

‘Thank you,' she said.

Emotion was thick in his throat, he thought he would choke with it. Gently, very gently, he drew her towards him, placing his lips where his fingers had been. He felt a shudder run through her, felt her breath coming out on a sigh and then he was kissing her, holding her, caressing her.

Oh Tara, Tara, all soft roundness. Oh Tara, perverse and funny, spirited and courageous, vulnerable yet resilient …

She pulled her head away, looking at him from beneath those long thick lashes, and he felt his stomach contract.

‘Perhaps we ought to be going back now,' she said. ‘But we can come back here again, can't we? There will be other times?'

He touched his lips to her forehead again. ‘Oh yes,' he said.

When she was adjudged fit enough to resume duties the CO came to see Tara. ‘ Well, m'dear, Bruce Callow seems to think it would do you good to take on some light duties. I explained you were coming to work for me and he agreed it was just the job for you.'

‘No,' said Tara.

The CO swabbed at his face with a large khaki handkerchief. It was a hot day and the perspiration was trickling down towards his sandy moustache.

‘I won't overwork you – give you my word on that. Make me a nice cup of Earl Grey, keep my desk tidy, generally help about the place and …'

‘No,' Tara said again. ‘I'm sorry, sir, but I really would prefer to go back to my old duties.'

‘Nursing orderly?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Hmm!' He snorted, and wiped the droplets of perspiration out of his moustache. ‘I thought you were quite agreeable to the change in duties.'

‘That was before …' Tara broke off. ‘I'd rather stay where I am.'

The CO folded his handkerchief and placed it in the pocket of his shorts. ‘I could make it an order.' He looked up, noted the mutinous set of Tara's lips and continued hastily: ‘ But I won't. Perhaps when you are feeling quite fit again you will change your mind.'

‘Perhaps,' Tara said. And the CO had no way of knowing the vow she had made in the weeks of her convalescence and was making again now as she looked him straight in the eye. Never, never again will I place myself in a man's power. No, no matter what it costs me.

The following week Tara went back to work on the wards. Her training was intensified now, she discovered, and she was treated less as a maid of all work and more as a student. Throughout September and October she moved from ward to ward and department to department gaining knowledge and experience.

Was it because of what had happened, she wondered? Or because of her status as Richard's girlfriend? Or merely because, with the war intensifying its stranglehold, more men were needed for the front line and more women had to be fully trained to take their places.

What a year it had been! In Europe, distant in miles but not in thoughts, England and Germany were bombing the hearts out of each other's cities. In the deserts of North Africa, the ‘Rats of Tobruk' with many Australians amongst them were holed up defying the might and cunning of Rommel. But it was here in the Pacific, where the Japs were rampant, that the greatest danger to Australia lay. They had suffered defeats in May and June, it was true, in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, but the fighting that had followed, and was still continuing, was fierce and bloody – and oh so close to home shores!

As changes were made to gear up the medical services to meet the new challenges, there were movements amongst the staff of 138 and faces Tara had become familiar with disappeared from the scene as they were posted elsewhere – one officer to a special burns unit, a detachment of nurses to a fever isolation hospital in the south, and George Marshall, the dental officer who had compèred her concert, despatched to an AGH in Queensland where he was needed to help deal with casualties suffering fractured jaws as a result of battle injuries.

Kate Harris was seconded to Leaping Lena, the hospital train, an uncertain contraption comprised of converted cattle trucks which huffed, puffed and slithered twice-weekly from the Adelaide River to Katherine and back again. Tara missed her but thought it was probably good for her to be doing something completely different – it would help to keep her mind off the fact that she had still received no news of her fiancé in the hands of the Japs in Singapore.

What would I do if it were Richard? Tara wondered. I'd go crazy, so I would. Not to know whether he was wounded or sick, alive or even dead. She shivered and the shiver seemed to come from that cold place inside her that lay just beneath the surface, a lair where vague apprehensions and insidious fears lurked and the tiny voice of caution which niggled at her sometimes in the dead of night, warning her that loving a man as much as she loved Richard was an affront to a jealous God.

Not that their relationship had progressed quite as fast as Tara had hoped. They spent most of their spare time together, it was true, walking in the hills and driving out when Richard was able to get the keys of a ute to explore the countryside within reach from Pine Creek to Edith Falls, where freshwater crocs lived in the deep rock pools. Sometimes, they went for chop picnics with a dozen others, their appetites sharpened by the fresh air and satisfied by the freshly harvested fruit thoughtfully supplied by a local grower. Or they went to the picture shows and mess dances that were arranged by the surrounding camps. But whatever they did Richard remained slightly aloof, treating Tara with an old-world courtesy which was gratifying but also slightly frustrating. It was wonderful, of course, to be placed on a pedestal, to have her wishes considered, to be treated like a lady. But Tara also found it confusing and not a little disconcerting. When a man grabbed you at least you knew he found you attractive – in Tara's world men took what they wanted or at least tried to. If they did not try it probably meant they did not want.