BURRANGONG, SEPTEMBER 1978
The dark water had grown higher, lapping around the rubbish bin, which also leaked. At least its solidness meant the flood could not wash him away, not unless it grew higher and stronger still. Arjun could feel the water’s coldness nibbling his ankles, see its moonlit gleam where the starlit sky met the mountains to the west, and almost to the fuzz of light where people slept safe and dry in beds. Mum and Dad wouldn’t be sleeping. Were they waiting by the edge of the dark river as survivors were ferried from the mall, hoping their son might be in one of the boats? Were they staring across the water, vainly hoping they might see him, just as he longed to see their faces, feel the warmth of their arms?
He was cold, despite the Anzac trousers, despite the lining of his shoes: a cold that seemed to seep the substance from his bones.
‘Are you getting wet?’ He tried to keep his voice from trembling. If the water was at his ankles high up in the bin, it must have reached the seat of the motorbike.
‘I’m all right.’ Her voice was a faint croak.
‘Please, Mrs McLain . . . please keep talking.’ This world was dark and stank of flood. Her story was grim, but it was from far away, and must have had a happy ending, as she was here, alive. He didn’t know much about World War I, but it had ended in 1918, and this had all happened at the end of 1917.
Could this old woman truly have played an important part in the ending of the war? ‘Did you really win the war that night?’
‘No,’ she said, her voice expressionless against the lapping of the water. ‘We didn’t win the war that night.’
Something splashed behind them. Arjun reached out and found Mrs McLain’s cold hand and grasped it tight. ‘What was that?’ Impossible to keep the terror from his voice.
He heard more movement, then stillness once again. How could so much water be so silent, except the lips that lapped and sucked at trees and at the rubbish bin and motorbike? Maybe monsters live deep down in river mud, he thought desperately, and come out at night to hunt their prey. Bunyips used to creep out to drag people into the cold water . . .
He peered around in the starlight. A black blob stood motionless a couple of metres away.
‘There it is,’ he whispered. ‘Behind you.’
The dark shape didn’t move.
Mrs McLain turned. ‘Wallaby,’ she decided. ‘Poor thing — it must be terrified of us.’
‘How did it get here? Can wallabies swim?’
‘That one must have. I’ve seen a film of a wallaby doing a kind of dog paddle in flood waters. The water’s up to its haunches. We must be away from the main current, or it would have been washed away. Us, too, maybe.’
‘Will . . . will it be okay?’
‘As long as we don’t make any sudden sounds to scare it back into deeper water.’
And as long as the flood rises no further, thought Arjun. The water felt like it had stopped its advance now, but what if there was another storm upstream?
The wallaby shook itself, an unmistakable sound, hopped twice, then paused, apparently realising that having its head and shoulders out of the water was the only safety it could find. Arjun wondered how many other animals had been taken by the flood. Kangaroos might have outrun it, and dogs, and maybe cats could climb a tree. Cattle could run too, but they’d be blocked by fences.
He forced his mind away. Ancient tragedy was easier to bear tonight.
‘Did anyone go back to bury Lieutenant Seabrook?’
He sensed her trying to see his face in the darkness. The stars glowed above her like tiny explosions. Arjun remembered that was exactly what most of them were — distant suns that might give life, not bring death in war.
‘No one went back for him,’ Mrs McLain said at last. ‘There were burial parties, sometimes — but mostly the burial parties just took the identification tags from the bodies, or any letters from their pockets. But at Cambrai every man was needed to keep pushing forwards as the tanks forged a path for us.’
‘You all just forgot him?’
‘Have you any idea how many men died every day back then? This whole flood wouldn’t have tears enough to weep for them. But no, I didn’t forget him. I asked Major Galbraith to add a note from me when he sent the telegram that would eventually notify his parents. I sent his parents a letter too, when I finally got home, telling them how we’d worked together. The Seabrooks and I kept writing for years.’
A pause, and then she added, ‘I think his parents thought perhaps we had become sweethearts. We hadn’t — nothing like that at all. But he’d had no young lady friend waiting for him. Maybe it gave his family comfort, thinking he’d found love towards the end.’
‘Did Major Galbraith survive that day?’
‘Yes, he was waiting when we reached the trench.’
‘Did . . . did you love Major Galbraith?’
She paused. Her voice trembled with cold as she finally said, ‘Yes. People say there’s no such thing as love at first sight, but there is. Just most times, it’s a kind of love that doesn’t last.’
It felt weird to be talking to an old woman about love. Hardly any adult did talk to young people about it, just ‘the big sex talk’ and about respect and stuff. Maybe they thought young people learned about love from the movies. The air moved soft and dark about them. He suddenly felt he could ask her anything.
‘Was yours a lasting kind of love?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did Major Galbraith tell you he loved you that night?’
He was sure she was smiling now. ‘We were thrusting a spear into the heart of the German army, and trying to end a war. What do you think we talked about?’