‘You’re right there, mate. OK Cheerio, Rosie!’
‘Hooray, Rosie!’
They moved away, their heavy boots crunching up the loose shingle.
‘Had a good day, Roz?’ Maurice Sanders cried.
Private Pawcett and Corporal Brayling picked up their pace a little, the better to be away from whatever their mate was about to say to the Farquharson girl. No doubt about it, she knew she had a face on her and a fair shift of a shape at that, but Sanders couldn’t half push his luck at times.
‘He needs to go easy on her, can’t play around with a girl like that and not come unstuck in the end,’ said Corporal Brayling.
‘As if you’d know,’ sniggered Private Pawcett.
‘I wouldn’t want to know, would I? Not with my Ngaire hapū and the baby coming soon enough. I’m not like you blokes.’
‘Nah sport, sure you’re not.’
‘I’m not,’ Brayling insisted, his step slowing, his voice dangerously low.
Pawcett laughed unkindly, the extra pint he’d downed before they left the pub meant he didn’t notice the change in Brayling’s tone, ‘You mean her old man’d drag you off back to the pā and go old-style Māori on you if you cheated his girl?’
Brayling stopped in his tracks and Pawcett realized he’d gone too far. In the faint spill of light from the porch of Civilian 1, the solid and strong Māori man looked as fierce as ever he’d seen him. Pawcett kicked himself, his mother had always said his mouth would get him hung one of these days.
‘Mate, I’m sorry,’ Pawcett said. ‘I didn’t mean it, not like that, but you’ve got to admit, your Ngaire’s old man is one hell of a—’
‘Rangatira? Chief? Too right he is,’ Cuthbert Brayling answered his own question. ‘And his iwi and mine go back a long way, all the way “back to the pā”, if you like. I’d never muck around with these girls like you lot. My Ngaire, she’s a queen, she’s everything to me.’
‘Cuth, mate, play the—,’ Pawcett stopped himself just in time, ‘Play the game.’
Their voices faded in the darkness. They’d served together now for almost two years, alongside their reckless mate Sanders, trusting each other with their lives, comrades and brothers, and it was only back in New Zealand that the differences between them became bigger than the bonds forged in action. They were both relieved to be alongside the hospital offices now, it meant they had to hush, it meant they had to work together. If there was one thing they’d learned in the army it was how to work together.
Brayling doubled over and started moaning, Pawcett held him up, they stumbled towards the door of Military 1, making as much noise as they could, no sneaking in, no pretending they hadn’t been out playing the wag.
Pawcett called out as they crossed the threshold, ‘Hey Nurse, Nursey! Cuth’s only been and gone sleepwalking again, we told you what a palaver it was with him over in Africa, give us a hand girlie, will you?’
The little nurse started up at his words and hurried to the porch door, shushing him as she went.
Pawcett kept up his loud recitation, well aware that none of the men in the ward would be sleeping yet and they’d enjoy the scene he was about to give them.
‘Problem is, Nurse, you lot insist we have an afternoon kip every day, but where’s the rest when we’ve to keep an eye out for Cuth? A caution he is for sleepwalking, honest. And Gawd knows where Sanders has got to. He was worried about Cuth heading over to the river, stone me if we’re not in for a flood the minute that storm hits, or worse, what if he’d got into one of those tunnels under here? The place is riddled with them. Be a love and help us out, will you?’
Sanders meanwhile, was offering Rosamund his best self-satisfied grin. Faced with his cheery good looks, his twinkling eyes and the dark curl that fell over his left eye, no matter how often he combed it back, not to mention the knowing smile that Rosamund had promised herself she would ignore, she felt her resolve melting away. The tough carapace of a girl who cared nought for his charms, a girl who was as easily distracted by other young men as Sanders was by Sukie Johnson, faded all too swiftly into that old yearning. It was a wanting made still more painful because Rosamund knew Maurice would have spent his stolen hour at the pub carrying on with Sukie over the bar, hoping that her old man was as daft as he looked. Still, she had rehearsed her lines and she knew her new yellow dress looked pretty darn good, so she gave it her best shot.
‘Oh, it’s you Maurice, I might have known you’d be out carousing with the boys.’
Sanders smiled his lop-sided grin, ‘You should have come along, Rosie, plenty of honest blokes in the saloon bar, a lovely girl like you’d have no trouble picking up a beau, ’specially not in a frock like that, showing it off for all you’re worth.’
His words stung, but Rosamund brazened it out, ‘And get into even hotter water than I am already, two hours late for my shift and Sister Comfort on the warpath? No fear. Besides, the Bridge Hotel’s lost some of its allure lately.’
‘Blimey! “Allure” is it now? There’s a phrase if ever I heard one. Picked that one up in London did you? Fair enough. I reckon a backwater boozer like the Bridge isn’t for the likes of you. Mind you, the beer’s a darn sight cheaper there than it is back in town, and some of us,’ he stepped closer, too close, but Rosamund stood her ground, ‘some of us aren’t quite as fit in the pocket as we ought to be, are we, love?’
Rosamund smiled and slowly lifted her handbag, she reached in, clicked open the clasp on her mother’s red leather purse and carefully peeled away a five pound note from the larger bundle. She planted a deep red kiss right on Captain Cook’s face on the outer note of the bundle before she put it safely back in her purse. She was glad to see the sight of the money wiped the smile off Maurice’s face, if only for a moment.
‘Didn’t you hear?’ she asked lightly.
‘Hear what?’
‘I’d have thought it’d be all round Mount Seager by now, can’t imagine the girls on the late transport would be talking about anything else, you know how they love a gossip.’
‘What would? Where’s all that money from, Roz? Who’ve you robbed blind?’
‘My horse only went and came in, Maurice. So here’s your fiver, and I’ll thank you for the loan, and that’s you and I quits, don’t you think?’
‘Ah, Roz love, come on girl, don’t give a bloke a hard time. I’ll be given my clean bill any day now and once we’re off back to camp I reckon they’ll ship us out again quick as you like. You can’t blame me for taking my chances, can you?’
Rosamund was about to answer him truthfully, to say that of course she didn’t blame him, she couldn’t imagine how horrid it must be to be lying out here in the hospital, hating being ill and then worrying even more about getting better, knowing that would mean heading back off to war and still no end in sight, things getting worse by the week if the news from England was anything to go by. The lads might bluster to each other, bluster to the nurses as well, but before Maurice had turned his lovely smile to Mrs Johnson across the bar of the Bridge Hotel, he’d confided some of the horrors to her. His worry that it had made him look soft had only made her warm to him more. She was about to give in, about to step forward, ready to turn off the torch, when a far brighter light shone on the two of them and Sister Comfort’s furious whisper saved her from herself.
‘Miss Farquharson! I shall see you in Matron’s office in five minutes. As for you, Private Sanders, you’ve had your final warning. I’m taking this to Sergeant Bix, I can promise you that.’
Rosamund shook herself and stepped back, almost glad of the trouble, and Maurice Sanders watched her walk away from him, lit by Sister Comfort’s