Love In War

Love in War http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000974903/Love-in-War.aspx http://www.amazon.com/Love-War-Alan-Watchman-ebook/dp/B00QI8B386 Preface Reginald Black, Reg or Reggie to his friends, was neither tall nor short, fat or thin, but an ordinary bloke who did not stand out in a crowd, except that he was older than everyone else in his crew. He had short brown hair, brown eyes, and tanned brown skin; I once thought he should have changed his name to match his appearance, but I never told him. We met in Lake Cargelligo in the early eighties when I was exploring for copper and gold and he was a driller. I remember him most of all for one amazing trait. He could drink more beer than anyone else yet remain functional and rational, and be wide awake early next morning as if he had been teetotal, unlike the rest of us burdened with hangovers. Not bad for an old codger who must have been a bit younger than my own father. When he died, an autopsy should have been carried out and his genetic makeup stored for research into alcohol metabolism, but it was not done and he was buried in a Queensland cemetery. I only found out about Reg’s death when a letter arrived accompanied by a parcel, a regular brown recycled padded envelope containing an old diary, some newspaper cuttings, and several photographs. The letter, as I deduced later, was written about a month before he died. He had been ninety. It had gone to one of my old addresses before it finally caught up with me in Townsville. In it he told me of his losing battle with lung cancer, about the contents in the parcel, and a request for me to carry out research leading to the writing of a book. On receiving his letter, I remembered one occasion in the Lake Cargelligo pub when he told me about his family, particularly his great aunt, Catherine, and her work as a nurse during World War I. His great aunt had died in her fifties when Reg was about sixteen. He remembered her fondly because he had stayed with her and his great uncle after Reg lost his mother when he was ten; he remembered that Catherine always smiled and told him she loved him, and was proud of everything he did. Reggie let me know that as a kid he was actually a tyrant, a bully, and always in trouble either with the school master or the police for petty theft, vandalism, and being a nuisance. His mother’s death changed him, he said, and he had worked harder at school, attended trade classes and became a mechanic, all with the strong encouragement of his great aunt. He had worked as an apprentice and, after three years, had found work as an offsider on a percussion drilling rig owned by a company that explored for minerals up and down the eastern States. After a few years, he became a driller, and when I met him, he was diamond drilling for copper and gold. Reg was typical of a man who grew up in the country; he loved the outdoor life, particularly meeting people, telling yarns and joking around, supporting the Rabbitohs as well as tinkering with machinery and old trucks. Reg requested that I use the material in the parcel as the basis for research about his great aunt. His handwritten letter explained that few books had been written about nurses from that era but because he knew she had lived an extraordinary life thought that it should be documented. He said that he could not write stuff up in a way that would appeal to most readers and thought that I should give it a go on his behalf because I had already published several books. The last time I saw Reg was at a petrol station in Dubbo. We were both filling up our vehicles, a coincidence I now thought was a rare event; fancy meeting at one of several truck stops in a large rural town when we were travelling in opposite directions to two different jobs. He must have been close to retiring. Then, we just said g’day, exchanged pleasantries, and found out what the other was doing before grabbing drinks and a couple of pies with chips and heading off on our separate ways. Before he climbed into his truck, he suggested I check the tyres on my four-wheel drive as he thought one looked flat, the rear-passenger-side one; it wasn’t. I had to smile; that was typical of Reg. Our last meeting must have been almost thirty years ago. I had not heard from him since and did not know where he had worked or lived. It’s easy to lose track of a friend or acquaintance when you and they never stay in one place for long. In the information Reg sent me was one black-and-white photograph of his great aunt in her nurse’s uniform, very attractive with bright eyes and the smile Reg described. I considered his proposal which intrigued me enough to decide to write Catherine’s story if only to reveal another small facet of the much larger picture that was World War I. Stories can be imagined, pieced together from threads written in letters, and compiled from tales handed down from one generation to the next, but clarifying particular points becomes an issue when the main characters are no longer alive. Correspondence during World War I between people therefore becomes an invaluable source, particularly when those handwritten missives contain expressions of emotions that would otherwise not be known. In those earlier times, keeping one’s feelings bottled up was commonplace because expressing them openly committed one to a certain course of action, dictated by social standards and unwritten rules sometimes that led to circumstances and consequences that only fate could subsequently alter. Falling into and out of love is a phenomenon peculiar to human beings, but understanding the chemistry, the conditions, and reasons why two people fall in love remains a mystery, unless one seeks answers from God or believes in fate. Finding love during war is not impossible because this has happened many times in the past and will continue to happen; such is the nature of being human. The circumstances under which people find love will vary as much as the formations of clouds in a changing climate. While writing this story, I took the liberty of combining phrases and broken sentences from letters and diaries into a narrative I think is easier to follow. Simply transcribing all of the written material into a series of chronological events would have challenged all but the most fastidious of historians to read, and I felt there was an underlying human interest thread that needed weaving into a colourful fabric. I hope I have cut and sewn that fabric into a set of clothes reflecting a past era of significant times, places, people, and events that should not be forgotten.