My Father's War Read online

  February 21

  Mr Van Delden thinks we are going to lose the war. At dinner today he said that now ‘our former allies the Russians’ are out of the war because of having a revolution and overthrowing their emperor, the Tsar, it frees up hundreds of thousands of German troops (‘Boche’, he calls them, unlike us who nickname them ‘Fritz’ or ‘Jerry’ or sometimes ‘the Hun’). They will see an opportunity to put an end to things, and to win the war, he says. They will have a lot more men than we do. And more weapons. They will send huge reinforcements to the battlefields. ‘And then what will happen? We will be crushed, my friends, crushed.’

  ‘Oh no, surely not, Mr Van Delden,’ said Miss Jeffries hotly. ‘Our boys will never give in, never! We are not like the Russians, we are behind our King one hundred percent. Besides, the United States is coming to help us. That might balance things up a bit.’

  ‘Let’s hope it does,’ sniffed Miss Eveleigh. ‘What took the Yanks so long?’

  ‘It wasn’t their war,’ said Mum quietly. ‘They didn’t want to be involved. Who can blame them?’

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. Then Mrs Hope said in her deep voice, ‘Blast the Russians, never can trust those beggars, can you?’

  ‘Oh, but madame, they’ve lost a lot of men, and they’re deep in civil war,’ said Mr Van Delden in his most pompous voice. ‘We can hardly blame them for getting out.’

  ‘Hmph, I’m sure we jolly well can,’ growled Mrs Hope, with a glare at Mr Van Delden.

  I know how she feels. I don’t like Mr Van Delden either. It’s wrong, because he is a refugee who lost everything, but I can’t help it. He is the biggest know-all I have ever met and he’s always so gloomy. He always seems to pop up whenever we go on deck, and he sits there and talks and talks till you feel dizzy. Mum says we should be nice to him because he is lonely and worried for his mum, who is the only family he has left. But it’s hard being nice all the time when you don’t always feel like it, when you feel like screaming with boredom. It can be so tiresome!

  February 22

  I’ve been thinking about how people don’t see an end to the war anymore, and remembering something Dad explained to me not long before he went away. I’d asked him why the war had started. I thought it was because the Germans had invaded Belgium first off, but he said it started further back than that. This is what I can remember of what he said (I asked Mum today too, so I could check names and dates and things and to make sure I remembered right):

  In June 1914, a man called Gavrilo Princip shot the heir to the throne of the Austrian Empire, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, in the city of Sarajevo in central Europe. The killer was from a small country called Serbia and the Austrians thought the Serbian Government had planned it, and were very angry with them.

  Serbia tried to explain they had not, but the Austrians did not accept it and declared war on them in July. Russia came in on Serbia’s side because they were their friends. Then Germany came in on Austria’s side. France and Britain, who were allied with Russia, came in on that side. Because Australia (and New Zealand, and Canada, and South Africa) are part of the British Empire, we came in on Britain’s side, while the Turkish Empire and Bulgaria came in on Austria and Germany’s side. By early August, Germany had invaded Belgium and France and everyone was at war.

  So people can’t see how it ends, but you can certainly see how it started. If you have friends, you have to defend them. Otherwise what is the good of being friends, if you just abandon them when they are in trouble? But it still seems a terrible thing to me, like Princip’s shot was like the sound that started a huge, unstoppable, deadly avalanche. I can’t help thinking, what if someone had stopped him, or he’d fallen under a tram, or anything? Maybe none of it would have happened.

  Mum says I must not think like that. It’s no good saying what if. Things happened that way, that’s all there is to it, and nothing any of us can do can change it. We have to accept it. We have to try to get through it, that’s all.

  I suppose she’s right, but I can’t help thinking if only that assassin had never been born!

  It is peculiar too to think that it was the Austro-Hungarians who first declared war, but you hardly ever hear about them anymore, you just hear about the Germans and their king, who they call the Kaiser. Dad said the Austro-Hungarians started it but the Germans were very keen to continue for their own reasons, which he says are to grab land from the French and also because they were enemies of the Russians. But now the Russians are out of it and that’s one less ally we have, and even though the Americans are coming, maybe they will be too late. Maybe Mr Van Delden is right and the Germans are going to win. If they do, what will happen to all our soldiers, like my dad? Will they be killed? Made prisoner? Or maybe, just maybe, allowed to go home? I don’t know what to think. To end the war—to have Dad back with us, for good—that would be the best thing in the world. But if it’s not us who wins—

  What should I wish for? Oh, I feel so confused …

  February 25

  I wish the ship could go faster. Every day that passes feels like another day we have lost to no good purpose. If only we could have seven league boots like in the fairytales, or wings, and get to France in a flash! Mum said that maybe one day it will happen, not seven league boots or actual wings, but that people will fly in aeroplanes across the sea. Mr Van Delden shook his head at that and said that in his opinion aeroplanes will only ever be suited for war because they are much too dangerous to be used for passengers, and did we know how many aircraft had crashed over the last four years? Of course no-one did, not the exact number, and I am sure he didn’t either, though he said something breezy like ‘hundreds and hundreds’.

  I am so very glad Dad is not an airman. Mum told me that once he had ambitions to fly but he was not allowed to train as a pilot because he sometimes has asthma. Thank heavens, because like Mr Van Delden says, there have been many pilots lost in crashes and enemy attacks. I remember reading once in the newspaper about a Fritz flying ace called the Red Baron, who is called that because his plane is red, plus he is a baron, a real one. He has downed more than seventy Allied planes, and every time he does it he has a silver cup made in memory of the fight. That makes me shiver every time I think of it. Imagine his mantelpiece, with all those rows of cups, like silver tombstones …

  I don’t want to think about things like that. I’ve been re-reading a postcard Dad sent when he was on leave once and had gone to Paris. I took it with me and now I’m going to stick it down here. (On the front, there’s a picture of a gargoyle from Notre Dame de Paris, staring down at the city.)

  Greetings from Notre Dame in Paris, from your very own friendly gargoyle!

  You would love it here, Clogs. We could have a fine slap-up picnic by the Seine river, you, me, and your dearest mother. We’d have a basket bursting with tasty baked goodies, champagne for your mother and me, the nicest freshest lemonade for you, and then we’d skim pebbles into the water, and stroll on the bridges, and watch the world go by. What do you think? With love from your dad.

  Oh I’d love that so much, Dad, so much! I wouldn’t even mind being called Clogs if only we could all be together again, safe, the war over for good. Oh Dad, I miss you so very much! I’ve tried so hard to be good, but it’s just so hard because nothing seems right anymore.

  March 2

  We are still about two weeks away from France and I don’t know how I can stand waiting and waiting. Mum is also getting very jumpy. She snaps easily, and tells me off for nothing, so that I find it very difficult to keep my promise to Dad and keep my mouth shut! The others are getting on my nerves too, especially Mr Van Delden jawing on and on about the same old thing. The war, the war, the war—whether we’ll win, whether we’ll lose, whether it was worth fighting, how it will end—round and round and round, to no avail. As if we can do anything! As if anything any of us says will change anything at all.

  Plus we don’t really know what is going on. At one stage the
re was a rumour that German warships had been sighted not far away and people were in a real panic. But nothing happened, the sea stayed empty, the grey endless days went on and on. Once or twice, when we’ve stopped at a port, there have been English newspapers. Out-of-date ones of course, but people pounce on them and pore over them, Mum amongst them. Here are some of the things I learned in some papers she got.

  • The British have captured Jericho in Palestine from the Germans.

  • The Germans have captured Estonia.

  • The new Russian Bolshevik government has bombed Kiev in Ukraine and arrested lots of people.

  • American troops will soon arrive in Europe.

  • Some Russian troops have left their army and are fighting on our side.

  • The Germans have new tanks.

  • The Red Baron has claimed more victims.

  Mum found a French paper called Le Miroir which is nearly all photos, not just about fighting and destruction but also lots of photographs about daily life for the soldiers on the different fronts. And there was one lot about the Somme! It was all about French soldiers, not Australian ones, but Mum said it was still comforting to see what life apart from the battlefield was like for the soldiers—doing ordinary things like eating meals and buying newspapers from wandering sellers and writing letters home and larking about. ‘Ordinary, but not so ordinary in war time,’ she said. ‘I bet it’s all very precious to them now. Every moment outside of the noise and terror of battle must be precious. Even when you’re bored.’ And she looked at me as though I’d been complaining or something.

  It’s not fair. I’ve not complained! But I can’t help feeling bored sometimes.

  At other times I just feel so worried because I don’t know what’s going to happen once we get to France. I hope we won’t be stopped. I hope we can find Dad. I hope that nothing bad happens. I hope, I hope, I pray, I pray. And I wait. And wait and wait. Time goes by so very slowly, and though I have read my books another few times, and Miss Eveleigh has lent me some of her Dickens novels (which are quite good) I don’t always feel like reading, and I only feel like writing in this diary sometimes.

  It’s so hard too to keep up my promise to Dad. Mum won’t let me look after her. If I try to, she snaps at me not to fuss. She’s lost weight, her dresses are loose on her, and her hazel eyes are bigger and brighter than ever in her thin face. She speaks fast and she paces the deck like a caged lion. At mealtimes she just picks at her food. Mrs Hope is always urging her to eat and sometimes Mum’ll have a bit more just to please her (or maybe to shut her up!) but often she just shakes her head and says she’s not hungry. And she doesn’t sleep much either. The closer we get, the jumpier she is, and the more too Mr Van Delden buzzes around trying to take charge. He is getting off the boat in Marseille, like us, and going by train to Paris. So we are going to have to put up with him till then. What a bore. I would be happy if it was Miss Eveleigh or Mrs Hope or Miss Jeffries or even Mr Townsend, but they are all going on to England. I really can’t bear Mr Van Delden. It’s not just that he’s so boring. It’s that I hate the way he hovers over us, the fact that he bustles around Mum all the time, trying to kiss her hand, asking how he can help. We don’t need him or his help! I wish he’d go away. In fact I almost wish I could find out he really was a Jerry spy, then I could denounce him and we would be rid of him!

  That’s a horrible thing to say, Annie, shame on you! But I don’t feel ashamed, not properly like I ought to. Maybe I am turning into a bad person.

  March 6

  To make the time pass, and to stop bad thoughts and my worries about Mum from gnawing at me, I have decided to start doing sketches of people on the boat, like Dad would do if he was here. I’m not bad at drawing, but my portraits look stiff, not like his which are so good you expect them to wink at you! But then Dad is a professional. He has to be good, because he does cartoons for newspapers, and illustrations for magazine advertisements. There’s this soap advertisement he did once, with a little dog blowing bubbles—everybody at school was amazed that it was my father who had drawn the picture, even our teacher Miss Falconer!

  But Dad can do serious stuff really well too, like that beautiful picture of the Red Cross driver. I reckon he is good enough to be an official war artist like Will Dyson or Arthur Streeton—except no-one has asked him yet!

  I’m not talented enough to do anything like what he does. Dad told me not to worry, ‘At your age I drew about as well as a broom handle,’ he laughed, using one of Mum’s French expressions. ‘Anyway, the life of an artist is not the best,’ he went on, ‘always cap in hand, trying to sell stuff to hard-nosed blighters: but you are a clever little clogs and can do something much better with your life. You could go to university and become a teacher, for example.’

  Honestly, sometimes grown-ups, even wonderful ones like Dad, can be so silly. As if I’d want to be a teacher! I don’t like school much now; the thought of actually spending my whole life there makes me shudder! Besides, it can be so awful, kids can be really mean—what if I end up like poor Mrs Jones who used to teach us before Miss Falconer? She just did not know how to cope with the naughty boys, so they played up terribly all the time. She’d shout, trying to get them to stop, but they just got worse and one day she ran out of the classroom in tears. There was a lot of trouble then for all the class, but Mrs Jones never came back to teach us. Miss Falconer is different, no-one dares to play up in her class even though she never ever shouts or loses her temper!

  Miss Falconer thinks I should be a writer. She says I ‘have a talent’. But though I like writing, I don’t know that I’d like to do that as a job. I don’t want to sit at a desk. I want to get out and about. Do something special. Exciting. Live a life of adventure. Explore distant places. Open a detective agency. Join the Red Cross and work around the world helping people. Or something exciting like that. I don’t know yet!

  March 13

  We are on the train to Paris at last! We docked at Marseille yesterday afternoon and spent a flea-bitten night in a cheap hotel not far from the station. Outside it’s cold and sharp weather, heavy grey sky, but fuggy and warm in the carriage. It’s so strange to be here, mostly because of course everyone speaks French, just as if the exercises Mum sets for me have come to life: Bonjour, monsieur! Bonjour, madame! Que desirez-vous? Un cafe et un pain au lait s’il vous plait Monsieur. (If I translated that for one of Mum’s assignments, it would read, Good day, sir! Good day, madam! What would you like? A coffee and a milky roll, please, sir. Yes. Full marks, Annie!) People do not seem to speak as clearly as Mum, and though I follow a fair amount of what is being said, I cannot understand it all. Mum says that’s because the accent here is different to hers.

  This is Mum’s country. Her original country. Of course I’ve always known she’s French, but knowing and really feeling it are two separate things. She acts differently. Even walks differently. Despite the different accent, she feels at home here but I don’t. I feel very foreign. I have to stick to her like a limpet and keep my mouth shut most of the time. But the good thing is she’s much less jumpy than on the boat, she seems more able to handle things. Not me though. It’s one thing to feel excited at the thought of going across the world to find Dad. It’s another thing to actually be in a foreign country where everything is different to what I’m used to. I’m not as badly off as someone who doesn’t understand French at all would be, but though I can understand quite a lot of what people say to me, it is quite a strain to have to listen all the time to make sure you really have got what people are saying. Plus I am a bit afraid of actually speaking. What if they laugh at my accent? And what if they don’t understand what I say? I will feel like such a fool.

  And then there’re other things. Maybe it’s because she lost so much weight on the boat and she looks girlish, but Mum keeps being taken for my elder sister, like by the man at the railway ticket office just before. That makes me feel really strange. And there are different smells. Different landscapes. Diff
erent buildings. Different food. Different everything. It makes me feel quite overwhelmed, and I’m glad I’ve got this book so I can write it all down—otherwise I feel like I would fill up with words I can’t let out because of being afraid to speak, and that it would make me feel sick. (In this diary I’m going to write down in English what people say in French—though I can read French quite well and understand it all right, my spelling is not too good and it would just look like gibberish!)

  Just opposite us is a family, mother, father, son and daughter, stuffing themselves with bread and cheese and sausage. Are they trying to torture us? We only had a thin ham soup at the station before getting on the train. Mum said we would buy things later as we made our way north, but I feel my stomach growling as I watch those terrible people munching greedily on their food and never even offering us a bite. Back in Australia, people would at least ask. We might have to say no because that is supposed to be polite, but at least they would ask. Not here. No, sir! Or non, monsieur!

  The daughter is a fat-cheeked girl about my age, with beady blue eyes. She has just looked up and caught my own beady brown eye! I can see her nudging her mother, who nudges her husband, who nudges the son. They all look daggers at me as if they think I am a spy or an informer taking notes on them. Well, let them think it! Who cares, it will serve them right.

  Mum is deep in conversation with Mr Van Delden. Or at least he is doing all the talking and Mum is patiently listening. It is some long and involved story about how when he was young he worked on boats and often called in at Marseille and what a cut-throat place it was then and still is now. He insisted on having a room not far from ours last night and insisted we went to the hotel restaurant instead of going out because, he said, an unaccompanied lady was not safe in Marseille at night. As if I did not exist at all! It is true we saw ruffians loitering around the port, looking like pirates with dark dangerous faces, gold earrings and tattoos, but there were also lots of soldiers and I do not think anyone would have harmed us. Still, we had to do as Mr Van Delden said or we would not have heard the end of it. I will be VERY glad when we reach Paris and we can finally get rid of him! It will be a long two days.