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Ahern 1 One Sunday in Picardy Volume One, Creative Work Eleanor Christine Ahern The first of two volumes of a thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Creative Writing Discipline of English and Creative Writing School of Humanities University of Adelaide 27 April 2016 Ahern 2 Contents Contents ................................................................................................................................. 2 Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 3 Declaration ............................................................................................................................. 4 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 5 Part One ................................................................................................................................. 6 Part Two ............................................................................................................................... 59 Part Three ........................................................................................................................... 181 Works Cited ....................................................................................................................... 195 Author’s Note .................................................................................................................... 195 Ahern 3 Abstract “One Sunday in Picardy” is a work of fiction set in northern France during The First World War. Jack, an Australian doctor, returns to see his young fiancée Georgette in a French village on his way to the second Battle of the Somme. After assisting the wounded at the front for two years, he is unable to remember events during one fierce battle for which he was decorated; his thoughts are plagued by images and sensations related to the battlefield. Georgette, now nearly eighteen, finds Jack changed and is uneasy as the likelihood grows of an enemy attack, threatening the château which is her family home. To keep up the battalion’s spirits, Solaine, the matriarch of the family, hosts a sports day in the grounds and a grand dinner in the evening for the officers. Jack’s batman Pat, a childhood friend who is interested in Georgette’s sister Élise, goes to check on his brother Tom in the woods near the front. At the same time the body of the ace pilot Manfred von Richthofen, shot down nearby, is secretly brought to the château to be washed. The stories of these characters unfold as the bombardment builds up around them. Ahern 4 Declaration I certify that this work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. In addition, I certify that no part of this work will, in the future, be used in a submission in my name for any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of the University of Adelaide. I give consent to this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the University Library, being made available for loan and photocopying, subject to the provision of the Copyright Act 1968. I also give permission for the digital version of my thesis to be made available on the web, via the University’s digital research repository, the Library catalogue and also through web search engines, unless permission has been granted by the University to restrict access for a period of time. The University has placed an embargo on my electronic and printed thesis for a period of twenty-four months, with effect from the date of submission. Eleanor Ahern 27 April 2016 Ahern 5 Acknowledgements I am indebted to my main supervisor, Professor Brian Castro, Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide, and my co-supervisor, Dr Philip Butterss. For sharing the family history, I am grateful to my brothers, John and Robert, and Helen Beard; my mother Chris Jolly; Agnès, Jacqueline, Christian and Patrick Raquet; and Catherine and Bénédicte Valencourt. During my research I received assistance from many others at the University, especially Dr Heather Kerr, Jennifer Liston, Dr Madeleine Seys and Camille Roulière, English and Creative Writing; Jennifer Osborn, Barr Smith Library; and Andrew Cook, Archives. I also appreciate the contribution of Andrew Rule and Jenny Antenucci. I thank my partner, Michael, and children Katie and Ben, for their loving support, and my grandparents Jack and Andrée and my father Roland, to whom the story belongs. Ahern 6 One Sunday in Picardy Part One Sojourning through a southern realm in youth, I came upon a house by happy chance Where bode a marvellous Beauty. (Owen, “The Sleeping Beauty”, lines 1-3) Ahern 7 Chapter 1 Sunday, 21 April 1918, 5 a.m. – somewhere near Amiens The doctor, looking out into darkness, found comfort in the clang of wheels, metal on metal, the whoosh of pistons, sounding strong and purposeful. He liked certainty; the constant movement. There was no doubt in his mind that the walking wounded station would be set up in time for the enemy attack. He knew what to order, what to write in reports in the neatest of scripts, and what not. The patients would be scrubbed clean of muck, stitched back in one piece. They’d have the best chance. He was good at it, the fieldwork; had become a major, surprising them all. In the reflection of the window he admired the neatness of his moustache, cut off abruptly before it reached the ends of his lips. The fashion had taken on amongst the officers in the medical corps. It conveyed a certain dignity, important for the job at hand: to inspire the men’s confidence, even if one didn’t have much oneself. Flicking past the window, a shadowed movement outside caught his eye, a flash of an arm, a sleeve rolled up. A man ran beside the train. Jack turned to rouse his neighbour in the carriage but when he looked back the man had gone, swallowed up by the night. Had a soldier lost his way? But more likely it was a local lad, testing his strength and speed. Jack rested his head to the side, eyelids heavy. The gentle sway of the train seemed to draw force until it was like the rolling of great waves upon which he had ridden in 1915, his stomach heaving. *** That ship had been bound for Cairo and Jack’s first post at the hospital. Ahern 8 At home in Adelaide, the roll of honour in The Advertiser had clinched it for him. The “died from wounds” list. A twist of fate, a benefactor who chose to educate him – not his brothers, already working hard in the mine – had given him a different prospect in life: not enlistment, but application for a commission; not fighting in the trenches, but treating the injured in Cairo. In the hospital at home the consultant, a youngish man who had just been promoted, patted him on the back. Good to have experience overseas, he said. That last morning, his sister Beryl’s sweet face was white and silent as she cleared the breakfast plates. As the ship drew away from port, even the surface of the water glistened with excitement. A paper streamer thrown from the wharf clung like cobweb to Jack’s arm, and he brushed it off, wanting to be free of that last tie before the thick ropes were lifted and the ship, untethered, headed off to deeper waters. As the shoreline receded through the spattered porthole, he meticulously planned the work to be done. The men must be trained in basic first aid without duly alarming them – a precaution, of course, as on the battlefield medical help would be at hand for the wounded. His job for the moment was to reassure them of that. Still, everyone must learn how to stop bleeding, to apply a bandage themselves. He himself would be far away, in the Egyptian hospital. Men recovering in pristine rows of beds. Doctors and nurses without much sleep, doing good work. He had met a few in the ship restaurant, pleasant enough, capable. They would make an excellent team, in fact. Copples, that red-headed fellow from Sydney, for example, seemed a good sort, cracking jokes to lighten the mood. Ahern 9 But after weeks of the stew and potatoes boiled in grease, a sharp pain sprang up in Jack’s side. He wrote to Beryl that he was missing her cooking and looked forward to the restaurants in Cairo. A few days later, as the vessel glided up the Suez Canal, the pain reappeared. He spent the night turning the diagnoses over in his head, his blood fiery and his sheets damp and bunched up. What a state to turn up in! He hoped the operating theatres in Egypt were clean. Reports from the Dardanelles worsened: aid posts were being swamped with casualties. Jack, clenched up in his cabin, prayed that they would arrive at the hospital soon. But when the calm waters of the narrow canal opened up at last, without warning the great vessel was diverted from its course to the left and pushed out to sea. Not Cairo, dear fellows, you’re on your way to Turkey, they were told. That grisly cove of water which shifted beneath them, washing away blood and young men. A trill of gunfire and cries rang out from crags, patches of dirtied sand. He remembered waiting in the ship’s dining room to be briefed, the conversation dropping off, the doctors unsure of the processes to follow or what they would find on the line. Jack, too, was anxious. His right side ripped with shards of glass. He could hear it now, the order called out, the clatter of men rushing about on deck in heavy boots to disembark. “Captain!” The private stood at the cabin door, trying not to hold his nose, for the tiny room stank with vomit and it was all down Jack’s front. The doctor’s singlet was whipped off, his face wiped. Sorry, Jack said. The commanding officer stood above him, blocking the light from the porthole. He was to be pulled off the boat and sent to England, out of the way.

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