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By Karl Gibbons

Johnathon and Bib returned home to Australia separately. Both were wounded physically and emotionally, neither one knowing if their friend had survived the war.

Bib had their plane and Ruth to eventually help him cope with civilian life back on the farm. Johnathon wandered around lost for some time until he discovered how inadequate the orthopedic treatment was for the wounded veterans. He decided he had to do something and threw himself in a career in medicine. The long hours and heavy workload seemed to quieten the demons he carried inside since the war.

A chance meeting many years later reignited their friendship, their family and friends learning about their university life in England before enlisting in the British air force at the start of the Second World War.

Johnathon went on to become a highly decorated pilot but would notor, in his own words, could notaccept he was a war hero.

As the stories started to unfold, it was only then Elizabeth became aware of how troubled Johnathon had been since he returned from the war.

The decision to return the plane and the ashes of their friend Tom home to England was to give the two friends a chance to visit old haunts and deal with the memories and emotions they had harbored for many years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: May 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543409581

Karl Gibbons

Karl Gibbons was born in 1949 and raised in what would today be described as an underprivileged suburb. He left school at the age of 15 to pursue an apprenticeship as a Panel Beater, before entering the world of Automotive Design where he enjoyed a career spanning some 39 years. The son of a POW, he has long held an emotional interest in the war and post war era and the effects on our veterans. It is no surprise that his first novel would be centred around the war and the families that were left to cope alone with the returned serviceman and women and the struggles they had, as they tried to return to some resemblance of normal life.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Karl Gibbons.

Library of Congress Control Number:                  2018906310

ISBN:            Hardcover                             978-1-5434-0960-4

                      Softcover                               978-1-5434-0959-8

                      eBook                                    978-1-5434-0958-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 05/24/2018

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Liz.

Chapter 2 Liz – The Beginning

Chapter 3 Ruth

Chapter 4 Ruth

Chapter 5 Ruth

Chapter 6 Ruth

Chapter 7 Liz

Chapter 8 Claude And Us In England

Chapter 9 Ruth

Chapter 10 Peter

Chapter 11 Peter’s Own Story

Chapter 12 Ruth

Chapter 13 Bib

Chapter 14 Johnno

Chapter 15 Johnno Continues

Chapter 16 Ruth And Liz

Chapter 17 Liz

Chapter 18 Liz

Chapter 19 Peter’s Return

Chapter 20 Liz

Chapter 21 Johnno

Chapter 22 Ruth

Chapter 23 Liz

Chapter 24 Liz

Chapter 25 Johnno

Chapter 26 Johnno

Chapter 27 Johnno

Chapter 28 Johnno

Chapter 29 Ruth’s Tom

Chapter 30 The Boys’ Tom

Chapter 31 Johnno

Chapter 32 Johnno

Chapter 33 Johnno

Chapter 34 Johnno

Chapter 35 Johnno

Chapter 36 Johnno

Chapter 37 The Engagement Party

Chapter 38 Johnno

Chapter 39 Johnno

Chapter 40 Johnno

CHAPTER 1

LIZ.

I am standing in our kitchen, organising and packing the things we will need to take to Ruth and Bib’s place. I can hear Johnathon in the garage getting the car packed and fiddling with all and sundry.

Carolyn should be here at any moment. It feels strange to have her coming along on the trip. She has not been away with us on a road trip since her early university days. Her later years at university were spent with friends, tripping around Australia and living the life, as she likes to call it.

To say I am struggling with what has happened in the last few months is what can only be described as a gigantic understatement.

Dr Hawkins, my local GP, says I am and have been in shock for months. He has been a great help, even suggesting therapy, which I declined.

I do feel, however, I need to come to terms with what has confronted me, testing my feelings and throwing the status quo of my life upside down.

Hopefully, Carolyn will sit in the front seat next to her dad so I will be able to try and categorise the events of the past few months. I feel I need to have an emotional position before we arrive at the farm. This may sound quite dramatic, but I really have struggled with what has come to light since our innocent drive in the countryside in July.

We left as a mature, staid couple, entering retirement, and arriving back home with my prim and proper orthopaedic surgeon husband into a character out of a boy’s own comic book.

I hear Carolyn has arrived, chatting away with her dad. She can’t wait to get going; she is so excited about meeting Ruth and Bib, especially Bib.

I’m not sure when she got so interested in her dad’s wartime exploits, but she can’t seem to get enough of them.

Carolyn came into the kitchen to see if I needed a hand to finish getting organised. We packed the final bits and pieces into the hamper, and we were finally ready to go.

As usual, Johnathon was complaining about how much we were taking. He was saying he couldn’t fit it all into the boot of the Lexus. Carolyn told him to just put her ball bag onto the back seat (we used to call them carryalls when we were young), and we would be set to go.

I suggested Carolyn sit in the front with her dad so she could catch up with all that has happened.

I jumped into the back seat, clipped on my seat belt, and settled down to try and find some order to all that has come to light over the past five months.

CHAPTER 2

LIZ – THE BEGINNING

It was cold, unusually cold, even for July in Melbourne.

I was sitting on the raised hearth of our fireplace in the family room, reading the latest edition of the Women’s Weekly, when I heard Johnathon call out from the garage. He was playing around with his pride and joy, his Jaguar XK 120.

‘Liz, Liz old girl.’

A thought raced into my mind. How am I, and have always been, referred to, for as long as I can remember, as Liz, Beth, or old girl but never Elizabeth, where he has only been known as Johnathon, not John and certainly never Johnny?

‘Yes, dear,’ I answered, waiting for what it was he was so excited about.

‘Liz, can you pack a picnic lunch for tomorrow, and we will take the girlfriend (as he refers to his Jaguar) for a run into the country?’

This request did not seem unusual as I have learnt over the years to go along with his ‘what seems like a good idea at the time’. I think this gut feel he seems to go with helped keep him alive during the war and has made him such a wonderful surgeon.

We set out early on the Sunday morning. The day was crisp, but the sky was blue, which made me feel quite relaxed about our little adventure. The traffic was light as we cruised along the western highway, past Melton, Bacchus Marsh, and Ballan, deciding to stop for a coffee on the outskirts of Ballarat.

After taking the Ballarat bypass road, we continued on and stopped at a park in Dimboola. The day was very pleasant, the sun was shining, and there was a slight breeze. We sat at a picnic table, enjoying our lunch as well as our surrounds.

I thought that once lunch was over, we would be heading home. That thought turned out to be not only wrong, but also what did eventuate was what had caused me so much anguish since.

When we finished our lunch, we packed the hamper into the boot of the Jaguar and drove down towards the rail crossing and the highway beyond. When we reached the highway, I expected to turn right and head back to Melbourne; instead, we turned left towards Adelaide.

Not long after, we turned onto the highway. We came up to an intersection with a road sign saying Jeparit. Johnathon turned onto the Jeparit Road, which I found strange. When I asked him where we were going, he simply said that he had always wanted to go to Jeparit and smiled.

We drove along for some time through what seemed to me to be like wheat country with the occasional paddock with sheep grazing on the stubble.

Suddenly, Johnathon stopped the car and pointed into the paddock on our left.

‘There, there, do you see it, the Spite? I can’t believe what I am looking at,’ he said. ‘A Spitfire out here in the boondocks. I have to go and see what the story is.’

We drove on. We could not see a gate or any way into the property where the plane was. Johnathon turned around and drove slowly back towards Dimboola. After a couple of kilometres, we turned up a side road and, within a matter of minutes, came up to a farm gate a couple of hundred metres down the road.

Johnathon decided to go into the farm and see if he could find out about the plane we had seen earlier.

Arriving at the farmhouse, we found a young woman, about the same age as our daughter, Carolyn, playing with two young children in the yard.

Johnathon introduced himself and enquired if she knew anything about the plane and if she knew how to access the property where the plane was.

It turned out that the plane was owned by her father-in-law, and yes, we could access the property by continuing on the road we were just on for about a kilometre.

‘The gate will be open. It always is. The drive will take you right up to the house. I will give them a ring and let them know you are coming if you like.’

Johnathon jumped back into the Jag, and off we went, in search of the farm gate and driveway that would lead us to the plane.

We found the gate, turned onto the driveway, and proceeded slowly. The Jaguar is not exactly a four-wheel-drive vehicle. It took some time before the farmhouse came into view, still no sign of the plane Johnathon had seen earlier.

Johnathon pulled the Jaguar to a dusty stop between the farmhouse and a very large shed. As he climbed out of the car, the front wire door of the house slammed, and what turned out to be a man crossed the front porch and seemed to be airborne to the car where Johnathon was standing. All I can actually remember is the loud noise, a howl or scream is the closest way I can describe it, and then two people embracing, wrestling, and screaming in front of the car.

Frantically, I looked around for Johnathon before realising he was in fact one of the figures in front of me.

I tried to get out of the car, but the fright had left me almost paralysed. I could not move.

I sat frozen in the seat for I don’t know how long. Suddenly, my door opened, and a rather large lady stuck her head into the car.

She introduced herself as Ruth and, realising how shocked I was, helped me out of the car. The figures in front of me continued to howl or scream, and I was still not sure if they were embracing or wrestling.

I tried to move towards the men, but Ruth stopped me.

‘We have to stop them before someone gets hurt,’ I said. I was really only concerned about Johnathon.

Ruth said to me, ‘Leave them. They would be fine.’

‘Are you sure?’ I asked, somewhat panicky.

‘They have never been more all right in their lives,’ Ruth replied. ‘You don’t know what is happening, do you?’ Ruth asked. ‘Come into the house, and I will try to fill you in with as much as I know.’

We entered a large country kitchen. Ruth filled the kettle and placed it on the combustion stove. I hadn’t seen one in years. Were they really as good as people used to say? Was this an original with the house? My mind was wandering all over the place. I was shaking, I was perspiring, and I was concerned about Johnathon. I felt I had to do something, but I had no idea what. I just sat there and let this farmer’s wife take control.

Ruth instructed me to sit so we could have a chat. Instructed may sound harsh, but I felt like I was following orders.

‘This may be a little presumptuous of me,’ Ruth was saying, which seemed to be coming out of a fog, a distance away. ‘Are you by any chance Elizabeth?’

‘Yes, I am. Have we met before?’ This was adding to my confusion. How could she possibly know my name? I was sure we had never met, but with my emotions as they were, I wasn’t really sure of anything.

‘No, we have never met, Elizabeth. I know about you as a young girl through my husband, Bib.’

‘So I have met your husband before today?’ My confusion was getting worse, paranoia was starting to take hold of me, and I was losing control. Where was all this leading?

‘No, his knowledge of you is through your husband.’

Through Johnathon? I thought. How can that be? He has never said anything about knowing farmers from Jeparit.

My paranoia was taking control. What have we driven into? Has Johnathon got another life I know nothing about? Will I be leaving here alive? I was in a state of panic.

‘Elizabeth, let me try to explain, as best as I can anyway, all that you are seeing here today. You are obviously confused and a little upset,’ Ruth said.

A little upset? I thought. A little upset is certainly not the way I would describe my current emotion.

‘Our husbands served in the war together,’ Ruth explained. ‘That is a very simplistic explanation for the situation you find yourself in, but I’m sure you will make some sense of it all as the story unfolds.’

CHAPTER 3

RUTH

‘The boys met at university in England. Johnathon was studying law. Bib was studying engineering. Strange bedfellows, you might say. The only thing they seemed to have in common was the fact they were both Australian. Whatever it was, they soon became close. They lived the university life to the full – weekends of country drives and country pubs, parties and girls, and as little study as they could get away with.

‘When the war in Europe broke out, the boys volunteered for the air force. That was the British Air Force, not Australian. They fancied themselves, flying around in those planes and all the girls chasing after them.’

‘So they were both pilots?’ I asked.

‘No, as you know, your husband, John, was. Bib was ground crew. He didn’t pass the medical. He is short-sighted, you see. John went off to flight training, and Bib went to plane maintenance.

‘I am not sure how they worked it out, but according to Bib, they told the hierarchy that if they could not be together in the same squadron, then the air force would just have to forget the whole deal. I don’t know if that is true, but they did end up together. In fact, Bib looked after John’s plane from 1940 up until today.’

‘So is that Johnathon’s plane we saw from the road?’ I asked.

‘Yes, it is, Liz …’

‘If the boys were close at university, they were inseparable in the air force.’ Ruth continued. ‘It was frowned upon for the pilots to associate with the ground crews socially. That didn’t stop the boys. They would go away on weekends in the country as they did in university. John had an MG sports car as did a lot of the pilots, probably something about living the fast life, I suppose. As petrol became scarce, it looked like the boys would have to downscale their weekend trips until Bib rebuilt the MG’s motor so it could run on aviation fuel. They were together for over three years until their airfield was attacked.

‘As Peter, one of the ground crew, tells it, as the air raid sirens went off, the pilots scrambled to get the planes airborne and take the fight up to the Jerries. Bib raced over to John’s plane to help him get strapped in and away. As John was taxiing to take off, Bib raced for the nearest bunker. As he dived over the edge, he was hit in the lower back and buttock with shrapnel. When the raid was over, there were casualties everywhere.

‘Bib was taken to an aid station, some five miles away. The others were taken to hospitals and aid stations, wherever there was room. The airstrip was so badly damaged that the surviving planes had to land elsewhere. The boys lost contact at that time and have not seen each other until today.’

Just then, the young woman we had seen at the other farm earlier came through the back door.

‘Hi, Mum, is everything all right? I have been trying to ring for the past hour, but the line is busy.’

‘Hello, Trish, yes, everything is fine,’ Ruth assured her. ‘Bib must have dropped the receiver when you rang earlier. Let me go and check.’ Ruth replaced the phone and returned to the kitchen. ‘Are you on your own, Trish?’ Ruth asked.

‘No, John and Little Jack are outside with Dad and the other guy that came to our place earlier.’

‘Oh, I am very sorry, Liz. Let me introduce my daughter-in-law, Trish. Trish, this is Liz – oh, I’m sorry, Elizabeth – and the other guy, as you call him, is John, Elizabeth’s husband. His full name, Trish, is Johnathon Roberts.’

Trish’s mouth fell open. ‘THE Johnathon Roberts?’ she stammered.

‘Yes, love, the very one.’ Ruth continued with her story. ‘Bib almost died from his wounds. He was at the aid station for too long before being transferred to a hospital for the operation he needed to remove the shrapnel. He developed a serious infection, which turned into blood poisoning. He was hospitalised until after the end of the war.’

The story, so far, must have jolted me back to reality.

‘I am so sorry, Ruth. I did not know any of this, and Johnathon would not talk about the war. The only thing I can recall him saying, when our daughter, Carolyn, tried to press him about his war service when she was a teenager, he simply said a lot of good men are dead that should still be alive.’

The back flywire door slammed again, and a young man of about thirty-five walked into the kitchen.

‘Hello,’ said Ruth. ‘How is everything outside, John?’

‘It’s all good out there,’ he replied. ‘I came in to see how things are going in here.’

‘John, this is Liz – I’m sorry, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, this is our eldest son, John.’

I must have had a strange look on my face.

‘Yes, Liz, named after your Johnathon.’

‘How is Little Jack?’ Ruth asked her eldest boy.

‘He is with Dad and the plane. You know you won’t see him for hours,’ John told his mum.

CHAPTER 4

RUTH

‘As I said earlier, Bib was hospitalised until after the end of the war. That is where I came onto the scene. You see, I was one of his nurses.

‘He eventually recovered from the shrapnel wounds and the infection, but he was so depressed the doctors feared he may never recover mentally.

‘It took a long time for us to coax him into physiotherapy so he would be able to walk again. He just kept saying it was a waste of time and really didn’t care if he lived or died.

‘After months of hard physical work, he started to make progress. His walking improved, along with his stamina.

‘You probably haven’t noticed. He was left with a limp, which seems to get more pronounced when he gets tired.

‘All through this, his mental condition did not improve. He just seemed lost.

‘The hospital staff could do no more for him physically, and mentally, it was up to him now.

‘It was at this time I decided to take it upon myself to try and help with his depression. Every day I would go into the hospital, even on my days off, just to talk to him. I thought it was important to get to know him if I was to help.

‘Over time, he started to open up about his early life and how he ended up in a hospital in England.’

CHAPTER 5

RUTH

BIB’ S STORY

‘Bib grew up on this farm. It was just him and his dad, Claude, from when he was about 8 years old.

‘His mum and sister were killed when their car was hit by a train on the crossing in Dimboola, a tragedy no one ever really coming to terms with how or why the accident had happened. The accident left Claude and Bib to fend for themselves.

‘Claude had a sister, Joan, who lived in London. She came out for a while to help after the accident.

‘She found the two boys and the house in total disarray. Claude was totally lost, and Bib was too young to be able to take control. Joan spent her time trying to put the house back into some sort of order.

‘Joan did as much for them emotionally as she could. They were both grieving, and she knew it would take time for them to heal.

‘She soon realised that Claude couldn’t manage the house, the cooking, and the farm as well as looking after Bib. So Joan took it upon herself to organise some help from the boys.

‘She was the one responsible for hiring Cookie and the housekeeper.

‘Knowing Claude was not a man who liked to be fussed over, she instructed the ladies to treat Claude and Bib as one of their own.

‘The arrangement worked out extremely well, both ladies staying on for many years and indeed becoming part of the family.

‘When Joan felt she had everything in order as best as she could, it was time for her to return to London and her own family.

‘Over time, Claude and Bib became inseparable. Nobody knew if it was Claude who hung on to Bib or the other way around, but if you saw one, you saw the other.

‘You are probably wondering where the name Bib comes from.

‘His real name is Robert. Everyone called him Bobby or Young Bobby around here.

‘When his mum died, his dad was left to raise Bib. He was a kind and gentle man but really didn’t possess the skills to be a single parent.

‘What he did, Bib did. Whatever he wore, Bib wore. As most farmers did in those days, Claude wore bib and brace overalls, so did Bib.

‘Bobby became Bibby around town. It shortened to Bib when he got older and has stuck ever since.

‘The RAF informed his aunty Joan in London of his injuries and where he was hospitalised. She was listed as his next of kin. She came and visited often. Bib always seemed pleased to see her.

‘He insisted that she did not tell his dad of his injuries.

‘She did eventually write to his dad when Bib was out of danger.

‘I struggled with his request not to tell his dad, and I too found I had to let him know.

‘I told him all of what had happened and his son’s present condition. He wrote back, asking to be kept informed, even without Bib’s permission. We corresponded for many months. I felt guilty at the beginning, keeping this from Bib, but I knew it would upset him if he found out.

‘I spent many hours over the next months to try and find out why he was so adamant about his father not knowing he was in the hospital.

‘It turned out Bib believed his father discarded him when he was a teenager, sending him to live in London with his aunty Joan.

‘As I found out later, nothing could be further from the truth. He was sent over to live with his aunt to develop some social graces and to learn how to live in a woman’s world.

‘Bib’s Aunty Joan was a bit of a socialite. She lived in Kensington, at a very fashionable address. She was independently wealthy because of the inheritance from her father. Her husband was a successful corporate banker, who had successfully ridden out the depression with his assets intact.

‘Aunty Joan supported