[Shayne Parkinson]

This is from my work-in-progress. It's 1915, and in a precursor to the conscription that would come into law the next year, all men have been required to fill in a form regarding their willingness to volunteer for the War. We're seeing this section through the eyes of eight-year-old Daisy.

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Daisy woke to the sound of her own voice, what had been a scream within her nightmare muffled to a feeble whimper in the waking world. Her arms were pinned against her sides by the sheet that she had tossed and turned into a crumpled muddle. She untangled herself from the clinging sheet, flung back the covers and lay trembling, the film of sweat across her upper body gradually cooling to clamminess while her breathing slowed.

She remembered the dream vividly. She and her mother had been clutching at her father’s arms, only to be pushed to the ground by a mob of soldiers who had dragged him away while Daisy screamed helplessly. These soldiers were not like the uniformed men she had seen in Auckland, laughing and smiling as they wandered along Queen Street. They were huge, menacing creatures who loomed over Daisy’s father, himself the tallest man she knew, grinning malevolently. Behind them was another figure in the old-fashioned uniform she had seen on the statue in Albert Park; a man she recognised although she had never seen him. It was Eddie’s father, her Uncle Ben. But the face that should have been an older version of Eddie’s was instead a grinning skull, yellowing bone with strips of rotting flesh clinging to it, looking more like the dead sheep Daisy had once encountered in a back paddock than anything she had ever seen on a human body.

Try as she might to think of something cheerful, to picture the new calves chasing each other around the paddocks, or herself riding Star at Eddie’s side, the image of those men dragging her father away kept returning. She knew that if she let herself fall asleep, the nightmare would take hold of her again.

She got out of bed and padded through the silent house. The door-handle of her parents’ bedroom was cold under her hand as she turned it and pushed the door open.

A sliver of moonlight came in through the gap where the curtains did not quite meet. By its light Daisy saw a mound in the bed; two bodies pressed together in sleep. The nearer part of the mound moved, pushed itself up against the pillows and turned into Daisy’s mother.

‘Daisy? What’s wrong?’ She sounded wide-awake despite having been asleep moments before. ‘Don’t you feel well?’ The rest of the mound moved more sluggishly, and a grunting noise that might have been a question came from that direction.

Daisy came right into the room and stood beside the bed. She opened her mouth to explain, but all that came out were great, heaving sobs. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and the words she tried to force out were swallowed in gulps of breath.

Her mother reached out and pulled Daisy over to sit on the bed, her arm firmly around her. ‘Where does it hurt? Have you got a tummy ache?’

Daisy shook her head. ‘They were t-taking P-Papa away,’ she choked out between sobs. ‘Soldiers c-came and took him away.’ Talking about it made the horrible pictures from her dream come creeping back.

‘Shh, shh,’ her mother soothed, holding Daisy close. ‘It was just a bad dream. Come on, come in with us for a bit,’ she said, folding back the covers. ‘Just till you feel sleepy.’

‘Hang on,’ said her father. ‘I’ll just get sorted out…’ He moved under the covers. Daisy guessed that he was straightening his nightshirt; her nightdress often rode up if she was restless in the night, so she was not surprised that the same thing might happen to her father.

Daisy lay between them, so that she could feel the closeness of both her parents. ‘Are you still worrying about that silly form?’ her father asked.

‘Yes,’ Daisy admitted. ‘In the dream they were going to make you go and fight in the war.’

‘Well, they’re not going to,’ her father said. ‘I’ve got too much work to do here.’

‘If they need to start making men go, there’s plenty of them without wives and families just doing things in shops and offices,’ said her mother. ‘They’ve no need to be taking married men.’

Her father made no reply. He was so quiet that Daisy wondered for a moment if he was a little bit grumpy over being disturbed, though she was not sure she had ever known her father to be grumpy. She listened harder, and decided he was only asleep.

Daisy lay very still, a warm body either side of her, her father such a solid presence that she could not imagine anyone dragging him away. Her mother talked quietly for a little longer, and Daisy answered her until speaking became too much of an effort.

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Daisy's parents' confidence that married men would not be called up may prove to be misplaced.

Edited to add: oops, this is longer than everyone else's. Let me know if it's too long, and I'll shorten or delete it.