Judy Nunn - Kal

From stage actor and international television star to blockbuster, best-selling author, Judy Nunns career has been meteoric.

Her first forays into adult fiction resulted in what she describes as her entertainment set. The Glitter Game , Centre Stage and Araluen , three novels set in the worlds of television, theatre and film respectively, each became an instant bestseller.

Next came her city set. Kal , a fiercely passionate novel about men and mining set in Kalgoorlie; Beneath the Southern Cross , a mammoth achievement chronicling the story of Sydney since first European settlement; and Territory , a tale of love, family and retribution set in Darwin. Territory took Australia by storm, making Judy one of the nations top-selling fiction writers, and her following novel, Pacific , set principally in Vanuatu, met with equal success.

Her next work, Heritage , a thriller based in the 1950s and set in the Snowies during the construction of the massive Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, embraces post-war immigration and the birth of multiculturalism. The resounding critical and commercial success of Heritage has consolidated Judys position as one of this countrys leading fiction writers. Floodtide , Judys ninth novel, is set in the Iron Ore State, Western Australia, and reveals, through three decades, the loss of innocence of a population caught up in the greed and avarice of the mining boom.

Judy Nunns fame as a novelist is spreading rapidly. Her books are now published throughout Europe in English, German, French, Dutch and Czech.

Judy lives with her husband, actor-author Bruce Venables, on the Central Coast of New South Wales.

By the same author

The Glitter Game

Centre Stage

Araluen

Beneath the Southern Cross

Territory

Pacific

Heritage

Floodtide

Maralinga

Childrens fiction

Eye in the Storm

Eye in the City

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Kal

ePub ISBN 9781742742021
Kindle ISBN 9781742742038

An Arrow Book
Published by Random House Australia
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney, NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au

Sydney New York Toronto
London Auckland Johannesburg

First published by Random House Australia 1996
This Arrow edition published 2006, 2007

Copyright Judy Nunn 1996

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

Nunn, Judy.
Kal.

ISBN 978 1 74166 596 3 (pbk.).

I. Title.

A823.3

To my mother, Margaret Anne Nunn, whose childhood
years were spent in Kal. Thanks, Nancy, youre an
inspiration .

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to especially thank my husband Bruce Venables and Jane Palfreyman for their invaluable assistance in the creation of this book.

A special thanks to Marg Mason of the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Tourist Centre and the many helpful people in Kalgoorlie to whom I spoke, particularly Pud and Vera Mann, Lorna Mitchell and the late, and sadly missed, Keith Quartermaine.

Thanks also to Maddalena Sanders, Caterina Panuccio and Dr Robert Muller.

Last but not least, my thanks to my friend and researcher, Robyn Gurney, for her tireless and inspirational struggle through the military history of World War I.

I am indebted to Walter C. Belford and his fascinating account of the 11th Battalion, Legs Eleven .

CONTENTS

Vide o mare quante bello ,

Spira tantu sentimento ,

Comme tu a chi tiene mente ,

Ca scetato o faie sunna .

A light snowfall started to blanket the earth as the mens voices rang out across the mountainside. The men ignored the snow as they squatted around the open fire, clutching their mugs of red wine, their coat collars raised, their woollen caps pulled down over their ears.

Guarda, gua, chistu ciardino ;

Siente, sie sti sciure arance

Giovannis voice was raised above the others. Although the youngest worker at the camp, he was the only one who could play the concertina and he always led the evening song. Besides, he had by far the finest voice. At least thats what Rico thought as he glanced fondly at his younger brother as they sang the haunting Torna a Surriento. Several of the dozen or so men sang well, and all were of robust voice, but Giovanni, with his fine natural tenor, was a joy to the ear.

Half an hour later the men acknowledged defeatthe snowfall had all but extinguished the fireand, with mugs freshly refilled, they retreated to their tents. But, from Giovanni and Ricos tent, the concertina played on.

Vide o mare quante bello

Gradually, the men joined in and, from tent to tent, their voices once more rang out until the wine was finished and it was time to sleep.

T HE FOLLOWING MORNING it was Rico who first saw the four figures trudging up the mountain track, their bulky wool-clad bodies black against the snow.

They looked tiny in the distance. Four dark dots. But then everything looked tiny in the Alps. Even the fir trees, thirty, forty feet high and shaggy with snow, were dwarfed by the landscape. And in the summer months, free of their white disguise, the massive grey boulders, some of which were as large as the village church, looked like pebbles on the side of the mountain.

But amongst the magnitude of natures architecture it was the village itself that looked tiniest of all. Nestled in the valley far below and built of rock quarried from the very mountains which dwarfed it, the village looked defiant. Its church bell rang importantly on Sundays, its stone chimneypots puffed busy smoke into the Alpine air, and its people lived their lives ignoring natures surrounding statement that human existence might not be of vast importance in the ultimate scheme of things. Against the backdrop of the mountain splendour, the village and its people were a testament to the wonderful audacity of man.

That it was Rico who first saw the girls was no accidenthed been watching for Teresa since the dawn light first cut the icy air. While the men scraped clear the small stone fireplace and fetched dry wood from their tents to boil their mugs of thick, black coffee, Rico stood stamping his heavy work boots in the snow, his black eyes searching the track to the village for the first sign of the girls.

She is coming, he said to Giovanni as his brother handed him a tin mug of scalding coffee, so hot he could feel the warmth of the metal through his thick leather working gloves. See? There. He pointed. She is coming.

It wasnt long before the other men noticed the girls and gathered to whistle and heckle as they passed by.