Solomon's Song (48 page)

‘Yeah, that’s right, Sergeant?’ Numbers says quizzically and looks a trifle hurt at Ben’s seemingly critical tone of voice. ‘We didn’t charge nothin’ for walking the ten miles back to Mena with the flamin’ donkey!’

‘Well done, you two,’ Ben says and turns to Numbers Cooligan. ‘And your investment? I thought you said you were skint?’

‘Yeah well, I come good all of a sudden, like overnight.’

‘What, the tooth fairy come?’ Crow Rigby asks.

Ben laughs with the others.

‘It was me own money, Sergeant!’ Cooligan protests fiercely. ‘Fair dinkum! I’ll swear it on a stack o’ Bibles!’

‘It’s true, Sergeant,’ Library Spencer says hastily, nodding his head as further confirmation. ‘He had to borrow a quid off me.’

‘I wouldn’t doubt you both for a moment, lads,’ Ben says good-humouredly, then points to the twenty pullovers he’s set to one side. ‘What do you think you’ll get for those on the black market, Private Cooligan?’

‘You mean here in the camp, Sergeant?’

Ben nods.

Numbers Cooligan, clearly relieved that he’s not in trouble, thinks for a moment, his head to one side, hand stroking his chin. ‘I reckon fifteen bob a piece, Sergeant, no sweat.’

‘Well that’s real bad luck, Private, because I’m buying them from you for eight shillings each. We’re changing over to the British system of organising a platoon and a company, there’s twenty more lads coming in with us. I owe you eight quid for the remaining twenty pullovers, you’ll have it in the morning, Private Cooligan.’ He faces the seated platoon. ‘Righto, grab a pullover each and make sure you have them in your kit tomorrow. Yeah, I know it’s extra weight, but if I find any of you lads without ‘em, it’s two days kitchooty.’

General Birdwood, on instructions from the War Office, changes the old system of company formation used by the Australians to the one adopted after the Boer War by the British. Whereas there were formerly eight platoons to a company, around two hundred and seventy men with supporting staff, they now organise into four platoons and two hundred and twenty-eight men to a company, the bigger platoons still remaining under a single subaltern.

There is a fair amount of consternation at the news of this reorganisation in the Clicks, who have always seen themselves as somewhat special and have become a very close-knit unit. Furthermore, there are now four extra subalterns in the company, second lieutenants over, and the fear is that Wordy Smith, who is plainly the worst of them all, is going to be taken away from them. While the extra men mean more work for him, Ben doesn’t want to lose Peregrine Ormington-Smith. It must be one of the few occasions in military history where the men feel charged with the responsibility for maintaining the poor services of their platoon officer.

Crow Rigby voices their fears to Ben when they are out in the desert the following day. Wordy Smith has sloped off to look under a large overhanging rock some hundred yards away, no doubt seeking out some invisible-to-the-naked-eye desert flora, so the infantryman is free to speak. ‘Sergeant, with this reorganisation, does that mean we’re gunna lose, you know, Wordy… er, Lieutenant Ormington-Smith?’

The others wait anxiously for Ben’s reply. ‘Can’t say, Private Rigby, not much we can do about it anyway.’

‘Couldn’t we like… go to the CO. and ask him, say we’d like to keep him, Sergeant?’ Hornbill asks.

Ben clears his throat, and appears a little embarrassed. ‘It’s… well, it’s not the sort of thing a sergeant can do, lads.’

Put this way, they all get the message right off, a sergeant can’t be seen kissing the arse of an officer, no matter how he feels about him. That means the men can’t do so either.

‘There’s only one thing the army might take into consideration?’

‘What’s that, Sergeant?’ Muddy Parthe asks.

‘Well, with this new formation the platoon becomes the real fighting unit in the army. In the field, once the battle is closed and we’re in the thick o’ it, the platoon has to be an independent unit. So company commanders and the like get to know which platoons work best for what fighting job. For instance, you lads have been trained with a heavy emphasis on the rifle, I’m trained in the machine gun as well, British Maxim and the French Hotchkiss, so they’ll see us as a fighting arm. I think we’re potentially a good one, we can already bring more firepower to bear on the enemy than most. But we lack sappers. So, if I’m not mistaken, we’ll be given a bunch of lads with shovels to round us out.’ He pauses and looks about him, then goes on. ‘Now if we can show Major Sayers and Colonel Wanliss and Brigadier M’Cay and some o’ the brass looking on when we’re on manoeuvres that we’re a shit-hot unit, the best there is, well they’re not going to change the subaltern, are they now, lads?’

‘Jesus, Sergeant, sappers joining us? You mean like them bastards what tried to attack us on board ship?’ Muddy Parthe asks.

‘Well, yes.’

‘More than possible,’ Library Spencer says, ‘Black Jack Treloar’s been sent home.’

‘Nothing trivial I hope?’ Crow Rigby quips.

‘One o’ them three hundred disgraced, them what give us a bad name,’ Woggy adds a little self-righteously.

‘How come I don’t know this?’ Cooligan laments. ‘I’m the Gob Sergeant, I’m supposed ter know everything!’

‘No, mate, Library knows everything,’ Woggy says.

‘That’s enough, lads, but yes, Sergeant Treloar’s platoon is one of those to be broken up and redistributed. I’ve asked for at least three of them, Brodie, Matthews and Jolly.’

There is a stunned silence.

‘But… but they were…?’

Ben cuts Muddy Parthe off before he can go any further, ‘Yes, the three who went to hospital, they’re joining us with some others and I want you to make them welcome. And, by the way, Private Spencer, it’s Sergeant Black Jack Treloar to such as you.’

‘Jesus, now I’ve flamin’ ‘eard everything,’ Cooligan gasps.

‘That’s enough, stow yer mess cans, it’s time to move out. Private Mustafa, go fetch the lieutenant, make sure he doesn’t leave anything behind.’

In the next few weeks the expanded platoon throws itself into training as if it is real war, though this is not uncommon with the 1st Division, all of whom want to make their mark. The young Australians are positively itching to go to war. The new blokes from Black Jack Treloar’s platoon work as hard as the rest of them, even harder on occasions. They’re naturally fit, accustomed to pick and shovel work, big, strong lads, perhaps a little basic, but tough as teak wood and scared of nothing. Like a journeyman boxer who always finds himself the sparring partner to the champion, they yearn for a chance to shine on their own.

Slogging it out in the desert is bloody hard work and the new members of the platoon give no quarter and ask no favours. Ben though is remorseless, and when the new group gets back to camp or bivouac in the desert at night he has them behind a rifle, sharpening their skills, making them catch up with the Lee-Enfield. They don’t complain, which is rare for young soldiers, and from their actions it seems as if they are somewhat ashamed of Black Jack Treloar and want to make up for the bad reputation they’ve earned. The axe incident on the deck of the Orvieto has given them tremendous respect for Ben and, now that they find out he’s a good bloke as well, they feel privileged to be in with the Clicks.

Brodie is an instant hit with the members of the old platoon and is immediately christened Brokenose, his hooter now considerably flattened on a face that could never be pretty but which is seldom less than cheerful. He and Library Spencer hit it off together a treat and are soon good mates. This first comes about when Brodie wanders aimlessly into the Y.M.C.A., a ramshackle hut in the camp where the men can write letters home, and observes Library seated at a table writing.

‘Whatcha doin’ then, Library?’ Brodie asks.

Library is too polite to point out that it must be perfectly bloody obvious that he’s writing a letter. ‘Writing home.’

‘Shit hey?’ Brokenose Brodie seems genuinely impressed. ‘Wish I could do that.’

‘Well, what’s to stop you? Sit down, there’s plenty o’ paper, pencils, it’s a free world, go for yer life.’

‘Nah, can’t, me old folks don’t read.’

‘Well, that doesn’t matter, mate, somebody can read it to them, a neighbour?’

‘Nah, wouldn’t work.’

‘Why not?’

‘They’s ashamed like. Too proud.’

Library looks up at the huge form of Brokenose Brodie. ‘You can’t write, can you, mate?’

‘Course I can!’ Brokenose says proudly. ‘Me name.’ Whereupon he takes up a pencil and on a scrap of paper he laboriously writes KEVIN BRODIE in the script of a seven-year-old schoolchild. ‘There yer go,’ he says, smiling, ‘me moniker!’

‘That all you can write?’ Library enquires softly.

‘And me army number!’

Both break up at this and somebody at another table calls, ‘Shush!’

‘Can’t read neither, eh?’ Library asks in a half-whisper.

Brokenose Brodie shakes his head.

‘Wanna learn?’

‘Too old, mate, I ain’t got no brains, I’m a fuckin’ ditch digger, ain’t I?’

‘Don’t matter, I’ll teach ya.’

‘Yeah? So I can write ‘ome?’ Brokenose Brodie says, then he seems to have a momentary doubt. ‘Me folk still can’t read. Fair dinkum yer reckon yer can do it?’

‘Not me, you. You can do it, Brokenose.’ Library extends his hand which is immediately lost in Brokenose Brodie’s huge callused paw.

The training the troops receive at the hands of General Bridges, though vigorous, is simply the traditional British army training from an outdated manual. Little or no advice comes to them from the Western Front, where a new kind of war is raging. The Australian and New Zealand officers must rely almost entirely on drills, tactics and manoeuvres written at another time for war in another place and after this use their own initiative.

The men are also showing that they can think on their feet and make decisions at the N.C.O. and even at the basic infantry level. It is somewhat disconcerting that when, in the mock battles they fight, the officer is killed, the platoon carries on as if nothing untoward has happened. They seem to cope with most situations they are thrown into with an almost cavalier carry-on-sergeant approach.

The troops of the 1st Division have toughened, their bodies almost black from exposure to the Egyptian sun. At the end of January a further ten thousand five hundred new Australian troops and two thousand New Zealanders arrive with Colonel John Monash in charge of the 4th Infantry Brigade. They are fine specimens all but they appear soft compared to the desert-hardened Australians and New Zealanders. Nobody in the War Office seems to have asked themselves whether troops trained to fight in the desert in wide-open spaces under a cloudless sky will be able to adapt to the trenches of Flanders and France. Just how these sons of Australia will react in an actual battle is anyone’s guess.

In Europe the men are learning to fight in trenches, often up to their knees in mud on battlefields covered in early morning mist or in a perpetual haze of smoke from heavy artillery shells and mortar attacks. Meanwhile, the Australians and New Zealanders have never seen a bomb or been subject to, or even heard, the roar and thunder of a sustained artillery attack, or the whine of a shell passing overhead, nor, in fact, experienced anything beyond the pop-pop of the 18-pounder field gun a four-man crew can drag into position. Most have never even seen a periscope and few of the thirty thousand men have fired a shot in anger except perhaps at a crow or a dingo. About the only thing they can be said to understand with a thoroughness of purpose is barbed wire and how to crawl through it. Furthermore, most of them can use a Lee-Enfield rifle with some skill and the bayonet attached with a singular and determined efficiency, that is, if you consider an unprotesting bag of sand the equivalent of an enemy.

Nevertheless, the intelligence shown by the men as they work their way on their bellies around a knoll or mount a night attack prompts a senior regular-army English officer, newly arrived to take up a position as adviser on Birdwood’s staff, to remark, ‘A better division than the 1st Australian together with the New Zealand Brigade has never gone to battle.’

When the platoon and company exercises are completed, Ben’s platoon is singled out as one of the three best in the 1st Division. Wordy Smith receives congratulations for their conduct in the field and a personal letter of commendation from General Bridges. In part the letter which Wordy Smith reads to the platoon says:

My only regret is that we did not have an enemy and a battle at hand to test your platoon, for I feel certain you and your men would have come through with flying colours.

That evening after tea the ‘belly dunce and snake six’, plus Brokenose Brodie, who now makes a regular seventh member of their mob, are seated in the soldiers’ mess when Crow Rigby suddenly says, ‘Hey, wait a mo, what if, after all our ‘ard work keepin’ him safe from himself, Wordy Smith gets a promotion?’

‘Dead right!’ Numbers Cooligan exclaims. ‘We wouldn’t know how to operate without him! He’s like being a champion jockey what’s always been given an unfair handicap and is gunna show the bastards he can still win the flamin’ race!’

‘Nah, it couldn’t happen,’ Library Spencer says. ‘Not even the general is that stupid.’

There is a momentary silence whilst they all think about this and then Crow Rigby mutters, ‘I dunno, I’m not so sure about that.’

‘What?’

‘The general.’

*

Around the middle of March, rumours are coming thick and fast. The British navy, in an effort to aid Russia by creating a supply line through the Bosphorus, fails when her ships are unable to force their way through the straits of the Dardanelles. Like everyone else, Britain has underestimated the Turks and arrogantly assumed the Dardanelles at their narrowest point will be easily breached by her navy and they will sail on to bombard Constantinople and force Turkey out of the war and so, in a military sense, kill two birds with one stone.

The failure of the navy’s attempt to force the straits makes a land attack on the peninsula almost inevitable. Though little of this is reported at the troop level, Wordy’s Wireless is still working. News is fairly freely discussed in the officers’ mess and Wordy Smith briefs Ben daily on what he hears.