by Judy Nunn
‘. . . and I always ensure that I win snakes and ladders simply because a girl has to have some pride. Then last Saturday, as if that wasn’t enough, he insisted we start on the jigsaw puzzle I’d bought for him, a bucolic picture of a farmhouse and cows, I know how much he likes jigsaw puzzles. Rupert opted to do the cows, of course, and I had to do the sky, because as I am sure you’re well aware he does not like the blue bits.’
Hugh smiled to himself. Caitie’s voice sprang off the page. He could just see her and Rupert sprawled out on the floor of his mother’s front drawing room. He was glad his family had so welcomed her into their lives, and also, he had to admit, just a little surprised. He’d suspected on the night of the ball that his father hadn’t considered her as coming from quite the right stock.
Caitie never lied in her letters, but she allowed Hugh to assume she visited Rupert at Stanford House, and she always wrote in a lighthearted vein. Rupert did indeed respond well to her visits and being gregarious by nature had made some friends amongst his fellow inmates at New Norfolk, but according to Eunice Cartwright, with whom he had become a favourite, his nights were tortured.
Hugh read a little more of Caitie’s letter out loud. She wrote of the latest football results, as she always did, although they knew them already from Norm’s letter to his brothers, and then she gossiped about her new secretarial position with the legal firm of Kramer, Fox & Hutchinson, telling wicked stories about the people who worked there. Caitie always went out of her way to provide amusement and was sometimes quite outrageous.
‘That’s it,’ Hugh said, ‘the last bit’s private,’ and Harry and Wes made foolish kissy noises.
But Caitie did not close solely with expressions of affection. In response to Hugh’s previous letter, she had been compelled this time to end on a serious note.
Oh my dearest, I cannot leave off without telling you how deeply I was affected by your account of the truce that was called in order for the troops of both sides to bury their comrades. You have never written to me of such things before and I know this is because you wish to protect me from worry as much as possible, but you have also never before written in such a heartfelt manner. I wept as I read your words. The fact that you no longer see the Turks as the nameless, faceless foe, but as lads just like yourselves, is extraordinarily moving. What a terrible, terrible thing war is.
I cannot help but wonder though, why you left it so long to confide in me. You say the truce was on the twenty-fourth of May, and yet your letter was written well into July. Have you been plagued by the need to share your thoughts all this while? I would beg you Hugh not to be over-protective of me. Write to me about anything and everything you feel the need to express. I am strong; I can take it.
I pray God keeps you safe my darling, and know always that I love you with the whole of my being,
Your Caitie
He had felt the need to share his thoughts, but he couldn’t have written about that day any earlier. Not while the images were still so stark in his mind and the stench of burning flesh still lingered in his nostrils. They hadn’t buried all of those who’d been putrefying in the sun for days. They’d doused some in petrol and set fire to them. The smell of burning flesh was as bad as the smell of rotting flesh, he’d decided. But during the weeks that had followed the truce, the lingering memory of that day had been one of mutual respect. This much he had been able to share with Caitie, and he’d needed to share it with someone, the recognition between both sides that they were really no different. They’d seen it in each other’s eyes. They’d exchanged cigarettes and communicated in ridiculously charade-like exchanges while they’d disposed of their dead. They’d liked one another. From 0730 to 1630 they’d been friends. Then the killing had started all over again. Caitie’s right, Hugh thought, war is a terrible thing; it is also bloody ridiculous.
Further down the trench photographs of sweethearts were being bandied about. Several Western Australian soldiers had started the ball rolling, one of them having received a photograph in a letter. The other two produced the pictures they carried with them always.
David Powell, not to be outdone, took his wallet from his top pocket and passed around the well-worn picture of his fiancée. He’d just received two letters from Jeanie and was glad to show her off to a fresh audience.
‘That’s my Jeanie,’ he said.
Big Gordie looked at Oscar and rolled his eyes comically. David flashed Jeanie’s picture at every given opportunity.
David, like Hugh, had been promoted to lance-corporal and placed in charge of a section of seven men, including his cousin Gordon and his friend Oscar O’Callaghan. Following the death of so many platoon members, new NCOs had been needed and the Company Commander had clearly seen leadership qualities in both Hugh Stanford and David Powell.
‘I’ve got a picture too,’ Gordie said with a wink at Oscar, and he took out the photograph that he’d just received from his younger sister. Nineteen-year-old Cynthia had a very droll sense of humour.
I worry that as you do not have a regular sweetheart, Gordie, she’d written, you may long for the image of a female face to carry close to your heart. Cynthia well knew that her brother treasured his bachelorhood and had no desire at all for a regular sweetheart. I therefore enclose a photograph of Delilah, which I took during a visit to Charlotte Grove last weekend. Her company I’m sure will help you through many a lonely night.
Gordie handed over his photograph. ‘That’s my girl,’ he said as it was passed around by the half dozen or so men. One by one they burst out laughing, some covering their mouths to keep away the flies, others catching one or two and hawking them out or swallowing them. The picture was a close-up shot of a huge sow’s face, snout glistening, eyes staring lovingly into the camera lens.
‘That’s Delilah,’ David said, recognising the family pet. Delilah had the run of the orchard and household alike as had Falstaff before her.
‘It certainly is,’ Gordie replied in all apparent seriousness. ‘As you know, I have a particularly soft spot for pigs. I think it’s extremely thoughtful of Cynthia to go to such trouble on my behalf.’
The mail had as always distracted the men from the surrounding muck and the stench and the flies, but Oscar had noticed that one of the Western Australians, a young chap from Perth, no more than eighteen, whose name he thought was Ben, hadn’t joined in the fun. Ben was hunkered down to one side, chewing on a dry biscuit and appearing to take little interest in the proceedings, but Oscar knew he was following every word. Ben hadn’t received any mail and he was trying to pretend it didn’t matter. Oscar could also see that Ben was one of those whose nerves were shot to pieces. He could read the signs; they all could. He squatted beside the boy.
‘Ben, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’m Oscar.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Fancy copping a picture of a pig, eh?’ He grinned, just trying to cheer the lad up.
‘Yeah,’ Ben smiled, ‘that’s real funny,’ he said, and something in his response led Oscar to believe that Ben would have given anything for a picture of his own, even a picture of a pig.
‘You got a girlfriend, Ben?’
‘Nup.’ He didn’t shrug and he didn’t pretend nonchalance. There was both regret and longing in the brevity of his answer. Ben was not only frightened, he was lonely.
Without giving the matter a second thought Oscar dug a hand into his pocket and produced the photograph of Mary Reilly. ‘There you go,’ he said, handing it to the lad, ‘you keep a hold of that.’
‘Eh?’ Ben stared blankly down at the photograph.
‘She’ll be good company for you. She’s very nice.’
‘Are you mad?’ Ben looked incredulously from the photograph back to Oscar. ‘I can’t take this.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not? She’s your girl.’
‘Nah,’ Oscar waved a hand airily, ‘she’s not my girl, she’s just a friend. Like I said,
she’s very nice – a really good person, you know what I mean? She’d like to think she was of some comfort, I know she would. That’s the sort of girl she is.’
Ben’s eyes returned to the photograph. ‘She’s very pretty.’
‘Yes, she is isn’t she? Her name’s Mary. Mary Reilly.’
‘You’re sure she wouldn’t mind me having her picture?’
‘She’d consider it an honour, Ben. I know she would.’
Oscar was really pleased with himself. He’d done his good turn for the day, and if they ever got out of this hellhole alive, which was doubtful, Perth and Hobart were worlds apart. Ben and Mary would never meet. He didn’t give a damn if they did anyway.
For the past week or so there had been rumours of a big push to be conducted against the Turk and, on the morning of the sixth of August, the troops of the 12th Battalion were ordered back to their lines to support the 1st Brigade in a charge on the Turkish position known as Lone Pine.
The attack was planned as a diversion. The assault on Lone Pine was aimed to coincide with the assault of the 4th Brigade who, along with New Zealand, Gurkha, Indian and newly arrived British troops, were to take possession of the strategically all-important heights of Chunuk Bair.
Waiting in reserve, the men of the 12th watched as the 1st Brigade made its charge, timed for 1630 when the late afternoon sun would be shining in the eyes of the Turkish defenders. The charge was swift and victorious, and by 1800 the frontline trenches were taken. Then, at 1900, the troops of the 12th Battalion were ordered forward to replace the wounded and the dead.
Hugh Stanford and David Powell led their sections in the one-hundred-yard dash up the hill, trying their hardest to avoid stepping on the bodies of comrades as they ran. Some of the prone figures were still alive; and the ever-present cry of ‘stretcher bearers’ rang out. The victory, swift though it had been, had come at a cost.
The sight that greeted them at their destination was not pretty. During the initial attack, troops had ripped aside the covering pine logs to leap into the trenches; without room for rifles they’d fought hand to hand with bayonets. The dead and the dying of both sides now lay skewered together in gruesome embraces.
The assault, however, had proved successful. In the rabbit warren that constituted the Turkish entrenchments, the Australians had secured the frontline and connecting communication trenches. The Turks had been forced to retreat to their nearby reserve and supply trenches, where they could call in reinforcements. The Australians, aware that the enemy would launch a counterattack, dug in and prepared to defend their new frontline.
The Turkish reinforcements were not long arriving. Fresh troops and weaponry poured into the reserve trenches and, once the counterattack began, it raged non-stop for two days. Still, the Australians held their position.
Then, on the night of the eighth of August, the enemy changed tactics. Instead of hand-to-hand combat they launched a massive ‘bomb assault’ from their position only yards away. The Ottoman Army was in possession of an endless supply of German-made hand grenades, a form of weapon the Australians did not have, and the Turks bombarded the trenches, hurling their bombs into the frontline by the dozen.
Harry Balfour dived for cover as a grenade exploded a little further down the line. ‘Jesus Christ, what the hell do we do?’ he yelled scrambling to his feet.
‘We hurl them back,’ David Powell shouted from nearby.
David’s idea corresponded with that of his superiors; the official order quickly went down the line. The troops were not to take cover, but to pick up the grenades and throw them back into the Turkish trenches, the closest of which was barely five yards away.
As the night progressed the battle turned into a heart-stopping game of Russian roulette. In the dark, a man had only seconds to react, to see the bomb land, to pick it up knowing in that moment he held his death in his hands, and then to throw it back.
Hugh Stanford found inspiration in David Powell. As the grenades continued to land, David went out of his way to pick them up while others stood rigid with fear. He laughed as he flung them back over the parapet. There was no doubt a mixture of adrenalin and bravado in the instant the bomb left his hand, but the sight was inspiring nonetheless. Hugh joined in the game, defying the odds with a vengeance.
Beside them, Gordie Powell did not shirk from the task. Gordie was hurling back the bombs with all the power only big Gordie could, although he was overshooting the target – a lob would have served better. But, strangely, Gordie was also reciting fractured pieces of the twenty-third psalm. Hugh had never known him to do that before.
‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,’ he was saying. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.’ He kept chanting the same phrases over and over again.
Harry Balfour felt a thump on his shoulder. The grenade dropped to the ground and rolled away a yard or so. He stared down at it dumbly; he could hardly see it lying there in the dark.
‘Pick it up, Harry! Pick it up!’ Hugh yelled from some distance away.
But Harry couldn’t move.
Hugh’s call had gained Wes Balfour’s attention. He saw the grenade resting near his brother’s feet and he knew that Harry had left it too late. In the split second before it went off, he threw himself upon the bomb, dying instantly, his chest ripped to pieces.
The Turks, imagining their enemy weakened by the grenades, entered the trenches. Fighting continued hand to hand with bayonet and rifle, man against man, desperate and bloody.
Oscar O’Callaghan dodged as a Turk lunged. He felt the blade slice through his left arm and lunged forward with his right, driving his own fixed bayonet deep into the man’s stomach. Nose to nose, the two of them stood motionless in the mayhem and Oscar watched the expression on the young soldier’s face change from shock to the acceptance of death. Then, as he ripped back his rifle, the last light of life left the man’s eyes. His wounded arm hanging uselessly by his side, Oscar turned and prepared himself for the next onslaught.
The fighting continued throughout the night and, although the Australians maintained their position, dawn revealed the terrible price paid. The trenches were littered with the dead, those bayoneted and those blown to pieces. Many who’d been unlucky in the Russian roulette stakes had suffered severe facial injuries which, if they survived, would leave them hideously scarred for the rest of their lives.
Hugh Stanford and David Powell had lost four men from their sections, amongst them their close friend Wes Balfour. Harry was discovered at dawn in a traumatised state, his brother clutched in his arms, drenched in Wes’s blood. He’d been like that throughout the chaos of the night.
Shortly after dawn, the platoon was drawn out of the line and returned to the reserve trenches while fresh troops were brought in. The wounded, including Oscar O’Callaghan, whose bayonet injury was severe, were evacuated to the casualty clearing station. The men took no further part in the battle, which continued to rage for the whole of the next day.
Back in the reserve trenches, Hugh, David and Gordie worried for Harry’s sanity. He had refused to relinquish his hold on Wes’s body and his arms had to be prised apart. Now, he sat staring blankly at nothing. They washed his brother’s blood from his face and his hands – they couldn’t do anything about his uniform, which was drenched – but then they were covered in blood themselves, either their own or someone else’s. They spoke to him soothingly, told him it wasn’t his fault, but Harry continued to stare at nothing. Then, later in the afternoon, he started to shake uncontrollably. His head quivered, his hands fluttered and his whole body shuddered. It reminded Hugh of Rupert when he was upset and having one of his fits, so he did exactly as he would have done with Rupert. He took Harry in his arms and cuddled him.
‘There, there,’ he said, stroking his cousin’s head and rocking him in his arms, ‘there, there.’ And Harry started to cry. He continued to cry throughout the night, and Hugh continued to cud
dle him as he always had Rupert.
The battle concluded the following morning, the Turks conceding defeat, but it was a pyrrhic victory for the Australians. There was disastrous loss of life on both sides. They would later learn that the four-day assault on Lone Pine, which had been planned purely as a diversionary tactic, had cost the lives of two thousand Australians and seven thousand Turks.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Gallipoli campaign came to an end in December 1915, when the British finally admitted defeat.
At seven o’clock on the morning of the twentieth, Turkish troops advanced on the ANZAC trenches to find them deserted. During the two previous nights, forty thousand soldiers had been secretly and silently evacuated from the peninsula. The withdrawal of troops had proved the only truly successful operation in the entire eight-month campaign.
‘Well blow me down, look who’s here.’ Oscar grinned as he greeted his mates with David’s catchphrase, which had become their common salute. ‘And all in one piece, I see.’ They were too: Gordie and David Powell, Hugh Stanford and Harry Balfour. Looking pretty good considering, Oscar thought. Even Harry, who he’d been sure would never see out the campaign, had got through.
They slapped one another on the back, laughing and embracing, grateful to be alive and glad to be reunited.
‘In time for Christmas what’s more,’ David said as they settled themselves on their canvas army stools and lit up their cigarettes.
It was Christmas Eve and, having been evacuated from Gallipoli, the ANZACs had just arrived at the vast tent city of Abbassia Camp in Egypt. Oscar had arrived well before them: he’d been at the camp for the past fortnight.
‘What happened to you?’ Hugh asked. ‘We heard you’d been taken to Malta for treatment, but we were sure they’d send you back.’
