Loyal Creatures

by Morris Gleitzman

  I sat thinking for a long time, Daisy standing there shading me.

  I wished I could thank Dad.

  Tell him how much I loved him.

  ‘Too late,’ I said to Daisy. ‘Too late now. I’ll have to wait till he gets back.’

  When the first blokes got back to our camp from the Dardanelles, we all just stared, Daisy included.

  Walking ghosts.

  I hadn’t seen anything like it since I was little.

  Back then Dad was working in a gypsum mine with his father.

  Big collapse.

  Mum and me rushed to the pit. Blokes were coming out, the few that made it. Pale with dust and shock. Silent.

  Grandad wasn’t with them.

  Dad didn’t talk for two days after that.

  This time the brass didn’t want our Dardanelles blokes to talk at all, permanent.

  But the first ones back did.

  They reckoned most of the fighting in the Dardanelles was on a strip of rock called Gallipoli.

  Abattoir, they reckoned.

  Our blokes got slaughtered.

  Light Horse lost hundreds. Some of the best horse­men in Australia, dead on their feet not five yards out of the trenches. Some got a few steps more, blown into pieces so small they didn’t even have a grave.

  Dad included.

  That’s what they said.

  But I didn’t give up hope.

  Mayhem over there, that’s what they also said. Lines of communication in tatters. Men ending up in the wrong regiment, uniforms in shreds, fumbling through their wallets trying to find their own names.

  So I didn’t give up hope.

  Otton helped. Made sure our regimental sing-songs had plenty of cheery ballads.

  Daisy helped too. Stuck with me, her head on my shoulder.

  Until I saw it.

  Dad’s name.

  On the dead list.

  I wanted to be in the ground like Dad was.

  So I tried to do what we did after Mum died. Keep working. Keep busy. Let water wash away the pain.

  I found an old Arab well. Hundreds of years old, they reckoned. Been dry for decades. Fifty feet deep and the bottom wasn’t even damp.

  Dad had told me about wells like this.

  Lined with stone, ancient style. The stones bleed minerals. Clog themselves up. Their strength is their weakness, that’s what Dad reckoned.

  Hours I was down there, looking for water.

  Scraping and hacking at those mongrel stones. Stabbing them. Clawing at them. Yelling at them.

  Nothing weak about those stones. Hard as a Turk’s heart those stones were.

  I knew there was water, I could feel it close. But it didn’t come. So I stopped waiting for some dopey liquid to make me feel better.

  I decided to give up on water.

  Try something else.

  ‘Ballantyne, here’s your delivery.’

  Trooper Johnson barged into the quiet spot where I was sitting with Daisy cleaning my rifle.

  I was glad to see him. Or rather I was glad to see what he’d got with him. A bundle of rags, which he dropped at my feet.

  I handed him the money. A month’s pay.

  Johnson took it, then stared at Daisy.

  ‘Jeez,’ he said. ‘She’s ugly.’

  Rude tosser. That wasn’t on. Insulting a horse who was in mourning and too sad to give him one in the privates.

  I didn’t say anything, just stood up and swung one into his jaw.

  He dropped.

  My hand felt like I’d fractured it.

  Johnson picked himself up. I put my fists up, waiting for him to come at me. But he just leaned against the shed and spat some blood.

  ‘It’s just a mongrel horse,’ he said, glowering at me. ‘You need locking up.’

  Otton appeared as Johnson walked away.

  ‘What happened?’ he said.

  ‘He insulted Daisy,’ I said.

  Otton stared at me. Then at Daisy. Then grinned.

  ‘You gotta admit, Frankie,’ he said. ‘She’s not the prettiest girl on the line.’

  Death wish, that bloke.

  I took a step towards him.

  ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Jeez. Touchy. What did Johnson want, anyhow?’

  I picked up the bundle of rags and carefully unwrapped it. Nestled in the bundle was the most vicious weapon I’d ever seen.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ I said.

  Otton stared.

  It was a bayonet. A regulation-issue bayonet. But different. Instead of a smooth blade, it was edged with jagged metal teeth.

  Razor sharp.

  ‘Johnson made it,’ I said. ‘Hobby of his.’

  Otton couldn’t take his eyes off it.

  ‘He’ll make one for you,’ I said. ‘Only nine quid.’

  ‘Me?’ said Otton. ‘No way. I’m an apprentice auctioneer. I sing at weddings on weekends. Thing like that isn’t in my province or my dominion.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Jeez,’ said Otton, still staring at the bayonet. ‘Those Turk mongrels that killed your dad. In and twist with that and they’ll be dog meat.’

  He gave me a nervous glance, as if he thought he’d gone too far.

  He hadn’t.

  It was personal now.

  I wanted those Turks and Huns bad. I wanted to irrigate the desert with them. I wanted to kill so many the local farmers would be growing blood oranges, permanent.

  Daisy felt the same, I could tell.

  So did a lot of the other blokes. Their dead mates at Gallipoli were counting on them.

  All we wanted was to get started.

  Army had other ideas. Training, months of it. Including on Christmas Day and my seventeenth birthday.

  ‘Blow this for a waste of sweat,’ I said as we oiled our saddles and bridles for the thousandth time. ‘We should be training on the job, like the blokes over in France. They’ll be getting stuck into those mongrels now.’

  ‘Dying of boredom in trenches, more like,’ said Otton, rubbing ointment into his feet for the thousandth time. ‘Sitting around waiting to be attacked. Lucky if they get the occasional skirmish or contretemps.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said a passing troop sergeant, flicking dust off Otton’s bridle. ‘A trench is no place for you blokes. Army’s got bigger plans for you. Elite mobile desert fighting force, you blokes. If you can stop your gear falling to bits, that is.’

  Mobile desert fighting force.

  I liked the idea of that.

  ‘When do we start?’ said Lesney.

  ‘You blokes’ll be the first to know,’ said the troop sergeant.

  Daisy snorted.

  The sergeant stopped and frowned.

  ‘No, come to think of it,’ he said, ‘this is the army so you probably won’t.’

  We even did battle practice in our time off.

  Horse Olympics, we called it. Races. Tug-o-wars. Horseback wrestling and the like. And one very special event.

  It was Otton’s idea.

  ‘Very popular at country weddings,’ he said. ‘After a sheila’s caught the bridal bouquet, all the blokes have a joust for it. Lucky winner cops a kiss from the sheila. Or her mum.’

  I tried not to think about the awful possibility of having to kiss Joan’s mother at our wedding.

  In the Egyptian desert there was a shortage of bridal bouquets. Wasn’t much of a floral nature in general. So we rigged something else up. A pair of knotted long johns.

  Drew a face on it.

  A Turk head.

  We dangled it from a palm tree and two blokes on horseback squared up equal distances from it. When the whistle blew they rode at it full pelt, each trying to hook the head on their bayonet.

  Daisy was a legend at it.

  The bayonets had tins of bully beef stuck on the end so nobody got hurt.

  Not yet.

  Then, at last, it was on.

  We were playing pool in the local town with blokes from signals.
We were winning, partly on account of them being distracted by a bunch of nurses, and partly on account of them being nervous when they heard that Otton had an Advanced Diploma in Snooker from Tamworth Tech.

  Signals blokes ran out of money, so they gave us info instead. Reckoned our air boys had spotted Turk troop build-ups. Great mobs of them.

  We were so excited we couldn’t sleep. Lay awake in our tent waiting for them to attack.

  Didn’t happen.

  Pom infantry reported that even the small attacks had stopped.

  We were confused.

  Came up with various theories.

  Lesney, who was planning to be a sports journo, reckoned it was on account of Turks and Huns not playing test cricket, so they didn’t understand about sticking at something day after day after day.

  Bosworth reckoned it was because the local Bedouin tribes were stealing the Turks’ boots while they were asleep. Sometimes taking their feet as well if the laces were double-knotted.

  Otton reckoned the whole thing was subterfuge. Or some word like that.

  Few days later, on parade, our colonel put us straight.

  ‘The enemy is building up its forces,’ he said. ‘Tens of thousands coming down from the north. Very important not to let them get organised. Which is why we’re now going on the offensive. Push them back to where they came from. Those that survive meeting us.’

  A cheer roared across the parade ground.

  Even the blokes who’d perfected the art of having a snooze while standing to attention were wide awake and chucking their hats in the air.

  ‘At last,’ I said to Dad under my breath. ‘We’re going after the mongrels.’

  Then things moved fast.

  Our orders were to head north-east into the desert, up towards Palestine, and engage the enemy. Us and some British cavalry.

  We mustered by moonlight. Formed up and rode out at dawn in mounted columns. Big mob of us.

  We were hungry for it.

  Long ride. Sixteen hours. Sand shifting under Daisy’s feet the whole time, but she was rock solid.

  Even when German planes machine-gunned us, she hardly flinched.

  First air attack was early arvo. We learned quick smart what to do and what not to do. Watched a British cavalry troop gallop in clever patterns across the sand, making themselves moving targets.

  Harder to hit was the idea.

  Not so clever.

  In five minutes they were history, blood-stained riding boots and scraps of thoroughbred scattered everywhere.

  I held on tight to Daisy, so the other blokes wouldn’t see me trembling.

  By the time the Hun planes were back for a second go, we’d worked it out. If you stayed rock-still, the planes couldn’t tell you from a sandstone outcrop or a dune shadow.

  Daisy was a champ. As the planes came at us I was shaking like a windmill. If I’d been a horse, I’d have been bolting, or on my belly with my hooves over my eyes.

  Not Daisy. Hardly a quiver.

  I tried to make my breathing like hers, slow and easy. And for the rest of that day, whenever we heard the whine of a plane engine and the flapping of its canvas coming over the desert, we’d stop and breathe together, calm and still, like we were the same creature.

  It was the bombs that did us in.

  Last air attack of the day, the German mongrels hung out of their planes and chucked bombs at us. Still couldn’t see us, but the shrapnel went every which way.

  Cut our blokes and horses down like wheat.

  Blokes I’d played snooker with. Had camp-fire sing-songs with.

  Not Daisy, thank God. She scrambled to her feet.

  I picked myself up and started breathing again.

  ‘You alright?’ I said to Otton and Bosworth and Lesney.

  They nodded, eyes still wide with shock.

  I knew how they felt.

  We patched up our casualties as best we could. Loaded each wounded bloke ambulance-style onto his horse, arms and legs tied under its belly. Filled their horses’ water bags from ours and sent them back to camp with an escort.

  ‘Not much water left for us,’ I muttered to Otton as we dug graves.

  Otton nodded. He looked worried too.

  Our column headed on into the desert. Vast sandy oceans, shimmering rocky plains, all dry as a pub on Sunday.

  Otton tried to keep our spirits up with a few songs, but by the end of the afternoon we were out of water and not in good shape.

  Daisy was sick with thirst.

  She didn’t stop, but some of the other horses did.

  They couldn’t help it, they weren’t walers.

  When they dropped, they dropped. Kneeled down first, then rolled over and just lay there, eyes staring at something far away. A nice grassy paddock with a dam probably.

  Officers called the column to a halt. If we started losing horses, soon we’d be losing blokes too. You didn’t last long on foot in those parts.

  We dismounted and let the horses rest.

  Big worry was that the Hun fliers had given the Turks our location. Enemy troops on their way. Watered-up and hungry for us.

  None of the blokes said it, but we were all thinking the same thing. Few more hours without water, we’d be too weak to fight.

  ‘Everyone got a bullet?’ said Johnson.

  Blokes in our troop all nodded.

  Unwritten rule. No Light Horseman ever let himself be taken prisoner.

  Ever.

  Bosworth and Lesney were slumped next to their horses. Even Otton was sitting staring at the sand.

  I decided to risk it. Daisy was still standing.

  ‘Permission to scout for water, sir,’ I said to a lieutenant.

  He gave me a weary look. Thought I was being a comedian. Then he recognised me.

  ‘Permission granted,’ he said.

  I swallowed the second last swig of water from my canteen. Gave the last mouthful to Daisy.

  We set off. Filthy country. Sand, rock, nothing growing. Even the scorpions looked thirsty. We pushed on, hoping for a change in geography.

  All we got was dusk.

  Then darkness.

  Then a desert fog.

  ‘Dad’d have a smile if he saw this,’ I said to Daisy. ‘Hundreds of us back there dehydrating to death and now here’s you and me blinded by very small drops of water.’

  Daisy wasn’t smiling. Nor was I. You couldn’t drink mist. And just because you couldn’t see the enemy, didn’t mean they couldn’t see you.

  One sniper’s bullet and Joan would never know what had happened to me. Never know what I really felt about her. The sort of feelings you can’t put in a letter. Only in a whisper.

  Me and Daisy headed slowly on through the swirling dark.

  ‘Go easy,’ I murmured, but Daisy knew what she was doing.

  Suddenly she stopped.

  I held my breath. Listening for the clink of Turkish rifle straps.

  Nothing.

  Then the fog drifted and in the moonlight I saw why Daisy had stopped. We were on the edge of a wadi. Sort of a deep, dry creek bed.

  Sheer hundred-foot drop. Two more steps and we’d have been history.

  ‘Thanks,’ I whispered to her.

  In filthy country a hundred-foot drop is a gift. If you can get down there without breaking your neck, you’re a hundred feet closer to water.

  There was water buried deep in that wadi, plenty for the whole column. Thanks to it, we got to the enemy late afternoon the next day.

  Timing was good.

  Through the binocs we could see the Turks having a water stop themselves. Clustered round a couple of old wells. Hundreds of the mongrels, so it was taking them a while.

  ‘Jeez,’ said Otton, staring at their artillery units. ‘They’ve got some inordinately big guns.’

  ‘Look at the gunners, but,’ I said. ‘All got their heads in the trough.’

  Perfect time to charge. Every trooper knew it.

  Stay mounted, gallop at them
, do ’em before they even saw us coming.

  I had my bayonet wrapped in a sock in my saddlebag, waiting.

  The order came.

  Dismount.

  We couldn’t believe it. We stayed mounted. I saw Johnson up the line, scowling and cursing.

  The lieutenant glared at us.

  ‘Dismount,’ he repeated.

  We didn’t have any choice. Mounted infantry we were officially. Ride to the point of engagement, our orders said, then dismount and go at the enemy on foot.

  Johnson wasn’t the only bloke who was ropeable. And the horses weren’t that happy either.

  It got worse.

  Some mug had to hold the horses. Each section of four blokes, one of us had to be the horse-holder. Stay back from the action. Keep the horses safe. So the other blokes could mount up when the fighting was over.

  Our troop sergeant pointed at me.

  ‘No,’ I pleaded.

  I looked at the other blokes in my section, begging.

  They were a sorry mob that day. Lesney had the squirts. Bosworth had saddle rash. Otton was limping from all the times he’d parted company from his horse. I was the fittest bloke in the section.

  None of them saw my pleading look. Couldn’t take their eyes off the enemy.

  I didn’t blame them. I had it too. Turk-hunger.

  ‘Ballantyne,’ said the troop sergeant, jamming four sets of reins into my hands. ‘You’re the horse-holder.’

  I shook my head.

  Troop sergeant blew out his cheeks.

  ‘You don’t get it, do you sonny?’ he said. ‘This is orders from above.’

  ‘What orders?’ I said.

  ‘On account of your nose for water,’ said the troop sergeant. ‘Orders are, it has to stay on your face at all times.’

  The order to charge sounded.

  Otton gave a sympathetic shrug. He and the others sprinted towards the Turks, bayonets drawn, yelling the war cries we’d learned in training, happy as dogs in dust.

  I chucked the reins onto the sand.

  If the other nags were like Daisy, they didn’t even need a horse-holder.

  The troop sergeant squared his shoulders.

  ‘You disobeying an order?’ he said.

  I nodded.

  The troop sergeant took a step closer.