by Robbi Neal
At the top of the page were two lions: a golden lion wearing a crown and a lion on the other side wearing red pants. The lions stood in a field of green grass and white flowers. Between the two lions was a large gold and red crown, from which hung a banner, and they were all encircled with a blue wreath.
When everyone had seen how beautiful the letter was, Gracie began to read:
Dear Miss Cottingham,
I wish to mark by this personal message my appreciation of the service your sister has rendered your Country. I have read of the cases of Bovril your sister is sending to the soldiers in the trenches.
I can fully realise how comforting your sister’s work must prove, especially during the cold and damp weather, and I heartily congratulate your sister on the happy thought which prompted her to initiate such a useful project.
Your parents must be very proud, firstly of your sister, who is able to put the needs of our soldiers who fight for our freedom uppermost in her mind, and secondly they must be proud of your so unselfishly commending your sister to our attention.
Yours sincerely,
Mary R, 1st October 1915
Gracie passed the letter to Paul. Edie was dying to read it for herself but because the letter was about her, she held off; she didn’t want to seem vain. She got up to start clearing some dishes, pretending that she wasn’t concerned about the Queen’s letter and that she wasn’t completely puffed with pride and there weren’t any tears in her eyes and her heart wasn’t completely and utterly spilling over with the love she had for Gracie. As she looked over at her sister, Gracie beamed at her.
‘Even the Queen recognises how kind and generous you are, Edie. We should have it framed, Papa.’
Edie looked at everyone looking at her, ‘It’s only a letter,’ she said, uncomfortable being the focus of everyone’s attention.
‘It’s only Bovril,’ said Paul, ‘but if it saves even one young man’s life, it’s pure gold.’
Edie thought of the man whose life she wanted to save. Was Theo getting her Bovril? Would a hot cup steaming with love save him and bring him home safely?
After everyone had thanked Paul for his hospitality and began to file back up the stairs, Edie saw Laidlaw whispering to Gracie and she wandered over pretending to clean up where she could hear.
‘He built it all for you, love,’ he whispered, and Gracie whispered back, ‘I know’ just like she had when he said it in the street.
Then she said, ‘Built what?’
Laidlaw said, ‘This magnificent underground house that is the talk of the town. He built it for you to keep you cool in the hot summers when you were but a wee thing.’
Gracie looked around the room, at the flickering fairy lights strung along the tops of the walls, at the photo of her beautiful mother on the wall, at Edie who had been her real mother.
‘Really?’ she said, and Edie nodded and Gracie smiled her smile and Laidlaw flicked one of her curls.
When everyone was back in their own homes sitting on their verandahs drinking beer or fanning their faces in the cool evening breeze, they all agreed it had been a delightful afternoon and completely unexpected and what a sensible idea an underground house was, but best of all was the letter.
Fancy that, the town getting a letter from the Queen.
As Christmas was approaching, everyone agreed that practical gifts were essential given the war and not too much tinsel. Lilly sent her regular weekly gift box to Theo: she put in a Christmas cake, some shortbread and a jumper she had knitted in the colours of the flag. Lilly didn’t know that her packages to Theo went missing more often than not and that the soldiers complained that the packages went from Australia to London and back again and God only knew how many months they spent traversing the globe before they were likely to reach them.
Part Three
Twenty-Eight
The Soldier
Friday, 17 December 1915, Cape Helles, on the Sea of Helle, Turkey, where the blood of men and boys turns the sea red.
Theo was squatting at the bottom of a trench, his feet sunk into the river of mud which seeped over the tops of his boots and oozed around his toes. His hands were knotted tightly over his stomach. He was sure he had eaten nothing for months except hard tack biscuits and black tea. The Turks’ trenches were forty feet away. Sometimes the Turks threw raisins or sweets that Theo didn’t recognise into the Australian trenches, and in return Theo threw his cigarettes back to them because he didn’t smoke anyway.
Theo was so hungry that his stomach had shrivelled into a hard stone inside him. There hadn’t even been tins of that God-awful Maconochie stew, which was no more than watery soup with slices of turnips and carrots and a sludge of greasy fat at the bottom of the tin. He threw those to the Turks too, good riddance to the muck, in exchange for raisins but right now he would even eat Maconochie, he would even eat it cold, which once would have made him vomit. He would eat it right now straight out of the tin with his fingers if he could get some and the Turks would have to go without. He could feel the sides of his wrinkled stomach chafing against each other. He could put his fingers around his arm and they met. Using his bowels made him cry out with pain because everything inside him was so hard and dry. There was jam to eat but the moment he opened the tin millions of flies descended into it and he ate them as well and they buzzed around his mouth in a panic at suddenly being caged, crashing into his gums, the roof of his mouth and stinging as they collided with his tongue.
Theo reached into his pocket for the tin of strawberry jam. It was runny, you’d have to look hard to find any fruit in it. His mother would have tossed it out saying, ‘That’ll never win me any prizes at the Ballarat Show.’ He stood up and hurled the jam to the Turks then he quickly squatted down and waited and sure enough a few minutes later they threw back a brown paper bag. It landed in the mud and he dived on it before it sank or drifted away in the muddy river. He tore open the soggy paper and inside found four small parcels wrapped in greaseproof paper. He peeled the paper away from the first to find something, he didn’t know what, but he put it in his mouth, and then the others one after the other and let the sickly sweet taste trickle down his throat. He didn’t notice that he was eating some of the paper as well. All too soon the memory of it was gone and all he could think about was the hunger and dream of what would end it. Apricots. He hadn’t seen a tin of apricots in months. What he would give for a tin of apricots. Sometimes the Turks threw apricots stuffed with some creamy white substance, he thought maybe it was sweet cheese or milk. He wished they had thrown some of those.
Theo wiped his sticky hands on his greatcoat, which only glued the fibres of his coat to the stickiness. Dobson stumbled past him, splashing mud and knocking into him then banging against the rock and timber walls of the trench, groaning pitifully and holding his stomach, so Theo staggered to his feet, put his arm around Dobson and helped him to the latrine.
‘Tell me a joke, Dobson,’ he said, trying to make taking another man to the lav seem normal. Dobson always had a joke. Theo could never remember them when he wanted to tell them himself. In one ear and out the other.
‘Did I tell you the one about Dad and Dave?’ mumbled Dobson. Theo could barely hear him.
‘Nope,’ said Theo.
‘I’ll tell ya when I’ve dumped a brick,’ said Dobson.
Theo helped him unbuckle his pants and left him to it. But Dobson took so long that Theo forgot him and wandered off until an hour later when he went to use the same latrine.
‘You still here, Dobson!’ he cried, seeing Dobson still sitting over the pail. But Dobson didn’t answer. His vacant eyes looked past Theo to some other world. He was stone dead. Theo walked away and left Dobson to his peace.
Later in the day Theo watched as Dwyer, who reckoned he was nineteen but looked not a day over fourteen if he was lucky, ran past him screaming.
‘I really am nineteen,’ Dwyer had said when he first arrived.
‘Yeah? What year were you born?’ They
’d laughed as they watched him stumbling over the math in his head and they laughed so hard they fell over.
‘Fourteen,’ someone suggested.
‘Nah, give him the benefit of the doubt.’
‘Yeah, maybe he looks young for his age. Maybe he’s fourteen and a half.’
But now Dwyer ran past Theo with bits of him missing. ‘Hey Dwyer, you’ve misplaced your arms,’ Theo screamed at him.
But it was a silent scream.
Theo looked up as the skies opened fire on him. It raged and pelted down around him mercilessly.
God had thrown his lot in with the Turks. Theo was sure of it.
Saturday, 18 December 1915, when nowhere in Australia gets as cold as here.
It was so cold his clothes froze onto his skin and the trenches filled with rain, while he slept fitfully and dreamt of his mum’s apple upside-down cake. When Theo woke in the morning there was a thick layer of ice sealing bodies in chilly, watery tombs.
Theo watched as the ice melted in the midday sun and bodies silently floated past him like the wooden sailing ships he’d played with as a boy.
Theo survived it all. He was a survivor, and he knew how to wait. If he waited long enough this would all be over. A bit of icy cold water wasn’t going to get him. The Poms hated soap and water — not that there was any soap to be had. But Theo didn’t mind water. The word among the ranks was that they were all going to be evacuated soon, might be weeks, might be days, might be only hours. They said some had gone already. No one had come for Theo — they knew he could survive.
‘Take the young boys,’ he said to the bodies floating by. ‘They need their mothers.’
It was supposed to be a secret that they were going, though everyone knew. Theo didn’t want to go anywhere with the taint of this wretched place still on him. He peeled off the soggy greatcoat and ripped off his torn, dirt-encrusted shirt. He leant against the timber and rock wall of the trench and tried to pull off his boots, but he couldn’t. They were caked on with mud and filled with water. He tugged several times and nearly fell so he gave up and plunged himself in.
‘Get out of the water, you bloody Aussie bastard!’ A British soldier waved his arms at him. ‘You’re all mad you lot — you know that, don’t you!’ he yelled. ‘Sergeant says he can’t do a thing with you lot, you’re so undisciplined!’ The soldier turned and laughed as though there was someone standing right next to him. ‘Let’s just hope we never get attacked at night, ’cause you’ll never get the Aussies out of their beds,’ he said to his invisible friend.
‘Top blokes during the day,’ the soldier answered himself.
‘Too right! Never said they weren’t. Just said at night the dead can’t wake ’em.’
Remembering Theo, he yelled, ‘You lot need to get out of the water! It’s contaminated, you blooming twit!’
But Theo didn’t listen. He was a survivor. A bit of water wasn’t going to do him in. He scrambled about like a pubescent boy in the Yarra. He thought the Turks were looking down on him from high up on the cliffs next to God. He forgot their trenches just feet away.
‘Anyway,’ he yelled to the soldier, ‘everyone knows you Poms are dirty bastards that never wash.’
Theo scrubbed at his chest with his knuckles until his skin was raw and bleeding. He’d get this place out of his system if it killed him.
The soldier watched him. ‘Your lips are turning blue. You’re going to catch pneumonia.’
Theo finally clambered out of the water onto some dry ground on the trench wall, huffing and heaving. He was closer to the British soldier now. He tried to dry himself with his wet greatcoat, then pulled on his wet shirt and put his hands in his shirt pocket. He pulled out a damp photograph. It was small and dog-eared.
‘My wife,’ he said, and held the photograph up for the British soldier to see.
‘How’d an ugly old codger like you get a sweet young thing like that? And who’s the sweet little lass beside her?’ the soldier said and Theo thought the soldier was looking straight through him as though he was a ghost
‘Stupid blighter, you shouldn’t have been in the water,’ said the soldier and then he was gone — poof. There was a noise and the bugger disappeared.
Monday, 20 December 1915, when the Turks turn a blind eye.
The pain ripped through Theo’s gut. It came without warning. It was so bad that Theo thought it must be a bullet, though he didn’t see how when he was inside the trench. He looked for blood, he slapped his hands all over his body. He checked to see if he still had all his limbs. Another razor-blade of pain coursed through his abdomen, splitting his stomach into shards. He crawled up the ladder and out of the narrow trench and collapsed onto the dusty ground. The pain ripped through his body again, it reached up to his brain and down to his toes, it was thorough and didn’t miss one bit of him and everything became a black nothing. When he opened his eyes, his eyelids hurt. His eyes were two peach stones stuck in his head, rough and stinging, his mouth was a raw gaping hole and his stomach chafed on rusty blades. He didn’t know where he was or how long he’d been there.
‘It’s all right, we’ll have you at a hospital soon,’ said a voice and he recognised the accent. Some Pommy bastard. For a moment Theo thought it was his Pommy bastard. The bastard who had stood on the top of the trench.
‘Who are you?’
‘Rose.’
‘Roses are for love,’ Theo said. ‘Didn’t work, though.’
‘Well, it’s Rosenberg, really. Reuben Rosenberg — but I don’t usually tell people that. Don’t know why I just told you, for that matter.’
‘Who are you?’ Theo asked again.
‘Royal Flying Corps.’
‘What’re you doing down here then? You should be off shooting those bloody Huns,’ he rasped.
‘We’re evacuating, remember — it’s all spare hands on deck. I land, fill up and fly off. I wait to my next shift, I can’t sleep so I see what I can do to help and I run into you, you silly bugger. You get to go first today, seeing you’re sick. I’ve called for the ambulance cart.’
Theo listened to the sounds around him. He could hear the noises of war, the guns pelting death, the screams of orders and fear. He felt so disappointed and cheated. For a moment he’d thought he was somewhere else. Then there was silence.
‘Blimey it’s cold.’ Theo felt his body begin to shiver. Just a little at first, but soon it became uncontrollable and rattled him as if he was a toy in a child’s hand.
‘Weather’s making things tough, that’s for sure,’ he heard the Pommy voice say somewhere off in the distance, ‘but we’ll have you out of here in no time.’ It was a soothing voice that lulled Theo into stillness. He was sure the war was just a dream inside his head and it had faded. It was an almighty relief. He was so happy it was over, he was sure he was making a fool of himself and crying. He felt extraordinarily tired. He wanted to sleep and not wake up till he was home. He could hear the lullaby of the surf in the distance and he suddenly felt that all he wanted was to fall asleep to its song.
He shut his eyes and murmured.
‘Who can you see?’ The voice was so gentle that Theo wanted to please it, so he took a deep breath and even though it was agony to speak he answered.
‘I know that if I could see her one more time I’d be all right.’ His voice was little more than a croak.
The far-off voice said, ‘What did he say? Sometimes I can’t understand you Aussies with your accents.’
Theo didn’t answer any more. The voice was no longer in his world.
Twenty-Nine
Reuben
When something important is lost.
Reuben Rosenberg had been in the prime of his life when he’d enthusiastically signed up for the war. His chest had been full of vigour and courage. His limbs had been strong; his eyes were clear and saw everything he wanted or needed to see. He could see German Fokkers before they’d even left the clouds. His hair was dark, proud, thick and wayward; it spoke of re
bellion, which the girls really loved, and when they took the photo of him for the newspaper — Our Heroes of the Sky — he’d stood in his fur-lined leather flying helmet and held himself as though posing for the head of a coin. He inspired all he touched and spoke to. His voice was rich, timbered, fitting for a hero; his nose was slightly curved and roman and his lips were soft and full. He was old enough to know how to seduce women of any age and young enough to have the boyish charm to do it, and he was a fighter pilot, a celebrity, and that made the girls want him regardless of any charm.
‘I’m just a humble pilot, one of a new breed,’ he always said, pleased that he wasn’t conceited like some, and he would be ready as the girls melted into him.
His family home was in West Coker, a small village two miles out of Yeovil. It didn’t have its own railway station, you had to go to Yeovil Junction for the train, but it did have three pubs, a town hall, a post office and St Martin of Tours Church, which everyone called St Martin’s. The church had eight bells and an organ that had cost five hundred pounds when it was bought a good thirty-five years ago in 1885, so just imagine what it was worth now. West Coker was farming country, it was undulating hills that sloped to rivers on whose banks dairy cows idled away their days.
Overseeing West Coker sat Ashgrove House, bought by Reuben’s grandfather, who had contributed most of the cost of the church organ even though he never stepped foot inside the church. Unfortunately the contribution of the organ bought him a smaller level of acceptance than he had hoped. Some locals were never going to accept Jews in Ashgrove House. The house stood three storeys high with two double-storey wings; it had five ponds and a rose garden and three hundred acres behind large brick and stone gates. Beyond the grounds of Ashgrove Hall the family’s land was tenanted out to farmers. Reuben thought that if it didn’t rain all the time and his parents weren’t there, it would be quite a lovely place.
