by Kim Kelly
Grand façade across the way, flash foyer inside, halls decked with paintings and paintings and paintings and some more paintings; must be in the right place. They’re mostly portraits of this noble personage or that, or some bloody religious scene, or a classical one which I reckon they must have gone for as an excuse to paint people in the altogether. Couldn’t care less about how old some of them are. None of it says anything to me. Maybe it’s not for me anyway. Don’t know what I’m going to do when I get home. Read? Something left-handed? I’ve tried to draw, but it’s no good. Whatever’s gone on inside my elbow makes my hand shake when I hold a pencil, makes writing an athletic event: I have to take off the brace and sit on the floor to do it, foot holding the paper, while my left hand holds my right wrist to keep it steady, and I’ve got to put my shoulder into it to keep the whole scrawny, scrammy, crooked thing in motion. I’m not really stewing about it, or trying hard not to; it’s a case of not missing what you never really had, I suppose. Still, I more than hope it’s fixable. Either way, I’m sure I’ll get what I deserve: seem to have all round so far.
‘Magnificent, isn’t it,’ says this bloke standing next to me.
I look at him: he’s balding, overfed and puffed-out middle class. Then I look at what he’s looking at, what I’ve been standing in front of for who knows how long without seeing it. Don’t know who the artist is, why would I, but it’s a massive painting of a battle scene, gilt-framed, with far too little shit and mutilation in it. I look at the plaque that tells me this is The Battle of Hanau, 1813, painted in 1824 by Horace Vernet. French and Germans at each other near Frankfurt during Napoleon’s shot at imperial idiocy.
I look back at the bloke and say: ‘No. That’s rubbish.’
A huge laugh tears out of him and echoes. Then he says, very seriously: ‘You fellows are doing a marvellous job.’ He means Australians; he can see what I am by my brand-new uniform, and the rest.
He goes to shake my hand, but changes his mind when he sees the brace; he says: ‘Oh, I am sorry, dear boy.’
I say: ‘I’m not.’
And I’m not. The good oil’s finally dropped a load on me. Just like that. I know now what I want to do, and I’ll teach myself to do it left-handed if I have to. I am alive. I couldn’t count my blessings if I tried. Wish I hadn’t written that dismal letter to France, though. I want to see her as soon as I step off the ship. Too late now. Too bad.
I tell him: ‘I’m going home soon.’
He says: ‘Well, good luck to you.’
I salute him with my left hand as I leave: I don’t need any more luck. Had buckets of it already. I really am an arse. And cheers to that too. I’ve done my penance and she will have me pure. This time. Just don’t fucking sink my ship, Fritz. Bitte.
Doctor Myer is about a hundred and two and talks like he’s got to get it all said before his final moment. So far he’s told me that he’s really a Mr, rather than a Dr, because that’s what you call them from the Royal College, but I can call him doctor because he grants it’s easier, should all be called Dr, save confusion; and he’s told me that his son’s a surgeon too, and is working in France, knows the chap who did that splendid job on my leg and hip, which I know, because it was a letter from Lovejoy that got me in to see this bloke here at his private surgery, inside this old stone building that stinks of Lysol and centuries of rats’ piss. Advantage of being Doctor Joyful’s melancholy miracle pet with own funds at home: he visited me when he came back to London on leave to check on his splendid job, and when he found out that the surgeon who came to see me at the convalescent hospital had said my arm was a no-goer, he sorted this appointment out for me with Mister Doctor Myer, who’s still rabbiting on now.
‘… I’ve always said that such splinting is a life-preserver, invented by a Welshman, you know, half a century ago, and it’s taken two years to get it to the battlefield. Shame. Shame there’s so often so little time for more than mere preservation, especially in the orthopaedic field, lots of messy work going on there, and too much sepsis to contend with, but can’t be helped.’ All I want to know is if he can help me, but he’s saying: ‘It’s been very interesting for me, however, looking at the mess brought back. There’ll be leaps and bounds come out of this when it’s all over.’ He has a chuckle at his funny. Good for him. He finally sees I’m a bit beyond it and says: ‘Yes, well, let’s have a look then.’
Under the X-ray in the room next to his office. ‘Hmmm.’
Prodding, twisting. ‘Hmmm.’
Well?
‘Hmmm.’
Well?
‘Hmmm.’
What?
‘Yes, well, there are two problems here. Very unfortunate for you, very interesting for me. Not surprised there’s been a baulk at the challenge.’ And he’s off after a rabbit again, telling me about the four different places that broke and how; but he pulls himself up: ‘In ordinary English I’d have to reset all three bones in your arm to attempt to restore any reasonable function to your elbow; or in other words, your elbow is simply not in the right place. But to do that all at once would be impossible, even for me. The wonder is that it ever healed at all without surgical intervention. What I suggest is that for the moment we look only at the second problem, which is how this affects the function of your hand. This is the worst of it for you, yes?’
‘Yes.’ Bloody oath.
‘Well then, let’s see if I can’t do something about that, restore some movement, improve your grip. No promises. But I can’t make it much worse, hmmm?’
Hmn. Just bloody do it. ‘When can you do it? I’ve got to leave in a few weeks.’
‘Leave? Oh no.’
Oh no? Just bloody do it. I’m already on a ship and I have to leave. I have to get home. Please. ‘Please.’ I’ve never begged in my life before, except with France, but there you have it.
‘Hmmm,’ he says. ‘Do you have a doctor at home?’
‘Yes.’ Quack Nichols.
‘Is he attached to a hospital?’
‘Yes, Lithgow.’ Backyard job. Well, no that’s not true, but I’m fairly properly certain that he won’t know how to fix me up this time. This Myer bloke obviously does this day in day out, probably for the last hundred years. He has to do it for me. I tell him: ‘His name’s Doctor Nichols, he’s fixed bones before, and mine.’ Still begging.
‘Hmmm, never heard of him,’ says Myer. I’m sure you wouldn’t have, I’m thinking; glad you haven’t since I now recall he started his professional life as a vet.
And another: ‘Hmmm.’ And then: ‘I’ll have to give him instructions … the exercises you’ll have to do later on … it’s a rigmarole.’ I’m a spanner in the works again. Please. And then he adds: ‘It’s important that I know how things go, you see, and that they go well. It’s not just about your poor old elbow, it’s about elbows in general. Everyone’s elbow.’
Fair enough. And I can’t say how glad I am he cares so much about the subject. He’s going to do it. Thank you. I tell him: ‘I’ll do anything you tell me to do.’
He squints and smiles, funny little old man, and says: ‘Yes, you will, won’t you.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Well, come on then.’ Gets up off his chair.
‘Now?’
‘Why not? I’ve not got to be away today till four, plenty of time. You don’t have anything better to do, do you?’
‘No.’ But don’t you have other things to do? Apparently not. I follow him out of his room and down the hall.
He says as he’s walking: ‘We do it now, with any luck we’ll have you out of the traction before you board your ship.’
Traction, on my arm. Good-o. Why not try all means of torture while I’m here? Rather not have the experience at sea.
I have to ask him: ‘Shouldn’t I let someone know where I am first?’ I’ve been known to go AWL from convalescence a fair bit lately, but this is extreme.
‘Nurse’ll sort all that out later,’ he says, as if nurse sorts out everything, and she probably does.
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br /> ‘Well, here we are,’ he says, tapping the operating table. ‘Get your kit off and hop up. I’ll get my mallet and chisel.’
This is too strange; I don’t know if he’s joking. ‘You are going to knock me out first, aren’t you?’
He’s looking at two heads, horrified. ‘Of course. Don’t know how it’s done in the antipodes, but I’d have thought you’d have noticed we’re civilised here.’
Yep. And I’m not sure if he knows that I was joking either.
He leaves to get whoever and whatever he needs, and I cross all the fingers I can. But I’m already thankful. I can hear Francine saying, I’ve formed an unfortunate attachment, and as the chloroform hits me the last thing I know is that I’m probably going to wake up with one.
Halfway home across the Indian Ocean and I haven’t chucked once. Funny that. And it’s not rowdy this time, in this floating infirmary. It’s full of uncertain blokes, full of wondering. Who will be there, what will I find, what will I do, what have I done to myself; not that you hear it outright. I reckon it’d be fair to say that some are more scared going this way, especially those that have been mutilated, or stuck inside some other place in their heads, and I wonder who’d be more scared: those who’ve got a wife to face, or those who haven’t got a hope of getting one now. It’s just too sad, some of it, so sad you have to separate yourself from it. And you don’t need to be told twice to steer clear of the big cage on C-deck where the proper nuts are fenced off from the rest of us. Keep your distance from pity, anger and shame, or take your sedative.
None for me thanks, I’ll keep practising separation: my greatest skill to date. I’m aloof; here’s cheers for the loofs. Practise being pleasant and civilised too. If I practise hard enough I might come out of this thing less of an idiot than I went in. You could put that on a recruitment poster: IDIOTS! Let the AIF fix you up! Quacks could bottle it: WAR! Recommended for idiots. Contains fear, horror, pain, humiliation. Try it — you’ll never look back.
Be good if there was a cure against looking back. At least I’m a lot less gut-knotted, if nothing else, and the only bottle I want is the one that’ll convince me to take a punt on myself. How hard can that be? I have a wife who loves me, and I love her; I have a kid I’m busting to see; I have money and a home, the best home in the best part of the best country in the world; I still don’t know if I have a hand that works under the lump of cement that I’m told contains more than just the tops of my fingers, but even if it doesn’t work I have no excuses. I’ve been entertaining myself with my attempts to draw a straight line left-handed: the results suggest that I’ve damaged my brain, but it’s improving daily, sort of. And the only ache I have right now is that I didn’t have enough of a brain to try to slip someone something to send France a telegram to tell her I want her there at the Quay: those two weeks in London with my arm tied to a five-pound weight have to be recorded as possibly the most blinding of the lot. Thank you, Doctor Myer. Thanks for the attempt anyway. Then it was straight to Southampton: who says women can’t drive? The girl behind the wheel of that ambulance was either determined she get her load there on time or that she have us all killed, God bless her.
I don’t know what France is going to see when she looks at me, and I separate myself from that thought; all I want to see is her. But if she could see me now, she’d see a bloke sitting outside on the top deck of a hospital ship getting sunburned again as we pass through the equator, and he’s shoving a towel in his armpit to try to stop the sweat running down inside the cast. I’m sure I smell like a fish: very dead one. If she could read my mind, she’d see that I’m trying very hard not to think about torpedoes, and concentrating on trying not to look bored with the conversation going on around me.
I’m loafing about with three other sergeants and an infantry corp, all of us in various states of ticket-home disability. The sergeants are talking about who and what they saw in England and where they’re from, their connections to Blighty, like a rope between home and the world and every stupid thing they’ve had to do to get back home. The corp is quiet; he’s also been recommended for a Victoria Cross, which suggests he’s been particularly, extremely stupid on the job. He’s particularly fucked up too: he’ll never make a move from the waist down again, that wheelchair’s his to keep. And I wish I could job the next bloke I hear congratulating him on the recommendation. What poor form is that? As if it could ever compensate. Maybe that’s the saddest streak through all this: permanent rank and honours. There’s some poor blokes on this ship that actually call me sir — really, no guns blazing. That’s not class confusion, Dunc: that’s too bloody stupid for words. The AIF has ruined them for life. No, Blighty has: leave home with a healthy disrespect for authority; come home buried under the weight of it, lost in the fantasy of it. And these sergeants here, nattering on, talk like they are Brits. In my angrier moments, if I’d have said anything about it at all it would have been something like: ‘Why don’t you do me a favour and shut up.’ But, practising being pleasant and civilised as I am, I choose instead to take the towel out of my armpit and fold it over the other way.
As I’m doing this, one of them says to me: ‘So where’re you from, Ackerman?’
‘Lithgow,’ I tell him. ‘But I’m German really.’ The goose in me just can’t help himself at the minute. I’ve been wanting to say that to someone for months.
Silence. But the corp laughs.
I say to the sergeant: ‘Fair dinkum. I’m a Hun. Not a drop of Brit in me.’
I mean it. More silence, except for the corp, who’s still laughing. Sergeant says: ‘Well, why’d you join up with the AIF then?’ And I can see he’s only confused; he doesn’t hate Fritz any more, not with any conviction; we’ve all been round the block, heard the stories of good old Aussie lads finding a sudden ability to speak perfect Deutsch when confronted with the enemy; seen it all in our own special ways.
I say: ‘Tell me and we’ll both know.’
Laughs all round; good. But I do know the reason now. While it’s true that I didn’t want to sit on my arse at home and leave it all up to others, I also had something to prove, and it’s proved: I’m Australian and I don’t owe anyone anything any more. So there you go, Mum. Not a British subject any more, either; not where it counts. And there you go, Dad. Somehow I can hear even Robby giving me a slow round of applause from oblivion.
A little while later the sergeants have buggered off and it’s just me and the corp. His name’s Al Cash and he’s got a suntan like an Abo. I say to him, and I am just taking the piss out of it: ‘So now you going to tell me you’ve got a touch of the tar?’
He laughs; what I was after. ‘No. I’m an Abdul.’
What? ‘You’re a Turk?’
‘No. My name’s Abdul. Abdul Kashir. My Dad’s a Gippo from Toowoomba by way of Cairo, though my mum’s Aussie.’
‘Well, at least you’re an ally,’ I say; but there goes the VC probably, though I’m sure he’d rather have calipers instead.
He says: ‘No ally. Just Abdul, mate.’
I’ll pay that.
Sydney, for all the jabbering, really is something to see coming in. The heads of the harbour look like arms, wanting to hold you, draw you in, and the light here is like nothing else on earth I’ve seen. The difference between green and blue is so sharp and so soft at the same time, it’s my whole mind. I can’t believe I’m here. I know she won’t be here, but I’m looking around for France in the crowd on the quay, trying to catch sight of her hair. Can’t see her; doesn’t matter. I’ll catch the first train home and be there soon enough. Give me a few hours to find my legs again anyway. And I need to: I’m that relieved as my feet hit the dock, I’m almost crying.
I’m among the last of the walk-offs, and the place is jammed with wandering, and with a few reunions, most happy, some. I can hear tears, walk through them, I can’t look at anyone. Can’t look anywhere: there’s that many Union Jacks flapping about you’d think we’d just arrived in England. No brass band to
day, though. I’ve got to get away from here, catch the tram to the station.
‘Oi,’ says some uniform at me. ‘Cars to the hospital, this way.’
I shake my head at him, I’m not docking in with this lot, not even for five minutes; and he nods, smiles. ‘Don’t leave it too long or the Jacks’ll come looking for you.’
The military police? What for? I hand him my pay book and my papers that say I am officially a cripple. ‘You’ve got my address. Do me a favour, sort it out, will you?’ The AIF can dock my pay for AWL till they work out I’ve discharged myself.
