1917

by Kelly Gardiner

  A coal fire burned feebly in the corner. It somehow made the room stuffy but no warmer. I waited while Major O’Brien shuffled a few pieces of paper. At last he looked up. A muscle in his cheek quivered.

  ‘Congratulations, young man,’ he said. ‘Your results are excellent, and I understand your technical abilities are second to none.’

  I let out a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘So I’m pleased to inform you that you’ll be posted to train as a scout pilot with RFC squadron—’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ I said before he could finish. ‘I’d prefer reconnaissance. If I could. Please.’

  The injured man snorted. ‘That’s not how it works,’ he said. ‘You go where you’re posted.’

  ‘Might I know why?’ Major O’Brien asked me.

  ‘My friend, Charlie Driscoll,’ I said. ‘He was just in here.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where did he get posted?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Captain Gibson. ‘I see. You Australians want to stick together?’

  ‘We’re best mates,’ I said. ‘Since school.’

  ‘Then perhaps you should have helped Cadet Driscoll with his homework,’ said O’Brien. ‘He’ll be lucky to make observer.’

  ‘Charlie’s a great pilot,’ I said. ‘I swear. He’s just not keen on studying.’

  The man with the eye patch leaned forward. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, his voice croaky. ‘I don’t care how good a man seems in basic training. Any fool can fly a damned plane. Anybody can crash one too. We need experts now. Not lazy chaps who can’t be bothered opening a book. We need pilots who can find their way cross-country over enemy territory. Who can spot the difference between a machine gun post and a lavatory at a thousand feet and send a message in Morse before anybody else gets shot. Who are reliable, and quick, and won’t lose their nerve. Not heroes. Just steady men who can look after each other in the sky and make it home in one piece.’

  I gulped. ‘I can do that, sir. And so can Charlie.’

  He sat back. ‘I’m sure you can. I’m not so certain about him.’

  He was right, in a way. Charlie was one of those people who’d love nothing better than to fly around all day trying to shoot Germans out of the sky. He wouldn’t be happy with less exciting reconnaissance work. But it suited me. I was not a hunter, desperate to notch up kill after kill. I was no ace. That wasn’t how I’d been brought up. It wasn’t who I was. I just wanted to fly, and do the best job I could. I’d defend myself if push came to shove and I’d stick up for my mates too. Even if they never knew.

  Major O’Brien cleared his throat. ‘My colleague Captain Ferguson is quite right,’ he said, with a nod to the captain. ‘But the reconnaissance units need officers of your calibre too. I recommend Cadets Robinson and Driscoll for training with 48 Squadron at Waddington Air Base.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Captain Gibson.

  ‘So do I,’ said Ferguson, with an odd grin.

  ‘How about Cadet Boyd?’ I asked. ‘He’s my mate too.’

  ‘Don’t push your luck.’

  I saluted and left the room as fast as I could.

  March, 1917

  King’s College,

  Oxford, England

  Dear Maggie,

  I just realised I always prattle on about aircraft and whatnot, when you probably want to know about England. I wish you could see it. It’s springtime now, or so they reckon. Still freezing cold, if you ask me.

  I’ll be sorry to leave Oxford. It’s like a perfect little fairytale city. All the buildings are about a million years old (that might not be strictly true) and there are lots of spires, which must be very handy for navigators. They make us go to church—serious High Church with incense and everything—on Sundays, and there’s a schoolboy choir that sings like angels. But we have the run of the town because most of the students our age are away at the war or never coming back. Some of these colleges must have lost a great many young men, when you think about it. The streets are quiet, except for us.

  But they don’t let us out much. Probably just as well. We do get a bit rowdy sometimes, but only because all the rest of the time we study and sleep and drill and study and drill some more. And eat. Oh, you should see the meals!

  A

  ‘Going out this evening?’

  ‘There’s a public meeting, dear,’ said Ma, pinning on her hat. ‘At Guild Hall. I’ll take the tram and be home by nine.’

  ‘What’s it about?’ I asked.

  She wriggled her hands into her gloves. ‘Miss Goldstein is speaking on the role of women in the world of the future.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  She blinked. ‘But who will look after your father?’

  ‘He doesn’t need looking after,’ I said. ‘The little ones are fast asleep, and he’s happy enough sitting there muttering at the newspapers.’

  She ducked her head around the kitchen door and peeked at him. He did look quite content. He held the front page up to the lamplight and peered at it through his spectacles.

  ‘Damned Nationalists,’ he growled. ‘Country’s going to wrack and ruin.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Ma. ‘You won’t be bored?’

  ‘Not if Miss Goldstein is as interesting as everyone says.’

  ‘Oh, she certainly is.’ Ma smiled. ‘Why not, then? Get your hat.’

  All the way into the city, she looked at me as if I was about to change my mind. I kept up a steady stream of questions about the famous Vida Goldstein and her Women’s Peace Army. Miss Goldstein had campaigned for years for women to be able to vote, and sometimes she even ran for Parliament.

  ‘The Prime Minister says she’s dangerous.’

  ‘Only to him, dear,’ said Ma. ‘To everyone else, she’s absolutely charming.’

  And so she was. Guild Hall was full of people, mostly women about Ma’s age, with a few young women and a handful of gentlemen. Some of them were very well-todo, wearing fancy hats and fabric I now recognised as horribly expensive per yard. Ma pointed out the notorious suffragette Miss Pankhurst, sitting in the front row with the lawyer Mr Maurice Blackburn, whose good works were often reported in the newspapers. He raised his hat to Ma and she bowed her head graciously.

  Goodness, I thought. Ma has her own little world and it’s full of clever, famous people. I’d never realised.

  We got good seats on the balcony so we could see the stage. It was awfully stuffy. Everybody was talking at once, but then a hush fell over the crowd.

  A man—a doctor of some sort—stood up and started talking about advances in medicine and the new X-ray machines that let the doctors see right inside to people’s bones, which was interesting. Ma whispered that the celebrated scientist Madame Curie has had trucks fitted with the X-ray machines and drives through the war zones in France to help the surgeons operating on wounded soldiers. Madame Curie’s niece helps her, driving around close to the trenches, even though she’s only seventeen.

  I don’t know why I don’t have brilliant, famous relations who take me on adventures. My aunt once went to Geelong on the train, but that’s about as daring as it gets in our family. Except for Alex, of course.

  Then another bloke rattled on about automobiles of the future. Alex would have liked hearing about that, but I thought it was boring, and anyway I was waiting for Miss Goldstein. Then she stood up and walked to the lectern. She wore a simple dress of grey silk, with a fine shawl around her shoulders. Her hair was drawn up into an elegant bun, just the way Ma wore hers, and her hat was in matching grey straw with a black ribbon. She looked for all the world like a fashionable lady out for a Sunday stroll. But then she started talking.

  There should be an International Court of Justice, she argued, and instead of fighting wars, all the countries could go to court instead. Then the government wouldn’t be allowed to declare war at all unless the people voted for it. And women should have equal political rights everywhere. No men ought to be forced to fight in a war overseas, she said, and other
things which also sounded very sensible, although they would have made the Prime Minister bite his hat in rage.

  Miss Goldstein had the most magnificent voice, rich and musical, and she knew how to use it well. She didn’t shout, but you could hear every word. It was almost like singing. Her ideas all sounded so clever, and yet so obvious, that half of me wondered why I hadn’t thought of it myself, and half felt like I’d known it my whole life. Her gaze touched one person and then another, so somehow you felt she was looking straight at you, and talking only to you, in the middle of that crowded hall, and her words and her voice lit you up from the inside.

  No wonder the Prime Minister is scared of her, I thought. She’s a hundred times better at this than he is.

  She finished, and everyone applauded wildly, especially me, although I felt a little sorry for the automobile chap, because nobody paid him any attention at all. Then we all stood up and Ma took my elbow and we swept down the staircase and into Swanston Street.

  If Miss Goldstein has an army, I decided, I’ll enlist on the spot.

  March, 1917

  Station Street,

  Coburg

  Dear Knucklehead,

  Don’t be in too much of a rush to finish your training. It sounds fascinating and much better than being shot at. Trust you to think of those famous Oxford spires as mere navigational points.

  It’s very hard to know what’s going on in the war. We try to follow it, and Dad has a map set out on the dining room table. But the newspapers just print little snippets here and there and it’s confusing. Last week General Haig announced A DRAMATIC GERMAN RETREAT, so we looked on the map and it hardly seemed any distance at all. But what would I know? I’m just a girl.

  Speaking of which, I am now a fully fledged member of the Women’s Peace Army on my own account, after two years of listening to Ma banging on about it. We go to meetings together and she insists on introducing me to everyone. I even met Miss Goldstein. My goodness, what an impressive woman.

  She and Ma are thick as thieves. Not surprising, I suppose. They think alike. I’m sure they believe that once women got the vote, the world would change for the better. Instead, look at everything that’s happened. Now there are other battles to fight here on the home front. More sedate than the battles in the trenches and a lot less bloody, but important all the same. So you see? I’ve signed up just like you.

  Billy Hughes has formed a new political party since he got thrown out of his old one. Miss Goldstein is sure he’s going to try again to bring in conscription, even though THE COUNTRY HAS SPOKEN. But Mr Hughes will have another go, shouty wee thing that he is. And that moustache! I’m sure it must be full of cake crumbs.

  At any rate, the world’s smallest prime minister has me to deal with now. He wants a vast army, so we’ll give him one. Just not quite the army he imagined.

  Oh dear. I sound like Dad. That’s what you get for leaving me alone with them.

  Good luck with your exams. I’m sure you’ll do brilliantly.

  Your sister,

  Maggie

  PS Did you hear? They’ve brought back those men from Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctica expedition. And several dogs. Fancy being stuck on an island in the ice for all those months. Without a bath! They had to eat penguins. Poor things. The penguins, I mean. Not the men. Although I do feel sorry for them too.

  At last the bugle sounded. No chance of sleeping in. I’d been lying awake for hours in the dark listening to everyone else snore and thinking about what was about to happen. My first time at the controls of a plane. My first flight as a real pilot.

  I won’t pretend I wasn’t nervous. I was. Plenty of pilots crashed in training and quite a few died—more, rumour had it, than were killed in the fighting. But that wouldn’t happen to me. Would it?

  That’s why they’d made us spend so much time in training before we were allowed off the ground. Too many men never made it to the battlefield. But I knew everything there was to know about our aircraft, in theory and from all those months as a mechanic, taking apart the old Boxkites and BE2s and putting them back together again. Here, we’d fly the latest and fastest training plane in England—the Avro 504. She was a beauty. I’d spent hours inspecting one in the workshop since we arrived. Real aircraft—fine, two-seater biplanes. Perfect for learning in, and a lot more advanced than the planes we’d had back at Point Cook. Faster too.

  But when all’s said and done, any aircraft is just a bunch of sticks and fabric held together with wire and stitches and glue, powered by an engine that I knew, better than anyone, needed to be mollycoddled.

  Maybe that made it worse. Knowing too much. Charlie didn’t care about all that. He just trusted the ground crew to keep him in the air as we always had. Maybe that was why he was so cranky lately—as if learning all about struts and rigging and engine failure dented his faith in pure flying.

  Charlie reckoned he wasn’t worried.

  ‘Warn the Red Baron I’m on my way!’

  So there we were, all three of us, as it turned out. Ready for flight training.

  After breakfast and roll call, we milled about in front of the hangar, hoping that the morning mist would clear enough for flying, and half-hoping it wouldn’t.

  There were about twenty of us in the new intake. Charlie, Banjo and I still wore our Australian Flying Corps uniforms and cadet insignia, but the British blokes were all spanking new officers with shiny Sam Browne belts and leather flying helmets, and their wing badges sewn above their tunic pockets.

  ‘I don’t see why they get their wings before us,’ said Charlie. ‘I bet I can fly better than any of them.’

  ‘It’s just to remind us of our lowly colonial status,’ said Banjo. ‘Pay no attention.’

  ‘They get paid more too,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Rich boys in fancy duds,’ I whispered. ‘Doesn’t mean they’re any good.’

  ‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ll show them.’

  ‘I hope you will,’ said a familiar voice. I spun round. There, leaning heavily on a walking stick, was Captain Ferguson.

  We all snapped to attention.

  Ferguson didn’t bother saluting. ‘At ease, men.’

  He motioned to the waiting ground crew, who pushed aside the hangar doors and wheeled out two beautiful Avros.

  ‘Ripper,’ said Banjo.

  ‘Today and for the next few days you will fly with an instructor,’ Captain Ferguson announced. ‘At some point you will attempt a solo flight. If you survive that, you will continue to fly for the next three weeks, sometimes alone, and sometimes with an instructor. Our aim is to get you off the ground and back down again without injury to yourself or others. It’s fairly simple. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Break my aircraft,’ Ferguson said, ‘and I’ll break your necks. Or perhaps you can do that for yourselves.’

  ‘Is he supposed to be scaring us?’ Banjo whispered in my ear.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Ferguson. ‘Fear is a very sensible reaction at this point in your careers, and will keep you safer than any parachute.’

  ‘Actually, sir, where do we get our parachutes?’ asked Banjo.

  ‘You don’t,’ said Ferguson. ‘The damned things weigh as much as you do. Our machines would never get off the ground if everyone wore a parachute.’

  Banjo gulped loudly.

  ‘Right, then,’ Ferguson said. ‘Looks like we’re ready. Who’s first?’

  Charlie and a couple of others stuck up their hands. ‘I’ll go, sir.’

  Ferguson ignored them and stared straight at me.

  ‘You’ll do, Robinson.’

  Banjo punched me gently in the arm.

  I climbed up the ladder, slipped on the top rung, nearly fell face first over the other side of the plane, and somehow managed to collapse sideways into the cockpit. Charlie snorted. I’d seen other blokes drop casually into the pilot seat a thousand times. I’d done it myself, spanner in hand. But not with a
couple of dozen officers watching. If I was going to be a pilot, I should at least look like I knew what I was doing. I’d have to work on that.

  I scrambled upright and somehow managed to get myself into the seat. It was a tight fit. I’m not the tallest bloke on earth, but I had trouble folding my legs into that tiny space. Captain Ferguson, even with his crook leg, slid easily into the instructor’s seat just behind mine.

  ‘Ready?’ His voice echoed through a copper tube near my ear.

  ‘Ready as I’ll ever be, sir.’

  ‘You just relax, Robinson. I’ll do all the work.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘That was a joke, Cadet. Start the engine.’

  Right. This, at least, I’d done a million times, although only as a mechanic. A pilot had a lot more things to worry about, and it’d all been drummed into my head in those endless classes at Oxford. But this wasn’t theory. If I got anything wrong, we’d both end up dead. Or embarrassed. Just then, I wasn’t sure which was worse.

  I took a breath and ran through all the processes one by one. I felt for the rudder bar with my feet, and took the control column—the joystick, they called it here—in my right hand. Unlocked? Check. Made sure all the switches and gauge needles were where they ought to be. Fuel levels? Check.

  The ground crew grabbed on to the top blade of the propeller and swung it down—once, twice, and then a few times more. The engine was primed. We were ready.

  I glanced over the side to make sure the ladder was gone.

  ‘Clear.’

  I threw the magneto switch and shouted, ‘Contact!’ The engine spluttered into life.

  ‘Sound all right to you, Cadet?’

  ‘Most beautiful noise in the world, sir.’