Soldier Boy

by Anthony Hill

  But neither Headmaster Hamilton nor any of those who heard him – not the chiefs of the army nor even King George in his palace in London, could know how soon or how severely that Empire and the young men who defended it would be put to the test.

  4: WAR

  So began the fateful year of 1914.

  In January, Jim Martin had his thirteenth birthday and started his last year at school. Grade eight with Mr Hyland: a tall, strict man, but a good teacher who was fond of quoting proverbs to show the virtue of hard work.

  ’Tis better to wear out shoes than sheets.

  The pupils in Mr Hyland’s class were never idle.

  There was English and history, arithmetic and geography. There was Sloyd woodwork class once a week for the boys, and needlework for the girls. There was the cadet corps and the drums to play: for Jim Martin did learn the drums, and every morning marched the children into class.

  Sometimes, when his sisters, Mary and Annie, were running late, Jim kept on drumming to give them time to rush through the school gate and join the last line. He was a strong, lithe boy, nearly five feet four inches tall and still growing. And he was a good eater. Jim’s sisters used to laugh at how much he ate for dinner. But his mother said, ‘Leave him alone, it’s going into a good skin.’

  And there he was, already into long pants for his last year at school, with his tousled brown hair and grey eyes; the drum around his waist and the sticks flying …

  Mary and Annie were often late for school these days. Mother needed their help at home. For 1914 was the year the lease fell vacant on a boarding house called Forres, just up the hill at 43 Mary Street. Amelia Martin, remembering the place her mother ran at Tocumwal, decided to take it on.

  ‘It’s a fine chance to better ourselves,’ she said to Charlie. ‘There are always people wanting rooms in these parts. The house is almost full with boarders and the rents are good.’

  ‘It’ll be a grind,’ her husband replied. ‘I won’t be able to give much help. Not with the taxi …’

  ‘I’ll manage it myself. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.’

  So Amelia organised the family’s removal to Forres: a grand, two-storey house, then about twenty-five years old, built in dark brick, with a bay window in the front and windows opening onto the wooden verandahs upstairs. There were fourteen main rooms, with plenty of ground outside for vegetable gardens, fruit trees and a chook pen: very different from the working cottages the family was used to.

  It was still a squeeze, though. Seventeen boarders lived at Forres together with the eight Martins – less one, when their eldest daughter, Esther, married young Charlie Anderson early in 1914 and they set up a home of their own. Even so, managing the house was constant hard work.

  There was wood to be cut for the kitchen range; hot water carried in kettles for baths and washing up; the laundry copper set to boil on wash days, sheets and clothes to be scrubbed and rinsed and hung out to dry in the garden. There was food to be prepared; apples cored and potatoes peeled; dinners cooked; tables set in the dining-room and cleaned away; floors to be swept and beds made. No wonder Mary and Annie were often late for school, and Jim stayed beating his drum for them to hurry up.

  Alice had finished school and worked at home. But the younger children were still expected to help – and the boarding house prospered. Amelia was good at it, like her mother. It was in the family blood.

  Amelia’s sister, Mary – the children’s Aunt Mary, whom they knew at Tocumwal – was in much the same business. For some years she and her husband, Arthur Pigot, managed the busy Riverina Hotel at Germanton. When Arthur died, Mary ran the hotel herself until she remarried and sold the pub. By 1914, Mary and her new husband, Bill Musgrave, had moved to the old gold-mining town of Maldon, in central Victoria, where they took over another hotel, the Criterion. Maldon was much closer to Melbourne. Mary often wrote, asking the Martin family to come and stay. Jim was anxious to go.

  ‘I can look for work on the farms,’ he said. ‘It’s the life I love.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said his mother. ‘You finish your schooling first.’

  They had a new headmaster at Manningtree Road in 1914: James McLaren, who was also a Lieutenant Colonel in the reserve forces. He encouraged the school cadets, and talked to them about the growing tensions between the Great Powers of Britain and Germany, Russia, France, Austria and Turkey.

  ‘That’s why your junior military training is so important,’ he told the boys. ‘We may hope international disputes will be settled peacefully. But every country must be prepared to defend itself until the world finds a way of preventing wars between nations.’

  At school assembly on Empire Day that year, Mr McLaren again warned of the dangers facing the motherland of Britain and the dominions of the greatest empire the world had known.

  ‘Think what it would mean if our Empire broke up and its members were free to war among themselves, like the nations of Europe who spend a quarter of a million pounds every year on their armies and navies. Think how much less would be our power to keep peace in the world!’

  Most of the children – and even other teachers – listening to Mr McLaren didn’t take too much notice. They’d heard it before. People had been talking for years of the threats to the Empire and the dangerous military alliances among the Great Powers. But statesmen always resolved every crisis peacefully. Australia had the cadet training scheme, and the country was acquiring a new navy of six major warships and two submarines.

  Besides, there were more important things to think about. In the Martin household, for instance, Esther announced that she and Charlie Anderson were expecting a baby in September. There was much excitement. Amelia would be a grandmother for the first time. And young Jim would become an uncle!

  So nobody took much interest at the news in late June that the Austrian crown prince and his wife had been shot at a place they’d never heard of – Sarajevo – in Serbia. There was some diplomatic excitement but the crisis, as usual, disappeared.

  When suddenly, at the end of July, from out of nowhere it seemed, the world was confronted with war. One by one, the Great Powers mobilised against each other. Austria declared war on Serbia ‘to teach it a lesson’. Russia moved against Austria. Germany declared war on Russia and Russia’s ally, France. The alliances were dragging them all in.

  The question was: would Britain – and Australia as part of the Empire – also be involved in the conflict? Crowds of people gathered outside newspaper offices to read the latest reports. On 4 August, Germany invaded Belgium to attack France. On that day, Britain declared war on Germany. And in Australia, the Prime Minister immediately placed the navy under the overall command of the British Admiralty, and announced an expeditionary force of 20,000 men to be sent overseas within six weeks.

  Six weeks!

  From all over the country, men rushed to join the newly created Australian Imperial Force: the twelve infantry battalions of the 1st Division, a brigade of Light Horse, artillery, signallers and engineers. They were men who were responding to the call of Empire – to the pledge that Australia would ‘fight to the last man and the last shilling’: men who were afraid it would be over by Christmas, and they’d miss the adventure.

  Wiser heads knew better. With all the industrial might of modern warfare, this promised to be the bloodiest conflict ever.

  After a terrible battle near Mons, the German armies advanced quickly towards Paris. But they were turned by the Allied forces. Now, in September, the opposing armies were digging themselves into trenchlines that stretched across northern France at places that were to become household names: the River Somme, Amiens, Peronne, St Quentin …

  At Manningtree Road, Mr McLaren began wearing his officer’s uniform to school. He was often absent on army business leaving Jim’s teacher, Mr Hyland, in charge. McLaren was helping to plan the transport of the Australian forces overseas – especially the four Victorian battalions in training at the Broadmeadows military camp. He knew
this wouldn’t be an easy war, quickly over.

  Still, people followed events with great patriotic interest. Everyday occasions seemed less important. Even at Mary Street, the birth of Esther’s first baby in mid-September – a little girl they called Essie – passed without the excitement there would otherwise have been. At least among the menfolk. The copies of The School Paper and the newspaper clippings Amelia found in Jim’s bedside drawer after he died were full of the latest war news and pictures. Jim and his father talked of little else …

  Of the great battles in France and Eastern Europe. The despatch of an Australian force to New Guinea in the troopship Berrima, and the surrender of the German colony after only a few days’ fighting. The loss of Australia’s first submarine, the AE1, with all hands, in calm seas off Rabaul. Of the march through the streets of Melbourne by 5000 troops on 25 September, before they embarked for the war …

  Jim wagged school that day, to see the march with Charlie. He didn’t think Mr McLaren would mind – not this once – even if someone else had to beat the drum. It was a dull, damp Friday, with father and son standing among the crowds in Spring Street to see the Governor-General take the salute at Parliament House.

  ‘You should have seen it, Mum!’ The boy’s voice was breaking with emotion as they sat around the kitchen table afterwards. ‘The whole street just lit up! Everybody cheering … waving their flags as the Light Horsemen rode by … the bands playing when the troops marched past … bayonets fixed, eyes right, and everyone in step …’

  Next morning the Argus newspaper said, ‘The parade of twelve months ago showed the soldier in the making. Yesterday the Governor-General saw the finished article.’ And there indeed was Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson, saying how Australian troops appeared to great advantage and inspired every confidence.

  ‘I’m thinking of joining up myself,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Amelia told her husband. ‘You’re too old at forty-two.’

  ‘I can put my age down to thirty-eight. Lots of men are.’

  ‘You’ve got a family to support, even with me running the boarding house. We don’t want you getting killed …’

  The irony of it! thought Amelia, looking at the scraps of newspaper in Jim’s room. Yet she could understand the sense of adventure. Even the girls were swept up in it. Annie and Mary were doing odd jobs to raise pennies for the school’s Patriotic Fund. They were knitting socks and collecting comforts – tobacco and chocolate – for the Australian soldiers when at last the men left for overseas.

  Their departure was delayed for some weeks, much to the troops’ impatience. They were anxious to be away, but German warships were raiding ports in the western Pacific. Not until mid-October was it considered safe for the transports carrying the men, horses and equipment of the first contingent, commanded by General Bridges, to sail from Sydney and Melbourne to rendezvous at King George’s Sound, near Albany in Western Australia. There they were joined by ships carrying the 8000 New Zealand forces. On 1 November 1914, with a naval escort that included the Australian cruisers Melbourne and Sydney, the fleet of thirty-eight ships left for the battlefront in Europe.

  For the Martin family, as for Australians at home everywhere, news of the sailing did not come until some time later. And there was such a buzz around the breakfast tables when it was learned that, a few days after leaving port, HMAS Sydney had found and destroyed the German raider Emden near the Cocos Islands. Many of the Sydney’s crew were Australian – some of them still boys. It just showed what Australians in action could do! Shells from the Sydney set the Emden ablaze and, with half his crew killed or wounded, the captain had run his ship aground on a coral reef. Sydney picked up the survivors and took them as prisoners to Colombo, where she joined the rest of the troopships for recoaling.

  When the voyage resumed, the fleet didn’t go to England as expected. Instead, the troops disembarked at Alexandria to spend the northern winter training in Egypt. It would be warmer for them. And now that Turkey had entered the war on the side of the Central Powers – Germany and Austria – the Australians might be needed elsewhere. By mid-December the 1st Division was camped in the desert only a few miles from Cairo. Close by were the Great Pyramids, staring down at humanity as they had for thousands of years.

  ‘I wish I was with them,’ said young Jim Martin that Christmas.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said his mother. ‘You’re far too young.’

  ‘I could put my age up to eighteen. Lots of fellers are.’

  ‘You’re not even fourteen yet!’ said Amelia.

  Little knowing that within a year Jim would be with them, and indeed already numbered among their glorious dead.

  That December, in its last edition for the year, The School Paper printed the words of Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘Recessional’, which before long would be engraved on stone memorials and on human hearts throughout the British Empire.

  Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

  Lest we forget – lest we forget!

  5: JOINING UP

  Christmas came and went. They didn’t celebrate it with the same gusto as usual. The war was on and people expected to make sacrifices. But after New Year and Jim’s fourteenth birthday (which Amelia did celebrate as always with an iced cake and candles), Jim went to visit Aunt Mary and Bill Musgrave at Maldon, where he planned to find work.

  There was plenty in the bush for a strong, healthy young lad to do. Farmers were short-handed. So many country boys rushed off to join up when war was declared that there were not enough hands to bring in the crops.

  So, during the long, hot days of January and February, Jim worked with the teams of horses and harvesters in the paddocks. By night he sat with his aunt and uncle at the Criterion Hotel, sipping beer and listening to the talk in the bar: of the weather; the latest war news; what was happening in Europe; what was likely to happen with the men of the 1st Division of the AIF still training in Egypt. It was the life Jim Martin always thought he wanted … a world of men, of hard work in the out-of-doors, and the slow, ever-changing pace of the seasons.

  And yet … it wasn’t enough for him. Not now. Not when the second Australian contingent was already arriving in Egypt. Not when news came through in late February that the Allied fleet had started bombarding Turkish forts guarding the Dardanelles, that narrow strip of water between the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. They were trying to force a passage through the minefields and capture the city of Constantinople. But the Turks were bitterly opposing them, and in a great battle on 18 March they had sunk several British and French warships.

  As summer at Maldon turned to autumn when these events were happening on the other side of the world, farm work was not enough for Jim Martin. Not when new Australian infantry brigades were being raised, with the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th Battalions at Broadmeadows camp forming the 6th Brigade. And especially not when a letter arrived from home saying that Charlie had tried to enlist. But had been rejected.

  ‘Never mind, Dad. I’ll go instead!’

  So Jim said to himself.

  Saying little to Aunt Mary, he caught the Melbourne train one day in early April, to tell the family what he intended to do.

  ‘You can’t!’ his mother cried. ‘You’re too young … you’re only a boy … tell him Charlie!’

  ‘It’s a brave thing, Jimmy lad,’ said his father. ‘A decent thing, to want to join. But you don’t have to do this …’

  ‘I’ve made up my mind, Dad. If they don’t want you, they can have me instead.’

  ‘But you’re only just fourteen!’ His mother was weeping.

  ‘I can pass for eighteen, Mum.’

  Indeed Jim Martin could. His skin had tanned and toughened over these past few months in the open. His muscles were strong. He weighed nine and a half stone, and stood five feet six inches tall. Jim’s voice had broken and puberty had passed early. His body hair was growing and his genitals had developed all the characteristics of a sexually mature man. Oh yes. Jim M
artin could pass for eighteen.

  ‘But you mustn’t go to war! You don’t realise! Let others risk their lives!’

  ‘And have me miss all the fun?’

  ‘You’re still a child, Jim! They’ll find out and send you home!’

  ‘Who’ll tell them, Mum? You?’

  ‘We won’t give our consent, will we Charlie? You know every soldier under twenty-one has to have his parents’ agreement to go overseas. We’ll refuse.’

  ‘You wouldn’t!’

  ‘Yes, we would.’

  The atmosphere was electric. Two stubborn minds, mother and son, each wanting to dominate the other. Charlie between them, trying to be the peacemaker, and the younger girls crying.

  ‘Jimmy, boy … you’ve got to see reason …’

  ‘I’ve decided, Dad. The choice is up to you and Mum.’

  ‘What do you mean, son?’

  ‘If you let me go – if you sign the consent – I’ll write to you and stay in touch. But if you don’t … well, I’ll run away and join up under another name, and you won’t hear from me at all.’

  His potent threat.

  ‘You’d not do that, Jim?’ His mother’s voice was cracking. ‘You can’t do that to us!’

  ‘I can. And I will, if you don’t sign. I wouldn’t be the first.’

  ‘No!’

  For days the argument raged through the boarding house. Up and down stairs. At the woodheap. In Jim’s room. His parents trying to talk the boy out of his folly; the lad just as determined to persist.

  ‘I told you. I’ve made up my mind.’

  ‘But this is a war, son. It’s not a game. It’s not school cadets. Thousands of men are being killed every week in France. You’ve seen the papers.’

  ‘I’m no coward, Dad. I’m not afraid.’

  ‘But I’m afraid!’ cried Amelia. ‘What will we do?’