‘There, there, my dear, we simply have to hope for the best. Ben’s a sensible lad and knows how to keep his nose clean. He won’t go looking for trouble.’
‘Oh, Grandfather Hawk, I have such a terrible feeling,’ Victoria sobs. ‘Ben never lets anyone do what he can do himself! He’ll want to fight the Germans all on his own,’ she whimpers.
Letting her weep for a while, Hawk finally reaches into his pocket and hands her his handkerchief. Victoria dries her eyes and then blows her nose. Rising from his lap she stands before him, her eyes red-rimmed and now level with his own. Hawk, with a sense of shock, sees the same sudden blazing defiance in them he has only before seen in Mary Abacus. It is a defiance that brooks no possible compromise.
‘Grandfather, so help me God, if Ben dies and Joshua comes home unscathed from some cushy job behind the lines,’ Victoria pauses, and in a voice and accent that is more evocative of Mary than her own, declares, ‘may Gawd ’elp him!’
Chapter Ten
THE DEPARTURE
Albany, Western Australia 1914
Never before have the Melbourne docks seen a day like October 21st 1914. For the past three days eleven troopships carrying nearly eight thousand men and three thousand horses have departed for Albany, with the Orient liner Orvieto, the fastest and the largest ship, departing last. Dock workers are bleary-eyed, having worked double shifts during the several embarkations. Exhausted tugboat captains are hoarse from trying over four days to make some sense of a convoy of ships where each vessel is preoccupied with a hundred tasks at once and seems to have neither the time nor the nous to complete any one of them correctly. It is madness and mayhem and anyone who pretends to know what they are doing is indulging a fevered imagination.
Yet somehow the troops say their last farewells to weeping mothers, sisters and tearful girlfriends. Sons, brothers and sweethearts are embraced one last time and urged to look upon the evening star with the knowledge that their loved one will be on the front porch every night they remain apart, gazing at the same heaven’s light and praying for their safe return. Gravel-voiced fathers suck in their stomachs and comport themselves in what they imagine is a military posture, gravely shaking the hands of their sons, exhorting them not to let the family name down. ‘Go to it, son, show the Hun what we Aussies are all about, there’s a good lad, your mother and me are real proud of you.’
‘We’ve drawn the short straw, lads,’ Ben tells his platoon after returning from the sergeants’ briefing on the departure. ‘We’re on the Orvieto and so is the top brass, General Bridges and the entire collection of red tabs.’ He continues, ‘If we should go to the bottom, Australia’s part in this war is over. You’ll have to watch your dress, mind. It’ll be spit and polish all the way and your saluting arm won’t get a lot of rest neither.’
‘She’s an Orient-line ship, Sergeant, there’ll be cabins and all, even a ship’s library,’ Library Spencer pipes up.
‘Sure, Private Spencer, though I can’t see you loungin’ about in a club chair doing a lot of reading, it’s steerage for such as you lot, real cosy accommodation. There’s two extra bunks built into each cabin and when you’re lying down, there won’t be enough room between you and the bottom of the next bunk for a highly polished cockroach to squeeze through. One good thing, though, the chow’s likely to be a bit better, the high-ups tend to like their tucker, but I daresay the standard will drop a little towards the bottom of the stew pot. I hope you’ve all brought your curry powder?’
Hawk and Victoria are up early to see Ben off, though they are aware that he will not be permitted to break ranks to meet them. Victoria has obtained a pre-war photograph of the Orvieto from somewhere and has marked the exact spot where Ben must stand, roughly midships with the second funnel directly behind him. He is to wave a red silk scarf she has given him, while Hawk, with his head and shoulders well clear of the crowd, will do the same. Hawk and Victoria both count themselves fortunate that the departure has been delayed and over the past three weeks have taken great delight in enjoying more of Ben’s company.
Victoria, teasing Hawk, puts the delay down to the generosity of the new Labor Prime Minister, Andrew Fisher. As it will later show she is not that far off the mark. The two German battleships the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst visit the capital of Samoa which is only 1,580 miles from Auckland and 2,570 miles from Sydney, and the German light cruiser Emden, of the same squadron, is known to be in the Bay of Bengal. Fisher thinks they are much too close to send an unescorted convoy around the coast of Australia. The government of New Zealand shares his opinion and it is decided to send the Minotaur and the Japanese light cruiser Ibuki to escort the New Zealand troops to Albany. This strategic decision, as well as organising escorts for the Australian contingent from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria and yet another from Hobart, is the cause of the delay.
Of course, no official explanations for the hold-up are given, as newspapers are forbidden to comment and, as is ever the case in wartime, the wildest rumours spread like a bushfire.
The postponement proved to be a trying time for the men of the A.I.F. They had already said their goodbyes to loved ones and friends and their anticipation was at fever pitch. These were young men trained and ready to go to war, anxious not to miss out on the fray. Now they were thrown back into basic training and the inevitable boredom of repeating the drills and exercises they had long since completed.
In the course of the three-week delay there had been two or three false alarms and any amount of speculation until the troops began to doubt if they would ever get away. A new word for these endless rumours was coined among the Victorian contingent which would go into the Australian language. In the Broadmeadows camp the rear of the sanitary carts that pumped out the latrines carried the name of the manufacturer, Furphy. The rumours became known as ‘furphies’, in other words a whole load of shit.
The delay also put a heavy strain on discipline. Broadmeadows camp was some ten miles from Melbourne. To an infantryman accustomed to route-marching this distance two or three times a week, carrying a rifle and full kit weighing some ninety pounds, wearing only his uniform and a little change jingling in his pocket, the city was considered a mere stroll down the lane. Army rules required every soldier to be in his blankets by half-past nine but men and officers in their hundreds thronged the streets and eateries of Melbourne until the early hours of the morning during the weeks prior to departure.
Ben, taking the opportunity to visit Hawk and Victoria, was often driven back to Broadmeadows and deposited half a mile or so from the camp at around two. On these occasions Victoria would give her brother a last hug, just in case something happened, or the latest rumour proved to be true and they weren’t able to see each other again.
On the morning of Ben’s departure, she has accumulated three weeks of tearful farewells and is, herself, somewhat exhausted by the process.
The Orvieto is docked at the Port Melbourne Pier, which is just off the main road that fringes the bay, and Hawk and Victoria arrive to find a large crowd already gathered on the road. It is a great disappointment to the crowd that the dockside itself has been placed off limits to civilians. The general grumble is that, in the sea of khaki lining the decks, sons and lovers are too far away to be clearly identified. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of shouting and banter going on, people fashion megaphones from folded newspaper and call out names in the direction of the liner at the top of their voices. ‘Good on ya, Billy Thomas!’ ‘Lucky bugger, Kevin O’Shea!’ ‘Give me compliments to the King, Danny!’ ‘Give the Kaiser a kick in the arse from me, lads!’ ‘Up the mighty Crows!’ ‘Paris oo la la!’ What with the noise of the troops embarking together with the rattle, clank and whine of chains, winches, crane engines and the general mayhem of getting under way, it is unlikely these messages can be heard on board, but they greatly amuse the crowd and do much to quell its disappointment at not getting closer to the liner.
Towards noon the ship’s horn gives a
baleful blast to warn the dock workers and maritime officials on board to go ashore. Perhaps it is the mournful sound of the ship’s horn or the sense of imminent departure, but there is a sudden collective murmur from the crowd which quickly turns to a roar, like a dry river bed suddenly brought into flood. Almost as one the crowd surges forward, the guards stationed on the perimeters of the wharf are brushed aside and helpless to prevent the general stampede onto the wharf.
Hawk and Victoria are carried along with the crowd. To resist would be downright dangerous. So, when the time comes for the tugs to finally pull the giant liner away from its berth, they have a clear view of Ben waving his red scarf more or less from the prearranged position. Hawk waves back with his scarf and it is evident that Ben has seen them, though the noise from the crowd makes it impossible to communicate with him. The liner is pulled away from the dock while a lone tug holds her stern steady and in a surprisingly short time the giant ship is moving to the combined cheering of the huge crowd and the soldiers on board.
Ben is at too great a distance to see that his sister, though waving both arms frantically, is howling her heart out. His last view is of Hawk’s snowy hair and the dark dot that represents his face. Hawk is standing head and shoulders above the crowd, still waving the red bandanna. He tries to make out Victoria’s white straw hat but she is lost in the sea of bobbing heads and waving hands. Ben, who does not think of himself as either religious or sentimental, whispers quietly to himself, ‘I love you both, God bless and keep you safe until I return.’
Ben’s prediction is right, his platoon is bunked down in the deepest recesses of steerage with five men in a cabin that would have seemed cramped to three fare-paying passengers. Their kit takes up most of the room and only two of them can occupy the cabin at one time. When it comes to going to bed, three must wait outside in the corridor while two undress and slip into their bunks to allow the next two to do the same. There is no porthole and the ship’s laundry is located twenty feet further down from their nearest cabin. They are informed that it will be at work twenty-four hours a day, sending a blast of steamy heat down the corridors every few minutes, so that the sides of the tiny cabins are always damp from the humidity.
Ben quickly realises that the stifling conditions will make rest impossible and loses no time locating a place on deck where his platoon can sleep. He finds an area aft between several large wooden packing cases that is ideal for the purpose as it catches the breeze and will comfortably take twenty-four members of his platoon. Six men will need to remain, one to each cabin to protect their kit, which means every member of the platoon will do cabin duty once every five nights. He sketches out the area and writes down the precise location and pins it on the board in the sergeants’ mess, claiming the area at night for No. 2 Platoon, B Company.
Later that afternoon a sergeant named Black Jack Treloar from D Company in the 5th Battalion who is in charge of a platoon of sappers approaches Ben as he is walking down the corridors on D deck. Treloar is a big raw-boned man who affects a dark stubble even when closely shaved. He is known as a bully and has earned his three stripes in the permanent forces where it is said he was once the cruiserweight boxing champion of the Australian army. Drawing up to Ben, he blocks the narrow corridor by leaning against one side and stretching his arm out to bring the flat of his palm against the other. A large semicircle of sweat can be seen under his outstretched arm.
‘G’day, Black Jack,’ Ben says cordially, ‘I hope your blokes scored better cabins than mine, we’re in a real shit-hole, hot as blazes, can you believe it, twenty feet from the bloody laundry.’
‘Nah, same,’ Treloar says, not moving his arm. ‘Matter of fact, that’s what I want to see you about, Sergeant.’
‘What, a sergeants’ deputation? Can’t see them making any changes, we’re foot soldiers, mate, this is the army, besides I’m told the ship’s chocka.’
‘Yeah, but I hear you’ve found a nice little space on the deck for your lads to kip down?’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Ben jerks his head, indicating the corridor and the cabins behind him. ‘Them cabins are not fit for man or beast, put five blokes in ’em and they’re jammed closer together than a tin o’ sardines.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Treloar says dismissively. ‘Well, I reckon you should share that space on deck, let my platoon in.’
‘Love to, Jack, but I can’t even fit all my own lads in, six o’ them will have to kip down in the cabins, take turns like.’
Black Jack scratches his nose. ‘That right, eh?’ He looks at Ben. ‘That’s not good, mate.’
‘I daresay there are other places on board, shouldn’t be too hard to find a spot.’
‘Nah, all took. But I saw your place first, just didn’t bother ter make a fancy pitcher and stick it up in the mess, reserve it like?’
‘Well, that’s tough, Black Jack, but you know the rules, mate. If you got there before me, you should have told us, or posted a confirmation on the sergeants’ noticeboard, like I did.’
‘You teachin’ me to suck eggs or something, Teekleman?’ Treloar growls. ‘Watch yerself, son, I’m permanent army, not like you lot of toy sergeants from the militia.’
‘Sergeant Teekleman or Ben, take your pick, Sergeant Treloar, but not “son” or “Teekleman”.’
Treloar chooses to ignore Ben’s rebuke. ‘You a Tasmanian, ain’t yer? Touch o’ the tar too, I hear. That’s two counts against you in my book, son.’
‘I told you, don’t call me “son”, Black Jack.’
Treloar places his head on the biceps of his outstretched arm and grins dangerously. ‘That so? You’re asking for it, ain’tcha?’
‘Asking for what?’
‘A hiding.’
‘What? From you!’
‘Yeah, none other?’
‘What for, Black Jack? The space on deck?’
Black Jack taps Ben’s chest with a forefinger then returns his hand to the wall. ‘I’ve ’eard about you bastards. What’s it they calls yah? Yeah, that’s right, Tiddly-winks young man!’ The big sergeant laughs. ‘How many pretend Huns have your mob wiped out, or is it killed with an axe? I hear you’re pretty ’andy with an axe. You a woodchopper then? Plenty o’ them in Tasmania, mostly idjits I hear, droolers.’ He smiles unpleasantly. ‘If you want my personal opinion your platoon are a bunch o’ fuckin’ boy scouts.’
‘When I want your opinion, Sergeant, I’ll pull the chain. Now I’d like to pass if you please?’ Several infantrymen have come up the corridor intending to pass and are held up by Black Jack and Ben blocking the way. They hold back, waiting. ‘There’s men want to pass, Sergeant, we can continue this later in the mess, if you want?’
Black Jack looks up at the half dozen men, but his arm remains firmly jammed across the narrow corridor. ‘G’arn, piss off you lot or you’re on a charge. G’arn, scarper!’
‘Take the port-side stairs, lads,’ Ben calls after the retreating soldiers.
‘Tell you what, Sergeant Teekleman, I hear there’s to be boxing on the foredeck, entertainment for the men. What say I fight you for that deck space, three rounds, winner takes the space. Can’t be fairer than that now, can I?’
Ben listens with his eyes fixed on his boots and then looks up slowly, meeting the other sergeant’s eyes. Treloar stands about six feet two inches with Ben around five ten but just as broad about the shoulders as the sapper.
Treloar has a pronounced beer gut, which gives the impression of his being a lot bigger than Ben. ‘Well, I reckon there’s nothing to be gained by fighting, Sergeant Treloar, that deck space belongs to my platoon and a stoush isn’t going to change that.’ ‘G’arn, it’d be first fight o’ the voyage. A good example set for the men, couple of N.C.O.s having a friendly stoush, boxing gloves an’ all, nobody gets too badly hurt, encourage them to do the same, ’stead of pullin’ their puds in their bunks at night.’ Treloar waits, bringing his head back from resting on his arm. ‘Yeah, I thought so, you’re a bloody coward, ain
’t ya?’
‘You heard me the first time, Treloar, it’s no deal, you’re not getting our deck space and two sergeants having a blue is bloody stupid.’ Ben’s eyes suddenly narrow. ‘Now, me being a Tasmanian with a touch of the tar brush, just what did you mean by that?’
Treloar shrugs. ‘Ain’t too hard to work that out, now is it? Reckon you blokes from the Apple Isle are all cousin fuckers, snot-nosed droolers.’ He pauses and nods his head, ‘And you, mate, they tell me there’s a touch of the Zulu in ya. That right, is it?’
‘Zulu?’
‘Yeah, nigger, African Abo!’
Somewhat to Treloar’s surprise Ben grins and slowly shakes his head. ‘You’ve got a real nasty mouth, Treloar, but you may have half a point there. You see, we Tasmanians go to a fair bit of trouble not to mix our blood with shit from the mainland. As for the other? I’m half-Maori and bloody proud of it, just like I am of being a Tasmanian.’
‘I’ve been to yer little island, son, it’s the arsehole o’ the known world.’
‘Oh yeah? Just passing through, were you?’
There is a sudden burst of laughter from behind Treloar’s back. He is unaware that several infantrymen have come up again and are standing behind him waiting to pass. It is obvious most have heard a fair bit of what’s been going on. At Ben’s put-down of the bully sergeant they prove unable to contain their mirth.
Treloar spins around, furious. ‘G’arn, fuck off!’ he shouts at the men, but in doing so he is forced to drop his arm so there is space for Ben to pass him.
Ben smiles at Treloar. ‘I’ve got to be off, Sergeant, urgent rifle-clicking practice with my platoon.’ Ben stands aside to let the six waiting infantrymen through first. He can feel his shoulder pushing against Treloar’s chest and moves backward a little harder than necessary. ‘C’mon lads, through you go.’ Then he turns around to face the big man once again, ‘Been real nice talkin’ to you, Sergeant.’
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