Solomon's Song

by Bryce Courtenay

  Ben, who has attended a sergeants’ course on sexual hygiene, hasn’t attempted to frighten them, as have so many of the junior officers or sergeants lecturing their respective platoons on venereal disease. He simply says, ‘Get a dose and it’s a free ticket home, lads. Then they’re gunna write to your mum and tell her why you’ve been sent back. And you, Private Cooligan, could well be the first to go home.’

  ‘Me, Sergeant? Never. Pure as the driven. Left me darlin’ at ’ome!’

  ‘Who’s that, the cat?’ Crow Rigby asks.

  The behaviour of Ben’s platoon is no more than high spirits. They’re all big lads with too much energy, who wouldn’t harm a flea unless they found it on their own person.

  However, there is a much more serious aspect of behaviour among the Australian contingent – drunkenness, attacks on the local population, desertion, stealing and the wilful destruction of property. There comes a point when the excuse of high spirits among young men bent on having a good time will no longer wash with the senior military and they call for an account.

  The supreme commander of the Allied Forces in Egypt, General Maxwell, draws the attention of General Birdwood to the matter and he, in turn, refers it to General Bridges, who writes to the troops appealing to their finer spirit and their country’s good name abroad.

  What follows is a pronounced improvement, but by early in January some three hundred men of the 1st Division are absent without leave, roaming about Cairo drunk and disorderly, thieving from the local population and defying the local authorities. In the British army this constitutes desertion and they are liable to be imprisoned or even shot, but under Australian law shooting a soldier isn’t allowed, nor, for that matter, is it even contemplated and smacks rather too much of the colonial past.

  However, General Bridges institutes an investigation and somewhat to his surprise discovers that the trouble comes, to a very large degree, from the older soldiers, mostly veterans from the Boer War or men who have not been born in Australia, though a young Australian-born criminal element is also present.

  Bridges, in a covert message to officers of every rank, asks for their suggestions as to what might be done.

  Wordy Smith tells Ben. ‘You know what I would do, sir,’ Ben says at last.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, we know it’s not lads such as our own who are the villains.’

  ‘That’s right, it seems to be the older men, mostly exmilitary and, they say, a young criminal element.’

  ‘Yeah well, they’re only a tiny fraction of the A.I.F., a pinch of sand in the desert, why don’t we just send them back home?’

  ‘What, cashier them?’

  ‘Isn’t that only for officers?’ Ben asks.

  ‘No, I don’t think so, but what you mean is send them home in disgrace?’

  ‘Well, yeah. Most, if not all, of the young lads are here to fight the Hun, they’re volunteers and damn proud of having been chosen for the privilege. Let’s send the troublemakers home, discharge them from the army altogether, we don’t need ’em, all they’re doing is giving the rest of us a bad name.’

  Second Lieutenant Peregrine Ormington-Smith claps his hands gleefully. ‘I say, that’s splendid, Sergeant, it’s almost bound to work.’ He looks at Ben admiringly. ‘You know, you really ought to be an officer, Sergeant Teekleman.’

  Ben is genuinely appalled. ‘Thank you, sir, with the greatest respect, I would consider it a demotion.’

  Wordy Smith persists, ‘I know you could do my job a lot better than I can, in fact mostly do. More importantly,

  I most certainly could not do yours. So, in a manner of speaking, I suppose it would be a demotion.’ He looks at Ben steadily. ‘Sergeant, it’s a truly grand solution, but I can’t submit it in your name to the C.O.’ Ben now sees his platoon officer is visibly blushing. ‘He’d . . . well, he’ll know I’ve been talking to . . . er, other ranks, that I’ve abused an officer confidence, so to speak.’

  Ben grins. ‘Go for your life, sir. They’ll probably think you’re crackers.’

  Wordy Smith grins back. ‘Nothing new in that, Sergeant.’

  But it doesn’t turn out that way. Major Sayers takes the suggestion to his battalion commander Colonel Wanliss, who moves it further up the ladder to his brigade commander Brigadier M’Cay, who finally presents it to General Bridges. The three hundred men are sent back to Australia in disgrace, accompanied by a letter to the Australian press from Bridges explaining the reasons why they are returning. Except for the comparatively minor incidents which occur in every army, this very largely settles the issues of hooliganism, criminal drunkenness and violent and inappropriate behaviour by Australian troops in Egypt.

  Working on the premise that a young man who is physically exhausted is less inclined to get up to mischief, General Birdwood sets about turning the Australian Division and the New Zealand Brigade into a concerted fighting force. While he stipulates the training required he leaves it entirely up to General Bridges and his Australian and New Zealand officers to undertake. Bridges works his men intensely hard and the training in the desert often goes for twelve or fifteen hours without respite. They march and fight mock battles and do manoeuvres under the glaring desert sun until the shirts cling to their backs. Often they find themselves caught in a dust storm brought on by the howling winds of the kamsin. In the first two weeks the average loss of weight over this period is almost eight pounds a man.

  Ben is quick to cotton on to the recurrence of a problem which affected his men in their first three weeks in the desert. His platoon, along with their company, will often stop for a rest at sunset, their flanelette vests so wet they can be wrung out by hand. Then, the moment the sun dips behind the highest dunes, an icy breeze will begin to blow. The youngsters, exhausted from eight or ten hours of manoeuvres, think the breeze a blessed relief as it dries the wet vests clinging to their backs. In a matter of days nearly two hundred troops are down with pneumonia and several die. Ben’s platoon is bearing up well but Wordy Smith has developed a bad cold and is having trouble keeping up.

  Ben visits his C.O. to see if they can be issued with sweaters. Major Sayers sees the sense in this, but upon enquiry discovers that ordnance has no sweaters. The British army, whose responsibility it is to supply the cold-weather uniforms, has, perhaps understandably, not considered that troops training in desert conditions will require warm clothing. It will take several weeks before they can be ordered and transported from Britain and even longer if they are to come from Australia or New Zealand.

  Ben calls Numbers Cooligan and Library Spencer to his tent the following morning. ‘Right, you two will go on sick parade tomorrow . . .’

  ‘Whaffor, Sergeant?’ Cooligan asks before Ben can complete the sentence.

  ‘Don’t jump the gun, Private Cooligan, and I’ll explain.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant, sorry, Sergeant.’

  ‘You’ll go on sick parade, I’ve already spoken to the sergeant on duty and he’ll give you a chit, permission to miss tomorrow’s manoeuvres, bronchitis. Then I want you to go into Cairo, maybe you could try the Arabs in Mena first, see if you can buy thirty-two pullovers, all of them large.’

  ‘What, jerseys? What colour, Sergeant?’ Library asks.

  ‘Not sure we’ll be given the luxury of a choice, the essential thing is that they’re warm and that they’re large. Be too much to expect to find thirty-two large khaki sweaters for the use of. Oh, and try not to pay more than ten bob a piece.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant . . . er . . . and the money?’ Numbers Cooligan asks tentatively. ‘That’s sixteen quid.’

  ‘Isn’t that about as much as you’ve made on that two-up school you run behind the Y.M.C.A. shack of an evening?’ Ben asks.

  Numbers Cooligan visibly pales. ‘Er . . . ah . . . shit . . . ah, what game is that, Sergeant?’ Then quickly recovering, says, ‘Matter a fact, I’m dead broke, skint.’

  Ben hands Library Spencer four oversized white English five pound notes. ‘The
re’s plenty enough there to buy ’em and to cover your expenses, don’t come back without the goods, lads, and I wouldn’t mind some change neither.’

  The two lads return to their tents. ‘Shit, how’d he get twenty quid out the army?’ Cooligan asks.

  ‘He probably didn’t,’ Library replies.

  ‘Whatcha mean? Ya reckon he’s payin’? Out his own pocket? Twenty quid? No flamin’ way, mate!’

  ‘His name’s Teekleman!’

  ‘So?’

  Library Spencer sighs. ‘You ever drink Tommo & Hawk beer?’

  ‘Sure, it’s a good drop. Ballarat.’

  ‘In Victoria it’s made by a company called Solomon &

  Teekleman, they own the brewery in Ballarat among another squillion things.’

  ‘That’s him?’

  Library nods. ‘Not him personally, his family.’

  ‘Shit hey!’ Cooligan jerks his head backwards, looking at Library quizzically, ‘G’arn, yer bullshittin’ me? The beer? That’s him? Jesus H. Christ!’

  Numbers Cooligan and Library Spencer arrive back at Mena camp with an Arab boy who looks to be about twelve years old, leading a donkey carrying a large hessian-wrapped bale half the size of a wool bale on its back. They pull up as the sun is setting over the Great Pyramid and just as the Clicks return, exhausted from an eight-mile march into camp after all-day exercises in the desert. The men drop their kit and rifles and flop down on the sand beside the donkey while Cooligan and Library Spencer help the boy unload the bale.

  ‘How’d yer go, lads?’ Ben asks.

  ‘Good. Real good, Sergeant.’

  ‘Righto, let’s take a look.’

  Cooligan cuts the string tying the bale together and it flops open to reveal a large pile of high-quality khaki pullovers. Library and Numbers Cooligan are both wearing Cheshire cat grins.

  ‘Khaki, Sergeant! Hows about that, eh?’ Cooligan says, proud as punch.

  ‘Well done, lads!’ Ben exclaims. He is clearly impressed.

  ‘Library ’ere done it, Sergeant,’ Numbers Cooligan says in a rare moment of modesty.

  ‘We both did,’ Library says, unaccustomed to the praise. ‘I did a bit o’ thinking and Numbers did the bargaining.’

  ‘Egyptian police, Sergeant. Library thought it out and we went to their headquarters in Cairo, cost a bit but we got the donkey and the boy buckshee.’

  Ben is busy counting the pullovers and now looks up, ‘There’s fifty-two here.’

  Numbers Cooligan shakes his head. ‘Yeah well, I thought I’d make an investment of me own like, Sergeant.’

  ‘How much did you pay for these?’

  ‘Eight bob each, Sergeant. Cooligan did the bargaining,’ Library repeats proudly.

  ‘Yeah, but it become a bit complicated see,’ Cooligan says hurriedly. ‘Eight bob each, plus the two pound we give the police lieutenant and the quid we give the sergeant in their ordnance, then the ten shillings for the cop at the gate who let us ’ave the kid what’s just been nicked fer stealing the donkey, and then just when we’s loaded up . . .’

  ‘Hold it, Private Cooligan!’ Ben commands. ‘Why is it that I somehow know it’s all gunna come to exactly twenty quid?’

  ‘Just a mo, Sergeant, or I’ll forget where I was . . . oh yes, just as we’s about to say “Oo-roo, ta-ta”, with the donkey loaded an’ all, the lieutenant comes out, the same bloke what’s already done us for two quid, and says it’s three quid for the police captain or the deal is off!’ Cooligan looks at Ben. ‘I tried to argue that we done a deal, Sergeant, but he don’t want to know. Then I says, “Righto, no deal, gi’s back the money!” I’m thinkin’ like, yer know, ter bluff him. “No no! No money you get back! Three pound. The captain very hungery!” he says, looking real nasty. They’s a bunch o’ crooks, that lot, Sergeant, villains to the last man.’ Cooligan gives a disdainful sniff and continues, ‘Then there’s four shillin’s for a binder, just lamb and rice at a Greek’s, two beers, one and six, a shillin’ for the hessian and the string, sixpence for a bunch a carrots for the donkey,’ Cooligan smiles benignly, ‘and a shillin’ to the Arab lad who stole it. And, oh yeah, I nearly forgot, two bob fer me and Library’s tram fare to town in the first place.’ Cooligan finishes, ‘There yer go, Sergeant.’

  ‘And that’s precisely twenty pounds,’ Ben repeats, a touch sardonic.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, Sergeant?’ Numbers says quizzically and looks a trifle hurt at Ben’s seemingly critical tone of voice. ‘We didn’t charge nothin’ for walking the ten miles back to Mena with the flamin’ donkey!’

  ‘Well done, you two,’ Ben says and turns to Numbers Cooligan. ‘And your investment? I thought you said you were skint?’

  ‘Yeah well, I come good all of a sudden, like overnight.’

  ‘What, the tooth fairy come?’ Crow Rigby asks.

  Ben laughs with the others.

  ‘It was me own money, Sergeant!’ Cooligan protests fiercely. ‘Fair dinkum! I’ll swear it on a stack o’ Bibles!’

  ‘It’s true, Sergeant,’ Library Spencer says hastily, nodding his head as further confirmation. ‘He had to borrow a quid off me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t doubt you both for a moment, lads,’ Ben says good-humouredly, then points to the twenty pullovers he’s set to one side. ‘What do you think you’ll get for those on the black market, Private Cooligan?’

  ‘You mean here in the camp, Sergeant?’

  Ben nods.

  Numbers Cooligan, clearly relieved that he’s not in trouble, thinks for a moment, his head to one side, hand stroking his chin. ‘I reckon fifteen bob a piece, Sergeant, no sweat.’

  ‘Well that’s real bad luck, Private, because I’m buying them from you for eight shillings each. We’re changing over to the British system of organising a platoon and a company, there’s twenty more lads coming in with us. I owe you eight quid for the remaining twenty pullovers, you’ll have it in the morning, Private Cooligan.’ He faces the seated platoon. ‘Righto, grab a pullover each and make sure you have them in your kit tomorrow. Yeah, I know it’s extra weight, but if I find any of you lads without ’em, it’s two days kitchooty.’

  General Birdwood, on instructions from the War Office, changes the old system of company formation used by the Australians to the one adopted after the Boer War by the British. Whereas there were formerly eight platoons to a company, around two hundred and seventy men with supporting staff, they now organise into four platoons and two hundred and twenty-eight men to a company, the bigger platoons still remaining under a single subaltern.

  There is a fair amount of consternation at the news of this reorganisation in the Clicks, who have always seen themselves as somewhat special and have become a very close-knit unit. Furthermore, there are now four extra subalterns in the company, second lieutenants over, and the fear is that Wordy Smith, who is plainly the worst of them all, is going to be taken away from them. While the extra men mean more work for him, Ben doesn’t want to lose Peregrine Ormington-Smith. It must be one of the few occasions in military history where the men feel charged with the responsibility for maintaining the poor services of their platoon officer.

  Crow Rigby voices their fears to Ben when they are out in the desert the following day. Wordy Smith has sloped off to look under a large overhanging rock some hundred yards away, no doubt seeking out some invisible-to-the-naked-eye desert flora, so the infantryman is free to speak. ‘Sergeant, with this reorganisation, does that mean we’re gunna lose, you know, Wordy . . . er, Lieutenant Ormington-Smith?’

  The others wait anxiously for Ben’s reply. ‘Can’t say, Private Rigby, not much we can do about it anyway.’

  ‘Couldn’t we like . . . go to the C.O. and ask him, say we’d like to keep him, Sergeant?’ Hornbill asks.

  Ben clears his throat, and appears a little embarrassed. ‘It’s . . . well, it’s not the sort of thing a sergeant can do, lads.’

  Put this way, they all get the message right off, a sergeant can’t be seen kissing t
he arse of an officer, no matter how he feels about him. That means the men can’t do so either.

  ‘There’s only one thing the army might take into consideration?’

  ‘What’s that, Sergeant?’ Muddy Parthe asks.

  ‘Well, with this new formation the platoon becomes the real fighting unit in the army. In the field, once the battle is closed and we’re in the thick o’ it, the platoon has to be an independent unit. So company commanders and the like get to know which platoons work best for what fighting job. For instance, you lads have been trained with a heavy emphasis on the rifle, I’m trained in the machine gun as well, British Maxim and the French Hotchkiss, so they’ll see us as a fighting arm. I think we’re potentially a good one, we can already bring more firepower to bear on the enemy than most. But we lack sappers. So, if I’m not mistaken, we’ll be given a bunch of lads with shovels to round us out.’ He pauses and looks about him, then goes on. ‘Now if we can show Major Sayers and Colonel Wanliss and Brigadier M’Cay and some o’ the brass looking on when we’re on manoeuvres that we’re a shit-hot unit, the best there is, well they’re not going to change the subaltern, are they now, lads?’

  ‘Jesus, Sergeant, sappers joining us? You mean like them bastards what tried to attack us on board ship?’ Muddy Parthe asks.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘More than possible,’ Library Spencer says, ‘Black Jack Treloar’s been sent home.’

  ‘Nothing trivial I hope?’ Crow Rigby quips.

  ‘One o’ them three hundred disgraced, them what give us a bad name,’ Woggy adds a little self-righteously.

  ‘How come I don’t know this?’ Cooligan laments. ‘I’m the Gob Sergeant, I’m supposed ter know everything!’

  ‘No, mate, Library knows everything,’ Woggy says.