by Susan Toscan
My darling Agnes,
It seems so long since I have seen you and the children. I do hope that you are all well. Please give the children my love and tell them I think of them every day.
I miss you all more than I can say and I pray for the strength to get through this time so that I can return to you all.
Tobruk is not a holiday destination that I would choose to visit any time in the future. It is hot and dry and dusty, much worse than Griffith. I long to come back to Griffith. When I think that I cannot take it here any longer, I picture us in our pretty garden on our little farm. I can see the kids on the swing and hear their shouts of joy. I also love to remember our happy family times at the river. Swimming with you and the kids was the best. To think that I took those times for granted! Never again. I miss holding you and I miss looking into your beautiful brown eyes.
Please give my love to your parents and all our friends. Write soon my love, I live for your letters.
All my love, Michael
Steven was very worried about Michael, who was becoming more and more depressed. A week or so after their families’ letters arrived, he had a chance to speak to his friend about it. He was distressed by what Michael told him. “I feel like a failure, mate, a coward even. How can I deserve my family and their love?”
Steven tried to reason with him. “Michael, you are the bravest person here. The men have so much respect for you. You’re no coward; I don’t want to hear you say that. And I don’t understand why you think that Agnes wouldn’t be proud of you. She doesn’t care about all this shit anyway—she just wants you home. You have to stop this way of thinking, man. It will drive you over the edge!”
Michael would not look at Steven while he was talking. He kept pacing around and mumbling to himself. Steven decided that he would talk to the doctor about his friend.
Michael was a shadow of the man he had been when he had left his family. Life on the front line had left him thin and haggard. All of the men looked the same. It seemed so strange to Michael: when he looked at his men, he felt that he was looking in a mirror. They were faceless, shapeless men in ill-fitting rags that barely passed for uniforms. They were no longer the confident young men who had sailed from Sydney all those months ago.
Michael’s men did not see a coward when they looked at him; they saw a man of amazing bravery and courage. They saw a toughness and commitment that had, for many months now, given them the strength to go on. But they did sense that Michael was beginning to pull away from them. He was getting harder; he did not seem to have the time to talk to them the way he used to do.
What they didn’t know was that Michael no longer felt he could guide them. He knew that he had to make tough decisions that often resulted in men he respected being killed, and eventually he had come to realise that he had simply stopped feeling. He could look around and see the total devastation, filth and death, and somehow he felt nothing.
He was resigned to doing his job. He had become a machine. He had lost his heart. Drinking made him feel better, allowing him to laugh and joke with the men and then fall into a sound, dreamless sleep. Waking up was the hard part as the reality of his situation was still there waiting for him. Getting through each day was getting harder. There had been rumours that perhaps they would be pulled out of Tobruk as reinforcements were supposed to be on the way. The Australians had been there for almost seven months, and the prospect of getting out soon was much anticipated.
On another weary night like so many others before, Michael and his men were preparing for a major attack. Two teams of soldiers would go out, the aim being to capture one of the enemy’s bunkers, which they knew held two large anti-tank guns used to destroy supply vehicles. It was an ambitious objective, but it was necessary to allow supplies to get through.
The men had been months without fresh provisions, and they were desperate for food, medical equipment and especially life-saving drugs. Steven would lead the second group of men; they were to follow Michael and his team out and then separate from them and move behind the bunker to take the soldiers by surprise. In order to do this, Steven’s men would have to get through a wire fence without being detected by the enemy. Michael’s men were to run as decoys and keep the German gunners focused on them. It was hoped that this would buy Steven’s men the time they needed to clear the fence and take their positions.
They set out as they always had—silently. They had said everything that needed to be said in the earlier planning session. The men knew what they had to do. Each soldier left the hole with a five-second delay between him and the next. Once he reached the designated spot, he stopped and waited for the signal, which was a very quiet whistle from the man coming up behind him. It was imperative that the Germans did not hear the men as they still had a lot of ground to cover to get to the fence. A tap on his shoulder told Michael that the last man was out of the hole and that it was time to move on. The men stayed close to the ground as always. Ahead of them, they could see the faint outline of the fence. Michael could feel a familiar panic rising in him and managed to push it down; it gave him some comfort to know that he had control of his anxiety, and this seemed to help him move forward.
As Steven’s men moved into position along the fence line, Michael heard the dreaded sound of a scream followed by the pop of the Very lights going up. He knew that his men would take evasive action and go to the ground, but even so, he could not risk their being seen. Rather than falling to the ground, he kept moving. His men watched in horror; they knew what he was doing, and they all prayed for him. Michael continued to draw the enemy’s fire and attention away from his men, and he knew that as soon as the lights faded, Steven and his party would be through the fence. He only needed a few more minutes, so he kept running. He was numb with fear, but he kept running. As the darkness intensified, Michael started to feel that his reckless actions had paid off.
Then he was hit. He felt a strange sting in the calf of his right leg, and it took a few minutes before he actually felt any pain. When the pain did come, it made him fall down hard. Michael rolled onto his stomach in the dust and tried to scramble to the cover of the scrub. He was aware that he was bleeding badly, and he reached for his belt to try to tourniquet his injured leg. It seemed to help—the bleeding slowed, but the pain was excruciating. He could hear gunfire behind him, and he knew that Steven’s men had reached their position and that both teams were now firing on the enemy bunker. The gunfire went on for what seemed like hours, but Michael was to find out later that it had been over within 20 minutes.
He had been successful in drawing the attention of the German gunners, who literally did not know what hit them when the Australians started firing on them. They did not even have time to turn the huge guns against the approaching soldiers. Instead, they had them trained in the direction in which Michael had run; due to his bravery, the Germans no longer stood a chance.
Once the bunker had been secured and the guns disabled, Steven told his men to go on ahead of him, back to the safety of their dugout. He needed to make sure that Michael had got away. Steven followed in the direction that Michael had taken, but it was very dark, and he had trouble seeing where he was going. All his other senses were on high alert. He was listening for gunfire, but he was also listening for any signs of distress. Steven had a strong feeling that his friend was in trouble.
He called as quietly as he could, hoping that Michael would hear him, and soon picked up a sound so small that he might have missed it if he had not been so attentive. It was a groan. Michael was in pain. Steven squatted and studied the ground around him for signs; he could see some bushes to the side of the track and then, next to them, a dark trail in the dust. He followed the trail to Michael. The wounded man had passed out, but he came round as Steven reached him, and his first instinct was to reach for his gun. Steven was quick to reassure him that he was there to help and take hold of the weapon.
“What are you doing here, you stupid bastard?” Michael said, angrily. “Get
out of here! That is an order.”
“You’re in no state to be giving orders, so just shut up. I’m going to get you back to our lovely hole in the ground, but I need help.” Steven was calculating how much time they had before sunrise. They had to be back before light or else they would be sitting ducks for the German guns. He did not want to leave Michael, but he couldn’t get him back to Australian lines unaided.
Steven left some water for his wounded friend and made his way back to his men. He expected them to have gone on a fair distance, but he had only travelled a short way when he discovered two of his men waiting for him. He was cross with them for not getting to safety, but in reality, he was so relieved to see them that he could have hugged them.
Michael was quite delirious by the time they reached him, and as he was making too much noise, the only option was a swift jab to the jaw to knock him out. Steven knew that he would pay for that one day, but they had to move as they were running out of time. The two soldiers took hold of Michael, and Steven went ahead to protect and guide them. Twice they heard gunfire and took cover, but it was not close to them, so they kept cautiously moving forward.
Finally, the safety of the hole in the ground was just in front of them, and they made a dash to reach it. Michael was dumped unceremoniously over the edge and into the shelter. His men were waiting for him. They had the doctor there, who immediately cut away Michael’s uniform, revealing the mangled mess of his damaged leg. He set up a drip of fluids, pain relief and antibiotics and had the soldiers move the injured man to the area of the hole that served as the hospital. The doctor would have to operate as soon as possible if he was going to save the leg. He was extremely worried about the state of the wound, and it was obvious that the tibia and fibula bones had been smashed by the impact of the bullet. He could not tell if the knee had been damaged, but it did not look good.
The operation took more than three hours, but none of Michael’s men went too far from the hospital as they waited anxiously to find out how their corporal would fare. Steven was beside himself with worry. He knew that Michael had not been coping very well in the last few months, and he was very concerned about how this injury would affect his friend mentally as well as physically. Steven knew from experience that even the toughest and most resilient men were usually devastated by the prospect of returning home as cripples.
Steven wrote to Renata to ask her to break the news to Agnes.
My darling Renata,
I hope that this letter finds you well. I miss you more than I can say and I hope that I will be home with you in the not too distant future.
My darling I have to ask you to do something very difficult. Michael has been badly wounded and I want you to tell Agnes. The army will notify her, and that may happen before you get this letter. However, I know that these things take a long time to get through to the Army Office at home. It is my hope that you get a chance to talk to her first. I know that it is a very distressing thing that I ask of you, but Agnes will need you to be strong for her. I thought that you could contact Elsie for some assistance with this.
Michael was shot in the leg on a mission and he has sustained quite a bad injury. He has had surgery at the field hospital, but they are going to take him to Cairo soon. It is my prayer that he will recover, but he will not be up and about for a while. I hope that they send him home sooner rather than later. I cannot tell you any more, other than Michael was extremely brave and he saved his whole company with his actions.
Please give Agnes and the children my love and tell them that I will do my best to get Michael home to them as soon as possible.
Your loving husband, Steven
No home
It was weeks before Michael really knew what had happened. He had been struggling with a massive infection, and the wound would not heal; the doctor had twice needed to open the wound to clean it, and this further slowed the healing process. Shortly after the mission in which Michael was wounded, the Australian troops had received word that they would be moving out of Tobruk within the next couple of weeks, and the doctor was anxious to get his patient to a proper hospital. He was now almost certain that Michael would lose his leg, but he did not have the heart to tell the young soldier yet. During short periods of lucidity, Michael would beg the doctor not to take his leg. He was delirious with pain and was kept on morphine, but he was asking for more and more pain relief, and the doctor was worried that he was becoming dependent on it.
When the order came for the Australian troops to leave Tobruk on 27 November 1941, a great sigh of relief went through the ranks of the soldiers who had been waiting for this news for months. Each day, they had hung on by a thread of determination, not knowing if they would be able to face another day living in filthy conditions under constant, unrelenting enemy fire; not knowing if they could stand to lose another mate; not knowing if their sanity would prevail or if they would even get home in one piece. Many would not get home whole. Some men had lost limbs, and some had lost their minds. It was hard to know which was worse. Steven held grave fears that Michael would have to face the worst scenario of all: he would lose his leg and the last vestige of his sanity with it.
When Steven heard that they would be pulling out of Tobruk, he went to see Michael to tell him the good news. He was shocked by his friend’s appearance. Michael was a skeleton—his eyes were wild, and he did not seem to understand what Steven was telling him.
“Mate, we’re finally getting out of here. Do you hear me, Michael? We’re going home. You’ll be back in Griffith before you know it. You might end up in the hospital with your wonderful mother-in-law looking after you. You just think about that; Elsie will be in her element!”
Michael’s response was hard to understand. “No home for me, mate—no more home, no good to anyone.”
“Don’t talk rubbish, Michael. You will go home. It’ll take a while, but you’ll be as good as new in no time.” Steven’s attempts to get through to his friend just seemed to make Michael angry.
“No! Do you hear me? No home!” Michael was becoming very agitated, and Steven called the doctor over.
“What’s he talking about, doc? He’s saying he doesn’t want to go home—at least that’s what I think he’s saying.”
The doctor sounded exasperated. “I know. He seems to think that he will disgrace his family somehow. Look, I really don’t know what’s going on with him. He’s so out of it on morphine he’s just not making any sense. He needs to get to Cairo and get this leg sorted out, then hopefully he’ll come good again. For now, though, you just have to leave him with us. We’re doing our best to look after him.”
“Thanks for that, mate. I know that you will do your best.” Steven turned back to Michael. His eyes filled with tears as he looked at his friend. “I don’t want to leave you, Michael, but I have to go now. I will see you at home. Please get better, mate; we all need you.”
Michael left the hellhole that was Tobruk on a stretcher in a cloud of morphine. He did not take a last look around him; he was hardly aware of what was going on. He kept asking to see Agnes, and the doctor kindly told him that he would see his wife soon but that first, he was to be taken to an Australian hospital in Cairo for the medical treatment that would save his life. Unfortunately, his life would never be the same. Michael had slipped into the void of mental instability, and the army did not have any treatment for this particular ailment.
His leg was amputated at the Cairo hospital. While Michael lay there trying to come to terms with what was left of his life, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and the war in the Pacific became the focus for the Australian Defence Forces.
Michael knew that he would not be part of defending his country from this new foe. He knew that he would not be able to do very much at all—at least, that is what his mind told him. He had insisted that the army not inform his wife of the extent of his injuries; he did not want sympathy from anyone, especially not from Agnes. She had loved him when he was a whole man. He had nothing left t
o give to her or his children. In Michael’s mind, he had become his father—and even worse, he was also a cripple. He was determined that he would not be a burden to his family, nor would he embarrass them by returning to them as an amputee who could not support them.
He would not go back to his family and destroy their lives the way his father had destroyed his and his mother’s.
Michael pulled the bottle of whisky from under the covers, where he kept it hidden from the nurses, and took a large swallow — and then another. Slowly he could feel the pain in his heart settle into a deep ache. The drugs helped with the throbbing of his leg, but the whisky helped him push away the hurt of never being able to return to his family. Alcohol was hard to get, but he was good at playing on the sympathies of the nurses at the hospital; he had not forgotten how to be a flirt, and so his whisky supply was assured.
Italy: Resistance
Towards the end of 1942, as the Second World War moved into its third year, Italy was drawn further into the conflict. Mussolini’s Fascists and Hitler’s Nazis, having formed an unholy alliance years before, would now see history record the devastation of another country and the deaths of thousands more innocent people. The German army had seen enormous losses over the previous few years, and it set about recruiting men from Italy to fight for its cause. Many of the recruits were unwilling men and boys taken at gunpoint from their homes and workplaces.
