by Peter Watt
‘Spread out,’ Tom shouted, but few regarded the command. The instinct to be close to another human under such terrible circumstances was very strong. ‘Don’t bunch up.’
All the time through the artillery and small arms falling on them the Australians advanced, until after around a quarter of a mile the lips of the German entrenchments loomed up at them out of the mist.
Tom reached for a Mills hand grenade, pulled the pin and lobbed it into the trench ahead. He watched it explode and heard the cries of distress from its victims. Along the line others of the platoon were doing the same, and Tom was surprised to see that the Germans only had a meagre few strings of barbed wire as defence.
Seeing movement above the parapet, Tom squeezed off a shot and saw the head disappear with a jerk. With a fierce yell Tom charged the trenches, ready, like those who followed his lead, to carry out a vicious hand-to-hand fight to the death. But the German soldiers dropped their weapons and raised their hands. Tom ordered those close to him to round up the prisoners and get them back to their own lines as quickly as possible, nominating soldiers he knew were not likely to shoot the prisoners as soon as they were out of sight.
‘See how bloody young they are,’ Corporal Dan Frogan said. ‘The Huns are scraping the bottom of the barrel now.’
Tom glanced at a German soldier not far from where they stood and noticed the boy did not look much older than sixteen. He was shaking and his eyes were wide with fear. Tom looked away. ‘Do we have any casualties?’
‘All accounted in my section,’ Dan replied. ‘We were bloody lucky.’
Tom saw Lieutenant Sullivan making his way along the trench towards them. ‘Any casualties to report?’ he asked.
‘Not from Corporal Frogan’s section,’ Tom replied and saw the relief on Sullivan’s strained face.
‘None from the rest of the platoon either,’ Sullivan said. ‘But it seems the other companies have not been so lucky.’
As Sullivan spoke a machine-gun opened up from their front, pouring bullets out of the fog now starting to lift. None could see where the gun was firing from, but they located the direction of the sound.
‘I have orders that we are to hop this trench and continue advancing,’ Sullivan said. ‘The Hun firing on us will have to be our next objective. Sergeant Duffy, assemble the men, and on my whistle blast we go over again.’
Tom quickly sorted out the platoon members and passed on the directions. In a minute or two the whistle shrilled the advance. Tom took up a position not far from Dan’s section and they went over the rear of the German trench to move in the direction from whence they had heard the German machine-gun, now fallen into silence.
Suddenly it chattered into life again and all Tom remembered was nothing at all – not even the pain as the bullet took him in the head. Dan Frogan saw Tom crumple into the earth, and although he knew the procedure was to leave any man who had fallen, he disregarded the rule and rushed to Tom, who was now lying on his back, arms outstretched. Blood oozed from his head.
‘Stretcher-bearers!’
Then Dan was hit as the unseen machine-gun sought out targets in the fog, as the platoon continued to advance into the sunrise.
‘He’s been head shot,’ the voice drifted to Tom. ‘A waste of time taking him back.’
‘You bloody take him back or I’ll shoot you lazy bastards myself,’ another voice said, but Tom did not recognise the voice. The world around him was slowly fading into a peaceful world without care – except for the throbbing pain in his head. A voice was calling to him from down a long tunnel and somehow Tom knew that voice and was confused. The voice was so very distant and yet within hearing and it seemed to be a voice of his own blood.
Then all went as black as death.
Tom was suddenly awake, but was now completely confused as to where he was, and why he was looking into the face of a man wearing a white mask. A thumping sound shook the world he was in and he could see other faces hovering over his own – all wearing white masks and peering down at him. They would occasionally speak, and Tom wanted to answer but the words made no sense and the blackness came again. Glimpses of uniforms, and sounds of steam hissing; the smell of coal soot and the clatter of combustion engines. When he woke next he was aware of a smell of salt water, and the cool, crisp sheets beneath him.
‘More water,’ a gentle female voice said and Tom sipped the clear liquid while a hand rested on his forehead.
‘His temperature is down,’ the female voice said while Tom fought to remain conscious. But something called to him to return to the world of the dead where he was met by a spirit being. Time had lost all meaning.
‘Tom,’ the spirit being said, ‘remember who you are.’
For some reason Tom sensed that the spirit being who met him in the corridor of light was an old black man with a long white beard shot with grey hair. Tom did not know who this man was, but it was as if this other world was better than the one when he opened his eyes. The terrible, crippling fear he had once known was gone and all he wanted to do was to remain here in the arms of eternal peace.
It was semi-dark and a smell of blood came to Tom. His eyes were open and he blinked, focusing on a high white ceiling. The sounds drifted to him from all around; coughing, whimpering and even sobbing.
‘Hey,’ Tom called weakly, and waited to see what would happen next. A ghostly figure glided to him from out of the dim light and bent, taking his wrist. Tom saw the angelic face of a young nurse, holding a fob watch and staring intently at it.
‘How do you feel?’ she asked, glancing up at him. ‘You finally have a strong pulse.’
‘Where am I?’ Tom asked.
‘You are in a military hospital in England,’ the nurse replied gently. ‘This is the first time in a month that you have been fully conscious and able to speak.’
‘Month,’ Tom echoed without any sense of time. ‘What happened? Why am I here?’
‘When you were brought in we didn’t know what to make of it. Your vital signs were strong, and we were able to get you to swallow food and water but you didn’t respond to any stimuli,’ she said, lifting Tom’s head gently and sliding a pillow under it, so that he could drink from a glass.
In the dim light of the ward he could just make out other beds and patients and guessed it was late night or early morning. He felt so weak that he had trouble moving his arm to support the glass the nurse held to his lips. ‘I don’t remember what happened to me. I don’t remember anything about myself,’ Tom said after a sip of water.
‘That is to be expected,’ the nurse said. ‘You had a traumatic head wound – you were shot in the head – and the doctors had to replace part of your skull with a metal plate.’
Tom reached up to touch his head and felt a great swathe of bandages. How was it that he could remember nothing of the incident – or even who he was? He just knew that his name was Tom – because this was what the old black man had called him in the other world.
‘I don’t know who I am,’ he croaked in despair.
‘You are an Australian army sergeant, Tom Duffy,’ the nurse said, taking a chair by Tom’s side. ‘You are a hero, and from what I was told by your friend, Corporal Frogan, a man who is sorely missed by his comrades.’
‘Frogan,’ Tom repeated with a frown. ‘I don’t recognise that name.’
The nurse took his hand. ‘Doctor Mendelson will be very pleased to hear that you are back with us. He is a remarkable man and does wonders with cases such as yours. He pulled your scalp over the head wound; when it’s healed, you won’t even see a scar because it’ll be covered by your hair – once it grows back, of course.’
Tom frowned. He was utterly confused.
‘Now, you must rest and I must continue my rounds,’ the nurse said, rising from the chair and leaving Tom wide awake to stare at the ceiling, desperately seeking through the dark corners of his mind to find the bits and pieces that defined him as a human in the living world. Nothing came to him; the past was
a blank and the present a frightening reality.
Tom was still awake when the ward woke up with the clatter of bedpans, meals being served and men waking and talking to each other across the polished aisle and between beds.
‘So yer finally awake, cobber,’ said a voice from the bed beside him. ‘The boys bet you wouldn’t make it, but I figured you would, so I clean up today, thank you very much. I’m Sergeant Wilson Blackler from Mackay,’ he continued. ‘I copped a back full of Hun shrapnel at Mont St Quentin and I’ve been here since.’
Tom turned his head to see a pale face grinning at him. ‘Sergeant Tom Duffy apparently . . . I’m not sure where I copped my wound . . . or where I’m from,’ he said hesitantly.
‘You must have lost yer memory,’ Wilson Blackler said. ‘I seen it before in a few of the boys when they went down with shellshock. It’ll probably come back to you in time.’
Tom turned his head to stare at the patient lying in the bed on the other side of him. A sheet was drawn up over his face and the figure underneath was deathly still.
‘Young Clarry died last night,’ Wilson Blackler explained. ‘He’d been stitched up by a Hun MG at the Somme Canal a few weeks ago. We never thought he’s make it. They’ll take his body away soon enough.’
That morning Tom sat up and ate a bowl of porridge, and after breakfast was visited by a doctor in a white coat. He was a short man with spectacles and thinning hair.
‘How do you feel, Sergeant Duffy?’ he asked, looking at his clipboard. He was accompanied by a gaunt, stern-looking woman wearing the uniform of a senior nurse. ‘I am Doctor Mendelson.’
‘Other than feeling weak, I feel fine,’ Tom replied.
‘I was informed by the night nurse that you had regained your senses, and that is a miracle in its own right,’ the doctor said. ‘I was also told that you have lost some of your memory.’
‘I get snatches of memory, but none of it makes any sense,’ Tom said. ‘Like flashes in the mind.’
‘That is a start,’ Mendelson said, scratching a note on his board. ‘I am going to have you shifted to another ward, where we can work on getting you back on your feet, and also on getting your memory back.’
Tom nodded, wondering what he would find in his past. He had had flashes of mud, blood and uncontrollable terror, which made his body tremble violently. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to recover his memory.
That night Tom slept and a dream came to him of a cave and an old, bearded black man watching him with sad eyes. In his mind Tom could hear words echoing of a mission he had in life. What mission? Tom asked, but the dream faded and he woke up shivering.
The next day his recuperation began. He was transferred to a ward with more mobile patients and, with the help of a nurse, he sat up by himself. He felt the world tilt around him and his head pounded so hard he thought he might vomit. He struggled to stay upright, until the nurse gently laid him back down again. The next day it was slightly easier, and he placed his feet on the ground. It took a while, and a great deal of pain and discomfort, but eventually he could walk with the aid of a cane out into the gardens of the English manor house that had been converted to a recovery centre adjacent to the hospital. Slowly he started to put on weight. He pushed himself to work out with dumbbells after the bandages had been removed from his head and after a couple of weeks Tom felt his physical strength return – but not his memory. His old companion continued to haunt his dreams, until Tom ascertained that the cave was in a semi-arid place when the old man soared his spirit with his own over a sea of stunted scrub on red soil plains.
‘Your dreams are extremely important,’ Doctor Mendelson said to Tom one day. ‘They may be glimpses into your past and may even assist us to recover your memory.’
Tom was about to say that they were not dreams but something more. But to say so would only infer that Tom had not only lost his memory but also his sanity, so he kept the thought to himself.
When Tom returned to the ward there was a man, a corporal, waiting for him.
‘Tom, you old bastard,’ the stranger said. ‘I always knew you’d come good.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Tom responded, ‘but do I know you?’
‘Dan Frogan,’ the stranger said and the grin turned to a sad smile. ‘The nurses said you might not remember me. But that’s okay. Give it time, old cobber, and it’ll all come back. You and I copped it together, but all I got was a bullet through the shoulder, which was bloody good as it got me a Blighty. The whole mob back at the battalion will be pleased as punch to hear I saw you in good shape.’
‘You must be the Corporal Frogan I was told about. I’m sorry I can’t remember you, but I’m sure I will, in time.’ Tom apologised.
‘How about we go for a walk,’ Dan said. ‘It’s a bit chilly outside, but hospitals give me the creeps.’
Tom nodded, grabbed his khaki greatcoat, and the two men wandered out into the garden, which was littered with rusty coloured leaves that had fallen from the trees. They walked in silence until they came to a bench and sat down.
Dan produced a silver flask from his pocket and handed it to Tom. ‘Just a little something to take away the nip in the air.’
Tom unscrewed the lid and took a mouthful of strong whisky; it felt good – it warmed his body. He passed the flask back to Dan, who followed suit, taking a long sip of the fiery liquid.
‘Enough to bring back a few memories,’ Dan said but Tom looked blankly at him.
‘I know I sound a bit stupid,’ Tom said eventually, staring out at the garden. They had it to themselves; everyone else was inside, out of the cold. ‘But tell me about the two of us.’
Dan shook his head sadly. ‘Old mate, you and I survived some of the worst the Hun could throw at us over the last couple of years. You never spoke about your past in Queensland, but when I first met you in the old battalion, you were the best sniper we had. You used to work for Captain Jack Kelly until he got transferred, and then you were promoted to platoon sergeant. We’ve seen platoon commanders come and go, but you and I made a bloody good team.’ Dan handed the flask back to Tom, who took another drink.
‘Did I ever speak about a cave in Queensland?’ Tom asked.
‘Not to me – but maybe to Juliet,’ he replied.
‘Juliet,’ Tom frowned. ‘Who’s Juliet?’
‘You don’t remember Juliet?’ Dan looked sideways at his old comrade. ‘God almighty! You really do have a bad case of memory loss. How could you forget the woman you were going to marry?’
‘I don’t remember her,’ Tom replied bleakly.
‘Ah, well,’ Dan said, ‘I suppose that will come with time. I bloody well hope so.’
The two men sat in silence, huddled in their greatcoats against the chill. Eventually it began to spit with rain, and the matron came looking to bring them in out of the approaching storm.
She stood over the two men on the bench. ‘If I did not know better I would suspect that you have provided one of my patients with intoxicating alcohol, Corporal Frogan,’ she said sternly.
‘Er, sorry,’ Dan mumbled. ‘I was just going. Being sent back to France tonight, to rejoin the boys. I’ll see you when I can, Tom,’ he said, rising to his feet and slipping the silver flask in his coat pocket.
The matron looked down at Tom, who remained staring at the sky torn by a bolt of lightning and followed by the crack of thunder. The matron could see that he was trembling.
‘Come along, Sergeant Duffy,’ she said gruffly. ‘I don’t want you catching your death out here.’
Tom returned his attention to her words and stood stiffly to follow her back to the ward. The sleet and thunder had for the moment drawn him back to a place where death came in a loud flash to rip men’s bodies apart, splattering the churned-up mud with entrails, blood and body parts.
16
The great rotating fan overhead made a clicking sound. Captain Matthew Duffy lay back in a comfortable leather chair and waited patiently in the foyer of the Cairo Hotel. It had be
en over three weeks since he had returned to Jerusalem with Saul Rosenblum, and after reporting to Allied HQ had once again been outfitted in an AFC officer’s uniform, which Matthew had had to pay for. Matthew had expected to be sent directly back to his squadron but he had been diverted to Cairo for an intelligence debriefing.
A man dressed in the uniform of a British major strode across the marbled floor of the hotel foyer straight towards Matthew. Matthew rose from his chair and raised his right hand in a lazy salute, and the British intelligence officer returned the military compliment.
‘Captain Duffy, I presume,’ Wilkins said without offering his hand. Matthew immediately sensed hostility in the English officer.
‘Major Wilkins,’ he answered.
‘I pray that you have fully recovered from your ordeal,’ Wilkins said. ‘I only wish Miss Barrington had been so fortunate.’
At the mention of Joanne’s name Matthew felt the now familiar pain of grief. He was surprised to see in the British officer’s eyes outright anger. ‘I am sure that you knew of our relationship,’ Matthew countered. ‘So you will also know that I have strong feelings about what occurred out there.’
‘You cost me the life of a very talented agent and a personal friend,’ Wilkins said.
Matthew’s guilt was like an open wound. ‘I would never have allowed Joanne to rescue me if I had known what she was up to,’ he said. ‘If I’d been able I would have traded her life for mine without any hesitation.’
Matthew’s sincerity obviously touched the British officer, whose hard expression softened just a little. ‘Miss Barrington was the most extraordinary woman I think I will ever meet, and I am just as responsible for her death as anyone. Maybe I should be directing my anger at myself for allowing her to take on a mission behind Ottoman lines. It is a decision I regret very deeply.’
There was nothing Matthew could say.
‘Normally, you would have returned directly to your unit, but we need to know about the Turkish officer who took you prisoner,’ Wilkins said eventually.
