Gallipoli Street

by Mary-Anne O'Connor

‘Sir,’ they all acknowledged. Sergeant Blockley was gruff but respected by the men, who admired any officer who put himself alongside when enemy activity struck.

  ‘Any more up further?’ he asked Simmo, scanning the dead bodies in the trench.

  ‘Don’t think so, sir. One juz up there but we got him in time.’ He nodded at the rim.

  ‘Right, move back you lot. You two, get these bodies out.’ He pointed at two newly arrived men and the others retreated, glad to be relieved of that duty.

  ‘What’s the verdict, Dwyer?’ he asked Iggy, his eyes narrowing slightly at Jack’s chest.

  Iggy checked each of Jack’s pupils, holding the lids apart as Dan hovered nearby. ‘Concussion, sir. And several broken ribs at the least.’ Jack tried to comment but found his chest hurt like hell.

  ‘Grenade?’ asked the sergeant.

  ‘Threw himself on one actually, sir,’ Dan informed him. ‘Holding a sandbag. Saved both our lives,’ he added, still looking shocked at Jack’s brave action.

  The sergeant didn’t comment but looked at Jack with a flicker of surprise. Jack tried to look back but his sight was blurred.

  ‘Permission to get him down to get checked out,’ Iggy said.

  ‘Actually I want a word with you, Dwyer. Crawley, Hogan,’ he said to the two men who had begun disposing of the bodies. ‘Leave that. Get this man down to the doc first.’

  ‘Permission to assist?’ Dan asked and the sergeant nodded as the former began to gently help his mate off the ground. Jack was hoisted and carried off to a stretcher, wondering what Sarge wanted with Iggy just as the sharp pain of the lifting hit him and the blackness did take hold.

  There were no dreams of Veronica in that dark void, only flies and exploding fish and sightless eyes that screamed ‘Allah!’ as they stared into his soul.

  Fifteen

  August 1915

  The perspiration beaded on his forehead but Iggy didn’t notice. His entire focus was on holding his aim and squeezing slowly: the perfect balance. The shot split the air.

  ‘Yes!’ crowed Simmo, who was watching through another scope. Jack checked the sights through the periscope rifle and confirmed that Iggy had indeed managed to hit the mirror the Turks had been using in the opposite trench.

  ‘That’s five bob for me!” Simmo grinned.

  ‘Not so fast,’ Jack reminded him, handing the rifle to Dan. ‘Aim for the one throwing the grenades.’

  ‘I’ll try and get the one that owes you a sandbag.’

  The men all watched as Dan searched the ground above them, coming to rest on another glint in the sunlight on the far right. He pointed it out to Simmo, who nodded in confirmation.

  Dan held steady, taking aim.

  ‘One Turk mirror, far right,’ he said.

  ‘Come on, Bullseye,’ muttered a few of them.

  ‘Miss, ya bastard,’ whispered Simmo.

  The shot rang.

  ‘Haha!’ Simmo yelled, slapping Iggy on the back with glee.

  Dan apologised to his supporters, looking regretfully back at the glittering target. ‘Sorry, mates.’

  ‘Double or nothing!’ they dared, challenging Simmo and the other men who’d backed Iggy’s side in the bet. Some general ribbing broke out and Iggy laughed as Simmo gave one objectionable fellow a dressing down.

  ‘You’re just gutless!’ said the soldier hotly.

  ‘And you’re about as useful as tits on a bull but we still don’t shoot ya! Now git outta here before I clock ya one!’

  Just then a messenger ran towards them, breaking the argument.

  ‘Sarge wants to see yas,’ he panted, pointing to Jack and Iggy. Jack looked to Iggy, who shrugged and they set off together, still grinning as the argument continued behind them.

  ‘Typical bloody New South Welshman! Ripping a man off.’

  ‘Yeah well I’d rather be from the south than a Queenslander with a face like a half-sucked mango!’

  Iggy wondered at the summons. He was still getting used to his new rank as corporal, a promotion he had heard about the day Jack was injured. Sarge had told him the news as the dead Turks still lay around them and he knew that moment would stick in his memory for the rest of his days.

  It made sense that Sarge would want to talk to him if any movement was afoot. But why Jack? Hopefully they were promoting him too.

  ‘Wonder what they want with me,’ Jack said, reading his mind.

  ‘Maybe they want to wrap you up in sandbags and throw you at the Turks. Our new secret weapon,’ Iggy suggested.

  Jack grinned. ‘Anything to end the bloody thing.’

  They had arrived at the bunker and stood outside waiting, the sun beating down as they enjoyed a rare view of the cove. It was really quite beautiful, Iggy had to admit. The water was very blue, shading to pale green where it met the yellowed sand of the beach, and the sky’s expanse felt enormous after the confines of the trench. It was cloudless and clean. Iggy soaked it all in, ignoring the war that littered the landscape and trying to imagine it as it would have been before. He couldn’t, though. The hospital ships lay waiting for them beneath that sky. The beach was half-covered in equipment and horses and supplies and the men who were trapped there ran into that glittering ocean, trying to avoid snipers as they drowned the lice that infested them all.

  They were waved in to the sergeant’s bunker and saluted him as he sat behind a desk, poring over maps.

  ‘Sit, sit,’ he instructed, pointing at two chairs. They obliged, waiting.

  ‘How are you faring now, Murphy?’ He looked at him over his glasses. It was more of an order than a question.

  ‘Well, sir. Quite recovered.’ Jack replied.

  Iggy knew Jack’s ribs still bothered him but also that he’d never admit it.

  ‘Good,’ the sergeant said briskly, straightening his papers. ‘Can’t have our two new corporals unfit for duty. Especially now.’ Jack leant forward and Iggy felt a smile tug at his mouth. Good on him.

  ‘Had a little word to HQ,’ the sergeant continued, allowing them a brief smile, the first either had ever seen him produce. ‘Bloody brave action you took the other week, Murphy. Congratulations Corporal.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Jack said, taking the official letter the sergeant was handing over and looking a bit stunned.

  ‘Right, onto some urgent matters at hand. It seems there’s to be a major offensive and it looks like we’re going over the top.’ He paused, looking at their shocked faces. ‘Stalemate’s over, gentlemen.’

  Jack chewed on the bully beef, his hunger overriding his disgust for the wretched stuff as his body took refuge in the hard walls. Iggy flopped beside him, cursing his boots as he shook out his socks and examined the sores on his feet. Jack threw the food away in disgust, rubbing clammy hands along his legs and lighting a cigarette instead. He stared at the dirt as the glow of shelling flared and waned. Corporal Murphy of the 1st Australian Light Horse. It sounded so noble, but here he was wretched and infested, filthy as any foot soldier in any war, any sense of superiority a nonsense. But there was responsibility. Yes, there’s plenty of that, he thought, looking down towards the others, his eyes landing on Dan.

  It seemed impossible he could ever have wanted to punch this boy’s face. He was a damn nice bloke, Jack had to admit. A kind, loyal and decent fella. How pathetic to hate a man because he has something you don’t have, he chastised himself. Isn’t that how we ended up fighting a war?

  It had ceased to matter to Jack that Dan was engaged to Veronica because here, the only thing that mattered was that Dan was his mate. With so much death around them, that was all that could matter. Worrying about life after this was a waste of time. Tomorrow morning they could all be dead anyway.

  Jack ran through the sergeant’s brief again. Their regiment had been given orders to take Dead Man’s Ridge. Simultaneously the 10th and the 3rd Division would attack the Nek and Quinn’s. Jack understood the logic all right. It would serve two purposes. One, it would gain the position a
t Baby 700, the valuable high ground they had been desperate to take for months, and two, it would take the focus away from the English and New Zealanders attempting to take Chanuk Bair, the overall goal.

  Yes, there was nothing wrong with the plan on paper, Jack mused, flicking the cigarette butt into the dark. It was the idea of running across open ground under machine-gun fire that didn’t seem quite right, especially as they’d be running towards a place called Dead Man’s Ridge.

  They were quiet to a man that night with the knowledge of it. Jack wondered how Mick and Tom were faring back in Egypt, tending to the wounded and fearing they would find familiar faces on their tables. He wondered if they would see him soon and privately prayed at this point they would. ‘Wounded’ held a lot more appeal than ‘dead’.

  The orange tips of their cigarettes traced their movements as each man pondered his fate.

  Jack knew it had to come to this: a decisive strike. A proper battle. It couldn’t go on as it had been: men trapped like fish in a net, beaten down by the hellish conditions and the constant shelling. He also knew he was becoming a harder man, more detached from killing each day. But tonight was different. There was no detachment. For the first time they knew they would kill in advance. Tomorrow they would all end life. Or die. It was one thing to fight from the trenches, reflexively. Quite another to know ahead of time that you would stare into the face of the enemy and stab a blade into his heart. Or have him stab one into yours.

  ‘Did you hear what Simmo here did this morning?’ Dan broke the silence.

  Jack sat up, needing to hear it, knowing if it involved Simmo it might make him laugh.

  ‘Got in trouble for not saluting some snooty pom on the way up from the beach,’ Dan continued, ‘so he said, “Certainly sir, and what should I address you as? Captain Headless?”’

  Simmo saluted them all and Jack laughed a little but the silence descended once more.

  Tonight the joking around wasn’t enough, not with death lurking over that rise. All thought could end tomorrow with the slice of a single bullet and Jack felt his mind empty in advance, resembling the stretch of ground above him; a desolate landscape devoid of life, stilled in anticipation of carnage.

  Jack decided to provide his mind with some focus and slowly performed his nightly ritual, pulling out the Egyptian tin he had in his breast jacket pocket and examining the contents. He paid each his special attention: the letters he knew by heart, the jacaranda flower he’d picked off the ground on the last morning at home, now dried and flat, his mother’s rosary beads, a small velvet pouch that held an exquisite sapphire and gold ring and, most treasured of all, a photo taken that last night at home. Just the two families at dinner, and innocent enough if he were shot and Dan was the one who sorted the tin’s contents. No one would ever have to know that it was Veronica’s face he stared at every night. His eyes roamed over the others and he missed them all, but always his gaze came back to land on her. It was her smile he traced. Her figure he tried to visualise through the grainy image and layers of clothing she’d worn. Her voice he tried to remember. Just Veronica, and the unlimited imaginings of his parched mind.

  He usually held onto this for a good minute before carefully putting each item back into the tin and placing it in his pocket again, close to his heart, but tonight he couldn’t seem to let it go, almost as though if he did he would never see her again.

  Glancing over at Dan he saw he held on to a photo he kept in his wallet, a photo he also looked at every night, little realising Jack was a few feet away staring at the same girl. The more time Jack spent with Dan the more he regretted this secret between them, but it was something he knew he could never confess.

  Along the trench he watched the men clean their rifles and say their farewells, the pit a sea of frightened men in private ritual, until each fell into an unwilling sleep.

  Jack and Iggy waited together, awake, side by side, the minutes closing in towards the dawn, vaguely registering Simmo’s snores among the nightly sounds of war.

  ‘Still holding that photo.’ Iggy nodded at his hand.

  Jack had forgotten about it.

  ‘May I?’ Iggy took it and stared for a moment. ‘Had a bit of a thing for her myself you know.’

  ‘Vera?’ Jack said, surprised. ‘You never said.’

  ‘Bit too much competition to be putting my horse in that race.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Yeah well, I don’t suppose any of our chances of finishing are that high right now.’ Jack sighed, leaning back to look up at the stars. ‘Do me a favour, Ig?’ he said after a while.

  ‘I’m not writing a note to Sarge telling him you have a sore throat and can’t go to war school, if that’s what you’re asking,’ Iggy replied, lying down and handing the photo back.

  Jack tried to smile. ‘No, mate. Was kind of hoping you could see to it my folks get the tin. I put a little note in there for them.’ He saw Iggy nod slowly before adding his last request. ‘And Ig, if you ever get the chance…tell Vera…just tell her I’m sorry I acted like the back end of a horse.’ He laughed a little, but his eyes had filled with tears and he cleared his throat.

  ‘Hey I’m not bloody showing up at home without you. Pattie would skin me alive!’ Iggy tried to joke back.

  ‘Just do that for me, will you, Ig?’

  Iggy’s smile faded and he nodded at the sky. ‘Sure thing, mate. If that’s what you want.’ And they watched the sky light up then fade for a while before he spoke again. ‘While we’re on the subject, do me a favour too, won’t you? Take care of Ebony. I’d hate her to end up a tourist ride around the pyramids. And sing “The Parting Glass” for me. Always best to go out with a bit of class.’

  ‘I can’t very well sing it without my piano player, so it looks like I’m not coming back without you either. Have we got a deal?’

  Iggy grinned. ‘Deal.’

  And so they fell asleep at last, knowing they would awake to death, but with the knowledge that they’d done what they could to say their farewells.

  She walked through the grass and came to stand in front of him at last, the white dress brushing against him. She stroked his face, love in every touch, and he inhaled the scent of her, a lingering earthiness that clung to her hair. She’d been swimming in the creek again.

  The bombs startled him out of his dream and he found he was covered in sweat, his skin on fire in the cool morning as the sergeant crept along the lines, waking the men and preparing them to advance. In an instant they were wide awake, clinging to their guns, some praying, others white faced, too scared to think, and a few determined, fiercely poised to get it over with.

  ‘Take over, lads.’ He nodded to Iggy and Jack. Jack nodded back, trying not to notice the flash of sympathy that crossed Sarge’s grim countenance.

  ‘Face the wall,’ Iggy called, moving along, then doing so himself.

  ‘Straight and fast, boys,’ Jack called loudly, putting as much confidence into his voice as he could manage. Dan’s brown eyes were wide as he looked over at him and Jack gave him what he hoped was a nod of assurance. ‘We’ll be right, mate.’

  Dan nodded back, white faced.

  Life paused for an unbearable few seconds.

  Then the whistle pierced the air, slicing it like a knife. Boots hit the rungs of the ladders and suddenly they were running. Jack registered a pale-pink sky and an expanse of ground, then felt the blind panic of exposed prey. Men collapsed as the bullets found them, warm bodies spilling in sickening collision, then still. Jack’s terror propelled him forward as he swerved and ran with Iggy and Dan by his side. Launching themselves into the first trench they shot their guns, stabbing blindly, ending the lives of those who would take their own.

  The bombs pounded in close succession as they waited, strained against the sides, and prepared for advance towards the second trench. Heaving air, the whistle forced their legs once more.

  They shot wildly as they ran, suddenly face to face with the Turks. Jack tried not to register express
ion, eyes, fear. He lunged, feeling the flesh give way beneath his bayonet, the blade exiting in a bright red smear. Launching over the carved, bloodied mess they slammed their bodies against the earth, hearts in frantic drum within their cages. Jack felt vaguely grateful the cries were silent against the roar of guns.

  The third and final push came as they crossed deeper into Turkish lines, like fleas on the back of a lion. The lion roared, slashing at them, and there were heavy casualties alongside as men fell all around them. They found the next crevice on its back, desperately throwing themselves into the job of killing for a third time until the enemy ran out and they clung to the walls, stained with blood, every inch of their bodies wired.

  The bombs were thick in a deafening rain and Jack felt a sudden weight on his leg.

  ‘Jack.’

  He couldn’t hear the word, he could only see Dan’s mouth move as he collapsed in a pile of flesh and limbs, as if he were suddenly made of parts that had no relation to each other. He held onto Jack as he slipped away, his last expression frozen in a plea to live. Jack watched those brown eyes lose their sight, saw the young face without its owner. A gaping hole was ripped in the place where Dan’s heart had beaten only moments before.

  ‘No!’ Jack squeezed his own eyelids shut. No God. Please no.

  ‘Oh God. Oh sweet Jesus,’ Iggy cried out and Jack opened his eyes, seeing Iggy’s stricken expression as he stared at Dan, shaking his head back and forth in denial.

  ‘Don’t look…we can’t look.’

  Iggy turned away and they stared in the opposite direction to wait for what hell would come next, survival instinct the only thing guiding their frantic minds.

  If he’d a rational mind at the time Jack might have noticed his fingernails were clinging to the dirt deep to the cuticle as he hung against the trench and waited that morning. The sun was full by the time they realised all officers were either dead or injured and they were out of grenades. Jack and Iggy, although only corporals, were now in charge of their section and knew without ammunition they were all lost.