by Di Morrissey
In the pre dawn, sudden silence, the field fell quiet as if both sides were exhausted. The dead were hard to look at but through the day it had been harder to watch the wounded attempting to drag themselves back towards the parapets and being picked off by snipers. Some were left to wait in the thirsty sun with flies crawling in wounds, minds tormented. An Australian officer and an NCO had crossed under a white flag and asked a German officer for permission to bring them in. The answer from the rear command had been no.
With nightfall the stretcher bearers had gone out to recover the wounded, guided by calls and moans. Now fog, dust and smoke shrouded no man’s land between them and the Germans who were well dug in and familiar with the landscape dividing them. Ghostly images of crumpled bodies scattered in the mud began to filter through the haze. The haunted faces around Harold showed the ordeal they’d been through.
And then came a cry for a stretcher bearer: ‘Over here, over here, New South Wales! Stretcher bearer!’
Harold and Scooter leapt up, despite their exhaustion, and climbed onto the fire-step of the trench for a squint over the parapet across the dark and battered landscape.
‘We missed one, Scooter.’ Harold bent down and grabbed a stretcher.
‘Heard that before, mate. We’d better be quick and get back before first light and the fog goes.’
Following the calls, they soon found a wounded soldier squirming slowly over the soaking, pitted ground, his badly injured comrade slung across his shoulders.
‘Get me cobber in, he’s bad.’
As they lifted the man’s cobber from his back and laid him on the stretcher, Scooter urged the wounded soldier to climb aboard. ‘Me and Harold here, we’ll get you both in.’
‘Too cramped. He’s got a bad hit in the gut. Take him, I’ll make me own way.’ Determinedly he began to crawl, dragging his bloodied, splintered leg.
‘We’ll come back for you, it’ll be quicker than carrying two,’ said Scooter. Bent low they scrambled back to the trench where willing hands were waiting to take the unconscious soldier.
‘Another stretcher,’ demanded Harold. ‘Got to get his mate now.’
They had almost reached the wounded man when a breath of wind lifted the veil of mist and a German sniper opened fire on them.
‘To your left, man. A shell hole,’ shouted Harold.
He rolled out of sight and for a while there was an eerie silence. Then to Harold’s relief they heard a burst of coughing and spitting followed by a throaty, ‘Toss me some water, matey.’
They threw a water bottle into the hole and ducked low as more shots came from the German trenches. The sky became lighter.
It hurt Harold but he had to shout, ‘Hang on, mate, we’ll be back tonight. Too risky to try to carry you out now.’
Scooter led the belly-down retreat through the mud as he and Harold headed to the safety of the trench.
During that long day between bouts of shelling they’d hear the digger whistling to himself to let them know he was still alive and to keep up his spirit. That night as soon as it was considered reasonably safe to go over the top, Harold and Scooter crawled to him.
As they loaded him onto the stretcher, he grabbed Harold’s wrist and said weakly, ‘Tell me mum I did all right. Don’t let me cobbers forget me, eh?’ And he began to whistle softly a tune that had become popular among the troops – ‘Mademoiselle from Armentières’. As they lowered him into the trench the whistle slowly faded with his last breath.
It was a tune Harold never forgot. After the war he found himself whistling the same notes in times of sadness, stress or when, unbidden, moments and fragments of the war came back to him as vividly as yesterday.
Harold never talked of what he’d seen. Of popping eyes staring out from blackened frightened faces, the caked mud and blood like a second skin, boots tramping over faces of dead comrades, bodies alive but beyond repair, the demented cries for a mother, the confusion, the waste of men, the dispirited and the pitiful. Gone was the gaiety, the buoyed confidence of brothers in arms.
Instead he talked to family and close friends of the mateship, the pride they took in their unit which bonded them one to another. The self pride, the camaraderie, sportsmanship and the knowledge they felt they were fighting for their country – Australia – just as much as if they’d been in trenches around Sydney. And he talked of the humour.
Lara
Lara smiled as she recalled funny anecdotes of the ‘innocents abroad’ recounted by her grandfather. It suddenly occurred to her she knew more about her grandfather’s war than her mother’s war years.
‘So you would’ve known my mother then?’ she said to Henry.
‘Not really, I was a good ten years younger than her. I remember seeing her and Mollie around, they were pretty girls.’ He stirred his cup, ‘There are people around from those days, it might be worth talking to them. If you really want to scratch old scars.’
‘Really? Like who?’ Lara reached in her bag for a notebook as Henry began to reel off names of old families and schoolfriends from her mother’s and grandparents’ day.
‘Don’t you have any family relations left round these parts?’ asked Henry curiously. ‘Your Aunt Mollie lived overseas and your mum married a soldier, didn’t she? One of the local lads?’
‘What do you know about her marriage?’ asked Lara.
‘Nothing, I was not much more than a kid. I was more interested in hanging round the army camp out of Cedartown. Used to cycle out there to see the boys from town, cadge a ride on a motorbike, watch them do field exercises in the paddocks. Was a bit of a lark. So where’d your father serve?’
‘Ah, that’s a tricky question. I’m not sure.’ Lara hesitated and in a sudden impulse decided to confide in Henry.
‘Mum married during the war, a year before the war ended, but the marriage didn’t work out, and the only father I ever knew was my stepfather Charlie Jenkins. Sadly he was killed when I was ten. Frankly all I know about my birth father is his name.’
‘I knew the Jenkins family. The town was shocked when Charlie died. So you want to know more? After all this time?’ Henry raised an eyebrow.
‘I think I do. I suppose it’s at the core of this search I’m embarking on.’
‘What’s his name? Is he still alive? He might still be around.’
‘No idea. From my mother’s refusal to discuss him, I don’t think it was a friendly parting. The name of my father on my birth certificate is Clem Gordon Richards. Mum always used the name Jenkins.’
‘Sure to be someone around who might remember him, or the family. Sort of rings a bell,’ said Henry glancing at his watch. ‘I have to get going, a family are bringing in some memorabilia for the museum. It’s always a bit hard for them, parting with family stuff.’
‘I’ll come over with you. I haven’t had a chance to go through the museum properly,’ said Lara.
‘Ah, you need a week to do that,’ said Henry.
Henry was right, decided Lara. So many stories in there, so much that was familiar, interesting, and sad. How times had changed. But it was the women’s stories that captivated her. How hard they’d worked, often in very simple, indeed, primitive conditions, yet they’d held the family together, made attempts to make their humble homes cosy and comfortable even if it was only gum tips in a jar on the rough timber table, a newspaper cut into a frill to line a shelf, a struggling garden.
She poked her head into the busy staff area of the historical society. ‘Thanks, Henry, I’m a bit overwhelmed. I’ll come back another day. Nice to meet you all.’ She gave a wave and headed out the back door.
‘Good luck with your family search. I’ll put out the word re the Richards family.
‘Thanks, Henry. Bye.’
Back at Cricklewood Lara settled in a bentwood rocking chair on the front verandah with a pot of tea, a sandwich, a pile of family letters and assorted newspaper clippings. She spread the clippings across a card table she had put up beside the chair and w
as startled by the first to catch her eye. It was a page from a magazine called Aussie and it carried a 1918 date line. In one column was a poem, by Anonymous, titled ‘Stretcher Bearers’.
‘My God, what an extraordinary coincidence,’ she said aloud to herself, then read:
Stretcher Bearers Stretcher Bearers!
Seeking in the rain
Out among the flying death
For those who lie in pain,
Bringing in the wounded men
Then out to seek again.
Out amongst the tangled wire
(Where they thickest fell)
Snatching back the threads of life
From out the jaws of hell;
Out amongst machine-gun sweep
And the blast of shatt’ring shell.
For you no mad, exciting charge,
No swift, exultant flight,
But just an endless plodding on
Through the shuddering night;
Making ’neath a star-shell’s gleam
Where ere a face shines white.
Stretcher Bearers! Stretcher Bearers!
To you all praise be due,
Who ne’er shirked the issue yet
When there was work to do.
We who’ve seen and know your worth
All touch our hats to you.
How she wished she’d asked her grandfather more questions. Perhaps in his last lonely years after Emily died he might have shared some of the pain. She recalled him finally joining the Cedartown Services Club – which surprised her as he’d never set foot inside in all the previous years. He’d modestly produced his demobilisation papers to ‘prove’ he’d served. And each Friday he popped in for a hot lunch and a yarn with the locals.
Wrapped in tissue paper was a gold medallion presented to Harold Williams in 1919 by the Horseshoe Bend Ladies Welcome Home Committee. The words ‘Welcome Home’ were inscribed in a horseshoe under a royal crown. The newspaper report he’d kept noted that the medallion was presented to fourteen returned servicemen on the night by the mayor, Major Cracknell. The major was quoted: ‘All they thought of was to do their duty for their country and the Empire, and that they did.’ Lara almost smiled at the major’s final comment, in which he conceded that some of them ‘might not be in the same state of health as when they went away’.
There was one photo that brought back a vivid memory for Lara. It showed her grandfather marching in the one and only Anzac Day march he ever attended. It was in 1966 in Sydney and Elizabeth and Lara had gone to watch. How he’d chuckled at the resulting photo and asked Lara what was so surprising about it.
‘That you’re all in step after all those years,’ she’d laughed.
That had been a wonderful visit with him. She’d started working and they’d had a special day out in the city together. She sighed as she put the photo to one side and started to read the letters.
At four o’clock Dani and Tim appeared. Lara quickly put the letters back in the box.
‘Hi, Ma, what are you reading?’ Tim bounded up the front steps.
‘Oh, lots of old family letters. Some from your great-great-grandparents. Written right here in this house.’ She returned his hug.
‘We’ve registered for the local soccer team,’ said Dani, giving her mother a look that said this was a positive step.
‘Fantastic. What else have you been up to?’
‘Oh, the usual school stuff. It’s different.’ Tim gave a small shrug and didn’t look too impressed.
‘Can I get some eggs, Mum?’ Lara nodded and, as Dani headed down to the garden, Tim squeezed into the chair beside his grandmother.
‘Ma, you know what? There’s horses across the creek at The Vale. I really like them.’
‘Horses? How wonderful.’
‘Ma . . .’
‘Yes, sweetie?’
‘Do you think I could have riding lessons? Then maybe I could ride round the paddocks. Tabatha can ride.’
Lara had been waiting for this opportunity to give Tim an interest that would help settle him into this new environment and make life very different from what he’d had back in Sydney.
‘You bet. But we’ll have to check with your mother, and you can’t just jump on a horse you don’t know. I’d love you to have proper lessons. There must be someone here giving lessons. I’ll look into it.’ Lara paused.
‘Thanks, Ma. You’re just the best.’ He planted a kiss on her cheek and they hugged each other.
‘Thanks, Timmy. I love kisses and hugs like that.’ Lara knew boys Tim’s age were not always demonstrative. ‘Now there’s something else. We’re all up here for a while doing our own thing and I reckon it would be good for you, for your mum and especially for me, if you stayed a couple of nights each week here with me at Cricklewood. You’d be in town away from that bush cabin your mother loves, it’d give you a chance to see your school friends and do things, like riding lessons.’ She reached out and took the boy’s hand. ‘Well?’
Tim seemed relieved and grasped at the straw his grandmother offered. ‘Cool, Ma. If I stayed here in the week I could go to extra footy practice, and I was thinking of joining the band, and stuff. But it’s all after school and that’s hard for Mum to come in and get me when it’s late.’ He went on in a rush, ‘I can spend some time with Toby and Tab . . . and I can see Mum on weekends . . .’ Suddenly it seemed to be Tim’s idea and he was trying to persuade Lara.
She stifled a smile. ‘Gee whiz, Tim . . . that’s an interesting idea. I’d love to have some company during the week . . . and your mum is so into her painting she might like a bit of freedom from her usual routine.’
They squeezed hands in agreement.
‘Ma, it’s hard here. I miss my friends back home. We email but . . .’
‘But there’re other things, different things,’ suggested Lara quietly.
‘Yeah. So I might as well do things like horse riding,’ he chuckled.
‘Okay. You’re on. A few formal lessons before you hit the paddocks with Tab.’
Dani came back with a carton of eggs and some spinach, and gathered up her bag. ‘Righto, let’s hit the road.’
Tim got up, looking a little smug. ‘Me and Ma have worked out something. Is it okay if I stay a couple of nights a week here with her? I have stuff at school . . . and . . . I’m starting riding lessons.’
Dani gave her mother a surprised look, how did she work all this out in ten minutes? ‘Wow! What’s brought this on? You have two homes here . . . your town house and your country house . . . you can come and go so long as school work doesn’t suffer.’
‘We have to sort out the riding lessons if you approve. Tim says he’s made friends with horses across the creek at The Vale,’ said Lara.
‘Kerry’s horses. She lives over the creek. I told you about her. Well, let’s head off. We’ll talk about this more shall we, Tim?’ Dani threw her mother a relieved look. ‘Horse riding, now, that’s something different. Wait till you tell Tab and Toby. And Justin down in Sydney.’
A few days later and feeling very settled, Lara set out before breakfast for an energetic walk down the road, over the bridge across Cedar Creek, up past the old timber mill that now made mainly plywood and veneers, then through a stand of old gum trees to relatively new streets filled with comfortable homes. It was an area that had been only bush when she’d walked here so often with Poppy.
Mid morning she was ready to do some shopping, and to see if Henry was at the museum and show him the stretcher bearer poem. She opened the mail box at the gate and took out some letters for the Clerks. There was an envelope addressed to her with no stamp, just Lara’s name on the front. An invitation someone had dropped in perhaps, she thought, as she opened it. She unfolded the single page and was surprised to see it carried only one short sentence in bold letters.
‘What the hell does this mean?’ gasped Lara, and read again . . .
Don’t go digging up the past . . . it could lead to something very unpleasant. Be co
ntent with what you know, and what you have.
Suddenly the morning was no longer bright and sunny.
11
Dani
EVEN THOUGH THEY’D ARRANGED to start their bushwalk at eight in the morning, it was already very warm and Dani knew it was going to be a stinker of a day. Carter had urged everyone to be on time at the rendezvous point, but running late and the last to arrive in a rush was Jason and his girlfriend in her new sportscar. Dani was instantly irritated by Genevieve, ‘Do call me Ginny if you wish’, who had brought along her white Maltese terrier. Dani recalled Jason dogsitting the small, curly-haired dog with hair falling over its eyes and a mincing trot.
‘Is that thing going to last the distance?’ asked Carter, eyeing the dog. ‘It’s a fair hike. Be a good breakfast for a snake.’
‘What! Snakes? We’re not going to see a snake are we?’ Ginny sounded faintly accusing, as if this was a detail overlooked by Jason.
‘Hopefully you’ll see it before it sees you. It is the bloody bush,’ said Carter.
‘A snake will take off before we get near it,’ said Max gently. ‘It’ll feel the vibrations. Most aren’t really aggressive. Stay in the middle of the group.’
‘We’re in their territory. Out of your comfort zone, I assume,’ said Carter with a slight smile.
‘As you’d be in mine, I suppose,’ retorted Ginny with undisguised sarcasm.
Dani could see Carter was not swayed by Ginny’s sleek blonde looks, and she in turn was not intimidated by the older man with the strong personality who was in charge for the day. She quickly realised Ginny was shrewd and smart. From what Jason had mentioned, Ginny had a successful modelling career, travelled a lot and, by the understated couture label and the discreet classy jewellery, must earn considerable money. Or she came from a moneyed background. It was subtle: the educated voice, the soft and natural make-up that took effort to achieve, the loose fall of beautiful hair aided by the scissors of a master hair stylist.
