A Fortunate Life (Puffin story books)

by A B Facey

  I told him to withdraw the slur he had cast on my mother or I’d belt him until he did. He said, ‘You get out of here, you’re finished.’ I grabbed him and started to pull him to his feet to give him some more and he said, ‘I’m sorry about your mother but you’re still sacked.’ He got a red time ticket out of his pocket, filled it out and handed it to me, saying, ‘Get going.’

  Then something happened that surprised us both. The whole gang sat down and said they would not work unless I was reinstated. The Ganger refused their demand, and got on a trolley and went towards Merredin.

  We had a meeting and I offered to pull out as I felt I was the cause of the trouble, but they wouldn’t have a bit of that. They all seemed pleased that they had a chance to get rid of the Ganger. We waited for something to happen, and then the Engineer and the Ganger turned up. The Ganger now had some dressing on his lips, and he looked a sight.

  The Engineer called us all together and said, ‘I have heard the Ganger’s story, now what’s your story?’ Bill Strong chipped in and explained the whole affair as it had happened.

  When he finished, the Engineer turned to the Ganger and said, ‘That just about finishes you with this gang.’ The Ganger protested, saying, ‘That bloke there’—pointing to me—‘hit me first without any provocation.’ With that several men came forward and said they were prepared to swear on the Bible that what Mr Strong had said was true. The Engineer said to me, ‘Give me that ticket of dismissal you have.’ He tore it into pieces and threw them away. Then he said, ‘Men, get back to your work and forget this has happened. I’ll arrange for another Ganger to be with you during the afternoon.’ Just before knock-off time the new Ganger arrived. Our new Ganger was tops, very fair in his judgement and we all liked him.

  The fight was the talking-point of our gang for weeks. My victory was doubled many times, as I had, that day, made forty-one very staunch friends.

  The new line passed through some of Western Australia’s best wheat growing country. We had reached a place called Bruce Rock by the end of May, and Corrigin in early August. Our gang was then taken to Wickepin, and on arriving, I was asked to go to the Post Office as a telegram had arrived with bad news for me—my mother had died suddenly. Our new Ganger gave me leave to go to the funeral, and a friend drove me to Narrogin where I caught the midnight train to Perth. Although my mother hadn’t been a good mother to me, I felt her death very much.

  I stayed two days after the funeral to help out, then went back to my work on the railways.

  We finished the new section at Wickepin, working from Wickepin back to Corrigin. We completed our work on this line by the third week in October, 1913; I had driven nearly every spike on one rail from Merredin to Wickepin, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles.

  Fourteen

  When we got paid off we all went to the Narrogin Agricultural Show. I liked these country shows. They were great fun with the side-shows and ring events—there wasn’t a dull moment. Bill Strong, Jock and I kept together and tried our skill at all the side-shows, until we came to the boxing marquee. It had a platform out front with several boxers challenging all comers. There were two heavyweights in the troupe, and two middleweights, as well as a light and a featherweight boxer. The man running the show knew Bill Strong, and after an excited greeting, asked him to referee the fights and Bill agreed. A big crowd gathered as a local boy, Patsy Armstrong, won the first fight (lightweight) on points. In the second match (middleweight), the local lad was knocked out in the second round. The heavyweight match went on for the full four rounds and the Manager’s heavyweight, a Negro, won on points.

  The Manager now offered five pounds to anyone who could stay in the ring for four two-minute rounds with the Negro. Bill Strong joined Jock and me for a cup of tea and a sandwich, and he told us that the Negro was a pushover for anyone who could box. He said, ‘Why don’t you take him on, Bert? You would beat him easy with that straight left of yours.’ I said, ‘He’s too big for me.’

  ‘That bloke he beat didn’t know anything about boxing,’ Bill said. ‘The Negro should have put him down in one or two rounds, but he was puffing and blowing and so badly out of condition I didn’t think he would last the four rounds. There’s an easy fiver for you there, Bert, what about it?’ I didn’t like the idea as that Negro (they called him Darkey Brown) was about fifteen stone and I was under twelve stone.

  They were having a job to get challengers. Then the Manager called out, ‘I will give anyone two pounds for each round that any challenger can stand on his feet against Darkey.’

  This was too much for Bill—he called out, ‘Righto, here’s your man.’ I felt awful, I could have flattened Bill. He pushed me forward and a roar went up from the crowd.

  The Manager, whose name was Mick Flynn, said, ‘Five rounds of two minutes, and two pounds for every round he stays on his feet, and ten pounds if he can defeat Darkey within five rounds.’ This troubled me—why an extra round? I didn’t like it one little bit but there was no getting out of it.

  Mick Flynn asked me my weight and looked surprised when I said, ‘Eleven stone ten pounds.’ I didn’t feel very pleased with the groan from the crowd, as Darkey’s weight was fifteen stone four pounds. Wasn’t I scared!

  I took my coat and shirt off and also my boots, because my only chance was to be able to move around fast on bare feet. Bill put the boxing gloves on me and told me to keep moving away from Darkey and to keep pushing my straight left into his face as he came in. If I could, I was to try and land it into his stomach just above the belt. He said he felt sure I could beat him. The gong sounded and the fight was on.

  Darkey came out of his corner and charged at me, swinging punches in all directions. I dodged and ducked and never had time to think about trying to hit him. We seemed to be fighting a long time before the gong went to end the first round.

  As I sat in my corner Bill Strong said, ‘You’re doing fine. Just keep it up.’ I said, ‘But I haven’t hit him yet.’ He said, ‘No, but the most important thing is he hasn’t hit you yet either.’

  The gong went to start the second round. This time Darkey came out very steadily, looking menacing, and I moved away as he tried to land a punch on me. This happened several times, then I noticed he wasn’t trying to protect himself—his face or stomach—he seemed bent on landing a punch that would end the fight. Near the end of this round I suddenly ducked under a right swing from Darkey and put everything I had into a left, straight into his stomach. He stopped and doubled up as the gong went.

  Bill and Jock were delighted, and the crowd gave me a cheer and it gave me courage. In the third round Darkey kept in a crouching position with one glove protecting his stomach, so I knew that punch must have hurt him. I started to drive straight lefts to his face, hitting him on the mouth and nose. This sent the crowd wild. There was no doubt they were all on my side. This third round was my best and when I went to my corner Bill said, ‘Keep it up—you’ve got him.’

  But about halfway through the fourth round I almost met with disaster. I was intent on landing another stomach punch that I felt sure would end the fight, when a long right hook from Darkey landed flush on my chin and I fell on my side to the floor. I could hear the referee counting four, five, and by the count of seven, I was on my feet again. Darkey threw punches at me from all directions but I had recovered enough to keep moving away and sideways. Then Darkey rushed me and I met him with another straight left to the stomach. This doubled him up on the floor, and at the count of four the gong went.

  But Darkey didn’t reach his corner—he was bent over vomiting on to the ring floor. Mr Flynn went over and spoke to him, then made an announcement declaring me the winner as Darkey was not able to continue. The crowd went wild.

  Mr Flynn paid me the ten pounds and asked me if I would like to travel for a month with his show. He offered me two pounds a week with all expenses paid. I loved boxing so I booked with this show, known as ‘Mickey Flynn’s Boxing Troupe’. But I got a shoc
k when I found out what was expected of us. We were busy most of the time, loading our materials and luggage on horse-drawn lorries to be taken to the place where we would erect our marquee and put in the seating. The only time we got a real rest was when we were travelling by train from place to place. At all the towns and places where we showed, some of us had to mix with the crowd and appear as strangers to the troupe—if there wasn’t any challengers coming forward, then one of us would accept a challenge, using another name, as a last resort to get the show started. This gave the local boys the idea that they could hold their own because when we fought each other, we always fought for a draw.

  We showed at Katanning, Albany, Bunbury and Northam in Western Australia; then we showed at Adelaide and several towns in South Australia. We then travelled into Victoria and showed at Ballarat, Maryborough, Castlemaine, Bendigo and Melbourne; then into New South Wales. In large towns we would stage four to six fights each day, and sometimes we would stay a whole week, according to the size of the crowds we received.

  I had some twenty-nine fights and was lucky enough to win them all. I had what was called a perfect straight left. Most of my opponents were inexperienced and not very fit, and weren’t able to go more than two or three rounds.

  In Newcastle I met my best opponent of the tour. He was six feet three inches tall, about thirteen stone in weight and had been sparring with champions such as Bill Lang, Dave Smith and Jerry Jerome. Twice in the first and second rounds he hit me so hard that my legs felt like jelly—I felt I had met my Waterloo—but I managed to stay on my feet. When we came out for the third round he must have thought he had me because he rushed straight at me and didn’t protect himself. I put everything I had into a straight left and it landed flush on his chin. His head jerked back with the impact and his hands dropped, leaving his face unprotected. I drove a right hook to his chin and he took a nose dive to the floor and was counted out. I felt that I was very lucky to win.

  In August 1914 we received the news that Britain was at war with Germany and there was talk that Australia was sending a force of twenty thousand troops and the Commonwealth was calling for volunteers. Everybody was talking about the war and Germany’s invasion of Belgium. We all felt that we should volunteer—we were fit, and another thing that appealed to us was that we would be travelling overseas.

  We told Mr Flynn our decision, and I asked him if he thought of enlisting as he wasn’t very old, just a little over middle-age and a lot of men of his age were volunteering. He was quiet for a while, then he said, ‘Not me. You boys can have this one all to yourselves. I had all I want of war in the Boer War. It’s not pretty. Don’t go off thinking that you’re in for a bit of fun—it’s not like that.’

  Most of us came from Western Australia and we wanted to enlist in our home state. Mr Flynn told us that those who wished to return to the West would have their fares paid on the first ship to sail from Sydney. He would pay our wages until the day we landed back at Fremantle.

  So three days later—in the second week of September—six of us boarded the passenger-ship Moultan at Sydney and set off for our home state, Western Australia. I was now just twenty years old.

  I went to the military camp that had been set up at Blackboy Hill, some fifteen miles east of Perth. A sergeant-major took my name, age and address. Then I was measured around the chest and waist, my weight was taken and then my height. My height caused quite a controversy. The sergeant kept on saying, ‘I don’t believe it.’ As I stood in my bare feet on the platform he checked my height several times, then told me to stay put.

  He returned with a doctor who also checked my height and remarked, ‘It cannot be.’

  All this confused me—I was wondering what was wrong. I was informed that I was the only man out of the thousands measured who was exactly six feet tall.

  Then I had my first taste of army stew and I liked it. After lunch, those passed fit—about three hundred of us—had to attend a large tent for a series of lectures about health and hygiene and the various kinds of diseases and their symptoms. Several doctors addressed us during the afternoon.

  The following days we had to learn army drill. The instructors didn’t allow for a man from the bush not being acquainted with any kind of army drill or discipline, and there were many country men that had been very keen to answer their country’s call. Non-commissioned English instructors wishing to assert their authority in a bullying way were no good to the man who had been used to go-as-you-please freedom, so it was a common sight the first few days at Blackboy Hill to see a sergeant or a corporal get a punch on the nose. This meant the offender being paraded to the Senior Officer who usually gave him a lecture and another chance.

  We were organized into platoons consisting of sixty privates with seven non-commissioned officers and three officers. There were four platoons to a company, four companies to a full battalion and four battalions to a full brigade. Our battalion was the Eleventh, and we were attached to the Third Brigade that was made up of the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Battalions.

  At the end of October our company was shifted to a camp to do our musketry training. A man wasn’t accepted as a full soldier until he had passed his musketry test. I could shoot very well because of the kangaroo-shooting I had done, and I passed with flying colours. But at the end of the training I didn’t feel well and I reported to one of our sergeants. He took me to the doctor, who ordered me to hospital. I had the measles, and I was taken to the Fremantle Army Barracks where one large room on the second floor had been turned into an infectious diseases hospital. When I arrived there was another soldier there from the Twelfth Battalion, also supposed to have measles, but later they found it was scarlet fever, so instead of getting out when I expected, I had to wait until the quarantine period was over. In the meantime I got scarlet fever. The outcome of this was that I didn’t get out of the Fremantle Army Barracks until after Christmas—it was January 1915 before I got back to Blackboy Hill.

  Before I was discharged from the hospital, Joseph, my eldest brother, came to see me. He was in the Tenth Light Horse Regiment from Western Australia and they were expected to sail before my Battalion, the Eleventh.

  Fifteen

  In early February 1915, we left for overseas on the troopship Itonus. Joseph had sailed five days earlier. We sailed direct to Aden, then through the Red Sea to Suez, then went on to Cairo by train. When we arrived at Zagazig—the junction where the line branched off to Port Said—our train had to stop for forty minutes. A mate and I were placed on guard at the main entrance to the station with instructions that no soldier was to be let out unless he had written authority from the Australian Commanding Officer, and no civilians were allowed in or out. The guard job became quite a problem, as hundreds of Egyptian people wanted to sell goods to the troops—especially booze, and we had to take drastic action to stop them. If anyone approached the entrance with bottled drink for sale, we had to break the bottles with our bayonets. I broke thirty-six bottles that were supposed to contain whisky, and the smell of the contents would have almost knocked a man down.

  We disembarked at Cairo and then had to march some three miles to a place called Abbassia. The camp was a mess—there didn’t seem to be anyone in charge. No officers, no sergeants—there were a few corporals but they were at a loss to know what to do. There were several large mess huts with tables and stools, but no food. What a situation—in a strange country with no money and no food. The next day we found out there was an army barracks about half a mile away from our camp, the permanent station for some sixty thousand English troops.

  We got all our troops together and held a meeting to see what could be done. I suggested that we go to the commanding officer at the English barracks and put our plight to him. The troops agreed to this and two of us were appointed—a corporal and myself.

  At the barracks I explained our mission to a sergeant-major, who was about the rudest man I had ever met. When I finally got him to listen to our troubles, he snorted and
said it was none of their affair, and it wouldn’t be any good seeing his colonel. When I asked for the Colonel’s telephone number, he told me to get the hell out of there before he threw me in the guard-house and put me on a charge of insolence. I replied, ‘All right, you just do that. I’m not scared of you pommy upstarts. That will be one way of getting someone to see our position is desperate.’

  Then all at once the Sergeant-Major said, ‘Wait here and I will see what I can do.’ He returned about half an hour later and told us that the Colonel would see us. He took us along several corridors then, stopping at a door he said, ‘The Colonel is in here. Don’t forget to salute and be very careful how you speak.’

  We were called in. The Sergeant-Major told the Colonel who we were, then left. We both saluted and the Colonel asked, ‘Well boys, what is your trouble?’ I explained what had happened. He pushed a button on his desk and an orderly appeared. The Colonel told him to ring Australian Army Headquarters and then put the call through to him. The Colonel was put through to a person he wanted, and when he put the phone back he told us to go back to our camp and that he felt sure our troubles would be over that afternoon. I thanked him and he replied that he was glad to be able to do a service for one of England’s dominions.

  It was now about midday. We went straight back to our camp and later in the afternoon a car arrived carrying three Australian officers: a captain and two lieutenants, and a sergeant-major. They said, ‘We have come to see what is going on. We want to see the two that went to see the English colonel this morning.’ We came forward thinking we were in for some trouble and the Captain ordered us into the back of the car with the Sergeant-Major. The three officers got into the front seat and without any further word we drove off.

  I didn’t have any idea about where we were going or what was going to happen to us. After about a twenty minute drive through thickly populated towns, passing thousands of local people walking and riding donkeys, we crossed the River Nile and arrived at a big military camp.