It felt wrong. All wrong.
Part of him longed for sleep, a brief blankness to try to forget what he had just seen. He shook his head. It was like riding a horse, he reckoned. You had to get up again as soon as you’d taken a fall, or you’d always be too scared to ride again.
Same with him, then. He needed to take Duffy up onto the plateau now…
A sudden vision came of blood on Duffy’s coat. He ignored it. He fixed his eyes instead on the faint outline of the rocks at his feet, and then the brighter sand.
One of the Indians was brewing tea. Trust them to have a cuppa on the go. He accepted a cup, and drank it down, so hot it burnt his throat. Burning was good. Burning kept the memory away.
The man stared at him, at the blood perhaps on his hand and clothes. ‘Bahadur, where is…’
‘Dead.’
He handed the pannikin back. ‘Thanks. That were grand.’
He stepped over to the line of mules, chomping their hay or standing with the inward stare they showed at rest. Duffy was nosing about the hay, but looked up as he came near.
Hee haw!
He stroked the animal’s velvet nose. ‘Come on, lad. Looks like it’s just me and thee again.’
The little donkey nudged him—almost, thought Jack, as though he were glad that he was back, glad to go off again into that world of death and life.
He took the halter in his hand.
They walked along the beach together, man and donkey, avoiding the boxes, the tents and stretchers where the wounded lay, and a boat drawn up to unload more boxes and take more battered, shattered men away.
Up past the sandbag wall, up, up, step by step, till there she was, a black shape in the darkness.
Duffy stopped. The scruffy donkey sniffed, then nosed about the body. Suddenly he yelled.
Hee haw haw! Hee, haw, haw!
The sound was so loud it echoed across the gully, louder almost than the sound of shells.
Hee haw, hee haw, hee haw, haw, haw! Duffy kicked up his back legs in a strange wild dance around the body.
All at once the cry floated back. Haw haw, haw haw haw!
It wasn’t quite a donkey’s cry. It was the mules, Jack realised. The mules were answering Duffy, crying too for the death of one of their own.
Then suddenly Duffy quietened. The last echo of the mules’ cry died away. Jack could hear the swish of the sea below, till another burst of shelling took its place.
And Duffy was silent again, a small scruffy donkey, waiting to be led.
Jack peered down at the dark shape of Queen Elizabeth. Somehow she no longer seemed abandoned. The donkey and the mules had said farewell, as emphatically as any human could. And he had been part of it.
His face was wet. Tears, he supposed. He didn’t bother to wipe his eyes.
‘Goodbye, lass,’ he whispered.
The man and the donkey continued up the gully.
CHAPTER 23
Jack
Gallipoli, May 1915
Sleep, Jack thought wearily a few days later, as he and Duffy trudged down past the battalion aid post where Monash Valley met Shrapnel Gully, another wounded passenger leaning against him. That’s what he needed. Or food. Roast potatoes all crispy in dripping and a slice of rhubarb pie and a hunk of cheese, or a bit of plum duff, washed down by an ale or three or four, Ma there in her clean white apron and Annie laughing…
Nah, he wouldn’t think of home. It had been bad enough filling in the postcard to them, ticking off the box that said ‘I am quite well’. Even that had brought a pang.
You couldn’t afford to think of what you’d left behind too much here. But ah, it’d be grand to get a letter—
He suddenly realised his eyes were shutting. Going to sleep on the job. He tried to think of something to sing to keep himself awake, but all that came to mind was a song he’d sung when he were just a lad, back on the beach.
‘Lottie Collins has no drawers,
Will you kindly lend her yours,
She is going far away,
To sing ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay
Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay
Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay—’
He grinned despite his tiredness. That’s what the shells were singing, too. Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay. And hadn’t Ma given him what-for when she heard him singing that?
Down below, a mob of soldiers were trying to push a giant water tank up the gully. He didn’t envy them—all too easy for Johnny Turk to pick them off one by one with a target like that. But the poor sods up in the hills needed water badly.
Suddenly someone hailed him from behind one of the new sandbag walls.
‘Hey, Murphy! We’ve got a fire going. Like a brew?’
Jack shook his head. ‘Nah, I’d better take this lad here down first. That ankle of his is shattered. Don’t think he’d thank me for making him hang around here.’
Tom, a lanky soldier with a Red Cross armband, stood up and waved him over. ‘I’ll take him and the donkey down for you.’
Jack looked at him gratefully. ‘Thanks, cobber. Must say it’d be grand to sit for a bit. Been on me feet since dawn.’
The tea was as black as a miner’s armpit. Probably made from boiled boots, Jack reckoned. But it was hot and wet and comforting. It was even better to sit there, listening to the signallers talk. How long had it been since he’d just sat in the sun?
He looked down the gully. Tom should be bringing Duffy back soon.
Suddenly he saw them heading up the path.
‘What the flaming hell?’ Jack surged to his feet. He ran out of the trench and down the gully, so angry he didn’t even think to go carefully. ‘Tha stupid sod! What do tha think tha’s doing?’
Tom stared. ‘Just having a ride on the donk.’
‘The only chance the poor little blighter has of gettin’ a bit of a rest and thou have to ride him back half a mile up this hill!’ He clenched his fists. ‘Thou get off him now before I smash thy nose for tha.’
Tom slid off the donkey.
‘Sorry. I didn’t realise. Look, mate, I know it was dumb…’
Jack’s fury seemed to leave him as quickly as it had come. ‘That’s all right, mate.’ He punched Tom on the shoulder, but not hard. ‘Just don’t do it again, got it?’
Tom nodded. ‘I’ll find him some grass,’ he yelled, as Jack and the donkey began to clamber further up the gully. ‘How about that?’
‘That’d be grand, mate. Bit o’ fresh grass would be a treat, eh, Duffy lad? How about a bunch o’ flowers too? He likes the red ones best!’
The donkey looked at his hooves and didn’t answer.
Jack knew the shelling was bad before he reached the head of the gully. For a moment he considered turning back to the safety of the trench with the others till it died down—but only for a moment. He glanced around, then steered Duffy to the stump of a bush and looped the lead rope around what was left of its trunk. The donkey could have pulled the bush over, given half a mind. But Jack knew he wouldn’t.
‘Back soon, Duffy mate.’
He crouched down, then wriggled on his stomach out to the first bush, hoping he was hidden from any sniper, then over to the next. It were hard to avoid the bits of rotting flesh now. If only they could bury the bodies, get rid o’ some o’ the stink, aye, and mebbe discourage the rats and flies while they were at it, too…
Someone lay only a few yards away. Still in one piece, no swollen flesh, or eyes picked out by crows. Aye, he hated crows right enough now, he who’d never hated any animals…The man were English, by the uniform. Dead? But even as he looked the soldier groaned, and rolled around.
‘Stay still! Don’t let Abdul know you’re still kicking…’
The man stopped moving obediently as Jack moved towards him. Flaming hell, it were an officer. It were more clear every day that half of them didn’t have the brains of a chicken, either. Well, he was blowed if he was going to sir this one.
‘Can tha crawl over to the bush here?’ He pitched his voice in a
low growl, beneath the sound of shelling.
‘No. My leg.’
‘Stay put then. I’ll wait for a lull in the firing an’ grab thee when Abdul ain’t looking…now!’
Jack hurled himself to his feet, dashed across to the man and hoisted him over his back in one swoop. The officer gave a startled groan. Jack staggered back towards the gully, then half shoved the man onto Duffy’s back. He was getting good at this now.
The officer blinked, but grabbed automatically at the sacking that he had made into a makeshift saddle. Good. This one knew how to ride. With a bit o’ luck he’d hang on by himself.
‘Let’s have a look at your leg, then. Bleedin’ heck…’ Jack unslipped the lead rope from the shrub, then kicked at the trunk. The rotten wood shattered, but one branch looked straight and firm enough to use as a splint. He took the field dressing kit out of the officer’s pocket—every man at Gallipoli carried emergency dressings on him: two and a half yards of bandage, a bit of gauze and a safety pin. Yes, that was enough. Lucky there wasn’t another wound. He began to bind the branch to the man’s leg with the wide bandages, his touch as gentle as possible.
‘Here we are. Better than nothing. It’ll stop it jiggling round as we move, anyhow.’
The officer said nothing. Jack suppressed a snort. Too good to speak to a private, he reckoned. Too good to be carried by a donkey, most like, too. Well, he’d have to lump it. Weren’t no fine thoroughbred horses in Shrapnel Gully today to carry him down.
He finished the bandage, tying the ends and tucking them under so they didn’t unravel on the way. If he’d had any morphine he’d have given the man a shot of it. But he’d have to wait till he was down at the cove for that.
‘Come on, Duffy lad.’ The donkey began to move obediently, his steps short and dainty. The officer kept hold of the sacking. Sweat beaded his face.
Down the gully…every now and then they passed another stretcher team going the other way.
‘Good to see tha, cobber. Fine day for it.’
‘Had a swim this morning, mate. Got rid of the lice, at any rate.’
‘Half thy luck. Mine are big as sparrows.’
He waved to them again as they passed, then glanced at his passenger. The officer still hadn’t said a word.
Stuck-up sod. His silence had even put him off his whistling. Johnny Turk’d have to do without his serenade today.
They were down at the beach when the officer reached into his top pocket and held something out to Jack as two orderlies rushed forwards with a stretcher. ‘Here. This is for you.’
Jack stared. It was a gold sovereign.
His face flushed. His hand shook as he took the sovereign. He stared at it a second, then spat on it and threw it back at the officer’s chest. ‘I’m not doing this for the money!’
He turned away, tugging at the lead rope so hard that Duffy had to trot to keep up with him. Dimly he was aware of one of the orderlies picking the coin up, wiping it on the seat of his trousers, and handing it back to the officer.
The bastard. The bleeding stuck-up bastard…
To think anyone would do this for the money.
CHAPTER 24
The English Captain
Gallipoli, May 1915
The captain lay back on the stretcher, the gold sovereign in his hand. He let the medics tend him. It was all he could do now. He had seen enough wounds in his time to know that this was a ‘Blighty one’ as the men in the ranks called them—the wound that was bad enough to get you sent back to Blighty, or England. If you survived.
For a moment he tried to work out his chances. Wound dressed, so he wouldn’t bleed to death. Infection—possible. You could lose a leg if the wound was bad enough and infection set in. But old Blackson in the stables had a wooden leg. A man could do quite well with just one leg…
Nothing he could do about any of it now. Time to let others do the organising. Just sip the water from the pannikin the orderly held up to his lips, and try to ignore the pain, to think of other things.
Home, the scent of jonquils in the spring, and Marjory…
It had been Marjory who’d insisted he take the sovereign. That man with the donkey, that damn fool pride-filled man—he’d thought he’d been offered the coin like you’d tip a servant. But it hadn’t been like that. You didn’t need money on a battlefield.
Marjory’s godfather had given her that sovereign when she was born, and nine others too, given to her with love. Bright gold sovereigns to keep till she was grown up, not money in the bank. Gold never tarnishes, just like our love, she’d said that morning at the train station, the steam and yelling all around them, the crying and the bustling crowds. She’d slipped the sovereign into the pocket of his uniform, the pocket over his heart.
You heard all sorts of stories of the things men carried in that pocket: a Bible, poems from their sweetheart or letters from their mother, thick enough to stop a bullet, love enough to save your life.
That’s what he’d been offering the donkey man. He had no need of the sovereign now—the wound was in his leg: his heart was safe. The man was stubborn as a donkey too. A right good pair.
And they’d saved his life, most likely. He felt briefly regretful that he’d never see them to explain the gift he’d tried to give.
What should you give a man who’d saved your life?
He smiled and shut his eyes, the sunlight warm upon him. You’d live your life, a good long one. And every day for fifty years you’d think of him, and thank him, and his mangy little donkey too.
CHAPTER 25
Jack
Gallipoli, 19 May 1915
It had been 2 am by the time Jack had spread his jacket and made sure the string was tied around his trouser bottoms to stop the rats running up his legs (he’d learnt that trick back in Queensland cutting cane), then lowered his aching body onto the hay.
It was good to listen to old Duffy chomping at his feed. Somehow when you closed your eyes the soft huff of the donkey’s breath mattered more than the crack crack crack of shell fire.
But tonight was quiet anyhow. Too quiet, now he came to think on it. He’d never heard more than a few seconds’ silence since they landed.
Maybe Johnny Turk was feeling it, just like they were, was trying to get his breath back. But somehow he doubted it.
How many of them were left now? Half the men who’d landed were gone, he reckoned. But you didn’t try to count these days. You didn’t go looking for faces that you knew, in case they were buried in the hasty graves down on the beach, or in a collapsed trench up in the hills.
You did what you could, that’s all, and were grateful for the small things—the softness of the hay, the familiar smell of donkey, a pannikin of tea…
He slept.
Dreams crept into his mind: waves lapping at the beach at home, so much like the sound of the sea here; kids letting off firecrackers on the sand…and then the dreams vanished. His body and his mind were too exhausted for dreams.
The world erupted.
Shells screamed on the hills above them; men screamed too. The hills themselves glowed, an uncanny mix of green and yellow, flaring, fluttering, like a million tiny suns falling down to earth, exploding, fading, a brief breath of shadow and then another burst of fire.
He struggled to his feet. ‘What the flaming hell’s happening? Sir,’ he added, seeing the man beside him was Captain Evans. Evans was one of the few officers he called ‘sir’. A good bloke, even if he were an officer, commander of the Indian Field Ambulance.
Evans shrugged wearily. Jack wondered if he’d slept at all. ‘Johnny Turk going all out to push us back into the sea, I’d say.’
‘Think he’ll make it?’
Another officer would have reprimanded him for even suggesting the enemy might win. But Evans just looked at him. ‘Ask me tomorrow morning.’ He gave an almost-smile. ‘We should both know then.’ He vanished into the darkness.
Jack sat back, and stroked Duffy’s nose. The donkey was s
o short his muzzle was less than an arm’s length away, even when Jack was sitting down. Besides, the donkey liked being stroked.
It was hard to sit here and do nothing. But it would be madness to try to head up the gully now, even for the unkillable Simpson and his donkey.
Simpson…‘What do tha think?’ he asked Duffy softly. ‘They can’t kill Jack Simpson or Jack Murphy. But what about John Kirkpatrick, eh? Think there’s a bullet with his name on it?’
The donkey whinnied nervously, and edged closer.
‘Nay, tha’ll be right, Duffy lad. They don’t put the names of donkeys on bullets.’ He was silent, thinking of Queen Elizabeth. ‘Well, only royal ones. I give thee my word, Duffy mate: thou’ll be safe with me.’
It was funny, he thought, but he meant it. The donkey was the one sane thing in all this world. If wishes could keep the small animal safe he’d be the best-protected donkey in the world. Aye, but if wishes were fishes he’d cast nets in the sea…
He could make out cries from the hills above them now: ‘Allah! Allah!’ Prayers for victory or the cries of the dying? Probably both, he thought.
The donkey whinnied again.
There was another noise now, a ringing, like bells far away. It took a moment to realise the noise came from his ears, stunned by the clamour above.
Dimly, further down the beach, he could make out the other stretcher-bearers forming into their squads. Win or lose, the stretcher-bearers needed to move swiftly as soon as there was a lull, either to the boats to evacuate, or up the gully and onto the battlefield to gather the wounded and the dying.
Abruptly he was aware that the noise had changed. Some parts of the peninsula still rang with blast and shouts. Others had grown silent.
‘Well,’ he said to the donkey. ‘Either our boys are all dead or the Turks have retreated. An’ tha know what? My money’s on our boys.’
The donkey shivered next to him.
Dawn’s grey light was eating up the stars. Jack got to his feet again. ‘Come on, Duffy me lad. Let’s get me a brew and some breakfast. I reckon there’ll be places that can use us now.’
The Animal Stars Collection Page 8
