But breakfast wasn’t ready. No one had known if they were going to have to run for it. Jack waved away the bloke’s apologies. ‘Nah, never mind. Get me a good dinner when I get back.’
He and Duffy headed up towards the gully.
One of the signallers waved to him from a dugout. ‘You’re the first one up this morning. Watch out.’
Jack waved back.
They kept on climbing. But for once the usual rattle of machine-gun fire was gone.
‘Looks like poor old Abdul’s got discouraged.’ He looked at Duffy consideringly. ‘Think we can risk taking thee out beyond the gully again today, eh? I reckon Abdul’s got his hands full over there.’
The donkey didn’t even look up, preoccupied as usual staring at his hooves.
‘Well, come on, lad. Let’s see what’s happened in the night.’
They climbed out of the gully together.
It had rained, he thought. Rained bodies. In places the shattered corpses were so thick there was no choice but to tread on flesh. Turkish bodies, almost all of them: boys with dirty, bloody faces; and men who gazed up at the sky, bodies crumpled, battered, twisted in every possible variation on death. Even more rats scuttled between the shapes, twitching their whiskers, wondering which bits to feast on first. He’d never seen rats so fat.
The donkey tugged, trying to pull away. It was the first time the little animal had ever protested. But even obedient Duffy would not willingly tread on men.
‘Aye, come on, Duffy me lad.’ He made the words as soft and reassuring as he could. ‘It’s the living that concern us, see? There’s men who need us over in those trenches. Men we can help. Come on, lad, easy does it. Come on now—’
Surely they had to bury the dead soon, thought Jack. They may as well stop shooting at each other if they didn’t, ‘cause the whole blooming lot o’ them would be dead from disease.
The donkey shivered as a dead hand squished under his foot. Jack stroked his nose. ‘Nay, tha’s a fine lad, Duffy mate. The best friend a man could have.’
The donkey glanced up at him with his big brown eyes. Jack patted him again. ‘Wish I could take thee home to Ma when this is over. She’d approve of thee, I reckon. Just do thy best, she always says. Well, lad, tha’s done thy best and all. Ain’t no one could have done better.’
The two of them finally made it to the first trench. A dark-skinned man looked up, as though startled to see anyone living in the world. It was impossible to tell if the brown was tan or dirt. His eyes looked very white under the shadow of his helmet. ‘Not here,’ he said hoarsely. He gestured. ‘They’ve taken our wounded to the dugout over there.’
‘What about—’ Jack stopped. The men piled at the other end of the trench were dead.
The man followed his glance. ‘It was bad,’ he acknowledged. ‘But we held them back.’ There was a note of pride in his exhaustion. ‘Must be thousands of Turks dead last night.’
‘How many o’ our lot got it?’
The man shrugged. ‘Couple o’ dozen here maybe. Sounds like it’s still going on, though. Don’t know how they’re faring over the hill.’ He shook his head. ‘Jeez, this lot won’t half stink in a couple of days. You’ll have to wear a mask to cope with the pong.’
‘Cheer up,’ said Jack. ‘Maybe we’ll both be angels by then, playing on our harps, and no need for masks.’
‘Jeez,’ said the man again. ‘You don’t half know how to cheer a bloke up.’
‘I do me best. Come on, Duffy. We can’t keep this bloke giggling all day now. We’ve got work to do.’
He waved at the man as they left, and got a wave in return.
They were waiting for him at the trench full of wounded: men lying in the dirt, men sagging against each other, men grasping rocks or pit props to try and hold in their screams of pain. The only thing not dirt-coloured was the blood. It was difficult to tell which were the wounded and which were the men who cared for them; the faces were the same colour, each red with gore.
But it was organised, he realised. Already, even after the hell of the night, the dead had been isolated and the wounded sorted into those who could walk and the stretcher cases.
‘Simpson? Trust you and your donkey to be the first ones here. Got a nice one for you…here, Smithy.’ A corporal with sandy hair bent and helped a man to his feet. He was as small as a jockey, with no front teeth. His hat was pushed out of shape so it resembled an urchin’s cap. He could have been twelve or forty. One leg was strapped between two bits of scrub wood. Amputation, thought Jack, that knee’s a goner. If they don’t get it off fast it’ll be gangrene for sure. But all he said was, ‘Stopped one last night, eh?’
‘Nah, I just want a ride on a donkey. What do you bleedin’ think I’m here for? A birthday party?’
‘Keep tha hair on.’
‘Hair’s about all I’ve got left.’ But he was grinning as well as grimacing in pain.
‘Good thing tha’s a shrimp then. Poor old Duffy here needs a rest.’
‘Shrimp am I? I can lick my weight in tigers. You wait till they take care of this and I’ll show you shrimp.’
‘How about tha cobber over there?’ Jack glanced at another man, his arm in a rough sling. ‘Think tha can walk with us if I lend th’ a shoulder?’
The man didn’t reply or look at them; his eyes were fixed on the horizon.
Shock, poor blighter.
‘Come on, matey. Soon have thee home now.’ Jack put a hand on the man’s sound shoulder. Sometimes the shock cases screamed, or tried to hit you. But this man just nodded, as quiet as Duffy. When Jack pulled on Duffy’s lead the man moved too.
The four of them stumbled across the battered land, three men and a donkey. The little man riding Duffy had his eyes closed now. The other still stared at something no one else could see.
Ah well. He and Duffy’d have to look out for both of them. Duffy began to move faster now as he realised that they were heading home, down to the relative sanity of the gully and the beach.
The battlefield was still quiet around them; quiet as it ever got, thought Jack, no machine-gun fire, just groans, the echo of the firing still going on elsewhere.
‘Nay, slow down,’ he said to Duffy. ‘We’ve got a long day ahead of us.’ He nudged the man on Duffy’s back. ‘And anyhow this bastard’s only paid us for the penny ride, not the sixpenny. Don’t want to give him too much excitement.’
The little man’s eyes were still shut. ‘Give you the sixpence back in Blighty. Or a drink, anyhow.’
‘I’ll take the drink.’ Jack waved to a signaller in one of the trenches guarding the gully. Six ambulance men crouched beside him.
‘Hey, Simmo! Watch out! Abdul’s got a sniper up there firing across the gully.’
Jack waved back to say he’d heard.
CHAPTER 26
Hasan, the Turkish Sniper
Gallipoli, 19 May 1915
They were dead. All of them: his brothers, his friends from the village. Boys he’d played with, men he’d prayed with. His body felt light with loss, as though there was nothing left to tether him to the world.
Last night they had been going to push the enemy into the sea, wash these hills clean of the invaders like you’d wash fleas from a dog.
It should have been so easy. So few of the enemy, compared to them.
But the enemy was still there, clinging to their holes. And his brothers lay with sightless eyes, unburied on the shattered ground, their bodies already torn by rats. He had seen none of them die, but he had seen enough other deaths last night to know that the last hours of living as well as the dying had been bad.
Now he lay in the trench, its grey soil scattered with stones like pine nuts in the platter of rice his mother had cooked for them the night before they left. His mother had only one son now. Vaguely he wondered when she would find out. He should feel more pain, he thought. But somehow grief still hadn’t come. Above him a hawk soared; far off on the sandy bay below him, seagulls quarrelled over sc
raps, oblivious to any battle but their own.
He had shot three of the enemy already this morning, as they ducked and hurried from one wall to another down the gully. He had thought his hand might shake, after last night, but it was still steady, although his fingernails were black with blood. He had tried to bind a boy’s shattered leg. But the boy had died even as Hasan tied the bandage. He would never know his name or who his family were.
Something moved below him. Another of the enemy coming down the gully. He grasped the machine gun more firmly and took aim.
It was the donkey man. He had two men with him today. One rode the donkey. The other stumbled by its side, half supported by the donkey man.
The donkey looked like it always did, its nose down, placing its feet with care. Its white headband was smudged with red today.
Blood.
So much blood, spilt because the men below had invaded another’s land. Blood blooming like poppies on the hills. And suddenly the grief did come, a tide of pain washing through him so there was nothing else, nothing but loss and hatred.
How many times had he seen the man and donkey take their wounded down the gully? How many times had he lowered his machine gun, and let them go?
But not today.
CHAPTER 27
Jack
Gallipoli, 19 May 1915
The wind blew a chill up from Shrapnel Gully. Summer was coming, though the air still had winter’s teeth. But despite the warning, there was no sound of nearby sniper fire as Jack led the donkey and the two wounded men down the first stretch of slope, just the crack and echo of the battle far off. Even that had lessened. We’ve got them on the run, thought Jack. For now.
The man on the donkey had slumped lower. Jack put his arm around him, in case he slipped into unconsciousness. The man was as thin as a child. Suddenly his mind went back to that beach, so many years before, and to the girl’s tiny body on the first Duffy.
Where was she now? Maybe she was married to a man like this, half starved most of his life like her, growing up like a stunted weed in the shade.
Nah, he thought. She’s married to a—a baker, say. She’s playing on the beach this minute with her children, fat on pork pies and cream cakes. They’ll be going back home soon for their dinner, a big joint of beef and Yorkshire pudding all crisp and crackling…
His stomach growled, reminding him he’d missed breakfast.
Two of his lot strode up the gully towards him, Maurice Mahney and Teddy Langoulant. Maurice held the stretcher under one arm. Good blokes, the pair of them. Like him they’d go out even when the order came that it was too dangerous for stretcher-bearers to venture past the beach.
The best of them always did.
‘What kept you so long? Couldn’t get out of bed this morning?’
‘Nah.’ Maurice’s Irish accent was like clotted cream. ‘Waiting for me butler to shine me shoes.’
‘That’s the working classes for you. Always skiving off.’ Jack waved his free hand as they passed.
They waved back.
He glanced at his passenger. His eyes were open again, his hands grasping Duffy’s mane. And the man stumbling beside him was managing to keep up, too.
Good.
He could see the beach from here. Men like ants scurrying around; and that turquoise sea, so unlike the grey ocean and grey skies of home. The morning breeze washed across the valley, smelling of salt, not men. He took a deep breath.
The pain came as a flicker, too brief to understand. Sky, sea and sand all seemed to join in one great flare of light and beauty.
The world went white.
CHAPTER 28
The Donkey
Gallipoli, 19 May 1915
Noise, ripping across the gully.
The Man with Kind Hands made a noise too. Like a sigh, or as though the air had been punched out of him. He jerked forward, and then fell down. The man who had walked beside them collapsed as well, a surprisingly small bundle of clothes on the hillside.
The donkey knew. Knew without nudging him, knew without smelling the blood or waiting for him to move. He knew.
He screamed. Hee haw! Heee haw! The sound echoed down, around. Hee haw! Heeee haaaw!
He kicked up his back legs. He danced around the bodies. Vaguely he was aware of the wizened man on his back clinging to his mane and neck, of the two men who had passed them running back. One tried to grab him, but he evaded him, yelling his grief call over and over.
Hee haw! Hee haw!
Faintly he heard the mules call below, whinnying back to him, so the hills echoed again with the proper sounds of grief.
He had gone. He had gone. He had gone.
The two others picked up the Man. They carried him to a dugout. The donkey danced again, over where he had lain.
And then he stopped. His breath came in panting bursts. The man on his back panted too. ‘For the love o’ God…’
The sound steadied him.
And suddenly he knew what he should do.
It was as though the Man with Kind Hands took his lead rope. It was as though the breeze became his whisper. ‘Come on, Duffy boy. Steady now. Tha’s got to carry on.’
He felt the man on his back slump. He would fall off soon, with no one to steady him. That would not be right. The donkey moved quickly, before his burden slipped.
One step, another step, down the gully towards the beach. He looked at his hooves now, as he always did, so that he didn’t slip on the rough ground.
Another step. Another. Over and over, past the big sandbag walls and the fences of brushwood, past the watching men with the stretchers.
Down. Down.
The mules whinnied as he passed. But he didn’t stop.
He walked along the beach, step by step, feeling the sand against his hooves and the cold of the breeze. Hearing still his master’s whisper, feeling still his touch on the lead.
‘Come on, Duffy lad. Tha’s nearly there. Come on.’
Men stepped back to watch him, stopping their scurrying, their yelling. He heard the whispers side by side.
‘It’s Simmo’s donkey!’
‘Where’s Murphy? Don’t say old Murphy stopped one?’
‘What’s the donk doing all alone?’
He was nearly there.
Men came running now. The person his man had called Padre helped his passenger down. The man screamed as his leg was jerked, and slumped into the Padre’s arms.
The donkey stood there.
His passenger was gone. The Man with Kind Hands was gone too. Even his whisper had vanished now.
The donkey stood alone with the men on the beach.
‘What is it?’ He hadn’t heard the voice before.
‘Simpson’s donkey. Simmo must have got his up the gully.’
‘Impossible, not Simmo…’
‘Come on, old boy.’ It was the Padre’s voice. He slapped the donkey’s rump gently. ‘Show us where he is.’
‘He ain’t a dog. A donkey can’t understand…’
Someone said, ‘This one can.’
He walked back along the beach, as though the Man still walked with him. Past the station where the mules and hay waited, through the dugout then up along the old familiar path up the gully. And then he stopped where the Man had died.
Someone called, ‘Where’s Simmo? Anyone seen Simmo?’
Two stretcher-bearers staggered past, balancing their stretcher and its muttering, bleeding cargo between them. ‘Haven’t you heard? He’s up at Heaven’s gate, helping the wounded soldiers through.’
They staggered on.
The donkey stood there. The Man was gone. What should he do? There was no one to carry, no voice to guide him. He bent his head and took a mouthful of grass and then another.
The grass steadied him and made the world feel real.
‘Poor old lad.’ The voice was kind. ‘What are we going to do with you, eh?’
Someone else said, ‘Simmo kept him down with the mules.’
‘
That’s the best place for you then.’ The donkey felt his lead rope tugged again. He walked, not sure what was happening, not caring either.
Another step. Another.
The mules whinnied to him as he reached the men with the white head cloths, but the donkey didn’t lift his head.
‘Where’s Simmo?’
‘Dead.’
A cry.
‘Murphy’s stonkered.’
‘Evans Sahib! What do you think? Bahadur! He’s dead! He’s dead!’
The man called Captain Evans sat on a packing case. He put his head down into his hands. ‘Oh God,’ he whispered. ‘If ever a man deserves Heaven he does. Give it to him.’
Another cry. Another. Man after man sat on the ground. They threw sand over their faces. It splattered on their white cloths. They wailed and wailed.
The donkey listened. It was good to listen. Yes, he thought, just like mules and donkeys, these men knew it was proper to make noise for the dead.
All that day and through the night people came to him. They patted him. They offered hay and biscuits. But the donkey stayed with his head down, and watched his hooves.
He only looked up when he smelt the body being carried down. He watched as the men carried it through the darkness of the beach, as they lowered it into a hole, and threw the dirt back down.
Then it was gone, the last smell of his master. The donkey hadn’t known love since he had left his mother’s side. No human had shown him love, nor had he given love back. Not till he met the Man with Kind Hands.
Now the Man was gone.
The donkey stood there looking at his hooves. He didn’t eat or drink. He stood there throughout the night. And when the dawn grew grey and dew dripped from the tents, he stood there still.
CHAPTER 29
Mrs Kirkpatrick
South Shields, England 1915
14 Bertram Street
South Shields
19th May, 1915
My dearest Son,
I received your very kind and welcome letter dated April 23rd yesterday to let me know that you were keeping well and I was very thankful for it, but my dear lad it was a very great disappointment to me that you were not sent to either France or England as you expected—but I read later on that a fleet of transport had been sent to the Dardanelles and I made sure that it was the Australians and I was right.
The Animal Stars Collection Page 9
