Wounded: A Great War Novel

Index

PART ONE: 1917

The Somme

1

The Widow of Meaulte

It’s too late in the day to be an April Fools joke so when Serge pokes his head in the barn to tell us we’ve been ordered to proceed east of Albert we reckon we’re up for a stunt and aren’t the boys keen – itching for it since the Germans began retreating in March.

‘So lather up boys and get ready for your interview at the Pearly Gates!’ jokes John Bonlon.

‘The f---in’ Gates of Hell for you, cobber!’ says Louis Bloom.

‘Must you always be so vulgar, Louis!’ protests Collin Sindles.

‘Of course, I have to be vulgar. I’m a f---in’ trooper, ain’t that right, Snow?’

‘Too right, Louis,’ I say, ‘and only the best King’s English for His Majesty’s Australian Imperial Force!’

And we all have a laugh and prepare for parade.

†

Something big is brewing. We know that when ‘Hooky’ Walker, the Divisional Commanding Officer, parades us and we really bung it on for him: four spic and span battalions, massed bands, columns wheeling precisely, marching and saluting like clockwork – quite a show!

Handing over your felt hat when collecting a helmet is always tough and lining up for the Quartermaster Sergeant I pat mine affectionately, like a pet dog, imagining it arriving on the kitchen table in the new cottage in Undercliffe, Albert my dad, sisters Ethel and Olivia, if she were back from Melbourne, all sobbing, but not Mother, Mother would salute the flag and put on the kettle, crying later when no one was looking … a slight matter of guilt to deal with … or am I being unfair?

†

When Reveille shrieks next morning we leap from the straw, ready to chase the enemy back to Berlin and get the devil out of there before another European winter sets in. Babbling Brook, alias ‘Babbles’, our cook, serves up a whopping breakfast of dodger, beans and tea, practically throwing it at us as cooks do when a big move is on and don’t we tuck in. Then, effervescent as school boys, the Old Bat (our nickname for the battalion) assembles outside Ribemont church, Wally and the Bangers rumble to life and First Brigade takes the first steps to wherever Colonel Bogey might lead us today for, as usual, we have no idea.

Singing On the Road to Gundagai and other marching favourites, I stride shoulder to shoulder with my comrades up and over the rolling Somme Valley hills and click and jingle through narrow village streets where women, girls, old men and children line pavements and hang from windows, applauding, waving and calling, ‘Bon australien! Bon! Bon sante!’

By my side are my two best mates, John Bonlon and Collin Sindles. We grew up around Undercliffe on what was then the southern fringe of Sydney. Dad had a dairy farm on Wolli Creek, a tributary of Cooks River, until the government resumed it recently for industrial use. I really miss it.

John is like a brother to me, with all the complications of brotherly love. I can talk to him about anything but have to be careful because he’s got a tongue on him that can decapitate you and apologise before your head has hit the floor. A fine stamp of a man with a beautiful speaking voice, as Mother would say, and a born leader, with no desire to be one, John’s sardonic humour can get people offside but it’s that same wit that turns the whole sorry mess into a big, black joke, getting us through the toughest times.

Lanky God fearing, King and Country Collin with the same startled look in his smoky blue eyes as on the day we met in primary school, is kindness itself. A man of unbending faith, ever ready to lay down his life for maker and monarch, he reckons God willed this war upon us to cleanse the world of evil and herald a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. I love him dearly but there are limits; not his piety, I admire that; but Col’s persistent attempts to woo me back to the Christian fold really grate and God knows I wish he’d stop.

Inseparable mates, I’m here because they are – but that’s not the whole story.

Marching in front is Louis, adopted into the ‘gang’ after he got John and Collin out of a tight spot at Gallipoli. A giant of a man, bloodlust and courage bubble in that hot Irish blood of his in about equal measure and with a reckless streak in him that sometimes puts not only the enemy at risk. The son of a Newtown publican, he’s pig-headed and vulgar and never listens to a word you say but inside that imposing hulk lurks a loyal friend with a kind heart, though so poisoned by hatred of the enemy it seldom shows.

They’re good soldiers, the men of my section in 10 Platoon B Company, and all as different as chalk and cheese. I should tell you something about them while they’re still standing. The bush boys can’t work Siddy out: born and bred in Woolloomooloo smack bang in the middle of Sydney and never touched a gun until he was thirty, but still the best shot in the unit. They reckon he’s a bit of a toff, but that’s not right, Siddy’s just a well-read, intelligent man who’s forever passing on books and trying to get a bit of culture into us. God knows we need it. He’s never told us why he’s here but we reckon it has something to do with a very close friend he lost at Gallipoli. Badge is a real trench rat, indestructible as an AIF biscuit. He enlisted to retrieve his family’s honour and avenge his brother’s death, shot dead by some ‘mongrel picket’, he says, in riots near Liverpool camp. Five foot of intensity, Pony the jockey is a no-nonsense sort of a fellow who normally keeps to himself but twice the man of some of the stand-over merchants who try bullying him. He saw the Coo-ees marching on their way to Sydney and, thinking it his ‘manly’ duty, signed up immediately. Spud the green grocer, the Old Bat’s ‘souvenir king’, was invalided home after Gallipoli but re-enlisted when he found his fiancée pregnant by another man. We reckon he’s mad to return but he says he missed our company, and anyway, who was going to spin us a decent yarn if he didn’t? Locky, from Tumut, volunteered so he could help with remittances after his dad’s farm hit hard times. He can’t wait to get back home and take up sheep farming in the high country – it’s all he ever thinks about. Flake, a coarse, niggling sort of a cove, enlisted, he says, when a good-looking sort in a nice skirt got up at a recruitment meeting and said she needed ‘protection’. His mate, Stripe, makes no bones about it: he’s here to kill Germans or die in the effort. I don’t have much time for either of them but have to admit, they do their job well.

As usual, I’m wondering how I came to be here. I can’t blame Mother, though I try to. Or Connie, she who vowed undying love and showed me the white feather of cowardice when I didn’t immediately enlist, marrying Tom the electrician practically the minute the troop ship cleared Sydney Heads. How had I ever loved someone like that, so shallow and narcissistic? The fact is I hadn’t, but everyone expected us to marry, everyone except me. Mother certainly did. Now, there’s Connie, starting a family back home and yours truly marching in a khaki column on his way to battle in France. The truth is the boys would never have respected me if I hadn’t signed up; not even Collin! Anyway, Mother’s only doing what she thinks is best – Olivia has a great talent and my remittances are helping to develop that. Dame Nellie Melba’s Conservatorium in Melbourne … she must be good! I always knew she was. She’ll pay me back. It won’t be too bad. The new cottage is right on the tram line. I probably won’t even miss the farm, get a job, start a sign-writing business, paint landscapes on weekends, go bush, pitch a tent along the Hawkesbury River, beautiful up there, tranquil; do nothing but paint. I can start anew when … if … I return.

†

The band strikes up again. That must be Meaulte coming up. Rounding a bend I see her, the old widow, always standing outside her cottage when we parade through, waving a little French flag and sending every soldier her love and appreciation. When our eyes meet and she sends me a toothless, trusting smile and waves her flag extra fast, immediately all my doubts about volunteering disappear and for the first time since arriving from Egypt I remember why I’m here: to boot out the invader and ready to give my life for that, for the old widow of Meaulte, for all widows, young and old, for all the mothers of serving men – and maybe even my own.

†

Wending off good roads we break into single file and trek into the very heart of the Somme battlefield, that slough of despond so soaked in blood and misery. Looking back across the desolate landscape I see thousands of AIF troops doggedly plodding forward, appearing and disappearing in and out of fitful snow squalls, every man linked by one idea: to lock in mortal combat with the enemy, defeat him and go home.

In pelting rain we plod past the old German front line and tramp into country strange to us where gradually shell craters peter out and the country becomes grassy. Another mile on we enter abundant farmland and cheering it is to see because we’ve known nothing but frozen blue vastness for months. Up ahead I see the ruins of a village and Siddy tells me it used to be a German rest area but now, like most of the villages around here, it’s little more than a demolished brickyard. Thinking of the families who once gathered around hearths there, walked out to tend fields and returned to dine and play with children, make love and dream, I promise I’ll do everything I can to help them return and rebuild their lives in peace as soon as possible.

†

Like apparitions we drift from the snow upon the ruins of Havrincourt and take shelter behind a remnant wall from a pitiless wind slicing across the countryside like a bayonet. I can’t believe the destruction I see: fruit trees, even those in blossom, and vines in fresh leaf, ring-barked or cut down; buildings systematically demolished; approach roads blown up and cross-roads lain waste. The church is little more than chunks of Gothic masonry jutting from a heap of smouldering rubble. What could reduce people to such barbarity, I wonder, hoping the AIF would never do such a thing in retreat – but, who knows in a war?

After Babbles gets some hot tucker into us, John, Collin and I, drawing upon years of cubby-house experience along Wolli Creek, soon have an ingenious shelter slapped up and a bonfire roaring. There’s no risk – not even a German ace could fly in that bucking wind – and no shortage of fuel, smashed altar panels, toilet seats, splintered pews, tables and chairs all committed to the flames, us whooping around like kids on Cracker Night. But then big Louis comes running calling above the storm that he’s struck it lucky, he’s found a pigsty, the only permanent roof still standing.

‘Boys, there’s f---in’ room for four!’

‘Well, we’re just the four little piggies for it!’ John yells back and gathering gear and donating our shelter to four hopeless cases from Ultimo who couldn’t make their own bed, we hurry through driving rain to the new abode, already home to a swarm of cranky rats and a bit on the hooter but a real palace after some of the dumps we’ve occupied, lately. We sleep well that night, ‘on parade’, each one turning when the other one does, but dry and sheltered from a roaring gale outside.

†

Wild cheering erupts next morning when Corps Commanding Officer ‘Birdy’ Birdwood announces that the Old Bat has been selected to attack and capture the village of Hermies – even louder when he tells us USA has declared war upon Germany.

It’s official. The Yanks are in! Euphoria sweeps the ranks.

‘We’ll be f---in’ home by Christmas!’ yells Louis, nearly throttling Collin with a massive bear hug.

‘Now there’s an idea, Louis!’ says John, calming him down. ‘But let’s not get flamin’-well carried away, sport. We’ve heard it all before!’

†

Sipping tea, gazing at a thin green smudge on the eastern horizon, we’re all wondering the same thing: is this my last dawn? All day we stay quiet, focused on the task ahead. Collin immerses himself in The Bible, John and Louis play cards as if their lives depend upon it and I delve into A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which Siddy has brought across from London and insists I read. I’m trying to work out this Stephen Dedalus joker and why he’s so angry about everything but grateful to him for keeping me in touch with parts of my self not yet in uniform and never likely to be.

Arm-in-arm we stare into the sinking sun, chatting quietly of what must and must not be done and of our hopes for a decisive victory and going home. John pretends he’s a bugler sounding Last Post and we laugh and wave to other groups of mates scattered about, everyone wondering: who’ll be here next sunset?

†

It’s almost dark when we leave Havrincourt. A full-moon nudges through heavy cloud daubing the countryside in silver. To slow our progress the Germans have felled trees along the roadway. It’s unsettling, seeing those noble giants sprawled headlong in the moonlight, but at least the grass around them is kinder to the feet than cobblestone. At every crossroad we come to craters big as houses and some of the boys stumble into them, getting snared and ripped, but all this does is intensify our determination to catch the enemy, trounce him and go home.

Around midnight a halt is called in a sunken road. For hours we wait there, silent and smokeless, trying not to fidget and alert the enemy, the moon bouncing like a billiard ball from pocket to pocket of cloud. In its sheen I study my comrades’ faces: no mask of AIF casualness there now; only hard, grim determination.

03:00: the order to take positions hisses along the line. I’m in a cold sweat, my heart, hammering, my teeth, chattering and my stomach, in knots, whether from fear or the chill I cannot say, only that the boys must never know. Pressed so hard to the ground I can taste France, I wriggle forward and into line waiting for the order to advance wondering what I’ll do when it comes: freeze with fear or go forward and do my duty? Of course I’ll do my duty! I’ll never let my mates down! Concentrating hard so I don’t do something silly like call out involuntarily, sneeze, or doze off and alert the enemy with a bugling snore – it does happen – I hear prayers all around me, dripping like rills from devout lips and even from those not normally given to the Lord. Do I pray, now? Two bob bet, each way? No, that would be hypocritical! But I do promise to be fair and honest with everyone I meet if I survive, and, if God exists, He’ll hear me and understand and if He doesn’t, no harm done.

03:30: the signal to advance sputters along like a damp fuse. This is it – nowhere to hide, now! Unhinging myself from the earth I pad across the frozen field shoulder to shoulder with my comrades. After about twenty yards a noise comes from somewhere in our ranks and a flare shoots up straight ahead. We hit the ground. Looping down, the flare lobs into a mound of fresh hay and manure left by farmers and starts emitting loud farting noises. All around me men stifle laughter, which, if yielded to, will surely invite the deadly rattle of machineguns. But the Germans, only eighty yards away, are suspicious and open up.

Tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak!

A hail of bullets rips the soil around us, kicking up pencils of dirt. I hear groans and gurgling from every direction – we’re taking casualties.

There’s only one thing for it – attack! On the order, the Old Bat rises as one and rushes headlong into the fire. A swarm of bullets whirs by. I hear the smack of metal on flesh and low moaning as men go down, left to look after themselves as best they can. Our Mills bombers get to work, scoring a direct hit on a machinegun nest right in front.

BA-BOOM!

The intensity of enemy gunfire slackens. With a blood-curdling yell we swarm into an outpost and at bayonet point overwhelm the occupants. ‘Kamerad! Kamerad!’ they cry, flinging up their hands and offering us hot coffee and cognac from water bottles and parcels recently arrived from home, brimming with eggs, bacon and tobacco. Others abandon weapons and melt into the darkness. Tempting as the spoils are there’s no time to enjoy them (though a few do find their way into passing pockets) and, securing captives, we press on to our next objective, which must be taken before daylight – all this without one supporting shot from Artillery.

†

Reassembling in pre-dawn light, we’re shocked to see how seriously our numbers are down, nearly every officer lost. Quickly we reorganise and stream forward, leaping through hedges and over fences. Gaps appear in our line and ‘racehorses’ admonish ‘snails’ and ‘snails’ tell ‘racehorses’ where to go. Sunlight gilds high cloud as we pour into the village proper and I can see the Germans now, scrambling over ridges and hollows hurried along by our Lewis gunners. It’s eerie, the enemy just melting away before us while from only a few streets away I hear the blood-curdling screams of brutal hand-to-hand combat. Breaking into small groups we advance along narrow alley-ways, street by street, house by house. Reaching a square hidden in deep shadow and hearing voices, we stop dead in our tracks, spread out and creep forward. ‘Kamerad!’ a voice calls and instantly shooting starts beside me – Louis, swearing and working his bolt hard. I send him a querying look but he ignores me as usual and blasts away.

With a mighty yell we rush. Belting through the door of a gutted house we find a German with a leg wound threshing about on the floor. While we’re attending to him he becomes very noisy and Louis does his block, threatening to ram a Mills bomb down his throat if he doesn’t pipe down. The German appeals to an officer from Tubby’s platoon, who says he’ll shoot him himself if he doesn’t shut up.

We creep deeper into the village.

Phit-phit-phut-phit.

A flurry of machinegun bullets whirrs by. Diving for cover I