Penguin Books Australia

Chapter One

It was the last day of August when Stephen said his farewells and left the cloistered quadrangle, pausing only at the main gates for a last nostalgic look. The familiar sight of the green lawn and sprawling university brought a brief moment of regret. The Gothic sandstone building with its famed clock tower was a landmark, both in this city and in his own life. It was a place to which he had aspired, an existence he'd enjoyed all year and would greatly miss. While he felt excited at what lay ahead, he hoped he could keep the promise he'd made himself to return here when it was over.

The winter afternoon was cold and gusty, and billowing sheets of newspaper were among the litter being blown across Camperdown Road. As Stephen ran for an approaching tram he managed to grab a section of the Herald, by good fortune capturing the centre page that contained the major news stories. He paid his fare and settled in the open tram, struggling to fold the paper against the flurrying wind. Today the normally sedate broadsheet was more like a tabloid with its shock headlines: BELGIUM CRUSHED. CIVILIANS SLAIN. HUN ATROCITIES. An editorial expressed outrage at German brutality. Cartoonists were already following the trend, depicting them as bestial subhuman figures.

Dispatches from European correspondents reported the cities of Liege and Brussels had fallen to German cavalry. There were allegations of nuns being raped; children brutally bayoneted. In Flanders the French and British were in retreat. The battle of Mons was a disaster, where both sides made the bizarre claim of having seen the vision of an angel above the battlefield. Whether fact or fantasy, this Angel of Mons did not save the Allied armies from a humiliating rout that threatened the loss of Paris.

Stephen was stunned by the litany of disasters. Only one column had cheerful tidings: in New York the United States had lost the Davis Cup tennis final to a combined Australian and New Zealand team called Australasia. Meanwhile tucked away in small news paragraphs and deemed of less importance were reports of German shops in Adelaide and the Barossa towns being vandalised. Stained-glass windows in German churches were targets for rocks and hooligan missiles. Music stores were banning Beethoven, while Steinways and all other German pianos had been hastily removed from sight. It was hard to believe, he thought, that the war was just three weeks old.

As his tram reached the city, loudly clanging warnings at the street intersections and forcing motor traffic to give way, Stephen began to hear the stirring sound of a military band. In Martin Place, where he and most other passengers alighted, a huge crowd had already gathered to fill the entire square. It was a spectacular response to the national recruitment day, the start of a campaign to raise a volunteer force of twenty thousand. And when that quota was filled the next objective was to recruit and send another twenty thousand, to meet the offers of assistance so readily pledged to Britain.

Flags were flying in the breeze. Buildings draped with massive banners bore persuasive messages. JOIN UP AND KEEP AUSTRALIA SAFE! proclaimed one. FIGHT FOR GOD AND COUNTRY IN THIS WAR TO END ALL WARS! exhorted the largest sign of all. Below it on a rostrum a politician stood waiting with a loud hailer. When the band finished playing 'Men of Harlech' he made a short speech, his voice echoing up and down the concourse as he told his audience not to forget that their government had sworn loyalty and support to our kinfolk across the seas. 'As our prime minister has famously said, our duty is quite clear – to gird up our loins and remember that we are all Britons . . .'

Someone close to where Stephen was standing shook his head in dispute and sniggered. A large woman carrying a furled umbrella whacked him with it, and told him to have some respect and be silent. On the rostrum the politician plunged on without a pause.

'And remember, my fellow citizens, the PM also spoke for us all when he declared: 'We will stand behind the mother country to the last man and the last shilling.'

This brought a loud cheer of approval and sustained applause. Stephen had heard many such emotional sentiments in the recent weeks. Beneath the flags, outside the head offices of banks that occupied this section of the city, he could see long lines of men queuing at dozens of trestle tables where a recruiting centre had been set up. Behind the tables uniformed officers sat waiting. The cheering crowd had come to encourage and vicariously participate in the process.

'Going to be in it, mate? Good on you, son,' a fit-looking man in his early thirties said to Stephen.

'God bless you, darling.' A smart young woman patted his arm as he walked past. Her smile lingered on him, following the progress of his tall figure as he moved easily through the crowd.

Others noticed him too: the clean-cut features, tanned face and deep brown eyes, his thick fair hair ruffled by the wind.

The queues were starting to increase. The very young as well as much older men – some in work clothes, others in business suits as if they had just come from an office – stood waiting their turn. The band began to play 'Rule Britannia', and the patriotic fervour reached fever pitch as the crowd sang with them.

Stephen, having a week ago made the decision to give up his first year of law and enlist, had a strange moment of uncertainty. The song felt false, he thought; it was another country's song. The flags that flew so proudly were all Union Jacks – there was not a single newly gazetted Australian ensign in sight. On the tables in front of the row of officers were sheafs of forms to be filled in and signed, together with Bibles on which oaths would be sworn: all this before even a medical examination. It looked preconceived, a show for the public, he felt, and in his indecision he hesitated and became aware of a redheaded figure who also stood watching it, and had not yet joined a queue. They exchanged a nod.

'G'day,' Stephen said. The other nodded again and nervously cracked his knuckles. He was thickset and moved like a bushie with a sure but leisurely gait.

'Fair-sized mob,' he replied at last.

'Big rush to join up,' Stephen said, and for want of anything else asked, 'you from round here?'

'Nah,' the other looked incredulous at the thought. 'Not me, mate. From the bush. Walgett. Ever heard of Walgett?'

'Yes. It's up north, on the way to Lightning Ridge.'

This brought a more careful scrutiny. 'You from the country?'

'Hardly. Strathfield.'

'Where's that?'

'A suburb about ten minutes by train from here.'

'Not many kangaroos there, eh?'

Both smiled. The band switched to a rousing military march by Sousa. Stephen indicated that the queues were increasing to the lure of this martial music.

'What do you reckon?'

'Dunno,' the other replied, 'not too sure.'

Stephen agreed. 'Once you sign, that's it. No going back.'

'Oh, I'm gonna sign,' the boy from Walgett said, 'but I ain't sure if the legal age is eighteen or older. So I reckon to be on the safe side, the best thing is to tell 'em I'm twenty-one, or else we might have to get our parents' permission.'

'How old are you really?'

'Nineteen. Nearly twenty. Well – I'll be twenty next year.'

'Me too,' Stephen replied, and as if in celebration of their shared youth, they grinned and shook hands.

'Good on yer,' the other said. 'Well, wanna give it a go?'

'Righto.'

In the end it was as simple as that. An immediate rapport, the pair joining a queue with other hopefuls, and Stephen's moment of doubt was dispelled. Not only the right thing to do, it was going to be an adventure. The two of them, with a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the world in the process.

While they waited in the line Stephen learnt more about his new acquaintance, whose name was Jack Watson. But he didn't answer to his given name.

'Forget Jack. Only me mum calls me that. I'm Bluey to me mates, on account of the red hair.' He was a shearer, had been since his first job as a fourteen-year-old tar boy. His team travelled all year; to Stephen whose knowledge of the country did not extend beyond his own State boundary, it seemed they covered immense distances.

'We work the sheds from up north in Queensland – around Emerald, then down to Cunnamulla on the Warrego, on to the Murrumbidgee, and end up as far south as Gippsland in Victoria. Sort of follow the seasons. We load up and travel by horse wagon between the big sheep stations. Not a bad sort of life.'

'Will you go back to it – afterwards?'

'You bet,' Bluey said. 'As soon as we've beaten the Huns. Unless something goes wrong.' He smiled at Stephen's expression. 'I don't mean that sort of wrong. I mean if it ends by Christmas, before we can be in it. Some silly buggers are trying to put a spanner in the works by reckonin' that with Britain and France too strong for Germany, the war won't last very long.'

'Don't jinx us, Blue! We'll get there.'

'Hope so, mate.'

The queue moved slowly, and it was an hour before they reached the head of it. At adjoining tables they were each allotted an officer who asked their names and addresses. Then came a series of personal questions: married or single? What religion? Any criminal record? And finally, what age?

'Twenty-one,' Stephen heard Bluey say with an air of casual confidence, and observed his new friend's interviewing officer nod and note this down.

'Twenty-one,' he also replied when asked, and moments later he was holding the Bible and swearing to 'do his duty, to fear God, and honour the King.'

'Medical exam tomorrow at nine,' they were told, and given provisional identity cards. After passing the medical they would be officially registered as members of the Australian Imperial Force, or as it was already being widely called, the AIF.

'But what happens if we fail the medical?' Stephen asked, still bemused by the army's way of doing things in this order.

'Fail? Son, you're nudging six-foot tall – you look strong and fit. We need troops, so you won't fail,' he was promised.

It was almost dark by this time. Despite the chill of the winter evening the crowds remained, singing one song after another. Their massed voices in ragged but enthusiastic chorus rang around the square:

On land or sea, wherever you be,
Keep your eye on Germany!
Should auld acquaintance be forgot?
No! No! No! Australia will be there.
Australia will be there.

Stephen and Bluey, gratified by the success of their deception, went to have a beer.

'After all,' Bluey said, cracking his knuckles – in triumph this time – 'we're not only soldiers of the King, but now we're twenty-one as well. We can stroll into any pub in town!'

They both passed the medical exam the next day as predicted, after which they and hundreds of new recruits were issued with pay books and allotted army numbers. They also received metal discs stamped with their name, religion and regimental number. These, attached to a thin leather lanyard, were to be worn around the neck at all times from then on.

'Known as meat tickets,' a grizzled sergeant – a Boer war veteran – told them unsparingly, 'so the stretcher-bearers can identify you. Now line up at the Q store, get your kit, and for gawd's sake, try to look like soldiers.'

Looking like a soldier was not easy. The rush of volunteers had taken the army by surprise. Not only were recruits being forced to train using broomsticks as make-believe rifles and bayonets, but factories were on round-the-clock shifts to provide enough uniforms. Stephen and Bluey spent the rest of their first day at Moore Park showground, in one of the huge exhibition halls recently converted into a quarter-master's depot, just two of many young men trying to find uniforms their size and, more importantly, boots that fitted them.

The winds of August gave way to a mild September as the rush to enlist continued. After the big enrolment drives in the major cities came the country marches; small towns were denuded of young men determined not to be left behind. As everyone knew, it was unpatriotic not to go.

There was an electric excitement in the air. The long-anticipated conflict was at last a reality, and Australia was to be a participant! The war, a newspaper editorial declared, was 'a shining moment in our history, the country's first great test as a nation', and it predicted glory when the troops finally set sail to engage the enemy.

But behind the excitement lurked anxiety: a concern that the distance from Europe would delay the AIF's arrival: after weeks of training, there would be more weeks at sea and in the meantime who knew what might happen? A cease-fire? Surrender? Not quite fourteen years since Federation, the collection of colonies now a nation called Australia felt a need to prove themselves to the world. Which they assuredly would, it was considered certain.

Provided – and this was the disturbing spectre in everyone's mind – that the war did not end before they could take part.