Kal (41 page)

‘I'd love to live in Blackboy for a week or two,

And work all day and get no pay,

And live on Irish stew.'

Men from the other companies would gradually gather around the goldfields contingent and the rousing chorus would be sung again and again.

Jack kept his peace, but he didn't much like the singalongs, he didn't like being witness to Rick Gianni's popularity. As the weeks went by, more and more often he inveigled the Brereton brothers to join him on a walk to town and a session at the pub rather than a singalong with the others. The brothers joined him because they were not musical and Jack was a good bloke and, furthermore, no Brereton ever knocked back the prospect of a hearty drinking session.

Late one Saturday night when they returned to camp, the brothers were happily drunk as usual, but Jack had got into the rum and was feeling aggressive. It
annoyed him to see Rick Gianni still holding court. The beer the boys had laid on for the Saturday singalong had long since disappeared but still there were ten or so diehards demanding Rick play them just one more song.

‘I don't know any more,' he insisted. ‘I've played them all a dozen times, I don't know any more. Honest.'

‘Play us one of yours then.' It was Tony Prendergast. ‘Sing us one of your songs, Rick.'

‘Yeah. Sing them a dago song, Enrico.' All eyes turned to the shadowy figure of Jack Brearley standing just beyond the glow of the campfire, the Brereton brothers behind him. It was Jack's tone which had caught the men's attention, not his words. ‘Dago', ‘wog', ‘mick', they were all terms used in the camp, but they were used with affection, just as ‘you silly bugger' and ‘you clever bastard' were. It was Aussie humour. But there was nothing humorous in Jack's tone and the men knew it.

‘What are you calling him Rick for anyway, Tony, his name's Enrico and you know it.' Jack swayed slightly as he stepped forward into the light of the campfire. He was very drunk. ‘He's a bloody dago and he doesn't belong here.'

Tony was a good ten years older than most of the men, twenty years older than many and, although they called him ‘the old man' or ‘the old bugger', he was well respected.

‘Rick belongs here as much as you do, Jack. He's here for the same reason we all are.' Tony rose to his feet.

‘He's a dago and he should go back to his own bloody country.' Jack turned to the Brereton brothers for support. ‘His bloody name's Enrico, he's a bloody dago.'

Tom and Ben and Bill looked at each other, a little confused.

‘So what?' Bill asked. The brothers were full of beer
and camaraderie and couldn't understand Jack's aggression.

‘What's the matter with you, mate?' Ben asked.

‘Hey, Rick,' Tom, the older of the brothers, called, ‘sing us a dago song, I'm bloody sick of “Click go the Shears”.'

The men around the dying campfire cheered and urged Rick on. He picked up the old concertina.

‘
O sole mio
…'

The brothers squatted by the fire with the other men and all attention was turned to Rick.

Tony took Jack aside. ‘You're drunk, Jack,' he said. ‘Go to bed and sleep it off. But sleep off more than the rum, boyo.' He could smell the cheap dark rum a mile off. ‘Sleep off your family feuds—they don't belong here.' Tony didn't know, and didn't care to know, the background between the Brearleys and the Giannis, but their hatred for one another was common knowledge in Kalgoorlie.

The rum was turning to bile, Jack could feel it. He didn't know why he'd got onto the bloody stuff, he didn't even like the taste. He should have stuck to beer, but he'd wanted to get drunk. He wished Tony would stop lecturing him. Jesus Christ, his own father didn't lecture him like this.

‘I'm serious, man,' Tony continued, ‘personal hatreds won't win you any friends in the army, you can bet on that.'

‘Sure, Tony, sure.' Jack started to back off. If he was going to be sick there was no way he was going to do it in public. ‘I'll sleep it off. Night.'

Tony knew Jack was trying to escape him. The boy was going green around the gills, and was probably going to be sick. At least then he'd feel better in the morning. Not that he'd learn of course. Headstrong boys like Jack rarely did. But he wasn't a bad lad at heart and
he had qualities which could serve him well in the army. He was a leader, and fearless. All he had to do was grow up.

‘Night, Jack,' he said.

After Jack had vomited in the bushes behind his tent, he lay in his sleeping bag and cursed his own stupidity. He'd humiliated himself in front of his mates. Why had he made such a fool of himself? He didn't hate dagos at all. It was Enrico Gianni he hated. And his madman father, Rico, who'd smashed up Maudie's pub that terrifying night. And that bastard uncle of his, Giovanni.

Jack could remember the hot February afternoon as clearly as if it were yesterday. It was over ten years ago now, not very long before his ninth birthday, when he'd sat astride the old Princess and watched his father, face bloodied, squirm in the dust. He could remember sitting motionless on the old white mare and watching the Italian stride from the yard. He could still hear his parting words. ‘From this day the Giannis and the Brearleys are
nemici. Nemici
, you understand! We are enemies!'

Of course he hated Enrico Gianni, it was beholden upon him to hate anyone bearing the name Gianni.

Jack fell into a drunken sleep, hatred seething in him, his own humiliation forgotten as that of his father's burned vividly in his brain.

 

C
AMP LIFE BECAME
more regimented as uniforms began to arrive piecemeal. The men had originally been issued with rifles, boots and puttees only and had paraded in a variety of civilian garb. They looked a motley lot, mostly in flannels and dungarees, some in stiff white shirts. But, as the uniforms arrived, the men started to take pride in their appearance. Much as they still hated route marches and battalion drill, and much as they remained larrikins who scorned army convention, they were becoming soldiers.

Then the restlessness crept in. They were more than ready to go to war. Where were their orders? They were straining at the leash—at this rate the war would be over before the 11th Battalion had had a taste of it.

Towards the end of October, rumours abounded. Their orders would come through any moment now, they told each other. Why, when they'd marched through the streets of Perth, the people of the city had given them rousing ovations at every corner; surely that meant their departure was imminent. But still no word.

Then, at four o'clock on the morning of the 31st of October, the men were paraded and informed that their embarkation orders had finally been received. They were to pack their kitbags and prepare for transportation to the port of Fremantle.

The huge convoy of thirty-eight ships carrying approximately thirty-five thousand Australian and New Zealand troops finally formed up in the ocean off Fremantle. The majority of the 11th Battalion was aboard the SS
Ascanius
and, on the 2nd of November, the convoy slowly began to steam its way towards Colombo.

From Colombo to Aden, from Aden to Suez and then, at the end of the month, the disappointed discovery that their destination was not England, as most had assumed, but Egypt.

 

‘C
RIPES, HOW DO
you reckon they did it?' Tom Brereton, awe-struck, leaned on his pick and gazed up at the pyramid. It was their first day's work and they were setting up a training camp at Mena at the foot of the great pyramid of Cheops.

‘One of the wonders of the world, Tom,' Jack grinned. ‘One of the great wonders of the world.'

Setting up camp was no mean task. There were huge stones to be broken up and moved, but even such arduous labour could not dampen the men's spirits.
Many of them had never been outside their home State and the awesome pyramid was symbolic of their great adventure. It was a constant reminder that they were indeed on the other side of the world.

Training proved to be just as arduous. Marching in the loose desert sand was exhausting. But regular leave was granted and, only a mile away were the tramcars to Cairo where the lads had a grand time bartering at the bazaars and drinking arak in the bars and, many of them, against orders, sleeping with the girls in the excitingly sordid area of Wazir.

Dear Maudie and Pa
, Jack wrote.
Tell Jim and Vicky that I bought them some presents in Cairo the other day. They're just trinkets, I can't fit much in my kit bag, but you won't see the like of them in Kal
.

The trip over was bonzer although we lost our joey in Alexandria. Tom Brereton (he's my main cobber) smuggled him aboard at Fremantle as a mascot. The locals had never seen a kangaroo before so I suppose one of them stole him. I hope he didn't end up in an Egyptian cookpot
.

One of the men died on the trip, just two weeks out to sea. Pneumonia. Poor bloke, how's that for luck? He didn't even get a shot at the other side
.

Can't wait for the action. Have a beaut Christmas. Hoo roo, Jack
.

Christmas Day saw the first Australian mail the troops had received since leaving Fremantle and, shortly afterwards, on New Year's Eve, British commanding officers visited the camp to inspect the 1st Australian Division.

‘Thank God!' Sir George Reid declared in his inspiring speech. ‘Your mission is as pure and noble as any soldiers undertook to rid the world of would-be tyrants … If any stains come on your bright new flags they must and will be stains of honour won by valour.' And the boys from the goldfields, in Company C of the
11th Battalion—one of the four battalions of the 3rd Brigade—were as proud as any man present.

Still, there were two more frustrating months before orders were given to strike camp and then a further two months spent, mostly aboard ship, at Mudros Harbour on the island of Lemnos. Their days on board were taken up by arduous disembarkation training—scrambling down rope ladders carrying full gear, piling in and out of small boats—until news came of their final destination, sixty miles away. Gallipoli.

 

O
N APRIL
17
TH
orders for the attack on Gallipoli were issued. The objective of the 3rd Brigade was to seize a series of high ridges running from Gaba Tepe to Chunuk Bair and to secure them, so allowing the rest of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps to advance to the high ground at Mal Tepe. Mal Tepe overlooked the Narrows which the troops could then free for the British Navy to proceed to the Sea of Marmara and on to Constantinople.

The Commanding Officers of each of the four battalions had previously been taken by warship to inspect the coast and view the objective.

The 3rd Brigade was under the command of Colonel Sinclair-MacLagan, a Scot by birth and a respected soldier who had served in India and South Africa. Sinclair-MacLagan was fully aware of the immense task before them. ‘That post is too big for a brigade,' he commented to his fellow officers. And later, to General Bridges: ‘If we find the Turks holding these ridges in any strength, I honestly don't think you'll ever see the 3rd Brigade again.'

But in the letter read out to the troops, Colonel Sinclair-MacLagan urged, ‘You have been selected by the Divisional Commander as the covering force, a high honour which we must all do our best to justify. We
must be successful at any cost …' He continued, however, with an ominous warning. ‘We are, after all, only a very small piece on the board. Some pieces have often to be sacrificed to win the game and, after all, it is to win the game that we are here.' But, by now, the troops were too feverish with anticipation to think of anything but the impending battle.

The landing was to take place at night and A and C Companies of the 11th Battalion were to form the first line. No rifles were to be fired and no shot to be loaded until daylight. The men were to be landed in small boats which would be towed as close as possible to the shore by steam pinnaces. The troops would then row ashore and make for land as best they could, the warships
Majestic, Triumph
and
Bacchante
shelling the Turkish positions to cover their landing.

The men of A and C Companies loaded their transport ship, HMS
London
, and, on the 23rd of April, Colonel Lyon-Johnston addressed the 11th Battalion. ‘The position of honour has been assigned to us in being thus chosen as vanguard for one of the most daring enterprises in history. Boys, the General informs me that it will take several battleships and destroyers to carry our brigade to Gallipoli; a barge will be sufficient to take us home again!'

Grim as his humour was, loud cheers greeted the colonel's address.

The following night, the crew of the
London
treated the 11th Battalion to an issue of rum as they rested before the attack. Sailors and troops exchanged knives and mementos. Some men spent the night yarning, others slept. And many wrote letters to their families and sweethearts back home.

Dear Mamma
…

Enrico Gianni wrote his letter in English. He had never learnt to write in his mother tongue; but it made
little difference anyway: both Teresa and Rico were illiterate. He addressed the letter to his mother, however, as a mark of respect, knowing Carmelina or Salvatore would read it out to the family. He chose his words carefully.

After all these months we are about to engage in battle and many of the men are excited by the prospect—they want a bit of a scrap, they say. For me, I am not so sure, but it is certainly why we are here and I shall do my best
.

If I should not return, I want you and Papa to know that I love you and I am grateful to you both for the life you have given me
.

My love to Carmelina and Salvatore
,