To Ride the Wind (29 page)

‘Private Gould,’ he said, snatching one of his soldiers by the shirt. ‘Get back to the OC and tell him we have broken through. Tell him that the platoon needs support.’

The soldier stared at his commander and Jack could see that he was in shock. He shook him and repeated the message. The soldier nodded, then scrambled over the parapet and the edge of the trench to make the dangerous journey to the position in the assault he knew was company HQ. Under intense fire he was able to find the company commander surrounded by a group of soldiers pinned down by small arms fire. They were at the edge of the barbed wire and had not broken through.

‘Sir, Mr Kelly sent me to tell you that we have breached the wire about fifty yards to the right. He says he needs the company to bring up more ammo and men to stop the Huns.’

The company commander was visibly shaking and seemed to ignore everything around him so the runner repeated his message.

‘What?’ the company commander snapped. ‘We are going to fall back,’ he yelled. ‘Not possible to get through.’

‘Mr Kelly is in the Hun trenches,’ the soldier reiterated. ‘If we get reinforcements we can move onto the next objective.’ The soldier from Jack’s platoon could clearly see that his company commander had lost it but this did not surprise him. He was hated by one and all in the company for his officious manner and incompetence.

‘Tell Mr Kelly that he is to withdraw his platoon and provide covering fire for the company’s withdrawal.’

‘But . . .’

‘But nothing, Private,’ Major Hartford yelled hysterically. ‘Just tell Mr Kelly to obey my orders.’

The runner turned and in a crouching sprint was able to cover the fifty yard distance to the break in the wire. He dropped to the wooden duckboard floor of the trench.

‘Major Hartford says we are to pull back,’ he gasped, attempting to suck air into his lungs. ‘He says that we are to provide covering fire for the company’s withdrawal.’

‘You told him that we had made the breakthrough?’ Jack questioned with a frown.

‘I told him, boss,’ the runner answered.

‘Damn the bastard to hell!’ Jack exploded. He was about to declare the company commander a yellow gutless dingo when he remembered he was now an officer and such things could not be said in front of the men who were now looking to him for leadership.

Snow whipped his face and blood was rapidly clotting on the wounded. Jack looked wearily up and down the stretch of trench they had captured. He could stay and fight or relinquish what had cost him so many of his men’s lives to win. His platoon objective was the next line of German trenches but without the company in support they would all be slaughtered. Prisoners had been taken and he had his own wounded to consider. He could see the expressions on his men’s faces. They looked as if their souls had long left their bodies and they had gone to hell. The whole bloody show had been a fiasco, he thought. Just another waste of good lives to achieve nothing.

‘Pass the word that we are pulling back,’ Jack said wearily. ‘We are to move by sections.’

‘Hardly enough of us to make up a section, boss,’ Lance Corporal Duffy said. ‘What do we do with the Huns?’

Jack stared at the five Germans sitting in the trench in their heavy, grey greatcoats. ‘It is your lucky day,’ he said to them in fluent German, surprising the prisoners. ‘I am going to let you live, but if you attempt to recover arms and fire on us as we are leaving, I will personally come back and cut your testicles out.’

A senior NCO among the German prisoners grinned weakly at Jack. ‘I have not yet fathered children, Lieutenant,’ he said. ‘We will respect your orders.’

‘What did he say?’ Tom asked Jack.

‘He said he wants to bear your children,’ Jack replied, leaving Tom puzzled at the joke.

Within minutes, those wounded able to walk made ready and the couple of soldiers unable to move without help were provided with mates to carry them. The withdrawal went off well back to company HQ, where Jack saw Major Hartford arguing with a soldier Jack guessed was a runner from battalion HQ.

‘What is it, sir?’ Jack asked his commander.

‘The bloody fool has sent a message up from the CO that we are to advance to the second line of Hun trenches, but you can see that it is impossible. It seems we are now down to around one third strength.’

Jack knew absolute fear when he saw it, and he could see it in his commander’s eyes as he stumbled over his words, crouching low in an almost foetal position.

‘Maybe you should hold here with a couple of men to act as a link with BHQ,’ Jack said, barely able to restrain his contempt for the man who was supposed to provide leadership. ‘I can push on with the rest of the company and send back a runner to keep you up to date with our progress.’

For a moment Major Hartford stared with unseeing eyes at his platoon commander, but slowly comprehended the suggestion.

‘A good idea, Mr Kelly,’ he finally replied. ‘You take the men forward.’

Jack rallied the survivors fit enough to continue the assault. He chose to return to the trench he had abandoned and wondered at the reception he would receive from the German soldiers they had left behind. Warily, the men went over the top but found the trench deserted, only the dead and dying having been left behind.

‘Lance Corporal Duffy,’ he called.

‘Yes, boss,’ Tom replied.

‘You are now my acting CSM,’ Jack said with a grin. ‘But don’t expect to draw a sar’nt major’s pay.’

‘Yes, boss,’ Tom replied with a serious expression. ‘I will do my best.’

Jack issued brief orders to his men, redistributed grenades and ammunition from the dead and wounded, and they clambered over the rear of the German trench to advance into hell. It was around 7am and Jack wondered why he was not seeing supporting artillery falling on the German lines, but he was not privy to the decisions being made in a confused situation well back from the edge of the battle. German fire continued to pour into the Australian ranks and, in his concern for the few men he had left, Jack had long forgotten his fear of dying. When the bullet or shard of shrapnel found him his worries would be over, Jack accepted with the soldier’s sense of fatalism. To the men that he led it seemed that their commander had ice in his veins. They were supposed to think that, despite the fact Jack Kelly, former gold prospector born in South Australia and who worked in the tropical jungles and mountains of exotic Papua and New Guinea, was barely in control of his fear.

‘Boss!’ Tom called. ‘They’re coming!’

Jack’s attention was drawn to a grey line of German infantry slowly, and some what reluctantly, advancing across the snow towards his outnumbered company.

‘Back into the trenches!’ he yelled.

He took his men in a sprint back to the trench they had vacated, dropping down on the bodies of those they killed earlier. He knew that the Germans would counterattack and also knew that he was short on men and ammunition. Jack scrambled to a makeshift parapet to observe the advancing force of grim-faced soldiers wearing the distinctive coal scuttle tin helmets. His job now was to coordinate his thinly stretched defence. His men were firing into the advancing ranks with rifles and Lewis guns, attempting to keep the Germans out of grenade range. Jack moved along the line with encouraging words and, when he was standing behind Tom Duffy calmly firing his Lee Enfield, Jack noticed that with each shot, Tom dropped an advancing enemy soldier. Jack admired the young man’s deadly accuracy. Jack’s two Lewis guns were firing a lethal enfilading cone of death into the German ranks and a couple of enterprising soldiers had heaved a German Maxim gun into position to rake the advancing troops. It was a murderous fire and he could see the advancing ranks falter under its effects. If they were close enough he would order the use of hand grenades, and if those failed it would come down to fixed bayonets and hand-to-hand fighting. Instinctively, Jack touched the photograph of his son and wife in his top pocket.

The German line ceased its advance and turned to withdraw. No-one cheered. The men simply stared into nothing, trying to light cigarettes with hands that trembled so badly the task was impossible. Even Jack dared not attempt to plug his pipe lest he betray his fear with his own shaking hands. He knew from experience this was just the beginning of a battle that before it was over would take the lives of so many good, young Australians.

16

I
t was cold at the edge of the Sinai desert. Captain Matthew Duffy stood at the entrance to his tent, holding a mug of hot tea. He stared at the activity on the airfield with the frustration of being grounded. When he had attempted to explain his mission over the Arab village to his CO he had received a hostile reception.

‘I am afraid that I would like to believe you,’ his CO had replied. ‘But until I receive evidence confirming that your mission was authorised by London, as you say, then I have no choice but to ground you. I must also caution you that you are to remain within the lines. You are free to join in the mess but say nothing of why you were late returning to the squadron. That’s all, Captain Duffy.’

Two weeks later the words still echoed as he watched his comrades take off and land on the dirt strip while all he could do was write letters, take his time as duty officer, and drink mugs of tea and coffee. Matthew’s ground crew were a little more sympathetic. They had a close bond with their flyer and knew that it was not just the grounding that had caused him to look so depressed; it had to be something more.

They were right. Matthew could hardly sleep, wondering about Joanne’s fate in Jerusalem and frustrated that he seemed impotent to do anything to ascertain her whereabouts. Asking for leave was out of the question, as was setting off across the desert to make his way to the ancient city now occupied by the Turkish army. He was about to return to his tent to complete a letter to his mother when his eye caught a tall figure wearing the distinctive dress of a light horseman striding towards his tent. Matthew blinked, wondering if he was suffering some kind of hallucination.

‘God almighty!’ he roared, dropping his enamel mug and rushing forward. ‘Bloody hell!’ he said, coming to a stop in front of Trooper Randolph Gates, whose slow grin spread from ear to ear. Grasping each other’s hand, they stood staring for a moment.

‘Good to see you are still alive,’ Randolph said. ‘How have you been?’

‘What in hell are you doing impersonating an Australian soldier?’ Matthew asked, punching Randolph in the shoulder.

‘It’s a long story. I don’t suppose you flyer types have a stock of half-drinkable coffee for a Yank masquerading as a Canadian by any chance? If you do, I will tell you everything.’

Matthew led the American back to his tent where he dug into his private supply of precious food items including the jar of coffee sent by his mother and some biscuits made of treacle and oatmeal. He pulled up his one and only folding chair for Randolph, and sat on his camp stretcher while Randolph cradled the jar of coffee he had just been given as a gift and drank the tea Matthew had one of his passing ground crew fetch from the mess. Over the mug of tea, Randolph filled Matthew in on his life from the USA to his present posting as a member of the Australian Light Horse. He explained how he had to leave Australia one step ahead of the law and had wrangled a position with the Light Horse in Egypt when he was able to prove his ability to ride, shoot and handle horses.

‘I asked around and found someone who thought you might be here. My squadron commander is a pretty good bloke and gave me leave to visit as we are only a couple of miles away.’ Randolph said. ‘I also heard that you were in a bit of trouble.’

Matthew stood and stretched his legs in the small confines of his tent. A cold, bitter wind howled outside, flapping the canvas with the crack of a gunshot. He pondered telling his oldest friend the truth and decided that they had shared sensitive secrets before. Matthew related the events that had taken place at Saul’s settlement and his love of the American woman.

‘So, the gay bachelor has finally met his match,’ Randolph said with a smile.

‘How about you?’ Matthew countered, and saw the smile disappear.

‘Not since Nellie,’ Randolph replied in a pained voice, and Matthew knew not to ask any further. ‘My philosophy is that it is best to avoid any permanent relationships until this god-damned war is over. What are you going to do about finding Miss Barrington?’

Matthew gazed out through a slit in the entrance to his tent. ‘We are so bloody close to Jerusalem,’ he said. ‘If only I could fly there and search for her.’

‘I heard some scuttlebutt that we might be the first into the city,’ Randolph said. ‘The Turks are on the ropes and falling back.’

‘I hope that you are right,’ Matthew said, still staring out through the small space of the flap. They had been deep in conversation for a long time. The sun was already making its way to the western horizon. Randolph also could see that it was time to return to his unit and shook hands with Matthew, promising to return if his squadron was still in the area. The light horseman was hardly gone when a corporal from the orderly room poked his head through the flap.

‘Sir, the CO would like to see you at HQ immediately.’

Matthew thanked the clerk and tidied himself for the meeting. It had to be important to be summoned, and it was with some trepidation that he made his way in the gloom of the coming night to the kerosene-lit tent of the CO, who gestured for him to step inside. The tent was large enough to accommodate the tables and chairs for the administration of the flight, and its sides were covered in maps and clipboards with signals and operational orders.

‘You wished to see me, sir,’ Matthew said, giving his CO one of his best salutes.

The Commanding Officer rose from his chair and returned the salute.

‘Well, Captain Duffy, it appears your story was true,’ he said in a friendly voice. Matthew felt a huge weight fall from his shoulders. He had feared a court martial and then being sent home in disgrace. ‘I have just had a signal delivered from Cairo stating that you had been temporarily detached to carry out a top secret mission authorised by the War Office in London. Needless to say it says little else but it has been signed by Mr Winston Churchill. I only wish the bloody English government had the courtesy to inform me that they would be using your services – just damned good manners to do so.’