Evan's Gallipoli (19 page)

January 23rd

We are crossing the Great Australian Bight and it is very blowy and uncomfortable. Not many people to dinner. Father started talking about a school for me and the first officer said that since I have a talent for languages he recommended University High School, which has an entrance exam and is well known for preparing people for the diplomatic service. It's in Carlton, which is not too far from Kew, and it is a day school. This sounds like it might be a solution. I am glad now that I listened to all those lectures on the wines of Bordeaux. I don't mind school. I just mind the idea of boarding school. The captain recommended a private tutor for the prep for the exam. Father seemed to accept their advice. He said he would write to Mr Sharman, the headmaster, when we get home.

Despite our suicide I am feeling happier. Private Oliver has gone to heaven, no matter what Father says about sin. And he will have lots of friends to welcome him there who will not care about his scarred face.

Adelaide tomorrow. We discharge about half the troops there. They didn't get into unusual trouble in Albany so the whole lot will be allowed to land. William was pleased with the smell of the gum leaves. He snuffled them and then stamped them flat and lay down on them.

Found a book called
Does God Exist?
Father caught me reading it and was angry. I took it back to the library as he ordered but I am still reading it. If God doesn't exist it could explain a lot about the world. Still, if there is no God there is no heaven and that notion is too much to bear.

January 24th

The crowds were waiting for the troops. There was a band playing. But as they started to come down the gangplank—limping, crippled, blind ones being led by their mates—there was a silence. All the faces stared at us, aghast. Then the band started up again and people cheered and rushed forward to embrace their lost ones.

Father and I walked down after the crowds had left. I like waterfronts. We went into Adelaide and had tea in a teashop. Australian voices. Cream buns. I had two. Real cream. We don't know anyone in the city so we said hello to Colonel Light and sauntered around, suddenly free and very happy. No war had ever come to this place. I did not kiss the ground, however. I lay down and rolled on the grass.

January 25th

On the last leg of the journey now. Father has written quite a lot, but says that it will all have to be redone when he has read a backlog of six months' newspapers.

We were sitting in the library when he suddenly said, ‘Did you really drag me all that way by yourself, Evan?' and I said yes, because I had. Then he said, ‘I can't remember any of it,' and I said that it didn't matter. He said that it did and made me tell him where we had been and what we had done. It took some time. The only thing I left out was the morphine and Manfred Schmidt.

He seemed impressed and said that it was a desperate journey like the Anabasis. I did not know the word. He said it referred to another journey and looked out a copy of Xenophon for me. Then he patted my shoulder and said that no madman could have had a better keeper. He said he was sorry that he had tried to send me to boarding school against my will and that I should do as I liked about school. I said University High sounded good. Something has changed about Father. He isn't laying down the law to me as he did before.

January 26th

Landed at Melbourne where there was a brass band, a large crowd and a lot of military police with fixed bayonets. What have they heard about us?

I left our address in Kew with Bluey and Curly in case they should want to visit. Bluey says he has to stay in the city because the doctors think his eyes will improve with treatment. Curly's staying with him. I gave them some money. Curly said he'd only take it as a loan. I am so sorry to see them go. The sisters asked us to call on them if we were ever in New Zealand. It was all farewells. Even the first officer wished me well and patted my head and said I would make a fine sailor one day. I hate having my head patted and I will not make a fine or any other sort of sailor. We waited until the soldiers had almost gone because we had to help Major Hanks smuggle William out in a kitbag. He is a solid animal so Major Hanks took one handle and Father took the other and I carried the other hand luggage and we just walked through the cordon and onto the pier. Then I ran and got a taxi and found our luggage—there is not much of it—and Major Hanks's baggage. He had a set of golf clubs, of all things. He is coming to stay the night with us in Kew. And William, of course. Fortunately wombats do not mind dark enclosed spaces.

January 27th

It is very strange to be home. We arrived in Kew and Mrs Thompson opened the door. I remembered her as fat and jolly and she is still fat but not jolly because her son was killed in the Dardanelles. However, she was pleased to see us and had rooms ready and Major Hanks took William for a walk in the garden.

I have a room of my own which is filled with things I liked when I was a child. I liked romances and exotic stories like the
Arabian Nights
. I don't like them now. I have been to exotic places and they are jolly uncomfortable and dangerous. I have such a lot of things! A wardrobe full of clothes. A box full of shoes. Toys and books. I have travelled so long with nothing that it all feels a bit crowded. But the bath was wonderful. Endless hot water and foamy soap which lathers.

We had dinner with Major Hanks, who is going home to Sherbrooke where there is a forest for William and a horse for the major to ride. Mrs Thompson served dinner to us—very good lamb chops and minted peas and roast potatoes—and hovered. Finally she asked the major, ‘Was it very bad out there?'

Father and I looked at each other. How to tell her of the filth and cruelty in which her beloved son had died horribly? Major Hanks managed splendidly. He told her, ‘It was pretty bad, Mrs Thompson, war always is, but they were heroes and they always had each other.'

This seemed to satisfy her. And it's true enough, in a way. William seemed content to sit under the table, munching a plate of vegetables. Thomas, our cat, has never seen a wombat before. He sat staring at him with complete puzzlement, as though the hearth rug had just got up and started eating carrots. Poor Thomas.

Speetee. Ev. Zu hause. Heim. A la maison. Chez moi. La Patrie.
Home. I'm home.

January 28th

We are to stay here for the present. Father sent a telegram to Aunt Euphie and she is coming to Melbourne to see us. It is nice to stop travelling. To put something down and not have to keep track of it in case you have to gather your things and run.

This morning I breakfasted on eggs and bacon. The children were playing a skipping game outside our window:

Oh the moon shines tonight on Charlie Chaplin

His boots are cracking

For want of blacking

And his little baggy trousers will need mending

Before they send him

To the Dardanelles.

For some reason tears blurred my eyes. Then the postman arrived with a letter for Father and a parcel for me. I took it up to my room to open it. It came from Major Western. It was squashy. When I managed to get it open without cutting the string, for string is always useful, I found a complete Greek girl's dress, blue as the Greek sky, very heavily embroidered and beautiful. And a letter which said:

Dear Evan,
I expect you will find this useful. I have a confession to make. The thin man was SMARO and has been dealt with. The fat man was a friend of mine, keeping an eye on you. And Manfred Schmidt did not survive his latest operation. I trust this relieves your mind.

Abdul is well and has joined Mustafa Kemal's staff. I am presently in hospital with a trifling fever and am learning Bulgarian. Keep up your languages, my dear. A letter to the Alexandria address will find me. It has been an education knowing you, Evan.

Yours faithfully,

Isaiah.

So it is time for me to abandon the boys' clothes. And Major Western knew about me all that time. When Mother died and Father went travelling he couldn't dress me as a girl in all those wild places, so he decided that I should be a boy. And a boy I have been ever since I was eight. Now I am growing breasts. I will not pass for a boy for much longer. So I will put away my trousers, for the time. But that doesn't mean I will surrender my freedom. Not for a moment. Girls' clothes will please Aunt Euphie, too. She always used to make me wear them.

I tried on the Greek dress. It has a gorgeous petticoat and is just a little too loose for me. I went down to show Father. He looked up from his book and asked, ‘Who's there?'

And I told him, ‘It's me, Evangeline.'

B
IBLIOGRAPHY

De Vries, Susanna,
Blue Ribbons, Bitter Bread: The life of Joice NanKivell
, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 2000.

Rees, Peter,
The Other Anzacs
, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2008.

The Times History of the Great War

Lonely Planet Guidebooks to Greece and Turkey

There is no good textbook which explains the chaos in Thrace at the time of the Gallipoli campaign—at least, I couldn't find one. If you look at the map you can see how poor Thrace is in exactly the wrong place if Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey want to attack each other. The European equivalent is Poland, right in the middle between Russia and Germany. As someone said, if you pitch your tent in the middle of a highway you should expect to get run over. Which doesn't help, of course, if that's where you have always lived and you have no place to go.

Any attempt to explain the history of Greece against Turkey and Turkey against Thrace and Thrace against Bulgaria and so on in a book like this would stun the brain of my readers. In any case I would have to begin with the Ottoman Empire and the Crusades, which is a long time ago. If you are curious, I suggest you look at a Turkish history, a Greek history and a Bulgarian history, not forgetting the Armenians, and decide for yourself.

I still haven't come to any conclusion except that Wars Are Bad and I already knew that.

Lots of websites. Just type in ANZAC. And the Wikipedia entries I have consulted have been fair and reasonable.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

Kerry Greenwood's novels include the Corinna Chapman series and the Phryne Fisher mysteries, recently made into a TV series for ABC1. She is also the author of several books for young adults and the Delphic Women series. When she is not writing she is an advocate in Magistrates' Court for the Legal Aid Commission. She is not married, has no children and lives with a registered Wizard. She is an honorary Greek after Commission.