Loyal Creatures (13 page)

Not the Bedouin, the military police.

‘You're nicked,' said a triumphant voice, and a couple of sides of beef walloped me into the sand.

The jacks had twigged what was going on. Distraught troopers and army property making a break for it.

Deserting, they reckoned it was.

They stuck a bag over Daisy's head and one over mine.

I reached out and found Daisy's neck and gave it a stroke.

‘I won't desert you,' I whispered to her.

‘That's rich,' said one of the jacks. ‘A deserter's still a deserter even when the war's over. We don't shoot you bludgers like the poms do, but you'll grow moss on your north side in jail.'

I was quiet as they took us back to camp.

They probably thought I was a wuss.

I didn't care.

Important thing was, I had a bit of time. They wouldn't be machine-gunning Daisy straight away. I heard the jacks talking about the backlog that had built up. Other camps were sending some of their horses to us.

‘Lazy mongrels,' said one of the jacks. ‘I mean how much effort is it to pull a trigger?'

‘Welcome back,' said the lock-up sergeant as he locked me up.

I was in one of the few brick buildings in the camp, but sounds from the outside still made it through the wall.

Machine-gun sounds mostly.

Every half hour. Right through the day.

I tried to block them out. I tried to block everything out. I couldn't.

I kept thinking of Dad in his trench at Gallipoli. How much he probably hadn't wanted to take his next step.

But he took it.

I banged on the cell door with my fists.

‘I need an hour,' I said to the lock-up sergeant.

The sergeant unfolded the eighty quid IOU I pushed at him through the slot. He looked at it for a long time.

Then he shook his head, folded it up and pushed it back through the slot.

‘Just one hour,' I pleaded.

In the distance the machine-gun started up and I saw the sergeant flinch.

I was going to explain there wasn't any other choice. That I wasn't letting a stranger do it. Someone who didn't know how. Someone who didn't care. Someone who'd hurt her.

But then the sergeant unlocked the door, and I didn't need to say a word.

They were taking Daisy when I got to the line.

Trying to.

Two infantry blokes had ropes round her and were hanging on wide-eyed. They'd have had a better chance trying to rope a sandstorm.

Daisy was magnificent.

Up on her back legs, eyes like liquid fire.

A third bloke was poleaxed on the ground, blood on his head. Next to him, a pair of shears. This mongrel must have been the tail and mane lopper.

I was tempted to kick him in the head myself.

Orders were orders, but bloody hell.

I was also tempted to let Daisy make her point to those that needed to see it. Take her to the officer's mess and let the brass know what she thought of orders like that. Except the brass she needed to kick were oceans away.

A movement over my shoulder.

Another plod, young bloke about seventeen, was aiming a rifle at Daisy, fingers white on the trigger, nearly pooping himself.

I took the gun from him and took the ropes from the other two clowns.

When Daisy saw I was there, she planted her feet back on the ground and slowly calmed down.

‘It's alright,' I said to her quietly. ‘It's just you and me.'

I saddled her up and we walked to the camp gate. The guard just looked at us. I looked at him. He nodded us through.

I could tell from his face we weren't the first.

We went out into the desert.

Had a long gallop, Daisy's face shining golden in the dawn light, her feet a golden blur.

Then she slowed, circled and chose her spot.

It was time.

I patted her down. Brushed her slowly. Gave her a drink and a feed.

She put her head on my shoulder. I thanked her for being the best mate a bloke could ever hope for. Brushed her some more.

I stopped. I couldn't do it.

There had to be something.

I could dig her a well, here in the sand. The biggest deepest well I'd ever dug. So the water never stopped flowing. So every time I thought of her for the rest of my life at least I'd know she wasn't thirsty . . .

No.

She was looking at me.

Calm. Balanced. She'd thought it through.

I could see in her big gentle eyes she trusted me to do the right thing.

‘Thank you,' I whispered to her again.

I put my gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

After, as I lay with Daisy, whispering a promise that her daughter would never go to war, never end up a poor tear-streaked body cooling on the sand, a shadow fell over us.

Slowly I lifted my head from Daisy's neck and looked up.

Johnson was sitting on his horse, holding his rifle, staring at me and Daisy.

He didn't say anything.

He didn't have to. I could see from his face why he was here.

He dismounted. Stroked his horse's muzzle.

While he said a quiet and gentle goodbye to her, I hoped she had a son or daughter in a paddock somewhere.

For when Johnson got back home.

Johnson said everything he needed to say, wiped his eyes, then raised his gun.

One shot.

He handed me a spade and we started digging together in the sand.

We did our best over there, us blokes.

But it was never in our hands. Not completely. Never is in war.

We were just loyal creatures too, our heads turned this way and that by politicians and generals and the dark waters in our own souls.

That's what we were, all of us.

Just loyal creatures.

Loyal Creatures
is a story based on history, but it isn't a history book.

However, it is set in a real war, inspired by real events. The desert campaign in Egypt and Palestine was an important part of World War One, and the role the Australian Light Horse played in the fighting was vital.

But Frank and Daisy and most of the other people and animals in
Loyal Creatures
are from my imagination. As you allow them to live and breath in your imagination, I hope you sense my strong feelings for the many real individuals who inspired them.

The Australian men and women who took part in World War One were all volunteers. Some enlisted well under the official army age of eighteen. Some were even younger than Frank.

Many of the troopers in the Australian Light Horse took their horses with them when they sailed off to war. The special bond between people and animals has been an important part of Australia's history. Which made what happened to those horses at the end of the World War One even more tragic and poignant.

While
Loyal Creatures
isn't a history book, I've tried to ensure that everything in the story could have happened to a young Australian trooper like Frank and to a horse like Daisy.

My own journey with
Loyal Creatures
started in 2012. The National Theatre in London was preparing to bring its magnificent production
War Horse
to Australia. They were also planning a series of workshops around the country, linked to the play and exploring aspects of theatre craft. As a part of this, they wanted a short performance piece about Australian horses in World War One.

My friend Michael Morpurgo, author of the book
War Horse
on which the stage version is based, suggested I write the workshop script. I did, and as I learned more about the experiences of the Australian Light Horse in Egypt and Palestine, particularly in 1918, I knew I wanted to take this story beyond the limits of a twenty-minute monologue. This book is the result.

It wouldn't exist without Michael Morpurgo's wonderful and now legendary story
War Horse
. Thank you, Michael, for allowing my imagination to canter alongside yours for a while. Thanks also to everybody in National Theatre Learning for their encouragement, to Stephanie Hutchinson who produced the workshops, and to Paul-William Mawhinnie and Tim Potter who performed the monologue so brilliantly.

Many other people have helped Frank and Daisy along the way.

My heartfelt thanks to Laura Harris, Heather Curdie, Tony Palmer, Alexandra Antscherl, Belinda Chayko, Alex Mann, Richard Atkin, and to David ‘Buffalo' O'Brien, who introduced me to a real Waler and explained to me how difficult it is to fire a rifle while galloping on a horse.

I hope this story will make you want to find out more about the Australian Light Horse. There are many wonderful real-life stories of real troopers and real horses waiting for you, lots of them to be found in books by real historians.

As well, the Australian War Memorial in Canberra has a vast and magnificent archive of information about the Light Horse and the people and animals who made it a legend, much of it available online.

If you'd like to see a younger version of
Loyal Creatures
, when it was just a frisky colt kicking at the paddock fence, the script of the workshop performance piece is available on the Puffin website
(
puffin.com.au
).

I'm grateful to you for reading this book and in particular for contemplating the inscription quoted at the beginning.

I like to think that, in our imaginations at least, they've come home.

Morris Gleitzman

April 2014