Loyal Creatures (5 page)

A week later the penny dropped.

I'd been out for an early morning gallop with Daisy. Just a quick one. She was still getting her sand legs after the boat trip. When we got back, the news was all over the camp.

An order had come through. Some of the Light Horse outfits, including ours, were getting back on a boat to fight in the Dardanelles.

On foot.

Leaving the horses behind.

‘Where are the Dardanelles?' I said to Dad.

‘Arse-end of Turkey,' said Dad. ‘Pommy generals started an invasion and lost the plot. Me and some of the other blokes are going over to give 'em a hand. Reinforce our blokes already there.'

‘I'm going too,' I said.

‘No you're not,' said Dad.

‘Yes I am,' I said. ‘What'll Joan's parents think if I pike out?'

Me and Dad were face-to-face, so worked up we didn't see the engineer sergeant come over.

‘I'm going,' I yelled.

‘No you're not,' yelled Dad.

‘I'll second that,' said the sergeant. ‘And that's an order.'

I was done for. I might have got round Dad, but not the army as well.

‘Horses need you here,' said Dad. ‘They'll die of thirst with these clowns.'

The engineer sergeant made Dad and me shovel horse poop for the rest of the day. But he didn't tell Dad he was wrong.

After a lot of shovelling, I calmed down.

‘The horses need you just as much,' I said to Dad. ‘Why aren't you staying?'

Dad just shovelled in silence.

I didn't get it. Dad was in the Light Horse. Why did he want to go off to some lump of rock and fight on foot?

Then I did get it.

The white feather.

The bloody mongrel white feather.

After that I didn't try to stop Dad.

Wanted to?

Course I did.

But I could see he didn't have any choice, so I stuck by him. He'd done that for me all my life. Now it was time for me to do it back.

That's what I told myself, standing there in the first light as Dad and the other blokes got on the train for the docks.

‘Oo-roo, Dad,' I said.

‘Good on you, son,' said Dad quietly.

I cupped his face in my hands. Hadn't planned to. Just did.

‘Watch your arse over there,' I said. ‘If you cop one, Daisy'll be ropeable. She's hard enough on a bloke's feet as it is.'

Dad smiled, touched me on the cheek, and got on the train.

‘Say g'day to Mum for me,' I called.

Soon as I said it, I wished I hadn't. In case he misunderstood.

But Dad smiled and waved.

I watched the train choof off into the distance.

Typical Egyptian desert dawn.

Red as all get out.

Rumours started a few weeks later. Army censors had been trying to stop them for months, but word finally trickled through.

Dardanelles was a dunny. Turks up on the high ground, our lot copping it down below.

I tried not to worry about Dad.

Over the next few months I tried to stay chipper, waiting for proper news. Worked hard in the water deployment. Wrote letters to Joan. Waited patiently for her next letter to make it to Egypt.

Daisy helped take my mind off things. Early every morning we did a long gallop out in the desert.

One time a couple of officers on horseback pulled us over.

‘G'day trooper,' said one. ‘Nice horse.'

‘Yes, sir,' I said, trying not to be too friendly.

An officer could requisition a trooper's mount if he liked the look of it. This bloke obviously knew horses. Not like the British cavalry officers who sniggered when they saw Daisy, just on account of her being a bit wonky.

‘Fine waler,' said the officer.

Suddenly I recognised him. The army vet who'd calmed Dad down at the docks in Sydney.

‘Permission to ask something, sir,' I said.

‘Go ahead, trooper,' he said.

I reminded him about Dad and Jimmy.

‘What did you say to my father that day, sir?'

The vet swapped a glance with the other officer.

‘We knew things in the Dardanelles were getting difficult,' he said. ‘And that some of the Light Horse reinforcements would be required there on foot. I told your father not to fret about his mount as he probably wouldn't be needing one for a spell.'

I took this in.

‘Thanks,' I said.

After the officers rode on, I got off Daisy and sat on the sand.

I thought about Dad. What he'd done. Saved me from being a foot-slogger in the Dardanelles. How he'd never stopped looking out for me, ever. Not even when his heart was broken.

I sat thinking for a long time, Daisy standing there shading me.

I wished I could thank Dad.

Tell him how much I loved him.

‘Too late,' I said to Daisy. ‘Too late now. I'll have to wait till he gets back.'

When the first blokes got back to our camp from the Dardanelles, we all just stared, Daisy included.

Walking ghosts.

I hadn't seen anything like it since I was little.

Back then Dad was working in a gypsum mine with his father.

Big collapse.

Mum and me rushed to the pit. Blokes were coming out, the few that made it. Pale with dust and shock. Silent.

Grandad wasn't with them.

Dad didn't talk for two days after that.

This time the brass didn't want our Dardanelles blokes to talk at all, permanent.

But the first ones back did.

They reckoned most of the fighting in the Dardanelles was on a strip of rock called Gallipoli.

Abattoir, they reckoned.

Our blokes got slaughtered.

Light Horse lost hundreds. Some of the best horse­men in Australia, dead on their feet not five yards out of the trenches. Some got a few steps more, blown into pieces so small they didn't even have a grave.

Dad included.

That's what they said.

But I didn't give up hope.

Mayhem over there, that's what they also said. Lines of communication in tatters. Men ending up in the wrong regiment, uniforms in shreds, fumbling through their wallets trying to find their own names.

So I didn't give up hope.

Otton helped. Made sure our regimental sing-songs had plenty of cheery ballads.

Daisy helped too. Stuck with me, her head on my shoulder.

Until I saw it.

Dad's name.

On the dead list.

I wanted to be in the ground like Dad was.

So I tried to do what we did after Mum died. Keep working. Keep busy. Let water wash away the pain.

I found an old Arab well. Hundreds of years old, they reckoned. Been dry for decades. Fifty feet deep and the bottom wasn't even damp.

Dad had told me about wells like this.

Lined with stone, ancient style. The stones bleed minerals. Clog themselves up. Their strength is their weakness, that's what Dad reckoned.

Hours I was down there, looking for water.

Scraping and hacking at those mongrel stones. Stabbing them. Clawing at them. Yelling at them.

Nothing weak about those stones. Hard as a Turk's heart those stones were.

I knew there was water, I could feel it close. But it didn't come. So I stopped waiting for some dopey liquid to make me feel better.

I decided to give up on water.

Try something else.

‘Ballantyne, here's your delivery.'

Trooper Johnson barged into the quiet spot where I was sitting with Daisy cleaning my rifle.

I was glad to see him. Or rather I was glad to see what he'd got with him. A bundle of rags, which he dropped at my feet.

I handed him the money. A month's pay.

Johnson took it, then stared at Daisy.

‘Jeez,' he said. ‘She's ugly.'

Rude tosser. That wasn't on. Insulting a horse who was in mourning and too sad to give him one in the privates.

I didn't say anything, just stood up and swung one into his jaw.

He dropped.

My hand felt like I'd fractured it.

Johnson picked himself up. I put my fists up, waiting for him to come at me. But he just leaned against the shed and spat some blood.

‘It's just a mongrel horse,' he said, glowering at me. ‘You need locking up.'

Otton appeared as Johnson walked away.

‘What happened?' he said.

‘He insulted Daisy,' I said.

Otton stared at me. Then at Daisy. Then grinned.

‘You gotta admit, Frankie,' he said. ‘She's not the prettiest girl on the line.'

Death wish, that bloke.

I took a step towards him.

‘Alright,' he said. ‘I'm sorry. Jeez. Touchy. What did Johnson want, anyhow?'

I picked up the bundle of rags and carefully unwrapped it. Nestled in the bundle was the most vicious weapon I'd ever seen.

‘Beautiful, isn't it?' I said.

Otton stared.

It was a bayonet. A regulation-issue bayonet. But different. Instead of a smooth blade, it was edged with jagged metal teeth.

Razor sharp.

‘Johnson made it,' I said. ‘Hobby of his.'

Otton couldn't take his eyes off it.

‘He'll make one for you,' I said. ‘Only nine quid.'

‘Me?' said Otton. ‘No way. I'm an apprentice auctioneer. I sing at weddings on weekends. Thing like that isn't in my province or my dominion.'

I shrugged.

‘Jeez,' said Otton, still staring at the bayonet. ‘Those Turk mongrels that killed your dad. In and twist with that and they'll be dog meat.'

He gave me a nervous glance, as if he thought he'd gone too far.

He hadn't.