Trooper to the Southern Cross

by Angela Mackail Thirkell

  The native police were hovering about, but they couldn’t do much. I was afraid the military would be turned out, in which case our fellows would have gone right off the handle and gone for them bald-headed. If there is one thing the digger cannot bear it is being interfered with. I saw young Casey in the crowd, so I hauled him out by the slack of his pants. I had to shout into his ear to make him hear me. Luckily he wasn’t so drunk as most of them.

  ‘Where’s the rest of the crowd?’ I said.

  ‘Beating up the bazaars, Doc,’ he said, ‘but don’t you worry. You go to bed and we’ll settle the niggers.’

  ‘The hell you will,’ I said, and then Father Glennie came up.

  ‘Here’s one of your lambs, Father,’ I said. ‘He’s been drinking that muck in the bazaars and will probably be dead or blind tomorrow, but before he passes out, see if you can make out what’s happening.’

  Well, the father put the fear of purgatory into young Casey, and we made out from what he told us that the diggers had made a nuisance of themselves around the bazaars, but there hadn’t been any rioting till they got down to the hotel, and then someone started the rickshaw game. The digger is like a kid. If he gets hold of a new game he will play with nothing else till he is sick of it. Three of us and a padre couldn’t stop about fifty diggers upsetting rickshaws and smashing windows, and the worst of it was we had no idea how many more might be coming down from the bazaars at any moment. The most we could do was to shepherd them down to the quay and hope to get them off to the ship.

  ‘You go round, Casey, and tell any of the boys that are sober to get the others down to the boats,’ said Father Glennie, ‘and next time you come to confession I may let you off a bit of your penance.’

  Young Casey wasn’t a bad kid, he was just doing what the others did. I could see Father Glennie had him scared, and that often has a wonderfully sobering effect. Casey and one or two more got through the crowd to the upper end of the street, and gradually the mob began to move down towards the pier. I can’t tell you all that happened, because I was only in one place at a time, which was down inside the sheds on the water front, where the boats were hanging about waiting for fares. I expect you know the pier at Colombo. You go in under a big shed and down some steps on to the piers which are mostly under cover, with arc lamps at night. It always breaks a crowd up a bit to have to go up or down steps, and there are some gates too, where the customs birds make nuisances of themselves in an ordinary way, but this night the gates were wide open and there was no one in particular about. I don’t blame them either. Hobson was with me, while Jack and Father Glennie were giving Casey and his pals a hand to move the crowd along. We reckoned, Hobson and I, that the diggers would get down the steps in batches and be easier to handle than if we had them coming down on us all at once. Also the row-boats were all waiting alongside, and we could help the diggers in pretty quickly if they weren’t too fighting drunk. Luckily I had my old field notebook, so I wrote a line to Jerry to tell him what to expect, and gave it to a boatman with ten rupees, to take to the ship.

  I must say I didn’t feel too good. Here were about fifty men, mostly drunk, and here were Hobson and I without even a revolver. And the water was far too near to be pleasant. I knew our boys would think nothing of tossing an officer or two into the harbour, and though they would be sorry next day when sober, that wouldn’t give first aid to me and Hobson. I didn’t know how much they’d been drinking, but that stuff they give them in the bazaars is rank poison. Quite a little sends a man half silly, besides the effect on his inside of which as a medical man I knew all I wanted to.

  Two thoughts occurred to me while we were waiting, one being what a damned fool I was to be there at all. Being a doctor it wasn’t my job to look after insubordinate troops and probably get knocked on the head and drowned. But I don’t see how I could have left Jack and Hobson to face the music alone. Besides the padre was there, so I’d have been lonely out of it. The other thought I had, and one which has occurred to me very forcibly and more than once, was what fools Horseferry Road were to send out a dry ship. Anyone with any experience knows that if you can get the drink you can do without it. If you can’t get it, you get a craving. I’m not much of a drinker myself, except in a friendly way, but after being shut up in that boat I could have drunk anything. The diggers were worse off than we were, for they were in the lower decks, and their accommodation was about as good as what cattle might get, and you can’t blame the boys if they went a bit wild when they got on shore. If they had had a rum ration every day, there wouldn’t have been half this trouble. And naturally it got them a bit narked when they saw some of the officers — mostly those who were pals of Stone and Anstruther — getting a bit merry.

  The crowd was gradually working down in our direction.

  ‘Gently does it,’ I said to Hobson. ‘Get four or five at a time into the boats if you can, and tell the boatmen not to worry about the fares. The Colonel will have to settle them tomorrow morning, and lucky if he doesn’t have a few inquests as well.’

  Hobson was pretty good at a sort of pidgin-Indian, but I haven’t a word, so I grabbed a kind of clerk who was standing about and told him what to say.

  ‘Tell those black bastards,’ I said, ‘to take the diggers back to the boat, and if they come tomorrow the Colonel will see they get paid.’

  He jabbered away to them, and then he bolted into an office and locked the door. I was just as pleased, because the boys might have been rude to him, and I knew that I would have enough to do looking after things without trying to teach them drawing-room manners.

  He was only just in time, for the diggers were coming down the steps. At first it wasn’t so bad. Hobson kept things going, shouting out: ‘Manly boat just starting’, ‘All aboard for the North Shore’, ‘Anyone more for Mosman’, and so on. The fellows from Sydney quite entered into the joke, and if they would get eight or nine into a boat that held four, well I reckoned that a nice swim in the harbour wouldn’t do them any harm. I didn’t, think there were any sharks, but if there were, it was their trouble.

  Hobson saw the boys from the other states weren’t catching on too well, so he just strung together all the names he could think of, calling out in his best sergeant’s parade voice: ‘All aboard for Bellerive, Brown’s River, Geelong, Kangaroo Island, Rottnest Island and the Great Barrier Reef.’ This way all the boys from the different states felt they were getting a fair deal.

  I was beginning to feel much more hopeful about things, when a bunch of men came down the steps, roaring drunk and waving bottles. I do hate a bottle. I have heard it called Australia’s national weapon, which is not all just, but it is a weapon that seems to come very handy and natural to many an Australian. I was in Melbourne when they had the police strike some six or seven years ago, and I can tell you the crowd of larrikins up Elizabeth Street were laying people out with bottles as neatly as you please. That was a nasty moment, for it was after dark and they started looting shops, and there was talk of an attack on the G.P.O. But the old A.I.F. men rallied wonderfully. They flashed a message on every cinema screen in Melbourne, by which means dozens of ex-officers came rolling up as special constables and had the time of their lives. Some of our chaps had been spoiling for a scrap, and several of them that I helped to treat for scalp wounds and bruises said it was as good as having the War on again.

  But, as I said, I have no special fondness for bottles. Not only do they knock you out well and truly, but the broken glass is apt to spoil your face. I’ve seen men after a Saturday night in Woolloomooloo with an eye hanging right out, or their face laid right open to the gums, and I didn’t fancy going back to Celia in that state.

  A bunch of them saw me and Hobson and made for us, saying such things as ‘Stoush the officers!’ One great powerful fellow, a football barracker evidently from his lungs and language, kept yelling ‘Ruin ’em, ruin ’em!’ I’ve heard them shouting that at a football final till I felt pretty sick, and thanked heaven I wasn’t
one of the thirty-six men on the field, for a kick below the belt is over the odds.

  One man had a knife and went for me, but I kicked his shin and twisted his arm and chucked the knife into a boat before he knew what had happened. Half a dozen of his pals fell in on top of him with Hobson’s assistance, and were rowed away, singing somewhat rowdily. The big fellow gave poor Hobson a great whack over the head with his bottle. Luckily Hobson, being a Light Horseman, had his looped-up hat with the kangaroo feathers, so he didn’t get cut, but he was knocked out for the moment. I thought the big fellow would roll him into the water, but luckily he turned on me, using some very unladylike language. Three or four of the men began jostling me, and I couldn’t get my hands free, while the big fellow lifted his bottle in the air. In a second I’d have been where poor old Hobson was, peacefully asleep on the planks, when old Cavanagh butted in with a bottle in one hand and a knife in the other.

  ‘Youwell leave the Doc alone,’ he shouted. ‘He’s my cobber, the good old bastard, and the first of you buggers lays a hand on him, I’ll twist his tripes for him.’

  And with that he brought his bottle down with a whack, and so did the big fellow. The bottles hit each other in the air and smashed, and the broken glass flew everywhere and both of them were a bit cut about the hands and face. Well, when the boys saw this I was afraid they’d all take sides and we’d have a free fight among them. But their sense of humour made them see the humorous side of things, and they laughed like a lot of kookaburras. I’d have laughed too, but I hadn’t time. Poor old Hobson had staggered up by this time and was walking round in circles. One of the boys gave him a drink and they all took arms and sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

  ‘Well, now, boys,’ I said, when they’d finished, ‘you’d better go home quietly. You’ll get your medicine in the morning all right, but I’ll do what I can for you, all but the great ugly cornstalk that laid Lieutenant Hobson out. What were you in quod for?’ I asked him quickly, not giving him time to think.

  ‘Did a bloke in, and serve himwell right,’

  said he, spitting.

  ‘You are a Sunday school pet, you are,’ said

  Cavanagh. ‘He never done a bloke in, Doc. He’s just a sneak-thief; pinched his cobbers’ kit while they were up the line and he was in billets, the dirty cow.’

  The digger is much against a dirty action such as theft of a pal’s things when he isn’t there. If he had really stoushed his man, no one would have had a thing against him, but the diggers didn’t like the way he tried to show off, making out he was better than he was, so they just lifted him into the water. He swam about a bit, using quite strong language, till a couple of niggers picked him up and rowed him away.

  Then one of the men shouted out: ‘All aboard for Yarra Bend,’ and they all got into the boats and went off quite happy. Yarra Bend is the big asylum at Melbourne. I was never there, as mental cases aren’t in my line, but I have been over it, and it is first-rate of its kind. I never much fancied being a doctor in a loony-bin myself, but it is meat and drink to some. The diggers were still a bit sozzled, but they have wonderfully strong heads, and their voices sounded very pretty on the water as they sang ‘Swanee River’ and ‘The Old Folks at Home’, with a few interruptions.

  Hobson and I went up the steps, through the empty sheds. At the top we met Jack Howe and Casey rounding up the stragglers. Jack had a cattle station away up somewhere in Queensland, and men and bullocks are much the same once you get them on the move. Keep them going and don’t let them straggle and you are all right. Father Glennie was tying up some broken heads, and roaring them up at the same time. I judged I could safely leave his lambs to his care, so Hobson and I went into the G.O.F.I. and had a drink, and then Jack came back and we had one on him and one on me, and of course Hobson couldn’t be left out, so we had one on him. Then Father Glennie came in, and we wanted him to have one on the house, but he would only have tea.

  ‘You can’t have a Johnny Woodser, Father,’ I said. ‘We’ll all have tea, and it will be on me.’

  So we all sat there and had some tea, and we agreed the digger isn’t a bad chap if decently handled. There were little outbreaks in the street from time to time, but they were not more than our military police could deal with. Some of the M.P.’s were a bit rough with the boys that night, which all led to bad blood later. By about midnight the street was quite peaceful and we all turned in. I found Celia still awake. The poor kid had been worrying a bit, but she is wonderfully brave and sensible and she knows I can look after myself all right. Also the mosquitoes had been keeping her awake. So I hunted round and found a hole in the net, so I pinned it up with a hairpin and killed two big brutes that had got inside. Then I turned the punkah off, because in hotels they will put it right over the bed where you are apt to get chills and earaches and stiff necks, and we soon enjoyed a good night’s rest.

  8 – Jerry hands it to the Colonel

  Everyone was a bit late next morning, except the Browns and their kiddies who had gone off to early service somewhere. I am quite a religious man myself in my quiet way, having thought very deeply on some subjects, but early service is a thing I have no use for. My old dad was the same, and I’ve heard him say all men were welcome to think as they damn well pleased so long as no parson came snooping round ‘his’ place. He was a wonderfully broadminded man, the old dad.

  We were all wondering at breakfast whether the ship would be delayed because of last night’s little bust-up, but Jack Howe, who had been out getting a line on things, said the authorities were only too glad to get rid of us at any price, and were hurrying up the loading of the ship. All claims against the ‘Rudolstadt’ were to be settled by the Australian Government, he said, but whether they were I don’t know, as I seemed to lose interest in the matter. I don’t worry much about governments, though of course I’d do my damnedest to put Labor out any day. I once went over the Parliament Library in Sydney and had some quite interesting sidelights on affairs, seeing the kind of books various members took out. As for Billy Hughes, well his day is over, but he deserves mention in that he made such good subjects for Dyson and Low. I once saw Billy Hughes dance the Lancers at Government House, Melbourne, the time the Prince of Wales was out, and I’ve never enjoyed a dance so much. But I don’t meddle with politics — they’re a dirty game.

  Hobson was none the worse for his knock on the head, those Light Horsemen being hard cases. We were to be on board by midday, and presently some of the officers blew in from the Galle Face. They had been told we were all killed and had come round to see the corpses, so they stood us drinks. All agreed that unless the Colonel took serious steps we would have a pretty rough passage, but all also agreed that he was not likely to do so, thus getting nowhere. They said they had had a bonzer dance the night before, there being several Australians at the Galle Face who were coming on our boat.

  Mrs Dicky shortly turned up with a couple of young officers. She and I and Celia got yarning in a corner of the lounge, and Mrs Dicky told us all about the dance. She had found some old friends and had a fine time. She said Mrs Henley and Captain Smith had been dancing all evening again and she wouldn’t be surprised if he left the boat and stayed on at Colombo. Everyone had been interested about them, but no one knew much, as they had been very reserved. I am a reserved sort of chap myself, but one should take part in what is going on, as if all were to keep shut up like clams it would be a dull sort of life.

  When Celia and Mrs Dicky went upstairs to look at Celia’s shopping, I was left alone for a bit, and who should happen to come in and sit quite near me but the very identical couple. I was half behind a table with a big palm on it and sitting well down in one of those big cane chairs, and anyway they wouldn’t have noticed if I had been General Monash himself. I could see with half an eye that dope was his trouble, there was no doubt at all. It is a funny thing, our fellows are very few of them given that way. They may drink a lot, but doping is a habit very few of them seem to get. And even the amount they
drink is greatly exaggerated. Look, I have known hundreds of fellows one way or another since 1914, thousands you might really say, but very few of them were real drinkers. A whole lot of the A.I.F. men liked tea better than anything, but there are many times in a war when beer is easier to get and quicker to drink than tea. It used to drive the diggers wild the way the families in the French billets drank coffee. They didn’t seem to have the ghost of a notion how to make a decent cup of tea.

  I could hear what Smith and Mrs Henley were saying, and I suppose I ought to have got up, or coughed or something, but I didn’t do it at the start, and then I didn’t seem to find an opportunity. It is often the way that if you do not do a thing at once it seems to be more difficult to do it afterwards. There was a chap I met at Bullecourt who lives up the North Shore Line at Turramurra, and I’ve been meaning to look him up ever since 1920, but I haven’t managed it yet and I daresay I never will. He was a dull sort of a chap, mostly interested in wool-buying. But it shows how if you put a thing off it doesn’t seem to happen.

  As far as I could hear he was asking her if he could come on as far as Singapore with her, and she was turning him down. He said he would do any blessed thing in the world for her, and she said if he couldn’t give it up there was nothing doing. I concluded that fit’ meant the dope, and as things turned out I was right.