1917

by Kelly Gardiner

I shan’t be here much longer, though, because there’s all sorts of trouble here over this General Strike, and the WPA are up to their elegant necks organising rallies about it. I do go home every weekend, but from now on I’m needed in town every day, to help Ma with the children or with the protests. I’m not sure which. Perhaps both.

  The Prime Minister has gone quite wild. He said in the newspaper today that the strikers are Secret Agents of Germany and everyone who supports them is a Traitor to the Empire. I don’t think anybody’s ever called Ma a traitor before. She was more cross than I’ve ever seen her.

  But it’s all anyone can talk about here, and perfectly normal people argue in the streets and in the shops about whether the strikers or the government are scum or heroes. The same page of The Argus reported a general strike in Spain too, and more trouble in Russia. What is taking hold of the world?

  I am so much older than this time last year. Sixteen. I feel about thirty. And this war has been going on as long as I can remember. Surely it must end soon. Surely.

  Mags

  I heard a yelp. The Lewis gun rattled. I glanced behind. Two bright red Fokkers on our tail.

  ‘Hang on!’ I shouted.

  Both hands on the joystick, forcing us up, up. Then a sharp twist. Bullets smashed into the woodwork, twanged off the engine. Something tore at my boot.

  ‘Now!’ Burke yelled.

  Hell of a way to learn how to loop the loop. We roared in a circle, hanging upside down, then rolling once, twice, and circling back towards our lines. Almost the Immelmann Turn. Banjo would be proud.

  I twisted around in my seat. They were still there.

  Damn.

  Burke was slumped over his gun.

  No time to think. Just fly. I banked left, fast—faster than I ever dreamed Matilda could fly—then dropped the nose sharply so the Fokkers soared past, over my head. And into my gunsights. One hand on the control, one on the trigger. And fire.

  Missed.

  Again.

  The Fokker dipped and swerved. I couldn’t get him in my sights. He was good, this chap. Smart. Faster than me. Could it be? The Red Baron.

  Bam! A cloud of black smoke just off his wingtip. And another.

  Archie. Our gun crews had spotted us. Bam!

  I had to get out of there. Much as I loved our anti-aircraft battery at that moment, I didn’t want to get caught in their line of fire.

  I circled back over the ruins of Ypres, trailing black smoke through the air, and headed for home.

  It wasn’t really home. It was just a motley collection of huts and tents in a muddy field. But it felt safe. Well, safer than anywhere else on the Front.

  Charlie ran out onto the runway as I taxied in. Ground crew and medic were ready. They’d seen us coming in, spewing oil and smoke.

  Len and the boys lifted Burke out of his seat.

  Charlie climbed up the ladder and offered me a hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Burke’s—’

  ‘I know.’

  I gazed around me. The dashboard was splintered and puckered with holes. There was blood all over my flying suit. Charlie stood above me, one hand outstretched. Everyone else was waiting.

  ‘I don’t think I can move,’ I whispered.

  Charlie called out to the men below. ‘He’s hit. I’ll need help.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t even hurt. It’s just …’

  ‘Come on, cobber,’ Charlie said gently. ‘Let’s get you back on the ground.’

  He and Len prised me out of there somehow. I don’t remember much about it. The ambulance took me off to the hospital, and I was back at the airfield the next morning.

  I was lucky, they said.

  I guess that’s true. Every week, sometimes more often, one of the planes would go missing. There’d be a space in the hangar, but no news. Later, a call would come through from a hospital or a nearby regiment or from HQ.

  ‘Plane wreckage located. No survivors.’

  Or: ‘Reports RE8 down over enemy lines.’

  Or worst of all, we saw it happen, as bullets tore off the wings or the petrol tank exploded or the plane went into a tail spin and fell out of the sky.

  Burke had been right. It was much easier to think about the machines, not the men.

  ‘No empty chairs.’ That was the motto. Empty chairs around the dinner table made us jumpy and morose. Not good for morale, old chap. Now there was a gap where Burke once sat.

  So nervous new lads arrived every few days to fill those chairs. As if we didn’t notice the changing faces. As if our own faces weren’t pale and sometimes twitchy. As if we didn’t know that our life expectancy here on the Western Front was eleven days.

  Eleven days. That’s how long most pilots lasted.

  Every day longer than that was a blessing—a freakish, beautiful blessing.

  After a month on the Front, I was a walking miracle.

  A limping miracle, really. Matilda was hammered by gunfire and needed a week or so in the workshop. Burke was buried in the cemetery behind the hospital. And I had a nasty bullet graze down my leg. Yes, I was lucky. This time.

  The Commander grounded me for a week. I could have asked for leave and scarpered off to Paris, but I didn’t want to leave all the work on Matilda to the other boys. Besides, making her right again, fixing the holes and replacing the damaged parts, working alongside Len and my other mates in the workshop, was exactly what I needed to do.

  I couldn’t bring Burke back. But I could make Matilda fly again.

  September, 1917

  7 Squadron,

  Royal Flying Corps

  Proven, Belgium

  Dear Sis,

  First up, I’m all right. Don’t worry. Second, I did get a little bit wounded but it’s nothing to worry about. I’m back on my feet already. Didn’t want you to find out from anyone else and fret. All is well. Got a hole in my good boots. That’s the worst of it.

  Thank you for all the birthday presents and the food parcel. Blimey! I’ll be the most popular fellow on the airfield. I’ll write to Ma in a mo and say thanks.

  Can’t say I celebrated turning twenty-one in style. I was tuckered out after a day in the air and sneaked off to bed as soon as the sun went down. The other chaps celebrated for me, judging by their sore heads the next morning. I dreamed of summer days—teaching Bertie to swim at Sandridge beach, and sitting on the sand eating fish and chips straight out of their newspaper wrappings. I seem to do nothing but sleep nowadays, while Charlie and the others do nothing but let off steam. Everyone reacts differently, I guess, to this new world we’re in.

  Just think, a few years ago most of us had never seen an aircraft. Now we live for them, live in them, and die in them too. Once they were things of wonder, now they are flying guns. Sorry to be morbid. But that’s how it is out here. We bury more blokes each week. Sometimes we never even know what happened to them—they simply never come home at the end of a run.

  We’re not like those fighter squadrons, though. They go looking for a scrap every day. They have these new machines, Sopwith Camels, that fly like bats out of hell. We are their slow, steady cousins. They come out to guard over us now, to keep the Hun off our tails, so we’re a lot safer. They get all the glory, but we don’t mind that. I don’t anyway. I don’t want medals or kills to my name. I just want to make it home in one piece.

  Soon.

  A

  Everyone in the whole world seemed to be shouting at one another. It was a war of words. The newspapers thundered about traitors and slackers. The Prime Minister said anyone who doubted him was a spy. The Mayor’s ban on street protests made everyone decide to protest about that, which made him even crankier. The unions argued with one another and so did the peace groups.

  It wasn’t just about the war any more. Everyone was sad and tired and grumpy. There wasn’t enough food. There wasn’t enough of anything. That winter it felt like Australia would explode. And then the railway workers in Sydney went on str
ike.

  It spread south quickly. The Victorian wharfies went on strike too, and then the miners. The workers in the soap factories in Port Melbourne—some of them younger than me—went out, and so did the timber stackers. With no ships being unloaded, other factories closed down. The match girls all got laid off and so did people who made lollies. (This upset Bertie no end.)

  Thousands of people suddenly had no money coming in. If they were struggling before, now they faced starvation.

  So the Women’s Peace Army decided to feed them all.

  Guild Hall turned into a food factory, sending parcels to people who needed them and dishing up hundreds of bowls of soup and stew every day. The hall was always full of people—women mostly—sorting and wrapping up food for people who were on strike or out of work. Dad and other men came when they could, and mended people’s boots or lugged around sacks of potatoes. Ma and I spent every morning there, and Flossie too on weekends.

  ‘We must be off,’ said Ma one day, picking up her gloves and basket. ‘We’re supposed to be rolling bandages at the Red Cross this afternoon.’

  Miss Goldstein smiled. ‘Thank you for coming along this morning,’ she said. She put one hand on Flossie’s head and stroked her curls. ‘All of you.’

  ‘The Red Cross?’ asked Adela, with a theatrical gasp. ‘How can you support the war effort?’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Ma. ‘But that’s no reason for people to bleed to death.’

  ‘Your time would be better spent here,’ said Adela.

  Ma’s eyes flashed dangerously. ‘I have a son in the firing line, Miss Pankhurst. I hate to think that one day he might need bandages and there wouldn’t be enough.’

  ‘Run along,’ said Miss Goldstein. She turned to Adela. ‘I’m sure Mrs Robinson can trust her own conscience on this.’

  Ma grabbed Flossie’s hand and flounced right out of the hall. Adela flounced in the other direction.

  Miss Goldstein winked at me. ‘War takes many forms, Maggie,’ she said. ‘And so does peace.’

  Flossie loved rolling bandages. Volunteering with the Red Cross was just like being at Guild Hall, with all the women sitting at long tables, heads bowed over their work, talking about this and that, laughing quietly every so often. Quite a few wore mourning clothes, while others proudly bore a badge pinned to their blouse: ‘Husband on active duty.’

  But they didn’t talk about politics. Not even Ma.

  ‘It’d only upset them,’ she said. ‘And most of those women have been through enough already.’

  By the time we got home that evening, Flossie was as droopy as a rag doll, and my feet hurt like blazes. It was hard work being on the Home Front. Bertie and Dad sat in the kitchen, warming their socks by the cooker.

  ‘Did you catch anything?’ Flossie asked.

  ‘Eels,’ said Bertie. ‘Great big yucky eels.’

  ‘Ew!’

  ‘I hope you’ve skinned them yourselves,’ said Ma. ‘I can’t face that tonight.’

  ‘We did,’ said Bertie.

  Dad raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I mean, Dad did,’ Bertie said. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘Squeamish,’ said Dad, with a grin. ‘Like his mother.’

  She kissed his cheek. ‘Only when it comes to eels,’ she said. ‘Now we’ll have to eat the blessed things, I suppose.’

  ‘Already in the smoker.’

  She kissed him again. ‘My hero.’

  ‘Hear that, children?’ said Dad. ‘No need for anyone to go to war. I am a hero for conquering half a dozen eels.’

  ‘I know which I’d rather,’ said Ma.

  ‘Are you going on strike, Dad? ’ asked Flossie. ‘Everyone else is.’

  ‘It seems not, love,’ said Dad. ‘The railways union here has voted to stay at work.’ He and Ma swapped glances. ‘For better or worse.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ said Flossie. ‘You should see the food parcels.’

  We went to Guild Hall every day to help with the strike relief. Sometimes we took Bertie, and he sat patiently counting out packets of tea. Ma didn’t trust him near the baked goods, she said, and the counting was good practice. He could only get up to thirty, then he had to start again.

  Miss Goldstein moved among the volunteers, carrying boxes, lugging baskets, giving everyone a smile or a pat on the shoulder, and brewing up enormous pots of tea.

  ‘Doesn’t she ever get tired?’ I asked Adela.

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘There you are, dear,’ said Miss Goldstein. She motioned to me. ‘Could you give Miss John a hand with the apples? I understand you are something of an expert.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, turning to Adela. ‘Are you coming to help?’

  ‘I have to go to a meeting,’ she whispered, ‘… elsewhere. With people much more interesting and much more radical. Do you want to come?’

  ‘I’d better do as she asked,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t always do what everyone else wants,’ she said.

  ‘What’s the difference?’ I asked, ‘between doing what you want and doing what she wants?’

  ‘I’m right,’ she said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Forget it,’ she said, and marched off. Honestly, had the whole country lost its temper?

  I tiptoed down the stairs to the basement. I was a little in awe of Cecilia John. She’d started the Peace Army with Miss Goldstein and went on delegations to Parliament and gave wonderful speeches. But more excitingly, she was an opera singer, and she’d appeared on stage with the Philharmonic, and always sang our anthem at the end of every meeting. I loved that part.

  Come, then, worn and weary,

  Come, then, stout and brave,

  Join this noble army,

  Sworn our land to save …

  That afternoon, Miss John was all by herself, sorting apples from wooden crates into small piles to be parcelled up.

  ‘Aha!’ she said when I got to the bottom step. ‘A child slave. Excellent.’

  ‘I thought the Women’s Peace Army opposed child labour?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ She flashed a wicked smile. ‘Except when we need it. But clearly you are old enough to hold your own, so I shan’t have to use the whip.’

  There were stacks of apple boxes all along one wall, and I recognised a name stencilled on some of them.

  ‘Were these all donated?’

  ‘Certainly were,’ she said. ‘Growers would rather share the contents of their cool rooms with us than with the war profiteers.’

  ‘I helped Mrs Bennett with her trees,’ I said.

  ‘Did you now?’

  ‘She’s struggling.’

  ‘And yet she shares her produce with those who are in greater need,’ said Miss John. ‘What a woman.’

  Indeed. I set to work.

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ said Miss John.

  The next week, the government brought in strike-breakers—schoolboys and farmers and men too old to enlist who were willing to do the work of the people on strike. Some of them, I’m sure, were men whose families were hungry. It was like declaring war on the strike. There were fights on the wharves, in the streets. The city seethed.

  So the Prime Minister called in his heavy artillery— the most famous person in Melbourne, and maybe even the world, Nellie Melba.

  The Greatest Singer Ever to Grace the Melbourne Stage supported the war effort from the beginning. She could, it was said, raise funds in an empty paddock. She sang, she talked and she waved her majestic hands, and donations appeared for the Benevolent Society war fund or the Red Cross. Nellie Melba was the soul of the city, named for her home town, and our ambassador on the world stage. And now she was supposed to help break the strike.

  It wasn’t the Prime Minister’s most brilliant idea. They decided to have Madame Melba sing to the strikebreakers, down on the wharves.

  ‘Is that the best they can do?’ asked Miss Goldstein. ‘People are starving, and they respond with an opera.’

  �
��I have a plan,’ said Miss John.

  The next day we all met at Station Pier. I hadn’t been there since the day we waved Alex goodbye. The pier would always be a sad memory for so many people. But that day it was the scene of a possible riot.

  We’d left the little ones with the neighbours, but I’d nagged Dad and Ma until they let me go with them. There were thousands of people there, many of them wharfies or people from the factories nearby who’d gone out on strike. There was a line of policemen, and on the other side, a crowd of men milling about a makeshift stage. Bunting flapped in the breeze, and seagulls circled and shrieked over our heads.

  A few men, I noticed, had chunks of wood in their fists. The police held their batons at the ready.

  Dad looked grim.

  ‘You two shouldn’t have come,’ he said. ‘This might turn nasty.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Ma.

  Dad pushed his sleeves back, as if he might have to fight someone.

  ‘I thought you were a pacifist,’ I said.

  He glanced down, put an arm around me, and squeezed me tight. ‘I am, sweetheart. But if anyone tries to hurt you or your mother …’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ said Ma.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Just wait.’

  The crowd of strike-breakers beyond the police line sent up a cheer. A fellow in a black coat made a speech and then Nellie Melba took the stage. I could just see her if I stood on my toes.

  ‘Friends!’ Miss Goldstein’s familiar voice rang out behind us. We swivelled round. She and Miss John stood on a cart, surrounded by women and children—families, I guessed, of the strikers.

  Behind us, Nellie Melba started singing.

  ‘Dear friends,’ cried Miss Goldstein. ‘The Prime Minister believes that music will win him votes or hearts or the war. Let us hope that music may also heal our sorrows.’

  Then Miss John started singing too.

  Once when a mother was asked would she send

  Her darling boy to fight,

  She just answered ‘NO’

  And I think you’ll admit she was right.