by Barry Heard
Slowly, strong mateship and good times were developing. Nicknames became the norm: we were now Snoggons, Knackers, Lopps, Macca, Stew, Grafter, Grunter, Beebop, Booster, and Chunder. My nickname of Turd was so entrenched that few in my hut would have known my first name. We started to do things together, getting to know each other’s idiosyncrasies and habits. This led to finely honed insults and accurate barbs that were all delivered with good humour. If ever a compliment was passed or received from a mate it always raised suspicion. On most afternoons, we would return to camp after training and sport, shower, have tea, and head for the boozer, or wet canteen as it was called.
I began to enjoy the odd ale. Considering we had a lot more spare time on our hands, there was little organised entertainment at Singleton. There were movies run in the army theatre, but the boozer was the hub of socialising and it had much more appeal. Bragging and tall stories became the norm. This was particularly so after the grenade-throwing exercise. That gave us plenty of hairy-chested macho bulldust to brag about, and the fact that we were all terrified at the time soon dissipated into a fog of alcohol. We drank in schools, and suddenly it would be your ‘shout’. Simple games of strength or agility would require the loser to buy a beer for the victor. I watched in amazement as blokes smoked through a nostril, put the cigarette in their mouth back to front, and blew smoke through the filter. Competitions like sculling beer became an initiation ritual.
We would look for any excuse to have fun whilst increasing our drinking prowess. However, at this stage in the army, none of us were seasoned drinkers; some may have been mild drinkers before they were called up, but they were the minority. The intensity of training and the lack of leave meant that even the most seasoned alcoholic would have had few opportunities for a beer over the previous few months. In fact, for most of our time at Puckapunyal, the wet canteen was out of bounds.
This night, Grunter and Knackers had just turned twenty-one years of age. Naturally, we headed for the boozer. Within forty-five minutes of the sculling session, we started to loosen up; soon things started to get out of hand. Grunter, a quiet, tall, unassuming ex-copper and Knackers, one of the most loveable larrikins you would ever meet, were sculling competitively. Agreeing to test their manhood, they both ventured outside — into the cold air. Wham: they were both legless. We followed them out. Double whammy: we were all legless. Knackers and Grunter each had a rubbish bin on their heads and were charging one another like freshly shorn rams. Lopps was taking bets on the side. Knackers had put in a couple of bone-rattling charges when the heavies arrived. That is, the sergeant and two corporals.
‘Grow up, girls. Git ya mates and form up.’
Somehow, they marched us back to our 22 Platoon lines as we giggled and sang happy birthday yet again. Then they stood around while we hit the fart sack, which is what the army called our beds. After the sensible sergeant and the kind corporals left, we lay there, impressed with the new wave of leniency we were now experiencing in the army. Even Chunder, a whingeing ex-Pom commented, ‘Not bad, eh? Bloody sight different from recruit training. Blokes should be able to let their hair down occasionally; it’s the Aussie way, you know.’
Booster reckoned it was 3.00am. Ditzy, totally browned off because he had had nothing to do with the evening’s earlier celebrations, said it was 4.30am when, from outside our hut, the call came, ‘On parade, 22 Platoon, now.’
There we were, very early the next morning, lined up in three ranks, the whole platoon. The sergeant and the three corporals were in charge. The bastards. We went for a small jog in the predawn, two miles in fact. By 6.00am we had returned to our hut, and were showered and sitting on our beds, copping abuse from those who hadn’t taken part in last night’s party. It was the first headache I ever had that felt like my brain was on fire. It was still very early, and we had an hour-and-a-half’s wait until breakfast. At 6.30am, there was another call:
‘On parade, 22 Platoon. Black belt and gaiters.’
Our platoon corporal was outside the hut. It was our normal early-morning callout, where we were told what to wear and what to bring. This would vary: it could be battle dress; PT gear, summer dress; or parade dress and black belt and gaiters, which was the most common. This morning it was ‘Black belt and gaiters.’ Snoggons had an idea that sounded good to the rest of us. We put on our black belts and gaiters, rushed outside, and formed up ready for a short arms inspection. It went well. So well, in fact, that Lopps had his movie camera record the entire event through a window in the hut. The corporal didn’t bat an eyelid, and we admired him for that. Fortunately, it wasn’t too cold. Then, nodding his approval at our professional attitude, and with not a hint of amusement, he remarked coolly:
‘Well done, those men. 22 Platoon, dismissed.’
We turned, our little pink bums shining in the early-morning sun, snapped our heels together, and marched off, bare footed, to a warm round of applause; totally naked except for our black belts and gaiters, and still three-quarters primed from the night before. The whole episode was recorded on film.
During infantry training our instructors were stern and professional, and gained our respect. The officers were strict, but their demands made sense. It was strange, I kept waiting for insults or abuse, but they seemed good men. We had few hut inspections. By now there was no need anyhow, as our recruit training had instilled in us permanent neatness and army order. Only a short period of months had been needed to bring about this habit of punctuality, good grooming, and perfection into our personal life. The hut was always clean whilst the lockers were laid out with precision and perfectly folded garments. Beds were always made. Nothing would be out of place.
As mentioned, the army at Singleton encouraged sport. Every afternoon and most weekends were taken up with Aussie Rules football, track athletics, and cross-country running. I enjoyed the footy. Our team was awesome; it was fast, with an emphasis on teamwork and skill. However, it contained not only interstate blokes who played the code, but also some outstanding footballers. Some were from the VFL, WAFL, and SAFL. The first time we played the RAAF at Richmond we won by 46 goals. After the game, on the Saturday night we headed for a pub at Maitland, where the owner put on tucker and nibbles for the team. Several of the blokes were accomplished musicians, and one bloke, Blou, became a regular on stage with his guitar and country-and-western singing. Then, from the pub, we went to the town hall ‘to check out the talent’, and danced the night away. There was only one dance: the Town Hall Crawl. It was so cool. You held your partner as in the foxtrot position, moved your right foot to the side, and moved the left foot up to it. That was it. After taking five years to learn ballroom dancing, I mastered this in four minutes. It was great fun. The locals welcomed us with open arms, and the girls seemed besotted with the uniform. Families invited soldiers into their homes. House parties were quite common. It was all good, clean, honest fun. Over the months, several steady relationships were formed that led to marriages.
Compared to recruit training at Puckapunyal you might think Singleton sounded like a holiday camp. In fact, much of our training time was spent in the bush. Within days of arriving at Singleton we were out on our first overnight camp. Back in base the next day, we were told our next outing would be longer. In preparation, we were marched down to the main instruction room and were given a lecture on contacts:
• When under fire, move the machine gun right or go to the high ground.
• Details and rules for ambush formations.
• Hand signals, and ways of communicating without noise.
Piquet training meant we had to have someone on lookout every hour of the night. From that day on, gone was a good night’s sleep; four hours without interruption would now be the norm. It started to dawn on us that we were expected to be soldiers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It sounded daunting. It was a typical, clear, concise address in this large pavilion that held several hundred men. Along with the talks were slides and a brief movie. As usual, at the end of th
is informative session the instructor asked, ‘Any questions?’
And, just as usual, no one asked anything. It was a hidden rule, pumped into us by the army philosophy, ‘Don’t ask questions. You’re not paid to.’
After the lecture, Sergeant Golly marched our platoon back to our lines for final preparations prior to our boarding the trucks and heading bush. Outside our hut was our first issue of gear to be worn in the scrub. There was lots of new green American webbing. Knackers, impressed by the tangled green straps, pouches, and so on, paused for a moment, then said, ‘Excuse me, Sergeant. How do we put on the webbing?’
Sergeant Golly went pale. He scuffed the ground with his boots, scratched his arse, bit his bottom lip, and said, ‘Just pick the fuck’n stuff up and put it on your fuck’n back.’
Great. No help whatsoever, but something deeper had just occurred. We decided later, in the hut, that it was the first question Golly had ever been asked in his army career. The poor bastard was still shaky the next day. Out of respect, and because he was a top bloke, we decided we would never ask the sergeant a question again. We sorted out the Yank webbing, hopped into the waiting army trucks, and headed bush.
Somehow, the army manages to acquire land that could be best described as the poorest country you will ever see. Puckapunyal was a barren-looking, harsh environment with a few stray sheep and countless kangaroos. All these animals were in poor condition. The soil looked sour, there was a shortage of grass, little shade, and a cold wind seemed to blow constantly. But the area for our training around Singleton was even worse than Puckapunyal. There were some straggly looking trees like sheoaks trying to survive. The soil was a combination of loose shale and dirty, red, dusty sand. In the odd clump of grass the ticks were a menace. There appeared to be no wildlife or domestic animals. They would have found it hard to survive anyway.
We had to camp, cook, play soldiers, and put up with ticks and every biting insect known to man. As well, we now had a grumpy Sergeant Golly, who didn’t want to forgive us in a hurry for asking that question, which had caused his blood pressure to rise and his heart to have its first minor stoppage. No doubt his libido also disappeared for at least a week. Bad one, Knackers.
Trucks took us to an area of light scraggly bush where we were soon patrolling and being taught basic infantry tactics. For the first time we used rations, learned to put up a hoochie or one-man tent, and tackled the difficulty of organising our gear. Platoons were divided up into three sections of roughly ten men each. Each had a section leader, usually a corporal and a forward scout, machine gunner, and riflemen. We practised simple ambush positions and manoeuvres at night. For the first time since being in the army, I found I possessed some useful skills. It showed just how much I had benefited from growing up in the country. Walking through the bush and quickly surveying the path ahead were second nature to me. At home, snakes were always about, and your aim was not to step on one. It also meant you looked for a place to put your foot as you moved on. But here, in the bush out from Singleton, blokes continually tripped and became tangled in the growth.
However, the biggest problem for all of us was trying to remain vertical on rough ground with a considerable weight on our backs. Loose, light, round pebbles or rocks caused many a fall. Each backpack was equivalent to a bag of cement. Apart from short breaks, we plodded continually all day with an odd order screaming at us to form right, or contact left, simulating an enemy sighting or attack. As a result, most evenings we were not only exhausted, but also had painful rashes and welts on our shoulders and lower back from the new packs and webbing. Our hips developed bruises and small burn-like sweat pimples that were very tender to touch. But there was no time to lie back, relax, or enjoy a rest. Hoochies, cooking, a cleared area for a nap, and cleaning our gear had to be organised.
Cooking rations was interesting. There were no instructions, and most of us had never cooked proper food at home, let alone bloody rations. A ration pack had the bare food essentials for one day. It came in an airtight plastic bag with a letter stamped on top. A, B, C, or D each represented a slight variation on the contents. Each pack contained a small roll of toilet paper and an ingenious, tiny can-opener that doubled as a spoon. Then there were two small biscuits wrapped in very suspicious-looking Second World War brown-coloured packaging. They were so hard that they had to be soaked for ten minutes before they could be eaten. Their smell reminded me of the men’s toilets at the old Benambra footy ground back home. One small cereal block, the size of a Tim Tam, resembled and tasted like a solidified block of dog turd. A packet of soup that could have doubled up as a washing detergent was included with the smallest tin of sausages, spam, bully beef, or a sort of egg omelette that tasted like canary droppings. That was all we had to eat: one very small tin per day. Great. It was like being on a bloody diet. Common ingredients in every pack were coffee, tea, sugar, a very small tin of cheese, tubes of jam and milk, and a packet of rice.
All our cooking was done in the mug that hung on our webbing belt inside a water-bottle pouch. The can opener was the only utensil required with the entire pack. Most grunts hung this tiny opener around their necks, along with their dog tags. But the rations: we were horrified. Who in their right mind would eat this garbage? Stuff the army. We decided to go without.
This lasted for a few days, until near starvation forced us to use a bit of imagination. After many disasters, we discovered that a decent stew could be knocked up once a day. Rice, nowadays one of my favourite foods, was the base for most meals. It was initially undercooked, burnt, and fried to the bottom of the mug, and all of the above was blamed on the Chinese. Once mastered, a tube of milk added to the boiled rice with a small squirt of jam was a luxury. But after the mindless repetition of a hard day tramping into nowhere, the best part of the ration pack was the coffee or tea. A quick cuppa could be knocked up on the tiny hexamine stove in minutes.
Initially, we had to carry two days’ rations on our backs, then three. Each ration pack was quite heavy, and three days’ worth was the maximum we were able to have on our backs. We were very soft, as few blokes had come from careers or work that required lugging heavy weights. Our fitness levels increased, and we started to harden up, but a backache every night was common. We were becoming acclimatised to sleep deprivation with only brief catnaps through the night because of the time on watch called piquet. We didn’t talk unless it was necessary. There was no time for socialising; hence nods, signs, and subtle indicators took the place of langauge. Hand signals were used to convey a lot of messages down the sections or platoon.
At daybreak every morning we would have a quick brew, shave, relieve our mates on piquet, then pack up and be ready to move within twenty minutes. Caring for our feet became a priority. I was lucky. Most of my working life I had worn heavy boots. But some blokes had terrible blisters, and were in pain whenever they were on their feet. We learned to keep our feet clean and dry, take some fungus powder if necessary, and carry plenty of socks. The embarrassment of no toilets and no privacy was new to some. It was quickly overcome; matters that were more serious occupied our minds. You grabbed every minute of sleep you could; and if your mate was on an early piquet, you took him out a brew, followed by his meal. Sleep, or the lack of it, was the hardest challenge to adjust to. Somehow, we got used to sleeping on hard ground, although the hip-hole, a small scrape to put your hip in, made sleeping a lot easier. But being woken in the middle of the night and being told ‘it’s your turn on piquet’ was the last thing you wanted to hear. Then, once on piquet, came the boredom of staring into nothing and fighting off the temptation to doze off. Being found asleep on piquet was a chargeable offence. In the army, that meant you were in trouble, well and truly.
At daybreak each morning, once packed up and on the move, strong, large men like Booster, Snoggons, Chunder, and Grunter did more than their share, and relieved the burden on the smaller blokes. Just as important were characters like Stacka or Knackers who saw a laugh in everything, and in low voi
ces kept our spirits up when we reached the point of exhaustion. Snoggons, in particular, was very adept at mimicking the sergeant. Teamwork, a powerful part of the survival and effectiveness of the infantry, was developing without us even being aware of it. As well, strong bonds of mateship, stronger than we ever imagined, were being forged.
After several weeks of bush training we returned to Singleton, and suddenly we had our first leave. It was from Friday night to Sunday night. We had been at 3TB for four weeks. Melbourne, here we come. The fact that it would take twenty hours to drive there and back in the VW was not a worry, just a challenge, and bloody stupid. A quick shower, a signed leave pass, and the five of us — Booster, Beebop, Blou, Knackers, and myself — jammed into the little German VW, deciding we would take it in turns to drive. In the middle of the night, just before Albury, we stopped at a roadhouse for a drink and a hot pie. The owner, who’d obviously been having a quick snooze, staggered out to the counter and said the pies would take twenty minutes in a hot oven to warm up, and so we decided to wait. He disappeared out the back. Knackers, always the gang leader, helped himself to some Minties. They disappeared down his shirtfront. I grabbed some Fantails, Blou pocketed some Jaffas, and Booster grabbed a packet of Columbines. Then, to our surprise, Beebop, whilst humming a deep and meaningful Bob Dylan tune, flogged several Polly Waffles. Beebop’s desired reputation of being a puritan and ‘far out’ or ‘with it, and a hug a day’ didn’t extend to shop owners. They were capitalist pigs, or that was his excuse. To be honest, most of the time I didn’t know what his comments meant.