Kal

by Judy Nunn

  Godfrey Brigstock and Paul Dunleavy were taking afternoon tea at the Ritz Hotel in London with Laverton and his daughter-in-law. When the three men had concluded their business meeting in the boardroom of Lord Lionel’s offices in Piccadilly, Godfrey had suggested they adjourn to his club, but Lord Lionel wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘I am to meet Prudence for tea,’ he’d said. ‘You must join us.’

  No one refused Lord Lionel and so Godfrey Brigstock found himself sipping Darjeeling in the intricate elegance of the Ritz tea lounge when he’d far rather have been swigging on a large gin and bitters in the comfortably masculine surrounds of his club.

  Lord Lionel was fully aware of Godfrey’s irritation and didn’t care one whit. Lord Lionel himself regularly enjoyed a good cognac and cigar in the comfort of his Mayfair club and in the company of his fellow members, all men of the old school, but never before seven of an evening. Four o’clock in the afternoon was far too early for a respectable man to be seen drinking alcohol in public. Furthermore, he wouldn’t be caught dead in Brigstock’s Knightsbridge club which catered to dandies and poseurs. In Lord Lionel’s opinion, Godfrey Brigstock was not only a dipsomaniac, he was a fop.

  ‘Mind you, Kaiser Bill’s all talk,’ Lord Lionel continued, ‘he’s been blustering for years. Why, he all but threatened war on Britain when he proposed a German protectorate in the Transvaal. Well Britain won’t turn a blind eye much longer, I tell you.’

  Paul Dunleavy well recalled the South African crisis, he’d been working in Rhodesia at the time, but he didn’t join in the conversation. No one did when the old man was ranting. Paul watched the others instead, fully aware of Godfrey’s discomfort—he was certainly an alcoholic—and Prudence’s boredom. Lionel Laverton was a monster, he thought, but one had to respect the old boy. He was in his mid-eighties and yet his mind was as sharp as a tack. He was a little deaf and his hair was white but he walked briskly, without the aid of a stick, and seemed in fine fettle for a man of his years.

  ‘Now, with Austria all out to attack Serbia, Germany extending her control over the Turkish army, and Russia seeking a Balkan alliance, all hell’s about to break loose.’ The old man was really warming up. ‘They’re talking war every one of them, but that’s all they’re doing. Talking. Britain won’t talk I tell you. She won’t desert France, whatever the wretched Kaiser threatens. There’ll be no “mailed fist” from this side of the Channel.’ He smashed his own fist so hard on the table that the Royal Doulton rattled alarmingly and people seated nearby cast glances in his direction, but there was no stopping him now. ‘The Kaiser won’t know what hit him, mark my words. It’ll be war I tell you. Global war!’

  Paul stopped himself saying that America would certainly not involve herself in a European war, so it could hardly be global. It was never a good idea to disagree with the old man.

  Paul was becoming bored with the talk of war. It was a pity the turmoil in Europe was going to involve Britain, he’d so enjoyed his stay in London, as he always did. The sooner he got back to Boston the better, he thought.

  ‘There, there, Daddy, don’t upset yourself.’ It was Prudence, patting her father-in-law’s hand. She couldn’t really care less whether the old man upset himself but she wished he wouldn’t do it in public, everyone in the lounge was staring.

  ‘Yes, you’re quite right, my dear, quite right.’ Lord Lionel had had his say and was content to let Prudence think she’d calmed him. ‘No point in getting all worked up over the inevitable, is there?’ He rose abruptly from the table. ‘Come along. Time we were leaving.’

  Prudence could see the waiter approaching with the tea. The old man had forgotten that he’d asked her to order a fresh pot; his short-term memory was becoming more and more erratic lately.

  ‘The tea, Daddy,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Ah yes. Don’t feel like it now. Come along, m’dear.’ And to her utter humiliation, they left without paying the bill. Prudence didn’t quite have the nerve to remind him the tea had been at his invitation. One reminder of a memory loss was acceptable, two irritated him. But was it a memory loss? she wondered. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

  ‘Put it on my bill,’ Paul said when, seconds later, Godfrey fled for a cab to Knightsbridge, ‘and bring me an afternoon paper.’ He drank three more cups of Darjeeling and read the Daily Telegraph.

  ‘PAA-EEP-ER! PAPER!’ THE newsboy chanted on the corner of Regent Street and Piccadilly. ‘Archduke murdered, read all about it!’

  Paul shoved a shilling in the boy’s hand and didn’t wait for the change. It was lunch time on the 28th of June, 1914, and the afternoon tabloids had just hit the stands. He looked at the headlines as he walked down Piccadilly. ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND AND WIFE SOFIA SHOT DEAD AT SARAJEVO.

  ‘My God,’ he said out loud.

  Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to Francis Joseph, was murdered by Slav nationalists with the aid of a Serbian secret society known as the Black Hand. And it had happened that very morning. At eleven o’clock. Ten o’clock Greenwich Mean Time. Less than three days after their tea at the Ritz. The old man had been right.

  WHEN THE AUSTRALIAN newspapers announced the murder of Franz Ferdinand, conjecture of a war in Europe was rife. Many were disinterested and said it could hardly affect Australia. Others said that if Britain entered the war, the Commonwealth countries would be called upon as allies. ‘Why should Britain declare war?’ was the reply. ‘What does Britain care about Serbia?’

  But, a month later, when Germany issued an ultimatum to France giving her eighteen hours to declare her neutrality in a Russo-German war, it was obvious to all that Britain’s involvement would be total. And, on the 2nd of August, when Belgium refused Germany free passage for her troops, the die was cast.

  Two days later Germany invaded Belgium and, on that same day, the 4th of August, at 10.00 pm Greenwich Mean Time, Britain was at war.

  In Kalgoorlie, wagers were placed as to when Australia would enter the fray. It was only a matter of time, they said. Excitement was in the air. Many on the goldfields wanted to go to war. The world price of gold was down, the big mines were in trouble and miners were being laid off by the dozen. A war was just what they needed. A man could sign up. He could join the army and see the world.

  THERE WAS CHAOS at Kalgoorlie railway station as the special Perth-bound train prepared to leave. Hundreds of people crowded the platform. Somewhere in the street a military band played. There was always a military band playing these days. The lads were going to war. Mothers hugged sons, wives clung to husbands and lovers exchanged hungry kisses. Hampers of food and bottles of beer were thrust at the departing heroes by people they’d never met. The whole town, it seemed, had turned up to wish the boys of the 11th Battalion godspeed.

  The recruiting office in Kalgoorlie had been besieged by volunteers from the moment it had opened its doors. Not just the boys from Boulder and Kal but from towns much further afield. Workers from the construction camps of the Transcontinental Railway had downed tools and caught the first westward-bound train when they’d heard that recruiting had started in Kal. Amongst them were the three husky Brereton brothers, Tom and Ben and Bill.

  Many lied about their ages in a desperate bid to be accepted by the army. Some succeeded, some didn’t. Rico and Teresa’s thirteen-year-old son, Salvatore Gianni, was laughed at—‘Come back for the next war,’ the officer told him—but forty-year-old Tony Prendergast was not. Like all the men of the goldfields, he was a fine physical specimen and, like many, quick of wit—‘The sun withers the skin out here, man,’ he’d answered immediately when the officer from Perth said he looked older than his thirty-four years.

  At the railway station, Tony Prendergast promised young Freddie’s mother he’d look after her boy—Freddie was twenty-eight now but, simple as ever, he was still ‘young Freddie’ to all.

  Jack Brearley and Enrico Gianni were typical of the stream of volunteers who queued outside the recruiting office. Nineteen years of age, fit, eager
to join the army and excited at the prospect of fighting a war on the other side of the world.

  ‘GIANNI, IS IT?’ the recruiting officer asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. Rick Gianni.’

  ‘Born here?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Enrico lied. ‘My Dad’s Italian.’ Enrico ‘Rick’ Gianni had decided that he was as Australian as the next man and he was going to fight alongside other Australians in the 11th Infantry Battalion of the 1st Australian Division.

  At the railway station, Jack Brearley was too delirious with excitement to worry about the two girls who’d come to see him off. He’d been sleeping with both of them and neither knew of the other’s existence. Who cared? He was going to fight a war.

  Solange was not there to see Enrico off. She had returned to France six weeks earlier. ‘You’d be much safer in Kal,’ he’d argued, but she wouldn’t listen. ‘Who cares for safety?’ she’d shrugged. ‘If there is to be a war I must be with my family.’ They’d made love, and she’d kissed him tenderly and told him that she would always love him.

  Enrico pined when Solange left. Not a day went by when he didn’t think of her. But, on the railway platform, as he hugged his mother and Giovanni and Kate—his father was not present, Rico thought his son a fool to fight for a country which was not his by birth—Enrico too was imbued with the excitement of it all.

  The train journey to Perth was extraordinary. A party all the way. At every station they passed, cheering crowds of well-wishers were gathered and, at every stop the train made, the boys were plied with yet more beer and wine and whisky and food.

  They were in fine spirits when they tumbled out of the train at Bellevue Station and, during the march to Blackboy Hill Training Camp just outside Perth, there was much ribaldry directed at the uniformed officers. But it was good-humoured and the officers accepted it. They knew that a certain amount of larrikinism was to be expected from the boys from the bush.

  Blackboy Hill Camp was a camp in name only and the men arrived to nothing but gum trees and scrub. Orders were issued to draw tents for shelters and, when they’d pitched camp, details were allotted.

  It was Tony Prendergast who scored the cook’s detail and he elected young Freddie as his assistant but, when the steaming cauldrons were lifted from the fire, the contents were found to be inedible.

  ‘What the bloody hell’s this?’ Jack Brearley demanded as, squatted on the ground outside their tents, dixies in hand, a gathering of twenty or so men dug their bread into the brown gruel.

  ‘Stew, boyo, what do you think it is?’

  Rick Gianni was seated beside Tony Prendergast. ‘Never hire a Welshman to do an Italian’s job,’ he muttered and pretended to choke on the food.

  The surrounding Aussie bushmen and miners and shearers and railway workers took up the joke. ‘Cripes, it’s enough to make a man spew,’ Tom Brereton said, feigning a noisy vomit.

  ‘I’ve been bloody poisoned,’ his brother Bill moaned, holding his stomach and rolling on the ground.

  ‘You’ve killed us, mate.’ Ben Brereton clutched his throat and gagged. ‘You’ve bloody killed us!’ Soon, every man present was groaning and retching and choking.

  ‘I like it,’ young Freddie said, but nobody heard him above the din so he just kept eating.

  ‘Hey, Lieutenant,’ Jack Brearley stood and called to the adjutant who was checking the supply tent fifty yards away, ‘I’m going into town for some decent tucker,’ and he swaggered off in the direction of Perth, the Brereton brothers immediately joining him. The other men, including Tony Prendergast, fell in behind and Freddie, who wasn’t really hungry any more but who didn’t want to be left out of the fun, joined up the rear.

  The lieutenant didn’t stop them. These were early days, there was plenty of time for discipline. He’d have to watch young Jack Brearley, he thought, you didn’t want a troublemaker in your midst, but they were a hardy bunch these outback boys. They’d make good soldiers.

  It wasn’t long before training at Blackboy Hill started in earnest. Drafts arrived from all over the State and the men were formed up into the eight companies which were to constitute the 11th Battalion. Of the twelve infantry battalions in the 1st Australian Division, the 11th was the battalion from the western State and, as far as possible, each of the eight companies within it was composed of men from the same portion of the State. The boys from the goldfields and surrounding areas were therefore destined to remain together through the thick and the thin of it all, which suited them just fine.

  An undeclared truce existed between Jack Brearley and Rick Gianni. They made sure they were not allotted the same tent or allocated fatigues and duties together, but friction inevitably occurred. Particularly as, in their own way, they were both popular with the men. Jack invariably led the way into town and the pub, closely followed by his mates the Brereton brothers. But, around the campfire, it was Rick who won the votes. With his battered old concertina he led the singalongs, just as his uncle Giovanni had done each childhood Sunday he could remember. But, unlike Giovanni, the songs Rick played were not Italian. Rick Gianni had quickly taught himself each of the men’s choices and played every one of them upon request, sometimes over and over if they happened to be a common favourite. ‘Bound for Botany Bay’ was a popular one and ‘Click go the Shears Boys’ for the shearers. But there was always the Scot who wanted ‘Ain Folk’ or the Irishman who demanded ‘Rose of Tralee’. Rick knew them all. The general favourite though, was the parody of the popular song ‘I’d Love to Live in Loveland’.

  ‘I’d love to live in Blackboy for a week or two,

  And work all day and get no pay,

  And live on Irish stew.’

  Men from the other companies would gradually gather around the goldfields contingent and the rousing chorus would be sung again and again.

  Jack kept his peace, but he didn’t much like the singalongs, he didn’t like being witness to Rick Gianni’s popularity. As the weeks went by, more and more often he inveigled the Brereton brothers to join him on a walk to town and a session at the pub rather than a singalong with the others. The brothers joined him because they were not musical and Jack was a good bloke and, furthermore, no Brereton ever knocked back the prospect of a hearty drinking session.

  Late one Saturday night when they returned to camp, the brothers were happily drunk as usual, but Jack had got into the rum and was feeling aggressive. It annoyed him to see Rick Gianni still holding court. The beer the boys had laid on for the Saturday singalong had long since disappeared but still there were ten or so diehards demanding Rick play them just one more song.

  ‘I don’t know any more,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve played them all a dozen times, I don’t know any more. Honest.’

  ‘Play us one of yours then.’ It was Tony Prendergast. ‘Sing us one of your songs, Rick.’

  ‘Yeah. Sing them a dago song, Enrico.’ All eyes turned to the shadowy figure of Jack Brearley standing just beyond the glow of the campfire, the Brereton brothers behind him. It was Jack’s tone which had caught the men’s attention, not his words. ‘Dago’, ‘wog’, ‘mick’, they were all terms used in the camp, but they were used with affection, just as ‘you silly bugger’ and ‘you clever bastard’ were. It was Aussie humour. But there was nothing humorous in Jack’s tone and the men knew it.

  ‘What are you calling him Rick for anyway, Tony, his name’s Enrico and you know it.’ Jack swayed slightly as he stepped forward into the light of the campfire. He was very drunk. ‘He’s a bloody dago and he doesn’t belong here.’

  Tony was a good ten years older than most of the men, twenty years older than many and, although they called him ‘the old man’ or ‘the old bugger’, he was well respected.

  ‘Rick belongs here as much as you do, Jack. He’s here for the same reason we all are.’ Tony rose to his feet.

  ‘He’s a dago and he should go back to his own bloody country.’ Jack turned to the Brereton brothers for support. ‘His bloody name’s Enrico, he’s a blood
y dago.’

  Tom and Ben and Bill looked at each other, a little confused.

  ‘So what?’ Bill asked. The brothers were full of beer and camaraderie and couldn’t understand Jack’s aggression.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, mate?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Hey, Rick,’ Tom, the older of the brothers, called, ‘sing us a dago song, I’m bloody sick of “Click go the Shears”.’

  The men around the dying campfire cheered and urged Rick on. He picked up the old concertina.

  ‘O sole mio …’

  The brothers squatted by the fire with the other men and all attention was turned to Rick.

  Tony took Jack aside. ‘You’re drunk, Jack,’ he said. ‘Go to bed and sleep it off. But sleep off more than the rum, boyo.’ He could smell the cheap dark rum a mile off. ‘Sleep off your family feuds—they don’t belong here.’ Tony didn’t know, and didn’t care to know, the background between the Brearleys and the Giannis, but their hatred for one another was common knowledge in Kalgoorlie.

  The rum was turning to bile, Jack could feel it. He didn’t know why he’d got onto the bloody stuff, he didn’t even like the taste. He should have stuck to beer, but he’d wanted to get drunk. He wished Tony would stop lecturing him. Jesus Christ, his own father didn’t lecture him like this.

  ‘I’m serious, man,’ Tony continued, ‘personal hatreds won’t win you any friends in the army, you can bet on that.’

  ‘Sure, Tony, sure.’ Jack started to back off. If he was going to be sick there was no way he was going to do it in public. ‘I’ll sleep it off. Night.’

  Tony knew Jack was trying to escape him. The boy was going green around the gills, and was probably going to be sick. At least then he’d feel better in the morning. Not that he’d learn of course. Headstrong boys like Jack rarely did. But he wasn’t a bad lad at heart and he had qualities which could serve him well in the army. He was a leader, and fearless. All he had to do was grow up.