Nightingale

by Fiona McIntosh

  Jamie was one of the first to raise his head over the lip of the parapet. Weeks of keeping their heads low at all times made him feel tentative, but when no bullets came spitting back, he grew bolder and scrambled up the slippery wall until he stood at the edge of the trench that had been his home for more than a month now.

  Red Cross flags marked out the centre line. Opposite, no more than a dozen strides away, stood the Turks in a variety of uniforms, from olive green through to one presumably important person wearing sapphire with gold braiding. They were short, stocky men by comparison to his compatriots – even Spud might have stood taller than most of them – but they stood proud, bearing red crescents on armbands, and made his contingent look positively scruffy in their shirtsleeves, some even stripped down to singlets. He sighed out the breath he’d been holding and without fully registering that he was doing so, he lifted a hand in salutation to one of them.

  The man on the other side of the line who noticed smiled and followed suit. Other men scrambled up beside Jamie and also began hailing the opposing force like friends. The feeling was genuinely mutual despite the obvious air of suspicion. He heard a familiar sound of flute music, and turned keenly to see a young man in the distance. In delighted response, he slipped out his harmonica and played a brief riff. The young man turned instantly and they both waved, grinning helplessly.

  Jamie’s staff officer was now speaking through a cloth loud-hailer. ‘Parties of stretcher-bearers will run our dead back. You boys work quickly. Concentrate on the men first. Weapons later. Remember, if you see any dog tags, ensure you place them in their pockets or reattach them if possible. Record every name anyway. This will be vital in getting the right information to the grieving families.’

  Jamie looked around, noting that the Turks were as inquisitive about their enemy as he was of them. He noted a single man, standing apart, wearing a different uniform of charcoal grey with polished long black boots. German, he reckoned. The man stared back at their side of the white flags expressionlessly and made no move to join any of his comrades finally beginning to shift towards their dead.

  Jamie pulled out his handkerchief and tied it around his face. Some men were now predictably retching but he had been around enough dead sheep to withstand the dense and hideously sweet smell of putrefaction. As he moved closer to the bodies strewn about the few hundred yards they’d all been fighting over, the smell intensified and became cloying, permeating their hair, their clothes, even their skin, to ensure they never forgot this sight or the sacrifice that had been made.

  The sounds of men sickening escalated and the horror of their war settled with a great weight of collective sorrow in the pits of their bellies. The trails of dark stains behind some of the corpses were testimony to the efforts of the wounded men who had tried to crawl back to the safety of their trench before dying.

  No one was observing the order for speed. It was as though some unspoken new instruction came through to not begin work immediately but to take a deep breath instead. Men began to reach for cigarettes and matches. A smoke would calm the nausea, help disperse the thick smell of death gathering in their throats and settle the daunting feeling of what was ahead. Jamie was not a regular smoker but he kept cigarettes on him because Spud ran out so fast. Now, though, he wanted to smell the tobacco and taste its bitter burn. He’d cough and feel light-headed but even that wouldn’t matter if he could just chase the taste of death from his mouth.

  ‘Hello, Aussie,’ someone said and he turned to see a Turkish soldier inches from the demarcation line, pearly teeth glittering as his mouth stretched a bright smile across his swarthy complexion. He was the young musician Jamie had spotted earlier.

  ‘Smoke?’ Jamie offered, making the gesture of thumb and forefinger moving to and from his lips.

  The young man laughed. ‘I speak your English.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I also like your music.’ He gestured playing a mouth organ. ‘You make the wind harp talk. Last night I heard you play and I was sure your breath was speaking to a woman.’

  He baulked, shocked by his companion’s perceptiveness. ‘I’m Jamie,’ he said, pointing a finger to his chest.

  ‘My name is Shahin.’ He bowed his head slightly, hand on heart. ‘It means hawk and I am proud to meet you.’

  Jamie blinked at the disarming respect. He reached out a hand. ‘G’day, Sher . . .?’

  The Turk gripped his hand and as Jamie looked down he realised his skin had bronzed to a similar colour as his companion’s. They could be brothers.

  ‘Shahin,’ his companion pronounced again, slowly this time. ‘Açar Shahin.’

  ‘Shahin,’ Jamie repeated and his friend beamed, nodding. ‘I’m Jamie Wren. It means, er, wren.’ He laughed at how ridiculous he sounded. ‘You know, the bird.’

  ‘I know bird. I even know wren. Hawks can kill wrens,’ he teased.

  ‘Not this one,’ Jamie assured but he could tell his new friend had not meant to offend, especially as he bent and then arched his back in huge amusement. ‘Smoke? They’re good.’

  The young man stared entranced at the small packet. ‘I will keep your cigarette as a gift.’

  ‘Then take two. Smoke one, keep one,’ Jamie insisted.

  Shahin’s eyes widened. ‘Thank you, James Wren. I knew I would like you from your music but I like you even more now.’

  Jamie smiled at Shahin’s formal manner. The momentousness of this hard-to-imagine truce after such cruel and vicious fighting began to tingle through his body as though forcing him to mark it. It would never come again, he was sure, and only the men experiencing this intimacy with the enemy would ever know this extraordinary sense of sharing and camaraderie. He presumed everyone else in his burial party was acknowledging a similar sense of the unreal as men leaned on shovels or shifted their weight to a relaxed stance and shared smokes and soft, sad laughter with their opposites. Some exchanged their gum-wounding hard biscuit for tough brown bread and tried on each other’s hats. Language did not seem to be a barrier.

  ‘Do they all speak English?’ he asked Shahin with surprise.

  The Turk shook his head. ‘These are shepherds and farmers, all brave soldiers but uneducated. War needs no language. Neither does peace and friendship,’ he said, echoing Jamie’s thoughts as he likened this man’s dark eyes to the black tourmaline he’d seen dug up and polished from the Flinders Ranges around where he had lived. Had lived. Would he see it again? Would he ever show Claire?

  ‘Where do you come from?’ he asked, keen to mask the needle of pain which that thought had provoked.

  ‘I come from Istanbul.’

  ‘I’ve seen some photographs of the city.’

  ‘Exotic for Aussies, yes?’

  ‘Yeah, those . . .’ and he began to draw the shape of a building in the air with his hands. ‘I don’t know what you call them.’

  ‘They are mosques, James Wren. We call that shape you refer to as minare. Minaret in your language, I believe.’

  ‘Is it a church?’

  Shahin smiled again as he dragged back on his cigarette. ‘A place of prayer and promise,’ he qualified.

  ‘And you do it all day long, I hear?’

  He looked back at Jamie, amused. ‘Just five times. It is not hard to do so.’

  ‘In the trench?’ Jamie asked, intrigued.

  ‘Yes, in the trench. Allah does not stop listening just because we kneel below ground or because we are at war.’

  ‘Why are we at war?’

  This caught his companion’s attention. He blinked, fixed Jamie with a dark stare, his Australian cigarette halfway to his mouth. ‘I ask this question of myself each day. Because our countries have been coerced to support bigger, powerful countries that want to rule others, take their resources, enslave them . . .’

  Jamie nodded. He didn’t fully share that opinion but the sentiment felt right. ‘I have no quarrel with you, mate.’

  ‘Quarrel?’ Shahin repeated, trying to work out the
meaning.

  Jamie balled two fists as though he was going to box but shook his head. ‘I don’t want to fight with you.’

  ‘Ah! Quarrel. You have taught me a new word, James Wren. Now I must give you a gift.’

  ‘It’s just a word.’

  ‘Words are powerful, my friend. Words are the most important aspect of being men. We start wars with them. We can end wars with them. Do you have a woman, James Wren?’

  Jamie’s breath caught. ‘I do,’ he replied and believed it for the first time.

  ‘What is her name?’

  ‘Claire Nightingale.’ Just to say her name aloud made his spirits lift.

  Shahin smiled with obvious pleasure. ‘She too is one of our winged family. Do you love her?’

  ‘With all of my heart,’ Jamie said. It was now their secret. ‘The memory of her is keeping me alive.’ He realised he’d never said anything more truthful, emotional or private. ‘I mean . . . I want to live to see her even just once more.’

  ‘Have you told her this is how your heart feels?’

  He shook his head and Shahin tutted. ‘Imagine how she will feel when you do. I think I would give my life gladly if I was in love and loved by someone in return.’ His smile faded and Jamie glanced over at the wintry gaze of the German, staring but not participating.

  ‘He’s German?’

  Shahin nodded.

  ‘Never seen one up close. Wish I had my rifle in my hand now.’

  ‘Have you killed anyone, James Wren?’

  Jamie puffed out his cheeks, then sighed it out. ‘I don’t know, to be honest.’

  ‘I shall tell you this because we are now friends in here,’ Shahin said, touching his heart again. ‘I fire my rifle but I avoid killing with it. If my bullets have ever struck a man, it is without intent or malice and I hope he will forgive me.’

  That came as a surprise. ‘You’d better not share that with your men,’ Jamie said. He could see the Australians drifting back to their ugly work.

  ‘I would be dead if I did. I think I shall be killed anyway.’

  Jamie’s attention snapped back. ‘Keep your head down, Hawk. We have to make music together again. Stay safe and when this is over we’ll have a beer together . . . or whatever stuff you blokes drink.’ He made the gesture of sipping from a glass and nodded. ‘Promise?’ He held out his hand to shake again.

  Shahin’s expression clouded with sorrow. ‘I cannot promise that.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter, stained brown. ‘Will you keep this for me?’

  Jamie frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s to my father. Take it to him for me, James Wren.’

  ‘You take it. You’re going to see him.’

  Shahin shook his head. ‘I fear my father may be secretly glad if I died here. I don’t want him to think I wasn’t brave but I never want him to know I couldn’t kill another man . . . my enemy. Let him look upon my enemy and see James Wren – maybe then he might understand in his heart.’

  ‘Listen, Hawk —’

  ‘Please. If I live, maybe I will have that conversation with him. If not, you show him. He must know what is in here and it carries my blood upon it – a small wound, nothing important, but he and I share that blood, so I didn’t rub it off.’

  Jamie began to speak but Shahin cut him off. ‘I should give it to my own people, I know. But it is more meaningful if you deliver it. Live for me, James Wren . . . live for Açar Shahin and for Claire Nightingale.’ He pressed the small folded letter into Jamie’s fingers and covered both with his hands. ‘We have unhappy work to perform, my brother.’ Then he said something in Turkish before he grinned wide and bright as though they were saying cheers. ‘I am bidding you farewell in my language and telling you to stay safe, James Wren. You bugger!’

  Jamie wasn’t ready for the expletive and despite the melancholy mood, erupted into delighted laughter. ‘Where did you learn that?’

  ‘Ah, we Turks hear you Aussies saying this regularly. We like this word. Is it a prayer?’

  ‘It’s an oath. Fair dinkum,’ he replied in a wry tone.

  Shahin didn’t understand but it didn’t matter. He reached into his pocket again. ‘This is my prayer book. I want you to have it and think of me, for I no longer need it.’

  ‘Why not? I thought you prayed five times a day.’

  His companion looked back with a wistful expression. ‘Because I am not long for this world but I am not scared either. I will be glad to be in Allah’s care.’

  Jamie was pleased he could respond in kind, digging into his breast pocket and pulling out his small Common Book of Prayer that his local reverend had pushed into his hands on the Sunday before he left Melrose for the Quorn Railway Station.

  ‘Here’s mine. I can’t read yours but I can imagine it doesn’t say much that is different.’

  ‘And in spite of it we try and kill each other.’

  ‘No bullet of mine will ever touch you, Shahin.’

  Shahin tapped his head and then his heart. ‘And should any Turkish bullet try and find you, my friend, let it pass over you like wind through the ravine.’

  They smiled at each other and fell suddenly silent over the handshake before parting. There was nothing more to say. Jamie tucked the prayer book into his breast pocket over Shahin’s letter and lifted a hand in farewell. He noticed that all the inquisitive Turks who were not part of the burial squads had either not been given the same orders or were defying them, because lines of darkly moustached men were lining their trenches’ parapets, giving the ANZACs a clear view of their enemy’s lines and the daunting number of men they were up against. He glanced over at one of the other troopers.

  ‘Yeah, I see them, Wrennie. Deadset. Now we know. We can report back.’

  ‘What about that bastard German watching like an overlord? I noticed he lifted a spade against one of the Turks, threatening him. Did you see?’

  ‘Bloody oath! Wish I had my catapult. I could kill him like the strutting grey pigeon he is with a single shot.’

  The gruesome task began again and for hours, favouring his wounded shoulder, Jamie lost himself in the deepest sorrow he had ever felt, or perhaps ever would again. So many of the fallen had lain on this ground since the day of the landings and in the heat had decayed so that the padre’s blessings were murmured over near skeletons. It was a tragic day of heartbreak as Jamie lifted one man after another towards his final resting place and all he could think about were the women at home – mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives and daughters who would weep – while their brothers and fathers, if not fighting as well, would punch walls, get drunk, be forever changed.

  He touched his pocket where Shahin’s letter was hiding and swore to keep a promise to a bright young man whom he would have liked to know better.

  ________

  By just after three in the afternoon, with the dead finally cleared on both sides, the task of unbolting the strewn weapons became the paramount objective, but Jamie left that to another raft of men. He’d stood at the parapet and smoked, using it as an excuse to take every moment possible away from the trench. Looking down the hill he could see men, like tiny dolls, splashing in the water, taking a rare chance to bathe without the threat of a sniper’s bullet. That’s what he should do. He needed to wash away today’s sorrows, rub salt into his skin and clean away the death. And perhaps spy Claire again – just a sighting of her, a raised hand over a distance, would be enough to sustain him.

  He saw the staff officer look at his watch and begin taking down the makeshift flagging. A new, tense silence had overtaken them that felt eerily dangerous and with it came the promise of more bloodshed, mocking the day’s toil. He took out his father’s watch and saw that it was now almost four-thirty but the Turks still lingered on the parapet, clearly unenthusiastic to go back into their trenches and resume the killing. And yet within minutes Jamie was back down in his trench with his mates, reluctant to share the experience of the day that felt as though he had communed w
ith the spirits of the dead and released them.

  A shell went off nearby and that set off a chain reaction that seemed to drag all the men from their curious stupor. Suddenly a volley of bullets was whizzing and spitting again but seemed to deliberately miss their mark. It was as though both sides were clearing their throats, warning of the end of their polite truce. The rifle fire only lasted a few heartbeats but it certainly signalled they were back to being enemies, locked once again in deathly combat.

  Jamie thought of Shahin and felt a profound sadness grip him as he recalled the youngster’s conviction that he would not survive the war. He reached for the letter through his uniform again, heard the paper crinkle, and as though that was a trigger he heard a shout ring out into the brief silence, and recognised the voice.

  ‘Look at this silly bugger, will you?’ his neighbour said. His name was Don but everyone called him Donkey.

  Jamie turned at the sound of the yelling voice, hearing his own name.

  ‘Jamie Wren, keep your promise!’ came the cry.

  ‘No!’ Jamie howled in closed-eyed despair into the brief report of bullets.

  ‘Stupid bugger,’ Donkey sighed, lowering his makeshift periscope he’d fashioned from an old tin can of fruit. ‘Some young Turk taking your name in vain there, Wrennie. What’s that about?’

  Jamie could barely swallow. He grabbed for Donkey’s periscope to bear witness to Shahin’s suicidal dash, but it was the last conscious action he made. The mortar landed as did the return fire and Jamie felt himself helplessly bent double before being flung by an invisible shove that tossed him aside with the strength of a thousand angry men.

  Broken and unconscious, Jamie Wren landed, crumpled, in the neighbouring trench.

  8

  Claire was once again on the beach. Given the armistice, she had swiftly volunteered to help clear the backlog of men most desperately in need of nursing attention. She and another nurse had been given permission to accompany a doctor going ashore. Everyone on the Gascon was on full alert – without the fear of shelling, they planned to shift twice as many soldiers this evening towards the safety of Mudros and Egypt.