My seat was a wooden crate, but the table had a white cloth on it, and there were candlesticks wedged into old wine bottles. The plate of fried eggs, sausages and baked beans on buttered toast was the best meal I’d eaten in nearly two years since leaving home.
The air was cool too, despite the blanket of heat outside. Reminded me of Narrandera’s better pub dining rooms: the soothing quiet, the familiar whiff of old beer and cigarettes. I’d taken Helena out to lunch once, when we hadn’t been together long, but so many people stopped to ask about her mother we decided not to do it again. I hadn’t realised how popular Mrs Alford was—turns out she’d nursed just about every sick woman and child in the district.
The far end of the mess opened out to the canteen and I could see two lads peeling potatoes, talking and laughing with another bloke washing dishes. I envied them. Settled in. Mates. Not a new chum on his first day of a new job, all nervous and desperate to please. That first-day feeling never gets easier, no matter how old you get.
‘You ready to check out the aerodrome?’ asked Ando, rising from his chair.
I took a last swig of tea and grabbed my kit bag, nodding my appreciation to the kitchen lads as I followed him to the door.
It was March 1917 and I’d just arrived at Kilo 143 on the overnight train from Kantara. My first day with No. 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps. ‘Kilo 143,’ said Ando as we headed outside. ‘Exactly 143 kilometres east of Kantara and the Suez Canal.’
It was only 9 o’clock in the morning but already the light was blinding. Three machines buzzed in to land and I shielded my eyes from the sun to watch, cursing myself for not getting more sleep on the train. The railway followed Egypt’s northern coastline toward Palestine, and I’d sat up most of the night with my face out the window, sucking in the salty breeze as we passed allied camps bathed in ghostly blue moonlight, and small naval vessels just offshore, defending against attack from the sea.
‘Throw your kit bag in here, Wal.’ Ando ushered me into a bell tent and I was hit with steamy, stale air. ‘You’ll be dossing down in here and working over on the other side of the landing field,’ he said. ‘We march over each morning and we’re marched back at night—unless a plane’s really busted up, then we keep working until it’s fixed.’
The aerodrome was a flat stretch of sand running pretty much to the sea. Half a mile across the dirt strip stood three huge khaki canvas aircraft hangars, 70 feet wide with gently curving roofs that looked stark against the flat horizon. Each hangar belonged to a ‘flight’—A Flight, B Flight or C Flight—and each flight had six aircraft. So the squadron had 18 aircraft and 18 pilots, a dozen or so observers and around 220 ground crew. Maybe 250 people all up.
‘Jeez, they’re massive,’ I said, pointing to the hangars.
‘Yeah,’ said Ando. ‘You’ll fit six aircraft in them easily. Egyptian labour crews put ’em up mostly, but I once saw a pilot attach the canvas to the back of his plane and fly the covering right over the frame. Boy, did he cop a roasting.’
A BE2 took off and we walked toward its cloud of dust, while Ando pointed to the series of smaller tents and canvas workshops running in a line beside the hangars—headquarters, the instrument workshop, the armoury where bombs, ammunition and weapons were prepared. As we neared the large assembly tent, Ando showed me inside a mobile workshop built on the tray of a lorry. Think of a well-stocked, spotless garage on wheels and this was it—lathes, drills, grinders, generators, tool chests, lighting, you name it.
‘Hey Ando, I’ve been looking for you!’ The shout came from a man standing in front of a hangar. ‘We need you in here.’ When we reached the great mouth of the structure I saw a dozen men working on three aircraft. One of the mobile workshops was parked in there too, its side canvas rolled up to reveal the tools. ‘Give us a hand with this fuselage,’ the same bloke called. ‘It’s bloody ripped again.’
Ando looked at me apologetically. ‘Sorry Wal, I’d better get to work. The transport depot’s behind the far hangar. Just ask for Bushy when you get there. He’s a ripper bloke. Good luck, eh?’
I thanked him and promised to shout the beers soon, before heading in the direction of the depot. As I passed the last hangar I noticed it was empty of men and housing a little single-seater I hadn’t seen up close before. Without thinking, I ducked inside for a quick look.
It was one of the Martinsyde Scouts I’d heard about—nice clean lines, two Lewis machine guns. A heavy leather flying jacket was laid over the side of the cockpit, like the pilot had just popped away for a minute. I checked no one was coming, and ran a palm along the soft brown leather. I’d always wanted one of those jackets.
Right that second it happened: three quick bursts of machine-gun fire.
Shit! I sprinted for the nearest cover, like we’d been trained in the Light Horse, diving behind a hoisted engine at the back of the hangar and knocking the wind out of myself in the process. The dirt floor had been hosed down to settle the dust, and now I was covered in mud. Somehow I’d ripped my shirt.
I crouched, listening hard, blood pumping in my ears. The air was thick with heat and the smell of engine oil. Deathly quiet.
The vast hangar was almost empty and I looked around desperately for something to use as a weapon. In the dirt 10 ft away I spied a spanner, and scurried over to grab it before returning to my hiding spot.
There was movement at the front of the hangar and I tightened my grip on the handle.
‘Oi!’
I crouched lower behind the engine.
‘Oi, mate!’ it came again, calm as anything this time. ‘You might want to get out of this hangar. That machine gun fire is a Hun air-raid warning. They’ll be aiming for your arse in here.’
I poked my head around the side of the engine.
‘I reckon you’d be a new bloke,’ he said, bending to scratch a lanky leg as he spoke. ‘Is there a body with that head?’
I dragged myself out of my hiding place and walked toward him, wiping mud from my face with a torn shirt sleeve.
‘G’day,’ he said, grinning. ‘Jim Bennett. Everyone calls me Benny.’ He nodded at my spanner. ‘I see you’ve found my missing spanner.’
‘Um, yes.’ I gave it to him and he tucked it into a back pocket before thrusting out a large hand to shake mine. Then he turned to scan the sky, hands cupped over his eyes to shield against the glare. ‘Looks like a Hun recco to me,’ he said, pointing out two tiny specks in the distant sky. ‘But let’s not chance it, eh? We’ll be in all sorts of trouble if Dicky hears we’re not in the trench.’
He led me quickly toward the end of the airstrip, to a trench filled with men hunkered down, helmets on.
‘You one of the blokes attached from the Light Horse?’ asked Benny over his shoulder as I tried to keep up. ‘And I didn’t catch y’name …’
‘Yeah, Wally Shiers,’ I said, lengthening my stride. Second-class air mechanic. First-class idiot. ‘Sorry you had to come get me.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘You’ll get used to air raids. The Germans are getting more aggressive in the air. Mostly they’re recco missions, to see if we’ve got any new aircraft or moving further east.’
When we reached the side of the trench, the murmur fell away. Heads turned. Eyes stared. I studied my boots.
Benny put a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Wally Shiers, our new air-raid specialist.’
Everyone laughed. A few gave mock cheers. We jumped into the trench and a young bloke inched his backside over and gestured for me to sit down, offered me a cigarette.
‘How are ya, Wally? Frank McNamara.’
I could see he was a pilot, from the wings pinned to his open jacket. ‘Thanks very much,’ I said, taking the cigarette. ‘Nice to meet you.’
For a few minutes I sat silently, enjoying the smoke and absently picking the drying mud from my shorts. The men were discussing a cricket match coming up against the Army Post Office boys, and jobs that needed doin
g on different machines: a smashed spar, dodgy spark plugs, controls crippled on a BE2. It struck me that the pilots and mechanics all sat about together, enjoying their smokes and yarning away as mates. It wasn’t like that in the Light Horse. It was always clear who was boss.
I plucked up my courage and turned to McNamara. ‘So what’s it like up there?’
He can’t have been much more than 20. Cheeky-looking bloke. ‘Wonderful,’ he said, crushing his cigarette underfoot. ‘Especially when you cut the engine and you’re like an eagle and all you can hear is the wind whistling through the wires. I’ll take you up on a stunt sometime.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘Thanks!’
Word came that it was safe to get back to work. I thanked McNamara again for the smoke and headed toward the lorries at the other end of the airstrip.
I didn’t see him again during the war. A couple of days later I overheard Benny telling blokes in the mess that he’d been badly wounded and sent by train to the military hospital in Kantara.
‘They were bombing a railway junction near Gaza,’ Benny said. ‘Seven of our machines in all, flying in a line at 50 ft. They reckon McNamara’s last shell exploded early, right under his seat, and that’s why he’s got so much shrapnel in him.’
‘Shit, I hope no one pays for that,’ said one of the other men. A mechanic or an armourer could be court martialled for negligence.
‘Frank McNamara’s certainly paid for it,’ said Benny tersely. ‘So Frank’s got blood pouring from wounds in his arse and his legs, and then he sees Captain Rutherford’s been forced to land with engine trouble. Rutherford’s got a whole bloody cavalry unit of Turks breathing down his neck. The other pilots start strafing the Turks to keep them at bay, while McNamara lands his Martinsyde. He’s bleeding like a stuck pig but he’s aiming to rescue Rutherford!’
‘Bloody hell!’ I said.
‘Rutherford climbs onto a wing and holds onto the struts for dear life, but the plane is so overbalanced that McNamara crashes on take-off. So they abandon the Martinsyde, set it on fire so the Turks can’t have it, and stumble back to Rutherford’s two-seater.
‘McNamara shoots at the Turks with his pistol while Rutherford fixes the engine. They finally get the thing going and McNamara flies 70 miles and lands it back here. When we run to the plane, he swears like a trooper and passes out. Never seen so much blood in my life. Can’t believe he survived.’
I remember thinking maybe Copping was right: pilots were a different breed of men. McNamara won a VC for that, the only Australian airman to win the highest honour for bravery in World War I.
We heard later that he’d had a severe reaction to an anti-tetanus shot at the hospital and nearly died. While he was still unconscious, they packed metal hot water bottles around his body to keep him warm, but one burnt the skin right through to the bone on his heel. That’s what got him sent home.
I was classed as an ‘Air Mechanic’ from the day I finished my training, but truth is most ranks were aircraft mechanics in the Flying Corps. Some blokes were fitters, working on the engines. Some were riggers, tending to the frames. Armourers looked after the machine guns, ammunition and bombs. And then there were the photography specialists and instrument repairers, who’d often been watchmakers back home.
My job in the early days, much to my frustration, was still ‘Driver Wally Shiers’, transporting men and supplies along dusty roads to airfields and army camps.
I settled in fine though, busy with the squadron’s next move east to Rafa. I had my own Wolseley lorry, and worked round the clock transporting stores to the new aerodrome. The closest I got to the aircraft some days was hearing the fitters’ yarns in the mess—or watching Huns drop bombs on the camp. We counted 40 bombs one night. A few of us took to sleeping in sandhills a couple of miles away for a bit. They called us the ‘Desert Column’.
One morning, a couple of months into the job, Benny found me sweeping half the Sinai desert out of the lorry tray. ‘G’day, Wal. Watcha up to?’ he asked.
I leaned on my broom and gave him a look that said ‘stupid question’. Sandstorms were the bane of everyone’s existence in camp. ‘What’s up?’
‘We’ve had a truck break down to the east while they were scouting a new aerodrome,’ he said. ‘Have to go repair it. Mind giving me a lift?’
I parked the broom, jumped out the side of the tray and opened the driver-side door.
‘I’m taking that as a yes,’ Benny said, putting his toolbox in the tray and climbing in the passenger side. ‘Shouldn’t be too much wrong with the engine. The blokes just had to hightail it because a Hun plane was spotted in the air.’
As I drove out of the camp, two recco planes roared off overhead and pointed their noses east. ‘Nasty business with No. 14 Squadron,’ I said. The day before, two Royal Flying Corps machines had collided over their own aerodrome and another had been shot down behind Turkish lines. Six British airmen dead.
‘Yeah,’ Benny said, looking straight ahead. ‘To be honest it’s nice not to know the pilots personally for a change. I’m sick of picturing dead blokes.’
You know, all through the Great War we used no parachutes. They were considered too bulky for the tiny cockpits. Besides, the top brass didn’t want their machines being abandoned too hastily mid-air. One in six British and allied airmen died, making their odds of surviving even worse than a soldier in the trenches. Makes you wonder how many blokes might have survived given the option of jumping clear.
Benny and I drove in silence for a bit, elbows resting on open windows. I had Keep the Home Fires Burning in my head. Made me think of Bobby, and how much he loved bread crusts.
The road ran parallel with the coast, and as we passed over a small rise we saw a couple of mine trawlers at work just offshore.
‘I stowed away on a ship as a kid,’ Benny said. He sounded weary. Sad almost.
I shot him a glance. ‘How’d that finish up? If I ran away to sea, my dad would have tanned my hide.’
He smiled. ‘Yeah, I thought I was in for a good belting too, but by the time Mum and Dad heard from the ship’s captain in Fremantle they were just glad I was alive. I missed my sisters so I caught the next boat back to Melbourne.’
I eased down a gear to slow the lorry as we passed a gang of Egyptians labouring for a British officer. Thousands of Egyptians worked for the British Army during the war, moving camps, building roads. Happy fellas, for the most part, always waving when I passed. ‘What made you stow away?’
‘I was apprenticed out of school as a bloody printing compositor. Hated every minute of it, so I took off with nine pence in my pocket. When I got home, Dad managed to get me into motor engineering. That’s how I got straight into the Flying Corps.’
He was quiet for bit, then added, ‘Good bloke, my old man. Should have told him that more.’
I noticed him wince as he spoke. ‘You alright, Benny? You don’t look too great.’
He took a deep breath, exhaling loudly, ducked his head out the window. ‘Been feeling a bit crook in the guts to be honest. Just needed to get away from that hangar for a bit, I reckon. Bit of clean Egyptian air should do the trick.’
We turned off the road and started weaving our way slowly around small mounds and scrubby bushes, eventually sighting the abandoned lorry. ‘Stay alert for stray Turks or Arabs, Wal,’ Benny said, leaning forward in his seat. ‘Don’t want any surprises.’
The stranded Wolseley had been stripped of its canvas awning, but otherwise it was untouched. I knew my way around the engine but Benny was my superior so I stood sentry, rifle loaded, keeping one eye on him and the other on the surrounding desert. The midday sun was fierce—I was grateful for my slouch hat.
Benny opened the bonnet and began inspecting the engine. Next moment he was squatting on the ground beside the front wheel, arms folded across his middle. ‘Benny?’
‘Sorry Wal, I’m gonna have to rest up for a bit. My guts won’t stop cramping. Head feels like it’s going to crack ope
n.’
‘Jeez mate,’ I said, crouching beside him and noticing his face all pale and clammy. ‘We’ve got to get you back to camp. It’s too hot to be crook in this sun.’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll just sit in the shade for a while. Got too hot. I’ll be right in a minute. Can’t leave this lorry here—the Turks will thieve it or the bloody Arabs will torch it.’ He put his head between his knees and started retching.
I stood there for a minute, looking around from one empty horizon to another. ‘Get this into you,’ I said, shoving my water cannister into his lap. ‘Even if you feel like throwing it back up. I’ll take a look at the engine.’
It didn’t take long to work out the problem—sand in the fuel line. But Benny was getting worse, and soon he had it coming out both ends, poor bugger. There was no way he could get behind a wheel, so I laid him under the canvas shade in the tray of my truck.
I reversed up to attach a tow-line to the other lorry, but it was up to its axles in sand and I couldn’t get it to budge.
In the end there was only one thing to do: drive back to the Egyptian labour crew we’d passed earlier and see if I could borrow some workers with shovels.
I found the young Tommy in charge. He listened to what I needed while we walked around the back of the lorry to take a look at Benny. He was in a bad way, lying on his side with knees pulled up, wet through and stinking in the heat. Some of the Egyptian blokes had crowded around, and I’ll never forget one of them pulling off his headscarf, climbing into the truck and gently putting it under Benny’s head.
Then the Tommy officer said, ‘You’d best get the corporal back to your squadron. We’ll sort out the other vehicle.’
Benny was sick for months, in and out of hospital with enteric fever. Lots of blokes went down with it, especially the lads from Gallipoli. But good old Benny took the trouble from his sick bed to recommend me as a fitter when a spot came up. Within a month, in the middle of 1917, I was remustered as fitter and turner, finally getting my hands dirty on those aircraft engines. If there’d been a solid roof to climb when I heard the news, I’d have gone up there with a beer to stare at the sky and toast my brothers.
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