‘Give him a hand, Thomas. But be bloody careful.’
‘More careful than usual?’ asks Thomas.
‘A lot more.’
Thomas traces around the bone, taking shallow bites of topsoil with the spade until the blade catches on webbing, decomposing fabric and more bone.
Hilton and Connor are twenty feet away. The area has been checked and the rope line adjusted so that Connor’s marker and footprints now lie within the safety zone. Connor is pushing stones around with his toe when suddenly he stops. As if sensing a shift in mood at the pit, he looks up, but Tucker smiles and shakes his head. He does not want to give the farmer false hope. Tucker knows his own father would never have made the trip to find him.
Hilton shares Tucker’s doubts. A wild goose chase, he thinks to himself. An engineer by trade, his world is ordered by the mathematical formulae and the laws of physics that keep bridges from collapsing, hold domes aloft and, perversely, launch small projectiles from a narrow metal tube at a velocity sufficient to pierce skin. So he does not know what to make of Connor or his strange gift. Finding water in this way is absurd enough, but trying to find dead bodies – not only does it defy logic, but Hilton finds it difficult to think of it as a gift from God. He hopes that by indulging Connor the obstinate father might come to see that the search is futile. He gives the farmer a patronising smile.
Over at the hole, Tucker taps Dawson on the shoulder.
‘What’s that, there?’
Dawson picks through the gritty soil and bone fragments and his fingers settle on a flat round object. If it is a button or a coin they will at least know the soldier’s nationality. Dawson presses the object between his thumb and index finger and breaks off the dry clay. He spits on it and wipes the disc on his sleeve.
‘Shit.’
He passes the A.I.F. identity disc to Tucker. The sergeant has a pretty good idea what it is going to say before he reads it, but he is still stupefied. He pauses, happy that something in the world can still astound him.
Hilton watches Tucker walk towards him, fist clenched shut around something; the tight look around the sergeant’s mouth tells him it must be something important.
‘It’s impossible,’ Hilton catches himself mouthing under his breath. ‘Impossible.’
Tucker presses the disc into the lieutenant colonel’s palm. Incredulous, Hilton looks down and reads the name. Confirming what Connor already knows, Hilton addresses him reverently. ‘It’s your son. It’s Edward.’
Connor is silent; there is nothing to say. His eyes are fixed on Dawson and Thomas, who are carefully lifting spadefuls of fabric and disarticulated bones into a hessian bag. The thought of seeing the ransacked body of his son is almost too much for Connor. But the thought of not witnessing his disinterment is inexplicably worse.
‘I wouldn’t,’ Hilton warns him, but it is too late.
Connor staggers towards his son’s shallow grave. He hovers over Dawson’s shoulder just as the unsuspecting soldier lifts Edward’s skull out of the soil and wipes it with his cuff. Confronted with the hollow remains of his son’s gentle face, he looks into blank sockets where mischievous eyes once flickered and begins to quiver, his knees giving way beneath him. As Dawson wipes away the sticky clay the cause of death emerges: a single gunshot to the forehead. Dawson and Thomas exchange knowing looks. Tucker appears at Connor’s shoulder and takes him by the arm to steady him. Dawson shakes his head, cautioning Tucker not to say anything, but the sergeant is already in his ear.
‘The bastards executed your boy,’ he whispers hoarsely. He points to Hasan. ‘He gave the order not to take prisoners.’
Connor fixes his gaze on the Turkish commander, who has been watching the search for Connor’s sons with keen interest from a respectful distance. White rage builds behind Connor’s eyes and his heart threatens to burst, blood rushing and buzzing in his ears. He can barely think. Connor turns and begins to move towards Hasan, fists clenched together like maces. The farmer’s pace and fury build to a charge as he hurtles towards his son’s murderer.
‘Stop him!’ shouts Hilton, but the soldiers around him are deliberately slow to respond, reluctant to halt Connor’s attack.
‘I said stop him! Now!’
The Australian soldiers are spurred into action by their commander’s order, but it is too little, too late. Thomas tries a rugby tackle and Connor fends him off with his palm. A solid-looking soldier places himself between Connor and Hasan. Connor props and straight-arms the man across the collarbone, knocking him onto his back. Hasan stands unflinching, casually and deliberately unclipping his holster as Connor descends on him. The Australian expels a mournful bellow, that of a bull in a slaughterhouse, and lunges at the major. As he does a fist comes from nowhere and catches him on the side of the jaw. A second punch lands up under his ribs and knocks the wind out of him. As he lies in the dirt on his side, gasping for breath, a well-aimed black boot buries itself deep into his stomach. Dazed and sucking in dust Connor sees the ursine form of Jemal looming over him – Hasan’s last line of defence. Puffing from the exertion, the wild-eyed sergeant places his boot on Connor’s chest and shifts all his weight behind it.
‘You butchered my sons, my beautiful boys,’ Connor roars at Hasan.
‘Perhaps, Mr Connor,’ concedes Hasan. ‘But you sent them. You invaded us.’
Before Connor can reply, Hilton and the Australians are standing over him.
‘Take him away and put him under guard,’ Hilton orders Tucker. His men pick Connor up and escort him back to their camp. A horrified Hilton turns to Hasan, already anticipating the diplomatic fallout and the deluge of reports, in triplicate.
‘I am most terribly sorry.’
‘He has two more sons,’ observes Hasan, surprisingly unruffled by Connor’s outburst. ‘We should keep looking.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
A guard stands outside a bell-shaped tent, a rifle leaning against his leg while he rolls a cigarette. He lights it inside a cupped hand, protecting it from the warm evening breeze blowing off the sea. A lamp hanging off the central pole makes the tent glow like a paper lantern. Inside a man sits rigidly on his stretcher, casting a hulking shadow on the canvas.
Connor has hardly moved since he was detained. Shell-shocked, his stillness belies the tumult in his head. Just as the artesian springs call to him from beneath the soil, he knew the boys would help him find them. Their bond, thicker than water, drew him like iron filings to a magnet. Of that he is sure.
Finding Edward has tapped a well of grief and blind rage buried deep within him that, till now, he hoped and believed was dry. All the bruises and loose teeth are a small price to pay for his son’s remains. Although he thinks he should now feel some inner peace, a sense of urgency remains; a quavering certainty that the job is not done. Not yet.
He hears the shuffling of feet and the rattle of a rifle as the guard snaps to attention. Hilton pushes back the tent flap and enters.
‘We found Henry too.’ He announces the news quietly.
‘Lying beside Ed,’ says Connor. It is not a question.
‘How on God’s earth did you know they were there?’
‘So you haven’t found Arthur yet?’ Connor asks, his voice a low mumble, head bowed.
‘No. We have combed the area thoroughly, but haven’t –’
‘There’s no way Art would leave his brothers,’ Connor assures him as he looks up. ‘He must be there.’ But as he says it, somehow he knows he’s wrong. Art is not there; he is lost.
‘We will keep looking, but we’ll give Edward and Henry a proper burial tomorrow,’ offers Hilton.
‘I promised their mother I would find them and bring them home.’
Hilton crouches down on his haunches and lowers his voice.
‘Connor, this is their home now; it isn’t enemy ground anymore. They’re amongst friends, probably the closest they ever had. Leave them here and they always will be. Take them back – they’ll be just a couple of dead blok
es in the corner of a cemetery.’
Conner pictures the Rainbow churchyard and finds it hard to argue.
‘Lizzie wanted them buried in consecrated ground.’
‘How much blood do you need for it to be consecrated?’ pleads Hilton. ‘Let us bury them here where it means something.’
Connor concedes with a resigned nod. He knows Hilton is right, but the thought of abandoning his sons here on a desolate Turkish hillside makes his heart ache.
As Hilton pushes the tent flap back to leave, he turns.
‘We lost over two thousand men in those four days at Lone Pine. The Turks lost seven . . . We didn’t take too many prisoners either.’
‘So you forgive them?’
Hilton pauses. ‘I don’t know if I forgive any of us.’ He steps out into the night.
Inside the tent Connor takes the photograph of his boys from between the pages of Art’s journal and holds it up to the light. That bastard Brindley was right – this is exactly how he wants to remember them. He knows he should find some solace in locating two of his boys. It is more than anyone could reasonably expect – a small miracle, really. But Edward’s execution will never leave him now. He can only imagine his boy, wounded and bleeding, his tongue swollen for water, waiting expectantly for the stretcher-bearers. Instead a band of Turks moves across the field, collecting boots and weapons and finishing off the wounded. Connor can see the welcoming smile of his son when he hears the approaching footsteps, and then the look of confusion and horror as the gun is raised. The anger wells up in Connor again and he heads for the door. The sentry stands five feet away, his gun raised.
‘There’s nothing to be done out here, Mr Connor.’
Connor nods and backs down.
‘You’re right, son. Nothing at all.’
He lies down on his camp bed and begins a long, sleepless vigil until morning.
Dressed in a loose black cassock and the cylindrical hat peculiar to the Eastern Orthodox Church, a Greek priest stands like a charred tree trunk on the hillside. Beside him is a novice holding a gold cross on a staff and swinging a censer that creaks back and forth, feeble plumes of incense smoke puffing from its perforated brass dome.
Connor breathes in the pungent aroma that has an oddly narcotic affect. He stands in front of a small group of Anzacs, led by Hilton and Tucker, who have gathered around two newly dug graves. Out of respect the men wear their tunics and slouch hats, some decorated with the emu plume of the Light Horse Brigade. They stand quietly, glancing up occasionally from their boots to the two white crosses and back again.
As the sun warms their backs and they listen, uncomprehending, to the Greek liturgy, the solemnity of the occasion hits the Australian soldiers. It’s easy to lose sight of the human scale of their endeavours on this lonely and grim peninsula. All day they labour in the dirt, exhuming the remains of fellow soldiers; classifying, crating and carting the dead. But they have never buried someone they knew, or stood by the grave of a dead man with someone who loved him most in all the world. They have never looked upon the deep, grey lines of grief carved in those faces. This man, who has travelled halfway across the world to find his sons, is barely distinguishable from their own fathers; it could be their body lying in the damp soil; it could be their father standing with hat in hand, mouth quivering, wiping tears from his eyes with the back of a rough hand.
This is a day they will never forget; not when they depart this shore and return to loving families in their great Southern Land; not when they age and watch grandchildren grow to adulthood. Today, they really understand why they are here, and they are honoured.
The priest chants through his long black beard as he blesses the ground by dipping a sprig of rosemary into a bowl of water and flicking it over the freshly turned soil.
Greeks and Turks have lived together on this coastline for centuries: Christians and Muslims worshipping side by side, fishing from the same seas, scratching the same soil, speaking the same languages. Constantinople has been in Ottoman hands since 1453 but the Greeks still think of it as part of Greece. Half the city’s population is Hellenic. They tell and retell the stories of Alexander cutting the Gordion Knot and Agamemnon and Odysseus sacking Troy as if they were modern history.
Of all Turkey’s neighbours, the Greeks know better than any what it is like to stand by as an Empire slowly slips through fat fingers. They have watched the weeds grow between the pavers in Athens, the womb of democracy becoming a political backwater. Greece has become a subject taught in universities, not a living, breathing culture. But the hope that this Aegean coast may be Greek again burns in their hearts like the embers that glow in the censer.
The priest comes to an abrupt stop, gives Connor a solemn nod and hands him a sprig of rosemary as he moves away. Before today Connor had never heard of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He’s not sure that it matters which calendar you use, or whether you believe in the Immaculate Conception. The minutiae of religious dogma are obscure to him. He certainly can’t imagine what bearing these trivial details can have on someone’s relationship with God. Although Connor knows not a word of Greek or Latin, he is certain that God would speak them both. Connor’s God – the God of the Mallee – is an Old Testament deity, a god of the desert. He is combative, vindictive and casual with life. He is a god for the times, when the principles of turning the other cheek and loving thy neighbour have fallen from favour.
Hilton crosses himself and then motions to his men to withdraw. They leave Connor standing between his two boys. Only now with everyone gone can he bring himself to read the words painted on the crosses: ‘Pte H.K. Connor #718, 7th Batt. A.I.F. Aged 19 years 11 months, RIP.’ ‘Pte E.R. Connor #719, 7th Batt. A.I.F. Aged 18 years 4 months, RIP.’
Connor pulls the familiar blue-covered The Arabian Nights from his jacket and sits cross-legged between the mounds. Breathing deeply, he begins to read.
. . . and the Sultan turned to his young Prince and said, ‘you have travelled far and wide to kingdoms never imagined. After all your rich adventures, the magic carpet has carried you on the four winds to this, your home.’
His voice cracks as he realises the word ‘home’ no longer means anything for him. He steels himself, determined to finish his personal liturgy.
And the Sultan assembled all the court musicians and the court dancers in great celebration for the safe return of his son.
Connor closes the book, wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand and sits. Even when the sun falls, bleeding over the horizon, Connor stays with his eyes fixed on the graves. In all likelihood he will never return to Gallipoli. This may be the last time he ever spends by his sons’ side. So he stares with an intensity that burns the graves into his mind’s eye: the freshly painted white crosses, the neat lettering, the shell casings sticking out of the turned soil. A stereoscopic image to take home with him. He knows the decision to bury the boys here is the right one for them, but the thought of leaving them here makes him feel as if he is losing them once again, forever.
He shuts his eyes and places the palms of his hands on the cool soil.
‘I found our boys, Lizzie. They’re safe now.’
But there’s no escaping the horrible reality that Art is still lost. Connor opens his eyes and gazes over the darkening sea.
‘I will find Art,’ he pledges. ‘I’ll find him for you.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jemal marches through the Anzac camp. The grave robbers – his nickname for them – are just stirring. The cook has the fire stoked and water is coming to the boil. A blackened pot of porridge hangs on a tripod above the flames. Jemal will be giving the thick sludge a wide berth today. He has just come from Chanak and has fresh simits under his arm.
As he approaches Hasan’s tent he hears the low rhythmic rumble of the final salawat prayer. He pictures Hasan standing in the half-light. He will turn to look over his right shoulder at the angel recording all his good deeds, then over his left at the angel transcribing the bad ones. J
emal opens the paper under his arm, takes a bite out of a simit and waits. He laughs to himself. The angel on Jemal’s left would have run out of ink last night.
‘Bring those in here. Don’t think I can’t smell them,’ comes Hasan’s voice from inside.
Jemal steps inside as Hasan rolls up his prayer rug, sits on his bed and begins to pull on his boots. He motions Jemal to a stool.
‘Here is your telegraph,’ says Jemal as he hands Hasan a sheet of paper. ‘One whole day I wasted standing in line, drinking shit coffee.’
‘And one whole night too,’ adds Hasan knowingly. ‘I understand there is a brothel near the post office.’
‘So I hear.’
Jemal’s mood becomes serious.
‘The Greeks have taken Smyrna. I heard in town. The British sat in their ships and watched them do as they please. We have to do something. People are waiting for you to show your hand.’
‘What hand is that? I don’t have one. It is the British who hold all the cards. They will decide how much of our country we ultimately keep.’
Hasan turns his attention to the telegram. The discussion is at an end. A frustrated Jemal watches his commander and friend scan the telegram, and cannot contain himself.
‘Why do you care about this farmer?’ he blurts out. ‘He wants to kill you.’
Hasan is up and out the door of his tent before Jemal finishes. The Turkish commander strides through the camp and makes a beeline for a tent on the far side – the tent with a sentry at the door.
Connor is preparing to leave. A photograph lies on his open case, but it is not the portrait of his three sons. A young Orhan smiles at him from the sepia print. His handsome father, already mourning what he has not yet lost. And Ayshe with her delicate features and luxuriant dark hair looks wistful but still breathtakingly beautiful. After a war that claimed millions of lives, Connor wonders how many photos like this one there are scattered across the world; mute records of families irreparably shattered, pictures that will be torn up in despair, fingered until they fall apart or lost in drawers to fade. How many boys like Orhan will have no grave to visit, just a photo like this one to cry over?
The Water Diviner Page 13