Solomon's Song

by Bryce Courtenay

  The rumour now doing the rounds on board the ships of the convoy is that Britain will use the supposedly under-trained, ill-disciplined and second-rate Australians in India and Egypt as garrison troops. This will relieve the British regulars, at present occupied in this task, to fight in the real war on the Western Front. To further substantiate the rumour, news comes through that the Turks have sided with Germany and have declared war on Britain and her allies. The average soldier on board has no trouble making one and one equal two and reaching the conclusion that the Australian troops will be stationed in Egypt.

  So when Wordy’s Wireless tells them the day after they leave Aden that General Bridges has received instructions by wireless that they are to proceed to Britain, there is a palpable sense of relief. The news spreads as if carried on the stiff nor’easter blowing that morning and by the time the official announcement is made most of the troops on board see it simply as confirmation. Those who first got it from Numbers Cooligan are beginning to show a growing respect for his sources.

  However, on a day filled with contradictory news, night brings a further instruction to General Bridges. The Orvieto is to sail ahead of the convoy to Port Said. The same message is received by Major-General Sir Alexander Godley, the commander of the New Zealand force headquartered on the Mauganui. The two ships are to proceed at their own speed to Egypt.

  Wordy’s Wireless has suffered a stomach complaint and has been confined to bed for two days when the message comes through so Ben doesn’t receive any advance notice from his lieutenant. Therefore it is a tremendous surprise to the troops when the Orvieto breaks away from the convoy and sails off on its own. Numbers Cooligan, newly appointed Gob Sergeant, is unable to supply any explanation, which, strangely enough, confirms his status among the troops, as knowing everything seems improbable and is also highly suspicious.

  Fortuitously, Wordy’s Wireless recovers from his stomach ailment and is back on deck the following evening, safely ensconced in the wireless room when a late telegram arrives for General Bridges from Sir George Reid, the Australian High Commissioner in London. Wordy Smith reads it to the Clicks at the breakfast parade fully two hours before it is officially announced to the troops on board.

  GEN. BRIDGES.

  HQs FIRST AUSTRALIAN DIVISION – ORVIETO.

  MESSAGE FOLLOWS:

  UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES DECIDE THAT THE FORCE SHALL TRAIN IN EGYPT AND GO TO THE FRONT FROM THERE. THE AUSTRALIANS AND NEW ZEALANDERS ARE TO FORM A CORPS UNDER GENERAL BIRDWOOD. THE LOCALITY OF THE CAMP IS NEAR CAIRO.

  GEORGE REID – AUST. HIGH COMMISSIONER. U.K.

  The decision is met with utter consternation. When the change in plans is made known to the troops they boo loudly and stamp their boots on the deck to demonstrate their disapproval. To the average soldier the arithmetic is irrefutable, the declaration of war by Turkey and the order to proceed to Port Said can mean only one thing, they are to be used as garrison troops against the Turks.

  Ben and his platoon, like every volunteer in the A.I.F. and together with the New Zealanders, have a burning desire to prove their mettle on the Western Front. Nothing short of this is acceptable to them. The soldiers of both antipodean nations take a quiet pride in the fact that they are the finest specimens their people can supply to the war machine, and unspoken, but in their minds, is the notion that they deserve to go against an enemy worthy of their calibre. For them the Turks are simply a bunch of wogs to be kept in line.

  General Bridges is forced to issue the exact contents of the telegram together with a personal explanation. He strongly emphasises the particular section of the telegram which stipulates ‘AND GO TO THE FRONT FROM THERE’. This somewhat, but not entirely, mollifies the men. There is already a sense of distrust between the private soldier and the officer class which is part of the Australian personality. The convict against the prison warder, the shearer against the squatter, the trade unionist against the capitalist, the people against the politician and, now, inevitably, the foot soldier against those who are placed over him.

  The explanation for the diversion, couched in the usual official military language, is essentially correct, but it does nothing to subdue their misgivings. In the eyes of most of the troops it is a heap of bullshit and they suspect the British High Command is going to leave them stranded in Egypt to face the Turks. They are simply told that, due to the early onset of winter in Britain, the site on Salisbury Plain, which is intended for the encampment and further training of Australian and New Zealand troops, has not been adequately prepared.

  Three weeks after they arrive in the camp in Cairo a more satisfactory explanation comes out. Wordy Smith once again has come to the rescue. It seems he has an uncle who is a major on the staff of Lord Kitchener, the Minister of State for War. In a letter to his nephew in Mena, the Australian camp just outside Cairo, he gives a much more colourful account of the reasons.

  Wordy Smith, perhaps a little naively, simply reads the letter to his platoon.

  6th December 1914

  Dear Peregrine,

  How very disappointed your Aunt Agatha and I are that we shall not be able to give you a warm welcome on your return to England. We remember you as a fine fourteen-year-old lad. Your father assures us your bad chest has completely cleared up in Australia and we greatly looked forward to meeting the strapping young man you’ve undoubtedly become.

  However, we are fast learning that during a period of war the best-laid plans of mice and men are apt to be frustrated. My job is no more important than any other entrusted to the rank of major in the War Office, but it has the singular advantage of bringing me into frequent contact with Colonel Chauvel, the Australian representative with the W.O.

  And what a splendid chap he is, straight as a die and not in the least pretentious. It is said he is a disciplinarian and a stickler for protocol and correct military procedure, though I have not seen this side of him. He seems happy enough to mix with the lower officer ranks here at the W.O. and is often to be seen having a beer at the local, where he is fond of pronouncing the English beer as ‘tasting like warm piss’.

  It was during just such an occasion that he told me in his own colourful vernacular why the Australian and New Zealand contingent have been diverted for further training to Egypt.

  As the official explanation doesn’t differ in essence, but rather in detail, I am confident that Col. Chauvel’s version doesn’t transgress the O.S.A. (Official Secrets Act 1912).

  I shall try to put my amateur theatrical experience to work to capture the tone and manner of his dialogue, as I feel sure it will amuse you. I apologise in advance if it doesn’t ring quite true to your acquired Australian ear.

  The following conversation takes place with yours truly and the colonel after the third pint of ‘luke-warm piss’ or, if you like, best British bitter:

  ‘Harry, didn’t you mention you had a nephew back home who enlisted with the A.I.F.?’

  ‘Yes, sir, my brother William’s son, we were greatly looking forward to seeing how the lad has turned out, he had a rather nasty chest problem when he left England.’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry about that, lots of sun and good red meat, soon fix his chest, pity you won’t see him. [Takes a sip of LWP.] Good thing, though, would’ve been a complete shambles.’

  ‘Oh?’ I say, not understanding how meeting you could possibly lead to a shambles.

  ‘The weather, the camp, bloody impossible,’ he exclaims.

  ‘You mean on Salisbury Plain, sir?’

  ‘Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? Bad enough for your own troops and the Canadians, you’re accustomed to the mud and the cold, but our blokes are not used to that sort of thing.’

  ‘You mean it doesn’t rain in Australia, sir?’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t piss down twenty-four hours a day, day in and day out, until you’re up to your bollocks in mud!’

  ‘Well, how will they be at the front?’ I ask cheekily, ‘That’s nothing but mud, sir?’

 
‘Hmmph, I daresay they’ll do a damn fine job when the time comes, but that’s a purely academic observation, the poor buggers would all have been dead from pneumonia long before they ever got to France! Half the Canadians who are encamped on Salisbury Plain are crook, and the others are rioting in the streets of Salisbury!’

  ‘Crook?’

  ‘Yes, down with flu or pneumonia and the other half are close to rebellion. They were promised huts, heated huts for the winter, and they’re still in tents, which at night are cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. What’s more, they have no hope of getting better billets until the spring.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir. What a good thing the old man changed his mind and sent your lot to Egypt.’

  ‘Had it changed for him, you mean?’

  At this last remark I raise my eyebrow somewhat. Chauvel is superior in rank to me and I don’t wish to point out that Lord Kitchener is not inclined to listen to the opinions of or be persuaded by a junior officer. ‘Well done,’ I say, deciding discretion is the better part . . . etc.

  ‘Good God, man, not me! Georgie Reid!’ Chauvel exclaims. ‘I reported the conditions on Salisbury Plain to him and he telephoned his nibs on the spot for an appointment.’

  In case you are not aware, Peregrine, Sir George Reid is your Australian High Commissioner in London, and is well known for his casual disregard for the niceties of diplomacy.

  However, being in the W.O., I know that access to the Field Marshal’s room by telephone is impossible to obtain. Not even the Prime Minister would think to call him without prior warning and I daresay that pretty well goes for the King as well.

  But I wasn’t to know that Kitchener makes an exception with Sir George. It seems he enjoys the Australian’s disregard for protocol, especially his ability to tell a good after-dinner yarn and generally play the buffoon. (Clever man, what?) Col. Chauvel calls it ‘being a larrikin’ which is, I believe, a uniquely Australian expression meaning a number of things, both good and bad. It would appear that being a larrikin (good) allows Sir George to get to the great man at any time and to freely discuss subjects which few would dare to broach.

  Col. Chauvel then went on to say, ‘Georgie saw Kitchener the following morning with my report and told him our convoy would be passing Egypt in a few days. That there was no time to lose, the Australian troops must be diverted to Egypt at once, and on no account be allowed to come to England where they would only increase the already unmanageable congestion.’

  I must say Sir George Reid must be a remarkably persuasive chap, because Kitchener immediately advised the Australian government and the plan was adopted in a matter of hours.

  So there you have it, dear fellow, straight from the horse’s mouth.

  While your aunt and I will be disappointed not to see you, it’s been a beastly winter, freezing winds from the north, with January, and possibly snow, yet to come. I don’t imagine, with such short notice, that things are all they should be in your Cairo camp – I’m told there’s a great shortage of tents – but the prospect of wintering on Salisbury Plain is not one I would wish even on the Hun. You are far better out of it.

  The newspapers here have expressed the view that the Australians and New Zealanders are disappointed with the decision not to bring you to England, being of the opinion that the diversion to Egypt means you will not fight on the Western Front.

  I am inclined to think this is not correct, as you are much needed in France, where things are not going as well as they might. All things considered, a bit of the Australian ‘larrikin’ (good and bad) might be a jolly good thing.

  The first time I was stuck in a military office job was during the Boer War when I begged for an active-service posting but was refused. Once an office wallah always one, the War Office is unlikely to give me a company command in this one, so it is going to fall upon your shoulders to follow in your grandfather’s (Crimea) and your father’s footsteps and to represent the family at the sharp end. I want you to know that your aunt and I are extremely proud of you and we wish you and your platoon the very best of luck.

  That’s about all I have to say, old chap. Agatha asks me to send you our Christmas greetings and to tell you to make sure you visit the Pyramids. (Isn’t your camp close by?) She also says I must take care to inform you that the damage to the face of the Sphinx was caused when Napoleon’s troops used it for cannon practice. She has never been fond of the French – ‘Too much side and front but essentially lacking in substance.’ She also sends her love and asks you to write a postcard. Though, I daresay, not one showing the Sphinx.

  With my very best wishes from your uncle Harry;

  Harold Ormington-Smith, Major.

  There is some amusement in the platoon at Wordy Smith’s Uncle Harry’s perception of his nephew, but they feel included and complimented that Wordy would think to read the letter in its entirety to them. Uncle Harry seems like a good sort of bloke despite being an officer and his nephew is so completely inadequate to the task that the Click platoon simply cannot harbour the suspicions they instinctively reserve for the officer class.

  None of them can possibly imagine Second Lieutenant Peregrine Ormington-Smith performing as a fighting man, issuing the order to go over the top and, with whistle in his mouth and revolver in hand, leading the charge against the enemy. They look to Ben to lead them with the vague notion that Second Lieutenant Ormington-Smith, with his kneepads firmly secured, his bum in the air and his magnifying glass inches from the ground, will be off somewhere finding his flowers to paint.

  ‘London to a brick, if he’s wounded it will be in the arse, a bullet through both cheeks,’ Crow Rigby says at tea on the evening they reach the Suez Canal.

  ‘We ought to paint a face on his bum,’ Numbers Cooligan ventures. ‘For his own protection. Bloody sight better getting a bullet through both them cheeks than the ones higher up.’

  They see the Sinai Desert for the first time stretching away to the foot of the Arabian hills, painted pink in the sunset.

  ‘It looks bloody lonely,’ Muddy Parthe remarks. ‘Yiz wouldn’t want to fight in a place like that, would youse?’

  The Orvieto is put on alert as they approach the ninety-nine-mile canal cut straight as an arrow through the desert and it is thought that they may be fired on by the Bedouins from the east. But instead, in what remains of the daylight, they see the first evidence of the Allies, a tented company who have created a series of small sangars with sandbagged breastworks in a semicircle, the loopholes in the breastwork facing outwards from the canal. Any enemy attempting a surprise attack at night would be met with an outer ring of barbed-wire entanglements. Behind the breastworks, as a fall-back position, are a line of trenches and, behind these, the tents for the men. It is the first sign they’ve seen of any serious commitment to wage war and there is a great deal of shouting, which brings a number of Indian soldiers out of their tents and up onto the banks of the canal. They are soon followed by two British officers with baggy khaki shorts which fall to well beyond their knees. Shouted greetings are exchanged and they learn from two English officers that they are the Indian Army, the 128th Native Infantry.

  ‘You’ll probably join us here soon,’ one of the officers shouts.

  ‘Not bloody likely!’ a chorus of Australian voices shout back. ‘We’re off to Britain, mate!’

  For the first time the men on board get an actual sense of being involved in something bigger than the A.I.F., a war where others, like themselves, have come from the far ends of the earth to fight with them. It is one thing to be told you are a part of something larger and quite another to experience it.

  The Orvieto’s original destination of Port Said has now been changed to Alexandria, where they arrive just a few hours ahead of the first ships in the convoy. On the morning of December 3rd, the 3rd and the 5th Battalions entrain from Alexandria for Cairo. They cross the Nile delta with the annual floods rapidly subsiding in the burning sun so that the Nile flats are a bril
liant green. People in long white robes are working the fields with wooden ploughs pulled by oxen. A woman walking ahead of a male on a donkey catches their attention.

  ‘Hey, wait a mo! Ain’t it supposed to be the other way around?’ Crow Rigby says suddenly.

  ‘What yer talking about?’ someone asks.

  ‘The bloke on the donkey, ain’t the Virgin Mary supposed to be on the donkey?’

  ‘Shit, you’re right,’ Numbers Cooligan exclaims. ‘Look at bloody Joseph, you’d think it was him up the duff, Jesus!’

  ‘It’s just like being in Sunday school with all them pictures they show you o’ these parts,’ Woggy now says.

  ‘You should know,’ Cooligan says. ‘They’re your kin folks, ain’t they, Woggy?’

  ‘I told yiz, we’re Christians, them lot’s Arabs, mate.’

  ‘What say you, Library?’ Hornbill asks.

  ‘Well, it’s all academic, ain’t it? There were no Christians at that time, Woggy’s ancestors were either Arab or Jewish.’

  ‘There you go! I told ya, didn’t I, Woggy’s a bloody Arab, no risk!’ Cooligan says triumphantly.

  It is nightfall when they finally reach the outskirts of Cairo. Seen from the railway carriages it seems to be a big, untidy-looking city.

  Hornbill sticks his nose out of the carriage window and sniffs. ‘Smells crook,’ he announces. ‘Me uncle says every city has a smell, it’s mostly from the food.’

  ‘Melbourne don’t smell o’ meat pies, mate,’ Cooligan says.

  ‘Flinders Street Station does, you can smell me uncle’s meat pies the moment you get off the train and all the way across Flinders Street.’

  ‘Hornbill’s right,’ Library says, ‘it’s the oil they use for cooking mixed with the spices. We smelled it in the bazaar in Aden, though not as bad as this.’

  ‘Wonder if they’ve got any belly dunces and snakes here,’ Crow Rigby says.

  The belly dancer and the snake has by this time been told so many times and in increasingly lurid detail that even the six who were present are becoming convinced that the snake was several feet long and the belly dancer’s weight around the four hundred pound mark with the three spare tyres around her belly big enough to fit out a Leyland truck.