Solomon's Song

by Bryce Courtenay

  Wordy Smith, who has reached the edge of the tall scrub on Ben’s right, suddenly calls out, ‘Trenches ahead, Ben!’

  They hit the ground and wait, expecting at any moment to see all hell break loose from the direction Wordy Smith has indicated. They can now clearly see the mounds of packed red earth some fifty yards ahead and more or less directly in front and above them. The Turkish trench running a good twenty yards or more has been dug into the brow of the hill to cover a wide arch, the centre of which embraces the whole of Lone Pine where they lie, to the right looking down at Pine Ridge and the left over the bottom section of 400 Plateau. The rear of the trench must also look over what became known as Legge Valley to the north and Anderson Knoll to the south. This trench, Ben reasons, must be the most distant point forward from the heights the enemy dominates. In fact, it is one of the very few positions in the Turkish defence that might be vulnerable if attacked with a sufficient force of determined men who can get close enough to use their bayonets. But now, much more importantly, if they are observed and an enemy machine gun guards the entrance to the trench ahead of them, they stand no chance of surviving. Ben has led his men into a trap from which there appears to be no escape. They cannot retreat back up onto the higher ground of the plateau and if they move further south they must cross open ground where they’ll be cut to pieces by the Turkish machine guns. If they use their rifles they have no effective target, bullets don’t bend into trenches, so their only hope will be to fix bayonets and charge.

  Ben calls to Crow Rigby and Woggy Mustafa to crawl forward. ‘Woggy, have a look willya, you’ve got the best eyes in the battalion, see if you can see any movement, any at all. You, Crow, get your telescopic sights onto those trenches, see if you can see anything as well, if you do, don’t fire.’ He turns to Muddy Parthe, who is nearest to him. ‘Pass on, fix bayonets.’

  After a minute or so Crow says, ‘Can’t see nothin’, Ben.’

  ‘Three Turkish bodies at two o’clock,’ Woggy says, ‘legs stickin’ out the bush.’

  ‘Sure they’re Turks?’

  ‘Yeah, their boots, leggin’s, they’re not us.’

  Crow Rigby swings his sniper’s sights to where Woggy has indicated. ‘Yeah, he’s right, three o’ the bastards, flies buzzin’ over them, they’s dead orright.’

  Ben turns to the lieutenant and to his amazement sees that he is clawing at a ground shrub with the tiniest bright pink blossoms. Wordy Smith stuffs the specimen into his tunic pocket and Ben sees that the pocket is filled with floral bits and pieces which his platoon commander has collected on their way across the plateau.

  ‘Wordy, I’m gunna take a squiz, see what’s happening.’

  ‘No, Ben.’

  Ben looks at Peregrine Ormington-Smith in surprise. ‘Uh?’

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘No, sir, it’s best if . . . well, you’re the platoon commander, the lads need you to lead.’

  ‘That’s a laugh, Ben,’ Wordy Smith says.

  ‘Officer should stay with his men, sir,’ Ben says, reverting to formality.

  ‘It’s an order, Sergeant,’ Wordy Smith replies sharply, cutting him short. ‘If we get out of this mess it won’t be from my leadership and the men know that.’ He rises to his knees and removes his pack. Ben sees that his tunic pocket is overflowing with floral specimens and thinks he must be the only officer in the history of warfare who is risking his life with a tunic pocket full of wildflowers. Wordy Smith starts to move forward out of the cover of the juniper and scrub which on this section of Lone Pine appear to have been slashed to not much higher than knee height to increase the line of sight from the trench on the brow of the hill.

  Ben grabs Peregrine Ormington-Smith by his Sam Browne belt just as he is about to set off. ‘Stay to your left, Wordy, there’s more cover, take your time.’ He adds, ‘We’re not going anywhere except straight to hell if that trench is occupied.’

  Wordy Smith nods and crawls out of the cover of the tall scrub and juniper into the much lower scrub. His attempt at the leopard crawl on his elbows and knees makes a mockery of the idea that this position presents the most difficult head-on target for an enemy. His long legs push his bum into the air and it now bobs up and down above the juniper and presents a target any sniper could hit without pausing to take aim.

  They watch, all eyes glued on Wordy Smith’s bobbing bum as he draws closer and closer to the trenches. The scrub has been completely cleared for the final fifty feet up to the trench and the platoon commander must come to a halt before he gets to the edge of the gorse. Hopefully he will be close enough to see if it is occupied, though Ben cannot imagine how, if it is, they haven’t spotted Wordy’s perambulating movement through the scrub.

  ‘Get ready to charge, lads. Packs off, we’ll go to the right, don’t bunch, wait for my command.’

  They can see that by attacking from the right Ben is trying to maximise every second they have, hoping that by drawing the enemy fire, Wordy Smith will give them time to jump to their feet and get a few yards closer before the Turks in the trench spot them coming. Brokenose Brodie nudges Library Spencer at his side and points silently towards Ben. Library sees that Ben has his Maori fighting axe slung in its holster across his shoulder. ‘Them Turks gunna pay dearly,’ he whispers.

  But Library Spencer knows that Brokenose Brodie’s optimism is ill-founded, the chances of thirty-five men taking the trench by charging front-on over fifty yards is pretty bloody slim. If there is a machine gun facing them, then their chances become zero. He can feel the pressure mounting. If Wordy Smith makes it close enough to the trench to listen for sounds of movement and then makes it back unobserved, which, with the bobbing of his bum above the bushes, is highly unlikely, they may need to wait until nightfall before attempting to move out unobserved.

  To everyone’s astonishment, Peregrine Ormington-Smith suddenly stands up in the scrub some fifty feet from the trenches and, revolver in hand, his long legs taking surprisingly long strides, he proceeds to run up the final steep slope and onto the embankment to the trench, jumping directly into it.

  ‘Holy Mother o’ God!’ Numbers Cooligan exclaims, as they all rise at Ben’s order to charge.

  They are in the open running when the lieutenant’s head emerges again and, waving his arms, he indicates for them to come forward. ‘Halt, lads!’ Ben shouts. ‘Get back! Fetch yer packs! You, Brokenose, bring the lieutenant’s. On the double, we’re still exposed! Packs on and run fer’it!’

  Three minutes later they are all safely in the trench, for the first time out of the line of fire. They have crossed 400 Plateau and are now on its lower end at the very topmost point on Lone Pine.

  The trench is even longer than it seemed and curves around to the south, following the contours of the ridge, and Ben, barely pausing to catch his breath and remove his pack, nods to Hornbill to follow him. ‘Bring your rifle,’ he says, though he leaves his own and unslings his fighting axe and removes it from its holster.

  With Ben leading they turn the corner into the southern section of the trench and immediately come across the body of a Turkish soldier, then several more. Most appear to have been bayoneted, some shot, and soon enough they come across a dead New Zealand soldier and then three more and another eight Turks. The trench is a little deeper at this end and leads into a section with a roof constructed of pine logs. Ben looks into the interior and, although at the extremity it is too dark to see, four or five feet in he makes out the shape of a machine gun stripped down. The moveable parts are laid out on a square of canvas and beside it is a dead Turkish sergeant. The attack on the trench by the 3rd Brigade must have caught the Turks by surprise, and unable to use their stripped-down machine gun.

  Hornbill, who has climbed onto the firing platform to look over the southern end of the trench, calls suddenly, ‘Come, take a look, Sergeant.’ Ben withdraws from the covered section and climbs up beside him. What they see is a dozen or so Turkish soldiers lying dead on the slope and among them t
hree more New Zealanders. Then a little further on they see three more sets of legs protruding from the scrub, they are the three dead Turkish soldiers Woggy has seen previously.

  Ben returns to the timbered-over section of the trench, which appears to have been used as some sort of storehouse and is perhaps where an officer slept, the rank-and-file Turkish soldier being thought vastly inferior to his officers. As his eyes become accustomed to the darkness, stacked against the wall he sees a dozen boxes of ammunition and a bag of flour and, more importantly, a barrel of water, a neat pile of firewood and beside it what looks like a tin of kerosene. He moves still further inwards where it is virtually too dark to see without a light and is about to lean his axe against his leg while he finds his matches when suddenly a hand grips his ankle. Ben kicks away violently, jumping back in fright, his heart racing. The back of his head knocks against a hurricane lamp suspended from the ceiling and his arm is instinctively brought up ready to strike downwards with the axe.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ a voice cries out of the dark.

  ‘Strewth! You gave me a fright,’ Ben calls out. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘New Zealand.’

  ‘Shit, you gave me a scare,’ Ben says. ‘Better come out.’

  ‘Can’t, mate,’ the voice answers. ‘Me leg’s broke.’

  ‘Hang on, Kiwi, we’ll come and fetch ya, how bad is it?’

  ‘Bullet through me knee.’

  ‘There’s a lamp here somewhere, just hit my flamin’ head on it, just a sec, I’ll light a match.’

  Ben strikes a match and locates the hurricane lamp which is still swinging slightly. In the flare he catches sight of the shape of a big bloke seated on the floor, the light from the match briefly shows his blood-soaked trousers and puttees where he’s been hit in the area of the left knee.

  ‘Hornbill, get in here,’ Ben calls.

  ‘You’ll need to find some oil, it went out a while back,’ the New Zealander says.

  Ben hands the lamp to Hornbill and points in the direction of the small water barrel. ‘I think there’s a tin of paraffin over there, see if you can get this going.’ By now his eyes have adjusted sufficiently to the dark for him to clearly make out the shape of the soldier, though his features are still lost. He moves over and squats on his haunches beside the man, and removing his water bottle he holds it to the soldier’s lips. The New Zealander grabs at the bottle and drinks greedily. Ben hopes the water in the barrel he’s seen earlier is fresh or he’ll be without. He removes the flask from the soldier’s lips and takes a small sip before fixing it back to his webbing, though he can feel it is almost empty. ‘Owyer goin’ then, lad?’

  ‘I could use a smoke, mate.’

  Ben calls over to Hornbill, ‘You got a tailor-made, Hornbill?’

  ‘Nah, roll me own?’

  ‘Roll one for our Maori friend here, will ya.’

  ‘Hang on, Sergeant, I’ll ’ave a light goin’ in a sec.’

  ‘How’d you know I’s a Maori?’ the New Zealander now says.

  Ben hears Hornbill strike a match and the room momentarily lights up and he sees a canvas stretcher against the wall. Hornbill trims the wick of the lamp and hangs it back on the wire hook fixed to the log ceiling and the area is filled with a soft light.

  ‘I didn’t, mate. I was just bein’ a smart arse. Matter o’ fact, I’m a quarter Maori myself.’

  ‘Yeah?’ the soldier says, then suddenly winces, stifling a groan.

  In the lamplight Ben now clearly sees that the wounded soldier sits in the corner, his back against the far wall with both legs straight out. He has torn his trouser leg away to expose the wound and in the blood and gore Ben observes that the kneecap is still intact and that the Maori appears to have been hit below the knee, the bullet smashing through the tibia and the fibula bones. He has done several courses in first aid in the field and thinks the bullet must have missed the posterior tibial artery or the Maori lad would have been long dead from loss of blood.

  ‘It ain’t your knee, mate, just below. Lucky that, been the knee, surgeon would’ve chopped yer leg off.’

  ‘Me granddad didn’t have no arm, one eye missing too, maybe it run in the fambly hey,’ the big man says, trying to keep calm.

  Hornbill bends over both of them tut-tutting about the

  Maori’s wound while he rolls a hand-made, then licks the edge of the cigarette paper and places it in his mouth and lights it. He takes a quick draw on it himself and passes it to the New Zealander. The light from Hornbill’s match, brighter and closer than the soft light from the lamp, reveals a broad, heavily tattooed face and Ben is suddenly and painfully reminded of Hawk and home and his beloved sister, Victoria.

  ‘Thanks,’ the Maori says. ‘Much obliged hey, man.’

  ‘Bring us the lamp, lad,’ Ben instructs Hornbill, ‘then go tell the others the trench is clear. Tell Wordy Smith to post a sentry, top, centre and down here both sides and to heave the Turks overboard. Leave the four Kiwis, we’ll think what to do about them later.’ Hornbill brings the hurricane lamp over and places it beside Ben. ‘Oh, and leave your first field dressing with me.’

  ‘Jeez, I’m sorry, Sergeant, I’m wearin’ it,’ Hornbill says sheepishly.

  ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot. What happened?’

  ‘Shrapnel pellet when we was landing, it ain’t much more than a graze, but it fair knocked me out, when I come to I couldn’t find yiz so they pushed me into a platoon in A Company. Stretcher-bearer bloke done me ’ead.’

  ‘Nice to have you back, Hornbill.’

  ‘Me too, Sergeant. I can tell ya, I were that upset losing yiz.’

  ‘Count yerself lucky, lad. We were all shitting ourselves back there, at least you were out of it for a time,’ Ben teases.

  Ben turns to the big Maori. ‘You blokes issued with a first field dressing?’

  ‘A bandage?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘In me pack.’ The Maori tries to reach over for his pack and inadvertently moves his leg. ‘Oh fuck!’ he yells.

  ‘Steady, lad, sit still, we’ll get it.’ Ben looks at Hornbill who is about to depart and nods towards the New Zealander’s pack.

  ‘Sorry, Sergeant, don’t mean t’cry out.’

  ‘Not to worry, lad, be my guest, your leg’s bust real bad, but it ain’t your knee and that’s good.’ Ben doesn’t tell him that the chances of getting him back to the beach are pretty slim, in fact, for all of them. Hornbill hands Ben the bandage from the soldier’s pack. ‘I’ll need two or three more o’ these and a couple of pieces of wood for splints, get the field dressings off the four dead Kiwi blokes, get back here as soon as you can.’

  ‘Sergeant, can we get a brew goin’, there’s water and firewood back there, against the wall?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ Ben glances at the Maori. ‘Like a cuppa?’

  The big man nods and tries to smile through the pain. ‘Me mum says nice cuppa tea fix most thin’s.’

  Ben calls out after Hornbill, ‘Tell the lads to break out rations, eat something! Oh, and if the dead Turks have water bottles, take them before you toss ’em over the top.’

  He turns back to the Maori. ‘I’m gunna do the best I can with this, mate, but it won’t be much, clean it a bit, bandage it, fix a splint, that’s about it for the time being.’

  ‘Thanks, Sergeant.’

  ‘It’s Ben. We don’t stand on ceremony here. Ben Teekleman.’

  ‘Jack Tau Paranihi,’ the Maori says, extending a hand that’s almost twice the size of Ben’s.

  They shake hands. ‘Nice t’meetcha.’

  ‘Same,’ Jack Tau Paranihi says.

  ‘They issue you with anything to take, Jack?’ Ben asks, tearing open the bandage.

  ‘Take?’

  ‘Pain for the use of?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Same as us, eh, not even a flamin’ Aspirin.’

  Ben uses the gauze pad that comes with the New Zealand bandage to clean out the wound, which has thankfully long sinc
e stopped bleeding. He tries to remove the large bone splinters from the wound, which starts up some superficial bleeding again that he staunches. He knows he must be hurting the big soldier, but apart from one or two winces the New Zealander is stoic throughout. ‘I’m goin’ ta bandage it pretty tight and it’s gunna hurt, so hold on, Jack.’

  Ben takes out his own field dressing and places the gauze pad from it on the Maori’s wound. The Australian field-issue bandage appears to be of a slightly heavier gauze than the New Zealand one so he uses it instead, winding it tightly just below the knee. With the first wrap around Jack Tau Paranihi gives a loud involuntary cry and then grabs hold of his shirt front and stuffs it into his mouth, biting down hard, his eyes tightly closed as he fights back the pain.

  ‘There you go,’ Ben says at last. ‘At least the bloody flies can’t get in. We’ll fix a splint for you soon, lad, get you a brew. Have you eaten?’

  ‘On the shup this mornin’.’

  ‘We’ll get you something.’

  ‘There’s food in me pack hey,’ Jack Tau Paranihi says, ‘bullybeef.’

  Ben shakes his head. ‘Only the flags and the badges change, the bloody tucker in every army is the same shit!’

  ‘Sergeant?’

  ‘It’s Ben, mate.’

  ‘Ben, where’s you get that there axe hey?’ Jack doesn’t wait for Ben’s reply. ‘That axe Maori, man, fightin’ axe from me own tribe, it’s got the markin’s.’

  ‘It was my grandfather’s, he fought in the Maori wars in 1860.’

  ‘He took it from a dead Maori warrior?’