Solomon's Song

by Bryce Courtenay

  He aches to make love to Sarah but at the same time he keeps bumping into the images of the lads in his platoon. Crow Rigby squinting down the telescopic sights of his Lee-Enfield, Brokenose Brodie reading Dickens, his lips moving all the while, brow furrowed in concentration, Wordy Smith painting his delicate tiny blossoms with a brush that appears to contain no more than two hairs. Cooligan, Numbers Cooligan, being argumentative, making a bet, taking one. Woggy Mustafa defiantly Christian, Muddy Parthe working up a good complaint, Library Spencer quietly correcting a fact, Hornbill, smiling, fixing something or other, always tinkering. It is as if the love he feels for them in death keeps intruding into his life, even into his love for Sarah, as if they are somehow participants in the present, perhaps competitors, equally admiring of Sarah, sharing her with him. He wonders if he can love and live without them, whether they have become so much a part of his personality that Sarah will be taking them to bed with her, in some weird ritual in his imagination he doesn’t fully understand. They will be her lovers forever while he looks on, Sergeant Ben Teekleman, who managed to kill them all and stay alive himself.

  Ben pours himself a glass of champagne, watching the bubbles settle in the glass. Outside his window he can hear the starlings settling in for the night. What a racket they make, an urgency to find a place on a branch or twig, a terrible squabbling in the elm trees, life persisting, tiny wings beating the air with a furious energy, a thousand tiny throats demanding their own brief span, resisting death, fighting it for all their worth.

  In those moments of silence on Gallipoli, when both sides had had enough, there had been no birdsong, only the occasional mournful caw of a crow feeding on human carrion. ‘Crows. Why is it always the vermin that follow you?’ He can hear Crow Rigby saying it. The urgency of starlings had gone out of the air at Lone Pine, The Nek, the Daisy Patch. The charnel fields stank of death, the soil was soaked in it, drowned in a muddiness of young blood. There was so much death about, it became more natural than being alive. Can he now change back again and feel his need for life returning? Can he wipe death from his mind, replace it, even for forty-eight hours, with the life she brings him, the renewal she promises him with her sweet body? Is this woman, any woman, enough? Ben feels corrupted, guilty, ashamed even to admit such a thought, for he knows he loves Sarah more than his own life. Yet the thoughts of death, of decay, of the past, engulf him.

  Ben has his back to the bathroom door, facing the window when Sarah calls out to him. He rises. She is dressed in the silk nightdress and peignoir though her feet remain bare, her toes peeping from under the hem of the dove-grey silk. She has brushed her hair and tied it back with a brown ribbon. Her face is scrubbed clean of any make-up. As Ben draws closer he sees the light scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and the upper part of her cheeks. Her mouth is slightly open and her hazel eyes are filled with love for him as her arms reach out and she starts to unbutton his tunic. ‘Come, darling Ben, come and make love to Sarah.’

  Ben entrains at Victoria Station for Dover to catch the troopship to Boulogne and from there to the 1st Division base at Etaples, where he is kitted out with a cold-weather uniform and given, in addition, a tin hat and gasmask. He is also required to undergo a further ten days of training which includes the use of the gasmask and a demonstration and lecture on the effects of phosgene gas.

  This is the first of several differences from the conditions Ben had experienced in Gallipoli. For a start, there had been few gasmasks at Gallipoli, and those that could be found were used for only one purpose, to give the troops some relief from the stench of rotting corpses. Any platoon able to obtain a single gasmask to share among them treasured it. If there was one thing every soldier who returned from Gallipoli would remember until the day he died, it would be the stench of the charnel fields where the dead on both sides lay unburied and forsaken.

  Ben’s headquarters are near the village of Armentières where he is to report to his battalion commander Lieutenant-Colonel Le Maistre who has replaced Colonel Wanliss, who was wounded at Gallipoli. The battalion commander, much to Ben’s extreme embarrassment, welcomes him to his dugout some eight hundred yards behind the lines with, ‘Well, well, here cometh the axeman!’ Ben thinks for a moment that Le Maistre may be chaffing him, but realises almost immediately that the words are spoken in genuine admiration.

  Le Maistre points to an ammunition box. ‘Sit, please, Sergeant-Major, I’ve been through your papers and you’re just the sort of chap we need. Though, of course, you’ll be short of experience in this sort of trench warfare, but then we all are. Different. Quite different to Gallipoli and you’ll find it will take quite some getting used to. Thank God, the weather is being kind at the moment. Except for the deeper bomb craters which never seem to entirely dry up, as you can see it is rather dusty. One big shower, though, and we’re all back up to our knees in the infernal mud.’ He briefly ruffles the papers on the small table at which he is seated. The table and the hard, straight-backed wooden chair with it, appear to have been appropriated from a farmhouse kitchen. Then Le Maistre looks over at Ben. ‘Now, much as we’d like to have you here, brigade headquarters thinks differently, that’s the problem coming in with a reputation, you can’t slip in quietly, as I’m sure you’d rather do, eh?’

  ‘Sir, I am not an experienced sergeant-major, in fact I’m new to the job, I’ll be happy to be the dogsbody around the place, earn my crown.’

  ‘No, no, you’ll be given your own company just as soon as you return, you’re far too experienced a soldier not to be leading men in combat. It’s just that brigade headquarters want you to join a special training group, in the 27th Battalion, being conducted by the 7th Brigade. They’re a West Australian outfit, damn fine, too. The Joan of Arc Company.’

  ‘Joan of Arc? That’s a new one, sir.’

  Le Maistre grins. ‘I said that deliberately, Sergeant-Major, hoped you might pick up on it. The battalion has, it seems, a great many members of a West Australian family named Leane. They’re all enlisted in the same company, so that the C.O., two of the subalterns, several N.C.O.s and God knows how many enlisted men are all Leanes. In other words, the company is,’ he pauses and then continues, ‘made of all Leanes, Maid of Orleans, hence the Joan of Arc Company.’

  ‘Very clever, sir. Can you tell me what I am to do in the 7th?’

  ‘Yes, you’ll be with selected members of the 27th and 28th Battalions to be trained as scouts and as a raiding party. I’m not quite sure what this entails. It seems you are to be instructed in a raiding technique perfected by the Canadians near Messines, last November. Two officers,’ Le Maistre glances at his notes, ‘yes, here it is, Lieutenants Conners and Kent of the 1st Canadian Division have been seconded to assist as training instructors.’ Ben’s commanding officer looks up at him. ‘I’m sure it will prove to be very useful stuff when you return to us, Sergeant-Major.’

  ‘When will that be?’ Ben now asks.

  ‘Haven’t the foggiest, old chap. Rather sooner than later I hope, the 5th are in a big offensive planned for some time in July and I want all the experienced men I can find. I have an inexperienced C.O. in D Company, decent sort of chap but he has spent most of his war in ordnance, we’re thinking of putting you in with him.’ He brings the papers in front of him together. ‘Thank you, that will be all, Sergeant-Major Teekleman, report to the Provost Sergeant, who’ll give you your clearance and papers for the 27th Battalion part of the 7th Brigade. You’re to report to Captain Foss.’

  Ben rises and, coming to attention, salutes. Le Maistre grins suddenly and looks up from the table where he is seated. ‘Oh, I almost forgot, you’re supposed to have volunteered for this assignment, Sergeant-Major, so take extra good care of yourself. Remember, you belong to the 5th Battalion.’

  Ben finds himself in a special unit, which simply becomes known as ‘the raiding party’ and consists of some sixty men and six officers. It is divided into two sections, one responsible for the left half of the atta
ck, the other for the right. As the unit isn’t much bigger than a standard platoon, each half is allocated a sergeant, and though Ben is of a higher rank he is asked if he’ll act in the lower capacity for one of the teams.

  Captain Foss, a big, ebullient man, nearly six foot four inches in height and a good two hundred and eighty pounds in weight, looks and acts naturally as a leader, or, put into the colloquial language of the men under him, ‘he doesn’t carry on with any bullshit’. He introduces Ben to the West Australian volunteers.

  ‘Righto, this is Sergeant-Major Ben Teekleman, he’s a ring-in, a Victorian from the 5th Battalion, 2nd Brigade, but a very welcome one.’

  ‘Tasmanian, sir,’ Ben says promptly and the men laugh.

  ‘Tasmanian, eh?’ says Foss. ‘Well, in that case, if you have any doubts about him you are advised to look at his ribbons, he has earned his crown the hard way but has volunteered to act as the sergeant for our right section. I guess you’ll get to know him soon enough, as for me, I’m bloody glad to have him on board.’

  Ben, accustomed to big men and himself about average height for the Victorians, finds that he is much shorter than these West Australians. They are magnificent specimens, few of them are under six feet one inch while most are taller. They’re hard and well trained and at first he finds the going tough. After almost three months spent on his back, he has lost much of his fitness and the first few days leave him exhausted, so much so that he wonders if he should tell Foss he’s not up to scratch.

  The whole of the raiding party is withdrawn to a rear area along the railway line between Armentières and Wavrin where they are trained as if they are a football team preparing for a grand final. Each section is subdivided into right and left trench parties, parapet parties, intelligence, linesmen, messengers, telephonists, scouts, stretcher-bearers and covering parties. The Canadians have worked it all out, learning from bitter experience, and they prove to be excellent instructors.

  The men’s first task is to dig a replica of the German trenches copied carefully from photographs taken by an aeroplane sent over especially for the task. Each night they practise the raid, learning to co-ordinate the various tasks and sections quickly without talk. The Canadians believe that silence, hitherto never attempted, is a critical aspect for the success of the raid. While the practice works well, the aerial photography isn’t detailed enough to tell how effectively the trenches are protected, or what state the barbed wire is in or if there are any other obstacles other than craters.

  Two nights before the raid Ben is still not satisfied with his fitness. Though considerably hardened by the rigorous work of the past couple of weeks he goes for a run in his full uniform, carrying a wire-cutter and the weapons he will take with him on the night of the raid. He runs along the railway line, passing five or six hundred yards from the German trenches they are to attack. On a sudden impulse he crosses the railway line into no-man’s-land and finds himself moving in a circular direction towards the right-hand side of the enemy lines.

  At first it is not a conscious decision, he simply wants to feel the nature of the ground they will pass over on the night of the raid. But soon he is taken by the notion of getting as close as he can to the first line of German trenches. Foss, their commander, had some weeks earlier done the same thing, ending up close enough to see that the trenches on his left (the German right) were protected by barbed wire in poor repair and that they were vulnerable to an attack. It is on this premise that the raiding party is being undertaken.

  However, it is not known if the right-hand sector is in the same poor condition and this is the area Ben will be moving into with his men. Progressing from one ditch to another, he slowly makes his way to the German lines, eventually coming to the lip of a bomb crater in which there isn’t the usual pool of muddy water. He jumps into the crater, a large one that brings him at its extreme end to a point no more than ten yards from the parapet of the enemy trench. He can actually hear someone shouting out a command and a loud ‘Jawohl!’, the reply from whomever the direction is intended for. Someone is playing a mouth organ and in the darkness Ben can see a thin curl of wood smoke coming from the trench.

  He crawls out of the crater and examines the wire, which is newly constructed, well tied down with stakes hammered into the ground in an ordered pattern and calculated to make it very difficult to penetrate. But further up to his left the newly laid wire suddenly ends and the old wire is partially pulled up in preparation for the laying of a new pattern. However, there appears to be no sign of work taking place or spare bales of wire lying about. The ten-yard gap where the old wire has been ripped up is quite sufficient to put his section through.

  It seems the Germans have simply run out of wire and are waiting for more to arrive, their ordnance no more efficient than that of their British counterparts.

  Ben makes his way back behind the lines and the following morning reports his findings to Captain Foss.

  ‘You’re a bloody idiot, Sergeant-Major Teekleman, but thank you.’ He thinks for a moment. ‘This means Lieutenant Gill can bring four scouts with him to the left-hand sector to cut the wire and guide us through and we’ll send only one along with you to your section. Are you quite sure you can find your way through the gap again?’

  ‘It will be around the same time as last night and, if anything, a little lighter, shouldn’t be a problem, sir.’

  Ben salutes him and turns to depart when Captain Foss calls out, ‘Sergeant-Major?’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Bloody beauty, mate.’

  During the last week in May and the first few days in June the artillery has bombarded the sector to be entered but not so heavily that the Germans will think it a precursor to an attack on their section. The idea is that they should regard the artillery action as routine, their turn to cop a few medium trench mortars. This may well have been the reason why work was stopped on repairing the barbed wire.

  June the fifth is the night set aside for the attack and the raiding party is given a special set of clothing. They are fitted out with English tunics that contain no badges or identification marks, these being thought to be by far the most common on the battlefield and identical for every English unit. If any of them are killed, the enemy will gain no information from looking at their insignia. Their faces are blackened and their bayonets painted, though the scouts, messengers and carriers, as well as the bombers, will carry revolvers instead of rifles.

  They are also issued with a device called a ‘knobkerrie’, which ordnance will later refer to as a ‘life preserver’. This short, stout stick with a knob on the end, in this instance a heavy iron bolt, comes out of the previous century and the Zulu Wars in South Africa. The knobkerrie was used in conjunction with an assegai, a short fighting spear, by the Zulu Impi and used well the knobkerrie is a highly effective weapon at close range. A blow directed to the head will quite easily kill a man. Ben declines one of these, explaining that he would prefer to take his Maori fighting axe and Captain Foss quickly agrees. Ben also shows his section how to use the knobkerrie as a fighting stick in the Maori manner, a skill learned from Hawk as a child. Utilised correctly it can ward off a bayonet attack and, at the same time, kill the attacker.

  They are all issued with black plimsolls to quieten their footfalls on the hard ground, though later, with even small falls of rain, these will prove impractical in the muddy ditches and craters of no-man’s-land. Finally, an idea from Gallipoli suggested by Ben is adopted and they wear white armbands on either sleeve, covered with similar-sized black ones, which are to be ripped off to reveal the white when they begin the attack.

  The two Canadian instructors, both of them extremely popular with the Australians, request permission to come on the raiding party but Foss refuses. ‘Jesus, imagine if one, or both, of you blokes got killed because of something stupid my boys did. We’d have a diplomatic incident on our hands the like of which would see me demoted to the rank of corporal, if I was bloody lucky.’

  Th
e plan is for Ben and another scout, a lad named Wearne from Donnybrook, a small town southeast of Bunbury, both with wire-cutters, to move up to the gap in the wire and, if it is still there, wait for Gill and his scouts to cut through their section of the wire to the left. If the gap has been repaired, Ben, using his electric torch, is to signal for another wire-cutter to join them. On the command of Captain Foss, who is to move up the centre between them, the attacking units of the two sections, situated in a rifle trench some way back in no-man’s-land, are to move up into position. Both sections of the raiding party will then mount the attack, entering the German trenches together.

  The concept behind the raid is not to capture the German trenches but simply to surprise and harass them, killing as many of the enemy as possible in the time allotted, and then to withdraw, leaving the Germans feeling vulnerable and demoralised. This will give the Australian infantry, who have not yet experienced a full-scale battle in France or are not familiar with this type of trench warfare, the confidence that the Germans can be intimidated and their trenches entered almost at will. After the fierce and bloody resistance of the Turks at Gallipoli when the Anzacs attempted to raid their trenches, Ben wonders privately how successful this tactic will be. When he questions the ever-ebullient Foss, he is told that the fighting is different here and that a raiding party is not a tactic used in France and will come as ‘quite a surprise to the Boche’.