Bill the Bastard

by Roland Perry

  The end of the desert conflict, however, triggered a certain disharmony, especially when the Anzac force learned the official word that most of the horses were to be shot or sold wherever the British government wished.

  Early in November 1918, Banjo Paterson and Aidan Sutherland had the unenviable task of leading 128 horses out into the desert a kilometre from an oasis. There they met the captain of a machine-gun squadron. The horses were bunched into rows of six in front of twelve gunners, who were lined up on a knoll before the mounts. Paterson on Blackham and Sutherland on Penny stood to one side.

  ‘This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,’ Sutherland said softly.

  ‘I feel like a mass murderer,’ Paterson said with a grimace. ‘I can’t watch this. C’mon, let’s get back to the depot.’

  The two men galloped off and did not look back as the machine-guns opened up and felled all the horses. A few minutes later they heard intermittent revolver shots as the gunners moved among the mounts looking for survivors of the machine-gun volley.

  Later in the day, another squadron of horses was trotted out of the depot for their last ride after a feed and watering. This time Paterson and Sutherland could not bear to accompany them. Paterson sat at his desk for several minutes before he called Sutherland to the office.

  ‘Aidan, I can’t cope with this anymore,’ he said. ‘I quit. You are in charge.’

  ‘I should go too,’ Sutherland replied, ‘it’s a poisoned chalice.’

  ‘You can’t go,’ Paterson said, ‘someone has to run this bloody death camp.’

  ‘Stay a wee while, please, Major. It’s your duty.’

  In despair, Bow Legg wrote to Shanahan on 2 November:

  It is an awful, awful thing! These fine old comrades carried us faithfully under all sorts of hardships. You’ll remember that terrible march to Oghratina, when we found the butchered British cavalry. The bloody Sinai sand was tough going, and some of us would never have made it but for Bill; you missed the rides through the Judean Hills. That was no fun for man or beast. The hardest of all were those long, exhausting treks across the Jordan and up the goat tracks of the Mountains of Moab. The horses often went without water for days. I haven’t even bothered to mention the battles we took them into and how brave they were, as you know better than anyone! Now the authorities want to dispose of them like some worthless trash! I don’t know what we will do. Mullagh says he can’t hand Bill in, but he will have to. Some of the blokes are taking matters into their own hands and are riding them into the desert and shooting them. Mullagh is thinking of doing that. Our mate Chook has got malaria and is on his way home. At least he is spared the horse problem. I don’t know what to do myself. I can’t sleep thinking about it. I’ll let you know what transpires. Not good news my old peg-leg mate! I hope you are appreciating your newborn. Life is so precious. Cherish it.

  The letter depressed Shanahan. Charlotte wanted to know what was wrong with him but he would not say. She didn’t understand how he could be so happy with his baby daughter one day, and in a black mood the next. He shut himself in his study and would not come out. Then Charlotte found Legg’s letter and knew what had triggered his anguish while not fully understanding its impact.

  Paterson responded to Sutherland’s plea and stayed a few days more, but he could not stand the shrinking of his once-mighty remount numbers. Both men were shattered by the experience and a pall of gloom settled on the Moascar depot. Trainers and staff began to leave as their duties were reduced.

  ‘I have so many wee pals amongst the neddies,’ Sutherland said as he and Paterson wandered down to the stables, ‘it is so, so sad to see them sent to their maker this way. I liked them all, wi’ no favourites, except for Penny. I’ve grown to love that wee mare as much as Bill does!’ He paused then remarked: ‘At this rate the only horse apart from your thoroughbreds to make it back to Australia will be Sandy, Colonel Bridges’ mount.’

  ‘My thoroughbreds are being taken today,’ Paterson said despondently. When Sutherland looked shocked, he added, ‘No, not to be destroyed, Sergeant. Allenby has ordered them back to England for cavalry service.’

  ‘But you own them!’

  ‘Not according to British laws of acquisition in war time. But I will fight the army in the courts on this, if I can afford it!’ He sighed. ‘But it’s the last straw for me. I am resigning. I will take a boat to Sydney next week.’

  This left Sutherland in charge of the remount depot, which promised to be empty by the end of November. More directives from High Command administration reached the depot. More than 20,000 horses were to be sold to the Egyptians. Others were luckier. They would go to the British and Indian armies. If the horses were more than twelve years old, they were to be put down officially. Their parts—hides, manes, tails and horseshoes—were to be sold. Troopers were disgusted by the idea of their younger mounts being sold into Middle Eastern markets. They had witnessed the way the locals in Egypt, Palestine and Syria treated their animals, and how emaciated and flogged their horses were. Be damned, they exclaimed, if they were going to leave them to a life like that.

  Every day Sutherland turned a blind eye to hundreds of troopers taking their mounts into the desert and shooting them rather than see them sold or face an anonymous machine-gun firing squad. This act was repeated from Moascar to every Light Horse camp along the Mediterranean coast as far as Rafa. It was the most awful moment of the entire war for most troopers. They had seen the result of massacres by Turks and Arabs. They had lost good mates in battle. But nothing compared to the moment they felt compelled to end the lives of their mounts, who were their closest cobbers. Many had dreamt of riding them down the main street of their town or city in a parade celebrating their historic victory over the Turks. Suddenly, all that reverie had turned to dust. How many of these men would wake in the middle of a nightmare experiencing the feel, smell and look of their horses, and then the sound of the shot, the sight of the buckle of the knees and the further sensation of the dull thud on the sand?

  Trooper Oliver Hogue (using the pseudonym ‘Trooper Bluegum’) wrote a poem, ‘The Horses Stay Behind’, reflecting the emotions of the Light Horsemen in its fourth and fifth verses:

  I don’t think I could stand the thought of my old fancy hack Just crawling round old Cairo with a ’Gyppo on his back. Perhaps some English tourist out in Palestine may find My broken-hearted Waler with a wooden plough behind.

  No: I think I’d better shoot him and tell a little lie:—

  ‘He floundered in a wombat hole and then lay down to die.’

  May be I’ll get court-martialled; but I’m damned if I’m inclined

  To go back to Australia and leave my horse behind.

  On 13 November Sutherland opened a letter addressed to the absent Paterson from Shanahan, pleading with him to spare Bill. Sutherland went down to the stables and found Penny was the only one of the special mounts left. Bill had gone. Sutherland made enquiries. Not one member of the dwindling depot staff could tell him.

  Finally a young trainer said: ‘You’d better ask Jackie Mullagh.’

  ‘What’s that mean, laddie?’

  ‘He’s gone for a ride on Bill out to the oasis,’ the trainer said. ‘He had his rifle with him.’

  Sutherland felt ill. He wandered back to his office and tried to occupy himself by opening more of the pile of mail addressed to Paterson, which had to be attended to. A letter from General Chauvel had him sitting up in his chair. It requested that ‘ten pack mules and/or horses be retained for a mission to Gallipoli. They will accompany a special Anzac Light Horse Contingent to collect artefacts and memorabilia for the Australian National Memorial Collection [later the first collection of the Australian War Memorial].’

  Sutherland cupped his hands to his face. His brain raced. He looked at his watch. He called in the young trainer.

  ‘When exactly did Jackie take off wi’ Bill?’ Sutherland asked.

  ‘Jeez, I dunno, Aidan, an hour ago, maybe a little less
?’

  ‘Bugger!’ Sutherland exclaimed. ‘Saddle up a neddie for me, will you please? But not wee Penny. I don’t want her to witness this.’

  Mullagh had not ridden Bill to the oasis. He had taken another horse and Bill was led there. He was accompanied by Legg on his mount that he had been with for three years.

  ‘I can’t shoot mine,’ Legg confessed as they reached the oasis, ‘I haven’t got the stomach for it. I’m handing him in tomorrow. I’ll let the gunners do it. He’ll go down with about a hundred others in one spray of their bloody weapons!’

  Mullagh said nothing as he tethered Bill to a palm tree behind a mound.

  ‘Gunna give him one last drink?’ Legg asked.

  ‘He had a good last feed and a drink at the depot,’ Mullagh said sullenly.

  He put bullets in his rifle, placed it down on the sand and went over to Bill, stroking his mane. The horse pulled his head away as if he was rejecting the sentimentality and saying get on with it. Mullagh wanted to say something to him but couldn’t. He returned to collect his rifle and took up a position five metres from Bill. Legg looked away. He heard the rifle being cocked. He waited ten seconds, fifteen seconds, thirty seconds . . . Legg was just about to look back when he heard the shot ring out.

  Sutherland pushed his horse harder than ever before through the retarding sand and over hilly dunes until he was in sight of the small oasis. Vultures circled overhead. The number of animal carcasses being left in the desert was drawing them to the area and providing them with a daily banquet. He heard a shot.

  Sutherland mouthed an expletive to himself—‘I’m too late!’ he said—but kept pushing the horse in the hope that the shot had not been fired by Mullagh. As he approached the modest oasis of six trees and one well, he could see a man sitting in the sand holding his head in his hands. It was Mullagh. Legg was standing over him, handing him something. A horse was tethered at the oasis. It belonged to Legg.

  Where is Bill ? Sutherland wondered as he barrelled up to the two men. Dismounting, he saw the huge horse tethered to a solitary tree behind a mound.

  ‘You’re not allowed to destroy him,’ Sutherland said.

  ‘Fuck off, Aidan!’ Mullagh mouthed. ‘I’ve gotta bloody do it!’ He took a swig from a whisky flask that Legg had given him. ‘Couldn’t do it a few minutes back, but now I’ve got some Dutch courage . . .’

  Sutherland handed him the letter from Chauvel. As Mullagh ran his eyes over it, Sutherland took his rifle and emptied it.

  ‘What the fuck’s this mean?’ Mullagh protested. ‘I’ve still got to do it sooner or later.’

  ‘No you don’t,’ Sutherland said, wandering over to Bill. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  A short time later, Sutherland accompanied eight pack mules and four horses—including Bill and Penny—by train to a wharf at Rafa on the coast. They were part of the contingent on the artefact-gathering trip to Gallipoli. He and a fellow sergeant counted the animals as they walked up a gangplank to a merchant ship destined for Gallipoli.

  ‘There you are, Sergeant, ten mules and horses as requisitioned by General Chauvel,’ Sutherland said, showing him the letter.

  ‘There were twelve animals, weren’t there?’ the sergeant said, frowning and glancing back at the rumps of the last two mules being pushed up the gangplank.

  ‘No, no, ten,’ Sutherland said innocently, ‘only ten.’

  The sergeant was about to dispute the number when Sutherland shook hands firmly. The sergeant felt something paper-like in his palm. It was a five-pound note. He pocketed it as Sutherland said, ‘Now I’ll be coming back wi’ those ten animals in a couple of weeks.’ He smiled and added: ‘We can count the ten coming off, just to make sure the Turks haven’t nicked any of them.’ He winked, picked up a backpack and hurried up the gangplank.

  It was an emotional moment for Sutherland and the other handpicked 199 Anzac troopers who returned to Gallipoli after nearly three years. They wandered daily with the pack animals from Anzac Cove up into the hills, jagged ridges and ravines, searching for the remains of troopers and diggers who lay where they had been felled on the Nek, Dead Man’s Ridge and all the other chillingly but aptly named trenches in or closer to the Turks’ former strongholds. Their remains would be placed in properly marked graves.

  On the first night, Sutherland took aside Kenan Kelic, a Turkish interpreter, former soldier and POW. He was acting as a liaison with people in the villages, who were a little surprised to see the foreign invaders returning.

  ‘Could we find a local blacksmith or horse-owner?’ Sutherland asked. ‘I’d like to sell a couple of the horses . . .’

  The next morning, the two men rode with Bill and Penny in tow to a small village behind nearby Suvla Bay. They found the village elder, Ahmed, a toothless, pleasant, middle-aged man. The three men chatted for a while. Ahmed offered coffee. He examined the two horses. Soon a group of eight villagers had joined them to marvel at Bill. There was some animation among them.

  ‘One of them thinks he knows Bill,’ Kelic interpreted. ‘Did he ever do the despatch run?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One of them claims to have shot at him. They are all very impressed.’ Kelic smiled. ‘This village will be a good home for them.’

  After a few minutes, the village elder approached them.

  ‘He has never seen a more magnificent animal than Bill,’ Kelic told Sutherland, ‘but he could not afford them.’

  ‘Does he want them? Penny is a good foaler, tell him.’

  ‘I’ve told him.’

  ‘How much can he afford?’

  The two Turks chatted.

  ‘In English money, it is five pounds.’

  ‘Will he really look after them?’

  ‘Oh yes, he’ll take Bill for himself and his grandson . . .’

  ‘But they mustn’t mount him. Tell him he must use him only as a packhorse and a stud. Make that clear.’

  ‘I already have.’

  The village elder went to hand the money to Sutherland.

  ‘No,’ he said with a smile, ‘tell him they are a gift from Australia.’

  The Turks were most grateful.

  Kelic and Sutherland trotted off. As they reached the top of a hill overlooking the village, they glanced back. A small crowd, including some women, now surrounded the two horses. The villagers were making a fuss of the two Walers, who seemed already content in their new home.

  Aidan Sutherland smiled and mumbled to himself: ‘Can’t wait to write to Shanahan and Mullagh.’

  27

  EPILOGUE

  Michael Shanahan, Charlotte and their two children (Audrey and Michael Stanley, who was born in 1919) arrived at Withersfield, in the gem mining territory of central Queensland, early in 1920. The train took them to a cattle loading depot at the end of the line. They had little money and so decided to make the depot their home to start with. It was a stark new beginning but the resourceful Shanahan overcame his disability and financial challenges by applying himself to fresh circumstances with his usual ‘can-do’ philosophy. He and Charlotte had another four children and moved to Brisbane, where Shanahan found long-term employment as a lift operator at Finney Isles department store.

  In 1946, after some twenty-eight years of marriage, Charlotte left him and her children and returned to London to again be with Stanley Butler, whose first wife had died. Shanahan, then seventy-six, battled on, beloved and cared for by his children and, later, his grandchildren. He stayed super-fit and rode a horse until he was eighty-four. He always hobbled along with his sticks at every Anzac Day parade, where his men showed him the utmost respect. Lieutenant Mulherin and the rest of his squadron always referred to him as ‘the Major’.

  Michael Shanahan died at age ninety-four on 12 October 1964. His association with Bill the Bastard caused him to become a permanent part of the Anzac legend.

  And what of the Bastard himself? He is commemorated in a bronze statue at the village of Murrumburrah, nestled in undulating hill
s 340 kilometres south-west of Sydney and 125 kilometres north-west of Canberra. The sculpture, by local artist Carl Valerius, is entitled ‘Retreat from Romani’. The life-sized work depicts Bill carrying Shanahan and the other four troopers to safety in the action that earned Shanahan the DSO.

  Over the decades, some visitors to Gallipoli who know of Bill the Bastard have taken time to visit the tiny village behind Suvla Bay where Bill and his mate Penny lived out their days. Nearly a century after the end of the Great War, Australians swear they have seen some extraordinary horses in the area that look suspiciously like sizeable Walers.