by Anne Connor
That night she lay awake in her bed until her siblings had fallen asleep. She waited for absolute silence from her parent’s room, crept out from under her blankets, wrapped her eiderdown around her and snuck through the house and out the back door. She lit the lamp and tiptoed to the stables, pulled a bunch of hay from the bale, scooped a handful of molasses from the drum and rubbed it through the dry feed. Brown Horse stomped the ground.
Bess clicked her tongue, ‘Come on. It’s alright. I won’t hurt you.’ Eventually, he hung his head and sauntered over to smell the food. In the weak lamplight, she saw dried blood on his neck. She gently touched the welts while he ate his midnight feast and she wiped her tears and runny nose on the quilt.
It was the spring lamb sale in Ballarat, and farmers travelled to town to bid for stock. With Tom away, Bess wanted Brown Horse broken-in, her way, without her father’s brutal force.
A gentler rhythm resonated in the home during Tom’s absence. Mary hummed as she busied herself with her daily chores, and did not interfere when her daughter spent every spare moment with the brumby, leading him around the enclosure; one day slipping a blanket over his back; the next day, two rugs; the next day three. On the fourth, she threw on a saddle. He flinched at first, his shoulders and hindquarters twitching against the rough wool on his skin. It didn’t take long for him to settle. The stirrups jangled either side of his great belly and he nuzzled her hair as she led him.
She found it difficult to sleep that night. The following day she had planned to ride Brown Horse. She hoped he’d cooperate with her in the saddle. She rushed home from school and went through her ritual: she fed him the sweetened hay and placed the bridle on his face, talking while she did so, ‘That’s my boy, good boy.’
Bessie threw the blanket on his back, followed by the saddle, tightened the strap under his middle and let the stirrups drop either side. As she put one foot in the ring, his body tensed. She stroked his neck and rubbed his chest. ‘There, there, it’s alright.’ She positioned all her weight on the stirrup and with a slight jump she was up. Tall and strong from daily physical work on the farm, Bess had been riding horses half her life. She held the reins tight. Brown Horse flinched, walked backwards, circled and eventually stood still.
His neck felt warm and relaxed; she nudged him with her knees and he broke into a trot.
Then her father returned. Bess ran into the house and saw him sitting at the table. Time away had mellowed his mood. He was handing out humbugs. Bessie sucked on the boiled sweet as her da leaned back in his chair. He was smiling; she could tell he’d had a good time. She parked the humbug against the inside of her cheek.
‘Can I give you a hand with the jinker, Father?’
‘That’s a fine thing to say, let’s do it together.’
Father and daughter stood either side of the sweaty grey. Bess undid one section of the harness while her father loosened the other.
‘Father, I have a surprise for you.’
‘A surprise!’
‘I’ve been working with the brown brumby and he let me ride him.’
Bess heard the gravel crunch under his boots. She fiddled with the buckles on the horse’s rein, not daring to look up. He loomed over her. ‘You stupid girl, I’ve told you not to go near those wild horses. They’re killers. Look at me when I speak to you.’
She turned her eyes slowly to meet his. She knew she was entering dangerous territory. ‘He’s very gentle.’
Tom’s cheeks flushed. Dirt and sweat packed the creases of his forehead. He smelled of stale sweat and the sweetness of humbugs.
She softened her voice. ‘I’ll show you.’ She ran to the barn, picked up the saddle, bridle and blanket, then walked slowly towards Brown Horse. As she slid through the fence rails, the brumby raised his head and moved towards her, slowly at first before quickening his pace.
‘Hello, boy.’ She patted under his chin and rubbed her nose against his. She ran her hands along his side and flank, threw on the rug and saddle and was up on his back in a flash. With a gentle squeeze of her knees, Brown Horse sauntered around the enclosure.
Her father watched as his daughter took the brumby through basic drills, walking, trotting, walking again. Rider and mount performed well. Bess was happy and proud at what she and her horse had achieved. She bent over and hugged his neck, looked up to catch her father’s eye and smiled. Tom turned on his heel and strode towards the house.
That night a heavy silence fell on the family. Bess wished her mother would hum again.
Farming is seasonal and at times Tom hired extra men to help out with the milking. At these times, it was Bess and Honor’s job to help Mary cook breakfast. The two girls carried the heavy wooden tray between them, making sure not to slip in the mud. After that, Honor prepared the children’s lunches while Bess harnessed the grey to the front of the jinker ready for the ride to school. With everyone on board, she’d flick the horse’s rump and they’d take off out the wooden gates and along the long road to the track that led to the school. On the way, they’d pick up the neighbour’s children, Joanie and Nugget Higgins.
The school was just one room. Long wooden tables and benches sat in rows and a blackboard on wheels stood at the front. Eleven students aged between five and twelve shared the room with one teacher, Mr Hardfish, who lived on his own on the premises. Tall, thin and stooped, he had a beard flecked with remnants from his last meal. While the teacher had taken a shine to Bess, he picked on her little brother Frank, who found it difficult to concentrate in class and soon became distracted. Hardfish handed out unwarranted beatings to Frank. Bess tried to sit next to her brother to help him understand Hardfish’s instructions. The teacher’s intentions towards Bess were inappropriate. He’d lean in too close and place his hand on her shoulder while he took her through the work. Bess didn’t feel she had the right to complain or to tell her parents, so she tolerated his touching. At least he is not thrashing Frank, she thought.
SECRETS
Anzac Day 1991
WE HAD NOT LONG returned from North Fitzroy’s Edinburgh Gardens where my eighteen-month-old daughter and I skipped through dinner-plate autumn leaves. Distracted by a sound on the front porch, I opened the door to find my brother Galvin, pale and upset.
The two of us sat on the couch in our front room. With my daughter on my lap, I sniffed lavender shampoo as I nuzzled the back of her head. A motorbike sped up the side street. Lace curtains billowed in the mid-afternoon breeze.
My brother had attended an Anzac Day gathering earlier in the day, representing our father who had died almost two decades earlier. He had contacted Ron Jackson, a warm and open-hearted man who had known Dad, who welcomed my brother and introduced him to members of Dad’s regiment, the 2/14th Australian Field Regiment.
That’s when it happened, one of those life-is-different-now moments. An old man from Dad’s regiment told my brother of a tragic incident my father had been involved in. The information so disturbed Galvin he still finds it difficult to discuss. Was it an unguarded comment from the old soldier? Maybe it was the shock of seeing Jock’s son who strongly resembles his father; whatever the reason, nearly twenty years after my father’s death, his terrible war secret was revealed.
But the details died with him and the people he knew. I needed to know more.
My father had marched in Anzac Day parades. Not owning a car, he phoned one of his army mates the night before to organise a lift. Failing that, he’d catch the train into Melbourne. One year when the commemoration was televised, my sister, brothers and I gathered in the lounge room around the black-and-white television housed in a solid red teak box. The men looked proud. Bony bodies had filled out; waists had thickened; double-breasted suits replaced army uniforms. They smiled with medals pinned over their hearts on pinstriped lapels, no doubt pleased to see one another. An affection and respect remained between them no matter how many years had passed. People lined the streets of Melbourne and waved tiny Australian flags to honour their returne
d soldiers.
The parade seemed to go for hours and, bored by the monotony of it, I stretched out on the floor and filled a new colouring-in book. I sharpened my pencils many times while group after group of men, military jeeps, army, navy and community bands appeared on the screen. Two men carrying banners walked in front of each cluster, bearing the emblem identifying the division and company. Then the pennant of Dad’s regiment came into view, egg-shaped with a perpendicular line across it.
‘Mum! Quick, Dad might be on,’ my brother yelled.
Mum hurried into the lounge room, wiping her hands on the bottom of her apron. She walked up to the screen and squinted, still wringing her apron between her fingers, even though her hands were dry.
‘I think you’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s him. Look at that.’
We all peered closer. I was kneeling with my nose only inches from the screen. And there was Dad’s head and shoulders in a sea of marchers. He was smiling, and in three seconds he was gone and replaced by another banner followed by another group of men.
Mum walked back into the kitchen saying over her shoulder, ‘Switch it off now and go outside and play. Too nice to be inside.’
Watching television in the daytime was an unusual thing for us to do. Generally, it wasn’t allowed and we needed permission to turn on the box. Watching our father in the Anzac Day march was a special occasion.
My brother pressed the fat knob on the side of the teak box and the screen faded to pale grey with just a black dot in the centre until that too disappeared. The room seemed empty without the music of the military bands and the excitement of anticipating and seeing our father. I went back to my colouring-in. It seemed strange to see Dad on television marching with a group of strangers. I couldn’t imagine him having a life outside our family.
In the late 1960s, a shift in thinking crept into Australia’s collective consciousness. As a preoccupied adolescent, I wasn’t much interested in what was going on in the world. I wasn’t listening and there wasn’t the bombardment of media that we live with today. In my family, we weren’t encouraged to discuss politics or what was happening in the world. Though, I do remember protesters against the Vietnam War rallying in the streets, and the returning veterans being shunned. They were embarrassed to have served, even though for many their fate was sealed when a politician thrust his hand into a barrel and pulled out a marble with their birthdate on it. Many grew their hair long and made their escape in recreational drugs or alcohol.
Crowds attending Anzac Day gatherings diminished until only a handful of straggling bystanders remained and the ranks of marchers thinned. One year, Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance was defaced with the word ‘PEACE!’ painted in large white letters on the pillars of the north portico. Due to the porous nature of the stone, the slogan remained visible for more than twenty years. Spokesmen on behalf of war veterans and their families were apoplectic and called for the culprits to be caught and strung up. I thought I remembered the pine trees along Ceremonial Drive being cut down by demonstrators around the same time, but I could find no record of it. The Shrine’s online history section couldn’t help. I emailed their enquiries page and didn’t receive a response. I looked through The Age archives online and couldn’t find any entry there either. Maybe I imagined it.
The war against war was intense and I became one of these people. During Melbourne’s Moratorium against the Vietnam War in the winter of 1971, close to 100,000 people demonstrated, closing the centre of Melbourne. As a teenager, I began to take notice and was influenced by the people I mixed with. I didn’t demonstrate, but quietly disagreed with Anzac Day and what it represented.
After I had left home and started a family of my own, my brothers took my mother to what was called the ‘bombing lunch’. Scheduled on the anniversary of the first bombing of Darwin, men from Dad’s regiment and their families attended these gatherings. My father had died and Mum looked forward to these get-togethers enormously. I imagine she found comfort talking to men who had known her husband. She often suggested I should join them as I would enjoy it.
‘They make such a fuss, love,’ she said.
I declined. I didn’t want to push my anti-war sentiment, but I did not want to be involved.
I regret the years when I squandered the opportunity to meet and talk with men who are now no longer with us, who had known my father. I missed out on finding out more about the man whose DNA I share. My judgements had kept me from finding a richer story.
In those years, I was unaware of what the soldiers in Darwin had experienced. I had not known the extent of the attacks on what was then a little-known town. How men who were sent there were under-resourced, unsupported and unprepared. Many Australians are still unaware of what took place in Darwin. It has been a well-kept secret. If I had known then what I know now, I would gladly have attended those lunches. I hadn’t realised soldiers in Darwin were armed with leftover guns from the First World War with little ammunition. Modern artillery had been allocated to members of the armed forces shipped overseas to support Britain in its war against Germany, leaving combatants to defend Australia with outdated and inadequate guns. These firearms were not calibrated for the tropics so were close to useless. As ammunition ran out, soldiers were supplied with sharpened star pickets against an airborne enemy.
My brothers also encouraged me to be there. ‘There are some great characters there. You’d really like it.’
They were annoyed when I responded, ‘Why would I enjoy gathering with a bunch of strangers to commemorate killing people?’
But over time my stance on Anzac Day commemorations began to soften. I can’t pinpoint the actual reason or the time when I began to think differently. Maybe it was maturity, maybe it was curiosity. Perhaps, I had been influenced by the groundswell of new-found respect for returned veterans. Or perhaps, it was a combination of all of these things. The seed for this book was beginning to germinate and I wanted to see, meet and talk to those who had known my father to gain more insight into his story. A few years ago, I did attend an Anzac Day parade and walked with the ten or so remaining men from my father’s regiment. These old gentlemen had tears in their eyes when they met me. ‘I remember Jock very well,’ said a man called Vin.
‘He was a great man,’ said Linc.
‘Always had a joke to tell,’ said Ron.
Linc chimed in again, ‘Played the spoons, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, he did,’ I said, picturing Dad holding the spoons between his middle fingers and clicking them together as he moved his hands in swift circles. It had seemed impossibly deft to me as a child.
These men had stood side-by-side with my father. They had known him better than I did before he was the man who became my dad. They stood in the Melbourne autumn air smiling, happy, grateful, humble and very pleased to meet me. My judgements fell away with every line-etched hand I shook. My superiority dwindled when people of all ages, young parents with children in prams, well-dressed young women and men and teenagers clapped as we passed. Many called out their thanks as we walked along St Kilda Road to Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance.
To say I felt quite embarrassed about my stance against commemorating the war is an understatement. I understood this now. This was not the exaltation of war. This was gratitude. This was sadness for the waste of life, for the war scars my father’s generation lived with. This was good mates seeing one another again as they had done for over seventy years; such friendships were born out of horrific circumstances.
Of course, there is still that idealised conception of war that Alec Campbell, the last First World War veteran so poignantly reminded us of on his deathbed, ‘For God’s sake, don’t glorify Gallipoli – it was a terrible fiasco, a total failure and best forgotten.’ This glorification is what I had unconsciously rejected and reflected even in the way sports’ commentators use words such as conflict, battle and glory to call the Anzac Day football match. An industry has been built upon hero-worshipping the Anzacs from that cur
ious oxymoron the Great War and returned soldiers from the wars that followed. But it is an insubstantial worship, as American writer Chris Hedges observes in Death of the Liberal Class:
The wounded, the crippled, and the dead are, in this great charade, swiftly carted off stage. They are war’s refuse. We do not see them. We do not hear them. They are doomed, like wandering spirits, to float around the edges of our consciousness, ignored, even reviled. The message they tell is too painful for us to hear. We prefer to celebrate ourselves and our nation by imbibing the myths of glory, honour, patriotism, and heroism, words that in combat become empty and meaningless.1
My new-found experience of Anzac Day was quite different from either polarity. I saw the annual coming-together as people taking part in a ritual of death and life. That remembering is about respecting and having gratitude for people who had no control over the adversity they faced, but who maintained a belief that what they did was right, was for the better and would contribute to a more peaceful world. It is about remembering with gratefulness those who died defending our country.
* * *
1 From Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges, © 2010. Reprinted by permission of Nation Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
BEFORE THE WAR
My father seldom spoke of the war, but he spoke of his time in Darwin before the bombing in 1942. What another world for him. The searing heat, stifling humidity, perpetual heavy downpours, mosquitoes, open space and red dirt. When I helped Mum organise his things after he died, I found old composition books where he had written, in scratchy pencil, information on Darwin and snippets of conversations he’d had.
HE’D SHOWN A KEEN interest in how the town became settled and had searched for people to tell him of its history. He’d saved old newspaper articles about life in Darwin prior to white man’s arrival, Chinatown and the town’s personalities.