Two Generations

by Anne Connor

  ‘I thought enlisting would be a good chance to see the world for a couple of years before settling down. It’s not that I don’t want to be on the land, I do, just not now.’

  What a leveller the war is, Jock thought. Here is a lad who left school at twelve and ran his father out of town with a pick handle, and another wealthy, well-educated lad, who went to boarding school, and me, standing around the same fire.

  ‘What do they call you at home, Sticks?’ Jock asked.

  ‘I was christened Miriam William Malone after my great-grandfather.’

  Glad it was pitch-dark, Sticks felt his face burning with embarrassment.

  ‘I hate the name Miriam, usually tell people my name’s Will.’

  ‘You’re Sticks to us, mate,’ said a voice from the back of the huddle.

  My mother told me the letters she received from Dad while he was stationed in Darwin had been censored with sections sliced out with a razor blade. I found a letter folded in four and tucked in the back of one of his diaries. It was written on a torn-out page from one of his journals. The writing had faded with age and it took me a while to decipher his script. It had been written in lead pencil.

  OCTOBER 1941

  My dear Bess,

  It seems ages since I left No. 43 and I miss you and the baby dreadfully. We’re stationed in Darwin and it’s the last frontier up here. I’ve never seen such rain, pet – 72 hours without let-up last week and the army rations us with one bottle of water a day. It doesn’t make sense. A lot of what the army does doesn’t make sense. The locals said the wet season started early. We were told it doesn’t usually come until later in the year. The mud and slush make getting around difficult. I’m stationed at Winnellie Barracks and we have been underwater. We’ve been given camp stretchers left over from the First World War. They’re mouldy and worn. But it beats sleeping on the wet floor. We’re building roads and erecting telegraph poles. Hard work in the heat. Not much to report, just that it’s as hot as blazes and it’s not even summer yet. I’ve never imagined such heat and humidity.

  We arrived in Darwin weeks ago. It is hard to keep track. We’ve been sent here to acclimatise to the tropics before heading further north to New Guinea. We only had 24 hours’ notice to leave Pucka. Then it was full steam ahead. The Japs are well and truly entrenched in the NG jungles and we’re to relieve blokes in the 9th Division who haven’t had a break in ages. Have no idea when we are to ship out, though. Next letter from me may be from the jungles of NG. Who knows?

  The trip up through central Australia was a marvel. We left Pucka and caught the train at Seymour, which took us to Melbourne and then overnight to Adelaide. Then onto the Ghan to Alice Springs. We stopped at Murray Bridge and Quorn where the girls from the CWA were waiting for us with hot tea, freshly cut sandwiches and Anzac biscuits. It tasted good, manna from heaven after the slush served at Pucka. When the train moved out of the station, the girls stayed on the platform waving their hankies and singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’. I watched them until they became so small they were hard to make out. All I could think of was you.

  Bess, the Australian countryside is indescribable. It’s like being on another planet. Wild camels roam in packs. They are the ugliest and dirtiest creatures I’ve ever seen. And dangerous too. Apparently, they kick and spit if you get too close. The ground was so dry, as if it’s never seen rain. Hot, dusty and dry. The further north we travelled the hotter it got. The days were roasting so we’d strip to our singlets and shorts. Then at night the temperature dropped.

  The train stopped and on went the big coats, as it got chilly. We’d stand around fires lit in big tin drums trying to keep warm. The train didn’t move at night because of the blackout. It’s a risk having the lights on. There’s been talk of Jap reconnaissance planes.

  The blokes said it was freezing, but no disrespect to them, they don’t know what freezing is. We’d have a sing-a-long some nights and I played the spoons and Snowy White, a fella from Coober Pedy, played the mouth organ. There were songs I didn’t know, but I am getting to know them. Sometimes we’d tell stories. I’m with a great mob of blokes, Bess. We have plenty of laughs and I give as good as I get. The most well-used line is that they need an interpreter to help them understand what I am saying, especially when I get excited and my speech quickens. I can fall back into dialect and then I am left with a group of lads looking at me with big grins on their faces. It’s good fun.

  The night sky through the middle of Australia was the blackest of black with a million stars that went on forever. I’ve never seen anything like it, love. In snuffy Manchester, smog and fog blanketed the stars. But travelling up through the middle, the air was so pure, crisp and clean. It’s a wonder, Bess. The sunsets and sunrises were magnificent – spectacular – crimson, orange and gold. And so much land, as far as your eye can see, not a house, not a person, except for a few Aborigines. I wish you could see what I see, love. It saddens me that you can’t. We’ll see Australia together one day, I promise.

  I saw my first mob of Aborigines, third day in. What a sight! They were lean and nearly naked except for pieces of well-placed cloth and they walked in groups. The men had spears and one had a dead kangaroo slumped over his shoulder. The women, gins they call them, and their children walked together away from the men and they scanned the ground as if they’d lost something. Then they’d stop and pick something from dead bushes. Well, that’s what it looked like to me. They’d place their takings into oval-shaped wooden dishes carried on their heads. I was taken by their grace and ease as they step light upon the ground. I was mesmerised by them. The other blokes call them abos, darkies and boongs. They were cruel in what they were saying. Not to be repeated. But it’s so new to me, pet. I left Lancashire over a decade ago and now I am seeing and experiencing things I never dreamed of.

  The train stopped at Alice Springs as that’s the end of the tracks. Then we were driven to Darwin along unmade corrugated roads. It was the most dreadful ride. Every bone in my body shook.

  Not much to tell you about what’s going on up here. Just that it’s hot as blazes. I’ll write later, love, as the mailbag is due and I don’t want to miss this post as I can’t be sure of the next delivery. There is no rhyme nor reason to it. Typical army.

  Give my regards to your mother, Honor and Tilly. A big kiss to you and the baby.

  Any news from Frank and Ralph? I lost touch after Puckapunyal. God bless.

  Love Jock

  Their task was to set up a WS FS6 MK II Wireless in the scrub between Darwin and Adelaide River. Sticks jumped in the driver’s seat. Jock and Stan climbed into the truck’s open-tray. Jock stamped his boot hard on a hessian bag filled with tools to stop it sliding. The vehicle took off in a cloud of red dust and headed inland, racing over low-lying scrub, through and over potholes. It wasn’t long before they came to thick bush with miles of gum and cypress trees.

  Jock dragged the two-man saw from the hessian bag and handed one end to Stan. The teeth of the saw were rusted and worn making cutting the trees slow and arduous. Stripped to the waist, they tried to find trees in shaded patches to gain relief from the scorching sun. Flies stuck to their faces, backs, nostrils. It took most of the day to cut enough trees to fill the truck.

  Jock noticed thick dark clouds rolling in from the ocean, which took the sting out of the sun but added another risk. Sticks saw the clouds too. ‘We need to get back to base before the storm breaks. It’s dangerous out here with lightning.’

  ‘Especially under these trees, we’re asking for trouble,’ said Stan as he pulled the rope tight across the load and secured it tight.

  The next day Jock was in the bush again working along the 600-mile stretch from Darwin to Tennant Creek. Bulldozers and small loaders made light work of the construction. Surveyors pegged the route then bulldozer crews cleared sections of the track six and a half yards wide followed by teams measuring out the distance between the poles and placing a marker where each hole was to be dug. Diggers equipp
ed with augers, jackhammers and explosives followed. Materials required for each pole site were dropped close by then assembled to fit on each cross-arm. A pole was lowered into the hole where it leaned until the next group came to set it upright, drop in the backfill and attach the stays. When each section of poles was erected, the line parties went into action reeling out six pairs of wire simultaneously. Men followed with hook sticks to lift it over the cross-arms to wait for linesmen to tighten the wires at each pole. Lines were tied to poles by cable or rope.

  It took two men to haul the radio’s grey cumbersome metal casing from the truck to a well-treed place hidden from enemy planes. Confident of its position, they walked back to the vehicle, picked up a large battery and set it next to the radio. Jock threw a wire high into a gum tree to act as an aerial, then sat on a rock, took out the recording sheet and HB pencil. He hung his hat on a branch of a broken tree he used as a backrest, swiped the flies on his back, arms and face with a strip of gum tree leaves and placed the earphones over both ears.

  The wireless had knobs and dials across the top two-thirds of one side. At the bottom left-hand side was a black round knob, attached to a thin piece of metal that moved up and down. Jock twiddled the knobs and dials looking for the right wavelength. When satisfied, he placed his right hand on the black round knob and leaned closer to the set. He turned his head to one side as if communing with the metal square case in front of him. His hand movements were soft and gentle as he tapped out a series of sounds – dit, dit, dah, dah.

  ‘I’ll be buggered if I can figure out what that tap, tap, tapping means,’ said Stan.

  ‘Quiet,’ Sticks said.

  When Jock finished, he eased his back against the tree branch and took off the earphones. Stan and Sticks stood around Jock with their hands on their hips, watching the wireless set. Within seconds, the Morse code lever started moving on its own, a return message from Winnellie Barracks. They threw their hats in the air.

  ‘You little beauty,’ Sticks said.

  ‘Success first time,’ said Stan.

  ‘Ay,’ said Jock, grinning from ear-to-ear.

  Jock replaced his earphones then tried the two speech circuits. The voices at the other end were faint but audible.

  19 February 1942

  The day started out no different to every other day – hot and humid. Jock woke at six and jumped on the communal bike Tic had won from Yanks in a poker game a few weeks earlier.

  The ride from Winnellie Barracks to the billabong took twenty minutes along a bumpy dirt track by the railway line. Jock stood full height on the pedals, his piston legs pushing hard, his back bent over the handlebars. Each morning he raced his time from the previous day. The faster he rode, the emptier his mind became. No thoughts, just trickles of sweat on his back, legs and arms; eyes stinging from riding head-on into the hot air. Over hills and around bends he rode, dodging holes in the road and swerving rocks. He was nearly at his destination when his calves, thighs and buttocks burned, a vice-like grip seized his chest. He had to give in. He was spent. The place of surrender that day was further than the day before, just three hundred yards from the swimming hole. Not bad, he thought, getting better. He slumped onto the worn leather bicycle seat and cruised the last bit, breathing hard, his legs dangling either side of the pedals. It was downhill and little effort was needed.

  He was grateful for the use of the bike and wished he’d been there to witness the card game.

  People Jock had met since leaving Melbourne seven months earlier intrigued him. Especially Tic, whose bike he was riding. His parents owned a pub in Adelaide and he had been playing cards with the regulars since he was eight. He stumbled across a card game with a bunch of Yank sailors in the back room of The Don. The Americans had had a skinful. Tic, being a publican’s son, didn’t touch the stuff.

  ‘Mind if I sit in on a hand or two?’

  ‘Sure, buddy. Have you played five-card poker before?’

  ‘A bit.’

  The Yanks’ bravado increased with every hand. Except for the twitch, Tic’s face didn’t move. His practice was to lose the first five hands until he was skint. On the sixth, Tic began to play his game and soon after cleaned up the Yanks and walked away with thirty-five pounds plus the two-wheeler.

  Jock stopped at the billabong where soldiers bathed and washed their clothes. He propped the bike against a tree stump in the morning shade, took off his shorts and y-fronts, kicked off his boots, tied the laces together and looped them over a low-lying branch. He’d learned to do that after what had happened to Horry Anderson.

  Jock had taken a shine to the sixteen-year-old. He enjoyed Horry’s joy for life and naivety. A big fella, already shaving, he’d told the recruitment officer in Adelaide he was eighteen. It had been Boxing Day 1941, and Horry had wanted to be first in. He dropped his shorts and threw his boots onto a pile of rocks, dive-bombed off an over-hanging tree. After his swim, the boy sat on the rocks and pulled on his boots. He tied the laces in a double knot as his mother had shown him.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.’

  Horry jumped from one foot to the other kicking at an imaginary object. He dropped on his haunches, his hands trying to undo the laces. He threw both boots into the water and kicked and brushed the biting insects off his feet. The shoes floated for a while, then filled with water and disappeared below the surface. Still dressed, he lunged in to retrieve them and emptied his waterlogged boots as he waded out of the billabong. He slipped his stinging feet into the damp leather. The bites lasted for weeks, before becoming septic in the tropical air.

  The water was mirror-still. Jock took a few steps in, then duck-dived, luxuriating in the cool swoosh over his hot, sweaty body. He swam on his own for a time, rolled on his back floating and gazing at the cloudless, blue sky, forgetting where he was for a moment. His thoughts were of Bess and swimming with her at Eastern Beach before the baby came along. Jock remembered her in the blue swimsuit, the one that matched her blue-grey eyes – those eyes, those mesmerising eyes. She had worn white shorts over halter-neck bathers and slid them over her legs and feet, leaving them concertinaed on the sand. Still wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, she tiptoed into the shoal. Not being able to swim, she was nervous around water. In time, she became more confident and paddled near the sandbars. Jock swam out further and rode the waves to where she splashed. They moved together in the shallows. Just their heads were visible above the water as the couple gazed into one another’s eyes. Beneath the surface, their arms and legs were entwined.

  Noise from the other blokes talking and diving into the water jarred him back into present time. The early morning dip, a welcome relief from the monstrous heat, had become a morning ritual for a group of them. The soldiers fooled around, telling the same jokes and playing the same tricks they had the day before, and the day before that.

  ‘Hey Horry, did you leave your boots on the rocks over there mate?’

  ‘Yeah mate, they’d be safe as houses – bull ant houses.’

  At thirty-six, Jock was one of the oldest. ‘Even I know to watch out for bull ants, Horry, and I’m one of those no good poms you keep bunging on about.’

  Horry didn’t miss a beat. ‘Hey, old-timer, when I need fatherly advice I’ll ask for it. Be careful you don’t get your wheelchair bogged in the mud.’

  No thought of war at this waterhole, thought Jock, as he swam towards Horry and splashed him. Tic snuck ashore and picked up Snowy Mac’s y-fronts and threw them at their owner. Thwack! They hit Snowy right in the face. He peeled them off and threw them at one of the other swimmers. Tic picked up abandoned clothes from the bank of the billabong and the surrounding tree branches and threw them randomly at anyone in the water. The chiacking continued with muddy clothes flying back and forth.

  With the best part of the day behind him and knowing he had to be picked up in less than an hour, Jock waded out of the water still smiling at the predictable lame gags. He rescued his clothes from Tic’s grasp, rinsed the mud out of th
em and before he was dressed and on the bike, was covered in sweat again. He rode back to Winnellie, ate the usual biscuit and bully beef breakfast with weak black tea. With some time to spare before pick-up, he found a quiet place outside, sat under a gum tree, pulled out his notebook and wrote:

  Singapore surrendered to Japs on the 15th. Singapore – last stop before Aust. We’re sitting ducks up here. Nothing between us and Japs run south. No radars in town. Artillery scarce, less than 20 AA guns and a small number of Lewis Guns. We’re supposed to be gunners but had no training since Pucka because of ammo shortages. Regiments issued with five rounds of bullets per rifle – machine-gunners, 30,000 rounds per machine-gun, which at a stretch would last five minutes. People are getting nervy. I am too. A lot of our lads were sent to defend Singapore, so the Japs couldn’t attack Australia. Poor bastards are probably dead now or taken prisoner. Wonder when we will be shipped to New Guinea. Been here long enough to acclimatise to tropics. Lads sent overseas to fight for England and America taken all new artillery. Up in stinking heat of Darwin have leftover artillery from WWI. Artillery unpacked the other day was marked not to be used in tropics. Roadwork again today. I signed up because I’m an Englishman and wanted to fight for my old country and new one too. Not build bloody roads in the hot sun.

  When not rostered on signals’ duty, Jock was part of a team working on the Alice Springs to Darwin road. Bare-chested soldiers blistered and burned from the searing heat, made roads and laid railway sleepers, building a network of bases, central to the defence of Darwin. It was hot back-breaking work. Furnace-like conditions made it difficult to move fast. Jock was in a team of fifteen men. Their job was to break-up rocks on the goat track. They worked in the blazing sun. The rust-coloured dirt settled in the corners of their eyes, made its way up their noses, seeped into singlets and shorts and the pores of their skin. Dirt and sweat ran down their bodies. Mosquito bites and flies were constant. Battered tin water bottles hung from soldiers’ belts. Dehydration was the enemy. One bottle of water per day was the ration. Jock wasn’t sure why water was limited as there was no shortage with the wet season lasting six months. Another ridiculous army order.