Captain Cook's Apprentice
Page 25
He is also the author of two novellas, the beautiful Shadow Dog, and the award-winning The Burnt Stick, illustrated by Mark Sofilas, as well as the picture book, Lucy’s Cat and the Rainbow Birds, illustrated by Jane Tanner.
Anthony lives in Canberra with his wife, Gillian. Their daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, Emily, live in Melbourne.
anthonyhillbooks.com
Also by Anthony Hill
Young Digger
The Story of Billy Young
Soldier Boy
The Burnt Stick
For Love of Country
Animal Heroes
Also by Anthony Hill
The dark clouds returned and gathered about the boy. His eyes grew distant, and he began to tremble. He heard not only shells exploding, but the cries of dying men . . . He was stumbling over churned earth, looking into the face of an officer, bloodied red as the poppies, ripped apart in the Flanders mud . . .
A small boy, an orphan of the First World War, wanders into the Australian airmen’s mess in Germany, on Christmas Day in 1918. A strange boy, with an uncertain past and an extraordinary future, he became a mascot for the air squadron and was affectionately named ‘Young Digger’. And in one of the most unusual incidents ever to emerge from the battlefields of Europe after the Great War, this solitary boy was smuggled back to Australia by air mechanic Tim Tovell, a man who cared for the boy so much that he was determined, however risky, to provide Young Digger with a new family and a new life in a new country, far from home.
At the close of the First World War, and after surviving a gas attack on the Western Front, Captain Walter Eddison moved his family from war-ravaged Britain to start a new life in Australia. The Eddisons were offered ‘land fit for heroes’ under the Australian government’s soldier-settlement scheme, but the grim realities of life in the remote bush were not easy for a family used to the green pastures of England.
Walter and Marion made the best of their limited prospects, but as they raised their young family on the outskirts of the nation’s newly established capital, tensions were again simmering in Europe. When the Second World War broke out, they were forced to confront their worst fears as their three sons headed back to the battlefields they’d tried so hard to leave behind.
Anthony Hill expertly weaves military history and gripping accounts of frontline fighting into this intimate portrait of a family who sacrificed everything for their country, showing how the global conflicts of the twentieth century came home to Australia, with tragic consequences.
VIKING
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa | China
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2008
This revised edition published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd, 2018
Text copyright © Anthony Hill, 2008, 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Cover design by Alex Ross © Penguin Random House Pty Ltd
Cover images: ship by Gordon Miller; compass, flowers and shark tooth by Shutterstock
Internal maps by Damien Saunder, Demap
Typeset in Sabon by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Colour separation by Splitting Image Colour Studio, Clayton, Victoria
ISBN: 9780143789512
This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
penguin.com.au
Sign up to Read More and discover new favourites
Visit penguin.com.au/readmore