by Peter Corris
The beach was long and white with high dunes at the back, topped with thick stands of waving grass. We tramped along parallel to the Pacific for a bit until we found a dune with a gently sloping, deeply grooved back. Here we settled – blanket, basket, bottle of wine, umbrella and broad-brimmed hat, and pulses racing.
She sidled across closer to me on the blanket and put her hand on my arm. 'William,' says she, 'I want it!'
'Ah.'
'I don't want to marry a south coast farmer and hear about cows all the days of my life. I want to be like . . . like Lola Montez.'
'Dead, I think.'
'You know what I mean ! I want to feel passion and despair. I want to live!'
I suppose the honourable thing to do would have been to tell her not to be silly, and to point out the admirable features of the farmers' sons around Berry. I'm sure I could have come up with some if I'd put my mind to it. But I'm afraid that, after three or four months' deprivation, the sight of that red, open mouth and those enormous knockers was too much for me. I eased her back on to the blanket and proceeded to work on her with tongue and hands. But she was inquisitive and eventually I satisfied her curiosity. She was a virgin and I hurt her.
When I'd finished I rolled gently off and rested above her, half raised up on my elbow.
'Well, Miss,' I said, 'you're more like Lola Montez now than you were.'
She gazed up at me with what I took to be adoration. I gave her a light kiss on the lips.
'Is it better the second time?' she said.
8
The next few days are as fresh in my mind as yesterday, maybe fresher. If you've ever conducted an illicit liaison, or better still two illicit liaisons, you'll know what I mean: notes hidden under rocks, brushed hands and violent couplings in the time available. I don't know much about Lola Montez, they say she was a sprightly type with a fancy to do it in riding boots, well, although Katie Ryan wasn't quite like that, she had no objection to trying something new. Although she was a novice and I'd been hanging around whore houses since I was sixteen, we worked out a new wrinkle or two. (I've long been of the opinion that imaginative free love tops the bill, with commercial sex second and the conjugal act a distant third.)
We had to be careful because, although Ryan may have been deaf and blind in these matters, his good lady certainly was not. Looking back, it's possible that she may have had a fancy for me herself but matters never came to that. (I wouldn't have minded, she was a well-fleshed Irishwoman with the eyes she'd passed on to her daughter.) Katie and I cavorted whenever we got the chance, usually late at night, which meant that I went about my daytime duties in an exhausted daze. Ryan got less and less value from me and he may have been as glad as I was that our arrangement was drawing to a close. I hadn't told Katie a word about it of course. I meant to be off one fair morning, perhaps leaving her a note. (I never did write the note.)
That's not how it turned out. Ryan and I calculated that my bondage would end on 21 October and I agreed to stay on for an extra few weeks, to complete some fencing he was preparing to accommodate spring lambs. A week or two more of Katie was all right with me and, tanned and moustachioed as I was and with a bit of extra beef on me, I felt that it might be safe to drift back to Sydney. There hadn't been a whiff of any Long Bay trouble during my sojourn at Berry, and if Dunstan and Houghton had nowhere to send their letters that was their bad luck – I was damn sure there wouldn't be any more fivers enclosed.
Things went on agreeably with Katie and me going at it like fury and me trying to keep a little energy for the daytime now that Ryan was actually paying me wages. We were nearly rumbled one night by Mrs R. who went looking for her darling girl and stumbled into a bucket we'd positioned to forestall just such an event. She swallowed a story about Katie hearing a lamb bleating fit to rend the heart, or appeared to, but I fancy she eyed me all the harder after that. It was a close call and Katie and I went even more carefully.
A week or so into my time on wages and the conscription referendum came off. People came into the Nowra school and other public halls and there was nothing else talked about or written about in the papers. Ryan had been opposed to the plebiscite because he was sure it would pass.
'It'll come in, mark my words,' he said, as we worked on the fence for the lamb paddock.
I grinned at him. 'Australian women won't send their sons off,' I pointed to the animals, 'like lambs to the slaughter.'
'Will they not? My wife is in favour, for one.'
'That's all right for her, with all respect, Mr Ryan. She doesn't have a son.'
'There's plenty do that will vote yes.'
His conviction was beginning to alarm me. 'The unions are against it, I hear.'
Ryan spat on the dry earth. Unions!' He wasn't a democratic man.
That night I lay in the barn with Katie and a shiver ran through me as I thought of the mud of France. A one-legged veteran had spoken of it in the pub.
'Are you cold, poor lamb?'
I jerked away at the word. 'No, I'm not cold. What d'you think of all this conscription business, Katie?'
She kissed my ear. 'I'm sure I don't understand a word of it.'
I stared at her; her bodice was open and that usually took care of all the staring that needed to be done, but this time I was looking at her round, guileless face, and it was as if I was seeing it for the first time in its true shape. 'Do you mean to say that you don't know what the conscription debate is all about?'
'Not an earthly,' she said. 'Well, it's about going into the army, isn't it? I think you should, William. You'd look divine in uniform.'
After that, I found I could face the prospect of parting with Katie quite manfully. The conscription issue began to obsess me. I found myself thinking about it as I went about my work as previously I'd thought of Katie. One thing I was sure about in regard to my future – I wanted to have one, not to die in a ditch like a dog fighting for the temporary possession of some god-forsaken Frog village.
As always, when under stress, whether afraid or not, I turned to alcohol for comfort. I took to walking into Berry to spend part of my evenings in the pub. (I was incapable with Katie one night after a drinking session which just shows you how deep my need for comfort was.) Conscription was the main subject of conversation, together with casualty lists and talk of white feathers. It was hard to get a chat going about boxing or horses or any more cheerful topic. One old boozer in particular, a white-bearded soak named St James something or something St James, I never did find out which, professed expertise in matters military.
'Take heed, young Hughes,' he belched at me one night. 'The conscripts are in for a terrible time.'
'How d'you mean?'
'Cannon fodder they'll be, nothing more. The volunteers will become officers, rapid promotions there'll be and the conscripts will be lambs to the . . .'
'Slaughter,' says I. 'Why d'you say that?'
He rubbed his scarlet, drink-swollen nose with a none-too-clean forefinger. 'I've served in Her Majesty's forces. Served Queen Victoria, sir! Seen it often. Mark me, wise men will volunteer before this draft begins.'
'You think "yes" will win, then?'
'Nothing surer. British bulldogs breed their pups to fight. Another?'
Despite myself, I continued to talk to this Jeremiah right up to the day before the result of the referendum would be known. He put the wind up me completely with stories of the shattered limbs of shock troops while staff officers swanned about behind the lines trying to keep mud off their boots. By this time I had finished working for Ryan and was staying a night or two in the pub while I pondered my next move. Another reason for my continued presence was Katie: she had a yen to make love in a bed and was working on a plan to get to my room late at night. I confess I wanted to see that copper mane spread on a pillow.
On the day before the result of the vote was to be known I was drunk by mid-morning in the company of St James. He breathed rum and beer over me and fear into my soul.
'Catch the train to Wollongong and join up,' he said. 'I shouldn't wonder if you weren't commissioned by Christmas. Tomorrow will be too late, lad.'
Befuddled and fearful, I collected my belongings and boarded the train. I still wasn't sure whether to go through with it or not when I reached Wollongong and I thought the matter over in several hotels until a sensible course of action became clear. I would join up, contrive to stay in Australia, gain a commission and see out the war in a safe billet. No medals for Browning, but no missing limbs either. (It was a mad plan, of course, owing more to rum than grey matter.)
I marched off to the recruiting centre in Crown Street and joined a line leading to a fat sergeant who sat behind a desk smoking a pipe. Drunken fool that I was, I attempted a salute. He sneered at me and pulled across a form.
'Name?'
'William Hughes.' God knows what made me say it.
'Any proof of that?'
I produced a reference letter Ryan had given me.
'Age?'
'Twenty-two, no, three.'
'You look it, some don't. Can you ride, shoot, lift a hundredweight and swim?'
'Yes, but . . .'
'See the M.O.' He pushed the form at me, pointed down a corridor and used the stem of his pipe to wave me away and beckon the next man forward.
The men outside the Medical Officer's room were less nervous than me and more sober. When my turn came I was inspected from toenails to scalp. Six feet two and a half inches I measured and I tipped the scales at twelve stone seven pounds.
'Just right for Carpentier,' the M.O. said. I smiled at him uneasily and was about to mention my private school education when he prised my jaws apart and looked at my teeth. He banged my chest (forty-two inches) and stuck his finger up my arse.
'Fine young man,' he said. 'Your urine would be fifty per cent alcohol but a good route march'd take care of that.' He slammed a stamp on my form. 'See the sergeant.'
The sergeant put the form into a folder and spoke around his pipe without looking at me. 'Report at 1600 hours to Captain Thorndike at the railway station. Failure to report will constitute a breach of military discipline punishable by imprisonment. Dismiss!'
'But, sergeant . . .'
'Next.'
The man behind dug me in the ribs with his elbow and I stumbled off to pick up my bags which, I later discovered, were lighter by a pair of boots – pilferer's paradise, the army was. There was nothing for it then but to seek comfort in the tried and tested way. I did this for a few hours while I mulled over the idea of not turning up for Captain Thorndike. But there's something about the army, and it was operating on me already although I'd only been on the books for a few hours, that stamps out disobedience before it takes root. Two glasses and I was thinking rebelliously, four and I was ready to turn up at 1555 hours – perhaps drink is anti-rebellion too, if taken in sufficient quantity.
I consoled myself with the thought that I'd at least avoided being conscripted and had lined myself up with the volunteers. Six glasses and I was standing in line wearing my lieutenant's insignia, being fitted for a swagger stick and ready to push the lower orders around. I bought a flask and wobbled off to the railway station. Here I met a few other chaps in a similar condition, spiritually and alcoholically. I always seemed to fall in with the lowest company in these situations, through no fault of my own. We held an impromptu party while we waited for Captain Thorndike.
My spirits fell when I saw him, even looking through the pink, boozy haze. His nickname, as I later learned, was 'Spit', short for spit and polish. Men spat when he passed, but only after he'd passed. He was under the middle height but compensated by holding himself very upright and tilting his head even further. He had a neat moustache and wore a uniform which even my glazed eye could see put those in the recruiting office to shame.
'Men,' he roared, two feet from my face, 'fall in!'
None of us had the remotest idea what he meant but Spit showed us with little swishes of his stick.
'Touch me with that and I'll break it across your bloody head,' one of my drinking mates said.
'And I'll shove the pieces up your bloody arse,' Thorndike replied.
The speaker fell in.
We stood, a motley dozen or so, in a ragged line while Thorndike told us we were travelling to the Liverpool army camp for basic training.
'Haven't got a ticket,' one of the better-oiled among us said.
'A wag, eh?' Thorndike said, and, believe it or not, 'Wag' stuck as this man's nickname until a mortar shell hit him in the head in France. 'You don't need tickets; you don't need anything except a pair of ears and a pair of feet. You're in the army now.'
Night fell; we waited for hours, boarded the train and chuffed off towards Sydney. It was a long, slow journey and we had an interminable wait at Redfern station, outside Sydney, until we could trans-train for Liverpool. Thorndike had gone off to travel first class leaving the rest of us on the hard, slatted seats which we softened with generous doses of rum. Every man among us seemed to have provided the same medicine. Eventually the rum ran out and we slept in fits and starts. It was just past dawn when we pulled into Liverpool. I felt dreadful, as if I'd been eating mud all night and sleeping out in the rain.
We assembled on the platform and a trolley came past loaded with the early editions of the newspapers. I held my tilting head in my hands and strained to read a front page. Suddenly, everything started to spin and I heard someone say: 'He's fainting. Catch him!' The print on the page grew to enormous size in my brain: CONSCRIPTION LOST! NO – 1,160,033; YES – 1,087,557.9
9
Liverpool was the first of several army camps I spent time in. I won't say that one was better than another – they are all terrible in different ways. We marched to the camp from the railway. It seemed like ten miles but was probably five. I was fit after the farm work but drained by the drinking of the day before and the disappointment of the morning. Also I had fainted or very nearly and slogging along a dusty road carrying two bags under a climbing sun was not what the doctor ordered.
I felt very poorly when we arrived and looked forward to breakfast, a sit down and a smoke. No such luck; we'd missed breakfast which was at 7am and I suppose, looking back, it was lucky they didn't put us straight on parade and make us double around the ground with our bags at the port. But they decided to make us look like soldiers first, so we were detailed to receive our kit from the QM. We lined up at a long shed and waited. Two hours later the QM arrived smelling of beer. I had a raging thirst and would have done anything for an ale. As it was I waited in the hot sun to be issued with a slouch hat, singlet, shirt, woollen vest, jacket, socks and boots that would have befitted a trip to the south pole. This must be the hundredweight mentioned by the sergeant, I thought.
The next few hours are a painful, khaki blur of metal bunks, rough blankets, wooden floors and tin plates combined with a dry, carbolic smell that rises in my nostrils to this day whenever I see an army uniform. I remember only one thing about it and that is that I acquired the cigarette habit. We were shuffled about, made to stand and wait, given some water but nothing else and I'd run out of cigars. Seeing my miserable state one of my comrades took pity on me and rolled me a smoke.
'Here you go, mate,' he said as he handed it to me. 'You look like you need something and there's bugger-all else around.'
'Thanks.' He lit the cigarette and I drew on it. It wasn't too bad. He stuck out a big, freckled hand.
'Jack Henderson's the name.'
We shook. 'William Hughes.'
'Yeah. Good on you, Bill.'
I smoked the cigarette down to a tiny stub and I got papers and tobacco of my own at the first opportunity. I've smoked cigarettes every day of my life since (except when illness, poverty or physical constraint have stopped me). I must have smoked several million of the things, coughed a few million times and felt like death on five thousand mornings. If Jack Henderson were here now I'd cut his throat.
They did parade us in the a
fternoon and a sergeant screamed at us while a corporal snapped at our heels like a sheep dog. I was coming out of my haze and wishing I wasn't. The dust from the parade ground blinded and choked me, the boots ripped my feet to shreds. I was sorry for every lie I'd ever told, and every mean deed, and I'd have sworn off women and drink for life to be allowed to go back to Long Bay.
Somehow I got through to 5pm when they herded us into a hot, airless hall and fed us on dry bread and stew with black tea. I shovelled the stuff in ravenously, not tasting it. Henderson, sitting beside me, ate slowly and deliberately. When I'd gulped down enough to stop my stomach rumbling I became conscious of his watching me.
'You look like a man getting more than he bargained for, Bill.'
'That's right.'
'Let me guess – you thought the referendum would bring in conscription and you joined up at the last minute so as to be a volunteer.'
'How did you know?'
'Doesn't take much to work out. There's a few around in the same boat, generally flash chaps like you, if you don't mind me saying so.'
I was depressed at the thought that my misfortune didn't even have the merit of being unique. 'Not much I can do about it if I do mind, is there?'
'Don't take it like that. We've got to have a talk.'
The tea bucket passed down the table and Henderson grabbed my cup and ladled it, as well as his own, half full. Then he bent down under the table for a minute; when he brought the cups up the level of the dark brown liquid had risen. I took a swig and felt the rum burn down my throat into my stomach.
'Ooh, that's good. Thanks, Henderson.'
'Call me Jack.'
'What brought you into the army today?'
'To get away from my missus and the pay. Also, I've got a mind to see a bit of the world, haven't you?'
'Yes,' I'd answered instinctively and I realised it was true. I did want to travel but I didn't want to see the world through a hail of shot and shell.
'That's the ticket. This is the way to do it for free. But look, have you noticed anything about this mob we've landed in?'