Where the Line Breaks Read online

  I am constantly inspired by the spirit of the men. When it was hotter – how is it winter already? – nobody could stop them from swimming in the clear waters, the Turkish shells exploding above their heads.

  Since I last wrote, a team from the 3rd gave a combined team of our 10th and a few of the Newfoundlanders a real shellacking, though a few overs had to be shortened due to ‘imperfect playing conditions’, which is what we have taken to calling old Beachy Bill, the Turkish battery. The whole match was abandoned when some bloody fool hit a six and the ball landed in a patch of scrub watched by Turkish snipers at all hours. For a few hours there we could pretend we were back home watching the Saturday club games. What I wouldn’t give for a cold beer.

  Nugget thinks they should up the rum ration to a bottle each. I’d argue after The Nek it’s only fair. If no other reason, it would help us forget about the lice. They don’t even spare our decorated hero – Red spent four hours last week picking them from his shirt and throwing them on the fire. They make a little pop as they burn. One hopes they dislike the cold as much as us – I’ve taken to wrapping myself in my blanket and trench coat before sleep – were a shell to land on our dugout they would find a toasty man-sized wrap inside, like the Egyptians eat.

  I never thought the day would come when I found myself missing Egyptian food. But it is a lot easier once you’ve had Nugget’s ‘Grungy’ (bully beef, biscuits and water) every night for three weeks. I find myself longing for a glass of apple tea, or one of their spicy stews that had us sweating. Hell, Rose, at this stage I’d take Laurie’s infamous Blackened Chicken over anything pulled from a tin. You’ll appreciate my desperation.

  I do hope your mother and the Little Princesses are well. I miss riling them up with elaborate stories. The boys over here are great fun and I relish fighting beside them, but nothing makes up for the shocked gasp of your mother at hearing that the latest fashion in the city is for the return of powdered wigs. I received a letter from Ma reporting that Dad has got it in his head to take the whole harvest in by himself next year. I wrote back telling her about the old donkey we’ve commandeered and nicknamed Birdy, who utterly refuses to move once she gets it in her skull that the shells or the bullets or the smell is too much. She reminds me of a certain father of mine.

  Sometimes I feel a proper ass.

  I’m writing in the dead of night, when the hill comes alive with men who have been pinned down all day, and the trenches pulse with activity. Though it’s curiously silent tonight. The wind is singing. I should check on my men.

  Yours, stubbornly.

  The noise calls to him through the frontline.

  The snow has left the ground crisp; Alan’s boots sink into it with satisfying crunch. Back home, at the beach, the warmth of the sun will dry the top layer of sand, creating a thin crust that cracks between toes. Sometimes he will wake and hear the waves on the shore and think he’s back in Perth with salt on his skin. The rotten smell of flesh, or the scratching of the rats at the end of his bedroll, or Red’s incessant snoring sets him straight. Gallipoli will not be ignored.

  The dark holes of his boot prints lead a zigzag through the trench. The noise is coming from somewhere close by. Not a cry of agony, or pain; it’s singsong, a lighthearted note. Chalkboard shivers.

  Rounding a corner, he arrives at an observation post, a hole dug into the wall of the trench where a sentry should be standing; eyes on the enemy, rifle in hand, breath billowing in frosty bursts.

  The noise screams by his ears – seagulls, maybe, back home.

  The post is empty, a clean white box fresh painted with snow. Someone is in for a spray.

  Except it’s not empty. Invisible against the trench wall, covered by a layer of white, sits Trooper Collopy, the Mandurah boy, his shock of blond hair hidden by a cake of snow that drops as Alan scrambles forward. He grabs Collopy’s arms, pulling the body out into the moonlit main trench. The scream on the wind stops. Collopy’s skin is cold and slippery slick with blood, and Alan’s frozen hands struggle to grip the wrists, to turn the deadweight over and search for a heartbeat. He can’t tell where the blood is coming from, until, two fingers under the chin searching for a pulse, his fingers slip into the warm opening in the neck.

  He pulls Collopy into a sitting position, frozen limbs over his shoulder, and pauses – he can make out the outline of the trench, the wooden struts and the dark sky, straight through the meat of Collopy’s neck. Wind blows down the line, and the ghost of the noise screams out the bullet wound, playing Collopy’s body like an instrument. A solitary goodbye note. He can’t look away, the dark tunnel of bloody skin draws his eye, leading the way to God-only-knows.

  A spasm of energy passes through the body, and Collopy tries to gasp, but more blood streams down his neck, and he chokes, a guttural slur that trails off into the night. The skin around the bullet hole puckers in and out.

  ‘Stretcher!’

  Alan’s shout breaks the night’s spell; cries from the dugouts, men swarm around the corner, the sound of the guns firing from the battleships below. He screams at one man to cover the position and a stranger’s voice emerges from his body, someone else’s arms gather Collopy up like a slaughtered calf and haul him onto his shoulder. The weight pulls him down into the snow and mud, and he panics, worried they’ll sink. The first step is the hardest, drawing his boot forward and planting. Do it. Do it again. The trench stretches out before him endless, and then he rounds the corner and his breath returns. He heaves his way down the maze towards the twinkling sea.

  ‘You silly bastard,’ he grunts, the words like bullets spitting from his mouth, ‘I swear to God, if you cark it, I’ll kill you.’

  Halfway down, passing the second line, curious eyes poking from warm recesses, he runs into the stretcher team. He lowers Collopy to the ground. His knees threaten to buckle; his breath comes in sharp icy bursts that punch through his chest. The two men huddle over the body, but there’s no haste about their movements, no sense of urgency. One shakes his head. The other looks up at him.

  ‘No!’ The snow melts beneath Collopy’s head, blood mixing with the ice and dirt. ‘He was breathing. Just now.’

  ‘Sorry, Lieutenant.’

  From here he can see over the bay, the dark shadows of the ships, and the bright flare of the moon high above, reflected, with a painter’s dirty brush, on the inky sea below. The men have covered Collopy’s body with his trench coat, the bootstraps left peeking out. He walks forward to say a few words, thinks better of it, and lays a hand on the mound of material. The bearers pick up the stretcher and leave, down to the shore and the waiting dead.

  Alan begins the slow trudge back to his dugout. The snow sticks in bloody brown clumps by his heels. He clenches and unclenches his frozen fingers like they’re someone else’s. He stops by a small silhouette whose heavy boots shuffle back and forth in the gloom.

  ‘Can you see over?’ he jokes.

  Nugget grunts and nods back the way he came. ‘What was that about?

  ‘Collopy. Couldn’t wait half an hour for a fag, paid with his life.’ He breathes hot air on his fingers. ‘Got one through the neck. Snow must have muffled the noise.’

  ‘How’s the model soldier?’ Nugget asks, voice crawling low in the moonlight, nodding his head towards their dugout.

  ‘You thought his snoring was bad before, you should hear it with a cold. I wake thinking we’ve been shelled. Reminds me of his sister.’

  Nugget grins: ‘Laurie, right?’

  ‘Mate, you and Laurie are going to get along like …’

  ‘A house on fire?’

  ‘The whole flamin’ bush, Nug. From Perth to Albany.’

  Both chuckle. The wind picks up and they huddle deeper into their coats. He can feel Nugget watching him, but his own eyes dance an awkward dance, meeting Nugget’s and glancing away. He rocks his weight from foot to foot. He wants to pick up a pile of snow and peg it at Nugget’s head. His booted feet push the snow and mud back and forth.
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  ‘Everything alright?’ Nugget asks – lightly, off the cuff.

  ‘’Course.’ His heart doesn’t trust the words.

  ‘You know you can talk to me, right? I was there, too.’

  He knows, but he can’t forget Cairo, even if Nugget and Red seemingly have. Even if they’ve somehow moved on from The Nek. Even if they’ve seemingly forgotten the bullets flying past their heads every damned day.

  ‘Sometimes, I feel …’ His voice sounds like one of Tom’s kids, tiny against the wall of rock they’re camped on. Nugget is watching him.

  A flare goes up further down the line, and their white world glows yellow. They both turn to watch its slow descent through the night sky. Safer to stay silent.

  ‘Nothing.’ Sometimes I feel nothing. His dugout calls his name. ‘Stay warm. And Nug?’

  Nugget grunts, collar higher than his head, coat longer than his legs.

  ‘Don’t eat the yellow snow.’

  It’s starting to fall now, lingering drops on his exposed face, white dots on Nugget’s coat as he snarls an indecent reply. He takes the last few steps to the dugout at the double.

  P.S. – part of my role here is censoring the men’s letters, making sure that should they fall into enemy hands no important details could be gleaned. Every man jack of them writes – even Nugget scrawls barely legible letters to his family. One man in particular, I won’t tell you his name in case you should run into his wife – I know how small Perth streets are – divulges the most sexually explicit fantasies, often in letters running to five or six pages long. Learned more from him than from the entire Egyptian training course. He is fully aware that I am required to read all letters, and the bastard loves nothing more than to hold my gaze unblinking each morning.

  As an officer, I am partially exempt from this rule; mine are to be censored by the Major, but there is a certain ‘Officer’s Code’ passed on by the Tommies that means he won’t. Don’t start imagining me writing sweet nothings though, fantasies about ripping off the white dress you wore on that last night, or sneaking off on our own, down past the barn and into the field, hidden from the prying eyes of my parents, where we could lie in the wheat and stare up at the giant sky.

  That’s as close as I get.

  Snow is incredible. It crunches under my feet.

  I wish you could see it with me.

  There’s a switch he flicks, from puckering bullet holes to the girl back home. Staggering how easy it switches. How quickly he forgets the rock. Then it’s the wooden deck of the veranda under his feet and Ma cooking the Sunday dinner, singing to herself. Dad out the back somewhere, a haze on the horizon. And Rose’s hand in his, a secret shared between their fingers. That knowing glance before the knock, a smile ancient and wind-worn, like the Pinnacles, on his face.

  The sound of a shell – near enough to startle but not close enough to be dangerous – or the thunderous snore of a part-elephant mate, or, inevitable as the guns, the telltale itch of lice, and he’s back in the dugout with a page on the desk he doesn’t remember writing.

  He puts the letter in his coat pocket and finds a fresh page to send to Collopy’s family. A clean page for them to rip to shreds. A few well-worn platitudes and barefaced lies: ‘he passed swiftly and with no pain’ and ‘his bravery in the face of the enemy was a credit to his family’. He struggled with the first letters, but after The Nek he’s an expert – the words rattle off like bullets. One more digger vanishes into the lists.

  Somewhere by Red’s bedroll is a half-empty bottle of whiskey. The malty brown liquid sloshes as he pulls it from Red’s pack, and the lump of snoring man babbles but doesn’t wake. He pours two thumbs into his steel mug. A silent toast to Collopy and then the sweet burn, the liquid toasty in his chest.

  There is a cat at the entrance to the dugout.

  He peers down at the mug in his hands, the bottle on his desk. Just the one sip. The cat looks at him and asks him what he thinks he’s doing.

  There has been furphy going around about a cat crossing between the lines – approaching the ANZAC troops for a quick meal and then skipping over to the Turk trench for the second course. Judging by the jutting ribs, the menu is scarce on both fronts. He follows its hopeful glance around the sparse dugout.

  The cat is shivering, socks sodden, black hair glistening with melted snow. White-tipped ears flicker. Yellow eyes stare at him then motion towards the door. It makes a noise halfway between begging and scolding.

  ‘I know it’s not much, mate.’ Banjo. He christens the moggy with another swig of whiskey.

  He crushes biscuit in a heap at Banjo’s paws, but Banjo doesn’t notice, eyes locked on him, mewing louder. He moves back to his desk but the cat is turning circles around his feet, in and out of his legs, tail flicking against the earth wall.

  ‘What?’

  Me. Me, me, me.

  The cat sits between his two muddy boots, staring up, fire in its eyes. He should sleep. He should drink less. He should drink more. Banjo winks. He reaches down and scratches behind Banjo’s ears, blood caked in his nails.

  Steady mate, Banjo mews, backing away so he has to lean forward to continue. He strokes the cat for a heartbeat before it turns toward the entrance, back out into the snow.

  ‘I know it’s not the Ritz, but it’s better than out there.’ In his next letter, he’ll write about Banjo: too good for biscuits, too snooty for dugouts. Rose will like Banjo. Rose will beg him to bring Banjo home.

  Banjo stops by the doorway, sunrise eyes peering back.

  Please.

  He shrugs, uncomprehending. ‘In or out? Your choice.’

  The moggy wants it all; trotting back to his hands, pushing a bony head against his fingers, then a quick leap and back by the doorway, calling for him.

  Mate.

  ’Course the cat with the split personality would choose him, would choose his dugout, his biscuits and his patience over the hundreds of other miles of trench on the peninsula. It’s that kind of night. He drops the bottle back by Red’s head, kicks the snoring lump and is rewarded with a groan.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Collopy’s dead.’

  ‘Bugger.’

  The cat is eager to move, purring round his legs and then scampering to the door, leaving only to return and mew louder. Red sits up, raises an eyebrow at the cat, and coughs something wet and slimy into his sleeve. Banjo hisses.

  ‘We need to scout the OP.’

  ‘We?’ Red yawns. Banjo stalks the bedroll watchfully, and pounces on Red’s knees.

  ‘Everyone else is on duty. Or sleeping. Or dead.’ He drops his pistol into his pocket, and stamps his feet. ‘But if you don’t want to get your famous visage wet, don’t worry.’

  Banjo flits back to the doorway, mewing for them to follow. Red sighs.

  ‘Alright. Don’t be a hero. I’m coming.’

  The snow falls heavier, covering his head, landing on his nose, blurring his vision. A fire blazes down by the beach, a storeroom alight, dark shadows running around the fierce glow. He’s surprised he didn’t hear the shells. He peers up into the night but it’s grey, the roof is falling in bit by tiny bit, icing sugar on a mud pie. Banjo has vanished, and Red, a few steps behind, is a dark blur against the white.

  They walk back towards the observation post in silence. Banjo skips by his boots, a few steps in front. Turning to watch, running forward, drawing them on.

  As they approach the post, Trooper Malone materialises from the haze, a dark figure with icicles in his moustache. Red nods and shouts to him, but the wind whips it away. Alan nods in agreement, whatever it was. His nose runs, wet and snotty, dripping onto his lip and freezing. He sniffs and tiny daggers of ice pepper his nostrils.

  Red leans into his ear and shouts. ‘Not much doing tonight, Al.’

  He agrees. ‘Jackos are probably waiting it out.’

  Red nods, and glances back towards their dugout.

  ‘So, they won’t be expecting a visit,’ he says.
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br />   Red steps back and looks him up and down. Surprised, maybe. He’s surprised himself – normally it’s Red who makes the decisions. Alan just follows along.

  Alan steps past Trooper Malone and glances down at the spot where Collopy lay, but the snow has papered over the evidence. All the crazy hopes and tiny dreams of a life obliterated in a gunshot, dead in the time it takes to breathe in a cheap cigarette. He doesn’t smoke, but he wouldn’t turn one down right now.

  Banjo peers down at him from the lip of the trench. The same five hundred yards of godforsaken rock, the tin after bleedin’ tin of bully beef, the same arguments and the same jokes and the same orders to hold the line. Someone needs to break the deadlock. Red shakes his head.

  ‘What’s the matter? You frightened?’ Alan sneers. Red has never been scared a day in his life.

  Red glances back down the trench. He starts to talk, but the coughing takes hold, and Alan doesn’t wait for him to finish. Lifts his head over the barricade. No sniper shots. He opens his eyes. Nothing but snow. More white. More nowhere. He turns back to Red and winks. Red nods and that same smile he wore before the Hat-Trick, before they shipped out, every time they caused trouble at school or chatted up girls in Fremantle, grows across his face. Red shouts a few words to Trooper Malone, and pushes Alan up and over the lip. Alan reaches down and pulls Red out, gloved hands clasping tight. Brothers.

  The last time he was out of the trench was at The Nek. That was sunrise and he could see everything: the bullets whipping past, his mates dropping. Like hunting kangaroo. He can still see it if he closes his eyes. He’s back there every time he tries to sleep.

  Banjo circles his boot and then melts into the falling white sky ahead of him. Alan follows, pushing blindly forward. Ten steps, half a field, who knows? He turns and finds he is alone. Red has vanished. The line is somewhere behind him. The Turks somewhere ahead. For the first time on Gallipoli he is alone.

  A dark blur that could be human passes him on his right. Banjo mews nearby. Someone is calling his name. The shell hits three paces behind him, soundless; the first he knows of it is the huge hand picking him up and hitting him for six, the sudden sucking of air from the world, the wind rushing by his face. There’s the roaring of waves but it’s the blood pumping past his ears. His world is cold, his hands outstretched in the snow. Pain in his legs he doesn’t want to think about.