The Ghosts of August, page 30
‘How can I help do that?’ Caroline asked. ‘I am hardly in control of my own life, let alone anything else.’
‘You are married to a very influential man in the Kaiser’s court, and you may be able to persuade your husband with sound logic of the benefits of ceasing this needless bloodshed. In our family alone we have lost our plantations in the Pacific, and our other business interests are being strangled by blockades and lack of trade. I will have nothing left to leave you and my grandson if this senseless war continues. It is not treason for you to work with us but true patriotism towards the masses of German citizens who you know are suffering. All we ask is that you attempt to sway your husband’s thoughts on seeking an armistice.’
Caroline could see that her father was motivated more by financial aims to have the war end than humanitarian ones, but bringing about its end would improve the situation on both fronts. The war had raged for over two years and neither side had anything to show for it. For a moment Caroline knew why she had always loved her aloof father. Regardless of his motivations, he was a brave man to enter into a covert venture for peace which most would regard as treasonous.
‘I will do what you ask, if you will agree to try to discover if your grandson’s father is alive or dead,’ she repeated, and her father nodded. The conversation was over, and he invited her to share rare real coffee with him and not a tasteless substitute.
*
It was a hot and humid summer’s day in Sydney and Josiah was having a strong cup of tea and fresh buttered scones when the afternoon newspaper was delivered to him by his butler. Josiah unfolded it, expecting to see the daily updates of the war on the other side of the world covering the front page.
But he was wrong.
Sharing the front-page war news was the announcement that a well-known citizen, Sir Horace Anderson, had been callously run down in a motor vehicle accident in the early hours of the morning. It was written that the suburb where Anderson owned many properties had been the scene of the hit-and-run incident and so far, the investigating police had very little to go on as no witnesses had come forward – and nor was there any trace of the vehicle, although it was suspected to have been a motor lorry. It was said that the knight had not died immediately from his many injuries but succumbed a short while later in hospital. He had been unable to give any information about the incident.
Anderson dead!
Josiah felt a rush of blood to his head. He had no doubt that his brother was behind the ‘accident’. He saw that Sam had picked his ground well for the killing – as any military man would an ambush – and had no doubt that the lorry would never be found, and no one would ever come forward with information.
With Anderson gone, the threat of Josiah’s being charged with treason would now be dead in the water.
‘Your brother is here, Mr Steele,’ the butler said, entering the room.
‘Show him in,’ Josiah said, setting aside the newspaper.
Sam limped in, leaning on his walking cane.
‘I can see from the happy expression on your ugly face that you have heard the terrible news of Sir Horace Anderson’s unfortunate demise,’ Sam said with a wide smile. ‘May he rest in peace in hell.’
‘You were merely continuing the family tradition of meting out justice to those who thought they were beyond it,’ Josiah said. ‘I suspect that a cold beer is more fitting for our afternoon tea today,’ he added, looking down at his tea.
‘Let’s just say that it was one of those strange coincidences that a big lorry would come out of the dark on a rainy night,’ Sam commented as Josiah retrieved a bottle of cold beer from the icebox in the dining room. Sam accepted it, dismissing any offer of a glass, and took a long swig.
‘I am heading down to the pub to join Nate, and you are invited,’ Sam said.
‘I will have to decline your offer,’ Josiah said. ‘I have a meeting with a couple of our rabbis this evening.’
‘Fair enough,’ Sam said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. ‘I will see you before the Ella sets sail tomorrow.’
‘I will make sure I am at the wharf before you leave,’ Josiah said. ‘I am sure that we will not have any more visits from the local police.’
‘Pretty sure we won’t,’ Sam said. ‘Until tomorrow afternoon.’ With a parting wave, Sam made his way to join Nate Welsh at a better class of public house in the city to celebrate.
Part Four
1917
Jerusalem and Beyond
THIRTY-SEVEN
Towards the end of 1917, the Allies were advancing inexorably towards Jerusalem. The Turkish rearguard fought for every yard of the Holy Land, but the British general Edmund Allenby had proved to be a master of desert warfare and ensured modern technology such as armoured cars and aircraft were allocated to his campaign to defeat the Ottoman Empire.
For Ben and his regiment, it was often a heart-rending sight to encounter the wounded and battle-dazed Turkish soldiers left in the wake of their retreat. He and his men would look down with pity on a foe who had proved brave and even respectful towards them – if not always towards the civilians under their rule.
‘Shalom! Shalom! Shalom!’ was often heard coming from the people of the villages they passed through, but there was also always the feeling that they were aliens in the land of the Torah, Bible and Koran.
Over the past year, after the victory at Romani and with the Suez Canal secured, the Allies had advanced into Turkish territory. They had pushed forward doggedly over the months, fighting desperate battles from their saddles and on foot among the dunes. Thirst, lack of sleep, the intense heat, continuous clashes with the retreating Turkish army supported by the Germans and Austrians and – almost the worst thing for some – the lack of tobacco, had plagued them. The copious supplies of captured Turkish cigarettes were much prized after the Turkish supply depots were finally overrun.
Eventually they had finally left the desert behind and entered the more bountiful lands of northern Palestine, where the men of the ANZAC mounted infantry rode through hill villages with red-roofed white houses among orchards of oranges, olives and almonds. The weather was bitterly cold, with the occasional scudding clouds promising badly needed rain. Many of the settlements were bordered with prickly pear cactus and even the occasional stand of gum trees. Ben and his men were amazed to see and smell the Australian eucalyptus trees so far from home, and interested to learn that those villages were mostly occupied by Jews under the protection of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish government had long realised that by protecting the Jewish population from their Arab neighbours they were able to exhort much-needed taxes from the enterprising people.
Even though the land was completely different from the harshness of the Sinai desert, water was still in high demand. Ben had lost his last two mounts in action and now rode a horse who had decided that he did not like Ben much. But with time and a good supply of oats in his forage nosebag, he gradually changed his mind about his new master. And he wasn’t a camel, for which Ben was thankful. Although his mates in the camel corps swore by the big, lumbering animals, Ben was quietly pleased that he had not been selected to join them.
Now, Ben virtually rode alone as Lance Corporal Paul Shepherd had been evacuated to Cairo after shrapnel wounds had shredded his body. All his mates had marvelled that he was still alive when he was snatched from the battlefield and were cheered to hear that he was slowly recovering in a hospital in Egypt.
As Ben rode with his regiment, he thought about how they would be in the streets and narrow alleyways of Jerusalem before Christmas. This was a place he had never expected to lay eyes on, and he wrote home to his family about how strange it would feel to be there. He would see and smell the ancient culture of his ancestors. He often reflected on the fact that the Christian crusaders were back to retake the city so often fought over during the countless centuries of its history.
One evening in November, Ben heard of how their Kiwi brothers had captured Jaffa after a couple of days of fierce fighting with bayonet and bullet. It was good news, but when they rose in the early hours to prepare for the advance, Ben experienced a strange dread. He tried to shake it off, but it would not leave him. It was irrational, he told himself as he swung into the saddle.
They rode through an Arab village where the bodies of Turkish troops were covered in dust and looked like logs. Ben wondered why the Arab inhabitants had not buried them, but did not ask as the villagers were openly hostile towards the Australians. The men of the regiment were glad to leave the village to continue their advance. Eventually in the early afternoon they rode onto a heavily cultivated plain where they could actually see the white-painted town of Jaffa off to their flank, and the tiny villages surrounded by fruit trees all around them.
Then Turkish artillery opened fire on the light horsemen exposed on the flat plain between the hills. Ben’s mount reared just as an artillery shell exploded yards from him, and the shrapnel ripped into his body, flinging him from his horse which was also thrashing about on the earth from terrible wounds.
Ben would never reach Jerusalem.
*
A young postal delivery boy arrived on his bicycle at the front door of the Steele mansion the day before Christmas. He was sweating; the ride had been long and even at his young age he was aware of his role in delivering the unwelcome piece of paper informing a loved one of the death or wounding of a son/brother/husband or lover.
A maid answered his knock on the door and confirmed this was the Steele residence. He passed the telegram to her and was glad to depart.
The young maid knew what she held in her hand, and for a fleeting moment she thought about destroying the telegram, knowing the pain she would bring to the family she very much liked for their kindness and generosity towards her own struggling family.
‘Was that the mailman?’ Marian called from the dining room, and the maid turned to walk inside, her hands trembling as she burst into tears.
‘The post boy just delivered this,’ she said, handing the telegram in its envelope to Marian.
For a moment Marian stood still, staring at the dreaded missive and trying to convince herself that it was simply a business communication for Josiah. Then she thanked the sobbing girl and gently told her to go to the kitchen and make herself a cup of tea.
After the maid had left, Marian continued to stare at the envelope in her hand. Maybe she could leave it in her husband’s office for him to open, she considered. After all, it was addressed to him. But if it contained the news she most feared, it would not be right to have her beloved husband carry the burden of knowing first.
Marian opened the envelope and could hardly focus on the short sentence.
Her mind went completely blank.
Ben was listed as killed in action.
*
But Ben was not dead. The army had got it wrong in the confusion of casualty reporting.
At the time, Ben hardly remembered the explosion that killed his horse and left him riddled with fragments of shrapnel. He lay in the grass and vaguely recalled a trooper leaning over him, saying the words, ‘The sarge isn’t goin’ to make it.’
The next thing Ben was aware of was the terrible agony inflicted by the ambulance sand cart he was being conveyed in. Every bump sent searing pain through his body until finally he was delivered to a dressing station at nightfall. Here Ben wavered between life and death, coming to only when a medic probed for and removed shards of artillery shell splinters in his body before rebandaging him. Now conscious, he was able to sit up and accept a satisfying meal. The pain was too great to allow him to sleep, so he simply gritted his teeth and tried to rest. Around him other men were fighting for their lives – and some lost the battle before the sun rose again over the Holy Land.
Medical orderlies then transported Ben to a motorised ambulance on a stretcher and it was a long, painful journey to the next stage of his treatment. Ben gripped the stretcher with every jolt and forced himself not to cry out. Blood sloshed around him and the trooper in the stretcher beside him muttered, ‘It’s been a bloody good ride. Bad women and grog. No regrets.’ Minutes later he was dead.
The next stop was the newly established Australian Casualty Clearing Station in Jaffa, which had been captured only days earlier.
Surgeons examined the men on the stretchers when they were carried into a huge dome-shaped place with a glass chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. The floors were of marble and cold, and the vast room was dimly lit, with lighted corridors branching off it where Ben and many other patients on stretchers were left for the night. Ben reflected how strange it was to be in this great room with no sign of the stars overhead, as for so long he had slept under the night sky. But at least he was given a hot meal that evening by the medical orderlies.
The next day Ben’s litter was carried once more to a convoy of motorised ambulances and, after another painful journey, they arrived at the town of Ramleh. He and the other patients were carried into an old stone building that Ben thought might have once been a castle, and brought up a spiral staircase that opened onto musty stone passageways with dimly lit cubicles. Ben was taken to one of the stone rooms, where he saw tables surrounded by white-coated doctors. He was surprised to see a captured Turkish doctor bending over wounded Turkish soldiers.
The stretcher-bearers laid Ben’s litter on the stone floor, and it was then that he saw a pretty young Assyrian girl barely in her teens on the litter beside him. For a moment their eyes locked, and Ben felt a surge of pity for the girl. He could clearly see that her back had been torn open by shrapnel. An old, grey bearded village doctor was crouched beside her, tending to her terrible wounds as she moaned in pain. But all he could do was wipe the blood away with water from an earthen clay jar. Tears filled the young girl’s eyes as she continued to stare at Ben who, for a brief moment, forgot his own wounds as he was reminded that it was not only soldiers who suffered war but the totally innocent.
Two British doctors went to her side to examine her shattered body, and Ben could see just from their expressions that there was nothing they could do to save her life. They then approached Ben and carefully examined his wounds, ordering a change of bandages after cleansing his many lacerations.
The pattern of the next few days was the same: Ben would be taken in his litter to join a convoy headed for a distant dressing station, gritting his teeth and trying desperately to dissociate his mind from his body as pain racked his body with every bump in the road. When they reached their next medical point, sometimes a building, sometimes rows of tents, Ben would be given a hot meal and have his wounds tended to. On one memorable occasion, Ben was given a fresh orange by a padre. He was never so grateful to be able to eat an orange, despite the constant pain of his wounds.
Finally, the patients were told they would complete their journey by train. For Ben and the others around him the message was greeted with great relief, and they were loaded onto a Red Crescent train captured from the Turks.
Ben was laid in one of the wooden bunks set in rows along the inside of the carriage, and there he saw the young Assyrian girl lying in the bunk across the aisle. She was still alive and continued to moan in pain and despair. Ben gazed into her fear-filled eyes, guessing that she was near the end of her life. He could hear the muttered words of sympathy for the young girl from the tough soldiers from Britain, New Zealand and Australia around her. She could have been a daughter or sister to every man there, Ben thought, and he pictured his own sisters.
That night, medical orderlies distributed hot cocoa, bread and butter to the wounded. The train sped south through the desert lands and Ben lay staring at the bunk above him, occasionally turning his head to stare into the darkness where the pretty young girl lay. He could not hear her moaning anymore, and sadly guessed why she was now silent.
The following morning the ambulance train reached Kantara on the Suez Canal, and in the morning light Ben could see that the girl had died during the night. He did not know why, but tears welled in his eyes as he was lifted into a litter to be carried from the train carriage. After that he was transported to a huge clearing station he remembered from many months past when they had been stationed on the Suez.
That night Ben was loaded onto another train that took them to Cairo.
It was Christmas Eve when they arrived in Cairo, and Ben was placed in a fresh and airy ward where doctors and nurses gently attended to him.
On Christmas Day a British army doctor with a clipboard returned to Ben’s side.
‘Sergeant Steele, you are being repatriated home to Australia. The war is over for you.’
Ben fell back against the pillows and wept. He was finally going home and out of the hell of war.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Ben’s health improved and, thankfully, there was no sign of serious infection as the days passed on the ship back to Australia.
He knew that it was a waste of time writing a letter with details of his return home as it would probably arrive after he was back in Sydney, so instead he decided to let his arrival be a happy surprise. As he steamed across the Indian Ocean, Ben had no idea that his family were mourning his death.
