Dreams of Home

By Kevin Turnbull

It's 1916, and war is raging on France's Western Front. Bill Parker and Jack Reynolds, best mates and Aussie larrikins, as well as veterans and heroes of Gallipoli and the Western Front, are chosen by the British Intelligence to carry out a secret mission behind German lines.

A rogue German scientist has developed a deadly gas that can kill almost instantaneously. Together with a homicidal American mercenary, they have forced captured Allied POWs to construct a POW camp with a built-in battlefield, trenches and all, in the Bulgarian hinterland.

Their plan is to test the effects of the gas on the live Allied prisoners for the German general staff. If successful, the gas will be mass produced and deployed on the Front, resulting in certain victory for Germany and hundreds of thousands of Allied lives lost.

Parker and Reynolds track them across Europe and Africa on a desperate race against time, fighting running battles with conventional German forces all the while, to a final confrontation in deepest Africa.

Bill Parkers dreams of his life and his love back home in Australia play an integral part in his survival and the outcome of his mission.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Nov 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524519353

Kevin Turnbull

Kevin Turnbull is an Australian civil project manager who has had a lifelong interest in all forms of history—in particular, Australia's involvement in the wars of the twentieth century. Since winning a short story competition in primary school, he has always harbored the dream of writing his own novel. Now, many years later, he has realized that dream with his first effort and sequels already in the pipeline. He has a new and unique writing style and mixes the intrigue and action of a fast-paced thriller with the softer arts of romance and humor expertly. He has always been an avid reader as well as a keen sportsman, with a long-term involvement in surfing. Kevin Turnbull lives in Caves Beach, NSW, Australia, with his wife, Marion.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

T he early morning sun shimmered on the glass like surface of the lake as the small rowboat sat almost completely still. Tiny ripples spread out from its hull when the only movement visible came from its occupant. The well-tanned and muscular young man shifted slightly as he threaded the fresh inky onto the 6/0 hook of his heavy jewie line.

‘Christ, it’s gonna be bloody hot today,’ he swore as he wiped the sweat off his forehead with the same smelly old rag he used to clean his hands.

Still, approaching heat and all, there was nothing he loved doing more than his early Sunday morning fishing on Lake Macquarie. An early riser, he could completely relax after six days of gut-busting work down the Pit. He couldn’t sleep in, so his father had suggested fishing as a way to rest, and it had worked.

‘What’s happened to the buggers today?’ he wondered out loud, bemoaning the unusual lack of bites at his favourite spot. The bream were always ferocious here, especially when he offered them bloodworms, as he did this morning.

‘It’s gotta be a jewie down there, sharks don’t even scare the bream away like a jew does,’ he muttered to himself. He uncoiled several feet of line off his reel, and with a practiced underarm flick, he launched the bait up and outward until it fell into the water with a soft plop and started to slowly sink to the bottom. He stared, almost mesmerised, into the crystal-clear water and gently played out the line as the small squid drifted practically weightless into the depths.

Time drifted along easily that beautiful summer morning and he found himself daydreaming of Kate Campbell, his childhood sweetheart. She was gaily laughing at all of his bad jokes during lunch at the cricket game last weekend. Kate was more beautiful than the summer morning and she was fawning all over him. He’d scored a quick-fire fifty-three to rescue the team from a certain defeat and he was the hero of the moment. If they bowled well, the Belmont boys might just pull off an unlikely win. Kate smiled sweetly at him and was poised to ask him a question when suddenly he heard the raucous sound of his wooden reel thrashing about the boat like a cranky brown snake in a hot tin box. He snapped out of the daydream and grabbed the end of the reel before it flew over the side.

‘Strewth! What a beauty,’ he gasped as he stared in awe at the heavy line fairly flying off the reel and away through the water. His green eyes twinkled and a determined grin crinkled his face as he set his mind to judging the moment when he would take the line and exert some pressure on the quickly diminishing line and put some drag on the big fish trying to race to freedom.

‘Nearly, nearly,’ he whispered at the shimmering water. ‘Now,’ he yelled excitedly, ‘let’s see how good you are, old mate!’

Wedging the reel between his knees, he used both hands and applied pressure by squeezing tightly on the whizzing line. Sucking in breath at the quick and sharp sting as the line burned his fingers, he grasped tighter and only just managed to slow it down. He eventually succeeded in stopping the flight of the big predator and slowly but surely began to gain line off the tiring jewie, only to lose it and even more moments later as the fish rallied. This was indeed a giant.

The glorious summer morning slipped by in rapture for the lone fisherman as he matched wits and strength with the magnificent animal fighting for its life in the depths below. Minutes turned into an hour and moved on towards the next and still the battle raged.

Finally, as both man and fish were nearing exhaustion, the angler glimpsed a shiny flash as the fish rallied again for its final attempt at survival.

‘Holy shit!’ he swore again as he strained hard against the incredible power of the fish. The fish won line and the fisherman grunted in pain as a callus on the palm of his tough coal-miner’s hands was sheared clean off by the force. Still, he smiled in admiration.

‘Good on ya, mate,’ he encouraged the fish. ‘Go for your life. You’ve gotta be a hundred pounds or more. You’re bigger than the bugger the old man got at the Drop-over last Easter. Go on, mate, go for broke.’ He found himself hoping the big fish would escape. Well, at least he reckoned he wouldn’t mind it so much if he lost him. He was a grand old foe.

The sun climbed to its mid-morning position and the heat started to build up. The sweat poured off his face and body, soaking his clothing, but he felt no discomfort, only elation as the fight continued. His back was on fire, but still he fought on and smiled. He was close now, very close. He could feel that the jew was almost done in. But still it fought on. It would fight to the death, and for the first time, the fisherman knew he would win.

With a last surge of strength, he heaved against the heavy line and the fish finally capitulated. He yelled out in exultation as the giant fish at last broke the surface and floated lazily towards the boat, an exhausted and beaten adversary. The man felt a sudden and heavy twinge of remorse as he reached for the gaff that would effectively end the gallant animal’s life.

‘I’m sorry, mate,’ he said softly. He smiled in admiration for the brave animal and the thought came to him. ‘Cripes, this bloke’s a monster, I’ll be the talk of the town if I take him to the church picnic this arvo. Yep, that’s what I’ll do. They’ll love it. And Kate would be so proud of me.’ The thought softened his remorse and he reached out with the deadly gaff and placed it expertly under the gills and was ready to heave back for the killing stroke when suddenly he felt his body violently shake and something pounded brutally into his shoulder.

‘Bill, Bill, wake up for Christ’s sake. They’re comin’, man, get up and hurry up. We could be stuffed this time.’

Jack Reynolds was frantically beating his mate into action while trying to drag his kit out of the stinking mud floor of the trench.

Private William Henry Parker, 4th Battalion of the 1st Australian Infantry Division came slowly out of his dreams of home like a man emerging from a deep coma. His beautiful and happy world exploded into madness.

The all-too-familiar whine of approaching Minnies and Five-Nines jolted Bill Parker out of his pleasant dreams. Reality kicked him in the guts again with the force of a mule’s hoof. He groaned out loud and quickly forced himself to move. He grabbed his rifle and kit and took off after his mate.

‘Shit,’ he swore. ‘The bloody ammo.’ He raced back and snatched up the forgotten pouch.

‘Jack, where we goin’?’ he yelled as he struggled through the mass of milling humanity that was the surviving Australian Infantry.

‘Up with Charlie Yates. He asked for us while you were getting your beauty sleep. Anyway, they never get shelled up there. Hurry up, Bill, for Christ’s sake.’

Parker caught Reynolds up as the first German artillery shells exploded around them.

Chaos ruled the trenches on France’s Somme in July 1916 as millions of French, British, colonial, and German troops slaughtered each other on a scale unparalleled in human history. The First World War had ground itself to a bloody stalemate on the fields of France, and Bill Parker, coal miner and fisherman from a sleepy coastal town in New South Wales, who thought going to war would be a lark and a great adventure, once again found himself face down in mud, trying to stay alive.

The first screams came from in front of them at the eastern end of Charlie Yates’ section.

‘Never get it, eh, Jack? I think you’re wrong this time, mate,’ said Bill with a bitter irony.

The two Aussies instinctively dove forward as two Five-Nines scored direct hits in the trenches just twenty yards in front of them. A heavy cloud of smoke and dust rolled over them and two wounded Tommies staggered out of the maelstrom. Jack Reynolds jumped up and raced to help them as one Tommy trying to hold in his intestines dropped to the ground and began to cry.

Jack reacted as quick as a flash and had a field dressing pushed into the injured man’s vicious wound in no time. He was holding the dying Tommy in his arms and trying to comfort him through the pain and terror when a shell exploded above them, collapsing the parapets and earth in upon the three of them. Parker found himself suddenly on his bum but recovered quickly when he saw his mate’s plight. He jerked the trench shovel out of the pouch of his kit and raced to the still settling ruin. The bottom half of a leg was all that was left protruding from the mess. It was moving.

‘Thank God,’ he cried as he attacked the stinking, sucking mud with the shovel. He was no stranger to digging, and despair for his mate lent power to his arms. Still, the going was hard as the saturated ground made every stroke of the spade a huge effort. He tore into the muck like a man possessed, oblivious to the screeching, swooshing death raining down upon the battered British lines.

Men cowered in sodden trenches, eyes watering and blistered hands trembling, their nerves just about shot. But still there was movement. The tough cajoled and bullied the weary and frightened into action, and all along the Australian trenches, determined soldiers buried their fear and prepared for the coming assault that would surely be launched by an equally frightened but determined enemy.

A machine-gun team with badges of the 4th Aussies on their tunics ran past Parker on their way to a new site, their old one copping a shell and causing a mudslide. He screamed at them for help, his strength was waning and Jack’s legs had stopped kicking. He was getting desperate.

‘Leave him, mate, he’s finished,’ called the corporal in charge. ‘We’ve got to set up before this shit stops. I want those bastards in my sights when they come over the top. My division’s got some debts to collect.’

‘No, no, his leg’s moving, he’s still alive. Give me a hand, please,’ he pleaded.

‘You and the boys set up the gun, Bernie, I’ll give this bloke a hand. It’s his mate under there. I won’t be long,’ said one of the team.

‘Yeah, righto, Ned, fair enough,’ said Bernie. ‘But bloody well hurry up.’

The promise of help gave Bill a new surge of energy and they got stuck into the cave-in with a vengeance. Parker gasped as an arm pushed out of the sludge and weakly started to tear at the remaining mud surrounding his buried mate. With a bellow of joy, he grasped the groping hand, and at once, the grip was returned in acknowledgement. Jack was alive!

The two rescuers dropped their tools and, with a firm but gentle heave, strained against the suction of the mud and tried to pull Reynolds out by the legs. Finally, with a sucking rush and a pop, he slid out of his near grave in a tangle of limbs, broken timber, and debris.

Parker and Ned fell backward with the release of the pressure from the vacuum formed by the sudden collapse of earth. He landed heavily on his rump in the mud but virtually bounced back to the rubble and pushed his hands over the slithering mass that was his best friend. He reached under Jack’s chin and quickly released the strap holding his helmet onto his head. With the same movement, he yanked the headgear off his face. Reynolds immediately gasped loudly and began sucking in the foul but life-giving air.

‘Are you hurt, Jack?’ asked Bill as he ran his hands over his mate’s muddy body, looking for signs of blood or breaks.

‘No, mate, thanks to you two. I owe you my life,’ he answered sadly. ‘I’m a bit sick about those poor bastards buried under that shit.’ He looked back at the filthy mass of slime that was now a grave.

‘You tried, Jack.’

Another shell landed in the mud above them and they all ducked instinctively.

‘I’d better go,’ said the machine gunner, getting to his feet and grabbing his gear. He started to move off.

‘Wait, mate,’ called Reynolds, scrambling to his feet and running over to him. ‘The name’s Jack Reynolds, mate, and I owe you. I won’t forget.’ He stuck out his hand and Ned took it with a smile.

‘Ned Hoey, Jack. And I won’t forget either. We’ll make it a pint of Tooheys when this fun is over.’

Both men laughed, which was a rare event indeed.

‘Gotta go, blokes. Bernie’ll be needin’ me soon enough. See yas.’ He dashed off into the smoke.

‘Good luck, Ned,’ shouted Jack after him.

Reynolds turned back to Parker and grabbed his arm tightly.

‘Thanks, Bill,’ he whispered sincerely. ‘I owe you too.’

‘Crikey, mate, that’s two pints in a matter of minutes.’

Both good mates laughed again but the sound was drowned under a tidal wave of heavy artillery crashing above them.

‘Come on, Jack, we’d better get up there with Charlie. The bloody Huns will be coming again soon. The shelling is slowin’ down.’ They moved out and tried to set a decent pace but the rain-soaked trenches were a shambles. The stench of cordite, mud, and death drifted slowly around these pits like a hideous cancerous growth, as everywhere Australians lay dead or wounded. Screams of agony tortured the two Aussie soldiers’ souls, and the frustration at being unable to help brought on a kind of madness the two mates first encountered during the British debacle that was Gallipoli. The Aussie spirit burned fiercely in all of the AIF volunteers, and to fail against the Turks because of British tactical blunders still rankled these tough fighting men.

‘Reynolds,’ yelled Sergeant Charlie Yates when he spotted Bill and Jack clawing their way towards his position.

‘I need a runner man, and without that kit, you’re the closest bloody thing on two legs I’ve seen to a greyhound around these pleasant parts. Dump ya stuff, mate, I got a job for ya.’

‘Jesus, Charlie. Jack’s just been buried in a bloody trench collapse. Give him a rest, can’t you?’ pleaded Bill Parker.

‘Fuck resting, Parker. You can do plenty of that when you get to Blighty. If you ever get there at all, that is,’ Yates chuckled grimly. ‘Come here, Jack, this won’t take you long and shouldn’t be too hard.’ He handed Jack a small leather pouch and clouted him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘Take this down to Bob Cawthorne, Jack. His mob are camped down at that blockhouse they’re calling Gibraltar. Know where it is?’

‘Can’t miss it, mate,’ laughed Reynolds. ‘It’s the only bloody thing left standing for miles.’

‘I need an answer straight back, mate, righto?’

‘She’ll be right, Charlie,’ he answered. ‘What’s it about, sarge? If I lose this, I’ll tell him myself.’ He held up the pouch.

‘Yeah, good thinkin’, Jack. I want to know if Cawthorne’s bunch can support us in a counter-attack when we turn the Huns back this time. They’re our reserves for this one. They won’t have much to do. If he can go over with his blokes, we’ll go too. His bloody high and mighty Mr Bloody Haig is puttin’ pressure on our brass to take Moquet Farm, and sooner or later, we’ll be ordered to try. It’s only a bit over a mile away but it would be bloody hell if these bastards get back and settle in again.’

He paused and scratched his four-day growth with bloodstained fingers.

‘If I gotta go, I wanna go before the buggers recover. It’ll only turn into another bloody duck shoot and I’ve had a gutful of my blokes bein’ the bloody ducks. I’m sick and tired of this fuckin’ fiasco and I want to go home.’

‘You and me both, Charlie, I’ll get your answer, mate,’ said Jack, racing away towards the only building still visible, Gibraltar.

‘See ya, Bill,’ he called. ‘Don’t worry, mate. I’ll be right.’ He quickly disappeared into the gloomy maze of death-filled warrens that were home to thousands of supposedly civilized men.

Bill Parker watched his mate go with concern etched into his young face. Then, as he stared into the rear, the massive German bombardment abruptly stopped. The horrendous noise was replaced by the usual eerie silence that never ceased to amaze the shell-shocked soldiers from both sides of the conflict. And as usual, as if on cue, the silence was suddenly broken by a multitude of shrill whistles blowing the Allied call to arms.

‘To the parapets, men. They’ll be coming over the top soon,’ was the catch-cry common along the Western Front during The War to End All Wars.

With the first blasts of the whistles, Bill strode to the parapet and stood to the left of Yates, who was scouring no man’s land with a periscope. He bowed his head and tried to prepare for the coming horrors. He said his prayer and spoke in his mind to his mum and dad and finally to his childhood friend and secret sweetheart, Kate Campbell.

‘I’m coming home soon, Katie. I’ve had enough adventure. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, because you were right. War is not as glorious as Granddad’s stories. It is obscene and futile, just like you told me it was. I want to come back to you and I love you.’

The sniper’s first bullet took a too-eager young corporal from Sydney through the jaw and ripped his left ear off on its way out. The impact threw him from the parapet and he crashed into the stack of ammo crates behind the line of waiting men. There was no screaming, only a gurgling cough as the young man started to drown in his own blood. Mates rushed to his aid as an angry growl arose from the Aussies closest to the downed and dying corporal.

‘Hold your fire,’ screamed Yates to his men as he anticipated a knee-jerk reaction to the shooting. The men in the trenches from both sides hated the snipers with a passion. Those who were forced to walk into the enemy’s guns held nothing but contempt for the unseen killers they perceived as cowards.

‘Keep your bloody heads down, you boofheads, you won’t see the cowardly bastard and you’ll only lose the bloody melons masquerading as heads sittin’ on your bloody shoulders. So keep still and wait for his mates to come over.’

Even with all the tension sitting like a millstone over all of them, the strained laughter that came from Charlie’s abuse made Parker smile. No wonder the blokes loved him.

‘You got a pretty good description of these buggers goin’ there, Charlie,’ he laughed.

Yates smiled and nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, I did, didn’t I?’ he mused. Then he looked straight at Parker and said with a grin, ‘Oh yeah, I included you in that little speech, Parker.’

Bill looked pained for a moment and then together they both roared with laughter. Yates, still chuckling, raised the periscope and rested its eye on the sandbags on top of the parapet.

‘Let’s have a bo-peep and see if I can spot this murdering prick, eh!’ he mumbled to himself.

The sniper’s second bullet shattered Yates’ instrument and sent shards of glass and razor-sharp slivers of metal into the sergeant’s face. He dropped to the ground with the shock and his hands flew up to his wounded face by instinct.

‘Oh Jesus, no,’ he moaned. ‘Not my eyes, please, not my eyes.’

While the medics pounced on Charlie Yates and started to stem the flow of blood from his shattered face and try to ease the panic that a suddenly blinded man must always experience, Parker sprang into instinctive action. He raised his head above the ground for just a fraction of a second and his eyes flew over the destroyed landscape with the speed of a camera’s shutter. That fraction of a second was enough. The slightest wisp of white smoke drifting on the light breeze gave up the presence of the hidden Mauser and the killer behind the gun.

Parker jumped off the parapet and ran over to the squad corporal, Cyril Hossack.

‘I know where that bastard is, Hoss,’ he said heatedly. ‘He’s behind a downed log only about thirty yards out. Give me a dummy run and I can get the mongrel with a Mills.’

Hossack looked at Parker as if he’d gone mad.

‘Are you off your friggin’ rocker, Parker? What about this bloody attack comin’? An’ you wanna’ go runnin’ around out there.’ He pointed out to the scarred mess called no man’s land. ‘You are off ya bloody rocker.’

But Parker wouldn’t give up. He grabbed Hossack’s arm as he began to walk away.

‘Hang on, Hoss,’ he said urgently. ‘How are we goin’ to stop this attack if we can’t even lift our bloody melons to shoot? That bastard will pick us off like flies.’ He paused as the truth of his words sank into Hossack’s brain. ‘I ain’t exactly over the bloody moon about goin’ out there, Cyril. As a matter of fact, I’m scared bloody shitless but I’ll have a go at him if you can make him shoot in another direction. I give myself a fair chance of getting close enough to lob a Mills on him. He doesn’t know I know where he is. I reckon we can surprise the prick.’

Cyril Hossack studied Bill Parker as if he was seeing the man for the first time. He’d heard about this bloke’s bravery at Gallipoli and here in France. Now he knew the stories were true. He looked at Parker with a new respect.

‘Righto, Bill,’ he said softly. ‘Have a go, mate. I’ll go down a ways and stick Kaiser Willy up. If he takes the bait, go for him hard as soon as he shoots. Ya won’t get two chances.’ The reality of Hossack’s statement kicked off a small shiver down Parker’s spine but he threw it off quickly.

Hossack turned to leave but stopped and turned back. ‘Oh and, Bill, good luck, mate!’

‘Thanks, Hoss,’ he smiled ruefully and took up a position just upwards of the sniper’s lair. He dropped his kit, leaving only his pistol in his left hand and grabbed the deadly Mills bomb in his right. With nerves strung as tight as a piano string, he waited.

Kaiser Willy was the affectionate name for the battalion scarecrow, used for a variety of interesting sports, including darts practice. He had drawn this detail before but had so far survived.

Despite the chill of the sodden battlefield, Parker’s brow shimmered with sweat. He opened and closed his grip on the pistol to ease his clammy hands. It was always like this before you went over the top. The wait seemed interminable. He could hear the Germans approaching even through the din of the high explosives searching them out. They didn’t have much time. His mates would have to come up soon to man their shooting posts and then they’d be at the mercy of the killer in their midst.

‘For Christ’s sake, hurry up, Hoss.’

And then it came. The shot came loudly with the usual crack of the Mauser and Bill launched himself up and over the parapet and out into no man’s land. As he ran flat out at the German, another shot followed quickly on the first. He had a fleeting thought that that was pretty fast shooting. ‘Shit,’ he swore. ‘I’ve got a hot one.’ He focused all his will on his enemy as he reached the end of his breathless run. The sniper had seen him at last and Bill watched with detached fascination as the German swung his rifle around to face the unexpected attack. Their eyes met and Bill saw no fear in his enemy’s cold look, just confidence or maybe arrogance.

Parker knew he had to go now. In one lightning fast and fluid movement, he dove headlong and to his left. His service revolver bucked in his left hand and the Mills flew out of his right as the underarm motion flung it straight at the German shooter. Still in mid-air, he heard the loud report of the Mauser and something tore through his hair and scorched his scalp. He landed very heavily in the mud and instinctively tried to bury himself in a last-ditch attempt to survive the coming blast. He thought he heard a scream before the thunder and shock of the explosion almost crushed his senses. Mud and debris showered down on him in heavy torrents and he covered his head with his arms and tried to curl into a ball. A lump of rock landed heavily on his arse and he grunted in pain. The shock wave finally ceased and his hearing and vision blurred. His perception slowed to a crawl and his head was spinning out of control. A wave of nausea washed over him as he fought to steady his tilting balance.

Slowly his mad world started to right itself and faint sounds began to break through into his stunned consciousness. He thought he heard cheering and shouting way off in the distance, so he sat up and looked around over his shoulder. Absently he felt the top of his head and winced as his scalp stung. The sting helped to bring him to his senses and then the loud blaring of the dreaded bugles and the shrill nagging of whistles finally penetrated his stunned mind. He shook his head and forced himself to gain his bearings. There was a man standing and waving at him and he strained to hear a faint voice. He vaguely recognised the form floating in and out of the mist and he began to crawl on hands and knees towards his own trenches. Suddenly a body dropped down into the mud beside him and a hard muscular arm went under his armpit and latched on to his tunic under his other arm and he was dragged savagely to his feet. He was propelled forward immediately and then an admonishing voice yelled into his ringing ear.

‘For Christ’s sake, Bill, how many bloody times have I gotta tell you to bloody well hurry up?’

Parker smiled stupidly as his mate pushed him to the relative safety of the Aussie trenches.

‘We gotta get outta here, Billy boy. The Huns are comin’ and those itchy-fingered bastards from Sydney are likely to start blazin’ away any time, with us in the middle.’ Jack Reynolds had returned from his courier mission just in time to see his mate’s attack on the sniper. His presence was all the spur Parker needed to get him ‘home’ and they tumbled into the packed trench in relief. Parker was immediately picked up by a half-dozen Aussies, all shouting ‘good on ya’s and whacking him heartily on the back.

‘Christ,’ he muttered. ‘I’d be safer back out there.’ He looked at Reynolds and nodded his thanks.

‘Next time ya go for a bloody jog, Jack, take me with ya, will ya, mate?’ They both laughed a little nervously, on a comedown from cheating death yet again. Jack sobered quickly and moved closer so he could speak and be heard. ‘How are you, mate?’

‘Pretty stuffed, mate, but I’ll be right.’

‘Strewth, Bill,’ said Reynolds. ‘I’ve seen a lot of brave things in this stinking war but I reckon that’ll do me.’

‘It’ll do me too, Jack, can we go home now?’

Jack smiled ruefully and shook his head. Bill winked at him and started to rise. Reynolds rose with him and together they searched out their kits. Without another word, they picked up their gear and joined the mass of infantry bracing themselves on the parapets for yet another murderous attack from the Germans.

The battle-hardened and courageous Germans came out of their trenches in a determined push with wave after wave of massed soldiers clawing and scrambling their way across a no man’s land of bomb craters, cruel tangles of barbed wire, suffocating mud, and horrible death.

They ran onto the British- and Australian-manned Vickers machine guns seemingly without a single thought of their mortality. And they fell and died in their thousands on that miserable July afternoon at Pozieres.

The British and Australian lines held, and after four hours of intense and bloody fighting, some hand to hand where the Germans gained the Allied trenches, the battle raged on. The losses were insane, but still it went on.

Parker and Reynolds loaded and fired their Lee-Enfield 303s into the approaching Germans with the fierce tenacity that had become the Aussies’ trademark in a Europe gone mad.

Tears ran down Bill’s young face as he repeatedly fired and watched tough but young Germans fall before his and his mates’ guns. He had no idea how many brave men he killed that fateful day and he never would know. That, at least, was a small mercy. It was slaughter on the grandest scale. But still they came on.

Suddenly screams and shouts of terror came from the trenches to the left. Cries of alarm pierced the near-deafening cacophony of machine gun and rifle fire. Then a cry went up and was carried along the line. ‘They’ve broken through at Lewin’s section. They’re in the trenches, fix bayonets.’ A frightened panic threatened to turn the determined defence into a confused rout.

With an almost suicidal rush, desperate German soldiers crashed through the mass of exhausted Aussie infantry trying mightily to push to the left and help the hard-pressed Lewin.

Men died under the bayonet and pistol fire reverberated throughout the Aussie trenches. The thump and shock of hand grenades sent parapets and trenches slumping in on top of the defenders and the carnage was terrible. A grenade thumped into Bill’s chest and dropped into the mud at his feet. ‘Shit,’ he screamed as he bent and grabbed the deadly projectile and hauled it back into the attacking Germans. A shiver ran up his spine as the explosion brought him out of his terror and propelled him towards the heavy hand-to-hand fighting in the trenches ahead of him.

‘I’m right behind ya, mate,’ came the familiar and trustworthy voice of Jack Reynolds as they struggled through the mud and dead bodies towards the action. They pushed on doggedly through the heavy going, all the while aware of the increasingly desperate plight of Dick Lewin and his blokes caught in a vice-like German pincer. They sounded like they were taking a murderous beating.

A section of the trench had collapsed when a German shell had blown apart the parapet and all the men fighting there and the two privates pulled up short with no way to get through.

‘We can’t get through that shit, Bill,’ shouted Jack from behind.

‘I know, mate,’ he replied. ‘We’ll have to go over.’

‘Jesus Christ, Bill, we’ll get the shit shot out of us up there,’ cried Jack. Parker turned to his mate.

‘Listen to that, Jack. The poor buggers need us. Anyway, it’ll be better than a bloody grenade blowing my balls off down here in this shithole. We’re stuck here, mate, we can’t go back.’

Without waiting for an answer, he lurched up and over the ruined parapet and out into the open ground. He leaned forward into an attacking pose and ran on into the melee. Two Germans loomed out of the murk directly in front of him and turned towards him, aiming to shoot. Without hesitation, he shot one in the stomach, and as his man fell, the other’s face miraculously disintegrated. Only after did he hear the loud report of Jack’s rifle only inches from his left shoulder. He gave a grim smile to his mate and dove headlong into the back of the German platoon engaged in a life-and-death struggle with what was left of Lieutenant Lewin’s embattled command.

With their Lee-Enfields blazing and the element of surprise in their favour, the two Aussies wreaked a terrible toll on the desperate Germans. The timely intervention rallied Lewin and his survivors and they fought back with a vengeance. Suddenly the advantage swung to the Allies, and as panic spread through the ranks of the stricken Germans, the battle-weary and exhausted men began to throw down their weapons and call for quarter. A few diehards fought on bravely but quickly died under the Australians’ guns and bayonets. The tide had turned and the prisoners were quickly overpowered and disarmed. Dick Lewin quickly took control of the field and issued his orders crisply and precisely. Reinforcements arrived from the rear and the wounded from both sides were being treated. Bugles sounded out right across the battlefield and the rifle fire began to peter out. The Germans were in full retreat. The new and senseless counteroffensive had failed.

Dick Lewin stared at Parker and Reynolds standing side by side on the remains of a shattered parapet. They were swaying as if drunk and gazing out at the carnage spread out before them. He caught their eyes and conveyed his thanks and respect with a simple nod of his blood-streaked head. Slowly his right hand came up to his forehead in a weary salute that was meant as a testimony to their incredible mateship and bravery. Then, businesslike, he went back to work. The two men returned their burning eyes back to the scene of horror left by the Battle for Pozieres.

‘It’s a bloody nightmare, Bill,’ cried Jack Reynolds with tears coursing down his filthy cheeks.

‘I keep thinking that at any moment I’ll wake up and find this to be one incredibly impossible dream. But then I realise that no human being could have a nightmare like this. It’s not possible to imagine anything as evil as this.’

Bill looked at his best friend with a kind of desperate sadness in his eyes and cried.

‘I’ve had enough Jack. I want to go home.’

Jack Reynolds, a kindly, generous carpenter from Newcastle in New South Wales, took his mate in his arms, and as they slowly sank their weary bodies into the bloody mud of France, he whispered.

‘I know, mate, I know.’

CHAPTER TWO

T he dreams came again that n ight.

Kate glanced at me and smiled with what I was sure was a mixture of pride and love. My father and Uncle Paul lifted the fish onto the scales. Almost the whole town watched as Mr Fox, the butcher, carefully added the weights. When he stopped, he studied the scales almost reverently and then, playing the crowd like a popular politician, he called out loudly so all could hear, ‘One hundred and twenty-six pounds and ten ounces!’

The crowd cheered.

I looked at Kate and saw her blush shyly as I beamed my proudest smile at her, ignoring all the men pounding me on the back and all talking at once.

‘That’s one magnificent fish, son,’ said my dad. ‘It’s almost a crime to cut the big bugger up. We reckon he’s the biggest jew ever caught in the lake. At least, that anyone around here has heard of.’

I smiled at him and shrugged a little modestly. ‘Someone must have got a bigger one sometime, Dad.’

‘Doubt it, mate,’ he replied. ‘We’d have heard of it.’

‘Yeah, I s’pose you would, Dad,’ I laughed. ‘And I reckon everybody here would argue with you about cuttin’ him up. I reckon they can’t wait till we cook him.’

‘Righto then,’ yelled my dad, Toc Parker. ‘Let’s cook him, then.’

Laughter bubbled around the park at Toc’s words and he light-heartedly brandished a huge filleting knife over his head and everyone cheered again. Uncle Paul and Mr Fox lifted the big jewie onto a trestle table and my dad went to work, laughing at the jibes coming thick and fast from his mates. Everyone loved my dad, and as I watched him, my heart swelled with love and admiration.

‘He’s one of nature’s gentlemen,’ I thought to myself. ‘A hard-working man who loved his life, his family, and his friends with a passion. He would do anything to help, one only had to ask.’

I chuckled as he parried the latest salvo from the onlookers, something about the young bloke bein’ a better fisho than the old man. I looked around and then strolled casually over to the table under the huge old fig where my mother was sitting with Kate’s parents.

‘Hello, William,’ said Mrs Campbell. ‘Congratulations on such a wonderful catch.’

‘Thanks, Mrs Campbell,’ I mumbled shyly. ‘It wasn’t much.’ I looked down at the ground, acutely aware of my embarrassment around Kate these days.

‘Would you like a glass of lemonade, William?’ Mrs Campbell rescued me.

‘I’ll get him one, Mother,’ called Kate, running over from her group of friends, who were all staring at me and giggling amongst themselves.

I stared back, smiled happily, and then poked out my tongue and made a face. That made them all gasp for a second and then they burst out in real laughter. I sensed Kate approach, and when she looked at me, my heart almost stopped as I realised that she was looking at me in the way of a woman who truly loves a man. I felt weak at the knees and my mouth suddenly dried up.

‘You really are a lovely man, Mr Parker,’ she said softly, handing me a cold glass of lemonade.

‘And you, Miss Campbell, are a most beautiful and wonderful woman,’ I replied as I looked into her very soul. All I saw there was love and I instinctively knew that love was for me and me alone. Then I realised that the time was now.

‘Kate,’ I whispered. ‘I have loved you forever and now I am in love with you. Will you marry me?’

As the noise from the picnic faded behind me and I gazed into the eyes of my love, the music started.

Kate stared at me in wonder, and as the shock on her lovely face slowly changed to a look of utter happiness, the lamenting wail of the bagpipes intruded on our most personal moment.

Kate’s beloved face gradually faded before my eyes and drifted on the breeze with the heart-rending strains of the Scottish pipes sounding out the mournful hymn ‘Amazing Grace’. Once again, my awakening was one of despair and frustration as reality hit me again. Wounded and sleeping soldiers in full kit lay all around me and the pipes played out their hypnotic tune.

I lay still, closed my eyes, and thought of my dreams. Death looked down on me from on high, to my left, to my right, from behind me and came at me head on. But suddenly from out of nowhere came the sure and certain knowledge that I would survive this war of madness and go home to my beautiful Kate and my beautiful country. In my mind’s eye, Kate Campbell was still smiling and looking at me with love in her eyes and somehow I knew I would be all right.

‘You must be feelin’ good, Bill. You’re smilin’ like the blokes back home probably are.’ Jack Reynolds had been watching his mate for several minutes now and was relieved to see him wake up with some degree of sanity.

‘I know I’m going home, Jack. I’m going home to marry Kate. I’ve seen it in her eyes. I’ve seen her face when I asked her and I just know I couldn’t dream so explicitly if it wasn’t going to happen. I have to believe it, mate,’ I answered softly.

‘Good for you, Bill,’ he said kindly. ‘Do I get an invite to the wedding?’

‘If you don’t go, Jack,’ I answered with my eyes locked on his. ‘I won’t be.’

Jack looked at Bill, and with one nod of his head, he conveyed the love and loyalty to his mates so typical of the Aussies serving in their country’s armed forces. They were fighting a cruel war that none of them understood nor cared to understand. But they were here because their king had needed them and so they had come. The mateship and loyalty naturally followed and would not diminish even though so many of them would. It would thrive against all the odds and they would come to understand the real glory of war for what it really was: futile slaughter on a maniacal scale. But still they obeyed and fought and died. But their mates never once failed them.

The 1st had been relieved from the battlefields of Pozieres and were now resting behind the lines and trying to recover. However, the never-ending thunder of the big artillery was always very audible and the threat of violent death never far away. Rest and recuperation was very difficult to achieve but at least the break from front-line fighting usually restored some health and energy to the battered men and allowed them to carry on. Those that survived, that is.

‘How long do we have, Jack? Do you know?’

‘Nah, don’t know for sure, mate. They reckon Gough asked for a week but that French prick wotsisname has been ravin’ on to Haig about winning ground before winter sets in. I reckon the bastards’ll order another big push any time now. The blokes reckon we’ll be lucky to get two days.’

‘Shit,’ I swore. ‘You can’t recover from shit like that in two bloody days. Especially since we’ve been goin’ flat out for over three bloody weeks.’

‘They don’t give a stuff, Bill. You know that.’

‘Yeah, I s’pose I do.’ I shrugged. ‘Oh well, nothin’ shitkickers like us can do about it, mate. Might as well make the most of what we can get. Any tucker around here?’

‘I was just about to ask you if you wanted to get a decent feed. Or maybe you wanna go back to your dreams of home.’ He gave me a cheeky grin and I playfully cuffed him on the head.

‘You said a decent feed. You mean the usual swill, don’t you?’

‘No, mate, we’ve had a bit of luck. Jimmy Squires drove two shot-up pilots back to the airfield at Arras and somehow came back with a truck full of good stuff. Cheeses and chickens and all sorts of real good French tucker. He’s even got some plonk.’

‘Strewth,’ I said. ‘How the bloody hell did he manage that? What’d he do, knock it off?’

‘No,’ replied Jack. ‘He reckons his fly-boy mates lined him up with some local. Right place at the right time, he said. Anyway it cost him forty quid, so he’s sold most of it to Holmes and his blokes but he’s savin’ some for us. Come on, let’s see what he’s got left.’ Reynolds rose quickly.

‘Got any dough, Jack?’ I asked, feeling for my purse.

‘Don’t need any, mate. Jimmy said your money’s no good. He still remembers what you did for him at Lone Pine.’

I smiled at the memory. Jimmy had slipped on some loose gravel and done an ankle. He’d gone down like a sack of spuds right in front of a Turk Maxim nest. I ran out and dragged him into a shell hole just before the Turks ranged him, then helped him hobble back.

‘I’d forgotten that, Jack.’

‘Well, he hasn’t, thank Christ.’

‘I couldn’t have left him out there, Jack. He owed me five bob.’

Jack laughed loudly and I joined him and we strolled off to find Blackmarket Jimmy. It was good to walk on reasonably firm ground and with a straight back, at that. We could only hope our leave went on longer than everybody thought it would. We walked past the Scots regiment on our way to meet up with Squires and I noticed the bloke playing the bagpipes was sitting on an ammo crate, cleaning his instrument, and I sauntered over to him.

‘Nice tune, Jock,’ I said sarcastically. ‘You’re wasted out here shootin’ Germans. You should be in Paris serenading mademoiselles and soothing the weary souls and shattered nerves at general headquarters.’ I gave him a bright smile and a wink.

Jack eyed me off as if I’d gone mad and winced.

‘Crikey, Bill, there’s only two of us, you know!’

The burly, rugged-looking Scot stopped his cleaning and gazed up at me standing over him and smiling like a loon. He had a kind of bewildered look on his face and he scratched his head.

‘Have we met before, laddie?’ he asked in a rough voice. ‘I dinna ken yer ugly face.’

‘Not bloody likely, mate,’ I laughed. ‘We’d be about half a world away if we weren’t here together enjoyin’ this little adventure.’

‘Well then, how is it that ye be knowin’ me blasted name?’

Jack and I stared at him in the exact same bewildered way he was looking at us until the slightest crack of a smile appeared on his face and his eyes twinkled in delight.

Suddenly we roared with laughter, great bursts of fair-dinkum belly laughter as the realisation that this crafty Scotsman had given better than he had received. He laughed along with us, as did his mates lying all around. They laughed whether they understood the humour or not. In this godforsaken hellhole, any mirth for any reason was welcome.

I slumped to the ground next to Jock, and as my chuckling began to subside, I wiped the tears off my face with the sleeve of my tunic. Jack was still cackling away and shaking his head.

‘I reckon he got ya, clean bowled first ball, Bill!’ he gasped in between breaths.

‘That he did for sure, Jack,’ I replied. ‘Middle stump.’

I looked up and stared him straight in the eyes with the laughter still coming from my shaking frame and with wonder I realised it had taken the wit and kindness of a complete stranger from another country to make me laugh with the true meaning of laughter for the first time in an age.

He was an ugly-looking bastard: broken nose, God-knows-how-many little scars around his eyes and big battered-looking ears that looked like they were nailed to the side of his head with two-inch clouts. Reddish brown hair, curled tight, and a beard stubble the same colour. A thick bull-like neck held up the big block of a head. A certainly ugly bastard.

But the eyes. The eyes amazed me. I had seldom seen such friendliness and kindness in a pair of eyes before, especially on these bloody battlefields. They were the eyes of a man who loved to laugh and make others happy. The eyes of a man you could surely trust. I was becoming mesmerised. There was something about this stranger that involved me but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I shook myself out of my staring daydream, stuck out my hand, and introduced myself.

‘Bill Parker and my mate Jack Reynolds.’ Jack shook hands and smiled. ‘We’re with the 1st Aussies. We’re having a little break from all the fun. Look, mate, I’m proud to shake hands with the bloke that beat me at my own game.’ We all chuckled.

‘Andrew McTavish of the Scottish Regiment. Ma friends call me Andy,’ replied the big bloke.

‘What do we call ya, mate, Andy or Jock?’ asked Jack seriously.

And the three of us again collapsed in laughter. Laughter as strong and mad and gay as can only come from the hearts of men who share their days, their nights, and their dreams with death.

CHAPTER THREE

‘C harlie’s blind, Bill.’

‘Shit!’ I swore. I had been holding back the question that had been eating at my guts for days. Jack must have sensed something and in his true-blue manner he’d found some news on Charlie and had just answered my thoughts.

‘Hoss reckons they’re sending him to Paris tomorrow and I guess they’ll get him over to London when he’s right.’

‘He’ll never be right, Jack. What a bloody mongrel thing to happen, I’d rather be dead.’ I sighed and shook my head sadly. ‘Do you know how he’s handling it, mate?’

‘Pretty well, they reckon, Bill. Charlie’s as tough as they come and I s’pose he’ll manage somehow.’

‘Christ, I hope so, mate. Is there anything we can do?’

‘He heard what you did, Bill, and Hoss reckons he’s been asking for you. He wants to see us before he goes.’

There was a sudden silence in the tent. We were in the middle of a fair-dinkum banquet, courtesy of my old mate Jimmy Squires, but the news about Charlie had spoiled our appetite and I was reluctantly wrapping up the leftovers when Jack swore.

‘Fuckin’ hell,’ he cried. ‘What a bloody stupid thing to say. The poor bastard won’t see anything ever again and I go and talk shit like that.’ Jack was visibly upset at his unfortunate choice of words and he slumped over onto the table with his head on his arms. ‘Christ, what a bloody idiot,’ he mumbled into the rickety old trestle.

Vigorous, healthy men fighting in this accursed war had, by necessity, adopted a fatalistic attitude to the sudden death of their comrades, but when a mate sustained a severe disability like blindness, it really left a burning scar on their souls. The sorrow they felt for mates who were badly maimed, probably for life, was profound and the frustration of their inability to help weighed heavily on their hearts.

‘Come on, Jack,’ I said as compassionately as I could. ‘I would have said the same bloody thing.’ I patted the back of his shoulders and tried to lift his spirits. ‘Anyway, I reckon Charlie would piss himself laughing if he heard you say it. Come on, mate, don’t worry about it.’

Reynolds said nothing for a while and then he lifted his head and sighed.

‘Yeah, I know, Bill. He probably would have.’ He smiled weakly. ‘I’ll snap out of it. What do ya say we go and have a yarn with him now?’

‘I say, what the bloody hell we waitin’ for?’ I jumped up and dragged Jack up with me. He smiled his thanks.

Jack had managed to buy, borrow, or steal the most fresh food I had seen in about three months but somehow it didn’t have the appeal it deserved any more.

On an impulse, I grabbed a couple of cooked chooks, a ten-pound block of disgusting-looking cheese that was absolutely delicious, and a big bag of mushrooms. I stuffed them all into a sugar bag and raced out of the tent after Jack.

‘I’ll be back shortly, Jack,’ I called out as I flew past him. ‘You go on, mate, I’ll catch you up. Oh, and I’ll pay you back for these later, righto?’ Jack just smiled and waved me on my way. He knew where I was going. I waved back and set off at a goodly pace for Casualty Corner.

I found the Scots Brigade Camp in the confusing process of mustering and I felt an instant surge of anger at the unfair treatment they were being dished up. They were obviously being sent back up after only two lousy days off.

Andy McTavish and his mates were loading cases of machine gun ammo onto an old pulley cart that looked like Napoleon’s blokes had once used. I walked up to Andy and said g’day.

‘I didn’t know you blokes were goin’ back up so soon, mate, I’m sorry.’

‘Not yer fault, laddie,’ he joked. ‘It’s the bloody inconsiderate Lancashires’ fer goin’ an’ gettin’ killed in such vast numbers. There be too many wee lads dyin’ too quick, they be runnin’ oot a’ cannon fodder.’

Despite the gravity of the moment, I couldn’t help but smile, which was, after all, what the big Scot intended. I held out the sugar bag. ‘I scrounged up a bit of fresh tucker for you and your mates, Andy,’ I said shyly. ‘Well, at least Jack did an’ I pinched it off him, with his blessing, of course.’

All the Scots had stopped their work and now stood staring at me with bemused expressions on their weary faces. McTavish rubbed his stubbled chin and let out a low whistle.

‘Something wrong, Andy?’ I asked, a bit confused.

‘Wrong?’ he laughed. ‘Noo, laddie, only our faith in our fellow brothers, Bill. The lads are a wee bit shocked that a stranger would do a kindness like ye’ve joost doon.’

There was a nervous round of agreement and mumbled thanks from the tough Scottish veterans.

The mutual respect and concern these hard fighting men felt for each other stood out like a shining beacon in a deathly dark era in human history.

‘It’s the least I could do, Andy,’ I replied.

The bewilderment on McTavish’s face led me to explain.

‘You made me and my best mate laugh, Andy. To me and Jack, that was a kindness. Where we come from, you return a kindness.’ There, it was simple and it was said. I held out the tucker bag in my left and extended my right to him.

‘See ya, Jock,’ I said with a grin. ‘Good luck.’

McTavish took the bag and grasped my hand firmly. His grin was just as cheeky.

‘Be seein’ ye, Aussie, take care.’

As their column began to form up prior to marching out, I had the strange but distinct feeling that our mutual survival in this nightmare would be somehow entwined. I knew with a certain clarity that I would see him again and that the destinies of each of us would depend upon the other’s.

CHAPTER FOUR

W ith a kind of nervous trepidation, Jack and I walked down the long row of cots, stretchers, and makeshift beds rigged up in a shot-up old barn with canvas sheets and old tents attached to both ends and a blown-out side wall. The whole ramshackle affair was called a military field hospital. The smell of human waste and corruption was everywhere and the pall of human misery hung like a grotesque cloak over the whole mind-bending s cene.

Here and there throughout the gloom, amid the screams and groans of wounded and dying men, little rays of bright sunshine flitted from bed to bed. Sunshine trying to ease the misery and bring a little cheer to the impossibly heartbreaking and agonising end many of these young men had come to.

Volunteer nurses from England and France were working themselves to a standstill, trying to cope with the endless stream of ambulances and their grisly cargo.

‘Excuse me, miss.’ Jack stopped a young girl, barely fifteen, who was hurrying to help a surgeon who appeared to be cutting something on top of an old overturned horse trough.

‘I can’t stop, sir,’ she cried in anguish as she hurried away. ‘Doctor needs me. Information is in a tent outside.’

‘Thank you, miss,’ called Jack. ‘And God bless you, miss,’ he added.

The little slip of a thing gave him a grateful smile, her young eyes brimming with tears, and hurried on her way to her macabre tasks. A scream from the horse trough made the poor girl jump and she started to run.

‘Christ Almighty, Jack, can you believe this?’ I asked in a whisper.

‘Just barely, mate,’ he whispered back. ‘Just barely.’

We made our way outside silently. The misery in that barn was contagious. I was feeling like shit and I could tell Jack wasn’t faring much better. We found the information tent and had to wait in line. The scenes inside the barn had made me jittery and I was starting to get impatient. After what I had seen on the battlefields of Turkey and France, I was confused as to why a hospital had made me nervous and squeamish.

‘It’s the bloody inadequacy and hopelessness, Bill. It got to me too.’

It took me a moment to realise Jack had spoken. I thought I had found the answer. But no, Jack must have felt my dismay and solved the puzzle. He was probably going through the same emotion. I looked at him in amazement once again. He shrugged as if saying, ‘I don’t know,’ and I just shook my head, as I had done on many occasions. We had something special, Jack and I.

‘Next.’ A voice penetrated the clouds in my head. We moved up to the rickety trestle with the clerk perched behind it on a fuel drum. He was a skinny little bloke dressed in a filthy, blood-spattered British uniform with corporal insignias.

‘Name?’ he asked in a dreary monotone.

‘Sergeant Charlie Yates, 1st Australian Division. Wounded at Pozieres,’ replied Jack.

The corporal consulted a clipboard full of notepaper for a while, turning the tattered pages slowly as he read off the list. His look was as dull and boring as his repetitive voice.

‘Here he is,’ he drawled at last. ‘Charles Yates, going to Paris tomorrow. First ship to London, lucky bastard.’

‘He’s blind, you little prick.’ I was furious. ‘How do you call that lucky?’

‘You get out of this country alive, you’re lucky… private,’ he replied arrogantly, relying on his superior rank.

‘It’s all right, Bill,’ urged Jack. ‘Ease off. Where is he, corporal?’

‘North tent, last row,’ he shot