Chapter 3 Leave Application; Two Boys; To my enemy; Thinkin'

LEAVE APPLICATION

HE came into Kfar Vitkin late one afternoon on a draft from the 7th A.G.H. He had a face that spelt Experience in capital letters, hard and brown as wood. He had a row of last war ribbons on his chest, and when he answered his name at the roll call he had a voice dry and hard as his face.

We detailed them to tents and he went off with the mob. Ten minutes later he was back. He went straight past me in the Orderly Room into the Adjutant's office. I could see 'em through the open doorway. He placed a sheet of paper on the Adjutant's desk and rasped, "An application for leave, sir."

The Adjutant looked up at him. "This is highly irregular, gunner."

"Yes, sir. But may I have the leave?"

There was nothing wrong with the Adjutant's liver that day. He took it very quietly. "There is a specimen copy of a leave application form on the notice board outside. Make out a new form like that and I shall consider it." While he was speaking he was tearing up the old application.

Out goes the veteran. There is a lapse of ten minutes or so then back he comes. Again I caught only a glimpse of him as he passed through the Orderly Room. But I did notice that this time he didn't have a sheet of paper in his hand. He walked up to the Adjutant's desk, put down a piece of three-ply board on which I could see some writing, and said, his voice still flat and expressionless, "My leave application, sir. Let's see you tear this one up!"

"VX20398"

TWO BOYS

IT is a long time now but the time doesn't matter. I'll always remember them clearly, just as I do now, just as I saw them that warm July night-a couple of kids and their mules. What they did, and their quiet way of doing it makes me proud to have known them that night.

They often used to pass behind our O-pip, going up to the infantry lines on the forward slopes of the ridge. We'd hear the mules stumbling and clattering down the wadi and then they'd come round the overhang of rock, climbing the rough path, the hotboxes swaying on each side of the mules. They'd grin and say "Hi! " and go on up over the ridge out of sight. Neither of them looked more than eighteen.

One evening they were late arriving. We wondered what had happened to them-for the last week they had been regular as the sun. The coast road - we could see it from the top of the ridge - had been shelled pretty hard all day and we began to wonder if maybe they had walked into some of it. Then just on dusk we heard the mules and it was funny the queer relief we felt to hear those hoofs on the rocks. They came up round the overhang. The mules had ammo. boxes strapped to their saddles this time and the rear mule was limping.

They pulled up opposite us.

Thought you'd been moved to another run," we said.

"We had to wait for this ammo. They can't get it over to the flank by the usual way. It's pretty bloody over there at present." They spoke with the deepness that comes just after a boy's voice has broken.

One of them was examining the hoof of the lame mule. He looked up.

"I can't take this bloke any farther. He's done."

Nobody answered him. As he spoke wt heard the whistle coming our way. First faint then swelling, then, suddenly, the horrible belly-tightening whining moan as it came down the wadi. We clutched earth and it burst on the other bank and we heard metal scoring away off rock. And after that peace and quietness was something we'd read in a quotation somewhere. They dropped them all around us and we stayed close to the earth. The kids had taken the mules in under a shelf and they stood there moving restlessly when one went off close, the kids talking them all the time.

Then the bracket moved away from us They were pitching over all the hell they could find but now it was further up the ridge. We could hear the whistle and the door banging noise as they landed and up there on top they were certainly getting it.

The taller of the two kids stood up. He looked up at the ridge for a moment. Standing above us he looked long and thin and very young.

Then he said, "I'll go on, Gerry." His voice was very calm and matter of fact. "I'll come back and take your load up later ".

"You will, like hell. You'll come back but I'm taking the next load up."

The tall one grinned. "O.K. So-long, fellers."

He took the lead-rope of the mule and went up the path. There was a momentary glow in the sky behind the ridge and for just so long as was needed to make it a memory he was a silhouette against it, black shapes of a quiet brave boy and his mule against the glow of death, and then he was gone.

The kid who stayed with us talked a lot. He yapped away like a master of ceremonies but you couldn't help liking him. He'd been with the other youngster all along. They'd joined up together-"Our mothers kicked up a bit of fuss because we were so young but our dads were in the last war and they understood" - gone through Libya, Greece, and Crete, and here they were, battle-seasoned, but still young in the heart so that, listening to him, I felt sorry that this war had to come in his youth.

Time wasn't in much of a hurry that night. It crawled around and all the time they were shelling the ridge. It was pretty quiet down our end and we just sat and waited.

After a while the kid started to talk less. Sometimes he would break off and sit listening, looking up towards the ridge. He was getting restless.

"Maybe they've kept him up there," I said.

He shook his head. "They wouldn't do that. They badly want this other ammo."

We sat there a while longer and then he stood up.

"I'll go on, I think. It's tough on the mule here but he'll just have to walk on three feet."

It was no use saying anything. He was worried, you could see that. And the only way to get him over it was to let him go and find out for himself.

"So-long."

He went up the path. The shelling was still going on and I felt a bit sick thinking about that kid and his mule making their way through it. I went up to do my shift on the post.

We didn't hear them come back again during the night. After a time they closed down on the other side of the valley and the rest of the night was quiet. I found myself listening for them all the time I was doing my shift on the post, and once when I had been relieved and was just dropping off to sleep I sat up suddenly, thinking I had heard the mules' hoofs on the rocks. I took a long time to doze off.

The sun had been up some hours and I was sitting drinking tea when I heard the sound I'd been waiting for. I turned my head quickly. The short kid, the one who'd gone up last, was coming down leading the mule which was very lame now.

I threw out the tea in my mug and filled it again and stood up. He came down and I held out the mug. He took it without a word and drank. His face looked as if the skin were stretched tight over the bones and his eyes were strained and tired.

"What happened?" I asked.

His voice was tight and dead. "I don't know. I found his mule going up-it was split wide open. He - he just wasn't there."

There are times when you say a lot more by not saying anything. This was one of them.

"I had another look coming down this morning. All I found was his hat."

I looked. There was a steel helmet hanging by its strap to the gear on the mule's back. It had a hole big as my fist right through it and there was blood on the strap.

"I'm sorry, Gerry." The words seemed so inadequate.

He shook his head as if he were shaking water out of his eyes. He handed me back the mug.

"Think I'll be going. Thanks for the tea."

He went down the wadi. His head was hanging and maybe he was crying. I didn't feel so good inside myself.

"NX15943"

THINKIN'

IT ain't no good ter grumble an' ter curse,

Cawse after orl - things could be bloomin' worse.

This 'ere's no life uv pleshur, you kin bet,

But wot's the odds, we 'aven't snuffed it yet!

We gits our Red Crawss parcils-good grub too,

An' nigh goes mad when mail frum 'ome cums thru'.

The only time we don't feel in the pink

Is when we sorta stops, an' starts ter think!

Our folks-uv 'oom we never made a fuss,

We thinks uv 'em, an' wot they meant ter us,

An' when we sees 'em once again back there,

We'll more appreshiate their luv an' care!

The girl so dear, 'oo when we 'ad ter part

Bore up real brave despite an achin' 'eart.

We think uv 'er, an' think uv 'ow she yearns

Fer that great day, when we, at last, returns.

The friends we left, our 'omes, our native land,

We're thinkin' uv 'em orl, an' struth, they're grand!

An' even tho' we sometimes gits the mopes,

We've orlways got one thort ter raise our 'opes.

Orl things must end (as sum bright feller wrote),

An' when this does, we'll grab that flamin' boat,

Our thorts about this life, we'll leave be'ind,

An' think erbout the new life we're ter find!

"VX2403"

This verse was written in a prison camp in Germany and sent by the writer to a friend in Australia. The Australian soldier who composed it left Australia for the Middle East in April 1940. He took part in every Middle East campaign until Crete. When names were drawn from a hat to see who should leave that island and who should remain, he was among those left behind.

* The second verse of "Thinkin"' was deleted by the German censor.