Loyal Creatures (10 page)

The Turks had got Dad. They'd got Otton and Bosworth and Lesney.

But they weren't getting Daisy.

Was I certain about that?

Oath I was.

If only I'd known.

When we were on the move at night, I covered Daisy's white bits with black boot polish. Knew she wouldn't like it, so I put some on my face as well.

‘They'll need good eyesight now, those snipers,' I said to her. ‘Inordinate good eyesight.'

Daisy gave me a look.

I knew what she was probably thinking. Me and her hadn't had a bath for weeks. Snipers could probably locate us blindfolded.

At least the mongrels had plenty of choice for targets. We were a big mob now.

Not just the Light Horse. Mounted troops from Britain, Canada, all over. Biggest horseback army since Genghis Khan, someone said.

Dunno what Genghis did for water, but as we pushed the Turks and their Hun friends north towards Damascus, we had to work hard for ours.

I wouldn't have reckoned it, but water was harder to find in the desert in winter than in summer. Everything froze up at night. Which is why me and Daisy took the risks we did.

Blokes and horses needed water just as much in winter as they did when it was scorching. More if they were sniffling and crook and hot soup was the only thing keeping the influenza off them.

Me and Daisy were on the move the whole time. Ahead of the troops, behind the troops, off to one side, off to the other side. Unclogging wells, melting ice in caves, stopping drill rigs from rusting with sand rubs and camel fat.

We kept our heads down.

Enemy knew our whole advance would be cactus if we didn't have water. So their snipers went at us night and day. Water deployment units copped more airborne lead than the average fairground duck.

Daisy didn't like it, being shot at. As we advanced, if we came across a deserted sniper pozzie, she'd give it a good hosing.

Not a single enemy bullet touched me or her.

I wished Otton could have been there to see it. He was a cheery bugger most of the time, and he'd have enjoyed our good fortune.

Probably have called it mellifluous or some such.

They were good months for me and Daisy. We were cold, hungry, weary and scared, but we were together and we kept each other going.

And at night, when we kipped together for warmth, both of us were always grateful for what that warmth told us. That we each had someone we cared about left in the world.

Though Daisy had someone else as well.

I thought about Daisy's daughter a fair bit. How we'd get her back after the war and have her live with us.

Then one night, when me and Daisy were camped out in the desert on a water recce by ourselves, her daughter turned up in a dream.

Me and Daisy are riding across central New South Wales in the dark. The warm night air is fragrant with eucalypt and lemon myrtle and other smells you didn't get in Palestine, like roast pork.

Dawn starts to come up.

We arrive at a paddock. The lush grass is wet with dew and scattered with mist. Fingers of sunlight stroke their way across the grass. Just like when I used to get up early to help Mum with the milking.

I'm standing next to Daisy and suddenly she starts to tremble.

Out of the golden mist comes a beautiful young horse. For a sec I think she's Daisy. She's not, she's smaller, but she's got Daisy's white flashes and lop-sided body, exact.

Daisy runs to her.

They stand together for a moment. Then gallop, side by side, mist streaming off them, joyful.

Me as well, running with them.

Joyful.

I woke up.

Normally, next to me on the desert hillside, Daisy's dark ribs would have been slowly rising and falling. Normally I would have felt the warmth of her.

But she wasn't there.

I sat up, panicked.

And saw her. Up on the ridgeline. Silhouetted against what Otton used to call the vault of stars.

She wasn't galloping, she was standing rock-still.

Head up, staring at the horizon.

In the distance was the rumble of artillery fire. Or thunder. Or maybe it was just my heart beating.

I whistled to Daisy.

She wheeled round, stared at me for a few moments, as if she wasn't sure who I was, then thundered down the hillside towards me.

I braced myself for a warm wet nuzzle.

Instead she stopped a few paces away, white breath cascading from her nostrils, chest gleaming with sweat.

Her eyes somewhere else.

I waited a while, then started to gently rub her down with my blanket.

‘Don't worry,' I said. ‘We'll get her back.'

Slowly Daisy relaxed.

Her eyes softened. Went big and sad.

She put her head on my shoulder.

I gave her the last of Joan's sugar lumps. My hand was trembling. Daisy was too.

Next morning, though, she was fine.

Could all have been a dream if my blanket hadn't still been damp with her sweat and I hadn't still been shivering from trying to sleep under it.

I stroked Daisy's neck while she was having breakfast.

‘I mean it,' I said. ‘We'll get her back.'

The other thing that kept us going was we knew the Turks and Huns were finished. Just a matter of time.

And exactly a year to the day after we charged them at Beersheba, they packed it in.

Mass surrenderings all over the place.

Huns in France included.

Jeez, we celebrated. Big cup of tea, real tea. Oats for Daisy, real oats from the officers' mess.

‘Good on you, cobber,' I said to her. ‘We made it.'

The war was over.

But not for me and Daisy.

It was a chook-house of a way to end a war.

The fighting was over, but our military duties weren't. We were turned into sort of police.

The local folk had gone a bit hysterical after having foreigners fighting a war in their country for four years. I didn't blame them, but the brass reckoned they needed a bit of supervising.

So we did. Me and Daisy didn't mind. At least nobody was shooting.

Not yet.

Back in camp, between shifts, we made plans for the future.

‘When we get back home there'll be parades,' I said to Daisy. ‘Big one down the main street of Sydney, probably. And down the main street of our town, but we won't bother with that one.'

Daisy understood. One parade's enough.

Start getting too full of yourself with more than one.

‘We'll get ourselves a piece of land,' I said to her. ‘Word is, government'll give us soldiers a loan so we can pay some acres off. Wait till you see what it's like over Gulgong way. Near Ulan Drip. Water there, permanent.'

Daisy wouldn't have understood every word, but she could see how excited I was, so she knew how good it would be.

‘Then,' I said, ‘we'll find your daughter. I know which property out west she's on, and I'll have a whack of army pay. If the cocky doesn't want to sell her, I'll just offer him more.'

Daisy looked at me.

‘And then,' I said, ‘it'll be the three of us on our place, together. Alright, four if I can find a sheila.'

Daisy licked my ear.

It was her way of telling me to go for it.

One morning I stuck my head out of the tent and saw the remount quartermaster over by the horse lines. Talking with a bloke in a strange-looking uniform.

I went over.

The bloke, I saw as I got closer, was an officer from some other army. Indian, it looked like.

He was having a close squiz at our horses.

‘Hmmm,' he was saying. ‘Damage on this one too. Barbed-wire scars, I'd say.'

At first I thought he was a vet. Brought in by the brass to give our horses a bit of medical attention before the long voyage home. Which was what they deserved.

‘I'm puzzled,' the Indian officer said. ‘Isn't it standard practise on the battlefield to dispose of wounded horses?'

The quartermaster nodded.

‘The bad ones,' he said. ‘But our walers are tough. Few scratches don't bother 'em.'

The Indian officer frowned.

‘I'm afraid we can only take the unmarked ones,' he said.

I wasn't sure I'd heard right.

Take? Take where? And why would a vet only be interested in the ones that hadn't been in strife?

‘What if,' said the quartermaster, ‘we chuck in the damaged ones free of charge? You only buy the clean ones.'

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Free of charge? Buy?

‘What's going on?' I said.

There were other troopers with me now, muttering, concerned.

The quartermaster hadn't seen us come over. For a second he looked at us nervously, then glared at us.

‘Back to your tents,' he roared. ‘That's an order.'

None of us moved.

I could see Daisy on the line, watching us.

‘What the hell is going on?' said a trooper near me, slowly and clearly so even the quartermaster's fat ears could get the gist.

‘This prawn,' said another trooper, pointing to the Indian officer. ‘What's he up to?'

The Indian officer looked very annoyed.

‘The army of India is doing the Australian army a favour,' he said to the quartermaster. ‘It's bad enough you're trying to sell us damaged stock. We will not put up with abuse as well.'

Sell?

I couldn't believe it. Our loyal horses, who'd worked their guts out for their country, were being sold off to work their guts out again in some other bloke's war.

Not on.

‘The damaged ones stay,' said the Indian officer. ‘My orders are to take only healthy stock.'

I had a selfish thought.

At least they wouldn't want Daisy, not with her bayonet wounds.

But for the others, not on.

I went to grab a fistful of the Indian officer's jacket. One of the other troopers beat me to it.

‘You touch any of those horses,' the trooper said to the Indian officer, ‘and you'll be copping more than abuse. Your wallet stays in your pocket, Mahatma, you got that?'

Me and the other troopers agreed with him.

Loudly.

The quartermaster blew a whistle.

Next thing I was on the ground, face in the dust. I felt handcuffs on my wrists. Two military police dragged me to my feet.

I couldn't believe it.

Military police were swarming all over the place, armed and organised. We'd never had mobs of jacks like this in our camp. They must have been brought in specially. On account of the brass knowing how we'd feel, having our horses sold behind our backs.

Some of the other blokes were handcuffed too. The rest were standing back, looking dazed.

‘You can't do this, you mongrel,' I said to the quartermaster.

He sighed. For a long moment I thought he was going to agree.

But when he replied, he didn't look any of us in the eye.

‘Orders from the top,' the quartermaster said. ‘These aren't horses any more. They're surplus military equipment.'

I tried to get to him. Shake him till he came to his senses. But the jacks dragged me in the opposite direction.

Daisy was still watching us.

At least she was safe.