Solomon's Song (39 page)

‘Tell you what, Sergeant Teekleman, I hear there’s to be boxing on the foredeck, entertainment for the men. What say I fight you for that deck space, three rounds, winner takes the space. Can’t be fairer than that now, can I?’

Ben listens with his eyes fixed on his boots and then looks up slowly, meeting the other sergeant’s eyes. Treloar stands about six feet two inches with Ben around five ten but just as broad about the shoulders as the sapper. Treloar has a pronounced beer gut, which gives the impression of his being a lot bigger than Ben. ‘Well, I reckon there’s nothing to be gained by fighting, Sergeant Treloar, that deck space belongs to my platoon and a stoush isn’t going to change that.’

‘G’arn, it’d be first fight o’ the voyage. A good example set for the men, couple of N.C.O.s having a friendly stoush, boxing gloves an’ all, nobody gets too badly hurt, encourage them to do the same, ’stead of pullin’ their puds in their bunks at night.’ Treloar waits, bringing his head back from resting on his arm. ‘Yeah, I thought so, you’re a bloody coward, ain’t ya?’

‘You heard me the first time, Treloar, it’s no deal, you’re not getting our deck space and two sergeants having a blue is bloody stupid.’ Ben’s eyes suddenly narrow. ‘Now, me being a Tasmanian with a touch of the tar brush, just what did you mean by that?’

Treloar shrugs. ‘Ain’t too hard to work that out, now is it? Reckon you blokes from the Apple Isle are all cousin fuckers, snot-nosed droolers.’ He pauses and nods his head, ‘And you, mate, they tell me there’s a touch of the Zulu in ya. That right, is it?’

‘Zulu?’

‘Yeah, nigger, African Abo!’

Somewhat to Treloar’s surprise Ben grins and slowly shakes his head. ‘You’ve got a real nasty mouth, Treloar, but you may have half a point there. You see, we Tasmanians go to a fair bit of trouble not to mix our blood with shit from the mainland. As for the other? I’m half-Maori and bloody proud of it, just like I am of being a Tasmanian.’

‘I’ve been to yer little island, son, it’s the arsehole o’ the known world.’

‘Oh yeah? Just passing through, were you?’

There is a sudden burst of laughter from behind Treloar’s back. He is unaware that several infantrymen have come up again and are standing behind him waiting to pass. It is obvious most have heard a fair bit of what’s been going on. At Ben’s put-down of the bully sergeant they prove unable to contain their mirth.

Treloar spins around, furious. ‘G’arn, fuck off!’ he shouts at the men, but in doing so he is forced to drop his arm so there is space for Ben to pass him.

Ben smiles at Treloar. ‘I’ve got to be off, Sergeant, urgent rifle-clicking practice with my platoon.’ Ben stands aside to let the six waiting infantrymen through first. He can feel his shoulder pushing against Treloar’s chest and moves backward a little harder than necessary. ‘C’mon lads, through you go.’ Then he turns around to face the big man once again, ‘Been real nice talkin’ to you, Sergeant.’

‘Yeah, yeah, you’ll keep, Teekleman,’ Black Jack Treloar growls. ‘I’ll be lookin’ for you, mate.’

Ben has taken three or four steps down the corridor but now stops. ‘I’m not hard to find, Sergeant, try leaving a note on the noticeboard in the sergeants’ mess.’

The first two days on board are spent settling in, cleaning the Broadmeadows mud from their uniforms and polishing their brass while at the same time, in the ship’s parlance, ‘getting their sea legs’, which proves to be a good thing, for even in the relatively calm seas Numbers Cooligan is sick as a dog while, surprisingly, the remainder of the platoon seems unaffected.

Cabin inspection is followed by physical jerks on the main deck and then breakfast. After which there is rifle drill and musketry practice, though no actual firing takes place. The day then takes on a familiar routine which will continue in much the same way when the convoy sets off overseas. With route marches and many of the other tedious and time-consuming tasks eliminated for want of space the time is taken up with specialist training. Men are selected for all the arcane occupations demanded by a killing machine and are turned into signallers, sappers, machine-gun operators, snipers, clerks, stretcher-bearers and just plain soldiers with a little bit of everything thrown in, though the fundamentals of army discipline are maintained throughout the five-day voyage.

However, talk of the corridor confrontation between Sergeants Ben Teekleman and Black Jack Treloar has spread through the ship. There is a great deal of speculation as to who would get the better of whom in a fight. The fights are on every night in a ring set up on the foredeck and named by the troops ‘The Stoush Palace’. It proves to be the most popular entertainment on board and Black Jack Treloar is always there, sometimes acting as a referee and on three occasions even entering the ring himself.

On the first occasion he knocks out his opponent in the opening round and on the next occasion the referee ends the fight in the first minute of the second round, awarding it to Treloar on a t.k.o., the third is another knockout towards the end of the second round. Treloar is a fighter who likes to work the ropes, pushing his opponent into a corner and letting him have it with a barrage from both fists, relying on his strength and aggression to batter through his opponent’s defence and put him on the canvas. All three bouts end with a spectacular uppercut and Numbers Cooligan, pronouncing himself an expert, calls Treloar ‘a one-punch Johnny’. Treloar’s flailing fists invariably force his opponent to his knees while he hangs onto the ropes, whereupon the sapper sergeant takes great delight in delivering the coup de grace to his undefended chin.

There is something about the way Black Jack fights that makes the audience yearn for an opponent who will take him on. All of the men who climb into the ring with him are game enough but have little previous experience of the sport. They are big blokes, but generally clumsy with their fists and don’t know their way around the square canvas. Some may know how to mix it well enough in a pub brawl but getting the hang of the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules and a pair of ten-ounce boxing gloves proves quite another matter. It is obvious that Treloar has the advantage of previous experience in the ring as well as being enormously strong in short bursts. He is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the Orvieto, though the audience is reluctant to talk him up.

After the confrontation in the corridor, Ben’s name is most often cited as the opponent they would like to see, though it is not known whether Ben is a boxer and even if he was he would be a light-heavy, giving Treloar at least a twenty-pound advantage in the ring.

After the way Treloar has disposed of his opponents there are no more contenders for the heavyweight division but there are few outside his own platoon who believe he has earned the title fair dinkum and it is plain he is neither respected nor admired. There is something of the braggart about him, he is rough trade and his platoon of sappers, who are going to war with picks and shovels, is made up of men who have been labourers all their lives and fit much the same description. By way of contrast they take great pride in their fighting sergeant and they begin to taunt Ben’s platoon, giving it the sobriquet ‘Sergeant Chopper and the Bang Bangs’. Passing a member of Ben’s platoon they’ll aim an imaginary rifle and say, ‘Bang bang you’re dead!’

It is childish stuff but nevertheless humiliating and, while none of Ben’s platoon will say so, they all secretly wish Ben was as effective with his fists as he is with an axe and that he’d climb into the ring and give Treloar the licking he deserves. They do not have any doubts about their sergeant’s courage but would like him to be the instrument of Treloar’s demise, bringing the incident in the corridor to its rightful conclusion with the good bloke triumphing over the bully.

Though Ben has won the war of words, the men hunger to see the living shit beaten out of Black Jack Treloar so that there will be no more conjecture. With young warriors the word has never been mightier than the sword. It is not only the incident in the corridor that gives the speculation impetus but also the fact that Ben Teekleman has on a second occasion single-handedly put Treloar’s platoon in its place, though unfortunately it does not directly involve ” Black Jack Treloar.

On the third night out at sea when Ben’s platoon is bedded down on deck, six members of Treloar’s platoon, no doubt with his tacit approval, decide to teach Ben’s platoon a lesson. The story has become somewhat embellished in the retelling, receiving a good start towards mythical status at the hands of Numbers Cooligan, whose accurate accounting is strictly reserved for arithmetical calculations.

However, Library Spencer has written the incident down in the illicit diary the army has forbidden soldiers to keep. His version is without the Cooligan flair but has the virtue of being scrupulously accurate.

They are crossing the Great Australian Bight with the sea uncharacteristically calm and with a full moon in a cloudless sky making the deck seem almost in daylight. Around one in the morning Crow Rigby, who has been placed on guard duty by Ben, sees six men approaching, carrying what can be clearly seen as pick handles. He shakes Ben awake. ‘Reckon we’ve got visitors, Sergeant,’ he says quietly.

Ben rises quickly. ‘How many?’

‘Six, they’ve got pick handles.’

Ben takes Crow Rigby by the elbow and guides him behind a large packing case lashed to the deck so that they can’t be seen by the advancing men. The six would-be attackers move forward in a half-crouch, with one of them four feet or so ahead. He holds his hand up as an indication to advance slowly and quietly. When he is close enough to the first of the sleeping men, Ben leaps from behind the packing cases with an ear-piercing cry and Crow Rigby sees for the first time that he carries his fighting axe. Before the forward man has time to lift his pick handle Ben has jabbed the blunt end of the axe handle hard into the attacker’s mouth, taking out several of his front teeth in the process. The soldier gives a startled howl and before he has time to sink to his knees Ben has reached the next man, slapping him on the side of the jaw with the axe head and sending him sprawling to the deck, the pick handle flying from his hands. The third attacker has managed to get the pick handle above his head and as he brings it down Ben parries the blow by holding the fighting axe at each end, then in a lightning-fast gesture he scrapes the axe handle along the pick handle and down onto the hands of the third attacker, breaking his grip and his fingers so that the pick handle clatters to the deck and the man lets out a cry of sudden pain. The axe handle swings up in a curve and smashes into the man’s face and there is an audible crack as his nose breaks and he is thrown backwards by the force of the blow to land hard on his arse.

The first two men lie moaning and sobbing sprawled on the deck unable to rise as the third attempts to get to his knees, clutching at his face with one hand while steadying himself with the other. Ben turns to face the next in line but the remaining three attackers turn and flee for their lives.

‘Shit!’ Crow Rigby says softly, it has all happened in less than fifteen seconds. The rest of the platoon, wakened by Ben’s bloodcurdling yell, are barely out of their blankets and on their feet, still somewhat bleary-eyed, when the fight is over. The platoon watches in noisy amazement as the three men on the deck try to get to their feet.

‘Quiet, everyone,’ Ben commands. ‘Help these men to their feet. Private Crow, Private Horne, you too, Private Cooligan.’ He is puffing slightly from the sudden rush of adrenaline, but his voice remains calm. The platoon watches in silence as the three privates pull their attackers to their feet and they see for the first time the extent of the damage the axe has done to their collective physiognomies. ‘Fuck me dead!’ Cooligan says, expressing it adequately for them all.

Ben addresses the three men. ‘You all right, lads? Can you walk?’ All three nod, the blood from their faces dripping down their chins and onto the deck. ‘Righto, no names, no pack drill. Tell the M.O. in the morning that you fell down the stairs or you had a stoush, whatever.’ Ben points to the three pick handles lying on the deck. ‘Pick those up, lad,’ he says to an infantryman named John Parthe who is referred to by the platoon as Muddy. Then turning back to the three wounded sappers he says, ‘We’ll keep the pick handles, tell your sergeant if he wants to recover them he can post a note on the board in the sergeants’ mess. Got that?’ The three men nod unhappily, two now have their hands clamped over their mouths, the third over his broken nose. The blood oozing through their fingers can be clearly seen in the moonlight. ‘Righto, on your bicycles. As far as No. 2 Platoon, B company, known to one and all as the Clicks, are concerned nothing happened tonight, right? Or would you rather face the C.O. in the morning?’

The three soldiers shake their heads and turn away, stumbling into a half-trot, their hands still clamped to their faces as they make for the hatchway at the far end of the deck. Ben turns to his platoon. ‘Let’s get some sleep. Well done, Private Rigby, you’re off guard duty, get some sleep. Private Spencer, you’re on guard.’ Ben glances in the direction of the three departing men. ‘Stupid bastards didn’t even have the sense to wait for a dark night.’

Numbers Cooligan laughs. ‘London to a brick them buggers won’t be back.’ He turns to Ben. ‘I has me doubts we can sleep after that, Sergeant.’

‘It’s an order, Cooligan,’ Ben says, stooping to pick up his own blanket.

‘Jesus, why don’t they issue us with them fightin’ axes instead of a stupid bloody bayonet?’ Hornbill says ruefully as he wraps his blanket about him. ‘Germans would shit ‘emselves!’

While Treloar has been strutting his stuff in the boxing ring, he has been careful to avoid Ben. The story of the incident has inevitably reached the other sergeants who approach Ben for confirmation, but all he will say is that there has been a little rough and tumble on deck and that it has been sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction.

The three men from Treloar’s platoon, reporting to the ship’s hospital the following morning, claim to the medical orderly that they had been negotiating the steel steps down a hatchway in the dark when the man at the rear missed his footing and collided with the other two, sending them all crashing below decks. A later inspection would show that two light bulbs were missing over the offending steps, though the ship’s doctor, examining them, pronounces himself mystified that no other bruises appear on their bodies. ‘You’ve been fighting, haven’t you? What were you using, knuckledusters?’ When the men deny this the M.O. shakes his head. ‘I’ll have to have confirmation from your sergeant, who’s your sergeant?’