Solomon's Song (61 page)

I must say that I was impressed with the way Miss Teekleman conducted herself on that occasion and again during our recent negotiations. She strikes me as an exceptional young woman and well exemplifies the old adage that we should trust our hopes and not our fears.

I trust you are well,

Yours sincerely,

John Parkin

Department of Trade and Customs.

The factory, which has hitherto employed twenty men and seven women, now has two hundred employees, all but sixteen of them female. Using the excuse that the able-bodied men are increasingly away at the war, Victoria has trained young women in the most previously unimagined capacities. She has them working as successful drivers, mechanics and machine operators, occupations traditionally thought only suitable for men. Furthermore, the clerical staff are also all women, with the exception of the chief accountant, who is an old retainer at the factory. Her appointments include a recently retired hospital matron, fearsome by reputation, named Mildred Manning, who has become her general manager.

When Hawk indicated some doubt about the wisdom of this appointment, Victoria responded sharply, ‘Grandfather, if Mildred Manning can run a hospital filled with sick people she can run a blanket factory filled with healthy young ones. She’s well accustomed to working with nurses and other female staff as well as handling men, who, if you want my opinion, constantly interfere to very little effect on the boards of hospitals anyway.’

The maternity hospital started in Mary Abacus’ home for the wives of the employees of the Potato Factory Brewery has, over the ensuing years, become a general hospital. And while it has been taken over by the state, the brewery has an entitlement to a seat on the hospital board. Hawk has given this position to Victoria and she has made it known to him that the old fogies who sit with her on it, all of them men, do nothing but create obstacles.

When the unions complain about the female bias in the blanket factory, Victoria invites the ten most senior union officials involved in the combined trade unions active in Launceston over for afternoon tea. Needless to say they are all men and the affair, which quite incidentally includes tea and cake, features libations of a somewhat stronger and more spirited kind. In addition, there is a case of beer for each of the men to take home afterwards.

After the officials have had a few tipples Victoria points out that she is acting well within the trade-union charter and that factories employed in essential war industries can recruit from anywhere they wish and are not restricted to union labour. She then informs them that every one of her employees carries a fully paid-up union membership card. After she promises to pay the transport and accommodation for three local union officials as delegates to the Trade Union Congress to be held in Melbourne, they leave, assuring her of the utmost cooperation and giving her three resounding hip hip hoorays.

Victoria has also expanded beer production in the Tasmanian brewery and Tommo & Hawk beer has made significant inroads into the South Australian market, taking a ten per cent market share from West End, the well-established Adelaide brewery, which has hitherto successfully fought off all outside competition.

Abraham has been forced to conclude that Joshua will need every resource at his command if he is to succeed his father as chairman of Solomon & Teekleman.

Moreover, Abraham privately thinks the deal David made to keep Joshua away from the fighting was quite wrong and that money and title should not be allowed to buy such privileges. Accordingly, he sets about undoing the elaborate network of safeguards that David, even in his apparent dotage, put together, marvelling in the process at the old man’s Machiavellian mind.

Joshua finally receives his transfer to the 5th Battalion in March 1916 and is given command of C Company.

*

On the 25th of January 1916 Ben Teekleman arrives in England on the hospital ship Gascon and is transported from the London docks to the 3rd London General Hospital at Wandsworth where a number of Australian military surgeons and nurses are stationed. Nearly ten thousand Australian wounded have been sent to Britain, and this hospital, and the London War Hospital at Woodcote Park near Epsom Downs where Australian medical staff have also been transferred, are working around the clock with the operating theatres running in shifts, twenty-four hours a day.

It is a week before a surgeon is available to see Ben, and then only because his admission sheet shows that he has been mentioned in dispatches twice and is to be awarded the Military Medal. This is not to say that he has gained preference over cases more urgent than his own, but only over those of equal importance where his credentials as a war hero have shuffled him to the top of the pile.

He is interviewed by a weary-looking doctor with a colonel’s insignia on his epaulets, who introduces himself quietly as John Mockeridge. He appears to be in his early fifties and, asking Ben to be seated, apologises unnecessarily for not having had time to shave the two-day growth he scratches absently as he talks.

‘You’ve got quite a record, Sergeant… oh, I beg your pardon, Sergeant-Major,’ the surgeon corrects. ‘I’m…’ he looks up, ‘well… impressed.’

‘Impressed?’ Ben says slowly. ‘It’s only stuff they give you if you’ve been stupid enough to stay alive.’

‘I’m sorry, Sergeant-Major Teekleman, I had no intention of offending you.’

‘No offence taken, Doctor. It’s just…’ Ben doesn’t finish the sentence and shrugs instead.

‘Well then, let’s see what’s doing, you’ll have to forgive me, I’ve been operating all night and haven’t had the time to read my case notes.’ Ben sits silently as Mockeridge reads. Finally he looks up. ‘It appears from the X-rays that you have a bullet lodged near your spine, could be tricky, would you mind if I examine you? You’ll need to take off your uniform, leave your undershorts on.’

Ben finds himself disarmed by the man’s pleasant manner, it is not something he has seen in a military doctor before, or any doctor, for that matter, where arrogance and a disregard for a patient’s feelings are the usual distinguishing characteristics.

Ben removes his clothes and the doctor points to his examination table. Making Ben lie on his stomach, he prods gently around the jagged purple scar where the bullet has entered. ‘Most fortunate, the object appears to have entered sideways with a loss of momentum. A Mauser bullet coming in clean would most likely have severed your spine and entered your stomach. They’re a higher-velocity bullet, slightly bigger calibre and do more damage than a Lee-Enfield.’

Ben is impressed. ‘Yeah, it was a ricochet, the bullet came off a rock.’

‘Well, there you go,’ the doctor says, ‘a spot of luck, but we’re not out of the woods yet, old son.’

‘What do you mean, Doctor?’

‘Well, it doesn’t feel too bad, but it could have damaged the nerve casing around your spine. Fortunately it has not penetrated through the wall of your stomach. Sometimes taking these blighters out causes more damage than leaving them in. Is it very painful?’

‘I wouldn’t say it’s a lot of fun, Doctor, but I’m learning to sleep on my stomach.’ He looks directly at the doctor. ‘I’d rather you had a go at taking it out.’

‘A lot of pain, eh?’

‘I’ve seen blokes in a lot worse.’

‘Well, if I leave it in you’ll be sent back home?’ Mockeridge offers.

‘And if the operation doesn’t work I’ll be sent back home in a box, is that it, Doctor?’

The surgeon shakes his head. ‘No, nothing quite that bad, but you could be a paraplegic, you’d be sent home in a wheelchair.’

‘Or it could work?’

Mockeridge nods his head. ‘Or, as you say, it could work and you’d soon enough be fit as a fiddle, though I don’t suppose you’d be too keen to get back into the thick of things?’

‘On the contrary, Doctor, I’ve seen all my friends die while the Turk quite rightly defended his homeland against us. We were the invaders, the enemy who came to take his home away from him. But in France I’ll be fighting against the invaders, the Germans. I reckon that’s different. I must go back and finish the fight or my mates will have died for no good reason.’

‘Hmm, I’ve never heard it put quite that way,’ Doctor Mockeridge says. He pauses and scratches the growth on his chin then brings his hands together, his chin resting on the tips of his fingers. ‘As I said, Sergeant-Major Teekleman, it can be a tricky operation, there’s a thirty to forty per cent chance it won’t turn out well.’

‘Those are better odds than I’ve had in a while,’ Ben answers, ‘but either save me or kill me, I don’t fancy spending the rest of my life as a cripple in a wheelchair. I’d be no use to anyone that way.’

The surgeon looks shocked. ‘I can’t do that, Sergeant-Major, I can only do the best I can to remove the bullet whatever the consequences. Are we agreed I should try?’

‘Agreed. Thank you, Doctor,’ Ben says softly. ‘Will you perform the operation?’

‘If you can wait another week, Sergeant-Major Teekleman?’

‘Sure.’

Mockeridge writes out a prescription. ‘Here, take this to the hospital clinic, it will help with the pain.’

Ben is operated on a week later and wakes up after the effects of the chloroform have worn off to look directly into the hazel eyes of Sister Atkins. ‘Good afternoon, Sergeant-Major Teekleman,’ she says, looking down at him.

Ben blinks. ‘I must have died and gone to heaven,’ he mumbles, still not quite in control of his own voice.

‘Now, now, enough of that,’ Sister Atkins chides, though her eyes are smiling.

‘Am I a cripple or what?’ Ben asks her.

‘Cripple? I should think not. You’ll be running around like a puppy in a few days.’

Ben smiles. ‘This is a surprise. Last time we met was on the Orvieto, do you remember?’

‘No, of course not!’ she teases him. ‘There are so many big, clumsy sergeants pestering me.’ She gives Ben a mock sigh, ‘How could a girl possibly keep up with all their names?’

‘Yeah, thought so,’ Ben says. ‘Talking about names, may I call you Sarah, Sister? I mean not here, not in the hospital… er, other places.’

‘Other places? How did you know my name, Ben Teekleman?’

‘I had my sister contact your cousin Lucy in Tasmania.’

Sarah Atkins looks surprised. ‘Just to find out my Christian name?’

‘Well, a bit more, really. I hope you don’t think me impertinent?’

Sarah Atkins brings her hands to her hips. ‘Now what am I supposed to say to that?’ She suddenly parodies her own voice: ‘No, Sergeant-Major, I don’t think you’re impertinent, please go ahead, find out all you can about me, it’s quite all right. Umph! You men are all the same, you think you’re God’s gift!’

‘I’ve upset you, I’m sorry, I apologise, I had no right,’ the words tumble from Ben’s mouth.

‘No right is quite correct, Sergeant-Major!’ Sister Atkins says sternly. ‘I must remind you once again that I am a captain and you are a warrant officer, the army forbids any fraternising between us. You know the rules as well as I do.’ She pauses and then continues, ‘Now you’ve just been through a nasty op and you really must get some rest. You’ll be allowed up in two days and then you’ll be in a wheelchair for a few weeks before you’re allowed to walk. In a month or so, barring complications, you’ll be up and about. In six weeks you’ll be allowed to leave the hospital grounds for a few hours, you may even be well enough to go into London. In which case you’ll need an escort, someone to be with you in case you have a turn, and, if you’re a very good boy and promise not to pester the ward sister, then Sarah Atkins, the cousin of Lucy Atkins, the well-known Tasmanian blabbermouth, may volunteer for the job. Do I make myself perfectly clear, Sergeant-Major?’

‘Yessir!’ Ben laughs. He can’t quite remember when he has been as happy.

‘Now try to sleep, Ben Teekleman,’ Sarah says, smoothing his blanket and tucking it in at the side. ‘I shall call in to see how you are before I go off duty tonight.’ She turns and, in the neat crisp way he’d first seen her walking away from Brokenose Brodie’s hospital bed on the Orvieto, she walks towards the door.

‘Sister! Captain Atkins!’ Ben calls out.

Sarah Atkins looks back at him. ‘What is it, Sergeant-Major?’

‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’

‘Will you please rest now or I shall be angry,’ she calls, though Ben can see the corners of her mouth twitch as she struggles not to laugh.

A week later with Ben now in a wheelchair there is a ceremony at the hospital which Lord Kitchener himself visits to present to twenty of the Australian convalescents ribbons and medals for valour while serving in Gallipoli.

Kitchener reads a prepared speech, fumbling with his glasses and then equally with the words which are high-flown, pompous and patronising.

Sarah Atkins, watching, sees Ben’s head sink lower and lower as he slumps in his wheelchair as if to make himself smaller. Anyone looking at him, though thankfully all eyes are on the great field marshal, will clearly see that he is embarrassed and upset and his face is beginning to colour.

She then looks at the other Australian wounded lined up in the front row in various stages of convalescence, two of them have been carted out onto the lawn still in their beds with a saline drip beside them, and their expressions are no different from Ben’s.

Sarah becomes conscious that the turgid speech is filled with sentimental rubbish which might work at a convocation of middle-aged English choirmistresses but which is highly patronising and insulting to the Gallipoli wounded forced to listen to it.

She has nursed these Australians before and was on the hospital ship, the Gascon, when the wounded started coming in on the first two days after the landing. Barge after barge filled with wounded men arrived at the ship’s side and had to be refused since the medical staff of six doctors, seven nursing sisters and thirty-eight medical orderlies were unable to cope with the influx.

Sarah’s mind goes back to the time on the Gascon. One barge had waited at the ship’s side in the rain for five hours, from six until eleven that night, the men in it having lain on the burning beach a further twelve hours or more, their arms and legs smashed, skulls cracked open, features reduced to a pulpy mess so that nose and mouth are simply bloody holes filled with pink froth and bubbles. Some have gone mad in the sun and now cackle and scream, while others beg to be killed or are silent, staring, completely traumatised. Those who die are pushed down onto the duckboards under which the blood leaking from the wounded sloshes and splashes up through the wooden slats. And still the barges arrive.