Solomon's Song (66 page)

Foss, when Ben reports to him on the final day before returning to his battalion, shakes his hand. ‘I owe you a big one, Ben,’ he says simply. ‘Thank Christ for the Maori blood in you.’

On the morning of his arrival Ben reports to Joshua in his dugout. Unlike the British, Australian officers share the trench accommodation with their men and Joshua has a small covered section, though open on both sides, to himself.

‘Welcome, Sergeant-Major Teekleman, I am as surprised as you may be at this co-incidence.’ Then he adds quickly, ‘Though not unpleasantly so.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Ben says. ‘Co-incidence and war seem often enough to be partners.’

‘I feel sure we will work well together, perhaps we can set our past aside, what say you?’

‘It never bothered me that much, really, sir, I was mostly out of it. In the army you soon enough learn to accept a bloke for what he is.’

‘Splendid, then that’s settled. I will expect you to be forthright at all times.’

‘Thank you, sir, but, with respect, I don’t think you mean that.’

Joshua raises one eyebrow slightly. ‘Oh, why is that?’

‘Sir, our jobs are different, I’ll do everything I can to help within that knowledge.’

‘I can’t imagine what you mean, Sergeant-Major Teekleman? But let’s leave it at that.’ Ben can see that Joshua is annoyed with him, but is sufficiently restrained not to take it any further.

Ben knows from experience that as the senior N.C.O. in the company he cannot be in Joshua’s pocket nor have his company commander too dependent on him. He has learned from bitter experience that his judgment must be his own. He has an unspoken right to re-interpret orders if they are plainly headed in the wrong direction. A sergeant-major is the intelligent go-between, a conduit with a filter at its end and not simply a messenger between the officer and the men. Joshua’s inexperience is already showing.

‘I want you to create an effective raiding party in the company which I will expect to lead, it ought to be fun,’ Joshua now instructs Ben.

‘Yes, sir, I shall draw up the requirements right away, you may find yourself rather busy though, it’s a big commitment.’

‘About time, I wasn’t fortunate enough to be at Gallipoli.’

After Ben has been dismissed he ponders the goings-on in Joshua’s head. ‘Fun’ is a strange word to use about a raiding party, designed to kill the enemy at close quarters, whereas the word ‘fortunate’ is not an expression anyone having been through Gallipoli is ever likely to use. Then he recalls how they all were at the beginning and realises that Joshua’s war hasn’t yet begun for him. He is as anxious to be blooded in battle as they themselves were. Joshua is a greenhorn and Ben senses that he will have to watch him very, very carefully or his CO. will soon be dead.

However, Joshua proves to be a quick learner and keen to take over the leadership of a raiding party, even impatient to have them get under way on a real raid. Ben, though, is more cautious. The Germans are quick learners and they have repaired their wire, laid the odd booby trap and rattles on the wire, mounted extra guards around the clock and, now, as the initial bombardment ends, they rush to stand to order. The chances of catching them off guard are increasingly rare.

Ben suggests to Joshua that he, and not his company commander, should lead the first raid. ‘Sir, if you’re both an observer and one of the scouts you’ll gain a great deal of experience on the job, after which you will be able to take over.’

Ben is aware that he is stepping out of line, but Lieutenant-Colonel Le Maistre has asked him to train a raiding party in each of the companies and he feels responsible. In his mind it is not right to put an officer without combat experience in charge. He has chosen half of his raiding party from men who were at Gallipoli while the other half are new recruits and he feels an obligation to the old-timers and a responsibility for the new. He doesn’t want them led by an officer who has never been in a bayonet charge or killed a man in the heat of battle. Joshua can overrule him if he wishes, but Ben hopes he is mature enough not to do so.

Joshua is silent, chewing at the ball of his thumb. Finally he looks up at Ben. ‘I know you think I lack the experience to lead men, Sergeant-Major, and you may be right, though how shall I gain it, if not by leading them? I shall lead the raiding party.’

‘Very well, sir.’

‘Moreover, you will not be on the raid.’

Ben looks at Joshua, astonished. ‘I’m not sure I heard you correctly, sir?’

‘You will not accompany me on the raid, there is only room for one leader, we have trained two sergeants. That will be all, Sergeant-Major.’

Ben wants to tell him not to be a fool but knows he can’t. ‘Very well, sir, as you wish.’

‘No, Sergeant-Major, there is no equivocation, it is an order.’

The raid takes place two nights later and is a disaster, eleven men are killed and three taken prisoner, with no loss to the Germans, who have seen them coming and led them into a trap. It is Gallipoli all over again. As they rush the parapet the Germans open fire, and if not for a ditch close by, the casualties would have been much worse.

One of the sergeants tells Ben that they were caught in the open under a German parachute flare not fifty yards from the trench they were meant to attack. Instead of falling to the ground or standing quite still, Joshua ordered them forward. ‘Blind Freddy would have seen us coming,’ the sergeant told Ben.

A second raid is scheduled four nights later but fails to reach its objective, Joshua pulling them out sixty yards from the German trenches when a German machine gun begins to fire somewhere far to their left.

The next two raids he cancels and then allows Ben to take over when a query arrives from Le Maistre asking why his company has not maintained its quota of raids. Ben takes a raiding party over to a different section of the German line. This part of the line dates from 1914 and a number of solid and large German blockhouses were built. He avoids these as virtually impregnable, designed to resist heavy artillery. Some of them are large enough to accommodate a hundred men. The trench he attacks is approached by using a sap, which he manages to enter by cutting the wire and crossing silently over a covered section of the main trench, entering the saps to the rear where two Germans lie asleep. They die silently, Ben using his fighting axe to cut their throats. Neither would have felt a thing. He signals his men to follow and they come into the main trench from the back and take a dozen Germans completely by surprise, killing them all. It is all over in less than five minutes.

Ben is not to know that der verruckte Australier mit der Axt, the mad Australian axe man, will in the ensuing weeks become legendary in the German lines where he is greatly feared. Like the stories among the West Australians, Ben’s exploits are hugely exaggerated. In his own right he has inadvertently become a major propaganda item for the Allies. The mad axe man does more to undermine the morale of German trenches and strike fear into every soldier’s heart than anything a conventional raiding party can hope to do. Imagination is always more powerful than truth.

The success of the raid only emphasises the way the men are beginning to feel about Joshua, though nobody says anything to Ben or even to their own sergeants. In the way a good N.C.O. knows these things, it is becoming apparent to them that their CO. hasn’t got the stomach for the bayonet and it is now common enough when a raiding party is proposed for the men to bet among themselves that Joshua is going to ring it, another way of indicating a man is a coward without having to come right out and say it.

Joshua has also been drinking steadily, bringing a bottle of Scotch into his dugout with him at night and having very little to do with his subalterns, who, like him, are new to the job and in need of guidance. Increasingly he prefers his own company and while he performs his duties reasonably well, he is often thick-tongued and ill-tempered in the morning and apt to bawl his junior officers out in front of the men. His four subalterns learn to avoid confronting him until noon. Ben more or less takes charge of the company, guiding the platoon commanders quietly, never usurping their authority while keeping an eye on the welfare of the men.

The raiding parties are now almost exclusively under his control and, while he takes care to train each of the subalterns to take command, he is never far from them in a raid, ready to suggest the next move if he thinks they are undecided. The company, despite Joshua, soon earns a reputation for mounting effective raiding parties. In this way the morale of its men remains high and Joshua’s lack of leadership is of less concern than it might ordinarily have proved to be.

And then, on July 24th, the Allies mount a major attack at the village of Pozieres. For the Australians it is their first taste of trench warfare in France, their blooding against the Germans. The raiding and harassing, or as Le Maistre calls it ‘the terrier at the ankles’, stage is over, they are going to cross a section of the Hindenburg Line. The Australians are, he assures them, going to do what no Allied army has yet managed to do. To take, cross and hold the German positions on the northern, far side of the village of Pozieres and possess their front line.

The Anzacs, having taken the village on July 24th, now extend their attack during the small hours of the morning on the 25th. They do not know that the Germans also have plans to re-take the village fourteen hours after they’ve lost it. Both sides are planning attacks at the same time.

The Germans have been bombarding the village all day, which is rapidly being reduced to a heap of rubble, but cease at seven on the evening of the 24th.

At eight o’clock the 5th Battalion, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Le Maistre, enters Black Watch Alley, behind the position previously held by that great Scottish Regiment, and prepares to mount the first part of a double attack on the German lines. This is to be a frontal assault to the south of an old Roman road which serves as a reference point for the attack.

Ben and Lieutenant Gray, one of the company platoon commanders who has especially distinguished himself during the raids, creep out after dark carrying tape and pegs and together mark the northern end where the attack is to start. The 7th Battalion, who are to go into the attack with the 5th, are to peg the southern end but, for reasons that never become clear, do not do so and they are consequently not sure where the starting line to commence their attack is intended to be. On the heavily cratered surface of no-man’s-land it could be virtually anywhere.

The 5th move out, with Captain Leadbeater in charge of the leading company, and Major Joshua Solomon at the head of D Company beside him. Ben sends the men across the open ground to the starting tape, briefing Joshua just before he takes his company across. Joshua is plainly drunk and Ben quietly instructs one of the platoon sergeants, a Gallipoli veteran, to stay with him. ‘Ben, fer’chrissake, mate, I’ve got a platoon of greenhorns, they’re gunna need me to hold their hands.’

‘Timbo, you get the CO. into position or it’s your arse, mate. Put the bastard in front and tell him to run.’

At 1.50 a.m. the two companies from the 5th are in place with the two others lined up in the rear. So far the exercise is copybook. The enemy, if they sense there may be someone there at all, simply cover the area with the usual casual rifle and machine-gun fire.

At 1.58 the 1st Australian Division artillery places a heavy curtain of shrapnel on the front trenches of the German lines and the guns of the 34th Division pound the second line of trenches. After only two minutes, thought to be sufficient to send the Germans in the front trenches scurrying for cover, the shrapnel bombardment stops, though the heavy guns firing on the German rear lines continue for another twenty minutes.

Le Maistre gives the signal for the front two companies of the 5th to advance across a front that is heavily pockmarked by shell craters so that it is damn near impossible to keep to a line. Moreover, the Germans, instead of cowering for cover because of the curtain of shrapnel, are waiting for them and their machine guns start to cut the two advancing companies to pieces.

Then, almost immediately, the enemy artillery comes in. The 5th, advancing parallel to the German front line is thrown into wild confusion, breaking into groups who lose the line of attack, some making for the southwest, others for the northwest.

Ben simply stands in one spot, calling his company in and eventually ending up with the greater part of it, though two officers and at least one platoon have become lost. Joshua is nowhere to be seen. Ben has a fair idea where the German trenches are and joins up with Captain Lillie, known as ‘the Pink Kid’ as he is close to being an albino, who has distinguished himself at Gallipoli. Lillie takes charge and they rush the German position to find that the garrison have fled, leaving only their dead behind.

The instruction is to hold the front line and not to move on to the second and so Lillie gives the order to consolidate and to start to dig in. Despite the chaos, they’ve achieved their objective and must now wait for the second attack to advance. At 2.25 the barrage on the German second line of defence is lifted and Leadbeater on the left of Ben’s company decides against orders to advance.

‘Shit, what’s he doing?’ Lillie cries. ‘We’re supposed to consolidate.’

‘We don’t have a choice now, sir, we have to go with him or the Boche will come around him,’ Ben says.

Lillie reluctantly gives the order to advance and the whole force sweeps forward towards the German rear lines. To their surprise there is little resistance and where they believe the lines are they see nothing but churned earth and craters. The Allied bombardment has been so heavy that all traces of the German trenches seem to have been wiped out. Eventually, judging by the number of German dead and the equipment lying about, they realise that they have reached the second line and Lillie, reporting the capture, instructs the troops to dig in. They have achieved more than has been asked of them and have done what Le Maistre has demanded. They have taken a section of the Hindenburg Line which has never before been breached. Moreover they’ve done it without having to look a single German in the eye.