Home Is A Strange Country - Chapter 34

THIRTY FOUR
Bolton. Evening 18th September 1917

   The barman was reading a paper which he had spread out on the desk in the reception area and failed to notice when George entered, until he was blocking out the light from the door across what he was reading. He looked up with a start.  

   'Sorry sir' he said, hastily moving the paper aside and then turned to pick George’s room key from its hook on the wall board behind the desk. 'Just reading about some our lads from Bolton killed at somewhere called Wipers in Belgium. Quite a lot of them.' He paused to let George take in the news. George glanced around the small reception area to see if there was a newspaper stand. There was none. 'Where can I buy a copy of this paper' he asked indicting the paper on the desk between them. 'Oh that’s alright sir, you can have this one. I’ll get another from the man on the corner.' He folded the paper and presented it to George. George felt in his pocket and brought out some pennies and handed them over to the barman. 'There you are' he said. 'Thanks.' He picked up the paper and turned to go up to his room.

   Later, sitting on the edge of his bed in the cold room he read through the news about the battle of Ypres. What was important for George was the fact that his battalion, the fifth, was involved in it, according to the news reports. He could have been in it, but for the good luck of the earlier leg wound he had sustained. He read about the ongoing Russian revolution which had started earlier that year and which had occupied many of the discussions in the Australian trenches for months. Nobody seemed to think the Tsar would survive it whatever the final political outcome. What also concerned George and others who he had fought alongside him, was the fate of the British troops known to be fighting in northern Russia at the time the Australians were fighting the Germans in the trenches of northern France.

   'The whole bloody world is upside down' he muttered to himself and threw the paper onto the bed alongside him.

   Feeling grubby after his day outdoors, George walked along the corridor to the bathroom to wash his hands and face, and was dismayed to find that his face felt rough, from the permanent soot and smoke which seemed a constant no matter where he went in the open air. Taking off the collar from his shirt he was equally dismayed to find it speckled with particles of soot. He rubbed soap onto the collar and scrubbed at it to make it clean. When it was as clean as he could make it he went back to his room and found a clean one to replace the now sodden, but clean one. He limped painfully downstairs into the residents lounge and settled himself into a high backed chair at a writing desk which was set against the wall. He reached over and took a sheet of paper from the supply in the cubby hole of the desk, and settled down to write a letter to his parents in Melbourne, but gave up the effort after a couple of minutes. Nothing that he could say would mean any sense to them. Nothing much of what he had experience had made much sense to him. George settled back in the chair and watched the world going on outside the window of the hotel. From the comparative quiet of the hotel it was hard to believe a war was being fought less than three hundred miles to the south of where he was seated. He took his pipe from his jacket pocket and filled it, then striking a match, puffed clouds of smoke towards the ceiling of the room. A noise from behind him in the doorway alerted him to the presence of someone else entering the room. He looked around and saw an elderly man entering.

   'Good evening' the man grunted.

   'Evening' George replied. The man was dressed in a suit similar to the one George was wearing, though it and the man were much older. He appeared to be in his late sixties. he man walked across the room and seated himself in one of the armchairs arranged around an unlit, though made up, fire in the hearth by the far wall of the lounge. He unfolded a copy of the same newspaper which George had been reading, and sank down to hide behind it in silence. George rose quietly from his chair and left the man to his newspaper, returning to his room.

   He lay down on the bed and soon dozed off into a gentle sleep, waking only when a light suddenly flashed into the room. He rolled off the side of the bed and went to the window to find that the cause of the light was a gas lamp equipped with a timer, suddenly lighting itself close to the bedroom window. He rose from the bed, stretched, yawned and walked off down the corridor to the bathroom, then back to the bedroom. He was quickly becoming bored with the waiting around and the fact that he knew nobody or anything much about the town. Looking out of the window down onto the dark streets there were only few shops illuminated to provide cheer, just the lights from a public house or two trailing off into the distance as far as he could see. The war had obviously brought about some fairly severe restrictions to the lives of the ordinary people of Bolton. Just a few people walked along the streets, and the level of vehicle traffic had decreased to almost nothing now that it had become dark. Just the odd tram made its way through the junction beneath his window, and when he glanced through the illuminated windows of the trams, there were very few people seated inside. Life was very quiet, and had become more so as the war dragged on.

   The bang of a door halfway along the corridor outside George’s room made him turn from the window to face the door of his room. He heard footsteps walking in the direction of his door which then stopped outside the door. He drew in his breath for a moment and then started at the sound of three sharp raps on the door.

   'Who is it?' he called out.

   'It’s me sir, Albert, the barman. Can I have a word?'  George moved to the door and opened it to find the barman standing there carrying a cloth in his hand.

   'Sorry to disturb sir, but the cook was wondering if you are going to be eating in tonight. We don’t have many guests in and she was wanting to get off a bit early.' George looked at him puzzled for a moment then realising what the question was replied,

   'Yes. Yes. I think I will.'

   'Alright then sir, I’ll tell her you’ll be down soon then, shall I? Say ten minutes, if that’s alright'

   'Yes, that’s fine. Ten minutes. Thanks Albert' George closed the door and listened as the footsteps faded back down the corridor to the double doors.

   By eight o’clock that evening George had eaten and left his place at the table in the dining room and was standing in the public bar talking with Albert, who was now acting as barman. Albert was not overworked this evening, there were only two other people in the bar, both well dressed middle aged men sitting opposite each other at one of the tables by the main window of the room overlooking Churchgate.

   'Enjoy your meal sir?' Albert asked.

   'Yes thank you. It was very tasty. Better than the food we got at the hospital in Weymouth.' Albert grinned.

   'Surprising what we manage to lay our hands on these days. Still not as good as before the war, but good enough.' George sipped at the half pint of beer in his hand, it tasted weak and watery. He supposed this was the Government Ale he had heard complained about in the Three Crowns earlier.

   'Are there any other pubs nearby where I could get a decent pint of beer?' he asked pointing to the beer in his hand. Albert looked grieved for an instant then grinning replied,

   'I know what you mean. It’s not a patch on pre-war beer is it?' He lifted his head towards the window and nodded his head towards a pub on the opposite side of the road. 'If you don’t mind the long walk, there’s the Brass Cat across the road,' he said grinning. George turned to follow his nodded directions. He made out the lights shining in the window of a public house with a sign saying The Red Lion above the front door. He grinned.

   'Brass Cat. I like that. Suppose it was inevitable,'  

   'Not a lot of imagination around here' Albert replied, picking a glass from the sink below the bar and starting to wipe it dry with the cloth in his hand. George replaced the half empty glass on the bar.

   'I think half of one of those is enough. I’ll see you later.' He turned and crossed the bar to the door leading onto the street.

   The door to the Brass Cat was similar to the one in the Three Crowns earlier that day, with a half window revealing a long corridor which appeared to run the whole length of the building. Stepping into the corridor George could hear the sound of men's voices coming from a room to his left before a large bar which opened onto a large open and deserted bar. He pushed open the door to the room on his left and walked in. The voices fell silent as six heads turned to the door to greet him. The men were seated around two small round tables which had been pushed together to form one longer one. They were playing dominoes which were laid out in front of themselves, forming a snake around the table top. Five of the men were dressed in their working clothes, some wearing scarves around their necks, a couple of them sporting flat caps. They all appeared to be in their late fifties or early sixties, apart from one of them. He was in his early twenties and staring down at the table as George made his way to the bar on the right of the room. George noticed that the younger man's left arm was lying limp across his lap, and when he went to move it, he had to use his right hand to pull the arm by the sleeve of his jacket into the position he wished it to occupy. George nodded to them, recognising a young survivor of the battlefields.

   'Good evening' he said. A voice from the middle of the group called out,

   'Eh up lads, master’s here. Keep your hand on your brass.' The others chuckled.                                         

   'Shurrup Harry. You don’t know who he is' another of the men said. A barman who could have been the double of the one at the Swan stood before George at the bar.

   'What can I get you sir?' he asked.

   'Do you have anything which is not that bloody awful Government Ale?' George asked. His words and accent caused all the men to turn to him.

   'Ye Gods. It’s a bloody convict' said Harry. The men laughed.

    'Take no notice of him,' called out one of the others. 'He’s just an ignorant so and so. If you like that Government stuff as much as we do then you’re welcome here,' There was a noise of agreement from the others and George turned and smiled at them.

   'Mind if I join you? I'm getting a bit fed up of my own company.' he asked.

   'Aye, course you can lad. Get your beer and come and pull up a chair.' The speaker looked to be the oldest of the group, he was wearing a dark red scarf and a check cap. His moustache was as luxuriant as George’s, but white. George nodded, picked up his glass from the bar and started to turn to join the men. The barman called him back.

   'Err, we can’t run up a tab these days sir, not since the law changed. You need to pay for your ale when it’s delivered.' It took a second or two for George to understand the man's meaning, and with a foolish grin took a shilling from his pocket and laid it on the bar.

   'Sorry barman. I just forgot.' The barman grinned.

   'Couple of hundred years ago that would have got you a one way ticket to Australia' he said. There was a spluttering of laughter all round from the men at the table.

   The man with the dark red scarf whose name was Albert, shoved and cajoled the others to make a space for George at their table. After removing his overcoat and placing it flat on an upholstered bench seat running along the opposite wall, George sat down on an identical bench seat against the wall, facing the other men at the table. The two men who were seated on the bench moved along to make space for him. His jacket and trousers stood out amongst them and one or two eyed them enviously and with a little suspicion. He had taken off his collar and tie before leaving the hotel, the collar stud had flown off onto the floor of his bedroom out of sight. As the stud had disappeared under some part of the bedroom furniture he understood then why the salesman in the shop had been so insistent that he purchase two sets of collar studs. He hadn’t been about trying to make the sale more expensive, he knew that collar studs appeared to have a life of their own at times and when they decided to go, they would only be found much later by someone cleaning the darkest recess of the room. All the shirts he owned in Australia either had no collars or came with collars attached to the shirts. He never thought to rise to the social heights of wearing shirts with detachable collars. They were for bank managers and the like, not for labourers like him.

   'We thought you were slummin’ it until you opened your mouth, what with your clothes and all,' said Albert. 'So, what brings you to Bolton then?' he continued.

   'Well, we heard you had a bit of a war on and needed a hand, so one or two of us thought we’d come and see what it was all about,' George replied, and took a mouthful from his pint glass wondering how his remarks would be received, and testing the atmosphere at the same time. There was a cold silence and several of the men slid nervous glances sideways to the young man with the injured arm who sat back from the table on one of the small stools, though still part of their group. George dropped his head, aware of the atmosphere he had inadvertently created, and tried to think of something to say which would ease the situation. After a moments awkward silence Albert spoke quietly.

   'Aye lad, an' we’re grateful for your help.' He paused a moment. 'I think we’ve had as much of it as you have as well.' George looked up at him and the old man’s eyes slid slowly to the young man and lifted the glass in his hand silently to his lips.

   'Here’s to your health, and an end to this bloody war,' George said as he drank from the glass and then replaced it on the table. The other men raised their glasses and drank, muttering their muted agreement to the toast. George looked around the men at the table until his eyes rested on the young man who so far had said nothing. His pale face was turned downwards towards the table and he held his pint glass on the table with his good right hand. George recognised in him many of the injuries in men from his own regiment: the men who kept a sad silence, or railed in the night against terrors in his mind, but unseen by others.

   'Where was he?' George asked quietly of Albert.            

   'France mainly, but Belgium as well.' Albert replied softly, then determined to change the tone of the evening asked, 'So how come you decided to grace us with your presence then Antipodean Sir?' One of the other men spluttered his beer back from the mouthful he had taken back into his glass.

   'Antibo what?' he cried out. 'You’re not using foul language are you Albert?' he men asked. Albert cast his eyes silently upwards to the heavens in prayer.

   'God forgive him' he said, 'Antipodean, you ignorant pig iron worker. Means someone from the southern hemisphere of the earth, as in Antipodeans. Australia, New Zealand. Understand that do you?' The man grinned and lifted his hand to his forelock in mock salute.

   'Thank you sir, I understand now sir. Very sorry sir.' He mocked gently. George grinned and replaced the pint glass on the table, wiping an excess of beer foam from his moustache.

   'Well I got shot,' he said. The men listened to him in silence. 'And after being in hospital they sent me over to a place on the south coast in Dorset, called Weymouth for a bit of a holiday, but some holiday it’s been, nothing but rain since I landed. Just like France' he said. One of the other men, a man who did not sport a moustache, said,

   'They do say Lancashire is a lot like France don't they?. No bugger can understand a word we says.' The men laughed out loud and one of them punched him on the shoulder.

   'Well, there is that I suppose' said George smiling. 'I thought Weymouth was bad enough, but I think anyone coming up here should have an interpreter with them if they are coming for any length of time.'

   'Bloody hell' said the man, 'You should talk. How the bloody hell anyone can understand your bloody accent is beyond me.' Albert interrupted,

   'Oi lads, keep the language down, there might be women next door.' There were muted whispers of 'Sorry' from around the table. 'So, go one then, 'he urged gently, 'Tell us the story. What bring you up here to God’s Country?'

   George lifted his glass from the table once more, and used the break in conversation to hurriedly formulate a story in his mind which would present a plausible reason for his presence, yet at the same time obscure the true reason for that presence. He knew none of these men, and it could well be that in a town the size of Bolton one or other of them might know someone in the district he was due to visit, maybe even the girl herself. The world of working men was small and tight knit. Slowly he replaced the glass on the beer stained table and fished in his pocket for his pipe and a box of Swan Vestas matches, to kill a little more time. He peered into the pipe bowl and slowly poked at the tobacco with his finger, and then, taking a match from the box struck it on the side of the box. The match flared up and he dipped it into the bowl lighting the tobacco, then blew a large cloud of smoke over the heads of the men at the table. When he was content that the tobacco was well lit he spoke.

   'It was a couple of years ago. We had landed in Egypt and were supposed to be replacements for the blokes killed at Gallipoli, so they got us into training in the sand outside a place called Cairo.' One of the men interrupted.

   'Aye, we heard of that place. Bloody mess it were'

   'Shh. Let him get on with his story' Albert said, gently silencing the man by placing a hand on his arm.

   'Well. I went down with Mumps whilst we were training' George paused to allow the men to burst into laughter as normally happened when he announced that he had contracted an apparently trivial ailment. But they didn’t laugh, simply waited for him to continue with his story. 'A lot of the men went down with it, and other stuff as well, more serious stuff. Something called Meningitis or Spotted Fever they called it. Really bad they were. Couple of the blokes in my regiment died.' He looked across at the man without a moustache.                                                   

   'Imagine that. Come all this way overseas and you catch a bug that kills you, without ever firing a shot.' He puffed again on his pipe. The men waited in silence for him to continue. 'What a bloody waste. What a right bloody waste.' He picked up his glass and drank deeply from it, then slowly replaced it on the table.

   'Anyway. After that I was injured when our lot got involved in a bit of a battle, shot in the leg, just before Christmas last year. Whilst I was in one of the mobile hospitals in France I met this bloke from your lot, he was in one of the beds just up the ward from me and we got on well. So, when I got sent over to Weymouth to recuperate, I thought I might look him up. He lives in Bolton.' George paused for a moment trying to judge how his story had been received. From the approving looks they were exchanging between each other it appeared to have gone down well and been accepted.

   'Do you know what regiment he was in?' It was the young man who so far had said nothing. He spoke quietly, lifting his head to focus his eyes on George. The man at his side placed his hand gently on the young man's arm.

   'Alright Billy' he said quietly. Billy looked at him and smiled a thin smile.                                         

   'I’m alright Dad,' he said. 'I just wanted to know.' George looked around at the men at the table and met the eye of Albert, who nodded gently at George to carry on and tell Billy the answer to the question.

   'It was one of the Lancashire Regiments,' he replied quietly. 'I think it was the West Lancashires, not hundred percent sure on that, but I think it was. We never really got around to talking about what regiments we were in, just that he lived in Bolton with his family. Conversation was mainly about the war and how we had got our injuries, but he was a bit different so that’s how I found out where he was from. Nice bloke' he added. Billy nodded silently and resumed his stare on his half empty glass. The other men at the table remained quiet, unwilling to interrupt George's story. One of them tapped a domino gently on the table. After a gap in the talk for several seconds he said,

   'Well, are we playing does or what?' indicating to the others the domino he had in his hand. Albert spoke for the others.

   'No, let’s give it a miss for now.' he said. 'We’ve got plenty more time for that. Not every night though that we have a visitor from so far away.' He looked across the table to George. 'How about you tell us how you came to join up and arrive over here? You seem to be a bit old for enlisting in the infantry,' he said. George lifted his glass, by now almost empty, and drained it. He slid along the seat to the end of the table and stood up using the end of the table to help balance him to his feet.                                     

   'Alright then. I don’t mind if you think it's alright'. He glanced down and nodded at Albert towards Billy's head.   Albert raised his own glass and nodded silently. George continued. 'It’s a bit boring though, but I need to fill this up first,' tapping a finger against the empty glass in his hand. He turned first to Albert then to the rest of the men addressing them with his empty glass. 'Can I get anybody anything whilst I am ordering?' Before anyone else could answer Albert butted in quickly.

   'That's very kind of you I'm sure, but Lloyd George has put a stop to all that sort of thing. The bugger says you can’t pay for somebody else’s ale now, nor run a slate either,' he added quietly under his breath.

   'Aye, the old Welsh bugger' said one of the men who had so far been silent. Like George, he too sported a thick growth of hair under his nose, and he also sported mutton chops at the side of his face which almost joined the ends of the moustache. 'Just ‘cos he doesn’t like a pint hissel' he has to go and spoil it for't rest of us.' The other men nodded their heads and grunted in agreement.

   'You know' he said, 'They’ve stopped the opening hours in pubs here to half nine at night. Some places it’s even worse, so I’m told, nine o’clock.' George nodded and said,          

   'Just thank God you aren’t living in Australia at the moment. They’ve stopped the hours at six o’clock now.' There was a collective gasp of disgusted disbelief from the men at news of this infringement of their drinking hours.

   'Course everybody rushes in to the nearest pub after work and throws as many pints down as they can. They call it the Six O’clock Swill. Can’t wait until the end of the war when they put the hours back to eleven.' He placed his glass on the bar and nodded to the barman. 'Same again please.'

   With his glass replenished George regained his seat at the end of table on the plush bench and took a mouthful from his glass.

   'Well, where do I begin?' he said. Two of the men from the other side of the table went to the bar and bought refills for their empty glasses, turning their backs against the bar to watch George and listen to his story whilst the barman poured their drinks.

   'Well,' he began. 'I was born at a very early age to a woman I had never seen before,' he began. The men listened for a moment then burst into laughter as the joke registered with them. Albert smiled broadly,

   'Get on with it man,' he said and nudged George’s elbow. George grinned around the table and cleared his throat.

   'I came from a place about eighty or ninety miles north east of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, a small town called Alexandra, which is how I got my middle name. Nice place it is. Not too big, but near enough to Melbourne to get there easy enough, and far enough away not to have to put up with city life. I suppose my Ma and Pa must have liked the place, or the name, so they gave me that name. Anyway, trying to get work there was a bit difficult a few years ago, so I moved over to Sydney in New South Wales and lived there for a few years.' He paused to drink some more of his beer. Smacking his lips he grinned and indicated the glass of beer,         

   'You know, I think I might be able to get used to this after a year or so.'

   'Nay lad,' said Albert. 'Should only take a week or so. Best beer in Bolton is Magee's. Brewed just up the road from here.' George nodded his head and continued with his story.  

   'It reminds me of something I read once in a Sydney paper, think that’s why I moved there. I didn’t believe it when my mate told me, but he said they were building an institution for drunks in Sydney, and I thought, well if the beer is that good that they need to build an institution for the drunks, I might have a look at the place.' He paused to suck on his pipe and then continued. 'Like I said, I didn’t believe it, so I made some enquiries and managed to get hold of the Sydney paper at the library in Alexandra, and sure enough there it was. One building for men and one for women, just for drunks, well inebriates, they called them.' The men around the table looked at him in disbelief at first, but one or two nodded heads showed George that they had accepted what he said.

   'I only believed it myself when I saw the paper. So I went off to Sydney, got myself some digs and got a job.' Albert interrupted him.

   'So what was it like, this building for the drunks?' George glanced round at him,

    'Oh, I never got the job on that site. Didn’t need to. Soon as I got to Sydney I saw that there was plenty of work on the railways there, so I got myself a job as a plate layer. Better paid, and I got to move around a bit as the work moved. Didn’t need much skill or experience, just a good pair of arms so you could heft a hammer.' He paused to take a match from the box and relight the pipe.

   'I saw a bit of the land around Sydney whilst I was there. Beautiful place it is. Got a big harbour with hills around the side, really beautiful.' He added, 'For a time I thought I might try my luck in the gold fields. One of the biggest finds a few years ago was only about a hundred and twenty miles from Sydney, but before I could make up my mind and get some money together to go out there, the war broke out I went back to Melbourne to sign up.'

   'How long was you in Sydney for then?' asked one of the men. George thought for a moment before replying.

   'It were ten years altogether. Good years mainly, apart from the bush fires now and again in the summer. November was the worst time.'

   'Hang on a minute. Bush fires, in summer, in November?' one of the men at the far end of the table asked. 'You mean like Moses and the Burning Bush sort of thing?' The others of his companions laughed. George grinned.

   'Not quite. You get real serious fires burning in the Blue Mountains, not all that far from Sydney, and in the summer you get lightening storms what catches the vegetation on fire. Causes a few problems if you are living nearby.' The men found it hard to believe that a fire could be started from a bolt of lightning, living as they did in a climate which never allowed the trees and vegetation to become so dry that it could catch fire.

   George paused to lubricate his throat from his glass once more before he carried on.

   'I think it was the same in Australia as it is over here with men joining up. Blokes would join up with their local regiments and other blokes what they knew. Well it was the same for me. I joined the Infantry at Broadmeadows Camp just outside Melbourne, joined the sixth Battalion, and stuck it there until they shipped us overseas to Egypt. That would be late on in 1915. Egypt was a miserable dirty place. The tents we lived in, well, you were never out of the wind until nightfall, then it was freezing, and it was a soul destroying place. Up at six in the morning and lights out at ten at night. Nothing much to do all day except drill and shooting practice, though some bright spark came up with a novel way to fill in the time one day'. George took another drink from his glass. The men were listening to him intently, so he carried on.

   'He went into Cairo one night with a couple of mates and had a bit too much of the local ale, Arak or something. On the way back to the camp he decided to check off all the officers coming back into camp, you know, like he was a sergeant major making sure all the enlisted men got back into camp. Most of the officers took the joke, but one miserable sod got him arrested. Managed to get himself seven days CB for that, but it gave the rest of us a good laugh.' Several of the men burst into laughter at this tale, including the barman who then called for their attention.

   'Ere gentlemen, it’s getting to that time of night again. You’re going to have to sup up and go home soon.' There was a communal groan from the men at the table as the figure of the barman appeared around the door into their room. He walked over to the window and pulled across the heavy curtain, effectively blocking out the light from the street lamps outside.                                                     

   'Are we not on for another round then Harry?' asked Albert. Harry, the barman, paused to contemplate the question for a moment.

   'Course you are,' he said and paused again. The men at the tables relaxed at the prospect of a further pint. 'Soon as you get your name over the front door you can have as many as you want.' There was another groan from the men.                 

   'Go on, Harry, just the one then we’ll be off,' pleaded the man without a moustache.                                     

   'Look' said Harry pointing to the window, 'If you want me to be appearing under the Town Hall clock next week then you can sit here ‘til the cows come home, but otherwise, I’m closing at half nine like normal.' The men looked to Albert who grinned at the barman.                                   

   'Come on Harry, just the one' he cajoled. Harry turned back to the door of the room and walked through to stand in front of the bar once more. Placing his hands out on the bar, he looked through from the bar, and cast his eyes to the heavens pleading for help.

   'God help me' he said, 'Alright, just the one. But if the Bobby comes round, you bought them during hours, and not a second after. Alright?' The men nodded enthusiastically and one by one went to stand at the bar as Harry started to pull pints from the beer pumps. The young pale man, Billy, stood up from the table and turned to his father at his side.

   'Think I’ll get off home Pa' he said quietly. 'I’ve had enough for tonight. Should be able to sleep after this lot.' A rueful smile creased his pale worried face, and his father’s hand reached up to gently pat his arm as the young man took his leave of them.

   'Alright son, tell your Ma I’ll be home soon.' He called after him. Billy moved awkwardly around the stools and table towards the door where he stopped and turned to look at George.

   'Good luck Digger,' he said quietly and half raised his good hand in farewell.

   'Thanks mate' George replied quietly. 'You too.' The young man left the room and in a few seconds the sound of the front door could be heard as he closed it behind him.   The man with the

red moustache looked to George.

   'So, what happened after Egypt then?' he enquired quietly. George settled down into the back of the seat again to continue his story.                                          

   'Well, like I said, we were supposed to fill in the gaps of the regiment at Gallipoli, those poor sods who caught it, but I went down with the Mumps in February last year, and that put me in hospital until the middle of March so I missed out on the trip to fight Mr Turk.' He drank from his glass and replaced it onto the table. 'And damned glad I was too' he continued, 'What a mess, what a bloody mess. Lost a lot of men there.' He paused to drive the memory from his mind and hurriedly carried on. 'Anyway, we got shipped out to Marseilles in the south of France in the early part of April, and then off by train to the north. It was a brilliant ship, the Empress of Britain, used to belong to the Canadian Pacific line. You’d never have thought it was an ocean liner though by the time they got us lot onboard, it was packed out, and we hardly had any room to move around. The officers were alright of course, they had their own cabins whilst we slept where we could. But it was alright I suppose. Anyway, we met up with our blokes in Marseilles and after a few days we were moved north by train into the trenches, on the Somme.' George stopped for a moment, and the men around the table took a collective breath at the memory of the stories which had come back home of the horrendous battles that had taken place in the area, and the tens of thousands who had died there.

   George took his pipe and knocked the loose ash in it into an ashtray which he noticed grimly had been made from an artillery shell and which lay at the side of the table.

   'It was as bad as you’ve heard' he said, once more taking a match from his box and slowly lighting his pipe again.

   At first, he had avoided the first rush to join up when war had been first declared. The young men were encouraged by friends, family and the press into joining the armed forces, but as the casualty lists started to appear in the Sydney newspapers he too felt sadly obliged to move back to his home where he read there the same familiar lists of names in the Melbourne press as well. Combined with that and the possibility of making a visit to the home town of the young woman whom he remembered so well from Sydney, he joined up on the twelfth of July in 1915, at the Broadmeadows Camp about ten miles from the centre of Melbourne.

   Although Broadmeadows Camp was the home of the Fourth Light Horse Regiment, George had enlisted into the Tenth Rifle Brigade of the Sixth Battalion and there he started to endure the sort of ‘bull’ he felt he had long left behind. He was thirty eight years old at the time of his enlistment and had hoped he was well beyond the sort of treatment he and the other recruits received. Five years experience in the Melbourne Rifle Club had encouraged the recruiting officer to ignore his advanced years. As he was to discover quite frequently, he was not alone in being enlisted, despite his advanced years.

   It was not until he finally reached France, several months later, that he learned that whilst he was in basic training in Melbourne, men from the battalion were fighting at Gallipoli. During one day in the month of September they suffered a total of seventy seven dead and one hundred and fourteen wounded from his battalion alone, with another hundred and thirty one men missing. The killing intensified as the Australians tried time and again to charge up hill from the beaches into the Turkish lines, only to be cut down by machine gun and rifle fire. He was due to become one of the reinforcements or as he and his men termed it, replacements.

   At the time of the battle he, and the other reinforcements were in training in Melbourne. There they  had the dubious comforts of Sunday afternoon tea provided by the ladies of Parkeville and district who made up the 'The Cheer Up Brigade. Other men from the battalion were used to act as reserve and replacements for the fire trenches and later the garrison of Anzac Cove at Braunds Hill.

   In the local press at home there had been some scurrilous letters commenting upon the activities of certain types of ladies from Melbourne who had made themselves popular with the troops, many of which were away from the restrictions of home for the first time in their lives. The senior officers in charge of the men had tried their hardest to first ignore the taunts, then had been forced to respond in the press to assure all the readers that such women were not welcome in the camp. Sanitary and health facilities had been bad when the camp had first been created, but by the time George had arrived much had been improved. Some said that this had been forced on the regimental hierarchy due to the tales of the women at the camp. Whatever the reason, the camp had improved marginally.

   When at last the reinforcements had been equipped and trained, the whole Battalion set sail for Egypt on board the Canadian Pacific liner The Empress of Britain. The ship had set sail for the port of Alexandria and arrived there on the third January, and by midnight that day the whole of the battalion had disembarked. It was only then did they find that they had to immediately board a rattling old train for the town of El Kebir.

   A total of thirteen officers and twelve hundred and seventy nine other ranks arrived there, where they were once again separated into various training classes for the fighting in France. The wind, combined with the dust and sand, made the whole place intolerable, but being Aussies, they pushed on. It was at this point that it was discovered that there were no tents available for the battalion, so men were forced to find shelter that first night in schools and other public buildings. Some were convinced that they really had drawn a short straw. Rumours were rife during the journey, that they were going on to Gallipoli to replace those killed at Braunds Hill, Lone Pine and other places on the peninsula, but almost as soon as they had settled down into their newly arrived tented camps, George caught mumps and was immediately placed in isolation in the fourth Auxiliary Hospital, along with many others who went down with the fevers and swellings. For those who caught mumps, they eventually considered themselves fortunate, as several cases of cerebral meningitis were also reported during the month of January and February. Shortages of drugs, and the almost complete absence of sanitary facilities, conspired to worsen the situation for the troops.

   From the middle of January until early February he fought the fevers, and finally was declared fit again. On his discharge he was sent to Serapeum, and there waited for yet another ship to take them to France. In many ways George was fortunate, or so he thought. Whilst he was in hospital recovering, the remainder of the Brigade were kept in El Kebir in training, in the hot sandy desert around Cairo. By the beginning of March they were in the ‘Canal Zone’ as it was known, awaiting the ships to take them to southern France to the port of Marseilles. From the port of Marseilles it seemed a short trip by train up through the whole of France to the fields of Flanders and Picardy.

   Albert took a pack of cigarettes from his packet and placing one between his lips bent his head towards George who lit it for him from the box of matches on the table between them.                                                        

   'What was Egypt like then?' he asked, pulling on the thin cigarette. George looked down at the packet of Woodbines on the table in front of him.

   'Strange isn’t it?' he said pointing to the familiar looking pack. 'We live thousands of miles apart from each other, but there is so much here what I recognise from home. But there are so many things what are different.' He grinned and tapped the pack of cigarettes with his finger. 'Egypt was different too, different from here and from Australia. It was hot, and sometimes during the night it was damn cold, and all the time there was clouds of dust from the constant wind, and then the sand. But the thing what struck me was that we had more problems with the dust than the sand.'

   'Did you get to see the pyramids whilst you were there?' Albert asked.

   'Yes I did, but I didn’t get to visit them. I was in dock almost as soon as we got settled in the camp there, but a lot of the blokes went to see them, and some of them even climbed to the top.' He paused and smiled as he recalled the stories which the returning ‘tourists’ had told of the trip to the top of the pyramid. The hawkers and beggars which they had to endure on the trip to and from the camp, and the souvenirs they had bought. 'One of the young blokes in our lot came back with a painted figure, made out of alabaster he said, plaster of Paris I said. He’d been tricked into paying about ten pounds for it. The bloke he bought it off told him it was an ancient artefact from the pyramids.' George grinned at the memory of the young man’s excitement and the ribbing he had taken from all of his mates when others returned to the camp with identical statuettes, costing a fraction of what he had paid. 'He was sold down the river on that one' George said. 'Bloody young fool.' He thought for a moment in silence then said, 'Seems that most of what we did there was running up and down sand dunes and sit watching some bloody horrible films about syphilis and the pox. Not nice.' He paused for a moment then added ruefully, 'Maybe now when I get home I can join the RSL in Melbourne.'

   'What’s the RSL?' Albert asked.

   'Returned Services League' he replied. Somebody set it up last year and it seems a lot of blokes who got back home are becoming members. It’s like a social club from what I heard.'

   At that moment the sound of knocking rang through from the back door of the pub interrupting his explanation. The men in the bar fell silent as they heard the noise. They turned to look at each other, wondering who would be seeking to gain entrance to the pub after the end of opening hours. The barman, Harry, made a move quietly through the door and towards the back of the pub. The men watched as he went through the back door of the bar and closed it behind him. There was the sound of low voices from beyond the door, then he came back into the bar and started to pull a pint from one of the pumps at the far end of the bar. The men turned to look at each other quizzically without saying a word. Albert raised a hand to silence the others. Harry finished pulling the pint and went back out through the door at the far end of the bar, allowing them a glimpse of a body seated on one of the crates stacked in the storage area at the back of the pub. After a moment or two the door reopened and Harry walked back into the bar area serving the small room at the front of the pub.

   'What’s going on Harry?' asked the man with the moustache. Harry grinned and picked up a glass from below the bar and started to polish it. He let the silence and suspense build before he replied.

   'It’s the Beat Bobby, come for a quick one before he goes off duty.' He said. The men looked from one to the other, some with a look of horror on their faces at the thought of being caught out drinking after time, whilst others, more experienced in the habits of the local Police and licensing laws, simply grinned and turned back to drinking the beer which stood before them.

   'Does he come in regular like?' one of them asked.

   'No, not often, ‘bout once or twice a week.' Harry replied. 'It’s a small cost for me to make sure I don’t get any trouble with them. In fact the only trouble is when they get a new Sergeant or Inspector starting. You know what it’s like then, they have to be seen to be doing something, so they call in one or two of the pubs what gives them a bit of trouble and lay the law down a bit.' He paused in polishing the glass. 'You’re alright for tonight, he’s off in half an hour or so. But you’d better be off before the night shift starts. Different lot on nights, and they might not be as happy to see you staggering along Deansgate at this time of night fully loaded amongst the crowd coming out of the Grand.' He placed the glass on a shelf above the bar and picked up another one.

   George stood up from his seat and drained the remaining beer from his glass then placed the empty on the bar.

   'Many thanks Harry. I think I’d better be getting a move on now.' Harry nodded to him.

   'Staying across the road are you?' he asked nodding to the Swan Hotel.

   'Yes, just for a couple of nights, then I’m back off to Weymouth.' George replied.

   'Pop in again when you are back up here. You’ll always find a welcome.' George nodded his thanks and turned to the group of men around the table.

   'It’s been good to meet you all,' he said. 'Thanks for your company, and I hope to see you again some time.' He paused then added, 'Maybe when this lot is over with and we can all get life back to normal again.' He picked up his overcoat from the seat on the opposite side of the room and ran his arms through the sleeves, shrugging it on over his shoulders. Albert got to his feet from his place at the table, and held out his hand.

   'It’s been good to meet you lad. I wish you a safe journey to your home, and it’s a pleasure to have met you.' He paused for a moment then added quietly, 'You’re a lot older than them eyes of yours.' George took his hand and shook it wondering at first what the last comment had been intended to convey, then it struck him. He grinned ruefully.

   'You may be right there mate. I think there’s a lot of blokes over in France at the moment who wish that they hadn’t aged like they have.' He dropped his hand and turned back to the group. 'I’ll wish you all the best then, and goodnight.' George turned and pulled the door open onto the corridor. Harry was waiting there for him near the front door.

   'Better let me have a look out the front before you go out' he said. 'Don’t want somebody seeing you and writing to the Watch Committee about you coming out after hours.' He walked down the corridor in front of George and when he reached the door he bent down to unfasten the bolt near the floor then reached up to unbolt the top bolt. Opening the door slowly he stepped confidently out onto the pavement, his right hand trailing behind him to stop George from following. He looked across the street and then up and down the length of Churchgate and Deansgate.

   'All clear' he said quietly, and motioned with his hand for George to step out through the doorway. George nodded to him as he stood on the pavement.

   'See you again sometime' he said quietly. 'Many thanks.' The barman nodded to him then stepped back over the threshold of the pub and closed the door behind him. George looked up at the window. Thanks to the thick curtains covering the interior of the windows it was not at all apparent that there was anyone alive, and drinking, inside the room. George grinned to himself and set out to cross the road to the Swan. 'Seems like some things are the same all around the world' he muttered quietly to himself.