Homes Is A Strange Country - Chapter 38

THIRTY EIGHT
Going Home - September/October 1917

   It felt like a lifetime for him. The few more days he had to spend in the camp near Andover. But after that lifetime of waiting they left, he and the other Australian troops who had spent a few weeks away from the battlefields and mud of France. Now, they were on their way back. Some, like George, were suffering the effects of physical wounds and the acquired illnesses like rheumatism which George had. Others were still suffering, and would continue to suffer, the effects of ‘Shell Shock’ as they had called it. Other, more kindly doctors, had termed it NYD(S) meaning Not Yet Diagnosed (shell), so that the individual would not be tainted by the stigma of a mental health condition. For many of the men, whatever they called it, it would be an affliction to remain with some of them for years, until they were old and forgotten.

   The last days in the camp had been alike many of the others. A mind numbingly boring routine of early rising, breakfast in the wooden huts which served as messes for officers and separate ones for other ranks, then inspection and marches. Most of the marches were carried out on the improvised parade ground in the camp, whilst other officers gave them an easy amble through the countryside of the county of Wiltshire. The only respite from the humdrum tedium of their existence had been the occasional trips into Andover, some five miles away, or the visit to the YMCA shop which had been set up and manned in the camp for them. But it still didn’t while away the hours quickly enough, and that is when the numerous rumours started about their repatriation to France and finally back home to Australia.

   Some of the rumours said that they would receive their back pay as soon as they embarked on the final leg of their journey from the port of Le Havre. Another said that they would receive nothing until finally receiving their demobilisation papers in Melbourne or Sydney. A third said that they would have to sign on as reserves for up to ten years in order to receive their final pay. Idle hands, and minds, did make the most of what scant information the troops were given. The truth in the end was a good compromise of most of the rumours which had circulated during their time on the long voyage home.

   The day of his departure finally arrived and soon George found himself onboard a ship, fighting his way to the ship’s side as it left Portsmouth harbour. He elbowed his way from the upper deck where he had first settled before the ship had pulled away from the dockside, down onto the main deck, where as many men crowded the decks there as had been on the deck he had left. Through the active onboard grapevine George learned that there were almost nine hundred troops on the ship, all of them injured in one way or another, and all being returned back to Australia as a matter of urgency, ahead of the remaining four hundred thousand other Australian troops who were to make the same journey.

   What the troops on board had not been told, but which they found out quite quickly after they had left Portsmouth, was that the ship was due to collect other wounded men from Southampton along the estuary. Like George, they had spent weeks or in many cases, months, in one or other of the many military hospitals which had sprung into being around the south of England. Now that they were going home they had been sent by train to the two ports of Portsmouth and Southampton.

   As he looked around the ship he could not help but compare the SS Borda, his current ship, with RMS Osterley which had brought him from Australia to Egypt in September 1915. Here he was doing the return trip a little over two years later. The single funnel ship was originally designed to take eleven hundred passengers via The Cape to Australia on a regular run for the Post and Orient Shipping Company, but now as far as George and his companions were concerned it had one trip of importance to make, home to Australia via the Suez Canal, and as bloody quick as it could.

   George walked carefully along the upper deck of the ship towards the bows, taking each step with concern and judicious use of the stick in his hand. His footing was constantly affected by the roll of the ship in the sometimes choppy English Channel. He tried to remember if he was on the port or starboard side of the ship and decided eventually that it was the port side. Now that the SS Borda had left the comparative shelter of the Isle of Wight the English Channel was starting to heave the eleven thousand ton ship around the waves a little more and the injury to his leg and the rheumatism he was suffering from was starting to make his fairly slow progress along the ship’s deck a little more difficult. Reaching the end of the superstructure which made up the accommodation onboard, and the bars and restaurant areas, he stepped back into a corner of a doorway leading back down into the ships accommodation. He wedged himself into a corner and wrapped his greatcoat around him against the wind blowing across the ship from France to his left. As the ship started to rise and fall in the waves he rocked to and fro in time with its movements, and started to enjoy the movement and the sensation of travel. Soon he would be home, he thought.

   Craning his head around he was able to make out the newly designed Dazzle camouflage painted pattern on the vertical surfaces of the vessel, its black, white and grey geometrical shapes spoiling, he thought, the lines of the ship. When he had approached the vessel in Portsmouth harbour he had the opportunity to view the full extent of the strange designs painted on the ships’ sides, and wondered briefly if the intricate patterns had been painted there to hide the ship whilst at sea or simply to confuse gunners who saw the ship in the distance. It was beyond him, so he gave up trying to understand the logic behind the idea. Ahead of him, in the centre of the deck area to the front of the accommodation areas, was a single radio mast rising high up into the air, almost to the level of the single funnel the ship sported, festooned with secondary aerials and bounded on both starboard and port side by derricks used for loading and unloading the cargo the ship. It would have been loaded with some cargo as well as passengers in its previous existence as passenger liner on the Australia England run. Now, its cargo was mainly human and luggage and equipment no longer required in the war in Europe. He hung the walking stick over the crook of his left arm and reached into a side pocket for his pipe and tobacco pouch, banging his arm and side occasionally against one of the upright panels of the superstructure. When, eventually, he was able to puff on his pipe he looked around at the waves starting to churn in front of the ship. There were occasional signs of other inhabitants of the watery world he was now, temporarily, sharing. Some were large war ships displaying similar Dazzle patterns to the Borda, whilst most of the others were even smaller than the one he was on and all appeared to be in a hurry to get somewhere, though with wind, and now it seemed, the sea against them, most of them were going nowhere fast. The bows rose and fell in a monotonous rhythmical cadence following the rise and fall of the waves, and George was pleased to note that although he could hear behind him the audible increasing degrees of seasickness, he felt on top of the world, with a clear head and stomach. The air was fresh and sharp, the wind, though a little brisk, was fresh and taught against his skin, and the miles were slowly slipping away behind him. Much as he had enjoyed his brief stay in England, there was nothing like Australia as far as he was concerned, even though the speed of the ship was going to be no more than fourteen knots, whatever speed a knot was.

   As a firmly earthbound person, and despite many attempts to understand the explanations given him by his mates, George was still not able to accurately gauge what the speed of a knot actually was. He contented himself with listening to the estimations of speed and distance which the crew of the ship were happy to try and confound him with. Knots or miles per hour, Melbourne would arrive sooner or later. The estimate for the entire journey home had been forty two days if they went around the Cape, but that was from the French Mediterranean port of Marseilles, so George reckoned on adding perhaps another four or five days to that. About seven weeks in total, he thought. Well, at least it would give him the opportunity to rest his leg, and perhaps become fitter than the recent months of relative inactivity had allowed. He had heard others onboard giving their estimates of the time it would take to arrive home and they seemed to vary so wildly that in the end he ignored what the rumour mill was churning out, and accepted as being correct, a time he had overheard one of the seamen telling one of the Australian officers. The distance around the Cape was thirteen thousand miles, whilst the one through the Suez canal was a little over eleven thousand miles. A quick calculation by George based on what he knew of the speed of the ship provided him with figures of fifty days and forty two days for the longer and the shorter possible routes. He hoped they would go via the canal, but realised that as the decision was far out of his reach, he would have to accept what the Navy had decided for them. Whatever the journey time, he knew he would be arriving at Sydney, and would then have a two day journey to get back to his home to Alexandra to the north of Melbourne in Victoria.

   Wedged into his corner, George started to experience some discomfort in his leg, but refused to go inside whilst there was still daylight and the possibility of seeing things he had never before seen, and as he ruefully thought, would never see again. He glanced at the wristwatch and saw that the time was approaching six in the evening. The sun was close to the western horizon whilst in the east the dark night clouds had covered the sky in a velvety blanket allowing only small glimpses of the lightest blue to show around their edges. Ahead of him across the forward holds the sky was still the brightest blue close to the horizon, whilst the setting sun was starting to colour the clouds at that end of the sky in pinks and pale greys. He knew there was little more to be seen, so eased himself off the bulkhead he had been resting against, and limped the few yards to the companionway doorway in the observation area which he had been using as his own private viewing platform. The heavy wooden door swung open towards him, the solid brass handle feeling heavy in his hand. He stepped over the raised threshold into the comparative warmth of the area running along the side of the ship. Its glass windows offered him almost as much view of the sea and the far shores as had his view from outside. The wide corridor like room had doors at both ends, and in the middle, to allow the ships passengers access via staircases down to the lower decks of the ship and to the various others smaller public rooms on that deck. Whilst between the doors, and on both sides of the room, were placed round tables set with three or four wicker armchairs. During its time as a passenger liner the tables held small silver card holders containing menus for the forthcoming meals to be had onboard. For the troops going home there was no such luxury as choice, so no necessity for menus. They ate what they were given, or went hungry. Simple choice really, he thought.

   Lowering himself into the wicker chair nearest to the forward staircase George placed his pipe on the table alongside his cap and unfastened his greatcoat. He stretched out his left leg and hung the walking stick over the back of one of the other chairs, then settled back in the chair to enjoy the warmth coming up from the lower decks, and the view from the wide panoramic windows. There were few other soldiers in the room, and those who were there seemed, like him, to be content to sit and think and watch the sea slowly passing by in the evening light. The longer he sat in comfort and warmth the more his mind drifted back to Sydney and the mother of the young girl he had recently glimpsed in Bolton, both the good times they had shared, and the sad ones as well.