Chapter 5

The first week at Kapooka just flew in hindsight, but as each day dawned, each day seemed endless. There was constant haranguing from a new sergeant and long methodical brain numbing exercises and drilling. We never saw our original corporal again. Apparently, he had been assigned other duties at the captain’s discretion, whatever that meant. By the end of that first week George joined us in all exercises having recovered enough. He was welcomed back by nearly all of us. He told me afterwards that many had apologised for not sticking up for him. They had been frightened and had no idea how they were supposed to react in the new strange surroundings. George turned out to be a very affable bloke and it was water off a duck’s back what had happened as far as he was concerned. That became evident when he came to the assistance of one of his attackers.

Marching soon became everyone’s bugbear and our sergeant was relentless in trying to get us to at least “look like soldiers even if you bloody well aren’t good enough to lick the spit of the boots of the regulars.” He was a regular and never ceased to remind us of that fact. Our biggest stumbling block, when it came to marching, was literally our biggest stumbling block. Billy Worthington, one of the thugs who had attacked George and earned my wrath, would constantly be out of step and often stumble sending us falling like dominoes. He kept apologising but he kept falling. The sergeant had found his whipping boy and seemed to enjoy it even more because Billy was a bit taller than me at six foot four and a helluva lot heavier than me at around 17 stone. Strong as an ox but as dumb as one too we figured.

After one bad bawling out by the sergeant, he sat very morosely away from the rest of the platoon during lunch. I took the opportunity to move over and chat to him, glaring at anyone of the platoon who dared say anything. Billy was devastated because he knew he was letting the troop down and that there was nothing he could do about it. I got him to explain.

“When the sarge starts us off he always says ‘left, right, left, right’ and well by the time I try to figure out which is my left and which is my right everyone has moved and then I get in a mad panic just to try to keep up,” Billy said in a quaking voice.

I looked at this big bear of a man and realised that his size he was just as young and naïve as any of us. I beckoned George over figuring that perhaps this was a way for them to work together for the good of the platoon. I explained the situation and George suggested that Billy should forget about left and right and when he heard the sergeant say left, it meant one and when he said right, it meant two. George pointed to Billy’s left leg and said one, and then to his right leg and said two. He grabbed a piece of paper and showed Billy a lower-case L looked a lot like a one and that is how he could remember. Billy asked how would he remember which leg was a one. George had an answer for that too. He was a very observant person who noticed everything and asked Billy which boot did he always put on first. Billy pointed to his left one. George smiled broadly as he saw the penny drop for Billy. Needless to say, there was a dramatic improvement in the platoon’s marching as Billy got the hang of the new system.

I had George pegged all wrong. Academically perhaps not at genius level but his understanding of people was the best in the platoon. He was also for the army in another way. Now we call people like George OCD, but back then we just called him weird. He was a stickler for neatness and having everything in its place. His bed was immaculately made every morning and his kit was laid out with such precision that even the sergeant couldn’t find fault with it. The sergeant found the rest of ours awful in comparison, but George’s example helped us lift our game.

Credit where credit is due, George busted a gut on the assault course. It was not built for him in certain aspects given his height or lack of it. Brilliant under the cargo nets and barbed wire but over the high wall and up the ropes he had far less success and it frustrated the hell out of him. A couple of times, Billy, of all people, came to his aid when the sergeant was distracted or as we found later on turned a blind eye. Billy would bodily heave George up to give him a handhold on the wall and also sent him spiralling up the rope far enough to get a chance to use the same amount of energy hand over hand to climb as the rest of us. Those two made a very odd couple but as a team were very impressive. Billy often would find the wire and cargo net suddenly lifted a little higher when he crawled through when George was around. Years later I learnt that George had found out that Billy was dyslexic and had never been able to read and write properly. George became his tutor all through basic training and then later on they kept in correspondence with each other and still do to this day I believe.

After one week I wrote home to tell everyone I had survived. I didn’t say that I had learned about Dad’s army life. That would be something he might tell me himself if and when he wanted to. Besides if I knew my mum, she’d be sharing my letter to all and sundry around the district. My dad may not have even told her. She was technically a local when they first met at a bush dance. They had both travelled over seventy miles from opposite directions to get to this dance in Normanton. In outback Queensland terms, anything under one hundred and fifty miles makes you almost neighbours.

It was my brother whose letter I got first. I knew Mum would write and dad wouldn’t. I wasn’t sure about Tom though. We were four years apart in age and somehow that age gap seemed to narrow the older we got. As a baby he was just a bloody nuisance and demanded Mum’s attention and that thrust me more and more towards my uncommunicative dad. Later, as a toddler and young pre-schooler, it was just as bad. He would seek my attention and couldn’t do the things I could and I was always told to be more patient with him and to take him with me whatever I was doing. Entering puberty, I felt almost as saddled but also began to appreciate the awe he seemed to have for me. We were tight mates in reality, sharing similar experiences except that I kept on finding that he was becoming much better at everything than me. From about when I was eight years old, we would get up in the early hours and lie prone near a rabbit warren. I would have my 22 and he had a stick and we would aim together and I would get my quota. When he was older, he also got a 22 and we’d both be back by breakfast with our daily pelt requirement. As he became a teenager, more often than not, he was the one, not me, who got the bulk of them. Dad never knew because Tom made me swear not to tell anyone.

His letter was a joy to read and full of the excitement and fun of home as we had felt it together back on the farm. I could imagine exactly what he had been doing. Dad had picked up a lot more of the work I had been doing and Tom very little, as Dad insisted that Tom’s schooling was more important than anything on the farm. Mum was helping a bit too which made me feel very guilty. Tom asked lots of questions that I would have loved to give him instant answers to if I could have. But that was Tom; he asked questions about everything and anything. He was insatiable when it came to knowledge and he had a steel trap mind that never forgot anything.

One thing I did feel guilty about was my girlfriend who had become very withdrawn from the day I left according to Tom. Her parents had brought all the way from Karumba on the Gulf to see me off and I had barely said anything to her on that day. Tom said that he and Mum had actually driven over to Karumba a couple of days later to see if she was okay. I made a mental note to write to Jean as soon as I could. I also got the impression that perhaps Tom might be a bit smitten. He mentioned Jean’s younger sister, Eloise, a couple of times further on in the letter. If he did that in the next couple of letters then he was in for a right old teasing. I laughed at the thought of how ridiculous it would be for two brothers to marry two sisters. It seemed too ludicrous for words. How was I to know years later it would come true. I suppose Nostradamus must have felt the same way with some of his predictions at times too.

Mum’s letter was far more matter of fact. It contained all the local news; never gossip as my mum never listened to gossip. I got a detailed weather report and what the market for cattle was like that week. That latter bit was probably from Dad. She hoped I was doing well and reminded, even though I was nearly twenty, to brush my teeth twice a day and make sure I changed my socks and underwear. She refused to call them jocks. What I found the most endearing and caused the welling up of tears in my eyes was the way she signed the letter ‘love Mum and Dad’. I hadn’t heard her say the word ‘love’ aloud nor had it written to me before. Every letter I received from her over the next two- and a-bit years ended the same way and always caused the same reaction. I would read my letters from Mum alone because we Downs men have a reputation to uphold. Tears in public just wouldn’t do.