Soldier Boy

  Penguin Books

  Soldier Boy

  ANTHONY HILL is a Canberra-based author of books for children and adults. Born in Melbourne in 1942, he became a newspaper journalist before moving with his family to a small country town in New South Wales where they ran an antique shop. The experience formed the basis of his first two books, The Bunburyists and Antique Furniture in Australia.

  Anthony Hill’s first book for children, Birdsong, was published in 1988, followed in 1994 by his award-winning novella The Burnt Stick, illustrated by Mark Sofilas. The two combined again to produce Spindrift in 1996.

  For ten years Anthony Hill was a speech writer for the Governor-General, until his recent retirement to concentrate full time on his writing. His own travels to the Gallipoli peninsula and the battlefields of the Great War underscore much of his writing in Soldier Boy.

  ALSO BY ANTHONY HILL

  The Bunburyists

  Antique Furniture in Australia

  Birdsong

  The Burnt Stick

  Spindrift

  The Grandfather Clock

  Growing Up and Other Stories

  Soldier Boy

  THE TRUE STORY OF JIM MARTIN THE YOUNGEST ANZAC

  ANTHONY HILL

  Penguin Books

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd

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  Penguin Books Ltd

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  Penguin Putnam Inc.

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  First published by Penguin Books Australia, 2001

  Text copyright © Anthony Hill, 2001

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  ISBN: 978-1-74-228312-8

  www.penguin.com.au

  The author wishes to express particular thanks to his publisher Julie Watts and editor Suzanne Wilson for the care and understanding they have given to this book.

  For my wife, Gillian

  PRO DEO ET PATRIA

  In lasting remembrance of those gallant soldier boys Of Manningtree Road State School Who nobly responded to their country’s call During the Great War 1914–1919*

  From the bronze shield in the assembly hall at Glenferrie School 1508.

  The names on the school Honour Board, alas, are missing.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  In his short existence of fourteen years and nine months, James Martin didn’t leave a lot on the record from which to reconstruct his life story. His six surviving letters home, the letter from Matron Reddock describing his death, and the condolence letter from his mate, Cec Hogan, all generously donated by Jim’s family to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, are reprinted here by permission as an appendix. The letters are published as written, with all that their errors have to tell us about the personalities behind them and the circumstances under which they were composed. I have also included, by permission, an interview with Jim’s late sister Annie (Mrs Nan Johnson) and his niece Mrs Billie Carlton, published in the Sun-Herald newspaper in 1984; a letter written home by Cec Hogan from Gallipoli; and the 21st Battalion song, which gives an authentic flavour of the times.

  I have been privileged to obtain further material from Jim’s nephew Mr Jack Harris; his niece Mrs Nancy Cameron; his great-nephew Mr Stephen Chaplin; and Mr Cec Hogan, the son of Jim’s mate, to all of whom I am profoundly grateful. The Martin and Hogan service papers from the National Archives of Australia, and records from the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Victoria and New South Wales have also been important sources of information.

  In the absence of other written or oral records, however, I have had to make certain assumptions. For instance, I have assumed Jim joined the compulsory school cadets, that he saw the march through Melbourne in September 1914, and that he stayed with his Aunt Mary at Maldon early in 1915 before enlisting. Many conversations and minor incidents are imagined, as, to some extent, is Jim’s personal experience in Egypt, on the Southland and at Gallipoli. Wherever possible I have based my ideas on family recollections, or on the letters and diaries of those who were there, as noted in the References. These assumptions seem not unreasonable from the material we have, but further research may throw more light on Jim Martin – the youngest known of all the Anzacs.

  Anthony Hill

  Canberra, 2001

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1 THE GLENART CASTLE

  CHAPTER 2 TOCUMWAL

  CHAPTER 3 GLENFERRIE SCHOOL

  CHAPTER 4 WAR

  CHAPTER 5 JOINING UP

  CHAPTER 6 LEAVING

  CHAPTER 7 THE BERRIMA

  CHAPTER 8 EGYPT

  CHAPTER 9 THE SOUTHLAND

  CHAPTER 10 MUDROS BAY

  CHAPTER 11 GALLIPOLI

  CHAPTER 12 LINE OF FIRE

  CHAPTER 13 DEATH

  CHAPTER 14 AFTERWARDS

  APPENDIX I

  APPENDIX II

  APPENDIX III

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

  MAP OF THE WORLD showing the route from Australia to Egypt

  THE GALLIPOLI PENINSULA

  ANZAC

  1: THE GLENART CASTLE

  In the late afternoon of 25 October 1915, a young Australian soldier – Private James Martin, aged only eighteen so his papers said – lay desperately ill with typhoid aboard a hospital ship, anchored off Anzac Cove, Gallipoli. He was wracked with fever, and his thirst was terrible.

  ‘Water …’ Jim Martin pleaded through swollen lips. ‘Please … more water …’

  But his voice was as weak as he was, and at first nobody heard him. The nurses on board the Glenart Castle had done what they could for him – had washed and soothed him – and were busy now with other patients in the crowded ward.

  ‘Please … Mum … water …’

  And still they didn’t hear.

  Jim Martin lay there, exhausted. He could feel the ship rocking beneath him on the swell, so different after those seven weeks burrowed in the trenches on the ridge above Wire Gully. It was warm here, wrapped in a blanket, after the bitter cold and wet of the past few days. Dry. And safe. And someone, like his mother, to look after him. If only they would bring more water …

  Jim Martin drifted in and out of consciousness on the afternoon tide.

  He had been brought aboard the Glenart Castle in a state of utter collapse just over an hour ago, in the five o’clock cargo of sick and wounded soldiers who were towed out in barges from Anzac. More sick than wounded. In late autumn, before the weather had turned at Gallipoli, flies and disease were deadlier than Turkish bullets.

  So the orderlies carried young Jim Martin on a stretcher down to the ward below decks, and laid him on a bed. His first bed for months. They stripped his uniform, filthy with lice and his own excreta. They cleaned his pitifully thin body: for the young soldier, once tall and strong, had lost half his weight. They ga
ve him water. Such sweet, cool water! In the trenches it always tasted of kerosene.

  A nurse gave Jim a shot of morphine, to ease the pain and to help him sleep.

  ‘You’ll be all right, soldier. Get some rest … I’ll be back soon.’

  And certainly, as he lay there, Jim Martin began to feel a sense of calm. The burning in his gut and bowels was not so bad, and the vomiting had stopped. The light here was softer than the glare outside, watching from the firing line for any sign of attack from the Turks. It was hot and noisy in the ward, but a fan creaked overhead and air stirred on his face.

  ‘Water …’

  Jim Martin was wide awake. His throat was as parched as the stony slopes of Wire Gully.

  ‘Please … more water.’

  Matron Reddock was in charge of the ward that afternoon. She was passing Jim Martin’s bed when she heard his cry. So she stopped and bent over the young soldier, her white veil framing her face as he opened his eyes.

  ‘Can I help you, my boy?’

  ‘Water …’

  There was a glass on the fold-out table attached to the high side of the bed. Frances Reddock put her left arm around Jim’s shoulders and, lifting him up, held the glass to his lips. He coughed and retched, but at least a little water trickled down his throat to quench his thirst. For the time being.

  Matron Reddock eased his head back onto the pillow. She felt his pulse. It was very ‘thready’: weak but fast. Too fast. Jim lay looking up at her, as she sponged his sweating brow and spoke softly to him.

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you, son?’

  Her English voice, coming from afar, reminded him a little of his mother, Amelia. Jim and his five sisters had all been taught to speak properly, for they came from good family in the past.

  ‘Please … am I going to get well?’

  ‘Of course, my boy … of course you are.’ In her fourteen years as a nurse, Matron Reddock had been trained to give words of comfort and hope to her patients. ‘We’ll have you up and about in no time.’

  Jim Martin smiled back at her. That was good. He’d been afraid. To get sick like that, so soon after he’d told them at home how splendidly he was doing and not to worry about him.

  ‘Thank you, sister,’ he said. ‘I feel better already.’

  Matron Reddock smoothed the dark brown hair clinging to his forehead. She looked at the watch pinned to her lapel. Time was getting on. It was half past six already, and there was much to be done for the other men.

  ‘Try to get some sleep, my boy. It’s the best thing.’

  As she left him, Private Martin settled down to sleep, rocked in the cradle of the sea a mile off Anzac shore, with drowsy images of youth flitting through his mind.

  But suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, Jim Martin died.

  A nurse, coming to check his condition, saw what had happened and called Matron Reddock. She felt for the pulse of the young soldier, to whom she’d been talking not ten minutes before. His pulse was no longer there.

  ‘Get doctor! Quick!’

  But it was too late. In his collapsed state, infection coursing through his body, Jim had simply let go. He was beyond shock. Beyond pain. His blood pressure falling and heart beating ever more weakly, his system failed. A mere hour and forty minutes after reaching the Glenart Castle, Private James Charles Martin was dead. And he was only eighteen, so his papers said.

  The army recorded his passing in stark medical language on the casualty form used for soldiers on active service. Died of syncope after enteritis. It was the term they used then for typhoid.

  Matron Reddock put it more gently, when she sat down the next day, to write to Jim’s mother at home with his father and sisters – and a boarding house full of paying guests – at Mary Street, in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn.

  ‘… he said he was feeling much more comfortable and thanked me so nicely for what had been done for him,’ she wrote. ‘He then settled down to get a sleep but died quite suddenly and quietly of heart failure at 6.40 p.m. That was yesterday …’

  Frances Reddock paused in her letter and searched for the right words. She had been on the Glenart Castle for two months now, but found these letters of consolation no easier to write.

  ‘I know what a terrible grief it is to you to lose him, but you must I am sure feel very proud of him for so nobly coming forward to fight for his country. Yours in all deep sympathy …’

  Yet exactly what Amelia Martin felt, when she heard of her son’s death, not even Matron Reddock could guess.

  For they buried Jim Martin at sea the day after he died. His body was wrapped in a canvas shroud, weighted at the feet, and covered with a Union Jack. Reverend Barker conducted the service. Some crew and nurses were there, and a few soldiers not so badly wounded they couldn’t pay their last respects to one of their own.

  For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the deep…

  The body slipped from beneath the flag and over the ship’s side, to sink beneath the waves.

  Afterwards, Matron Reddock made up a parcel of the ‘little treasures’ that were found in Jim’s pockets.

  In time they were sent home to Amelia Martin with his other personal effects by the military authorities of the Australian Imperial Force. The aluminium ‘dog tag’ identity disc from around his neck. A New Testament. Some letters. His money belt. And a thin red-and-white paper streamer: Jim’s last link with home as his troopship sailed from Port Melbourne a few months before.

  But there was nothing among his papers to show that Jim Martin wasn’t eighteen at all.

  Nothing to show he’d lied about his age when he enlisted – and that his mother consented to it, because Jim threatened to run away and join up under another name if she didn’t.

  Nothing to show that, when he died, Private James Martin was in fact only fourteen years and nine months old.

  And nothing to say that, so far as is known, he was the youngest of all the Anzacs to die. The youngest Australian soldier boy to sacrifice everything for his country.

  2: TOCUMWAL

  The military letter confirming Jim Martin’s death reached his family three weeks later. It was just at the time of his sister Annie’s tenth birthday. Jim had wished her happy returns in his last message from Anzac, and ever afterwards Annie wept when she remembered the grief of that day.

  Their mother’s hair turned white overnight, from the shock. She was only thirty-eight.

  Amelia Martin was a tall, commanding woman, physically strong, and with much strength of character and personality inherited from her own mother. Whatever her despair when Jim died – however much she may have seemed to age – Amelia could not give way to it. For she, by and large, kept the family together.

  The three youngest girls – Mary, Annie and young Amelia – were still at home. The two eldest were married. Esther had already given her a grand-daughter, little Essie; and Alice was expecting in a month or so. Besides, there was the business to manage.

  Amelia had long wanted to run a boarding house, just as her mother, Frances, had done in Tocumwal, years ago. It was Amelia who organised the move to the big house, called Forres, in Mary Street, when the lease became vacant. It was she who made it pay. Her husband, Charlie Martin, was a taxi driver and not really interested in boarders. It was Amelia who looked after the guests: going to the early morning markets; organising the kitchen, for she was an excellent cook; supervising the housework and garden, with her children’s help.

  ‘I hope your house is full up with boarders and the fowls laying,’ Jim had written from Gallipoli, in a letter Amelia received not long before the news that he’d died. And then Jim added that he still hadn’t received any of the letters they’d been sending him from home. ‘Write soon,’ Jim scrawled at the top of the page, ‘as every letter is welcome here.’

  Amelia’s heart broke anew whenever she thought of it. Yet she couldn
’t give in, at least not during daylight. It was at night, lying in bed, that the tears flowed and she was filled with a sense of self-reproach that never quite left her.

  If only … if only she had not given in when Jim pleaded to be allowed to enlist and join the great adventure of the War. If only Charlie had been accepted when he’d tried to join up. But he’d been rejected and young Jim said, ‘Never mind, Dad, I’ll go instead.’ She could hear him now. His voice already broken, the boy so manly in appearance, though he’d just turned fourteen.

  If only Amelia and Charlie had been firmer when they’d said ‘No.’ But there was no escaping Jim’s threat. ‘If you let me go, I’ll write to you and stay in touch. But if you don’t, I’ll join up under another name and you won’t hear from me at all!’

  ‘You’re just a boy! They’ll find out and send you home.’

  In the end Jim wore them down. Amelia signed her consent before her husband, and gave her own name as next of kin. Yet the military authorities didn’t find out Jim’s true age, nor did they send him home. If only Amelia had said something! But what could a mother do? The boy would still make good his threat to run away, and she’d not hear from him again. He could be as single-minded as she was. Now it was too late. They’d never hear from Jim again, anyway. And he’d not received one of their letters from home …

  At such times, Amelia ached with blame and grief. Though when the tears dried, other thoughts stirred in her memory.

  She could see Jim going off to school in his last year, such a lanky boy they’d already bought him his first pair of long trousers. The excitement when he turned twelve and could join the junior military cadets! She remembered him as a youngster, not long after the family moved to Melbourne from the country. And, in the nature of things, Amelia’s mind took her back to the busy town of Tocumwal, just across the River Murray in New South Wales, where her son was born and spent the first years of his life …