Crack Hardy by Stephen Dando-Collins

Author:Stephen Dando-Collins [Name, Author]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION
ISBN: 978-1-7427-4320-2
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

At Lone Pine, the very earth stank of death. Viv spent the day of August 7 in the oppressively hot Lone Pine trenches, ignoring the piles of bloating bodies around him as, like robots, he and his men alternately dug and rested, rested and dug. Meanwhile, other Australians kept up the defence against Turkish bombers who continued to hurl grenades into the post’s most easterly trenches. Come nightfall, Viv was ordered to return to the old lines at the Pimple with his section, to bring back wire netting that could be strung up to prevent enemy grenades from penetrating the open trenches.

In the darkness, Viv and the six members of his section dashed back to the Pimple trenches and loaded up with rolls of chicken wire, then turned to make the perilous return across No Man’s Land. Regaining the Lone Pine trenches without mishap, they began making their way along a communication trench toward the new front line. In doing so, they had to clamber over the bodies of Turks that had lain on the bottom of the trench for more than thirty hours; cooked by the sun during the day, they reeked to high heaven.

Viv sent Jimmy Ralph, Ted Winters and three others along the trench ahead of him, carrying their precious bundles of wire. Viv himself was sixth in line, with Bert Smith, the Ballarat linotypist, bringing up the rear. About to turn a corner into a frontline trench, Viv heard Bert let out a cry behind him. Turning back, Viv saw that Bert was down. Setting aside his roll of chicken wire, and crawling back over Turkish dead, Viv came to Bert. He had been hit in the neck by a bullet, and had died almost instantly. Where the bullet had come from, Viv could only guess. Perhaps, in climbing over the corpses, and concentrating on hanging onto his wire load, Bert had put his head up too high. With a sigh, Viv grasped the identity disc hanging around Bert’s neck and ripped it away, stuffing it in his pocket. He then reached into the dead man’s tunic pocket and took out his paybook, which joined the identity disc.

Viv bid Bert a silent farewell, then turned and continued on, picking up his load and hurrying after the rest of his section. There was little time to erect the wire. Determined to blast the Australians out of Lone Pine, the Turks that night launched a fresh bombing assault, the heaviest yet, from their trenches just metres from the new Australian line. The Australians had no grenades of their own. Viv and his men were instructed to pick up Turkish bombs when they landed, and toss them back. Easier said than done. It was the deadliest game imaginable. Viv and the others had just seconds to react.

‘It was murder,’ in Viv’s opinion. The grenades just kept coming, and coming. ‘A good few were thrown out, but a lot burst as they came in.’ Like a night-long dance on hot coals, Viv and his mates were forever throwing, ducking, diving, and dying.

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