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Brown Dog Books - Sherryl Abrahart

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190 pages

English

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From the classrooms and playgrounds of early 1900s New Zealand to the battlefields of Gallipoli, the tragedy of the Marquette, and the trenches of France, this is the story of Private Leslie McAlpine. Many families in New Zealand have an Anzac who served in the First World War. Leslie is the Anzac in our family. He is a fit, healthy young man who never completely loses hope that he will get back home. His story shows how decisions made in the wider world affect our lives and our opportunities. Leslie leaves New Zealand as one of the 2235 men in the 4th Reinforcements and the story follows their lives and deaths. In 1914, as New Zealand goes to war, Leslie is in the navy, on the Torch, and loving it. But he wants to see a bit more action. He reads the accounts in the papers describing what the New Zealand and Australian soldiers are doing as they travel across the world in convoy and he wants to be part of that. So in January 1915 he enlists in the army in the 4th Reinforcements. He is just 18. With an adventure before him that everyone in New Zealand approves of and celebrates, what can possibly go wrong? The Allied forces and politicians plan strategies and make decisions. Leslie and the 4th Reinforcements follow orders and do their very best. Surviving Gallipoli and the Marquette disaster, Leslie is killed in action on the Western Front. He is just 19.

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Lettres et linguistique

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Publié par	Brown Dog Books
Date de parution	13 décembre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781839521034
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	29 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

An ANZAC in the FAMILY

PRIVATE McALPINE of the 4th REINFORCEMENTS

— Sherryl Abrahart —

First published 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Published under licence by Brown Dog Books and T he Self-Publishing Partnership, 7 Green Park Station, Bath BA1 1JB

www.selfpublishingpartnership.co.uk

ISBN printed book; 978-1-83952-103-4 ISBN e-book; 978-1-83952-104-1

Cover, interior design & maps: Pressgang, NZ

Printed and bound in the UK

T his book is printed on FSC certified paper

Contents

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Growing up in the early 1900s Joining the navy In the army Training at Trentham Orders to move out From New Zealand to Egypt Port Suez and life in Zeitoun Quinn’s and Courtney’s Sick in Cairo and Zeitoun Preparations for the big attack Sick and evacuated from Gallipoli again On board theMarquette Working at the hospital in Salonika Back in Cairo From Alexandria to France Surviving the base at Étaples Posting to Armentières Leslie dies in France

Notes List of the 4th Reinforcements Author’s note

I zip up my jacket and slowly linger over the view. The white crosses march out, up and down, neat, tidy, geometrical. The sun dodges in and out of the clouds. The breeze moves the trees on the edges of the cemetery just a little. It’s Anzac Day, 25 April. But, here in the northern hemisphere, it’s not really warm yet. I walk slowly through the columns and rows of white crosses. I’m at the Cité Bonjean Military Cemetery in Armentières, France. It’s not my first visit. I come every few years. It’s not far from south-east England where I live; it’s only a few hours off the main road to Paris and it’s near the friendly city of Lille. I don’t get as emotional as I did on my first visit. First-visit reactions take you by surprise. All the white crosses — rows and rows and rows and rows. The search to find your white cross, looking for a reference number. Finding it. Recognising your family name. Imagining the events that left someone from your family in this place. The grave workers, local French people who have constantly tended all the graves here for almost a century, stop their work and move to the side of the cemetery. They do this to show respect and it makes me feel more emotional. I don’t expect such a sensitive level of respect, and their understanding that these fallen men and boys deserve a moment with their descendants is moving and humbling. My husband wanders off to say hello to the grave workers, hoping they speak English. I find my white cross at II. C. 47. I sit down in front of it and wonder. Uncle Leslie was just 19 when he was killed. What had happened to him? What had the ‘great adventure’ been like for him? I become aware of another person moving just behind me. I turn around and smile. ‘Hi,’ he says, ‘I’m looking for II. D 58.’ He has an Australian accent. ‘Think it’s over there,’ I say, pointing to my left. ‘I’m Tony,’ he replies. ‘We’re travelling in Europe. Thought I’d try to find my great-uncle.’ ‘Funny not celebrating Anzac Day properly, as we do back home,’ he continues. ‘Yes, but the Menin Gate does a thing,’ I reply. ‘Worth seeing. I’m visiting my uncle — he’s here,’ I point. Strangely, we both feel that we know one another. This young man from Australia and me from New Zealand. We are in a foreign country, halfway round the world. Tied by uncles who fought and died together a long time ago. It’s a bond forged immediately — momentary but powerful. We have both been raised with the destruction and deaths of the Anzacs. He moves away and finds his white cross. A young boy, about 10, comes into the cemetery and goes over to him. He puts his arm around the boy’s shoulders and they kneel together in front of the cross. It’s their first visit.

This book is dedicated to all the men and women who served in the First World War. In particular, it is dedicated to the men of the Fourth Reinforcements who sailed away from New Zealand in April 1915. Although they did not take part in the Gallipoli landings on 25 April, many gave their lives on the hills of Gallipoli or on the fields of Western Europe. It is, of course, dedicated to my Uncle Leslie and to his brothers and sisters who missed him and mourned him all their lives.

Growing up in the early 11900s

Leslie isn’t tall enough to look over the front gate of Grandfather Dando’s house. He climbs up on to the first rung of the gate, and squeezes h is bare feet between the vertical palings. His knees almost get caught. He’s looking but not quite believing. Where’re all the houses? Where’re all the people? There’s no noise, no trams, no thuds or bangs from the mines. Just trees, hills, bushes and birds, not even a proper road.

He thinks about his home in Waihi, the place they h ad left a few days previously. He’d lived with his mum and dad (Alice and Fred), his little brother Syd and baby sister Flo, and his dad’s father, Granddad McAlpine. And he can just about remember G randma McAlpine too. He had loved being with her. She was always cooking, letting him lick spoons and bowls, with the kitchen full of steam and her apron covered in flour. Waihi was a sprawling, noisy gold town in the early 1900s. By 1903, when he was six years old, Leslie and the McAlpine family were living in the centre of a town full of people. When he climbed up Granddad McAlpine’s gate, he could see miners’ c ottages up and down the street, people walking, laughing, arguing, horses and carts. When they drove out in Granddad’s buggy, towards the end of town, the roads became lanes and the huts became tents. Leslie always wanted to join the children playing around those tents. Envious of their bare feet and wearing what his mum called ‘play clothes’, he wondered if they had to c lean their teeth, brush their hair and eat everything on their plates like him.

Steam tractors hauling steel beams through Waihi to the Martha Mine around 1900 with lots 1 of excited boys and girls looking on. (Alexander Turnbull Library, 1/2-019316-F)

Leslie didn’t really notice the noise, the bustle a nd the people in Waihi because he’d grown up with it. When he went out with his mum or grandma, he could look up the long, straight streets that rose up the hills. He could see mine heads whe re the goldmines were, where his dad and granddad worked. He and his mum would cross streets carefully and at a bit of a run, because there were tramlines coming down the streets, from the mines to the stamper batteries. His dad had explained how the gold they mined was inside ro cks. The trams moved the rocks to batteries

where huge stampers crushed them into powder, which was then put in large vats with water and cyanide to extract the gold. Main Street was covere d with loose metal, but there were some footpaths, with shops on either side. He would walk down Main Street with his mum on shopping day, usually calling at the general grocery store a nd the butcher. Sometimes, they would go into Cullen and Co., the drapers, or McLeay’s, the boot maker. Leslie’s favourite place was the Ohinemuri Coaching Company, although all he’d ever managed was a peek in at the entrance. They had stables with buggies and coaches and lots of horses. Leslie always tried to slow his mum down so he could watch the horses being harnessed. He imagined what it’d be like going 2 somewhere in one of those coaches. Leslie got to know other children his age at Sunday School. His mum’s family are Wesleyan Methodists and so, in Waihi, they had all gone to t he Wesleyan Church in Hazard Street on Sundays. The church seemed huge to a small boy, and in fact it was big enough for around 250 people. But he and Syd went to the Sunday School in the building next door. He played with other children, they learnt simple prayers and sang lots of happy songs about Jesus loving them. His mum could play the piano and the flute and loved to sing. Leslie liked listening to music, but he didn’t really enjoy singing. Watching his mum and d ad at church socials, playing a duet, with his mum on the flute and his dad on the mouth organ, made him feel very happy. Leslie can remember something of his fourth birthda y. It was December, just before Christmas. He’d got a wooden train set, painted red, for both his birthday, on 11 December, and Christmas. He was supposed to let Syd play with it too, but he never did. Then everything went very quiet. He didn’t really understand, but his mum said that Grandma had gone away and they wouldn’t see her any more. Both his parents were very unhappy. His d ad loved Grandma, although she was actually his stepmother. He always called her ‘Mother’ because she’d looked after him since he was a baby. Leslie’s mum had loved Grandma too, because she had made her so welcome when she met and married Fred. Somehow, Leslie had a feeling that th ings weren’t the same after that. He still ran around a lot outside, played with Syd and teased ba by Flo. But Granddad became very quiet and the house was sad.

So, here he is, six years old, in this new place, called Raglan, with his mum’s parents, Grandfather and Nanna Dando, and his mum’s brother, Uncle Sydne y. They are all living on Uncle Sydney’s farm. The house is huge and rambling and there’s a very big yard. Everything is silent. Over the fence are hills and fields — is it all part of his uncle’s farm? He’s not sure. He doesn’t even know where his bedroom is and, if he wakes up in the night, how he will find his mum. But getting here has been wonderful. He’d finally g ot into the Ohinemuri Coaching Company’s courtyard and had run off to look inside the shed. Coaches and buggies at the back, all sizes. Men rubbing horses down. But his mum had dragged him aw ay. By now, 1903, there are three mail coaches a day running between Waihi and Paeroa, and they’d boarded one of these coaches 3 heading for Paeroa. He and Syd were very excited. The driver shouted something, and the horses knew to move off. It was bumpy and the seat was har d, but it was great. After a long time, they were all told to get off the coach because the road was very narrow, with lots of bends, and his dad said that the horses had enough trouble just getting the empty coach through. Leslie had felt a little scared, but he didn’t show it. It was just that it wasn’t a town and it wasn’t the bush. There were no trees or grass. The hills were just clay an d stone, stripped bare. In fact, the coach had stopped in the K arangahake Gorge, a major area of g old mining. Leslie could hear the explosions and the whine of heavy machinery in the battery at Waikino that echoed in the gorge. His mum had carried Flo and his dad carried Syd after a while, along with the suitcase. So he just walked and walked, between the highest and steepest mountains he’d ever seen, with one side of the road dropping down to the rushing Ohinemuri River. Sometimes they couldn’t stay on the road because there were coaches coming the other way. He struggl ed a bit up the rock face and waited till he could get back to the road again. He’d never walked this far before, but he couldn’t show he was a baby like Syd. He just kept walking. When they near ed the end of the gorge, they all got on the coach again. He fell asleep straight away. It was getting late when they got to Paeroa. They stayed in a little boarding house for the night, all together in a small room with two beds. He didn’t like sleeping with Syd much because he kicked and took t he blanket, and Flo started crying in the middle of the night. But he was so tired, nothing kept him awake for long. Even more excitement the next day. They climbed on a train, heading for Hamilton. The noise when it started nearly blew his head off. It was slow at first, but then it got really fast and the grass outside seemed to be flying by. Looking out the window, all he could see was flat country and the

train just went in a straight line. No bends, no hills, no having to get off and walk. Just before they arrived in Hamilton, the train went over a bridge. Leslie and Syd were thrilled. Where to look? Below was the wide Waikato River, and they were up so high on the bridge, flying over it. He yelled with pleasure and bounced on the seat. Syd d id too. Mum told them, ‘For heaven’s sake, be quiet and sit still.’ They grinned at each other and knelt at the window. At Hamilton Station, his mum’s uncle met them with his buggy. Mum said that this was his Great-uncle Thomas. The way to Great-uncle Thomas’s house was along wide main streets lined with shops and houses. The houses all had wide vera ndas and gardens. Hamilton was very quiet, not at all like Waihi. There were no trams or sudde n explosions and everyone seemed to live in large houses. Great-uncle Thomas owned a shop in Ha milton on one of those big, wide streets. His house was upstairs and at the back of the shop. Leslie never got a real chance to explore properly, but he loved the idea that they all slept upstairs. Still, other than that, he couldn’t see what was so great about Uncle Thomas. The next morning there was a rush to get everyone d ressed, ready for the early coach. Leslie wasn’t at all sure where he was going this time, but Great-uncle Thomas gave him a bag of lollies, so he didn’t pay much attention. Syd got a bag as well, so he didn’t even have to share. The coach had four horses pulling it, and at first they went quite slowly over a bridge. There was nothing exciting about this bridge, especially after yesterday’s. But then they started climbing up what his dad called the ‘divvy’. His dad said that if it had rained, they would all have been walking up the hill because the road would have been just mud. But it isn’t raining, just a bit cold and very windy. So they sit in the coach as it slowly crawls up the hill. Leslie’s big hope is that they will hurtle down the other side. Do horses have brakes? They don’t race down the other side, but all the same, it was pretty good. The road twisted and turned as it made its way down to a valley. Then it sped up and headed across the valley floor to Raglan. When they got to Raglan township, Mum’s brother was there to meet them. Mum said his name was Uncle Sydney. Leslie laughed out loud because he had a brother called Sydney. But Mum said that little Syd and Uncle Sydney had both been named after Grandfather Dando. ‘Who was I named after then?’ Leslie wonders.

Leslie quickly settles into life in Raglan. There’s lots to do and here he can roam and explore as much as he likes. Grandfather actually has a car. Leslie and Syd are thrilled. Sundays become their favourite days because they all ride to church in the car. Grandfather drives into Raglan town most days because he is a land agent and has a shop in the main street. Sometimes, though, he stays at home and works on the farm. He’s very old in Leslie’s eyes. He walks slowly, but he still likes to be busy. He lets Leslie go with him. Leslie learns his way up the hills, all the way to the farm’s outer fences and down from the farm to the beach, with black sand that is always warm on his toes and a rolling surf. Sometimes they take Syd too and together they play, now and then stopping to help Grandfather by holding a fence post. Raglan’s farmland is difficult country. It’s hilly with outcrops of rock and hard earth. You can’t easily dig holes, except on the beach. Uncle Sydney’s farm is in the lower hills rising up to Mount K arioi, an extin ct volcano. Leslie can see that mountain from everywhere. Uncle Sydney seems to like having the family live w ith him. He doesn’t have a wife or any children, so Leslie thinks he’d be lonely if they w eren’t there. He takes Leslie and Syd right up to the summit of K arioi. When they get near the top, there are lots of trees, but below that, there are just ridges and valleys rushing steeply down to the sea, covered with scrubby bushes. Leslie finds that it really hurts if you run down a hill too fas t and fall over on the rocky ground. His knees always have some sort of scab on them. Uncle Sydney teaches Leslie to swim too. The water is cold and the waves in the surf wash over him as he tries and sweep him back to the beach. Then the sand and the tow underneath the surface pour back out to sea and pull him back out again. He laughs out loud at the thrill of it. He learns to d ive over the wave then swim like mad till the next wave comes. Or swim down the waves. Or dive under them. Nanna Dando loves to have Leslie and his family liv ing with them. She works in the garden a lot, growing vegetables and fruit. There are shops in Raglan, but this is a rural area so there aren’t lots of shops as there were in Waihi. Almost everything they eat comes from the farm. Leslie likes to help Nanna, pulling out weeds and picking fruit. He doesn’t like going with her in the early morning to get the milk, though. The grass is wet a nd there’s often a frost so his toes freeze. He has to keep his eyes wide open and look carefully a t every bush because he once walked straight into a spider’s web and it went all over his hair and up his nose — horrible. The spiders spin them between the plum trees or even between the tomatoes and the beans. In the evenings, Nanna lights

lamps and reads stories to Leslie and Syd. There ar e lots of books in the house and a big piano. His mum now plays the piano and her flute every day. The Dando family likes to play music and sing together. Leslie enjoys tucking himself into a big armchair in the evening and listening. It feels so comfy and safe.

The terrain in the countryside near Raglan town. 4 (Gilmour Brothers, Alexander Turnbull Library, 1/2-000320-G)

Sydney Dando’s land agency office at 19 Bow Street, Raglan, with his Model T Ford car in 5 front, early 1900s. (Courtesy of Raglan Museum)

After they have all been living at the farm for a f ew weeks, his mum says that he has to start school on the following Tuesday. This sounds exciting as Leslie has missed other children to play with. Syd’s all right, but he can be a bit of a bab y. Getting ready for school isn’t great fun, though. He has to have a bath the night before, have his ha ir washed and his knees scrubbed. Then he has to put on new scratchy pants and a shirt the next m orning. He sets off with Mum very early as there is quite a way to walk. As they follow the road into Raglan town, his mum makes sure that he will know the way home. On 18 May 1903, the day that Leslie starts, Raglan School has 35 pupils. There are children playing outside when they get there. A lady comes o ver and talks to his mum then she takes Leslie’s hand. Leslie does look back at his mum, but actually he’d rather be playing now that he’s