Horrie the War Dog Read online

  *

  On parade the next morning, the Rebels could hardly contain their enjoyment of the retribution for the injury done to one of their own. As Hewitt announced that a ‘cowardly blow’ had been struck to the sergeant-of-the-guard ‘in the night,’ all battalion eyes fell on Fitzgerald, who sported an elaborate bandage wrapped around his head and covering his nose. It was not enough to conceal two of the blackest eyes the soldiers had ever seen. Both were just slits embedded in dark red and brown puffiness. The grumpy Fitzgerald was in a darker mood than anyone had ever seen him before.

  ‘Jesus!’ Murchison whispered to Moody in the line in front of him. ‘What did you use, a bloody sledgehammer?!’ Moody raised his right arm slowly, and flexed his middle finger. The others could not suppress laughs.

  Hewitt swung around to face the minor disturbance.

  ‘Quiet on parade!’ he bellowed. ‘This is a very serious matter indeed. May well be a court martial! It may see the assailant being sent back home after a long jail term.’

  ‘How do you know it wasn’t a wog, sir?’ someone called from the ranks. ‘They can be vicious, sir!’

  ‘I don’t answer such insolent interjections, Private Young! But this once I shall reply that we know it was not a . . . a . . . um . . . local native. The assailant asked the sergeant’s name. Therefore he and I conclude it was, it just had to be, one of you.’ Hewitt paused and added: ‘We’d like the offender to step forward, now.’

  No one moved.

  ‘Permission to speak, sir,’ another soldier called.

  ‘Yes, Private Oliver . . . speak.’

  ‘These wogs—er . . . Bedouin, sir, are pretty smart. They do call out names—’

  ‘Stop there, Private!’ Hewitt interjected. ‘We know it was one of you and no stone will be left unturned until we find the culprit.’

  ‘But, sir, what would be the motive for hitting such a nice man?’ Oliver called.

  ‘Enough!’ Hewitt yelled as he took several paces towards the private. ‘You will report to my office forthwith. Each tent will be inspected by me and Sergeant Fitzgerald this morning.’

  A half-hour later, Hewitt and the sergeant entered the Rebels’ tent. Fitzgerald’s eyes, such as they were, met those of all the members, who stared back. Horrie’s body had a slight tremor. He growled from atop his bunk as he kept a steady gaze directed at the sergeant.

  ‘Now, Horrie,’ Moody said, ‘be nice to the nice sergeant.’

  ‘Sergeant Brooker,’ Hewitt said, ‘were any of your men AWL at any time last night?’

  ‘Absolutely not, sir. Every man, and Horrie, was present and accounted for right through the night from lights out at 10 p.m., sir.’

  ‘Don’t be so indignant, Sergeant. Your men have the worst record in the camp for AWL offences.’

  ‘Sir?’ Fitzsimmons said, stepping forward and saluting comically. ‘I can vouch for the veracity of the sergeant’s words, sir.’

  ‘Oh, how Private Fitzsimmons?’

  ‘I can say honestly that he tucked each and every one of us in, sir; always does.’

  This comment created barely contained glee from the others. Fitzgerald looked set to explode.

  ‘Shut up, Private!’ Hewitt snapped and added, ‘This had better be true.’

  Hewitt left the tent. Fitzgerald lingered with a menacing body posture.

  ‘I know it was one of you arseholes!’ he said, glaring at Murchison. Horrie was again shaking with concern. Moody restrained him.

  ‘Our little mascot doesn’t seem to like you, Sergeant,’ Moody said, eyeballing Fitzgerald. ‘Someone kicked him in the leg the other day. I suppose you wouldn’t know who?’

  ‘I couldn’t give a stuff about that little mongrel!’ Fitzgerald snarled.

  ‘When we find out who did kick him,’ Moody added, ‘we might give him a couple of shiners like you have, Sergeant.’

  ‘And if I find out if one of you—’ Fitzgerald hissed.

  ‘Don’t threaten my men!’ Brooker said stepping forward to face Fitzgerald. ‘Or our mascot!’

  Fitzgerald stormed out fuming and cursing under his breath. When he was well away, several Rebel fists went in the air. Some shook hands with Moody. Others patted and hugged Horrie, who settled down.

  ‘Revenge of the Wog Dog,’ Shegog remarked as he arranged his paintbrushes, ‘so sweet when served cold!’ He glanced at the dog. ‘Horrie, old mate, today I think the subject should be you.’

  *

  The camp received a further boost when British and Australian forces attacked Tobruk and captured 25,000 Italians, along with 208 guns and 87 tanks, in a comprehensive victory. Churchill then ordered British General Wavell to capture the port city of Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, where the 6th Division would be prominent. The war had started well for the Allies, particularly the diggers.

  6

  THE REBELS MOVE OUT

  The battalion had plenty to celebrate with the news on 6 February 1941 that its fellow soldiers had defeated the Italians and taken Benghazi. Several of the Rebels took off to celebrate in Alexandria again. It was a useful excuse for going AWL to avoid the hard training that had gone on in January and into February. Desert exercises were mainly boring, arduous long marches, featuring the use of prismatic compass and map reading. Moody and Gill continued their own training routines and sidestepped tagging along with the gunners, arguing that their jobs would be different, solo efforts on their motorbikes. But once or twice even they were press-ganged into night operations where there would be long carries of the guns. Selected gun positions had to be located, always with the ubiquitous and vital compass, and the Vickers would be set up. Here the despatch riders doubled as forward scouts in the pitch black and often freezing nights. Moody and Gill enjoyed the extra challenge of bouncing and roaring along in the desert with just their headlights to guide them. The conditions were harsh and made worse when there were sand and dust storms that burnt skin and eyes and parched throats.

  Despite these exercises, there was still more down-time for the signallers, and the Rebels grew restless with the wait. Murchison annoyed everyone, especially in the dead of night when he played with his pistol and accidentally, or so he claimed, let it off. His disturbing game came to an abrupt halt on 16 February when Private J. P. Ryan was accidentally killed by another soldier. He was buried with a guard of honour in the Alexandria Cemetery when half the battalion turned out to pay their respects.

  ‘I’ve learned the lesson,’ Murchison told Brooker, ‘thank God without killing anybody.’

  The Rebels were caught up in plenty of scraps in Cairo, similar to the one on their first venture to Alexandria, but two events sobered them up once more. One occurred on 21 March when HQ Company Sergeant-Major J. H. Trice was killed in a taxi accident. All the Rebels had been on hair-raising taxi rides but this loss caused them to be more circumspect, often blasting or threatening the drivers if they became too reckless. The other just-as-sobering occurrence was the contracting of venereal disease by some of the men after brothel adventures in Cairo. Murchison, the most careless and carefree of the Rebels in sampling the whores of the red-light districts, was not too worried at first, but when he learned that syphilis had been so bad for a couple of soldiers that they had been sent home, he was far more cautious, as were the others, about wearing protection and avoiding the worst spots. The authorities had been ruthless about policing the brothel areas such as Wasser. This Cairo district had gained legendary status early in 1915 when a group of the first Anzacs burnt down a brothel and beat up all the local pimps. This was in reprisals for much thieving of wallets while the soldiers and troopers were preoccupied with enjoying themselves, and for the high preponderance of venereal disease contracted in Wasser. The officers 26 years later were determined not to let a repeat happen in World War II. But no matter how hard they clamped down with punishment, most of the soldiers still managed to carouse in the most notorious areas. In the back of many soldiers’ minds was the thought that the
y had better have some ‘fun’ before the war hotted up for them.

  *

  Sergeant Brooker had been accurate in his assessment that the German war machine would not sit by and let their partner Italy be swept aside in the Mediterranean region. The Italians had invaded Greece a few months earlier on 28 October 1940. The Greeks had done well in defeating that first attack, and then a further Italian counterattack in March 1941. That was enough for the German dictator Adolf Hitler. He and his generals devised Operation Marita, which began on 6 April, when the bulk of the Greek army was on the Albanian border, from which the Italians were trying to enter Greece. German troops invaded through Bulgaria, creating a second front. British Commonwealth troops, including Australians, were to be sent to Greece to bolster the defences.

  The first sign for the Rebels that something was ‘on’ for them was the stepping up of inspections by Brooker of signals gear. He had never been overbearing before but now he was harassing the sloppy members of the group. The second sign came when the platoon’s two best despatch riders, Moody and Gill, received two gleaming new British Norton motorcycles, with their four-speed gearboxes. They began tuning the air-cooled engines. Moody took his bike apart to see if there were any advances or changes in design, and he found several. The two daredevils soon worked out the roughest course possible for a race with four other riders. An enthusiastic crowd gathered to watch a dash over an eight kilometre course across gullies and small ravines, and along a couple of precarious ridges. For once in the camp, two-up betting aggregates were topped by those for the outcome of the race. Gill and Moody were neck and neck in the straight back to the camp when Gill’s bike broke down and Moody romped in ahead of the next rider by a hundred metres. Shegog was injured when his bike toppled off a ridge; he ended up on crutches and out of the war for the moment.

  The third sign of the Machine Gun Battalion joining the Battle of Greece, as it was soon known, came when Moody biked with Gill into Alexandria to buy film for his camera. The Greek proprietor, Jimmy Stavros, who spoke English, elicited at first frowns, then enlightenment when he said: ‘Run out, sorry, lads, but you’ll be able to buy plenty in Athens.’

  ‘Athens?’ Moody and Gill said in chorus.

  ‘Sure,’ Stavros replied, ‘didn’t you know? The Brits are sending about 60,000 to fight in Greece. About 60 per cent will be you Anzacs; the rest Brits.’

  ‘How do you know this, Jimmy?’ Moody asked.

  ‘Got a relative in the Greek Cabinet,’ he said, dropping his voice but pleased with the information he was passing on. ‘You’ll be fully equipped with 60 and 25 pounder guns. An armoured brigade will be going. It’s big! You can imagine how the Greeks in the know feel. Gives us hope.’

  Later Brooker confirmed what just about all of the Ikingi camp knew: they were indeed being shipped from Alexandria to Piraeus, the port at Athens. The Rebels were facing a few realities as they hurried to write letters to make the last post to Australia. Their messages were not alarmist. Instead, warmth and love flowed through the ink-stained and pencil scribbled lines as each man faced an abrupt sense of mortality. The German machine had a formidable reputation and each soldier knew that the odds of them ever returning home had changed overnight. Most relished the thought of ‘getting some action at last.’ Almost all were thrilled to be leaving the boring, hot confines of their remote waterless outpost. But the thought of German bombers, ships, paratroopers and those infamous, experienced, hard-helmeted troops was sobering. Right through the camp now was an electrified sense of preparation as machine guns were tested with their ear-splitting rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat. This sound was supplemented by the seemingly continuous testing of rifles and revolvers by all carriers of these weapons. But the sound that out-blasted them all was the throaty roar of the motorcycles as they sent dust trails through the desert when Moody, Gill and others raced daily and went through the roughest exercises they could create. They skylarked by sending their bikes high and in doing the odd trick, including a somersault over a dry wadi, which Moody and Gill had planned over several weeks. They also perfected the less problematic ‘hanger,’ where they would do a handstand on the handlebars. One slip in such acts would see bike or rider or both a broken wreck. Officers did not countenance such performances and the stunts were carried out well away from the camp. Yet there was some method in their madness for both men knew that in war they would be asked to take risks on the front. Knowing the limits of the bikes and themselves was more than a useful mental ‘track’ or preparation for what they would face. They regarded it all as necessary mental and physical training.

  *

  The biggest concern for the Rebels was what to do with Horrie. In eight weeks he had become an integral part of the squad and a feature of the entire battalion. His collar featured its colours, as did his dish, painted bunk and a tennis ball that had been presented to him. Horrie had put on weight for he was a favourite of the cooks in the kitchen, who normally had only a few close mates in the ranks. Moody continued to teach him tricks and ‘duties.’ His prime job was to guard all the equipment in and out of the tent, especially from prowling Arabs, who filtered in and around the camp day and night. When a Rebel took him outside their tent and said, ‘Watch!’ in a commanding voice, the dog took the command seriously and never strayed, even when another animal wandered within his range of smell or sight. He could be left for hours at a time. His second and equally useful duty was to run messages. Moody trained him by taking him to the destination, including the transport and equipment depot, which was the camp workshop, where everything from nuts and bolts to lighting rods and radio parts were found. Moody introduced him to a mate at the depot, Ron Ford, who would make a fuss of him and offer chocolate. The ‘game’ would begin with Horrie taking a message tied to his collar to Ron from ten metres, then twenty metres and then out of sight. After half an hour, Horrie understood that with the command ‘Take it to Ron,’ he would dash from the Rebels’ tent to the depot with the message. Similarly, if Ron had a query he would attach it to the willing Horrie with the command ‘Take it to the Rebels.’

  ‘If that little bloke had wings,’ Ford observed, ‘he’d be better than any carrier pigeon.’

  The third major feature of Horrie’s repertoire was a lesson for the Rebels rather than the dog. On occasions, he would sit and bark at the sky, his outsized ears erect and pointing in one direction. When none of the Rebels reacted, he darted about and then stopped, his head steady, his bark excited and his growls deep and long. After this happened a few times, Moody noted that it coincided with a plane flying overhead up to two minutes after Horrie began his antics. Moody drew the other Rebels’ attention to this phenomenon one day when they were assembling their equipment outside the tent.

  ‘Our littlest Anzac is an early warning system!’ Murchison said. ‘We just gotta take him with us!’

  All the Rebels agreed. They hatched several plans that fell through and in the end decided to smuggle him in Moody’s pack. Moody’s equipment was shared in the packs of the others, which left plenty of wriggle room for the dog. But it was stifling hot for the more than 30 kilometre march and train ride under a harsh sun to the port at Alexandria. A hole was cut in the side near the top of the pack. Horrie was a twitch of excitement at the heightened activity in the camp. He knew something was up and he looked anxious. Each Rebel would drop to his haunches and tell him: ‘Everything is okay, mate. You are one of us. You’re coming with us.’

  Moody, the dog whisperer, now had one of the toughest canine assignments in training Horrie to get in the pack and stay quiet. The dog looked forlorn at the prospect of this new ‘trick.’ He didn’t refuse it but he wriggled in the confinement in a mild protest. Moody went through the routine in two stretches of 20 minutes each, spaced several hours apart. Horrie was placed, rear-end first, into the pack. He would squirm himself into position so that his little set-upon face and snout would poke from the hole. Then Moody would trudge a hundred metres and back, giving plenty of pr
aise and encouragement. By the end of this exercise, Horrie was ready, although man and dog could not envisage what imponderables they might face en route. The plan was to sneak him on board the ship taking them to Greece, a journey of two days and nights. Once there, the Rebels would hatch plan two on how to keep him unseen when smuggled aboard.

  On the last night before the march, a greater concern enveloped the Rebel tent as each man had trouble sleeping. Their minds churned over coming possibilities. Brooker’s remark that they had ‘nothing to fear but fear itself’ helped a fraction as he reminded them that he had come through the Great War unscathed, but his accompanying homily was less comforting: ‘If you get knocked you will know nothing, so what’s the point in worrying? There is no pain after death.’

  That blunt comment had some reaching for pen and paper to say more poignant things to loved ones with the thought that this might just be the last letter that ever reached home. But sentimentality gave several of them ‘writers’ block’ and the nervous anticipation caused many to enjoy less than their normal quota of seven hours sleep. In the middle of a cold night they boiled tea and chatted. Horrie, alert as ever when the Rebels were in discussion, wandered to each bunk offering a lick and a nuzzle of solace, which would in return lead to a warm pat or cuddle. The Rebels swore that he sensed their feelings on such occasions. In the dead of night, when the unknown played on dwelling minds, there was just a whiff of fear in the tent. The mood was broken when Brooker, with ecclesiastical soberness, commented that it was the Rebels’ last night in the land of milk and honey.

  ‘That’s if you bring your own cows and bees,’ Fitzsimmons quipped. It was a fitting enough joke at 3 a.m. for them to attempt to slumber for the last few hours before the dawn.

  *

  Horrie, anticipating something was afoot, was awake first as the warm fingers of dawn crept over the barren camp at Ikingi on 6 April, the day the Germans began the Battle of Greece by invading that country and Yugoslavia, making the date even more significant. Breakfast was rushed. Horrie seemed miffed that the mobile kitchen was being packed up before he could acquire the usual scraps. The camp was a cacophonous mix of trucks being warmed up, orders being barked and movement everywhere. Men were heaving packs onto backs, slinging rifles over shoulders and placing machine-gun parts in ‘coffins,’ the unfortunate word for the long bags that held the raison d’être of this particular battalion. Horrie moved from Rebel to Rebel, seeking reassurance that he would not be left out of this ‘event.’ Moody and Gill kept watch on him and, when he looked ready to dash to the front of the battalion, they warned him not to leave.