Discord

Discord

written by: Nyema James

 

You walked that shoreline like a man who listened to the land and the whispering salt air. We fished topaz waters with tides that ran a mile towards the centre of the world. When I caught nothing, you shared your catch and laughed like a fresh breeze. We were kids and I didn’t understand nor care about words like half-caste or boong. I thought your smile was beautiful; white teeth that shone light.

You chipped oysters off the rocks. I remember you telling me on the ship to Egypt, that they tasted like the ocean. When I think back on it, that was the last time they tasted any good. Everything tastes sour now.

On the ship the names started; Abbo, Darky, then the shoves. I remember stepping away from you. It’s my shame. But no-one cared about your skin when the bullets started; blood runs the same colour on the battlefield. We fired on boys that looked a lot like me. On a field in Belgium, their bodies and ours were torn apart. We fought in a land against blokes we had no beef with, for reasons neither of us knew much about. Three long years facing cannons and machine guns, while we drowned in mud and blood.

But while you had a gun in your hand, you got the same pay as us blokes and I was glad about that. Back home, you were just another blackfella, counted with the animals. No land or work for you. I heard they kept your pay. I should have said something to you, but I didn’t.

I met your dad, once. A white fella from Scotland. His fair-skinned genes you passed onto your little one. Your curse to her. Those ones the coppers took to the missions. I heard about the day they ripped your little one from Pol’s arms, leaving your missus screaming and wailing, chasing the police car down the road for miles until she sunk to her knees, arms flailing the air, and face falling into the dirt. I meant to come see you the day I heard. I didn’t. Another of my shame.

I’ve seen Pol walking into town, staggering and silent; a bottle in her hand. She had a wound inside her beyond mending, I thought. I wanted to reach out to her; tell her it was wrong.

Blokes like you and me don’t need the drink. We’re dead inside already. The guns linger in our heads; that and the smell. I still don’t sleep. When I close my eyes dark shapes crawl towards me like poisonous grubs, their rifles glinting in the light of flares.

On ANZAC Day I donned my medals; Three of them. One to mark each year we were shelled and suffered a sickness beyond hope. There’s no salve for staring into dead eyes, nor medicine to quell the fear gushing from your guts day and night. There was a point where I was beyond hope and you caught me pointing my rifle at my foot. You stared at me, crying. I shouldered my rifle and asked what was the matter.

“I can’t remember what quiet is,” you said.

Do you remember that? I understood those words perfectly. Sleep brought us no peace for who could sleep when the world thundered, blasting dirt into our eyes and bursting our eardrums. We waited, you and I, for the moment; our last moment.

Three medals; that’s our reward. Three medals for climbing out of trenches into the arms of machine guns. Three medals to compensate for the cup of sputum I leave each morning from inhaling gas. Three medals for burying so many mates I stopped asking their names.

In the darkness before dawn, I stood at the cenotaph, a sprig of rosemary in my lapel. You were standing in the darkness at the back of the gathered crowd. I walked around to stand beside you, as fog crept its way to where we stood. The night’s rain had softened the soil, smelling dank, smelling of Belgium. Our hands shook as the crowd recited the Ode.

They shall grow not old
As we that are left grow old.

“I feel old,” you said. “There’s nothing left of me.”

Age shall not weary them
Nor the years condemn.

“Condemned to weariness beyond my years.”

At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We shall remember them.

“Blackfellas aren’t the real ANZACs,” you said. “Who will remember me?”

“I will, Billy, I will,” I said, but my voice wavered. You just nodded.

The march through town was a few hours later. You told me you couldn’t join the march. I knew why. I couldn’t look you in the eye, and just let it go. You wandered up the hill to where crowds were gathering. In soft dawn light you looked like a ghost and I longed to see the smile of your youth. I knew that was gone forever.

I mustered with the diggers from the third division. They were all cheers and beers, but their laughter felt thin to me. We marched down the main street with pride in our steps to bagpipes playing Scotland the Brave. You were there at the back of the crowd, three medals pinned to your left breast, slouch hat upon your head, surrounded by men jabbing your medals, pointing fingers, jostling you. One tried to remove the medals from your chest.

I broke ranks and waded into the group to punch one in the mouth. I dragged you into the marching ranks.

“No Darkies.”

I don’t know who said it but I wheeled around baring my shearer’s arms.

“He stood with me in Flanders, so he’ll stand with me now.” I turned back around and we kept our step with the drums.

“I’ll go,” you said.

“Be buggered if you will, Billy.”

So we marched to the beat of the drums, and each footstep we took became louder and slower as we began to wade through mud as deep as our waists. The cheering vanished as tears began to build, running down my cheeks. We faced the front you and I, never wavering, marching to the drums, through bullets and shrapnel, stepping over bodies, never wavering, choking on smoke, blood and burnt flesh filling our nostrils, all to the beat of the drums, for king and country, for freedom. Freedom for some; just not for you.

And after, we headed to the RSL with music and laughter pouring out its doors. “Your mate can’t come in.”

“Why not?” I said. But I knew the answer as did you.

“I’m sorry,” I said, turning to you.

I wanted you to be angry, outraged, to shout in their faces and mine. To hold aloft your medals, stab them in our faces and remind us you were there too. But you were silent. You’d be right to accuse me. I could have cut both our wrists to fill a cup with our blood and defy anyone to discern from whom the blood was spilled. But I did not.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“That’s okay,” you replied and thrust out your hand to shake mine and held it there an extra moment. You may as well have bayonetted me.

I had a few drinks with cobbers, but the beer tasted sour. I left to find you sitting under a blue gum, not far from a cenotaph. I sat beside you and you offered me a rolly. We sat, reading the names of the dead.

“What was that all about?” you asked me.

“Buggered if I know, Billy.”

“We’re a nation of cenotaphs,” you said. “A nation of cripples.”

I nodded and took another drag on my rolly.

 

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

The indigenous of Australia, Aboriginals and Torres Strait islanders, were not permitted to enlist during WWI. However, this rule was relaxed and half-caste Aboriginals were permitted to enlist if medical officers were satisfied they had a white parent. While they received equal pay and rights while enlisted, following the war Aboriginals faced extreme prejudice. Their military pay and pensions were quarantined. Access to military funerals, being able to march in ANZAC (veterans) parades and joining the returned servicemen’s league (RSL) was denied.

Indeed, until 1971, Aboriginals and Torres Straits islanders were not counted in the official population census. Australia had a policy of assimilation which demanded that children who were half caste, be forcibly removed from their family and placed in a religious mission. A policy that persisted until the 1970’s and inflicted generational trauma.