Loyal Creatures Read Online Free PDF Page A

yelling at them.
    â€˜Come on,’ said Johnson, swinging his leg out the window. ‘Let’s sort those mongrels out.’
    I was with him. You don’t treat animals like that.
    Next thing a sergeant had his face in ours.
    â€˜Anyone leaves this train,’ said the sergeant, ‘they’re on the next boat home.’
    We all thought about this. Stepped back from the window.
    Dad pulled me into my seat.
    â€˜I know how you feel,’ he said. ‘Back home we’d take those clowns round the back of the pub and give ’em a lesson in animal husbandry. But this isn’t back home. We’re visitors here. They do things their way, we do things ours.’
    I didn’t say anything. I was still staring out the window, watching the cane rise and fall.
    â€˜This lot aren’t the enemy,’ said Dad. ‘If the Huns and Turks hadn’t come in knocking the place about, these blighters’d probably have more tucker for their animals.’
    I pulled my eyes away from the window.
    Dad knew stuff, so he was probably right.
    But still.

    The camp they took us to was huge. Stuck out in the desert. I couldn’t see a single pyramid, sphinx or battlefield in any direction.
    Tents to the horizon. Horse lines longer than our main street at home.
    â€˜Jeez,’ muttered Dad. ‘They’ll need some water for this lot.’
    Some of the troopers were drilling a well. Wrong spot, we could see.
    Daisy could too. She stamped her feet and tossed her head like she did sometimes when humans were being dopes.
    â€˜Go and show ’em,’ said Dad, giving me a nudge.
    The blokes drilling weren’t water monkeys like me and Dad, so it wasn’t their fault.
    â€˜Best to read the scrub,’ I explained to them. ‘In parched country like this it shows you where the water is.’
    â€˜Engineer sergeant showed us where the water is,’ said one of the troopers. ‘And he can dock pay, so we’re listening to him.’
    I climbed on a pile of crates and took a squiz.
    Otton and a couple of grease-smeared troopers climbed up too.
    â€˜Look for the scrub patterns,’ I said, pointing.
    The troopers were both frowning, not convinced.
    â€˜Takes experience,’ Otton told them, tapping his nose and looking at the wrong patch of scrub.
    â€˜Takes the mickey more like,’ said one of the other troopers.
    â€˜You four,’ roared a voice. ‘Off those crates.’
    We got down.
    A large engineer sergeant was looking like he was about to burst his pipes.
    â€˜Are you part of this deployment?’ he growled at me.
    â€˜No, sergeant,’ I said. ‘Just arrived.’
    â€˜Congratulations,’ said the engineer sergeant. ‘You’re on your first charge.’
    â€˜Fair go, sarge,’ said Otton. ‘He’s a professional. Got a degree in Water Location and Advanced Well Insertion from Sydney Uni. What if he’s right?’
    The engineer sergeant gave me and Otton a long look. Then he turned to the troopers in the deployment.
    â€˜You blokes hit water yet?’ he said, pointing to the drill rig. ‘Bosworth? Lesney?’
    The two blokes who’d been up on the crates with us shook their heads.
    â€˜And you reckon this new chum knows better than me?’ said the engineer sergeant.
    Bosworth and Lesney both hesitated, then shook their heads again.
    Otton was nodding.
    The engineer sergeant narrowed his eyes and gave Otton and me another very long look.
    â€˜Right-o,’ he said. ‘Prove it. If you hit water before dark, I’ll drop the charge. If you don’t, you’re both in solitary for a week.’

    After me and Daisy chose a spot, and the drill rig hit water, I showed the other blokes how to keep it flowing out of the sand by knocking holes in the bore tube.
    â€˜That’s amazing,’ said Lesney. ‘I’ve been a news journalist for three years and I didn’t know