Loyal Creatures Read Online Free PDF Page B

it.
    The white feather.
    The bloody mongrel white feather.

    After that I didn’t try to stop Dad.
    Wanted to?
    Course I did.
    But I could see he didn’t have any choice, so I stuck by him. He’d done that for me all my life. Now it was time for me to do it back.
    That’s what I told myself, standing there in the first light as Dad and the other blokes got on the train for the docks.
    â€˜Oo-roo, Dad,’ I said.
    â€˜Good on you, son,’ said Dad quietly.
    I cupped his face in my hands. Hadn’t planned to. Just did.
    â€˜Watch your arse over there,’ I said. ‘If you cop one, Daisy’ll be ropeable. She’s hard enough on a bloke’s feet as it is.’
    Dad smiled, touched me on the cheek, and got on the train.
    â€˜Say g’day to Mum for me,’ I called.
    Soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t. In case he misunderstood.
    But Dad smiled and waved.
    I watched the train choof off into the distance.
    Typical Egyptian desert dawn.
    Red as all get out.

    Rumours started a few weeks later. Army censors had been trying to stop them for months, but word finally trickled through.
    Dardanelles was a dunny. Turks up on the high ground, our lot copping it down below.
    I tried not to worry about Dad.
    Over the next few months I tried to stay chipper, waiting for proper news. Worked hard in the water deployment. Wrote letters to Joan. Waited patiently for her next letter to make it to Egypt.
    Daisy helped take my mind off things. Early every morning we did a long gallop out in the desert.
    One time a couple of officers on horseback pulled us over.
    â€˜G’day trooper,’ said one. ‘Nice horse.’
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ I said, trying not to be too friendly.
    An officer could requisition a trooper’s mount if he liked the look of it. This bloke obviously knew horses. Not like the British cavalry officers who sniggered when they saw Daisy, just on account of her being a bit wonky.
    â€˜Fine waler,’ said the officer.
    Suddenly I recognised him. The army vet who’d calmed Dad down at the docks in Sydney.
    â€˜Permission to ask something, sir,’ I said.
    â€˜Go ahead, trooper,’ he said.
    I reminded him about Dad and Jimmy.
    â€˜What did you say to my father that day, sir?’
    The vet swapped a glance with the other officer.
    â€˜We knew things in the Dardanelles were getting difficult,’ he said. ‘And that some of the Light Horse reinforcements would be required there on foot. I told your father not to fret about his mount as he probably wouldn’t be needing one for a spell.’
    I took this in.
    â€˜Thanks,’ I said.
    After the officers rode on, I got off Daisy and sat on the sand.
    I thought about Dad. What he’d done. Saved me from being a foot-slogger in the Dardanelles. How he’d never stopped looking out for me, ever. Not even when his heart was broken.
    I sat thinking for a long time, Daisy standing there shading me.
    I wished I could thank Dad.
    Tell him how much I loved him.
    â€˜Too late,’ I said to Daisy. ‘Too late now. I’ll have to wait till he gets back.’

When the first blokes got back to our camp from the Dardanelles, we all just stared, Daisy included.
    Walking ghosts.
    I hadn’t seen anything like it since I was little.
    Back then Dad was working in a gypsum mine with his father.
    Big collapse.
    Mum and me rushed to the pit. Blokes were coming out, the few that made it. Pale with dust and shock. Silent.
    Grandad wasn’t with them.
    Dad didn’t talk for two days after that.
    This time the brass didn’t want our Dardanelles blokes to talk at all, permanent.
    But the first ones back did.
    They reckoned most of the fighting in the Dardanelles was on a strip of rock called Gallipoli.
    Abattoir, they reckoned.
    Our blokes got slaughtered.
    Light Horse lost hundreds. Some of the best horse­men in Australia, dead on their feet not five yards out of the