Chapter 6 Homecoming; Developments; Salute to the 9th; Washing business; Paintwork

HOMECOMING

AUSTRALIA had donned her best dress for the homecoming of the Ninth Australian Division from the Middle East. Land stood out from a calm, sparkling sea as the convoy drew into its first Australian port of call.

The sharp prows of the escorting destroyers cut easily through the water, and three solitary fishermen waved madly from a dinghy.

The decks of the ships were a mass of craning soldiers. Most of them had been away for more than two years and had been through the rigours of two strenuous campaigns in the Western Desert. The hard times behind lent added beauty to the Australian coastline as it unfolded on each side.

Part of the convoy sailed right into the wharf. First were the scattered red roofs of the suburban beaches, becoming denser until the grime of the port came in sight.

But the sunlight danced on the grimy buildings and the railway yards. A band on the wharf played a welcome, and the familiar tones of wharf labourers' voices rose with a music of their own.

Word of the convoy's arrival had gone ahead, and the sprinkling of people standing at the bordering fences of the wharves soon grew to a crowd. People came from all quarters of the town, running and walking across the bridges and the railway tracks. The fences bordering the wharf were thick with fluttering handkerchiefs. One old man stood apart, holding aloft gay streamers of the colours of a local battalion.

To many of the men there was still a feeling of unreality about the whole thing. They were home, but few could grasp the import of that. Showers of cigarettes and foreign coins fell from the ships, to be gathered eagerly by people on the wharf. There was little obvious excitement. Every one was keyed up, but there was no outlet.

Then the local troops began to disembark. The air rang with advice and gibes as they drove off in trucks to begin their long-awaited leave. As the trucks passed out of the wharf area the crowds waved and called greetings the air was gay with homecoming, not yet tempered by the realization that the war was not finished.

At later ports of call the scenes were reenacted. As the men crowded into trains to go to their home states, voluntary women helpers plied them with cake, fruit, coffee and tea. No man will forget the charm of that hospitality.

Aboard the troopships life had passed pleasantly enough. All day long the decks were packed with sun bathers in all stages of undress. At night, in the heat between decks of the blacked-out ship, the cries of the housie-housie proprietors rose hideously, and sweat poured down the brown chests of the players. There was no risk of boredom with buoyant hopes of the future ever in mind.

Organized sports were held on most of the ships, and the inevitable troopship boxing tournaments took a prominent place in the daily life. On one ship V.A.Ds and nurses of one of the Middle East hospitals gave concerts in the dining halls at night.

With the return of the Division, the A.I.F. News, which was published in the Middle East for three years, went out of existence. However, the staff was unwilling to let the paper die until Australia was reached, and carried on in one of the ships which brought it back. The result was probably the world's smallest daily printed newspaper, issued on shipboard.

Varying from four to two pages, the shipboard A.I.F. News measured only eight inches by five inches. All the most important radio news received until midnight was included in this little morning paper. The type was set by hand, and the small press, packed into an unventilated cubbyhole below the waterline, was a nightmare to the machinists. Many printing accessories were improvised by an
Army engineer before production.

The weather was calm enough for the worst of sailors, but the ship's rails were always crowded with sea-gazers. The white waves breaking away from the thrusting bows, the flying fish, whales, porpoises, and the indomitable purpose of the other ships of the convoy as they kept their places day after day, were sights of which one never tired. The navy was there, implacable and untroubled; and reconnaissance aircraft were to be seen overhead.

One afternoon, just before tea, the convoy passed units of a British fleet. The admiral signalled to Lieut.-General Sir Leslie Morshead: "No doubt Rommel delighted to see you go; hope to meet you in Tokyo soon. Best of luck."

And each man hoped that he would be privileged soon to meet the men of the fleet in that Mecca of the Australian soldier.

"SX2663"

SALUTE TO THE NINTH

NOT in the history of this war have Australian soldiers received the rapturous welcome, the heart-felt greeting, that was accorded the men of the great Ninth Division, in what were fittingly termed "honour marches" through the streets of five Australian capital cities.

Of strict wartime necessity their arrival at ports of disembarkation had been as secret as their departure, and therefore quiet, colourless; even unreal.

For they were not conquerors, returning, their days of danger and campaigning passed, to spend their time in peaceful case and relaxation, in full enjoyment of the hard-earned joys of victory. Victors, yes, but for them was the realization of tasks ahead, of brief respite with their families and loved ones, before they again took up the fight - against a new foe - the end of which alone could bring them home to stay.

Yet they were not to be allowed to pass on again, unmarked, their sterling deeds unsung. Spontaneous feeling from their own people demanded that they should march in pride through the streets of their own Australian cities; cities they had defended 10,000 miles away; cities they had dreamed of and sighed for in their resting hours; cities that were but part of their own country, directly menaced by an enemy whose challenge they had returned to meet.

Now they were one with their comrades of the equally valorous Sixth and Seventh Divisions, who had returned before them to meet the initial thrust against this country by the Japanese.

So the Ninth marched through the streets of Australia, under the wide Australian sky. Every-where the picture was the same. Only the cities were different. It was, in effect, one march which, beginning in Perth, wound its way across Australia, to Adelaide, then to Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.

Australians were quick to seize the opportunity to pay tribute, and never was tribute more fully earned, to all the men of the A.I.F., of whom the Ninth was a symbol, who had endured so much, who had striven so wonderfully. It was the same picture, and a very moving and unforgettable one, to those who were privileged to see it. In the spirit of this march was the real spirit of this country; the very essence of the young, virile, fighting Australia. These were the true sons of Australia, these rugged, magnificent young men.

From early morning the people had poured into the cities from country and suburbs. All manner of transport was used; trains, trams and buses were crowded. Carefully conserved petrol brought a sprinkling of cars out again. Horses strained against unaccustomed loads, and patiently stood as the vehicles they drew became precarious grandstands for quite illogical numbers. Generally the day was kind, and in four of five States the warm sun washed the spectacle in clear and dazzling light.

It beat down on the faces of the marching men; those men, those boys, those young-old veterans, who had felt its heat and cursed, in the swirling dust of Tobruk, the glaring sands of Alamein, the limp humidity of northern Syria, and who had blessed it in the frigid white heights of snow-bound Lebanon.

For them, too, it was a proud and inspiring time, as they swung through the wildly cheering streets gaily be-patterned with streamers and confetti. They marched as Australians always have, when there is need to do so. They smiled, some of them, the quick Digger smile, at the waving flags of young children, and at children's excited voices-there is no enthusiasm like that of children-and at the friends who hailed them.

But for the most part they were grave, these marching men. They moved with the splendid assurance of disciplined, well-tried comrades in arms. There was pride of race, and pride of corps in their faces and their bearing. Their thoughts were not the thoughts of those who saluted them. The enthusiasm, the gay buildings, the blur of smiling faces, the myriad fluttering handkerchiefs had a deeper significance.

There was a sort of wonder, perhaps, that after all that had happened-all the horror, excitement, fear and misery of battle-they should be once more treading familiar paths and seeing familiar things and faces, outwardly so little changed. There was an acute, if voiceless consciousness too, of the thinned ranks of their battalions and regiments. In the hour of their own triumph they remembered those who had shared their anxiety and toil in the arid months in Tobruk, and the bitter fighting in Egypt - and had not returned to march with them. They knew, too, that new, strange tests would confront them in the restless days ahead. Something of their acceptance of this and their sturdy determination to see things through. was visible as the straight narrow columns wound their way through the cities' glad clamour.

It was Hail, and Farewell again, for the men of the fighting Ninth Division.

"VX21257"

THIS WASHING BUSINESS

BEFORE they joined the Army most men thought that clothes washed themselves. They had some hazy idea that a lot of soiled socks, and dirty towels and things had to be tipped out of a basket, that a copper had to be boiled, soapsuds had to fly, and that sheets and shirts and things would flap about on lines.

They knew that on Mondays the lady of the house was usually astir early, and that in the evenings she looked a bit tired; but the washing itself just seemed to happen like the illumination from an electric light bulb, the ring from a telephone bell, the voice from a radio, or the gravy on roast beef.

This mystic rite of clothes ablution was as foreign to eighty per cent of Australian men as the language of Lapland. To most it came as a pretty big shock when they had to set to, without any preliminary instruction from N.C.Os (who were probably in the same boat), and try to wash a shirt or a sock, or even a handkerchief. As time went on they became a little proficient of course, and by the time most of them were drafted off to battle areas they knew a little of what should be known about washing clothes.

All the same it seems strange that the Army has never published an F.S.P.B. (this means Field Service Pocket Book, but that's too much of a mouthful) on the subject "Clothes-Washing of in Military Camps and (or) on Active Service. Parts I, II, III with amendments. (Revised July 1943)", for there are many things about washing a shirt that a soldier could be told about without making him blush, even if he does read all the soap ads.

How many chaps know, for instance, that the longer you soak a shirt, or a pair of K.D. trousers, the longer you keep your mates from using the wash bucket and the smellier the clothes get? One chap in my tent actually soaks his clothes for six days, then lets them hang to dry for one day, and wears them on the next day only. Official issue in this area is two shirts and two K.D. trousers only per man-so you can see what a problem he sets himself and everybody else.

Another soldier in the same tent is almost as bad - he soaks his clothes for about ten minutes, lets them hang to dry for the next half day, and wears them for the next six days! Meanwhile there's a shortage of tubs, water, and soap in the camp, and here I've seen big robust men, with arms like the legs of mutton you see in butchers' advertisements, trying to wash their socks by pouring drips of water from their two pint bottles, and attempting to lather up with a tooth brush and shaving soap.

During the wet season it is a common sight in inland camps of Northern Territory to see chaps washing their clothes (and themselves at the same time) out in the rain. Usually the bore water is so hard that it's almost impossible to get a lather up.

Batmen are always men to be envied, and yet pitied, by their fellow common soldiers, when it comes to a clothes-washing viewpoint. The chances they have of missing parades, getting tit-bits of food, drink, and travel are often very enticing; but once you've watched a batman doing his daily strafe on a heap of officers' washing (in forward areas one man often "bats" for three or four officers) you realize he is a man with a lot of patience, a lot of soap, and probably not much hope.

He is often despised by other privates who pretend to be disgusted with him, when actually they are envious-not of his "batting" ability, but of his prowess at washing garments under all sorts of conditions.

Show me a man who can wash three or four shorts and shirts, five or six K.D. trousers, eight or ten pairs of socks, double the quantity of handkerchiefs, and even an odd pair of underpants-show me the man who can wash these in the teeth of a sun-scorched south-east breeze, with its billows of choking dust, and its spattering of grass and twigs, and other debris of a Northern Territory military camp, to blow all over the wet clothes!

I really don't want to see such a man, but I still say "Show him to me just to make me feel that all heroes are not in the front line by any means (even though some of them are out of it for the same reason). Ah no! An officer is rarely a hero to his batman, but a batman is never a hero to anybody.

In the wet season his washing worries are even more so, for 'tis then that he finds great difficulty in getting the clothes dry, and if he doesn't get 'em dry the mildew forms all over them and the officers go crook. This is an officer's privilege, of course, but it doesn't make the batman feel any better, and certainly doesn't get the washing dry, or help the war effort in any way whatever.

Systems, or methods of washing in the Army are of infinite variety (I think Shakespeare used that term but it's still tops). Here are just a few styles:

1. Stand naked under the shower and wash to your heart's content. (Only possible where water is plentiful and showers are not too cold or too crowded.

2. Soak clothes in washing powder and rinse two days later. (Only possible where enough buckets or tubs are on hand.)

3. Scrub clothes vigorously with aid of hard brush and curse when buttons fly off. (This method often causes heated protests from other soldiers as dirty water gets swept into next man's wash tub, or even into his face.)

4. Swill clothes for long period in soapsuds, rinse very lightly, and hang up sopping wet. (This is a waste of time in dusty areas but still very popular.)

5. Tear the dirty clothing to ribbons and apply at Q store for new ones. (Only possible where there's a new, or Troppo Q.M. man, and even then it's generally impossible.)

Most chaps wash in the day time, but I've even known some to -wash at midnight-but never during a mess period or while writing letters to their girls. But no matter how, when, or where (or what) they wash, one and all of them will agree that it's a job they would rather not have to do. Yessir! Most Australian men know a lot more about washing clothes now than they used to, but even though they still have a lot to learn about the finer points, they would rather not be taught.

If there is one thing these chaps appreciate more than another, when their hands are all over soap and there's a heck of a lot of rinsing out ahead of them, it is the woman's hands who used to do their washing in pre-war days, and which will probably do it in the days to come.

"VX69200"

PAINTWORK
IN all fairness, for the sweet sake of humanity general and the A.A.M.W.S. in particular, they ought to blow bugles, beat drums, or even send a fire-engine clanging along the wards to signal the Matron's approach. Someone should dance ahead of her banging cymbals, or a Town Crier should be employed to ring a bell and chant "Eleven o'clock and nought is well! Pull your head in and prepare for the blast!" Especially if she's concentrating all her guns on paintwork. The paintwork in itself is an interesting subject. As the humorist who once asked earnestly-"What is funny?" so the A.A.M.W.S. new to the service, asks "What IS clean?" The term is elastic. You think you know until you scrub your first paintwork. You scrub with righteous zeal until you lose consciousness of time and place and you and the paintwork are in another world, uncaring. You and the paintwork are the world-revolutions may occur, an earthquake might tear the hospital apart, rogue elephants could run screaming and trumpeting down the ward - but what do you care, you and your paintwork? What does it matter? How can it matter? You scrub on .-then finally, deep- down in the depths of your being comes the magnificent triumphal awareness of reaching the pinnacle of endeavour, the knowledge that you have given of your best generously and well. You step back and look at it, your paintwork, fondly and pridefully. It gleams, it dazzles, it glows. You have one glorious, incomparable moment of fulfilment. And then Sister comes by and says: "Now, Nurse, you don't call that clean, do you?" You try to speak but cannot. Words, the common coinage of thought, fall you by their inadequacy. So you don't speak then. You turn a sad, dazed look at Sister and slowly, with superhuman control and steely self discipline, you pick up your scrubbing-brush with deliberation and start again.
	You work in a pink mist and a kind of grim fury that surpasses the fervour of a fanatic. Courage, Camille, courage! you quote. The thin red line, you say. Patriotism is not enough, you add. What did you do in the last war, Mummy? You think hysterically. The last man and the last penny . . . your country needs you . . . you can't take it with you, you say, getting rather muddled. There is a war on, my girl, there-is-a-war-on . . .
You take a deep breath and scrub with regular, even strokes. No longer do you glow with glad pride-your only emotion is iron determination. It must be clean. It will be clean. It will be as white as a whalebone, as clean as a hound's tooth, as pure as the driven snow. It will shine with a light of its own, it will have an aura, a radiance, and all comers will shield their eyes from it. Excelsior, it will be clean! For longer than a million years you scrub and you scrub with the unrelenting conscientiousness of a pneumatic drill. Your hands look like something out of this world and your arm is breaking. You realize that all your life long you have never escaped the scrubbing-brush. You come to believe they pushed one into your baby fingers the day you were born. It is your fate to scrub your way through all eternity, so it's best you become resigned to it. The patients look at you with awed curiosity at first, and then decide it's funny, after all. You ignore alike their pseudo-sympathetic comments and their merry quips and boyish laughter. Not for a moment do you waver from your paintwork. Finally your stumble to your feet and stand back, watching. You scan every inch, every half-inch of the boarding. You look at it with an eagle eye no spot escapes. There are no spots. You could swear before a court of law with one hand on the Bible that there are no spots. It is superb. It will go down in the hospital's history as the cleanest paintwork of all time. New recruits will be told reverently of it and old hands in the Australian Army Medical Women's Service will reminisce of your glory. You produce the same soul-soothing sigh that comes after a good meal and step back to admire it further ... and then ... And then-a cold chill runs up your spine. The hairs prickle on the back of your neck. An eerie hush descends on the ward and the lights burn dim, and there is a rumbling noise deep in the bowels of the earth. The pendulum of the clock on the wall shudders and stops. For a second you stand powerless unable to speak or move or break the spell, and then you turn your head infinitely slowly ... carefully ... You were right. The Matron. She speaks carefully, each word a needle jabbed through your heart. She speaks softly but you know you'd hear her words from the other side of the grave. She repeats the formula as witch-doctors repeat the words of a sacrificial rite . . . "Nurse, you don't call that clean, do you?" Behind her Sister stands looking at you with anguish in her eyes. She wouldn't be in your shoes, not for a million pounds she wouldn't. You stand speechless, gaping at your paintwork. "Well?" says the Matron. They give orders to firing squads in just that tone of voice. "Well?" says the Matron again and you know if you don't answer you'll be lost for all eternity-but you begin to believe you have never used anything but sign-language. What is sound you think' I can't make it. It exists, because the Matron makes it. She says "Well? " But I am incapable of any sound at all. Part of your mind begins to wander, your sheer terror forcing some small segment to follow a logical train of thought in an attempt to save your sanity. "Why are you afraid of the Matron?" says the small segment. "She's nothing but a nice old lady with intelligent blue eyes whom you would hail in civilian life as friend. She will neither cat you nor throw you into a crocodile pit. Think of her as somebody's mother." The Matron says "Well?" again and the mother vision disappears hastily leaving no trace of its existence. Conscious that you must find words or die you make a superhuman effort and say with desperate fatalism. "It is clean, Matron." And now it becomes obvious that the Matron has been dabbling in black magic, for wherever she points at your paintwork a spot appears. There, there and there. You watch her pointed finger, hypnotized. You're beaten, and you know it and the Sister knows it and the Matron is sure of it, and the patients who have been watching in high good humour, careless of the disintegration of the universe know it too. You want to go somewhere quietly and lie down and die but that is not permissible, because you've got to stay and get the paintwork clean, so you stand stiffly at attention, waiting till the Matron moves on. You can tell when she's gone because the clock starts ticking again and the flowers in the ward open once more. Once more you take up your scrubbing-brush, and as you scrub you reflect on the word "Clean". You realize that at last you know what it means. "Clean" means cleaner than you think you will ever get it, cleaner than Sister believes you can get it, and almost as clean as Matron expects you to get it. That's clean. "VF503459"