Australians on the Holy Mountain; Tour of Duty; Signature; Not always at sea

Soldier Wounded by W A Dargie

AUSTRALIANS ON THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

Some were penniless; others possessed gold coins. They revealed themselves for the most part at dusk, when the grandmother had gone outside the village to unpeg the family goat, or the grandfather was returning home with his cow or two. Whether the fugitive knew a few Greek words, or the Greek could stammer an English sentence, or had only their hands as tongues, they understand each other, and food was brought along after nightfall, and perhaps a guide to take the traveller round the village, and leave him on the last mile to the mountain. Or a barefooted fisherman turned up to row him soundlessly past Prosphorion, and sail him up the coast to Daphnae. 

I heard of a boatload of eight taken in this way. Germans were occupying my house, carrying out police work in the wild country and keeping their eyes open for escaping prisoners. But none fell into their hands. I have often wondered how many, if any, of those unusual pilgrims to the Holy Territory saw the great white tower and walls of Prosphorion, except perhaps as shadows at night, unless they caught a view of them standing up beside the sea, from miles away.

And in their hunger and thirst and sickness and worry, how many hunted Australians appreciated the history and folk lore packed into that country across which they moved? Did they realize they crossed the site of the canal dug by the Persian King Xerxes, centuries before Christ, when he was descending with his hosts on the Greeks, after the admiral, Mardonius, had been wrecked with a fleet off the point of Athos, then known as Akte? Who among them knew that in one of those thickets growing out of the rocks were probably the ruins of ancient Ouranopolis, the Heavenly City, still undug? 

And did one of them realize the danger he was in, as he crossed a beautiful little glade running up into the hills from the sea, of meeting with a nereid, and paying the penalty by losing his manhood. The hour of midnight or the hour of midday are the two most likely times when these women may appear to some lonely man, and he be tempted to seize them by their long veils. That little glade is known by our villagers to be nereid-haunted, and two of my neighbours are pointed out as having been sung to by them.

And what happened on arrival at Mt Athos -that land of eternal Sunday? Newcomers were concealed in an upper story of the Daphnae inn, until moved over to the other shore, where they stayed in hermitages attached to the great monastic houses of Vatopedi and Iviron, and received shelter, food and care until they could be shipped to safety overseas. A monastery might admit a sick man into the very hospital; but most houses preferred to keep the fugitives in cottages on their outskirts, for fear of the punishment that might follow a discovery by the Germans.

Then there were fugitives who reached the wildest part of the mountain, and are said to have lived with the hermits, and to have copied them to the extent of wearing black cassocks and growing beards to their waists, so that any inquisitive German running across them would only see another doubtfully clean holy man. Growing the legs of goats on those rocks, like their brother hermits, and the heads of seabirds on those giddy cliffs, they could pick up police boats miles away.

The biggest monastic houses were short of food; the hermits in their rocks were wretchedly poor. But enough was found to supply visitors. Men recuperating, and waiting for the day to sail overseas, must have felt tossed out of the rapids of war into a pool of miraculous quiet. It was a land of perpetual church bells, of farmers who went into their chapels at night to put on their cylindrical black hats and veils and chant hour-long prayers. Nevertheless, all monks there were not Greek; there were Serbs, Bulgars, Rumanians, Russians; there were police and the visiting Germans. It was easiest to share life with the hermits at the mountain end.

Although I was back in Greece about the time the last Germans were drawing out of the country, it was too late to make contact with these men; all had gone. But their memories were green in the heart of fisherman and monk; in the heart of man, woman and child. The Allied Screening Commission opened offices in Salonika, and officers travelled round the mainland and islands to reward those who had helped the escaping soldiers. I directed several old friends there, and heard of them coming away better off. One was the widow of a sponge diver, who had strangled himself with his air tube years before, after which her fate had been to raise two daughters to adulthood in difficult circumstances.

Years ago, when British warships came to our help in an earthquake, I had handed one of her tiny girls the first loaf baked by the sailors that morning, with the earthquaked villagers looking on. She had remembered this and when a chance came to help an escaping soldier she had done her best, which procured her a useful sum of money and some clothing I was able to supply.

It must never be thought that the villagers helped fugitives in the hope of reward; they helped because they were friendly and generous, and ready to take a risk. A few paid with their lives for what they did, and others lay in prison. A peasant is a peasant all the world over. Life does not give him much, and if it offers an unexpected prize, he sees no reason not to stretch his hand out. So when it was known that a special military set-up was rewarding men, plenty applied. But they had helped because they remembered their acquaintances, the Australian soldiers who had retreated across Greece before the overwhelming German advance. In those early days they had come forward with bread, milk, wine and fruit, just as today it is still impossible to visit a Greek cottage without being offered simple hospitality.

As soon as the escaped soldier reached Allied territory, he was questioned about his travels; as to his route, stages, treatment, and adventures. The evidence supplied made it possible for the correctness of claims to be judged. As a fugitive travelled day after day, any help given by an individual was usually over a single stage, and there were often a number of awards to make covering a single person.

In rewarding the Holy Mountain, lump sums of money were paid to the houses which had helped the soldiers. This was right in principle, as it is a monastic rule that the monk belongs to his monastery and cannot hold property apart from it. But disappointment was felt by individuals, who claimed they had accepted the dangers of sheltering soldiers, shirked by some more timid or canny monastic authorities.

SYDNEY LOCH, FIRST A.I.F.

TOUR OF DUTY

The Egyptian, evidently impressed by the title, said, "Yes, sare. Come in, sare. Everything all right, I hope?"

Gordon patted him patronizingly on the shoulder. "We shall see, George," he said. "We shall see."

As soon as they went inside two parasitical hostesses fastened on to them. A plump one took Eddie's arm and looked up at him alluringly. "Aussie, Aussie, come from Melbourne," she cooed. "You big, handsome Australian!"

"Eh, Gordon, can't we dice the work?" asked Eddie. "I've got on to something extra choice."

"You forget," said Gordon. "What are you going to use for smash? Or do you think these girls love you for your own sweet self? "

"You're right," said Eddie glumly. "Y' can't get far without smash."

"My motto exactly," said Gordon. "You've got something there."

The second girl, who was tall and slim and a shade darker than the other, took Gordon's hand and said, "You buy me a drink, no?"

"That's right," said Gordon. "I buy you a drink, no. Come on, Eddie. We've got work to do."

Gordon shook the girl off and began to pace across the long narrow room. He was so intent on his deliberate movements that he did not seem to notice the dancers, who stared at him as they passed. The men were Tommies, South Africans and New Zealanders and the girls were all hostesses and all Egyptians.

Eddie reluctantly disengaged the other girl's hand, took out a notebook and a pencil and followed Gordon across the room. The two girls, dewy-eyed no longer, loitered near the door, awaiting other prey.

When Gordon reached the wall he turned to Eddie and said, "Twenty-four feet. Make a note of that, corporal."

Two Tommy military policemen came up and one said, "What's the trouble, Aussie?"

"A.I.F. Field Hygiene Service, Cairo Subsection," said Gordon briskly. "Quarterly tour of inspection."

"Oh, I see. Carry on, Aussie."

Gordon, followed by Eddie, went to the of the room and began to pace down it. He had not gone halfway before the manager, a dapper little Egyptian, was at his side, asking, "Anything wrong, sare: Anything wrong?"

Gordon raised a hand for silence and finished his pacing. Then he said to Eddie, "Sixty-three feet. Make a note of it, corporal."

"Yes, corporal," said Eddie.

The manager plucked anxiously at Gordon's sleeve. "Anything wrong, sare?" he asked. "You find everything O.K., eh?"

Gordon turned to him with the supercilious look of a camel. "Were you addressing me ?" he asked.

"Yes, sare. There is nothing wrong, I hope. This good cabaret. No trouble here, sare."

"I'm afraid I cannot agree with you. You arc the manager here?"

"Yes, sare."

"Don't you realize that the A.I.F. Field Hygiene Service Cairo Sub-section Routine Order Number Ninety-five provides that in any cabaret with dimensions of more than forty-five feet by twenty-one, fire escape, troops for the use of, must be provided?"

The manager looked bewildered. "I do not know these things you talk of," he said. "They are rules? "

Gordon shook his head, clicked his tongue and turned to Eddie. "You heard him," he said. "Would you believe it? He asks are they rules. It is incredible. Such ignorance."

Eddie shook his head solemnly, too. "It's bad," he said. "He has never even heard of the A.I.F. Field Hygiene Service Cairo Subsection Routine Orders. It's bad."

The manager was almost frantic. "Sorry, sare," he said. "Very sorry, sare. I have not had this cabaret long. The other manager, he did not tell me of these things. He say nothing to me about fire escape."

"That is no excuse," said Gordon gravely. "It is your duty to know just as it is our duty to protect our soldiers. Say there is a fire. These fireproof chairs," he picked up a chair, will not be enough to protect our soldiers. Wait a minute! " He peered at the chair and then glanced at the others in the room. "What's this? These chairs are not fireproof."

The manager wrung his hands, and Eddie said in an amazed tone, "Not fireproof? Are you sure? "

Gordon turned solemnly to the manager. "You realize," he said, "how serious this is? No fire escape. No fireproof chairs. Dozens of soldiers burnt to death trying to escape. Direct defiance of A.I.F. Field Hygiene Service Cairo Sub-section Routine Orders Numbers Seventy three and Ninety-five. I'm afraid I'll have to recommend to General Blarney that this place be put out of bounds." Gordon stopped and then added slowly, "Out of bounds to all troops."

The manager trembled, took out a grubby handkerchief and mopped his forehead. "You have a drink?" he asked. "You come to my office and have a drink?"

Gordon looked at his gold wristlet watch. "It is five minutes to nine. We're on duty until nine. Then, perhaps."

"Yes, sare. You come then. You have nice drink." He hovered, an agitated figure, in the middle distance, while Gordon measured windows, shook his head gravely and dictated figures to Eddie, who wrote them carefully in his notebook.

At nine o'clock Eddie closed the book sharply and he and Gordon, ushered by the obsequious manager, went to the office.

When the manager took out two bottles of Crown beer, a local brand, Gordon said, "What, no Foster's lager?"

The manager hesitated. Then he remembered the awful words "out of bounds to all troops" and he went to a cupboard, unlocked it and produced six bottles. "I am sorry, sare," he said. "No Foster's. Will Abbott's do?"

"Well . . . er . . . all right," said Gordon with a show of reluctance. He helped himself freely from a box of cigars the manager proffered, lit one, stretched out in a chair, put his feet on the table and sipped a glass of beer, his little finger crooked in affirmation of refinement.

Eddie showed no such restraint. He accepted a box of Egyptian cigarettes, lounged on a sofa and drank the beer with a quiet determination to absorb as much as possible without unseemly haste.

Whenever the manager tried to discuss his breaches of the A.I.F. Field Hygiene Service Cairo Sub-section Routine Orders Gordon dissuaded him by a negligent wave of his cigar and said, "We'll discuss that when we're ready to go."

A couple of hours passed pleasantly before Gordon decided to return to the Victoria Hotel. He said condescendingly, "You needn't worry about anything. Our report will be favourable", and the manager wrung his hand and said, "Thank you, sare. Thank you very much", and insisted that Gordon and Eddie each take a couple of bottles of Abbott's lager and boxes of cigars and Egyptian cigarettes.

As they walked down the street Gordon and Eddie removed the armbands with the two stripes on them. Gordon took a deep puff of his cigar, blew the smoke out, watched it disappear in the semi-blackout, and said contentedly, "Stick to me, buddy, and you'll wear diamonds. It'd be funny, Eddie, wouldn't it, if there really was such a unit as the A.I.F. Field Hygiene Service Cairo Sub-section?"

LAWSON GLASSOP, SECOND A.I.F.

SIGNATURE

ASHER A. JOEL, R.A.N. 

"These gentlemen say they purchased the Town Hall from an Australian soldier and they have come to take possession."

NOT ALWAYS AT SEA

The frigate was playing the naval wireless station of Coonawarra a single innings match. Being Saturday morning, when no one works in Darwin, there was a representative crowd. Wharf-labourers (the beer having been unloaded from the southern steamer yesterday, the rest of the cargo was regarded as of no consequence), clerks from the Administration in clean silk shirts, some buffalo-hunters and twenty or thirty sunburnt lasses from Works and Housing sat, leaned and squatted on the ground. Most of the female complement clustered round the Coonawarra warriors; it was obvious that some of the Service at least, even in Darwin, had made some progress there.

But to the game. The captain was Able Seaman Cobb, in his official capacity the ship's writer. A sure indication of the captain's personal friends was a glance at the batting order. The first lieutenant kept wickets, and in his resultant ineligibility the gunner, though not a personal friend of the captain's, and by virtue not of his rank, of course, but of his knowledge of ballistics, wind effects and trajectories, 
looked for, and was given, the opening over.

He placed his field impressively, a sweep of the hand here, a jerk of the head there, until the net was set.

A final checking look round made it obvious that this man had played before, though when he ordered square leg to "go deeper" and the fieldsman promptly walked unchecked to within ten yards of the wicket, some unkind critic in the pavilion remarked that the bowler must have heard the expression over the wireless.

A big fellow with a stomach just made for the carelessly-knotted tie, he walked thirty paces to the rear, turned deliberately, and eyed the batsman, if not malevolently, then deliberately. You could see the calculations exercising his brain and you had time for a moment to feel sorry for the player awaiting this portentous delivery. He started with a little skip, increased the pace, swung his arms, and reached the wicket in a tremendous hop, skip and jump. The ball flew like a bullet and, despite the flailing bat, succeeded in clearing the wicketkeeper's head by a good fifteen feet. Longstop, caught it on the first bounce. The crowd roared with delight.

Undismayed, the gunner tried again. This time the keeper jumped like a dancing dervish and managed to grab the flying ball with one outstretched hand. He hopped, cursing, round the wicket, flicking his right hand in agony for all the pavilion to see. On examination of the gloves it was found that the wrong pair had been packed and there was a slight delay while two hankies were stuffed inside the threadbare offender. No wickets for two byes.

The gunner meanwhile was waiting, ominously throwing the ball up and down. He must make a supreme effort to get the ball on to the pitch. Already someone from the boundary had shouted "Take him orf!" The first lieutenant was looking concerned, and the gunner knew that not even his rank could save him if he missed the pitch this time. He took a deep breath, took aim and started his gallop. The batsman leaped to meet it with bat shoulder high, made a colossal swipe, and the bullet-like full pitch, ten degrees lower than expected, razed his three stumps to the gravel. The gunner modestly rolled his left sleeve up. He'd missed the pitch, but, by George, 1 for 2!

With the exception of two sixes hit off the last two balls, and the fact that all balls hit the concrete somewhere or other, the remainder of the over was uneventful.

Second man in put up quite a good show, till the coxswain, our other fast bowler, lobbed a ball on a circle of concrete showing through the matting and ricocheted it on to the batsman's ear. He retired to the solace of Works and Housing.

Then came The Demon. All had heard of him. A huge, red-faced civilian, he played with Coonawarra to make up the number and talked casually about the time he bowled with McCormick and what a terror Chipperfield was for making every hit count and making you run like the very devil when you partnered him.

The gunner was glad the coxswain had just begun his over. The coxswain wasn't. It was not cricket; it was slogging; it was slaughterous bashing and it looked as if nothing could be done about it. The fellow didn't even bother to lower his bat below the shoulder.

But all was not lost. The officers' cook, his fifteen stone of rotundity a criterion more of a penchant for ale -in which he'd indulged before taking the field- than the superior food of the wardroom, had not let the side down and did not intend to start now. Through twelve months of cricketing in the tropics, on the airstrips, roads, razed plantations and other well-known wickets of the North, he'd umpired his ship's team to victory every time. If The Demon was too much for the bowling -well- did bowlers alone make the team? He swayed a little, licked his lips, and as the coxswain pounded gamely up to the wicket, decided they did not. The ball left the bowler's hand with its usual disregard for direction and buried itself in The Demon's capacious midriff. From somewhere on the outer circle of the arena to which the batting had driven them came a disinterested "How's that:- ''Out"' pronounced the umpire and stumped off to the water bucket.

It speaks volumes for the discipline of sportsmanship that The Demon turned from the extreme edge of the concrete where the ball had struck him and departed wordless to the pavilion.

The rest of Coonawarra were dismissed with no incident worth recording, except that the only catch of the day was missed by the electrical artificer fielding at cover point. Last man in, taking the advice of his "oppo" from the pavilion, "Have a go, Bill!" lashed out and to his surprise felt his bat strike something with a satisfying smack. The ball whistled at cover point, who had been humming an endless tune and keeping his eyes fixed dutifully on the wicket in a vacant stare. Now, however, his brain acted with a cold instant certainty. Quick as thought he whipped his hand aside and let the comet hurtle past to the boundary.

With only one man to go, the first lieutenant decided on a little experimentation. A whispered consultation with the captain and coxswain, by now quite rested, and five men made their way knowingly across the wicket and clustered round the mildly alarmed batsman's leg wicket. A final word of advice to the bowler and the wicketkeeper took up position. The stage was set.

But the efficacy of the first lieutenant's leg trap was marred somewhat by the coxswain's first ball being a wide on the off. By the next four balls the bowler had not yet applied the requisite deflection, and after three waist-high catches had plopped gently through the vacant slip field the tactician wisely replaced his men. With the next ball the coxswain shattered the leg stump.

All out for 74

After a few quick ones at the pub opposite the picture theatre we went in to bat - and pretty soon looked like going in to field. The Demon, possibly because of his own early dismissal, was positively demoniacal. Wicket after wicket spread-eagled itself in fancy patterns behind the batsmen's futile weapon, the finding of that mat-free patch and the resultant whizzing projectiles helping in substantial measure. I shall not tire you with a detailed score-with the last man in the tally stood at 32

The last man in, a slight, neatly dressed able seaman of about twenty-two wearing a freshly-ironed white silk shirt and a pair of razor-creased shorts which contrasted forcibly with the cut-down dungarees and football pants of the rest of the team and who had modestly refrained from the "chiacking" which had accompanied our motor-truck's progress through Darwin's street, looked as though a fast ball would knock the bat out of his hand. And, insufferable conceit, the fellow wore cricket boots! Even had he not been practically unknown to the captain this last would have ensured his low batting priority.

He walked out now to the wicket and with a retiring modesty that almost apologized for his wasting their time, took a furtive look round the field, removed his sun glasses and hit The Demon's first ball back over his head across the road into the lawns of the Darwin Hotel.

The pavilion was silent; as much in sympathy for what The Demon would do to him as in disbelief in his ability to last half the over. The Demon retrieved the ball and looked back over his shoulder at the slight one for the briefest moment. You could almost hear him thinking, "Oh yeah!"

The next ball hurtled down, hit the willow and shot back with equal velocity till it met a water tank on the edge of the road and bounced into a disused gun-pit. The pavilion roared. The hotel windows filled. The Demon strode forcefully back and waited, glowering, for the ball. The batsman looked modestly at the ground.

Then Darwin was treated to a faultless display of pure strategy. Not only did the slight one paste The Demon to every point of the compass, once even standing over a bouncey one on the off and slamming it fast along the ground clean over the cliff edge into the sea; he so arranged his runs that he always faced the bowler. Managed, probably, as a result of experience gained as the somewhat famous opening bat of a famous public school he'd played for before signing up. At 75 up louder acclaim than usual made it clear that not only had we won the match but cricket boots and all had been accepted and the slight one allowed his partner to take a strike.

Rendered supremely confident by The Demon's discomfiture, the ship's butcher faced a jaded bowler. With final despairing strength The Demon hurled his ball down, the butcher jumped out of his crease and with a tremendous if unscientific swipe bat met ball. It was a fitting finish. Bat blade hit mid-off on the shin, ball dropped into mid-on's hands and butcher was left staring stupidly at the handle in his tingling hands. Then with a pleased grin at his own strength he overtook the Hero on his way to the cheering pavilion.

J. E. MACDONNELL, R.A.N.

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