Written for the FAWQ Anthology ‘THEY SHALL GROW NOT OLD’ to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli. This fictional story is an attempt to capture my feelings as I ponder what Anzac Day means to me. The Healing – Copyright Carmel Rowley

THE HEALING  by Carmel Rowley

After such an eventful week exhaustion overwhelmed her. Lari slept around the clock, waking at ten am. Outside the sky shimmered with a pale mauve tinge as the sun warmed the morning in readiness for a hot day. No work today, Anzac Day. Her thoughts shot back to the beginning, his first month’s recovering and his first month’s home.

He lay flat, half encased in plaster. They pushed the bed around until it faced the west window so he could watch the setting sun. A fine dark beard had grown making him appear ageless. He liked the idea of having something to hide behind. The clock on the bedside table ticked away the hours, soon the child would arrive. Her straight talking innocence never failed to cheer him.

She told him about her tree house, her love of drawing and the night her friends joined her to camp overnight in the horse paddock. The mare foaled right outside their tent, and while her friends panicked she slipped outside to assist the mare with the delivery of her foal. The colt foal, she told him was named Lysander from the Greek meaning liberator. He turned his head away. The story stung, being far too familiar.

Staring out the window across the paddocks he remembered all he wished to forget. Often he lapsed into one of his silent spells and the child eventually left knowing their time was finished for the day. Many nights he dreamt things were different but when he woke all was the same. They were all still dead. If it wasn’t for the horse he would be dead as well.

Images flashed into his mind, clear, raw and painful. Beauty lived up to her name a delicate bay mare with the bravery of her Arabian ancestors. She had a brand on her near side shoulder, a pyramid above four and seven. He vowed one day to find her breeder. She mesmerised from the tip of her ears to the sweep of her tail. Her habit of turning an aristocratic head to observe what was happening behind gave the impression of human sentiments.

He knew the consequences of memories. Bedevilled by dreams of being back in the hateful sand he remembered how it found its way into all they ate and owned. Everything crunched. He needed water but his mind ordered his hands to cover his ears. The deafening explosions of gunfire and the screams were once more real. He groped for the bottle of tablets beside his bed. Shaking out two, his trembling hands tossed them into his mouth swallowing them down with a glass of water, spilling most across his pillows. A small hand took the glass and placed it on the table before humming a song and smoothing the hair from his clammy forehead. Right before he fell asleep he snuck a peep at the owner of the hand. The child smiled and kept stroking and humming until he was sound asleep.

The next morning he felt refreshed, as if the child allowed her energy to be transferred across his body. Outside the trees were still, he imagined they were waiting for him to finally emerge from the house. Though the smell of death still lingered around his nostrils today he would ask for the windows to be open so he could breathe the fresh air.

He heard a tip-toeing, then a voice outside his door. Knock lightly before you enter, her grandmother told her. A tap followed.
‘I’ve got your breakfast,’ she called.
‘Come in.’
She grinned. ‘You look better today.’
‘Thanks to you-’ He gave her the first genuine smile since he arrived home.
She smiled back. ‘You should talk about it. I read a book in the library. It said it helps to voice the words and pur-purge the terror from your soul.’
He raised his eyebrows wondering how an eight year old acquires such wisdom. Is this what war does to children? Taking, no, stealing their childhood to turn them into mini adults.
‘You can tell me you know. I’m not afraid.’
‘Child you have no idea …’ the words remained stuck. He said nothing but as the day disappeared into night the idea refused to leave his head and when she came with his dinner he told her they might give it a go. Anything was better than the terrors.

The next day she came after school and sat at the end of the bed with a thick notebook and a pencil.
‘Can you tell me their names, all your colleagues?’ She halted noticing he had gone quite pale. Then pushed on, ‘and what they were like.’
A silence dragged on forever.
She tried again. ‘Not the horrible things. What about some of the unusual details? I’ll write it all down.’
In a barely audible voice he began. Sometimes the words came as fast as the air he exhaled, other times he would shake his head and give a snort full of exasperation.

Often Lari could think of nothing to say, concentrating on her dictation until the words ran down. She pretended the words not real, often having to look away with tears in her eyes. He refused to speak of his best mate Larry and how he died. She instinctively knew it was all connected with a horse called Beauty.

Months later, his plaster was removed but the doctor insisted he stay in bed for two more weeks before beginning to walk. He now moved from the bed to an armchair and to her surprise he mentioned Larry and his mare.

She encouraged him to talk but asked nothing about how they died. The story of Larry and Beauty amazed her. None of the soldiers realised the mare was infoal. Beauty fought several battles, galloped without tiring and proved to be the pet favourite of all the men. After a long day of evading the enemy she lay down and popped out a colt foal as they scrapped the meagre rations from their tin plates. The men were besotted by him and pulled together to care for the spindly baby. In letters home they pleaded for oatcakes to be sent with their Anzac biscuits. Tin after tin arrived once the word spread.

The men called the colt Bonzer. He was bay with a white tear drop on his forehead.
‘I always thought the tear drop was for all of our silent tears.’
Lari turned her head away.
‘Bonzer became a symbol of survival to the men. After the bloody battles when the men sat shell shocked and numb the foal gave them something to live for. The number of men climbing out of bunkers to their death stopped. Now they had something to be responsible for. Without them, Bonzer would die. I needed him desperately when …’

She put her hand to her heart thinking he was going to faint. He shared nothing more for over a week. His terrors returned and she learned to stay quiet, listen and write if he spoke.

Again months disappeared, they continued as he began to learn to walk again. His shattered bones had healed but his mind was fractured in far more pieces than his hip.
One day as she was writing he asked. ‘How did you become so wise? You’re a child of eight.’ He stopped mid-sentence allowing her to answer.
‘I don’t feel eight. It’s as if I’ve lived a lifetime already. Mother said I was a changeling with special gifts.’
He smiled at the words recognising the language. It had taken him all these months to grow used to adult conversation with an eight year old.

The day came when Lari knew it was time. Tomorrow was Friday. Before she finished her homework he joined her, sitting on her bed smoking cigarettes. She sat at her desk labouring over the arithmetic.
‘You should stop smoking,’ she said.
‘I know but preaching to me isn’t getting your sums done.’
They smiled.
‘You have to walk with me to the back paddock on Saturday. It will do you good.’
She watched him inhale letting out a cloud of smoke.
She wrinkled her nose at the smell.
‘Will you come? It will only take half an hour.’
He nodded.

It took a great deal longer than half an hour. He met Lari after breakfast and the idea of wide open spaces gave both a sense of freedom. Today was August the first the horse’s official birthday and as much as he tried, he couldn’t purge his long gone mates from his mind. Most were from farming communities. They owned horses, so each year this was the day they celebrated, the focus being on the bravery of the horses that fought and died alongside them.

Lari held his hand as they walked down the lane-way together. His limp still uncomfortable and pronounced, until he finally allowed his jerky steps to become rhythmic, at last keeping up with the child. The sun warmed his back and his heart. As they passed the brood mare paddock he gave a silent thank you; there were no foals to remind him.

Lari let go of his hand and skipped ahead. His lips lifted, at last a childlike action. She opened the gate to their left, they entered the paddock. She closed it and hooked up the chain. He glanced around wondering why she had brought him to this particular spot.

A bay horse appeared on the horizon as if by mental telepathy. The child took his hand and led him forward. ‘This is Lysander.’
The shaking came upon him and he jerked his hand from the child’s grip. He turned wanting run even knowing the idea futile. Instead he turned his head away and for the first time tears coursed down his cheeks. The child remained silent. He refused to turn around but felt her eyes boring into his back.

‘It’s all wrong – You’re supposed to be happy.’
He couldn’t answer. Lysander approached and he could see a diamond of white or was it a tear drop between his eyes. He wanted to scream his rage, suffocating, his mouth gritty and full of the vile sand. The death, the distorted faces of screaming men, the quiet acceptance of Beauty and Bonzer became an edifice of bravery but he wasn’t brave.

The child grasped his hands and gave them a firm shake. The resemblance to her mother upset him. She needed him to reassure her. In time he managed to smile down at her anxious face. Slowly the comfortable feeling slipped back between them. This prompted her to ask what she had avoided asking as soon as he arrived home.
‘Why won’t you tell me about Larry?’
He gripped her hands for support, ‘because you’re a child.’
‘I haven’t been a child for over a year now. Since mummy died.’
On cue the sun disappeared behind a lone cloud.
‘How did – ’
‘She die – ’
He bobbed his head.
‘Her favourite mare Deceptive baulked at the jump beside the creek. You might remember it?’
He could hardly breathe.
‘Mummy went over his head and broke her neck. My mother was broken and now my father is broken as well.’
‘Your father will heal. The pieces will come together.’
‘But nothing is the same.’
‘No, nothing will ever be the same. War promises an existence of pain and unmanageable memories. Somehow you learn to endure and then will yourself to think only of the heroism and the mateship.’
He sank to the ground his legs caving from the strain. His fingers tingled at the feel of the grass, a cushion of green, no more sand. He wished he could float away from all the trembling and nightmares on this magic carpet of green.

Lying on his back he stared up at the sky. The calming peace tugged all the unspoken words from deep within his heart. ‘I was in Egypt with the Anzac Mounted Division formed in 1916. Our job was to relieve the 1st Australian Division on the front line. We became complacent when we only lost one man after a raid in Jifjafa. We were then moved into the Sinai Desert and won some more victories. How this happened I’ll never know as the reconnaissance aircraft located between eight to nine thousand Turkish soldiers that increased to eighteen thousand.’

He looked exhausted but Lari thought there was something new about him, a lightness she hadn’t seen before. She snuggled in beside him before he continued. ‘I was one of the first to ride Beauty and the bravery in her astounded me. The numbers of bullet nicks on her body were too many to count …’ the words stuck in his throat, he opened and closed his mouth several times but nothing came out so he changed his story.
‘The months of fighting and the constant fear taught us to sleep with our eyes and ears open. The camel Brigade joined us and there were times when combat was hand to hand. By January 1917 our advance continued towards pre-war Egypt at Rafa. We moved the twenty six miles from Al Arish to Rafa overnight. I was wounded with around four hundred and fifteen others and Larry became one of the seventy one dead. He died handing me Beauty’s reins and as soon as I leapt into the saddle we were hit from behind. Beauty’s hips were shattered as were mine. I fell while she spiralled and fell on top of Larry. I lay beneath her with Larry by my side supporting all of Beauty’s weight. The men didn’t find me for days. They thought the horse dead and because they couldn’t see me I had two freezing nights. The only thing that kept me alive was the warmth from Beauty. All I could think about was bringing both Beauty and Bonzer home to this paddock to give them a life of comfort.’

For a moment there was silence. The child now scrambled into his arms as he fought his tears. ‘Beauty died as soon as they moved her. When they lifted me onto a stretcher she turned her head gazing at me with her large liquid eyes. I believe she stayed alive to save my life.’
‘Bonzer?’
‘A week later I was told he was killed.’
It was a dam burst of tears, first for Larry, Lari’s namesake then for Beauty and Bonzer. Their tears mingled until both father and daughter fell asleep. Lysander the liberator stood over them as a mare protects her newborn foal.

Lari told the story many times on Anzac day and often to her patients. She specialised in traumatised minds.
As the years passed Lari and her father search out and found the breeder of Beauty. He was dead. Beauty found Larry when left to her own devices after he died on the battle field. His wife and children were forever grateful to hear about the mare they loved. Before Lari left she couldn’t resist purchasing her father Beauty’s half-sister and every year on August first Beauty’s family visited to reminisce.

In a final goodbye they travelled to visit Larry’s grave and to pay a personal tribute to the one hundred and thirty six thousand horses that lost their lives. The day she lost her father he told her he couldn’t wait any longer to see her mother, Larry, Beauty and Bonzer again.

Photograph images: Horse painting ODENUEL portrait by Marian Duncan in the collection of DB & CL Rowley. Photograph of girl by Carmel Rowley. Soldier horse photograph Archival.