To Ride the Wind Read Free Page A

defined fields clearly impressed those men of his battalion who had worked the harsh lands of Australia, while the cleanliness of this countryside paradise was a sharp rebuke to his Gallipoli veterans, who were still living with the memory of flies, dust and, when the dust had gone, the biting cold of the peninsular winter.
    As Patrick stepped back into the trench, his boots squelched in the glutinous clay. The stench of wet soil, cordite, decomposing flesh and human waste permeated the muggy air. Now he was away from the land behind the lines and had gone from heaven to hell in a matter of a few short miles.
    ‘What do you reckon, sir?’ Patrick’s second-in-command asked. Major Fred Higgins had once been a solicitor practising with a well-known Melbourne firm before being commissioned into the army. Like Patrick, he had served with his local militia before the outbreak of war and, like all the men waiting that day, he was a volunteer.
    ‘It’s bloody flat terrain and the Huns have the only high ground worth a pinch of anything,’ Patrick said, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘If we cross that bit of ground without a truly devastating bombardment from our guns then we can expect the worst.’
    ‘They must know that at divvie level,’ Major Higgins said, glancing around to ensure that their conversation was not being overheard by any of the soldiers near them in the trench.
    ‘They don’t ask the opinions of mere battalion commanders,’ Patrick sighed. ‘It’s time to call in the company commanders for a final briefing.’
    ‘Righto,’ Major Higgins replied. ‘I will have them report within the hour.’
    ‘Good show.’
    For a moment Patrick was alone in the trench, a rare moment to reflect. How different this time and place were to what they had known fighting the Turkish troops of the Ottoman Empire. His men had rejoiced in the countryside so wonderfully different from what they had known on the narrow beach and rugged gullies of the peninsula. Unlike Patrick, they did not dwell on the fact that, since 1914, this very land had seen the death and maiming of men on a scale far beyond their experiences in the Dardanelles campaign. Here was massed artillery capable of smashing whole divisions in a day, and barbed wire entanglements that stretched from the cobblestoned beaches of Belgium to the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland. No, this campaign was huge. Patrick felt some nostalgia for the trenches he left behind at Anzac Cove but well knew that the extent of a soldier’s world on the battlefield was limited to the bit of earth that he could see and walk over; all else mattered little to the soldier with rifle and bayonet. He only knew terms like flanks, fronts and sectors. They had no bearing on his personal survival on that patch of ground that lay before him and which he must cross. Within the hour, Battalion Commander Patrick Duffy would be briefing his younger company commanders on their roles in the attack to be launched against what Patrick suspected was a well-entrenched and armed enemy. He fully knew that after the attack there would likely be many faces missing from his debrief – maybe even his own.
    The company commanders assembled in battalion headquarters behind the lines. It was a sharp contrast to the trench line only a mere couple of miles away where Patrick had his forward tactical HQ. Young girls were selling gingerbread to his soldiers scattered about in their companies and the blue of the cornflowers in the fields contrasted sharply with the red geraniums in the windows of the picturesque stone cottages of the local farmers. He issued his orders which in turn would be filtered down to the platoon commanders and, finally, to the section commanders. Each and every soldier would be aware of his role in the upcoming attack on the German lines, and quartermasters set about issuing the extra equipment of shovels, hand grenades, bullets, sandbags and bandages needed in the