The Final Sunset

“The Final Sunset”

The bifocal lens put into sharpness a spiraling object that illuminated the horizon, propelled by a litter of fuse and powder. Overhead, the wheezing of shrieking shells continued unabated. He forced himself to concentrate despite the aroma of mud and cold blood that hovered over the Turkish air, mingling with the fresh, pungent odour of nervous men. Tremors wracked Parker as he held up the binoculars, as if his body was penetrated by ice. Was it…? Could it be…? He squinted closer, and then swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. A sudden blast rolled up and down the rocky knuckles of the valley. Silently, the daunting outline of a body can be seen not far from the slope – not quite human, not quite stranger. A shell had struck home, found its target – unruly, vicious and soul-shattering.

Just like this damn War, Parker thought grimly. 

Then a sudden cry from the right, and a hand pulled his collar back into the trench.

“Incoming!”

* * *

The tapping of triggers and the register of a dozen bolts sliding home formed a cascading, almost rhythmic patter. It brought back memories of another time that seemed so far away that it may as well be another life time.

Mr Berger, his English teacher, stood before them and recited the importance of protecting their far green isle in the north. He had told them about a poem by a young woman, about the bravery of the Diggers. That they were fearless, that they would drink danger as if it were the wine of life, that they would jest even if they reeled and fell. The vision had filled him with the deepest ardour for glory, to be on that battlefield with his brothers.

He entertained the idea of joining with his mates, and they all seemed to concur without question. After all, how can they be in surf, when other men, better men, are in the trenches? There were already over 50,000 thousand men in enlisted. The recruiters had come and told them that it would be a grand adventure, and they would return home heroes.

Naturally his mother was hysterical, refused to let him go. His father sat silent, torn between loyalty to his nation and to his family. Finally, all he could do was to embrace his scion, and begged him desperately, “Just come back alive son.”

* * *

The Turkish desert was not so different from Perth. Multi coloured sand and spartan vegetation made vast open grounds that were open for manoeuvres. They filed into the trench at dawn, before the enemy could get their spotters up. Fresh meat they were, agog and wide eyed at the butchery before them, watching the medics carry body after body back towards the FOB. Still they filed into the trench, took their positions in ankle deep refuse. The ground was pounded by a thousand steps into a kind of gruel, loam and silt mixing with urine and excreta, hanging like a fog of death.

There would be a Turkish charge, they said. Hold the line, they said.

Then came the sound of distant booms, and the insane screaming of shells overhead.

“DUCK!” The sergeant screamed and fell into the trench.

Parker waited anxiously, the Bo-boom! Bo-bum! Bo-boom! echo of distant artillery filled the sky. The thud of his pulse became a gentle thump thumpthump thump thumpthump, harmonising with the inevitable shuddering of the ground as shells struck remorselessly.

“What do we do?” He asked the sergeant beside him, whose profile was almost sunken into the walls of the trench.

Their eyes met.

“Bite something…” The sergeant replied, “And think of Australia.”

* * *

When the artillery had finally ceased, it felt as if they had returned to humanity from the state of animals at a slaughter yard. The glistening badge, engraved with the words ‘Royal Australian Navy’ that he had acquired from the academy was now smeared in a layer of mud and dust. Parker wistfully gazed at his inscribed pocket watch and silently sighed at its lame prophesies, “6th September 1916… come home soon.” The rattle of return fire carelessly interrupted Parker’s thoughts.

* * *

Roll call weaved its way through the early hours of the morning.

Many unanswered calls hauntingly replied to the void in reception.

Parker shut his eyes and began to visualise his past: gone were the pleasant days of the outback, gone were the distant crows of the kookaburras, gone were the red earth and the blood gums. Parker hugged his bayonet to his chest and kept it tight like a child’s teddy. The trenches looked like an unearthed cemetery – deposits of bodies were dumped and dead roots ripped out from the earth’s surface. The lifeless troops were strewn about like foliage from a dying tree.

The whole place was a mistake. Parker’s choice was a mistake.

* * *

Then it began again. The distant booms followed by the shrieking shells.

The percussion of the machine guns sang their melodies of agony. Ratt-tattt… Rattttt-tatttttt! Then the sound of the earth itself shattered, and something landed close to Parker. He felt the world turn, the shockwave knocking him off his feet and into the mud. Dazed, he turned to face the sky, where oily smoke polluted the ultramarine span of blue. It was a bruised heaven, a battered but beautiful sky that reminded him of another life. This is enough. Regret began to scream in Parker’s head. Maybe he was screaming, perhaps he was silent, not even he knew now. I need to go home. Suddenly, he remembered his father’s deep, baritone voice, and imagined the soft touch of his mother, the sadness in their eyes.

Parker whimpered, even as he was paralysed, ear deep in soot and sand. His body curled into that of a foetal position, like a child in the womb of earth. He could not drink danger like it was the wine of life; and he could not find neither cheer nor jeer in this moment of life and death.

His mind raced desperately home to that distant sun steeped land, far far away, away from this place. More than anything, Parker wanted to go home.