AustLit
About the Story ...
A young woman uses her sweetheart's dandyism as a way of overcoming his reluctance to enlist, while his mother and sisters attempt to convince the town that he is too delicate to enlist, and Frank himself openly admits that he has no desire to go to war.
In its original publication in the Weekly Times, ‘The Genuine Shirker’ appeared on the same page as a lengthy advertisement for Clements Tonic, a ‘nerve tonic’:
When leaders of society, commerce, war, politics, or other professionals feel the strain almost to breaking point, the nerves are found to be the weak spot in the chain of healthy life. The ability and fitness to do things depend upon real good sound nerves.
In volcanic times like these, when the nerves of the whole world are on edge, the nerves of the individual often show their weakness and give way.
Given that the page’s other advertisement is for inexpensive yet stylish suits, it seems likely that this advertisement, too, is deliberately speaking to the story’s content, specifically Frank’s family members’ attempts to convince the town that his nerves unfit him for service.
“Swanky” Gunsmith was a chap who never told a lie, never lived a lie, and never took a lie from anyone!
He managed to put on honest airs about his very clothes, which were really the “ready-made-hand-me down” local kind that only promoted a man’s chances as long as he kept them well pressed and fitted to the shoulders of an ordinary chair when he wasn’t wearing them.
He didn’t mind telling you to your face, in front of the whole office, rank and file, that they were the “ready-to wear-twenty-nine-and-sixpenny-trousers, additional-pair-thrown-in-if-you took-the-suit” kind of thing, any more than he objected to your knowing that, on account of his mother, sister, aunt, sweetheart, or bad eye focus he could not enlist for active service.
Some, who knew him to be honest, left him alone; others, of more bull dog breed and blood, gave him no inch of unfought ground to stand on.
“Genuine shirker” he was called. And with honest, open eyes “Swanky” took it, merely replying, “Search me if I am! I’ve got reasons for not going to the front.”
“Search you?” One of his own subordinates in the little local insurance office was braver than the rest.
“Yes,” said Gunsmith. “Search me.”
“What for? ’Tain’t likely you’ll be carrying a pocket automatic, is it? Unless it’s for self-protection, should the Germans come here.”
“Swankey’s” honest eyes flew into full power.
“I mean what I’ve said. Search me! Ask my mother or my sisters, and they’ll soon tell you I can’t go to the front. I’m the only man of the family, an’ I’m honest. I don’t want to go to the front! You couldn’t say that without laughing, anyhow!”
The subordinate did laugh!
“I am the only man in our family, too,” he said, “and I’d bally well go if they’d take me. You wait till I’m 17 in six weeks’ time. You won’t need to search me, I can tell you.”
“That seems all right,” admitted Gunsmith, “for you, of course. My version is different. I’ve got a mother and sisters. Well, not altogether depending on me, but they collar my salary just the same; besides, if I got killed I wouldn’t like it. I mean they wouldn’t like it. Who is going to carry on the old family name?”
“Oh, be blowed to family names. When it comes to being a shirker,” said the office youth. “Who wants your name carried on, anyway?”
“My mother does, and my sisters do, and I’m the last male in the direct line. All the Gunsmiths back of me were fine, open-hearted, honest men. We never tell a lie, and we never take one, and that’s the sort of men we want to carry on with. Oh, yes, indeed, the Gunsmiths were big, fine fellows, honest as daylight …”
“Couldn’t face fire all the same,” came bravely from the under-aged young “would-be.”
“I dunno about facing fire,” said “Swanky,” “any more than you do; but I’m not going to let you have a wrong impression if I can get a right one into your head.”
“The only right one would be that you’re a shirker out and out; a genuine shirker, and we all know it.”
That ended the first outright instance of Swanky’s confession; the second came more softly.
It was a girl, a number of girls; a picnic by the Heidelberg Bridge, where willows droop and weep, and ladies adopt single methods of inducing a man to be a man, inasmuch as it makes him so by reason of his direct attention to her small requests.
“Why don’t you go to the front, Mr Gunsmith?”
The damsel adored gilt-plated ornaments called from fresh uniforms, and worn warm from the heart of a beloved soldier boy.
Gunsmith adjusted himself on a grassy knoll, and appeared at ease immediately.
“Because I don’t want to go,” he answered, taking her sweet eyes directly.
“But you should, you know. They will keep saying you are a shirker, and that is perfectly horrid, I think.”
“My shirking is purely a family matter,” said Swanky, slipping his fingers into his silk collar to loosen it a trifle.
“A family matter?” said the girl. “Is it … a girl?”
She was pretty and a wee bit shy, by nature. “Swanky” put her at ease in an instant.
“A girl! Oh, no!” As he said this his eyes travelled across the luncheon hampers and rested on a beautiful young creature who wore silk-ankle hosiery and had the sunshine of heaven about her.
“A girl would have no effect on me in that way. If I thought it right to go I should go—girl or no girl! But I’m honest. I don’t want to go. I don’t see why I should go. Would not go even if I was asked to go!”
“Really? Do you mean all that?” Swanky never even colored. He pointed a hand to the girl who entertained a merry party just across the sloping grass.
“Not if Miss Sweetbird asked me even, and that’s saying something, because I think a lot of her.”
His companion blushed a little — just a tiny confusion as regards her own way with a man.
Immediately upon his last remark she became conscious that she was getting a little annoyed. Womanlike, she assured herself of the justice of being annoyed by dealing harshly with him.
“I wouldn’t be the one, anyhow, to have to ask you to go. If a man can’t see why he should do his duty to his country —”
“But I am doing my duty to my country. It’s my country I’m thinking about. I’m a strong, healthy fellow, and I’m needed at home, I tell you. I ought to marry, and — and — have sons to carry on the splendid race I belong to — to —”
“To carry on the rubbish you talk,” was the next retort of little Miss Spitfire. “I wouldn’t be bothered talking to a pig of an ass of a fool of a man like you. Stay at home, if you want to — but don’t expect any decent girl to marry you!”
“But I do expect a decent girl to marry me,” Gunsmith openly admitted. It was no use. His companion had flaunted away. Someone wearing His Majesty’s uniform, attached to a non commissioned job in his battalion, had appeared, and the girl resorted to the wearer of such honors with perfect genuine grace and approval.
Thus ended the second time of asking for Gunsmith. The third was again different. The girl of his heart approached him one languorous afternoon, when, with January flowers in her hands she met him, sweetly perfumed.
“I’d just adore you to go to the front, Frank,” she said, pushing the roses into his face and leaving his confused, blazing face resting on them a moment or two.
“I’d … just … go … mad to see you among the others marching down Collins street with the dear old Australian flag and the Union Jack as well, leading you on, and on — to big, brave deeds. I’d just howl till I couldn’t cry another drop, if you let me put your belt on, and … and kiss you ‘God-bless’ —”
Her fingers twitched on the stalks of the flowers. Her eyes began the only genuine duty that soft eyes recognise. The tears came slowly!
Gunsmith stepped back more confused, less certain.
“Pearl; you’re not asking me to go to the front, are you?”
He could scarcely believe he had said it, or that she had provoked the saying of it.
“I’m … trying … to.” There were several tears racing down Miss Sweetbird’s dainty cheeks, and one or two were splashing on to the roses; which was really all the good they did.
“Swanky” became more honest than he knew himself.
“Then don’t do it,” he said quickly. “And … don’t cry!”
“I’m sure to cry if — if — you were to sign on,” she said childishly; “but wouldn’t it be worth it?”
Gunsmith took her flowers, hands and all.
“Look here, Pearl, you are asking me to go, and I don’t understand it. Don’t you care that the last of a fine old race of men be brutally killed in a mad war that won’t do him or you — or anybody any good afterwards?”
“Oh, but it would do good. It would. It would do good to you as a sample of that fine race, and to me as … as a girl who really loved you, Frank, because you honored her so by going to fight for her …”
“But I wouldn’t be fighting for you! I’d be getting killed for you! Leaving you perhaps never to marry, and always to have to earn your own living … when I might have stayed at home and protected and loved you and worked for you and for any children that might come to carry on that good old name of Gunsmith! Can’t you see where my duty lies? Don’t you want me to stay at home and do what I can to promote the interest of Australia as the father of a fine race of men …”
“They just might be girls,” said Miss Sweetbird, who was too warm and sweet for any man, as she said this.
For the first time “Swanky” was stumped. He thought about things a bit; then he spoke very seriously again.
“Would you refuse to marry me if — if — I — stayed at home Pearl?”
The bitter-sweet look in the girl’s eyes went slowly out.
“I … expect … I would … Frank,” she said quietly. “Though it would be awful to have to marry any one else just because …”
“Just because what?”
The boy was under the spell of her whole beautiful nature. He did not know it. Honesty had robbed him so far of any private conclusions about her direct influence with him.
“You say that too,” Gunsmith flamed to the roots of his hair. The girl dropped the flowers and held out her hands to him.
“Answer me. Are you afraid?”
“Afraid.” He frowned. “What of?”
“Of … being shot for your country; for the women who are dear to you … for our safety; for the great common cause of right and justice?”
“Afraid?” He swallowed the suffocating lump in his throat.
“Afraid? It’s just all that; all that you’ve been saying that is keeping me at home! Afraid? I’d just like murdering a few of those German dingoes to show you how much I want your safety and how much I prize my country and the great common cause of right and justice; but can’t you see ...”
“Do you think you should allow other men to sacrifice their lives while you remain snugly safe at home, wearing good clothes, eating decent food, sleeping a full long night …”
More confused; but honestly admitting it, “Swanky” tried to answer her.
“Of course, I don’t want them to sacrifice their lives for me while I stay at home and — and eat and sleep and enjoy life; but, don’t you see, I’m doing my duty just the same. The race must go on — suppose all we strong men were sacrificed?”
Little Miss Sweetbird went white. Her face bleached because there was something behind it that made her tremble with strong desire and purpose.
She drew away, looked at “Swanky,” vanquished him with a wave of her fingers, and spoke outright.
“I’ll never ask the man I love to go and sign on and take his share in the fight, but — but —”
All the flame color of injustice ran into the white of her face.
“But I’ll make you go, Frank, just to show you that when women really care they don’t sacrifice their love to the care of a shirker — a genuine shirker, as the people call you.”
“You’ll make me go?”
There was an instantaneous pause.
“You mean, Pearl, that you will make me go through some means, not my choice?”
“I’ll make you go, Frank, of your own will and choice; but I’ll never ask you to go, nor will I say another word about it.”
The third time of asking ended abruptly in this way, and for a few weeks “Swanky” Gunsmith was seen indifferently dressed, much in heavy mood, and perhaps a little restless.
Then came the re-action. His mother and his sisters insisted on his pulling himself together, and they tried all manner of means to prevent the libellous slander of “White-feather brutality” getting to his ears outside the office.
One story was remarkable. It consisted of a “weariness Frank had of a morning, and a lack of any desire for food when he came home at nights.” He was signified by his people as being “totally unfit” for camping life or active service of any kind!
They dug up the traditional skeletons who danced invisibly before the public eyes, and gave them nerves to look at, or rather, to hear about.
But the honesty of “Swanky” Gunsmith absolutely forbade such a belief. He went out camping that week end and took a pea-rifle just to have some practice; and his general report on what he could do at thirty-five to fifty yards’ range pretty well astonished even the office subordinate.
Lastly, the “genuine shirker” was caught on his own act, and by the circumvention of any more “shyacking” about his non-enlistment, through the purchase of another, very much needed ready-to-hand-twenty-nine-and-six-penny suit, trousers additional.
On the way, during lunch hour, to the little Bourke street shop, where cheap manly raiment was provided, and rendered a male person quite “smart” for a very little cash down, “Swanky” Gunsmith met Miss Pearl Sweetbird, who was smiling as she had never smiled on him before.
He interrupted the smile — honestly.
“Pearl, are you going to marry me when I get my rise in the office next month?” he said outright.
“I’m on my way to the tailors now,” he went on. “I’ve simply let things rip lately — but will you let me order something special — something for me to — to — marry you in — dear?”
Immediately the girl replaced the smile with a serious expression of real feeling.
“Something special for you to be married in — why, Frank, I’d just love it — love it! Will you let me choose your suit if I do?”
“Done!” shouted Gunsmith, almost pulling her along with him.
“Any shop — any price — nothing is too good to be married to a girl like you in.”
“Nothing!” said Miss Sweetbird, and taking his hand boldly she walked him, unaware, into a “military contractor’s tailoring department,” and in two minutes she had given the order!
It is not usual to procure one’s uniform before enlisting in the service of the King, but “Swanky” Gunsmith perforce was honest enough to try; and right through he stuck to his given word, because “the Gunsmiths were a fine race, built to go on … who never gave a lie, never lived a lie, and never took a lie from anyone!”