AustLit
About the Story ...
The unintended consequence of a small town getting up ‘a kind of war bonus, which was to be awarded to the man returned, in a purse of sovereigns (fifty one-pound notes, they were) for BRAVERY and SUFFERING.’
Although the overall tone of this story is more in line with Locke's humorous backblocks stories (such as 'Mobilising Johnny') than it is with the more over tragedy of 'The One Shall Be Taken', it does open with the revelation that of Dogtown's forty-eight enlisted men, forty-five were killed. Even Locke's comic war stories make overt the overwhelming tragedy of the conflict.
The story was originally published in Melbourne’s Punch, alongside a strongly pro-enlistment cartoon: “You know,” says the dapper young man in the cartoon, “I’ve denied myself of my motor car ever since the War started”, to which his female companion replies, “Yes. Walking’s a great remedy for cold feet.”
DOGTOWN was no mean place.
It had rushed to the service of its country in a stubble-chinned lot, counting forty-eight able bodied men.
It had given of its greatness forty-five of the forty-eight, who only returned to their sunshine corner of Australia, as souls mourned, honoured, and mentioned in large black print in the local once-a-week newspaper.
Dogtown FELT that it was no mean place.
About first harvest afterwards it opened its purse and dropped fat little coins into the local treasury for the purpose of contributing a kind of war bonus, which was to be awarded to the man returned, in a purse of sovereigns (fifty one-pound notes, they were) for BRAVERY and SUFFERING.
Even out of the three surviving men they thought that Dogtown could claim a right to a real presentation and small orgie of coffee and combined sandwiches. But, on one occasion, the sitting Committee nearly decided that it seemed mean to exclude the forty-five men who had gone down in the chaos of shell and fever riot, but no amendment was passed, seeing that a dead man could not possibly find use for the fifty pounds, nor have any say in putting it back into Dogtown in land or building, as seemed to be the private hope of the bonus committee.
They stuck to their word, however; and the original arrangement remained just as it had been made at the beginning of the war … BRAVERY and SUFFERING of a RETURNED could alone claim the bonus.
Strange, too, that the suggestion that only a RETURNED should be permitted to answer the claim, had come originally from Jiggs, the local undertaker.
The bonus meantime lay under lock and key in the local treasury, which, after all, was only the bank.
It was during a very bad period of war storms in Europe that a serious discussion occurred between two of the Dogtown farmers, who both had sons breathing with both lungs somewhere in the Allies’ territory.
Sowers said to John Bowers:
“Looks like as if my boy was coming pretty near that war bonus, John.”
And Bowers said to James Sowers:
“P’raps — if my boy don’t romp home with a V.C. while your son’s thinking how to learn the way to catch it.”
Mrs. Sowers, however, knew a cold when she heard it brewing in her man’s breast. She also knew the difference between pneumonia and the solid heart beats of churning mind fever. Paternity had sat so closely upon James Sowers’ shoulders that it gave him a day in bed if anybody ever questioned the rich harvest he had always thought to reap from the seed he had himself sown in his young, only son when in cultivation stages.
“My word, did you hear that about my boy?”
“Yes. Billie wrote me he was down with measles,” said James Sowers, with the placidity of the diplomatic liar.
Bowers lost his temper, and said nasty, hasty things which took Bowers home to his private hearthstone with another bad attack of something in the throat and nostrils.
Mrs. Sowers, however, cured it again by her direct optimism.
“You should’er spoke the truth, father,” she said. “It was Billie had the measles, and you know it.”
“Well, what if I did? Bowers didn’t; and it wasn’t likely that I was going to tell him.”
“Mother,” he said slowly, looking into his hat. “If Ern. Bowers was to get that bonus, I’d … never want to look Billie in the face again. After all I’ve taught him … climbing … fire escape work … BRAVERY …”
Mrs. Sowers got her first chance.
“I never did see, Father, what use it was to train Billie in all that sky-climbing work! You had him strapped up with ropes and buckets, and that old garden hose more often than was good for him at fourteen … and now that he’s a man, he’s never used a bit of the training.”
Sowers grew distressfully annoyed.
“That’s not the point. I taught Billie to be a fireman, because in my young days I was a fireman. I know the good it done me. I FEEL the good it done me. If there was a fire any day in our place, how do you think we’d put it out with all the brigade at the front?”
“But, I’m speaking of Billie. If there was a fire he would not be able to use his training … cos why? Good reason, too. He ain’t here … and isn’t likely to be when we may need him.”
“Never mind,” said James, “It made him springy and athletic and BRAVE. I’m counting on that BRAVERY just being the means of getting him the fifty pounds to start him on that bit of land I’ve got put by for him. It’s the very thing we want for our old age when we can’t keep up this place … and if John Bowers thinks his Ern could touch Billie for BRAVERY …”
“You’ve forgotten the SUFFERING, father,” Mrs. Sowers showed that she know something.
“I’ve not forgotten it. I’m thinking of it every day. I’m PRAYING for it. … If Billie can get through with a good stiff pull of real bullock SUFFERING … I’ll be as pleased … as …”
The dimness broke in the mother eyes. She hurled herself into her man’s arms, called him a brute, and clung on as if he was the rock of her foundations.
“Well, well,” he said soothingly. “I did not mean that, but you must admit, mother, that you’d like Billie to get that fifty … Think of it … out of forty-eight souls …”
“Well, it comes to the same thing. Billie is going to win that bonus … don’t you think he’s brave yourself?”
“Of course. I’d have never faced the weather he has in those trenches. And as for the food … why, it must be …”
“And don’t you think he’s got the best chance of SUFFERING out of the three left?”
“I … I suppose so … he never was very strong in the stomach; though they passed at the doctors.”
“There’s Billie — I put him first; and Ern Bowers … and, of course, we never counted Blackman’s boy, Joe.”
“No. I think our boy has it, mother; and I’ll get Pyke and Tike to see a contractor soon about putting up the cottage … a brick cottage on the bit of land …”
Before he could do so, however, the place was nearly stirred to riot by the news that the son of Blackman, who had never written any news about himself at all, had received mention in the official papers of some importance.
He consoled himself that Joe Blackman might be recommended for bravery, but that carried little, without the suffering.
But the suffering of young Blackman proved itself to be more than meritorious. Even John Bowers stopped tormenting James Sowers in his anxiety. Blackman had pulled off a wonderful piece of mental engineering, and, what was more disquieting to the two old men waiting their sons’ great victory, was the fact that the piece of valour was so highly recommended that no other man in the Australian force had ever done such a thing; and furthermore, he had acted throughout ALONE. Still Sowers and Bowers queried the SUFFERING. They agreed that it had to be proved that it was not BRAVERY alone! It needed that saving grace SUFFERING before the bonus could be set aside for him.
Then a great thing happened. Further news told of both Billie Sowers and Ern Bowers being sent home — wounded. The committee met, and decided that unless one of the two deserved it — BRAVERY and SUFFERING being the two things necessary — it should be given to the widow fund, which really wanted it badly.
Letters to both parents of the remaining boys told of the return of the would-be heroes. Bowers was informed that his son’s return depended on his condition, and James Sowers, that Billie would be on the next transport ship — and that he was WOUNDED AND SUFFERING — FROM SHOCK.
James Sowers, the optimist, suddenly roused himself and his good wife to exclaim at four thirty a.m.
“By Christmas! Mother! … I’ve never had any doubt about the BRAVERY, and this bit about SUFFERING FROM SHOCK just about gives our Bill the bonus …”
“I wouldn’t count too much on it, Father,” said Mrs. Sowers. “Suffering from shock may not be counted so much as something that Ern Bowers might be bringing home with him in the way of a real affliction.”
And young Billie came home. That is putting it mildly, of course. Under the conditions, he could not very well do anything else but come home. He did it with his best foot forward, the other foot being somewhat of a drag on him, the sinews being temporarily injured, the ankle bones splintered though really not shattered into uselessness.
“It’s bad you was wounded UNDER your foot, me boy,” said James Sowers. “It don’t show up as BRAVERY as much as it ought to; though me and your mother knows that the bullet hole under your sole was sheer valour and nothing else.”
James Sowers was shaking his head. “… By Christmas! that foot’s against him, mother!”
“Why?” The little old lady thought it was a splendid advantage to be wounded in the ball of the foot and in the ankle, and to have the chance of winning fifty pounds through it.
“Well, ’spose he was? Maybe it was time to run away when things was so hot behind him.'”
The old man threw down his hat. “By Ginger! It don’t count as BRAVERY anyhow, unless Billie can prove it.”
Billie was so thoroughly interested in “Fairy Floss,” the new imported feminine article in flickerograph productions, that he had not listened to a word of his parents’ conversation. To rouse him, James Sowers threw an apple from the cooking-shelf, and the apple bounded forward and ricocheted like a shrapnel bullet off an armour-plated church tower. Billie sprang up, as if he was torn asunder in nine places. He used words that had no meaning to his father (who had been used to working bullocks in his early days), and behaved so peculiarly that even his mother did not doubt now that the bullet hole under his foot might prove against him in winning the bonus for bravery.
Young Billie fairly knocked up on the impetus of that apple. He finally crawled under the table, and had to be coaxed out by means of the picture paper which was handed down to him. He was palpitating like an unbroken colt when he was led out to his bedroom, and Mrs. Sowers gave her man a real good talking to, for frightening the boy in his nervous condition.
“Didn't think he’d take that apple as any thing to hurt him,” said the young brave’s father.
“He thought it was a — bomb!” cried Mrs. Sowers. “You don’t want to go doing things like that, father, directly the boy gets home. Make him feel happy and comfortable if you want him to stop with us … no good chucking things at him. We don’t want him to run away again …”
But what pleased his father most was the thorough way the boy received the “ovation” thrown at him, in the way of single, blasting, crackers used by hand, and let off right under the boy’s feet every time he moved a step towards the township. Billie’s return gave the country louts and youngsters a real chance to show how much fire-works could be displayed in one hour in Dogtown.
Every cracker that burst within a yard of Billie sent him two feet into the air, and the youngsters found great interest and screaming fun in distributing these little bombs singly and rapidly round the very feet of the returned hero.
“Nervous shock,” said the mother to her neighbour, who never had a son, and therefore knew nothing of mother feelings. “… Oh, Mrs. Canner, how my boy has SUFFERED!”
“Looks to me as if he’s been mostly in the gymnasium, and got himself perfect in the high jump,” said the neighbour with some straight glances at Billie, who took a fence easily on his good leg without any assistance other than the explosion of a giant cracker-bomb hurled from the heart of a crowd of onlookers.
Billie was meantime crawling to his knees when another spitting wheel of fire spluttered right in his face.
He went down as if he expected it, and stayed down till his mother got rid of the little boys. Then only he consented to follow her because she said it was safer in the hall.
Up on the platform the elders of the place waited. Blackman, the judge, looking blacker reason of the fact that he only knew he was appointed to the honour of judging because he could be called a “disinterested” party. He knew that his boy would have scored that prize had he been able to come home to receive it — it gave him no pleasure to have to present it to somebody else.
Billie was man-handled to the platform. He took his place and shoved forward his injured ankle. A sudden clapping of feminine hands discouraged him a moment, but his mother got him quiet by rubbing him down and soothing him and explaining. Nervous shock evidently demanded that all things be carried on as quietly as catching mice would. The least suddenness or haste or quick action sent the boy into a tremble. He went to pieces mentally if anyone coughed behind him or if some one touched him without first informing him they were about to do so.
A member of the committee, second cousin to John Bowers, rose to speak.
“It’s got to be showed that our friend Sowers got that wound through an act of ‘bravery and suffering’ not yet experienced by a returned man,” he said.
“Seeing that he is the only man returned so far, there’s a chance for him, but … we all know that a most worthy son of Dogtown has yet to be received. Meantime, I’d like to ask the judge to just look into things and invite the RETURNED gentleman to explain why he got that hole in the sole of his left foot?”
In the pause things ticked like seconds counting away a man's life. James Sowers waited; and the judge asked Billie the question he had been sure would be asked.
“What were you running away for?”
“I wasn’t running away.” Another pause, and the backers of Bowers got a little excited.
“If you weren’t running away, what were you doing to get shot behind your ankle and under your foot?”
Billie crossed his leg, and turned a full face to the audience. “I was sitting smoking in the ‘dugout’ with my feet up on the top of one of the sand bags … we didn’t expect the enemy to open fire till the morning …”
“I think they did,” said Billie. “Anyway, it was my deal …”
Somebody in the hall shouted “PASS HIM OUT,” and James Sowers got a foot forward, and warned the judge he was going to speak if nobody prevented him.
“That proves his bravery,” came from the spluttering lips of the old man. “That proves …”
“Sit down, and let the judge speak,” came from the hall. Blackman twisted a cigarette between his fingers.
“You were playing cards with your feet up when you got wounded?”
“I want to speak,” came in muffled tones from James Sowers, as he struggled with his wife, who was holding her hand over his mouth. He got to his feet, and faced the public. “If any man here would go into that trench and sit calm with his feet up, playing cards while the Germans was firing solid lumps of lead over them, I’ll hand him fifty pounds myself for bravery. You can’t say my boy ain’t got the right to the prize … you can’t prove him not the bravest …”
“I'll admit it might be called bravery,” said the judge, “but …”
“There, he’s admitting it; and if anybody argues with a man as judges right here before all of us let him come up and give his reasons.” James Sowers was really in the fighting spirit himself. The judge resumed.
“But … even were that considered an act of bravery, there is nothing to show really that this young man has SUFFERED. We can’t allot the prize for one thing without the other.”
“I can prove it,” shouted James Sowers. He brandished a hand in the air, as though giving a signal, and immediately a small urchin lit a match and exploded a whole packet of crackers into the centre of the hall.
Billie did a few circus tricks worthy of an acrobat! He crowded down under his chair when the noise of screams and laughter had subsided, and his mother had to speak really crossly to him to get him to take his place at all.
“There you are” — the young hero’s father began jumping about as well — “don’t you call that Suffering? Didn’t the military authorities write me … here it is … SUFFERING FROM SHOCK …”
But the judge shook his head, and people began to get tired of it, and the members on the platform began to put their heads together, and Billie began to fall asleep.
The judge suspended judgment, and gave out the first item on the programme, which was a recitation given by a small girl belonging to the neighbourhood, who had been to lessons with the travelling elocutionist who visited Dogtown once in a fortnight. She began “How Bill Adams ...;” and James Sowers put all his mind power into one great scheme. He knew that it was his trump card, and that a wrong throw might settle him, and a right one win for his son the fifty pounds never so dear as now. He caught his neighbour’s eye, and John Bowers was smiling. It gave James Sowers the impetus needed.
Behind the little ring of chairs the father of the hero struck a match almost silently, lit his pipe without being noticed … dropped the match behind him where some shavings lay in a corner.
The shavings caught easily, curled upwards, and licked at the daubed back-cloth that formed the scenery used for amateur performances, and at present not wanted in the entertainment.
The fire was first noticed in the middle of the hall by a lady, who screamed out just as BILL ADAMS was meeting Wellington on the top of a hill. Instantly there was a scurry, and Bill Adams got jostled out with the remaining Eves and Adams, while James Sowers put his foot upon the shavings and crushed the fire, which, however, still smouldered and gave off a distinct odour of bad paint and dust-easten material. Pretending that all was danger the old man called to Billie; and Billie, to whom the smell of smoke and flame was as milk to an infant, reared as if he was looking for a ladder or anything that might assist him destroy himself in real first-class rescue work. He rushed to the hall and picked up a fainting lady and climbed to the window sill. He broke the glass with a true ringing punch; he dropped the lady, not too gently, outside, and jumped back into the hall on his good leg, and picked up another. People who saw him clung together and prayed, and said “BRAVE boy;” while others fought for his shoulder and places in his arms, or were dragged along with him while he staggered to the window again, bearing a female across his breast.
Though all danger had been averted long since by the man who had started it, there was the usual fight at the door. People ran backwards and forwards, and men watching the agile way in which Billie Sowers tossed fat women and fragile men across his shoulder, simply stood by gaping, and did not attempt to interrupt him or do likewise.
James Sowers held the cold, wet hand of his wife on the platform, and confided in her, so that she should not be afraid. They cheered Billie with the rest till he fell exhausted at the foot of the window with a fragile specimen of superb womanhood right across his body. The judge left the platform where he had witnessed many fine deeds on the part of the young hero, to go down and lift the fallen boy to his feet. There was more calm now, and nobody was any the worse except the ones who had been dropped bodily overboard from a twelve-feet window by the rescuer, who himself was now suffering indeed from the complete loss of energy.
They lifted the boy, insensible, and carried him to a form. Never in their lives had they seen such quick handling of half-conscious human beings. Never had there been such an example of sheer daring with a quenched fire and all danger past. Only John Sowers knew about it, and he rubbed hands with his wife.
Billie was borne home, dirt scored and torn where lovely little fingers had clawed him. His father would have been more pleased if a little of the smoke could have reached him, just sufficiently to give him a dreadful blackened appearance; but, anyway, he was counted as a home hero, and the bonus was handed to him, because, as I said before, Dogtown was no mean place.
Even John Bowers did not argue, because it was his daughter who had been the first fainting lady saved from the temporary roasting, and besides his son only brought home a lacerated eye and a kind of ague, the result of malaria, which did not count in Dogtown, as people frequently got worse fevers in that part of the country.
The only person who regretted that bonus was James Sowers himself, because it was the means of taking Billie from him altogether, for the boy got the rescue fever into him as naturally as an infant gets the taste for milk, and joined the City Fire Brigade, and left home in a week; and the fifty pounds had to be forfeited, to pay the fine imposed by the council, according to Act so and so, which demanded James Sowers to pay that much for SMOKING in a wooden building with no proper escape doors, when it had been prohibited.