Читать книгу The Other Side of the Trench - G. S. Willmott - Страница 7

Chapter 3

1899

As Harry lie there on the stretcher he dreamed of his life thus far or was it a dream? Would this field hospital at Ypres be where he would die? Harry’s unconscious mind took him back to Melbourne, Australia.

Melbourne 1901

The day was dull with the promise of rain; Harry hated playing in the rain especially at his home ground, Princes Park, the home of Carlton. It held the water and made playing conditions very unpleasant.

This was to be his last game with Carlton; he had played all year with them but now he was heading back to his beloved Port Melbourne and all his mates. It wasn’t that he did not like playing with Carlton, despite their recent form slump; it was more to do with enjoyment and the comradery. He felt at home back at Port.

It was going to be a tough match against the old foe, Collingwood. Little did he know that his opponent from Collingwood playing at half forward flank, Paddy Rowan, would end up being his “brother in arms” and a great mate.

Harry’s last game ended with a loss and Collingwood went on to win the premiership that year. Harry’s parents lived in Ballarat for the first part of their marriage and that is where Harry was born. Gold was discovered at Poverty Point, (ironic) in 1851 by John Dunlop and James Regan who found a few ounces while panning in Canadian Creek. By the following year there were around 20,000 diggers searching in the shafts of the Ballarat Goldfields. Due to this population explosion, Ballarat was proclaimed a town in 1852. By 1855, Ballarat was a municipality, a borough by 1863 and a city in 1870.

Harry’s father, James, was a carpenter but he decided the way to make some real money was to join the thousands of hopefuls on the goldfields. He laboured for twelve hours a day, six days a week and after two years of gold digging he decided to move back to Melbourne. He earned about forty percent of what he would have earned as a carpenter in Melbourne if he had stayed and far less than he would have made using his trade, building Ballarat’s four hundred odd pubs and many other buildings in and around Ballarat.

He and his wife, Annie, moved into a three-bedroom cottage in Northcote located about seven kilometres from the city of Melbourne and Jim got a job as a carpenter working for Carlton United Breweries.

Things went pretty well from there on and they started to build their family. When they had finished building they had six children, Harry was born in 1879, the last child born.

Harry was not an exceptional child academically but showed a strong trait of determination and will power, which would serve him well in his later years. He left Northcote Primary when he completed year six and went to work as a labourer at the Victoria Docks at the age of fourteen, a tough learning experience for such a young boy.

Harry was given the address where he was to report to on his first day at the docks. It was a small office, which was located on the pier. He gingerly knocked and a gruff voice commanded him to ‘enter.’ He opened the office door and looked inside.

‘Don’t just stand their lad! Get your skinny arse inside and let me take a look at you.’

Harry did as he was commanded to do. Behind a desk was a very large man with a huge beard, Harry had never seen a beard like it, and it made the man look very intimidating to young Harry.

‘Well what’s your name son?’ he bellowed

‘Harry Daniel Sir’

‘Sounds like you have two first names. That’s bloody stupid. I have you on my list to start as labourer, is that right?’

‘Yes Sir’

‘Have you done any hard work before, son?’

‘Well, Sir, I had a paper round for a couple of years.’

‘A bloody paper round! Sitting on your skinny arse riding a bicycle around, delivering papers is not my view of hard work. Do you know what I consider hard work Daniel, Harry or whatever your bloody name is?’

‘No Sir.’ Harry was really starting to regret turning up for this job.

‘Arriving at the Dock at 6am, unloading a bloody great big ship, stacking the boxes so a heavy wagon can take them and deliver them to all sorts of places. Your hands are sore, you are exhausted and at the end of the day, you ride home on your paper-delivering bicycle where your Mum is cooking Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower with a pissy little piece of meat, all of which you hate. That’s hard work son!’

‘Well, Sir, I am keen and I will work very hard for you. By the way I quite like Brussels sprouts.’

Bushy Beard frowned at Harry.

‘Do you? Well I hate the bloody things and that is all that matters.

Mr Bushy Beard rose from his chair and strode out of his office. ‘All right, come with me and I will introduce to your new master. He hates Brussels sprouts too so don’t mention your love of them.’

Harry followed the bearded giant. He did not tell Harry his name but he figured he would find out soon enough. They walked along the pier; well, Mr Bushy Beard walked; Harry had to half run to keep up. They walked; half ran, into a large shed with windows on the top of the highest roof Harry had ever seen. There were men everywhere pushing trolleys loaded up to the tops of their heads and there seemed to be a lot of yelling going on. Mr Bushy Beard, who Harry would discover was called Mr Worthington, introduced him to his boss, Mr Creighton. Mr Creighton was the opposite of Mr Worthington: he was quite short and very burly, and there would not have been an ounce of fat on his body.

‘This skinny little lad is called Daniel Harry or something, doesn’t really matter because I don’t think he will last more than today. However, he might surprise us all’

‘All right Daniel, let’s put you to work and see if you can prove us all wrong. said Mr Creighton whose nickname was Chook.

‘Thank you Mr Creighton but my name is Harry Daniel.

‘Is it? OK Daniel, I want you to take these orange boxes and load them all on this platform ready to be picked up. Do you have any questions?’

‘Where do I get a trolley Sir?’

‘Sorry, lad, no trolleys left. You will have to carry them. You OK with that?’

‘Yes Sir’ Harry said with as much conviction as he could muster eyeing the one hundred odd crates of oranges he had to move to the loading dock by 4 o’clock.

Harry went about carrying each box weighing sixty pounds out to the truck loading dock. By the time 3.45pm arrived, he realised he was not going to make it. Chook came over and checked his progress.

‘Well Daniel you are not going to make it are you?’

‘No Sir, I don’t think I am, but I haven’t stopped.’

‘Stand aside.’ Chook grabbed a trolley loaded three boxes on to it and finished the remaining twenty boxes in ten minutes just as the truck pulled up to load them for market.

Daniel walked two kilometres to the tram stop and arrived home in Bent Street Northcote at 5.30pm. His mum told him to clean up for dinner, which was always on the table at 6.00 pm, rain or shine. Harry did as he was told and by the time dinner was served he could not keep his eyes open. He barely could answer the few questions his dad asked about his first day on the job when he fell asleep at the kitchen table. He was absolutely exhausted. He did not even touch his beloved Brussels sprouts.

The next day was easier as they allocated him a trolley. The first day was a test and Chook gave him a low pass. This meant he could stay and have his own trolley. Harry started to enjoy the work and the pay albeit puny was better now than in 1890 when the great strikes hit the Melbourne docks.

He worked on the docks as a labourer until his twenty-first year. He was then was given an opportunity to become a Paviour laying blue stone pavers initially in the dock area and then all over Melbourne. Although the work was hard, just as hard as labouring on the dock, it paid well and he enjoyed the work. The men he worked with were generally good blokes and he quickly made some great cobbers.

Harry was only five foot six but he was strong, stocky and fast. These attributes made it easy for him to become a champion Australian Rules footballer for Port Melbourne before he was recruited to play for Carlton in the 1901 season. It was at Carlton that he learnt the art of war; these were tough individuals who took no prisoners.

Harry drank at the pub he had always frequented in Port Melbourne since his eighteenth birthday when the boys from the dock took him down to the “Exchange” and got him drunk for the first time. He came into the public bar at 5pm and, with only an hour to go before the pub closed, he ordered his first pot of beer. He knew all his Port mates would be there after the game.

‘G’day bluey how did ya play mate?’ Harry yelled across the bar

‘Fucking hopeless. Three kicks all day bloody useless.’

‘Never mind cobber, there’s always next week’ Harry attempted to console his old mate.

‘Hey Bluey I am back playing for the old Port next week…together we’ll kill the bastards! By the way who ARE the bastards we are going to kill next week?

‘Williamstown’

‘Bloody hell they are number one.’

‘Don’t worry Bluey we’ll kill em!’

Next week came and went and Port got thrashed 16.10 to 4.2 Harry played well on the back line but nothing was going to stop the Williamstown forwards. Port ended the season in sixth place and did not play in the finals.