NEW ZEALAND ROLL

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 1, 17 January 1944, Page 10

NEW ZEALAND ROLL

By 467356

How long have we been waiting for that ship ? Six days ? Seven ? Eight ? We’ve almost lost count.

But it doesn’t matter. We’re among the lucky ones. Some of the boys have been waiting three weeks.

There’s still no news of a ship to take us home. Rumours in plenty, of course. Going to-morrow, next week ; no more ships for a month. A fellow has just come in from Base and he says . We know these stories for what they are ; we’ve heard them so many times. And yet we consider each one again in detail. After all, there is the faintest hope that they might have some foundation in fact, if only we could find the fact.

This waiting wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the mossies, and this accursed alternating rain and heat, and this drab alien landscape. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves. For hours the sun has been beating down from a cloudless sky and the earth throbs like an inflamed spot in your flesh. And we’re so tired of all that. The pleasant things just now are the things that don’t belong in this place, perhaps a sight of snow, fields in the plains, sheep, and houses in rows and squares.

That’s what we tell ourselves. The truth is partly, of course, that we’re tired of picking up sticks on the footballground and messing about in similar odd jobs. The climate isn’t really so bad and we can put up with the mossies. But right now we know we’re going home and we want to get cracking.

You know,” says Blue from the folds of his mossie-net, “ the first thing I’m going to do when I do get there is have a hot bath. I’m going to lie in it for hours and hours. Just soak. It’s eight months now since I had a hot bath.”

“ Yeah ? ” says Shorty. “ Well, that can be second for me. First on my list is a good feed of steak and eggs. Or egg, as I believe it is these days.” You fellows remind me of the bloke in the story,” Charlie says. “ You know, the fellow who was going home from the last war ” But he has no time to tell us that one. From the head of the lines comes the voice of the R.S.M., raised to its highest pitch : “ New Zealand roll, fall out ! ” And that is one order the R.S.M. doesn’t have to give twice. * * * In our tent, eight mossie-nets are flipped back together and eight men tumble out into the brilliant burning light. Men are hurrying down the line in dozens. They are hurrying on crutches, with walking-sticks, with their arms in plaster and slings. One has a bandage round his head. Some, like the fellows in our tent, show no signs of the injury or illness that is taking them home. They have skin-diseases. Or perhaps they’ve had more fever than they can stand.

“ All right, men,” the R.S.M. says. “ You’re leaving for home at half past

one.” He looks at his watch. “ It’s ten past now, so you’ve got twenty minutes to pack your things and get your beds and anything else you’ve drawn back to the Q.M. store. I want everybody over by the trucks with gear at one-thirty. Is that clear ? All right. Go to it.”

And we go to it with even greater speed than we obeyed his first command. “ This is it, boys ! ” Blue shouts as he tears down his mossie-net. “We can count the days to N.Z. now ! ”

“ I wouldn’t be so sure,” says Charlie. “ We’re not on the boat yet. And I’ve seen homers before to-day slipped up at the last minute. v Boat delayed, or something like that.”

But nobody takes any notice of Charlie. Nets are ripped down, beds folded and dragged off to the Q.M. store.

Dad —we call him Dad because he’s forty-one —upends his wine-bottle and gulps down the last few mouthfuls.

“ I’ve been saving that drop for this,” he says, and as he wipes his whiskers he sends the bottle crashing into the tin outside the tent.

Nobody ever loaded kits on to trucks faster than we do now. They’re tossed up like featherweights and thrown into some convenient space.

“ If the M.O. could see us now ! ” Blue chuckles in the middle of it all. “ We’d be Grade One again pronto and out in the bull-ring again ! ” * * * As our names are called we climb into the trucks. “ Lucky blighters ! ” says someone down below. The whole camp must be here, standing round the trucks. Messages are shouted back and forth and handshakes exchanged. And while all this is going on the leading truck moves off.

But then we see the R.S.M. come dashing from the Transport Officer’s tent. Instinctively we feel that something’s wrong. And very soon we know.

“ Stop that truck ! ” the R.S.M. yells, as it disappears round a bend. “ Stop that truck and bring it back ! ” And in a second or two the whole camp is yelling : “ Stop that truck ! Stop that truck ! ”

The O.C. confers with the R.S.M. Other officers join these two. A decision is made.

“ All right,” says the O.C. “ You will leave the trucks. Officers will go to their lines and men to the Y.M.C.A., and you’ll stay there until you get further instructions. Leave your gear on the trucks.” “ What’d I tell you ? ” Charlie says fiercely. He’s anything but exultant. Being proved right does not assuage his disappointment. “ I bet we don’t get away to-day.” The men murmur impolite comments as they slowly climb down and go to the Y.M. “ I suppose we might have known,” Blue says with angry disgust. * * * We’ve been waiting in the Y.M. an hour now ; and here at last come the O.C. and the R.S.M.— under the trees across the bridge. A pretty decent figure of a man, the O.C. ; what is so often called the “ athletic ” type ; and so, unlike some others, he doesn’t look out of place in his tropical kit.

He stands on the stage in the Y.M. and rests his hands on one of the low rafters.

“ Gather round, men,” he says. And as we crowd on to the stage he explains :

“ Now, I don’t want you to go away and say : ‘ The Army’s messed us up again.’ ”

“ We know, we know,” several of the men interject. “ We’re not going.” “ Listen, men. As you know, we’re dependent on our Allies for shipping to get us in and out of this place. We haven’t any ships of our own up this way. Now, we had a message to say you were to be ready to embark on a certain ship to-night and then we got another message saying not to send you to-day. Why the cancellation ? We don’t know. Maybe there are subs outside; maybe the ship has to go somewhere else. On that point your guess is as good as ours. But I think we can assume that you won’t be going to-day ; so you can get your gear out of the trucks and set up home again. But don’t get your chins down, men. Lots of us wish we were as close to getting out of this place as you fellows are.” * * * And so this waiting business begins all over again. All the old stories, all the old songs; the same comments and complaints ; the same jobsclearing the football ground and messing about elsewhere. And that’s what we’re so tired of. We go on waiting for another seven days. And on the morning of the eleventh day we sail into Auckland Harbour. The sun is rising behind Rangitoto and lighting the sky with the clear promise of a brilliant day. We crowd at the rails and watch. We are all quiet now. Few of us say what we are thinking. But probably, in his own inarticulate way, the sergeant standing next to me sums things up pretty well. Well, now,” he says, as he looks at Rangitoto and the rising sun, “ I’ve only been away from New Zealand for nine months butwell, isn’t that just the goods ? ”