Redemption - Leon Uris [178]
Every time I did something that could have made the Squire proud, I threw it at his feet like a pile of shit. I liked pissing him off. I loved his rage at me and knowing he had to have me.
Damnit! HE did it to ME, him and my Virgin Mary mother made me ashamed I was born.
Maybe…maybe…I could have made the right gestures. Maybe, here and there. No, the mountains are too high with that man, and the valleys too deep.
Shunk-rooomshunk…shunk-rooomshunk…
Rory remembered seeing Johnny Tarbox and his old man after they drove into Uncle Wally’s pens in Christchurch. Old Johnny was so caring, took care of cooling down his da’s horse, and then they headed into the bar, arms about the other’s shoulder.
Steerage in a rusted freighter with an empty pocket and fear ahead. Christ! Get him off my back already!
…Maybe…I should have made a gesture…
Shunk-rooomshunk…
59
As the Anzac convoy sweltered northward toward the Red Sea, a second convoy from England sweltered southward through the Straits of Gibraltar for a rendezvous in Egypt.
The British home armada carried forward echelons of a pair of veteran army divisions and a host of attached elements to establish a large permanent base camp and training facility.
Berthed on several of the southbound warships was a cadre of two hundred regular British officers to take over the Anzac units, bringing them up to strength and assuring British control.
Major General Sir Llewelyn Brodhead and his staff sailed aboard the cruiser, HMS Foxhampton. He set up a secure command center where he spent most of the day and half of the night.
Brodhead had expressed his concerns on a military venture he was not completely in tune with. Once the War Council made the decision, he got aboard in a positive manner, as one might expect of a fine field commander. When they passed Gibraltar he began briefing his senior officers on a need to know basis and made his presentation with very much of a can-do attitude.
Yet, can there be a man lonelier than one of high rank about to embark on a venture he held grave doubts about and who had to hold these doubts within himself?
Before the battle there was so damned much to be done. Brodhead would be assuming command of tens of thousands of untamed raw colonials. He and his officers had to get them into combat shape in three to four months. Beastly short time, that. Training would be a merciless grind, worsened by the heat.
The trick here was to gain confidence. These Anzacs were apt to grow to hate their British overseers. Building a spirit of the corps was as important as their fighting skills.
If Sir Llewelyn had a soft spot, a sentimental button, it was Ulster. He intensely disliked what he was about to lay on young Major Hubble, but Hubble was his hand-picked gamble. Although Chris had a modest rank, the General felt close and at ease with his junior confidant, and he would most likely open up and tell more to impress Hubble with the importance of his mission.
“Sir! Major Hubble!” the General’s botsman ripped off.
“Yes, show him in. No interruptions of any sort unless it’s from Fleet Command.”
“Sir!”
“Major Hubble, at your service!” Chris said, flashing a smart salute. The two were locked in with a clang. Chris’s heart was a-thump. No one with the lowly rank of major had been privy to the command room. The whir of a powerful overhead fan and the sucking out of dead air was heard as Brodhead looked up with the eyes of a sorrowful bloodhound.
“Sit easy, Chris. Stop me for questions as you wish and prepare yourself for a real boot in the ass.”
Chris laid his crop and hat aside and followed the General’s lead in loosening his Sam Browne belt and field scarf.
“We’re in top secret country now,” the General began.
“Yes, sir.”
Brodhead stood and rolled down a map