As the Crow Flies (75 page)

“It’s
a miniature MC all right,” he told me, peering at my little prize through a
magnifying glass. Hit would have been worn on a dress uniform for guest nights
in the regimental mess. These three initials engraved down the edge of one of
the arms, barely discernible to the naked eye, ought to give us a clue as to
who was awarded the decoration.”

I
stared through Mr. Jennings’ magnifying glass at something I had never been
aware of until then, but I could now clearly see the initials “G.F.T.”

“Is
there any way of finding out who ‘G.F.T.’ actually is?”

“Oh,
yes,” said Mr. Jennings, turning to a shelf behind him, from which he removed a
leather-bound book and flicked through its pages until he came to Godfrey S.
Thomas and George Victor Taylor, but could find no trace of anyone with the
initials “G.F.T.”

“Sorry,
but I can’t help you on this one,” he said. “Your particular medal can’t have
been awarded to an Australian, otherwise it would be catalogued right here.” He
tapped the leather cover. “You’ll have to write to the War Office in London if
you want any further information. They still keep on file the names of every
member of the armed forces awarded any decoration for gallantry.”

I
thanked him for his help but not before he had offered me ten pounds for the
medal. I smiled and returned to join the tennis team for my match against
Sydney University. I lost 6-0, 6-1, being quite unable to concentrate on
anything except G.F.T. I wasn’t selected for the university tennis team again
that season.

The
next day I followed Mr. Jennings’ advice and wrote to the War Office in London.
I didn’t get a letter back from them for several months, which was hardly
surprising as everyone knew they had other things on their mind in 1944.
However, a buff envelope eventually came and when opened informed me that the
holder of my medal could have been either Graham Frank Turnbull of the Duke of
Wellington’s regiment or Guy Francis Trentham of the Royal Fusiliers.

So
was my real name Turnbull or Trentham?

That
same evening I wrote to the British High Commissioner’s office in Canberra
asking whom I should contact for information regarding the two regiments
referred to in the letter. I received a reply a couple of weeks later. With the
new leads I had acquired I dispatched two more letters to England: one to
Halifax, the other to London. I then sat back again, and resigned myself to
another long wait. When you have already spent eighteen years of your life
trying to discover your true identity another few months doesn’t seem all that
important. In any case, now that I had begun my final year at university I was
up to my eyes in work.

The
Duke of Wellington’s were the first to reply, and they informed me that
Lieutenant Graham Frank Turnbull had been killed at Passchendaele on 6 November
1917. As I was born in 1924 that let Lieutenant Turnbull off the hook. I prayed
for Guy Francis Trentham.

It
was several weeks later that I received a reply from the Royal Fusiliers to
inform me that Captain Guy Francis Trentham had been awarded the MC on 18 July
1918, following the second battle of the Marne. Fuller details could be
obtained from the regimental museum library at their headquarters in London,
but this had to be done in person as they had no authority to release information
about members of the regiment by post.

As
I had no way of getting to England I immediately began a new line of
investigation, only this time I drew a complete blank. I took a whole morning
off in order to search for the name of “Trentham” in the birth records of the
Melbourne city registry on Queen Street. I found there was not one Trentham
listed. There were several Rosses but none came anywhere near my date of birth.
I began to realize that someone had gone to considerable lengths to make sure I
was unable to trace my roots. But why?

Suddenly
my sole purpose in life switched to how I could get myself to England, despite
the fact that I had no money and the war had only recently ended. I checked
every graduate and undergraduate course that was on offer, and all that my
tutor considered it might be worth applying for was a scholarship to the Slade
School of Art in London, which offered three places each year to students from
Commonwealth countries. I began to put in hours that even I hadn’t realized existed,
and was rewarded by a place on the shortlist of six for a final interview to be
held in Canberra.

Although
I became extremely nervous on the train journey to the Australian capital, I
felt the interview went well and indeed the examiners told me that my papers on
the history of art were of particular merit, even if my practical work was not
of the same high standard.

An
envelope marked The Slade was dropped in my cubbyhole a month later. I ripped
it open in anticipation and extracted a letter that began:

Dear Miss Ross,

We are sorry to inform you…

*
* *

The
only worthwhile thing that came out of all the extra work I had put in was that
I sailed through my finals and was awarded with a first-class honors degree
when the graduation results were announced. But I was still no nearer to
getting myself to England.

In
desperation I telephoned the British High Commission and was put through to the
labor attache. A lady came on the line and informed me that with my qualifications
there would be several teaching posts on offer. She added that I would have to
sign a three-year contract and be responsible for my own travel arrangements
nicely worded, I considered, as I still wasn’t able to afford the trip to
Sydney, let alone the United Kingdom. In any case, I felt I would only need to
spend about a month in England to track down Guy Francis Trentham.

The
only other jobs that were available, the lady explained the second time I
called, were known as “slave traders.” These consisted of positions in hotels,
hospitals or old people’s homes, where you were virtually unpaid for one year
in return for your passage to England and back. As I still had no plans for any
particular career and realized this was virtually the only chance I might ever
have of getting myself to England and finding someone I was related to, I
called into the labor attache’s department and signed on the dotted line. Most
of my friends at university thought I had taken leave of my senses, but then
they had no idea of my real purpose in wanting to visit Britain.

The
boat we sailed to Southampton on couldn’t have been much of an improvement on
the one the first Australian immigrants took coming the other way some one
hundred and seventy years before. They put three of us “slave traders” to a
cabin no larger than my room on the university campus, and if the ship listed
more than ten degrees Pam and Maureen ended up in my bunk. We had all signed on
to work at the Melrose Hotel in Earl’s Court, which we were assured was in
central London. After a journey of some six weeks we were met at the dockside
by a clapped-out army lorry which took us up to the capital and deposited us on
the steps of the Melrose Hotel.

The
housekeeper allocated our accommodation and I ganged up with Pam and Maureen
again. I was surprised to discover that we were expected to share a room of
roughly the same size as the cabin in which we had suffered together on board
ship. At least this time we didn’t fall out of bed unexpectedly.

It
was over two weeks before they gave me enough time off to visit Kensington Post
Office and check through the London telephone directory. There wasn’t a
Trentham to be found.

“Could
be ax-directory,” the girl behind the counter explained. “Which means they won’t
take your call in any case.”

“Or
there just isn’t a Trentham living in London,” I said, and accepted that the
regimental museum was now my only hope.

I
thought I had worked hard at the University of Melbourne, but the hours they
expected us to do at the Melrose would have brought a combat soldier to his
knees. All the same, I was damned if I was going to admit as much, especially
after Pam and Maureen gave up the struggle within a month, cabled their parents
in Sydney for some money and returned to Australia on the first available boat.
At least it meant I ended up with a room to myself until the next boatload
arrived. To be honest I wish I could have packed up and gone home with them,
but I hadn’t anyone in Australia to whom I could cable back for more than about
ten pounds.

The
first full day I had off and wasn’t totally exhausted, I took a train to
Hounslow. When I left the station the ticket collector directed me to the Royal
Fusiliers’ Depot, where the museum was situated now.

After
walking about a mile I eventually reached the building I was looking for. It
seemed to be uninhabited except for a single receptionist. He was dressed in
khaki uniform, with three stripes on both arms. He sat dozing behind a counter.
I walked noisily over and pretended not to wake him.

“Can
I ‘elp you, young lady?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“I
hope so.”

“Austral
fan ?”

“Is
it that obvious?”

“I
fought alongside your chaps in North Africa,” he explained. “Damned great bunch
of soldiers, I can tell you. So ‘ow can I help you, missile

“I
wrote to you from Melbourne,” I said, producing a handwritten copy of the
letter. “About the holder of this medal.” I slipped the piece of string over my
head and handed my prize to him. “His name was Guy Francis Trentham.”

“Miniature
MC,” said the sergeant without hesitation as he held the medal in his hand. “Guy
Francis Trentham, you say?”

“That’s
right.”

“Good.
So let’s look ‘im up in the great book, 1914-1918, yes?”

I
nodded.

He
went over to a massive bookshelf weighed down by heavy volumes and removed a
large leather-bound book. He placed it on the counter with a thud, sending dust
in every direction. On the cover were the words, printed in gold, “Royal
Fusiliers, Decorations, 1914-1918”.

“Let’s
have a butcher’s, then,” he said as he started to flick through the pages. I
waited impatiently. “There’s our man,” he announced triumphantly. “Guy Francis
Trentham, Captain.” He swung the book round so that I could study the entry
more carefully. I was so excited it was several moments before I could take the
words in.

Captain
Trentham’s citation went on for twenty two lines and I asked if I might be
allowed to copy out the details in full.

“Of
course, miss,” he said. “Be my guest.” He handed over a large sheet of ruled
paper and a blunt army-issue pencil. I began to write:

On
the morning of 18 July, 1918, Captain Guy Trentham of the Second Battalion of
the Royal Fusiliers led a company of men from the Allied trenches towards the
enemy lines, killing several German soldiers before reaching their dug-outs,
where he wiped out a complete army unit single-handed. Captain Trentham
continued in pursuit of two other German soldiers and chased them into a nearby
forest, where he succeeded in killing them both.

The
same evening, despite being surrounded by the enemy, he rescued two men of his
own company, Private T. Prescott and Corporal C. Trumper, who had strayed from
the battlefield, and were hiding in a nearby church. After nightfall, he led
them back across green terrain while the enemy continued to fire intermittently
in their direction.

Private
Prescott was killed by a stray German tracer bullet before he managed to reach
the safety of his own trenches. Corporal Trumper survived despite a continual
barrage of fire power from the enemy.

For
this singular act of leadership and heroism in the face of the enemy, Captain
Trentham was awarded the M.C.

Having
written out every word of the citation in my neatest hand, I closed the heavy
cover and turned the book back round to face the sergeant.

“Trentham,”
he said. “If I remember correctly, miss, ‘e still ‘as ‘is picture up on the
wall.” The sergeant picked up some crutches, maneuvered himself from behind the
counter and limped slowly to the far corner of the museum. I hadn’t realized
until that moment that the poor man only had one leg. “Over ‘ere, miss,” he
said. “Follow me.”

My
palms began to sweat and I felt a little sick at the thought of discovering
what my father looked like. I wondered if I might resemble him in any way.

The
sergeant hobbled straight past the VCs before we came to a row of MCs. They
were all lined up, old sepia pictures, badly framed. His finger ran along them –
Stevens, Thomas, Tubbs. “That’s strange. I could have sworn ‘is photo was
there. Well, I’ll be damned. Must ‘ave got lost when we moved from the Tower.”

“Could
his picture be anywhere else?”

“Not
to my knowledge, miss,” he said. “I must ‘ave imagined it all along, but I’d
swear I’d seen ‘is photo when the museum was at the Tower. Well, I’ll be
damned,” he repeated.

I
asked him if he could supply me with any more details of Captain Trentham and
what might have happened to him since 1918. He hobbled back to the counter and
looked up his name in the regimental handbook. “Commissioned 1915, promoted to
first lieutenant 1916, captain 1917, India 1920-1922, resigned ‘is commission
August 1922. Since then nothing known of ‘im, miss.”