Solomon's Song (36 page)

There is a sudden silence around the table and then Sir Abraham Solomon clears his throat and seems a trifle nervous, glancing first at the two lawyers and then at Sir Samuel, before returning his gaze to Hawk. ‘Well, Hawk Solomon, what have you to say for yourself?’ Clearly it is an opening line he has practised carefully, though his voice lacks the casual arrogance needed for such a statement. Hawk thinks how much better David Solomon would have used such an opening remark, bringing to it sufficient vitriol to make it hiss like spittle on a hot stove.

Hawk smiles. ‘Well, firstly, Sir Abraham, I wish to offer Victoria’s and my own condolences on the passing of your father. Although we didn’t get on, he was in many ways a remarkable man, we wish you and your family a long life.’

‘Thank you, he had a good innings,’ Abraham replies and turns and speaks directly to Victoria. ‘Thank you, Victoria, I shall pass your kind remarks on to my family.’ Victoria looks directly into his eyes and Abraham cannot help but feel that there is something quite different about Hawk’s granddaughter, though he is about to find out just how different.

Abraham, of course, has a clear idea of why Hawk has called the meeting. When Hawk called on him to make the original appointment he’d been out of his office and so Hawk had simply conveyed, through the dour Mr Phillips, a request for a board meeting the following morning, preferably at ten, simply stating that it was on a matter of critical importance to the future of the company.

Abraham, on returning to his office, knew at once that something was afoot and made an educated guess as to what it might be. Shortly afterwards he received the urgent call to return home as David had been found unconscious on the conservatory floor. Later he’d questioned Adams at some length about Hawk’s meeting with the old man. Adams, sporting a severely swollen hand, proved to have an excellent, if biased, recall of what had transpired, painting Hawk very much as the villain in the proceedings.

David’s funeral and the shiva that followed it has given Abraham time to brief John Miles and Bramwell Cumming and to arrange for Sir Samuel Sopworth to be at the board meeting. Not only is Sir Samuel’s firm the accountants for Solomon & Teekleman but he, as does Abraham, sits on several government committees and is, in addition, a member of the wartime Board of Industry. Sir Samuel has also arranged for a high government official to sit in on the meeting as an observer, hence the anonymous presence of Parkin from the Ministry of Trade and Customs.

Hawk says, ‘I feel sure you will know why we are here, Sir Abraham. As of this moment Victoria Teekleman, her brother Ben and I hold a majority shareholding in our jointly owned company.’

‘Ah, so you would like to resume as chairman, is that it?’ Abraham interrupts. But before Hawk can reply he continues, ‘Well, it may not be quite as easy as you think.’ He nods at Bramwell Cumming, the barrister.

‘Ah, yes, by no means an open-and-shut matter. In fact, rather more shut than open I’d say!’ Cumming glances at John Miles.

‘We are at war, the rules change, Mr Solomon, pertinences more powerful than ourselves are brought into play.’ He looks to the end of the table at Sir Samuel.

It is apparent to Victoria and to Hawk that the scenario taking place in front of their eyes is well rehearsed, an act, each player knowing precisely his role. She is witnessing the rich and famous scratching each other’s backs. Victoria glances at Hawk and she can see his amusement. ‘With the greatest respect, Sir Abraham,’ she says quickly, ‘my grandfather has not completed what he intended to say.’

Sir Samuel Sopworth ignores her interjection, determined to deliver his lines. ‘There is a great deal of government money tied up with this company, Mr Solomon. Contracts that are vital to the war effort and which cannot be placed in jeopardy by any sort of interruption, by a… er, palace revolution. The Prime Minister, Mr Fisher, and the Minister of Defence, Senator Pearce, have the greatest confidence in Sir Abraham, they have this very week declared Solomon & Teekleman a vital war industry and, I can assure you, they will not take kindly to any changes in management at the very top.’

‘They will simply not allow it!’ Bramwell Cumming affirms.

‘Quite, quite!’ John Miles adds. ‘Not to be tolerated. War industry. Too important.’

Victoria thinks how Hawk was right about the pragmatism of politics. Andrew Fisher, the recently elected Labor Prime Minister, is already in bed with the capitalists.

Hawk puts up both hands. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, a moment please, you have not heard us out. In the words of Mark Antony, “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” Except in my case there is no duplicity involved, no dastardly plot, no assassination.’

‘What do you mean?’ Abraham asks surprised. ‘It’s been all too clear what you intend to do. Good God, man, do you take me for a complete fool? But you won’t get away with it, Hawk Solomon, you’ll not be chairman just yet,’ he repeats.

‘Sir Abraham, I don’t think any of you are listening to what my grandfather is saying. Perhaps you may allow him to explain our position fully before you all go off half-cocked once again,’ Victoria says in a peremptory voice.

There is a stunned silence, the three men on the opposite side of the table as well as Sir Abraham cannot believe what they’ve just heard from the young woman seated next to the giant black man.

‘Half-cocked! Did you say half-cocked?’ Bramwell Cumming expostulates. He leans forward and glares at Victoria, intending to intimidate her. He is a large, heavily jowled, bulldoggish sort of a man with a florid whisky complexion, the school bully grown older but not any wiser for the years he’s put behind him. ‘Damned cheek, who do you think you are, young woman?’

Victoria meets his threatening stare with a calm, clear-eyed gaze. ‘Yes, and now you’re doing it again, Mr Cumming. It would be so very accommodating if you simply remained quiet for a few minutes while my grandfather completed explaining our position, as the chairman so kindly requested him to do quite some time ago,’ she says in Mrs Wickworth-Spode English, whereupon she gives the fiercely glowering barrister a brilliant and disarming smile.

Hawk is filled with admiration for his granddaughter, for it is immediately clear that the opposition’s attempts at intimidation have failed and, furthermore, there seems no rebuttal to Victoria’s plea to hear him out. To ignore the request and to talk over it for a third time would not only make them look foolish but show the meeting to have been an utter contrivance.

‘Would you mind, gentlemen? It won’t take long?’ Hawk says in a tone of mock humility, then looks at each man around the table as if seeking his permission to continue.

‘What is it you have to say then, Hawk?’ Abraham finally asks. The tactic they had agreed upon all along was to get Hawk and his granddaughter riled so that they could at once prove his incompetence as a chairman to Parkin. Abraham has forgotten Hawk’s ability to stay calm even in David’s unsettling presence and so he is reluctantly forced to admit that, as a tactic, it has failed them miserably. In fact, the man from the government observes that Hawk and Victoria remain the most calm of them all.

Hawk scratches the point of his chin and smiles. ‘Well, our proposal as the major shareholders is that you remain as chairman, Sir Abraham.’

There is complete silence around the table and all eyes are on Abraham.

‘I see, under what condition?’ Abraham says at last.

‘Well, none really. None anyway which I feel you will object to.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ Abraham says, clearly trying to recover his composure.

‘Well, with your son Joshua away serving his country and Tom Pickles’ desire to retire from the Potato Factory, we propose that I take over the Potato Factory. I will take Victoria with me as a trainee and Wilfred Harrington, I suggest, remains here in Melbourne at Solomon & Co. He is also due to retire in three years so that Joshua will return to take his position as was always intended.’

‘And your granddaughter? What happens to her?’

‘Ah, she takes over from me at the Potato Factory at the same time as Joshua and in the same capacity, as its managing director. The two of them to be the next generation in charge, with you the father figure, guiding them through the narrows, so to speak.’

Abraham immediately sees the sense in the proposal but also the catch. ‘Then, when I retire, you, or your grandson and granddaughter, exercise your majority shares and Victoria here becomes chairman, is that it?’ Abraham doesn’t wait for Hawk to answer him, ‘Well, I’m not at all sure that I am willing to agree to such a proposition.’

‘Nor should you,’ Hawk grins and turns to look at Victoria. ‘My granddaughter here informs me she won’t agree to it either.’ Hawk takes a breath and continues, ‘Abraham, my quarrel has never been with you. I have always known you to be a reasonable man and no fool and furthermore, your father has trained Joshua to run Solomon & Teekleman and, I feel sure, trained him well. You will have high expectations of the lad and he must be given every chance to fulfil them. But not without some stiff competition to brace his resolve. Prizes easily won are as easily lost, and I shall probably be dead when all this comes about anyway. We are asking you to make the decision when the time comes. You will appoint the new chairman, and you alone will decide between Victoria and Joshua, awarding the prize to the one who has most clearly demonstrated, in your opinion, the ability to lead the company into the future.’

Abraham looks at Hawk aghast. ‘You would have me choose between my own son and your granddaughter? After all that has happened between our two families? After all we’ve done to you, Hawk Solomon?’ He looks up to meet Hawk’s eye. ‘You would trust me to do that?’

‘Aye, I must. If I don’t, I cannot go to my grave knowing that I didn’t do all I could to right the wrongs of the past.’ Hawk sighs. ‘I have no choice, I must trust you, there is no other way to make peace between us. No other way to finally put the past to rest. The rivalry between our two families has gone on for two generations - must we take it into a third?’

‘Bravo!’ Parkin calls quietly from the corner where he has been sitting.

Abraham leans forward with his elbow resting on the boardroom table and his hand clasped to his brow. ‘My God,’ he says absently, almost as if he is speaking to himself, ‘this places an altogether different complexion on things.’

‘No, not different, finally the right complexion,’ Hawk whispers.

But Abraham knows that Joshua is not truly his son, emotionally he is David’s boy and David Solomon did not bring up his grandson to accept a fair and even contest. He brought him up to be chairman and Abraham knows his son will accept nothing less. He looks up at Hawk and Victoria, ‘I will do my best to make the right decision when the time comes.’ Then, turning to face the men around the table and nodding to Parkin, he says, ‘Thank you, gentlemen, the meeting is adjourned.’

BOOK TWO

BEN TEEKLEMAN

‘The Click’, Broadmeadows 1914

Ben’s battalion has three more weeks at the Broad-meadows military camp before departing by ship for Albany, the small whaling town in Western Australia. This is where the convoy of ships destined to take the Australian and New Zealand forces to Egypt will congregate in King George Sound, a narrow isolated passage of water between the mainland and a ridge of island hills that forms a natural barrier of protection for the tranquil stretch of deep water from the rest of the Indian Ocean.

The last two weeks of Ben’s stay in the Broadmeadows camp are comparatively easygoing, although the bugle still gets them up at dawn, followed by morning kit and tent inspection, physical jerks, squad and rifle drill, bayonet practice and, if a route march is not scheduled for the day, an afternoon lecture for sergeants on basic hygiene for the troops. In addition, once a week there is musketry practice on the rifle range, an exercise intended to get the platoon accustomed to the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield, known in the military vernacular as the S.M.L.E.

It is a simple daily routine, designed to be busy enough to keep an infantryman’s mind on the job and only made difficult by the constant mud. It has been raining for most of September and the men complain that the mud at Broadmeadows makes everything they do seem twice as hard to accomplish, while kit and uniforms are impossible to keep clean. They are not to know that the mud of Ypres, Pozieres, the Somme and a dozen other battlefields will one day make Broadmeadows seem like paradise on earth.

Ben has been seconded to the 5th Battalion, 2nd Australian Infantry Brigade and has been given a temporary platoon consisting mostly of city types recruited in Melbourne. Though initially bitterly disappointed that he couldn’t return to Tasmania, Ben makes the best of the situation, the consolation being that he will see a little more of Hawk and Victoria before departing overseas. He has a platoon of young blokes who are keen as mustard, but have limited knowledge and, for the most part, no previous experience with a rifle. He has come to realise that all the other standard military procedures can be taught on a parade ground, but learning how to use a rifle is not something a lad from the city can pick up after firing a few rounds at a stationary target on the rifle range.

Ben has never regarded himself as a typical soldier and while he accepts the need for discipline involved in the mindless pursuit of parade-ground drill and obedience without question, he doesn’t necessarily believe that it is the best way to stay alive. Taking the initiative and the ability to improvise have always been a part of his character. He also knows he isn’t going to change the army mindset and so he concentrates on teaching his platoon useful skills, most of which revolve around three aspects of life in a trench, food, personal hygiene and knowing how to kill, preferably at a reasonably long range with a rifle.

There is nothing much Ben can do about army rations, though he does take several days’ worth of standard rations home to Mrs Billings and asks her to experiment with them to see if she can improve the taste.

Martha is, of course, totally scornful of the ingredients she has to work with. She examines the tin of bullybeef, turning it around in her hands. ‘Fray Bentos,’ she says reading the label, ’sounds foreign to me, foreign muck is it?’ Ben shows her how to turn the key to open the can. ‘Never seen such an assortment of rubbish in one tin,’ she sniffs. ‘Wouldn’t give it to me cat.’ As Sardine, her cat, eats a lot better than any trooper, Ben thinks this is not too much of an indictment. ‘Fat and gristle and not much else, if you ask me! Can’t do nothing with this,’ Martha whinges.

However, she works hard at making culinary improvements and the results are not too bad, but unfortunately involve several ingredients such as onions, Worcester sauce, tomatoes and a number of other tasty additions that are unlikely to crop up in a front-line trench. But she does create what she refers to as a hurry-curry, which seems halfway practical, as a tin of curry powder is small and long-lasting if used judiciously and not entirely a burden when carried in the infantryman’s ninety-pound kit. Furthermore, if a handful of raisins are added to the pot, they plump up a treat and the dish is even further enhanced. Ben purchases two small tins of curry powder for each of the thirty-five men in his platoon. There is a great deal of gratuitous comment about these new field rations and very little of it is complimentary. Curry is a new experience for the city lads and few, if any, of them can cook anything more than the ubiquitous soldier’s stew - a rind of bacon boiled in a billy of water. But in the months ahead they will become miserly with the dispersal of their precious tins of curry powder.

However, with the army biscuit and the standard ration of tinned jam Martha Billings creates what will become a culinary triumph in the trenches. To grind down an army biscuit is in itself a major task, because they are so hard. There is a popular myth that, carried in the pocket over the heart, the army biscuit is certain protection against the German Mauser as it is guaranteed to be bulletproof. Most soldiers believe that at the outbreak of war Arnott’s, the great Australian biscuit-maker, released a huge warehouse of army biscuits that they’d stored since the end of the Boer War. But the biscuits had grown so hard that they’d defeated even the weevil and couldn’t be smashed with the butt end of a Lee-Enfield and so were patently beyond the capacity of the human tooth.

Martha grates the biscuit first then mixes the crumbs with a pinch of salt, a little sugar, baking powder and water until it can be moulded into six small tart-shaped cups. She fills three of these with apricot jam and covers them with the unfilled cups, pressing down gently so that the end result is a flattened disc about an inch high. These are then placed in a billycan with a couple of tablespoons of water in the bottom and the lid pushed firmly in place before being set on the embers of an open fire and baked for twenty minutes.

Victoria pronounces the result inedible but Martha’s ‘billyjam tarts’ eventually become a great favourite in the trenches of Gallipoli and France. They are a major source of comfort to many a young soldier who, standing knee-deep in mud and surrounded by death, with artillery fire whistling overhead, closes his eyes, munches slowly into the hot jam tart, and with a little imagination is transported back to family excursions to the beach and his mum’s Sunday baking.

But it is on the rifle, the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield, that Ben now concentrates. By military standards Ben Solomon is a misfit when it comes to the popular concept of a platoon sergeant. He is relaxed and reassuring, without the need for hyperbole or the traditional overused vernacular of the soldier with three dog’s legs on his shirt sleeve. His easy manner makes his men keen to improve under his direction.

At the rifle range while the other sergeants are yelling, threatening, insulting and cussing the greenhorns in their platoons, Ben spends time with each of his men explaining the basics. He watches them carefully as they fire off a round, correcting their action, ‘Give the trigger a gentle squeeze, lad, like squeezing a tit, no, no, don’t shut your eyes when you fire!’ He shows them how to adjust their sights, how to correct an error or bias in the rifle itself, demonstrating the right way to position themselves to maintain firing for long periods without becoming cramped or shooting erratically. Ben strives to give them confidence in themselves, accepting the mistakes they make as beginners and never humiliating them in front of their comrades in arms.

After the second musketry session Ben makes his platoon sit down in a quiet spot under the shade of a large angophora near the firing range and talks with them. ‘Nobody gets to be a good shot in a hurry, lads, I ain’t yet come across a bloke who was a natural. To use a rifle properly takes patience and some learning,’ he grins, ‘even a little love and imagination.’ He picks up a rifle belonging to one of the infantrymen and almost immediately the Lee-Enfield takes on a different look in his confident hands, it is as if the rifle and the man have a natural affinity with each other.

‘Now this thing is a pretty clumsy weapon,’ Ben begins, ‘it’s a rod of steel and a chunk of wood and it ain’t friendly neither, it kicks you if you don’t hold it tight enough and jams up on you if you don’t oil and care for it properly, just like a flamin’ sheila.’ The platoon laughs and Ben waits until he has its attention again. ‘It’s heavy and it’s a pain in the arse to carry around. Add a bayonet to it and it becomes a top-heavy spear that can’t be thrown and isn’t that easy to stick into someone’s gut.’ He brings the rifle to a horizontal position at about waist height, cupping it halfway along the stock with his left hand and working the bolt action smoothly with his right. Although he is left-handed, he works the action with consummate ease. ‘But despite all these obvious character deficiencies, you’ve got to make this clumsy fellow your best friend.’ He pauses, then adds, ‘And because your rifle is such a cranky sonofabitch, making friends isn’t gunna happen overnight. But like all true friendships, with a little practice and a bit of respect, you’ll soon enough be the best of mates.’ He looks around at the platoon. ‘Any questions?’

‘Yes, Sergeant!’ An infantryman named Cooligan stands up. He is the smallest man in the platoon and at five feet and six inches only just tall enough to make the first intake. He wears a brush of snowy hair above a cheeky face sprinkled with a million freckles and is already known in the platoon as Numbers Cooligan or, simply, Numbers.

‘What is it, Private Cooligan?’

‘Sergeant, we are to do range practice once a week while we’re here, that’s six weeks where we fire off two magazines if we’re bloody lucky, that’s a hundred and twenty rounds.’ He clears his throat and looks about him. ‘And the best I’ve done so far is an outer and I think that must have been by mistake, I must a jerked or somethin’. You see, I’ve never had a rifle in me ‘ands before this. ‘Cept for Crow and Hornbill, we’re all city blokes, so I’ll vouch it’s the same with most of us.’ He turns to the remainder of the platoon. ‘What do you reckon, lads?’ There is a murmur of acquiescence and several nods of the head from the other young infantrymen.

‘Yeah, well it ain’t that difficult to tell,’ Ben says smiling. ‘Can’t expect to hit the bullseye right off. One on the outer rim after your second practice on the range, that’s not too bad, Private Cooligan. So what’s your question?’

‘Well, are a hundred and twenty rounds enough practice to kill a German at three ‘undred yards?’

‘Well, in terms of not firing a shot in anger, that’s about all the firing practice you’re gunna get. All I can say is I hope it’s enough when the Hun aims his Mauser at you.’

‘Yes, Sergeant, but what if I miss him?’

‘Then you better pray he’s had no more practice than you, Cooligan.’ Ben pauses, thinking. ‘While I admit there’s nothing quite like using live ammo, firing a rifle isn’t the only way to get to know your weapon.’ He looks at the faces around him. ‘Remember, it’s not the bullet that does the killing, it’s you. It’s you or the Hun and the difference between the two of you is simply practice with a rifle or a bayonet. Practise holding your rifle, practise carrying it, practise firing it with an empty magazine in all sorts of positions, practise squeezing the trigger ten thousand times until you can do it in your sleep. Practise ejecting a spent cartridge, reloading and firing until you can do it in three or four seconds without taking your eye off the enemy position. Practise hitting the enemy in your imagination.’ Ben sees the grins on their faces at the idea of this. ‘No, really, I mean it, see the Hun in your mind’s eye, see the bastard cop your bullet, see him jerk back suddenly, see him clutching at his gut, see him topple, hear him scream out his mama’s name as he sinks to his knees and coughs blood. Do it all in your imagination a thousand times. Get so that’s what you see without thinking when you fire a shot in anger. Half the skill of firing a rifle effectively is about total confidence in yourself and your rifle. It’s about not having to think about what you’re doing.’ Ben lifts the rifle he’s holding up to his chest. ‘You can look at this weapon in two ways, as an extension of yourself, a very dangerous twenty-nine inches or so added to the ends of your arms, or you can regard it as something the army gives you to make your life difficult. You can do what you are required to do at rifle drill and no more, or you can work with it after hours, every spare moment you’ve got.’

‘But, Sergeant, I reckon a man would look a proper galah falling about with an empty rifle, going click, click, click, “bang you’re dead”, when he wasn’t doing rifle drill on parade, like when it’s not official, know what I mean?’ one of the infantrymen volunteers.

‘Unloaded rifle, Private Hamill, a jam tin is empty or full, a rifle is loaded or not loaded, or, if you wish, safe,’ Ben chides him without raising his voice. ‘Sure, it takes a bit of character to play around with an unloaded rifle. I would have thought that keeping yourself alive would be a top priority and that’s what this is all about.’ He grins. Ben has the kind of easy smile that gives men confidence. At twenty-six he is only about four years older than most of them but they accept his authority as one might an older and more experienced brother. ‘There are only two things that can keep you alive in a battle, luck and good practice. I hope you all have a lot of the former, but before I leave you, I’m gunna make damned sure you’ve had plenty of the second. Then if you haven’t the guts to make a bloody fool of yourself in front of your mates, well, I guess I’ll be there to bury you as well.’

There is laughter in the platoon and a sense of increasing confidence. Ben hasn’t threatened his men with mindless practice and punishment for errors, so that they get to hate their Lee-Enfields, instead he has made them see how necessary the S.M.L.E. is to their survival.

Ben now points to a lanky private who seems to have more bony angles to his body than ought to belong on a normal human being. ‘Right, now we all know Private Rigby here is a damned good shot, better than any of you blokes, certainly better than I am.’