At the going down of the sun…

This Monday past was ANZAC day.

ANZAC day is in many ways the most important day in the Australian calendar.
On the 25th of April it commemorates the day in 1915 when soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) went into action in the ill fated Dardanelles Campaign of World War I.

A mere 14 years after Australian Federation the casualties that fell in that campaign and the rest who fell before the end scarred our fledgling nation. Of a population of just over 4 million people in 1914, 330,000 Aussie soldiers served (all volunteers). It is said that Australian troops had the unenviable record of having the highest casualty rate during that bloody war. What is known is that of the 330,000 who served 221,000 were killed or seriously wounded.

So 96 years later we still commemorate ANZAC day.

The day begins with the Dawn Service. The title of the post refers to an ode (part of a longer poem) which is recited at the service:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Last year I went to the ANZAC day parade and posted about that.


This year I did not want to battle the crowds so Deb and I made our way into the city in the evening.

It seemed quite fitting that we approached the Shrine of Remembrance as the sun was setting.We approached from the city along the Ceremonial Avenue.When we reached the forecourt the stone of the Shrine was bathed with the rich colour of the sunset. In the forecourt is the Eternal Flame and the World War II memorial.Every instant the light changed. I turned to catch the light painting this white barked eucalyptus orange.Then as the last glow of the sun went…The shrine faded to its usual greyDeb and I turned back to go along the avenue toward the city.Lest we forget how personal these events are…Someone’s private remembrance of a lost Grandfather.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Mutiny in the Ranks!

Another quick post tonight.
I am still feverishly working on my WIP, doing a good couple of hours most work days. Words are flowing freely and I am enjoying it immensely.

But there is a problem. I have posted extracts featuring Valentina before, and she is meant to be a secondary character. But she is well and truly demanding to be heard. I have written nothing other than about her for the past two weeks. I don’t know if she will win in the end, but if she does it will be at the expense of some of my other characters and leave my outline in tatters.
I am planning to post more chapters of my completed novel Veiled in Shadows but I have to work out where. Blogger has a limit on the number of pages I can have up on Tabs.
Hmmm maybe a secondary blog just for posting sections of book? What do you think?

Now an extract of my WIP Veiled in Storms because Valentina won’t be quiet any longer.
This was typed today on my way home, so it is once again entirely unedited…

Last time Valentina was quivering under-fire. This time her problems are (at least partly) more personal.


Valentina Meshcova Berlin 1945
It was children who saved me. Children in the ruins.
We were near Hoppegarten outside Berlin when the surrender came. The jubilation in the army had to be felt to be understood. All the terror lifted, the lid taken off years of pent up emotion.
But for several days we were kept working nearly as hard. Though now the women medics like me had to have an escort. The rape and pillage that had been a feature of our advance into Germany exploded as soldiers consumed the city's stocks of alcohol. Being in a Red army uniform was usually enough, but a few of the girls in our regiment were raped. A drunken army with little discipline in place is a frightening thing.

For the next days we continued recovering the wounded from the stinking ruins of Berlin. The mix changed, fewer Russians, a lot of German civilians and even German soldiers came through our hospital. Only days before German wounded would have been shot out of hand, even civilians would more than likely have been turned away.

Then, suddenly, within twenty four hours, most of my work was gone. Yes the hospital continued working, but now the panic of battle was gone it was the sick we were treating.
Our commander organised some tour groups into the heart of the city. We had the privilege of entering as conquerors. After all we had been through it was delicious to stand in the ruins of the Chancellery and the Reichstag. Revenge was sweet.

But then anti-climax, the emptiness I had dreaded. Not enough hours filled with anything meaningful and an empty futile future stretching in front of me.
I sat one night cleaning and re-cleaning my carbine.

Luckily no one offered me vodka that night, If they had I would have found the courage to do what I wanted and put the barrel in my mouth and squeeze the trigger.
There were a surprising number of suicides in those first weeks after victory; I was not the only one who did not know how to go on.

Then one day I rode one of our big American trucks to take a number of wounded to the station. A little girl sitting on a pile of rubble alongside the road caught my eye. I don't know why I noticed her, perhaps her blond hair stood out against the mountains of debris. I didn't think much of it, but as we drove back she was still there. I wondered about her all the way back.

When I finished my duty I took my carbine and strolled back. It was already a lot safer for a Russian woman on her own. Discipline was being re-established, some of the worst offenders had been shot and the officers were bringing the army back in line.
But you never knew and the gun was just in case.

She was still there, a tiny thing maybe four years old, sitting almost motionless on a pile of broken bricks. Her eyes flicked up at me as I came closer and then fell again.
I stood for a long time and watched her, she was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that were warm enough but had obviously been cast-down innumerable times. A child of the war.

I slung my gun over my shoulder and held out my arms.
Her stick arms came up. I lifted her and held her to my chest. Her little arms wrapped themselves very tightly around my neck.