Chapter 25 - Anzac Day, Between the Wars

It was the day before Anzac Day. The junior school room smelt exciting, delicious with the scent of fresh flowers nearly every student had brought to school. For the senior girls, it was a day to enjoy. Lawsoniana branches were bent into a circle and bound tightly with strong cotton to make a firm base for the wreaths that would hold a flower with a strong stem. Chrysanthemums & Dahlias were the easiest to use. “It takes so long if we have to wire the flowers,” complained one of the girls, and another remarked, “bunches of violets are so fiddly even if they do smell nice.”

The laurel to make the chaplet for the top of the cenotaph was bought from ‘Woodlands’. The Headmaster explained that though the ordinary wreaths were round to speak of eternity, the laurel one was made with the leaves pointing up to signify victory. Twenty five wreaths were made, enough for every two students from Std 1 up, laid on the porch floor carefully sprinkled with water so that the flowers would still be fresh the next day. Gordonton students did not bother much with marching skills, but they practiced for the Anzac Day Ceremony. Just before 11 o’clock on April 25th, they marched proudly out the school gates and down the road to the local cenotaph. The two senior boys led the parade and now their task was to put the laurel wreath into place. The school wreaths were carefully placed around the concrete base. Very few people living in the district had not come to offer their tribute, and most women had made and brought a wreath. Most grew flowers especially for Anzac Day. Sometimes there was someone who could play the Last Post. As the final notes trembled into silence, a sob or a quick intake of breath would tell some mother or sweetheart was remembering someone who did not come home from the war.  Again the students marched, heads held high, leading the district into the hall. Some act of heroism was recalled. To the children, the real hero of Gallipoli was Murphy and his donkey. Always the speakers expressed our gratitude to those who endured the pain of war that we might be free. Never any more would any family need to be afraid of the guns of an enemy, and each year we were reminded of our responsibility to live more honest lives, to work for a happier, more just society, because of their sacrifices.

“Sybil always comes up on Anzac Day,” commented Edith. “A special holiday is too good to waste. Let’s go for a picnic.” Sandwiches, apples and a billy to boil for their cocoa were packed into their schoolbags, as Sybil, on her plump little Shetland pony came trotting up the track. “We have finished the bridge at the bottom of the hill,” said Mary.  “Let’s go down to the pine tree.” The other ponies were soon caught and the four girls cantered along the ridge on which the house was built. As they came near the ensilage pit, Beauty stopped suddenly, nearly unseating the young rider. “She’s remembering the times she trampled round the ensilage when we were making it,” Alexa said. “She doesn’t like the smell,” Edith told her, but Mary said indignantly, “It is very good ensilage. But feeding it out is one of the hardest jobs on the farm. It all clings together in a heavy clump. I wish someone would invent a way to cut it into little bits.”  The new bridge was a sturdy affair, wide and strong enough for the horse team to cross all at once. “Did you really build it?” asked Sybil. She knew how much trouble her father and brothers had with bridges and culverts on their farm. “Well,” replied Mary, “The men snigged the logs from the swamp, straight ones that had been trunks and not the old gnarled ones.” “I thought the horses dragged the logs,” muttered Edith. Mary paid no attention to her younger sister. “I took the team to the other side of the drain; I had to go right up to the shed where the old bridge is. Dad threw a thin rope across with the heavy chain attached. Uncle Sam drove the team to pull the logs across. It was hard work maneuvering them all into the right place. The clay came from below the house, and then I drove the dray down the road to Sainsbury’s pit for the sand to go on top.” “I got one dray-load,” said Edith, “but I was glad dad shoveled the sand on for me.” “And we all helped rake it smooth,” chimed in Alexa. “Well, it’s a pretty fine bridge,” said Sybil, and all the ponies crossed over without any trouble. The drain here was about eight meters wide and the bank was covered with a wide variety of tiny ferns.

 “I like the ones with the pretty pink baby leaves,” said Alexa, and they carefully pulled up one or two to take home to grow. “The maiden hair leaves are too course, and aren’t as pretty as the one Mother’s already got,” thought Edith. Sybil reached down for one with a bright green leaf. “Its name means ‘The Shiny One’,” she told the others. Sybil’s mother was one of the best gardeners in the district, and her daughter knew most of the plants that they grew. “Look!” Edith called. “There is one I have not seen before.” She sprawled out on the grass, reaching down as far as she could. Suddenly she shrieked; “I’m falling in! Help.” The other girls grabbed her legs just as a great chunk of the bank collapsed into the water. The rabbits had been digging under there. But the fern hadn’t fallen in either. Mary looked at the plant in Edith’s hand. “It’s a ‘Kotuku Steps’ – the footprint of the white heron,” she said. “You remember when we were in Rotorua, there was a big bank of them, and we looked it up when we got home.”  They left the bundle of plants to be picked up on the way home, and were soon riding across the swamp to the knoll where the big pine tree grew. The ground was very uneven, where a fire had burned deeply, there was hollows sometimes filled with water and it was not safe to jump the twisted roots in case the horses hoof should break through a rabbit burrow, and the ponies could not walk over the clumps of rushes. A dozen furry bunnies disappeared as the riders approached, but one big buck stood up on his hind legs, looking at them curiously. Mary clamped her hands. He twitched his nose and waggled his ears, but did not move. “Let’s catch him!” she whispered. Silently, the four girls slipped off their ponies and crept closer. Alexa was almost close enough to touch him when he looped away. The rabbit didn’t seem to care. He kept just ahead of the children who were running as fast as they could. He headed towards the drain which separated their farm from their neighbours. “Oh He’ll be drowned” panted Alexa. A moss covered log lay across the drain, and the rabbit hopped calmly across it and disappeared. 

Shall we go over too? Wondered Mary. But long prickly blackberry vines trailed over most of the stumps and the rushes and cutty grass grew high. “The blackberries over there are like the wait a bit thorn bushes in Africa. You’ll wait a bit if they catch you” said Mary. “More like the New Zealand bush-lawyer vines,” laughed Sybil. “You’ll lose something before you get away from them.” They rode on. “I suppose this was a little island when most of Gordonton was a lake.” Mary told the younger children. “Anyway, it is clay, not peat like the rest of the land around here, so we’ll make our fireplace here”

The fire was made and the billy put onto boil. For a while they climbed and swung on the branches, but soon Mary dropped down. She had seen a bunch of “Hot Pokers”, tiny plants with stiff leaves and shiny red berries. It was late in the season, so there were not enough to make their mouth sore. They looked around. “Aren’t those flowers pretty”?  said Mary.” They look like tiny bits of black velvet.”  “They are like miniature linaria”, Sybil thought, but Edith said “A fairy would need to be smaller than a nothing to sleep in one of those bells.” “That stump looks like a wrecked ship.”  “Let’s be sailors.” Suggested one of the girls. By wriggling the stump, they made their ship toss in the most ferocious storm, when suddenly CRACK ! A shower of dust as they were pitched to the ground. Laughing, they struggled to their feet. A dozen or so plants about 8 inches high grew there, their pale green stems covered with sticky red hairs. “I think they are Sundews,” said Sybil. “They are supposed to eat insects, but I have never seen them do it.” “Plants don’t eat things.” Alexia said flatly. Just then the billy boiled over, and they rushed to drink their cocoa, hot and sweet, and eat their sandwiches. The apples had gone long ago. A cold wind whipped over the knoll, rustling the stiff reads of the rushes.

“It must be time to feed the hens,” said Mary, and Sybil added “My mother said I have to be home before dark.” Home they all went. Even on Anzac day, Uncle Sam would seldom talk about his experiences as a soldier, and it was not often that their mother would mention her brother, George, who was killed in the war even after the armistice was signed, but the school journals always had stories that could be read, especially on the day of Anzac Day.