Writer:- David Wynne Owen, Eastern Shore Writers Group, Hobart
Tasmania
DAWN SERVICE 1968
Alarm clock panic. Four-thirty, Anzac Day morning, dark and cold. Dark-green band uniform awaits, neatly-ironed, butt-ugly. World War I vintage: heavy serge; cut for someone three times my teenage frame. Brass buttons that take ages to polish, longer to undo. Hate it and love it equally.
Boosey & Company cornet, polished for hours and then polished again. Owned by Mr Byrnes, local mercer and draper of renown, bandmaster and mentor, played by him as a teenager during the Great War. Old now and deaf to everything except a badly played note. Had never loaned his cornet before, according to a veteran euphonium player. An honour, the bloke said.
Time to confront demons that had stolen sleep. Into the so-heavy uniform, carefully knotted tie, polished black school shoes. Hair quickly wet-combed; out the door. Almost. “Good luck, Crockett” from the kitchen, my father up even earlier than usual, first cup of tea.
Community Hall. Really early. Stupid. Pacing near the raised entry steps, my bugling perch. Wanting to get out the cornet and practice a bit, but knowing the whole town would hear me in this still April dawn. Glancing at my watch. Reminding myself that it was still dark, you berk, so of course I hadn’t missed dawn. Checking again anyway.
Car headlights. Mr Evans, the RSL President, first to arrive. “Lovely morning for it, young David. Best time of the day, yes? Chilly, but you know you’re alive, don’t you?” A walking compendium of handy clichés, offered as questions as though confirmation needed.
“Now, my advice, my boy, is to get a piss in at the earliest convenience, so to speak.” I say nothing. “Let’s you and I head around the back before the others arrive”. We find the toilet block locked, and make do with the adjoining fence. “Good God, I wish I still had a stream like that. Can barely clear my boots these days, and there you are in danger of clearing the fence.” The bonding of blokes in country towns on perishing Anzac Day mornings.
Others arrive and the service begins. My own contribution goes off without hitch, the sound of that cornet reaching across the town in the still air was magical. I breathe again. The wet-eyed veterans shake my hand, saying I’ve “done them proud”, that they looked forward to the eleven o’clock service. Lovely phrase, “done them proud”. Proud of their service heritage and thought I’d helped them honour the fallen. I knew bugger-all about war, but I knew something important had happened for these crusty old guys to shed tears.
Trudge home, more relieved than I have felt before. Or since, I suspect. My father still at the kitchen table, listening to the radio, another cup of tea in hand. “Went alright, then.” Statement, more than question. “Yeah, alright,” fulsome in my adolescent responses. “Toast?” he asks. “Please”. Offering toast was about as close to an unqualified ‘well done’ as it gets. Best toast, ever.