Every Friday the band took up its stance outside the Diggers’ Rest and the sweet-faced girl in the dark uniform and bonnet trimmed with burgundy sang cheerful hymns set to modern melodies. Without asking for donations, her bucket was generously filled with coins by men passing in and out of the hotel’s bar. Clytie hugged Rom’s letter to her heart as she hurried to the seat beside the stone plinth that was the first stage of the planned statue for the town’s war memorial. Twyman and the ‘men of the cloth’ were still locked in debate about the actual design – a near life-sized figure of a digger, or a winged angel. She opened the letter with trembling fingers, trying not to tear the precious pages, the words tightly crammed on both sides of the paper. My dear girl, I’m beginning this on board the Southern Cross, sailing direct to Cape Town. It’s crammed with 460 officers and volunteers and some 500 horses – 501 because I managed to keep Goldie with me. Conditions on board are unprintable, rotten food, and we’re packed in like sardines in hammocks.
