When my Grandmother was a little girl, her family took in a young man called Davy who had been living at the Nudgee Orphanage. He was about 17 or 18 at the time and wrote to my grandmother’s mother because he remembered living on her street. He was unhappy at the orphanage and thought he was older than it said on his records. He wondered if she knew how old he was because then he might be able to leave. My grandmother’s family took him in to live with them. He was treated like a son and my grandmother always thought of him as her brother.
At the age of 24, Davy enlisted in the army and was sent to Gallipoli. Before he sailed, he had some photos taken in his uniform and sent them to my grandmother’s family with a note to say that if he didn’t make it back, he would like to think that someone would remember him. Sadly, he was killed at Gallipoli just a few weeks later. You can read more about Davy here.
The above image shows one of the photos Davy sent home. The other is a picture of my grandmother Aggie, taken a couple of years later when she was 17. I never had a chance to ask her about Davy, but I’ve tried to imagine it in the following poem.
Thank you for your sacrifice, David James Murray. We remember you.
Davy - A Sestina
“By the time you read this, we’ll have been under fire. Remember
that if I make it through the first battle, I’ll send a cable to the family
with just one word – Well – so you’ll know I’m safe.” At home,
they prayed for the cable that never came. Your life, like the face
of your pocket watch, stymied by sand, broken and thrown away.
But you were not dispensable. You gave something that would last
far beyond the moment you stood at Anzac Cove for the last
time. You’d written my great grandmother years before. “Remember
when I lived on your street?” She didn’t know you’d been sent away
to an orphanage. Abandonment ran cheap, your faint hopes of family
diminishing with each heartbeat. If she could recognise your face,
she might provide an escape route from that loveless home
where your spirit languished alone. They opened their home,
called you son and brother, saw your need for kinship met at last.
Grandma Aggie was a girl when her mother took you in, her face
not yet tarnished by the pangs of loss and grief. She remembered
the little things you did—your days punctuated by faith, the family
ties that bound you to her long after all the others had passed away.
How she must have ached when you told her you were going away.
Did she know it was your duty to keep her safe? That our real home
is bound by hearts, not weatherboard and iron? That a family’s
task is to hold each other lightly, knowing God will hold us ’til the last?
As Brisbane dimmed from view, what things did you remember
most? The house? The trams? Aggie’s sweet young face?
I’ve only seen you black and white, sadness framing a handsome face.
The letter came from Egypt just before you sailed away.
“I had this photo taken in the hope that someone would remember
me, just as I recall the many kindnesses shared in your home”.
Oh Davy, if only they’d known those words would be your last,
they may have braced against the breakers about to smash the family
apart. The same blood doesn’t flow in our veins, yet you and I are family
more than most, connected by all the dreams and obstacles we’ve faced.
Now it seems I’m the final link in the chain, but I don’t want to be the last
to say your name. David James Murray, your prayers did not float away.
They’re compelling me to give the past a home,
to write this story so your sacrifice will be remembered.
I’m tethered to you as family, search for you on that faraway
beach, trace the outline of your face as angels bear you home
on the Last Post, the soundtrack of a shortened life. And I remember.
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