A boy, his horse and World War One
The woman sitting next to me had her head in her hands. The room is dark but I could still see from the gentle shuddering of her shoulders that she was crying.
We were part of a conference dinner being held in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. A young actor dressed as a World War I trooper and carrying a solitary saddle was standing under the wing of a German fighter plane, relating the story of his war and its aftermath.
Loyal Creatures, a 20-minute monologue written by well-known Australian children's author Morris Gleitzman, made us forget the food going cold on our plate. This hall filled with reminders of military might was now whispering a tragic story. We couldn't help but be swept away by it.
"It was a pretty special place to hold that performance," Gleitzman agrees. "I've seen it performed twice in London but this was the first time I had seen it done by the actor Tim Potter. He was just a knockout."
When the stage hit War Horse was preparing to make its way to Australia, the story's author Michael Morpurgo asked his good friend Morris Gleitzman to write a performance script about Australian horses in WWI. The idea was to workshop the performance around the country, linking it with the play.
"It was like revisiting my scriptwriting roots as I hadn't written a script for nearly 15 years," Gleitzman says. "It was a great privilege to be asked."
Originally the script was to be about Sandy, the only Australian horse to return out of the 150,000 that went to war. After researching the stories of these horses in WWI, Gleitzman became fascinated with what happened to those that didn't return. "That was the point where the journey began," he says.
"I wasn't born in Australia so I didn't learn the history of Australia's involvement in the war at school. This research was a new discovery for me and a fascinating one."
Gleitzman read memoirs and letters of WWI officers and found that more than one referenced an incredible act of bravery done by many of the troopers - brave acts that has never been officially recognised.
"These letters would mention how men would try to save their horses, these loyal horses that carried them throughout the war, from a fate that was unthinkable," Gleitzman says.
It was during one of the performances of Loyal Creatures in London that Gleitzman knew this story deserved life beyond a 20-minute monologue. So he began writing a book.
"The performance piece was the basis of the book but I wanted to explore the human side of the story more," he explains.
The book Loyal Creatures relates the story of 16-year-old volunteer Frank Ballantyne and his horse Daisy, who take off on the "grand adventure" that was WWI. Frank is keen to do his bit "for King and country" and impress the parents of his young sweetheart back home.
While in Egypt and Palestine, Frank and Daisy get caught up in war's whirlwind and find themselves facing a reality no one expected.
Loyal Creatures is a powerful story written for children aged 10 and above. It's a story about mates and the price they paid for loyalty to King, to country and to each other. Not all of them got to see Australia again.
But as Gleitzman writes on the last page, "I like to think that, in our imaginations at least, they've come home".
Loyal Creatures is published by Penguin ($20)
