Nannet van der Ham - The Lone Pine

THE LONE PINE

A token of honour to 46 men

who left their country

to fight in a place far away from home

and never came back

... and to the man who found them

Annemiek van der Ham & Nannet van der Ham

The Lone Pine

Annemiek van der Ham &

Nannet van der Ham

Second printing, October 2018

2018 Hired Help

ISBN: 978-90-828038-1-5

NUR: 402

Publisher: Hired Help

A ll rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

THE LONE PINE

A token of honour to 46 men

who left their country

to fight in a place far away from home

and never came back

... and to the man who found them

Annemiek van der Ham & Nannet van der Ham

In 1981, Dutchman Gerry van der Ham came upon the War Memorial in Bridgetown, Western Australia.

Because of a chance encounter with one of the residents, he decided to make it his lifework to find the final resting places of the 46 men whose names are on the memorial statue. His quest took 25 years and was finished a week before Gerry died in 2006.

Gerry van der Ham is our dad and this is his story.

True to facts, although with Gerry, you never knew whether he added a pinch of salt to cook up a good story. Thus, we will never know for sure if Betty the emu guided him to Bridgetown. Neither will we know if our father ever was a soldier in the Great war and if so, who.

What we do know is that Gerry van der Ham treated his mission like a search for his lost brothers.

The patience, perseverance, audacity and love that he displayed shows what a special, big-hearted man our father was who called his work a token of honour to 46 men who gave their lives for our tomorrow.

Annemiek van der Ham - Nannet van der Ham - January 2018

Gerry van der Ham 1981

***

Then the soldiers came.

I heard their voices, their language.

While the sun set, they moved in, through the soggy earth, searching for the enemy, still alive...

I laid there in the mud and did not dare to move. Not even groan or they would know I was not dead yet.

But the pain was too much.

My leg hurt, and I cried.

Suddenly he appeared above me.

He pointed at me and attacked. Not once, but many times I was hit in my chest and I knew I was going to die...

***

OCTOBER 13, 1981

Y ou are my sunshine ... my only sunshine...

Gerry van der Ham put down his pen and took off his reading glasses. You make me happy... He couldnt help singing to himself. Looking out the window, he saw the Swan river deep below, sparkling like a diamond. Another sunny day in Perth.

Gerry sighed with content and thought how lucky he was to be working here. Temporarily all right, but that was just the way he liked it. By the time things became a bore and office politics would start playing a role, he would be out of there, on to the next project. As an engineer with the rare combination of management AND technical skills, he never had to worry about assignments. Grabbing his sunglasses and lunch box, he headed for the door, softly repeating the catchy tune of the song his father used to sing to him when he was a small boy: You are my sunshine... my only sunshine... The Pine Ridge Boys. Suddenly he remembered the name of the group who made the song famous in the late 1930s.

Goin out for a lunchtime stroll? Elly, his secretary, looked up from her typewriter and threw Gerry her widest smile. He knew what she was thinking. She had told him so.

God, you are good-looking, she had gasped cheerfully when they had first met nearly two months ago. You look exactly like the actor in The Saint, no, you look even better! Roger Moore, move over! Oh my, Im going nuts!

Gerry liked to please the ladies. He knew his good looks made heads turn and his vanity always got the better of him when he flashed his sexy crooked smile. One eyebrow raised, a hand through his lock of thick dark blond hair and a gaze of the eye that lasted just long enough to make the girls nearly faint.

But that was the furthest he would go. Okay, a boogie woogie dance maybe at a party, but the last dance was always for his Gretha, mother of his two daughters and his sweetheart since he was nineteen years old.

O, Gerry...? Ellys voice was soft yet demanding. Demanding attention, which Gerry did not mind giving. He turned around on his heels, his arms wide, as a sharp turning fighter jet.

Yes, my dear?'

I got something here that Gretha needs to sign. It is her application to transfer her overseas drivers licence. She only needs to take an eyesight test. Will you bring it back to me after? Then she is all ready to go. And Gerry...

Elly looked up to her boss who stood hovering over her like a giant. She usually fell for younger men. At the moment she had a bad crush on the young actor Mel Gibson, with his 25 years almost twenty years her junior. She did not dare tell anybody that she had cut out photos of him from her New Weekly magazine looking very sharp in a soldiers uniform in a role for a war movie, called galli-something. She had to go watch it soon.

Her eyelids fluttered. The smell of Gerrys Old Spice aftershave made her dizzy. She planted her hands on the armrests of her chair and pushed herself up slowly. She just had to. With her eyes closed and her mouth touted, Elly came closer and closer to Gerrys neck.