Peter Kay entered the Australian Army like many young men when the Commonwealth went to war in 1914.
A hard-living, hard-riding horseman who chased women in his spare time, he did not suspect spiritual changes were coming in WWI Egypt.
But his life changed in a most unexpected way.
He met Oswald Chambers and heard the gospel.
Peter Kay’s life was never the same.
Who was Peter Kay?
Horace James “Peter” Kay was one of many men who enlisted in the Australian army.
Peter Kay in a buck jumping competition at Heliopolis (Australia War Memorial)
A trooper, he came from New South Wales, where he worked as a horse wrangler.
Kay was a member of the 2nd Australian Remount unit stationed at the Heliopolis racecourse, just north of Zeitoun and Cairo proper. The unit arrived in late December 1915.
There he worked with other horsemen preparing mounts for the Desert Mounted Rifles, as well as mules and draught horses.
Their job involved training horses for military use by the light horse units. The sergeant in charge, Jack Dempsey, chose “some of the very cream of Australian horsemen.”
He participated in competitions like others in the Remounts, including buck jumping!
When did he meet Oswald Chambers?
Peter Kay met Oswald Chambers in spring 1916 at Zeitoun where Chambers ran a YMCA hut.
A wild-looking man who preferred to wear an Outback slouch hat on his head and a scarf around his neck, Peter Kay soon became a believer, explaining
“When I realized what Almighty God had done for me, I realized I would be a cad if I didn’t own Him as my Lord and Master.”
He spent a lot of time at Zeitoun, in particular, doting on the Chambers’ toddler daughter Kathleen.
She, in turn, thought him the “cat’s whiskers.”
Off into the Desert
The Remounts eventually moved up near the Suez Canal at Moascar and eventually on to Kantara and elsewhere in the Sinai Desert.
Kay went with them and the Chambers family didn’t hear from him for some time.
However, when other soldiers visited Zeitoun on leave, they approached Oswald with concerns.
“You think Peter Kay’s a Christian, don’t you? He may know God, but he’s doing the same things he did before.”
Oswald and Biddy both believed people don’t always change completely when they become believers in Jesus Christ. Sometimes it takes more living and time for people to recognize what they really believe.
I guess Kathleen had to get off the donkey! (Wheaton College Library)
Oswald listened to Kay’s friends and said, “the Holy Spirit will teach him and by degrees, those things will drop off like dead leaves, and he won’t do them anymore.”
The soldiers kept an eye on Kay after they returned to the unit and on their next visit, admitted Oswald was correct.
Out in the desert, the Remounts worried about horse health, how to feed them six pounds of hay a day and keep them watered.
They continually shuttled horses between Heliopolis, Moascar, and Kantara–working hard to keep the mounts in top shape for the difficult desert work.
A donkey for Kathleen
Peter Kay returned to Heliopolis in late 1916 and brought Kathleen a small donkey in early 1917.
A gift from Peter Kay (Wheaton College Special Collections)
He supervised the three and a half-year-old kicking the donkey’s sides as she rode around the compound.
Biddy and Oswald watched the riding lessons and ordered another animal pen to be built. They posted a sign: “Eshat el Homar” (Hut of the Donkey).
It may have been the last time Kay saw Chambers as he soon rejoined the Remounts and ended up in the Sinai Desert
He was with the Australian Remounts and Desert Mounted Riders at the Battle of Beersheba on October 31, 1917.
He undoubtedly was one of the men helping water the horses after the fantastic cavalry charge.
A final tribute to Oswald Chambers
Before he sailed back to Australia with the 2nd Australian Remounts, Peter Kay visited Zeitoun to pay his condolences to his comrade Kathleen and the rest of the Zeitoun assistants.
To show his appreciation for Chambers and Kay’s faith, he carved a stone Bible to lie at the foot of the cross bearing Oswald Chambers’ name and date of death.
The stone Bible was open to the verse Chambers posted at the Zeitoun hut, Luke 11:13:
“If ye being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”
Then Peter Kay, a disciple of Jesus, sailed for home in Australia.
Peter Kay’s carved marker for Oswald Chambers (Wheaton College Library)
Kay returned to New South Wales where he resumed his life as a carpenter. He married, had children, and ran the local Sunday school until his death in 1935.
(Thanks to the dogged work of Meredith and Peter Wenham, we now know Peter’s real name was Horace James Kay. He was known as “Trooper Peter Kay,” after World War I.)
2020 Update
I’ve now heard from “Peter” Kay’s family.
He was never called Peter before WWI.
Which caused me, my husband, and Peter Wenham to wonder if this was a nickname given him by Oswald Chambers?
Oswald liked to provide the people he loved with nicknames that matched their characters. Could he have called Trooper Kay Peter because he reminded Oswald of Jesus’ first apostle?
I don’t know.
By the way, Trooper Kay named his first daughter, born in Australia after the war, Kathleen.
Tweetables
How Oswald Chambers changed the life of a hard-drinking man. Click to Tweet
A buck jumping horseman becomes a believer thanks to Oswald Chambers. Click to Tweet
Horses, donkeys, and the gospel; WWI Egypt. Click to Tweet
And he gets a mention in A Poppy in Remembrance, too!
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