Best Australian Yarns

by Haynes, Jim

  A British officer with the relieving force wrote to the London Times, ‘I do hope that Great Britain will show its gratitude to those Australians for the brightest page in the history of the war.’

  General Smuts, who later became Prime Minister of South Africa, said of the men at Elands River, ‘There can only be one opinion about the fine determination and pluck of these stalwart Colonials . . . deserted by their friends . . . they simply sat tight until Kitchener’s column finally disinterred them from the carcass-covered Kopje.’

  Losses were twelve dead and fifty-eight wounded.

  Fifteen years later, the Anzacs landed at Gallipoli and the Battle of Elands River faded from the memory of most Australians.

  JH

  ELANDS RIVER

  GEORGE ESSEX EVANS

  It was on the fourth of August, as five hundred of us lay

  In the camp at Elands River, came a shell from De La Rey.

  We were dreaming of home faces, of the old familiar places,

  And the gum trees and the sunny plains five thousand miles away.

  But the challenge woke and found us

  With four thousand rifles round us;

  And Death stood laughing at us at the breaking of the day.

  Hell belched upon our borders, and the battle had begun.

  Our Maxim jammed: We faced them with one muzzle-loading gun.

  East, south, and west, and nor’ward

  Their shells came screaming forward

  As we threw the sconces round us in the first light of the sun.

  The thin air shook with thunder

  As they raked us fore and under,

  And the cordon closed around us, as they held us—eight to one.

  We got the Maxim going, and the field gun into place

  (She stilled the growling of the Krupp upon our southern face);

  Round the crimson ring of battle

  Swiftly ran the deadly rattle

  As our rifles searched their fore-lines with a desperate menace;

  Who would wish himself away

  Fighting in our ranks that day

  For the glory of Australia and the honour of the race?

  But our horse-lines soon were shambles, and our cattle lying dead

  (When twelve guns rake two acres there is little room to tread)

  All day long we heard the drumming

  Of the Mauser bullets humming,

  And at night their guns, day-sighted, rained fierce havoc overhead.

  Twelve long days and nights together,

  Through the cold and bitter weather,

  We lay grim behind the sconces, and returned them lead for lead.

  They called on us to surrender, and they let their cannon lag;

  They offered us our freedom for the striking of the flag—

  Army stores were there in mounds,

  Worth a hundred thousand pounds,

  And we lay battered round them behind trench and sconce and crag.

  But we sent the answer in,

  They could take what they could win—

  We hadn’t come five thousand miles to fly the coward’s rag.

  We saw the guns of Carrington come on and fall away;

  We saw the ranks of Kitchener across the kopje grey—

  For the sun was shining then

  Upon twenty thousand men—

  And we laughed, because we knew, in spite of hell-fire and delay,

  On Australia’s page forever

  We had written Elands River—

  We had written it for ever and a day.

  RECRUITED AT THE TOWN HALL

  ‘HAYSTACK’ HANMAN

  A Yarn about Enlisting in 1914

  I found myself at Lismore on the 18th September 1914. The town itself seemed deserted, save for a few rumbling, grumbling farmers’ carts, groaning on their way to some distant little homestead in the bush.

  In one of the sleepy, lazy-looking streets, I found myself in front of the recruiting hall—one of a crowd, all intent upon the same purpose—taking the oath to serve their ‘King and Country till the termination of the War and four months after’.

  The crowd consisted of lawyers, bank clerks, drapers, labourers—mostly big, strapping fellows who looked as though they had every chance of becoming food for powder and shot.

  On every face could be seen anxiety—anxiety that the owner was suffering from some complaint of which he was unaware—fearful lest he be found unfit. When a chap knows he is to be examined by a medical man, he becomes afraid, he imagines he has a weak heart, lung trouble, or any other of the too numerous diseases which afflict mankind. Assure him as fervently as you like to the contrary, and his brain will run to imaginary complaints until he feels quite ill. Waiting for the doctor is nearly as bad as awaiting the command for a bayonet charge.

  Every man is sizing up his neighbour and weighing him in the balance, when the doctor puts in an appearance. What a relief!

  Who are these chaps with such smart uniforms, such a magnificent martial bearing and such pretty little bits of red and gold on their hats, shoulders and sleeves? Surely they are captains; but no, by their voice, and pompous manner, they must surely be no less than generals! Wait, worried recruit. When you have been in the army one little week, you will know, only too well, that they are after all only sergeant-majors on the instructional staff.

  ‘ ’Tion!!! ’tion, ’tion, look here, you chumps, fall in, fall in, we can’t wait here all day, stand over there. No, come over here—that’s right, no—damn it—that’s wrong. Ah! Now, fall in.’

  Some of us were beginning to think that we had fallen in right enough, but not in the way the drill instructor meant.

  Then came the order to strip. What a funny sight!

  The doors of the hall were wide open, and a rather fresh breeze blowing in, and there stand or sit in every self-conscious attitude about fifty fellows, all wondering what Adam did in cold weather!

  One by one we were called to face the doctor, and it is no exaggeration to state that these same fellows were more frightened then than they were on that never-to-be-forgotten dawn of April 25th 1915.

  At last my turn came. I hopped, jumped, stepped sideways, backwards, forwards, touched toes, waved my arms madly about, so much so, that if a stranger had seen me he would have imagined he was beholding a rehearsal for a corroboree or the dance of the seven veils.

  I was tapped here, punched there, asked to cough—though that request is superfluous, because by now I was coughing pretty regularly.

  Then you are brought to your senses by ‘Halt, about turn.’

  And you walk forth a soldier whose battles have already commenced, for ten to one, someone has admired your shirt and taken off with it, or shown a preference for your socks.

  CALL THE COOK

  This story has several versions but is supposed to have occurred at Mena Camp where the Australian troops were under the command of British officers.

  There was not as much respect shown to officers by the Australians as the British would have liked and comments about the food were aired quite loudly and openly in the mess hall. British army food was not to the liking of most of the Aussie bushmen of the first AIF, and they often said so, loudly.

  Finally, it came to a head and comments about the cooks’ ancestry were heard in a manner that could not be ignored. After one such incident, the officer in charge of the mess called a parade of the Australian troops.

  The men stood under the blazing sun waiting for an hour before the officer addressed them.

  ‘Now, listen here, you men, I will not tolerate this insubordinate attitude towards the cooks. Today at lunch one of you actually called one of the cooks a “bastard”. I heard it clearly and I intend to punish that man. I want to know who called the cook a bastard!’

  One digger immediately stepped forward from the front rank.

  ‘Ahh,’ said the officer, ‘so, we have some honesty here, I see. Are you stepping forward to confess that it was y
ou who called the cook a bastard?’

  ‘No. Sir,’ replied the Aussie loudly.

  ‘Well, I want to know who called the cook a bastard, why did you come forward?’

  ‘Because, sir, we’d like to know who called the bastard a cook!’

  JH

  PEACEABLE-LOOKING MEN

  JOSEPH L. BEESTON

  The truce at Gallipoli was one of the strangest and most telling events of the whole campaign. It was the start of a strange relationship between Australians and Turks which has led to a friendship that is still palpable in the twenty-first century. The respect shown by the often racist Australians towards their Turkish foes was the start of an understanding of different ways of life that often occurs when people travel outside their own comfort zone. This yarn is a fascinating insight into how the Aussies first saw the Turks as men, not caricatures.

  On 23 May 1915, anyone looking down the coast could see a man on Gaba Tepe waving a white flag. He was soon joined by another occupied in a like manner.

  Some officers came into the Ambulance and asked for the loan of some towels; we gave them two, which were pinned together with safety pins. White flags don’t form part of the equipment of Australia’s army.

  Seven mounted men had been observed coming down Gaba Tepe, and they were joined on the beach by our four. The upshot was that one was brought in blindfolded to General Birdwood. Shortly after, we heard it announced that a truce had been arranged for the following day in order to bury the dead.

  The following morning, Major Millard and I started from our right and walked up and across the battlefield. It was a stretch of country between our lines and those of the Turks, and was designated no-man’s-land. At the extreme right, there was a small farm; the owner’s house occupied part of it, and was just as the man had left it. Our guns had knocked it about a good deal.

  In close proximity was a field of wheat, in which there were scores of dead Turks. As these had been dead anything from a fortnight to three weeks, their condition may be better imagined than described.

  One body I saw was lying with the leg shattered. He had crawled into a depression in the ground and lay with his greatcoat rolled up for a pillow; the stains on the ground showed that he had bled to death, and it can only be conjectured how long he lay there before death relieved him of his sufferings.

  Scores of the bodies were simply riddled with bullets. Midway between the trenches, a line of Turkish sentries were posted. Each was in a natty blue uniform with gold braid and top boots, and all were ‘done up to the nines’. Each stood by a white flag on a pole stuck in the ground. We buried all the dead on our side of this line and they performed a similar office for those on their side.

  Stretchers were used to carry the bodies, which were all placed in large trenches. The stench was awful, and many of our men wore handkerchiefs over their mouths in their endeavour to escape it. I counted 2000 dead Turks. One I judged to be an officer of rank, for the bearers carried him shoulder-high down a gully to the rear.

  The ground was absolutely covered with rifles and equipment of all kinds, shell-cases and caps, and ammunition clips. The rifles were all collected and the bolts removed to prevent their being used again. Some of the Turks were lying right on our trenches, almost in some of them.

  The Turkish sentries were peaceable-looking men, stolid in type and of the peasant class mostly. We fraternised with them and gave them cigarettes and tobacco.

  Some Germans were there, but they viewed us with malignant eyes. When I talked to Colonel Pope about it afterwards, he said the Germans were a mean lot of beggars.

  ‘Why,’ said he most indignantly, ‘they came and had a look into my trenches.’

  I asked, ‘What did you do?’

  He replied, ‘Well, I had a look at theirs.’

  JH

  SHRAPNEL

  TOM SKEYHILL

  Tom Skeyhill wrote a large amount of rhymed verse that was popular at the time, although his fame as a poet was fleeting and his volumes of verse are now long forgotten. Skeyhill fought as a regimental signaller of the 2nd Infantry Brigade and was blinded at the second battle of Krithia on 8 May 1915.

  He was hospitalised in Egypt, and later at the Base Hospital in Melbourne. His patriotic, stirring doggerel was published both here and in New York and he was something of a celebrity during and after the war. Later, he recovered his sight and went to the USA where he went on the speaking circuit. He later went to Hollywood and worked on the script of the famous movie Sergeant York, which made Gary Cooper a star.

  In this poem, written in 1915, he rather spookily describes the phenomena of shell-shock and post-war syndrome which were not properly diagnosed and dealt with until after World War II.

  I was sittin’ in me dugout and was feelin’ dinkum good,

  Chewin’ Queensland bully beef and biscuits hard as wood.

  When, ‘Boom!’ I nearly choked meself, I spilt me bloomin’ tea,

  I saw about a million stars and me dugout fell on me!

  They dug me out with picks and spades, I felt an awful wreck,

  By that bloomin’ Turkish shrapnel I was buried to the neck,

  Me mouth was full of bully beef, me eyes were full of dust,

  I rose up to me bloomin’ feet and shook me fist and cussed.

  The Sergeant says, ‘You’re lucky lad, it might have got your head,

  You ought to thank your lucky stars!’ I says, ‘Well, strike me dead!

  It smashed me bloomin’ dugout, it buried all me kit,

  Spoilt me tea and bully beef—I’ll revenge that little bit!’

  I was walkin’ to the water barge along the busy shore,

  Listenin’ to the Maxims bark and our Big Lizzie roar,

  When I heard a loud explosion above me bloomin’ head,

  And a bloke, not ten yards distant, flopped sudden down, stone dead.

  I crawled out from the debris and lay pantin’ on the sand,

  I cussed that Turkish shrap and every Turk upon the land.

  We cussed it when it busted a yard or two outside,

  We cussed it when it missed us, a hundred yards out wide.

  It’s always bloomin’ shrapnel, wherever you may be,

  Sittin’ in your dugout, or bathin’ in the sea.

  At Shrapnel Gully, Deadman’s Gully, Courtney’s Post and Quinn’s,

  At Pope’s Hill and Johnson’s Jolly—that deadly shrapnel spins.

  I don’t mind bombs and rifles, and I like a bayonet charge,

  But I’m hangin’ out the white flag when shrapnel is at large.

  When I get back to Australia and I hear a whistlin’ train,

  It’s the nearest pub, for shelter from that shrapnel once again!

  SERGEANT MAJOR MURPHY

  A dear friend of mine, Alan Murphy, who sadly passed away in 2012, gave me a copy of his grandfather’s diary from Gallipoli. Alan’s grandfather was Sergeant Major Thomas Murphy, a cook with the 1st Battalion who was badly wounded and lost an eye at Gallipoli.

  His diary is full of extraordinarily matter-of-fact observations and comments such as:

  27/5/15 Wounded at Shrapnel Gully in the head. Shrapnel shell bursts over me while taking ammunition on mules up the gully. Mules play up and I am dragged down the hillside and badly bruised.

  29/6/15 Leave Anzac for rest at Imbros.

  6/7/15 Return to Gallipoli on SS El Kahira. Cooking resumes under heavy shellfire.

  7/7/15 Receive letters and news of Mother’s death. Send letters home. Turkish night attack; heavy losses on their side.

  31/7/15 Aeroplane drops bomb on cookhouse; food spoilt, no one hurt.

  7/8/15 Captain Shout and Pte. Keyzor earn V.C. Cookhouse shelled heavily. Wounded in right eye.

  16/8/15 Sent to hospital ship Rewa in barge . . . supplied with cocoa and food. Sleep on deck. Bullets fall on deck; shift bed to port side and go to bed.

  I am in awe of men like Sergeant Major Murphy, they don’t make men like him any more.


  JH

  AN ANZAC MEETS A LORD

  The whole Gallipoli campaign was created because the British and French fleets failed to force a passage through the Dardanelles in March 1915.

  This failure was laid partly at the door of the First Sea Lord, Lord Fisher. He had been First Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910 and came out of retirement to take up the position again in 1914.

  Fisher resigned seven months after the failed attempt to break through the Dardanelles, in frustration over Churchill’s decisions at Gallipoli. He then served as chairman of the British Government’s Board of Invention and Research until the end of the war.

  This story concerns Lord Fisher’s visit to a military hospital to ‘cheer up the wounded soldiers’.

  A young Australian, wounded in the Gallipoli fighting, had been taken to England to recover his strength.

  During his convalescence, a social event was organised at which Lord Fisher came to mingle with the veterans. The Right Honourable Gentleman was in the company of his political chiefs and was interested in acquiring a few impressions from the men of Anzac.

  He asked this particular Anzac what he thought of the campaign on Gallipoli.

  With the hammering of the British fleet against the Dardanelles all through March in mind, the Anzac answered, ‘Well, you know, if I’d been a burglar, and wanted to break into a place, I wouldn’t have spent several nights before pelting stones on the roof.’

  The Right Honourable Gentleman immediately terminated the conversation then and there and moved on with his smiling entourage.

  ‘Didn’t you know who that was?’ a horrified bystander asked the Anzac.

  ‘Yeah, usen’t he to be the First Sea Lord?’ replied the Anzac, unperturbed.

  JH

  HORSES AND VIEWING PLATFORMS

  JOSEPH L. BEESTON