A Rose for the Anzac Boys (21 page)

The Anzacs went first to Egypt for training and to secure the Suez Canal (though some New Zealanders and Australians—like Douglas in the book—travelled to England to enlist, and were then sent directly to Flanders to fight). They were then sent to Gallipoli, where, despite valiant fighting, tactical mistakes by the British commanders meant the campaign was a failure. About 505,000 soldiers from both sides were killed and 262,000 wounded.

The Allied forces eventually evacuated Gallipoli in December and early January of 1916. This was the most successful—even brilliant—Allied operation of the campaign. The full evacuation was achieved quickly, secrecy was maintained and there were almost no casualties.

After Gallipoli the Anzacs were sent to France, beginning in March 1916, while the mounted division that had served as additional infantry at Gallipoli stayed in the Middle East.

By now the war had become bogged down. Both armies were stuck in trenches in the mud that stretched across Belgium and north-east France from the English Channel to the Swiss border, facing each other over a barren stretch of no-man’s-land while they tried to push each other back metre by metre.

Both sides advanced a bit at times and retreated at other times. Men would sneak out to cut the tangled barbed wire that was supposed to stop anyone advancing, and then creep forward only to be driven back. But basically things stayed pretty much stuck all through 1916 and 1917.

Rats infested the trenches and feasted on dead bodies and sometimes on the flesh of the living. Men knocked unconscious by explosions drowned in the mud. Poisonous gas seeped through the trenches, killing many and rotting the lungs of survivors. The men lived with the constant stink of rotting corpses lying abandoned in the no-man’s-land between the armies’ grimly held positions. There was no way to retrieve them without more men dying.

It was a nightmare and both sides suffered appalling losses.

Finally, in 1917, the USA joined the war. American troops began to arrive in the middle of that year, although not in significant numbers until twelve months later.

In March 1918 the German army launched a massive offensive in an attempt to break through and win before the Americans could arrive.

To begin with it worked. They advanced 64 kilometres past where the 1916 Somme battles had taken place. But between April and November the Allies began to combine infantry, artillery, tanks and aircraft more effectively. American troops and equipment revitalised the Allied forces and their medical organisation meant that at last many of the volunteers could rest. Finally, too, men like Australia’s General Monash were bringing the idea of strategy to the war, using intelligence—both personal and military—instead of just the bodies of the men.

Germany surrendered on 11 November 1918.

At last the guns fell silent on the European battlefields. Germany was forced to accept crippling ‘reparation’ debts that would lead to poverty, bitterness, political instability
and, ultimately, the rise of Hitler, hatred and yet another war. But that was still to come.

Now Australians and New Zealanders rejoiced. Church bells rang out; people sang ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘God Save the King’, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’ and ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ in the streets. Unplanned processions crowded the city streets, with banners and flags hanging from the buildings.

The war was over.

Anzacs
: ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. In 1917, the word Anzac meant someone who had fought at Gallipoli. It later came to mean any Australian or New Zealander who fought or served in World War I.

Anzac Biscuits
: These weren’t made by the Anzacs at Anzac Cove at Gallipoli. They were made by women at home during World War I and sold to raise money for ‘comforts’ for soldiers—soap, books and sweets to be posted to the men serving overseas. They were also a good way to get nutrition to a beloved soldier far away—the hard biscuits keep for weeks or months, and the oats make them sustaining as well as sweet.

This recipe is one my grandmother Mrs Thelma Edwards wrote down towards the end of the war in the green notebook where she kept her recipes. They are very good. (My grandmother hated knitting—she said that she had been forced to do far too much of it as a girl and woman during two world wars.)

Soldiers’ Biscuits

1 tablespoon golden syrup

2 tablespoons very hot water

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

half a cup of butter

1 cup plain flour

2 cups rolled oats

half a cup of sugar

Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan. Take off the heat. Add the water and bicarbonate of soda and let it froth up. Add flour and oats, mix quickly. Place small spoonfuls on a greased tray and bake in a slow oven (approximately 125oC) for about 10–15 minutes or till pale brown. Take off the tray carefully. They’ll get crisp as they cool.

Store in a sealed container as soon as they are cool. They’ll keep fresh for weeks but, like all biscuits, taste best in the first few days after they are made.

Anzac Day
: Australians and New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day on 25 April every year—the date of the landing of Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli. At first, only veterans of the battle went to the dawn services, ‘standing to’ before two minutes of silence, broken by the
sound of a lone bugler playing the Last Post. In later years, there were marches in towns and cities.

Now, the day has grown, both in numbers and significance. Now it commemorates all those who fight or suffer in war, and the bravery and dedication of those who make the ‘ultimate sacrifice’—their lives.
Anzac Tiles
: These are what soldiers really did eat at Gallipoli, and in the trenches in France and Belgium. They were high in protein, very tough, and pretty horrible.

2 cups flour (sour, add weevils)

2 tablespoons sugar (add ants)

2 tablespoons powdered milk (rancid)

Mix well. Add water, dust and a few flies and maybe some shrapnel (flying debris from an exploding shell). Mix till it makes a dryish dough. Pat out small pieces till they are thin and flattish (the sweat adds to the taste). Prick with a fork or small stick so there are about 25 tiny holes. Bake either on a greased tray in a slow oven or over the campfire on a pannikin (a tin dish that holds your meal). When hard and a bit burnt around the edges they’re ready. If your teeth can’t chew them dip in whatever water you can find to soften them into mush, and hope you don’t get dysentery.

Batman
: Army servant. Even when the army was desperately short of men, all officers had servants to polish their boots, make their tea and beds, and generally look after them.

Billy Hughes
: The Australian Prime Minister who tried unsuccessfully to pass a law conscripting men to go and fight in France to replace the tens of thousands already killed.

Breaker
: A man who tamed horses so they could be ridden or used to pull carriages.

Carpe diem
: Latin for ‘Seize the day’. It is a quote from the ancient Roman writer Horace.

Coke and coal
: Coal is fossilised wood dug from the ground; coke is made from wood that has been burned slowly and with very little air, to remove most of the moisture. As these fuels were relatively light and burned well for a long time they were often used on ‘braziers’, small portable fireplaces.

Diggers
: The men of the Australian gold rushes had called themselves ‘diggers’. Now, as they dug the trenches of Gallipoli and the Western Front, the name was used again—and stuck. ‘Digger’ now refers to any Australian soldier. During World War II an Aussie might call a fellow soldier ‘Dig’—‘Hey, Dig, how ’bout a hand over here…’

Influenza
: The influenza pandemic (a widespread epidemic) of 1918–19 killed more people than World War I, or any other previous plague: somewhere between 20 and 100 million people worldwide.

Where did it come from? No one knew. It was an entirely new strain of flu, and no one had any immunity to it. Some people thought it might be German biological warfare. Others thought that the smoke of the bombs and the mustard gas used in the trenches might have created a new disease.

Scientists now think that the 1918 flu probably spread from birds to humans—a H1N1 type Influenza A virus: a genetic rearrangement of human and bird flu viruses.

Despite its nickname of the Spanish Flu, the new flu certainly didn’t come from Spain. (It probably started in China, then spread to Japan, then Europe, then America, Australia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Africa.) But as Spain wasn’t fighting in the war there wasn’t any censorship there, so the Spanish newspapers were the first ones to report the large number of deaths. And the name ‘Spanish flu’ stuck.

The war helped the flu to spread. The soldiers were exhausted, hungry, and living in foul, crowded and appalling conditions where flu could easily spread. And then they started streaming back to their far-flung homes—and took the virus with them on the trains and steamships. In the two years that the flu pandemic afflicted the world, a fifth of its population was infected. Around 25 million people died in the first six months.

It was a terrifying disease. It struck quickly. People might have a bit of a temperature in the morning, feel unwell by lunch, and drop dead in the afternoon. It mostly hit young, healthy people too; not children or older people (the usual victims of infectious diseases) but people between twenty and forty years old who should have been in the prime of their lives. Victims turned blue as they drowned in their own fluids and haemorrhaged blood from their noses and ears.

Kiwis
: It is possible that the Australians in World War I were the first to refer to their New Zealand comrades as Kiwis after New Zealand’s symbolic kiwi bird. Given that the other nicknames the Australian soldiers gave to just about every other nationality (including their allies) were
highly insulting, the choice shows the comradeship and affection between the two nations.

Linen scraping
: In those days bandages were reused. Women made bandages by cutting up linen sheets, tablecloths and other lengths of material, then scraping off any threads or lint so they’d be smooth and not stick to the wounds. ‘Bandage rolling’ took a lot of time—after the bloody bandages were washed they had to be scraped free of lint again, ironed (the high temperature would have helped clean them) then rolled up and sent back to hospitals and casualty centres.

Mirabile dictu
: This is also Latin, roughly translated as ‘Wonderful!’ or ‘Wonderful to say’.

Peach seeds
: There was an appeal for peach and apricot kernels to be collected for use in gas masks, though I don’t know how they were used, or if they ever were. Both contain cyanide, so may have really been wanted to try to produce poisonous gas.

Rubber gloves
: These were only issued to nursing sisters and doctors. If you scratched yourself you had to soak your hands in disinfectant, but there was rarely time to follow this procedure.

Snigger
: A man who ‘snigged’ (pulled) logs out of the bush, with a horse and chains.

Tablet
: A fudge-like Scottish sweet of rich toffee with added milk, cream and butter.

A White Man
: In those days most (white) English speakers in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, as well as English colonies, used the phrase ‘a white man’ to mean any
good reliable person. Most people who used it probably didn’t even realise how racist it might sound—they may not even have been racist themselves, just as we usually don’t think of the literal meanings of the clichés we use today.

There are two versions of this song.

One version was published by Sir Harold Boulton in 1884. He may have simply written down an old sea shanty, or he may have changed it and added some of his own words. The tune was written down by Annie MacLeod in the 1870s, based on a Gaelic rowing song, ‘Cuachag nan Craobh’ (‘The Cuckoo in the Grove’).

It is about Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, son of King James II. James had been forced off the British throne in the ‘bloodless revolution’ amidst fears that he was going to make England Roman Catholic again. His son tried to regain the throne, but was defeated on Culloden Moor in 1746. Aided by Flora MacDonald, Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped to the island of Skye. He was later taken by a French vessel to Morlaix on the coast of Brittany.

The other song sometimes sung as ‘The Skye Boat Song’, and the one quoted in this book, often uses the same tune and was written by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94). It was published in
Songs of Travel
(Chatto & Windus, London, 1896).

It’s become a cliché for writers to say ‘This book couldn’t have been written without the help of many people’—probably because it is so often true.

This was a difficult book to write. At times I wondered if I could keep going; partly because of the book’s subject matter, but also because despite many visits to New Zealand I was unsure if I could capture the home world of the heroine—a place it is impossible to visit as it existed almost a hundred years ago. If it hadn’t been for the superb research material given to me by Liz Kemp and Dr Dot Neutze I doubt I’d have had the confidence to finish this book. Liz was the first person to read the manuscript, too, and as always her brilliant insight gave me a fresh vision so I could start the process of rewriting, rewriting, rewriting.

Much gratitude also to Nicola O’Shea, whose insightful editing makes a book the best it can be.

I’d also like to thank Hugh Grogan for his advice on military protocol, though any mistakes are mine, not his, and many thanks, as always, to Natalie Winter for the magic she adds to the books, and to Kate O’Donnell for the hours of labour, love and discipline she gives to the text.

And, as always, more thanks than I can express to my husband, Bryan Sullivan, who watched and helped as I cried over this book; to my dear friends Angela Marshall, who takes my tatty scribbles and turns them into text, Noël Pratt, who listens ever patiently when I rattle on, obsessed, and Helen Geier, who stood beside me last Anzac Day; and to the ever-wonderful Lisa Berryman, without whom so many of my books would never have been started, or even have begun to echo the themes in my mind.