The following are two excerpts from Baylebridge’s An Anzac Muster, based in part on his first-hand experiences of the war, during which he served at Gallipoli itself. The first is from the 1921 edition of the book; the second, from the 1962 edition. I have transcribed several other chapters, and various of Baylebridge’s works, which you can find here:
An Anzac Muster: Prologue (see also for a brief biography)
This part of An Anzac Muster is especially relevant today: it deals with what Anzac was to become, and what it – then still – might become. In The Apocalypse of Pat McCullough, the eponymous McCullough, a soldier at Anzac Cove, has a vision in which he sees the cove transformed into a tourist attraction – as it has been today. Prophet-poet or not, Baylebridge could not foresee just how far things would go, but what he gets wrong is as revealing as what he gets right.
The second text is an excerpt from the chapter Monoculus’s Tale. Baylebridge speaks here through The Squatter, who has written a letter criticizing the form that Anzac commemoration, exemplified by the then recently-erected Martin Place Cenotaph, was taking. This letter was the same open letter written by Baylebridge himself to Sir Bertram Mackennal, designer of the cenotaph. Baylebridge rightly perceived that Anzac commemorations, with their focus on the deaths of the fallen, tended towards a negation of Life. Sir Mackennal stated that he wished not to symbolize “the horrors or war, but the sacrifices of the fallen.” But for what was their sacrifice? What, exactly, were their sacrifices? The extract below goes some way to answering these questions[1][2].
AN ANZAC MUSTER
DEDICATED
TO THE MEN HERE TOLD OF,
TO THE MEN WHO RETURNED,
TO THE MEN WHO RETURNED NOT
THE APOCALYPSE OF PAT McCULLOUGH
The Twenty Ninth Division, doing as much as blood could, had pushed well into its containing battle at Krithia; at Lone Pine the First Brigade of Australian Infantry had already done much in a labour that was to put it for ever past the reach of oblivion; superb and unconquerable, the New Zealanders, the right covering column of the main attack, had rushed and secured the almost impregnable Old Number Three Post, had stormed the Turks out of the tangled and precipitous ridge at Bauchop’s, and climbed to victory on the Table Top; Damakjelik Bair was ours: the three Deres, won at a bitter price in blood and travail, were now open to the two attacking columns already advancing to the assault.
The Turks, threatened strongly thus upon their right, shook to their marrow. They lifted up their entire strength to cut us off from the crests that meant final victory. Their whole line, loud with battle, had need of them. But they had reserves; and these, in great numbers, they pushed out hotly to meet this resolute blow we had delivered upon their right.
The men of our right attacking column, paying soon with their lives for every inch won upon that hard way, toiled up the Chailak and Sazli Beit Deres, formed a rough a line up past the Table Top, and threw themselves into the bitter struggle towards Rhododendron Spur and the stubborn heights of Chunuk. Our remaining column, the Australians and their comrades on the left, laboured up the nerve-straining crags and chasms of the Aghyl Dere. They had set their great hearts upon attaining the high and ultimate goal – up past Hill Q, that ruthless hill, lay Koja Chemen Tepe. This peak, dominating the whole peninsula and the water that washes its gaunt sides, was the key to unlock the bloody riddle and make victory ours.
In this last column there was a man named McCullough; he was a Queenslander. Because he was much given to queer dreams, men called him the Prophet. But, though his fancy had struck out many a new and strange thing, what one of them all had reached to the delirious dream, the nightmare of a madman, that this advance seemed?
With their blood up, and a power that looked more than human urging them on, these men struggled forward against obstacles that would have taken gods by the throat, and flung them aside. Stumbling, cursing, killing, now drowned in the billowing smoke and dust spread by explosive shells, now advancing through a dark alive with singing lead, on, and ever on, they pressed. Great masses of earth were torn away and entombed them. Men were spattered with the bowels and with the brains of comrades. The hungry wire raked at their eager flesh, and was left, if they got past it all, dripping with their blood. Bombs and bayonets emptied them out on to the shaking earth. Resolute heels ground the faces of foe there and friend. Through that bitter doing, redeemed from chaos by resolution, they still pressed on. Up the front of loose rocks, crumbling under their tense fingers, they scaled. Into unguessed chasms they were precipitated, and broken on the stones below. Stubborn thorn tore their clothes and skin away. Then came more killing, more taking and giving of pitiless steel, more blowing away of faces by rifles thrust into them from the pregnant dark. In that high courage, that desperate devotion, did not men often embrace death with their hands empty of weapons, that they might make a way for comrades? Holding on, beating back the foe (where not tossed in pieces, like dead meet, to feed the rats of that hellish jungles), marking the clustered snipers by their fire, throwing themselves prone, advancing again – through these and a thousand other like experiences, on, and ever on, pressed that wonderful wave of hard-breathing and broken flesh. And ever, as they advanced, the hill in front became more steep, the pressure against them more terrible, and the power to meet it less able. But what obstacle could stay that advance of men who strove like gods? When night had turned to inexorable dawn, and day to night again, those who had not yet met death still pressed on with the inviolate resolution of beings that indeed seemed more than human. Yes, as they toiled on through those interminable agonies, it looked in truth like the nightmare of some madman. Lucky, indeed, might many think those left in the foul scrub below. Had they not done with all this?
And in the shambles down there, one of those countless uncommemorated souls consecrated in such endeavour, lay Pat McCullough. From one labour to the eternal next he had struggled on with that brave company, till at length, weak because of the life spilt from his wounds, his senses had lost their reckoning, his sight had become confused, his brain had reeled, and he had dropped into a limp heap on that dark track watered with the blood and sweat that sanctify it to Australians.
When McCullough woke, he found himself in a small rocky basin shut in with scrub. He stretched himself, rubbed his eyes, yawned, and sat up. The air was bright and clear; it had that touch of freshness that told it was yet early day. A pair of doves, near-by, sat preening each other on a fir; and up aloft a hawk, as if he had sighted business in this neighbourhood, cut quiet circles against the background of pale blue.
‘Strange!’ thought McCullough. ‘How did I get here?’
In a flash, he brought back to mind what had happened before his last sleep and this awakening – that mad scramble to death or victory up the blood-soaked dere. Putting his hand up to his forehead, as if to help memory, he gazed about absently. The place looked like the discarded pit some battery had once used.
‘Stange!’ he repeated.
The first thing that struck him now was the weird stillness. What did it mean? The roar of our guns, a sound that leapt at the ears with the impetus of a live thing, the heavy rumbling of far-off howitzers, the bursting of shelling, the vicious snap of rifles, rising ever and dying, the shouting of men on the Beach, the human noise of men cursing, or singing at their work, or crunching on hard roads – these, with the thousand other sounds that had once travelled up and down those hills, might never have been, so quiet was it. And then, in another flash of perception, the reason came. Of course, he was deaf. That was it. Had he not been partially deaf many times before? His hearing now had gone completely. But even as he asserted this he knew that he was not deaf. A fitful breeze, from which the young sun had not yet dried the salt, was blowing in from the sea and flapping the broad leaves of a shrub close by. He heard that plainly enough. He head, up in the still air, a lark singing; and were not pigeons, down in the scrub below, making a very audible business of their wooing?
‘Surely,’ he thought, ‘I am Pat McCullough, and this is Anzac; but, if that’s so, my wits are out somewhere.’
He felt his limbs, gingerly, with some trepidation, as a man who puts a question to Fate and half fears the answer. Yes, they were sound enough – the scarred but substantial flesh and bone of a soldier – and none, thank God, missing. And then it struck him that he had no clothes on: he was as bare as the back of his rough hand. He felt something tickling at his belly; and, marvellous enough, when he looked for those flies, he found it was a great bunch of hair that had set up the titillation.
‘What’s this?’ he began. ‘Can it be —— ?’ And then, breaking off, he stroked his chin, and suddenly burst into a loud laugh.
‘A beard!’ he exclaimed. ‘Verily, the Prophet hath his beard!’
So strange did this transformation seem to McCullough that he questioned if he was indeed that person he thought, and no other. Good God! had those coal-scuttles hit on the truth then? Had he died down there in the dere? And was this mystery to be explained by the transmigration of souls? Had he put off his former flesh and gone, by some dark process, into a circumscription of earthly tissue? Good God! Well, no matter — perhaps it would serve just as well.
For all that, the idea was perplexing and it struck him again suddenly that this point, at least, he could clear up. He felt under his left breast. Yes, the old scar was there still. A piece of shrapnel, he remembered, had knocked two teeth away on the right half of his jaw. He put his hand up, and found the gap still there. That, at all events, looked reassuring. He brought to mind other marks by which he could identify his old flesh — the results of a too-close attention on the part of the foe; and these marks he searched carefully till he could doubt no longer. He was McCullough; and this was the skin, and bone, and hair — at least, some of it — that had gone shearing with him from the Carpentaria to down below Bourke.
Now that he had settled this point to his satisfaction, the next question to clear up was the identity of the place; for, though the soil and the scrub were reminiscent of Anzac, this silence — how uncanny it seemed! — was it not altogether out of character with the bustle and ear-shaking noises of that Australian town in Turkey? It was.
McCullough got up, and made for a little spur which, as he expected, commanded the country about there. Skirting a couple of dwarfed firs, he pushed carefully through the sharp gorse, a nasty neighbour for bare flesh, and came out on to a crumbling pinnacle, running sheer to the ravine below. The land, on the other side of this ravine, lay fairly flat; it was patched with crops, and carried groves of gray-leafed olive. He did not know this part well; but that hill in the distance, that stubborn-looking lump on the skyline, might easily, he thought, be Achi Baba.
However, to make sure, McCullough changed his position. Picking his way to another spur, he looked out again. If he did not recognise every spot at once, he knew that country looks different from a different point of view. He looked hard and long. Before him, now, lay a confused mass of broken hills, here thrust up into abrupt spears, there dropping away into chasms — a rough tumble of savage country, leading up, in a tangle of ravine, precipice, and dense jungle, to a high peak in the farther distance.
McCullough rubbed his eyes. Surely he knew that accurst landscape, and that peak! Hell and death, he ought to! But what, in the name of all things elect — what was that great regular mass stuck up there on the top of it? The peak should be Koja Chemen; but the building, or whatever it was, that caught the rays of the rising sun on its bright tower, and threw them out in a refulgence across the land — what was that? And what were these other marks, that looked so odd here — these marks scattered up and down those rough hills? Was it Anzac, and yet not Anzac? Or was he mad? Or was this dreaming ripe?
Noting the position of the sun, he pushed over to that side of the hill which, if he was still in his right senses, must look out to the Ægean. What he should see there would put the thing past doubt. As McCullough hurried across, the life of the well-remembered Cove stood plain before his mind’s eye. There would lie the swarm of multi-shaped barges, laden with munition for both men and guns; there would the hooting pinnaces be busy — what a fuss they made! And the longboats, lined with the wounded, would be putting out in tow to the hospital ships — coming, and waiting their turn, and going, these were there always. The blunt trawlers, the quick-moving destroyers, the battle-ships, ready to comb the hills inland with their long-reaching claws — these would be there, old friends all! And the bones of wrecked shipping, things that had died bravely, these too! Yes, this would prove it. He would soon know what degree of sanity he possessed; for was not that spot as well known to him as the soil he had worked on at home? With these thoughts, he pushed through the seaward brush, and stood there on the hill’s edge.
If McCullough had rubbed his eyes before, what must he do now? What in the name of God, did this mean? There, sure enough, was the Beach he had fought up in that red dawn of the Twenty-fifth. He knew every foot of that. There, before him, was the first ridge — heaped, when he had seen it last, with great piles of stores, and honeycombed with dugouts. It is true, there were no stores there now, and the bareness had been cultivated in an amazing way; but he knew it. There, in the near distance, lay the rough scarps under which they had fought that bitter fight in August — last August — what August? That indeed was a problem. There lay those hills on the far skyline; he knew the shape of that land well. His eye travelled back to the Beach. Running round in a boomerang to Suvla, it was the Beach where men had laughed, and cursed, and swum, and died. Ah, what soldier who had once known it could mistake that? The waves of the blue sea broke gently upon it as they did often of old. Yes, Anzac it was; but yet not the Anzac it had been — not his Anzac.
He laughed like a fool; but there were tears, too, in that laughter. Not his Anzac! His Anzac? Why, mark that pretentious pier, and that hotel — how smug it looked! — perched up there where the white squares of the Hospital had once patched the landscape! A hotel it must be. But for what? For whom? The trees, to be sure, looked well. Many of them, in a blaze of gold, threw the perfect colour on to that drab landscape. What trees were these? As if to answer this question, the breeze carried up a perfume that almost brought the salt to his eyes. Wattle! Well, thank God for that! The men there would at least sleep under their own trees, the trees they had slept near so often in their own land. Yes, that was good surely. But all these things — how did they get there?
To say that McCullough more now than ever challenged his five wits would be to speak truth only. All the life of that place as he had known it, from the Beach to the top trenches, had disappeared. Yes, all had gone. That strip of friendly shore, where men had loafed, or lifted a quick foot this way or that, or hauled guns and other lumber to land, or shouldered ammunition, and beef, and biscuit — that strip where kicking mules, and wounded men on stretchers, and gestulating sergeants, and sappers with their unresting picks, and men reading telegrams, or waiting their turn for water, had all, with a thousand other sights, made up an ever-changing scene as in some wonderful drama — that shore knew these things no longer. The strong squalor of a soldiers’ camp had given way to a primness the antithesis of all that had been there formerly. But why? How? McCullough could make nothing of it.
So perplexed was he with all this, so preoccupied in trying to find a solution to the mystery, that he did not hear the footsteps of a stranger who just now arrived, after a stiff climb, at the summit of that hill. The newcomer, mopping his forehead, and peering among the bushes, saw someone half-hidden in the thick scrub.
‘Seen a flock of turkeys about here, mate?’ he called out.
McCullough looked round. He thought his fancy must have been playing another trick upon him. But no; there, sure enough, was the person who had doubtless addressed this question to him. He came out of the scrub, and confronted a stout fellow, very red in the face, attired in shorts, and carrying a shot-gun.
Which of the two, now, was the more surprised would be a nice question. But certainly McCullough, the hairy man clothed as his first father had been, gave the newcomer a mighty queer feeling about the spine. The latter held his gun ready for emergencies.
‘Seen some turkeys about here, mate?’ he repeated, edging off a little.
McCullough did not find it easy to answer. His ideas got confused. If this fellow was looking for the enemy with a weapon no better than that in his fist, he was mad.
‘They’re the best table birds the boss had,’ the huntsman went on, evidently a little confused, too, by the situation, and perhaps feeling himself under the necessity of saying something. ‘And he’ll want them soon.’
Then, as if this outlandish man would pass well enough for a chicken-thief, he put the question a third time.
‘Sure you haven’t seen them?’
‘I’m a stranger here,’ answered McCullough, swallowing a lump that came into his throat.
‘How’d you get her? And where’s your gear?’
McCullough scratched his head.
‘The truth is,’ he replied, ‘that’s just what I’ve been trying to find out.’
The man with the gun, though evidently, and perhaps not unreasonably, a bit suspicious of this bewhiskered sun-bather, could not question the sincerity of the doubt expressed in the face before him. Men, he knew, sometimes had mental lapses; and then anything was possible.
‘You’d better come down to the pub,’ he said at last, chancing it, ‘and see what the boss’ll do for you.’
‘Then that building is a hotel?’
‘It is — the best on the Peninsula.’
The best on the Peninsula, thought McCullough. Then there must be others! He was again seized with a great desire to have the solution to this mystery; and here, as if sent for the very purpose of giving it, was this impossible fellow looking for turkeys with a shot-gun.
‘D’you know this place well?’ McCullough asked, timidly.
‘Know it?’ answered the sportsman, with the pride that comes of long possession. ‘I know every turn and crack, every peak and precipice, of this patch — every foot of every trench, the ground of every engagement, of every victory — every boneyard I know too. If you want the history of this glorious battlefield reconstructed,’ he went on, with a flourish, ‘I’m your man. That’s my job. I’m a guide here.’
McCullough by this time was well past surprise. His one wish was to get information. Establishing his sanity by a few judicious remarks, and baiting his companion with an occasional question, he soon had the fellow voluble in the glib mouthings of his tribe.
‘Well,’ began that gentleman, recovering a little from his first embarrassment, ‘you knock me clean out. You might have been hatched here in this scrub; and, barring that beard, you certainly don’t seem to have been long out of the shell. I suppose though, you drifted over in one of those aeroplanes, and got side-tracked somehow. We’d a great crowd over last season. Not much good to us,’ he went on, in a depreciatory tone. ‘They camp higher up, on the plateau.’
As the guide now, caught up in the enthusiasm of airing his special knowledge, explained the present position of affairs in Anzac, McCullough could hardly keep credulous. But there was so much concrete evidence of the truth of that narration that he was at last forced, against his will often, to believe it.
That puzzling construction on Koja Chemen, his companion informed him, was a monument to commemorate the deeds of the men who had fought, and the men who had perished, on the Peninsula. Underneath it, in a small temple, were the great books in which their names were recorded. This monument could be seen a long way off, and from all side — it must have impressed, McCullough thought, the crowded shipping in the Straits. The records were the duplicates of similar records, kept in the Australian capital. The Peninsula, from Helles to the lines of Bulair, was British; and thousands of this race, Australians mostly, had made a pilgrimage to this place. Hence the large number of hotels, the guides, and all the paraphernalia for the use of the sight-seers. Wattle had been planted, and coaxed into growth, till the spot looked a true piece of Australia. Military writers had been busy there; and many volumes, of many opinions, had been produced by them. Every memory of that place, it seemed, was treasured as a national possession; and all existing records of the occupation were preserved as things sacred. These, and a hundred other matters, the man of many words made plain to the astonished McCullough.
‘And does Australia think so much of the job those fellows did here?’ he asked, with a modesty lost on his companion.
The guide whipped a book out of his pocket; and, opening it with the skill that comes from much practice, he struck an attitude, and began an oration in this style:
‘“In these hills, on this holy ground, the men of Australia, in deeds of the noblest heroism, accomplished the greatest feat ever attempted for their land. Here they fought and died in a way that shall grip the imagination, and thrill the hearts of men, so long as there are men walking on this earth. Here they made that heritage which shall be prized, and not least by their own people, so long as nations are nations; for it was here that Australia proved herself and became a nation. If all the great ——”’
‘Hold hard!’ McCullough struck in. ‘Got a smoke on you?’
The guide, a little piqued at the interruption, felt in his pocket, produced a couple of cigarettes and handed them over with some matches. He was about to return to his book when they heard the whistle of a steamer — or what seemed such.
‘Strike me!’ said the late orator, thrusting the volume hurriedly into his coat, ‘there’s the Australia Will Be There coming in. We’d better look smart — guide, you know — business.’
Saying that, he descended suddenly to the present; and the incongruity of this naked man in that civilised spot struck him afresh. What should he do with him? At this juncture he could hardly take him to the hotel, clothed, as he was, in whiskers only.
‘Bury yourself till I send some clothes up,’ he sang out, waving his hand; upon which he hurried off to be in place for the trade promised.
McCullough punched himself to see if he was still awake. He was.
‘So that’s what it’s come to!’ he said; and there was some bitterness in the reflection. ‘I’ve lived long enough to see this. I’ve lived long enough to find someone who knows this place better than the men who made it…. Well, he’s had a better chance than we had.
‘But has he?’ he went on, after a hard moment. ‘After all, he’ll never know it. Only those who were here in my time will do that. The substance we had; these have but the shadow — but no doubt their part of the spoils will fill them.’
And then, considering it further, McCullough thought this hardly generous.
‘This fellow’s a parasite,’ he continued, ‘that only. Perhaps I’m all wrong. Perhaps there’s some right thinking behind this business after all. The shadow, too, it may be, is more than the substance. Who knows? But, by God, I’d like to run into some of the lads who did their sweat here, and pass the joke on.’
The steamer whistled again; and McCullough pushed through the scrub to the spur overlooking the Beach. He saw a large vessel making in under a good head of steam. Nearer, and still nearer, she came — her decks were alive with a freight how different from that in fashion in his time! As he gazed in a sort of trance at the liner, she drew in to the pier; and the place, which before had seemed unpeopled, became crowded with men and women. Vehicles too — a great crush of them — were making down to the landing place; and these, he guessed, were the means of transit to the hotels higher up.
It was a long time since McCullough had looked on a crowd like that — in another existence, it seemed — men in light holiday attire such as he had seen formerly on the pier at Southport, women in clothes that were new since his time, but mighty becoming, he thought for all that — youths, too, and girls of all ages. He felt a great longing to get closer to that crowd. So strong was this feeling that he pushed further out upon the spur; and this, rotten like much of the land there, gave way suddenly beneath his weight, and fell off from the hill. He made a frantic attempt to get back to safety — but too late. With a rush that blotted out his senses, he was precipitated, amidst a great welter of stones and dust, into the ravine below.
‘I think he’ll do well enough now,’ said the doctor, as he turned away from the bed. ‘He’ll beat the fish this time.’
McCullough, in a heavy wrapping of bandages, and known here as Number Three, opened his eyes. This, too, seemed incredible. Above him, and looking down into his own, he saw a woman’s face.
‘So you’ve stopped dreaming at last?’ she said.
Though the Sergeant’s tale had been long drawn out, there was not one in the company who would have had it abridged. The dilemmas of that queer prophet, and the many things he had beheld in that pregnant dream, came home to them acutely. And this was not matter for surprise; for he had not some of these things, and in much the same forms, come into their own dreams? The tale, too, had warmed in them a feeling of quiet satisfaction with themselves; McCullough, more than once, had spoken those words that are graceful in a friend’s mouth, and that blush in one’s own.
The Squatter, addressing himself, with an approving glance, to the Sergeant, said:
‘In this tale you have given us not a little to think about. Does it not show again how imagination ever bears its banner before action? — for McCullough’s dream is already becoming a fact. If we had, among our troops, men (and who can deny that?), let us thank Providence that, among them, we had poets too. Indeed, it was, in my opinion, the creative force of imagination that worked much of the marvel we accomplished in this war.’
It was, too, a favourite theory of the Squatter’s that poets were made great in active contest with circumstance — that their understanding of human truth and their sympathy with it, their breadth of vision — in short, the wisdom that constituted them poets — they could acquire only thus. Exemplification of this theory he found, or thought he found, in abundance. Had not Dante borne arms in battle? Had not Milton confronted dangers of no mean kind? They had; and these were poets truly. The substance of poetry, he held, must be lived, must be attained to in human experience, before poets could utter it; in poetry there was such life as could have been nourished only upon the things of life — not the least of which was the confronting of death.
However, time served not now for theories; and this fact, indeed, was forcibly borne in upon the Squatter by a remark from Monoculus.
‘McCullough,’ said Monoculus, with a little heat, ‘could dream joss-houses for us bucks, ay, right easy; but the Government — strike it! — before it can dream so much as a drink for us, it has to try hard enough.’
What more Monoculus might have said was cut short by the Colonel.
‘The next tale is yours,’ he said, turning with a conciliatory glance to his decrier of the lords paramount. ‘If you begin now, there’ll be just time for it.’
‘So I will then, Colonel,’ Monoculus replied. He finished his beer, and drew his great fist across his mouth. Then, sitting as easy as he could, he told his tale thus.
MONOCULUS’S TALE
Though the Sergeant’s tale had been long-draw-out, there was not one in the company who would have wished it shorter. The dilemma of that prophet, or near-prophet, and the many things he had beheld in that pregnant dream, came home to them forcibly. And this was not matter for surprise; for had not some of these things, and in much the same shapings of them, come into their own dreams? The tale, too, had quickened in them a feeling of quiet satisfaction with themselves; McCullough, more than once, had spoken those words that are graceful in a friend’s mouth, and that blush in one’s own.
The Squatter, addressing the Sergeant with a glance that expressed his approval, said:
‘In this tale you have given us not a little to think about. Does it not show again how imagination bears its banner before action? – for McCullough’s dream is already becoming a fact. The rub is that the making of these memorials – for the politician and the officious artisan now drag their slime across everything – is apt to become the business of those who care more for their own glory, or even mere emolument, than for the tribute due properly to the soldier. Those who should be called first to that commemoration – the artist and the true assessor – are likely to be heard not much, and perhaps not at all. However, let us trust that, here and for once, they will be heard.’
To this subject, it was apparent, the Squatter also had given thought. On the Colonel’s suggesting this, he confessed as much; and, as the attention of the company seemed to invite a further confidence, he went on, though plainly with some diffidence.
‘In a city known to you, there was formerly much talk of setting up a memorial to our soldiers. For this work a sculptor was commissioned – I will not say how – and he expressed himself publicly thus: “The memorial shall symbolise, not the horrors of war, but the sacrifices of the fallen”. Thereupon I presumed to write to the great man. What, I dared to question him, were “the sacrifices of the fallen”? They were intangible things, and many. And was his monument really to symbolise these? Or should the word have been “sacrifice” – for we can lay our lives down but once – and was his memorial to stop at death? If so, I hinted, it must be an absurdly one-sided affair. The mere passing of the flesh, I reminded him, is memorialised in every cemetery – there is too often little else there to memorialise. But how many, I added, are the conceptions that might be covered in a memorial to our soldiers – for a memorial, and the more so as it is lifted to higher planes, can be to living things as well as to dead. I concluded here that there need, of course, be no aggrandisement of the profane business of war about it.’
After the Squatter had paused a moment, and had found that he had the ear of the company, he went on:
‘I next hazarded the opinion, in passing, that there would doubtless be some, too, who would wish to commemorate, not “the sacrifices of the fallen”, but their own sacrifices. But a memorial of this kind, I hinted, would hardly be one to our soldiers; and this, after all, was to be their memorial. I remarked that, whatever the true Australian was, he was certainly not a sentimentalist, on the battlefield or off it; and that a lachrymose memorial would both belie and belittle him. I pointed out that, as the work would stand at the very heart of the city’s life, its effect upon the generations to come should also be considered, and that, if it struck a note out of keeping with the national character, or an enervating or dispiriting one, it could not be what it ought to be. I reminded our sculptor, further, that those men could laugh at death, and questioned if we ourselves should weep overmuch at it, which, here and in short, would be to weep for ourselves.’
The Squatter, it appeared to the company, had done his thinking to some purpose. After a little pause, he resumed:
‘I then set down my conviction that, to confine the commemoration to those only who were unfortunate enough to perish, would be an injustice to those who had done the same work at the prompting of circumstance, and who had yet managed to emerge from the travail alive. And I wound up with the statement that “the sacrifices of the fallen”, if the spirit of man means anything at all, were the least memorable part of the business, and that the memorialist, if he restricted his expression, would lessen his chance of doing justice to our soldiers, including – and this very definitely so – those who perished. They died, I was bold enough to say, that we might memorialise something greater than their death – though this, too, should have a place at the memorial. And I added some hints of the splendours – in case he had missed them – which that “something” meant. So much, then, for my presumption. When, in due course,’ the Squatter ended, ‘the memorial was handsomely paid for, finished, and set up, the opinion was ventured that the local mason had achieved more than the sculptor; for the tremendous stone shaped by the mason, and inscribed with the naïve and horrible insinuation “Lest We Forget”, at least expressed something.
Hearing these opinions, the company did not hesitate to approve them; nor did they fail – some with grins, and some with words not polite – to guess at once the city and the memorial of which the Squatter had told. For this account, too, they more valued the teller. The recital of their guest’s temerity, if their looks meant anything, had done not a little to cement further the bond between him and his hearers. Then, after some discussion of the points mentioned, the Squatter, returning to his former point, said:
‘I was speaking of the effect of imagination upon action. I should like, if I have not already spoken too much, to conclude what I had to say here. If, among our troops, we had men – and who can deny that? – let us thank Providence that, among them, we had poets too. Indeed, it was the creative force of imagination, to my thinking, that made possible much of what we accomplished in this war.’
It was, moreover, a pet theory of the Squatter’s, and one that he would have brought forward had time served for it, that poets were made great in active contest with circumstance – that their understanding of human truth and their sympathy with it, their breadth of vision, in short, the wisdom that constituted them poets, they could acquire only thus. They had to be men first, and mere authors afterwards. There were times when he hated the mere author. Exemplification of this theory he found, after cheerfully allowing the few exceptions to it, in abundance. Had not Dante borne arms in battle? Had not Milton encountered dangers of no mean sort? They had; and these were poets truly. The substance of poetry, he held, must in the first place have been lived, attained to in experience, of whatever kind, before poets could utter it; in poetry there was such life as could have been nourished only on the things of life – not the least of which was the confronting of death. For these reasons he hoped that, tempered in the fire of this war, some supreme poet would in good time come forth, and enrich the nation, and not less the world itself, with his testimony.
However, the time for theories – in spite of those that had cropped up – was not now; and this fact, indeed, was borne in forcibly upon the Squatter by a remark from Monoculus.
‘McCullough,’ said Monoculus, with a little heat, ‘could dream joss-houses for us bucks, ay, and easy; but the Government – hell take it! – before it could dream so much for us, it had to try hard enough.’
What more Monoculus might have said was cut short by the Colonel.
‘The next tale is yours,’ he said, turning with a placating smile to this decrier of the lords in office. ‘If you begin now, there’ll be just time for it.’
‘So I will then, Colonel,’ Monoculus replied. He finished his beer, and drew his great fist across his mouth. Then, sitting as easy as he could, he told his tale thus….
Lone Pine Memorial at Anzac Cove.
The unveiling of the cenotaph at Martin Place. 19 February 1929
‘Lest We Forget'. Street-facing side of the cenotaph.
‘To our glorious dead’. Another angle of the cenotaph.
[1] In his letter, he puts it thus:
“The rewards that concerned us now were not of yesterday only. They were living acquests, and would live while our race lived…. Out of that high grappling with the impossible we had plucked things richer than victories in the field: we had proved greatly our blood in it; we had set, thus, an immortal seal upon our race.”
[2] See also his work Salvage.