This is written in the trenches. It is Sunday, and we have been here one month to-day; but first let me tell you how we got here… When we had almost given up hope, before we could scarcely think of it, we had left Egypt, and were anchored in a quiet bay in the beautiful island of Lemnos. It was fine to go ashore there and march past the fresh green fields, or skirmish over the hills knee-deep in flowers. Yet we were always speculating as to when we would be leaving for more turbulent fields. “To-morrow,” someone would say. “Oh! You got it straight from the colonel’s horse, I suppose.” And of course we had bets on it. Some of them will never be paid or collected now.
Then one Saturday came when there seemed no doubt about it being to-morrow. We were issued three days’ rations — “Iron Rations” fitly, not Jocularly, the military call them — and told what was expected of us next day. At noon exactly we dropped out of the harbor, past troopships and warships, and steamed along the coast. All that hushed afternoon we kept on. We still joked and laughed; but I think we were all thinking and wondering about to-morrow. Our anchor dropped at dusk in a little inlet. Other ships were already there, and others were still coming in. I do not know what time we left, because I was asleep; but when we were awakened at three o’clock next morning we were steaming along in the dark very slowly. Someone said breakfast was ready, so we rushed below. Everyone was making the same noise as usual. “I’ll bet,” said Bill, “to-morrow morning Mrs. Jones’ll lean over the gate with her broom in her hand and say: ‘Well, Mrs. Smith, did you see where the Australians have been in action, fighting them Turks. I wonder how your Willie is? The papers said they made a wild charge.’ ” And Bill was in the wild charge; but he will never see Mrs. Jones leaning over the gate next door again. “I say, Bill,” said Dave, “this is like one of those picnics where you take your own tucker; you know, like that one you took the Bulgarian rock and ginger nut to.” “That’s right, Dave. Only there are no girls here, and I never went to a three days picnic before, and I think there’ll be Turkish delight at this one instead of Bulgarian rock.”
An officer came down before we had finished, and told us that we were not allowed on deck before the word came. So we stayed down there at the mess-tables, with our equipment and rifles ready, waiting and wondering. The ports were all closed, and the air soon got stifling; but we tried to be as cheerful as ever. Bill and Dave still kept on with their schoolboy reminiscences. I was going to say “never-ending reminiscences,” but they are ended now. And ’En commenced a novel. If he did bring it with him he will never read the finish of it. One morning last week, just after he had received a letter from his girl in Australia, a shell burst over him. Two romances ended in that moment. Another lad was reading his Bible. I do not know which book gave the most comfort, and I cannot ask now. Sometimes we looked in one another’s eyes. There was no fear in them; but the faces were very tense and set.
A dull sound came down to us there on that dim, stuffy deck. Most of us said it was the warships firing their guns, and a few said it was some playful private letting his rifle butt drop on the deck. But the sounds still came to us — too long for anyone there that morning to want to fool us. Who could stay down there much longer? On various pretexts, one by one, we slipped up on deck to see what was doing.
I found that we had drawn quite close in shore. Day was coming over the hills in front of us. There was just enough light to make out the various ridges. Shells from the warships were bursting in puffs of flame almost on the water’s edge, and right up to the very furthest hills. The sea already was a-bustle with long tows of ship’s boats and pontoons making for the shore with their cargoes of men. From the land there came a sharp rattle of rifle fire. The Third Brigade had already landed, and were now driving the Turks over the hills. We learned afterwards that they had disembarked at two o’clock that morning, and taking the enemy by surprise soon had a footing on the beach. The Turks resisted; but with cries of “Impshi” and “Yallah.” Our men drove them back, and were soon lined along the first ridge. The two strange words are not new oaths that we have picked up, but are just two innocent Arabic words that we learned in Egypt when dealing with the natives. “Impshi means “Begone,” and “Yallah” means “Get out of my way.”
It was getting lighter now, but the mist still lay in the hollows. We could see the steep, sandy hills — sugar-loaf in shape, they seemed from the sea, covered partly with scrub — which we expected soon to be climbing. Everything seemed to be working in accordance with the secret plans and orders.
Then, while we were watching the great observation balloon — golden in the first of the sun — and the long tow of boats going off and returning, a flame flashed from a bluff rising out of the sea. A shell went screaming towards a cluster of boats making for the shore. How we watched it! It fell short. That roused our ships again. Their broadsides and big guns spoke, but the fort went on defiantly firing. Not for two days was it silenced. Even now it is still occupied, though it has been bombarded several times since. Its guns would fire from the crest of the hill, and sometimes from the foot, apparently through tunnels, as nothing could have remained intact near the surface where one of our shells had burst.
The stately Queen Elizabeth came steaming past, trim and cleared for action. Not a man was to be seen on her decks. She manoeuvred, and her great voice spoke her anger as though she were prompted by no other mind than that of England affronted.
Then it was discovered that we were up on deck, and we were ordered below. While we were waiting Ginger struck up a tune on his mouth organ. The whole deck would have been singing with him had not an officer’s sergeant come along. “I’m going right there, I’ve got my fare.” The chorus had already started. “Now then, stop this. Wasn’t the order for absolute silence.” “Boo,” we said, “are you afraid of the Turks hearing us.” “Put that thing away and don’t argue,” he said aloofly. We had something to talk about when he passed on. Some of us could not resist going up on deck again to bring back breathless reports of affairs.
Then everyone was marshalled below and the roll was called. I could not help noticing the firm, clear voice in which the names were answered; and yet I knew that all of us were wondering when we would answer it again. In silence (an enforced one) we filed up into the open air and down the gangway on to the pontoons. We dropped down anywhere, and watched the others stumbling in, making a few jocular remarks.
Everyone was not off yet when we heard a dull whirr passing overhead, and a great shell splashed into the sea not far away. Another and another came, making the transports up anchor and put out to sea with us towing alongside. We were cast off at last, and making a zig-zag course to avoid the shells, made for the shore. We had been ordered to keep our heads below the gunwale, but still I think most of us were standing up before the end of the journey. The pontoon grounded, and we at once waded waist deep in the water.
Wounded men were already on the beach, and as we passed further along we caught sight of a few tragic, still figures lying on the shingle. One bluejacket, who had assisted in the landing, was lying half lapped by the waves of his old love — the sea.
We passed along still, till we came to the end of a deep, narrow gorge. Headquarters had been fixed here, and we drew up for further orders. We must have been the reinforcements, as we waited for most of the afternoon. The sound of rifles on the ridge above was steady now, scarcely even diminishing. Presently, above it, we heard that whirr again, and shrapnel shells began to burst overhead. They were terrifying things at first, but gradually we became used to them, as just there they did not seem to do much harm. One fellow was hit close by me. The bullet slipped down his back, scarcely breaking his skin. You would have thought that he was safe for that day, anyway, yet he was one of those who did not come back a few hours later.
At last the order came, and we moved off down the beach, crowded now with the waiting wounded. Some were smiling and smoking, some had agony in their faces, and some there were whose faces I could not see. “Shall we be like this, soon,” we thought. Over the first rise from the sea we went into the hell of shrapnel. Men started to fall amongst us now. We halted under cover of a dry watercourse, and there we left our packs. Up through the valley we went again, men still falling, and bullets whistling past. Our captain told us we had to attack the next hill. We rushed up that; but we could see none of the enemy, though their bullets were there to remind us of them. Down the next steep slope we slipped and fell till we reached a trickle of muddy water. For a couple of hundred yards we splashed through this, and then dashed up the next slope. Coming down this we met more wounded men being helped and carried along. Some of them urged us on, though their silent wounds were enough for that. “Give it to them for us, boys,” one of them said, “They can’t fight like us. It’s only their shrapnel. Wait till we get our artillery up.”
We were not together now. Pushing through the undergrowth, and rushing down those slopes with paths leading everywhere, we had become parted. Our officers could not keep touch with one another. Yet somehow or other, quite out of breath, parted from our sections and companies, we reached the next summit. It was not long before we were alongside our comrades. An officer whom I had never seen before came over to us as we panted just beneath the crest. What made me look at him was that he had a walking stick. Certainly he had a very warlike revolver in one hand, but the walking stick seemed out of place. ‘Who are you,” he asked. We told him. “Well, just over the ridge the enemy are entrenched. Fix your bayonets and give a good yell and over after them.” We did with a will; but there were no Turks in sight, though their bullets screamed past us. I do not know how far we ran, but we were quite exhausted when we threw ourselves down under cover of a little dip in the ground.
Orders were given to fire; but we could see nothing, though we could hear a machine gun spitting its lead out at us. I heard a man moaning. A sniper had got him. Dave was near me and came up alongside. “What do you think of being under fire? Why, I thought I’d be scared, and I’m not at all. I wish I could see something to shoot at, though.”
We stayed there about half an hour. An order came to fall back, and still under fire we retired a few hundred yards. It was growing dark now, but the bullets were still going over. The shrapnel had ceased. We lay watching until it was night, and started to entrench. In a few hours a small moon came up, and with it small detachments of the enemy sent out to annoy us, as they did not attack in earnest. We let them see by a few volleys every now and then that we were on the watch. We could hear them on the next ridge calling to one another and blowing whistles and bugles; but it only served to keep us awake. Few had any sleep that night, so perhaps they attained their purpose.
Reinforcements came up for the enemy all next morning. We could see them coming over the further hills, and about noon they opened a steady, continuous rifle and machine gun fire. But by now our trenches afforded good cover, and we were looking forward to a rest. Then, just as their machine gun got our exact range, and its bullets were singing overhead and making little spurts of dust on our parapet, the order passed along to advance. “Whose order is it?” we asked one another and hopped over. Down the slope we went, men dropping every yard; yet, as before, we could see few of the enemy. Their snipers, concealed in the bushes, fired at us as we rushed past. For almost five hundred yards we went, and tried to establish a position; but it was no good. In about an hour’s time we came straggling back, just enough breath left to drop into the trenches. Many never came back. Bill was one of them. “I’ll tell you what, mate,” he used to say, “if this war keeps on much longer, somebody’ll be getting hurt.”
Scarcely were we in than an order came for men of our battalion to charge a ridge running at right angles to our trenches. The enemy had impeded the previous advance from this ridge. It seemed madness, with night coming on and all, but there was no help for it, so out we went again. I remember dimly passing some of our men lying very still as we rushed down the gorge again. The shrapnel started once more, bursting just a few feet overhead, and men started to fall or limp back again.
Like the previous move, there was no organisation whatever. Officers had no orders, and did not know what was expected of them. We reached the top of the ridge all right, in little bunches gathered here and there. Of course we made the best of it, and tried to give them as heavy a fire as they gave us. It was no good; we had to come back, bringing what wounded we could. We stumbled into the first trench we came across, and lay there, too exhausted to move further. Even now, none of us knew much about it. All we know is that we got over the top of the ridge, and were met with a heavy fire from rifles and machine guns, and that we could see nothing of the enemy.
We now feared a counter attack by the enemy, and what officers were near us tried to get some control over the men. Do not think that we were at all in a panic; but we were disorganised. Of ten men on either side of me I knew only one. A representative of every battalion was there. Now to get men used to commands of an officer whom they do not know, and at a time like this, is a difficult thing; but it was done. When the Turks did come they received a well controlled fire. They soon had enough of it, and beyond keeping us awake all night, their cries and pretended attacks did no damage.
The next morning the warships opened fire with their big guns. Day had not yet come; but we were standing to arms. While we were watching, a great mountain across the peninsula lit up with one great flash, and a shell went roaring overhead out to sea. It was somewhere near half a minute before we heard the report of the gun. Several times the mountain spoke, and then was silent.
Next day, except for a few feints, passed quietly; but that night they made a determined attack. We now knew one another better; but as it turned out, in some cases not well enough. There were spies throughout the whole line. A message would come down, passed from man to man, not to fire as the Ghurkas were making a charge in the centre. It was not for several weeks that we found that there were no Ghurkas with us at all. Numerous orders were passed down for the artillery to cease fire, as part of the line was advancing. And one night an order came down for us to number — a very exact way of getting the strength of a position. I tell you each man began to suspect his neigbor of being a spy. Our nerves got jumpy. A man who had lost his way stumbling about in the rear of the trenches had a very good chance of stopping a bullet. We were afraid to obey bona fide orders, and much delay was caused in getting them confirmed.
Well, this night we were ready for them. We withheld our fire though they came on in great numbers, and with a terrible clamor of cries and bugle calls. They came on still; but we waited till they were fifteen yards off. “Gibit backsheesh,” we cried, and let go at them then. They soon had enough, and left for other parts. Yet they must have taken a bugle or two with them, for they kept us awake all night again. We had had no sleep for three nights now, and had been either fighting, digging or watching the whole of the time. Moreover, we had not our greatcoats with us, nor any warm clothes, our packs having been cast off that first day. It was too cold to sleep. We just dropped off into a sort of stupor at times, standing up — anyway and anywhere at all. It is a hard job to rouse your mate from this unconsciousness when the “Stand to arms” order is given. You can turn him over, pinch him, punch him, tell him that the Turks are charging, and all he will do is to look at you with wide open, unseeing eyes. He will get upon his feet still in the same state, and if left alone, his head will fall downwards with a jerk.
It grew quieter after those first three days; but with the cold nights, we could not get much sleep. Sometimes we snatched an hour during the day time. One thing we were very thankful for — there was always a good supply of food. Water was scanty at first. I remember how hard it was to have to pass a tin down for “Machine gun only.”
We stayed in those trenches seven days, and then we were relieved and trooped down to the beach for a rest. In no time we were splashing about, washing off the dust of the trenches. Then we thought we would look for our belongings. As we passed over the paths of the hills and valleys, we saw clothing of all sorts, letters, photographs, writing material and equipment scattered everywhere, trodden in the mud or hanging on the thorn bushes. “Are all our things like this, too,” we wondered. We found the gully where we had left them. It was just the same. You would have thought some defeated army had fled by in full retreat, shedding everything as they went, and the victors had taken just what they fancied and trodden the rest underfoot. Out of my pack I have a great coat left, and that has someone else’s name on it. I have nothing else. That is why this is written on soiled scraps of paper, with a borrowed pencil. “Ah, well, never mind!” as old Bill would have said: “Someone pinched all my things; but he must have wanted them, or he wouldn’t have taken them.” “I don’t mind losing everything,” said Dave. “What I don't like to think about is us training for all that time to carry that pack, and then as soon as we have our first scrap, getting rid of it.”
Yet, after six months or so in the army, it is delightful to know you have nothing worth stealing. We sleep in everything we have now, that is, when we do sleep.
We got back to the beach after picking up an odd pair of socks or so, and with the dusk, lay down for the long waited sleep. I was just slipping away from it all when I heard a voice saying: “Fall in everyone. Hurry up.” There was no help for it. In a few minutes we were hurrying up the dark valleys towards where the rifle fire had been very insistent all that afternoon. An English regiment had relieved some of the Australians here yesterday, and it seemed they were now being hard pressed. It was very dark, and I think our guide must have lost the way, as we were climbing up and slipping down, dragging shrubs and roots with us for half the night. At last we saw the dark summit just above us, and could hear the bullets whistling over. We were told to sit there and wait for orders. None could have come, as it was bright day when we awoke.
Next day the Tommies came out of those trenches, and we took their places. There we have been ever since. An attack is always being expected. At least, we are always in readiness. About three times a week they do come on; but not for long. We scarcely heed shrapnel now; we have become so used to it.
Regularly every morning and evening they send shell after shell over. Sometimes someone is hit, but more often not. Every second day or so they let us see what an exploding nine inch shell is like. We have not lost many with these; but they bore a large hole in the earth, and make a great noise. The air for about a minute afterwards is raining clods and bits of shell. Day and night it is never still. There is always some noise — rifles or machine guns, or one of our own big guns. Sometimes there is a lot of noise — every rifle and machine gun in the line firing. Yet it is surprising how a man’s voice can be heard above it all.
Our trenches are a maze of deep, narrow ways running in all directions. You can easily become lost in them, though signposts are at almost every turn.
Looking out over the parapet you can almost forget that there is a war. The enemy's trenches are just over there, fifty yards away; but they show no hostile thing; and just outside our own, flowers, strange to my Australian eyes, are nodding and swaying as the bees go through them. But a little further away, partly hidden by shrubs and flowers, lie more of those quiet forms: and as I raise my head to see what they once were — friend or foe — a bullet goes whistling past. It does not take many of them to make you remember that it is war.
There are still more hills to take, but we cannot help feeling proud of ourselves when we look back over the deep valleys between us and the sea. Like the steep National Park country in New South Wales it is, only there are no great trees here. We took it all that first day. We find it exhaustive walking up the paths carrying provisions and water now, but we scarcely felt it as we rushed on that Sunday. “This is a rotten place for a battle,” says Dave. “Why, I could have picked any amount of better places, where there would not have been half so much work.” And from what can be heard, another place was selected, not very far away; but easier country. A mistake was made in the dark, and we landed a mile to the north of the selected spot. We can see the place from where we now are; also the barbed wire just showing above the water, and the mined beach. That fort on the bluff at the southern end also has a very good view of the whole length of it.
We took it all the first day, and we are still holding it. But on the sides of the valleys little patches of new earth can be seen. Only a few inches of moss and mould are separating them. Each has a piece of broken packing case stuck upright at one end of it. The rain has already made the pencil writing on them run, and Time is coloring the wood. But perhaps elsewhere the names are written in letters that no rain will wash out, and on so durable a substance that Time will not touch it as he passes by.
The Turks do their best still to make life interesting for us by sending a few shells over every day, and every week or so blowing up a sap. I am sure that they must think with us that the campaign is getting monotonous. Still, we have ourselves to blame, as we gave them such a knocking about the last time they attacked us that they may have had quite enough excitement for some time. This is our eleventh Sunday, and we are still holding the same position as we held the first night, so they must have long ago come to the conclusion that we are going to stay as long as we like.
Eleven weeks! Well, I suppose that we have helped to make some history in that time. I have seen aeroplanes in flight, battleships in action, shells bursting on forts, a ship torpedoed by a submarine. I have landed on a hostile beach, have been sniped at by evil disposed Turks, have been in a few scraps, and now am thinking what to say next. Let me tell you a story.
One moonlight night an observer, standing at the cross roads in the valleys, would have seen a quiet form on a stretcher carried by two men. He would not have needed to have been very observant to have noticed that the swing of the stretcher was very irregular, and were he curious enough to have watched the two but a very little way, he would have seen them place down their burden and take a long draught from a curiously-wrought vessel. He could have seen them do this several times before they reached the next turn in the road. Had he been so minded as to have stayed there an hour, he would have seen some ten or twelve of these parties go by, some swaying a little more, perhaps, and some stopping oftener and longer than others. This was the cause. That day a cask had floated ashore. Now there are a lot of casks here; but they all contain water. No one could remember one coming ashore before, and this one seemed different to the others, yet familiar for all that. Who would not assist such a cask to a firm footing on dry land? Somebody came along with an axe and there gushed out a juice. No one stopped to give it a name, but rushed off for the nearest and biggest bucket, and soon the hills were gurgling and ringing with delight. It was Burgundy. No one knows where it came from, or how it came to be floating there: and no one worried much about that, either. I did not see it come ashore, and I was not one of those mysterious stretcher parties; yet, whether I was in a position to tell whether it was good Burgundy or not, you must decide for yourselves, as the censor reads this letter.
Do you know that this is quite a poetic place? Why, at the present time l am living in Thrace, and I see the sunset behind Samothrace each evening. The ruins of Troy are not very far away. Wouldn't it be awful if I were away from home as long as Ulysses! Just above my head a bay tree grows. The bullets have snipped away some of the leaves, but it is still green. So all these things may explain the verses with this letter.
THE QUEST OF LOVE.
My sleeping comrades never stirred,
For there had been no call to arms.
Still round the heights the battle rang;
Yet not that woke me, but a bird
That somewhere sang.
To hear him sing made me forget
Why I lay there and all such things.
Straightway I felt the wind that blew;
I saw the tattered clouds that let
The stars shine through.
A flame filled all the sky, and then,
As swift, died out. But I had seen
The low black bushes on the hill,
The men that stirred in pain, the men
That lay so still.
At last the gun crashed. Then for long
The night was vivid with the light,
And shaken with the roar of guns;
And yet I heard a bird’s clear song
Ring through it once.
I saw her moving on the slope.
At each form fearfully she knelt,
And looked intently on the face,
Then on she went again, and hope
Made swift her pace.
I saw her eyes as she came near.
Great Love, in that strange quivering light,
Burned through them with a steady flame.
Her voice was low, yet I could hear
Her call his name.
She from her fears got no relief,
And yet her face was dry of tears.
But when she kneeled beside the dead,
For pity of some others grief,
She bowed her head.
She paused and eyed each sleeping one.
Her lips were murmuring a prayer,
Weaved round that name more audible.
Was he her lover or her son,
I could not tell.
And with that glance she passed us by.
I turned, and watched her climb the hill.
In one white burst of flame she shone.
Sharp out she stood against the sky,
And she was gone.
The dark was drizzling when we woke
And stood to arms. “Was it a dream”?
And still that question rang and rang.
Nearby a bird, as daylight broke,
For answer sang.
Harley Matthews, 4th Battalion AIF
This account by Harley Matthews, written ‘in the trenches’ at Gallipoli, featured in the October 1915 edition of Sydney monthly magazine, The Lone Hand. The writer was a private in the 4th Battalion of the 1st Australian Infantry Brigade. His literary ambition was as a poet (in 1912, he published a book of verse titled Under the open sky) but this account of the landing at Anzac is a fine piece of descriptive prose.
Harley Matthews was born in 1889, and raised in Fairfield, then a rural town 30 km southwest of Sydney. After completing his education at Sydney High School, Matthews became an articled law clerk and did his five years’ term, but instead of applying for admission as a solicitor, he entered public service with the Water Conservation and Irrigation Commission.
At the beginning of the war, in August 1914, Matthews joined the Australian Imperial Force as Private 1056, being assigned to ‘B’ Company of the 4th Infantry Battalion as a signaller.
On the morning of 25 April 1915, his battalion landed at Anzac Cove, but they were kept in reserve until late that afternoon, when they moved from Shrapnel Gully to 400 Plateau. The 4th Battalion dug in along Bolton’s Ridge, the southern spur that runs off 400 Plateau and Lone Pine. The next day, an ill-conceived and ill-fated advance was made across Lone Pine, which Matthews describes. The battalion suffered badly and the men had to retire to their starting positions. Later they manned frontline trenches on Second Ridge.
Matthews’ account of the landing and subsequent days was probably written on 11 July 1915. He says that it is their eleventh Sunday at Gallipoli.
Also included below is a letter dated 10 July from Matthews to Bertram Stevens, the editor of The Lone Hand. Matthews forwarded Stevens his poem ‘Quest of Love’ with another valuable first-person sketch of Anzac.
Matthews was a good soldier as well as a perceptive observer, for he gained a ‘special mention’ in divisional orders for ‘acts of conspicuous gallantry or valuable service’ between 6 May and 28 June. However, his time at Gallipoli was almost up. On 3 August 1915, a Turkish bomb splinter pierced his right calf, and Matthews was evacuated to Alexandria, where he underwent an operation on 10 August. The wound caused his calf muscles to contract, forcing him to walk with a limp. Matthews was transferred to hospital in England and the recommendation was ‘home service’ until the end of the war.
After being discharged from hospital, Matthews had a stint with the Red Cross Stores in France, then was assigned to the finance section of the Australian Army Pay Corps at AIF Headquarters, London. During this period, he sat for sculptor Jacob Epstein as the model for a steel-helmeted bust. That sculpture may be ‘The Tin Hat’ (Art.IWM ART 2756), a bronze in the collections of the Imperial War Museum. According to his personnel record, his sister thought that he had been accepted, despite the ‘slight limp’, for the ‘Flying Corps.’ Perhaps he had tried to gain admission to the air service.
Matthews returned to Australia in September 1917 for discharge as medically unfit.
He is next found as an assistant legal clerk at No. 4 Australian General Hospital, in the Sydney suburb of Randwick. Matthews contributed a short story to the hospital’s souvenir book Remnants from Randwick.
In 1918, Matthews produced Saints and Soldiers, a collection of mostly humorous prose sketches and stories, which was favourably reviewed by The Sydney Mail. The illustrated weekly reckoned his stories gave ‘a better idea of the average Australian soldier, the best and worst of him, than many more pretentious descriptions.’
After the war, Matthews worked as a journalist for a few years, before abandoning both law and journalism to become a wine-grower. He continued to write although his output was limited. Four Gallipoli poems feature in a book of verse published in 1938 as Vintage. (A popular edition was published in 1940 as Vintage of war: poems of Anzac, 1914–18.)
During WWII, Matthews was suspected of being a member of the fascist Australia First Movement. The patriot and Gallipoli Anzac was wrongfully arrested as a seditionist. He spent six months in an internment camp before the error was righted.
After the war, his marriage having been dissolved, Matthews lived alone on a mixed farm where he planted a small vineyard, entertained his bohemian guests, and continued to read and write poetry. Harley Matthews — writer, soldier and vigneron — died 9 August 1968. Interested readers should search Trove (trove.nla.gov.au) for more of his writing.
‘Shooting the breakers through a hail of shrapnel’
Gallipoli Peninsula, 10/7/1915
Dear Mr Stephens,
I know that the sight of indelible pencil makes you in your official capacity very annoyed; still this is written to the man. And anyhow I have nothing else to write with.
There is not much I am afraid I can tell you about our position here, even were the censorships entirely withdrawn. It is really surprising how little we know of what happens anywhere else except before our own eyes. Of course when we go down the valley for water there is always someone with a startling rumour. I would not be at all surprised if the rumours that must be now floating around Sydney about the duration of the war and what some high authority predicted concerning it, about a battle in the North Sea, and other things, originated from that water cask.
The bank where we sit might well be one of Sydney’s lounge bars, except that the liquid dispensed is weaker and no bar-maid uses such language as the guard does. But the stories that buzz around it are just as startling, just as interesting, and just as unreliable. Did you know that the Kaiser is carrying on with a woman? And the Crown Prince gets drunk too.
Water can breed arguments as well. There are always about 20 fellows arguing whether it was a German or British aeroplane that flew over this morning. Half saw red rings on the wings and the other half saw just as distinctly the German black crosses. And there is always a group of aerial experts arguing whether it was an aeroplane or a seaplane, a monoplane or a biplane.
The size of the shells that were flying about during the day always raises the hottest discussion. You can argue on whether it was a gun or a howitzer that threw them, whether they were time or percussion shrapnel or plain or high explosive shells when you have given up trying to convince the other fellow about the size. And when he has discomfited you by the information that he knows that they were a new kind of shell only just reached Turkey yesterday, you still have the range and the whereabouts to convince him on.
So you see that though we have no scrimmage lately the Turks still do their best to make life interesting for us. We often have the chance of a swim. The Mediterranean seems to be free from sharks but you never know when a shell is coming over. During our first days a shell was a thrilling performance. The Turks used to keep a lookout for swimming parties and get their artillery and snipers to let go at the beach. I wonder what remedy Pro bono Publico would advocate in his aggrieved letter to the press if the surf bathers at Bondi or Manly had to shoot the breakers through a hail of shrapnel.
I don’t suppose that you have heard much about the Australians since the 19th May. And anyway you can be fairly certain that when the cables have nothing to report there is nothing doing. From what I can see that cable is just as ready to talk as the fellows round the water or other cask. And it magnifies some things and makes others very small, just as much as a Hawkesbury fisherman can when he compares his own catch with the other fellow’s.
The Turk as a soldier is not such a slouch as you might think after the Suez Canal foolishness. The troops sent here for their last big attack were a fine, well equipped lot and though badly led showed some courage. But they had no chance and hardly keep us awake of nights now.
They certainly have a country worth fighting for. It is the best place we have seen since we left Australia. Its scrub-clad hills and beaches and its clean blue sea are not so very unlike Australia’s either. Its summer, day and night, is glorious. I hope however that the campaign is over before the Winter as I suspect those valley roads of ours will be very much like small rivers. But I think we can look forward to having to fight it out. I have long ago lost faith in the stories about shortage of munitions and food and coffee etc ending the war. Money might, but I think the bayonet will, all the same.
Would you mind looking at the enclosed. It might be good enough for the Lone Hand, and if you don’t object, the censor shouldn’t.
Hoping a lot of things, one of which is that you are still able to hold a glass to the light, I am yours sincerely,
Harley Matthews.
References
Service record, Harley Matthews, National Archives of Australia, NAA: B2455
‘Autograph letter signed by Harley Matthews, written from the Gallipoli Peninsula, to Bertram Stevens, relating to conditions at the front, 10 July 1915, enclosing two poems’, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, DLDOC 135
Harley Mathews, ‘At Gallipoli’, The Lone Hand, vol. 4 no. 5 (new series), 1 October 1915
Harley Mathews, ‘The Music of Life’, The Lone Hand, vol. 8 no. 3 (new series), 1 February 1918
Remnants from Randwick / compiled by the Committee for the Patients of the 4th A.G. Hospital (Sydney: Tyrrells, 1919)
Harley Matthews, Vintage (Sydney: P. R. Stephensen, 1938)
‘Australian war literature / Review by Bertram Stevens’, The Sydney Mail, 12 March 1919
J. T. Laird, ‘Matthews, Harley (1889–1968)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University
George Vance, Fairfield: a history of the district (Marrickville, NSW: Southwood Press, 1991)
