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Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation
Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation
Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation
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Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation

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WINNER OF THE 2013 PRIME MINISTER'S LITERARY AWARD FOR AUSTRALIAN HISTORY

WINNER OF THE 2012 MANNING CLARK HOUSE NATIONAL CULTURAL AWARD

COMMENDED FOR THE FAW EXCELLENCE IN NON-FICTION AWARD

For Australia, a new nation with a relatively small population, the death of 60,000 soldiers during World War I was catastrophic. It is hardly surprising, then, that Australians evaluating the consequences of the conflict have tended to focus primarily on the numbing number of losses — on the sheer quantity of all those countrymen who did not return.

That there must have been extraordinary individuals among them has been implicitly understood, but these special Australians are unknown today. This book seeks to retrieve their stories and to fill the gaps in our collective memory. Farewell, Dear People contains ten extended biographies of young men who exemplified Australia’s gifted lost generation of World War I.

Among them are accounts of an internationally acclaimed medical researcher; a military officer described by his brigadier as potentially an Australian Kitchener; a rugby international who became an esteemed administrator and a rising Labor star; an engineer who excelled on Mawson’s Antarctic mission; a visionary vigneron and community leader who was renowned for successful winemaking at an unusually young age; a Western Australian Rhodes scholar assured of a shining future in the law and/or politics; a Tasmanian footballer who dazzled at the highest level; and a budding architect from Melbourne’s best-known creative dynasty who combined an endearing personality with his family’s flair for writing and drawing.

This magisterial book tells their stories for the first time. In doing so, it enriches the story of Australia immeasurably.

PRAISE FOR ROSS MCMULLIN

‘A remarkably good book … Farewell Dear People has elevated the study of Australian involvement in the Great War to a new dimension in courage, commitment and sacrifice.’ The Spectator

‘There is so much to admire and to praise in this book. The research is prodigious, the storytelling hypnotic, the confidence and clarity of the writer remarkable. Do not for a second think of this book as military history only or mostly … This is a rich book, to be sure. One that I read with such pleasure and admiration. It is a wonderful tribute to the 10 men whose lives we discover for the first time, an extraordinary account of Australia from about the 1870s and into the 1930s, and deeply moving.’ The Canberra Times

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 21, 2012
ISBN9781921942488
Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation
Author

Ross McMullin

Ross McMullin is an award-winning historian, biographer, and storyteller. Life So Full of Promise is his sequel to Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation, which won national awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History. His biographies include Pompey Elliott, which also won multiple awards, and Will Dyson: Australia’s radical genius, and he assembled Elliott’s extraordinary letters in Pompey Elliott at War: in his own words. His political histories comprise The Light on the Hill and So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the world’s first national labour government. During the 1970s he played first-grade district cricket in Melbourne.

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    Farewell, Dear People - Ross McMullin

    Scribe Publications

    FAREWELL, DEAR PEOPLE

    Ross McMullin is a historian and biographer whose main interests are Australian history, politics, and sport. He has researched and written extensively about Australia’s involvement in World War I. He and his family live in Melbourne.

    Scribe Publications Pty Ltd

    18–20 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria, Australia 3056

    Email: info@scribepub.com.au

    First published by Scribe 2012

    Copyright © Ross McMullin 2012

    All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

    Cover photograph credits: Geoff McCrae (Barbara Blomfield); Tom Elliott (RMC Archives); George Challis (State Library of Victoria); Ted Larkin (NSW Parliament); Clunes Mathison (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute); Robert Bage (Mitchell Library); Gresley Harper (National Trust of WA); Wilfred Harper (Guildford Grammar School archives); Phipps Turnbull (Bill Edgar); Carew Reynell (Bill Hardy).

    Indexed by Richard McGregor

    National Library of Australia

    Cataloguing-in-Publication data

    McMullin, Ross, 1952-

    Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation.

    9781921942488 (e-book.)

    Includes bibliographical references.

    1. World War, 1914-1918–Australia. 2. World War, 1914-1918–Casualties–Australia. 3. World War, 1914-1918–Australia–Biography. 4. Australia–Armed Forces–Biography. 5. Australia–History–1914-1918–Biography.

    940.394

    www.scribepublications.com.au

    Contents

    Maps

    Formations in the military hierarchy

    Imperial-to-metric conversions

    Introduction: Australia’s Lost Generation

    Prologue: Farewell, Dear People

    ONE Geoff McCrae: the creative allrounder

    TWO Tom Elliott: Australia’s Kitchener

    THREE George Challis: the footballer

    FOUR Ted Larkin: the administrator/politician

    FIVE Clunes Mathison: the medical scientist

    SIX Robert Bage: the engineer/explorer

    SEVEN Gresley Harper, Wilfred Harper, and Phipps Turnbull: the barrister, the farmer, and the Rhodes scholar

    EIGHT Carew Reynell: the winemaker

    Conclusion: Their Loss Is Irreplaceable

    Bibliography

    Abbreviations used in notes

    Notes

    Acknowledgements

    ANZAC POSITIONS AT GALLIPOLI

    THE BATTLE OF FROMELLES

    Formations in the military hierarchy

    Formations, in descending order, are as follows:

    army

    corps

    division

    brigade

    battalion

    company

    platoon

    section

    Imperial-to-metric conversions

    1 mile = 1.6 kilometres

    1 yard (=3 feet) = 0.91 metres

    1 inch = 2.54 centimetres

    1 acre = 0.4 hectares

    100° Fahrenheit = 37.8° Celsius

    INTRODUCTION

    Australia’s Lost Generation

    For Australia, a new nation with a relatively small population, the death of 60,000 soldiers during World War I was catastrophic. It is hardly surprising, then, that Australians evaluating the consequences of the conflict have tended to focus primarily on all those countrymen who did not return. The emphasis has usually been on the collective effect of the numbing number of losses.

    That there must have been extraordinary individuals among them has been implicitly understood. But these special Australians are unknown today. They have been neglected by posterity. Their names and their stories are unfamiliar to later generations.

    This book seeks to remedy that neglect.

    It contains ten biographies of individuals who exemplify Australia’s lost generation of World War I. Each displayed such superb potential before 1914 that their absence after 1916 was a distinct deprivation for their nation, as well as a crushing bereavement for their families. They came from a variety of backgrounds — socially (some affluent, some decidedly not) as well as geographically — and distinguished themselves in a range of spheres. Also, they served in the AIF in different ways, not only as infantry: one was a doctor, another was deputy leader of an engineers company, and some were in the light horse. Their premature deaths represented a significant post-war loss for their nation because of their outstanding pre-war accomplishments or their outstanding character, or both.

    This book tells their stories for the first time. In these pages are biographies of an internationally acclaimed medical researcher; a splendid military officer described by his brigadier as potentially an Australian Kitchener; a rugby international who became an esteemed administrator and a rising Labor star; a widely admired engineer who excelled with Mawson’s mission to the Antarctic; a visionary vigneron and community leader who was renowned for successful winemaking at an unusually young age; a Western Australian Rhodes scholar assured of a shining future in the law and/or politics; a brilliant Tasmanian footballer who dazzled at the highest level; and a budding architect from Melbourne’s best-known creative dynasty who combined an endearing personality with his family’s flair for writing and drawing.

    These previously untold stories exemplify Australia’s lost generation, but they do not purport to constitute a ranking of some kind of top ten. Even so, Clunes Mathison, the subject of chapter five, was so remarkable — his death, an eminent British professor wrote, was an ‘irreparable’ loss ‘for the science of medicine throughout the world’ — that he would rank, in fact, as one of the top two (together with Harold Wanliss, who will be included in a second volume on the lost generation that is under way).

    The term ‘lost generation’ can be interpreted in various ways. It could refer to the generation that was slaughtered — all the men who died. Or it could refer to those soldiers who returned only to hospitals or asylums, and died in them. Or it could refer to all those returned men who struggled to readjust to civilian life in Australia — those who lived in a shed out the back, couldn’t sleep in a bed, and relied on alcohol to help them cope. Or it could refer to war widows, or to all those women who remained single — either because the battle casualties diminished their matrimonial options, or because one of those casualties was a precious friend whose shattering loss left them living much of their lives haunted by a faded photo on the mantelpiece.

    In this book, however, the term ‘lost generation’ refers to exceptional Australians who died. My aim has been to unearth compelling examples of this lost generation, and to illuminate how Australia was profoundly affected by their loss.

    This effect was all the more damaging because of Australia’s impressive social development before 1914. The young nation was progressive, forward-looking, and advanced. Most of its citizens welcomed the advent of welfare measures and innovations in public policy that confirmed Australia’s emergence as a relatively cohesive society based on egalitarianism and democratic mechanisms such as the secret ballot. The first national labour government in the world had materialised in Australia in 1904, and six years later Australians had elected the world’s first labour government with a clear parliamentary majority (in both chambers) and the capacity to initiate substantial change. Visitors crossed the globe to scrutinise this advanced social laboratory. After the war, though, things were very different.

    Multi-biographies can sometimes be sweeping and broad-brush affairs — a couple of pages devoted to each person, a couple of photos, and then on to the next one. While such volumes can be worthwhile, this book takes a different approach. I have depicted each of the ten main characters in Farewell, Dear People in depth, to make it clear why he was special and why his death was a grievous loss to his nation. Retrieving these elusive stories, amending posterity’s neglect, has been an exacting task. But such extraordinary and inspiring Australians of rare potential should not be forgotten.

    PROLOGUE

    Farewell, Dear People

    Major Geoff McCrae snatched a private moment from the busy preparations at his headquarters. He was nervous. Not because of the danger — not mainly. He had seen plenty of that at Gallipoli. McCrae was more concerned about making sure that everything was arranged properly. Pompey Elliott’s praise was gratifying and encouraging. But there was so much to remember, to think about, to organise.

    As for the attack itself, McCrae was philosophical. It was clearly a difficult task, and they would be relying on inexperienced artillery. Having to get ready in haste didn’t help, either. It was hard to avoid the conclusion that things had been too rushed. Lugging everything forward around the clock had left the men exhausted.

    But the big push down south had evidently fallen short of expectations. If he and his men could help by carrying out this attack, so be it. They were at the main arena now, and had to contribute somewhere. Geoff McCrae had no doubt where his duty lay. He had to lead his men forward to the best of his ability.

    McCrae thought of home, as he always did when danger threatened. He felt impelled to write to his family at Anchorfield. They had received many letters from him in the last two years, but this brief note was like no other:

    Today I lead my Battalion in an assault on the German lines, and I pray to God I may come through alright and bring honour to our name. If not, I will at least have laid down my life for you and my country which is the greatest privilege one can ask for. Farewell, dear people, the hour approacheth.

    CHAPTER ONE

    Geoff McCrae

    the creative allrounder

    It was no wonder that Geoff McCrae thought about Anchorfield on his last day. Anchorfield had been his home ever since his first day: he had been born there on 18 January 1890. Anchorfield was his parents’ residence on the western edge of the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn.

    Geoff was the youngest in the family. His father, George, and mother, Gussie, had six children — Geoff had two brothers and three sisters. Some became prominent in artistic pursuits, and all were shaped by their distinctive background.

    Hawthorn’s Anchorfield, which was named after George McCrae’s birthplace in Scotland, became George’s home for more than half a century. It was a single-storey, double-fronted brick house on a corner block. A hedge crowned the fences along both streets of its frontage, signalling that for the occupants behind the hedge their garden was a priority. Inside and out, Anchorfield was welcoming, tranquil, and unostentatious. Plentiful books and pictures contributed to its ambience and amenity.

    The city was not far away, and nearby was a slope down to the Yarra River. The terrain provided splendid views of the metropolis. George, as a long-term resident, could follow its growth across the decades.

    The McCrae family was the closest that Melbourne had to a cultural dynasty. Geoff’s grandmother, Georgiana McCrae, had been among its earliest British settlers. She arrived in 1841 when it was a district. She died in 1890 — four months after Geoff’s birth — when it was a city.

    Georgiana had an impressive range of attributes. She was a talented painter and writer; she had charm, taste, and an arresting wit; she was fluent in a number of languages; her skilful interacting with Aboriginals was praised; and she was a competent drover of horses and cattle. During the early years of the colony she was one of its best-known personalities.

    George McCrae, Geoff’s father, was Georgiana’s eldest son. Born in 1833, he was eight when she brought him to Melbourne. The voyage consolidated his lasting fascination with the sea and the vessels venturing across it. George went on to become a high-ranking public servant: when he retired in 1893 he was deputy registrar-general.

    He devoted much of his spare time and his retirement to creative pursuits. George was a capable artist, but was best known as a writer. He penned prose and poetry, was published widely, and was active in Melbourne’s literary coterie of the 1860s with Marcus Clarke and Adam Lindsay Gordon.

    His personality was admired even more than his writing. George was kind and gentle, charming and courteous. He had a ‘princely gift for friendship’. Tall and handsome, he was artistic in temperament and an endearing dreamer. He loved pottering about ships and boats, and sketching what he saw in words and drawings.

    George’s wife and Geoff’s mother, Gussie, was more down-to-earth. Her focus was on practical matters and domestic management. Gussie was the anchor at Anchorfield. As Geoff’s brother Hugh wrote, Gussie ‘worked hard’ and ‘lived conventionally in our unconventional family’. George would be reading aloud from his latest writing, or reciting Don Quixote with dramatic gestures, or designing a coat-of-arms for newly federated Australia. Gussie, meanwhile, would be preparing the next meal, or soothing ailments with homespun remedies, or discussing career options with her offspring.

    Geoff grew up in a loving family environment where artistic and creative pursuits were esteemed and encouraged. But the influence of the cultural family heritage from Georgiana and George went further still. Creative endeavour was not, as in most families, something unusual. At Anchorfield it was natural and normal, to such an extent that two of Geoff’s siblings became well-known poets.

    One way to combine — or reconcile — creative instincts, especially drawing, with a professional career was to become an architect. This path evidently appealed to the McCraes, as all three sons had a go at it.

    Cecil, the eldest son, began his career as a surveyor in outback Queensland, and ended up with his own well-known firm of architects and surveyors in Melbourne. His projects included notable houses for his in-laws after he married Freda Derham, whose father was the managing director of Swallow and Ariell.

    Geoff’s other brother Hugh also worked in an architect’s practice, but Hugh’s involvement with architecture proved fleeting. He found the daily routine of regular office work abhorrent; instead, Hugh’s bohemian instincts drew him into the company of lively, like-minded souls, who included such remarkably creative families as the Lindsays and the Dysons. But not even they could match the McCraes’ cultural dynasty spanning three generations in Melbourne.

    Hugh, like George, became a capable artist and writer who was best known for his distinguished poetry. Both Hugh and Geoff were handsome and charming, like their father. But the brothers were different in temperament as well as age (they were born 13 years apart). Geoff was earnest, purposeful, and conscientious, but Hugh was not. Hugh was hedonistic and bohemian, whereas Geoff was neither. Hugh was unpredictable and unreliable, whereas Geoff was neither. Hugh crafted correspondence fastidiously, and preferred frivolous fantasy to commercial practicality, whereas Geoff did neither. Geoff was still a youngster when Hugh moved to Sydney. Afterwards they saw little of each other, but Geoff kept encouraging Hugh warmly in whatever he was doing or attempting.

    Their sister Dorothy was also renowned as a poet. She had benefited not only from the creative stimulus at home: when she walked to school at nearby Creswick Street, she was taught by the future author of We of the Never-Never. Dorothy’s poetry was appearing frequently in Australia’s best-known journal of the day, the Bulletin, by 1904. A collection of her poems was published as Lyrics in Leisure in 1909.

    Geoff, too, was shaped by the creative family stimulus. His talent in writing and drawing was evident from an early age. When away from home, he, like his father and brothers, would outline his experiences in fluent, descriptive letters, and illustrate them with sketches.

    He was close to his mother and sisters, and benefited, as the youngest, from their doting tendencies. But he had an especially strong bond with his father. The image of Geoff that Hugh carried with him for years when he hardly saw his youngest brother was the frequent sight of tall George and small Geoff contentedly together with their fingers intertwined.

    This bond was consolidated when Geoff’s education began. It started at Anchorfield, where the McCraes referred to one of the rooms as ‘the school-room’. George, having already reached the public service retiring age — he was 56 when Geoff was born — was able to take a leading role in Geoff’s home education. Geoff later attended a preparatory grammar school for boys run by Miss Reilly at nearby Highbury Grove, Kew.

    He was also a student at the school located at Christ Church, Hawthorn. The McCraes worshipped at this church regularly; Geoff had been baptised there, and he sang in its choir. The rituals of the church, such as the ringing of the bell by the vicar, Herbert Taylor, were a feature of Geoff’s upbringing, and the McCraes’ involvement with their church extended to close friendships with the vicar and others in the local community who worshipped there. When the church buildings were enlarged, Cecil McCrae designed the expansion.

    The McCraes’ close friends in the Christ Church congregation included James Burston and his family. Burston, a well-known businessman who became lord mayor of Melbourne, was prominent in Victoria’s volunteer military activities. He and his wife, Marianne, lived in a mansion near Anchorfield with their seven children.

    The Burstons were typical of the McCraes’ friends and acquaintances. Hawthorn was a haven of middle-class respectability, and Geoff’s family was enmeshed in this environment. Artistic creativity was encouraged, even expected, at Anchorfield, but the bohemian unconventionality often associated with it was not. Geoff McCrae imbibed and (unlike his brother Hugh) accepted these values.

    Another family friend in Hawthorn was Ted Mair. A dentist a decade older than Geoff, he lived near Christ Church and worshipped there. Geoff liked him. The McCraes were also close to Stanley Argyle, a well-known doctor and mayor in nearby Kew.

    Geoff became a student at Melbourne Grammar School in 1904. Moulding Melbourne’s elite was its core business. The school had been established in 1858 with the explicit intention of shaping future leaders. A preponderance of its students came from salubrious suburbs, and a distinct born-to-rule ambience permeated its bluestone buildings.

    Melbourne Grammar ‘must always … have an ennobling influence in the community’, headmaster George Blanch declared shortly after Geoff’s arrival. Blanch wanted parents to conclude that ‘I send my boy to the Melbourne Grammar School because he gets a good education and because it is a school of gentlemen.’ The 1890s had been bleak at the bluestone institution, but Blanch was spearheading a revival: student enrolments almost trebled in the decade following his arrival in 1899. Geoff McCrae was part of the influx.

    It was his uncle’s generosity that enabled him to attend. Nicholas Maine, George McCrae’s brother-in-law, lived nearby and was a parishioner at Christ Church. With ample wealth and no son of his own, he offered to pay Geoff’s fees. Also instrumental was the Burstons’ familiarity with the school. Jim Burston had sent two of his sons to Melbourne Grammar. Both Jim (junior) and Roy Burston were students there for three years. Roy rode to school on a pony.

    But the Burstons had left Melbourne Grammar the year before Geoff started, so fitting in was not easy. Nearly all Geoff’s classmates had been there for years, forming strong friendships in the process. Moreover, he began in mid-1904, and was not blessed with abundant self-assurance; entering the school halfway through a year, and with limited self-esteem, tended to exacerbate his outsider status.

    Still, Geoff made a scholastically satisfactory start. The examinations at the end of 1904 covered the second half of the year, so he was not disadvantaged by his mid-year arrival. In fact, he won a prize for finishing top of his form, with his best subjects being Latin and divinity.

    Geoff shared his father’s fascination with all facets of maritime activities, and this common interest consolidated his bond with George. Another upshot was that Geoff gravitated to rowing as his main school sport. At the school regatta in April 1905 his boat lost its heat in the junior fours, but in the junior pairs he was successful twice before being vanquished in a semi-final.

    He was awarded a ‘special drawing prize’ that year, and it was presented to him by the school’s most distinguished Old Boy, Alfred Deakin, who was five months into the second of his three terms as prime minister of Australia. It was also in 1905 that Geoff was confirmed in the Christian faith. The Bishop of Melbourne conducted this ceremony in the school chapel. Clearly, Melbourne Grammar had impressive access to the highest offices in the land.

    But the school was embroiled in a less edifying episode two months after Geoff’s confirmation, when a notorious brawl erupted at a football match between Melbourne Grammar and Wesley College. Remarkably, this involved not the players but their respective supporters, who met in the centre of the St Kilda oval and proceeded to punch opposing heads and pinch opposing caps. Wesley’s robust playing style had elevated the temperature. According to an eye-witness, a conspicuous instigator was Melbourne Grammar’s ‘biggest boy’, who later became ‘a knight and a highly respected citizen’. Geoff was unenthusiastic about puerile displays of hooliganism, even though this one had its defenders. Punch praised the punch-up:

    The lad who can give and take blows in an hour of excitement and trial is likely to make a stronger man and a better one for the world’s work than the other who has been carefully nurtured on the lines beloved by old maiden aunts, and who shrinks in anguish from all contests involving hard knocks.

    On the half-back line for Melbourne Grammar that controversial day was Alf Jackson, who played ‘dashing and clever football’. He was to become Geoff’s closest friend. Jackson was two years older, and had started at the school two years earlier. They both left in 1906.

    Their school careers were very different. Jackson excelled in the spheres that guaranteed school lustre — football, cricket, rowing, and athletics. He was a prefect, a prize-winning gymnast, and a leader in the cadets. McCrae, on the other hand, made a minimal mark at the school. The few prizes he collected in subjects such as drawing and divinity, while creditable, were hardly mainstream accomplishments compared to Jackson’s glittering array of achievements.

    Geoff McCrae and Alf Jackson overlapped at Melbourne Grammar with a future governor-general, Richard Casey, who later declared that he ‘detested’ his school years there. He resented the fact that adolescent distinction was the exclusive preserve of those who displayed intellectual or sporting prowess. Casey did admit, though, that he revered a Grammar teacher who ‘gave me the necessary self-confidence and inspiration to make the most of myself’. What Geoff made of his years at Melbourne Grammar is unclear. In the decade after he left the school there is no indication that he joined its thriving Old Boys’ association.

    After leaving school, Geoff McCrae was initially employed as a clerk with the Melbourne City Council. According to George, he worked ‘in the Treasurer’s Office’ at Melbourne Town Hall. Jim Burston had been a councillor of the city of Melbourne since 1900, and one of his priorities was to improve the state of its finances. He became lord mayor of Melbourne in 1908.

    Geoff liked girls, and the attraction was mutual. In fact, women adored him. Like Hugh, he had inherited George’s classical features. Geoff had a handsome face and an impressive physique. He was six feet tall, at a time when this was uncommon. His eldest niece maintained throughout her long life that Geoff was the most handsome man she ever saw.

    Other attributes added to Geoff’s attractiveness. He had a charming manner that everyone liked, women especially; he was sensitive to others’ feelings, and open about his own; and though he was sometimes shy and reserved with prospective girlfriends, he was generally relaxed and natural in female company — a propensity influenced by his closeness to his sisters.

    Moreover, he had an engaging, amiable, fun-loving personality. His creative talents enabled him to send girlfriends stylish illustrated letters with descriptive flair. He was also ethically grounded, with character and principle, intelligence and integrity. Girlfriends sensed he would not treat them badly.

    But the maternal seal of approval could be elusive. Gussie was apparently not averse to airing adverse assessments of some of the numerous women who fell in love with Geoff. Evelyn Mainon felt that she was an example of this. She was close to Geoff in 1908, when he was 18 and working at Melbourne Town Hall. Evie lived in Richmond, a suburb that adjoined the McCraes’ Hawthorn. Her family’s terrace house in Madden Grove was alongside Burnley station. This was the stop before Hawthorn, where Geoff would normally leave the train to walk home to Anchorfield.

    Geoff would sometimes write to Evie to arrange a get-together. He told her on one occasion that his train would be passing through Burnley at a particular time, and suggested that she could let him know if she wanted him to visit: ‘If I see you up in your balcony or at the gate I will come over for a while if I may, dear.’ He then signed off ardently: ‘Till I see you darling I am yours, Geoff.’

    He sent her a card from Melbourne Town Hall on 15 December 1908. ‘I have just snatched a few seconds to keep my word and write you a line’, he began. But collecting one’s thoughts was not easy ‘with the chaps rushing round’, as ‘we are terribly busy’. What he wanted to emphasise, though, was ‘the difference you have made in me’. Gussie had asked ‘why I was so happy’, but ‘I think she guessed the reason’.

    Evie later did some guessing about Gussie. She came to the conclusion that Gussie had been instrumental in the faltering of her friendship with Geoff. Afterwards, Evie’s life became harrowing. Her first husband deserted her, leaving her with a severely disabled child; her second husband was hit by a tram, and became disabled as well. Evie always regarded Geoff as the love of her life. She kept his correspondence until her death, and her eyes would sparkle as she wistfully reminisced to grandchildren about how wonderful Geoff was.

    It was while Geoff was seeing Evie that his brother Cecil married Freda Derham. This completed a transformation at Anchorfield. Two of Geoff’s sisters had married in 1907, with both weddings taking place at Christ Church, Hawthorn. Dorothy’s husband was Charles Perry, an Anglican clergyman. Winifred, who had trained as a nurse in Sydney, married a doctor she met there, Erasmus Bligh.

    Three of Geoff’s siblings had married within a relatively short span. Winifred reinforced the sense of transformation at Anchorfield by settling permanently in Sydney, her new husband’s home city. Hugh McCrae had been a Sydney resident for years.

    Geoff and his sister Helen were the only siblings still at Anchorfield. Helen, who was 16 years older than Geoff, never married. Geoff and Helen were very close. They enjoyed each other’s company, whether out walking, listening to music, or relaxing in the garden. The McCraes had acquired a phonograph, and Geoff chose much of the music played on it. Geoff was also a dedicated nurturer of the garden at Anchorfield; he created an arch of roses that became a conspicuous feature.

    Reading and cards (especially bridge) were other pursuits that Geoff enjoyed, while his membership of the Melbourne Cricket Club facilitated attendance at the biggest sporting events of the day. Like most men of his time, he was a smoker — mostly of cigarettes, but sometimes a pipe. He admitted to a pronounced sweet tooth, a predilection that Gussie accommodated.

    Geoff, like his father, loved the beach. He used to amuse himself with toy boats as a youngster, and seaside sojourns continued to be prominent in his recreation as he grew older. Writing to Evie Mainon from Sorrento, where he was holidaying during the 1908–09 summer, Geoff described an idyllic time at the beach. He was swimming, sunbaking, and sailing a boat out to fish and dive from it. One day, having walked 14 miles to Dromana, he sent her a card from there before beginning the return trek. Geoff also relished the summer holidays he spent at other coastal retreats such as Queenscliff.

    This preference was also evident when he stayed with Winifred and Erasmus (Win and Ras) during visits to Sydney. Their house was located on the North Shore, and Geoff often climbed onto the roof to savour the expansive views of Sydney Harbour. He would be up there for hours, fascinated by the naval traffic, scanning and sketching.

    Geoff was not the only McCrae fascinated by the famous 1908 visit to Australia of America’s ‘Great White Fleet’. George McCrae, then 75, sent one of his sketches of the ships to Admiral Charles Sperry, the fleet commander. Sperry assured George that he would ‘treasure’ it.

    Matters military as well as naval interested Geoff. He decided to involve himself in soldiering, and by 1909 he was serving in the Australian militia. Alf Jackson joined as well.

    Militia enthusiasts found this ostensibly part-time activity absorbing. It dominated their holidays, weekends, and many evenings as well. They trained assiduously; they listened to lectures; they practised drills and learned new skills; and they attended camps and studied for tests. They wanted to equip themselves with the expertise and qualifications to lead others.

    Geoff McCrae came to share these goals. He became a dedicated militia participant, and formed friendships with like-minded devotees who fought mock battles together at Kilmore, Seymour, and Lilydale. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in February 1911, he attended an infantry school of instruction, and was given a certificate that praised his performance.

    McCrae became an officer in the 5th Australian Infantry Regiment. Jackson was also a second lieutenant in the same unit. So were other friends, notably Rupert Henderson and Clarence Luxton, who both hailed from Hawthorn like Geoff. Also in the regiment were Bert Layh, a lieutenant, and three impressive captains in Gordon Bennett, Harold Elliott, and Walter McNicoll.

    Elliott’s reputation in the militia was growing. Heavily built, with a powerful chest and shoulders, Elliott was an officer of sharp intellect, strong opinions, vigorous methods, and a volatile personality. He had a forthright approach, and viewed his responsibilities with passionate seriousness. A hefty fire-eater, he was ‘ever-ready to be fiercely critical of anyone not doing what he thought they ought to be doing’.

    The introduction of compulsory military training in 1911 led to an overhaul of the militia structure. New units were created, and McCrae was transferred to one of them, the 64th Infantry Battalion, together with Jackson, Luxton, and Bennett. Elliott, now a major, was in the 60th Battalion, a new unit based in Carlton.

    A year later, with another batch of cadets in the militia, further units were created. One of them, the 58th Battalion, was based at Essendon, and Elliott was chosen to command it. Two of the officers under him were Geoff McCrae and Alf Jackson; McCrae, now promoted to captain, was the unit’s adjutant. The lieutenants in the battalion, which came to be known as the Essendon Rifles, included an extrovert farmer known as Fred Tubb, a moustachioed schoolteacher by the name of Charles Denehy, and a couple of genial clerks in Claude Swift and Bert Heighway. McCrae befriended all four.

    Elliott’s purposeful leadership of the Essendon Rifles was conspicuous. He demanded the highest standards and enforced the strictest discipline; he delivered a compelling lecture full of insights for McCrae and other officers about the lessons to be learned from Elliott’s experiences in the South African War; and he developed close links with Essendon and nearby suburbs.

    Integrating the unit into the community proved very worthwhile, and this was confirmed by a military fete at Moonee Ponds in March 1914. Held at Queen’s Park, it attracted a large attendance, and boosted battalion funds by almost £400. The state governor, the Victorian premier, and the mayor of Essendon were among the dignitaries. Captain McCrae was in charge of the ceremonial guard of honour.

    The success of the fete reflected widespread admiration for Elliott’s zeal and ability. Moreover, his openness attracted respect; guile was a stranger to him. McCrae did not relish his tempestuous tirades, but recognised that he was a knowledgeable and highly effective commander. It was obvious that Elliott’s uncompromising methods had lifted the battalion’s standards and proficiency. But McCrae also realised that his dynamic leadership was accelerating the improvement of individual officers under him.

    McCrae’s development as an officer also benefited from specialist instruction. A ten-day engineering course at Swan Island, near Geelong, in January 1914 was a productive example. Geoff learned a great deal, had a good time, and emerged with a ‘very good’ certificate of commendation. He was with congenial companions who became ‘a very happy family’. They did a ‘tremendous amount of work’ at ‘top pressure’ while enjoying ‘splendid weather’, two swims each day, and ‘tennis every evening after mess’. The accessibility of nearby Queenscliff, one of his favourite seaside haunts, was another highlight.

    While Geoff was progressing as an officer in the militia, he was contemplating his future outside it. He found himself drawn to a sphere where his drawing ability would be useful — architecture, the same profession that his brothers had made a start in with contrasting results. Geoff began his apprenticeship as an articled architect at Klingender and Alsop.

    Rodney Alsop was only 24 when he entered into partnership with Louis Klingender in 1906. Alsop’s prodigious talents at drawing, designing, and model-making were evident early. So was the frequently poor state of his health: he suffered from severe asthma.

    Alsop provided the creative spark while Klingender attended to the practical side. The respected firm designed offices, factories, and such landmark buildings as the Majestic Theatre, together with numerous private residences in Sydney and Melbourne. Geoff worked at its city office in William Street, near Collins Street. His colleagues included Leighton Irwin, who completed his articles with the firm and became a prominent practitioner.

    The McCraes and the Alsops had plenty in common. John Alsop, like George McCrae, had been a senior official in a public capacity, and had fathered a household of creative children. Rodney was not the only Alsop architect: his sister Ruth was one of Melbourne’s earliest female architects. She worked with her brother — and Geoff McCrae — at Klingender and Alsop. Ruth’s sister Edith was an artist. Another sister, Florence, became a journalist. Music was important to the Alsops, too. Edith and Florence were talented musicians, and their eldest brother was the organist and choirmaster at the McCraes’ church in Hawthorn.

    The Alsops were close to the McCraes in a number of ways. They lived not far away in Studley Park; John Alsop, who encouraged his children’s creativity, as George McCrae did, provided Edith with an artist’s studio there. Also nearby was Ruyton Girls School, founded by John Alsop’s sister (it was apparently his idea). Dorothy McCrae was a student at Ruyton. As well, Helen remained close to the Alsops for decades.

    While Geoff was at Klingender and Alsop he began seeing Maude Richards. She and Geoff’s sister Helen were friends, and he may have met her through Helen. Maude shared Geoff’s (and Helen’s) interest in music, and was a fine singer herself. She had dark eyes and hair, was of average build, and was younger than Geoff: in mid-1914 she was 17, whereas he was 24. Maude lived opposite a park near Camberwell station, which was on the same line as Geoff’s Hawthorn, three stops further along it. Her father was a footwear retailer who had a well-known city shop opposite the Town Hall.

    Maude captivated Geoff. He found himself head over heels in love. Earnest and straightforward as ever, he seemed to decide relatively quickly that he would like to marry her. At the same time, though, he concluded that this desirable state of affairs was impossible for years, because he was not yet in a position to provide for her. A formal engagement would be premature for the same reason, he felt. But he considered himself devotedly tied to Maude anyway.

    By August 1914, awareness of the extent of Geoff’s feelings for Maude was limited. Helen probably knew. But Maude had not been to Anchorfield, and George and Gussie had not met her. Gussie had aired her misgivings about other girlfriends, so Geoff was in no hurry to introduce Maude to her. He was contemplating when to take this step when momentous international developments suddenly disrupted all kinds of personal plans and aspirations.

    War erupted in Europe. Germany invaded Belgium, and Britain declared war on Germany. With Australia being part of the British Empire, many Australians had a strong sentimental attachment to Britain and a fervent aspiration to assist in the crisis. Enthusiasm for the cause was evident around the nation.

    Events moved swiftly. Britain accepted Australia’s offer of a contingent, and a division, including three brigades of infantry, was rapidly organised. In the 2nd (Victorian) Brigade of this newly created Australian Imperial Force (AIF), Lieutenant-Colonel Elliott was chosen to command the 7th Battalion. Anticipating such an appointment, Elliott had already drawn up a provisional list of officers he wanted, and began contacting them immediately. Geoff McCrae was one of the first Elliott approached. McCrae agreed straightaway.

    So did others on Elliott’s list who had served under him in the militia. They included Alf Jackson, Rupert Henderson, Bert Layh, Fred Tubb, Charles Denehy, Claude Swift, and Bert Heighway. McCrae knew all of them well. Elliott also recruited Rupert Henderson’s brother Alan into the 7th Battalion as a lieutenant.

    McCrae’s unhesitating acquiescence was inevitable. Military training had been an important part of his early adulthood. He regarded soldiering as a worthy activity; becoming the best soldier he could be had been a time-consuming priority. Now was the time, the opportunity, to put theory into practice in a major conflict that was not expected to last long. He had no complicating doubts about the rightness of the cause. Geoff’s sense of values was reinforced by his social milieu and mainstream cultural attitudes. Enlisting to fight for Australia and Britain was an honourable duty. His participation, like Australia’s, was axiomatic. Opting out was unthinkable.

    Geoff wrote to his sister Win on 12 August:

    I am jolly thankful that I have had six years of service and study to fall back on and that the time has now come to work out in practice that which heretofore has been mainly theoretical. I pray God that I may do my duty and efficiently bear the great responsibility which is now to come upon my soldiers. I hope that when the time comes that the fighting blood of our Highland Ancestors will stand me in good stead and help me to be a credit to the Clan McCrae and my Regiment … I seem fated not to become an Architect, this war will probably put another year between me and my articles, but this is the time for self-sacrifice.

    The 7th Battalion’s designated recruiting zones were a mixture of urban and rural areas. To maximise esprit de corps, Elliott decided to incorporate these geographical connections in the 7th’s internal structure right from the start. Volunteers coming forward from Parkville and North Carlton, for example, would belong to B Company; enlisters from Essendon and Moonee Ponds would join D Company; and so on.

    A swirl of rumours accompanied the rapid creation of the new force. McCrae gained the impression that two companies from the Essendon Rifles would become part of the AIF. He would be leading one of these companies, he gathered, with his ‘best friend’ Jackson commanding the other. He was ‘so excited’ to learn ‘something definite after a long week of suspense’, he told Win.

    Two days later, though, he found it was not so definite after all. Jackson would indeed be commanding the ‘Essendon boys’ in D Company. But McCrae found himself in charge of rurally based C Company, with recruits from an altogether different area — the Goulburn Valley and north-eastern Victoria. His artless ardour was unaffected.

    McCrae’s friend Tubb personally recruited some C Company enlisters. He spoke to a group of likely lads at Euroa on 17 August. The war would be no picnic, he assured them: some would be returning disabled, and some would not be returning at all. ‘I feel I should warn you because you’re all so young’, he added. ‘What about you?’ one of them countered. Tubb was frank: ‘I want the chance to win a Victoria Cross.’ Besides, ‘I’ve never been to England’, and ‘I’ve got no ties, I’m not worried.’ Tubb’s sobering advice deterred a few of his listeners, but most accompanied him to the pre-embarkation training camp at Broadmeadows.

    They split up after their arrival. Some opted to follow Tubb into his transport section, while the remainder joined McCrae’s C Company. Among the latter was 21-year-old Alex Burton, who lived and worked in Euroa, and was an active member of the town band, the Presbyterian Church choir, and local sporting clubs. McCrae’s fellow officers in C Company were his friends Swift and Heighway.

    Training at Broadmeadows was rigorous. Elliott demanded high standards, as he had in the militia. He told McCrae and his fellow officers to make the 7th the best unit in the AIF. They should aim to emulate Oliver Cromwell’s famously formidable Ironsides.

    Elliott supervised his unit’s training as if the fate of the whole war depended on its performance. He worked the battalion strenuously, and imposed the strictest discipline. There was pre-breakfast physical exercise, often a jog-trot to the nearby rail station and back. Then followed a combination of drill, marches, manoeuvres, shooting practice, and lectures for the rest of the day and sometimes into the evening as well. ‘I was very sorry to have missed Helen this afternoon but we did not return from Williamstown until after six’, Geoff apologised in a note to Anchorfield. ‘I can hardly keep my eyes open so you will excuse brevity.’

    Adverse weather made things worse. Torrential downpours drenched the battalion during long route-marches. Inadequate drainage and heavy pedestrian traffic turned the rich clay soil into a quagmire. Saturday 19 September ‘was a terrible day out here’, Geoff told Gussie; ‘we were all soaked through and were ploughing through the rain and mud from nine in the morning until 4.30 in the afternoon.’

    Geoff was also thinking about the gravity of their undertaking. ‘I am beginning to realise the gulf that is widening between myself and my loved ones’, he wrote. ‘I now am fully aware of the sacrifice we are all making and hope that it will not be in [vain].’

    Civilians could visit Broadmeadows on Sunday afternoons. The journey from the metropolis was a major exercise in 1914, but nevertheless they attended in droves: on 30 August, for instance, there were 34 special trains and no fewer than 60,000 visitors. George and Gussie arrived early enough one Sunday to attend church parade. Another visitor was particularly welcome. ‘Maude and her sister were here all yesterday afternoon’, Geoff enthused, ‘and brought me a huge supply of the most beautiful sweets’. Maude also gave him her camera, and Helen gave him a leather writing-case. Geoff made a will naming Gussie as sole beneficiary, and arranged for her to be allotted a portion of his military pay every fortnight.

    Geoff came home for the last time before his departure. He tried to be reassuring, but the final farewells were harrowing. George, Gussie, and Helen felt engulfed by dread. Eventually, the time to say goodbye could be postponed no longer. A poignant moment in the Anchorfield garden under Geoff’s rose arch stayed with Helen forever. As she and Gussie looked on, stricken with distress, George ‘put both his arms on Geoff’s shoulders and kissed him’.

    Dorothy expressed her feelings in verse. She wrote a series of poems about enlistment, departure, and the anxiety of severance. They included ‘The Empire’s Call’, ‘Our Men’, ‘The Wife Speaks’, ‘The Hour of Farewell’, ‘The Girl Left Behind’, and ‘Parting’. Her poems, published as a collection with the title Soldier, My Soldier!, unequivocally upheld the righteousness of the cause.

    Soldier, My Soldier! captured the mood of the moment. It was popular with soldiers and those they left behind. Dorothy did not hide the identity of her soldier. ‘Dedicated to Geoffrey Gordon McCrae, Captain 1st Expeditionary Force’ was the conspicuous wording opposite the contents page. She also included a poem called ‘Geoffrey’. It disclosed that Geoff’s family was ‘smitten down by grief’ when he volunteered. She also revealed her own emotions:

    I was dumb when we said Good-bye

    But you never saw my tears

    (I can weep when you’re marching by

    And the air resounds with cheers)

    For a soldier’s sister must not cry

    When she spurs him on to Victory.

    The 7th Battalion boarded the troopship Hororata on 18 October. It was an emotional day. Well-wishers gathered at Port Melbourne, and George McCrae was in the crowd. He saw the Hororata slide away from the wharf on a sunny afternoon with bands playing and onlookers cheering.

    George returned afterwards to Anchorfield, where relatives had gathered. They included Geoff’s six-year-old niece, Elizabeth Bligh, who had journeyed from Sydney with her mother, Winifred. Elizabeth retained a lifelong memory of George making a brief, sombre announcement to the assembled family. ‘They’ve sailed’, he said gravely.

    Geoff was feeling emotional, too. When a brief halt at Williams- town enabled final messages to be sent ashore by boat, he dashed off a farewell note:

    Goodbye and God bless and keep you and bring me safely back to you all. I feel that I am being parted from all that make life worth living. No time for more. Goodbye, Goodbye.

    So began the time of tribulation. The McCraes’ concern about Geoff was constant. For his parents and sisters in particular, this acute anxiety was inescapable, a perpetual unease that made day-to-day contentment elusive. Helen confessed later to Geoff that his departure left her depressed for weeks. Thousands of families endured a similar ordeal. Anxiety in Australia soared, and remained high for years.

    The Hororata, making its way to the convoy rendezvous at Albany, was ‘a very fine ship’, Geoff reported. He was pleased to find himself ensconced with senior officers and pleasing amenities, notably a spacious lounge with piano, gramophone, and library. The sleeping quarters, though, were ‘veritable dog boxes’. Conditions for the men, who slept in hammocks, were even more crowded. The 6th Battalion was on board as well as the 7th.

    Writing from Albany a week later, McCrae was in a buoyant frame of mind:

    We have had most perfect weather all the way round, the sea has been wonderfully smooth … we get the best of attention and food … I have never felt fitter than I do now, everyone is in the highest spirits.

    Moreover, King George Sound at Albany was even more impressive than Sydney Harbour. Geoff was inspired by the grand spectacle of ‘all these lines of ships lying at anchor on a turquoise-blue bay with a background of sandstone cliff covered with green scrub’. He sketched this ‘very pretty’ scene on his letter.

    Each company was doing a daily half-hour of physical exercise on the Hororata. There was plenty of tuition, and a variety of other pursuits such as boxing, fencing, music, and cards. Elliott was pleased that the officers were getting on well; ‘we are a very busy and happy family’, McCrae confirmed. He was teaching Tubb the rudiments of engineering, and learning from the able second-in-command of the 6th Battalion, Major Gordon Bennett, how to play chess. Geoff was mixing congenially with old friends, such as his Hawthorn confrere Clarence Luxton of the 6th, as well as making new ones, notably Captain Edward McKenna, a 37-year-old soft-goods manager. McKenna was in charge of the 7th Battalion’s company from Footscray and the western suburbs.

    The Hororata left King George Sound on 1 November. It was one of 28 troopships conveying the AIF in three parallel columns a mile apart; half a mile separated each ship from the one behind. Another ten troopships behind the AIF transports carried the New Zealand contingent. The whole convoy was over seven miles long. It was ‘a wonderful sight’, with ‘ships stretching from horizon to horizon’, McCrae observed:

    Each ship as she ploughs along makes a distinct V which can be seen for thousands of yards each side of her. It is a unique sight seeing our 15 ships making these patterns on the oily surface of the ocean. At night it looks quite weird with the moon glinting on these corrugations.

    The splendid spectacle of these columns of troopships, proceeding evenly across the vastness of the ocean, was a continual reminder to McCrae and his comrades that they were part of a momentous enterprise.

    So did the protective presence of four naval watchdogs. When one of them, the Australian cruiser Sydney, darted away to deal with a suspected German vessel that was probably the notorious raider Emden, the ensuing clash resulted in a stirring message from the Sydney that was rapturously circulated throughout the convoy: ‘Emden beached and done for.’ McCrae sent home a detailed account of the engagement, which was the main topic of conversation on the troopships and throughout Australia.

    The Hororata reached Colombo on 15 November. McCrae outlined his impressions with typical gusto: ‘Colombo! What a sight’, ‘the most fascinating and beautiful spot I have seen’. His enthusiasm was all the more striking in view of the accumulating misfortunes that were plaguing him.

    First he rolled his ankle, causing severe swelling, and was confined to bed on doctor’s orders. Up and about again, he decided that insufficient exercise had left him ‘fat and lazy’, so he volunteered to shovel coal in the stokehold. But a pile of coal fell on his leg and injured it. He then aggravated the damage at Colombo during the Hororata’s acquisition of a printing press.

    McCrae was in a boat that was in the process of collecting the press from another transport when a monsoon suddenly materialised, creating daunting waves in an instant. Rowing three-quarters of a mile took them three hours. Then, while loading the press, a difficult task in a ten-foot swell, McCrae slipped and ‘splintered’ his already sore shin. He tried to carry on, but his swollen leg — ‘3 times its normal size’ — was ‘agony’, and he eventually had to seek medical attention. He was sent to the Hororata’s hospital, remained there for eight days, and was told not to walk on it for another fortnight.

    His leg had just about recovered when he picked up a severe throat ailment. He lost his voice, which almost had dire consequences because, soon afterwards, he fell overboard in the dark. The Hororata, having just arrived at Alexandria, was moored to the wharf; McCrae could find nothing in the water to cling on to, and could not call for help. All he could muster was a feeble ‘crackling whisper’. Being unwell, he soon became exhausted as he struggled to stay afloat in his heavy, sopping uniform:

    It was a most dreadful experience … [There was] no possible means of escape or of attracting attention … I was about to resign myself to my fate when there came a loud crash behind me. I turned round and saw a life-buoy floating at about ten feet from me. It was all I could do to reach it, get into it, and wait for a rope. They hauled me out … I was in the water for about ten minutes; it seemed to me ten hours.

    A mystery had unsettled the 7th Battalion at King George Sound six weeks earlier, when a sergeant had disappeared, presumed lost overboard. What had apparently happened to him at Albany had almost happened to McCrae at Alexandria. It would have, if Geoff’s friend Bert Heighway had not tossed the life-buoy just in time.

    By now, McCrae was finding the climate a trial. ‘Sleep is an impossibility’, he declared. ‘I have never perspired so much in all my life’, and ‘each morning when I awake the bed and pillow looks as if a bucket of water has been poured over it … we are always more or less sticky’. Their ‘terrible isolation’ continued to stimulate sentimental reflections. Geoff watched the water ‘hurrying past and inexorably adding miles to the gap that already divides me from all my dear ones’, Maude especially — ‘by jove I do miss her’:

    [I]t is at these times you begin to realize the sacrifices you have made, and it is my one hope that I have not made them in vain but will be able to do my job to the last and to the satisfaction of my superiors.

    He would be doing his job, initially at least, in an unexpected setting. McCrae and his comrades were to do further training not, as expected, in England, but in Egypt. Geoff was soon sending home vivid, illustrated impressions of his new surroundings. He penned page after page of glowing description of grand Shepheard’s Hotel, ‘one of the most magnificent buildings I have ever seen’.

    Afternoon tea with Stanley Argyle, at the ‘surpassingly beautiful’ edifice that his medical unit was transforming into a hospital, generated a further effusion:

    Today I have had the scales removed from my eyes for they have seen a sight which dwarfs everything they have before witnessed. I was under the impression that I knew what architectural beauty meant but I was sadly mistaken for I have this day viewed the exterior and interior of the Palace Hotel Heliopolis. It is inconceivably beautiful, its marbles, its carved wood-works, its brazen lamps and coloured windows, parquetry floors, ceiling and mural painting defy description from a poor pen such as mine.

    Another epistle waxed eloquent about a Christmas Eve dinner at Shepheard’s to commemorate the anniversary of McKenna’s wedding. McKenna’s ten-man party — McCrae in particular — was stunned by the lavish Shepheard’s ambience:

    There was a huge crowd there. A Christmas tree 30 feet high had been put up in the lounge under the dome. It was decorated with silver tinsel and myriads of tiny red white and blue lights … The dining hall was crowded with English, Indian, Australian and New Zealand officers [and] many more women glittering with jewels. Never have I realized such a display of wealth and luxury possible. Champagne literally flowed in rivers from the bottles reposing in ice in silver buckets. [Later, they started] throwing coloured paper ribbons until it looked as if everybody was enmeshed in a rainbow cobweb. I have never before witnessed such a sight.

    George offered this letter to the Melbourne Herald, which published it.

    Other unprecedented sights were less savoury. McCrae was not the only Australian to be disgusted by the brazen prostitution that the AIF encountered. ‘Never before could I believe that vice could be indulged in on such a large scale’, Geoff fulminated:

    Cairo is … inhabited by a pack of harlots. I have had women clothed only in their singlets beckoning me to come up to where they were leaning over the railing of a Balcony, this in broad daylight in a main thoroughfare and no one takes any exception to it.

    McCrae abhorred these facilities and the way that some Australian soldiers revelled in them. He loathed having to venture into ‘the worst slums imaginable’ to retrieve ‘drunken sots and derelicts’.

    Some of these incorrigibles were sent home in disgrace. The AIF commander, Major-General W.T. Bridges, having concluded that it would be prudent to warn Australia before they arrived, asked the AIF official correspondent, Sydney journalist Charles Bean, to write a dispatch on the subject. Bean complied. He emphasised that only a small proportion of the AIF was involved in this misbehaviour, but this qualification was obscured when edited extracts of his dispatch, cynically sensationalised, began circulating within the force.

    These ‘libellous lies’ infuriated McCrae. ‘I would like to get my hands on that reporter’, he fumed. Like Elliott and others unfamiliar with Bean, McCrae resented him ‘for gaining for us the abuse rather than the gratitude of our country’. Bean had smeared the AIF outrageously, McCrae felt. ‘We are all unanimously agreed that considering the environment of the place the behaviour of the men has been good’, McCrae declared. Bean’s ‘veracity is a thing of wonder to us who know what takes place here in Egypt’.

    In fact, while McCrae and his closest associates shunned the visible vice, more Australians availed themselves of it than he realised. He was also unaware that Bean had been asked to write the article and that the extracts were unrepresentative. Nor did he know how distressing this controversy had been for Bean, who was just as idealistic and principled as McCrae. Despite this inauspicious start, Bean was to attain a hallowed reputation throughout the force for bravery and integrity.

    McCrae’s reaction was revealing. He had given up much to enlist, he was convinced that the cause was just, and he was appalled that the noble propriety (as he saw it) of that cause could be impugned. The perceptions of those closest to him concerned him profoundly. His enlistment had been axiomatic, but he wanted those he cared about most to retain an unwavering faith — no less staunch than his — that he was doing the right thing. He resented any threat to this faith. And those he cared about most were, of course, his family and Maude. Especially Maude.

    Attractive women were attracted to Geoff, but he only had eyes for one. His yearning for dispatches about Maude was insatiable and unconcealed. In January, he told Helen that ‘any news of her is like a ray of sunshine to me … Tell me all about her each time you write’. In February, he asked Helen whether she had seen Maude lately: ‘I am always hungry for news of her so hope you will do what you can to satiate my desires in this respect.’ In March, he described ‘news of Maude’ as ‘sweeter than the honey from the honeycomb’.

    Geoff was pleased to learn that his parents and Helen had invited Maude to Anchorfield for afternoon tea (evidently an unprecedented visit). He hoped Gussie ‘didn’t sing my praises all the afternoon’, and welcomed George’s assessment that Gussie and Helen ‘both

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