The most terrible bombardment I have ever seen but it went all round us and not a shell near us. I have never seen such a perfect inferno of sparks and you couldn’t hear yourself speak for the bursting shells. What made it worse was the open country and the instantaneous fuze. It stopped in ¾ of an hour. We had only a bit of an old quarry to live in then. It had been a Fritz camp and there were a few buildings in it. One with beds. There was a trench further round with a few dug outs in it, some good ones and a few of our men got in there, but there were 2 brigade in this clearing and there was not accommodation for all. In this quarry was a deep tunnel which was being used at the 11th Battalion aid post.
When the major came up he lobbed himself into this place and didn’t come out again. We had some breakfast which we cooked ourselves about 6, and then went to sleep on one of the Fritz beds till 1 oclock which was good. It was very hot weather still, and we spent most of the day asleep. That evening we got a paper. We had longed for one since before the stunt. This was the first we had seen. We discussed the headlines that we were to see. “Tremendous Australian & Canadian Victory”, “Australians & Canadians Achieve the Impossible, the first breakthrough”, etc. etc. And what did we see. None of us had ever before had such a bitter disappointment, such a blow. The only headings were “Great British victory”, “British 4th Army break through”. Oh, you cant realise what that was for us. I can sit down now and calmly write it down but at that moment if there had been an Englishman there I am sure I would have shot him dead. I have never known such a revulsion of feeling to be caused by anything else amongst the men. The Germans where then angles (angels) to everyone of us and for the only time I have heard the men universally say they were sorry they came to the war.
The Australians are fighting for one thing only. The material digger cares for nothing for Leagues of Nations, might is right or silly family quarrels of the European States, and he cares as little for the British Empire, a thing as dead as the Roman Empire. We are fighting wholly and solely for the glory of Australia. To give Australia a place in the world and to wipe off that stinking blot – the term colony. We have done this nearly. All the world – including Germany – recognise Australia except the English aristocracy and the duds at the head of affairs in Australia. All the ill feeling between England and Australia has grown through the refusal of the English to mention our doings in their papers and following that the failure of the Australian papers to give us half the credit due. I get letters from you in October, saying “I suppose you lost everything in the retreat” etc. etc. And in November saying “the British have done splendidly on the western front in the last few days” (- 8th October) It is heartbreaking to think that all the sacrifice of Australian lives – with the casualty list higher than that of any other nation in the world in proportion, is minimised by the politicians of England and the pro-English politicians in Australia, doing their level best to belittle what Australia has done. The people in Australia have no idea of what the A.I.F. have done. And when we all get back they wont believe what we tell them, the French say the Australians saved Paris, the English call them colonial troops and place notices like the famous one in (?) “This village is out of bounds to Chinese labour Corps and Australians”
I saw there what I have never seen before or since – a German plane brought down by anti aircraft gunfire. For two days we lived in that hole waiting for the stunt and were only not blown out of existence because the shells didn’t happen to hit us. Then the stunt was declared off owing to the failure of the British on our left to come up in line with us and one afternoon we got word to pull out to the wagon line and be ready to march at 5 next morning.
That ended our first stunt of the big offensive. We had three more, each much worse than the last but yesterday peace was declared and I think the rest will keep till I can tell it in much more detail than is possible on paper and I can stick the boot fair into the English cowards and especially into English Anderson, the general whose name was made by the Australians and who has openly said that he will do everything in his power to nullify the work of his division to repay them for their criticism of the cowardice of the English. The man who never once saw one of his guns in action who left all his work to his subordinates and who when we were out for short spells in the stunts and now when our work is over made life so miserable that every officer & man yearned to go back to the war again.
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