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  ‘I owe it to the diggers!’ I raised my voice. ‘I owe it to the diggers to show why so many are being killed and wounded without even seeing a German. You’ve told me no photographs of Anzac casualties. No photographs, you said, that show ’em in a bad way. Well I happen to think their families ought to see the conditions they live in. And die in! And now you are not even going to let me do that. You and your bloody rules!’

  Bean’s face was flushed. ‘They are not my rules, Hurley. It’s the bloody war and the censors have a job to do. We don’t need to stoop to distorting things! The public don’t want fairies in the garden!’

  ‘Bean, I am not the one distorting things. I’ve read your dispatches. Light casualties in the battle for Menin Road! You wrote that!’ I excused myself and went to my darkroom, slamming the door behind me.

  14

  Passchendaele, October 1917

  There were ominous signs of the build-up to another large battle and the Bosche were surely ready and waiting. Having had a gutful of being shot at, and still fuming over my argument with Bean, Wilkins and I escaped the front and took off in the car to see last year’s battlefields at the Somme. I had been told to photograph the Leaning Madonna in a basilica in the town of Albert.

  Heavy shelling had destroyed the besieged town and the ruins of the basilica had been boarded up. The basilica had a tower and spire which had been shot away in large part, but miraculously was still standing. Shell holes left bricks and masonry suspended in mid-air, and at the very top was a statue of the Virgin Mary, her arms extended to the heavens and holding aloft the baby Jesus. The shelling had struck the Madonna and she now was almost horizontal, and yet she did not fall nor drop the child Saviour. As the battle of the Somme raged, the tower continued to be shelled, because it remained a prominent vantage point. But the Madonna refused to fall. A rumour took hold among the soldiers of both armies that whichever side brought down the Madonna would lose the war. The Madonna and child had remained suspended precariously for over twelve months now.

  On the way back in the car, I muttered to Wilkins, ‘You know the censors are banning the very photographs the public need to see; the photographs that would be an end to the case for conscription, maybe an end of the war.’

  ‘You mean photographs of men killing men.’

  ‘Yes, and the horrible ways they die. Seeing that Madonna suspended reminds me of a photograph I stared at as a kid. Do you remember seeing picture books of the siege at Glenrowan? Two of the Kelly gang were burned beyond recognition, but though Joe Byrne was shot dead, his body was pulled from the fire. A Melbourne photographer jumped on the train to Glenrowan but when he got there the siege was over. So he strapped Joe Byrne upright against the door of the Glenrowan Inn, put a gun in his hand and took picture after picture. There were no rules with Irish bushrangers.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting we do that!’

  ‘No. We’re not going to do that. We can’t even photograph an Australian corpse. But that’s why this war keeps going. Folks at home got no idea.’

  I could see that my plans for the London exhibition would be thwarted by Bean’s restrictions. I crafted a letter which I decided to send not to Captain Bean, but to General Birdwood:

  . . . I conscientiously believe it my duty to illustrate to the public the severe hardships faced and bravery of the Australian soldier and to do this to the best of my ability. Unfortunately I am unable to do justice to them and produce pictures of quality if unable to utilise standard photographic techniques including composite printing. As I am unable to fulfil my duties I must regretfully resign my position.

  A day after sending the letter, I called in at General Birdwood’s headquarters to photograph senior staff officers.

  After I had done a series of portraits, he took me aside. ‘Captain Hurley, after tomorrow’s battle I will have a word with Captain Bean and see if I can fix things up.’

  ‘That’s very good of you, sir; not everyone understands what’s involved. No photographer can capture what war is like on a single negative. These photographs of the AIF will be on display at the exhibition in London. They need to impress. And of course any composite photographs are always labelled.’

  On my return to the Billabong, Wilkins had our equipment ready for us to move up to the front. He looked surprised when I told him about my exchange with Birdwood.

  ‘You mean you were talking about the pictures for the London exhibition now? I would have thought he’d be too busy worrying about tomorrow’s attack.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I replied, ‘but they’re his soldiers we are photographing. It’s his war.’

  ●

  I wake with a start, my head reverberating to a loud booming sound. Moments—or is it minutes?—pass before I start to work out where I am. Nothing is familiar. My eyes, I think, are open, but the world around is black. I shiver at the cold in my bones, unsure if I am on the icecap listening to calving icebergs, or in the Snuggery on Elephant Island, or in the centre of London during a raid. My bedding is damp and there is moaning nearby. I draw myself up on one elbow. It must be well before daylight, but there is no returning to sleep. My dreams of times past wisp away like vapours, leaving only the reality of present darkness and tremendous crashing noise. Reaching out, I touch cold clay walls. Memory returns. Of course. I am in Flanders. Have we been bombed during the night?

  The evening before, Wilkins and I found billets in an Australian artillery officer’s dugout. We are presently twenty feet underground. Overhead a fifteen-inch howitzer battery has started sending its deadly projectiles, fourteen hundred pounds of high explosive, some two miles to the German positions. It is the commencement of the third stage to control the high ground east of Ypres, including the ruins of Broodseinde. The First, Second and Third Australian Divisions will emerge from their trenches in a wide three-thousand-yard front to attack the German defences.

  I am anxious to observe what I can of this, but when Wilkins and I exit the dugout there is confusion and disarray. The Bosche have been shelling our lines heavily and we have sustained many casualties even before zero hour. It has been raining throughout the night and is mayhem in the darkness. How utterly dismal to wake up to a world such as this.

  Wilkins and I get moving, but are well behind the action. In between the shelling, we hear machine guns and rifle fire up ahead. First ANZAC Division casualties are streaming back already, many of them stretcher cases. These were our assault troops, waiting in the pre-dawn for the signal to attack. A German artillery barrage caught them by surprise in the open. They crouched in shell holes under waterproof capes. If a Bosche projectile landed in their shell hole, they were killed or maimed. After thirty minutes of this, the survivors were only too glad to be allowed to advance into no-man’s-land.

  Despite this bad luck, for this is how it is described, the word coming back is that the attack has been successful. Our artillery bombard the German lines in stages, with the infantry ready to pour forwards as soon as the barrage lifts. Within a few hours, Broodseinde Ridge is captured, but our losses are high. Wilkins and I do not get close enough to see the fighting, but from what we do see, Australian casualties must again be in the thousands. And although the Germans have lost ground, it is a mere thousand yards, and their artillery remains active all day, causing constant losses in our supply lines.

  It is a treacherous business trying to move about the battlefield, and due to ongoing rain the light is bad for photography. Wilkins and I are mighty glad to head back to Steenvorde, where, utterly exhausted, I have a hot meal and heat up a bath before falling into bed. How obscene it is that I do this while my brothers down the road stand unfed and knee-deep in mud, listening to the scream of shells overhead. I am just as bad as some of our red-tabbed British generals, many of whom never see the frontline.

  A few days later, a note arrives from headquarters: I have permission to make six composite pictures for the London exhibition, providing they are clearly marked as to the number and details of ne
gatives used. This is an enormous victory. Bean will be spitting chips, though Birdwood must have consulted him. I quickly send a note withdrawing my resignation. I will do these six composite photographs in large format. They will outshine everything else on display. Already in my head I have ideas for what these six photographs will portray. They will express my horror of this dreadful conflict. The exhibition will be my first chance to prepare and display my own work. It will have an international audience and be of a scale I could never achieve by myself.

  Next morning, Wilkins and I leave the battlefield behind. I have had a gutful of it. Since Broodseinde, the rain has continued and the pockmarked ground is a dangerous quagmire. I have been champing at the bit to go up in one of our aeroplanes and take aerial photographs. So after our regular visit to the censors, Wilkins and I call in on the Australian No. 69 Squadron at Savy. However, gale-force winds and driving rain over the next few days mean there is nothing doing, and their RE8s are confined to hangars. But while waiting around I read an English newspaper report that Shackleton is about to leave London for South America. He has been ignoring my letters regarding payment of outstanding Endurance wages, some five hundred and thirty pounds. Shackleton knows I am in France and it occurs to me that, as long as there’s a chance I might stop a bullet and not return, he has no intention of paying. If I don’t front him, I will never be paid. I have to get across to London before he leaves. In the meantime, a message comes in from Bean to get back to meet him at Ypres.

  We find Bean at Birdwood’s headquarters. He is very polite. ‘You can’t be wandering off at the moment. Things are about to happen here. Our intelligence is the Germans may be about to collapse. Haig’s staff are talking about a breakthrough in the next several days. Subject to this rain, the Third ANZAC Division will be asked to attack Passchendaele in the next few days. That’s the final stage in forcing the Germans off the high ground. Bosche POWs say German morale is totally shot. There may be an uncontrolled retreat.’

  ‘The rain doesn’t look like stopping,’ I said. ‘Just now we passed a field gun being dragged by two mules. The mules were up to their necks in mud. They’ll have to be shot. What’s the ground like where the attack is?’

  Bean took a deep breath. ‘A lot worse since Broodseinde. Haig can’t possibly know how bad it is. They’ll never get the artillery up in time to protect our infantry. Monash wants to wait, but Haig won’t call it off. Lloyd George wants a breakthrough.’

  There is no mention of my resignation or its withdrawal, or headquarters’ agreement to use of composites.

  ‘Bean, I’m afraid some serious personal matters have come up that require me to be in London for a few days next week.’

  ‘That will be difficult, I’m afraid. You may not be able to get away. If the breakthrough comes at Passchendaele, Haig won’t stop till he’s cleared the Bosche out of Belgium.’

  ●

  The rain increased. Mud turned to ooze. Our artillery could not be brought forwards in time. Neither Haig nor Monash nor Birdwood came to the front to see the conditions. There was no postponement. On the morning of 12 October, the Anzacs went over the top and scrambled and slid their way towards Passchendaele.

  The red tabs, a colonel and a major, were jumpy. The Third Division Anzacs had achieved their first two objectives, but Passchendaele was still in Bosche hands and the German pillboxes on Bellevue Spur had not fallen and were taking a heavy toll. The officers tossed their cigarette butts into the muddy pool below the map table and forgot Wilkins and I were there.

  There were mules heading back to Menin Road from where we’d just come. They pulled carts with stretchers of the wounded. The carts were impossibly sluggish in the mud, but no motorised vehicles could navigate the flooded landscape. It was cold standing there and I wanted to move forwards. The red tabs said the front had advanced less than a mile from Broodseinde. We wore our helmets and had gas masks on our chests. Wilkins had the tripod.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said, tightening my shoulder straps and picking my way around the edge of several pools, though my boots were already soaked through. I walked up to what remained of the railway. ‘We can follow the line.’

  ‘Frank, don’t we need permission?’

  ‘Probably, so best just to go. They’d be thinking we want ’em to say no; you know what they’re like.’

  ‘But the German artillery must have the exact coordinates of this line.’

  The Germans were still shelling, but they had a lot of targets to choose from.

  The railway had long ago been destroyed. There were rails, but few sections were connected for any distance. Some rails were bent to remarkable shapes. Some were buried. Sleepers had been pinched for use in trenches and fortifications. The embankment was in parts over three yards high. It felt relatively safe walking along its southern side without crouching. I wanted to be closer to the new frontline by midday.

  I wondered how our soldiers had been able to leave their trenches in the heavy rain and attack across the bog that confronted them. There was no prospect of running when the only way forwards was across slippery raised edges of water-filled shell holes. Wilkins and I juggled cameras to keep them dry, but were soon covered in mud from numerous falls. At times we sank to our knees and were lucky to keep our boots from the hideous, sucking slime.

  There was a different smell here, a stench we experienced well before we saw our first casualties on the ground. It made me gag at first, and I had to hold my breath as I moved forwards, though I said nothing. It was not from heavy losses this morning, but an unpleasant remembrance of some weeks-old battle. We stepped over old remains exposed by the recent shelling. Pieces of greatcoats and uniforms caked in mud, and contorted limbs, from which army I could not tell.

  The oncoming traffic was all casualties. There were few prisoners. Stretcher parties consisted of six or eight men to carry just one wounded soldier above the quagmire. The walking wounded struggled in the conditions. They were mostly silent, white-faced with exhaustion, their uniforms and bandages drenched through. I felt self-conscious with my captain’s stripes but not even a side arm. However, the men were not the least bit curious about us.

  We moved forwards as best we could, with a sense of purpose, but unsure how far we could safely go. After a couple of miles we passed the ruins of Zonnebeke railway station, from where we continued up to Broodseinde Ridge. Shells were now bursting all around us. I started to worry about losing Wilkins to a sniper bullet or stray shrapnel; it suddenly seemed irresponsible to have just taken off without really knowing where our lines were and whether there would be a counterattack. I wanted to get close to the action and Wilkins was willing. I didn’t think too much about becoming a casualty, but I became awfully worried about losing my assistant, whom I knew Bean valued highly.

  The corpses became more frequent. The uniforms, where discernible, were the German grey. It was no longer possible to hold one’s breath. We inhaled the scent of death.

  I spied a number of bodies up ahead that were not dead, but lying against the embankment watching our approach. They were Australian wounded. Within a few yards of them lay dead German soldiers; one was just a legless torso, caught out, no doubt, in the terrifying shelling of the last week.

  The Australians had dug tunnels into the embankment. They reminded me of wombat burrows. I did not fancy them much as protection against the shelling, but they had some value against the rain. One young boy nodded to me as we drew closer, picking our way through the mud. From under the brim of his helmet, his watery eyes told me he was just holding himself together. His look told me of what I had not endured.

  ‘You chaps alright?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, sir. But if you had some water, sir.’

  I handed him one of our spare canteens and a pack of Capstan cigarettes. ‘Keep them,’ I said. ‘Stretcher-bearers know you’re here?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They still have the serious cases further up to keep ’em busy. We’re fine here. Who are you with, sir?’
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  ‘Australian Photographic Unit. My name is Frank, this is George. You’ve got such a beaut spot here, would you mind if we took some photographs?’

  ‘Long as we don’t have to stand up.’

  George and I quickly dropped our packs and he set up the tripod.

  ‘Sir, I’d be keeping your heads down—we don’t want any extra attention from the Hun.’

  I set up quickly.

  ‘You photographing us or the dead, sir?’

  ‘We’ll get both, and I’d like to ask you to stay still. That shouldn’t be a problem for these other fellows.’

  ‘Oh, that Hun has been here since Broodseinde. He’ll be still. What are the photographs for, sir? Do wives and sweethearts see ’em?’

  ‘Depends on the censors. Our job is just to take ’em. You chaps are Third Anzac Corps?’

  ‘Yes, from Victoria, sir. Sir, the folks at home, they know the casualties, don’t they?’

  Things could not have been more glum. The Anzacs had failed at what was to be the final hurdle. There was no breakthrough. The war would now go on past Christmas and into yet another year. The Anzacs would be stuck in their miserable trenches through the worst of winter. As best I could gather, we had lost several thousand in just one day at Passchendaele, slaughtered without any chance of a fair fight. It was a disaster, but no one used this word. Bean was very down about it but the dispatches I saw gave no clue of any of this.

  The next morning I made for Boulogne and from there back to old Blighty. If Shackleton was a gentleman, he would honour his debts; if not, I would engage a solicitor to stop him in his tracks.

  Neither Shackleton nor Perris wished me a happy birthday when I bowled into the Daily Chronicle on 15 October, but they were cordial. The following morning I received payment in full. It was a great relief to restore my financial position in one day. I knew in my bones that if I had not left Flanders and fronted Shackleton, I would be a poorer man. Lord knows the AIF would not make me rich, though at least it paid for my living expenses and, if it came to it, my funeral expenses. And Charlie Bean would have us all risk our lives for nothing more than love of country.