We boarded the vehicles and headed up to the town of Ypres, Belgium where we encamped in what was our best accommodation yet, real luxury - Tents with a board floor and surrounded by sandbags, a narrow opening in the sandbag wall at the entrance. It provided comfort, the wall, but was a reminder that the shelling was constant, the German long-range artillery and aircraft relentlessly seeking targets.
I found a tent, the tumbled and torn sandbag wall punctuating my earlier thought, and we set to work repairing the damage muttering about shells not landing in the same place twice - But we knew they did.
I fell asleep that first night to the drone of Gotha bombers overhead, the flash of powerful searchlights and rattling of the anti-aircraft guns sending their barrage of lead skyward in the hope of hitting one of the bombers.
Sleep. It wasn't really much of a sleep; Not like I used to have back in my cramped bedroom back home that I shared with my brother. How I missed those cramped confines and his infernal snoring...It would have seemed like the most peaceful sleep these days - No mud, bombers, artillery, rats, screaming, cold, rain...No being woken at 0200 for a 0400 stunt across no-mans-land. Fucking war. Fucking death. Fucking sleep.
When I did sleep my dreams were plagued with death; I re-lived each moment again and again the emotion, the fear, the savagery, the glory, the shame.
The man whose eyes begged me to stop as I pressed my bayonet deeper into his chest until his eyes went vacant and he slumped lifeless. Dragging the injured Snowy back to our lines after he was shot in both legs, so heavy he was, but then the shell struck just behind me and he was lighter, his body blown away below the chest. The pieces we collected after the trench-network 12 feet to our left took a direct hit from an HE shell - The pieces of meat once had names, mothers, lovers, children - They were good men. We tossed them aside in a small pile and prepared for the enemy advance. They were our mates, but we could help then no further.
I could name a hundred moments in which I wore death like a familiar cloak, each burned into my memory. It wasn't the daytime that was so hard though, there was always something to keep me occupied, staying alive mainly. But at night each moment came to visit me once more, settled into my skull, a coiled snake nestled there poisoning my mind and heart.
Get some sleep they said - If only it was that easy.
The British infantry were launching an attack, the capture of Passchendaele the objective. Once secured our front was to move up past Broodseinde Ridge and wait in support.
The artillery opened up, a cacophony of banging, screaming shells flying through the air and deep booming explosions as they landed in the area the British were to attack. The symphony was complete when the Germans added their own shelling in reply, some of which made it's way to our support trench-system. Get yer fuckin' eads down ya mugs! The sergeant had a way with words, but he never had to tell us twice.
Unfortunately for him, and three other lads, we took a direct hit inside the trench - He'd not be yelling at us anymore the poor bastard.
It rained for hours that day, all day, non-stop. Shells and rain. Hour after hour of HE, the high-explosive shells that could literally vaporise a man into thin air, a pink mist that covered everything within several feet, and cold rain that filled our trench.
Drowned or bombed, whichever came first. We remembered what Sarge' had said though, and kept our fuckin' eads down. It mostly worked, but we lost more men, an artillery barrage like that always did its job.
They sent HE and shrapnel shells over, the latter bursting above our trenches sending hot metal zinging in all directions cutting through clothing and flesh like a hot knife through butter.
I remember thinking that very thing when Franky took some in his face cleaving it almost in two; A knife through butter and it wasn't for a moment that I realised I was laughing like a maniac. Then screaming, and then trying to hold Franky's face together. He died in my arms and I started crying. I couldn't stop. Shelling, raining and crying.
Get some sleep, they said.
But how could I even close my eyes again after what I'd seen, and worse, what I'd done?
We never returned to the Ypres Salient, it had taken enough of our battalion it seemed, we'd given enough. Not one of us were untouched, physically or emotionally; The bloody fighting of the Third Battle of Passchendaele had left a mark on all of us and as we staggered to out quarters I struggled with the realisation that thousands of us would never return home, but I would, I had hoped to at least. But after the last few weeks I wasn't sure. It had taken something from me. my hope? Probably.
It didn't seem possible that a man, skin, flesh and bone, could come through such horror alive but here I was cleaning my equipment and drying my uniform, taking the worst of the mud off, alive. I felt guilty that I had lived when so many did not.
We sat around sipping tea, feeling almost warm for the first time in weeks; Some spoke but most were silent, or crying. I found it odd to see grown men crying when I first arrived at the front but now it felt normal; Most didn't realise they were to be honest, I never did. It just happened when things went quiet and, for some, in the heat of battle; The latter fortunately had not happened to me...Except in that trench with Franky back a couple of weeks.
I looked around at the handful of men but only saw the faces of the hundreds, the thousands, who still lie on the battlefield - It was like their shadows were here in the cellar where we'd been quartered, their bodies battered and torn apart above us, in fields surrounding places we'd never heard of a year ago. Their shadows would stay with me, I knew that.
Get some sleep, they said.
I laid my head back feeling the rough stone of the cellar wall against my skull but I was so tired it felt like the softest down pillow; The sounds around me faded and I closed my eyes, began to drift to sleep and...The shells fell again, I saw Franky's face in front of me, left and right side falling off his skull like a banana peel...Shells bursting...Flashes of light...Gun fire, trusting bayonets, screaming...
Get some sleep, they said, but I didn't think I'd ever truly sleep again. I wonder if those who fell, sleeping the sleep of the dead, got the best of it.
[END]
I was looking through some photos tonight from the week I spent touring the World War One, Western Front in Belgium and France and came across a few of Ypres and Passchendaele where Australian troops were in combat along with the British and Canadians to push the Germans back from the Ypres Salient - The fighting was bloody and many lives were lost. Some 38,000 Australian casualties were sustained in that Third Battle of Passchendaele, with almost 11,500 killed in action.
I felt inclined to write something about it but rather than a story about combat, the battle itself, I decided to write about a single fellow who, in my imagination, survived. He lives to return to Australia but I know also that his battle doesn't end in Belgium; It comes home with him and plagues his life. It steals sleep, confidence, often happiness and the ability to function at times. It brings him anger and torment, it infiltrates his waking moments, relationships and his very soul. His fight continues.
It is this way for many veterans and try as people might to understand, which many actually don't bother to do, it is almost impossible to comprehend what that inner-battle, the turmoil, is like for a veteran who struggles with post traumatic stress disorder or moral injury. It can be managed, sometimes, but it doesn't go away. In my mind this one chap finds peace though, maybe one day I'll finish his story.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised so be humble and kind
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I took this image at the Australian War Memorial outside of Villers Bretonneux, France - It is a record of Australian men whose bodies were never recovered from the battlefield.