Afterword

WE WIELDERS OF THE MECHANISM

*

Bean returned to Australia in 1919 and, on 1 July, signed a contract with the Australian government to write and edit a history of the war. Initially, he expected the job to take five years and to comprise five volumes. It grew to 12 volumes, and eventually took Bean more than 20 years. Because of the size of the task, the various volumes were published as they were completed. Volume XII: Photographic Record of the War was published in 1923. As it happened, Wilkins was in Queensland collecting specimens for the British Museum at the time. Bean wrote to Wilkins, thanking him for his work on the photographs, and alerting him to the fact that the volume was in print. Wilkins wrote back, telling Bean, ‘If anyone deserves the credit of a faithful photographic record it is you.’ Then, in a rare expression of emotion, the pragmatic Wilkins continued:

We wielders of the mechanism were only agents of your directive influence and were it not for the fact of our great admiration of you and your outstanding example, the efforts we put forward would not have been so energetic. The circumstances of being subjected to the influence of your association during those months in France and our trip later [to Gallipoli] enables me to look back on the war period with feelings somewhat akin to gratitude and now when my thoughts turn to ‘war-times’ all else is dimly seen behind your noble presence.

Perhaps sensing he had stepped out of character, Wilkins finished by adding, ‘I didn’t mean this to be this kind of letter, but my feelings are earnest and deep.’1

The final volume of Bean’s history was published in 1942. At the conclusion of the monumental work, Bean paid tribute to the Anzacs by writing:

What these men did nothing can alter now. The good and the bad, the greatness and the smallness of their story will stand. Whatever of glory it contains nothing now can lessen. It rises, as it will always rise, above the mist of ages, a monument to great-hearted men; and for their nation, a possession for ever.2

The same could be said of Wilkins.