CHAPTER EIGHT

‘Great and Fearful Responsibility’:

Evacuation and elevation

SEPTEMBER 1915–JUNE 1916

ELLIOTT DID NOT return for months. Pleurisy was diagnosed, and he was sent to England. He had severe ‘pains all over’, the ‘bed clothes were wringing wet with perspiration’, and ‘one night I thought it was the end of things for I couldn’t breathe lying down but had to sit up in bed all night’. During the voyage his diet was limited to Bovril and condensed milk. He became ‘dreadfully thin’ and ‘terribly weak’. By the time the ship arrived at Devonport on 12 September he was over the worst, but he was hospitalised and kept under close observation. A medical board gave him two months’ sick leave, and advised him to continue his gradual convalescence in London.

He spent his first night in London at Berners Hotel. Situated close to Oxford Street, near Soho, Berners provided accommodation of a good standard and was imbued with a certain stylishness, without aspiring to the stateliness of its most elite equivalents. Elliott enjoyed his stay. From then on, whenever staying overnight in London, he made a beeline for Berners. On 23 September he was transferred to Digswell Place, the grand Welwyn residence of Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Buckley, the principal military adviser on the Australian High Commissioner’s staff. Elliott was overwhelmed. ‘Most beautiful place I have ever seen’, he enthused; his hosts were ‘too kind for words’. Other Digswell Place convalescents included 7th Battalion officers he had not seen since the landing, Stan de Ravin and Jack Whitelaw. There was plenty of spirited reminiscing, especially when Mason and Tubb came up from London for a visit. Being with congenial companions in tranquil surroundings was a good recipe for recovery, but ‘I seem to have lost all power of endurance’, Elliott told Kate, frustrated that his former strength and stamina remained elusive for weeks.

But he was well enough to travel to the north-east in October. Since arriving in Britain he had been endeavouring to get in touch with his and Kate’s relatives. After making contact with his father’s brother Robert and receiving an invitation to stay, Harold spent a ‘very pleasant’ fortnight based at ‘Dene House’, Gateshead (near Newcastle) with his uncle and aunt and their children: ‘though I never saw them before a week ago, it is as if I had known them all my life’. They showed him an old stone house that had been his grandparents’ home over 60 years earlier. He took the opportunity to fit in a bit of sightseeing, including visits to Edinburgh and Durham, before journeying to Boston, Lincolnshire, to spend an enjoyable few days with another cousin, Nellie Peaston, and her family. As in Newcastle he was urged to stay longer, but he had tracked down some of his mother’s relatives in Wales and was keen to meet them, too.

So he made his way to Trevor, a small town near Llangollen, to meet two sisters whose great-grandfather was Thomas Janverin, the naval officer in Nelson’s Trafalgar fleet who was also Harold’s great-grandfather. These new-found second cousins, Emily and Laura Edwards, had married a pair of brothers whose family had a successful tile-manufacturing business. Wary of manipulative imposters, they appraised this solidly built stranger in unfamiliar uniform with probing questions. Once they were convinced he was genuine, he was again deluged with kindness.

As Elliott discovered, the naval tradition had continued in this branch of Janverin descendants. The father of the sisters who met Harold at Trevor, J.F. Tottenham, had also been a captain in the British navy. His son, an admiral, was serving under Jellicoe in the North Sea. Emily and Laura showed Harold some genealogical treasures, including one letter dated 1690. There was also fascinating 1799 correspondence from their mutual great-grandfather, who had written with vivid frankness about his experiences with Lord Nelson’s fleet and his chief’s notorious relationship with Lady Emma Hamilton.

Elliott stayed with Emily Edwards, her husband, and daughter Pattie at their residence, Bryn Oerog, a comfortable two-storey house set in spacious grounds. Each evening a gong sounded at 6.45pm to remind everyone it was time to dress for dinner. The view from his bedroom window looked across an extensive garden to sheep and cattle grazing languidly; beyond, barges slowly meandered along a winding canal. Lone Pine seemed a long way away. Visiting all these relatives had proved very worthwhile, but it was ‘a terrible rush round and I have felt tired at nights’. Although their bounteousness had ensured that the weight lost during his illness had well and truly reappeared, he had not yet regained his customary vitality. He was ‘greatly constipated and suffering from piles’.

While grateful for the warm hospitality bestowed upon him, he suspected it was partly attributable to his rank.

I have the feeling that if I had not been a ‘Colonel’ my welcome, except for my aunt (who is a darling) and my uncle who is a fine old chap, in all probability would not have been so hearty. But then one has no right to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Although he ‘had a very pleasant time’ in Britain, ‘it wasn’t home a bit’; he felt homesick for his own family, who ‘know that I am a very ordinary sort of person but who love me all the same’. Many Australian soldiers did regard England as ‘home’, and felt thrilled about being there; Pompey Elliott was not one of them. The Suvla fiasco had been a disillusioning eye-opener for some Anzacs who had hitherto subscribed to an unwavering faith in all things English. To Elliott, it merely confirmed that there was no justification for having England and the English — especially its soldiers — on some lofty, exalted pedestal.

Pompey’s disparagement of British units had already alienated one of his NCOs. Shortly after the horror of Lone Pine, English-born Ted Pinder overheard Pompey savagely denounce the British effort at Suvla. To Pinder, such sweeping vilification was monstrously unjust, and confirmed that Elliott had a fundamentally jaundiced perspective. It was not just that Elliott had been scathingly (and, to Pinder, offensively) critical of certain British formations during his Boer War address on the Hororata a year earlier. Pinder felt that anti-English prejudice was also evident in an incident in July 1915 involving Albert Tonks (who hailed from Birmingham) just after the harrowing stint at Steele’s Post.

Tonks, trying like many 7ths to furnish himself with makeshift protection from the searing midsummer heat, had pulled his groundsheet over a small hole and utilised his bayonet to peg a corner of it. Pompey spotted this unorthodox use of a bayonet, and pounced. ‘After roaring away in his usual fashion’, Pinder recalled, Pompey concluded his diatribe with these words: ‘Fine this man ten shillings, Sergeant-Major, and double it because he’s a Pommy’. Pinder’s account of this incident, though uncorroborated and written nearly half a century afterwards, has the ring of truth. Elliott was certainly prone to such outbursts, and Pinder dated it precisely at a time when Pompey was on the warpath so aggressively that even an admirer like Tubb was describing his behaviour as ‘unjust and unreasonable’.

It was while Elliott was travelling around Britain meeting relatives that the award of the four Lone Pine VCs to the 7th Battalion became publicly known. Tubb and Symons, both then in England, were inundated with congratulations, and there were numerous jubilant messages for Pompey too. He was, of course, ‘delighted that the boys got their VCs’, and initially made light of the fact that he had been overlooked for an award himself, a surprising omission to many Australians aware of his contribution.

When I think of some of those who have got honours lately and that I have been passed over I may feel envious, but when I think of what my boys have done and that it was I who trained them for it I am consoled … I have had such a lot of letters from the boys, many of them crippled for life and not one complaining, but all glorying in having been one of the 7th. This to me is far above any personal award, for I got to feel for the Regiment and the men in it as I feel for you and my wee bairnies.

Pleasing reports in Kate’s letters of his glowing reputation among returned 7ths — even though he had been a demanding disciplinarian — reinforced his confidence that ‘their respect is genuine, and that is what I value more than any slab of the Alphabet that I can be given’.

‘Your old man is not much of a hero’, Pompey reflected. He was ‘often pretty scared’, but managed with determination and willpower to conceal his apprehension; his men thought he was fearless. His main concern was not fear of pain so much as the prospect of finding himself in a situation where he had to be responsible for an unavoidable order that would probably result in nearly all obeying it becoming casualties. At Lone Pine, when ‘death seemed very near to us all’, numerous 7ths said they could not hold their positions without more men and bombs:

I told them to go back to their posts and die there, and they went, and were carried by me all torn and wounded a few minutes later. It was as if I actually placed those bodies, living and warm, like bricks to stem the torrent. But though I made them hold, still the decision did not rest with me. I had the order from the General to go there and hold the place to the last man, and we did it.

The possibility that he might have to be responsible for such an order himself filled him with dread.

It was impossible not to think about casualties. Still preoccupied with anguished thoughts about the first fortnight’s toll, fine officers like Jimmy Johnston and the Hendersons in particular, Elliott was also dwelling on the more recent losses, notably Ken Walker:

I suppose poor Lyn is very sad about Ken. I have been intending to write to her ever since, but feel somehow that I cannot. I think it would break me up completely if I met them. He was such a fine boy and they loved him so much, and he was fond of them too. And when I think of all these things I cannot write.

Homesickness did not help. There were times, he told Kate, when he reminisced wistfully about lolling on the family couch, his head in her lap, while she smiled fondly down at him and caressed his hair. Returning home would be marvellous, and would certainly have been possible ‘had I chosen to make the most of my sickness as some are doing’. But that would be tantamount to shirking. Unthinkable, even though ‘I want to kiss you all over’. Kate was putting on a brave face. She did all she could to be supportive. Her letters were an ‘inspiration’ to her husband. They did not dwell on her unceasing anxiety about him, which had impeded her recovery from her operation. She was glad Belle was still living with her and helping with the children; Harold was effusively grateful for his sister-in-law’s contribution.

Elliott returned to Gallipoli on 7 December. With the 7th then in reserve, Geoff McCrae met him at the beach and accompanied him up to the battalion’s bivouac. Not far away was the 22nd AIF Battalion. In that unit were two men Elliott was keen to catch up with, Corporal Jack Campbell (his brother-in-law) and Major Bob Smith. He found both fit and well. Smith, a tall, solidly built 34-year-old who worked in his family’s wool-scouring business, had become a close friend while serving with Elliott in the militia. In August 1914 Smith was one of the first Elliott approached to become an officer in the 7th, but he declined because his wife was about to give birth. Campbell, a 37-year-old farmer and Kate’s only surviving brother, was station manager of a property near Geraldton, Western Australia, when war was declared. He resigned that position to go to the war, but enlisted in Melbourne so he could spend time with his mother and sisters before leaving Australia. He had a cheery, affectionate, and responsive nature; Violet and Neil were particularly fond of their ‘Uncle Jack’.

Conditions at Anzac had been transformed during Elliott’s months away. Instead of oppressive heat and fierce fighting, the weather had become decidedly wintry, and each side was content to remain largely on the defensive. The long-suffering Anzacs now had to endure fierce blizzards and numbing iciness (though snow was a pleasing novelty for many of them). There were numerous cases of frostbite and exposure. Some men froze to death. At Suvla, where torrents of putrid water cascaded wildly along the trenches, there were even drownings.

This deteriorating weather reinforced the misgivings about the Gallipoli enterprise aired by some British strategists since the failure of the August offensive. The Turks would soon have at their disposal more heavy artillery than before, they contended, and it would be preferable to avoid the ordeal of winter at Gallipoli — when the weather would be an even more formidable enemy than Turkish soldiers — and deploy the British and allied forces more usefully elsewhere. This view had increasing adherents, despite the likelihood (accepted by both advocates and opponents of evacuation) that casualties in any withdrawal would be heavy. After prolonged consideration, the British government decided early in December to proceed with an evacuation.

Preliminary measures had been authorised by the handful of Gallipoli commanders aware that evacuation was being considered. With secrecy crucial, they pretended that these changes had been necessitated by the onset of winter conditions. Rumours began to circulate about a withdrawal, but not many soldiers believed them. When Pompey Elliott heard that Lord Kitchener had visited the Anzacs, including the 7th Battalion, his reaction was one of regret that he was unable to be present; he had no idea that Kitchener had come to assess the proposed withdrawal for himself. Even four days after Birdwood learned that the government had directed the evacuation to proceed, Elliott was still unaware. ‘We have been told that we won’t have much chance to write for some time after this’, he told Kate only a week before the scheduled departure. ‘I don’t quite know what is in the wind’. Brigadier-General Monash, notified that afternoon, likened the impact of this ‘stupendous and paralysing’ news to ‘a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky’.

Most Australians were stunned to learn that the whole force was to leave. Withdrawal essentially meant failure. Like everyone at Anzac, Pompey hated to admit that all the courage displayed, all the hardships endured and, in particular, all the lives lost had ultimately been in vain. The prospect of leaving dead mates behind was especially painful. Equally sobering was the probability of significant casualties during their departure. Since the evacuation would be a gradual withdrawal, obviously the last men to leave would be at most risk. Nevertheless officers in every unit were inundated with fervent pleas from men desperate to be in the rearguard. The principle governing selection was supposed to be suitability rather than insistent volunteering, but it was rumoured that Pompey had nominated himself, and perhaps his battalion as well, for a leading role. This is plausible. He developed something of a reputation for offering men under his command for difficult tasks. Both Elliott and his battalion did end up with important rearguard responsibilities.

Anzac and Suvla (but not, initially, Helles) were to be evacuated. From Anzac there were more than 40,000 men to be withdrawn. Some had already left. Under the scheme directed by Brudenell White there was to be a series of gradual daily withdrawals until about half the overall number had gone. The remainder, just over 20,000, would then be taken off over two successive nights. During this final phase, the climax of the operation, Elliott would become the rearguard commander of the right Anzac flank, while the 7th, as the 2nd Brigade’s last remaining battalion, would be safeguarding to the very end an important sector near Lone Pine.

Secrecy was paramount. Elliott, characteristically treating his responsibilities with the utmost seriousness, impressed upon his men the crucial importance of keeping the Turks in the dark. He even ordered that anyone heard talking about the evacuation would be court-martialled. So when an inebriated private (who had managed to get hold of a jar of rum and sampled the contents) began trumpeting his delight that they were leaving, Pompey was immediately animated, and called for someone to silence him urgently. Nearby happened to be one of the 7th’s originals, Harold Schuldt, a humane and popular corporal. He tried to obey his colonel’s directive, but struggled to curb the rowdy drunkard. It was only after he resorted to a desperate, inexpert uppercut that he achieved the desired result (and dislocated a finger that was still misshapen half a century later).

Evacuation preparations were in full swing when an interesting device was brought to Elliott’s notice. Its inventor, 20-year-old architectural modeller Bill Scurry, had only been at Gallipoli a few weeks, but was well known to Pompey, having served under him as a lieutenant in the Essendon Rifles. Assisted by his mate ‘Bunty’ Lawrence, who had attended the same school and church as Scurry and enlisted with him in the 7th Battalion’s 8th Reinforcements, Scurry had designed a simple but ingenious apparatus for a self-firing rifle. Water in one container was allowed to drip gradually into another underneath, with the lower one attached to a rifle trigger; eventually the lower receptacle became sufficiently heavy with water to make the rifle fire. With every endeavour being directed to the organisation of a withdrawal unbeknown to the Turks, the potential usefulness of such a device was obvious — especially to Pompey, who had already told his officers and NCOs that if any mechanism could be devised to help deceive the Turks it might well prove invaluable. He was instrumental in arranging for the invention to be tested at Anzac headquarters. It worked, and the heads were impressed. Scurry and Lawrence were detached from other duties to manufacture a collection of these special rifles.

Tension mounted as the climax approached. The weather and the Turks had both been helpfully benign, but either could easily sabotage the carefully planned operation. After sunset on the scheduled penultimate day, 18 December, 10,200 soldiers departed (including a contingent of 206 7th Battalion men under Major Layh), leaving 10,000 to be evacuated on the final night. Because they were to leave at different stages, they were classified in three separate parties known as ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’. The 230 ‘A’ party men in the 7th Battalion, like their counterparts in other units, were to begin leaving the trenches at dusk. Major McCrae was to follow with his ‘B’ party contingent, commencing at 9.35pm. At this stage Pompey Elliott would be moving to brigade headquarters (the brigadier having departed with the ‘B’ parties) to take over command on the right Anzac flank, which involved supervising the final withdrawal of ‘C’ parties from five different battalions as well as a small contingent from brigade headquarters. It would be a testing, nerve-racking assignment. Being as familiar with military history as anyone at Anzac, Elliott appreciated the danger with the utmost clarity. But he welcomed the challenge, and regarded his appointment as an honour. Not the least attractive feature was the implicit recognition of his potential for promotion.

He was intensely frustrated when an injury prevented him from playing his part fully. On 18 December he slipped and fell, wrenching his left ankle so severely that there was some concern he might have broken it. He tried to carry on, arranging for a makeshift crutch to be made so he could ‘stick it out and stay with the boys to the end’, but the following morning the brigadier insisted that he had to leave straightaway if he was unfit. At midday Pompey unwillingly left Gallipoli for the last time. ‘It was very disappointing … after I had made all the arrangements and everything was working beautifully’.

Nowhere in his wartime correspondence to Kate or anyone else, not even in the privacy of his diary, did he describe precisely what he was doing when he hurt his ankle. Long after his death 7th Battalion veterans provided corroborative accounts of what happened. In pre-war days Pompey had noted approvingly that both General Craufurd of Corunna fame (a particular hero of his) and the renowned Boer leader General de Wet had occasionally resorted to brutal summary punishment in order to maintain discipline. It was apparently in emulating them that Pompey injured himself. Coming across someone from the 8th Battalion who was, according to Elliott, committing some misdemeanour, Pompey delivered an impromptu reprimand. ‘Go to buggery, I’m not in your 7th’, was the quick retort. Enraged, Pompey sprang forward to deal forcibly with this insubordination. His impudent quarry darted away. Pompey set off in hot pursuit, but lost his footing and tumbled heavily down a steep bank.

So Pompey was absent on the momentous last night. Again the weather was propitious, the sea calm, and the enemy unsuspecting. As scheduled, the ‘A’ and ‘B’ contingents left the trenches in turn, and made their way along pre-arranged routes to the beach. Mettlesome ‘C’ parties, anxious but determined, remained thinly scattered along the trenches for several hours, knowing that their prospects of survival would be minimal if the Turks suddenly detected the withdrawal and attacked in strength. At around 2.00am the last 106 of the 7th Battalion began moving out. A dozen stalwarts under Major Jackson stayed on to cover their departure. This extraordinarily tense three-quarters of an hour seemed much longer. Eventually Jackson directed two of them, Scurry and Lawrence, to activate the self-firing rifles in their sector. This done, the gallant band then nervously descended to the beach.

It was a memorable walk. Strips of hessian covered their fixed bayonets to prevent any glittering in the moonlight. Like their comrades before them, they had layers of torn-up blanket under their boots to muffle the sound of tell-tale tramping. As they proceeded through murky tunnels, along vacated trenches, and past eerily empty dug-outs, the impulse to disobey orders and run was almost irresistible. They made it safely to the pier, where one of the last boats was waiting for them, and were soon on their way.

The whole operation, directed brilliantly by Brudenell White, was an astounding success. The withdrawal of the whole force with only two minor casualties was regarded as miraculous. There was tremendous jubilation in the AIF. But Pompey Elliott had mixed feelings. Although delighted that the evacuation had been such a triumph, he was back at Heliopolis hospital ‘in the same old ward as last May’ with another throbbing foot and an acute sense of frustration. Being unable to participate fully in something so conspicuously special was bad enough; that he had been prevented by a somewhat embarrassing incident made him feel worse. He was, like many Anzacs, amazed that success had been so complete. ‘I still cannot understand how, unless their eyes were blinded, we could have eluded their vigilance, for in many places the trenches were only a few yards apart’.

Again he took weeks to recover. He had regular massage treatment in hospital, but ‘whenever I attempt to walk the ankle seems to give way’. Not for the first time he was, he admitted, a ‘very impatient’ patient. Rejoining the 7th Battalion on 9 January, he was ‘still lame’ over a fortnight later. His ankle was uncooperatively slow to heal, but he managed to get about with it tightly strapped, using a horse whenever possible.

Elliott was reunited with his battalion at the AIF’s new Egyptian base, Tel-el-Kebir. The 7th was being replenished by the influx of reinforcements and the return of sick or wounded veterans. As soldiers, however, many of these recruits were raw, and had to be licked into shape. So hundreds more Australians became familiar with Pompey’s vigorous training methods. Like their comrades before them, they experienced the full repertoire — the intimidating demeanour, the bellicose roar, and the big black horse with a remarkable eye for parade misdemeanours — and duly accumulated their own collection of Pompey stories. As usual when he was on the warpath, onlookers not on the receiving end tended to find his tempestuous tirades amusing. Some, though, felt uncomfortable: roaring at his officers was inappropriate, they felt, in front of the rank and file.

Convinced that the 7th Battalion had been the most outstanding unit at Gallipoli, Colonel Elliott gave the assembled reinforcements a stirring account of its achievements, exhorting them to live up to this fine record. Wrongdoers could expect no leniency. When Pompey did not recognise an offender brought before him, he would usually ask if the culprit was an old 7th. If so, he received a stiff penalty because he ‘should have known better’; if a new recruit, he would get the same punishment to ensure he knew better in future.

On one occasion the battalion was awaiting the order to fall in when an AIF general happened to pass by, and none of the nearest men saluted. Spotting this neglect, a 7th officer raced over and arbitrarily chose one of them to charge as an example. It was ‘Bunty’ Lawrence. Ordered to appear before the colonel, Lawrence found him ‘seated in the mouth of a bell tent, looking as savage as a Jersey bull’. Pompey came straight to the point. ‘Private Lawrence, charged with not saluting — how do you plead?’ ‘Not guilty, sir’, replied Lawrence. The officer laying the charge outlined what had happened. Pompey turned back to Lawrence.

‘Why didn’t you salute?’

‘Didn’t see him, sir’.

‘What fine do you consider necessary to make you remember to salute an officer when you see one?’

‘No fine at all, sir’.

‘Let me tell you a story. When I was at the Boer War I was only a lieutenant, and I went past a sentry and the sentry presented arms to me. I said “There’s no need to present arms to me sentry, you only present arms to a major or above”, and the sentry said “I knew that sir, but I was only practising”. Now that’s what you ought to do. You ought to salute your sergeant. And if you’re not sure, salute anything that looks like an officer.’

As the colonel paused for a moment, Lawrence could not restrain himself: ‘I often have to do that, sir’, he interjected. Pompey was so enraged by this cheekiness that the tent seemed at imminent risk of collapse. ‘Fined seven days’ pay!’ he bellowed.

Despite this intimidating purposefulness, Elliott was feeling ‘sad and weary’. He was tired of all the browbeating and castigating he felt he had to do in order to maintain the battalion’s efficiency, and bitter about promotions and awards in other units he thought undeserved: ‘I get very much annoyed at times at the unfairness of it all’. In successive letters to Kate he relived Lone Pine in graphically grim detail: ‘the trenches were full of dead men and blood and brains — I wonder will I ever be able to forget it all’.

While I feel pretty well generally, I am not quite myself in that the least opposition excites me to great anger. I do my best to control it, but a man gave me a bit of cheek the other day and I nearly had a fit I think. I suppose it is a result of the strain and worry.

Receiving letters from Kate and Belle with news and photographs of the children did wonders for his morale, and a letter from England also helped. Its author, Major Weddell, described what had happened when Symons was presented with his VC. Ushered in to have a brief private chat with the King, Symons was asked about his regiment. The 7th Battalion had won four VCs already, Symons replied; it had suffered more casualties and done more fighting than any other at Anzac. Encouraged by the King’s responsiveness, Symons went on to say that he could not understand why the colonel of a battalion with such a fine record, having been through so much of it and been wounded himself, had not even been mentioned in dispatches. The King summoned his secretary, asked him to note the name ‘Colonel Elliott’, and promised Symons he would inquire into this apparent oversight. Fancy Symons ‘talking to the King like that’, Elliott observed, ‘it was good of him’.

Shortly afterwards Elliott learned he would be leaving the 7th Battalion. On 15 February he was instructed to take command of the 1st AIF Brigade. Pompey arranged to have a stirring farewell message communicated to each member of the 7th. He would depart with ‘the utmost regret’, it began. Recalling the battalion’s earliest days at Broadmeadows and its accomplishments since then,

I can give you no greater praise than to assure you that you have fulfilled in every respect the expectations I then formed of you. You have cheerfully submitted to the severest discipline imposed on any regiment in the Australian army, recognising that it was imposed from no capricious desire for punishment, which is distasteful to me, but with the deliberate intention of making you the best regiment in the army.

While it would be ‘boastful to assert that we have become the best regiment in the Australian army’, the ‘facts speak for themselves’. The 7th had sustained more casualties than any other battalion, he claimed, and its achievements and awards for gallantry were second to none.

You have never yet failed to accomplish any task set you … To each and all of you I tender my sincere thanks for the cheerful readiness with which you have always carried out my commands and wishes in the camp, in the trenches or on the field. I desire no better compliment, praise or reward. H.E. Elliott.

A comprehensive post-Gallipoli overhaul of the AIF had led to Elliott’s promotion. Thousands of sick and wounded veterans were emerging from hospitals, and recruiting campaigns in Australia had produced abundant reinforcements. With the New Zealand force also enlarged, an Australasian army of two corps was created. The AIF, having previously contributed two infantry divisions and part of a third, would now provide five in this new Anzac army. Moreover, to conform with changes then occurring in the British army, a large number of new artillery and subsidiary units were simultaneously created. The architect of this massive reorganisation was Brudenell White.

Part of the process proved distressing. In order to spread the hard-won AIF experience around the expanded force, the sixteen battalions involved at Gallipoli from the outset were divided in two; half of each unit became the nucleus of a fresh battalion. After the split in Elliott’s former unit, for example, half remained with the 7th and the other half was transferred to form the experienced core of the newly created 59th Battalion. Many veterans found this rupture painful. Elliott administered it sensitively. Long afterwards, one veteran recalled Pompey telling him that though he had been one of those earmarked for the 59th he could stay with his mates in the 7th if he wished. Elliott also acknowledged the widespread dismay in his farewell message:

Though it will be hard for those named for transfer — as it is for me — to sever their connection with the 7th, I appeal to them to put their sentiments aside and firmly resolve to make the old 7th proud … that the 59th Regiment sprang from this battalion. Let each regiment give a cheer when it meets the other in the field or on the march, and feel proud to know and recognise each other wherever they meet.

With new units being created, soldiers throughout the AIF were evaluating their options. One 7th stalwart who was considering a transfer to the Camel Corps asked a mate, an ex-jockey serving as Pompey’s groom, to find out what his boss thought. A message from Pompey came back via the groom: a horse had only two ways of kicking, but a camel had seven. The inquirer decided to forget about a transfer.

Elliott was initially ill at ease as a brigadier, missing familiar faces and feeling daunted by his new role. ‘It is a great and fearful responsibility’, he wrote. Because the 1st Brigade men were all from New South Wales

I don’t know a single soul amongst them all … I don’t know who are the good ones and who cannot be trusted, and I am away from all my pals, and all these 4000 lives may depend on me — if I don’t make up my mind what to do quickly enough, or if I make it up wrongly.

Pompey inherited the capable brigade staff assembled by his predecessor, Colonel Nevill Smyth VC. He appreciated their capacity and helpfulness, but was disappointed that they were all English:

This always more or less riles me because it always hints at inferiority in Australians — that they are not good enough for these jobs. But still they are all nice boys, and there is nothing too great a trouble for them to do for me.

British officers had behaved before the landing as if ‘they had no sort of use for us at all’, but now, after the AIF had distinguished itself at Gallipoli, Egypt was ‘just swarming with British officers eager for jobs with the Australians’.

The vacancy Elliott filled at 1st Brigade was created by Smyth’s promotion. On 29 February Elliott learned that Smyth’s elevation would no longer be going ahead. Smyth would be reverting to brigadier, and had asked for his previous command. In the circumstances Elliott accepted that Smyth was entitled to it. When Birdwood and White suggested the 14th Brigade as an alternative for Elliott, he replied that he would prefer the 15th if possible, since it was a Victorian brigade. This request was granted.

He was delighted. Besides being a Victorian unit, the 15th Brigade included the 59th Battalion, the offshoot of the 7th.

I have Major Layh and all the other 7th boys who were sent over to the 59th Battn under my command again. I have the 57th, 58th, 59th and 60th Battalions, all Victorian and all old 2nd Brigade men. We will have to work very hard to knock things into shape, but I love the work with my own men.

With the 57th, 58th, and 60th similarly connected to their respective ‘parent’ battalions, the 5th, 6th, and 8th, Elliott’s familiarity with those 2nd Brigade units would also be helpful in his new command. He began enthusiastically exploring ways to emulate in the 15th Brigade the territorial affiliation with Victorian districts that was, he felt, a success in the 7th Battalion.

His delight was short-lived. He took a dim view of the battalion commanders earmarked for his new brigade. Elliott’s confidence in his ability to make discerning assessments when appointing subordinates had been reinforced by his pride and sense of vindication in the performance of the 7th Battalion officers he had chosen so carefully in August 1914. He was satisfied with one of his battalion commanders, Cam Stewart, the former 5th Battalion adjutant now in charge of its offshoot, the 57th. But he was decidedly unimpressed with the other three. Command of the 58th had been given to solicitor C.R. Davies, previously second-in-command of the 28th Battalion. At the helm of the 59th was E. A. Harris, who had a farm in north-west Victoria near the selection where Elliott grew up, and had left Australia, like Davies, as part of the Second AIF Division. Appointed to the 60th was J.W.B. Field of the 8th Battalion, an experienced officer out of action since his severe head wound at Krithia. None of them, Elliott felt, was likely to provide the type of vigorous leadership and insistence on discipline that he desired in a battalion commander. He would be far more comfortable with competent officers he knew and had essentially trained himself, such as Bob Smith or Bert Layh — subordinates familiar with his methods and temperamental quirks.

Elliott’s start with the 15th Brigade confirmed these impressions. At the 1st Brigade a cohesive staff ran things like clockwork, and he felt there was not much for him to do. Starting a brigade practically from scratch was altogether different. A machine-gun company was formed; a school of instruction established for officers and NCOs; a vigorous training program instituted for the rank and file. During this busy time Elliott became adamant about not wanting Davies, Harris, and Field. He decided to try to replace them with Smith, Layh, and the 40-year-old deputy commander of the 29th Battalion, Harry Duigan, another experienced officer who had served with Elliott in the militia. Pompey also concluded that he would prefer to do without several other officers he had been given: ‘If only General White will support me … I will feel happier with men I can fully trust and rely upon to keep discipline’.

His efforts to achieve his objectives included a visit to Bob Smith and applications to White and the Second Division commander, General Legge, seeking approval for Smith’s transfer. His letter to White suggested that Smith could be exchanged for Harris:

Please do what you can to help these arrangements to take immediate effect. The 59th Battalion under Layh and 57th under Stewart are progressing favourably, while the 60th and 58th are at a standstill owing to no officers coming forward to serve under them.

Approval from Brudenell White, however, was not forthcoming. The enlargement of the AIF was already complex enough without the additional complication of an urgent War Office request — in response to the massive German attack launched at Verdun on 21 February — to send Australian divisions to the Western Front as quickly as possible. Because the First and Second AIF Divisions had been earmarked for imminent transfer to France (rather than the Fifth, containing Elliott’s brigade), White’s main priority was to get them right. It was inevitable, White admitted, that in such an immense reorganisation some newly promoted officers would be slow to impress; if they were in units staying longer in Egypt, there was more scope to give them an extended trial.

Snatching a few moments during a hectically busy period for him, White dictated a letter to Elliott outlining his position. ‘I would not for anything damp your enthusiasm, and … I have the greatest sympathy for your territorial scheme’, he began diplomatically,

but instead of going at it “neck and crop”, would it not have been wiser to work towards the territorial idea than to have attempted to get it at one jump? It seems to me that the result of your effort has been to disunite you from three of your battalion commanders, and this is not a happy start. One has always to bear in mind too that these fellows’ reputations are in your hands and are of course just as precious to them as your own is to you. I am going into the whole thing to see what can be done and the General [ie, Birdwood] wishes to help you, but your precipitancy has not made it easy for us. I am sorry that it is not possible to give you carte blanche in the way you suggest … to get men from other infantry battalions; as you know the 1st and 2nd Divisions are about to move, and their efficiency for the time being takes priority over yours … you say that you will not countenance any blocking of transfers where it is clearly to the advancement of the applicant to obtain the appointment in question. May I suggest to you that the advancement of the applicant is a minor thing to the efficiency of the whole? All this sounds a little more of a rebuke than I actually intend, but I hope shortly to get a chance of talking it over with you as a friend. Do not rush into it too hard; such a reorganisation as we are attempting is unnatural enough, and nature dislikes sudden eruptions.

Elliott received a similar response from Legge. ‘I sympathise very much with your desires, but am sorry to say they are not practicable under present circumstances’, wrote the Second Division commander. He had ‘already let a number of officers go’, and ‘making further changes’ when they were about to depart was ‘out of the question’.

Pompey regarded the denial of his request as an implicit reflection on his judgment, and he was appalled by the consequences for his brigade. White’s letter, intended as a soothing mollifier, was like a red rag to a bull. Pompey was still livid when he compiled a spirited reply. It was not at all correct to suggest that

I have allowed my preference for the territorial idea to cloud my judgment of men. Stewart of the 57th does not in the least belong to the territorial idea, but he is far and away the best man for the job he has, is doing it very excellently and I shall strongly recommend his confirmation in the position … Rather than have an inefficient battalion commander although belonging to the territorial area, I would abandon the whole thing.

Elliott had asked a number of Western Australians about Davies, and ‘the verdict was all the time unfavourable’. Moreover, Elliott doubted that a single commander in the brigade where Davies was best known would take him even as a second in command: ‘Does this go for nothing?’ As for Harris,

I have been unable to find anyone whose opinion I value at all who thinks the least of Harris as a commander of men. Am I wrong in believing that you thoroughly agree? Major Coulter, 8th Battalion, who was left behind to instruct the 21st Battalion when they relieved the 8th Battalion at Steele’s Post (and he is no very rigid disciplinarian himself) was so disgusted by the slackness and lack of discipline shown by the 21st Battalion when under Harris that he actually paraded him (Harris) before Brig-Gen Smyth, and Harris was soundly reprimanded … Similarly with regard to Field. I have seen him at Mena carrying on outposts. It was a sight for the Gods. Even his old friend Colonel Bolton reported against him as a possible second in command. Field admitted as much to me the other day.

There was much more about Field, and a great deal about promotion policy:

With regard to the question of transfers of officers injuring the efficiency of the whole, I contend that it will have the very opposite effect. Of what interest is it to a man to be earnest, zealous and untiring in his work if it will merely result in his battalion commander refusing to part with him. No doubt … you yourself would be a brilliant adjutant and the salvation of a man like Field. The Division is the worse off because of your promotion, but is the efficiency of the whole not served by advancing you to your present position? Is this same argument not to be applicable to everyone then, or is it only to apply to the Staff? I tell you your argument is totally wrong if it involves this. Everyone who is worthy of it should be pushed on irrespective of the inconvenience it may cause the man who loses by the advancement.

The more he wrote, the more intemperate he became:

The territorial idea was adopted not as an end in itself, but as a means of inspiring enthusiasm in men who feel just a little sore in being cast out of the fold of the old battalions. If I seemed to you to have pushed the idea hastily you were wrong; nothing, as you will now perhaps admit, has been recommended without the gravest consideration. The reputation of the men upon whom I have reported adversely may be sacred — to me, the lives of the men who may depend on them [are] more sacred still, and in two cases, viz Field and Harris, I fear greatly for those entrusted to them. But … this matter lies with you for decision, and on your head be the blame if you find for any reason that you cannot follow my recommendations … As I asked before, do you desire an efficient brigade or will any old thing do? … I conscientiously believe my judgment of these men is just, and my recommendations are made in the sole interest of the efficiency of the force. Upon investigation you may conclude that my judgment is wrong … then do your plain duty and relegate me to the 7th Battalion, to the Base, or to Australia as your conscientious judgment may determine is the right place for me. Reputation or no reputation, I ask no one to bear what I will not readily stand myself.

Birdwood was infuriated by this extraordinary letter — so angry (Elliott later learned) that he was inclined to accept the implicit invitation to send its author back to Australia. It was only after White demurred that Birdwood relented. Birdwood’s reliance on White’s capacity and judgment was already evident, and White knew Elliott much better than Birdwood did. The courage and awkward affability that Birdwood showed in his frequent visits to forward positions, combined with his shrewdness in self-promotion, had won him superficial popularity (although many Australian soldiers found ‘Birdie’s bull’ increasingly irritating). But for a general of his eminence and reputation he had pronounced limitations. His grasp of administration, organisation, and tactics was ordinary; on his return from these sociable trips forward, he was unable to provide a reliable tactical appreciation of the position he had just visited. In fact, Birdwood was only able to make these outings and maintain his voluminous correspondence with highly placed politicians, soldiers, administrators, and other influential individuals because White, more self-effacing and less ambitious, was doing the bulk of the real work.

Whereas Elliott retained an overall respect for White’s capacity (while vigorously disagreeing with some of White’s decisions that affected him personally), he detected Birdwood’s essential shallowness with commendable insight relatively quickly. It was preposterous, Pompey insisted, to suggest that ‘I should hesitate to differ from him and tell him so. He … has not handled Australians as long as I have, and has not studied them as I have done’. Pompey correctly suspected that Birdwood’s primary motive in scheming to remain with the AIF was self-interest. He would not have been surprised to learn that Birdwood was equally assiduous in striving to prolong his (dependent) association with White.

That Birdwood regarded Elliott’s conduct as inexplicably bizarre was underlined in one of his letters to George Pearce, who remained Australia’s minister for Defence throughout the war. Birdwood told Pearce he would have to review his previous recommendation supporting Elliott’s promotion:

I am sorry to say he does not seem to have become at all well, and I am very doubtful as to whether it will be possible to confirm him, though I trust he may improve. He suddenly seems to have become a bull in a china shop, and has already put up the backs of three of his commanding officers. I have every sympathy with the territorial feeling as likely to produce esprit de corps, and for that reason it was that I put him to the 15th Victorian Brigade. He, however, apparently wishes to ride the territorial system to death, and because he happened to find officers commanding battalions who were not Victorians, he at once seemed to make a set against them, and reported upon them as useless.

Birdwood was repeating (presumably in ignorance?) the distortion of Elliott’s motives that his forceful letter had sought to correct. Pompey had objected to the three battalion commanders because he felt they were incompetent rather than because they were not Victorians — two of them were Victorians! Also affecting Birdwood’s perception of Elliott’s performance early in 1916 were the reports that he and White were receiving from Elliott’s immediate superior in his latest post, Brigadier-General G.G.H. Irving, who was filling in as interim commander of the Fifth AIF Division until McCay returned to Egypt to take up that appointment. Irving was an experienced administrator, but had never commanded soldiers in battle. Elliott ‘drove Irving … nearly wild’, Birdwood told Pearce. From Elliott’s viewpoint, however, Irving had been obnoxiously overbearing, ‘giving himself considerable airs over me’, and issuing directives and reprimands in ‘things that I reckon he had nothing to do with in my Brigade’.

In Pompey’s blistering letter he had invited White to check his specific allegation against Harris (that the 21st Battalion had been undisciplined at Steele’s Post) with Smyth. It is unclear whether Birdwood or White ever followed this up, but Harris did approach Smyth about it. The upshot was that Smyth wrote to both Harris and Elliott denying the allegation. Elliott, not for the last time in controversy, had harmed his case by making damning assertions — based not on his own firsthand knowledge, but someone else’s uncorroborated account — which proved to be inaccurate.

The controversy was revived when the Prince of Wales reviewed the 15th Brigade on 22 March. To Elliott, the ‘pink-cheeked’, ‘very shy’ 21-year-old prince looked about 16; they shook hands, and chatted briefly about boxing and football. Also in attendance was Brudenell White. He and Elliott had a spirited private discussion. According to Elliott’s diary account, White conceded

that he knew that one at least of the battalion commanders was no good, old Field, but said he must have a trial. May the Lord have mercy on the battalion.

White concluded, Elliott told Kate,

by saying I would have to take them or leave myself … I am sick and tired of the whole thing. They know that these men when they get into action are likely to … mess things up and get their men uselessly slaughtered, but they say we must take them. Then of course if the 15th Brigade makes a failure I’ll have to take the blame. It is a lovely prospect isn’t it.

It was during this controversy that George Wieck joined Elliott as his senior staff officer. A 34-year-old Queenslander, Major Wieck was a full-time soldier of capacity and experience (including eventful Boer War service as an 18-year-old); Elliott was soon raving about his ‘splendid Brigade Major’. Wieck, not overawed by Elliott’s larger-than-life personality, was prepared to express opinions unpalatable to his chief. But on this issue he was sympathetic, concluding that AIF Headquarters knew or sensed that the three commanders in question were inadequate, but wanted proven incapacity before resolving to get rid of them. Elliott reluctantly accepted the situation:

I had a talk with Field and Davies and Harris and told them my recommendations were not being followed and that I proposed to obey my orders … and try and make a brigade out of this show, and pointed out that the lives of 1000 men hang upon each of them.

That same day McCay assumed command of the Fifth Division. Elliott was unenthusiastic: McCay was ‘not a bit popular … with either officers or men’ because of his abrasiveness and reputation as a glory-hunter eager to risk infantry in rash enterprises. Pompey felt that this sweeping denunciation was excessive; although critical of McCay’s grandstanding and bigheaded tendencies, he respected McCay as a soldier. McCay’s arrival released Irving to take over command of the 14th Brigade. The remaining brigade in McCay’s division, the 8th, had been formed in Australia under 49-year-old Edwin Tivey, the urbane stock-broker who was Elliott’s squadron leader during the Boer War. But it was McCay’s other brigadier who dominated Birdwood’s initial briefing:

I have told McCay of the difficulties I have had, and that I rely upon him to keep an eye on Elliott, and I hope make a good Brigadier of him, but that if he finds that impossible he will have to be replaced.

McCay summoned Elliott for a chat within hours of his arrival: ‘had to endure more talking to re battalion commanders’, Pompey noted wearily in his diary.

In this frustrated, aggrieved mood, Pompey’s jaundiced attitude to the individuals imposed on him was very evident. J.D. Schroder was ordered to report with his section to the 15th Brigade. Arriving at 3.00am, he and his tired men did not attend the customary pre-breakfast session of physical jerks that morning.

I was awakened from a very deep sleep by a roar which resembled that of a bull at large thirsting for gore. Standing in the doorway of the bell tent was a huge figure, riding breeches on, no leggings, boots unlaced, a flannel shirt with one brace over the shoulder and one dangling down the side. Not wishing to be outdone in the roaring line, I did a little myself, the result being that within five minutes I was sojourning in the guard-tent and my section was at physical jerks. Needless to say who our early morning visitor was. I was released later in the day by Major Wieck, and I realised that the tales of Pompey’s exploits and discipline at Gallipoli had not been overrated.

Schroder was glad he did not incur Elliott’s wrath regularly, as a certain 58th officer did. ‘Call yourself a soldier,’ Pompey would rant at this unfortunate, ‘you’re not even a wart on a soldier’s arse!’

In another incident Elliott happened to be ‘walking among his ragged veterans from Gallipoli, looking more like a butcher’s offsider’ than a brigadier, when several ‘immaculately dressed reinforcement officers’ approached, just arrived from Australia. Pompey was unimpressed. ‘Don’t want them’ was his abrupt reaction. ‘But, sir’, a staff officer persisted, ‘they are sent from Corps HQ.’ Pompey was insistent: ‘Send them back! Send them to Cairo! Send them to Hell!’ Thrusting a thumb towards his rugged old hands nearby, he said ‘I’ll make my officers from those fellows’.

While all this was happening he had an unexpected visitor, General Walker. After congratulating Elliott on his promotion to brigadier, Walker volunteered that he had come especially because he felt he should apologise as a matter of honour for the outrageous ill-treatment Elliott had endured. Uppermost in his mind was his fervent promise to Elliott that the 7th Battalion’s magnificent Lone Pine contribution would not be forgotten. He wanted to assure Elliott that he had kept his promise, submitting Elliott’s name at or near the top of his award recommendations. By the time these awards were published, Walker continued, he was lying wounded in a London hospital, but he was so astounded by Elliott’s omission that he insisted on getting up to make a personal protest to General Hamilton. Taken aback by Walker’s sudden advent, Hamilton replied that Elliott’s name had been deleted from the list before it reached him.

Elliott thanked Walker for taking the trouble to recount all this, and reassured him that the 7th Battalion’s four VCs and numerous other awards were ample fulfilment of his promise. A professional soldier might believe a lack of recognition could affect his post-war career, Elliott pointed out, but this state of affairs did not apply to a solicitor like himself, so Walker need not worry about it any further. ‘But it is an honour’, Walker persisted. Pompey agreed that it certainly would have pleased his family.

Late in March Elliott went to Cairo to be initiated as a mason. In the AIF masons were prolific; he knew many himself. ‘Nearly every officer of the original 7th was one’, observed McCrae, ‘and I found it an “open sesame” on the Peninsula’. Whatever Elliott made of the peculiar rituals of freemasonry, he was comfortable with its fundamental aims and ideals. He would have endorsed McCrae’s private assessment that anyone able ‘to keep all the precepts of Masonry … would be a perfect man, unselfish, liberal and charitable’. The requirement of committed faith in a supreme being was no obstacle. After Elliott’s elevation to brigadier, responsible for 4,000 men ‘whose lives rest on my judgment’, he began to ‘feel sometimes I am the instrument of the Lord and doing his work in my own way to end this dreadful war’. The sectarian overtones of freemasonry were not uncongenial either. With sectarianism perniciously prevalent in Australia (though less so in the AIF), he had, like thousands of Australian Protestants, been infected with latent anti-Catholic prejudice.

After the First and Second AIF Divisions left for France, the divisions of the Second Anzac Corps had to safeguard the Suez Canal in their place. With most of the local trains transporting the departing divisions, Elliott learned late in March that his 15th was one of the unfortunate brigades required to make the move from Tel-el-Kebir on foot. Marching across the desert for some 35 miles with a meagre water ration would inevitably be a severe test. McCay queried the necessity for the march with the corps commander, Alexander Godley, a leader of mediocre ability and obnoxious personality. To Godley, it was an order from the Commander-in-Chief in Egypt, and that was that. McCay persevered, presenting his objection personally at British headquarters, but was told that rail transport was unavailable and the march had to be done. The Fifth Division’s trek to its destination, Ferry Post, was broken into three stages, to be tackled a day at a time.

Irving and his 14th Brigade men set off first. They endured a terrible ordeal. Baked by intense heat, their water bottles soon empty and their feet blistering painfully in new boots, they sank into the heavy, burning sand up to their knees. A cloud of dust and flies added to their misery. The brigade disintegrated into a rabble. Men fell out all over the place. Many, delirious with thirst and exhaustion, were barely alive. Medical and other units were rushed to the rescue, and encountered scenes of dreadful suffering. There were reputedly a number of deaths.

Elliott’s 15th Brigade followed two days behind. To minimise the ordeal he chose a different route after personally inspecting the various options and consulting officers familiar with them. He also adopted a different march timetable, arranging for short halts at regular intervals (and being sensibly flexible about them), together with a long break in the middle of the day when the heat was at its worst. A carefully selected rearguard attended to stragglers. During the march itself the driving force of his tempestuous leadership was more evident than ever, enriching the ever-growing fund of Pompey anecdotes. Probably his biggest challenge was to ensure that men overwhelmed with raging thirst did not drink the tempting but disease-ridden liquid in the adjacent sweetwater canal. Energised by his memory of the disastrous consequences of indiscriminate thirst-quenching during the Boer War and aware that he had to compensate for his battalion commanders’ shortcomings in the enforcement of discipline, he roamed far and wide on his famous black horse, ranting and roaring. When one man

gave me cheek and refused to fall in … I drew my pistol and pointed it at his head and swore I would blow his brains out on the spot if he didn’t obey orders. The pistol wasn’t loaded, but I frowned at him and he concluded he’d better march.

Another man forgot the ban on smoking and unthinkingly lit a cigarette. Pompey pounced on this infringement immediately. ‘Who lit that?’ he bellowed. Having identified the offender, he added ominously ‘I should shoot you’. ‘If you shoot him, I’ll shoot you’, came a voice from the ranks, just as menacing. Its owner was arrested. Asked by Pompey afterwards for an explanation, he replied that he would respond like that to anyone intimidating his brother (the smoker). Pompey arranged for this private to be sent forthwith to a school for NCOs, reasoning that anyone who could stand up to him in full flight was a man of mettle with leadership potential.

Newly arrived units of engineers placed under his command for the march were totally ill-prepared for this gruelling experience. They became rebelliously uncooperative. With their own officers unable to control them, at one stage they responded to Elliott’s exhortations with hoots, jeers, and insolent suggestions that he should get off his horse and carry a bloody pack himself. Pompey responded by riding right in among his most strident detractors, daring them to repeat this to his face. No-one did. He replaced the engineers’ officers, and there was no further insubordination.

About 140 of the 3,348 men under Elliott’s command fell out during the three days. But the rearguard played its part well (only four had to go to hospital), and the brigade marched into Ferry Post as a cohesive formation. It was, in the circumstances, an impressive achievement. McCay, apprehensive after the disastrous precedent of Irving’s brigade, bestowed lavish praise on Elliott and his men.

But the drama was not yet over. Elliott and his thirsty men had been told that water would be ready for them when they arrived. But they found no water available at Ferry Post. Elliott complained to McCay. It was coming, McCay repeated. When it had still failed to materialise hours later, Pompey issued a vigorous protest. It was outrageous to deprive men of water in the desert, he thundered, and their understandable fury could escalate into mutiny. He threatened to march them back across the Suez Canal to Ismailia in order to get them a drink. After further late-night inquiries he was assured that the precious liquid would be available at 5.30 the following morning.

Up at five o’clock, Pompey found ‘men were actually licking the taps to moisten their lips, and many of them had been sleepless all night from the torments of thirst’. Half an hour later no water had transpired. Pompey galloped away in search of the local chief engineer in charge of the pumps. This man deflected Elliott’s wrath by explaining that the Egyptians did not provide him with enough water for the soldiers in camp, and he was under strict orders anyway not to start the pumps before eight o’clock because the noise interrupted the slumbers of General Godley and his Corps staff.

Remounting his horse, Pompey raced off to Corps headquarters. There he eventually ‘unearthed a young pink-faced British staff officer clad in blue silk pyjamas, who came out yawning and looking very cross at being thus unceremoniously disturbed from his slumbers’. Pompey’s message was blunt. After tersely outlining the position, he told the staff officer that if the water was not turned on in five minutes he would be marching his men to Godley’s headquarters to tell the Corps commander precisely how they felt about the situation. If there was any problem about obtaining the cooperation of the Egyptian civil authorities, he would be delighted to provide a firing squad to deal with them. Immediately galvanised, the staff officer issued the necessary directives, telephoned the chief engineer to instruct him to start the pumps, and the water was flowing within Pompey’s stipulated deadline. Afterwards Elliott was unapologetic but philosophical when McCay warned him that a repetition of such conduct was bound to get him into trouble.

Another Fifth Division brigadier was in real trouble. McCay concluded that Irving’s defective arrangements had been primarily responsible for the 14th Brigade’s disastrous failure. Irving was sacked, and sent home to Australia. Birdwood’s correspondence suggests that as far he was concerned the biggest blot on Irving’s performance was not the ordeal endured by 14th Brigade footsloggers during the march, but the fact that their distressing experience prompted them to give Irving a spiritedly hostile demonstration shortly afterwards at a time when the Prince of Wales happened also to be present. Elliott was no admirer of Irving and gathered that his leadership during the march had been undistinguished, but still felt sympathetic: ‘We should never have been ordered to do the march at all in weather like that without water carts, and yet he was blamed for its failure’.

A week after the desert march Elliott received a letter from a stranger. Rose Taylor was wondering whether her ‘very dear brother’ Fred Wright, killed at Lone Pine, was the Corporal Wright of the 7th Battalion mentioned (according to the newspapers) in one of General Hamilton’s dispatches. She also asked ‘if you could let me know any particulars of his death’. Her only other brother had been ‘missing’ at Gallipoli since May:

it is hard to bear, but it would be harder still to have had them stay at home when King and duty called them. I do not say that we do not suffer because we do. My mother is … a widow 61 years of age, and it is a severe blow to her, but oh I am as proud of my mother as of my boys, she is as brave and true as they were.

A clergyman brought news of Fred’s death. Her mother wavered momentarily, crying ‘My son, my son’, then

drawing her hands over her eyes which were blinded with tears said your mother will be as brave as you were my son, just as though she was speaking to him, and quoted that beautiful passage of scripture that … fits our fallen men so well, greater love hath no man than this that he gaveth his life for his friends. I felt so small and mean at the side of her, and realised that she was a mother worthy of the soldier sons she had lost. I do not know why I have told you all this unless it is to let you know that while our boys are playing the game the women they leave behind will all do the same.

That scripture passage was more apt than she knew. As Pompey outlined in his reply, Fred Wright was in Tubb’s heroic group at one of the most vulnerable Lone Pine posts, protecting his comrades by smothering Turkish bombs or catching them and throwing them back, until one exploded at the wrong time and killed him. Writing again to thank Pompey for his reply, Rose Taylor said she had ‘spoken to so many of your old Boys’, and the way they talk about their commander would make him ‘a very proud man indeed’. There was more. ‘My mother wishes me to add that an old woman’s prayers follow you wherever you may go.’

In May Elliott received another moving letter from Australia, this time from Katie Roberts, the wife of his legal partner. She had read some of Elliott’s letters to various Melbourne friends and had been in contact with Kate Elliott. Sensing General Elliott was severely run down, Katie Roberts decided to send him ‘a little bit of a lecture’ (as she described it) about taking more care of himself. ‘We all at this end appreciate the absolutely magnificent work that you have done and are doing’, she wrote, but to deny essential respite to a ‘military genius’ who was ‘invaluable to our Empire’ would be folly. ‘If you have headaches and are always tired might that not be a proof to you’ that it was time for a spell, she urged. ‘For the sake of our Empire … for the sake of your dear little wife … and for the sake of your beautiful children — Give to yourself the justice you would insist on being given to other people’. Admitting that such a pep talk was ‘extremely bold of me’, she went on to assure him that his ‘kind and thoughtful’ letter to the bereaved parents of Cedric Permezel was ‘genuine balm to those bruised hearts’.

We can gather from what you say something of what you have had to endure, and we get a glimpse of what the awful sacrifice of so many bright young lives has meant to you. I do wish it was possible to let you know how much real deep and genuine affection goes out to you from so many hearts at this end. It would be a help to you, if such a brave true soul ever needs human help.

Elliott was touched. ‘It was a very nice letter’, he acknowledged.

In fact, his health and morale had improved considerably since the gloomy February phase that Katie Roberts was counteracting. This improved mood had much to do with the progress he felt the 15th Brigade had made under his exacting leadership. It was a tough slog, especially on outpost duty in the desert where hot windstorms left everything covered in sand. ‘I have had to work hard … but I have got my own Brigade pretty nearly as good as the old 7th used to be’, he reported proudly in May. His tendency to identify himself wholeheartedly with his unit was no less apparent as a brigadier. Ever mindful of comparisons with counterpart units, Elliott was pleased when he concluded that the 15th Brigade was outperforming the other brigades in the Fifth Division, Tivey’s 8th and the 14th under its new commander, 42-year-old railway administrator Harold Pope. Of course, he was especially delighted when his brigade’s merit was confirmed by his superiors. He was now feeling more appreciated by them. McCay, Godley, and the Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in Egypt inspected the brigade on 11 May and were most complimentary.

Elliott was feeling much happier about the calibre of the 15th Brigade’s officers. ‘I am gradually, just as I have always endeavoured to do, building up round me a very fine lot of young officers’, he told Kate; he was ‘getting rid of the useless ones’ wherever possible. Andrew Morrow, whose prominent Ballarat family Elliott knew well, was ‘doing very excellent work’ in the 59th Battalion. Majors A.J.S. Hutchinson and Tom Elliott (no relation), both talented Duntroon graduates of outstanding promise, had been specially recruited by Pompey from the Light Horse. Doing well in the 60th were two lieutenants who had arrived in Egypt with a reinforcements batch in January, 27-year-old Maffra farmer Tom Kerr and 21-year-old university student Dave Doyle.

He would have liked more ex-7th officers in the 15th, but was delighted that three originals were among them. With the 57th was Charles Denehy, the schoolteacher with a literary bent and impressive twirling moustache, who had been severely wounded at the landing. Rejoining the 7th in September, he was in charge of one of the last parties at the evacuation. Pompey’s satisfaction with Bert Layh’s transfer to the 59th at the helm of its ex-7th component had been vindicated by his competent, vigorous leadership since. And Pompey was especially pleased that Geoff McCrae had accepted his request to join the 60th. Wounded twice at Gallipoli, McCrae contracted paratyphoid fever after the evacuation and was almost invalided to Australia. After a protracted recovery he joined the 60th as second-in-command in mid-May. ‘He is a great favourite with everybody, officers and men’, Elliott enthused.

Pompey’s growing contentment was reflected in his appearance. ‘People tell me I look ever so much better’, he reassured Kate, ‘quite as young looking’ as before the Gallipoli landing. ‘The only difference I myself can detect is that my hair is much greyer than when I left you’. His buoyant frame of mind was unshaken by a recurrence of his ankle trouble and a painful new injury, a cracked collarbone sustained after his horse tripped and fell at full gallop. For a while he was limping around with an arm in a sling, but remained on duty. He had even become grudgingly reconciled to the presence of the three unwanted battalion commanders, although he repeatedly railed in private about how much more he could have achieved with the brigade if he had competent commanders instead of those ‘old fossils’ (Field was 51 and Davies 45, but Harris was 36 and two years younger than Elliott!).

In mid-May, during a week of extreme heat, Field became severely ill and was sent to hospital. ‘I am sorry for him’, noted the brigadier, ‘yet if he only will not come back it would be the greatest possible blessing to the Battn and the Brigade’. His wish was granted: Field was invalided back to Australia. To replace him as commander of the 60th Battalion, Elliott applied for Duigan to be transferred from Tivey’s brigade. In the meantime McCrae took over as acting commander. Under his leadership the 60th, Elliott noticed, quickly improved.

Elliott was hardly likely to invite Field to contact his family back in Melbourne, but he did encourage a number of his returning men to do so. Some visited Kate, as did relatives of men who had served under her husband. One of these callers was the mother of Les Blick, the 7th lieutenant killed at the landing; she gave Kate a photo of her son. Elliott was pleased. ‘He was a splendid boy Katie, everyone in the regiment officers and men seemed to love him’. The first anniversary of Anzac Day shortly afterwards was commemorated with ceremonies in Australia (and Egypt, France, and England) and long lists of In Memoriam notices, which became a sad feature of newspapers during the war years and afterwards. Among them were tributes to Lieutenant Leslie Colin Blick containing touching allusions to ‘little Leslie’, the son he never knew.

Fond references to his offspring continued to be a regular refrain in Elliott’s frequent letters to his family. He repeatedly urged Kate and Belle to tell him all about their activities — ‘I am so sorry to be missing all their little children’s ways’ — and he cherished the photographs of them he received from time to time. ‘I am eagerly looking forward to more snapshots’, he told Kate in May. ‘They are just about keeping me alive’. He was tickled pink to learn that three-year-old Neil had startled Kate by approaching a uniformed stranger on a Melbourne tram for an impromptu conversation because, Neil later explained, of the small ‘wed-and-bown’ coloured shoulder patch identifying this soldier as a 7th Battalion man. Others sensed Elliott’s intense attachment to his children. Brigadier-General Tivey, now his equal after being his squadron commander in South Africa, had (perhaps because of this) a somewhat uneasy relationship with Pompey during the Great War, but when they were together Tivey knew he could generate a convivial atmosphere by talking about Elliott’s children.

Early in June it became evident that the move to France that Elliott and his men had been anticipating for weeks was at last going to happen. During their last few days in Egypt Pompey’s satisfaction with the development of his brigade was repeatedly reinforced. After an inspection of the various Fifth Division transport units, McCay told Elliott that ‘the turn-out of the 15th Brigade was the best in the Division’. McCay’s senior staff officer, Lieutenant-Colonel C.M. Wagstaff, had already described the 15th Brigade’s progress, considering it had only existed for three months, as ‘marvellous’. Then, just before their departure, another of the brigadier’s unwanted ‘old fossils’, Colonel Davies, became seriously ill. The brigade had to leave without him. Elliott’s response was similar to his reaction to Field’s illness: ‘I hope the old chap doesn’t come back for the sake of his regiment, but apart from that I wish him no harm’. Davies, like Field, never returned to the 15th Brigade. All these developments were positive portents for Pompey, reaffirming his confidence that his brigade — and its commander — were ready to play their part in the struggle against the formidable German army in the principal theatre of conflict, the Western Front.