CHAPTER TWELVE

‘Too Weary and Worn for Words’:

Bullecourt and a well-earned rest

APRIL–AUGUST 1917

ON 7 APRIL Elliott and Wieck attended an important briefing at Fifth Division headquarters. The long-planned Arras offensive was imminent, and would include an assault by the Fourth AIF Division on the Hindenburg Line itself near Bullecourt. ‘I fear we will be checked for quite a while by the Hindenburg Line’, Elliott informed Kate. ‘The wire there is from 400 to 600 yards thick’. A powerful preparatory bombardment was supposed to deal with the wire, but a change of plan led to a disaster of Fromelles-like dimensions. Frustrated that it was taking days for the artillery to clear a path for the infantry, Gough, the army commander who had impressed Elliott during their brief recent contact (but not the AIF leaders familiar with his impulsive tendencies at Pozières in 1916), seized with alacrity the dubious notion that tanks could deal with the wire. In fact, the tanks failed miserably. Most broke down, and the few that did turn up were not much help. One fired mistakenly on the Australians it was supposed to be assisting. Two brigades of the Fourth Division managed the extraordinary feat of fighting their way into the Hindenburg Line without artillery support, but they eventually had to retire. Casualties were catastrophic. This dreadful fiasco at Bullecourt reinforced Australian misgivings about British tactical competence. A profound contempt of tanks throughout the AIF was another legacy.

In mid-April the Fifth Division marched to the rear for a proper rest. The 15th Brigade’s destination was Mametz, about ten miles back. Anzac Day anniversary commemorations were a highlight. A holiday was declared, and the brigade assembled for a sports meeting in the afternoon. Pompey had a prominent role, presiding and acting as chief judge. It was ‘the best time we’ve had for seven months’, Doig declared. In the evening there were a number of celebratory dinners, including ‘quite a swanking feed’ which Pompey enjoyed at Fifth Division. The benefits of tranquil surroundings and warmer weather were soon evident. ‘It is so peaceful’, enthused Elliott, ‘and the boys seem so happy and well and bright’. The ‘weather is not warm — it’s hot’, Doig observed, yet just ‘3 weeks ago it was snowing hard’. It was ‘by far the best rest … since we left home’, Elliott reported.

That same day the Second AIF Division began another desperate battle at Bullecourt. There was less impulsive haste this time, and artillery was used to deal with the wire instead of tanks. But the planning was again defective, and casualties were again distressingly numerous in the AIF brigades engaged — Gellibrand’s 6th, which did well, and the 5th, commanded by Elliott’s old friend Bob Smith, which did not. Repeated attempts were made to extend the breach in the Hindenburg Line that the Australians had achieved at such terrible cost, but the Germans were just as intent on dislodging them. Fighting of rarely surpassed ferocity raged for days. This second battle of Bullecourt was supposed to involve, within the AIF, only the Second Division, but the First Division was drawn in and it was eventually deemed necessary to interrupt the Fifth Division’s rest as well.

At 8.16pm on 7 May a message arrived directing the 15th Brigade to return to the front. The following day, while his men were making their way back to the battle zone, Elliott ventured up to have a look at the AIF salient east of Bullecourt to be taken over by his brigade. Artillery activity was almost constant, Elliott discovered:

[A] shell came right into the Communication Trench and seemed to burst in my face in that I actually felt the heat of the explosion. It half buried me into the dust and mud it threw up … yet neither myself or either of the two guides were damaged in the slightest beyond the fright we got.

The devastating German shellfire on the AIF salient and its approaches also included gas projectiles. Several 59th officers, including Bert Layh, were unable to accompany their battalion forward because of the effects of gas inhalation. The 58th Battalion took over the left of the AIF position, where the fighting was particularly savage, with the 57th on its right, the 59th behind in support and the 60th further back in reserve. Pompey’s men had not been in position long when the Germans attacked and gained ground on the left, but the 58th swiftly drove them back.

The ordeal endured by Pompey’s men as they moved forward near Bullecourt was graphically described by Downing:

Scraps of shattered bodies obtruded from the obscene earth. The country became more and more abominable, more and more desolate. Steel helmets, rusted rifles, parts of equipments, broken iron stakes, lengths of barbed wire were mingled in the tormented soil … Doubling through a ravine, full of shattered limbers and guns, torn equipment, disembowelled mules and dead men, full of the noise and the stink of bursting shells, full of flying lumps of red-hot steel, burring and whizzing and whining — sweating as we wound through a battered trench, cringing and recoiling as the shells burst almost in our faces, we came to a place where a white-faced officer with a streak of blood on his brow sat under a bank of earth, directing the incoming men … Stretcher-bearers worked like demons, sweating and panting as they stumbled over the rough ground with their limp and moaning burdens. Batteries of field-guns flashed and slammed behind us. The sky was lit in the east with the flare and flicker of the German artillery. It was a place where every sight, every sound, meant death — the screams of someone dying in agony, the monstrous clash and rumble of the guns, flinging hundreds of tons of shells each minute on our line, the swish of bullets, the pop of gas-shells. There was nothing that was not ugly, distorted and horrible — nothing but the heroism of flesh contending with steel, and the flares in their diabolical beauty, filling with light that place of terror, so that German machine-gunners, strapped to their guns and straining their eyes as they sought a target in the night, might fill the hillsides with another kind of death.

On 11 May Elliott learned that the British on his left would be making another attempt to install themselves in Bullecourt. His brigade was directed to assist with a complementary advance alongside. The German positions earmarked for his brigade, Elliott wrote, included strongpoints

bristling with machine guns in concrete emplacements and fenced with wire entanglements. As they were within 50 yards of our barricade the artillery could not fire on them without grave danger to us as the shots could not be observed closely owing to the configuration of the ground behind, and if we withdrew our men from the barricade during the bombardment it was certain that the Germans (who are pretty wide awake in this respect) would re-occupy them and part of our line with them. These strong points in addition to being a formidable obstacle to our advance were a protection to a deep sunken road about 10 to 15 feet deep running from the German positions to their rear works. This road formed their main artery of communication with the village, and it was certain that if we could storm the strong points and occupy the sunken road effectively the Germans’ grip on the village would be greatly weakened.

The solution, Pompey concluded, lay in a weapon he had frequently extolled — the Stokes mortar. His plan involved a hurricane bombardment from his light mortar battery, followed by a three-pronged infantry assault. First of all, a concrete machine-gun emplacement facing the Australians had to be rushed and conquered; beyond that first objective, a sizeable German-held portion of the Hindenburg Line had to be captured, together with numerous adjacent dug-outs near a tactically important crossroads; thirdly, that intersection had to be converted into an Australian strongpoint, a manoeuvre involving the subjugation of further enemy strongholds positioned west of it. Hobbs gave Elliott’s plan the green light. To carry it out, Elliott selected, logically enough, Denehy’s 58th, the AIF battalion closest to these strongpoints (supplemented by two companies of the 60th). That afternoon Elliott rode across to discuss arrangements with his British counterpart who would be directing the simultaneous operation on the left, Brigadier-General H.R. Cumming. ‘I noticed he was rather old and indecisive’, Pompey noted, and ‘had no plan to use his trench mortars’.

Elliott left the detailed planning to Denehy, the schoolteacher with the twirling moustache and fondness for music and literature who had served under him throughout the war and in the pre-war militia. Denehy’s capacity and reliability were founded on painstaking diligence rather than dynamism and dash. Earnest and loyal, he was the epitome of the caring battalion commander devoted to his men. Denehy ‘worships his Battalion, and it really is very very fine’, observed Pompey, ‘but I believe he thinks of it all day and dreams of it at night.’ This was a case of the pot calling the kettle black if ever there was one; but Pompey, far from being critical, was most appreciative, knowing Denehy would do his utmost to implement the brigadier’s instructions. As a 58th officer put it, ‘if Pompey told Denehy to order the 58th to go into no-man’s-land and stand on their heads, Denehy would do it’.

At 2.30pm on 11 May Denehy summoned the senior 58th officers to his headquarters. ‘You’ve got the tough one, Mickey’, he said apologetically to Lieutenant R.V. Moon, the unassuming 24-year-old bank clerk whose A Company platoon, comprising 28 men and two Lewis guns, had the task of storming the concrete machine-gun nest facing the Australians. Moon was one of the 4th Light Horse NCOs who had transferred to the 15th Brigade to fill officer vacancies after Fromelles. B Company’s role was to take control of the German trench and nearby dug-outs. Leading B Company was Captain Norman Pelton, a 35-year-old schoolteacher whose kind-heartedness was evident in the condolence letter he had recently written to the mother of a young St Arnaud private, full of ‘admiration for your brave and gallant soldier boy’. Denehy gave the third task in the operation (securing the crossroads and beyond) to C Company. Its commander, Jimmy Topp, an amiable, effervescent lieutenant, had just returned to the 58th after doing particularly well at officers’ school.

At midnight Denehy called another meeting to confirm final arrangements:

I shall never forget the conference I held at my headquarters prior to the attack, all the Company Commanders were cheery and optimistic, and I could not help feeling a glow of satisfaction when I saw and spoke with the men I trusted as leaders.

The officers listened intently as Denehy went over their respective tasks again. When he had finished Topp spoke up: ‘Well it’s my birthday tomorrow, sir’. ‘A good omen’, remarked the colonel. The others jovially congratulated the birthday boy (who was turning 37). They all shook hands, wished each other well, and headed away to their starting points.

Their prospects of success plummeted before the operation even began. During the tense lead-up to zero hour the Germans unleashed a ‘terrific bombardment on our line’. It was, Pompey considered, ‘the worst I’ve ever been under’. Hobbs, watching from the rear, described it as ‘the heaviest I think I have yet heard’. According to Downing, ‘over the whole of the forward area every living thing seemed blotted out by the intensity of the barrage’. Two Lewis-gun crews were buried and, Elliott lamented, the vital Stokes mortar battery was also hit:

One section of Stokes Mortars with crew and ammunition vanished into space and no trace of guns or crew (except a fragment of a base plate of one gun) has ever been seen since. A second section with its gun, crews and ammunition was completely buried as they stood under the debris thrown up by a huge shell … This left only one section of Stokes guns in action under Capt Freeman, a young Warrnambool officer … At the very second fixed for him Freeman opened fire, but he had … to engage 3 targets instead of one … and consequently lost time in traversing. Nevertheless in 5 minutes his crews hurled 115 projectiles into the enemy’s works … Then the infantry stormed across.

Moon and his platoon dashed forward towards the first objective, Moon leading the way, flinging bombs vigorously. They encountered fierce resistance. Moon and other attackers were soon hit, but he kept rallying his men despite a severe facial wound. Inspired by his leadership, his platoon took control of the strongpoint. Moon then led his men to the fight for the second objective, where they found B Company struggling, unable to prevail against numerous German reinforcements emerging from an extensive dug-out system nearby. Some of Moon’s platoon wavered, but Moon himself was undaunted, even after a second wound left him dazed and deafened. ‘Come on boys’, he kept calling, urging them to stick with him. ‘We would have followed him anywhere, he was that game’, one wrote afterwards. With the outcome at the second objective very much in the balance, Moon’s leadership proved decisive. He organised the positioning of a Lewis gun so it could partly enfilade the Germans in the trench. They became disconcerted and fell back. Moon pursued them, initially on his own. Some Germans took refuge (which they intended to be temporary) inside their dug-out entrances. These retreating defenders greatly outnumbered their pursuers but Moon, along with some quick-thinking comrades, detected a fleeting opportunity and pounced, rushing to the dug-out entrances and firing inside. The occupants were trapped.

So far so good for the attackers, but sustained German fire from the west indicated that the British advance alongside had been less successful, rendering the third AIF objective practically impossible in daylight. Moon had been hit again, but because of the uncertain situation on the left he refused to leave. With sweat and blood cascading down his face, he sat down for a brief rest. ‘My word it was a hard fight’, he said, ‘I’ve got three cracks and not one good enough for a Blighty’ (that is, of sufficient severity to require evacuation to England). He then had an impromptu conference with two other 58th lieutenants, who agreed that the Australian dispositions should be altered. This reorganisation was in progress when Moon was again wounded — his jaw was broken, and twelve teeth were shattered. Even then he lingered to satisfy himself that the adjustments to AIF positions were proceeding appropriately, before consenting to be assisted to the rear. Later, after nightfall, the Australians took control of the vital crossroads unattainable in daylight, bringing this difficult three-pronged operation to a successful conclusion.

Elliott and Denehy were delighted. Their men had overcome tremendous shellfire and determined defenders to seize 300 yards of the formidable Hindenburg Line and associated strongpoints, in the process capturing five machine-guns, three flame-throwers, two bomb-throwing machines, and no fewer than 186 prisoners (most of them trapped by Moon and fifteen or so comrades) while accounting for many other Germans as well. Pompey especially enjoyed hearing about the response of a certain German officer. Ensconced in one of the big dug-outs with his unit, he kept ordering his men out to deal with the attack before making a belated appearance himself:

when at last the spick and span [commander came] to the surface he found all his own machine guns already mounted on the parapet by Lieut Trevan, a young Kerang (Victoria) machine gun officer, each pumping bullets at 500 a minute after the fleeting remnants of his force. I am told his face lengthened about a foot.

The operation was ‘one of the best little stunts we have put up so far’, Elliott claimed proudly, ‘and too much cannot be said for the pluck and energy of Col. Denehy’s boys’. Their ‘experience must have been quite as bad or worse than Lone Pine, and they stood it magnificently’. Doig, well forward during the battle, was inspired by what he saw and ‘proud to be an Australian’. Inevitably, in such ferocious combat, a heavy price was paid. There were 245 casualties in the 58th Battalion, and it was not the only unit to suffer. Bill Knuckey, Simon Fraser, and Reg Poulter, all exceptional at Fromelles, were equally gallant at Bullecourt but less fortunate — Knuckey was severely wounded, and the other two were killed. In the 58th Norman Pelton, the compassionate captain, became the subject of condolence letters himself after being struck by a shell; Jimmy Topp was shot after guiding his company to its objective, and did not survive his birthday. They ‘were both killed … leading their men most gallantly’, Elliott wrote, but it was ‘Mickey’ Moon who monopolised the superlatives. Pompey had doubted if Moon had the makings of an officer, but he was sceptical no longer: ‘carrying on with his jaw broken and 3 other wounds as well’ was exceptional gallantry, and ‘I am going to send his name in for the VC’. Moon became the only member of the 15th Brigade to be awarded that coveted decoration.

The 15th Brigade, having achieved its objectives so successfully, was replaced in the line by the 173rd British Brigade. Its commander was the youngest general in the British army, 28-year-old Bernard Freyberg, DSO, VC. Freyberg was impressed by Elliott, and especially liked the informal way he and his colonels worked out arrangements together. Moreover, according to Freyberg, the Australians’ methodical collection of their wounded, despite having to ‘run the gauntlet through the enemy artillery fire’, was ‘a wonderful sight, that got completely under one’s guard and made us all very proud to be fighting alongside such men’.

Elliott became aggrieved with both the British brigades he encountered at Bullecourt. Among the weapons his men collared on 12 May were machine-guns of a new type never previously captured, but a unit in Freyberg’s brigade claimed to have captured them in a report which was fabricated. It was only after the 15th Brigade protested and furnished receipts that the correct attribution was made. Pompey’s grievance with the 91st Brigade, which had attacked on his left on 12 May, also concerned a false report. This one claimed that the 91st’s advance had driven the prisoners captured by Moon and his comrades into the 58th’s arms. Pompey reacted strongly: ‘I stoutly contradicted this — and the matter dropped’. In fact, the inability of part of the British 91st to get forward had led directly to the dismissal of its commander, General Cumming. Pompey, unimpressed with Cumming, would not have been surprised (although Cumming may well have been harshly treated).

In June, Elliott was given ten days’ leave. After crossing to London, he called at Wandsworth Hospital, and visited his brigade’s training battalion at Salisbury Plain. He then headed to Bryn Oerog with Bert Layh. Both needed a good rest. Elliott was ‘feeling really tired out’, and he was concerned about Layh, who was recovering slowly after being gassed at Bullecourt:

I … brought old Bert Layh along here to get better. He has to be very careful yet as his heart goes up to about 120 beats a minute with any strenuous exertion such as walking up a hill or walking quickly. Hence he won’t be able to see the beauties of the country about, but it is lovely all the same here — so quiet and peaceful.

On their second morning at Bryn Oerog Elliott slept in till nearly ten o’clock, a most unusual occurrence for him. ‘I did feel such a fool being so late for breakfast, but I suppose it only shows how much I needed a rest’.

His brigade was enjoying a proper rest at last. He returned to find his men well back at Rubempré, savouring their most sustained break from front-line duty since arriving in France. They were revelling in the sunshine. Warmer weather ‘did much to help the men to shake off the evil effects of the winter spent in the mud’, Wieck concluded. Elliott, too, welcomed the advent of

real Australian summer scorching days … The country still looks green and lovely, and the little woods invite you to go and lie under the shade all day with a book.

Elliott still had misgivings about Hobbs. ‘I never feel any confidence in him’, he told Kate. Hobbs was earnest and well-meaning, and congratulated him effusively when the 15th Brigade did well, but he doubted whether the divisional commander had the strength of character to support him in a tight corner: ‘I know if the least thing went wrong I could expect no defence from him no matter how blameless I might be’. With his short, frail stature and nervy manner, some observers felt Hobbs did not look or sound like a general; he lacked ‘the power of command’, Bean concluded in mid-1917. And Hobbs’s misconceived appraisal of an advanced-guard exercise on 2 July convinced Elliott he was deficient in tactical acumen as well. Pompey reiterated his preference for McCay, who, ‘with all his faults’, was ‘a brilliantly clever man and a fine soldier’.

In July 1917 Elliott learned that Wieck was being transferred to Monash’s staff at Third Division. Hobbs nominated as Wieck’s successor Captain G.A. Street. A law student at the outbreak of war, Street was an original Anzac in the 1st Battalion and had been staff captain at the 14th Brigade for the past year. Handsome, charming, and a cricket devotee, he was a stylish product of a well-to-do background and Sydney Grammar School. In Pompey’s opinion, however, Street was demonstrably unsuitable. He understandably wanted someone competent and reliable as his brigade major and right-hand man, and he was familiar enough with the 14th Brigade officers (his brother being among them) to be convinced that Street was not appropriate. Elliott felt that Street’s advancement owed more to social leverage than to ability.

For some time Pompey’s firm preference, should a successor to Wieck become needed, had been, typically, a military enthusiast he had largely trained himself, Jack Scanlan (formerly of the Essendon Rifles and 7th Battalion). The backgrounds of Scanlan and Street were altogether different: Scanlan, a coachbuilder’s son, had attended Christian Brothers College, St Kilda, and became a clerk in the Customs Department. Pompey concluded that devious influences were at work to further Street’s preferment, and sensed that a British regular on Hobbs’s staff was primarily responsible. With both Street and Scanlan recommended for staff training in England, it was no accident, Pompey felt, that Street was sent to the prestigious Staff College at Cambridge, whereas Scanlan was diverted to Salisbury Plain and thus sidelined. Elliott conceded readily that Street was likeable and well-intentioned, but described him as ‘not in the same class’ as Scanlan in terms of ability. Pompey was infuriated to have someone he considered ‘a social butterfly’ foisted on him:

He was a wealthy man, who was able to shout car trips for some of the senior officers in Paris … His thoughts were always with his best girl in London, and he could not sleep in anything rougher than silk pyjamas at ten guineas a suit.

From Pompey’s perspective it was a repetition of the trouble over his initial battalion commanders back in Egypt. As in March 1916, he protested vehemently that the lives of his men would be unjustifiably endangered by an unsuitable appointment. But he could not persuade Hobbs, who seems to have demonstrated precisely the staunch resolution in defence of an embattled individual that Elliott had believed to be absent from his make-up. Pompey, of course, saw this differently. Hobbs was ‘as phoney as an eel’, he told Belle; ‘you can pin him to nothing at all’:

I am fed right up to the back teeth with soldiering … It would just about sicken you the way influence is worked to get good jobs for fellows who are not worth twopence … I do wish McCay had not gone. He at least was a man and a soldier, and did not work by underhand means.

Pompey found the whole business abhorrent and draining, but felt impelled to persist. He managed to extract a concession from White that Street would be transferred if this proved necessary:

But this was only in consequence of my asking to be sacked rather than be compelled to take him on, and there is not much pleasure in the position for me. The youngster is a very decent boy, and it is very hard on him after being appointed to be sacked. It is harder on my boys though if ever one be sacrificed through his want of knowledge … The worry of it though is just awful and I am thoroughly sick and tired of the whole thing and so weary and worried that I feel … as if I’d carried a load of about 10 tons up the biggest and steepest hill in the world and had just thrown it down too weary and worn for words and no desire and no ambition but to be clear of it all and get back to my dear old darling loving wife and never go out of her sight again.

On 25 July, the day Wieck left, Street started awkwardly. He ‘proved an utter failure’ at drafting orders, Pompey wrote, and showed ‘an entire ignorance’ of the relevant field service regulations.

Other developments were more gratifying. The tactics that Elliott’s column had used in March became the basis for instruction in advanced guard principles at the prestigious Senior Officers’ School, Aldershot. The quality of his leadership during those pursuit operations was also recognised, he learned in July, by the award of the DSO. Though disinclined to get carried away by such decorations, ‘I was, I must confess, rather keen on getting that DSO because I felt I had been done out of it unfairly in Gallipoli’. Still, the slaughter and destruction continued unabated, and he had been away ‘3 years and no end in sight yet’:

I look perfectly fit and well, but I seem to have very little stamina left in me. After a period of work at all strenuous, particularly if I am worried a lot as I am now, I feel myself as weak as a child somehow as if I had not one ounce of push or go left in me, and I am dreading another winter like last one … It’s a weary world, Katie love, and I can see little light.

Elliott kept encouraging Kate to allow herself an occasional treat, but she was as frugal as ever. Writing home in August, he thanked her profusely once again ‘for the way you are reducing that old Debt’ (to his father’s estate, administered by the Ballarat Trustees company), and wondered whether his accumulated ‘deferred pay’ (the proportion of his AIF income retained by the government until the end of the war) might enable him to pay the debt off altogether. Now and again he wondered about the legal practice he had left behind. He sometimes felt pessimistic about whether he would find former clients still using his firm after he had been away four years or more. This was not really a reflection on his partner, Glen Roberts, and the others in the firm who would be doing their best; rather, it was a recognition that the personal touch was important, and in his absence some clients might switch to other solicitors more familiar to them than Roberts was. Elliott had continued to correspond with Glen and Katie Roberts. Their son Eric, a pilot in the Australian Flying Corps, had written to him from Egypt. Eric, who idolised Elliott, had wanted to be in the 7th Battalion, but its commander preferred to avoid having to send such a close family friend into a perilous situation. ‘I couldn’t take Eric’, Elliott told Glen; ‘it would be like taking my own son’.

Eric’s cousin Len Stillman, however, was in the 15th Brigade. Enlisting in mid-1915 after qualifying as a lawyer, Stillman had embarked as a 31st Battalion NCO and was wounded at Fromelles. Afterwards, possibly acting on a suggestion from Katie Roberts (Stillman’s aunt), Elliott arranged for him to be transferred from Tivey’s brigade to the 60th Battalion and commissioned. He ‘seems a nice boy’ though ‘rather thin and pale’ was the brigadier’s first impression of this new 23-year-old officer. Stillman proceeded to distinguish himself at a school of instruction and in stints as the 60th’s acting intelligence officer and as Assistant Provost Marshal at Fifth Division. ‘I … wish that all my young officers were as promising as your nephew’, Elliott told Katie Roberts in March 1917. A few weeks later Stillman was at 60th Battalion headquarters with his colonel when Pompey entered. ‘How are you Stillman?’ the brigadier began. Stillman saluted, replied politely, and they shook hands. He was dumbfounded by what followed. According to Stillman’s subsequent account, Pompey then turned to the colonel:

“What do you think of this boy of yours (that was I), Colonel? He wrote to his Aunt, who is a friend of mine, and told her he had seen me recently and that I had spoken very nicely to him, and that usually meant trouble. Ha, ha!”

Stillman was mortified with embarrassment:

Of course I nearly swooned. Now as it happens I did write something of the sort to Aunt Katie in a jocular sort of way and she apparently either wrote to the Brigadier direct or told his wife … The Brigadier is not a man to be trifled with (that’s why he is such a great soldier).

Katie Roberts might know H.E. Elliott, her husband’s partner, Stillman wrote, but Brigadier-General Pompey Elliott was a very different character: ‘I assure you they are as distinct as Dr Jekkyl [sic] and Mr Hyde’. Pompey had made a similar impression on other officers in his brigade. Captain John Aram, a 31-year-old St Kilda accountant, informed his mother in mid-1917 that he had just had an interview with ‘my friend the Brigadier tonight and he was very sweet, so I can look for a good slathering in the near future’. Writing again twelve days later, Aram confirmed that Pompey had recently ‘been very nice to me, whether or not it is the calm before the storm I cannot say’.

Like Stillman, Elliott’s brother George was building a fine reputation in the AIF. He had been recommended for the MC after his outstanding contribution at Bullecourt. But the popularity of ‘Doc’ Elliott in the 56th Battalion stemmed from his fun-loving camaraderie as well as his bravery and medical work. Unlike his teetotal brother, George was very keen on a convivial ale or three. After several rounds of drinks at the Fifth Division’s military tournament on 12 July, he happened to spot Brigadier-General Elliott deep in serious conversation with eminent commanders. To the amusement of onlookers, George strolled up behind them, thumped his brother vigorously on the back and greeted him heartily: ‘Hullo Pompey, how are you?’

The surprised general wheeled round with a look of thunder on his face, which softened somewhat when he recognised who was responsible for the informal greeting. He tried, however, to cool the ‘doc’s’ ardour by a sign which drew attention to the quality of the little gathering.

George would not be deterred: ‘I don’t care a damn who you’re talking to with all those ribbons on your chest, you should be glad to see your little brother.’ Indeed he was. Pompey was very fond of George, and was pleased to catch up again when George visited on 30 August. Flourishing a cute photo of daughter Jacquelyn, George asked for a loan because he needed spending money for the leave he had just been granted. Pompey acquiesced readily, stifling his disappointment about relinquishing nearly half the next £50 he was about to send home to expedite the Ballarat Trustees repayment.

Pompey had not seen Jack Campbell, on the other hand, for months. He had been mildly intrigued by this lack of contact with his amiable brother-in-law until an explanation materialised from Belle and Kate. Their mother, as Jack’s next-of-kin, had been officially notified of his hospitalisation with venereal disease. Gonorrhoea resulted in his absence for over three months. Although he was on the best of terms with Pompey, it is hardly surprising that Jack shied away from discussing this turn of events with a brigadier-in-law of forceful personality who, though no wowser, adhered scrupulously to a strict moral code. Elliott, however, was not judgmental about Jack’s predicament, and kept hoping to see or hear from him. Of Pompey’s other family connections in the AIF, Eric Walker had been ruled medically unfit and sent home to Australia, and Jack Avery had been promoted to the command of a hospital at Salisbury Plain.

The 60th Battalion had a new commander. Norman Marshall would have revelled in the 15th Brigade’s pursuit operations, but he was in England attending a special school at Aldershot (and getting married). Elliott’s confidence in him was vindicated when he excelled in his course, and the brigadier had no hesitation in endorsing his promotion to command the 60th:

Fancy Katie, joining as a private and now Lieut. Col. with a Military Cross as well and pretty sure of a DSO too before long. And his men just think the world of him too. This is in the 57th. I hope the boys in the 60th will like him as well. I feel sure they will too in a very little time.

He was right. Marshall was a natural leader. Energetic and fearless, dashing and inspiring, he became one of the most popular commanders in the AIF. No task was too daunting for this perennially cheerful daredevil — he was always willing to ‘give it a fly’. A champion boxer in pre-war days who also enjoyed football and convivial camaraderie, Marshall ensured that the 60th officers had a lively time out of the line. According to Dave Doyle,

after dinner in the officers’ mess there would very frequently be an impromptu boxing tournament, the Colonel arranging the bouts, acting as timekeeper, referee and occasionally barging in and engaging both contestants himself.

Marshall would also organise nocturnal horse-back excursions to selected estaminets. Doyle again:

So off we’d go and a good time would be enjoyed by all. Often on return in the small hours of the morning if the moon was bright the Colonel would lead us cross-country — over fences and ditches straight for home. No matter how thick the night had been, everybody would be on parade first thing next morning and no excuses would be accepted.

These exploits did not impress Pompey. Marshall ‘lets his officers go in rather too much for drinking and acting the goat to please me altogether’, frowned the brigadier. Moreover, in the battalion Marshall had just left, Stewart’s 57th, Captain Aram, a teetotaller, felt that excessive drinking by the officers was routine.

But such foibles did not disturb the fundamental confidence Elliott had in his colonels. Marshall was an outstanding leader, and he also rated Cam Stewart highly. Experienced, reliable, and cool in a crisis, Stewart was definitely brigadier material, Pompey felt. As for Denehy, he sometimes demonstrated a lack of the quick-thinking decisiveness that came naturally to Marshall and also to Layh, but made up for this in other ways. Denehy was ‘coming on excellently’, Elliott wrote in mid-1917, and thoroughly deserved his DSO for Bullecourt. Elliott regretted Layh’s continued absence, but he was pleased that the new commander of the 59th was Mason. He had engineered Mason’s appointment to head the Fifth Division school in case one of his colonels became incapacitated, and events worked out precisely as he had envisaged. One of his battalion commanders did have to be evacuated, and on hand, ready to step in as the logical replacement, was Mason, the experienced 39-year-old lawyer who had served with Elliott as an officer in South Africa and the militia as well as in the 7th Battalion. Pompey was delighted to have another colonel he knew and trusted. Once again, he felt his judgment in appointing subordinates was vindicated. Mason was doing ‘very well’ at the 59th, he reported in July; ‘I am wonderfully fortunate in my Battalion Commanders’.

Apart from preferring Scanlan to Street as brigade major, Elliott was also highly satisfied with his own staff. Legge was back as staff captain. Pompey had disciplined him earlier in 1917 for being too ‘fond of his bed’. Legge loathed freezing dawn starts, when he had to cut short his sleep and swing into action straightaway; Elliott, who customarily retired early, was unsympathetic. When Legge ‘was very sulky and slow’ early one frosty March morning, Pompey, fed up, banished him to Fifth Division with a note explaining his dismissal. Elliott sensed it was ‘a very nasty shock’ for Legge, ‘but it will I think do him the world of good’. It did. Legge was talented and had served him admirably, Pompey acknowledged, and it was good to have him back. He

learned a lot of Wieck’s ways of doing things … and I think I taught him a lesson when I sacked him that time. He is a lot different now and is doing good work for me. I should have very much greater confidence in him than I could possibly have in Street.

Elliott was delighted with his brigade as a whole. He felt it was in excellent shape. During its lengthy break away from the front line the emphasis had initially been on rest and recuperation after Bullecourt, but increasingly from June onwards the main focus became preparing for its next assignment. Elliott’s men practised shooting, route marching, crossing pontoon bridges, and various attacking manoeuvres. They did these exercises sometimes as a brigade, sometimes at night, and sometimes competitively as separate battalions, companies, and platoons. This rigorous training program was not just carried out under the brigadier’s exacting supervision; it was approvingly scrutinised by more senior commanders including Hobbs and Birdwood, and impressed such august observers as Haig and the King. More than ever Elliott was convinced that the 15th Brigade had nothing to fear from comparisons with equivalent formations. ‘The boys are just looking splendid’, he enthused, ‘and I am certain they will do splendidly next time we get into action’.

As that day grew nearer, Elliott had renewed doubts about his own fate. After Kate wrote that young Neil had said he wanted to give his father a ‘truly and really kiss’ instead of yet another substitute smooch on a letter, that touching complaint triggered a melancholy response:

Dear wee chap I wonder if ever I’ll see him again. I sometimes think my luck cannot last much longer. I have had so many narrow escapes.

He signed a brief codicil amending his pre-war will:

In the event of my death I desire that my son Neil Campbell Elliott on attaining the age of 21 years shall be entitled to any medals and orders now or hereafter belonging to me. In all other respects I confirm my said will.

‘I’ve been so long away and I am so tired and worn out’, he wrote wearily. However, there was no way his resolve and commitment would slacken in the slightest. As he steeled himself for what might be one last effort, his devotion to duty, regardless of the personal cost, remained absolute:

There will be a great and terrible battle soon I think, Katie … and I expect we will be in it. If we do get a chance at the Bosche I intend to make the most of it — if possible break through their lines somehow. It would be worth any sacrifice to get them on the run really and truly going back … If anything should happen to me you will know that at last I am in peace away from the troubles and worries that so afflict me, and that I have done my utmost to do any job they have ever given me to do.