Ion Idriess was sympathetic when Moody rang to tell him that ‘Horrie’ had been put down. But before the conversation was over, he was whipping Moody into action to take advantage of the incident. Everyone, every institution and the press had to be galvanised for a mass protest. Events began to unfold more or less as Idriess, the book’s publisher and Moody planned. Moody, who had been at least an amateur actor of some accomplishment over his handling of Horrie, went along with the campaign of protest for ‘the shameful putting down of an innocent war hero.’
Idriess wrote a poignant epitaph in his book, Horrie the Wog Dog, which was based loosely on Moody’s reconstructed dairies and recollections:
Well, Horrie little fellow, your reward was death.
You who deserved a nation’s plaudits, sleep in peace.
Among Australia’s war heroes, we shall remember you.
The author was never to know that he too had been deceived in the interests of Horrie’s survival.
The day after the substitute dog’s extermination, the director from the Health Department, Wardle, became another victim of the Horrie hoax. He did not even bother to sign a reply to Moody. But he realised he had opened a Pandora’s box of problems. He passed the issue higher and an indirect letter of response was written on Tuesday 13 March by J. H. L. Cumpston, the Director-General of Health, on behalf of the Commonwealth Minister for Health. They were further removed from the detail of the Horrie story, and on advice sided with Wardle’s decision. Thus the deception over Horrie now reached into the highest political offices of the land, including that of the Prime Minister, John Curtin, whose huge in-box carried letters from Moody and scores of others concerning the dog. He replied to some, saying he could do nothing. Questions were asked in the House of Representatives concerning the ‘Horrie tragedy’ and members of parliament, responding to anger from their constituents, continued to pressure the government.
On 14 March, as directed and dictated by Idriess, Brooker wrote a letter to Sydney’s Daily Mirror newspaper:
As the Sergeant of the Platoon of which ‘Horrie’ was a faithful cobber, I would like to express my sentiments regarding the callous way in which he was done to death. I can scarcely believe that such inhumanity exists in the world, least of all in a country where we boast of our glorious Freedom, (?) and sense of fair play. Realising that space is limited, I am unable to write as my indignation and horror urge me to do, but I hope from the bottom of my heart that those who directed this wanton destruction of a famous and lovable animal spend the remainder of their days as sleeplessly as has been my lot since the passing of my well loved pal.
Faithfully yours
R Brooker.
The press then went into overdrive in milking the ‘tragic tale’ of Horrie’s execution, supported, as Wardle predicted, by the World League for the Protection of Animals, the RSL and many other interested parties. Moody and Brooker organised 6th Division to carry out a funeral for the dog, although there was no body in the coffin. Quarantine had refused to hand it over, saying it had to be incinerated. The press covered the funeral.
Moody gambled on releasing the photo to the press of him walking with the substitute dog on the morning he took it to the Quarantine Station. Gill and Brooker worried that someone would pick the differences in the two dogs.
‘No, it’ll be okay,’ Moody assured them, ‘the dog is only a small part of the shot. You’d have to know what to look for. Besides, we’ve created an illusion. Everyone believes Horrie was executed.’
Moody had the difficult task of writing to his father, telling him of ‘Horrie’s’ demise. He made several attempts, and it gave him more than an inkling of the depth of the deception he was creating. His final draft was crisp and brief. Henry was distressed when he received it. He collected himself and replied:
I know by my own feelings just how you feel over this business, but remember Jim that time heals most things and do not do anything rash in the meantime . . . I have been inundated with telephone calls, some of them trunk line calls from servicemen both AIF and RAAF, and many from chaps I have never heard of before, and also newspaper reporters. The outrage [over the dog’s killing] with all its contemptible treachery and cunning has caused some considerable stir here . . . Whatever happens [with protests] Jim, I want you to keep away from any active part in it. You have nothing to blame yourself for. You did a splendid job for the little dog while he was alive . . . No doubt you will be a marked man for some time and if any lawlessness occurred you would probably be framed for it.
Henry had remained in control in the letter but despite his advice to his son, could not resist writing a protest letter himself to the Melbourne’s Sun that concluded: ‘It seemed a senseless, malicious act to kill a harmless animal which brought so much joy to our boys.’
Moody was depressed reading his father’s reply to him and the letter to the paper. He felt more guilt for deceiving his father than anyone else but did not have time to dwell on it, such was the ongoing attention on the story. Articles and features continued to appear and the focus of the nation was on the story. It was a tabloid dream for most editors. Sydney’s Daily Mirror ran it from every possible angle, including, for the sake of balance, the view of Wardle and his department. Wardle fell into the trap of defending his position by saying that he was making an example of the animal and its illegal entry, even when it was admitted that the dog in question was in perfect condition. This ran contrary to the much-vaunted Australian philosophy of a ‘fair go.’
Wardle also tried to justify his decision in letters to key government and military officials. Typical was one written to Lieutenant-Colonel K. S. McIntosh in which he noted that:
During March and April [1942] there were 19 vessels carrying troops and on which were animal mascots, mainly dogs. 21 dogs, 17 monkeys, 1 cat, 1 rabbit, 1 pigeon, 1 duck, 3 squirrels and 1 mongoose were destroyed; so it is quite possible that a small number of animals were surreptitiously landed . . . Since July 1942, when the worst of the troop movements were over, many animals were destroyed or died on overseas ships at Australian ports; some were seized, others destroyed at the request of Masters, who were not prepared to enter into bonds for the security of the animals. They included: 5 cattle; 45 sheep; 14 pigs; 9 goats; 185 dogs; 136 cats; 142 birds and 18 miscellaneous animals.
Just to show that he was a proud bureaucrat doing his diligent duty, he concluded the letter with: ‘You will see from this that our Quarantine Officers are on the job.’
Wardle continued, perhaps deliberately, to misconstrue Horrie being called a ‘Wog Dog,’ as if this implied he had disease and not the fact that it was an Australian colloquial expression for Middle Easteners.
Wardle would have escaped vilification if Horrie had not had such a remarkable war record in army service. For the sake of bureaucratic intransigence, he misjudged public reaction. His stubborn adherence to understandable, necessary ‘regulations’ overruled a rational, fair and appropriate response to an individual case of overwhelming merit. Had Wardle served in war, or done a minimum of homework on the case, he would have been aware of Horrie’s importance to the thousand fighting men of the 2/1 Machine Gun Battalion. He had gone after Horrie and Moody with a fervour only outweighed by the opprobrium heaped upon him for his decision. Wardle released a statement that said: ‘It is directed that the Deputy-Crown Solicitor should be consulted with reference to launching a prosecution against the person who illegally imported the dog. Approval has been obtained to prosecute.’
But public pressure was so strong that no moves were made against Moody or any of the Rebels. Yet attacks on Wardle stepped up in outbursts in letters to him and the press, some which threatened physical violence. One typical message, unsigned but for a serviceman’s serial number—NX31236—said: ‘a few of us would like to see the photo of the one responsible for this masterpiece of red tape [over the dog’s killing].’
A Mr A. C. Bendrodt, from a prominent Sydney family, went public. His photo was carried in reports in which he said that Wardle was ‘guilty of unnecessary brutality’ over the extermination.
Another person, calling himself ‘Y. S., an old soldier’ of Chatswood, Sydney, ended his letter with: ‘I hope and pray that when your day comes I will have the pleasure to put you to sleep in the same way as that little mate [Horrie] died.’
More worrying was a further unsigned message, which said: ‘I was trained to kill in the Great War and I am still a very accurate shot. Your [Wardle’s] killing of this creature of God deserves a similar fate and I know how to do it.’
Another, signing him or herself ‘Dog Lovers of the World’, wrote:
Dog Murderer,
Please do us a big favour & on your way home today buy yourself a dose of arsenic or something that makes a slow deaf [sic].
The many threats did not fall on deaf ears. Wardle was more than concerned. He wanted to sue the letter writers and journalists commenting on the case for libel. He wrote to the federal government’s Crown Solicitor asking if legal action could be taken. The Crown replied that ‘it could not be established that any real injury was done to the reputation’ of Wardle, and that any ‘verdict obtained [for Wardle]’ would only gain ‘nominal damages.’ In other words, it was not worth going to court over.
Wardle was not alone in feeling the heat. The unfortunate New South Wales Minister for Health, C. A. Kelly, came under scrutiny and was labelled ‘one of the most unpopular men in Sydney’ for his alleged putting to death of Horrie. Kelly denied that he had anything to do with the case, which was a federal, not a state matter, and he feared he would lose his seat at the next election. He was vilified, he claimed, by strangers and even a small boy, who ‘complained to a member of my staff about the cruelty I am supposed to have done.’
The Truth newspaper, which loved scandal, dwelt on the story with features such as ‘Legal Murder of War Dog Executed by Red Tape.’ Articles were often accompanied by Moody’s photographs from the war and afterwards, which verified and authenticated the heroic tale with its shock ending. Moody again took a gamble by releasing the photograph of him, Brooker and the dog on the morning of 9 March when he took the fake Horrie to the Quarantine Station. But the medium front-on shot of the dog, dwarfed in the photo, would need expert scrutiny to distinguish it from the real Horrie, especially if the latter had his ears pinned back and was not on alert.
Moody had a phone call from Barry Bain, the butcher, who was now working in Sydney. He was angry and upset about Horrie. He ranted on the phone, attacking even Moody for not doing enough to save Horrie. Moody was forced to interrupt: ‘Barry, Barry, Barry,’ he said, ‘listen! What did I tell you when we were based near Tel Aviv, and you thought we were going to leave him with the Ascalon Police?’
‘What?’
‘What did I tell you?’
‘That I shouldn’t worry, you had a plan for him.’
‘Well, I am saying it again.’
There was silence on the line before Barry understood what he was being told.
‘Oh . . . you mean . . . ?’
‘Yes . . . but please, mate, keep it under your hat. All right?’
The Rebels had a meeting at a pub in Sydney’s Woollahra on 20 March and Moody asked the others if they should find a partner for Horrie.
‘He’ll need a companion like Imshi,’ he said. After several rounds of beer, they passed around the hat and collected £3, which would be used to purchase a suitable female for Horrie, who would be sent to Cudgewa.
‘Where are you going to find it?’ Featherstone asked.
‘I’ve already met her,’ Moody said with a wry smile, ‘and I’m going to show her to the world.’
The next day Moody returned to the pound he had visited a few weeks earlier when looking for the Horrie substitute and bought the cute little white Scottish terrier for seven shillings. He then alerted the press and fuelled his grand deception by telling reporters he had bought a dog to replace Horrie. Subsequent articles had photos of Moody with the ‘new’ dog.
A reporter from the Mirror asked him if she had a name.
‘Imshi II,’ he said poker-faced.
‘Imshi? What’s that mean?’
Moody gave a brief description of the original Imshi, ‘Horrie’s companion in Palestine and Syria.’
The press lapped it up. The caption for the photo in the Truth of 25 March read: ‘Jim Moody, saddened by the loss of Horrie, now has a new canine pal, a Scotty, one Imshi II. But Jim will never stop mourning the loss of his Wog cobber, Horrie.’
Whenever the story settled down, Moody planned to take Imshi II to Cudgewa to mate her with Horrie.
*
The ongoing ‘tragic’ story of Horrie’s ‘death’ created a huge public response right across the nation. Papers were flooded with letters and commentary into April. Moody became an overnight martyr-hero, himself receiving hundreds of letters of sympathy and support, with scores of people offering help, some with funds, to take his protest further. Ninety-nine per cent of the letters to the press condemned the authorities for their callous disregard and lack of flexibility and humanity. Many were so touched that they burst into verse with poignant poems. Typical was one written by Laura Eveline Dixon that began:
A hero passed, when stilled the splendid heart
Of that brave dog who played in War his Part.
A waif from out the desert, he attained
By right a page in history, and surely gained
The love of everyone who knows the worth
Of canine comradeship upon this earth.
It was heartfelt. Doggerel predominated. A person signing himself ‘Charlie’ wrote:
Now Horrie’s gone far far away,
He’ll no more see the light of day,
His life is done, they blew him up,
And never more we’ll see our pup.
The passionate response reached a crescendo a week before Anzac Day 1945 when a public protest meeting was held in the basement of the Sydney Town Hall. Moody and Idriess spoke at the meeting. Wardle was singled out for suggested ‘punishment;’ a demand was made for the Commonwealth government to amend regulations; and the Prime Minister was petitioned to prevent anything ‘similar happening to gallant pets of servicemen returning to this country.’
On Anzac Day itself, wreaths were solemnly laid for Horrie (and would be for another 20 years) at the Cenotaph in Martin Place, Sydney. Prominent among them was one from the 6th Division, inscribed: ‘In Memory of our pal, Horrie, the Wog Dog.’
The tabloids showed a picture of Private J. M. Creer, ‘WX40960,’ saluting the wreaths placed for Horrie on the Cenotaph.
The papers also reported that ‘a small boy’ called at Sydney’s Red Cross House and asked what he could do with a wreath he had made. It was adorned with a Union Jack he had drawn himself, and a message: ‘In memory of Horrie, the Digger’s Friend of the Middle East—From Mickie Wilson.’
Moody kept it running by letting the press know he had written to the boy, enclosing a photo of Horrie. By taking up every press opportunity, Moody was maintaining his public rage for the benefit of the government and the bureaucracy. After the story died down, he would have to tread carefully, he reasoned, for the rest of his life, to maintain the fiction about Horrie’s demise. This was especially with so many influential people and institutions duped. Moody also felt the responsibility to the Rebels, who were all implicated in the supreme cover-up and hoax, the most successful in Australian history.
Barry the Butcher, the only character outside the Rebels who had an idea of the ‘fraud,’ found the group in a private room at the Woollahra pub late in the afternoon on Anzac Day. They had been drinking since the march in Sydney’s streets finished at noon. He wanted to know the full story, but they refused to tell him. Yet Moody reassured him that his ‘little mate’ was safe and well.
‘One day,’ Moody assured him, ‘I’ll let you see for yourself.’
That was enough for Barry, who was allowed to join them for the rest of a most convivial evening.
*
The Horrie story had become a national issue that had a life of its own. An official memorial was proposed by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Readers of its magazine, Animals, were asked to provide funds, but Moody never endorsed this development, believing it would be a monument to his own grand deception, no matter how it was justified to him by Brooker and the Rebels as ‘for the greater good.’ The monument was never built. (In 1955, a decade later, the RSPCA was accused of doing nothing with the £81 raised for the Horrie memorial.) But Moody was happy to be linked to a Sydney Daily Telegraph appeal for funds to invoke the memory of Horrie in order to keep open the King Edward’s Dogs Home in Moore Park, Sydney. That appeased Moody’s soul a fraction, with the substitute dog forever on his conscience. By helping to keep the home operating, he was doing his bit to ensure that hundreds of other dogs survived.
The continued public clamour over ‘Horrie’ had a direct impact on a further illegal animal import case. In April, another dog, called ‘Dinah,’ who belonged to a former officer of the 2nd AIF, was condemned to death for similar allegations to those thrown at Horrie. But this time Wardle relented and spared Dinah. This again helped Moody justify to himself the merit of his actions over Horrie and the substitute dog. Reacting to Wardle’s backdown this time, Moody said: ‘It’s a case of once bitten, twice shy.’
The dignified office of the Prime Minister deemed it appropriate to keep replying to ‘sensible and rational’ letters concerning the Horrie story but they were not from John Curtin. He died on 5 July 1945 and was replaced by Ben Chifley, who had the unenviable task of sifting through the massive correspondence that had piled up in the office during Curtin’s debilitating last months. The letters from Chifley’s private secretary, E. W. Tonkin, concerning Horrie began to flow in September. One example was a reply to a 21 September letter to the Prime Minister written by a Mrs Mateer, of Lithgow, New South Wales, who had wanted him to act on the ‘barbarous act perpetrated on Horrie.’ The response, dictated by Chifley to his secretary, said:
I have been requested by the Prime Minister to acknowledge the receipt of your letter relative to “Horrie the Wog Dog”. Mr Chifley wishes me to say that he is unable to help you in the direction desired.
This reply demonstrated that the sting had gone out of the Horrie incident after half a year of intense coverage and scrutiny. While the story had attracted a big following it was not quite one of the issues then galvanising the nation in August and September, such as the end of the Pacific War and Japan’s unconditional surrender after the two atomic weapons had been dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August, and Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.
Moody was pleased and most relieved with the subsidence of the Horrie ‘issue.’ His brazen scheme had worked far beyond his wildest expectations. Now it was apparently over, he hoped that he and Horrie could carry on their lives under far less strain or scrutiny. But the scam had touched Moody more than anyone else. He felt an ongoing sense of guilt for deceiving so many people from the Prime Minister down, and including his father, the Machine Gun battalion, the entire 6th Division, the media and the public. Moody would love to have told the world that Horrie was alive and safe, but instead he had to maintain the subterfuge over a tale that would never leave him. Every day of his life he was reminded by somebody or an incident, of the story.
The only people he shared the ruse with were the Rebels and Barry the Butcher, with a very few exceptions over the decades. One was a young journalist, Norma James, whom he met in the seaside town of Wollongong, 82 kilometres south of Sydney. Moody, still a celebrity, was on a photographic assignment in February 1946, 11 months after the execution of the substitute dog. They talked about Horrie. James told journalist Anthony Hill that Moody said to her: ‘I’ll tell you something one day.’ Moody took her notebook and pencil and wrote: ‘Horrie is not dead. He never died. But if you tell anyone I’ll deny it.’
Soon afterwards, he revealed the tale in more detail to James.
‘You don’t think an Australian soldier would leave a mate like that, do you?’ he said to her.
Years later Betty Featherstone, the wife of Brian, recalled a ‘half-drunk’ Moody talking and laughing about the hoax. At every Anzac Day reunion he would drink heavily with those wartime mates and relive the story in every amusing and dramatic detail. Moody found those days cathartic. For a few precious hours annually he did not have to live a lie. He and the Rebels could wallow in private over their coup.
‘‘I was supposed to be the joker in our pack,’ Bert Fitzsimmons said to Moody more than once at these special reunions, ‘but you have pulled off the prank of the century!’