25 April 1919

They wheeled poor Bernie Haines into the sunlight today. I say wheeled because he’s one of our cot cases – paralysed from the waist down. Bernie caught a piece of high explosive shell in France. Every day his spine seems to weaken. It seems unlikely he’ll ever walk again.

One of our cot cases: Bernard Haines in the grounds of Caulfield Repatriation Hospital. H84.258/6 courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Some of the nurses call him ‘Babe’ and he doesn’t seem to mind. The soldiers he served with called him that, and you can see why. Bernie Haines enlisted at just 14 years of age, Victoria’s brave little boy soldier. And just a year later that stunt at Bapaume left him a cripple. You wonder what his mother must’ve thought. To send a boy to war like that, and know he might never grow to manhood.

Victoria’s little boy soldier: Bernard Haines enlisted at the age of 14 and served under the false name, Charlie Haines. His spine was shattered at Bapaume just a year later. H84.258/2 courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Today’s little outing seemed a success, though Bernie doesn’t say much and it’s hard to know what he’s thinking. The Young Ladies’ Auxiliary was there and heaven knows they made a fuss of him. One silly young thing planted a kiss on his forehead, another lass held a parasol over his face, so the bright light wouldn’t trouble him. Bernie smiled bravely through all the commotion. The doctor had increased the dose of morphine, so that must have quelled the pain a little. Even so, I’m sure I saw a tear roll down that dear boy’s face. Little wonder. The girl who kissed him must have been about his age. Young and strong and pretty, with her whole life ahead of her. Unlike Bernie.

None of those young women went anywhere near the bottom of the cot. Though I saw them looking time and time again at that telltale hollow. That shell blast shattered Bernie’s left leg. They hacked off most of it in the casualty clearing station in France and tried to save what was left back in some hospital in England. But all there is now is a tiny stump. Sometimes Bernie says he can still feel his toes – once he even asked if I could scratch them. We call them ‘phantom limbs’ on the ward. It’s the kindest way of describing all the horrors beneath those blankets.

15 June 1921

Another operation for Bernie tomorrow. I’ve lost count of how many he’s been through. But the boy is in a terrible state and the doctors say we have to do something.

‘Faecal fistula’ someone scribbled in the case notes. Bernie’s lost so much of his bowel and intestines that the waste has nowhere to go and it’s seeping through his body. I listened to his lungs today, you can hear those foul fluids washing round his diaphragm – bubbling rales on both sides, a dull metallic thudding. So now we have to cut into the colon again and drain away what we can of the waste. And Bernie will be conscious when we do that. ‘Colostomy under local anesthetic’ it says quite clearly. I dread to think of the look in that boy’s eyes. I’ve never seen worse things, not even in France.

15 October 1924

They took Bernie out of the ward today and placed him in a room alone at the far end of the building. Matron said it had to be done. Bernie’s been sulky, disruptive, upsetting the others. He says some terrible things now – even to us nurses. And yesterday he refused to let me dress him, said he’d had enough of everything.

It wasn’t always like that. Not in the early days, anyway. When Bernie first came home he could still manage to get about on his crutches. He thought that with the help of his sisters he might even open a sweet shop. But the Repat said they wouldn’t help him out with a loan. They said ‘vocational training’ was a much better use of departmental resources. I’ve seen quite a bit of vocational training here: blind men weaving baskets, men without hands painting with brushes clenched in their teeth, cot cases like Bernie whittling away at their woodwork. But Bernie is too sick to carve anymore. There’s nothing much left now, no purpose, no beauty – just the iron rails of his cot and the filth welling up beneath the blankets. The girls draw lots to change the sheets. None of us can bear the smell of him.

Just the iron rails of his cot: Although bedridden and in great pain, returned men like Haines were encouraged to take up ‘useful pursuits’. Learning a trade like woodwork could generate an income. As the exquisite pieces above Bernie’s bed suggest, it brought something of great beauty back into their lives. H84.258/5 courtesy State Library of Victoria.

17 March 1926

Babe Haines died last night and everyone agrees he was a hero. The papers say he kept smiling to the end but somehow I doubt that. Unless, of course, the doctors gave him more morphine than they should have, that would have been the kindest thing. Pulling the screen around the bed and smothering that dreadful pain forever. Some of the girls say that’s what happens on the ward, but I’ve never seen it. Matron tells us only God can take a life away – not that I’ve seen much of God in the Repat.

Everyone agrees he’s a hero: The Maitland Weekly Mercury announces the death of Bernard Haines. The Maitland Weekly Mercury, 27 Mar 1926 courtesy National Library of Australia.

In our new national capital, they’re building Australia’s War Memorial – a great stone building at the foot of Mt Ainslie. I hear there’ll be an Honour Roll for all the nation’s dead – all those 60 000 men killed in France and Gallipoli, Palestine and Belgium. But Bernie’s name won’t be on it. Bernie died eight years after the fighting was over, so the officials say he’s not really one of our war dead. It’s strange to think if Bernie had suffered less rather than more, if that short life had been even shorter, his name too would be gleaming in bronze, honoured by all who walk down those cloisters. But I imagine people will forget Bernie soon enough. No one – not even here – wants to remember the cot cases.

I’ve heard those young girls from the Ladies’ Auxiliary won’t visit us again, not after what one of our ‘nervy cases’ told them. I’m not surprised by that. It’s so much easier to stay at home and read about boy heroes giving their lives for their country. But I’m not sure that Bernie really gave his life away. Someone stole it from him.1

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING: The authors warmly acknowledge the family of Bernard Haines and the assistance of Dr Amshuman Rao in reading and interpreting the extensive medical case notes relevant to this story. This story draws on Bernard Haines’ service dossier NAA: B2455, HAINES C; and his repatriation file NAA: B73, R14400. This imagined narrative is based on a close reading of these official records. The story of ‘Babe Haines’ and his long painful death were reported on in the press and this story has drawn on many of the contemporary newspaper articles. For further reading on repatriation see Marina Larsson, Shattered Anzacs: Living with the Scars of War (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2009).

1 NAA: B2455 HAINES C; NAA: B73, R14400.