Michael Shanahan, Charlotte and their two children (Audrey and Michael Stanley, who was born in 1919) arrived at Withersfield, in the gem mining territory of central Queensland, early in 1920. The train took them to a cattle loading depot at the end of the line. They had little money and so decided to make the depot their home to start with. It was a stark new beginning but the resourceful Shanahan overcame his disability and financial challenges by applying himself to fresh circumstances with his usual ‘can-do’ philosophy. He and Charlotte had another four children and moved to Brisbane, where Shanahan found long-term employment as a lift operator at Finney Isles department store.
In 1946, after some twenty-eight years of marriage, Charlotte left him and her children and returned to London to again be with Stanley Butler, whose first wife had died. Shanahan, then seventy-six, battled on, beloved and cared for by his children and, later, his grandchildren. He stayed super-fit and rode a horse until he was eighty-four. He always hobbled along with his sticks at every Anzac Day parade, where his men showed him the utmost respect. Lieutenant Mulherin and the rest of his squadron always referred to him as ‘the Major’.
Michael Shanahan died at age ninety-four on 12 October 1964. His association with Bill the Bastard caused him to become a permanent part of the Anzac legend.
And what of the Bastard himself? He is commemorated in a bronze statue at the village of Murrumburrah, nestled in undulating hills 340 kilometres south-west of Sydney and 125 kilometres north-west of Canberra. The sculpture, by local artist Carl Valerius, is entitled ‘Retreat from Romani’. The life-sized work depicts Bill carrying Shanahan and the other four troopers to safety in the action that earned Shanahan the DSO.
Over the decades, some visitors to Gallipoli who know of Bill the Bastard have taken time to visit the tiny village behind Suvla Bay where Bill and his mate Penny lived out their days. Nearly a century after the end of the Great War, Australians swear they have seen some extraordinary horses in the area that look suspiciously like sizeable Walers.