[Page 138]
5
companions, in wet and bitter cold weather, in bodily discomfort we can hardly think of, Dene heard the dreadful news, and he wrote
Dear old Alan ! Oh, how hopeless I feel. I've always looked forward more than anything else to seeing him over here. Fourteenth of August – why, before I left Australia ! If you should only know how much I looked forward to meeting the 13th. Battalion "somewhere in France", and seeking him out – When I learned of the heavy fighting that the Anzacs had been engaged in, on my arrival in England, I thought that he would lucky to have escaped without a wound; but the other never dawned on me.
One great comfort comes to me over here on my own, and that is, as a soldier I cannot but recognise that my dear brother died a death deserving of the greatest honor and respect from those of us still above the sod. But I dare not look in the retrospect of those happy times together; it's just too awful.
There is one big blank in front of me. You know we all look forward to the great home-coming, made a great exaltation by the feeling of participating in the greatest and most glorious of martial victories, and to the meeting of our relations in our happy homes, who, separated from us, have each toiled to the great end. This I have looked forward to as probably the greatest moment of my life. But it's all blotted out, and I feel as if I am robbed of a just reward. I feel like a criminal serving a long and tedious sentence, and as if I will wend my way home shamefaced and by back roads.
Dear old Alan ! how he played the game, only to go the way of the glorious in the slack fighting that followed the second world-famed feat of the Anzacs – the capture of Pozieres Village. Words are inadequate : I just think of him, and realise I am too late. The sympathy of these rough lads all around me