Exclusive extract from a new Australian book, VOICE FROM THE TRENCHES by Noel Carthew (New Holland $24.95). As 1914 drew to a close, little did anyone in Australia know that four years of warfare lay ahead. Mothers could not foresee the anguish they would suffer, nor wives and sweethearts their heartbreak. Half a million young Australians had little idea of the grim reality of war as they marched off to do their patriotic duty for King and Country. Among these men were three brothers, Charles, Fred and James Carthew. Voices From The Trenches is their story, told through the letters they wrote to their mother and sisters back home in Victoria. To read them is to live, a little, the life of an Anzac digger, to experience the personal horrors and bloody battles.
Voices From The Trenches, on sale now in all book shops, also represents a remarkable achievement by Noel Carthew, a 79 year old Perth grandmother who inherited the plastic bag of letters, written by her father and two uncles, after a death in the family. Their moving contents gave Noel the passion to turn them into an extraordinary book. In this exclusive extract, Charles, the eldest son, leaves his mother Margaret and the family farm in Myrtleford, Victoria, to go to war:
After hiring a lad to help Old Dave with the heavier farm work and visiting a lawyer to make his will, Charles and his two horses, Silver and Bullet, reported for duty at Broadmeadows, the chief training camp for Victorian military personnel.
Charles had found it almost as painful to take leave of his cattle dog, Black, as it had been to farewell his fiancee, Ethel. Ethel understood that he felt it was his duty to volunteer, but Black did not.
Charles had reared Black from a tiny puppy when his mother died, and from then on the two were inseparable. Margaret often wondered whether there was some mystic link between the dog and her son. It was always necessary to tie Black up whenever Charles left the farm, otherwise he would simply materialise wherever his master happened to be.
Sensing Margaret’s distress, Black had viewed the preparations for his master’s departure with foreboding. He watched anxiously. Attuned as he was to his master’s every mood, Black was well aware of Charles’s sadness, and gazed pleadingly up at his master as he sat down on the front steps and took the dog’s head lovingly between his hands.
Black I have to go away, perhaps for a very long, long time, and I want you to look after Mother for me while I’m gone.’ Charles could not go on ‘Hold him, Nell,’ he said gruffly to his sister Elinor as he turned away and climbed into the buggy. One last wave, and then he was gone.
The public were not allowed on the wharf as Lieutenant Charles Carthew and the 8th Light Horse infantry embarked on the Star of Victoria in the cold, misty, grey dawn of 25 February 1915.
Ethel Semour (his fiancee), Margaret and her four daughters joined the milling throng of relatives and friends who pressed against the iron railings, hoping to catch one last glimpse of their menfolk. It was a sad, silent group little group who boarded the train home to Myrtleford that fateful February day that was to change their lives forever.
13.5.’15
*Dear Mother and all at home,
We are off to the Front on Saturday next, and am sorry to say are going as dismounted L/H (Light Horse). We are not very much cut up about it despite all the work and training we’ve had with them because we are all anxious to be doing something in the real business.
It is nearly three months since we left Aust. And I have only received one letter from home. You ought to be here and see mail after mail come in and no letters from home and then you would know what it is like.
I would ask you not to worry about Fred or I as every man who gets wounded is looked after tip top. And Dear Old Mother, if we should go under feel proud of the fact that you reared two sons who will do their job and who are not afraid to die for their country, like a lot we knew who stopped at home who should be here as its every mans duty who has no home ties.
Well Goodnight
Love from Charlie*
Soon after his arrival at Gallipoli, Anzac Cove was now more or less secure. When the Turks attacked on 3am on 19 May, they were decisively beaten with an estimated 10,000 casualties, while Australian casualties totalled 160 dead and 468 wounded.
The official news correspondent Charles Bean reserved his highest praise for the Australians: They have the devil in them the wild, independent pastoral life makes wild and superb soldiers.
Charles’s trench was only about 27 metres from the Turkish trenches. On 24 May armistice was declared in order for both sides to bury their respective dead. To Charles, the sight of so many dead men, friend or foe, in their prime brave, youthful, magnificent specimens of manhood affected him greatly.
June 29th ’15
*My Dear Mother, Just a line to let you know that I am still going strong – had a rather lively week in the trenches this time. Am sorry to say that Major Gregory and Captain Crowl were both killed the other morning. A shell lobbed in my dugout and burst and destroyed most of my goods – am pleased to say I was not in it at the time. . . Well Mother our cook is yelling for me to come to tea and what do you think eggs are on the board, or ground I should say. We get fresh bread twice a week now I am pleased to say.
Well Dear Mother take care of yourself – more news next time if I can get some paper.
From your loving son, Charlie.*
**Anzac Cove
July 5th ’15**
*Dear Add, Since my card to Mother we have had a rattle with the Turks. The position we, the Eighth hold is about the worst on our front, the trenches being only about 25 to 30 yards apart, my C” ‘Sqrdn holding this part.
On Wednesday night last at 12.15a.m. I had just been relieved from the firing line where my Troop, or what is left of them three killed and thirteen wounded and several sick up to date – was on duty. I had not gone far wen I could hear ‘Allah Allah’ this cry went right along the Turk trenches. Needless to say I did not wait for any more but got back to the firing line as quick as I could get.
The beggars were charging our trenches in their hundreds – some of them got into our saps – they kept coming at us until just on daylight when they had to retire.
On about 50 yards of our front they left between 250 and 300 dead – we mowed them down in heaps.
We are back in the rest camp again now after a fortnight in the trenches and are glad to get back as everybody is done up. I am pleased to say I have had know(sic) occasion for a Dr. as yet. Only to get some disinfectant after getting dead Turks out of our trenches which I can tell you was not a pleasant job, but its wonderful how callous a man becomes at this game. I would have run a mile without looking back from a dead man over there but one doesn’t take any more notice than he would if they were rabbits.
I won’t be sorry when we get out of this and back to our horses if we ever do.
So long for the present.
Love to all at home, Charlie.*
**Anzac Cove
20.17.’15**
*Dear Add,
Things are quite (sic) as far as the Turks are concerned. We stand to arms every second morning when out of the trenches from three till four in the morning which spoils the best part of a mans sleep. I generally go down and have a dip in the sea after stand to arms – its great. I am pleased to say the Eighth Regt. is free from what we call the Scotch Greys [lice]. I don’t know how we escape – all the other units seem to be worried by the pest. One sees men sitting along the beach like monkeys picking the pest off their clothes.
I am sitting in our Mess just after having tea – Bully Beef and biscuits and cocoa – we managed to score a tin and its very nice for a change. Our mess, if you can call it such a think is a biscuit box for a table set in the middle of a bit of level ground cut out of the side of the Hill – we sit on the ground or anything that’s handy. Its rather hot in the daytime but the nights are fine – it don’t require any blankets. We never undress and seldom take off our boots or equipment. Always ready you see. It tells on some of the fellows nerves.
Well Old Girl I’ll have to close now. Hope Mother is not worrying about us and that you are all in the best of health.
Goodbye, Charlie*
Conditions at the front were not good. Most of the young officers were discouraged by blatant mismanagement, orders and counter-orders, and the fact that in three months no worthwhile gain had been made. Ammunition was always in short supply and every unit was undermanned, due not only to casualties but also to the high rate of illness caused mainly by the swarms of flies which bred in the thousands of rotting corpses and the latrines.
Consequently, morale among the Allied troops was at a low ebb, and, weakened by dysentry and malnutrition, nerves frayed by lack of sleep and constant danger, the men bore little resemblance to the fit, confident and eager warriors who disembarked in such high spirits a scant three months before.
**Chas. Carthew
Dardanelles
26.7.’15**
*Dear Girls,
I am at present sitting in a hole in the side of the cliff Well we have been here nine months now and I don’t care how soon we move on. Same old thing every day, shells flying about You will no doubt know about our losses before this reaches you. I was awful cut up.
We were issued with a DAMN Infantry equipment the other day so it looks blue our chance of getting our horses – its enough to break a fellows heart, but I suppose its all in the game and its no use growling We run the risk of being knocked over every day but no one seems to worry in fact its no use worrying. Of course I don’t put that in Mothers or Ethels letters. Am writing this on my notebook – all my stationary got blown up with a shell. You may notice the corner of this paper is all crushed – this book was picked up about fifty yards from my dugout and just as well for me I did not go to sleep that morning or I would not be here now. I had only turned in about a half hour too, but when the Turks started to shoot like blazes I got back in the firing line as quick as I could. As it is I was knocked down twice that morning with concussion of bursting shells but luckily missed any of the fragments.
These shells are awful and they are screaming overhead at present. Well girls, I carnt say much. As for me I was never better in my life.
Well goodbye for the present, Charlie.
Dardanelles*
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