Tough Anzac
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It
is a well-known fact that from the beginning of July, the health of the
troops started to deteriorate rapidly. As a result of hard labour,
continuous stress, malnutrition, lack of sanitary provisions combined
with the hot weather and the presence of great numbers of unburied
bodies in noman’s land, different types of diarrhoea and enteritis
ravaged the ranks. This phenomenon, together with the daily injuries and
wounds caused by the ongoing trench warfare, was responsible for a great
deal of suffering behind the firing line. The monotony of daily life,
without much hope for a rapid change in the situation, only made matters
worse.
Surprisingly then, only very few Anzac soldiers attempted to get away from their misery by reporting themselves ill in order to get a ticket to a base hospital either in Lemnos or Egypt. On the contrary, being sent away on sick leave was considered as a kind of defeat : 'One just did not desert his mates'. And this attitude could lead to some remarkable occurrencies.
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| Doctors,
for instance, noticed significantly smaller numbers of soldiers who
reported sick when an impending offensive was expected during the first
days of August, to see the figures rise anew when the situation turned
to normal a week later.
But even then, a doctor could be in for a surprise :
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| "In
September, for example, there came to the medical officer of the 9th a
youngster named Gray (of Murgon, Q'land), whom he remembered having seen
before. This was one of two brothers, Queenslanders of the 9th Bn., who
during the voyage from Australia nearly a year before had both become
ill with influenza. They had been so reduced by illness that they were
suspected of being tubercular, and were consequently brought before a
medical board at Mena Camp and ordered to be returned to Australia. Both
were so heartbroken that they wept, and Col. B.J. Newmarch (of Sydney),
who presided over the board, relented, and allowed each of them to be
put temporarily off duty, in order to build themselves up by food and
exercise. They were eventually declared fit, and afterwards sedulously
avoided the doctor, and both landed with their battalion. At the Landing
one brother (Pte. G.R. Gray) had been a member of one of the parties
which penetrated farthest. It was the other who now came to the
regimental doctor saying that he had received a wound at the Landing
and, though he had been to hospital, it was again giving a little
trouble. He had endeavoured to "carry on," but had at last
been forced to see if the doctor could advise a little treatment. The
medical officer found that he had had a compound fracture of the arm,
two bullets through his thigh, another through diaphragm, liver and
side; and that there were adhesions to the liver and pleura. He was
returned at once to Australia, where he was eventually discharged from
hospital and , re-enlisting, returned to the front in the artillery. His
brother eventually became quartermaster of the 9th, in which capacity he
continued to serve until the last year of the war."
(source : C.E.W. Bean) |