War Poets and the Long Hill Home

There are many fine war poets, and I particularly like reading those of the First World War. Curiously, in equal measure I enjoy reading both the war jingoists such as Rupert Brooke and Jessie Pope as well as the dark, stark realism of Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves and Rudyard Kipling. Kipling was an enthusiastic supporter of the war and the “greatness of the British Empire”, at least until his only son was killed at the Battle of Loos in his very first action.

Rupert Brooke was always an “Empirist” and enthusiastic warrior, probably because he never experienced a battle. His poem “The Soldier” contains the memorable sentiment:

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England.

Brooke ironically got his “wish” as he died either of sunstroke, or more likely of septicaemia from an infected mosquito bite, on a hospital ship off the Greek island of Skyros, where he is buried. His death on April 23, 1915, came just two days before the bloody Gallipoli landings in which thousands staked out their corner of a foreign field for Australia.

Graves, Owen (who was killed just seven days before the war ended) and Sassoon recorded in their poetry the horror and ugliness of war. Sassoon went from being a reluctant supporter of the war, willing to do his duty, to being so anti-war he came close to being tried for treason. Yet, paradoxically Sassoon displayed such outstanding courage in battle it appeared he was trying to be killed. Instead, he was an invincible super-hero who survived every suicidal encounter, killed many Germans and was awarded a Military Cross. He also wrote great poetry between battles.

Australia has a long history of producing bush balladeers and war poets, with even our most infamous war criminal, Lieutenant Harry “Breaker” Morant, penning some enjoyable bush poetry. Probably his most poignant lines were the bitter ones he wrote just before his execution, a poem that was published in the Bulletin after the event.

Today, retired Brigadier George Mansford, a soldier of forty-one years infantry service, is probably our leading military balladeer. His poems capture the essence of the soldier’s lot in the modern world. Two stanzas from his poem “Casualties of War” encapsulate the effect war has not only on soldiers, but also on their families.

Casualties of War

In the bloody arena, the fight at dawn was won

Alas, in the red stained snow; a fallen husband and son

Satellites and modern tech spread the word as never before

Thus in a world far away came a dreaded knock on the door.

Politicians heard the news and ensured their eyes were wet

Made appropriate noises and vowed they would never forget

To a weeping mother and sedated widow as the media looked on

A final hug, a smile, hurried words of comfort then were gone.

I attended a “blinds demolition course” at Wallangarra in Queensland on the New South Wales border in the wintry July of 1969. Who knew that anywhere in sunny Queensland could be that bitterly cold? It was a small course of just half a dozen enthusiasts keen to learn how to blow things up that were supposed to go bang but had failed to perform as advertised. It would be our job to finish off the recalcitrant explosive with a bang.

The course involved both classroom theory and the fun side of extensive practice. To speed things along we were paired off to work in teams. My partner was Sergeant Tom Birnie, an Irishman from Belfast with a wry sense of humour, a quick wit concerning the limitations of junior officers like myself and a competent, confident approach that made every task look easy. It was an enjoyable professional course with a lot of satisfyingly loud noises and new experiences. On completing the final tests everyone on the course was certified to destroy malfunctioning ordnance. We celebrated with a few beers and pies and returned to our units. Tom went back to tropical Townsville and I returned to Brisbane. We did not meet again.

Sergeant Birnie had already served one tour with D Company, 2RAR in 1967-68 (during which he was wounded). He was now scheduled to return for a second tour in 1970-71 as one of the “old hands” providing operational experience to the battalion.

In the short time I knew Tom he did not mention that he was a war poet. It was therefore a surprise when in August 2017 I found the following poem in the book of the history of that second tour. Tom had written it on February 13, 1971, nine months into his year of operational service with 2RAR in Phuoc Tuy province.

His words capture the weariness and strain of infantry operations in a war zone and his longing for the tour to end so he can be home again with his wife, his young son and his friends. His view of the insincerity of politicians was true in 1971 and probably even more so today, as George Mansford reiterated forty years later:

The Long Hill Home

I think of the long hill home—

Laid in the jungle’s thick brown loam,

Youthful lips long ceased to moan,

Shattered and tattered and so alone—

Never to walk the long hill home.

One of many, before and to come,

His life’s blood joined with the others to run

In a torrent of red to unsated seas

Empires are built on the bones of these

Never to walk the long hill home.

What care they for their country’s fate,

They who neither love nor hate?

Their bones are white, these posthumous great,

White as the empire builder’s plate

Never to walk the long hill home.

Their epitaph by quirk of fate

Stands dumb in country town and state:

The unknown soldier! His gift was great,

Unknown they lived, unknown they died

Never to walk the long hill home.

I stand atop the long hill home

With wife and son, we three alone;

And far away in the jungle’s mould

The bones of my youth lie stiff and cold

Never to walk the long hill home.

On the morning of March 24, 1971, Sergeant Tom Birnie was shot by an Australian sentry as he re-entered his platoon area. The sentry was not expecting the patrol to return from that direction and mistook Birnie for an approaching enemy. Thirty-one-year-old Birnie died of his wounds at 1st Australian Field Hospital in the early hours of March 25.

Sergeant Birnie never walked the long hill home to his wife and son.

Alistair Pope wrote “Tragedy and Grief in Vung Tau” in the October issue.