Letters from Harold Edward 'Pompey' Elliott to his family, January 1918 - May 1918 - Part 16

They turned out to be a priceless collection
borrowed from the Paris ^Natural History Museum for the
purpose of a^making a book on butterflies ^upon which the old man was ^engaged
writing. I had very nice letters from
both the old chap who owned the house & the
Professor of Entomology at the University
at Paris. I have sent the letters to Mrs
Edwards to Keep for me. I am delighted that
you & nana & the others are Keeping so well.
I am very well indeed myself now but I got
a little bit of gas one the other day & I can
hardly speak. I have compresses on my neck
all the time which is doing it the world of good
& I shall soon be all right again. It was just
the tiemy timiest little bit I got fortunately
but it made me vomit a lot & cought till I
thought I'd turn inside out. 
 

but now nothing remains but the huskiness
Oh Katie I hear there is a very nice fine
boy of mine Lieut Bruce Anderson in
the Caulfield Hospital. He has a badly
smashed foot. He went up with me to a
post on Broedsende Ridge & the enemy
shelled us & he was hit. He is a splendid
boy – quite a youngster – He got the M.C at
Bullecourt when Moon got the V.C. I hope
you meet them both. Anderson was hit
pretty badly at Bullecourt but got back just
in time for Polygon Wood & Broedsende &
was hit ^again & I am afraid ^he will finished with war
Now, to his great disappointment. I never
met a braver or nicer boy. I hove you will
see him & give him my kind regards & good wishes 
 

Don't you say another word about that £50
quidlets. I've got another saved up
now real good & if they dont let me away
on leave soon I'll send it along. Its when
I go on leave that there’s the horrid vacancy
happens. Your old man is a general ^now & he
cannot go out upon the Street unless he is
just the "thing" with all the officers &
soldiers saluting him everywhere – so when
he goes on leave he has to have a new rigout
from top to toe & the way those tailors charge
is scandalous awful - I suppose they reckon a
General particularly an Australian
one is fair game. Anyhow before I can
look round they lob hand me a Bill of almost
₤30. But when I get over here I just wear
any old thing & nobody minds much 
 

Of course the Barbed wire & slush &
mud is very hard on the clothes & they
wear out a lot quicker then they ought
to do ordinarily but Its not ^ however that they wear
out, but get too shabby for a general to wear
in the open Street. & places he has to go to.
The Commonwealth promised to give us a new
rig out every 12 months but crawled out
of the Bargain - They finally said we'll give you
a new rig out but it has to be the ready
made clothes the same as the soldiers
have to wear or well give you ₤5 a year
instead. – so we had to take the ₤5 & look
pleasant even if it costs us ₤50 a year
Still they pay us pretty well & we cannot
really grumble if they expect us to dress
decently on the pay.. If they had told us that
from the start we wouldnt have had any
ground of complaint. If the mean little 
 

wriggle of the Labor Govt who wanted to pose
as being mighty generous with other peoples
money & then when they found that owing to
the great & unforseen increase in the force &
consequently the number of new officers they
were appalled at what they had let themselves
in for & wriggled out of it as Hughes always does
That is why no one trusts him.. You Know
things will be all right so long only as they
suit him – after that you are liable to get left.
Still he seems preferable to that waster Tudor &
his Satellite Mannix.
However when, as now all leave is Stopped
for months & months it is just wonderful how
my little quidlet ^allowance of 19/- a day mounts up into £50
quidlets & leaves a surplus. Practically every two
months I can let you have £50 quidlets & not feel it
– If I have leave however every 3 months
it is mostly a finish to £50 quidlets before I get back & 
 

that makes saving very hard indeed. So you
just take your £50 quidlets & be as happy as
ever you can with them – because I send you
my very lovingest thoughts with them my
own true darling sweet love. I’ll look
after myself all right. If I only had the 19/ a day
& had sent you every other penny I had it
would soon mount up again as it has now
I sent you one fifty quidlets ^pounds about January &
another in March I think it was & here in
May Ive got another just about ready – you
are very lucky in Australia – Dear as you think
things are there it is just about the cheapest place
in the world to live in at present. Egypt is a good
place too. Hughes has promised us 4 ½ % on
the Defered Pay as Credit over 12 months so you
should get quite a nice little lump sum from
that shouldn’t you. I think you will be
quite safe in paying off all you can of the
Trustees Debt in June. Will you 
 

please let me Know just how much is
left still to pay off after that. It will be
a wonderful relief to have all that debt paid off
& start clear of that at any rate. I would not
like that ^it should be the case that I should not pay off the money my father
lent me to make a start ^in life but I would not mind so
much not paying debts that M^r Roberts had let me
in for without fault of mine. I haven’t heard much
of the business. I prefer not to. I trust Begg & Lowe
to make the best of matters for me & they realize
the terrible responsibility I have here. & just
do the best they can without telling me. I am
out of the firm thank heaven so Roberts
Cannot let me in for anything worse
than he has done but of course it means
that unless I am given a soldiering job
somewhere ^after the war I shall be ^rather on my beam ends
as regards a practice on my when I return & have
to start all over again. Of course I shall
be pretty well Known everywhere & this
may help me to get a start pretty soon 
 

Katie, all those yarns that are being
spread about the temptations for the Boys
in London just as in Egypt are
mainly lies started by Pro Germans
& repeated by other people who ought
to Know better. It was the Germans who
first started telling lies about what our
boys were doing in Egypt & it was taken
up & repeated.
Our boys are not born fools – there are
just a bad places in Melbourne & Sydney
in fact I think there is more actual risk
of disease in those places than in London
So tell the mothers all as I wrote to the
papers & told them when we were in
Egypt – Dont believe half you are told
& strongly doubt the other half –
These yarns are spread to give you 
 

pain & worry & to make you hate the war
& be against Conscription all for the
sake of the German who is scared to death
at the bottom of his wicked beastly heart
that we are ^beating & will beat him in the end
for all his lies & fury & hate & heartlessness
All that you hear is only got up by his pals
& supporters everywhere. There is no hope
darling that I will take leave. I am
convinced that more than ever am I required
to look after my boys. Our Victory the other
day of which everyone is ^talking skiting as ^being the
best thing done in the war &^really was a dreadful
Knock in the eye for the Bosche was solely
due to your old me man & no one else. He I had
to fight everybody to get permission to do
it & when it was done they were all 
 

breaking their necks to get a share the
Credit of it., But ^in the beginning I alone Knew it
Could be successful & my men believed
in me & did it so wonderfully well that
its success went far beyond my hopes.
I hoped expected to get the town but I expected thought that as in the
advance from Baupaume that the Bosche
wouldnt be such a fool as to let himself be
surrounded in the Town – but the darkness
& most of all the amazing fitness & speed
of the my boys advance – once they got going
they charged at a run for nearly a
mile cheering & yelling like fiends
rushing trenches & machine guns
without a pause - bayonetting fiercely
all who resisted – nothing could