Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/86/1 - August 1917 - Part 4

8 33
We had tea with the
HQrs of No 3 section in their
cellar off the cellar avenue
- & from there I got a photo
of the Esplanade - both ways.
The Germans snipe down it.
Once in the Avenue, further
on, Dyson had gone out of 
some Exit, " This way up I
think ", he sd. I looked out
where he stood. I thought I
recognized a certain sandhill
not far beyond - It was the 
German post on / other
side o / Yser. Dyson ws
standing quite nonchalantly
in view of it. "It's quite
easy, when you get used
to it " he sd afterwds.
By the rly stn an
old train is standing, engine                                                    
trucks & all. It has
 

 8 34
been there for nearly 3
years, where the battle
caught it. [The germans
once had / French right
back to /  Yser, I believe,
but the French regained
their hold on across the river mouth
later - at least so Churchill 
says.]
I looked in on the 
54^th Bty on my way home.
Their HQrs were at a 
small seaside place between
Coxyde Bains & La Panne.
The only officer in ws an
English subaltern attached
to them. He told me tt it
ws true tt 3 guns had
bn knocked out. The German
shelling on / guns began
at 8 a.m. & they were
firing on and off all tt
 

8 35
day & on the next ^day too with
their remaining gun. There
was no real shelter, for
tho^, the men lay down
between shots as much
as possible they had only
shallow dugouts - no
deep ones exist there,  on
the flats.

We came back this night. Old
Boddy did wonderfully well
w / car. He is getting quite
expansive now he has bn w /
Australians a Year, or nearly.
He even sets up for a bit of a 
dog - & will answer back if
his leg is pulled. He found 
a spring o / car broken when 
he turned at the shelling oil
dunes. He got a piece of wood,
 

8 36
cut it to / length o / spring
with a chisel & jury-rigged
the thing w signal wire.
Then he said thought he wd go
off & have a quiet pipe & watch
/ shelling. So he strolled off to
a sandhill well at / side,
& ruminated. He saw
burst after burst - but at last
a shell came wh did not
burst. It sang along - & then
he looked up & saw it coming
straight at him from / dunes.
He sprawled aside - & it
plumped onto / sand abt
5 yards away from him.
Fortunately it lay there unburst.
It must have hit on a 
sandhill & ricochetted off
it. He was looking at this
strange visitor went another
 

37

The different sections of Tunnellers go up
for 48 hrs at a time, 3/5^ths being always in.
It is a principle that tunnellers shd be
camped back out of shellfire - in thorough rest
The tunnellers used to bathe in the 
sea up at Coxyde until the Germans saw
& shelled them. They bathe safely from their present
camp.
La Panne is the place where the Belgian
King is living ^very simply, in a seaside house a
few doors from our Tunneller's mess. The
place was till lately half filled with Belgian
people of fashion, or their wives. But they have
mostly gone; & the streets are a moving 
mass of British infantry today.
The French & Belgian hospitals are
still there. As these have full of many wounded
French & Belgian airman in them the
aeroplanes returning before dark along
the coast line often come low down &
sometimes turn all sorts of somersaults
to cheer their friends. They sometimes land
on the beach or just skim it. One ^English plane came down
there this morning. I saw the crowd running,
to it - & they took out the observer, dead, with 
a piece of shrapnel in his back.
The French & Belgian nurses have a sort of 
costume that women wd choose for themselves - designed
to be attractive. It is very nice for the staff officers, & young
officers whom one saw about there constantly, but scarcely so good
for the patients, I shd say. The girls were often pretty & attractive & one has / idea tt they do 
not mind 
being found "killing." for the work of war one wd rather the Australian & English nurses every 
time.
 

8 38
shell came singing & he
looked up & found it
coming straight for him
only turning round &
 round as it came,
wobbling around its point.
It flopped onto / sand about
10 yards away from / other.
There the twins lay peacefully
side by side - two 5.9s.
Boddy retired at this
stage. He ws very thankful
he had mended / spring of
his car.
The car carried us
home, damaged tho' it
was, in 2 hours. ^A fine day but Two heavy
rain showers passed us, going straight
for the salient, as we went.
Aug. 14. I told Gen. Birdwood
today that the Tunnellers 
had told me that Gen Harvey
 

8 39
had bn enquiring of them
weather they wanted to go back
to 1st Anzac. They had answered
tt if they were better looked after
by their own people in / matter
of rewards - Mulligan sd tt
it seemed as if G.H.Q. wanted
to prevent them going back - as
tho' there were some proposal
in / air & G.H.Q wanted to
put them off it.
Birdwood told me tt tt 
is Exactly what there is. The 
Australian Govt (after Murdochs
& my suggestion, I suppose)
has wired saying tt it desires
all its troops, as far as possible,
brought together under Gen.
Birdwoods command. (So 
Hughes has adopted all Murdochs
cable & I cant help thinking tt
 

8 40
his motives may not be so
Entirely selfish as Box made
out.)
Mulligan told me, without 
a moments hesitation, tt
the five Australian Divisions 
were 1 hardest ^best workers tt they had
worked with; the Scottish
next; & the 1st British
Divn next. But our men
always seemed keen to learn
/ work & then to take an interest
in it.
I found a letter from 
Smart to say tt / 
Australian Press Assocn
had asked for ^to be allowed a correspondent
to be at the front - They
wanted him to deal with
A.I.F. matters. Hughes
had said agreed & made
 

41

^X Aug 20. The other conrrespt.
is probably only coming
like Murdoch.
 

8 42
application straight
to the war office thro'
the Colonial office.
If this means working
in competition it is a 
pity. H ^Competition is best out of 
war correspondence. ^X
Cadge at Cassell
(where the British Press now 
are) tells me tt my
wire abt the necessity to
think carefully & seriously
whether New Guinea ought
not to be returned to Germany 
if she is a democracy -
& whether it is worth 10,000
Australian casualties -
did not go. He held it 
up as it was political &
no political telegram can go 
from G.H.Q.
 

8 43

Aug. 15. The guns
were very audible
on Aug. 13 ?14 (Evening)
about Lens in the South. 
The Hazebrouck people
had stories of Lens ^La Bassu - but
I think it ws really Lens
The day before, Aug 12, 
was the fighting about
Glencorse wood, when
I believe, the British
got the edge of the wood
but could not keep 
it - or perhaps are
there still. It may enable
our 1st Aust. Divn gunners
to man their guns again.
They were camouflaged
and left there until
some such advance.
Kingsmill, who gave
 

8 44
me their story the other 
day, has bn killed by
a big shell. Young
East, who ws also
giving me the story, ws
lying in / same dugout.
The shell went in behind
the dugout & blew 
upwards. East ws
just outside / crater
& ws not hurt.
The 2nd Divn. Arty 
say tt one of their drivers
ws going up on a mule
when the mule clean
disappeared, body, head,
ears, in the mud in a 
shell hole. The man
standing on its back
managed to keep alive 
in the mud, but lost