28/09/2026
🎖️ The Boy from Colac | Part 11 of 13 - The White Nightgowns of the Western Front
The 24th Battalion that sailed from Alexandria on 21 March 1916 was, in large part, a new battalion. Reinforcements had rebuilt it in Egypt around the handful of men who had come back from Lone Pine. Somewhere on the voyage to Marseilles, Arthur discovered he had a new name.
The men had started calling him "Poppy." It had nothing to do with the flower. According to the family memoir, "Pop" or "Poppy" was — and still is — a soldier's mark of respect for a senior, experienced man. Arthur now wore the cloth "A" for ANZAC on his uniform, and young soldiers came to him for advice on all manner of things. More than one green subaltern was saved from a serious mistake because Arthur quietly set him straight.
From Marseilles, the battalion travelled north by train, carefully routed around Paris in case the pleasures of the capital proved too tempting. Crowds cheered the Diggers at every town and village along the line. At Fleurbaix, Arthur was given new orders for a new kind of war: "If you see a German soldier with a gas bottle, do not shoot him, aim for the gas — but make sure the wind is not coming our way."
On the night of 29 June 1916, the 6th Brigade raided the German line in the Armentières sector. About 200 men took part, roughly fifty from each of the four battalions, and the battalion history notes that almost every man in the brigade volunteered. The 24th's war diary records that its party got into the German trenches, killed about twenty of the enemy and brought back five prisoners. One officer went back twice to bring in the wounded. The cost was one man killed and twenty wounded. A raid of this kind was a new experiment, combining artillery, surprise, a violent rush into the enemy trench, and then the hardest part of all, getting back. The family memoir places Arthur in the great raid and records that his work was noted in his official records.
Out of the line, the Western Front offered something Gallipoli never had: towns, shops and people. Arthur tried the vin blanc, which the Diggers soon turned into "plonk," and was introduced to "the widow," the ch*****ne of Veuve Clicquot. Most men still longed for b**r or stuck to tea, and after Turkey, everyone was grateful for fresh milk.
For a boy whose days near Colac had revolved around milking cows, that small comfort may have meant more than the ch*****ne.Arthur also went shopping. In a ladies' shop, he bought scarves for his sisters for Christmas and pieces of lace for his mother. Then, as the brutal winter of 1916–17 set in and the Somme countryside turned to ice, he took the plunge and bought something for himself: a long white nightgown, hooded, in the French style.
Arthur was not alone. The 24th had discovered that the government had made no provision for winter white coveralls. Soldiers were expected to cross snowfields in dark khaki, a complete absurdity that made every man an obvious target. So the Diggers made their own arrangements, and before long, men of the 24th in women's white nightgowns were crossing the snow like ghosts.
The family memoir says it simply: the nightgowns saved lives.
It is a picture worth keeping: a Gallipoli veteran called Poppy, buying lace for his mother, scarves for his sisters, and a nightgown to stay alive.
Lest We Forget
Next: Part 12 — Death-Defying Dashes and the Military Medal · Sunday, 4 October.
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