The Face of War

[David Campbell]

Exactly one hundred years ago, on August 7, 1916, William Emerton Hunter was killed in the fighting at Pozières. He was 21. His two brothers, Frederick Emerton Hunter (aged 26), and Maurice James Emerton Hunter (aged 21), had died a year earlier, on August 27, 1915, in the attacks on Hill 60 at Gallipoli.

The Face of War

© David Campbell

Three brothers marched away to war,
to fight upon a foreign shore,
and thus began that private hell
in which so many mothers dwell.
But Fanny Hunter had to go
through trauma that few others know,
because, in time, she heard the worst,
and wept to think how she’d been cursed…
not one, not two, but three sons lost,
and she was left to count the cost.

For Frederick and Maurice died
in battle, fighting side by side,
a tragedy time can’t erase,
Gallipoli their resting place
in nineteen fifteen, fine young men
who’d never see their home again.
And then she heard, within a year,
the dreadful news, her greatest fear
that plumbed the depths of dark despair…
young Bill had died at Pozières.

So Fanny Hunter mourned her sons…
in dreams she heard the crack of guns,
she saw the shellfire and the flare,
then watched them fall, but knew not where.
Their names are on the Honour Roll,
three more among that awful toll
of men whose fate remains unknown…
inscriptions carved on walls of stone.
The record of the lives they gave
is simply marked as No Known Grave.

She had no closure, no relief
to mitigate her boundless grief,
and lived with all that might have been…
the happiness and joy unseen,
forsaken for a world of pain,
the hope their deaths were not in vain.
She had to find, from deep inside,
renewed intent, a sense of pride
in sons she’d once held to her breast,
who, far away, now lay at rest.

Yet now, as years have turned each page
of history, the conflicts rage
on distant fronts where hate still burns,
a white-hot flame, while mankind learns
that each new day brings sacrifice
as countless victims pay the price.
The face of war might change in time,
but it remains a monstrous crime,
an Honour Roll that has no end,
a sorrow hard to comprehend.

And that despair is worst of all
when children are the ones to fall,
a dagger driven through the heart
of families now torn apart.
The grief that Fanny Hunter knew
is multiplied, and echoes through
each generation down the years,
an ache that’s marked by anguished tears
that symbolise a rising flood,
a legacy inscribed in blood.

[mummsie]

Beautufully written David. So many men and women made that lofty sacrifice. So many left to mourn.

[Shelley Hansen]

Well said, David - a poignant reminder that there are no winners in war.

Cheers
Shelley

[David Campbell]

Thank you, Sue and Shelley. Historically, Pozières has gone relatively unrecognised despite the incredible number of Australians who perished there in a very short period of time. Of 23,000 casualties, almost 7000 men died in six weeks, nearly as many as in the whole six months of the Gallipoli campaign. And 4000 of them have no known grave. All to capture a square kilometer of land.

David