The author, Sydney Porteous (born 18 August 1896), interweaves much of his own life experience into this novel. Like the hero of this novel, he too was a cattleman; just as Ben was known as Boss, he was known as Skip. Skip was working as a cattle station trainee in New South Wales in 1914 when the war broke out. By then Ben, from the previous generation, was married with children and had established himself on a cattle farm in Queensland. Ben and his son, Dan, go to Victoria (the author's home state) to enlist before embarking for the Middle East. The author enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in November 1914 and served in the 8th Battalion of the Light Horse Regiment. At Gallipoli that battalion began the disastrous attack on the Nek on 7 August. Much reduced in numbers, the unit had a defensive role until it withdrew on 20 December 1915. Likewise, Ben and Dan were in the 8th Australian Light Horse. The main action that Ben recollects is in Egypt and Palestine; “Gallipoli was only a memory; a senseless interlude that had cost them so many mates.”
On 1 December 1917, the author was wounded in action at El Burj in Palestine. It was at the same place that he depicted Ben and Dan and their unit relieving a Scottish unit on a prominent defensive ridge but they were among a number of soldiers sent by night to an exposed outpost. When the Turks launched an attack that night, there was no safe route of escape and the Australian soldiers had to flee with enemy soldiers on either side. Ben was wounded and many, including, Dan, were killed. Ben recalled the disaster:
“What a turn-up! What a howling mess! And what had they achieved for it all? Nothing. Not one damned thing. In fact they had only caused confusion to the men in the line by racing up the hill all mixed up with a mob of Jackos. Probably half the outpost had been killed by their own machine-guns. What a lovely bloody thought! Well, at least Danny hadn't been killed that way. But he was dead, wasn't he? Murdered by some brainless Headquarters mug who kept them stuck out there until it was too late. If they expected Sergeant Ben Mc Ready to go back into the line and fight after that, they had another think coming. Let them come back here and put him on a crime sheet for refusing to obey an order. Let them take his bloody stripes away. He didn't want the rotten things. When he got his wind back he;d find Headquarters and tell 'em so. Tell 'em what he thought of the whole show.”
While away at war, Ben's wife had given birth to a second son, Ken. When, as an experienced pilot, he joined the Air Force at the beginning of the Second World War, Ben gave him firm advice:
“Don't knock back any promotion that comes your way. It's not a matter of higher pay. It's a matter of getting to where you're giving the orders instead of taking them. The higher up you get the fewer numskulls you've got pushing you around and the more chances you have of getting home alive. Dan was killed through the mistake of a dud officer. I wouldn't want the same thing to happen to you.”
Ben lost his second son when Ken’s plane was shot down over the English Channel. Whereas it was rare for a father to lose a son in each war, it was common for a man to lose a brother in one war and a son in the next. The author’s description of loss in this novel is reflective of his own life, not only the loss of so many fellow soldiers in the First World War but also the death of his first wife in childbirth in 1930. Ben also experienced the sudden death of his wife. Though Ben recounts great loss and hardship in his life, there is also gratitude for what has been and hope for what is to come. It has much in common with Albert Facey’s classic Australian memoir, A Fortunate Life, which I read immediately prior to this project.
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