The Bath

An ordinary Australian from an ordinary country place Who rallied to the flag's call with god's good grace He was one of the 33rd Battalion "New England's Own" Into this swirling maelstrom they were duly thrown The Great War was raging and to the Western Front he went A lottery of shell, bullet and gas was his unending lament. In 1917 the Germans attacked with a fury not before wrought The Australians held the line and were tested as they fought As he was defending their position with bravery a required trait German gas came seeping to him seeking out in its hate The miasma invading his body all the way through him His choking and coughing making his survival very grim. The stretcher bearer heroes used all their pluck and gall Through the maelstrom for their mates pleading at their call They found him helpless lying solitary in the field This is where his fight began refusing to them to yield His strength suffered with no breath and tiring cough Back home for needed treatment his life clock now ticking off. The doctors laboured long and thought he was on the mend Then his skin began to pull apart and the pain was hard to end They knew he would not last and the only option a tepid bath This was to ease his pain his life was on a slow downward path For four long years he lived on with each touch a distress This brave ANZAC met his fate showing all the world no less. When I heard his story and wondered how he faired What did he think when alone and so very scared Were his secret thoughts of all that he had lost? What the war had meant and counting its final cost Or did he sit and wonder where his life would be If he didn't make the decision and went to fight for me. © Paul Warren Poetry Private Samuel Earle Rolfe from Inverell, NSW and was posted to the 33rd Battalion of the First AIF in France. During a German attack he was enveloped in a miasma of mustard gas. He was hospitalised and eventually invalided home. Although he still had shortness of breath and a persistent cough he was thought to be recovering. Doctors at the Randwick Medical Hospital noticed that his skin was starting to flake away. No matter what they tried nothing worked and soon his whole epidermis had disappeared. He was placed in a waterbed and bathed in oil and it was thought he would not survive. Every touch on his body was agony to him until someone thought to place him into a bath of tepid water. He survived four more years in this manner. He was known for his good humour when anyone visited him. Upon his death he was returned to Inverell where locals honoured him for the courage he had shown during his ordeal.