Ruth James
It’s World War 1. Bells can be heard ringing out across the French countryside, and flags from allied countries drape every building. Four profound years of brutal conflict shredding hearts and souls globally have culminated in a truce, an uneasy armistice. Astonishingly, peace prevails.But Australia’s heroic, broken Diggers weren’t miraculously packed up and returned home immediately to their long-suffering families following the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918. By no mean feat, they were trained killers tormented by the horrors of battle they wrestled to unsee as the inner war consuming them raged on. James Henry Rainey of the 9th Reinforcements 41st Battalion was one of these soldiers. Little is mentioned of the metamorphose that reconfigured our shattered troops in the months following the 1914-18 War. In fact, little was said at all. In true legendary spirit, Jim’s records and letters reveal the enduring wills of our veterans, not only before arriving in the Hindenburg Line’s bloodied trenches but shouldering a polar opposite transformation of themselves in its wake through the Australian Corps School. The same transformation would see them returned with a creed...a creed of silence.
