A bluish haze in the far astern
And galloping seas between,
The last-long look at one’s native land,
Where boyhood days we’ve seen.
For our bows are dipped in smothering spray,
Our course to the setting sun.
We’re bound for the front, with foot and horse,
And a-clanking steel and gun.

The transport reels in the battering seas,
All her decks with troops asprawl,
A foamy wake from her churning screw,
Where the billows rise and fall;
The wind in the shrouds moans constant plaint.
Does it mourn a grim fate sealed?
Does it tell of the blood-red clash of war,
And graves in a frozen field?

The troopers lie on the deck asprawl
(Who cares if the wild seas rave?)
A pleasing sense is a pipe aglow
(Who spoke of a frozen grave?)
Then pass the pouch with the fragrant weed,
And shuffle the cards anew;
There’s room for the lad with quip and jest;
No room for a whining crew.

While the clamouring gulls in wheeling flight,
Swoop down in our bubbling wake,
There are those at home, with cheerful smiles
Yet whose hearts are like to break,
For a woman’s lot is to watch and wait
And stifle the grief that stirs,
While the man strides forth in careless strength,
A-swagger in boots and spurs.

Those lips now clasping the smoking stem,
Or curling in gruff grimace,
Have whispered fond vows and pressed a kiss
On a clinging tear-stained face.
Will they clasp in death on a foreign field
On a couch of earth-soaked red?
Or curl in a torturing fever-grip
On a medical service bed?

The transport reels in the battering seas,
In the smothering, flying spray,
And the ones at home, with straining hearts,
They watch and wait and pray,
For the cards are dealt with careless flip
As the round of the game begins;
But the clutching hand of sombre Fate,
Aye, will hold the card that wins.

This poem was first published in Australia in the Queensland Labor newspaper The Worker of 17 December 1914. It was also published in the Egyptian Mail, an English language paper published in Alexandria, on 24 December 1914. It may have been written aboard the troopship Omrah and posted at one of the ports enroute as the 1st Light Horse Brigade travelled to Egypt. The poem was reprinted in Australian suburban newspapers three more times in February and March 1915. I have been unable to find mention of it elsewhere since. The poem shows great depth of understanding of what lay ahead for the members of the Australian Imperial Force as well as the effect on those at home.

When he enlisted on 20 August 1914, William O’Brien was a clerk with the Queensland Railway Service. He gave his age as thirty but he was actually thirty-three years old. He was 5’ 11¾” tall with a fresh complexion, blue eyes and black hair. His parents were James O’Brien and Sarah Anne Marsden, both from Armagh in northern Ireland. They arrived in Australia in 1863 and settled at Fig Tree Pocket, on the Brisbane River, near Indooroopilly, Queensland where James was a farmer. Two of William’s brothers also enlisted in the AIF.

William embarked on the transport Omrah from Brisbane on 24 September 1914. Initially, he served with the 1st Light Horse Brigade Train, 5th Company Army Service Corps, arriving at Gallipoli in early May 1915. In October 1915, he contracted dysentery and enteritis. He was hospitalised at Mudros, on the island of Lemnos, and was later sent to St Patrick’s Hospital, Malta. He was discharged to Heliopolos, Egypt on 13 December 1915, just days before the withdrawal from Gallipoli.

With the reorganisation of units in Egypt due to the great loss of men at Gallipoli, William was transferred to the 2nd Light Horse Regiment in January 1916. The following July, he was transferred to the 1st Light Horse Machine Gun Squadron and took part in the Battle of Romani. The Squadron was involved in the Egypt and Palestine campaigns in 1916 to 1918.

In February 1917 William was promoted a 2nd Lieutenant and, in July, a full Lieutenant. At Beersheba on 3 November, he suffered a gunshot wound to the left arm. He embarked for Australia on 28 December 1917 on the NZT Tofua, arriving on 30 January 1918. William was discharged from service on 17 April 1918.

Back in Australia, he returned to work as a clerk with the Queensland Railways and in 1926 married Honora O’Sullivan; they had one son. William was actively involved in the Returned Soldiers and Sailor’s League and the local progress association. He contributed pieces to the Bulletin, the Queensland Digger and other publications. He was also described as an eloquent speaker.

William O’Brien died aged fifty-four on 13 October 1936 after an illness of six weeks. His obituary in the Brisbane Telegraph (17 Oct 1936, p.11) described his life as one of ‘service to his country in war time and to his fellow soldiers in peace-time’.