"Their hearts felt out to hold me"

The grave of Lieutenant A.G. Adams AFC

Hadra War Cemetery, Alexandria, Egypt

 2006

For nearly a century no one from the family visited Athol's grave. Like many other families of WW1 soldiers their grief was compounded by the fact that the departed soldier's grave was so far from home. Even these days a long-haul flight from Australia to Egypt is not possible for most families of lost diggers. Athol's mother, Adah, did not travel to Egypt to see her son's grave, nor did his step-father, Guy Sherwood. Nor did the aunts May and Puff. Nor did Arthur, the last of the four Adams boys.

It was not until 2006 that a member of the family made the pilgrimage to Alexandria to visit the grave. Harold Adams made that journey - he was the youngest of Arthur's children. He too served our country in uniform - with the Royal Australian Navy from 1946-1983. I accompanied him to Egypt when he was 73 years of age about a year before he died.

CDRE Harold Adams AM RAN Ret'd (and SMPR) at Athol's grave, Alexandria, Egypt, 2006

Harold wore his Melbourne Grammar School old boys' tie and said prayers from the Book of Common Prayer. A wreath was laid - all dried plant materials collected from Victoria, NSW and NT of Australia: Banksia cones, Eucalyptus leaves and nuts, Hakea cones and Casuarina cones. Harold presented the local Egyptian gardeners with memento badges from the Australian War Memorial and thanked them for tending the graves so well.

The posy of Australian native plant materials collected in Victoria, Northern Territory, and NSW

The long wait for the family to visit Athol's grave, for nearly 100 years, was too long for those left behind as well as the brave lads which had passed out of the sight of men. My friend Annie remembered this poem when we talked about Athol.

The Day My Family Came – by Michael Edwards

I half awoke to a strange new calm
And a sleep that would not clear
For this was the sleep to cure all harm
And which freezes all from fear.

Shot had come from left and right
With shrapnel, shell and flame
And turned my sunlit days to night
Where now, none would call my name.

Years passed me by as I waited,
Missed the generations yet to come,
Sadly knew I would not be fated
To be a father, hold a son.

I heard again the sounds of war
When twenty years of sleep had gone,
For five long years, maybe more,
Till peace once more at last had come.

More years passed, new voices came,
The stones and trenches to explore,
But no-one ever called my name
So I wished and waited ever more.

Each time I thought, perhaps, perhaps,
Perhaps this time they must call me,
But they only called for other chaps,
No-one ever called to set me free.

Through years of lonely vigil kept,
To look for me they never came,
None ever searched or even wept,
Nobody stayed to speak my name.

Until that summer day I heard
Some voices soft and strained with tears,
Then I knew that they had come
To roll away those wasted years.

Their hearts felt out to hold me,
Made me whole like other men,
But they had come just me to see,
Drawing me back home with them.

Now I am at peace and free to roam
Where ‘ere my family speak my name,
That day my soul was called back home
For on that day my family came.

Reference: http://anzacalbany.com.au/visitors-ww1-poem/

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'That day my soul was called back home'

It was Harold's idea that this story be called 'Not Mentioned in Dispatches'.