Fools' Harvest (Erle Cox 1939)

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter XV. Throughout the country that day more than 40,000 men laid down their arms, and our conquest was complete. We entered on the third stage of our humiliation. The first was that three weeks of … [Read more...] about Chapter 15 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter XIV. We five little thought when we cut across from Donnybrook to Whittlesea that afternoon of the strange wild life for which we were headed. It was dark when we reached Yea, and strange, after … [Read more...] about Chapter 14 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter XIII. Although we did not know it then, that decision we five made that afternoon on the empty highway at Donnybrook, was typical of the disintegration of a nation. On Thursday, October 13, the … [Read more...] about Chapter 13 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter XII. Looking back on that tragic week from September 23, its every hour brought its own irreparable disaster. In the seven days, Australia had been torn from its apparently unassailable pedestal … [Read more...] about Chapter 12 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter XI. There was a refugee bureau at the South Melbourne cricket ground where information could be obtained. Here our story that we had come from Sydney by the South Coast attracted immediate … [Read more...] about Chapter 11 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter X. It was on Tuesday, while Fergus and I were engaged in the appalling work of gathering the remains of the victims of Saturday, that the patients in the hospital were evacuated to emergency … [Read more...] about Chapter 10 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter IX. In making this digression on the fate of the lost State, my desire has been to set out fully the situation that the Federal Government was called upon to face during the three first days from … [Read more...] about Chapter 9 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter VIII. This story of the occupation of Western Australia demonstrates fully the diabolic thoroughness of the preliminary staff work that put the State into the enemy’s hands almost without a blow … [Read more...] about Chapter 8 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter VII. As we absorbed this mass of ill tidings, Fergus rubbed a chin that bore three days’ growth of bristles — we were an insanitary pair — and said thoughtfully, “Mon, if that yarn about the … [Read more...] about Chapter 7 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter VI. It was about time some strong authority had taken over. While many people returned to help, those ghouls that infest every community also put in an appearance, robbing the dead and looting. … [Read more...] about Chapter 6 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter V. For more than half an hour, for the second time that day, destruction and devastation swept across the doomed city. This time only four of the battleships and six cruisers participated, the … [Read more...] about Chapter 5 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter IV. In our sorrows and tragedies, we humans are individualists. We can never enter into the feelings of another, neither can another enter ours. Each must sit alone in his own little hell. When I … [Read more...] about Chapter 4 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter III. One of the strange and incomprehensible features of that first day is, that though I have prayed to forget the events of the afternoon, and cannot, I can remember so little of its earlier … [Read more...] about Chapter 3 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter II. When I made my boast that I would put the story of our tragedy into writing I had no idea that the job would prove so strenuous. Dodging the “blowflies,” as we call the P.P. spies in our camp … [Read more...] about Chapter 2 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is a chapter from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Chapter I. “And were there really shops full of lollies and toys once upon a time, Uncle Wally?” Rex asked dubiously. “Plenty of them, towhead,” I told him. He raised his head from my shoulder … [Read more...] about Chapter 1 [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]

[Editor: This is the prologue from Fools’ Harvest (1939) by Erle Cox.] Prologue In presenting this transcript of the Walter Burton manuscript for publication, the editors desire to remind the reader that its main value lies in its being the longest of the fourteen … [Read more...] about Prologue [Fools’ Harvest, by Erle Cox, 1939]