[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 inglorious warfare with its single decisive battle. […]

[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 our weeks of strain and uncertainty, to […]

[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 social and administrative fabric of Australia was torn […]

[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 of prosperity and safety, and flung into an abyss of terror. […]

[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 attention. Telephones rang and five minutes later we were in […]