Resting after the stunt

Depicts men of either 1st or 2nd Division at the waggon lines behind the front on 21 September 1917, after the fighting at Polygon Wood on 20 September. 'Stunt' was a common term to describe military action, usually a deliberate understatement - in this case, fighting that resulted in 2,700 casualties. Fighting had started at 4:50 a.m. and continued for more than 12 hours, so the men would have been exhausted. Dyson had witnessed their return from battle early in the morning and described how they were 'weary to exhaustion, eager for food and for rest, but for the while content with the negative joys of being merely out of it. It is now that are told stories that will perhaps never be told again, for on his return from the line slowly but surely the civilian habit of mind reasserts itself, standards that are based on the sanctity of human life and which are at variance with the grim necessities of the hop-over, assume their normal control.'

Will Dyson was the first Australian official war artist to visit the front during the First World War, travelling to France in December 1916, remaining there until May 1917, making records of the Australian involvement in the war. He was formally appointed as an official war artist, attached to the AIF, in May 1917, working in France and London throughout the war. His commission was terminated in March 1920.