Gunfire at dawn
One hour before sunrise the command sergeant major would fill his billy with rum and divvy out a tot to wake up his soldiers, Thomas Heaton writes.
It’s not often you see your grandparents’ generation drag out a bottle of Lamb’s Navy Rum before first light. In their finest regalia, veterans lead the charge, topping up their coffee, tea or glass of milk with a tot of black rum.
Tradition is the answer to the question why, but why it’s a tradition is just as murky as the milk they sup, for most of us.
Liquor before first light has a clearer explanation for military historians, and the ceremony following the ceremony – the gunfire breakfast – is as important as the process before.
‘‘As I see it, the gunfire breakfast is a bit of a construct, really, that you get at the RSA before or after the dawn service,’’ military historian Christopher Pugsley says.
‘‘A tot of rum after is I guess where it starts.’’
It starts there, because an early morning tot was part of the almost-daily routine during WWI, throwing back shots of rum in the frigid hours before stand-to and sunrise, warming their cockles and hardening their hearts.
Bayonets fixed, ready to face some of the worst experiences they could imagine, rum was divvied out by the command sergeant major. The rum, he says, was something to ‘‘liven the senses’’.
The tots of rum were taken quickly, not added to a hot drink, and it was hardly palatable. Tea often followed stand-down, and was usually tepid, and not many would have bothered saving their tot.
In his interviews with veterans, Pugsley found a few things out about the morning ritual.
‘‘[Commanding officers] were notorious in the mind of the soldiers for watering it down, or keeping a good measure for themselves,’’ he says.
The rum proved important, acting as a form of ‘‘liquid courage’’ – especially as the soldiers always had it while anticipating or planning attacks – which they needed before scaling the trenches and heading into the fields of battle.
Although it was likely lucky the rum was watered down in some instances. It was strong.
One Anzac veteran Pugsley interviewed regaled him with the story of his first tot.
‘‘He’d never, ever, tasted rum before.
‘‘The Sergeant Major says ‘get that down you’, and so he took it down in one gulp, it knocked him out. He was up a couple of hours after the war was over.
‘‘Services’ rum could be powerful, black, treacley stuff.’’
Glyn Harper, war studies professor at Massey University, believes the name gunfire for a morning alcohol shot harks back to the British military.
Harper, who has worked with researchers to reveal the nutritional value of the Anzacs’ diets, believes it has roots in the Brits’ ‘‘really strong cup of tea’’.
Harper references Soldier &
Sailor Words & Phrases, which states the work before breakfast was ‘‘particularly trying’’.
It went from one strong brew to another, he says, with the addition of the dark alcoholic matter.
However gunfire, the drink, is a Christmas beverage for the Brits nowadays, he says.
‘‘It’s one of the important traditions, but it’s probably not as well-known,’’ he says.
The morning tipple has been a point of pride for the Returned and Services Association, and in 2016 it was recognised by then National Party MP Paul Foster Bell, with a bill that exempted RSAs from paying for special licences to serve a tot in the early hours.
In NZ and Australia now, it’s more likely you’ll find rum splashed into a strong cup of coffee. Harper himself is not a fan of the tot in his morning joe, having only tried it once.
Sensibly, most soldiers wait until after they have done their duty before having their morning elixir.
Food
The full English breakfast might be the go-to nowadays, but the reality was not so filling, fulfilling or sustaining for troops.
Bacon and eggs would have been a luxury. If there was anything fresh, it could have sparked dysentery, Pugsley says.
The bacon and eggs now enjoyed on Anzac morning could hail from the airforce in World War II. Pilots were given a special breakfast before flying. The Anzacs had hard biscuits and bully beef.
Over the ditch, some might have stew, sausages and bread, which could be a tribute to Maconochie stew, a tinned meat and vegetable dish. Real meals would not grace the soldiers’ stomachs until midday, usually in the form of a stew like Maconochie or a hodge-podge mash of available rations.
Major General Sir Andrew Hamilton Russell was the first to really make a concerted effort to keep his troops fed well, to keep morale up, Pugsley says.
‘‘He insisted that the catering officers come to make the unpalatable, palateable.’’
‘‘The gunfire breakfast is a bit of a construct, really, that you get at the RSA before or after the dawn service.’’ Christopher Pugsley