On the coast of Western Australia, between the sand of Esperance and the waves of the ocean, a bottle has resurfaced that held a fragment of memory from the First World War. Inside, a letter dated 15 August 1916 written by Malcolm Alexander Neville, a young 28-year-old Australian soldier headed to the European front.
In the lines, simple but touching, Malcolm reassured his mother: “Everything is fine. The food so far is very good, with the exception of one meal, which we threw overboardThen, with a gesture of affection and hope, he added a request: to deliver the letter to his mother, in case she was found.
The bottle was found by chance by Debra Brown, a woman who was collecting rubbish on the beach after a violent storm. The glass container, perfectly sealed, has protected the sheet for over 109 years, keeping it almost intact despite time and tides.
Malcom’s great-grandson tracked down
Guided by curiosity, Debra decided to look for the soldier’s family and, thanks to the Australian War Memorial website, she managed to contact Herbie Neville, Malcolm’s great-grandson, resident in Alice Springs. Thus, that message launched into the sea more than a century ago has finally reached its destination.
According to research, Neville left on board the ship Hmat Ballarat, which took him to Britain after a six-week voyage. In December 1916 he was sent to France, where he fought with the 48th Infantry Battalion. A few months later, on 11 April 1917, he lost his life in the Battle of Bullecourt. His body was buried in a military cemetery in London.
But the bottle, thrown “somewhere in the ocean”, continued its journey for 109 years, until it symbolically returned home.
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