The four bronze horsemen of the National Boer War Memorial dedicated on Wednesday (in the presence of the vice-regal Governor-General and of this commoner columnist) are handsome, manly, well-nourished chaps.
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Sculptor Louis Laumen, making the men and their horses 1.5 times life size, has depicted the Australians serving in South Africa as heroes, even superheroes. Peering into their faces after the reverent ceremony they seemed to me four idealised colonial Australians, four Hugh Jackmans.
If we imagine that the Boer War, the war in South Africa of 1899-1902, is ancient history we must think again. There were first generation descendants of Boer War veterans at Wednesday's event. I chatted with Faith Bell, 63, who had become a gleam in the eye of Boer War (and later Great War) veteran Herbert Bishop when he was 74.
The artful, lifelike arrangement of the men and their horses (they portray something called a "four-man section" of soldiers out patrolling and searching) has them descending, through the trees, a bush slope that leads from St John's Church down to Anzac Parade.
It is all, although too perfect, romanticised and masculine for my tastes, a wondrous achievement. There is so much fine, lifelike detail in the fine sculptures (right down to the realistic hairiness of the soldiers' moustaches and their horses' manes) that you could spend an hour ogling the great installation and still find new things.
The cluster represents a four-man section, a formation for searching, fighting and patrolling. These men are out looking for Boers.
Good historians tell us that the Boer War was inglorious and vile. They explain that it was an often unpopular war (at home in Australia) of "brutal conquest" in which the Empire crushed and conquered the Boers. About 20,000 men and more than 80 women from Australia took part in the conquering of a people, the Boers, who were no threat to Australia or to Great Britain.
But the glamour of the statues and the Boy's Own language of the Governor General's speech on Wednesday suggested more glory than inglory.
Wednesday's dedication ceremony and service was very like an Anzac Day event. There was a military band, a hymn, prayers, and clichéd speeches about "selfless sacrifice" and chaps "answering the call". Of the multiple motives (not just throbbing patriotism and answering God's summons) young men have for going to war there was little or no mention.
In his Boer War Men of the Queanbeyan-Braidwood Region: Adventurers of Patriots? John Cope finds multiple motives. He explains that while some men were propelled to South Africa by patriotism the lure of foreign-travel adventure and of employment (these were tough times in the bush, with the drought not relieved until well into 1903) were just as influential.
The way in which these sorts of humanising truths about Aussie enlistments never creep into what's said on Anzac Day and at occasions like Wednesday's is sentimental and deceitful. I gave several inaudible groans during the GG's Wednesday address.
There was some relief, though, in the Remembrance Prayer offered up by Chaplain Dean Jaensch. He asked Almighty God to forgive our terribly flawed species for its warlike nature. The Chaplain even honoured "our foes" in South Africa, caught up like our men and women in the same madness.
There was dazzling sunlight. Filtering through the surrounding trees it made the bronze figures strikingly dappled with shade. And it was dynamic dappling because a muscular gale had Anzac Parade's Blue Gums' leaves restlessly swooshing, rippling and flapping.
The same dazzling sunlight set the bemedalled chests of the audiences' warriors sparkling and glinting. It left anyone posh enough to be wearing gold braid looking fabulously illuminated and golden.
During the GG's speech I wondered why on earth I was there but I was reminded of why (I love a good, old-fashioned Christian service) when Musician Toni Maxfield led us in the Recessional hymn. The haunting, melancholy melody (oldies may know it as the music of Eternal Father Strong To Save) and the hymn's daft but wise old words like "Lo, all our pomp of yesterday/Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!" make it extremely moving. An unmanly tear cascaded down my cheek. A man has to be made of bronze, like sculptor Laumen's handsome horsemen, not to be moved by a mighty hymn.
And a little later Musician Toni Maxwell sent us on our way with a spring in our step with her bright and cheerful rendition of the National Anthem. The anthem tells us to "rejoice" and rejoice Toni Maxwell did. She sang the anthem as if our good luck in being Australian is like winning the $10 Million Tattslotto Superjackpot of Life - which of course it is.
