It's a Bega Valley legend - a bit like Fred.

Maybe more importantly it's a Rocky Hall legend - a lot like Fred. 

When I first tried to have a talk with Fred about this story about his uncle it was his 91st birthday and I couldn't get in touch with him…because he was out working his farm. 

It's a story that needed verification from more than the bush telegraph. 

It's too incredible to stick without a source. 

As Fred said when I finally dragged him in from work: “I don't think anybody could think it up.”

I lived in Rocky Hall for many years as I was growing up and to me it is as close to a spiritual home as an atheist descended from white folk can ever claim. 

The place means a lot more than anybody else can understand and we kind of like it that way. 

We like that certain people think that “about 200 people live there”.

When I first attended Bega High School and was commanded by school bullies and bored teachers to tell them where I lived that “Rocky Hall is just a phone booth” or “that's where you wind your windows up and lock your doors and start to hum the Deliverance music”.

That last comment was from my English teacher.

Fred's uncle, Ronald James Whitby, was born in Rocky Hall on September 15, 1890. 

At that time Rocky Hall had a general store and two pubs. 

For many years it had served as the resting place for those who were about to go up, or were just coming down from, the Monaro. 

Segments of Ben Boyd's Trail are still obvious; it wouldn't be until the 1930s that Jack Lang realised the best way out of the Depression was to start funneling money to important rural areas and the Big Jack Mountain Road was constructed. 

King O'Malley bathed in the waters of the Towoomba River before spending the night and “ascending the mountain” in the search that would eventually lead to the “best place for the Nation's Capitol”.

Ronald rode to Bega to enlist himself into the Great War in 1914. 

The war was coming to an end when he found himself in France, guarding a troop of surrendered German soldiers. 

The German at the end of the line wouldn't stop looking at Ron, and Ron thought he might be about to make a run for it.

“Stop turning around!”

The German would not and even broke away from the mob. 

“I know you,” he said in perfect English to Ron.

“I've come from a place you've never heard of,” Ron replied.

“Does Dan Grant still run the Rocky Hall Pub?” said the German, “I've played cards in that pub.”

The German explained that he'd been a commercial traveller – a salesman – and that he'd returned to Germany briefly…and just in time to get conscripted.

Fred thinks this story should be told. 

The chaos of war ripples out with millions of untold stories. 

This one I caught and told. 

Let's get as many as we can, while we can. 

Ronald James Whitby died in 1972.  

Fred Whitby is still a farmer in Rocky Hall. 

The eventual fate of the German soldier is unknown by this writer.

“Cheerio,” said Fred. 

He was off again to work that gorgeous and happily mysterious land.

- Jamie Forbes dedicates this to John Norman Cavanagh, his great-grandfather who was always very tall and served with the 19th Battalion at Gallipoli.