The very expressions used by the two soldiers attest to the antiquity of the missives. “The ship waves and shakes on all sides, but we are as happy as Larry [happy as Larry]”wrote Malcolm Neville, using an Australian colloquialism that has long since disappeared from current usage.
Neville also asks, in the letter, that it be delivered – if found – to his mother, Robertina Neville, in Wilkawat, which has since become a ghost town in South Australia. Harley, whose mother had already died in 1916, was satisfied that the person who found the bottle would have the message. “May the person who meets [esta mensagem] be as well as we are at present.”
The couple who found the bottle, Deb and Peter Brown, suspect that it had been trapped in the sand of the dunes for more than a decade. The serious erosion that has occurred in the dunes of Wharton Beach in recent months – caused by huge waves – will have dislodged the bottle from its peaceful slumber. The paper on the letters was wet, but the written parts were still legible.
“The bottle is in almost immaculate condition. It does not have any crustaceans [como pequenas lapas ou cracas] clinging to her. I believe that if it had been in the sea or exposed for all this time, the paper would have disintegrated in the sunlight. We wouldn’t have been able to read it,” said Deb Brown, quoted by the Associated Press.
And it was like that, having managed to read the letters, that Deb Brown embarked on a mission to find the families of the two soldiers.