Signallers passed messages between headquarters and the troops on the ground.

Messages were communicated via morse signalling with flags, lamps and heliograph, and also on foot by running through between the trenches.

In 1907, Silas sailed to Australia where he spent time painting in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide before he settled in Perth.

As a signaller, Silas did a lot of running between trenches with messages for senior officers. He served with distinction at Pope’s Hill, Quinn’s Post and Bloody Angle at Gallipoli.

On 22 December 1914, Silas sailed with his battalion on the Ceramic for Egypt, where he trained at Heliopolis, near Cairo.

After signalling almost continuously for several days, Silas suffered from neurasthenia, or nervous exhaustion. Being on constant duty took its toll, and after serving two months he was evacuated out of Gallipoli on 28 May.

Silas was educated by private tutors before working in his father’s studio in the UK, where he studied under the well-known artist Walter Sickert.

Silas convalesced in Egypt and England before being discharged from the AIF, medically unfit, on 17 August 1916.