“And of their discipline, which was attacked because it was sometimes
unorthodox, what better can be said than what was told in the undying
story of the _Southland_? The _Southland_ was torpedoed by a German
submarine in the Ægean Sea, when conveying the 21st Australian Infantry
Battalion and part of the 23rd, 1,500 strong, from Alexandria to
Mudros. They were Victorian country boys, recruited for the most
part from the farms and stations of the Wimmera and the Goulburn
Valley. Panic ensued among the ill-assorted crew of this converted
German liner. Three of the four holds filled with water, the hatches
of the hold first damaged were blown out and in the water there the
Australians could see the dead bodies floating of their comrades
killed by the explosion. No one thought that the ship could keep for
long above water. But the soldiers stood at their stations. They
waited for their turn. One went to the piano, and played favorite
airs. Others, when volunteers were asked for, jumped into the water to
right overturned boats. When at last all the men were off the stricken
vessel, standing on half-submerged rafts, clinging to the edges of
boats, swimming alongside improvised supports, volunteers were called
for to stoke the ship into port, all the men within hearing offered
for the hazardous task. Six officers and seventeen men climbed the
rope ladders again, and with her bows under water and her stern low
down, the ship was brought into Mudros and beached. It was a triumphant
vindication of the discipline of Dominion troops. ‘The discipline was
perfect,’ wrote Captain C. E. W. Bean, official reporter at Anzac. ‘The
men turned out immediately. There had been boat drill on the voyage and
the men ran straight to their proper places and lined up.’”
This praise of discipline which, though “unorthodox,” meets and never
fails to meet the required end, reads quite as if it had been written
of the boys of the United States’ expeditionary force.