the covering party was missing. The man was Icy. As we were talking
about him—wondering who should go back to look for him—there came the
noise of a commotion from the direction of the Turkish machine-gun.
Bang! bang! went a couple of bombs, followed by cries and shouts
from Abdul, and above it all we were certain we heard fragments of
language, of the category known in Australia as “bullocky.”[18] What
could it mean? By this time the alarm had spread along the whole of
Abdul’s front trenches, which belched forth liquid fire. In our own
trenches everyone had mechanically sprung to arms; and we stood there
wondering while for fifteen minutes the Turks fired without ceasing.
Gradually the noise subsided—and we noticed that for some reason the
machine-gun away on the left was strangely quiet.
An hour later we were stealing out again to have another attempt at
completing our new trenches when I stumbled over the form of a man
lying prone. Bending over to see him, I found it was Icy. His clothes
were wet and sticky with blood, and half underneath his body there
showed the muzzle of a machine-gun. As we lifted him up, we saw that
the gun was there complete, tripod and all.
We took him into the lines and handed him over to the
dressing-station; and just before we came away he opened his eyes and
told enough for us to realise that Icy had sneaked over and stolen
that Turkish gun. To this day we don’t quite know how he did it,
as he never will talk about it; but before they took him on to the
hospital ship next day—with his sixteen bullet wounds and scratches
all told—there went down to see him a crowd in which I was amongst
the foremost, which apologised to Icy very humbly.
And, do you know, he only smiled back at us in that funny old way of
his.
E. A. M. W.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] The Turks had a battery of French “75’s” at Anzac, seized as the
guns were coming from France during the blockade of Servia in the
Balkan War.
[18] Bullocky—stands both for the bullock driver and for his chief
gift.
THE TROJAN WAR, 1915
We care not what old Homer tells
Of Trojan war and Helen’s fame.
Upon the ancient Dardanelles
New peoples write—in blood—their name.
Those Grecian heroes long have fled,
No more the Plain of Troy they haunt;
Made sacred by our Southern dead,
Historic is the Hellespont.
Homeric wars are fought again
By men who like old Greeks can die;
Australian backblock heroes slain,
With Hector and Achilles lie.
No legend lured these men to roam;
They journeyed forth to save from harm
Some Mother-Helen sad at home,
Some obscure Helen on a farm.
And when one falls upon the hill—
Then by dark Styx’s gloomy strand,
In honour to plain Private Bill
Great Agamemnon lifts his hand!
J. WAREHAM, 1st Aust. Field Amb.
THE PRICE
Dead figures writhe and beckon in my dream;
Wild eyes look into mine;
While I, bewildered, watch the bloody stream
With misty eyes ashine.
It rends my heart, and I am nothing loath
To have the murder cease.
Horror it is and carnage, yet are both
Part of the price of peace.
Corpl. COMUS, 2nd Bat., A.I.F.
KILLED IN ACTION
Where the ranges throw their shadows long before the day’s surrender,
Down a valley where a river used to tumble to the sea,
On a rising patch of level rest the men who dared to tender
Life and all its sweetness for their love o’ liberty.
In a thousand miles of ugly scrubby waste and desolation,
Just that little space of level showing open to the sea;
Nothing there to lend it grandeur (sure, it needs no decoration)
Save those rows of wooden crosses keeping silent custody.
There’s a band of quiet workers, artless lads who joked and chatted
Just this morning; now they’re sullen and they keep their eyes away
From the blanket-hidden body, coat and shirt all blood-bespattered,
Lying motionless and waiting by the new-turned heap of clay.
There are records in the office—date of death and facts pertaining,
Showing name and rank and number and disposal of the kit—
More or less a business matter, and we have no time for feigning
More than momentary pity for the men who have been hit.
There’s a patient mother gazing on her hopes so surely shattered
(Hopes and prayers she cherished bravely, seeking strength to
hide her fear),
Boyhood’s dreams and idle memories—things that never really
mattered—
Lying buried where he’s buried ’neath the stars all shining clear.
There’s a young wife sorrow-stricken in her bitter first conception
Of that brief conclusive message, harsh fulfilment of her dread;
There are tiny lips repeating, with their childish imperception,
Simple words that bring her mem’ries from the boundaries of the
dead.
Could the Turk have seen this picture when his trigger-finger
rounded,
Would his sights have blurred a little had he heard that mother’s
prayer?
Could he know some things that she knew, might his hate have been
confounded?
But he only saw his duty, and he did it, fighting fair.
Just a barren little surface where the grave mounds rise ungainly,
Monuments and tributes to the men who’ve done their share.
Pain and death, the fruits of battle, and the crosses tell it
plainly,
Short and quick and silent suffering; would to God it ended there.
HARRY MCCANN, Headquarters, 4th Aust. Light Horse.
[Illustration:
_G.T.M.R._]
A GREY DAY IN GALLIPOLI
As I look westward towards the grey Ægean Sea, generally peaceful,
deep blue and ofttimes appearing golden-hued by the mystic hand
of sunset, but now flecked with ripples of white like a distant
hill-side strewn with new-shorn lambs, and hurried on by the
murmurings of the grey sea’s bride, the grey cloud-bearing Mother
Wind, as she splashes the foreshore of this grey land with fleecy
fringes of her mate, and makes her way over the grey hills, through
rugged landslip or tangled, stunted, unfriendly evergreens, grey
phantoms flit to and fro, passing with a careless nod, as it were,
the little grey homes of those whose thoughts so seldom had time to
feast on aught but the bright days before the Peril came; but who
now, with a foretaste of hell in their souls, need only such a day
as this to make them feel the presence of the grey world’s messenger
whose name is Loneliness. Loneliness garbed in a mantle of merging
grey sea and grey sky, trimmed with the spires and turrets of grey
and seemingly unsouled ships, whose presence in the blue and gold
days was as that of old friends well met, but which now seem to be
ragged rents in the solemn dress of Loneliness, reminding one of a
derelict’s slovenly covering held together over a hopeless breast
by an old gold brooch—perhaps the gift of a mother or handed down
from bygone ages. Loneliness comes not to all of us garbed in this
fashion. To others, who look eastward, she comes dressed in the
sombre clothes of the grey hill-side, and with yearning eyes beckons
them on to the chances of the blue and gold life in Constantinople;
or, perchance, if their luck is that of many another good soldier, to
that other grey life forever with the grey seas, grey skies and grey
forgetfulness on these ghostly, forsaken grey shores of Gallipoli.
N. ASH,
11th A.A.S.C.
MY ANZAC HOME
Come and see my little dug-out—way up on the hill it stands,
Where I can get a lovely view of Anzac’s golden sands;
When “Beachy Bill” is shelling, I can see just where he lands,
From my cosy little dug-out on the hill.
It isn’t quite as roomy as the mansions of the Tsar;
From sitting-room to bedroom is not so very far,
For the dining- and the smoking-room you stay just where you are,
In my cosy little dug-out on the hill.
The fleas they wander nightly, as soon as I’ve undressed,
And after many weary hunts I’ve had to give them best.
As the ants have also found it, there is very little rest
In my cosy little dug-out on the hill.
I’ve a natty little cupboard, and it looks so very nice,
’Twas made to keep my bread and jam, my bacon and my rice;
But now it’s nothing other than a home for orphan’d mice,
In my cosy little dug-out on the hill.
There is no electric lighting in this blighted land of war,
So I use some fat in syrup tins, and stand it on the floor—
And when it’s working overtime I sweat from every pore,
In my cosy little dug-out on the hill.
When the nights are clear and starry—then the scene is beautified
By the silvery gleams and shadows that across the mountain glide;
But if it’s wet and stormy—well, I go to sleep outside
Of my cosy little dug-out on the hill.[19]
When the time comes round for parting from my little eight by four,
And I can get a good night’s rest without a back that’s sore,
Well—_perhaps_ some day I’ll miss you, and will long to live once
more
In the little cosy dug-out on the hill.
Corpl. GEORGE L. SMITH,
24th Sanitary Section, R.A.M.C.T.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] The roof of a dug-out, as usually designed, is a device for
keeping the shrapnel out and letting the water in.
WHAT FRANK THOUGHT
A private sat under a tree. It was not the Lone Pine, but the other
one. Winter had stripped it of foliage, and all around was bleak and
uninviting.
In his bronzed fist, which had carried buckets and biscuits since
April 25th, he held a letter, highly perfumed, from his “young
lady”—she whom he had escorted on so many occasions to Sydney’s
social events in the piping days of peace.
He had not heard from home since embarkation, and had often wondered,
as he bathed in just enough water to temper a whisky and shaved by
means of a lethal instrument better fitted for cutting a hedge than a
beard, whether they really cared. A fit of hesitancy now seized him,
and he hardly liked to read the letter. By means of the top of a tin
of sardines which he had bought cheap—two bob he had paid for it on
the beach—he saw his unshaven face, the neck of his soiled shirt,
and his crop of unkempt hair. He was interrupted in this by the
attentions a “little friend” was paying him. This he located. He then
lighted the end of a cigarette (which he had kept stowed away in the
top of his puttees) before risking another glance at himself in the
top of the two-bob tin of sardines.
“What a guy,” he murmured. “If Jessie could see me now, would she
turn me down for some cold-footed, well-groomed fellow? I don’t
think. She’s all right, and would understand it’s no gipsy tea we’re
at.”
However, it was with some slight nervousness that he opened the
letter. Following the customary greetings, Jessie wrote:
“Dearie, be sure to keep your hat on at all times. Egypt, I hear,
is awfully hot about Christmas-time. The doctor was telling me the
other day that he could hardly sit on the veranda of Shepheard’s in
the middle of the day. Keep your hat on, even when at Shepheard’s.
The climate is so treacherous. Doc. says he recommends this hotel.
Shall we send letters to you there? Iced drinks and heavy meals are
dangerous, doc. says.”
This was more than flesh and blood could stand. “Am I having my
leg pulled?” he asked. He looked at the envelope, and found it had
been posted in Sydney thirteen months ago. He swore roundly at the
expense of the postal people, and as all the rest of the letter was
hopelessly out of date, he turned his attention to the next item of
his very belated mail. It was another letter from Jessie. She again
rambled on about Egypt, its climatic horrors and the dangers of
Cairo’s attractions.
He bit his lip and smiled sourly when he came across a passage which
related to the dancing deeds of a male acquaintance of his.
“Frank, as you know, has not enlisted yet,” she wrote. “He is
not sure of a commission, because chaps are called upon to
pass a beastly exam. He says it’s rot to ask him to sit for an
examination, and he would just hate to serve in the ranks. In his
case, ‘it would be super-patriotic,’ he says, to do so. I don’t
understand what he means by this, but no doubt you will.”
Hughie knew that the man referred to was big enough to push all the
Turks off the Peninsula; and Jessie proved a Job’s comforter when,
later on, she told him that Frank only attended dances given for
patriotic purposes.
The next item was a parcel containing hair-oil, twenty-five costly
cigars, a cigar-holder, a suit of pyjamas, and a booklet given away
by a firm of tobacconists, explaining to would-be-recruits that
“Henry Clays” would be forwarded to any part of the Australasian
front free of carriage. The parcel was addressed to Gallipoli.
“Darling,” wrote Jessie, in the letter that accompanied the parcel,
“keep these things in your tent.[20] It must be a fag getting the
oil you liked so much. I suppose you have to walk some distance
from the firing-line to the nearest shops. No doubt the cigars
will be acceptable after dinner, and, later on, the pyjamas. Don’t
think me forward in sending the latter. But I know fellows do wear
them. I’ve seen them advertised in the _Herald_. I am sending these
things for use in Turkey.
“I have read all about the charge you chaps made on the 25th of
April, and hope you were allowed to get well up in the front. It
would just suit you. I know it is dangerous, but Frank says if it
is dangerous for the men, how much more dangerous must it be for
the officers. He says he will insist upon leading his men in all
charges. Between you and me though, Hughie, I don’t think he will
enlist. He has several pairs of lovely socks to hand by to-day’s
delivery from David Jones’s, and if they are not for the yachting
that is to start next week, then I’m slow. Frank and I are going
to Randwick Races on Saturday, and if we see anything in your
battalion colours we will back it and buy something for you with
what we collect. Frank says he is sure you would like us to do this.
“Please don’t get shot, dear. We intend to send you lots of nice
things for Christmas.”
Hughie, a gay dog in the good old ante-bellum days, who occupied a
cosy job and circulated his sovereigns, tramped back to his dug-out
through the saps, revolving wicked thoughts about Frank. Always a
philosopher, he cleaned his rifle with the hair-oil, cut up the
pyjamas to make pull-throughs, and to newly arrived reinforcements
distributed the cigars. He and the old hands had lost any appetite
they ever had for such comforts.
A. J. BOYD,
A.N.Z.A.C.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] It may be necessary to explain that every man in the Gallipoli
Peninsula was within easy range of the Turkish artillery. For
anything except a hospital to use a tent would have been to give an
open invitation to shrapnel. “The nearest shops” were about three
miles behind the Turkish lines.
ARCADIA
I’ve stayed in many a boarding-house,
From good, to fair, to rotten,
Seeking the comfort of a home
With all its cares forgotten.
In pubs I’ve dwelt and drowned the cares
Which canker life by meeting
With open hand each casual friend,
And moistened well each greeting.
I’ve dwelt in many a town and shire,
From Cairns to Wangaratta;
I’ve dropped into the Brisbane show
And Bundaberg Regatta.
But now I’ve struck an ideal spot,
Where pleasure never cloys.
Just list’ to the advantages
This choice retreat enjoys—
The rent is free, no board to pay,
No land or income taxes,
And on my tail no middleman
Nor fat man fatter waxes.
If I should say I need some clothes,
Someone will just “_take action_”;
No tailors’ bills can worry me
And drive me to distraction.
And should my health appear to fail
And appetite grow fine,
My doctor hands me—not a bill,
But just a Number 9.[21]
The scenery is glorious,
The sunsets are cyclonic;
The atmosphere’s so full of iron,
It acts as quite a tonic.
And even parsons preach the Word,
Nor take up a collection;
While politicians don’t exist,
Nor e’en a by-election.
No scandal ever hovers here
To sear our simple lives;
And married men are _always_ true
To absent, loving wives.
But the crowning gift of all is—no-
One’s happiness is marred,
Finding answers to the questions
On that d——d War Census Card.
And should you doubt if there can be
A spot which so excels,
Let me whisper—it is ANZAC!
Anzac by the Dardanelles.
Bombardier H. E. SHELL,
7th Battery, Aust. F.A.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Number 9—a particularly effective and universal remedy in the
field service panier in the form of a pill.
[Illustration: LUXURIES FOR THE TURKS
DAVID. BARKER. 15.]
[Illustration: OUR FIRST WHEELBARROW
(_An Historic Incident_)
Staff Officer (suddenly meeting perspiring Australasian staggering
under his twentieth half-ton load in the very first wheelbarrow ever
improvised at Anzac—till then sacks had been used): “Hallo, my man!
That’s a very good scheme. Did you invent that barrow?”
Perspiring Australasian: “I wish I could find the beggar who did!”]
[Illustration: Aug. 8: Find the Turk
C. E. W. B.]
[Illustration:
F.R. CR^OZIER]
THE CAVEMAN
I was dreaming in the trenches when thoughts and visions dim
Took shape—there squatted close to me, with mien and visage grim,
A dark and hairy caveman, huge of form and bare of limb;
And he eyed me very strangely—and I thought I said to him:
“Oh! prehistoric caveman, did you own some rock-bound lair
Where, secure from interruption, you consumed your scanty fare?
Did you sally forth for hunting—or to seek some maiden fair?
Did you club her on the cranium and drag her by the hair?
“She’d be mostly good when captured, cooked your grub and had her
share.
You were happy, Mr. Caveman, tho’ your brawny limbs _were_ bare.
You were cold and hungry sometimes, but upon this point I’ll swear
You were better off than we are—you’d no uniform to tear.
“Poor benighted Mr. Caveman, if you’d only _only_ known
Of our glorious progression—all your arrowheads of bone
Would have been replaced by rifles, and for little slings of stone
You’d have had a 4.7 gun—what joys you _might_ have known!
“Things have changed, poor Mr. Caveman, since you went your simple
way,
But we’re living still in caves, sir, dug most carefully in clay.
We call them trenches, dug-outs, saps; but, call them what we may,
They are made to hide our skins in, just as in your heathen day.
“Two thousand years ago came One—taught ‘Peace on earth, goodwill’;
Unceasingly we’ve preached it since, and that ‘Thou shalt not kill.’
And all these toilsome, changeful years we’ve retrograded till
We are _with_ you, Mr. Caveman, for we’re simple cavemen still.”
I thought I was quite eloquent; my brain began to burn,
When a hand stretched out and shook me—’twas a hand I could not
spurn.
I yawned and tried to dodge that grasp, but I awoke to learn
’Twas the N.C.O. on duty, saying: “Come, my lad, your turn!”
J. M. COLLINS, 9th Battalion.
[Illustration:
G. T. M. R.]
AN ANZAC ALPHABET
_By J. W. S. HENDERSON, R.G.A._
[Illustration: A is the Aeroplane buzzing above, Sending us tokens of
friendship and love.]
[Illustration: B’s Beachy Bill, such a marvel of cunning, A message
from whom sends the best of us running.]
[Illustration: C is the Chilliness felt in the feet When bullets
commence to invade our retreat.]
[Illustration: D is the Dug-out we’ve spent so much time at, Working
in hopes of defeating the climate.]
[Illustration: E is for Eye-wash, a wonderful lotion, Employed by the
man who is keen on promotion.]
[Illustration: F is the Fool who got caught in a trap, By pulling the
tail of a mule in a sap.]
[Illustration: G is the General devising a strafe, And cursing his
highly incompetent staff.]
[Illustration: H is the wretched unfortunate Hill, Bombarded and
mined but impregnable still.]
[Illustration: I’s the Intelligence officer who Is said to exist at
G.H.Q.]
[Illustration: Forgive a digression and spare me the time To think
of a word that will make a good rhyme, And if the delay is a little
provoking, Remember it’s J and the word may be Joking.]
[Illustration: K is the Kaiser at home in Berlin, Chanting his quaint
maledictory hymn.]
[Illustration: L is the Liar who loves to relate Achi Baba has
fallen, and gives you the date.]
[Illustration: M is the Major observing from latitudes Tending to
strained and discomforting attitudes.]
[Illustration: N is the Navy bombarding a lair, Ignoring the fact
that there’s nobody there.]
[Illustration: O is the Optimist struck by a splinter, Happy to think
he’ll be home by the winter.]
[Illustration: P is the spotlessly uniformed Paragon, Living in
splendour on H.M.S. “Aragon.”]
[Illustration: Q is the Questions we ask with a wail, Do skippers
like whisky, and where is our mail?]
[Illustration: R’s the report of the latest success, Strictly
compiled for the use of the Press.]
[Illustration: S is the Sniper; it’s also his Sickness On finding his
cover is lacking in thickness.]
[Illustration: T’s the Telephonist cutting off stations In the midst
of important conversations.]
[Illustration: U is the Uniform made for the wenches, Slightly
deranged by a day in the trenches.]
_Note._—This illustration has had to be postponed pending a final
statement by Mr. Hilaire Belloc as to the date of the certain
exhaustion of German resources.
[Illustration: V is the Victory talked of by editors, Who wish to get
rid of importunate creditors.]
[Illustration: W stands for the various Wiles The Germans employ to
keep Turkey in smiles.]
[Illustration: But X is the Xmas that some day will come When turkey
and sauce will be served with our rum.]
[Illustration: Y is the Youth who was scornful of danger, Till caught
in the rear by a violent stranger.]
[Illustration: Z is the Zenith of power and glory, A fitting
conclusion to this little story.]
[Illustration:
_The Kaiser
to his
Secretary_
(_Dictated_) _XMAS, 1915_]
THE KAISER TO HIS SECRETARY
“Peace upon earth and unto men goodwill!”
Such words rang true of yore. (Excuse my laughing.)
Ironical they’ll ring while Huns are still
A-strafing!
My Vaterland, I know, has set its back
Against such old-world heresy and schism,
And deems such tidings but a mere anach-
ronism
Not till our Eagles twain replace the U-
Nion Jack from Dover Harbour unto Calais,
Proving thereby the truth of “Deutschland U-
ber Alles!”
Not till all men shall hearken my decree,
Not till all worlds shall tremble at my nod,
Shall peace on earth be countenanced by ME—
or God.
[Illustration: Steeple falling]
But since the time is fitting, down you sit
And write—forgive the French—un petit billet-
Doux with the season’s compliments to Lit-
tle Willie.
Tell him how once his courage I admired,
How recently—to my surprise—I’ve heard an
(I trust) unfounded rumour that he’s tired
of Verdun.
Bid him select a new cathedral’s spire,
Bombard it! Seize it! Never mind the losses!
Tell him its peal of bells will make more ir-
on crosses.
To Hindenburg say—he must do his best,
And if he can’t advance, then he must dig a
New line, “according to our plans,” due west
of Riga.
[Illustration: cannon firing]
To her who knows how Bulgars’ palms are _Greeced_,
Send greeting suited to a Royal Queen—oh!
And bid her give her brother’s love at least
To Tino.
To Enver write: “Since some of you seem lost
And some of you don’t seem to know quite where ’e are.
I’ve squared at—well—at never mind the cost,
Bulgaria.
“That is my part; you must now stop the gab
(Why, anybody can do that much, damn it!)
Of those who try to shake the faith of Ab-
dul Hamid.”
Then when I’m satisfied that General Bird-
Wood and his Anzacs at the Dardanelles
Are busy studying the latest word
In Hells,
And my supplies are safe, then right away
I’ll hie to Egypt—not by ocean liner,
But by a rather safer route through A-
sia Minor.
These plans of mine, at which some seem surprised,
Are not, as fools think, calculated solely on
The out-of-date campaigns of undersized
Napoleon.
For when I’ve got the British blighters beat
(Here comes my cunning), what I mean to do is
To exercise, on water smooth, my fleet
Near Suez.
Then, finally, for Double Eagles’ head,
In order to perpetuate my Kultur,
By Royal Decree I’ll substitute instead—
A Vulture.
H. B. C.
THE ANZAC THUNDERSTORM—FROM THE TRENCHES
Do not we know that fall of night over Anzac!
Boom-boom! Boom-boom! Boom-boom! All the afternoon the warships on
our right had been engaged in the playful work of tearing pieces from
the hillsides of Achi Baba, eight miles to the south of us, ruining
the trenches of our friend the enemy, blowing up a supply base, a
mule train, dropping shells on the forts, or indulging in some of the
many small acts of friendliness to which Jack Tar is prone. As the
evening wore on we could see the flash from both shell and gun.