CHAPTER XXVI

BAPAUME AND "A BLIGHTY"

How many weeks I lay under the shadow of the church-tower of Bapaume I

know not. But every morning as the mist lifted the church-tower would

reappear through the trees, and now and again the flash of a glass

would show that it was an observation-post of the enemy, and frequently

well-placed shells on our trenches and dumps would show to what

devilish uses our enemies were putting the house of God as they

directed their shell-fire from a seat just under the cross on the tower.

This is a very old, historic town of France, and the sentiment of the

French people would not have it shelled. So we lay these weeks within

cooee of a nest of our enemies, who were permitted the safety and

comfort of a peaceful home almost within our lines. There are other

places along the line where we are under the same disadvantage. There

is the city of Lille with its million or more of French inhabitants

lying within five miles of our lines (such easy range), for over three

years, and not a shell fired into it. How the Germans smile as their

bases of operation lie in such security, for, of course, sentiment has

been erased from the German character forever.

The French made the mistake again in regard to Bapaume of crediting the

Germans with human feelings--they vainly hoped that the Germans would

respect historic monuments when they gained no military advantage by

destroying them. But every day that the war is prolonged is but adding

to the evidence already so colossal that the German is a beast who

wantonly destroys and takes sheer joy in slaying, burning, and

smashing, destroying for destruction's sake, and killing for the sight

of blood. When we drove the Germans from Bapaume they left it in ruins

as utter as though we had bombarded it, but so much more systematic was

their destruction! In the market square there is a hole large enough

to hold a cathedral, made by the mine they exploded as they left, which

was so senseless as almost to make it seem that, like children, they

wanted to hear how big a bang they could make. But their devilish lack

of humor is more plainly shown in the system with which they destroyed

the orchards in the country further back. Every tree was cut at

exactly the same height from the ground, and carefully laid in the

selfsame way. Not one of them deviated a hair's breadth in its

position on the ground from the angle made by its neighbor. They must

have spent hours in obtaining such hellish regularity. Wed System to

Lust, and you have an alliance of Satan with the hag Sycorax, and their

offspring is the German Empire, the Caliban of nations.

The highest point of the church-tower, however, before the days of our

advance, was its cross, and in our misery we could always see this

symbol of hope and salvation; but it was a reminder too of pain and

suffering endured that man's spirit might be free, and as we also were

suffering and enduring in freedom's cause, we knew that our strife was

religion and our accomplishment would be salvation.

And what we endured in that bitter cold has scarred our memories and

added to our bodies the aging of years. In the chronic agony of cold

the pain of wounds was an alleviation, and I have seen men who had just

had their arms blown off wave the jagged stump and laugh as they called

out--"Got a 'blighty' at last, sir!" We were standing up to our waists

in liquid mud by day, into which we would freeze at night. I have gone

along the trench and kicked and punched my boys into sensibility, and

said: "Is there anything I can do for you, boys? Can't I get you

anything?" "Oh, no sir. We're all right, but don't we envy old Nick

and his imps to-night!" Who is there that is not abashed in the

presence of a spirit like that? And had you been there and these your

men, wouldn't you love them as I do? Never did the spirit of man rise

more glorious to the demand of hard occasion, than when those boys of

Australia laughed and joked in the tortures of hell. Eighty per cent

of them had never known a temperature lower than thirty above zero, and

here was a cold more biting than they had ever dreamed of and they were

without protection, living in a filthy ditch, never dry, their clothing

unable to keep out wet or cold. Back in camp every man had a

complaint, where it is the province of the soldier to grumble. In

those days the orderly officer would go round with his question of "Any

complaints?" "Yes, look here, sir. What do you think of that?" "Why,

dear me, man, it seems very good soup!" "Yes, sir, but it is supposed

to be stew!" Why, if the Australian soldier did not complain, you

might well suspect a mutiny brewing! Too much marmalade, and not

enough plum! etc. I never thought there was as much marmalade in the

world as I myself have consumed on active service! Those days when we

were well off, and did not know it, with dry beds and a clean tent,

with good warm food, and plenty to eat and drink, the boys were always

"kicking" about something or other, but now when things were hellish

bad under conditions when wounds were a luxury and death a release you

never heard a complaint. There were days too when an enemy barrage cut

off our supplies and prevented relief, and we were compelled to live on

dry biscuits and cold water, taking our water from the shell-holes

where the dead were rotting. I remember when I was wounded and being

carried out of the trench my brother officers saying to me: "Oh,

Knyvett, you lucky dog!" And I was lucky, and knew it, though I had

twenty wounds and trench feet. Why, when I arrived at the hospital and

lay in a real bed, with real sheets, and warm blankets, with a roof

over my head that didn't leak, and a fire in the room, with the nurse

now and again to come along and smile on me, I tell you heaven had no

extra attractions to offer me. The man who got wounded in those days

was a lucky dog, all right; in fact, he mostly is at all times, and

about the silliest thing the War Office ever did was to issue an honor

stripe for wounds. The man deserving of the greatest credit is not the

man who gets wounded, but the man who stays on in the trenches week

after week, and month after month enduring the nervous strain and

unnatural conditions, living like a rat in a hole in the ground. There

are none who have been there for any length of time who do not welcome

the sharp pain of a wound as a relief.

The Germans opposite us in their trenches at Bapaume were, of course,

in as bad a plight as we were. When I scouted down their trenches at

night I found equipment and stores lying on top of the parapet.

Evidently, the mud in the bottom of their trenches was as bad as in

ours, and anything dropped had to be fished for. Perhaps there were no

deep dugouts just there. We would not allow our men to use these deep

dugouts as nothing so conduces to bad morale. Once men get deep down

out of range of the shells they are very, very reluctant to leave their

"funk-holes." A man has to be hardened to shell-fire before he is of

any value as a fighter, and these deep dugouts take men out of reach of

most of the shells, and when they come in the open again they have to

be hardened anew.

It is not generally a wise plan to occupy the old German trench, as he

has the range of it very accurately, and anyway it is in most cases so

badly battered about after our artillery has done with it as not to be

at all superior as a residence to the shell-holes in front of it, and

it is mostly full of dead Germans which are unearthed by the shells as

often as we bury them. God knows the smell of a live German is not a

pleasant thing to live near, but as for dead ones! . . . Our method

was to construct a new trench about fifty yards in advance by linking

up a chain of shell-holes, and we felt the labor to be worth while when

we saw the shells falling behind us, and it was not much harder than if

we had had to clean out the old German trench.

On our right flank there was a gap of a hundred yards that we patrolled

two or three times a night, and in our net we sometimes caught some

Germans who were lost. On one occasion a German with a string of

water-bottles round his neck, and a "grunt" that may have been a

password, stepped down into our trench. He had evidently been out to

get water for himself and comrades from their nearest supply, and taken

the wrong turning! He made an attempt at a grin when he found where he

was, and evidently thought the change could not be for the worse. He

was so thick in the head, however--I have known cows with more

intelligence--that I wonder any other German being fool enough to trust

him with such a valuable article as a water-bottle.

We were planning to take a portion of the trench opposite to straighten

our line, and I had scouted down a hundred yards of it from behind, and

got a good idea of the strength with which it was held, taking bearings

of its position. The next night, as the attack was to take place at

daybreak, I thought I had better go over and make sure that I had made

no mistakes. I crossed over the first trench without any difficulty.

There did not seem to be any one on guard. I then went toward their

support lines where there seemed to be more men, mostly working

parties. I passed these and with unpardonable carelessness stood up to

have a look round, thinking that it was too dark for me to be seen.

But I got a shock to find there was a sentry almost beside me--though

he was, if anything, more scared than myself. He pulled the trigger

without taking aim and naturally missed me, but if he had been

wide-awake he could with ease have punctured me with his bayonet. I

did not stop to pass the time of day with him, for the place seemed

suddenly alive with Huns as he called "Heinz, Heinz!"--probably the

name of his corporal--but I dived into a shell-hole and flattened

myself as much as possible. As I was lost to sight and to memory too

dear to be allowed to escape they began to cover the ground with bombs.

These all went well beyond me, and had it not been for "Butter-fingers"

I might have escaped. But a bomb slipped from his hand, rolling into

the hole in front of him. He jumped back into the safety of the

trench, and did not know that the bomb had fallen on me as it exploded.

But _I_ knew it--my left leg was broken in three places, twelve wounds

in my right, and others on my back, twenty that afterward had to be

dressed, not counting some other scratches. Then they came out to look

for me, my "friend" almost stepping on me, but after half an hour's

fruitless search they gave up. About two hours later I started home on

my long, painful crawl. It took me about twenty minutes to pass the

sentry near where I was lying, but after that there was no danger of

discovery--the front line still appearing almost unoccupied; but I was

getting dizzy and not sure of my direction. I knew, however, where

there was a derelict aeroplane in No Man's Land, and made toward it.

When I sighted this I was overcome with relief, and laid my face in the

mud for a while to recover. I had now crawled about six hundred yards

dragging my useless legs. And my elbows were skinned through, being

used as grapples that I dug in the ground ahead, in that way dragging

myself a few inches at a time. I knew our trenches were still about

two hundred yards away, and the sweat of fear broke out on me as I

remembered the two machine-guns in front of me that would fire on

anything seen moving out there, no one expecting me to return that way.

So I crawled higher up the line, where it was safer to enter, and a few

yards from our trenches gave our scouting call. Several of my boys

came running out and tenderly picked me up. I was all in and could not

move a muscle. My own boys would not allow the stretcher-bearers to

touch me, but six of them put me on a stretcher and carried me over the

top just as day was breaking. They would not go down into the

communication-trench or shell-holes because they thought it would be

too rough on me, and so carried me over the exposed ground; and when

they got me to the dressing-station they said: "You will come back to

us, sir, won't you?" I said: "Yes, boys, you bet I will!" And you may

bet that I shall, as soon as ever I am passed as fit again.

The pain of my wounds was soon altogether forgotten, for each medical

officer that examined me finished up with the liquid melody of the

phrase: "Blighty for you!" My leave was long past due, and the very

next day I was to report for transfer to the Australian wing of the

Royal Flying Corps, which would have meant several weeks' training in

England, but "the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft

a-gley!"--and there's a science shapes our ends, rough-hack them though

Huns may!

PART V

HOSPITAL LIFE

CHAPTER XXVII

IN FRANCE

My hospital experiences in France were a procession of five nights with

intermissions of days spent in travel. From the advance

dressing-station I was slid over the mud for three miles in a sledge

drawn by the Methuselah of horses borrowed from some French farmhouse.

His antiquarian gait suited me, and this was the smoothest of the many

torturous forms of travel I endured before I was able once again to

move up-rightly on my feet as a man should.

At Trones Wood I was swung into a horse ambulance and thereafter swung

and swayed for a couple of hours until, closing my eyes, I could fancy

I was once again at sea. This was rougher than the sledge, but

endurable and certainly the most comfortable of all the wheeled

vehicles in which I travelled. I bless the inventor of the springs

that kept it swaying gently on a road all ruts and holes.

I was deposited on the table of the operating-theatre in the

field-ambulance, while a surgeon overhauled me to see if there was any

injury necessitating an immediate operation. Satisfied that I was

merely broken and punctured, I was transferred to a cot and so began my

_first hospital night_. I was known personally to all the doctors in

our field-ambulance. I had on several occasions messed with them, and

they were always very keenly interested in my yarns of No Man's Land,

so when the news spread that I had been brought in wounded I soon had a

group round my bed, some of them in pyjamas being roused from their

sleep to hear the news. One of them very gleefully said: "Hullo,

Knyvett, old man--I've just won five pounds on you. We had a bet that

you would not last out another month. You know you've had a pretty

good innings and mighty lucky only to get wounded." But at that moment

I was not in the mood to appreciate this form of humor, until one of

them, seeing I was pretty uncomfortable, gave me an injection of

morphia. But I was very glad to be resting there and felt I could

hardly have endured a longer journey without a spell. I was given here

the first good hot meal I had had for weeks, though I had been given a

drink of steaming-hot coffee in the ambulance. There was not much

sleep to be got, as a constant stream of men were being brought in and

taken away, and now and again shells would fall quite close, but the

ground thereabouts was very soft, and I counted fifteen shells that

fell close by with a wouf and a squelch, but did not explode. This

hospital was all under canvas, just three or four big marquees and a

score or so of tents for the medical officers and orderlies, and any

inclination that I had to complain was taken away by the sight of

"walking cases" strolling in with an arm gone, or a hole in the cheek,

or their jaw smashed, many far worse than I was, who would sit there

waiting their turn to be examined, and then walk out again to the

ambulance that carried them on to the next hospital.

Next morning I was carried out to a motor-ambulance and started on the

most painful trip of my life. The driver took reasonable care, but

could not go too slow, for another load was waiting for him as soon as

he could return, but I am sure that I felt every stone in that road. I

got the attendant to wedge me in with pillows, but only by holding

myself off from the wall with both my hands could I ease the bump, and

then I would wait with dread for the next one. I don't know if the

other three fellows lying in the ambulance with me were as sore as I

was, but I picture to-day the hours that those ambulances travel with

wounded men as being added together and totalling a century of pain.

Perhaps after the war is ended, when it is too late, some one may

invent a motor ambulance on easy springs that will not multiply

unnecessarily the pain of torn flesh and the grating edges of bones.

Now comes the night in the casualty clearing-station at Heilly.

Straight on to another operating-table, but one in a sea of many--ten

operations going on at once. Then began the probing for pieces of

metal in my wounds. "Good God!" remarked the surgeon, "the best thing

we can do is to run a magnet over you. We'll never find them all

otherwise." Nor did they, for I carry some of them still in my body as

permanent souvenirs of the few words I had with Fritz. There was a

nurse in the theatre with smiling face, laughing blue eyes, and tumbled

curls falling beneath her cap, and a brief acquaintance of one day was

formed on the spot. She was attending another case, and a wink and a

smile served for introduction. She came and visited me in the ward

that night and we chatted a brief hour, then she was gone, and I know

not even her name. So ships meet, dip their flag, and pass into the

night.

In the bed opposite me in this hospital there was a German officer and

he bellowed like a bull all night. We got pretty sick of his noise and

told the medical officer in charge of the ward when he came on his

rounds in the morning that if he did not chloroform or do something to

silence the hound, we would. I suggested that he go and tell him that

if he did not shut up he would be sent into the ward with his own

privates. He did so and there was not another squeak from him.

After breakfast warm sweaters, helmets, scarfs, and mitts were issued

to each of us and we were wrapped in warm blankets and carried out to a

hospital-train near by. Before I left, however, I wrote out the report

of my reconnoissance of the German trenches and despatched it by

orderly to G. H. Q. All my possessions I carried in my hand in a small

bag not nearly as big as a lady's knitting-bag. My kit was "somewhere

in France" and my uniform had been cut off me and was probably

ascending as incense from some incinerator, in a ritual that was an

appropriate end after much service. Everything was supposed to be

taken out of my pockets (which I have no doubt happened) and sent to me

(which certainly did not happen). I have no sympathy with the old

sanitary sergeant who superintended the last rites in the passing of my

much-lived-in clothes when he was slightly wounded by a bullet from a

cartridge that somehow or other dropped into the fire at the same time.

These incinerators frequently very nearly caused shell-shock to the

sanitary squad, and they might just as well have been in the actual

trenches, for in the gathering up of rubbish around the camp cartridges

would frequently be thrown with it into the fire and explosions would

ensue like the firing of a machine-gun, and bullets would whizz in all

directions. Once a mule got shot, but it's a wonder that other flesh

less valuable was not occasionally punctured, for these incinerators

were just on the edge of the camp and generally had a group round them

of those who preferred being fire-tenders to ramrod-shovers.

The hospital-train bore us with many interruptions and frequent

side-trackings toward the Channel and "Blighty." In England

hospital-trains take precedence over all other traffic, but here in

France there were many other things more important for the winning of

the war than wounded men, so hospital-trains had to step aside and give

the right of way to the shells, guns, cartridges, and food for the men

still facing the foe. So my third night was spent on the rails lying

snugly in a car wrapped in many blankets, and only disturbed by having

to "smoke" a thermometer every two or three hours, and by the nurse

rousing me at six "ack emma" (A. M.) to have my face and hands washed,

which is a mania that afflicts all nurses. A nurse has only one fear,

that of displeasing the doctor, and though all should perish,

everything must be spotless when he makes his rounds. A doctor is the

only man who can awe a woman and obtain perfect obedience. Of course I

am referring to them professionally, and not in their domestic

relations. I knew a nurse in a military hospital who woke up a

patient, who was enjoying his first sound sleep for weeks, to

administer a sleeping-draft. When she was remonstrated with she said

"the doctor ordered it." In France there has been since the war much

"coal-saving," and had it not been that I had been careful to have with

me emergency rations of blankets, I would have perished with the cold.

I was told that the engine-drivers were given a commission on what coal

they saved, so all the steam we got through the warming-pipes hardly

took the frost off them. Only the men in the bottom cots were able to

see the scenery we passed through, and we up-stairs could have murdered

them with pleasure as they kept calling out: "By George! You should

see this!" "That's the funniest sight I've seen in my life!" "Isn't

that a lovely sight!" etc. But journeys, even on French railways, come

to an end eventually, though it only be second-class traffic, and with

much joy did we welcome the news that we were running into Rouen.

In the small hours of the morning with the mist still trailing through

the streets we were driven to the Infirmary for Aged Women (which they

had vacated), and where was housed Number Eight General Hospital.

After our labels had been examined and checked with our wounds, and it

was quite evident that we were "les hommes blesses" and not baggage, we

were carried upstairs and allotted to our wards according to the part

of the body in which we were wounded. They had some difficulty in my

case, and as I feared that they might be carrying me from ward to ward

all day and night I asked them to look on the other side of my tag to

see if it was not marked in red: "Fragile, With Care." There was in

the ward where I eventually anchored a V. A. D. (Voluntary Aid

Detachment) nurse who will ever live in my memory as the gentlest and

most attentive of all that I have known. You could not raise your hand

or turn in your sleep without her gliding noiselessly to your bedside

to see if you wanted anything. A hundred times would she straighten

the pillows, if you fancied you would get extra comfort another way,

and she ever had ready a hot glass of milk to make you sleep the

better. She was a Canadian, and if there are many more like her among

the Canadian women, then the men of Canada are thrice blessed. Thus

passed my fourth night in French hospitals.

In the morning I saw through an open door in another ward a friend of

mine whom I had parted with on landing in Egypt. I called an orderly

to carry me through to an empty bed alongside him so that we might

renew our friendship. He was badly wounded in the arm and face, but it

was pleasant to meet again after many months. That was many months ago

and the other day I met him again in New York. We have only been a

short time together on each occasion, yet have continued our

acquaintance on four continents, many months intervening between each

meeting. There was a great hullabaloo in my ward when the matron came

in and found my bed empty. When she discovered where I was, she said:

"Who gave you permission to come in here?" I replied: "No one said I

was not to!" And anyway the pleasure was worth the commission of the

crime! That morning I was again picked up as a bundle and carried I

knew not whither, leaving my friend behind.

I was carried on board a British hospital-ship and lowered about three

decks down. As placards glared in one's eyes on every side about what

to do in case of submarine attack, I did not like very much the idea of

going down so far, for I always like to be able to depend upon myself

in an emergency, and I was now as helpless as a log. They put me in a

swinging cot, which was a great idea to prevent seasickness. We went

slowly out the harbor to sea with our prow pointing toward "Blighty,"

the El Dorado of the wounded Tommy. 'Twas little I saw of river,

harbor, or sea from my berth in the nethermost depths of that vessel's

hold. I was told we went across with all lights out. The days had

passed when, in our folly, we painted our hospital-ships white with a

green band and marked them with a red cross, or at night circled them

with a row of green lights illuminating a huge red cross near the

funnel, for we had found that we were only making them conspicuous as

targets for the "human shark of the sea." There have been more

hospital-ships sunk than troop-ships, for the troop-ship is armed and

convoyed, but the hospital-ship is an easy victim. The English port we

entered was shrouded in fog, and wharf buildings never at any time look

inviting, but we could nevertheless understand the excitement of our

English companions, for it was Home to them, and to us "dear old

England," the brave heart of the freest empire this earth has seen, and

after all where is the Britisher who does not thrill with pride at

landing on the soil of those little islands which have produced a race

so great, and foot for foot of soil there is no land on the earth that

has produced so much wealth. We could smile with appreciation and not

much surprise at the Tommy who remarked; "Say, Bill, don't the

gas-works smell lovely!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN LONDON

By hospital-train, the most comfortable ever devised, did we run into

Waterloo Station--doors were opened, and men in gorgeous uniforms--much

gold braid and silver buttons--came aboard. We thought that they were

admirals and field-marshals at the very least, but it turned out they

were only members of the Volunteer Ambulance Corps, men unfit for

military service, who had provided their own cars and received not a

penny of pay. With the tenderness of women they put us on stretchers

and carried us out to their luxurious ambulances. With each four men

went a lady to attend to all their wants. Like a mother she hovered

over us and you could see her heart was bursting with love for us

far-out sons of empire. Through cheering crowds we drove and our

Australian hearts leaped as we heard many cooees, which made us feel

that we were not far from Home, for twelve thousand miles were bridged

in thought by these homelike sounds and the knowledge that we were in

the land from which our parents came and where we had many kinsfolk. I

was assigned to the Third London General Hospital and out to Wandsworth

Common was I taken, where alongside Queen Victoria's school for

officers' orphans had been built rows of comfortable huts linked up

with seven miles of corridors, while the old orphanage itself contained

the administrative headquarters. I was allotted to G ward, but did not

know for days what a distinction that was, for the sister in charge was

none other than the late Queen of Portugal, and among the V. A. D.'s

were several ladies and honorables. They were camouflaged, however,

under the titles of "sister" and "nurse," and we had become too

intimate to need ceremony before we discovered who they were in social

life. In dressing our wounds, washing us, cleaning and scrubbing the

floors they were as adept as if to the manner born, but you could not

fail to see that they sprung from generations of refinement. On one

side of me was an Australian who had been hit on the side of the head

by a shell, having therefrom a stiff neck. On the other side was an

Irish padre, chaplain to an Australian battalion, and, of course, the

life of the ward, and he had a greater fund of good stories than any

other man, not excepting other priests, I have known. In an opposite

bed was a Welshman with one leg who of necessity answered to the name

of "Taffy," while next to him was a Londoner who had a leg that he

would have been better without, for it had borne fourteen operations.

In London we had the world's specialists for every bodily ill, and some

of us who had complications were in the hands of ten doctors at the one

time. There were skin specialists and bone specialists, nerve

specialists and brain specialists, separate authorities on the eye,

ear, nose, and throat, and it is a pity that a man is tied up in one

bag, otherwise they might all have operated at the selfsame moment in

separate rooms on the same man.

There was one sister whom we all loved--I don't think; but she was only

in our ward occasionally. Her real name was unknown to most of us, but

she will be remembered for long as "Gentle Annie." She was so gentle

that I have known only a few mules rougher, and never, after the first

occasion, would I allow her to touch the dressings on my wounds. With

so many to be done it was a painful performance even under kindly,

sympathetic hands. We expressed our feelings toward her by giving her

left-right every time she came into the ward and she would get mad at

the second step. One day she called the matron, so we left-righted her

as well. Then the doctor was brought in and we left-righted him, but

he enjoyed the joke, perhaps realizing his helplessness, for you can't

very well punish wounded men lying in bed except by depriving them of

food, and we were most of us on diets anyway! The fact that we were

Australians was held to be accountable for our misbehavior.

There was a little nurse, mostly on night duty, who was dubbed "Choom,"

for she came from Yorkshire and had a rich brogue. But her heart was

big enough for one twice her size, and she would always tuck us in and

attempt to supply all our wants, however unreasonable.

After an operation which I tell about in another chapter I was able to

sit up and propel myself in a wheel-chair, and soon was having races

with the champion chair-speeders of the other wards. There was a long

inclined plane that was the cause of many accidents, for there was a

sharp turn at the bottom and our chariots would get out of control. I

have more than once turned a double somersault and it is a wonder I did

not break my head, and several candid friends said it was cracked

anyway. We had concerts in the hall every night, and as it was a

couple of miles from our ward, we cripples who brought our own chairs

with us would wait in the corridor for one of the blind to propel us

along while we would do the guiding ourselves, giving directions to our

steeds in nautical terms, such as: "Starboard a little!" "Steady,

steady, you idiot!" "Hard aport!" "Quick!" "Now, you darned fool, you

jolly nearly smashed that window!" When we got to the door of the

hall, we would be piloted into the area reserved for carriages, and so

tightly were we jammed that it took about twenty minutes to empty the

hall, or twice as long if we tried to get out by ourselves. However,

the concerts were worth while, and when Clara Butt or some other

world-famed artist came along, we did not mind being late for dinner,

the dishes of which were never a surprise if you remembered the day of

the week.

In our ward there were mostly leg injuries, and in the one next door

arm cases, and hot and fast flew the arguments as to which it were

worse to lose. We demonstrated our superiority one night by raiding

them for their milk, all the attackers being on crutches, and they were

unable to recover it; so we decided to our own satisfaction that we

were the most useful members of society, though had we not drunk it so

fast they might have got it.

We had some very high talent in the hospital and our monthly gazette

was a very creditable production. We had as one of the orderlies a

_Punch_ artist and he was always caricaturing some of us. The patients

contributed drawings, poems, and articles, and I imagine that in years

to come these little papers will be of some value, containing the works

of renowned artists and authors from many parts of the world.

A good number from our ward were able to take taxi-rides into the city

and would return at late hours, sometimes the merrier for the

excursion. I have in my memory as I write, recollections of waking

suddenly out of slumber to behold Taffy and a mad Australian waltzing

to the strains of a gramophone, each with only one leg, and then old

Piddington would persist in rousing the ward that we might sing as a

roundelay:

"And when I die,

Don't bury me at all--

Just pickle my bones

In alcohol.

Put a bottle of RUM-- (_much emphasis here_)

At my head and feet,

And then I know

My bones will keep!"

My brothers are in different regiments. We enlisted from different

states--one is in an English regiment--yet we all met on Good Friday in

this hospital ward. They had seen in the paper my name among the

casualties and, inquiring, had found out where I was and there we met,

not having seen each other for many years.

One day, like a bolt from the blue, came the intimation that I was to

be sent back to Australia in two days as being unfit for further

service. I argued the point, went before the Medical Board, and gave

each one separately a testimonial that would be no advertisement, but

it was of no avail, and I realized that like a worn-out horse I was to

be sent out of the fun. But to add injury to insult, I had had no

opportunity to see London. What! Go home to Australia and tell them I

had been in London and not seen St. Paul's, or the Abbey, or anything?

So when I realized appeal was useless I got dressed and called a

taxicab and went to see the sights of London. Never was a tourist trip

conducted more systematically. On crutches I hobbled round St. Paul's

and through the Abbey. I saw the Tower, the Albert Memorial, and all

the sights that I could remember or the taxi-driver think of sufficient

importance to need a visit. I even went down Petticoat Lane. But most

of all I did the theatres, four in one day, returning to the hospital

at 1.30 A. M. Next day I repeated and enlarged the dose, returning a

little later, but the following morning I was summoned before the O. C.

He said: "It is reported to me that you have been returning after

hours. Why?" I said: "So would you, sir, if you were returning to

Australia in two days and had not viewed London!" He said: "Well, it

won't occur again, I hope." To which I replied: "Only to-night, sir!"

But the boat was delayed, and I had two more days of strenuous

existence in the metropolis of the world.

Once again I entered a hospital-train, but this time I would have no

mussing round me as if I were a helpless child, but went upright, as a

man should, though on crutches.

When we journeyed to the port there was one of our good old Australian

coasters waiting to bear us back again--Home. The old A. U. S. N.

steamer that I had so often travelled on from Brisbane to Sydney was

now under command of the Australian navy and had the proud designation

of "His Majesty's Australian Hospital-Ship."

CHAPTER XXIX

THE HOSPITAL-SHIP

Some people think that they have made a sea journey when they cross the

English Channel, and Dover to Calais holds for many the memory of an

age of misery. I don't suppose the provisions on these Channel

steamers have very great inroads made upon them by the passengers. The

soldiers have a song that well expresses experiences on this narrow

stretch of water.

"Sea, sea, why are you angry with me?

Ever since I left Dover,

I thought the ship would go over ----" (etc.)

But on the longer journey across the Atlantic from England to America

there is more time to get one's sea-legs, and on the last day or two

passengers begin to enjoy the sea journey. But this is quite enough of

the sea for any one but an amphibian. The three weeks journey from

America to Australia gets decidedly monotonous, and long before

sighting Sydney Heads and entering the world's "pearl of ports" every

one has had his fill of the sea. But lengthen that journey by three

and you have had enough sea travel for a lifetime.

Well, we left England and for an eternity sailed south, seeing land

only on one day and smelling it for a week. Then we clung to the end

of Africa for seven days and then sailed east for a decade till

Australia got in our way, and as it could not be passed without a long

detour, we were deposited on its soil. In nine weeks we only called at

two ports, Freetown on the west coast of Africa, and Durban on the east

coast. Freetown has the usual strong combination smell of nigger,

cinnamon, and decaying vegetation, in an atmosphere of heavy steam,

that characterizes all tropical towns inhabited by our "black brother."

We were told that this place had but a few years ago the pleasant

subtitle of "The White Man's Grave." If you served one year here in

the government service you were entitled to retire for life on a

pension, but the likelihood was that long before your term was up you

would retire to a six-foot-by-two allotment near the beach, in the

company of countless predecessors. But science had been at work here,

as at Panama, and wire gauze and the kerosene spray had captured the

first trenches of yellow fever and malaria, and against these weapons

of the medico all counter-attacks have been unavailing. Some strong

hand was ruling in this town, for the streets were spotless and the

dogs lean. And, oh, how the nigger does hate cleanliness! Evidently

this town was free in a real sense because well disciplined. We were

told that all the white people lived up on the hill that backed the

town and many kind invitations of hospitality were sent to us; so those

whose wills were stronger than the enervating hand of the

weather-master boarded the toy train and were carried up and up toward

the summit of the hills above the steam heat, where the air seemed to

be fanned from the very cooling-house of God. I had the pleasure of

being entertained by a French priest who had been on the western front

in the early days of the war, and he added to our knowledge more

first-hand stories of the bestial Huns' ravaging of convents and raping

of nuns. The bishop of this protectorate could not do enough for us,

and although we were not of his faith, he looked on us as children who

were very dear to the heart of God because of our sacrifices of blood

and flesh for the right.

We loaded ourselves down with curios, buying tiger-rugs, mats,

bead-necklaces, tom-toms, and assegais. We strung these chiefly round

our necks, as we had to have hands free to manipulate our crutches, and

some of us looked more like the "ol' clo' man" than smart army

officers. Of course "Bertie Gloom" had to suggest that we would have

to pay more duty on the "old junk" when we got it to Australia even

than the price that the dealers had already robbed us of.

At Durban the first thing we saw was a girl in white semaphoring like

mad from the rocks. As we spelled out that she was trying to tell us

that she was an Australian, we gave her three times three. Our

difficulty in reading her message was not through her bad signalling

but because of her speed. Doubt if we had a signaller on board so

quick! This was not the last of our indebtedness to her, for when we

got into the wharf she had a regiment of Kaffirs with sugar-bags full

of apples and oranges, and while we were still fifty yards from the

wharf she began throwing them through the port-holes and into the hands

of the men on deck. Not a half of one per cent fell short. She would

have made a dandy bomber, and was a dandy all round.

In fact, the people of Durban were the most hospitable and patriotic of

any people we had met. A delegation of citizens and ladies came down

to the boat to inform us that we were the guests of the city and that

everything was free to us. And later on we found them not to have

exaggerated in the slightest. No one would accept money from us,

though I don't think any of us tried to get diamond rings on these

terms, but conductors on tram-cars and trains and motor-drivers and

ticket-collectors at theatres one and all told us that our money was no

good and gave to us their best seats.

This did not apply to the rickshaws, for they were run by Zulus and

charged by the hour. You would climb in, the shafts would go up in the

air, until you thought you were going to be tipped out at the back, and

a herculean Zulu, decorated with horns and red and white stripes so

that he might look like the devil, whom he, in reality, outdevilled,

would rest himself on the body of the rick and trot along at a rate of

six or seven miles an hour, quite able to keep up the pace all day. As

a matter of fact, they never wanted to know where you were going, and

even if you told them to take you to the post-office they would go

round and round the block, never stopping to let you out unless you

gave them a good poke in the ribs with your stick. Somewhere in their

brains was an infernal taximeter adding up the dimes, and like their

first cousins with the leather caps, they were determined to squeeze

from you your last cent.

Apart from the ordinary entertainments we found that fêtes and feasts

had been arranged for our delectation at the Y. M. C. A. and soldiers'

clubs, so that every minute of our stay was crowded enjoyment. Even

those of us who preferred quieter pleasures were not without

companions, and I know of no more delightful journey in the whole world

than a trip by tram-car to the Zoo or out along the Berea. Durban has

certainly one of the most picturesque situations of any city in the

world, and the art of man has been used with taste to reinforce nature:

there are no homes in more delightful surroundings with lovelier

shrubbery and gardens than here. The people of Durban have not only an

eye for beauty but they are very up to date and have a coaling

apparatus that holds the world's record for speed in the coaling of

ships.

Besides these two ports we made two other stops on the journey, but

these were where there was no land. The first one was wholly

involuntary, and not much to our liking, for through a breakdown in our

engines we drifted helplessly for two days in the very centre of the

danger zone of submarines.

Our next stop had also some connection with these sharks, for we

sighted floating in mid-ocean two life-boats and we went close to them

but there was no one on board--only oars and water-casks. That's

all--just another mystery of the sea--no name, no clew. Another day we

sighted a steamer hull down, evidently water-logged, and we were going

to her assistance when a cruiser came along and told us to go about our

business and get out of harm's way as quickly as we could. This

cruiser was just a little whiff of "scented gum"; and Australian air to

us, for she was one of the best known of the Australian squadron.

There is a lonely island in the mid-Indian Ocean which is the only land

for thousands of miles, and it is an unwritten law of the sea that

every ship going that way should steam round it and watch carefully for

signal-fires or signs of human occupation, for it is the place that

shipwrecked sailors make for, and therefore there have been placed on

the island several casks of fresh water and a supply of flour, and

goats have been turned loose until they now overrun it. If a ship

should find any one marooned thereon they are bound to replace all the

water and flour that has been used. At one time there was a large

fresh-water lake in the extinct crater of a volcano, but the sea has

now broken through and made it salt. We steamed very close in, blew

the siren, and had there been a pygmy there he would not have been

overlooked as hundreds of trained eyes searched the rocks with glasses.

We also got some fine photographs of this romantic isle in its waste of

waters.

The officers' ward was on the upper deck and our nurse had a twin

sister in another ward and there was not a particle of difference

between them. If I was lying on the deck and should call out to our

nurse as she passed to get me something, she would generally say, "I'll

ask my sister," for, of course, it was the wrong one. There was

endless confusion, for when we had a little tiff with our nurse, her

sister would be sent to Coventry as well, and in a deck golf tournament

there was great dispute over who won the ladies' prize, for both

sisters claimed it. This matter could not be settled, as the umpire

was not sure if he had credited the scores to the right one. The prize

was a set of brushes and we told them it would have to do for both,

which was all right, as we were sure they wore each other's clothes

anyway. They told us they had made a vow when they married not to live

in the same town for the husbands' sake!

The routine of the days was deadly monotonous with a break of a concert

on Saturday and church on Sunday. Unfortunately, we had on board only

two who could sing and one who thought he could recite. And even of

those whose performance exceeded their own opinion we got tired before

the journey ended. There were others who attempted to entertain us who

afflicted us so much that after three performances we gave them the

choice of suicide or having their tonsils cut, so the concerts petered

out and the audience at the last one did not pay for the moving of the

piano.

The shipping company who had transferred the ship to the Admiralty for

the duration of the war still kept on the catering, and retained the

same bill of fare as on their passenger trade. There was a good deal

of variety and we always were able to get enjoyment with wondering what

we would have for the next meal. They even helped us out a bit by

calling the same dish by different names on different days and the same

curry tasted differently under the names of "Madras," "Bengal,"

"Simla," "Ceylon," "Indian," and "Budgeree," and the cooking would even

have satisfied Americans. The nurses were seated at one long table in

the saloon and formed an island completely surrounded by officers. The

twins were on opposite sides of the table, and of course we always

found after dinner that we had been signalling to the wrong one. We

observed a good deal of ceremony and always stood to attention until

the nurses were seated, but the nurse who came in late and made us

interrupt an interesting conversation with a tender chicken got plenty

of black looks. When the matron rose we stood to attention again while

they filed out and then "carried on" with the meal.

One morning there was great excitement. Up from the lower decks the

electric current of expectancy ran until every one's steps quickened

and those of us who were on wooden legs beat a constant tattoo on the

decks. What means this eager, anxious thrill? To-morrow we would

sight Australia! Only 43,200 seconds--720 minutes--or 12 hours, and

once again we would view the fairest continent planted by God in the

seas. Mind you, the first sight of Australia (going that way) is not

very attractive. Rottenest Island, outside Fremantle, is sandy and

barren and really not much to boast about, yet had you spread before us

a scene from the Garden of Eden it had not charmed us half so much.

For this was part of Australia, the land that we all called home. Back

of that, for three thousand miles, stretched the country that held our

ain folk and love and joy and home and what a man fights for and

worships.

Every man had to be up on deck to see this sight. There were men there

paralyzed, who had never moved during the whole long journey, but the

saddest sight was to see the blind turning their sightless eyes in its

direction and smiling with ecstasy, and maybe it looked more fair to

these than to us who could see. How those boys cheered and cheered

again! What a new spirit pervaded the ship! All day laughter and

singing rang out, for there are no more patriotic troops in the world

than the Australian soldiers, and, East, West, Hame's best. Like the

old King of Ithaca we had wandered for years in many lands, but at last

had returned home, and soon would have Penelope in our arms.

But only the Westralians were really home, and some of these had two or

three hundred miles to go; for the rest of us there was still a

fortnight more in the old ship as we sailed across the base of

Australia to the eastern States.

CHAPTER XXX

IN AUSTRALIA

When the ship drew in at the Melbourne wharf I made up my mind to escape

the fuss and hero-worship, as I was a Queenslander and knew that none of

my folks were among the crowd waiting at the gates. I went to the

military landing-officer and asked him if I could not go out another way

and dodge the procession. He said the orders were that every officer and

man was to be driven in special cars to the hospital. I then went down

onto the wharf and approached one of the ladies who looked as if she

would play the game and I said to her: "If I ride in your car, will you

promise to do me a favor?" She said: "I would do anything for you." I

then said: "Well, let me out as soon as we get outside the gate." She

demurred a good deal but I reminded her that no Australian girl I knew

ever broke a promise. When we got outside I boarded a tram-car, which

had not gone far before it had to stop to let the procession pass. Of

course, every one would see that I was a returned soldier, but there was

nothing to show that I was _just_ returned. I stood up in the tram-car

with the rest of the passengers and cheered and threw cigarettes and

remarked loudly to all and sundry: "Some more boys come back, eh?" But

my well-laid plans were entirely spoiled as my friends in the automobile

called put, "Here, Knyvett, you dog, come out of that! Here's your

place!" and I disgracefully subsided with many blushes, and had to endure

all the way up to Melbourne the whispers and concentrated gaze of the

whole tramful. I also "fell in" in another way, for when I rang up my

uncle I found that he and his daughter were looking for me down at the

wharf gates.

Two years ago the site of Caulfield Hospital was a wilderness of weeds

and sand. Now it is an area of trim lawns and blazing gardens,

bowling-greens, croquet-lawns, and tennis-courts, with comfortable huts,

the gift of the people of Melbourne to their wounded soldiers, costing

several hundred thousand dollars. As I had served with Victorian troops

I was assigned to this hospital, although my home was over a thousand

miles away in the northern state of Queensland. All who were fit to

travel were given fourteen days "disembarkation leave" to visit their

homes, but twelve of these days I had to spend in travel and only had two

days at home after such long absence.

My wounds had healed but I was still paralyzed in my left leg, and the

only attention I required was daily massage for an hour, and then another

hour in the torture-chamber with an electric current grilling me. After

this was over, I would go into the city, do the block, have afternoon

tea, give an address at the Town Hall recruiting-depot, go to a theatre,

and then as there seemed nothing else to be done, would return to the

hospital. Such was my programme for ninety days. Sometimes I varied it

by visiting the Zoo to commiserate with the wild animals on being caged.

There were many red-letter days when I was entertained by friends; but I

am afraid I only squeaked when they expected roars--to be lionized was

too unusual not to have stage fright a little.

The women in Australia are well organized and see to it that if a boy has

a dull time it's his own fault. All the automobiles of the city were

registered with the Volunteer Motor Corps, and each day certain of them

were allotted to take wounded soldiers for picnics. We would generally

be driven to some pretty suburb and there would be spread before us a

feast of good things. At the end of the meal some of us felt like the

little boy who said to his mother after the party: "I'm so tired, mummie,

carry me up-stairs to bed, but don't bend me!"

There were concerts every night for the stay-at-home, but I only managed

to get to one, given by the pupils of Madam Melba, which was a feast of

harmony. After the programme refreshments were brought round by V. A.

D.'s, whom the boys called, "Very Artful Dodgers," but it was not the

"Thank you for the cakes and tea!" that they dodged! We had a

cricket-match, one-armers versus one-leggers, and we one-leggers were

allowed to catch the ball in our hats; but the one-leggers lost as we

were nearly all run out. Some of us being half-way down the pitch as the

ball was thrown in, would throw one crutch at the wickets, knocking off

the bails, when the umpire, who had no legs at all, would give his

decision that we were "stumped."

A huge Red Cross carnival was held near the hospital which netted about

fifty thousand dollars. We were guests of honor, and on this occasion in

the enormous crowds found "Long John" (one of the doctors, who was seven

feet tall) very useful. He wondered why he was being followed about by

several girls whom he did not know. We explained to him afterward that a

good number of us who had "meets" had thought out the ingenious scheme of

telling the girl to meet us at "Long John," who would be the tallest

object on the grounds. We told him that he didn't play the game properly

by moving about so much, as our friends complained that they were just

worn out following him round.

The carnival was one enormous fair--there were row on row of stalls,

decorated in the colors of all the Allied flags, with the girls serving

at them dressed in peasant costumes. The goods on the needlework-stalls

represented the work of weeks--there were flower-stalls, sweet-stalls,

produce-stalls, book-stalls, and in and out of the crowds girls went

selling raffle-tickets for everything under the sun--from tray-cloths to

automobiles and trips to Sydney. Ballyhoo-men stood at tent-doors,

calling the crowd to come and see the performing kangaroo, the wild man

from Borneo, or, "Every time you hit him you get a good cigar!" "Him"

was a grinning black face stuck obligingly through a hole in a sheet.

There were groups of tables and chairs under bright-colored umbrellas,

every here and there, where good things to eat were served all day. The

fun lasted well into the night, when there were concerts, and dancing,

and even the one-legged men tried to dance.

I don't think I had any other meals at the hospital than breakfast which

I always had in bed. There was an orderly officer who was very unpopular

as he had been months round the hospital and missed many chances of going

to the front. One day the men played a trick on him. When he came into

the dining-room to ask if there were any complaints one of them picked up

a dish which was steaming hot and said: "Look here, sir! What do you

think of this?" He picked up a spoon and tasted it. "Why, my man,

that's very good soup! You're lucky to get such good food." "But, sir,

it's not soup, it's dish-water!" (Curtain.)

At last the Medical Board sat on my case and their decision left me

gasping for breath, for they recommended that I be discharged as

permanently unfit for further military service. But nature sometimes

plays sorry pranks with medical decisions. Not more than a week after

this, movement suddenly returned to my leg and I threw away my crutches

and was able to walk almost as well as ever. About ten days after

leaving hospital I had sailed back for France via America, but have not

at the time of writing been able to get across the Atlantic.

CHAPTER XXXI

USING AN IRISHMAN'S NERVE

I have been saving this for a separate chapter; for besides a natural

hesitation in admitting that I am not "all there," I want to have

sufficient space in which to express my gratitude to the doctor who

performed the operation and to the "unknown" who had his leg amputated,

so providing me with a portion of his anatomy that I was in sore need

of. Of course, in these days when surgical miracles are happening

continually there is nothing outstanding about this operation, and

surgeons have wonderful opportunities in a military hospital, where

there are so many spare human parts lying about to patch up a man with.

I quite believe that from three smashed men they could make a whole

one, which, after all, would not be such a marvel when one remembers

that they are continually grafting bones and nerves, and I for one

would not like to say that in the next war they may not be able to cure

a man who has lost his head entirely, and as a matter of fact, one of

the San Francisco papers informed its readers (and as in this country

the impossible of yesterday happens to-day, no doubt they believed it

to be true) that I had had another man's leg grafted onto me. After

such a statement it is an anti-climax to have to inform the public that

it was only a portion of nerve that was grafted.

I had been lying in hospital several weeks before I got worried about

the fact that I could not move my leg. Then when the great-hearted,

plain-faced doctor who was attending to me said, "How's the man of many

wounds this morning?" I asked: "Why is it my leg is dead?" He said:

"We're only waiting for the wounds to heal until we test it." And sure

enough a day or two later I was put in the electric chair for

"reactions." When the current was put onto my right leg I howled and

twisted, but with twice the current on my left leg nothing happened, as

I felt nothing. Some days later a great nerve specialist operated on

me and when I came back to this workaday world from the land of fancy,

whither the ether had borne me, I was informed that a portion of nerve

had been grafted in my leg and that in about three months I might be

able to use it.

At this time I had no idea from whom the portion of nerve came. I did

not like to inquire, for I was afraid that if I met its previous owner

I might be prejudiced against it. Every portion of one's body is so

closely related to the rest that I was afraid if his face did not suit

my fancy I might subconsciously come to resemble him. But whenever I

met one-legged men in the corridors or concert-hall I would try to pick

out the one I would most like to receive such an intimate gift from.

Some of these had a refined, delicate appearance, and I immediately

feared that I would grow tenderfooted, while others looked like

pugilists and I immediately imagined my foot was becoming calloused and

might become longer than the other.

So purposely I remained in ignorance of the religion and nationality of

my new nerve. Once for a whole day I sweat blood lest it might be a

German, and then I plucked up courage to ask if there were any Germans

in the hospital, and when I learned that there were not I slept like a

child for many hours. On Saturdays I felt it might be a Jew or a

Seventh-Day Adventist, but then it did not work on other days either,

so I thought it must be I. W. W., "I Won't Work" as they are called in

Australia. Then one day I was sure it was from one of the same

religion as myself, for that leg was perspiring alone, and in the

outback country in Australia, where the temperature reaches one hundred

and twenty degrees in the shade, the Presbyterian Church is sometimes

called "Perspiration." At any rate, I read in a paper that in one town

the three churches were Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Perspiration. As

to nationality it might be Scotch, as I had to be "_verra cautious_" in

moving it, or English, being so "_sensitive_" to the touch. It was

only after movement returned that I was quite sure it was Irish! For

ever since then the Home Rule controversy has been going on in my body,

for when I want to place my foot in a certain position, it's bound to

try and go some other way. You can see from all this that I don't know

much about nerves, and I even wonder sometimes whether, if they put in

my leg a nerve from an arm, I might not try to shake hands with it like

the armless man in the circus, or, if it happened to belong to the

opposite leg, whether or not I would be pigeon-toed.

I sometimes wonder if the donor of this piece of nerve still "feels it"

in his own leg, for, months after a man has lost his leg, he still

feels it there. There was one man in the hospital who had lost both

legs and screamed with pain every night because his toes were twisted,

and it was only when they had dug up his feet and straightened out his

toes that he got rest.

There are nerves and _nerves_, and I am sure that the grafting in me of

this piece from the _nerves_ of an Irishman has given to me more

_nerve_ than I ever had in my life before, else how could I have

written this book?

PART VI

MEDITATIONS IN THE TRENCHES

CHAPTER XXXII

THE RIGHT INFANTRY WEAPONS

I know scores of men who have been months in the trenches and over the

top in several attacks who have never fired a shot out of their rifles.

In fact, it is very, very rarely that the man in the trenches gets a

chance to aim at an enemy at a greater range than a hundred yards.

There are thousands of men whom I know who believe that the long-range

rifles used in our army to-day are useless weapons. A much more

serviceable gun to repel a counter-attack would be one firing buckshot

like a pump-gun. The bullets from our high-velocity rifles frequently

pass through the body of a man at a close range and he is not even

conscious of having been hit and continues to come on with as great

fury as before. The pellets scattering from a shotgun at a range of a

hundred yards or less would do him more damage and be far more certain

to stop him. In an actual charge our present rifle is more than

useless--it is an encumbrance, and when at grips with the enemy in his

own trenches it is often a fatal handicap. With a bayonet at the end

it is far too long, and in a trench two to four feet wide it cannot be

used with much effect. I have known our men repeatedly to unship the

bayonet and take it in their hands, throwing the rifle away. Another

danger is that men will fire their rifles down an enemy trench and

these high-velocity bullets will pass right through the bodies of the

one or two of the enemy in front of him and frequently kill his own

comrade beyond. Remember, in a fight in a trench friend and foe are

mixed up together and many of our men have been unconsciously shot by

their fellows. In every regiment a small squad of picked marksmen only

should have these long-range rifles, with the addition of telescopic

sights. The average man does not take exact aim before firing, and

nearly all the shots go high. If it were not for bombs and

machine-guns the enemy could always succeed in getting to our trenches

with very little loss. It should be remembered, too, how closely, in

an attack, we follow our own barrage--it is impossible to see to fire

through it.

The system of barrage fighting that we now use has made warfare as much

a hand-to-hand business as it was in olden times and we must go back a

good deal to old-fashioned weapons, as we have to a great extent to

old-fashioned armor. The picked snipers or sharpshooters could be

placed in points of vantage to pick off any of the enemy who exposed

themselves and a score of them in each company would get very few shots

in a day.

Another weapon that infantry should be armed with is a hand-bayonet as

there is no advantage whatever in the long reach that our present rifle

and bayonet gives. As a matter of fact, many of our men have been

killed through driving their bayonet too far into the body of their

opponent, not being able to draw it out, thus being helpless when

attacked by another of the enemy. It is no use telling men not to

drive their bayonet in more than three or four inches, for in the speed

and fury of a charge they will always drive it in right up to the hilt,

and while we retain this out-of-date weapon we should certainly put a

guard on it not further than six inches from the point. I have used a

hand-bayonet which sticks out from the fist like a knuckle-duster and

is about six inches long. The shock of the blow is taken on the

forearm which also has an iron plate running down it on which to

receive the thrust of one's opponent. This is the natural weapon for

the Anglo-Saxon, as the fist and arm is used exactly as in boxing. If

an enemy comes at you with a bayonet it is the natural and easy thing

to throw up your arm and ward it off. The iron plate saves your arm

being cut; you are in under his guard; seize his rifle with your left

hand and punch with your right, driving the knife home the six inches,

which is all that is necessary. I have been in and seen a number of

bayonet charges and I am quite satisfied that the parries and thrusts

that we teach the infantryman are only of value to get him used to

handling his rifle. After that it would be a good thing for him to

forget them.

There are only two things that it is essential to remember when you go

into a bayonet charge. The first is that _the most determined man will

win_. I have known champion men-at-arms killed by a bayonet in their

first charge and other little fellows who were no good in the practice

combats kill their man every time. If you go into a bayonet charge

with the idea of disarming your opponent and taking him prisoner you

will most certainly be killed. But if you are quite sure in your own

mind that you are going to kill every man who comes against you, you

will do it. Your determination impresses itself upon the man you

attack and he will be beaten before you reach him. The other thing

that it is wise to remember is to make your opponent attack you on your

left side. If he attacks you on the right you have to parry him and

then thrust, but for an attack on the left side the action of parrying

will bring the toe of your butt into his jaw or ribs, disabling him,

and it is a good thing to use your knee at the same time.

The general-staff officers who decide how an army should be weaponed

never do the actual fighting and few junior officers or men feel

competent to offer their advice. I am quite confident that a majority

of the fighters would agree with the foregoing opinions, and I would

like the chance of taking a company armed as I have suggested into

action, and would be quite satisfied of their superiority to any troops

on the front.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE FORCING-HOUSE OF BESTIALITY

The Germans have given to us an illustration, though such was not

needed by thinking men to convince them of its truth, of the fact that

the beast in humanity only requires encouragement to make us more

bestial than any wild thing of the jungle or even the filthy cur of the

streets. If any man takes as his guiding principle the devilish

doctrine that the "end justified the means" he will soon become a

menace to his fellows and any good impulses that he may originally have

will pass away. The German Government made savagery, brutality, and

bestiality a deliberate policy, and now it is their unconscious

impulse. Germany is paying a terrible penalty in the degradation and

demoralization of her whole people for having given the direction of

the country into the hands of the Devil in exchange for power, and the

German army is to-day a forcing-house for bestiality and there is no

atmosphere in the whole world that so conduces to evil. In the

beginning of the war letters and statements of prisoners showed that

there were then many decent Germans who were horrified at the

abominations they had seen and committed at the command of their

government. But latterly, you cannot find any trace of this feeling.

Now they gloat over it.

There is no one in the world to-day except those who are of like mind

who do not know that the story of the German atrocities is true, for

Germany has _admitted_ enough crimes to convince any sane man that she

would stick at nothing. No action could be too cruel, no deed too

beastly, no torture too diabolical, no insult too keen, no impulse too

filthy, no disfigurement too hideous, no vandalism too shocking, no

destruction too complete, no stooping too low that Germany would

hesitate to do where she has opportunity. When Germany boasted of the

murder by drowning of women and babes on the high seas she proclaimed

to the world that she was a criminal, and we do not need to have any

other crimes proven to convince us that, while there is such a thing as

justice, she must not go unpunished.

Criminals have been forgiven, but not before they are repentant;

_Safety_, as well as _Justice_, demands that the murderer, the

assassin, the raper shall not go free. Germany has not only committed

all these crimes, but her theologians and professors have condoned

them. The man who counsels forgiveness to Germany adds hypocrisy to

the will to commit the same crimes. To forgive, we are told, is

divine, but the Divine does not forgive without repentance. Has

Germany shown signs of repentance yet? Well, then, the man who talks

of forgiveness to Germany before she is on her knees begging for

forgiveness is an enemy of peace and a condoner of crime.

It is so easy for those who have not suffered to tell the victims "to

forgive." _We_ do not go in nightly dread lest in the morning we

should have to rake among the ruins of our homes for the mangled body

of our baby! We do not have to work in daily fear lest we should have

to return to an empty house whence wife or daughter have been dragged

by brutal hands! _For three years_ the people of London and Paris and

thousands of other cities have never known but that at any moment their

house might be brought down in ruins about their ears, entombing all

that they hold dear! _For three years_ the men of northern France and

Belgium have never known but that while they were working, under

compulsion, against the life of their own blood and country in a German

munition factory, some soldiers might not be calling at their homes to

take the woman that they love God alone knows where! These very things

have happened to tens of thousands. Week after week the human hawks

come over London, and ever the toll of civilians and women and babies

done to death grows larger! One hundred thousand young girls were

taken from Lille and other cities away from knowledge or protection of

their kin, and until recently we had no news of any of them, but some

have been thrown into Switzerland, of no further use to Germany; used

up like sucked lemons, they are cast aside for the Swiss to feed.

Germany has in her maw to-day more than ten millions of slaves.

In America or Australia there are no hospitals where lie thousands of

girls too young to become mothers who have been raped. We have not

hundreds of boys who will never become men. A young girl said to me:

"There is a baby coming; it is a boche; when it is born I will cut its

throat!" A woman showed me on an estaminet floor the blood-stains of

her own baby butchered before her eyes. These were French women, not

ours. But what if they had been? Your sister! Your mother! Your

wife! And they might have been but for the accident of geography.

Would you then have felt as bitter as these people? Or would you still

have kindly feelings to Germany and not want to "humiliate her." There

may be beings who could see daughter violated or brother mutilated

without taking personal vengeance, but such should not be permitted to

breathe the air with MEN.

The only people who have a right to say what punishment shall be meted

out to Germany for her misdeeds, are the women of France, of Belgium,

of Poland, of Serbia, of Rumania, of Italy, who have suffered these

things; and if any one, King or President, Parliament or Pope, dares

stand between these people and their just wrath they deserve to be

pilloried in the minds of men as condoners of crime, as accessories

after the fact.

The only chance for permanent peace, and guarantee that these

abominable crimes shall not be committed again, is that we should so

punish Germany that she shall realize "that war does not _pay_," and

that the whole earth may know that no nation can commit these

atrocities and go unpunished.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEAR

The observation of men in many circumstances of peril has quite

convinced me that it is those who are most afraid that do the bravest

deeds. I do not mean that the fact that they are afraid increases the

difficulty of the doing, because it lessens it. It is fear that drives

men to heroism! And many a man attempts the superhuman feat of courage

not to show to others that he is no coward, but as evidence in the

court of his own judgment, to disprove the accusations of conscience,

which asserts he is craven. The old illustration of one soldier who

accused another of having no bravery because he had no fear, by saying,

"If you were as much afraid as I am you would have run away long ago,"

is not true to life, for it is the man of dulled feelings that is the

first to run, and the "man who is afraid of being afraid" who stays at

his post to the last. I have ever found that the best scouts, men who

must generally work alone in the dark, are those of highly strung

nervous temperaments. I have noticed, too, that our best airmen were

of the same type, for if you go into any mess of pilots on the front

you will see them always fidgeting, their hands never still, betraying

nervousness. I have gone down the trench before a charge and seen the

men with teeth chattering and blanched faces, but at the appointed

second these men go over the top, none hesitating, every man performing

prodigies of valor; not one but was a hero, yet not one that was not

afraid.

There must be something wrong with the make-up of a man who under

modern artillery-fire is not afraid. There are no nerves that do not

break down eventually under the strain, but the man who shrinks from a

shadow, and shudders at the touch of cold mud does his job with care

and walks unhesitatingly into the mouth of hell. I have seen our

signallers mending the telephone-wire under fire; each time it would

break they would curse and tremble, but immediately go out and repair

it accurately, slowly, no skimped work, repeating the performance again

and again. There is in our spirit some reserve force which on occasion

the will uses to stiffen resolution--the second wind of determination.

Fear is the "purgative of the soul"! There is nothing so wholesome for

a man as to be "scared to death"! Nothing that so drives out the

littlenesses that poison his life and set up the toxaemia of

selfishness. Many a man that before the war made the acquiring of

wealth or the gaining of the plaudits of his friends his chief aim, now

finds that these things have no appeal for him. For he has been to the

edge of life and looked into the abyss, and fear has stripped from him

the rags of self-adornment; and standing naked between the worlds his

soul has found that it needs no beautifying but the cleansing of

self-forgetfulness.

This war is one of the greatest blessings this world has ever known,

for it has brought to us fear of selfish force, fear of the engines of

our own construction, fear of isolation in world politics, fear of

secret diplomacy, fear of an unguarded peace, fear of an unprepared

future, fear of an undisciplined people, fear of an irresponsible

government, and, above all THE FEAR OF FORGETTING!

But there is another reason why a man in battle, though afraid, does

not fail. The fact is that men in a regiment or an army are not under

the domination of their own will at all, but of the collective will of

the whole. That is why some regiments are so anxious to keep alive

their traditions, and emblazon their battles on their colors. That is

why we devote so much time in the training of young recruits to the

knowledge of the esprit de corps of the regiment. That is why the

regulars are always the best fighters. It is not their longer

training, for that is a handicap with new methods of warfare. It is

not because of their superior discipline, for the territorials have not

lacked perfect discipline. But there is an atmosphere in the regular

regiments that makes one brother that goes into the regulars a better

soldier than the other that enlists in militia. This atmosphere is

compounded of pride in past achievements and confidence that the colors

that have never been lowered, though shot down on many a field, cannot

be shamed to-day. The victors of many engagements have an enormous

advantage in battle. No one expected anything but the most heroic

courage from the British regulars who had never failed when called

upon, but every one was not a little anxious how "Kitchener's" would

stand their first ordeal of fire.

Every mass of men has, besides the will and mind of each one of them, a

collective will and mind. Every town has this--who has not felt, on

entering a town and viewing its shops and people, a certain pushing

toward behavior--some towns tend to make one frivolous, others grave.

I know a city which, every time I enter, makes me think when last I was

in church, while there is another in which I always want to dance or

view the Follies. Have you not seen countrymen in town, whose clothes

proclaim that they have never been out later than nine o'clock in a

lifetime, trying to be the gay Lothario, drinking wine in a cabaret?

Every house has its personality made up of the collective minds of the

people who inhabit it. Take your child to one strange house and he

will fidget uncomfortably on the edge of his chair; but take him to

another, just as strange, and he will romp about without hesitation.

Children are like the canaries we use to detect the presence of

poisonous gases, most sensitive to atmosphere.

In the same way an army has ONE WILL, and that is why in battle you

will not see one man fail, or there will be panic and all will fail.

In every army there are individual men weak in resolution who, left to

themselves, would run away; but as the MIND of the army as a whole is

courageous, so they are swept along in spite of themselves. The German

army has ONE MIND for bestiality, and the Allied army has ONE MIND for

victory.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE SPLENDOR OF THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY

To those who are thrilled by the old-time tales of adventurous chivalry

or moved by the narrative of high endeavor and heroic achievement for

some noble ideal, I bring a conception of the marvellous glory of these

present days. We have been wont to sing of the times when thousands

left home and comfort on a Holy Crusade, but the Crusaders of these

days are numbered in millions.

Never were there such stirring times as these, never since the first

tick of time have the hours been so crowded! Never before did so many

men live nobly or die bravely. The young knights from many lands are

seeking the Holy Grail, and finding it in forgetfulness of self and in

sacrifice for their fellows. You and I are living to-day among the

deeds of men that make the deeds of the heroes of past times pale into

insignificance. Never were there bred men of such large and heroic

mould as the men of to-day.

Here's a trench--on which a shell falls--and where one shell falls

another always follows in the same place;--the shell blows in a dugout

and there is little chance that the men sheltering therein shall be

alive, yet those on either side, knowing that another shell will fall

in a second or so, in utter forgetfulness of self leap in and with

their bare fingers scrape away the dirt lest haply there should be some

life yet remaining in this quivering, mangled human flesh.

Oh! What chances the men of earth have to-day to be as God! The

highest conception any religion has given us of God is that he is one

that would sacrifice himself--"Greater love hath no man than this that

he lay down his life for his friends"--and to-day they're doing it by

the million. Every moment is adding names to the honor-roll of heaven

of men who follow in His steps.

Have you conceived that the uniting together of the nations that love

peace in this struggle will do more to guarantee peace in the future

than anything else that has ever happened in world politics,--that it

will join France, Britain, and America into a trinity of free peoples

who will prevent war, at least for many generations? We are being

bound together by the strongest tie that ever tied nation to nation,

that ever bound one people to another, not by political treaties that

may be torn up, but by the great tie of common blood shed in a common

cause on a common soil. That narrow lane that stretches from

Switzerland to the sea is the great international cemetery, and for

many generations it will be the Mecca of pilgrimages from all our

countries. The wreaths of America will mingle with the immortelles of

France and the flowers from Britain and the pilgrims shall there get to

know, understand, and love each other as they engage in the holy task

of paying a common tribute to their common dead. Shall not the

mingling blood of Frenchmen, Britons, and Americans make the flowers of

peace to grow? They never had such soil before.

There is being created, also, in all our countries a new

aristocracy--the aristocracy of courage. We never had a chance up till

now to prove who were our real, our best people, and we have been

accustomed to measure our citizens by the false and small standards of

wealth, birth, and intellect. Well! There has been given to us to-day

a new standard whereby we can measure ourselves, the standard of

courage, sacrifice, and service. Nobody in England cares to-day

whether you are descended from William the Conqueror or not! No one

will care in America whether your ancestor came over in the Mayflower,

or whether he signed the Declaration of Independence! Every American

has a chance to-day of signing a far greater declaration than that

great one of '76--the declaration of personal willingness to sacrifice

all on the altar of liberty. In England, in America, in Australia, in

all the countries of the world in the days that are to be, men and

women will make their boast in this one thing, or have no cause for

boasting at all, of the part that they had in this fight, the greatest

fight that has ever been waged for liberty, for righteousness, and for

the virtue of womanhood.

What a splendid opportunity it is for us to be able to personally pay

the price of liberty. How easy to forget that freedom has either to be

earned by ourselves or enjoyed because some one else has paid the price

for us. Had we not forgotten in our countries that the democracy that

we boast of is no credit to us because it was won by the blood of other

men? Men died that we might be able to govern ourselves! Women

carried heart-ache and loneliness to the grave that we might make our

own laws!

Liberty! Such an easy word to mouth, but how precious in the sight of

God! Liberty is one of the treasures of heaven and only committed to

men at great cost, lest they should undervalue it.

In these great and wonderful times there has been given to us the

glorious opportunity to earn our own liberty, to prove our own personal

right to citizenship in a free country.

You may not be able to pay in good, red blood, you may not be able to

pay much in the coin of the republic, but if each of us does not pay in

whatsoever coin we have, there will come soon to us the days in which

we shall realize that we are thieves and robbers, enjoying that to

which we have no right, won so hardly with the deaths and wounds of men

and the salt tears of women. In the New World that shall be born after

the birth-pangs of the present days, we shall realize that we have no

place, our souls shall shrink and shrivel as we gaze on the honor scars

of those who have paid, and we shall be elbowed to the outskirts of the

crowd, as the people bow before the men whom the President and people

delight to honor--the men sightless, the men limbless, the memory of

the men lifeless.

CHAPTER XXXVI

NOT A FIGHT FOR "RACE" BUT FOR "RIGHT"

I have no patience with the waterish sentiment that suggests that the

lines of the Germans in America and Australia have fallen in hard

places because they are called upon to take up arms against their own

blood. For this is not a war of race, but of right! It is not a war

of Britons, Americans, and French against Germans and Austrians! It is

a war of men in all nations against beasts!

There is something in all of us that is stronger than kinship, higher

than citizenship--manhood--and every one who is a man, though he be of

German blood will join us in this struggle against the monster that has

devoured women and children and many fair lands.

We have in the Australian army one general of German blood, another of

Austrian, and hundreds of men of both, but they have been fighting

loyally with us, because they were men and could not be held back from

striking at tyranny and wrong. Remember, in the Australian army all

are volunteers.

Every one now knows what Germany stands for and the menace she is to

the future of the world if her power is not destroyed, and every one

who does not help to defeat her is an ally of the Kaiser and helping

him to win the war.

The Judge is to-day separating the sheep from the goats, not according

to nationality, but according to how they stand in this strife for

right, for never was there a cause so divinely right as the cause of

the Allies, and never a cause so devilishly wrong as that of the

Germans.

The great mass of the German people have shown themselves to be on the

side of evil, but every German in our own countries is given a chance

in the present days to prove himself a man who hates brutality and

cruelty and wrong, or by standing aloof from helping us show that he

has the will to do these things as his kinsman in France. These should

be given the same medicine as the Kaiser's millions "over there." We

should also root out the Kaiser's secret allies in our midst, some of

them not of German blood, who for pay do his dirty work, never

forgetting also that the neutral and the lukewarm at this present

juncture are also our enemies and have their hands stained with the

blood of our kin who die for this cause.

Washington when he called on the English colonists in this country to

resist the German mercenaries of the German King of England did not

bewail the fate that compelled them to fight against their own country

and where their kin dwelt. No! For his cause was just and just-minded

men must support it though a sword pierced their own hearts.

Lincoln when he called on the people of the Northern States to free the

slaves did not exempt those who had friends or kin down South, but he

called on every one who was free to strike a blow for the freedom of

other men, though in so doing they should be cutting off their own

right arms.

In this war we are not only fighting to free millions who are held in a

far worse slavery than ever the negro was in, but we are fighting for

our own liberty and that of our children, which has been directly

attacked. Not all Germans are bestial and cruel, with no regard for

honor, but just how many of them are not remains for the American and

Australian citizens of German descent to prove.

Not all Britishers and Americans and Frenchmen are willing to sacrifice

themselves in our righteous cause--there are traitors even here, and

these I would rather shoot than the enemy in France.

There never was a more damnable doctrine promulgated on the face of the

earth than that of "My country, right or wrong." Free men could never

subscribe to such a doctrine. We have no right to call upon people to

take up arms because the government has declared war, but because the

government was _right_ in declaring war. Those who oppose the

government in this are not traitors to a party or a majority, but

traitors to the country and to right.

The two great camps in which the world is divided to-day will be known

in history as those who loved liberty more than life and those who

loved dominion more than right. Maybe the names of the races will be

forgotten but the memory of the opposing principles will abide.

CHAPTER XXXVII

"KEEPING FAITH WITH THE DEAD"

While here and there politicians grow faint-hearted, the army fights on

with cheerfulness. It would be a cure for pessimism of the deepest

black to go to the trenches for a while. There all is cheery optimism,

no doubt at all about the final outcome, and no talk of peace. I have

never heard one man in the army talk or hint of peace or dream of it,

for they know that it cannot be yet. The only people who shall declare

peace will be the army--no politicians, no parliament, or

government--for the army to-day is a citizen army and large enough to

change any government that is weak-kneed, and they shall allow

parliament to grant peace only when they are ready, and that shall not

be until we have gained a certain victory.

Prime Minister Lloyd George gave us three words over a year ago that

are still the beacon-lights of the army, and we shall not reach port

unless they are our guiding lights. They were _reparation_,

_restoration_, and _guarantees_, and anything less would be a betrayal

of France and Belgium and an insult to the wounded and a defaming of

the dead.

The army and people of the allied countries have already paid too much

not to have the goods delivered.

Do you think, for example, that we Australian boys are going back to

our country without having gained that for which we came these twelve

thousand miles and have fought so long, and lost so much?

Do you think that I am going back to Australia well and sound to face

the mothers of my scouts, and when they come and ask me how their boys

died, I will have to say; "Well! Here I am, well and strong, still

able to put up a fight, and your son lies over there, his bones rotting

on a foreign soil, and all in vain. The blood of him who to you was

more precious than any prince or king that ever lived has been poured

out like water and uselessly"?

Listen! Here is something of what Australia has paid. There has never

been a day for three years that hundreds of Australian wives have not

been made widows. There has not been a single week that there has not

been more than a full page of casualties in our daily papers. Every

woman in Australia if she has not seen there the name of her near kin

has seen the name of some one that she knows. I know a father and five

sons that have all been killed. Within fifty miles of one town that I

know there is not a man under fifty years of age. There are ranches

and farms that will go back to the primeval wilderness, the fences will

rot and fall down, and the rabbits and kangaroos will overrun them

again, because the men who were developing them are gone and there are

none to take their places. Never was there a country so starved for

men, and sixty thousand are gone forever or maimed for life. Tell me,

where are we going to replace these men? No country in the world could

so ill afford to lose its young men, the future fathers of the race,

for we have still our pioneering to do, a continent larger than the

United States, with about the population of New York.

Outside our Australian cities there are some large cemeteries, as we

mostly have only one for each city, but the largest of our cemeteries

does not lie on Australian soil. There are more Australian dead buried

in Egypt than in any cemetery in our own country. On Gallipoli, in

enemy hands, are the graves of thousands of our sacred dead. There are

more of our unburied dead whitening in No Man's Land in France than

have ever been laid to rest by reverent hands in a God's acre at home.

Think of all that we have paid in blood and tears and heartache. But,

perhaps, more than this has been paid in pain and sweat. Many have

been in those trenches more than three years. Consider their

sufferings! The unnatural life, like rats in a hole, the nerve-strain,

the insufficient food, the scanty clothing. What we have paid, Canada

has paid, South Africa has paid, but Britain and France, how much more!

And Belgium, and Serbia, and Poland, and Rumania, and Italy. What a

price to pay for an insecure peace, an enemy still with power to harm.

We might erect to our fallen dead the most magnificent monument that

this world has ever seen, we might built it in marble, and stud it with

gems, and have the greatest poets and artists decorate it, but it would

be a mockery and a sham.

The only monument that we dare erect to our fallen dead, the only

monument that would not be a dishonor to them and a shame and eternal

disgrace to us is THE MONUMENT OF VICTORY.

And the army will never quit until we have sure victory, for we dare

not break faith with our dead.

These lines of a Canadian soldier, Colonel McCrae, who has made the

last sacrifice are an epitome of the army's spirit:

"In Flanders' fields the poppies grow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place,

While in the sky the larks,

Still bravely singing,

Fly unheard amid the guns.

We are the Dead--

Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets glow,

Loved and were loved--and now we lie

In Flanders' fields----

Take up our quarrel with the foe.

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch--be yours to bear it high--

If ye break faith with us who die,

We shall not sleep though poppies grow

In Flanders' fields."

BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE

_By Leslie Coulson, killed in action_

Our little hour--how swift it flies

When poppies flare and lilies smile;

How soon the fleeting minute dies,

Leaving us but a little while

To dream our dream, to sing our song

To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower,

The Gods--they do not give us long--

One little hour.

Our little hour--how short it is

When Love with dew-eyed loveliness

Raises her lips for ours to kiss

And dies within our first caress.

Youth flickers out like windblown flame,

Sweets of to-day to-morrow sour,

For Time and Death, relentless, claim

One little hour.

Our little hour,--how short a time

To wage our wars, to fan our fates,

To take our fill of armored crime,

To troop our banner, storm the gates.

Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red,

Blind in our puny reign of power,

Do we forget how soon is sped

One little hour?

Our little hour--how soon it dies;

How short a time to tell our beads,

To chant our feeble Litanies,

To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds,

The altar lights grow pale and dim,

The bells hang silent in the tower,

So passes with the dying hymn,

Our little hour.

BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE

_By Leslie Coulson, killed in action_

Our little hour--how swift it flies

When poppies flare and lilies smile;

How soon the fleeting minute dies,

Leaving us but a little while

To dream our dream, to sing our song

To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower,

The Gods--they do not give us long--

One little hour.

Our little hour--how short it is

When Love with dew-eyed loveliness

Raises her lips for ours to kiss

And dies within our first caress.

Youth flickers out like windblown flame,

Sweets of to-day to-morrow sour,

For Time and Death, relentless, claim

One little hour.

Our little hour,--how short a time

To wage our wars, to fan our fates,

To take our fill of armored crime,

To troop our banner, storm the gates.

Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red,

Blind in our puny reign of power,

Do we forget how soon is sped

One little hour?

Our little hour--how soon it dies;

How short a time to tell our beads,

To chant our feeble Litanies,

To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds,

The altar lights grow pale and dim,

The bells hang silent in the tower,

So passes with the dying hymn,

Our little hour.