THE ORDER OF THE PUSH
_Several Months Later._—I have just been discharged from my second
English hospital, and am at present on "leave pending discharge from
the Service, '_Permanently Unfit_.'" I feel pretty well that way, too.
My soldiering days are over: henceforth I am a man of peace. Well,
I've had a goodish innings and can't complain, even in spite of the
fact that I'll never be quite the same man again. And, after all,
things might be a deal worse: I might be one of those grotesque-looking
bundles of khaki and rat-picked bones now lying unburied and forgotten
in the scrub of Gaba Tepe, for instance. And I'd go through it all
again—aye, a hundred times—sooner than have the women call me
"slacker"! I say "_women_" advisedly: the "_men_" are all wearing
khaki now; those "_she_-men" who aren't don't count—_they_ are just
white-livered, cold-footed, rubber-spined swine! That's straight Anzac.
I'd cheerfully forfeit a month's back pay to watch one of the slacker
brigade read these lines, and to know that away down in the little
dried-up kernel he calls his heart there still exists enough red blood
to pump a flush of shame into his white girl's cheeks. "Girl," did
I say? Then I ask the "gentler" sex to forgive me, for well I know
that nine out of every ten women in the British Empire have far more
true pluck and sand in their little fingers than the whole slacker
brigade have in their useless tender-footed bodies. What right have
these damned cowards to go to theatres, dances, football matches, and
concerts; to lie warm in bed at night and eat soft tucker by day—to
live their soft, easy-going useless lives, while I and the like of
me have to go out and live, fight—aye, and die—like beasts? True,
we volunteered; we just had to—being _men_! What right (I put it
straight to any slacker whose eye now rests on this page—if he hasn't
already chucked this little volume into the fire)—what right have
you, you little white-livered cur, you slimy maggot—what right have
you to wear the dress and ape the bearing of a _man_? What will you
say to the _men_ when they return from doing their bit—when they ask
why _you_ didn't roll up and help them in their need? That you were
a conscientious objector? That you didn't believe in shedding human
blood? That you had to stay at home—and make money—while _they_ were
fighting and sweating that the old home might not be polluted by the
shadow of the German beasts, the ravishers of poor little Belgium?
Well, you can say what you like. But I know what they will call you—a
name that no man worth calling a man ever takes unchallenged from his
fellows—what I call you right now: COWARD!
I was going to add: What will you say to your children when they ask
you what _you_ did in The Great War? But surely no woman will ever call
you husband and bear your children! If such women are to be found, and
I only had the power, I'd emasculate you all rather than see your dirty
breed perpetuated.
That's some more straight Australasian. But to come back to the matter
in hand, as the public tub-thumpers say——
I got in the way of some bullets. I didn't want to, but they were
flying round pretty lively and I bagged a few—one through the arm,
another through the shoulder (it's still sticking somewhere down under
the blade), two pieces of explosive bullet in my right hand (still
there and letting me know it when I write), plus an assortment of small
splinters distributed round about my figure-head. My left ear is gone;
I don't sleep too well; there is a fitter's shop doing great work day
and night in my head, and when I walk out to take the air things are
apt to spin round some, and I fancy the dear old ladies imagine I
suffer from chronic alcoholism. Altogether I don't feel quiet as good
as I did before I went on tour with the Anzacs. Neither did the medical
board, so they're giving me the tin-ware. Funny thing: my appetite is
quite good, and I look as strong as a horse. Hence the aforesaid old
ladies are always telling how well I look, and hoping I am _quite_
recovered from my wounds. At first this sort of thing used to bore
me; now, however, it only amuses me. It's a boncer gift is the saving
grace of humour, and keeps a fellow from getting into the blues when he
compares the man he was once with the man he is now. However, that's by
the way.
I have been in six hospitals altogether. I don't want any more, not
being greedy. I am fed up with hospitals, fed up with doctors, fed up
with nurses ("sisters" we called them), and, above all, fed up and
surfeited with the old blue suit! Not that we weren't well treated in
hospital. I have nothing much to complain of (although they did in some
cases treat us like kids): I have much to praise. The doctors were on
the whole a decent crowd; the sisters were just angels! I take my hat
off to them wishing them a long and jolly life on this old planet and a
featherbed in Heaven when they hit the long trail. _Kia Ora!_
After being hit I was taken in a fleet sweeper to Lemnos Island,
about forty-five miles from Anzac. I was in two hospitals there. From
Lemnos Island I went in a hospital ship to Alexandria, and on by
hospital train to Cairo. I put in a spell there, and was then shipped
(by train!) to Port Said. From Port Said I was consigned to England,
where I brought up in Cardiff. Finally I did a spell in a South Coast
hospital. Then they got sick of me. The feeling was mutual. So I'm
getting the order of the push.
Taking it all in all I've had a kind of a Cook's Personally Conducted
Tour. I've had good times and bad times, the good fairly well balancing
the bad. On the whole it has been a most interesting trip. It has also
been to a certain extent an exciting trip. I reckon it's up to me to
remember the good times and forget the bad. And I wouldn't have missed
it, good or bad, for worlds.
For, dear reader (please don't think I'm bragging), I'd rather be lying
this moment in an unknown grave in the Gallipoli Peninsula than be
branded for life as a God damned slacker!
That isn't swearing. It's a pious expression. And, take it either way,
it's pardonable.
THE END
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES.
1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical
errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.