ANZAC

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2729, 25 March 1916, Page 12

ANZAC

Ah, well! we're gone! We're out of it now. wove something olso to do. But wa nil look-back from tho transport acck to the land-line far and blueShore and valley'are faded; fading' are cur and nill; The land-line wo called "Anzac" . . . and wo 11 call it "Ansae" etill!

This last sis; months, I reckon, '11 be most of my lifo to me: • •Tronches, and shells, and sniDers, and the morning light on the sea,. Thirst in the broiling mid-day, shouts and _ gasping cries, < - ' Big guns' talk from tho water, and . . . flies, flies, flies, flies, flies!

And all of our trouble wasted! all of it gone for nix! Still . . . we kept our epd up-and some of the etory sticks. Fifty years on in Sydney they'll talk of our first big fight, And even in little old, blind old England possibly someone might.

But. seeing -wo had to clear, for we couldn't get on no more, I wish that, instead of last night, it had been tho night before Testerday poor Jim 6topped one. Three of us buried Jim— ■ I know a woman in Sydney that thought the world of him.

She was his mother. I'll tell her—broken with grief and pride— "Mother" was, Jim's last whisper. That was all. And died. . Brightest and bravest and best, of us all— , none could help bat to love him— And now . . . he lies there under tho hill, with a wooden cross' above him.

That's where it gets me twisted. Tho rest of it I don't mlitd. But it don't seem right for me to be off, and to leave old Jim behind. Jim, just quietly sleeping; and hundreds and thousands more; For . graves and crosseii are mighty thick from Quinn's Post down to tho 6horo!

Bettor there than in France, though, with tho Germans' dirty work; I rcckon tho Turk respects us, as we respcct tho Turk; Abdul's a good, clean fighter—we've fought him, and wo know— And- wo've left him a letter behind us to . toll him wo found him so.

Not .iust to say. prcci€ely, "Good-bye," but "An revotr' ! Somewhere or other wo'll met again, before the end of the war.' But I hope it '11 ho in a widqr place, with a lot more room on the map, And the airmen over the fight that day 11 ' see a bit of a scrap!

Meanwhile, here's health to the Navy, that took us there, and away; Lord! they're iniracle-ivorkers—and frc6h ones every day! My word! those Mids in the cutters! aren't they properly keen! ' > Don't ever say England's rotten—or not to us, who've seen!

Welt! we're gone. Wc'ro out of it all! We've somewhere else to fight. And ive strain our eyes from tho transport deck, but "Anzac" is out of sight! Tallcy and shore ore vanished; vanished are cliff and hill; And wo'll never go back to "Anzac." . . . But I tliinl; that some of us will! —'"Argent." in "The Passing Show."