CAPTAIN MAC.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 268, 20 April 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

CAPTAIN MAC.

(By Harold Bogbie.)

Of all the ministers on the battlefield, here, I think, is the strangest and the most romantic. He is neither meek i.or mild. He is neither tender nor gentle. And as for theology, I'm inclined to think that you could knock him head ever heels with the first pamphlet of the Rational I'ress Association which happens to come into your hands. But, 33 you value your life, don*t try to knock him over with your fist—for, believe me, Captain Mac is a fighting man. Theologian, no; saint, in the old meaning of the term, certainly not; but fighting man—wellIt is ono of the mysteries of the character of Jesus that he attracts all sorts and conditions of men—a mystic like St Francis, a scholar like Newman, an unimaginative Englishman like Dr. Johnson, and a great hearty fight-loving Australian like Captain Mac. What a mystery is the attraction of Jesus I

This Captain Mac is a big, solid ]*rson, with a brown Australian skin, black hair, black eyes, a black moustache, and a voice that would fill the Crystal Palace. His eyes shine and burn and twinkle with an animation so excessive that you cannot imagine how hj doesn't explode, or how he manages to sit still for two minutes to-gether. And his smile is of the kind that makes everybody else smile, and that give? energy to the feeblest, and bestows good spirits on the saddest. A great, big, hearty man, overflowing with the joy of existence, bursting with energy, and lonsring, always longing for a fight. "They gave you the Military Cross?" I asked him. "What was that for?" "Ah ! that's telling," he replied, and 6hook his head. "But surely you can tell me?"' "But surely I won't." Again he shook his head, smiling, and looking away from me. "Let's talk of something else. For instance ..." "I've heard rumours about Gallopoli," I persisted. "A lot of stories have gathered round that!" "But tell me."

"All right, I will. He squares his shoulders, ready to make a clean breast of it.

"It was like this . They were giving Military Crosses to a lot of our Australians one day, and at the end of the ceremony there was one over. I happened to be passing at the time, so they gave it to me !"• You should have heard his laughter. It fhook the tea things. Captain MacKenzie was born in Scotland, full in every vein of fighting blood . "I wanted to enlist, in the Seaforth Highlanders," he told me. "my Highland blood sang ' for it; but it wasn't to be. I was taken as a child to Australia, and there I soon began to push fortunes." AH the piety of hia Scottish ancestry was forgotten. He thought only of one thing—the mam chance. But one day he ram* up against the Salvation Army. It seemed to him, all of a sudden, that here wad a chance for a fight, and the grandest fight in the world. First of all (for he was a wild, strong man) with hi 3 own soul. FIGHTING A GREAT EVIL.

•'What a religion!" he cries. "Why, it was the real article! It meant giving up things—drink, tobacco, and much e \ iC —and facing scorn and derision. It meant going down to the mud and tho dime, it meant living with the lowest and the worst, tf meant fighting with the devil himself for the souls of men. Lor' it snatched me clean out of invself. It hit me, like a blow. It was so real. po honest. I said to myself, 'Here's the true religion for a fighting man,' and oft I went to be converted and to sign on." You can imagine that to 6uch a man as this the war came as a trumpet blast. He signed on as chaplain. He ii by rights Chaplain-Colonel MacKenzie, but the Anzacs have dubbed him "Captain Mac," and Captain Mac he'll stay in their hearts till the end of the chap"ter. Scores of those gallant fellows have slipped into the nest world out of his arms, his voice the last of earthly voices to reach them in the darkness of death, a kind, confident, masculine voice—good old Captain Mac ! One can believe that if an angel challenged any of those Australian souls on the? other side, they must have answered, "Captain Mac sent me." The men love for ho is as valorous as the best of them, and tender, too, when it comes to comforting the dying. He came into their hearts in this way: When the Australians were waiting for orders in Egypt, creeping sons of the devil got among them with whispers of certain secret things to be seen for a little silver. I cannot even give you a hint of these things. It is enough for you to know that on this earth nothing "more hideously and loathsomely vile can be seen by eyes of man. Some of the Australians slipped away to 6ee these shows. Drink of a poisonous kind got hold of them. They were boys in a strange land. It was not difficult for a wily and insidious devil to lead them away from the camp, to drag them down, before they knew it, to the abvss of iniquity Well, into those vile places 6trode Captain Mac, scattering confusion and pulling out the boys. "What 'ud your mother say to see you in such a hell of a placer" "Boy, how will you look your sister in the eyes again'-" And not only this. He went to Authority. What! is this the reception prepared for pure and healthy boys going to face death for the Mother" Country?—is this the glory of the British Empire:—is this tho lx'st that England can do for her sons? It was explained to him that England's power is not sovran over all Egypt, that there have been "conce.->sions" to other nationalities, that—this, that, and the other thing But the end? Captain Mac got his way. Those concessions, do you remember? wore abolished. The iniquity was wiped out. Well done. Captain Mac, and well done. Colonel Unsworth, also of the Salvation Army. (The cleansing of Egypt will one day be a story well worthy to be read.) A TALE HALF TOLD. And then Captain Mac, with his gallant Australains. went to the Dardanelles. Those Australians who faced death with a courage so sublime and an intelligence so incomparable that they have made an epic of imperishable glory out of that tragic failure, saw how their chaplain could face death as well as tho devil. He was with them always. Nothing could hold him back, lie was with the dying, but In- was also with the lighting. Once, when the Turks i-ame thrusting up to the trenches, he seized a . . .lint I really do not know the re.-t of the stoiv.

The Aut-tralians got to love this bio brother. They came t-> his services. Tliev r-aiii,' his hymns. They said 'Our father" after him. And when they were dying they Knug»led themselves into his'breast. His tunic. Ha.- been wet with their I<>ars and their sweat lie was with them through the thich of it. and with them when tiny had ti give up th" height* they had won. and return to the ships in the bay. He was with them on their way to Fiance He has ta.-tel victory, he has ta.-ted bitterness. "Australians," he says, 'have a good conceit of themselves. They don't want anvono else to blow their trumpet for them. It'rt part of th.ir creed t. fe?l themselves 21e.1t fellows. And s> you won't mind if I say th.it never w«iv

there any soldiers in the world to compara with o«r Australians. "Ten thousand more of the same 6tuff would have swept the Turks out of Europe.

"You see, they use their brains. They're not merely strong men; they're thoughtful men. They slouch about when there's nothing doing, they go slack and look as if there's nothing in them when it's a case of stand easy; but give them a job, tell them off for something that wants what we call the three G's—grit, guts, and gumption, and then, they're princes, they're men!" It was not for a long time that I could break through this fine bracing talk and get at other things. He came to it unwillingly, I think, for there's no doubt his heart is in the fighting. "Ah, the tragedy of it "all:"' he exclaimed, heaving a sigh. "I shall never forget as long as I live a splendid sergeant coming back from the front trenches on the Somme, and throwing himself on my chest, and sobbing there like a child," just like a little child. 'Charlie's dead ! Charlie's dead ! oh, Mac, whatever 6hall I 6ay to mother f He had seen his own brother killed at his side. And this man is well over 6ix feet, strong as iron, brave as an Australian, and dour as a Scot. But he eiied like a child. Ah. it's a tragedy! The flower of our manhood ! Beautiful boys at the threshold of life'. And look how jome of them die.

"The other day I was watching a regiment ploughing back from the trenches through mud up to their waists. This mud is like porridge—it's thick, it's sticky. And it takes strength to get through it. Well, someone told me that a couple of boys further back were in trouble, and 1 went along to help them. I found them both. They were dead. Just dead of exhaustion. 'And that's why we go out to meet the chaps coming back from the fighting line, and give them a song home. We sing to them, play to them, joke to them. The great thing is to make them forget as soon as possible the hell they've come from. I've organised no end of sing-songs just to help men to forget. And it wil take hours, days sometimes, before a man shakes off the memory of the fighting-line. Don't make a mistake. It's fine to be there; I'd rather be there than any place on the earth; but—it's hell. And out there, living in that hell, you get to know the meaning of God's love for men. Who could help loving such men? Courage?—there's no courage like it. Why the mere courage of living such a life—leaving out the shells altogether—is like a miracle. And through it all, through all the mud and the slime, and the rain and the snow, and the cold and the wretchedness, these men are not only patient, they're cheerful. Yes, cheerful! To live among 6uch fellows is to be exalted. There's nothing man i 3 not fit for. You feel that men like these are, indeed, Sons of God. They're worth dying for. And when you get them alf round you, singing our rousing hymns, praying our big prayers, and see fne light in their eyes, and hear the ring in their voices Lor' I tell you, it shakes you up. Love's a strong word, but I just love those fellows—every one of them"