ALL THESE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 463, 7 May 1948, Page 8

ALL THESE

ANDY fell into the Bougainville jungle, and Wilfred died in a life-boat at sea less than an hour from the African shore, He had crashed in Malta, and still was weak from illness and the injury. His mother dreams still, and cannot speak, When she shows his D.F.C, Sacer ge was always highly-strung and "lived on his nerves," as people say. He said he must fight, and "would rather be hung" than rot in a base job, any day. So he won his wings, and later on, he married a girl in Canada. His bomber came down in France, somewhere, They found his disc, so she knew he'd gone. | He never saw his baby son. Ar these loved life, and so did Dick, and yet he chose to go and die, because he was giving way to drink, and it was in the family, and the girl he loved was neurotic, I think, and couldn’t help him to fight the thing; so Dick thought, here was a way to clean the slate, and serve his King as well, and be more admired than he’d ever been hanging round the hotel. ERENCE was pretty as a girl. You’d never forget his gentle look, Too light for footer. But he would go till he ied sa in long-distance; and he was ma on books, and to do what. heroes do, Hereward, Shackleton, or Cook, ° since he was a kid in Standard Two. He didn’t pass the Air Crew test, or get the commission he counted on, é but just went west, helping to lift the gun. EARTS can be broken more ways than one; but I think I’ll say no more just now. We can’t remember the dead for long, in this busy life, with so much to do. There will be songs we'll sing; and Anzac Day; and stones with names that soon will be "just names," to all but one or two; and .when my restlessness bites deep as flames, Fil think’ of all these men, and try not to complain.

N. F. H.

Macleod