Some of you got a V. C.,
Some “the Gallipoli trot,”
And all of you got it damned hot,
And I see you go limping through town,
In the faded old hospital blue,
And driving abroad—lying down,
And Lord! but I wish I were you!
I envy you beggars I meet,
From the dirty old hats on your head
To the rusty old boots on your feet—
I envy you living or dead.
A knighthood is fine in its way,
A peerage gives splendor and fame,
But I’d rather have tacked any day
That word to the end of my name.
I’d count it the greatest reward
That ever a man could attain;
I’d sooner be “Anzac” than “lord,”
I’d rather be “Anzac” than “thane.”
Here’s a bar to the medal you’ll wear,
There’s a word that will glitter and glow,
And an honor a king cannot share,
When you’re back in the cities you know.
The children unborn shall acclaim
The standard the Anzacs unfurled
When they made Australasia’s fame
The wonder and pride of the world.
Edgar Wallace.
CHAPTER VIII
An Intermission
In the evacuation of “Anzac,” I had the honor, reserved for the men who had first landed, of being with those who left the tragic strip of territory the last. I was not a passenger on the very last barge, but if I recall correctly, about the third from the last. We went aboard the transport, Andrines.
I still had sixty men in my charge, but as I looked over them as they filed up the gangplank into the Andrines, the thought suddenly came to me—it really had not occurred to me before—that of all the men in my command there was not one of the original sixty who had left the Euripides with me for the landing at Gallipoli. Only twelve of the original sixty that I was ever again able to hear from had survived the blowing up of the barge and the barbed-wire obstacles. Of the twelve who had made my little company in the “sangar” we erected on the first ridge of X. Y. Z. beach, there was not one left. Four had been killed, the others so badly injured that they had to be taken to “Restville,” the hospital that had been organized in one of the dug-outs blasted in the stone ridges just above the sands.