Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War

by E. C. Buley

"Of course she wasn't to know that Shorty's teaming business had been ruined by Afghan camel-men. She didn't guess that Shorty used to say that when he died the words 'A White Australia' would be found written on his heart. 'White Gurkhas!' he used to say; 'they'll be calling Chinamen smoked Australians next.' I tried to argue with him. 'Look here,' I said. 'Why do we call you Shorty?' 'Because you are a lot of naturals,' says he. 'No; because you're the longest chap in the brigade. Well, it's the same with the name of White Gurkhas. The Gurkhas are all little, short, broad chaps, and the Australians are all long, thin blokes. Don't you see?' But Shorty didn't; his prejudices prevented foreign travel from improving his mind.

"As a matter of fact, there was only one Australian I ever saw that looked at all like a white Gurkha; and that was Jimmy Young, the celebrated footballer. He was a cabdriver in South Melbourne, and the trickiest footballer that ever played the game. He was short and as broad as he was long; he wore whiskers and he was bandy-legged. His capers earned him the name of Diddly. He'd come down the field bouncing the ball and breaking evens. Being so short he seemed to be running even faster than that. When the other side tried to stop him they'd be tackling a man who wasn't there; and all the South Melbourne barrackers would call out, 'Oh, you Diddly!' He was a ringer, was Diddly Young.

"The first mob of Gurkhas we ever saw was in charge of a sergeant that must have come out of the same mould as Diddly. He and his push had come from Cape Helles way, where they'd been fighting with the English and the French. They hadn't been an hour at Anzac when this sergeant got in a hurry about something and started to run. At once about half a dozen of our chaps said at the same time, 'Diddly Young!' You simply couldn't mistake the action. And he answered to the name of Diddly with a grin a foot wide; it turned out that it wasn't so far from his real name.

"We saw a lot of the Gurkhas then, and soon got to like them fine. They were always laughing and joking; you never saw jollier little chaps. Not like the Tommies, who were solemn and worried; nor like the Sikhs, who were a bit sour. It was astonishing how quickly they picked things up; this Diddly learned to talk Australian in no time. One day he was chatting to me and a shell burst a bit close; and I said something. He burst out laughing. 'One shell go bang,' he says; 'Frenchman lie down flat. Two shell go bang, Englishman go in his dug-out. Three shell go bang, Australian look up and say "You ——."'

"Just about that time we were getting a lot more bursting shells than we altogether cared about. They came from all directions, but the two worst nuisances were two guns that had our beaches ranged from north and south. The one to the south was Beachy Bill, that they say has knocked out over 2,000 men and is still going. He lived somewhere among the mangroves between Gaba Tepe and Achi Baba. The other was Anafarta Anne, that was hid up in the hills—behind Suvla Bay. Anafarta Anne was our particular worry and there was nothing we wouldn't have done to shut her up.

"It afterwards turned out that she lived in a deep cutting, driven sixty feet in the hillside, and was run out on rails when they wanted to use her. The kick of her recoil drove her back into her hole and shut a door in the front that was dodged up to look like the hillside. Everybody was out after Anafarta Anne. Cruisers used to come along and shell the hillside where she lived. A destroyer came fussing up every day almost to give her a round or two. They sent up captive balloons to watch for her and aeroplanes observers hovered over the spot. All to no purpose.

"Then there would come a day when the cruiser was away at Cape Helles. The destroyer would be engaged on important business elsewhere and the captive balloon deflated. Perhaps the aeroplane man was away dropping bombs on Maidos. And there would be a score or two of our chaps in swimming after a fortnight in the firing line without so much as a rinse. Then Anafarta Anne would pop out of her hole and send a great shrapnel shell that would spread a spray of bullets over a piece of water a hundred yards long by fifty wide. Our chaps would be lucky if they ducked in time and could swim under water to the beach. They would come out nearly black in the face, but not so strangled that they could not find breath to curse the name of Anafarta Anne.

"One day Anne went a bit too far. There was a mule team coming up from the beach with water. There were five mules with Indian drivers and two kerosene tins to each mule. The water was pukka Malta water sealed in the kerosene tins and was most important water indeed, as it turned out. You see, it was specially reserved for the sacred ablutions of the Gurkhas. Well, this Anafarta Anne had no more sense than to drop a high-explosive shell right on top of the procession. Up in air went three good mules and every drop of the water was wasted. I believe there was a mule-man or two missing as well, but I never counted them myself.

"The boss mule-driver was an excitable Punjabi who loved mules like a pawnbroker loves diamonds. He came leaping down to the Gurkha camp, making a chattering noise like the whole Turkish army, and the first Gurkha he ran into was Diddly. What he said I couldn't tell you, but he must have rubbed it in about the Gurkhas' holy water, for Diddly got very serious and very busy. He got all his push together and sent somebody for the white officer sahib. In his presence they all drew their big knives and nicked one another's thumbs and swore an oath. They swore they would put an end to Anafarta Anne. So much I gathered from Diddly afterwards.