[CHAPTER XXII]
THE MAN WHO WASN'T LET
Perhaps he was Let, eventually. But when I met him he was emphatically the man who wasn't Let to fight.
I met him in London, a tall, well-set Australian, wearing the all-wool khaki of the Commonwealth and the neat leather cap of the Australian Divisional Supply Column. In his own words he was a "Leatherhead." He was a thirteen-stone man, but without a spare ounce of flesh on him anywhere; one could quite believe him when he said he was "as strong as a Monaro steer." And over his right eye he wore a pink celluloid patch.
This decoration moved my curiosity, for I knew the Leatherheads had not taken part in the Dardanelles fighting but were at that time destined for very active service elsewhere. In fact, they were on the very eve of embarking; therefore I opened a conversation by asking if he were off "to the front."
"No, worse luck," he said, "I'm the only man staying behind. They won't let me fight." This with some bitterness.
A little sympathy, judiciously expressed, started him talking; and in the monotonous drawl affected by the men of the Australian bush—natural to them, it may be—he unfolded a strange story of his wanderings in search of a fight. He told me who he was, and what he was; they are not essential to the point of his story. It is enough to say that he sacrificed a very good income and excellent prospects to join the Australian Expeditionary Force.
"You see," he said, "I've got only one eye, my left; but it's a good one. I lost the other eight years ago—mining. Since then I've come to the conclusion that a man doesn't need two eyes, except in case of accident, like mine. I had a glass eye fixed up in Sydney, just like the other one, and you couldn't tell the difference; well, when I tell you, you'll know that you couldn't.
"I was always fond of soldiering, and joined the militia. I got my musketry certificate, so that shows you a man with one eye can shoot as well as any man with two, and a sight better than most of them. I've done some 'roo shooting, too, and a fellow that can knock over an old man running at three hundred with a worn Martini, don't want any spare eyes.