“We'll chuck it fer to-day—done enough,” said the tall man.
“Ya-as, we'd better git back. It was good sport—very good,” said the short one.
Certainly the Australians we met were a cheerful, happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care crew. They were the most picturesque set of men on the peninsula.
Rough travelling, little or no food, no water, sleepless nights and thrilling escapes made them look queerly primitive and Robinson Crusoeish.
I wrote in my pocket-book: “September 8, 1915.—The Australians have the keen eye, quick ear and silent tongue which evolves in the bushman and those who have faced starvation and the constant risk of sudden death, who have lived a hard life on the hard ground, like the animals of the wild, and come through.
“Fine fellows these, with good chests and arms, well-knit and gracefully poised by habitually having to creep and crouch, and run and fight. Sunburnt to a deep bronze, one and all.
“Their khaki shorts flap and ripple in the sea-wind like a troop of Boy Scouts. Some wear green shirts, and they all wear stone-gray wide-awake hats with pinched crown and broad flat brims.”
When at last the mails brought us month-old papers from England, we read that “The gallant Australians” at Suvla “took” Lala Baba and Chocolate Hill; indeed, as Hawk read out in our dug-out one mail-day—
“The Australians have took everythink, or practically everythink worth takin'. They stormed Lala Baba and captured Chocolate 'ill—in fac' they made the landin'; and the Xth and XIth Divisions are simply a myth accordin' to the papers!”