“Did he go?” asked Barry’s father.
“Not if I knew it! All our work was done, an’ there was plenty of us to send messages. I put him on a pony an’ sent him acrost to Hill Farm—he’d done enough for any boy of his size.”
“Miss Robin’s the same,” said big Tim O’Rourke. “ ’Twas all I could do to make her go home from my place. Gad, you should ’a’ seen her: clothes cut to ribbons, an’ her feet bleedin’ like the boy’s. I wanted her to ride home. ‘No,’ says she, ‘you’ve only got one pony an’ you’ll need him!’ True enough, too, but I reckoned she needed him more. But she off down the hill before I could so much as get a bridle.”
“Town or country, I reckon them two are darned good Aussies!” said a returned soldier. A murmur of assent went round the group.
David Merritt put his pipe carefully into his pocket.
“Time for another shift, boys,” he said.
It was mid-afternoon before the last relay of bearers came steadily across the Hill Farm paddock towards the motor-ambulance that waited—brought by a cunning driver over ground where it is safe to say its builders had never dreamed that it could go. There was a little crowd about it: a silent crowd, for word of what they bore had gone before them, and if there were pride in the life snatched from the bush it was hushed into speechlessness in the presence of Death. The men took off their hats as the ambulance moved off slowly: here and there a woman sobbed. Big Tim O’Rourke, who had been first and last to carry, stretched his great shoulders.
“Poor chap!” he said. “He done his best. Well, boys, I reckon it’s about time to get home to milk!”
CHAPTER XI
CONCERNING THE END OF A PIG
“Coming out, Robin?”