"Over There" with the Australians

by R. Hugh Knyvett

One morning there was great excitement. Up from the lower decks the electric current of expectancy ran until every one's steps quickened and those of us who were on wooden legs beat a constant tattoo on the decks. What means this eager, anxious thrill? To-morrow we would sight Australia! Only 43,200 seconds—720 minutes—or 12 hours, and once again we would view the fairest continent planted by God in the seas. Mind you, the first sight of Australia (going that way) is not very attractive. Rottenest Island, outside Fremantle, is sandy and barren and really not much to boast about, yet had you spread before us a scene from the Garden of Eden it had not charmed us half so much. For this was part of Australia, the land that we all called home. Back of that, for three thousand miles, stretched the country that held our ain folk and love and joy and home and what a man fights for and worships.

Every man had to be up on deck to see this sight. There were men there paralyzed, who had never moved during the whole long journey, but the saddest sight was to see the blind turning their sightless eyes in its direction and smiling with ecstasy, and maybe it looked more fair to these than to us who could see. How those boys cheered and cheered again! What a new spirit pervaded the ship! All day laughter and singing rang out, for there are no more patriotic troops in the world than the Australian soldiers, and, East, West, Hame's best. Like the old King of Ithaca we had wandered for years in many lands, but at last had returned home, and soon would have Penelope in our arms.

But only the Westralians were really home, and some of these had two or three hundred miles to go; for the rest of us there was still a fortnight more in the old ship as we sailed across the base of Australia to the eastern States.

CHAPTER XXX

IN AUSTRALIA

When the ship drew in at the Melbourne wharf I made up my mind to escape the fuss and hero-worship, as I was a Queenslander and knew that none of my folks were among the crowd waiting at the gates. I went to the military landing-officer and asked him if I could not go out another way and dodge the procession. He said the orders were that every officer and man was to be driven in special cars to the hospital. I then went down onto the wharf and approached one of the ladies who looked as if she would play the game and I said to her: "If I ride in your car, will you promise to do me a favor?" She said: "I would do anything for you." I then said: "Well, let me out as soon as we get outside the gate." She demurred a good deal but I reminded her that no Australian girl I knew ever broke a promise. When we got outside I boarded a tram-car, which had not gone far before it had to stop to let the procession pass. Of course, every one would see that I was a returned soldier, but there was nothing to show that I was just returned. I stood up in the tram-car with the rest of the passengers and cheered and threw cigarettes and remarked loudly to all and sundry: "Some more boys come back, eh?" But my well-laid plans were entirely spoiled as my friends in the automobile called put, "Here, Knyvett, you dog, come out of that! Here's your place!" and I disgracefully subsided with many blushes, and had to endure all the way up to Melbourne the whispers and concentrated gaze of the whole tramful. I also "fell in" in another way, for when I rang up my uncle I found that he and his daughter were looking for me down at the wharf gates.

Two years ago the site of Caulfield Hospital was a wilderness of weeds and sand. Now it is an area of trim lawns and blazing gardens, bowling-greens, croquet-lawns, and tennis-courts, with comfortable huts, the gift of the people of Melbourne to their wounded soldiers, costing several hundred thousand dollars. As I had served with Victorian troops I was assigned to this hospital, although my home was over a thousand miles away in the northern state of Queensland. All who were fit to travel were given fourteen days "disembarkation leave" to visit their homes, but twelve of these days I had to spend in travel and only had two days at home after such long absence.

My wounds had healed but I was still paralyzed in my left leg, and the only attention I required was daily massage for an hour, and then another hour in the torture-chamber with an electric current grilling me. After this was over, I would go into the city, do the block, have afternoon tea, give an address at the Town Hall recruiting-depot, go to a theatre, and then as there seemed nothing else to be done, would return to the hospital. Such was my programme for ninety days. Sometimes I varied it by visiting the Zoo to commiserate with the wild animals on being caged.

There were many red-letter days when I was entertained by friends; but I am afraid I only squeaked when they expected roars—to be lionized was too unusual not to have stage fright a little.