“Gallip’li—dead mostly. My battalion began there. We only lost half.”
“Lucky! They gambled us away in two days. ’Member the hospital on the beach?” asked Orton.
“Yes. An’ the man without the face—preaching,” said Bevin, sitting up a little.
“Till he died,” said the Australian, his voice lowered.
“And afterwards,” Bevin added, lower still.
“Christ! Were you there that night?”
Bevin nodded. The Australian choked off something he was going to say, as a brother on his left claimed him. I heard them talk horses, while Bevin developed his herb-growing projects with the well-groomed brother opposite.
At the end of the banquet, when pipes were drawn, the Australian addressed himself to Bevin, across me, and as the company re-arranged itself, we three came to anchor in the big ante-room where the best prints are hung. Here our brother across the table joined us, and moored alongside.
The Australian was full of racial grievances, as must be in a young country; alternating between complaints that his people had not been appreciated enough in England, or too fulsomely complimented by an hysterical Press.
“No-o,” Pole drawled, after awhile. “You’re altogether wrong. We hadn’t time to notice anything—we were all too busy fightin’ for our lives. What your crowd down under are suffering from is growing-pains. You’ll get over ’em in three hundred years or so—if you’re allowed to last so long.”