We were going to New Zealand. And my boy was was going home to fight for his country. They would call me too old, I knew—I was forty-four the day Britain declared war.
What a turmoil there was about us! So fast were things moving that there seemed no time for thought, John's mother and I could not realize the full meaning of all that was happening. But we knew that John was snatched away from us just after he had come, and it was hard—it was cruelly hard.
But such thoughts were drowned in the great surging excitement that was all about us. In Melbourne, and I believe it must have been much the same elsewhere in Australia, folks didn't know what they were to do, how they were to take this war that had come so suddenly upon them. And rumors and questions flew in all directions.
Suppose the Germans came to Australia? Was there a chance of that? They had islands, naval bases, not so far away. They were Australia's neighbors. What of the German navy? Was it out? Were there scattered ships, here and there, that might swoop down upon Australia's shores and bring death and destruction with them?
But even before we sailed, next day, I could see that order was coming out of that chaos. Everywhere recruiting offices were opening, and men were flocking to them. No one dreamed, really, of a long war—though John laughed, sadly, when someone said it would be over in four months. But these Australians took no chances; they would offer themselves first, and let it be decided later whether they were needed.
So we sailed away. And when I took John's hand, and kissed him good-by,
I saw him for the last time in his civilian clothes.
"Well, son," I said, "you're going home to be a soldier, a fighting soldier. You will soon be commanding men. Remember that you can never ask a man to do something you would no dare to do yourself!"
And, oh, the braw look in the eyes of the bonnie laddie as he tilted his chin up to me!
"I will remember, Dad!" he said.
And so long as a bit of the dock was in sight we could see him waving to us. We were not to see him again until the next January, at Bedford, in England, where he was training the raw men of his company.