When the Light Horse were ordered at last to the front, Joe took a sad farewell of his old bay mare. He was, as a rule, about as sentimental as a steamroller, but “leaving the old nag behind hurt some.”
On the Peninsula and under fire his sterling qualities were not long in coming to the surface. Living all his life in an environment in which the pick and shovel plays an important part he proved himself an adept at sapping and mining. At this game he was worth four ordinary men. No matter how circuitous the maze of trenches, he could find his way with ease. He could turn out all sorts of dishes from his daily rations of flour, bacon, jam, and of course the inevitable “bully” and biscuits. An endless amount of initiative showed itself in everything he did. His mates learned quite a lot of things just by watching him potter about the trenches and bivouacs. His training at the military camps of Australia and, later, in Egypt, combined with the knowledge he had been imbibing from Nature all his life, made him an ideal soldier.
He was used extensively by his officers as a scout. As the Turkish trenches were often not more than twenty yards from our own, needless to say the scouting was done at night, the Turks’ favourite time to attack being just before dawn. Often during these nocturnal excursions a slight rustle in the thick scrub would cause his mate to grasp his rifle with fixed bayonet and peer into the darkness, with strained eyes and ears and quickened pulse.
“A hare,” Joe would whisper, and probably advise him to take things easy while he himself watched.
This went on for some time until one night his mate came in alone, pale-faced and wild-eyed. Interrogated by the officer on duty, he informed him that Joe had been shot.
We brought the body in. He had been shot through the heart—a typical affair of outposts.
Tucked away in one of the innumerable gullies, a little grave, one among hundreds, contains the body of one of Nature’s grand men. On the wooden cross surmounting it is the following:
| No. 008 Trooper J. Redgum, | ||
| 20th Australian Light Horse. | ||
| Killed in Action. | ||
W. R. C.,
8th A.L.H.