“No, sir,” said the Q.M.S. “It’s a poem.”
Then the ’major saw red. “What the blazes have I got here?” he yelled. “Men dying from cold because they’ve got no coats, and you writing poems. What the——”
He fainted away, and I was present when the doctors came out of the hospital tent to which they carried him. One of the doctors said the sergeant-major was a splendid soldier, but he had received a tremendous shock from some unknown cause, and they don’t think he can recover.
When the Q.M.S. heard that he became very despondent. “I won’t write that poem now,” he said; “but it would have been a splendid thing. All about a pretty girl in the surf who met a fellow from the bush....”
R. A. L.
1st Australian Stat. Hosp.
A LITTLE SPRIG OF WATTLE
My mother’s letter came to-day,
And now my thoughts are far away,
For in between its pages lay