A Minstrel In France | Page 5

talk about--son, and his mother and I. It was long
months since we had seen him, and we had seen and done so much.
The time flew by. Maybe we did not read the papers so carefully as we
might have done. They tell me, they have told me, since then, that in
Europe and even in America, there was some warning after Austria
moved on Serbia. But I believe that down there in Australia they did
not dream of danger; that they were far from understanding the
meaning of the news the papers did print. They were so far away!
And then, you ken, it came upon us like a clap of thunder. One night it
began. There was war in Europe--real war. Germany had attacked
France and Russia. She was moving troops through Belgium. And
every Briton knew what that must mean. Would Britain be drawn in?
There was the question that was on every man's tongue.
"What do you think, son?" I asked John.

"I think we'll go in," he said. "And if we do, you know, Dad--they'll
send for me to come home at once. I'm on leave from the summer
training camp now to make this trip."
My boy, two years before, had joined the Territorial army. He was a
second lieutenant in a Territorial battalion of the Argyle and Sutherland
Highlanders. It was much as if he had been an officer in a National
Guard regiment in the United States. The territorial army was not
bound to serve abroad--but who could doubt that it would, and gladly.
As it did--to a man, to a man.
But it was a shock to me when John said that. I had not thought that
war, even if it came, could come home to us so close--and so soon.
Yet so it was. The next day was the fourth of August--my birthday.
And it was that day that Britain declared war upon Germany. We sat at
lunch in the hotel at Melbourne when the newsboys began to cry the
extras. And we were still at lunch when the hall porter came in from
outside.
"Leftenant Lauder!" he called, over and over. John beckoned to him,
and he handed my laddie a cablegram.
Just two words there were, that had come singing along the wires half
way around the world.
"Mobilize. Return."
John's eyes were bright. They were shining. He was looking at us, but
he was not seeing us. Those eyes of his were seeing distant things. My
heart way sore within me, but I was proud and happy that it was such a
son I had to give my country.
"What do you think, Dad?" he asked me, when I had read the order.
I think I was gruff because I dared not let him see how I felt. His
mother was very pale.

"This is no time for thinking, son," I said. "It is the time for action. You
know your duty."
He rose from the table, quickly.
"I'm off!" he said.
"Where?" I asked him.
"To the ticket office to see about changing my berth. There's a steamer
this week--maybe I can still find room aboard her."
He was not long gone. He and his chum went down together and come
back smiling triumphantly.
"It's all right, Dad," he told me. "I go to Adelaide by train and get the
steamer there. I'll have time to see you and mother off--your steamer
goes two hours before my train."
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