A Minstrel In France | Page 6

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.
Those were the first days of war. The British navy was on guard. From
every quarter the whimpering wireless brought news of this German
warship and that. They were scattered far and wide, over the Seven
Seas, you ken, when the war broke out. There was no time for them to
make a home port. They had their choice, most of them, between being
interned in some neutral port and setting out to do as much mischief as
they could to British commerce before they were caught. Caught they
were sure to be. They must have known it. And some there were to
brave the issue and match themselves against England's great naval
power.
Perhaps they knew that few ports would long be neutral! Maybe they

knew of the abominable war the Hun was to wage. But I think it was
not such men as those who chose to take their one chance in a thousand
who were sent out, later, in their submarines, to send women and
babies a to their deaths with their torpedoes!
Be that as it may, we sailed away from Melbourne. But it was in
Sydney Harbor that we anchored next--not in Wellington, as we, on the
ship, all thought it would be! And the reason was that the navy, getting
word that the German cruiser Emden was loose and raiding, had
ordered our captain to hug the shore, and to put in at Sydney until he
was told it was safe to proceed.
We were not much delayed, and came to Wellington safely. New
Zealand was all ablaze with the war spirit. There was no hesitation
there. The New Zealand troops were mobilizing when we arrived, and
every recruiting office was besieged with men. Splendid laddies they
were, who looked as if they would give a great account of themselves.
As they did--as they did. Their deeds at Gallipoli speak for them and
will forever speak for them--the men of Australia and New Zealand.
There the word Anzac was made--made from the first letters of these
words: Australian New Zealand Army Corps. It is a word that will
never die.
Even in the midst of war they had time to give me a welcome that
warmed my heart. And there were pipers with them, too, skirling a tune
as I stepped ashore. There were tears in my eyes again, as there had
been at Sydney. Every laddie in uniform made me think of my own boy,
well off, by now, on his way home to Britain and the duty that had
called him.
They were gathering, all over the Empire, those of British blood. They
were answering the call old Britain had sent across the seven seas to the
far corners of the earth. Even as the Scottish clans gathered of old the
greater British clans were gathering now. It was a great thing to see that
in the beginning; it has comforted me many a time since, in a black
hour, when news was bad and the Hun was thundering at the line that
was so thinly held in France.

Here were free peoples, not held, not bound, free to choose their way.
Britain could not make their sons come to her aid. If they came they
must come freely, joyously, knowing that it was a right cause, a holy
cause, a good cause, that called them. I think of the way they came--of
the way I saw them rising to the summons, in New Zealand, in
Australia, later in Canada. Aye, and I saw more--I saw Americans
slipping across the border, putting on Britain's khaki there in Canada,
because they knew that it was the fight of