A Minstrel In France | Page 6

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 humanity, of freedom, that they were entering. And that, too, gave me comfort later in dark times, for it made me know that when the right time came America would take her place beside old Britain and brave France.
New Zealand is a bonnie land. It made me think, sometimes, of the Hielands of Scotland. A bonnie land, and braw are its people. They made me happy there, and they made much of me.
At Christchurch they did a strange thing. They were selling off, at auction, a Union Jack--the flag of Britain. Such a thing had never been done before, or thought of. But here was