Over There with the Australians | Page 8

In the beginning he was with Chum, and
there was danger of his growing fat of body and soft of soul in the
quartermaster's store, but he was rescued in time, and after months of
exciting researches into canine history among the bones of the tombs of
Egypt he earned renown at Armentières, as his body was found in No
Man's Land with his head in the cold hand of a comrade to whom he
had attached himself, and I believe his spirit has joined the deathless
army of the unburied dead that watch over our patrols and inspire our
sentries with the realization that on an Australian front No Man's Land
has shrunk and our possession reaches right up to the enemy barbed
wire.
[1] Mrs. A. H. Spicer, Chicago.


CHAPTER III
HUMAN SNOWBALLS
'Way out back in the Never Never Land of Australia there lives a

patriotic breed of humans who know little of the comforts of civilized
life, whose homes are bare, where coin is rarely seen, but who have as
red blood and as clean minds as any race on earth.
The little town of Muttaburra, for instance, has a population of two
hundred, one-half of whom are eligible for military service.
They live in galvanized-iron humpies with dirt floors,
newspaper-covered walls, sacking stretched across poles for beds,
kerosene-boxes for chairs, and a table made from saplings. The water
for household uses is delivered to the door by modern Dianas driving a
team of goats at twenty-five cents per kerosene-tin, which is not so dear
when you know that it has to be brought from a "billabong" [1] ten
miles away.
Most of the men in such towns work as "rouseabouts" (handy men) on
the surrounding sheep and cattle stations. At shearing-time the
"gaffers" (grandfathers) and young boys get employment as
"pickers-up" and "rollers." Every shearer keeps three men at high speed
attending to him. One picks up the fleece in such a manner as to spread
it out on the table in one throw; another one pulls off the ends and rolls
it so that the wool-classer can see at a glance the length of the wool and
weight of the fleece; another, called the "sweeper," gathers into a
basket the trimmings and odd pieces. These casual laborers and
rouseabouts are paid ten dollars a week, while the shearer works on
piece work, receiving six dollars for each hundred sheep shorn, and it is
a slow man who does not average one hundred and fifty per day. All
the shearing is done by machine, and in Western Queensland good
shearers are in constant employment for ten months of the year. The
shearers have a separate union from the rouseabouts, and there is a
good deal of ill feeling between the two classes. When the shearers
want a spell I have known them declare by a majority vote that the
sheep were "wet," though there had not been any rain for months!
There is a law that says that shearers must not be asked to shear "wet"
sheep, as it is supposed to give them a peculiar disease. The
rouseabouts do not mind these "slow-down" strikes, as they get paid
anyway, but the shearers are very bitter when these have a dispute with

the boss and strike, for it cuts down their earnings, probably just when
they wanted to finish the shed so as to get a "stand" at the
commencement of shearing near by.
When the war broke out the problem of the government was how to
collect the volunteers from these outback towns for active service. It
would cost from fifty to one hundred dollars per head in railway fare to
bring them into camp.
The outbacker, however, solved the problem without waiting for the
government to make up its mind. They just made up their swags and
"humped the bluey" [2] for the coast. That is how the remarkable
phenomenon of the human snowball marches commenced.
Simultaneously from inland towns in different parts of Australia men
without the means of paying their transportation to Sydney or
Melbourne simply started out to walk the three or four hundred miles
from their homes to the nearest camp. In the beginning there would just
be half a dozen or so, but as they reached the next township they would
tell where they were bound, and more would join. Passing by boundary
riders' and prospectors' huts, they would pick up here and there another
red-blood who could not resist the chance of being in a real ding-dong
fight. Many were grizzled and gray, but as hard as nails, and no one
could prove that they were over the age for enlistment, for they
themselves did not know how old they were!
[Illustration: From inland towns . .