Chapter I: SLUNG me khaki suit to-day

Civilian now front heel to chin I 'op round on a single shin; At home in peace I'm bound to stay. 'N' so they've took me duds away. It 'urt like strippin' off me skin!

I put it on three years ago,
The ole brown rig. There wasn't then
A prouder chicken in the pen.
Jist twenty turned, me nibs you'd know
For how I give me chest a throw,
A man among the best of men.

Me little no the touch I give,
Me chin's ez solid ez a rock,
'N' level with the Town 'All clock,
A five-inch grin across me chiv.
"Lor' love us, this is how to live,"
Sez I, 'n' felt I owned the Block.

Glad eyes was ever on the lurk,
'N' little 'earts was thumpin' warm
For nippers trainin' with the swarm
To swat ole Kaiser Bill, or work
A toe-hold on the heathen Turk.
Fair dink, I loved the uniform!

I soused mine in the brine that day
When Tophet spilt, 'n' in the roar
Of shells that split the sea 'n' tore
Our boats to chips, we broke any
Up through the pelt of leaden spray,
'N' got our first real taste of war.

They shot me tunic all to rags;
Then in the perpendic'lar spree
Me trousers wore off to the knee.
The right-abouts of many bags
Was ground off in the dust 'n' crags
A-sittin' in Gallipoli.

I wore the khaki on the Somme-
Most time 'twas jist a coat of mud;
I once come through the battle scud
Stripped mother-naked by a bomb;
'N' once it' took its color from
Me own 'n' one good cobber's blood.

They cheered the khaki through the street
When we come home with pipers gay,
But now I'm jist a bloke in grey.
Harf-lost, lob-sided, incomplete,
It's nothin' but me spook you'll meet,
Ghost-walkin' in the light o' day.

THE SINGLE-HANDED TEAM

WE'RE more than partners, Ned 'n' me, Two sections permanently righted. Yiv seen us on the mooch, maybe, Like remnants lovin'ly united. Ned's only got one stump, the left; By 'appy chance I've got its brother, Of his two dukes he's been bereft; My left was mauled, 'n' had to go, It fortunitly 'appens though, I kept the other.

Ned lost one ear, the left, 'n' struth, He dropped the correspondin' weeper. A Hun he crooled me lovely youth By bombin' out me right 'and peeper. He done a guy too with me ear, The right, 'n' now I dunno whether 'Twas Fate's intention, butt it's clear When trimmed each as the other's mate 'Twas up to us two, soon or late, To get together.

'Board ship there's me like arf a peach, 'N' Ned's the other arf, but soon it Strikes' Bill Carkeek that side by each We makes a satisfact'rv unit. A 'andy cobber on the ship Fakes up for us a set of clutches That damps us firmly hip to hip. In seven minutes we can peg The mile out on a timber leg 'N' two steel crutches.

We now go halves, like Si'mese twins, 'N' as a team I hold we're bosker-- The blighter on the street that grins Has got to deal with Edwin-Oscar. At balls we two-step, waltz, 'n' swing, 'N' proppin' walls no one has seen us. When at the bar I never ring The double on ole Ned. For both One hand must serve, 'n', on me oath, It's fair between us.

We jolt one knife 'n' fork, 'n' find One horse enough for both to ride on, And neither feller rides behind. Some sez we put a pile of side on. Well, where's the single-handed brace Will take us on? We'll put the peg in, Train fine, 'n' jump, or box, or race, Or wrestle them; 'n' more than that To clinch a match, so 'elp me cat, We'll throw a leg in!

He's five feet eight, I'm little less; He's Roman, I'm a sort of Proddy; But no sectarian bitterness Will disunite this sec'lar body-- We're hitched for good, we're two in one. Our taste's the same, from togs to tipple. But, straight, it makes me sad, ole son, To think if he should croak or me, The pore bloke what is left might be A bloomin' cripple.

BATTLE PASSES

A QUAINT old gabled cottage sleeps be-
tween the raving hills.
To right and left are livid strife, but on the
deep, wide sills
The purple pot-flowers swell and glow, and
o'er the walls and eaves
Prinked creeper steals caressing hands, the
poplar drips its leaves.
Within the garden hot and sweet
Fair form and woven color meet,
While down the clear, cool stones, 'tween
banks with branch and blossom gay,
A little, bridged, blind rivulet goes touching
out its way.

Peace lingers hidden from the knife, the tear-
ing blinding shell,
Where falls the spattered sunlight on a lichen-
covered well.
No voice is here, no fall of feet, no smoke lifts
cool and grey,
But on the granite stoop a cat blinks vaguely
at the day.
From hill to hill across the vale
Storms man's terrific iron gale;
The cot roof on a brooding dove recks not the
distant gun.
A brown hen scolds her chickens chasing
midges in the sun.

Now down the eastward slope they come. No call of life, no beat of drum, But stealthily, and in the green, Low hid, with rifle and machine, Spit hate and death; and red blood flows To shame the whiteness of the rose.

Crack followes crash; the bestial roar Of gastly and insensate war Breaks on the cot. A rending stoke, The red roof springs, and in the smoke And spume of shells the riven walls Pile where the splintered elm-tree spawls.

From westward, streaming down hill, Shot-ravaged, thinned, but urgent still, The brown, fierce, blooded Anzacs sweep, And Hell leaps a up. The lilies weep Strange crimson tears. Tight-lipped and mute, The grim, gaunt soldiers stab and shoot.

It passes. Frantic, fleeing death, Wild-eyed, foam-flecked and every breath A labored agony, like deer That feel the hounds' keen teeth, appear The Prussian men, and, wild to slay The hunters press upon their prey.

Cries fade and fitful shots die down. The
Tumbled ruin now
Smoke faintly in the summer light, and lifts
The trodden bough.
A sigh stirs in the trampled green, and held
And tainted red
The rill creeps o'er a dead man's face and
steals along its bed.
One deep among the lilacs thrown
Shock all the stillness with a moan.
Peace like the snowflake lights again where
utter silence lies,
And softly with white finger-tips she seals a
soldier eyes.

THE LETTERS OF THE DEAD.

A LETTER came from Dick to-day;
A greeting glad he sends to me.
He tells of one more bloody fray--
Of how with bomb and rifle they
Have put their mark for all to see
Across rock-ribbed Gallipoli.

"How are you doing? Hope all's well,
I in great nick, and like the work.
Though there may be a brimstone smell,
And other pungent hints of Hell,
Not Satan's self can make us shirk
Our task of hitting up the Turk.

"You bet old Slacks is not half bad
He knows his business in a scrim.
He gets cold steel, or we are glad
To stop him with a bullet, lad.
Or sling a bomb his hair to trim;
But, straight, we throw no mud at him.

"He fights and falls, and comes again,
And knocks our charging lines about.
He's game at heart, and tough in grain,
And canters through the leaded rain,
Chock full of mettle--not a doubt
'T will do us proud to put him out.

"But that's our job; to see it through
We've made our minds up, come what may,
This noon we had our work to do.
The shells were dropping two by two;
We fairly felt their bullets play
Among our hair for half a day.

"One clipped my ear, a red-hot kiss,
Another beggar chipped my shin.
They pass you with a vicious hiss
That makes you duck; but, hit or miss,
It isn't in the Sultan's skin
To shift Australia's cheerful grin.

"My oath, old man, though we were prone
We didn't take it lying down.
I got a dozen on my own--
All dread of killing now is flown;
It is the game, and, hard and brown,
We're wading in for freedom's crown.

"Big guns are booming as I write,
A lad is singing 'Dolly Grey,'
The shells are skipping in the night,
And, square and all, I feeling right
For, whisper, Ned, the fellows say
I did a ripping thing to-day.

"Soon homeward tramping with the band,
All notched a bit, and with the prize
Of glory for our native land,
I'll see my little sweetheart stand
And smile, her smile, so sweet and wise--
With proud tears shining in her eyes.

"Geewhiz! What price your humble when
Triumphant from the last attack,
We face a Melbourne crowd again,
Tough, happy, battle-proven men,
And while the cheer-stormed heavens crack
I bring the tattered colors back!"
. . .
A mist is o'er the written line
Whence martial ardor seems to flow;
A dull ache holds this heart of mine--
Poor boy, he had a vision fine;
But grave dust clouds the royal glow;
He died in action weeks ago!

He was my friend--I may not weep.
My soul goes out to Him who bled;
I pray for Christ's compassion deep
On mothers, lovers--all who keep
The woeful vigil, having read
The joyous letters of the dead.

BULLETS

AS bullets come to us they're thin, They're angular, or smooth and fat, Some spiral are, and gimlet in, And some are sharp, and others flat. The slim one pink you clean and neat, The flat ones bat a solid blow Much as a camel throws his feet, And leave you beastly incomplete. If lucky you don't know it through.

The flitting bullets flow and flock;
They twitter as they pass;
They're picking at the solid rock,
They're rooting in the grass.
A tiny ballet swiftly throws
Its gossamer of rust,
Brown fairies on their little toes
A-dancing in the dust.

You cower down when first they come With snaky whispers at your ear; And when like swarming bees they hum You know the tinkling chill of fear. A whining thing will pluck your heel, A whirring insect sting your shin; You shrink to half your size, and feel The ripples o'er your body seal- 'Tis terror walking in your skin!

The bullets pelt like winter hail,
The whistle and they sigh,
They shrill like cordage in a gale,
Like mewing kittens cry;
They hiss and spit, they purring come;
Or, silent all a span,
They rap, as on a slackened drum,
The dab that kills a man.

Rage takes you next. All hot your face The bitter void, and curses leap From pincered teeth. The wide, still space Whence all these leaden devil's sweep Is Tophet. Fiends by day and night Are groping for your heart to sate In blood their diabolic spite. You shoot in idiot delight, Each winging slug a hymn of hate.

The futile bullets scratch and go,
They chortle and the coo.
I laugh my scorn, for now I know
The thing they cannot do.
They flit like midges in the sun,
But howso thick they be
What matter, since there is not one
That God has marked for me!

An Eastern old philosophy Come home at length and passion stills- The thing will be that is to be, And all must come as Heaven wills. Where in the swelter and the flame The new, hot, shining bullets drip; One in the many has an aim, Inwove a visage and a name- No man may give his fate the slip!

The bullets thrill along the breeze,
They drum upon the bags,
They tweak your ear, your hair they tease,
And peck your sleeve to rags.
Their voices may no more annoy-
I chortle at the call:
The bullet that is mine, my boy,
I shall not hear at all!

The war's a flutter very like The tickets that we took from Tatt. Quite possibly I'll make a strike; The odds are all opposed to that. Behind the dawn the Furies sway The mighty globe from which to get Those bullets which throughout the day Will winners be to break or slay. I have not struck a starter yet

The busy bullets rise and flock;
They whistle as they pass;
They're chipping at the solid rock,
They're skipping in the grass.
Out there the tiny dancers throw
Their sober skirts of rust,
Brown flitting figures tipping toe
Along the golden dust.

UNREDEEMED.