Chapter I: A Notable Quartette

WANTED.--One Thousand cheerful toughs to enlist for the period of the war in the Kangaroo Marines. Boosers, scrimshankers and loonies barred. Gents with big waists and little hearts are warned off. Sharpshooters on the wallaby, able to live on condensed air and boiled snakes, are cordially invited. No parson's references are required. Jackaroos, cattlemen, rouseabouts, shearers--every sort of handy-man welcome. Pay, 6s. per day, and all the "jewels" in the Sultan's harem.

This is to be the crack corps of the Australian Force.

Hurry up and join.

(_Signed_) SAM KILLEM, _Lt. Col. Commanding_.

This alluring advertisement appeared on the front page of _The Bushmen's Weekly_, a Sydney production, renowned for its wit and originality. It was designed to tickle the sides of the horny-handed men of the Bush, and to rope in the best of them. For these men of the Never-Never Land are soldiers born and heroes in the toughest job. They think deep and know the way of things. If they appear wild and uncouth, they carry beneath that scrubby exterior the will of men and the open heart of the child.

Moreover, they love the Motherland. This was specially true of the four who tenanted a little shanty on the sheep station of "Old Graham," one of the wealthiest men in Australia. The quartette consisted of Bill Buster, a typical Cornstalk with a nut-brown face, twinkling eyes and a spice of the devil and the Lord in his soul. Next came Claud Dufair, a handsome remittance man with an eye-glass and a drawl. This fellow had personality. He insisted on wearing a white collar and using kid gloves when doing anything, from dung lifting to sheep shearing. Paddy Doolan was the third member. He was an Irishman by birth, but Australian by adoption. He had been in the Bush since he was a kid. A kind soul was Paddy, with the usual weakness--the craving for the "cratur." Fourth, and by no means least, was Sandy Brown, a Glasgow stoker, who had skipped away in a tramp from the Broomielaw because of another fellow's wife.

A mixed bunch, these four, you will agree. All with a history, part of it bad, but the main part certainly good. It takes a good heart to be a Bushman. Work is hard, the heat is trying, pleasures few, and the chances of wealth are only meagre. But the Australian Bush has a lure of its own. It calls the bravest and the best. It calls and holds the men primed for adventure, unafraid of death, and full of that innate charm and gallantry which is always the particular prerogative of the wanderer. No questions are asked in this land. A man's soul is never probed, nor is he expected to reveal his birth, or the cause of his being there. It is the place to hide a broken heart or mend an erring past. But it is only a place for men. And this quartette was full of the war. They were itching to fight. This advertisement, therefore, cheered their hearts and clinched their hopes.

"Well, boys," said Bill, "this is our call. We'd better join."

"Hear, hear!" remarked the others. That was all. They immediately packed their swag for the road. That afternoon they received their pay from the squatter. While Buster, Brown, and Doolan said good-bye to the master and mistress on the veranda, Claud was kissing Sybil, the charming daughter of the house, a tender farewell. For Sybil Graham loved the "English Johnny," as her friends called Claud. Her love was returned--not in the way he had treated some women in England, but with that reverence which is born out of true affection. This Englishman, despite his faults, had a veneration for the straightforward type which can be found in the Australian squatter's home.

"Come on, Claud--here's the coach," yelled Bill from the veranda. They embraced once more, then stepped out of doors.

"Good-bye, boys--God bless you!" said old Graham with a husky throat.

"Good-bye--Good-bye!" said his wife, with tears in her eyes, while Sybil had only strength to wave her arm to the fast disappearing figure of Claud as he drove with his friends to the railway station twenty miles beyond.

"You're queer lookin', Claud," said Sandy, as they went down the road.

"Shut up!" interjected Bill, who, like all Bushmen, had a true respect for the sentiment inspired by the dangers of war. However, the sadness of parting was soon forgotten. They were, also, cheered to see, coming over the plains, little groups of cookies, shearers and others, bent on their own errand.

"Sakes alive! where's all you mad fellows goin'?" inquired the wizened old stationmaster.

"Berlin," said Bill.

"Ach sure, stationmaster, we're goin' to kiss the little darlints in the Sultan's harem."

"Well, hurry up, boys; the train's ready."

With a wild whoop fifty of them dashed for tickets, some "tucker," and a bottle or two of Scotch. Into the train they jumped, and in a jiffy were rolling over the line to Sydney. Song and story helped to cheer the long and somewhat tiring journey. During a sort of lull in the proceedings Claud looked up and said: "Here, Bill, can't you recite us some of that impromptu sort of doggerel that you get into the Sydney weeklies now and then."

"Well--yes," said Bill, rising and clearing his throat.

"Order, order! ye sheep-eatin' blackguards," shouted Paddy, hitting a table with his riding-whip. The gathering ceased their chatter, and Bill rhymed out:

"We're the Kangaroo Marines,
We're not Lager-fed machines,
But Bushmen, Bushmen, Bushmen from the plains.
We can ride, and we can cook,
Ay, in shooting know our book,
We're out to wipe off Kaiser Billy's stains.

"We're not trim--and not polite,
And, perchance, get on the skite--
We're Bushmen, Bushmen, Bushmen from the plains.
Yet though we can't salute,
We can bayonet and can boot
The wily, wily Turk from our domains.

"So when we ride away,
Off hats and shout 'Hooray'
For Bushmen, Bushmen, Bushmen from the plains.
And, parsons, say your prayers
That we may pass "Upstairs"
Should a nasty little bullet hit our veins.

"Now, boys, stand up and sing
God save our good old King,
And Bushmen, Bushmen, Bushmen from the plains."

"Good, Bill, good!" shouted Claud, gripping the rough rhymster by the hand.

"Hear, hear!" shouted the crowd.

"Rot! D---- rotten jingo slush! What the hades has the King done for you and me?" roared a red-faced passenger at the other end of the car. This was none other than Bill Neverwork, secretary of the Weary Willies' Union and Socialist M.P. for the town of Wearyville.

"Go an' boil yer old fat 'ead!" said Bill, calmly lighting his pipe.

"Ye turnip-faced spalpeen, oi'll cut yer dirty thrapple wid my gully knife."

"Rot!"

"You beastly fellow!" said Claud, giving him a scornful look.

But this Socialist gentleman was not to be denied. He would speak. "Listen, boys," he roared above the din.

"All right, father--we'll listen," said Bill, giving the others a nod. Peace reigned, then Neverwork commenced.

"Boys, you've been fooled. Why should you fight for Hengland----"

"Britain, please--I'm a Scot," interjected Sandy.

"Well, what has Britain done for Australia? We don't want Hengland to hinterfere with our business and get hour boys killed. We've enough work 'ere to do. This is the working man's paradise. And we can make it a sight bigger paradise. We want more men like me."

"'Ave a banana," chirped Bill.

"Yes, mates; we want Socialism. We're going to get a Republic. We'll cut the painter. Curse England!"

"Britain, auld cock!" interjected Sandy again.

"Curse Britain--and you, ye porridge-faced hemigrant! It's the hemigrants that spoil this country. Kick them out, I say. Australia for Australians. That's my motto, mates. I know what I'm talking about. I'm Bill Neverwork----"

"B.F. for Wearyville," interjected Bill as he got up. "And now, you puddin'-headed red flagger, if you'll sit down, I'll have a cut in." The bucolic M.P. collapsed in his seat, wiping the perspiration off his beetled brow with the aid of a navvy's red handkerchief.

"Now, boys, you know me."

"Good old Bill--give it him!"

"This gent, what is called M.P., is a worm. I'm a Union man--we're all Union men. Andy Fisher's a Union man, and so is Pearce, the chap that's defending Australia. But there's Union men and Union men. They're mainly good, but some are bad. That's one of the bad ones there. His name is Neverwork, and he never worked in his life. He's a blowhard, a gasbagger, a balloon full of curses and twaddle. This bloke thinks we're fools. He's kidded his Union on that he's a smart fellow--a sort of High Priest of Salvation. He's talked himself into a job, and he's drawing about five hundred a year out of another fellow's pockets. He's called a Socialist to-day, but he'd call himself a Jew, a nigger, a polecat to-morrow, if, by doing that, he'd get a hundred more. In short, mates, he's a politician--you know what that means. Now, Andy Fisher and Pearce don't shout like this thing here. They're men, they're Australians. They want us to fight side by side with the boys from the old country. That's why we're here. And we'll fight, and so much for a fat-headed M.P. that couldn't write his own name ten years ago. This chap's an insult to Australia."

"Hear, hear!" chorused all the Bushmen volunteers.

"Listen, boys! Listen!" roared the M.P. above the din; but they simply howled him down. In the middle of this row Claud rose up, and putting up his hand, asked for order. Again silence reigned.

"Well, gentlemen--I mean, boys," said Claud, fumbling with his eyeglass, "I wish to make a motion----"

"You're a new chum--sit down," roared Neverwork.

"And that's why I want to speak," said Claud, in such a quiet, cynical way that the M.P. almost choked. "I'm a new chum--yes. And I am, also, one of the boys. I'm in the Shearers' Union, too. I have been treated well here--don't cher know, and here are my good friends. And we're all going to fight, for what----"

"For financiers and Jews," roared the M.P.

"No, my apoplectic friend! We're going to fight for Australia--not Britain--and we're going to fight to prevent fools like you handing this land over to German or Yellow men. It's the proper thing, don't cher know. Now, gentlemen----"

"Not so much of the gentlemen," shouted Neverwork.

"My dear friend, you were not included in the term. I am addressing these gentlemen from the Bush. You're too beastly dirty and lazy to be a Bushman," said Claud, adjusting his eyeglass and surveying the squat figure of the M.P. as if he were examining a maggot.

"My motion, boys, is simply this, that we stop the train by pulling the communication cord, and hold the driver up for ten minutes. Meantime, we might seize our political gasbag, secure him with a few bits of rope, hoist him out of the carriage, and tie him up to one of the signal posts, leaving a suitable inscription attached to his corporation, so that all the world shall know what a delightful idiot this gentleman--I mean politician--is."

"Carried, be jabers!" roared Paddy Doolan, pulling the communication cord, while Bill, Sandy and some more, seized the Socialist. He kicked, cursed, bit, screamed and wriggled, but to no purpose. As the train slowed down, Bill jumped out, and, running along to the driver, held him up with a masonic wink and a Scotch refreshment. The trussed form of the M.P. was then carried out of the train. He was still cursing. But the Bushmen quietly tied him to a signal post. This completed, Claud pinned a great white sheet of paper with an inscription on it.

"Good-bye, old cock," shouted the Bushmen, jumping into the train again. The whistle blew, and as the train went slowly past the enraged captive, the eyes of all read the notice fixed to his waist:

"THIS IS NOT AN AUSTRALIAN,
HE'S A D---- FOOL.
(_Signed_) KANGAROO MARINES."