CHAPTER X
THE ORDER OF THE PUSH
Several Months Later.—I have just been discharged from my second English hospital, and am at present on "leave pending discharge from the Service, 'Permanently Unfit.'" I feel pretty well that way, too. My soldiering days are over: henceforth I am a man of peace. Well, I've had a goodish innings and can't complain, even in spite of the fact that I'll never be quite the same man again. And, after all, things might be a deal worse: I might be one of those grotesque-looking bundles of khaki and rat-picked bones now lying unburied and forgotten in the scrub of Gaba Tepe, for instance. And I'd go through it all again—aye, a hundred times—sooner than have the women call me "slacker"! I say "women"advisedly: the "men" are all wearing khaki now; those "she-men" who aren't don't count—theyare just white-livered, cold-footed, rubber-spined swine! That's straight Anzac. I'd cheerfully forfeit a month's back pay to watch one of the slacker brigade read these lines, and to know that away down in the little dried-up kernel he calls his heart there still exists enough red blood to pump a flush of shame into his white girl's cheeks. "Girl," did I say? Then I ask the "gentler" sex to forgive me, for well I know that nine out of every ten women in the British Empire have far more true pluck and sand in their little fingers than the whole slacker brigade have in their useless tender-footed bodies. What right have these damned cowards to go to theatres, dances, football matches, and concerts; to lie warm in bed at night and eat soft tucker by day—to live their soft, easy-going useless lives, while I and the like of me have to go out and live, fight—aye, and die—like beasts? True,we volunteered; we just had to—beingmen! What right (I put it straight to any slacker whose eye now rests on this page—if he hasn't already chucked this little volume into the fire)—what right have you, you little white-livered cur, you slimy maggot—what right have you to wear the dress and ape the bearing of aman? What will you say to themenwhen they return from doing their bit—when they ask whyyoudidn't roll up and help them in their need? That you were a conscientious objector? That you didn't believe in shedding human blood? That you had to stay at home—and make money—whiletheywere fighting and sweating that the old home might not be polluted by the shadow of the German beasts, the ravishers of poor little Belgium? Well, you can say what you like. But I know what they will call you—a name that no man worth calling a man ever takes unchallenged from his fellows—what I call you right now: COWARD!
I was going to add: What will you say to your children when they ask you whatyoudid in The Great War? But surely no woman will ever call you husband and bear your children! If such women are to be found, and I only had the power, I'd emasculate you all rather than see your dirty breed perpetuated.
That's some more straight Australasian. But to come back to the matter in hand, as the public tub-thumpers say——
I got in the way of some bullets. I didn't want to, but they were flying round pretty lively and I bagged a few—one through the arm, another through the shoulder (it's still sticking somewhere down under the blade), two pieces of explosive bullet in my right hand (still there and letting me know it when I write), plus an assortment of small splinters distributed round about my figure-head. My left ear is gone; I don't sleep too well; there is a fitter's shop doing great work day andnight in my head, and when I walk out to take the air things are apt to spin round some, and I fancy the dear old ladies imagine I suffer from chronic alcoholism. Altogether I don't feel quiet as good as I did before I went on tour with the Anzacs. Neither did the medical board, so they're giving me the tin-ware. Funny thing: my appetite is quite good, and I look as strong as a horse. Hence the aforesaid old ladies are always telling how well I look, and hoping I amquiterecovered from my wounds. At first this sort of thing used to bore me; now, however, it only amuses me. It's a boncer gift is the saving grace of humour, and keeps a fellow from getting into the blues when he compares the man he was once with the man he is now. However, that's by the way.
I have been in six hospitals altogether. I don't want any more, not being greedy. I am fed up with hospitals, fed up with doctors, fed up with nurses ("sisters" we called them),and, above all, fed up and surfeited with the old blue suit! Not that we weren't well treated in hospital. I have nothing much to complain of (although they did in some cases treat us like kids): I have much to praise. The doctors were on the whole a decent crowd; the sisters were just angels! I take my hat off to them wishing them a long and jolly life on this old planet and a featherbed in Heaven when they hit the long trail.Kia Ora!
After being hit I was taken in a fleet sweeper to Lemnos Island, about forty-five miles from Anzac. I was in two hospitals there. From Lemnos Island I went in a hospital ship to Alexandria, and on by hospital train to Cairo. I put in a spell there, and was then shipped (by train!) to Port Said. From Port Said I was consigned to England, where I brought up in Cardiff. Finally I did a spell in a South Coast hospital. Then they got sick of me. The feeling was mutual. So I'm getting the order of the push.
Taking it all in all I've had a kind of a Cook's Personally Conducted Tour. I've had good times and bad times, the good fairly well balancing the bad. On the whole it has been a most interesting trip. It has also been to a certain extent an exciting trip. I reckon it's up to me to remember the good times and forget the bad. And I wouldn't have missed it, good or bad, for worlds.
For, dear reader (please don't think I'm bragging), I'd rather be lying this moment in an unknown grave in the Gallipoli Peninsula than be branded for life as a God damned slacker!
That isn't swearing. It's a pious expression. And, take it either way, it's pardonable.
THE END
Printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,brunswick st., stamford st., s.e., and bungay, suffolk.
Transcriber's Notes.1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors.2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
Transcriber's Notes.
1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.