PARABLES OF ANZAC
From a Correspondent in Australian Field Artillery, “Sea View,” Boltons Knoll, near Shell Green.
I was looking out from the entrance of my dug-out, thinking how peaceful everything was, when Johnny Turk opened on our trenches. Shells were bursting, and fragments scattered all about Shell Green. Just at this time some new reinforcements were eagerly collecting spent fuses and shells as mementoes. While this fusillade was on, men were walking about the Green just as usual, when one was hit by a falling fuse. Out rushed one of the reinforcement chaps, and when he saw that the man was not hurt he asked: “Want the fuse, mate?”
The other looked at him calmly.
“What do you think I stopped it for?” he asked.
The same Correspondent writes:
I am sure that wherever the old 5th Light Horsemen, who put in such a warm spell at “Chatham’s”[4]some time ago, congregate after this war the following incident will be told and retold:
Bill Blankson was a real hard case, happy-go-lucky, regardless of danger. Bill was put on sapping for over a fortnight, and at the end of that time had a growth of stubble that would have brought a flush of pride to his dirty face if he had seen it. But he hadn’t seen it—one does not carry a looking-glass when sapping.
At the end of the fortnight he was taken off sapping and put on observing.
Anyone who has used a periscope knows that unless the periscope is held well up before the eyes, instead of the landscape, one sees only one’s own visage reflected in the lower glass.
Bill did not hold the periscope up far enough, and what he saw in it was a dark, dirty face with a wild growth of black stubble glaring straight back at him. He dropped the periscope, grabbed his rifle, and scrambled up the parapet, fully intending to finish the Turk who had dared to look down the other end of his periscope.
He had mistaken his own reflection for a Turk’s.
FOOTNOTES:[4]Chatham’s Post at the southern end of the line was attacked by the Turks for several days in November.
[4]Chatham’s Post at the southern end of the line was attacked by the Turks for several days in November.
[4]Chatham’s Post at the southern end of the line was attacked by the Turks for several days in November.