"CANARIES"-THE SAVING GRACE-THE LOST HORSE BRIGADE-A FORGOTTEN COUNTER-SIGN-"LET'S AT 'EM"-POLITE TURK AND SULKY GERMAN-MURPHY'S MULES-MURPHY AT THE GATE

Life in the trenches became quite bearable-after a time. But it took time. At first when a bullet skimmed the parapet and went whistling overhead we ducked instinctively. But the experienced infantry laughed, and said, "They're only 'canaries'." Again, when the shrapnel came hurtling aloft and burst with an ugly roar, we crouched and waited for death; but the old hands explained that if we could hear it burst we were pretty safe. It was the shells we couldn't hear that we ought to dodge. We understood that epigrammatic utterance better later on.

But one thing is absolutely essential for a philosophic enjoyment of trench life-and that is a sense of humour. Failing that, most of the soldiers would in the end go stark, staring mad. It is this saving grace which makes our Australians such a wonderful fighting force. They go laughing into the firing-line. They come laughing out again. They laugh as they load and fire. Nearly every wounded man I've seen laughs. A staff officer said the other day: "It's only when they're killed that these Australians cease laughing."

Our three Australian Light Horse brigades have now been in the trenches for some time. "We came to Egypt as horsemen," said a Hunter River man; "then we did foot-slogging at Cairo and Alexandria, and now we're living in caves and tunnels, like rabbits or troglodytes."

Since the days of Darwin quite a lot has been written about evolution. But we never thought of evolution in connexion with our Light Horse Brigade. We soon found that we couldn't escape the process any more than the rest of the universe.

One would have thought that as new and awful weapons of destruction were evolved, battles would become short, sharp, and decisive. Instead of that, they are toilsome, long-drawn-out, and indecisive. I cannot say why. The elucidation of the problem I leave to the "experts." All I am concerned with is the story of how the 2nd Light Horse Brigade became the Lost Horse Brigade. Australia sent four Light Horse brigades to uphold the honour of the Commonwealth; first, Colonel Chauvel; second, Colonel Ryrie; third, Colonel Hughes; fourth, Colonel Brown. At first we thought we were going to be armed with swords as well as rifles. When first mounted, despite our sombre khaki, we felt as proud as Life Guardsmen. And we saw visions and dreamed dreams, and pictured the Australian Light Horse on the left wing of the Empire army driving the Huns in confusion over the Rhine and back to Berlin.

Hope on, hope ever. All we have done so far is, by process of devolution, to change from prospective cavalry to mounted infantry, to foot-sloggers, to pick and shovel artists, and finally to troglodytes. The pen is mightier than the sword-but so is the spade.

We did not like the packs at first. Our horses used to carry our kits, and it was rather irksome to be transformed suddenly into beasts of burden. Also, we imbibed a new respect for the infantry, who seemed to carry their heavy packs with consummate ease. Ours at first felt like the Burden to Christian. But gradually we, too, developed the necessary back and shoulder muscles for the infantryman's job. We trudged up and down the hills of Anzac; we filed into the trenches and took our stations at the loopholes; on the day of the armistice we helped to bury the dead Turks whom Enver Pasha had ordered to drive the Australians into the sea. Then it was that the infantry, seeing "2 L.H.B." on our shoulder straps, called us the 2nd Lost Horse Brigade.

But we didn't mind losing our horses so long as we had a finger in the Gallipoli Pie. Trench warfare suited us well enough. The firing-line was always interesting. Everybody was light-hearted. Jokes and laughter passed the time pleasantly when we were not sniping or observing. It meant a little more work when the Turkish (or German) guns smashed in our parapets and half-choked, half-blinded and half-buried us. Now and then some of our chaps stopped a bullet or a bit of shrapnel. But we dealt out more than we got. Every day the Officer Commanding and the Brigadier made a tour of the firing-line, while we often had three generals to see us on special days. The day after the big attack General Birdwood asked one of the 1st Light Horse Regiment if he had killed many Turks, and he answered, "Yes, miles of the cows."

As a matter of fact the Australians were almost quarrelling for positions in the firing-line that night. When the fight was at its hottest, men in the supports were offering bribes of tobacco and cigarettes to the men in the firing-line to swap places with them just for ten minutes. Our night patrols had great fun harassing the enemy; but for the bulk of us it got monotonous. It was nothing but dig new saps, new tunnels, new trenches, day after day and night after night.

The 6th Light Horse Regiment changed its badge and its motto. When we left Sydney we had beautiful badges with a fighting cock and the motto "Fight on, fight ever." We've got a new badge now-pick and shovel, argent, crossed on an azure shield, and our new motto is "Dig on, dig ever."

The 7th Light Horse Regiment also changed its motto, which used to be "Patria te Salutamus." Now the troopers sport a shield with a picture of a rabbit, and Colonel Arnott's new motto is "Infra dig. Tunnelabit."

The A.L.H. did their share of the trench fighting quite as well as their infantry comrades. Day after day they took their posts as observers or snipers. Night after night they manned the loopholes or did patrol work or sapping. When off duty they bolted to Anzac Cove, and all the shrapnel shells in the world didn't keep them out of the water.

The truth is, a lot of our soldiers grew to be rank fatalists. "If I'm to be killed, I'll be killed," they said. On the night of the big attack the men in the supports were begging the men in the first line to give them a chance: "Come on down, and let's at 'em; I'm a better shot than you." With men clamouring for positions in the firing-line, no wonder the Turks had 10,000 casualties. When it came to the armistice to bury their dead, a soldier exclaimed, "I don't mind killing, but I bar burying the cows!"

The Turks made the same mistake about the Australians that the Yorkshiremen made about the Australian cricketers. They thought we were all black. (The Germans knew better, but encouraged the false idea.) In a Gallipoli paper we were referred to as Australian blacks, with the comment that this was "the first time cannibals had landed on Gallipoli." But after the wild bayonet charges our men made at Anzac they called the Australians "the White Gurkhas." Later on when our first few prisoners were taken to Gallipoli, the Turks admired their physique, and exclaimed: "These are indeed soldiers."

"Our army swore terribly in Flanders," it is written. I'm afraid that our historian will say the same of the army in Gallipoli. But this is about their only vice, and they have all the soldierly virtues that a general could desire. When the Turks made their big attack, and advanced yelling "Allah, Allah!" "Mohammed!" "Allah!" one of our devil-may-care infantrymen yelled as he fired: "Yes; you can bring them along too!"

Then there was the Turk who bowed. It was when the burial parties met between the trenches to bury the dead. The Turkish officers were polite and the Germans surly. A Turk picked up a bomb and started to run back to his trenches. A Turkish officer ran after him, kicked him, and returned the bomb with a bow to one of our officers, thus observing chivalrously the letter and spirit of the armistice. A Turkish soldier came up to one of our men and volunteered the information: "English good-German no good." It wasn't much, but it told a lot.

A number of prisoners were taken, and several more surrendered. But the Turks were between the devil and the deep sea. If they came with their rifles towards our trenches we shot them. If they came without them, their own soldiers shot them. So they had to sneak in as best they could, and risk being shot front and rear.

One of the finest things done in those first fatal days at Anzac must be put to the credit of Murphy's mules. Murphy's ambulance was looked for as anxiously as Gunga Din. It was "Murphy! Murphy! Murphy! an' we'll thank you for your mules!" As a matter of fact "Murphy" was a Scotsman, though he hailed from South Shields, County Durham. His real name was, I believe, John Simpson Kirkpatrick; some say it was Latimer, and others that it was Simpson; and he was a stretcher-bearer. He used to hurry up with water to the firing-line, and carry back the wounded. It was a terribly heavy pull up and down Shrapnel Gully, from the cove to the top of Braund's Hill, so Murphy "pinched" a couple of mules, and did yeoman service. He used to leave the mules just under the brow of the hill and dash forward himself to the firing-line to save the wounded. "Murphy's" voice near them sounded like a voice from heaven. Time after time he climbed the hill and did his noble work. Day after day he smiled and carried on. The mules were missed, and they found out who stole them. But they also found out what splendid work "Murphy" was doing; so the officers connived at the theft. They became accessories after the fact.

Murphy's Mules at Anzac.

"Murphy" on the left, his mate on the right, and little "Shrapnel" in the background.

There came a day when "Murphy's mules" came not. Stretcher-bearers were working overtime, and the wounded cried "For God's sake, send 'Murphy's mules'!" Later on they found the mules grazing contentedly in Shrapnel Valley. Then they found poor "Murphy".... He had done his last journey to the top of the hill.

"Where's Murphy?" demanded one of the 1st Battalion.

"Murphy's at heaven's gate," answered the sergeant, "helping the soldiers through."

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