Shrapnel

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 11 (Supplement)

Shrapnel

(By C. SCOTT.)

Though our court has long been scattered, gone like leaves when ' tempests bloiv, ; Down the years there comes an echo of the nights of long ago. '< Still I hear j tour glad "Bon Sante!" and I hear your gay "Bon '< Chance!" ! As so often I have heard them in a 'staminay in France. I

e Australian Digger who wrote to his cobber in Australia giving an apt description of modern warfare in three words should be immortalised in the Servicemen's Page." This is what he wrote:— "Dear Bill, "It's a Blankard. "Yours truly, "JIM." ♦ * ♦ ♦ General Bfrdwood (the soul of Anzac), making a tour on Gallipoli, came across an Australian sitting down smoking his pipe. /'What are you supposed to be?" said the famous leader. "Oh, I'm supposed to be a bit » 'entry," drawled the Aussie. What are you supposed to be?" "Oh, I'm supposed to be a bit of a general," was the reply. "Ah, well," drawled the Aussie, rising leisurely to bis feet and

grabbing his rifle, "I suppose I'd ! better give you a bit of a salute." ! The recruit going up for his medical inspection told the doctor ! bis eyesight was bad. ."All right," said the doctor, "I'll test 'em," and he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a number of coins. "What's that?" he asked, show ing a threepenny piece. "I can't see anything," said the recruit. j The doctor tried him with all the coins of the realm up to half a crown, but each time got the reply, "I can't see anything." In desperation the medico grabbed the lid of a big dustbin and shoved it in front of the recruit and growled "What's that?" "Two bob or half a crown," tbe recruit answered. (i "Righto!" roared the doctor, "You'll make a damned good soldier. Those Prussian Guards will look like bantams to you."