ANZAC LONDON.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 869, 22 November 1916, Page 6

ANZAC LONDON.

THE RESTING FIGHTERS. - O'MEARA'S INDIGESTION. Here »ye some plain talcs of plain j Australian soldier men. One garners , them from the various Australian ! centres, chief among them being the I colony of which Horseferry Road is | the main tributary. Here are to be found the Australian military headquarters, the A.I.F. War Chest Club, and, five minutes' walk away, in j close proximity to the High Commissioner's office, is the Anzac Buffet, a | splendid place, organised and mainItained by the Condon branch of the A.N.A. This portion of London has rapidly become Anzacised (comments a London writer in the Sydney "Sun"). Tradespeople have altered their signs and their shop fronts in order to meet the exigencies of the Australian trade, and signs such as "Australian Tunics," "Australian Book Shop," and "Australian Fruit Shop" arc to be seen everywhere. Much has been written of the rov-» ing spirit of the Australian, but after all his nature is homogeneous. Mostly he doesn't like London. True, he patronises famous centres such as the Strand, Piccadilly, and Hyde Park; but he does so mainly because he thinks it a duty owing to his education. There is no one to show him the chief points of historical interest, and London is too crowded to his liking. English people are good to him, but he loves the association of kind. He walks down Horseferry Road, and then comes back again, because the sombreros, the familiar long faces, the square jaws, and the deep-set eyes are familiar sights to him. Their points of view are interesting. Some of them are very lonely in London. They ache to return to the domesticity of the trenches, and to be with their platoon j mates. Then there is the point of j view of the modest hero, such as O'Meara, V.C., the woodchopper from West Australia. The number of wounded this man brought in is not yet known. He considered himself "dead lucky" to have obtained this highest distinction. "An officer saw me," said he. "Better men than me ought to have got the cross." He was proud of his decoration, naturally, but there was something whimsical about his point of view; and the whimsicality is all the more astonishing when one learns that he ; carries about in his frame some- | where near his abdomen a small * ; piece of German shell. The doctors j have decided not to remove it. "I have always been troubled with I indigestion," said O'Meara, "but it comforts me in my old age to find I can keep a piece of shell in me stummick and no! feel it." Those who know their London will believe and appreciate this little sloryjy-j Costers, Peers, and Cockney Girls. While two Australians were walk- | ing down Horseferry Road they observed a donkey, attached to a vegetable cart, apparently collapse and fall back on its haunches. They immediately rushed to its assistance, placing the animal on its legs again. As they did so the owner of the cart rushed up and abused them roundly. | It appears that the donkey was wont Ito have a siesta every day at the i same hour, and unless he enjoyed | that comfort at a certain time he was 'unfit for work for the rest of the !day; hence the trouble. The Australians were too astonished to resent the abuse. When they regained ! their mental equilibrium they stood on the pavement roaring with laughter. Gunner Jackson, of the West Australian Artillery, was recently the I only Australian in hospital at Dall meny, Edinburgh, which was once I the sumptuous grounds belonging Ito Rosebery. The peer took a j keen interest in this lone Anzac man, and although the wounded were not allowed to have money in the hospital. Jackson would sometimes find a sovereign under his pillow after Lord Roseberry had left the ward. Jackson says that he was unable to sleep at times in the hospital, and he was puzzled to find a reason, until he was informed that he was sleeping on the same bed that used to accommodate Kaiser Wilhelm. Then he knew. Marriages between Anzaes and English girls still continue on their orange-blossomed way. There was j a big ceremony at Lambeth this j week, when a local young lady mur- ; mured affirmatives across the altar to la Distinguished Conduct Medaller from Tasmania. Lambeth evidently thought that the occasion of having an Anzac husband in the district I was too great to go unmarked, and jit turned out to a woman. Early on ! the Sunday morning a lonely Anzac j passing through the suburbs was suddenly surrounded by Lambeth [girls and pelted with confetti. "What's Ibis?" he gasped between the assaults. When he learned the reason ho gathered together others of his kind, and there was much wassail that dav. The Retort Proud. Sometimes the Australian is not as j ready with the salute as the law demands. In certain fighting areas, j which cannot be mentioned, saluting I pickets are specially told off to seo ] that this law of discipline is en;forced. An officer, whose nationality I will ; not even hint at, one day rodo » j through their lines and aid not receive a single salute. He was chagrined, but he lost all forbearance, j when at the end of the line he camo 'upon a military policeman on duty ! smoking a pipe. "Look here," said the officer, "I I have not received a salute, and I [have come all the way down theso i lines."

"Well, sonny," drawled the M.P. as he condescended lo lake the pipe from his mouth, "at any rate, you have seen a hlanky line lot of men." One must have belief in the statement that every soldier carries a marshal's baton in his haversack when one hears of the advancement of Percy Black, who hies from the Hinterland of West Australia. Black left Australia with the first troops in 1914 as a machine-gunner attached to the llith Battalion. He obtained a D.C.M. at C.allipoli, and in the fighting in France was awarded the D.5.0., and the French Crosse Militire. Gunner Black has now reached the rank of major.