AUSTRALIAN AS A FIGHTER

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144851, 1 December 1915, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN AS A FIGHTER

ENGLISHMEN'S APPR BCIATION.

londo:;, Oct. i. A friend sends me a typical appreciation of Australians as lighters, lorn fron. the diary of a Manchester rifloimm who fouglit by their side. I may say that these .soldiers' diaries are t he continual worry of the general staff, which fears lost valuable information should get into Turkish hands. The English and the Australian hoy who goes to war likes to make notes of his progress, and the Turk searches all our dead for diaries, under shelter of nightWe know from various sources that if Jslio Turk had found the following passage ho would have read it with approval: “The Australians are big, broadshouldered, ha re-legged _ giants of open air, bronzed by the sun of inch' native land, the inevitable pipe Murk cornorwiso 'in the mouth, ami the soft slouch hat at just that angle which the colonial knows to bo host from long experience. One cannot pass these Australians by without comment. They are groat follows, not in the merely physical use of the word, but good-natured, generous to a degree. Vie who have corno into contact with them, worked, perhaps fought with them, side by side, cannot sny too much in their praise. One could quote many instances, but this will suffice. Our battalion, for some reason or other, had no issue of cigarettes or tobacco for some considerable time, and all of us wore dying for a smoke, when the Australians camo to the rescue. A regiment of them subscribed among themselves, and raised for our special benefit a largo sack brimful of ’baccy’ and matches and ■fags.’ That is "the kind of chap the Australian is.” T can quote a different kind of praise from a diary that can never be published in full (and its author is dead). Me did not meet the Australians, hut from tho body of one of our dead be took an Australian overcoat, which sheltered him at night. His words may encourage those women at home working on our Australian khaki: “It is a wonderful overcoat, so warm and comfy. These Australians havo been well equipped 1”

But the best praise of all is that of an Indian artillery colonel, who told

me yesterday that Colonel Coston’s Australian artillery at Hyde—these siege battery of permanent men—is already the crack artillery brigade in England, and the envy and despair of all British artillery officers. It is no empty phrase to say that ih© Australian armies are establishing an imperishable record. The fame of their deeds resounds through Europe, and the mere fact of being an Australian has become, in the eyes of England and her Allies, a most worthy thing. Hero in the south of England there arc several thousands of our men, : strong and stalwart, with physique imI proved by then experiences—clean I youth, smart in appearance, t with that j frank self-possession and' sincerity in ; their eyes that we know so well in Aus- ; tralia, Imt which is not so general on I the faces of the men in Europe. The i splendour of their manhood r. constant appeal to all observers, and the Kitchener men themselves know that in the essential qualities of the fighter —in size and strength of muscle and bone and in endurance of spirit—these Australians stand ns high in the scale as any Empire force. lam writing this because it is some comfort to saddened Australian homos to know that heroism and sacrifice have not been in vain, that the reputation of our nation has been placed ns high as any national reputation can bo, and that those lie • in the dust amidst the bushes on Turkey’s barren coast did far more than normal living could do. Yesterday I ‘ was with a London newspaper proprietor. who is sometimes called Emperor, so powerful is his influence. We discussed a picture of the men of an Australian fi*dd battery feeding the guns. Stripped to the waist, straining at their work, with faces like classical statues of ancient gladiators, these magnificent Australians gave an immersion of noble young manhood. The Londoner turned away bis bead. "I cannot look at it. 5 ’ ho said, * f or I shall weep at the sight of e ncb solenoid life.” To-day we have had great prominence given in the nrincipal London and provincial newspapers to Captain Bean’s stirring account of the Light Horse charge in August—that pitiful and yc<? heroic affair in which Australians went face forward to certain death. The story has stirred all Loudon, and Australians here to-day hold tb<*ir beads very high. 1 want to say also that no one can complain of our men’s behaviour in this city—that their conduct has been exemplary, ns befits their unifr.ms and that there sr’enis to have boon a determination through al! ranks, when these shores were touched, that nothing would happen here that would give our traducers even a lag to hang a slur upon. There is something more. also, behind tho steadiness of our hoys here. It is comradeship. the strong, affectionate corn* rade.du’n horn in Anzac, which tellr, them that upon the doings of the Australians now in England will depend the "War Office’s decision as to whether other Australians are to be brought here for health and holiday when their turn comes.