against
the other end of the trench. A similar shower of crashes descended from
that direction. A machine-gun began to crackle down the trench. Our men
fought till their bombs, and all the German bombs they could find, were
gone. Finally the Germans began to gain on them from both ends, and the
attack here, too, was over. They were driven from the trench.

CHAPTER XXVII

A HARD TIME

_France, November 28th._

He is having a hard time. I do not see that there is any reason to make
light of it. If you do, you rob him of the credit which, if ever man
deserved it, he ought to be getting now--the credit for putting a good
face upon it under conditions which, to him, especially at the
beginning, were sheer undiluted misery. Some people think that to tell
the truth in these matters would hinder recruiting. Well, if it did, it
would only mean that the young Australians who stay at home are guilty
of greater meanness than one has ever thought. For the Australian here
has plunged straight into an existence more like that of a duck in a
farmyard drain than to any other condition known or dreamed of in his
own sunny land. He is resisting it not only passably but well. And if
you want to know the reason--as far as any general reason can be
given--the motive, which keeps him trying day after day, is the desire
that no man shall say a word against Australia. I don't know if his
country is thinking of him--a good part of it must be--but he is
thinking of his country all the time. Australia has made her name in the
world during this war--the world knows her now. It is these men--not the
men who shout at stadiums and race meetings at home, but the simple,
willing men who are described in this letter--who are making Australia's
name for her--and just at present holding on to it like grim death.

Even the life of a duck in a farmyard drain becomes in a wonderful way
supportable when you tackle it as cheerfully as that. It comes to the
Australian as a shock, at the first introduction--the Manning River
country after the Manning River flood has subsided is, as a New South
Welshman suggested, the nearest imitation that he has ever seen. But
then there was blue sky and dazzling sun over that; whereas here the
whole grey sky seems to drip off his hatbrim and nose and chilled
fingers and the shiny oil sheet tied around his neck, and to ooze into
his back and his boots. It is all fairly comfortable in the green
country from which he