od if not by law, which
was suggestive of a tendency to keep the breed to itself, as I
understood from my reading.

Whenever I saw an Australian I thought: "Here is a very proud,
individual man," but also an Australian, particularly an Australian.
Some people thought that there was a touch of insolence in his bearing
when he looked you straight in the eye as much as to say: "The best
thing in the world is to be an upstanding member of the human race who
is ready to prove that he is as good as any other. If you don't think
so, well--" There was no doubt about the Australian being brave. This
was as self-evident as that the pine is straight and the beech is hard
wood.

The Australians came from a great distance. This you knew without
geographical reference. Far away in their island continent they have
been working out their own destiny, not caring for interference from the
outside. To put it in strong language, there is a touch of the "I don't
care a rap for anybody who does not care a rap for me" in their extreme
moments of independence. It is refreshing that a whole population may
have an island continent to themselves and carry on in this fashion.

They had had an introduction to universal service which was also
characteristic of their democracy and helpful in time of war. The
"Anzac" had caught the sense of its idea (before other English-speaking
people) not to let others do your fighting for you but all "join in the
scrum." Orientals might crave the broad spaces of a new land, in which
event if they ever took Australia and New Zealand they would not be
bothered by many survivors of the white population, because most of the
Anzacs would be dead--this being particularly the kind of people the
Anzacs are as I knew them in France, which was not a poor trial ground
of their quality.

When they went to Gallipoli it was said that they had no discipline; and
certainly at first discipline did irritate them as a snaffle bit
irritates a high-spirited horse. "Little Kitch," as the stalwart Anzacs
called the New Army Englishman, thought that they broke all the military
commandments of the drill-grounds in a way that would be their undoing.
I rather think that it might have been the undoing of Little Kitch, with
his stubborn, methodical, phlegmatic, "stick-it" courage; but after the
Australians had fought the Turk a while it was evident that they knew
how to fight, and their general, Sir Charles Birdwood, supplied the
discipl