wding round, bidding you
good-bye and informing you that as _your_ regimental number added up to
thirteen, you would be the first to die, remembering that you hadn't
said your prayers for years, and then comforting yourself with the
realization that what is going to happen will happen, and that an
appeal to the general will not stop the battle, anyway, and you may as
well die like a man, and you will feel as did many of those young lads,
on the eve of the 25th of April, 1915. There was some premonition of
death in those congregations of khaki-clad men who gathered round the
padres on each ship and sang "God be with you till we meet again." You
could see in men's faces that they knew they were "going west" on the
morrow--but it was a swan-song that could not paralyze the arm or daunt
the heart of these young Greathearts, who intended that on this morrow
they would do deeds that would make their mothers proud of them.

"For if you 'as to die,
As it sometimes 'appens, why,
Far better die a 'ero than a skunk;
A' doin' of yer bit." [1]

As soon as church-parade was dismissed, another song was on the boards,
no hymn, maybe not fine poetry, but the song that will be always
associated with the story of Australia's doings in the great war,
Australia's battle-song--"Australia Will Be There"--immortalized on the
_Southland_ and _Ballarat_, as it was sung by the soldiers thereon,
when they stood in the sea-water that was covering the decks of those
torpedoed troop-ships. It was now sung by every Australian voice, and
as those crowded troop-ships moved out from Lemnos they truly carried
"Australia," eager, untried Australia--where?

The next day showed to the world that "Australia would always be
_there_!" where the fight raged thickest. Her sons might sometimes
penetrate the enemy's territory too far, but hereafter, and till the
war's end, they would always be in the front line, storming with the
foremost for freedom and democracy.

The landing could not possibly be a surprise to the Turks; the British
and French warships had advertised our coming by a preliminary
bombardment weeks previously--the Greeks knew all about our
concentration in their waters--and wasn't the Queen of Greece sister to
the Kaiser?

There were only about two places where we could possibly land, and the
Turks were not merely warned of our intentions, but they were warned in
plenty of time for them to prepare for us a warm reception. Th