"Well, son," I said, "you're going home to be a soldier, a fighting
soldier. You will soon be commanding men. Remember that you can never
ask a man to do something you would no dare to do yourself!"
And, oh, the braw look in the eyes of the bonnie laddie as he tilted
his chin up to me!
"I will remember, Dad!" he said.
And so long as a bit of the dock was in sight we could see him waving
to us. We were not to see him again until the next January, at Bedford,
in England, where he was training the raw men of his company.
Those were the first days of war. The British navy was on guard. From
every quarter the whimpering wireless brought news of this German
warship and that. They were scattered far and wide, over the Seven
Seas, you ken, when the war broke out. There was no time for them to
make a home port. They had their choice, most of them, between being
interned in some neutral port and setting out to do as much mischief
as they could to British commerce before they were caught. Caught
they were sure to be. They must have known it. And some there were to
brave the issue and match themselves against England's great naval power.
Perhaps they knew that few ports would long be neutral! Maybe they
knew of the abominable war the Hun was to wage. But I think it was
not such men as those who chose to take their one chance in a
thousand who were sent out, later, in their submarines, to send women
and babies a to their deaths with their torpedoes!
Be that as it may, we sailed away from Melbourne.
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