Chapter 29: In Australia

I then said Well, let me out as soon as we get outside the gate.' She demurred a good deal, but I reminded her that no Australian girl I knew ever broke a promise. When we got outside I boarded a tram-car, which had not gone far before it had to stop to let the procession pass. Of course, everyone would see that I was a returned soldier, but there was nothing to show that I was just returned. 

I stood up in the tramcar with the rest of the passengers and cheered and threw cigarettes and remarked loudly to all and sundry: 'Some more boys come back, eh ? ' But my well-laid plans were entirely spoiled as my friends in the automobile called out, ' Here, Knyvett, you dog, come out of that

Here 's your place !' and I disgracefully subsided with many blushes, and had to endure all the way up to Melbourne the whispers and concentrated gaze of the whole tramful. I also ' fell in' in another way, for when I rang up my uncle I found that he and his daughter were looking for me down at the wharf gates.

Two years ago the site of Caulfield Hospital was a wilderness of weeds and sand. Now it is an area of trim lawns and blazing gardens, bowling greens, croquet-lawns, and tennis-courts, with comfortable huts, the gift of the people of Melbourne to their wounded soldiers, costing several hundred thousand dollars. As I had served with Victorian troops I was assigned to this hospital, although my home was over a thousand miles away in the northern state of Queensland. All who were fit to travel were given fourteen days 'disembarkation leave' to visit their homes ; but twelve of these days I had to spend in travel and only had two days at home after such long absence.

My wounds had healed but I was still paralysed in my left leg, and the only attention I required was daily massage for an hour, and then another hour in the torture-chamber with an electric current grilling me. After this was over, I would go into the city, do the block, have afternoon tea, give an address at the Town Hall recruiting-depot, go to a theatre, and then as there seemed nothing else to be done, would return to the hospital. Such was my programme for ninety days. Sometimes I varied it by visiting the Zoo to commiserate with the wild animals on being caged.

There were many red-letter days when I was entertained by friends ; but I am afraid I only squeaked when they expected roars-to be lionized was too unusual not to have stage fright a little.

The women in Australia are well organised and see to it that if a boy has a dull time it 's his own fault. All the automobiles of the city were registered with the Volunteer Motor Corps, and each day certain of them were allotted to take wounded soldiers for picnics. We would generally be driven to some pretty suburb and there would be spread before us a feast of good things, At the end of the meal some of us felt like the little boy who said to his mother after the party: 'I'm so tired, Mummy, carry me upstairs to bed, but don't bend me ! '

There were concerts every night for the stay-at-home, but I only managed to get to one, given by the pupils of Madame Melba, which was a feast of harmony. After the programme refreshments were brought round by V.A.D.'s, whom the boys called, 'Very Artful Dodgers,' but it was not the ' Thank you for the cakes and tea ! ' that they dodged ! We had a cricket-match, one-armers versus one-leggers, and we one-leggers were allowed to catch the ball in our hats; but the one-leggers lost, as we were nearly all run-out. Some of us being half-way down the pitch as the ball was thrown in, would throw one crutch at the wickets, knocking off the bails, when the umpire, who had no legs at all, would give his decision that we were ' stumped.'

A huge Red Cross carnival was held near the hospital which netted about fifty thousand dollars. We were guests of honour, and on this occasion in the enormous crowds found 'Long John ' (one of the doctors, who was seven feet tall) very useful. He wondered why he was being followed about by several girls whom he did not know. We explained to him afterward that a good number of us who had ' meets' had thought out the ingenious scheme of telling the girl to meet us at ' Long John,' who would be the tallest object on the grounds. We told him that he didn't play the game properly by moving about so much, as our friends complained that they were just worn out following him round.

The carnival was - one enormous fair-there were row on row of stalls, decorated in the colours, of all the Allied flags, with the girls serving at them dressed in peasant costumes. The goods on the needlework-stalls represented the work of weeks-there were flower-stalls, sweet-stalls, produce-stalls, book-stalls, and in and out of the crowds girls went selling raffle-tickets for everything under the sun-from tray-cloths to automobiles and trips to Sydney. 

Ballyhoo-men stood at tent-doors, calling the crowd to come and see the performing kangaroo, the wild man from Borneo, or, ' Every time you hit him you get a good cigar!'  ' Him' was a grinning black face stuck obligingly through a hole in the sheet. There were groups of tables and chairs, under bright-coloured umbrellas, every here and there, where good things to eat were served all day. The fun lasted well into the night, when there were concerts, and dancing, and even the one legged men tried to dance.

I don't think I had any other meals at the hospital than breakfast which I always had in bed. There was an orderly officer who was very unpopular as he had been months round the hospital and missed many chances of going to the front. One day the men played a trick on him. When he came into the dining-room to ask if there were any complaints one of them picked up a dish which was steaming hot and said ' Look here, sir ! What do you think of this ? He picked tip a spoon and tasted it. 'Why, my man, that 's very good soup ! You 're lucky to Get such good food.' ' But, sir, it's not soup, it's dish-water!' (Curtain.)

At last the Medical Board sat on my case and their decision left me gasping for breath, for they recommended that I be discharged as permanently unfit for further military service. But nature sometimes plays sorry pranks with medical decisions. Not more than a week after this, movement suddenly returned to my leg and I threw away my crutches and was able to walk almost as well as ever. About ten days after leaving hospital I bad sailed back for France via America, but have not at the time of writing been able to get across the Atlantic.