Some one called out, "Where?" and the answer came from many
throats--"In hell, in five minutes!" and it looked like it. But
nothing in a future life could hold any terrors for the man who had
campaigned during a summer in Egypt. In the end volunteers were taken
into the stokehole and the _Southland_ was beached. The colonel was
drowned and there were a few other casualties, but most escaped without
a wetting, so what looked like an adventure turned out to be a pretty
tame affair after all. But Australia will ever remember how those boys
stood fast with the dark waters of death washing their feet and, like
Stoics, waited calmly for whatever Fate would send them. This epic of
Australian fortitude was written in September, 1915, and is part of the
Dardanelles story.

But the latest troops from Australia are of the same heroic stuff as
those who wrote the name "Anzac" with their blood on the Gallipoli
beach. For the _Southland_ incident was duplicated in almost every
particular on the _Ballarat_ in April, 1917. This story was enacted in
the waters of the English Channel, and there were no casualties, for
the work of rescue by torpedo-boats was made easy as each man calmly
waited his turn and enlivened the monotony meanwhile with ragtime, and
again and again did the strains of "Australia Will Be There!" ring out
over the waters. As they sang "So Long, Letty," many substituted other
Christian names, and it looked as if it might be "so long" in reality.
But they knew that to an Australian girl there would be no "sadness of
farewell" when she realized that her lover had been carried heavenward
by the guardian angel that waits to bear upward the soul of a hero.

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