ship had been before, in a harbor more crowded with ships than ever
harbor had been crowded before, with more fears in your mind than had
ever crowded into it before, knowing that in a few hours you would see
battle for the first time. Having comrades crowding 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,