South of all this the Australians were fighting in the centre of yesterday's great attack where the ground rises to the foul heights of Polygon Wood. The Australian lads were in their most perfect form. They had had some rest since the hard, bad days at Bullecourt and in the dreadful valley of Noreuil, where I went to see them outside the Quéant-Drocourt line. Since then I had seen them in the harvest-fields of France, in the market squares of Flemish towns, along the dusty roads which lead up to the Front. Always I felt it good to see those easy-going fellows in their flap hats, so lithe, so clean-cut, so fresh. It was an honour to get a salute from them now and then, for they are not great at that sort of thing, and one could see with half an eye that they have not lost any of their quality since some of them fought their great epic at Helles and Suvla Bay, and afterwards at Pozières gained and held their ground under months of great shell-fire, and then at Bullecourt fought with the grim endurance of men who will not yield to any kind of hammering if their pride is in the job. They are boys, many of them, and simple-looking fellows who were not cut to the model of barrack-room soldiers. They have a wildish gipsy look when one sees them camped in the fields, and free-and-easy manners in the village estaminets. When I heard they were going to attack Polygon Wood I knew that we should get it, if human courage could have the say, for the Australians are not easily denied if they set their mind on a thing, and for all their boyishness--though they have middle-aged follows among them too--they have a grim passion in them at such times. Yet they are free-and-easy always, even on the battlefield, and a bit impatient of checks and restraints. Knowing them, and the heart and soul of them, one of their commanding officers arranged a method of preventing them from getting bored with the long strain of a two hours' wait, which was ordered when they should have gained their first objective. He sent up to them by the carrying parties bundles of the previous day's papers, all the picture papers especially, and large quantities of cigarettes. The idea worked beautifully, and it was the strangest thing that has happened in any great battle. The Australian lads got at the papers, and on the ground which they had just captured spread them out and studied the news of the day and smoked their cigarettes with quiet enjoyment, while ahead of them rolled a stupendous barrage, with thousands of heavy shells that came screaming over their heads from our guns behind them, answered by other shells that came the other way, and burst farther back on the battlefield. So they were seen by one of our airmen, who was surprised by what he saw.