It is the latter factor which, to one who has been for so long in intimate daily contact with him, makes the closest appeal. It is from that close association, from the knowledge born of experience of him in every phase of his daily life, that the Australian can be proclaimed as second to none in the world both as a soldier and as a fighting man. For these things are not synonymous, and the first lesson that every recruit has to learn is that they are not synonymous; that the thing which converts a mere fighting man into a soldier is the sense of discipline. This word 'discipline' is often cruelly misused and misunderstood. Upon it, in its broadest and truest sense, depends the capacity of men, in the aggregate, for successful concerted action. It is precisely because the Australian is born with and develops in his national life the very instinct of discipline that he has been enabled to prove himself so successful a soldier. He obeys constituted authority because he knows that success depends upon his doing so, whether his activities are devoted to the interests of his football team or his industrial organization or his regiment. He has an infinite capacity for 'team' work. And he brings to bear upon that work a high order of intelligence and understanding. In his other splendid qualities, his self-reliance, his devotion to his cause and his comrades, and his unfailing cheerfulness under hardship and distress, he displays other manifestations of that same instinct of discipline. Some day cold and formal histories will record the deeds and performances of the Australian soldiery; but it is not to them that we shall turn for an illumination of his true character. It is to stories such as these which follow, of his daily life, of his psychology, of his personality, that we must look. And we shall look not in vain, when, as in the following pages, the tale has been written down by one of themselves, who has lived and worked among them, and who understands them in a spirit of true sympathy and comradeship. The Author of these sketches is himself true to his type, and an embodiment of all that is most worthy and most admirable in the Australian soldier. JOHN MONASH, _Major-General_. CONTENTS PAGE FROM 'THERE' TO 'HERE' 17 AUSTRALIANS--IN VARIOUS MOODS 28 SUNDAY, 'SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE' 42 SOLDIERS' SUPERSTITIONS 49 ON THE EVE OF BATTLE 59 'OVER THE TOP' 64 SHELLS: A FEW SMILES AND A CONTRAST 77 MESSINES 88 BILL THE BUGLER 95 A TRAGEDY OF THE WAR 99 RECREATION BEHIND THE LINES 108 FOR THE CAUSE OF THE EMPIRE 119 OUR HEROIC DEAD 124