At all the ports where the populace got hints of the time of sailing of the ships there were great demonstrations and likewise impromptu demonstrations of liveliest enthusiasm met us whenever we appeared parading on the streets, to say nothing of the crowds that came to cheer us at drill in our camps. For by October, Australia had come to know how tremendous and frightful a war Germany had planned, how viciously and hatefully Germany had resolved to strike at the very life of the British Empire and Australia began to realize that if the British Empire went under, she herself would eventually have the Hun at her own throat. It wasn’t only the news of the mammoth operations which had started in Europe that brought this realization. Things had happened “at home.” The German propaganda secretly, maliciously taking advantage of a democratic country’s open hospitality, had effected bomb outrages, and worked insidiously to bring about strikes in the coal and iron mines and strikes on the railroads, had worked the same despicable “below the belt” tactics in the Archipelago as she has in America. And the cables were constantly bringing news of fresh, cowardly outrages upon the old, and the women and the children of Belgium! The firmness of Australia’s premier, the effectiveness of Australia’s police in its cities and of the Government’s secret agents as well (once the German propagandists had revealed their hands) soon began securely to tie these same hands of the promoters of German frightfulness. But the people by this time had been worked to a towering rage and as we started away in our troopships, great crowds in the cities were riotously asserting their resentment. They wrecked scores of German shops, battered them into ruins and put them to the torch. With none of us knowing that Gallipoli was ahead we settled down to make our ocean voyage. Where--we didn’t know at the time it was to take us, but we did make it as enjoyable as might be in crowded bunks and where we were forever touching elbows on the jammed decks. Men never sailed on an expedition of war in better spirits and greater confidence. The regular soldiers and amateur soldiers were about evenly divided, but the amateurs were swiftly coming into line in physical fitness and expertness in drill. Still there were some funny incidents due to the novelty of the life that many of our men were leading. As for instance, a little deck sentry, whom I approached one day and who looked at me and said: “Are you an officer?” “Can’t you tell that from my uniform?” I said, nodding toward the sergeant-major’s chevrons on my arm. “Well, then,” he said, suiting the action of the word, “I suppose I will have to chuck you a blooming salute.”