"My legs are tattooed prettier than a picture," added the Queenslander, "and I've a bit of shrapnel shell here for a keepsake, somewhere under my shoulder." "Fancy ten thousand miles and eight months' training all for nix," said a disgusted corporal. "Landed at 4 a.m. Shot at three seconds past four. Back on the boat at 5 a.m." And so on. To have gone through all they had gone through, and then to treat it all so lightly, seemed an extraordinary thing. All the doctors and nurses commented on the amazing fortitude and cheerfulness of the Australian wounded. I used to think the desire to be in the thick of things, that I had so often heard expressed, was make-believe, but I know better now. I used to say myself that I "wanted to be there" (and _sotto voce_ I used to add "I don't think"); and now, in my heart-searchings, I began to wonder if I didn't really mean it, after all. I used to strike an attitude and quote, "One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name," whilst all the time I felt in my heart that I would prefer a crowded age of glorious life to an hour of fame. Now I began to wonder whether in my heart's core, in my very heart of hearts, I did not agree with the poet. The proper study of mankind is Oneself. And what was I doing there, anyway? Yes, it was extraordinary--not a doubt of it. Doctors and nurses said they never saw anything like it in the world. Those soldiers back from the Dardanelles, many of them sorely wounded, were laughing and joking all day, chatting cheerfully about their terrible experiences, and itching to get back again and "do for the dirty Turks"! "Nurse," said one of them, with a shattered leg, as he raised himself with difficulty, "will you write a little note for me?" She came over and sat at the side of the bed, paper and pencil in hand. "'My dear mother and father, I hope this letter finds you as well as it leaves me at present.'... How's that for a beginning, nurse?" he said with a smile. I heard of another man who sent a letter from the Dardanelles. It ran: "Dear Aunt, this war is a fair cow. Your affectionate nephew." Just that, and nothing more. The Censor, I have no doubt, would think it a pity to cut anything out of it. I heard of another, and at the risk of an intrusion into the private affairs of any of our soldiers, I make bold to give it. It was just this: "My darling Helen, I would rather be spending the evening with you than with two dead Turks in this trench. Still it might be worse, I suppose." Those cheerful Australians!