been planned and laid out for me. I did not know how soon my boy
might be going to France. And his mother and I wanted to see him
again before he went, and to be as near him as might be.

So I was glad as well as sorry to sail away from New Zealand's
friendly shores, to the strains of pipers softly skirling:

"Will ye no come back again?"

We sailed for Sydney on the _Minnehaha_, a fast boat. We were glad of
her speed a day or so out, for there was smoke on the horizon that
gave some anxious hours to our officers. Some thought the German
raider _Emden_ was under that smoke. And it would not have been
surprising had a raider turned up in our path. For just before we
sailed it had been discovered that the man in charge of the principal
wireless station in New Zealand was a German, and he had been
interned. Had he sent word to German warships of the plans and
movements of British ships? No one could prove it, so he was only
interned.

Back we went to Sydney. A great change had come since our departure.
The war ruled all deed and thought. Australia was bound now to do her
part. No less faithfully and splendidly than New Zealand was she
engaged upon the enterprise the Hun had thrust upon the world.
Everyone was eager for news, but it was woefully scarce. Those were
the black, early days, when the German rush upon Paris was being
stayed, after the disasters of the first fortnight of the war, at the
Marne.

Everywhere, though there was no lack of determination to see the war