crater--all bordering one another until some fresh salvo shall fall and
assort the old group of craters into a new one, to be reassorted again
and again as the days go on. It is the nearest thing to sheer desert
that I have seen since certain lonely rides into the old Sahara at the
back of Mena Camp two years ago. Every minute or two there is a crash.
Part of the desert bumps itself up into huge red or black clouds and
subsides again. Those eruptions are the only movement in Pozières.

That is the country in which our boys are fighting the greatest battle
Australians have ever fought. Of the men whom you find there, what can
one say? Steadfast until death, just the men that Australians at home
know them to be; into the place with a joke, a dry, cynical, Australian
joke as often as not; holding fast through anything that man can
imagine; stretcher bearers, fatigue parties, messengers, chaplains,
doing their job all the time, both new-joined youngsters and old hands,
without fuss, but steadily, because it _is_ their work. They are not
heroes; they do not want to be thought or spoken of as heroes. They are
just ordinary Australians doing their particular work as their country
would wish them to do it. And pray God Australians in days to come will
be worthy of them!




CHAPTER XVII

POZIÈRES RIDGE

_France, August 14th._