ed, clean limbed, close set, as soldiers should be who
have faced the storm and stress of war, as proud a band as Britain ever
had, soldier and citizen both in one, fit to be a nation's bulwark and a
nation's trust; and in the crowd around them there were a thousand thousand
men as good, as game, as gritty, as they, for they were the children of the
people, the men of the shop-counter, the men of the city office, the men of
every artisan craft, the very vitals of London. They had sprung from the
womb of the city, and the city could give birth to a million more if need
be.

I saw them pass amidst a storm of cheers, and I, who had seen them out on
the African veldt under the foeman's guns, lifted up my voice to cheer them
onward, for well I knew that there was nothing in the gift of England that
they were not worthy of, those children of the "flat caps," those offspring
of the 'prentice lads of London. I knew how they had starved; I knew how
they had suffered through the freezing cold of the African winter; I knew
how gallantly, how uncomplainingly, they had marched with empty bellies and
aching limbs, ready to go anywhere, to do anything, ready to fight, and, if
it were the will of the great God of Battles, ready to lay down their young
lives and die. I knew those things, and, knowing them, gave them a cheer
for the sake of Australia, for the sake of the kinship which binds us as no
bonds of steel could bind us and them. I heard a voice at my knee
whimpering, the voice of a gutter kid, who had dodged in there out of the
way of the police. I looked at his ragged clothes, looked at his grimy
face, looked at his hands, which looked as if they had never looked at
soap, and I said: "What are you yelping for, kiddie?" And he, looking up at
me through his tears, fired a voice at me through his sobs, and said: "I'm
yelping, mister, because I'm only a little 'un, and can't see me mates come
home from the war." Then I laughed, and tossing him up on my shoulder let
him jamb his dirty fist on the only silk hat I possess, whilst he looked at
his "mates" march home; for they were his mates--he was a child of London,
and some day--who knows?--he may be a general.

* * * * *

Printed by
Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage,
London, E.C.
10.101.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMPAIGN PICTURES OF THE WAR IN
SOUTH AFRICA (1899-1900)***

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