By Zora Cross
‘They were so young,’ my father says, "so brave—
The whistling brown men from the far away.
Foemen by Allah! worth a fighting day
As they came up wave on unbending wave.
Here was a trench once. Now it is a grave.
They shuffled cards and took war much as play,
Threw ribald words about for hill and bay,
“Imshi”' “What price a haircut and a shave!”’
‘Anzacs!’ they called themselves—a haunting name.
It seems to hang about the whispering air.
They stole away like ghosts, and by the sea
Whence they had come left with their sick and lame….
Why do I hear through phantom tramping there
The sound of men still whistling carelessly?
Sydney Morning Herald, 26 April 1938, p2.