February 8, 19 17 
LAND & WATER 
15 
Young Anzac Finds his Heritage 
By Amy Eleanor Mack 
WHEN young Anzac heard that his new trainmg 
school would bq within reach of Winchester 
he was delighted ; for not even a year amongst 
the antiquities of the East had lessened his 
interest in the historical relics of the land of his fore- 
fathers. And when an English lady, surprised at his 
keen interest in the medi;eval buildings, said : " But you 
have seen much older things in Egypt ! " he replied 
simply : " Yes ; but somehow they are not tiie same. The 
Pyramids and the Sphinx belong to the niggers. These 
belong to us." 
Men in training camps do not have much time for 
sight-seeing, but all the- leisure that he had was spent 
by young Anzac in the lovely old cathedral city. Other 
men hired bicycles and went out into the coimtry : but 
he preferred to go afoot. " You can't see enough from 
a bicycle," was his comment. So he wandered about the 
winding by-ways of the town, swinging along with that 
easy Australian stride, which is now so familiar in Englisli 
streets. He did not poke and peer, after the manner of 
the ordinary tourist, but the deep-set grey eyes, which 
looked out so steadily from beneath the shady hat, missed 
^ ery httle that was to be seen. Of architectiu-e he knew 
])ractically nothing, and Perpendicular, Decorative, Early 
Enghsh, Norman, were terms wliich conveyed little 
meaning to him. But, born and bred in a land of 
natural beauty, his innate sense of asthetic values lielped 
him to understand the lo\eliness of the Cathedral's 
exquisite nave, and the rich warmtli of the mellow red 
tiles and great oak beams of the old cottages, ^^'ith a 
delightful lack of self-consciousness, he would stand in 
the Cathedral Close gazing with deep admiration at the 
beautiful thirteenth century deanery : or wander in and 
out of the city's ancient gateway, " Just to liave another 
look," 
l£very street of the old town was sacred ground to hinl. 
Product of an educational system which aims at fitting 
every child to get the best out of life, he knew enough 
history to appreciate the ancient capital of his race ; 
and as he .swung along by the walls of Wolvesly. 
or lieard his own spurs clang on the paved floor "of old 
Winchester Hall, he felt that he was heir to the ages. 
Alfred, Canute, Stephen, Edward, Henrj', Richard of 
the Lion Heart— all the fighters who in the brave days of 
old had clanged their way through the historic city, seemed 
to belong to him, this lad in khaki from the far Antipodes. 
In the cathedral he stood bareheaded before the monu- 
ments of soldiers of a later day — members of the Hamji- 
shircs and the King's Royal Rifles, whose deeds are 
commemorated in the home town. In places of honour 
on the Cathedral walls are the names of Hampshire 
men who fell at Waterloo, in the Crimea, in India, on the 
Nik', in South Africa ; and over some of the lists iiang,. 
faded and torn, the colours whicli once floated to the 
breeze and led their regiments into battle. 
Voung Anzac paid a silent tribute to these brothers- 
in-arms, who, in the antiquity of the Cathedral, seemed 
to be Iris own contemporaries. Hut later on, his thoiights 
lound expression : " The wonderful part about England 
is that its history seems to be going on all the time. In 
Ivgypt it all seemed to be past and over." 
thus, in his schoolboy fashion, he voiced that under- 
lying trutli which is beneatli all our belief in a Hving, 
growing Empu-e. And perhaps it was a.sudden realiza- 
tion that he himself was helping the history of our race 
" to be going on " that made Jiim straighten up and look 
at the great Cathedral and the peaceful Close, with a new 
air of pride. 
The old hospital of St. Cross M-as a jov and a rc\elation 
I0 him. Brought up in a land of social experiments, lie 
had believed as a matter of course that the awakening 
of a social conscience was a modern development. Now 
he was confronted by a charity that dated back to the. 
time of King Stephen, and showed him that even in the 
days of the bold, bad barons, there were men who worked 
and planned for tlie welfare of their less fortunate brethren . 
It was a bright autumn day when he walked across the 
water-meadows to St. Cross, and the old grey buildings 
were bathed in sunshine. It flooded the green lawns, the 
beds of brilliant asters, and the soft grey walls ; it shone 
on the old brothers in their gowns of black and mulberry 
red, strolling about the square, and on the young soldier 
in the gateway, making a peaceful picture into wliich the 
traveller from the new land seemed to fit as naturally as 
the old brothers themselves. He gazed at the scene 
silently,, as was his way. Then, in his slow voice : 
"I'd rather like to end my days in a place like this. 
It's very peaceful." 
Poor lad, the battlefields of France hold no such peace- 
ful halting place ! 
But it was the college that held the greatest fascination 
for him. His own schooldays were so short a space 
behind him that he had not begun to forget the feelings 
of a schoolboy. His own school in Australia was counted 
very old in that land of new things. It had been built 
nearly a century, and it had its traditions ; and its boys 
learned " to play the game," just as their forefathers 
had learned on the English playing fields. So there 
was a feeling of intimacy and fellowship, mingled with the 
reverence and interest with which young Anzac approached 
the great old college. 
He lo\-ed to stroll across College Mead and watch the 
boys at football. The clatter of his heavy boots on the 
cobblestones of the courts was music in his ears, for it 
seemed like the echo of boys who had clattered that way 
during the long centuries. It must be confessed that he 
took a mischievous pleasure in asking the boys cjuestions 
in order to hear them speak ; for used as he was to the 
deeper, drawling tones of his own countrymen, the high- 
pitched English voices amused him. They seemed 
girlish to his unaccustomed ear. But not for a moment 
did he make the mistake of thinking that the men who 
went forth from that old school were any less manly 
than the deeper-voiced m6n of his own land. He km-w 
too much English history to fall into that error, and, 
. besides, he had had personal experience of officers from 
public schools. " Tommy officers," he and his fellows 
irreverently call all the British ofiicers, but none tlu' less 
do they admire them for their courage, and respect them 
for their power to command, and their custom of gi\"ing 
the men a fair " deal." 
No doubt, in its turn, his drawl amused the schoolboys, 
and perhaps he seemed crude and rough to them. But 
crude as he might be, and newly arrived from the newest 
of all lands, there was something in him that responded 
to the call of the old school, and he felt strangely at home 
within its precincts. Then one day as he was being 
shown the famous " toys " the reason came to him in a 
flash. Amongst the numberless names on the walls 
his eye suddenly ix'sted on a most familiar, name — one 
he himself had signed a thousand times. It was a name 
glorious in history, and made immortal by a man who 
had lived long before the owner of the one on the wall, 
and it was young Anzac's own second name. But so 
little does the a\'orage Au.stralian bothcT about his 
ancestors that the boy had (piite forgotten that his own 
great-grandfather, and /u's father and grandfather before 
, him, had been Wykehamists. 
He did not speak of it to his guide — that would luue 
seemed too much' like "swank"— but his interest in 
and affection for the college deepened, and the joy of 
the possessor entered into his soul. Now, indeed, was he 
linked with the glorious past of the old Hampshire town. 
Later on, in London, he summed it up. It was the 
last night of his last lea\'e. Next day he wa's lea\ing for 
the front, and a serious mood had fallen on him. 
" I'm awfully glad I had those few weeks in \\ in- 
chestcr," he said. " London's all right, but it's toe 
cosmopolitan ; it seems to belong to anyone. Win- 
chester seems to be us. I think it is the England we're 
all fighting for. And when you think of all those old 
Johnnies, way back to the Britons, and those otherS: 
too. in the Cathedral —well, it makes n chap feel proud 
that he can carry on." 
.-\nd so the ancient capital had forged one more linl 
between the old world and the new. 
