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[Page 2]
[Transcriber's note:
Archibald (Archie) Albert Barwick, who joined the First AIF in Sydney in late August 1914, served right through the war on Gallipoli and on the Western Front. This first diary, much written retrospectively, includes the start of his military career in Sydney with induction at Randwick and training at Kensington, sailing through the Suez Canal to Alexandria and Cairo, desert training in Mena, the voyage from Alexandria to Lemnos, Greece and landing at Gallipoli]
Bravest where half a world of men
Are brave beyond all earths reward's
So stoutly none shall charge again
Till the last breaking of the swords
Wounded or hale won home from war
Or yonder by the "Lone Pine" laid
Give him his due for evermore
"The bravest thing God ever made"
"Extract from London Punch"
"The Australian." A British officers opinion of them
"The skies that arched his land were blue,
His bush born winds were warm & sweet,
And yet from earliest hour's he knew,
The tides of victory to defeat.
From fierce floods thundering at his birth
From red droughts ravening while he played
He learned to fear no foes on earth
"The bravest thing God ever made"
The bugles of the Motherland
Rang ceaselessly across the sea
To call him & his lean brown hand
To shape Imperial destiny.
He went by youths grave purpose willed
The goal unknown, the cost unweighed,
The promise of his blood fulfilled,
"The bravest thing God ever made"
We know it is our deathless pride,
The splendour of his first fierce blow
How reckless, glorious, undenied,
He stormed those steel lined cliffs we know
And none who saw him scale the height
Behind his reeking bayonet-blade
Would rob him of his title-right.
"The bravest thing God ever made"