Grub or Glory

In his latest novel, ‘Two Years’, Liam O’Flaherty, the Irish novelist, makes the amazing statement that the Australian soldiers fought like wild cats in the war because their standard of living was so high in the trenches that they feared being sent back to the wilderness.

Too right (said the digger). It wasn’t the fame,
It wasn’t the glory or honor we sought,
It wasn’t plain grouch or a love of the game
That led to high deeds in them battles we fought;
But when we looked back on our life in the scrub—
Here’s the secret—we stuck it because of the grub.

Think it out for yourself. We had come from a land
Where a man seldom gets decent tucker to eat—
Just bread an’ potatoes—Well, you understand
What’s cream, milk an’ honey an’ cabbage an’ meat
An’ puddln’s an’ pickles ‘longside of the stuff
We got in the trenches? There’s reason enough.

There’s reason for fightin’ an’ stickin’ it out,
An’ bleedin’ an’ dyin’, when all of us knew
That them that survived in some hot little bout
In France or in Flanders was all of ‘em due
For a nice little banquet the chef had prepared
In the kitchen de luxe for the men that were spared.

Then the officers tucked serviettes neath our chins,
And, while the smoke cleared, we’d be lickin’ our lips
Over pate de foie gras imported in tins,
An’ chook a la mode an’ asparagus tips . . .
An’ then the war flopped. Ah, don’t mention it now.
When I think of that life I get hungry somehow.

“Den”
Herald, 29 July 1930, p6