One of the Old Platoon, 1930

I was fed to the teeth of the dirty game:
For we’d had a gruellin’ spell:
And a rumbin’ o’er the skyline came,
Lit by night with a flicker of flame,
That spoke of a minor hell.
I was back of the line on a shell-scarred track—
And back of it none too soon.
And, dully, my mind got harkin’ back
To Red and Snowy and Pete and Jack,
Boys of the old platoon.

To the old platoon in the Anzac stunt
And the lads that I used to know,
Now lost in the maze of the Western front.
Unblooded then to the human hunt —
Dear God! How long ago?
How long since we gathered at war’s behest,
Raw lads to the fightin’ game?
I’d tidin’s of Red and Pete and the rest—
Some maimed and broken and most gone West;
But of Jack no message came.

For Jack was the digger I longed to see.
I had sought him, hopin’ yet;
For back there on Gallipoli
A thing that lad had done for me
That a man can’t well forget.
And I longed for the grip of his steady hand,
And the clean, straight look in his eye;
I wanted to make him understand
He’d a grateful friend in that stricken land
Ere my turn came to die.

A grave and a stick and an old tin hat
And a sign on the new-turned sod.
No rare thing this to be gazin’ at.
God knows there were plenty like to that
On the weary way I trod.
A badge and a name on the crosspiece there—
The badge of the old platoon —
Nothin’ to gape at, nothin’ rare —
But the mate I’d sought for everywhere
Gone West — a day too soon.

There was nothing to do but carry on,
With a sigh of grim regret,
And a hope he’d know where’er he’d gone
That the deed my mind kept harpin’ on
Was a deed mates don’t forget.
I gave a hitch to my gallin’ pack
(I was due at the post that noon).
There was little to say, but “So long, Jack “
And I stumbled along on the shell-torn track—
Last of the old platoon.

“C. J. Dennis”
The Weekly Times, 26 April 1930, p35