Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog
CHAPTER I. LEAVING HOME. One pleasant October evening, Arthur Hamilton was at play in front of the small, brown cottage in which he lived. He and his brother James, were having a great frolic with a large spotted dog, who was performing a great variety of antics, such as only well-educated dogs understand. But Rover had been carefully initiated into the mysteries of making a bow while standing on his hind legs, tossing pieces of bread off his nose, putting up his fore-paws with a most imploring look, and piteous whine, which the boys called "begging for money," and when a chip had been given him, he uttered a most energetic bow-wow-wow, which they regarded as equivalent to "thank you, sir," and walked off. While they were thus amusing themselves, their mother was sitting on the rude piazza which ran along the front of the cottage, now looking at the merry children, and then thoughtfully gazing at the long shadows which were stretching across the road. Mrs. Hamilton was a woman of wonderful strength, and energy, both of body and mind; and she had been sustained
captain, an officer old for his rank, but one who was known to almost
every man in the force as one of the most striking personalities in
Gallipoli. He had two sons in the Australian force, officers practically
of his own rank. He was one of the first men on to Anzac Beach; and was
the last Australian who left it: Captain Littler.
I had seen him just as he was leaving for the fight, some hours before.
He carried no weapon but a walking-stick. "I have never carried anything
else into action," he said, "and I am not going to begin now." He was
ill with rheumatism and looked it, and the doctor had advised that he
ought not to be with his company. But he came back to them that evening
for the fight; and one could see that it made a world of difference to
them. He was a man whom his own men swore by. Personally, one breathed
more easily knowing that he was with them. It would be his last big
fight, he told me.
Half-way through that charge, in the thick of the whirl of it, he was
seen standing, leaning heavily upon his stick. It was touch and go at
the moment whether the trench was won or lost. "Are you hit, sir?"
asked several around him. Then they noticed a gash in his leg and the
blood running from it--and he seemed to be hit through the chest as
well.
"I will reach that trench if the boys do," he said.
"Have no fear of that, sir," was the answer. A sergeant asked him for
CHAPTER I. LEAVING HOME. One pleasant October evening, Arthur Hamilton was at play in front of the small, brown cottage in which he lived. He and his brother James, were having a great frolic with a large spotted dog, who was performing a great variety of antics, such as only well-educated dogs understand. But Rover had been carefully initiated into the mysteries of making a bow while standing on his hind legs, tossing pieces of bread off his nose, putting up his fore-paws with a most imploring look, and piteous whine, which the boys called "begging for money," and when a chip had been given him, he uttered a most energetic bow-wow-wow, which they regarded as equivalent to "thank you, sir," and walked off. While they were thus amusing themselves, their mother was sitting on the rude piazza which ran along the front of the cottage, now looking at the merry children, and then thoughtfully gazing at the long shadows which were stretching across the road. Mrs. Hamilton was a woman of wonderful strength, and energy, both of body and mind; and she had been sustained