The Kia ora coo-ee : the magazine for the ANZACS in the Middle East, 1918
['87': Listened the other day...]
"87": Listened the other day to a Tommy's description of an Anzac: "He's a brown, lanky bloke '00 calls' is cobber 'er cow."
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"P. A.": Trooper Ryan was writing home to to his mother the other day: "Kate sent me a nice parcel containing some tobacco, also a pretty little book that I suppose you have heard of. It is called the New Testament."
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"Bill Bowyang": Yes, Billgim often gets homesick. The other night I was on outpost with a mate—as surly a chap as one could meet. Couldn't find a soft spot in him. He stood there, shivering with the cold and listening to Abduls' trench-diggers half-a-mile away. Then he spoke: "Gor' struth, Bill I'd give ten years deferred pay to hear that kid of mine howl for half-an-hour." Another of our chaps lost two of his mates at Rafa, and he got terribly homesick. He wrote home about it and back comes a parcel of little home-made cakes from his mother. What a time we had eating them—just shut our eyes and chewed. We were at home. The taste of those cakes was as good as a Turkish defeat, in fact next day we took a couple of trenches on the strength of them.
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"Horace Kiwi": Dave was detailed to catch several horses which had broken away from their lines. After chasing them for half-an-hour with out making a single capture his O. C. yelled, "Why the blazes don't you catch them?" Dave swore softly for a few seconds, and then replied, "Think a man's a bloomin' octopus? If I was I wouldn't be 'ere—I'd be in the trenches chuckin' bombs at the bloomin Turks."
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