“Here’s a rare chance to give a concert!” I said, and held up my hand to the officer in command.

“Halt!” he cried, and then:  “Stand at ease!” I was about to tell him why I had stopped them, and make myself known to them when I saw a grin rippling its way over all those bronzed faces—­a grin of recognition.  And I saw that the officer knew me, too, even before a loud voice cried out: 

“Good old Harry Lauder!”

That was a good Scots voice—­even though its owner wore the Australian uniform.

“Would the boys like to hear a concert?” I asked the officer.

“That they would!  By all means!” he said.  “Glad of the chance!  And so’m I!  I’ve heard you just once before—­in Sydney, away back in the summer of 1914.”

Then the big fellow who had called my name spoke up again.

“Sing us ‘Calligan,’” he begged.  “Sing us ‘Calligan,’ Harry!  I heard you sing it twenty-three years agone, in Motherwell Toon Hall!”

“Calligan!” The request for that song took me back indeed, through all the years that I have been before the public.  It must have been at least twenty-three years since he had heard me sing that song—­all of twenty-three years.  “Calligan” had been one of the very earliest of my successes on the stage.  I had not thought of the song, much less sung it, for years and years.  In fact, though I racked my brains, I could not remember the words.  And so, much as I should have liked to do so, I could not sing it for him.  But if he was disappointed, he took it in good part, and he seemed to like some of the newer songs I had to sing for them as well as he could ever have liked old “Calligan.”

I sang for these Kangaroos a song I had not sung before in France, because it seemed to be an especially auspicious time to try it.  I wrote it while I was in Australia, with a view, particularly, to pleasing Australian audiences, and so repaying them, in some measure, for the kindly way in which they treated me while I was there.  I call it “Australia Is the Land for Me,” and this is the way it goes: 

     There’s a land I’d like to tell you all about
       It’s a land in the far South Sea. 
     It’s a land where the sun shines nearly every day
       It’s the land for you and me. 
     It’s the land for the man with the big strong arm
       It’s the land for big hearts, too. 
     It’s a land we’ll fight for, everything that’s right for
       Australia is the real true blue!

     Refrain: 

     It’s the land where the sun shines nearly every day
       Where the skies are ever blue. 
     Where the folks are as happy as the day is long
       And there’s lots of work to do. 
     Where the soft winds blow and the gum trees grow
       As far as the eye can see,
     Where the magpie chaffs and the cuckoo-burra laughs
       Australia is the land for me!