On the Trek
By Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson
Oh, the weary, weary journey on the trek, day after day,
With sun above and silent veldt below;
And our hearts keep turning homeward to the youngsters far away,
And the homestead where the climbing roses grow.
Shall we see the flats grow golden with the ripening of the grain?
Shall we hear the parrots calling on the bough?
Ah! the weary months of marching ere we hear them call again,
For we’re going on a long job now.
In the drowsy days on escort, riding slowly half asleep,
With the endless line of waggons stretching back,
While the khaki soldiers travel like a mob of travelling sheep,
Plodding silent on the never-ending track,
While the constant snap and sniping of the foe you never see
Makes you wonder will your turn come – when and how?
As the Mauser ball hums past you like a vicious kind of bee –
Oh! we’re going on a long job now.
When the dash and the excitement and the novelty are dead,
And you’ve seen a load of wounded once or twice,
Or you’ve watched your old mate dying – with the vultures overhead,
Well, you wonder if the war is worth the price.
And down along Monaro now they’re starting out to shear,
I can picture the excitement and the row;
But they’ll miss me on the Lachlan when they call the roll this year,
Banjo Paterson is seen standing third from the left in the second line of officers from the Australian Light Horse. Captain Paterson proved himself an adept horseman, breaking and training remounts in Egypt with the 2nd Remounts. He was promoted to the rank of major before the cessation of hostilities in 1918.
Banjo Paterson covering the Boer War in South Africa in 1899-1900
Almost every Australian knows of Banjo Paterson as arguably this country's greatest - certainly most popular - poet. He was, after all, author of Waltzing Matilda, our unofficial national anthem, The Man From Snowy River and that other Australian classic, Clancy of the Overflow.But very few realise that he was also a war correspondent, having covered the Boer War in South Africa in late 1899 and through 1900 for The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's The Age.
Andrew Barton Paterson was born on February 17, 1864, at Narrambla near
Orange, New South Wales. Barty, as he was known to his family and
friends, enjoyed a bush boyhood. When he was seven the family moved to Illalong in
the Yass district, outside present-day Canberra. Here, near the main route between Sydney and Melbourne (now the Hume Highway), the
exciting traffic of bullock teams, Cobb & Co coaches, drovers with their
mobs of stock and gold escorts became familiar sights. At picnic race meetings
and polo matches, he saw in action accomplished horsemen from the Murrumbidgee
and Snowy Mountains country, which generated his lifelong enthusiasm for horses
and horsemanship and eventually the writing of his famous equestrian ballads.
Once he was able to ride a
pony he attended the bush school at Binalong. In 1874 he was sent to Sydney
Grammar School and matriculated aged 16. After failing a University of Sydney scholarship
examination, Paterson began writing verses as a law student. Adopting the pen name 'The Banjo' (taken from the name of a station racehorse
owned by his family), he became one of that sodality of Bulletin writers and
artists for which the 1890s are remarkable in Australian literature, forming
friendships with Harry 'The Breaker'
Morant and others. He helped Henry Lawson to draw up contracts with publishers
and indulged in a friendly rhyming battle with him in the Bulletin over the
attractions or otherwise of bush life.
By 1895 such ballads as Clancy of the
Overflow, The Man from Ironbark and Saltbush Bill were so popular with readers that Angus &
Robertson published the collection, The Man From Snowy River and Other Verses. The title-poem had swept the colonies when it was first published in
April 1890. The book had a remarkable reception: the first edition sold out in
the week of publication and 7000 copies in a few months; its particular
achievement was to establish the bushman in the national consciousness as a
romantic and archetypal figure. The book was as much praised in England as in
Australia: The Times compared Paterson with Rudyard Kipling, who himself wrote to
congratulate the publishers. Paterson's identity as 'The Banjo' was at last
revealed and he became a national celebrity overnight.
While on holiday in
Queensland late in 1895, Paterson stayed with friends at Dagworth station, near
Winton. Here he wrote Waltzing Matilda, which was to become Australia's
best-known folk song.
His most important journalistic opportunity came with the
outbreak of the South African War when he was commissioned by The Sydney Morning
Herald and the Melbourne Age as their war correspondent; he sailed for South
Africa in October 1899.
Attached to General French's column, for nine months
Paterson was in the thick of the fighting and his graphic accounts of the key
campaigns included the surrender of Bloemfontein (he was the first correspondent
to ride into that town), the capture of Pretoria and the relief of Kimberley.
The quality of his reporting attracted the notice of the English press and he
was appointed as a correspondent also for the international news agency,
Reuters, an honour which he especially cherished in his later years.
Paterson sailed for China in July 1901 as a roving correspondent for The Sydney
Morning Herald. There he met G. E. ('Chinese') Morrison, whose exploits he had
always admired; his accounts of this meeting are among Paterson's best prose
work. He went on to England where he spent some time as Kipling's guest at his Sussex
home.
When World War I began, Paterson immediately sailed for England, hoping
unsuccessfully to cover the fighting in Flanders as a war correspondent. He drove
an ambulance attached to the Australian Voluntary Hospital, Wimereux, France,
before returning to Australia early in 1915. As honorary vet (with a certificate
of competency) he made three voyages with horses to Africa, China and Egypt and was commissioned in the 2nd Remount Unit, Australian Imperial
Force.
He died in Sydney, after a short illness, on February 5, 1941, 12 days short of his 77th birthday.
That's a fantastic poem at the beginning there. This is something I never knew and adds a bit more respect to an already incredible character in Australia's history.
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