Aussie Legends

Through thick of sniper fire and raining hell,
along the dire trail of Shrapnel Gully,
to haven, bore three hundred men who fell,
did John Simpson Kirkpatrick, and his Duffy.

I was, from crib, encouraged to admire,
how Private Simpson at Gallipoli,
took wounded to the beach from front-line fire
so gently, carried by his donkey, Duffy.

It’s one of many legends of Gallipoli,
elaborated on throughout the century;
exaggerated, it’s a certainty,
but true’s the tale of Duffy, Simpson’s donkey.

With injured balanced on his sturdy back,
he’d amble placidly through noise and bullets
across the overgrown and broken track,
to safety of the hospital and billets.

While missiles in the air around them fell
they seemed to be immune, all watched, so sure
there’d be no harm befalling them as well -
a symbol all might, feasibly, endure.

Prevailing through the crossfire, fracas, fray,
the sight of him gave hope to all he met
Admiring diggers queried every day,
"Has the bloke with the donkey stopped one yet?"

One story tells of how, one day in May
when, finally, his luck came to an end,
with bullet through his heart, he dead there lay,
while faithful Duffy stood to guard his friend.

Another says that Duffy kept on moving,
to take the injured soldier on to aid,
and yet one other finds poor Duffy grieving,
and nudging Jack’s still body as he brayed.

Jack’s final resting place, a shallow pit
beneath a simple cross of wooden sorrow,
on sands of beach well-labelled as Hell Spit.
The fate of Duffy, no-one seems to know.

It matters not what one may think of war,
acknowledge courage men show, if you can
but more, e’en unaware of what they fought for,
the loyalty of animal to man.

So, every year, on April twenty-five,
the Anzac spirit dawning in the east,
commemorates the love, the sacrifice,
not only of our boys, but of our beasts.