At first opportunity Frank seized the paper and read the feature hungrily, drinking in its jingoistic prose, his eyes glowing eerily. "Daddy, I want to go!" he said as he laid the paper down reverently on the table.

  Fee's head jerked around as she slopped stew all over the top of the stove, and Paddy stiffened in his Windsor chair, his book forgotten. "You're too young, Frank," he said.

  "No, I'm not! I'm seventeen, Daddy, I'm a man! Why should the Huns and Turks slaughter our men like pigs while I'm sitting here safe and sound? It's more than time a Cleary did his bit."

  "You're under age, Frank, they won't take you."

  "They wilt if you don't object," Frank countered quickly, his dark eyes fixed on Paddy's face.

  "But I do object. You're the only one working at the moment and we need the money you bring in, you know that."

  "But I'll be paid in the army!"

  Paddy laughed. "The "soldier's shilling' eh? Being a blacksmith in Wahine pays a lot better than being a soldier in Europe."

  "But I'll be over there, maybe I'll get the chance to be something better than a blacksmith! It's my only way out, Daddy."

  "Nonsense! Good God, boy, you don't know what you're saying. War is terrible. I come from a country that's been at war for a thousand years, so I know what I'm saying. Haven't you heard the Boer War chaps talking? You go into Wahine often enough, so next time listen. And anyway, it strikes me that the blasted English use Anzacs as fodder for the enemy guns, putting them into places where they don't want to waste their own precious troops. Look at the way that saber-rattling Churchill sent our men into something as useless as Gallipoli! Ten thousand killed out of fifty thousand! Twice as bad as decimation.

  "Why should you go fighting old Mother England's wars for her? What has she ever done for you, except bleed her colonies white? If you went to England they'd look down their noses at you for being a colonial. En Zed isn't in any danger, nor is Australia. It might do old Mother England the world of good to be defeated; it's more than time someone paid her for what she's done to Ireland. I certainly wouldn't weep any tears if the Kaiser ended up marching down the Strand."