And the band played Waltzing Matilda...
And the band played Waltzing Matilda.
~Now when I was a young colt, I carried me pack, and I lived the free life of a rover
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback, well, I waltzed my Matilda all over.
Then in 1915, my country said son, It's time you stopped rambling, there's work to be done.
So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun, and they marched me away to the war.
And the band played Waltzing Matilda, as the ship pulled away from the quay
And amidst all the cheers, the flag-waving and tears, we sailed off for Grifllipoli.
And how well I remember that terrible day, how our blood stained the sand and the water
And of how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay, we were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Griff he was waiting, he'd primed himself well. He showered us with bullets,
And he rained us with shell. And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Equstralia.
But the band played Waltzing Matilda, when we stopped to bury our slain.
We buried ours, and the Griffs buried theirs, then we started all over again.
And those that were left, well we tried to survive, in that mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks, I kept myself alive, though around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Griffin shell knocked me arse overhead, and when I woke up in my hospital bed,
And saw what it had done, well I wished I was dead. Never knew there was worse things than dyin'.
For I'll go no more waltzing Matilda, all around the green bush far and free
To hump tent and pegs, a colt needs four legs-no more waltzing Matilda for me.
So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed, and they shipped us back home to Equstralia.
The legless, the wingless, the blind, the insane, those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay, I looked at the place where me hind legs used to be.
And thanked Celestia there was nobody waiting for me, to grieve, to mourn, and to pity.
But the band played Waltzing Matilda, as they carried us down the gangway.
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared, then they turned all their faces away
And so now every April, I sit on me porch, and I watch the parades pass before me.
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march, reviving old dreams of past glories
And the old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore. They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young ponies ask, what are they marching for? And I ask myself the same question.
But the band plays Waltzing Matilda, and the old ponies still answer the call,
But as year follows year, more old ponies disappear. Someday no one will march there at all.
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by that billabong, who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me? ~
Granny Smith let out a small, sad sigh as she put the old journal that her late husband had written a number of different songs on the small table next to her rocking chair, blinking away tears of memories long past. Her memory wasn’t what it used to be, but they always came back clear as the bright blue sky hanging above her family’s farm today whenever she took the time to summon them with one of her most treasured possessions.
Most ponies wouldn’t be able to imagine the horrors of war now a days… the very idea was completely alien to them. But the head of the Apple family had witnessed the last war. She had been a much, much younger mare at the time (and quite the looker too she recalled). Her parents were still around back then; she had only a few months prior married her childhood sweetheart Fruit Salad and she had already been with foal when the war with the griffins began.
She honestly didn’t know why the war started. Sure, there was plenty of propaganda back then and historians will say the cause was such and such now, but she didn’t care about the whys. The war had taken her young husband away when he enlisted to go and fight. He said it was his duty to his country and to his new family to go and end the war as quickly as possible.
She wrote to him every single day he was away for a solid ten weeks, his replies taking as much time to reach her as her letters took to reach him. Until the day the replies stopped coming and a different letter arrived for her. Silently, the elder mare let a few tears fall for the knowledge that the father of her only child never got the chance to see his foal for himself.
Letting the tears fall for a time, Granny Smith wiped them away as she turned her attention back to the book she had been reading before brighter memories caused her to smile somewhat. The war may have claimed her first husband, but it gave her one in return. An Equstralian mule named Sampson that had been close to her husband had arrived on the farm a few weeks after the war ended, saying that he had promised him that he would help look after the farm and help her take care of the foal once it came.
Sampson was as good as his word. The farm wouldn’t have been as successful as it was without him and she shuddered at how hard it would have been to raise her newborn colt Appleseed without him there. After a year the two of them had tied the knot. He admitted from the get go that he couldn’t have children on his own but she was honestly happy with the child she already had and he loved her son like his own.
The sea of happy memories with her second husband kept the smile on her face for hours as the old mare took her time in swimming through them. But the river of memory had to follow a path… just days before Appleseed and his wife were due to have their second foal, Sampson passed away in his sleep. He had been quite deathly ill in the weeks before, his exposer to deadly griffin chemicals back in the war shorting his lifespan.
The doctors gave him a week at the most when he went into the hospital. He fought to stay alive for two months in order to see his second grandchild born. He fought until he had nothing left to fight with and even then held on for another day or so before he simply couldn’t keep going. All he had wanted to do was give his second grandchild his lucky hat personally.
While fresh tears flowed at the painful memory, Granny Smith felt warmth in her heart that Applejack now wore her grandfather’s hat with such pride almost all the time. She knew in her heart that Sampson would have been proud of the stallion Big Mac had become and the fine mare that Applejack was growing into. He would love Applebloom with all his heart as well, even if she didn’t come into the world until long after he was gone.
Looking over her farm and rocking back and forth on her chair, Granny softly started to smile again as he eyes closed, her dreams already returning to the happy memories she had been recalling moments before.