Cirrus@Austlit

Dedication: This book is lovingly dedicated to Viola and Little Rhelma who have to bear the harder part of war - the waiting at home.

Publisher's Note: The author's consent for the publication of these chapters was not readily secured. Public interest, however, and enquiry for further writings from the pen of Bernard O'Reilly, encouraged us to make every endeavour to fill the demand, and we place this volume before the public without any apology. Passing reference has been made in Green Mountains to one or two of the events recorded here.

Author's Introduction: These chapters make no pretence of being other than an untidy collection of memories. They were not written for a public or to cater for any particular taste or for any reason save that the writer wished to write them. You may, if you wish, call them a reaction from the thunder and massed slaughter of an over-mechanised world, but if that is so, then the reaction is an unconscious one....You may see in some of these pages a reflection of every Digger's love of some place back home...some little corner of his land which he has glorified in exile until it has become a symbol of the things for which he fights and endures.

Cullenbenbong is the part of the Kanimbla valley where O'Reilly's family lived.