Odd scraps of wool, their mothers’ spare needles. The boys and the girls, every age, every grade Miss Flora Secombe, so prim and proper has already made six and won the award.

Meg and Betty, both in grade 3, are still on their first and can’t quite get the toe. Tommy Buchanan does not know his father no longer has need of the socks he has made.

But the school in this village of lower Karangi, is doing their bit for the soldiers at war. In 1916 there is little to do, except worry and wait and pray they come home.

What will they be used for this mismatch of socks? Made by the children in towns in Australia

On the front line of battle in Flanders and Ypres, will they soak up the mud and the sweat and the blood?

Will they cover the barrels of rifles in trenches, to keep them from clogging with mud and with rain?

While those from Karangi are reading their mail and thinking of home while they squat and they wait

When the whistles are blown and the order is given and the boys from Karangi go over the top

May each of the socks from the kids at Karangi, come back on the feet of a soldier home safe.