The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAt Suvla BayThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: At Suvla BayAuthor: John HargraveRelease date: July 1, 2002 [eBook #3306]Most recently updated: February 26, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team,and David Widger*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT SUVLA BAY ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: At Suvla BayAuthor: John HargraveRelease date: July 1, 2002 [eBook #3306]Most recently updated: February 26, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team,and David Widger
Title: At Suvla Bay
Author: John Hargrave
Author: John Hargrave
Release date: July 1, 2002 [eBook #3306]Most recently updated: February 26, 2021
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team,and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT SUVLA BAY ***
ToMINOBIWe played at Ali Baba,On a green linoleum floor;Now we camp near Lala Baba,By the blue Aegean shore.We sailed the good ship Argus,Behind the studio door;Now we try to play at “Heroes”By the blue Aegean shore.We played at lonely Crusoe,In a pink print pinafore;Now we live like lonely Crusoe,By the blue Aegean shore.We used to call for “Mummy,”In nursery days of yore;And still we dream of Mother,By the blue Aegean shore.While you are having holidays,With hikes and camps galore;We are patching sick and wounded,By the blue Aegean shore.J. H.
Salt Lake Dug-out,September 12th, 1915.(Under shell-fire.)
Sirt—summit.Dargh—mountain.Bair or bahir—spur.Burnu—cape.Dere—valley or stream.Tepe—hill.Geul—lake.Chesheme—spring.Kuyu—well.Kuchuk—small.Tekke—Moslem shrine.Ova—plain.Liman—bay or harbour.Skala—landing-place.Biyuk—great.
CONTENTSTURKISH WORDSAT SUVLA BAYCHAPTER I.IN WHICH MY KING AND COUNTRY NEED MECHAPTER II.A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARYCHAPTER III.SNAREDCHAPTER IV.CHARACTERSCHAPTER V.I HEAR OF HAWKCHAPTER VI.ON THE MOVECHAPTER VII.MEDITERRANEAN NIGHTSCHAPTER VIII.THE CITY OF WONDERFUL COLOUR: ALEXANDRIACHAPTER IX.MAROONED ON LEMNOS ISLANDCHAPTER X.THE NEW LANDINGCHAPTER XI.THE KAPANJA SIRTCHAPTER XII.THE SNIPER-HUNTCHAPTER XIII.THE ADVENTURE OF THE WHITE PACK-MULECHAPTER XIV.THE SNIPER OF THE PEAR-TREE GULLYCHAPTER XV.KANGAROO BEACHCHAPTER XVI.THE ADVENTURE OF THE LOST SQUADSCHAPTER XVII."OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND!”CHAPTER XVIII.TWO MEN RETURNCHAPTER XIX.THE RETREATCHAPTER XX."JHILL-O! JOHNNIE!”CHAPTER XXI.SILVER BAYCHAPTER XXII.DUG-OUT YARNSCHAPTER XXIII.THE WISDOM OF FATHER S——CHAPTER XXIV.THE SHARP-SHOOTERSCHAPTER XXV.A SCOUT AT SUVLA BAYCHAPTER XXVI.THE BUSH-FIRESCHAPTER XXVII.THE DEPARTURECHAPTER XXVIII.LOOKING BACK
CONTENTS
TURKISH WORDSAT SUVLA BAYCHAPTER I.IN WHICH MY KING AND COUNTRY NEED MECHAPTER II.A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARYCHAPTER III.SNAREDCHAPTER IV.CHARACTERSCHAPTER V.I HEAR OF HAWKCHAPTER VI.ON THE MOVECHAPTER VII.MEDITERRANEAN NIGHTSCHAPTER VIII.THE CITY OF WONDERFUL COLOUR: ALEXANDRIACHAPTER IX.MAROONED ON LEMNOS ISLANDCHAPTER X.THE NEW LANDINGCHAPTER XI.THE KAPANJA SIRTCHAPTER XII.THE SNIPER-HUNTCHAPTER XIII.THE ADVENTURE OF THE WHITE PACK-MULECHAPTER XIV.THE SNIPER OF THE PEAR-TREE GULLYCHAPTER XV.KANGAROO BEACHCHAPTER XVI.THE ADVENTURE OF THE LOST SQUADSCHAPTER XVII."OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND!”CHAPTER XVIII.TWO MEN RETURNCHAPTER XIX.THE RETREATCHAPTER XX."JHILL-O! JOHNNIE!”CHAPTER XXI.SILVER BAYCHAPTER XXII.DUG-OUT YARNSCHAPTER XXIII.THE WISDOM OF FATHER S——CHAPTER XXIV.THE SHARP-SHOOTERSCHAPTER XXV.A SCOUT AT SUVLA BAYCHAPTER XXVI.THE BUSH-FIRESCHAPTER XXVII.THE DEPARTURECHAPTER XXVIII.LOOKING BACK
I left the office of The Scout, 28 Maiden Lane, W.C., on September 8th, 1914, took leave of the editor and the staff, said farewell to my little camp in the beech-woods of Buckinghamshire and to my woodcraft scouts, bade good-bye to my father, and went off to enlist in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
I made my way to the Marylebone recruiting office, and after waiting about for hours, I went at last upstairs and “stripped out” with a lot of other men for the medical examination.
The smell of human sweat was overpowering in the little ante-room. Some of the men had hearts and anchors and ships and dancing-girls tattooed in blue on their chests and arms. Some were skinny and others too fat. Very few looked fit. I remarked upon the shyness they suffered in walking about naked.
“Did yer pass?”
“No, 'e spotted it,” said the dejected rejected.
“Wot?”
“Rupture.”
“Got through, Alf?”
“No: eyesight ain't good enough.”
So it went on for half-an-hour.
Then came my turn.
“Ha!” said the little doctor, “this is the sort we want,” and he rubbed his gold-rimmed glasses on his handkerchief. “Chest, thirty-four—thirty-seven,” said the doctor, tapping with his tape-measure, “How did yer do that?”
“What, sir?” said I, gasping, for I was trying to blow my chest out, or burst.
“Had breathing exercises?”
“No, sir—I'm a scout.”
“Ha!” said he, and noticed my knees were brown with sunburn because I always wore shorts.
I passed the eyesight test, and they took my name down, and my address, occupation and age.
“Ever bin in the army before?”
“No, sir.”
“Married?”
“No, sir.”
“Ever bin in prison?”
“No, sir.”
“What's yer religion?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“What?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Ah, but you've got to 'ave one in the army.”
“Got to?”
“Yes, you must. Wot's it to be—C. of E.?”
“What d'you mean?”
“Church of England. Most of 'em do.”
Awful thoughts of church parade flashed through my mind.
“Right you are—Quaker!” said I.
“Quaker! Is that a religion?” he asked doubtfully.
“Yes.”
I watched him write it down.
“Right, that'll do. Report at Munster Road recruiting station, Fulham, to-morrow.”
We were all dressed by this time. After a lot more waiting about outside in a yard, a sergeant came and took about eight of us into a room where there was a table and some papers and an officer in khaki.
I spotted a Bible on the table. We had to stand in a row while he read a long list of regulations in which we were made to promise to obey all orders of officers and non-commissioned officers of His Majesty's Service. After that, he told us he would swear us in. We had to hold up the right hand above the head, and say, all together: “Swhelpmegod!”
I immediately realised that I had taken an oath, which was not in accordance with my regimental religion!
No sooner were we let out than I began to feel the ever-tightening tangle of red tape.
What the dickens had I enlisted for? I asked myself. I had lost all my old-time freedom: I could no longer go on in my old camping and sketching life. I was now a soldier—a “tommy”—a “private.” I loathed the army. What a fool I was!
The next day I reported at Fulham. More hours of waiting. I discovered an old postman who had also enlisted in the R.A.M.C., and as he “knew the ropes” I stuck to him like a leech. In the afternoon an old recruiting sergeant with a husky voice fell us in, and we marched, a mob of civilians, through the London streets to the railway station. Although this was quite a short distance, the sergeant fell us out near a public-house, and he and a lot more disappeared inside.
What a motley crowd we were: clerks in bowler hats; “knuts” in brown suits, brown ties, brown shoes, and a horse-shoe tie-pin; tramp-like looking men in rags and tatters and smelling of dirt and beer and rank twist.
Old soldiers trying to “chuck a chest”; lanky lads from the country gaping at the houses, shops and people.
Rough, broad-speaking, broad-shouldered men from the Lancashire cotton-mills; shop assistants with polished boots, and some even with kid gloves and a silver-banded cane. Here and there was a farm-hand in corduroys and hob-nailed, cowdung-spattered boots, puffing at a broken old clay pipe, and speaking in the “Darset” dialect. At the station they had to have another “wet” in the refreshment room, and by the time the train was due to start a good many were “canned up.”
Boozy voices yelled out—
“'S long way... Tipper-airy...”
“Good-bye, Bill... 'ave... 'nother swig?”
“Don't ferget ter write, Bill...”
“Aw-right, Liz... Good-bye, Albert...”
We were locked in the carriage. There was much shouting and laughing.... And so to Aldershot.
Aldershot was a seething swarm of civilians who had enlisted. Every class and every type was to be seen. We found out the R.A.M.C. depot and reported. A man sat at an old soapbox with a lot of papers, and we had to file past him. This was in the middle of a field with row upon row of bell-tents.
“Name?” he snapped.
I told him.
“Age?”
“Religion?”
“Quaker.”
“Right!—Quaker Oats!—Section 'E,' over there.”
But my old postman knew better, and, having found out where “Section E” was camped, we went off up the town to look for lodging for the night, knowing that in such a crowd of civilians we could not be missed.
At last we found a pokey little house where the woman agreed to let us stay the night and get some breakfast next day.
That night was fearful. We had to sleep in a double bed, and it was full of fleas. The moonlight shone through the window. The shadow of a barrack-room chimney-pot slid slowly across my face as the hours dragged on.
We got up about 5.30 A.M., so as to get down to the parade-ground in time for the “fall in.”
We washed in a tiny scullery sink downstairs. There was a Pears' Annual print of an old fisherman telling a story to a little girl stuck over the mantelpiece.
We had eggs and bread-and-butter and tea for breakfast, and I think the woman only charged us three shillings all told.
Once down at the parade-ground we looked about for “Section E” and found their lines in the hundreds of rows of bell-tents.
Life for the next few days was indeed “hand to mouth.” We had to go on a tent-pitching fatigue under a sergeant who kept up a continual flow of astoundingly profane oaths.
Food came down our lines but seldom. When it did come you had to fetch it in a huge “dixie” and grope with your hands at the bits of gristle and bone which floated in a lot of greasy water. Some one bought a box of sardines in the next tent.
“Goin' ter share 'em round?” said a hungry voice.
“Nah blooming fear I ain't—wot yer tike me for—eh?”
Every one was starving. I had managed to fish a lump of bone with a scrag of tough meat on it from the lukewarm slosh in our “dixie.” But some one who was very hungry and very big came along and snatched it away before I could get my teeth in it.
We had continually to “fall in” in long rows and answer our names. This was “roll-call,” and roll-call went on morning, noon, and night. Even when your own particular roll-call was not being called you could hear some other corporal or sergeant shouting—
“Jones F.—Wiggins, T.—Simons, G.— Harrison, I....” and so on all day long.
There were no ground-sheets to the tents. We squatted in the mud, and we had one blanket each, which was simply crawling.
We were indeed in a far worse condition than many savages. Then came the rain. We huddled into the tents. There were twenty-two in mine, and, as a bell-tent is full up with eighteen, you may imagine how thick the atmosphere became. One old man would smoke his clay-pipe with choking twist tobacco. Most of the others smoked rank and often damp “woodbines.” The language was thick with grumbling and much swearing. At first it was not so bad. But some one touched the side of the tent and the rain began to dribble through. Then we found a tiny stream of wet slowly trickling along underneath the tent-walls towards the tent-pole, and by night time we were lying and sitting in a pool of mud.
About a week later when the sergeant-major told us on parade that we were “going to Tipperary” we all laughed, and no one believed it.
But the next day they marched us down to the Government siding and locked us all in a train, which took us right away to Fishguard.
Some of the men got some bread-and-cheese before starting, but I, in company with a good many others, did not.
The boat was waiting when they bundled us out on the quay.
It was a cattle-boat and very small and very smelly. There were no cabins or accommodation of any sort: only the cattle-stalls down below. Six hundred of us got aboard. Out of the six hundred, five hundred were sick. It was a very rough crossing, and we were all starving and shivering. I had nothing but what I stood up in—shirt, shorts, and cowboy-hat, and my old haversack, which contained soap, towel and razor, and also a sketch-book and a small colour-box.
The Irish sea-winds whistled up my shorts—but I preferred the icy wind to the stinking cattle-stalls and insect-infested straw below. We were packed in like sardines. Men were retching and groaning, cussing and growling. At last I found a coil of rope. It was a huge coil with a hole in the centre—something like a large bird's nest. I got into this hole and curled up like a dormouse. Here I did not feel the cold so much, and lying down I didn't feel sick. The moon glittered on the great gray billows. The cattle-boat heaved up and slid down the mountains. She pitched and rolled and slithered sideways down the wave-slopes. And so to Waterford.
From Waterford by train to Tipperary. It was early morning. The first thing I noticed was that the grass in Ireland was very green and that the fields were very small.
We had had no food for twenty-seven hours. I found a very hard crust of bread in my haversack, and eat it while the others were asleep in the carriage.
“CRIMED”
“Off with his head,” said the Queen.—Alice in Wonderland.
“Charge against 31963—Failing to drink some oniony tea;Ha! Ha!What! What!I can have you SHOT!D'you realise thatI can have you lashedTo a wheel and smashed?What?Rot!Yes—SHOT!D'you realise this?Right—turn!DISMISS!”Lemnos: October 1915.
Born and bred in a studio, and brought up among the cloud-swept mountains of Westmorland, amid the purple heather and the sunset in the peat-moss puddles, barrack-life soon became like penal servitude. I was like a caged wild animal. I knew now why the tigers and leopards pace up and down, up and down, behind their bars at the Zoo.
We only stayed a week in the great, gray, prison-like barracks at Tipperary. We looked about for the “sweetest girl” of the song—but the “colleens” were disappointing. My heart was not “right there.” We moved to Limerick; and in Limerick we stopped for seven solid months.
For seven months we did the same old squad-drill every day, at the same time, on the same old square, until at last we all began to be unbearably “fed up.” The sections became slack at drill because they were over-drilled and sickened by the awful monotony of it all.
During those seven dreary months, in that dismal slum-grown town, we learnt all the tricks of barrack-life. We knew how to “come the old soldier”; we knew how and when to “wangle out” of doing this or that fatigue; we practised the ancient art of “going sick” when we knew a long route march was coming off next day.
We knew how to “square” the guard if we came in late, and the others learnt how to dodge church parade.
“'E never goes to church parade.”
“No; 'e was a fly one—'e was.”
“Wotchermean?”
“Put 'isself down as Quaker.”
“Lummy—that's me next time I 'list—Quaker Oats!”
By this time I had been promoted to the rank of corporal.
Next to the regimental sergeant-major, I had the loudest drill voice on the square, and shouting at squad-drill and stretcher-drill was about the only thing I ever did well in the army—except that, having been a scout, I was able to instruct the signalling squad.
Route marches and field-days were a relief from the drill square. For five months we got no issue of khaki. Many of the men were through at the knees, and tattered at the elbows. Some were buttonless and patched. I had to put a patch in my shorts. Our civilian boots were wearing out—some were right through. Heels came off when they “right turned,” others had their soles flapping as they marched.
My “batman,” who cleaned my boots and swept out the bunk, had his trousers held together with a huge safety-pin. The people called us “Kitchener's Rag-time Army.” We became so torn, and worn, and ragged, that it was impossible to go out in the town. Being the only one in scout rig-out I drew much attention.
“'Ere 'e comes, Moik-ell!”
“Kitchener's cowboy! Isn't he lovely!”
“Bejazus! so-it-is!”
“Come an' see Path-rick—Kitchener's cowboy!—by-the-holy-sufferin'-jazus!”
I found an old curio-shop down near the docks, and here I used to rummage among the gilded Siamese idols, and the painted African gods and drums. I discovered some odd parts of A Thousand-and-One Arabian Nights, which I bought for a penny or two, and took back to my barrack-room to read. By this means I forgot the gray square, and the gray line of the barracks outside, and the bare boards and yellow-washed walls within.
I used to practise “slipping” the guard at the guard-room gate. This form of amusement became quite exciting, and I was never caught at it.
Next I got a very old and worn copy of the Koran.
By this time I was a full-blown sergeant. I made a mistake in walking into the sergeants' mess with the Koran under my arm. It was difficult to explain what sort of book it was. One day the regimental sergeant-major said—
“You know, Hargrave, I can't make you out.”
“No, sir?”
“No;—you're not a soldier, you never will be—you act the part pretty well. But you don't take things seriously enough.”
We were often out on the Clare Mountains for field-days with the stretcher-squads. Coming back one day, I spotted two herons wading among some yellow-ochre sedges in a swampy field. I determined there and then to come back and stalk them. The following Saturday I set out with a fellow we called “Cherry Blossom,” because he never cleaned his boots. I took a pair of field-glasses, and “Cherry” had a bag of pastries, which we bought on the way. We stalked those herons for hours and hours. We crept through the reeds, hid behind trees, and crawled into bushes, but the herons were better scouts. We only got about fifty yards up to one. For all that, it was like my old scout life—and we had had a break from the gray walls and the everlasting saluting of officers.
There were rumours of war, and that's all we knew of it. There were fresh rumours each day. We were going to Egypt. We were to be sent to the East Coast for “home defence.” That offended our martial ardour. When were we going out? Should we ever get out? Had we got to do squad drill for “duration”? Had Kitchener forgotten the Xth Division?
Now and then a batch of men were put into khaki which arrived at the quartermaster's stores in driblets. Some had greeny puttees and sandy slacks, a “civvy” coat and a khaki cap. Others were rigged out in “Kitchener's workhouse blue,” with little forage caps on one side. The sprinkling of khaki and khaki-browns and greens increased every time we came on parade: until one day the whole of the three field ambulances were fitted out.
The drill went on like clockwork. It was as if some curse had fallen upon us. The officers were “fed up” you could see.
And now, just a word as to army methods. Immediately opposite the barracks was a cloth factory, which was turning out khaki uniforms for the Government every day.
For five months we went about in civilian clothes. We were a disgrace as we marched along. Yet because no order had been given to that factory to supply us with uniforms, we had to wait till the uniforms had been shipped to England, and then sent back to Ireland for us to wear!
The spark of patriotism which was in each man when he enlisted was dead. We detested the army, we hated the routine, we were sickened and dulled and crushed by drill.
The old habit of being always on the alert for anything picturesque saved me from idiotcy. Whenever opportunity offered, or whenever I could take French leave, I went off with sketchbook and pencil, and forgot for a time the horror of barrack-room life, with its unending flow of filthy language, and its barren desolation of yellow-washed walls and broken windows.
And then we moved to Dublin.
It may be very amusing to read about “Kipps” and those commonplace people whom Mr. H.G. Wells describes so cleverly, but to have to live with them in barracks is far from pleasant.
There were shop-assistants, dental mechanics, city clerks, office boys, medical students, and a whole mass of very ordinary, very uninteresting people. There was a fair sprinkling of mining engineers and miners, and these men were more interesting and of a far stronger mental and physical development. They were huge, full-chested, strong-armed men who swore and drank heavily, but were honest and straight.
There were characters here from the docks and from the merchant service, some of whom had surely been created for W.W. Jacobs. One in particular—Joe Smith, a sailor-man (an engine-greaser, I think)—was full of queer yarns and seafaring talk. He was a little man with beady eyes and a huge curled moustache. He walked about quickly, with the seamen's lurch, as I have noticed most seagoing men of the merchant service do.
This man “came up” in bell-bottomed trousers and a pea jacket. He was fond of telling a yarn about a vessel which was carrying a snake in a crate from the West Indies. This snake got into the boiler when they were cleaning out the engine-room.
“The capt'in ses to me, 'Joe.' I ses, 'Yes-sir.' 'Joe,' says 'e, 'wot's to be done?'
“'Why,' ses I, 'thing is ter git this 'ere snake out ag'in!'
“'Jistso,' says the capt'in; 'but 'oo' ter do it?'—'E always left everythink ter me—and I ses, 'Why, sir, it's thiswise, if sobe all the others are afeared, I ain't, or my name's Double Dutch.'
“'Very good, melad,' ses the capt'in, 'I relies on you, Joe.'—'E always did—and would you believe it, I upped an' 'ooked that there great rattlesnake out of the boiler with an old hum-brella!”
There was a clerk who stood six-foot eight who was something of a “knut.” He told me that at home he belonged to a “Lit'ry Society,” and I asked him what books they had and which he liked.
“Books?” he asked. “'Ow d'yow mean?”
“You said a Literary Society, didn't you?”
“Oh yes, we 'ave got books. But, you know, we go down there and 'ave a concert, or read the papers, and 'ave a social, perhaps, you know; sometimes ask the girls round to afternoon tea.”
I had a barrack-room full of these people to look after. Most of them got drunk. Once a young medical student tried to knife me with a Chinese jack-knife which his uncle, a missionary, had given him. He had “downed” too much whisky. Just as boys do at school, so these men formed into cliques, and “hung together” in twos and threes.
Some of them, like the “lit'ry society” clerk, had never seen much of life or people; had lived in a little suburban villa and pretended to be “City men.” Others had knocked about all over the world. These were mostly seafaring men. Savage was such a one. He was one of the buccaneer type, strong and sunburnt, with tattooed arms. Often he sang an old sea-song, which always ended, “Forty-five fadom, and a clear sandy bottom!” He knew most of the sea chanties of the old days, one of which went something in this way—
“Heave away Rio! Heave away Rio!So fare thee well, my sweet pretty maid!Heave away Rio! Heave away Rio!For there's plenty of gold—so we've been told—On the banks of the Sacrament—o!”
An old Irish apple-woman used to come into the barracks, and sit by the side of the parade ground with two baskets of apples and a box of chocolate.
She did a roaring trade when we were dismissed from drill.
We always addressed her as “Mother.” She looked so witch-like that one day I asked—
“Can you tell a fortune, Mother?”
“Lord-love-ye, no! Wad ye have the Cuss o' Jazus upon us all? Ye shud see the priest, sor.”
“And can he?”
“No, Son! All witch-craftin' is forbid in the Book by the Holy Mother o' Gord, so they do be tellin' me.”
“Can no one in all Ireland read a fortune now, Mother?”
“Ach, Son, 'tis died out, sure. Only in the old out-an'-away parts 'tis done; but 'tis terrible wicked!”
She was a good bit of colour. I have her still in my pocket-book. Her black shawl with her apples will always remind me of early barrack-days at Limerick if I live to be ninety.
Seldom are we lucky enough to meet in real life a character so strong and vivid, so full of subtle characteristics, that his appearance in a novel would make the author's name. Such a character was Hawk.
When you consider, you find that many an author of note has made a lasting reputation by evolving some such character; and in most cases this character has been “founded on fact.” For example, Stevenson's “Long John Silver,” Kipling's “Kim,” and Rider Haggard's “Alan Quatermain.”
Had Kipling met Hawk he would have worked him into a book of Indian soldier life; for Hawk was full of jungle adventures and stories of the Indian Survey Department and the Khyber Pass; while his descriptions of Kashmir and Secunderabad, with its fakirs and jugglers, monkey temples and sacred bulls, were superb.
On the other hand, Haggard would have placed him “somewhere in Africa,” a strong, hard man trekking across the African veldt he knew so well; for Hawk had been in the Boer War.
Little did I realise when I met him on the barrack-square at Limerick how fate would throw us together upon the scorching sands and rocky ridges of Gallipoli, nor could either of us foresee the hairbreadth escapes and queer corners in which we found ourselves at Suvla Bay and on the Serbian frontier.
I spotted him in the crowd as the only man on parade with a strong, clear-cut face. I noted his drooping moustache, and especially his keen grey eyes, which glittered and looked through and through. Somewhere, I told myself, there was good blood at the back of beyond on his line of descent. I was right, for, as he told me later, when I had come to know him as a trusty friend, he came from a Norseman stock. The jaw was too square and heavy, but the high-built chiselled nose and the deep-set clear grey eyes were a “throw-back” on the old Viking trail. Although dressed in ragged civilian clothes he looked a huge, full-grown, muscular man; active and well developed, with the arms of a miner and the chest of a gorilla. On one arm I remember he had a heart with a dagger through it tattooed in blue and red.
I heard of him first as one to be shunned and feared. For it was said that “when in drink” he would pick up the barrack-room fender with one hand and hurl it across the room. I was told that he was a master of the art of swearing—that he could pour forth a continual flow of oaths for a full five minutes without repeating one single “cuss.”
My interest was immediately aroused. I smelt adventure, and I was on the adventure trail. Hawk was not in my barrack-room, and therefore I knew but little of him while in the old country. I heard that he had been galloper-dispatch-rider to Lord Kitchener in South Africa, and I tried to get him to talk about it. As an “artist's model,” for a canvas to be called “The Buccaneer,” Hawk was perfect. I never saw a man so splendidly developed.
And Hawk was fifty years old! You would take him for thirty-nine or so.
But “drink and the devil had done for the rest”—Hawk himself acknowledged it. His vices were the vices of a strong man, and when he was drunk he was “the very devil.”
He was “the old soldier,” and knew all the ins and outs of army life. I quickly became entangled in the interest of unravelling his complex nature. On the one hand he was said to be a desperado and double-dyed liar. On the other hand, if he respected you, he would always tell you the naked truth, and would never “let you down.” He knew drink was his ruin, but he could not and would not stop it. Yet his advice to me was always good. Indeed, although he had the reputation of a bold, bad blackguard, he never led any one else on the “wrong trail,” and his advice to young soldiers in the barrack-rooms was wonderfully clear and useful.
If he respected you, you could trust your life with him. If he didn't, you could “look up” for trouble. He was honest and “square”—if he liked you—but he could make things disappear by “sleight of hand” in a manner worthy of a West End conjurer.
He was a miner, and had a sound knowledge of mining and practical geology which many a science-master might have been proud of. He had the eyes of a trained observer, and I afterwards discovered he was a crack shot.
Some months later, when the A.S.C. ambulance drivers were exercising their horses, he showed himself a good rough-rider, and I recalled his “galloper” days. And again at Lemnos and Suvla he was a splendid swimmer. He was an all-round man. Unlike the other men in barracks—the shop assistants and clerks—Hawk never missed noticing small things, and it was this which first drew my attention to him.
I remember one night hearing a woman's voice wailing a queer Hindoo chant. It came from the barrack-room door. Afterwards I discovered it was Hawk sitting on his trestle bed cross-legged, with a bit of sacking and ashes on his head imitating the death-wail of an Indian woman for her dead husband.
Hawk knew all the rites and ceremonies of the various Hindoo castes, and could act the part of a fakir or a bazaar-wullah with wonderful realism.
By turns Hawk was a heavy drinker and a clear-brained man of action, calm in danger.
In those early days of my “military career” I looked upon him only as an author looks upon an interesting character.
Months afterwards, on the death-swept peninsula, Hawk and I became fast friends. The “bad man” of the ambulance became the most useful, most faithful, in my section. We went everywhere together—like “Horace and Holly” of Rider Haggard fame: he the great, strong man, and I the young artist scout.
If Hawk was out of camp, you could bet I was also—and vice-versa.
Of Hawk more anon.
We moved to Dublin after seven months of drill and medical lectures in barracks at Limerick.
After about a fortnight in the Portobello Barracks we crossed to England and pitched our camp at Basingstoke. Here we had two or three months' divisional training. The whole of the Xth Division—about 25,000 men—used to turn out for long route-marches.
We were out in all weathers. We took no tents, and “slept out.” This was nothing to me, as I had done it on my own when scouting hundreds of times. It amused me to hear the men grumbling about the hard ground, and to see them rubbing their hips when they got up. It was a hard training. Still we didn't seem to be going out, and once again, the novelty of a new place having worn off, we became unspeakably “fed up.”
Here at Basingstoke we were inspected by the King, and later by Lord Kitchener.
Then came the issue of pith helmets and khaki drill uniforms, and the Red Cross brassards on the left arm.
Rumour ran riot. We were going to India; we were going to East Africa... some one even mentioned Japan! There was a new rumour each day.
Then one day, at brief notice, we were quietly entrained at Basingstoke and taken down to the docks at Devonport before anyone had wind of the matter.
All our ambulance wagons, and field medical equipment in wickerwork panniers, went with us, and it would astonish a civilian to see the amount of stores and Red Cross materials with which a field ambulance moves. And so, after much waiting about, aboard the Canada.