ICY

Nobody seemed to know much about him except that he was generally considered by all those who knew of him in the squadron to be a “cold-foot,” and his nickname was appropriately “Icy.” Not that the others had any particular cause to call him that, but whenever “Beachy Bill” came screeching overhead he would involuntarily duck and then smile in that peculiar manner of his as much as to say, “I can’t help it!” Beachy wasn’t his worst enemy, though, for if there was anything that he dreaded it was those Turkish “75’s.”[17]It used to make us feel as if we could shake him when we saw how he would double himself up. And yet one never liked to attempt anything of the kind whenever he used that smile. Moreover, as he was over six feet in height and correspondingly strong, it would not have been politic. His was a baffling smile, recalling the peculiar smile of the “Monna Lisa,” and, like it, unfathomable. He was a very quiet kind of chap, and when it was his turn to do fatigues, he would go and perform whatever was required of him without ever grumbling. His mates used to take a mean advantage of his good nature, and would shunt all the work, such as sweeping out the “possie,” or trenches, on to him.

About the time of which I am writing we had noticed that Abdul was sapping somewhere down the gully. Sometimes we could distinguish dark shapes moving about, and no amount of sniping on our part would stop them. They worked only during the night, and each morning we found that the pile of new earth down the gully had grown higher. At last we understood his plan—and it came to our turn to make a counter move.

One evening I was told off among others to go out and dig a new trench in front of Abdul’s new sap. We had to block him from getting to a certain place on the little ridge which hitherto had been in “No-Man’s Land.” I noticed that Icy had also been told off, but he was to be one of the covering party. All that night we worked hard, digging ourselves in and filling sandbags which we threw up in front of us. At first we were undisturbed, but suddenly the bullets began to ping-ping over our heads, and we knew that Abdul had tumbled. Still, as he was himself intent on digging he did not come out at us, but contented himself by sniping, thinking to drive us off in that way. However, it was a bit late in the day for that; since by the time he found us out we had already several good sandbags filled, and these protected us as long as we kept well down.

Several of our chaps were winged, but as none of the wounds was very serious we didn’t mind that. When it had struck five in the morning weknocked off and retired to sleep away the day. Half a dozen bomb-throwers who had volunteered for the job then took our places, bringing with them a few bombs, their rifles, ammunition, water bottles, and a supply of bully beef and biscuits. There they spent the whole day, lying low under cover of the sandbags. But Abdul troubled them not! Next night we went out again to resume work, and then it was that certain things happened which made us look upon Icy in a different light.

We had no sooner started work thanra-ta-ta-ta-tawent a machine-gun somewhere out to the left, and the bullets came pinging round hot and close, winging three and killing two on the first discharge.

John Turk had stolen a march on us by placing a machine-gun away out on his extreme flank where he could to a certain extent enfilade us. That sort of thing could not be allowed to last, as we had to bury our noses in the ground each time the confounded gun opened up. Our covering party, being out ahead of us, escaped the hail of bullets better than we did. The place was now becoming too hot to stay in, so the order came along to retire independently to our trenches, until something could be done to stop the machine-gun.

When we mustered again in the trenches, we found that one man of the covering party was missing. The man was Icy. As we were talking about him—wondering who should go back to look for him—there came the noise of a commotion from the direction of the Turkish machine-gun. Bang! bang! went a couple of bombs, followed by cries and shouts from Abdul, and above it all we were certain we heard fragments of language, of the category known in Australia as “bullocky.”[18]What could it mean? By this time the alarm had spread along the whole of Abdul’s front trenches, which belched forth liquid fire. In our own trenches everyone had mechanically sprung to arms; and we stood there wondering while for fifteen minutes the Turks fired without ceasing. Gradually the noise subsided—and we noticed that for some reason the machine-gun away on the left was strangely quiet.

An hour later we were stealing out again to have another attempt at completing our new trenches when I stumbled over the form of a man lying prone. Bending over to see him, I found it was Icy. His clothes were wet and sticky with blood, and half underneath his body there showed the muzzle of a machine-gun. As we lifted him up, we saw that the gun was there complete, tripod and all.

We took him into the lines and handed him over to the dressing-station; and just before we came away he opened his eyes and told enough for us to realise that Icy had sneaked over and stolen that Turkish gun. To this day we don’t quite know how he did it, as he never will talk about it; but before they took him on to the hospital ship next day—with his sixteen bullet wounds and scratches all told—there went down to see him a crowd in which I was amongst the foremost, which apologised to Icy very humbly.

And, do you know, he only smiled back at us in that funny old way of his.

E. A. M. W.

FOOTNOTES:[17]The Turks had a battery of French “75’s” at Anzac, seized as the guns were coming from France during the blockade of Servia in the Balkan War.[18]Bullocky—stands both for the bullock driver and for his chief gift.

[17]The Turks had a battery of French “75’s” at Anzac, seized as the guns were coming from France during the blockade of Servia in the Balkan War.

[18]Bullocky—stands both for the bullock driver and for his chief gift.

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