The journey started badly in a howling snow-storm. To reach the lake level there was a one-way pass that took an hour to go down, and an hour and a half to climb on the return trip. The Colonel went on ahead to see the General. I stayed with the cart and fought my way through the blizzard. At the top of the pass was a mass of Indian transport. We all waited for two hours, standing still in the storm, the mud belly-deep because some unfortunate wagon had got stuck in the ascent. I remember having words with a Captain who sat hunched on his horse like a sack the whole two hours and refused to give an order or lend a hand when every one of his teams jibbed, when at last the pass was declared open. God knows how he ever got promoted.
However, we got down at last and the sun came out and dried us. I reported to the Colonel, and we went on in a warm golden afternoon along the lake shore with ducks getting up out of the rushes in hundreds, and, later, woodcock flashing over our heads on their way to water. As far as I remember the western lake is some eight miles long and about three wide at its widest part, with fairy villages nestling against the purple mountain background, the sun glistening on the minarets and the faint sound of bells coming across thewater. We spent the night as guests of a battery which we found encamped on the shore, and on the following morning trekked along the second lake, which is about ten miles in length, ending at a jagged mass of rock and thick undergrowth which had split open into a wild, wooded ravine with a river winding its way through the narrow neck to the sea, about five miles farther on.
We camped in the narrow neck on a sandy bay by the river, rock shooting up sheer from the back of the tents, the horses hidden under the trees. The Colonel’s command consisted of one 60-pounder—brought round by sea and thrown into the shallows by the Navy, who said to us, “Here you are, George. She’s on terra firma. It’s up to you now”—two naval 6-inch, one eighteen-pounder battery, “Don,” one 4.5 howitzer battery, and a mountain battery, whose commander rode about on a beautiful white mule with a tail trimmed like an hotel bell pull. “AC” battery of ours came along a day or two later to join the merry party, because, to use the vulgar but expressive phrase, the Staff “got the wind up,” and saw Bulgars behind every tree.
In truth it was a comedy,—though there were elements of tragedy in the utter inefficiency displayed. We rode round to see the line of our zone. It took two days, because, of course, the General had to get back to lunch. Wherever it was possible to cut tracks, tracks had been cut, beautiful wide ones, making an enemy advance easy. They were guarded by isolated machine-gun posts at certain strategic points, and in the nullahs was a little barbed wire driven in on wooden stakes. Against the barbed wire, however, were piled masses of dried thorn,—utterlyimpassable but about as inflammable as gun-powder. This was all up and down the wildest country. If a massacre had gone on fifty yards to our right or left at any time, we shouldn’t have been able to see it. And the line of infantry was so placed that it was impossible to put guns anywhere to assist them.
It is to be remembered that although I have two eyes, two ears, and a habit of looking and listening, I was only a lieutenant with two pips in those days, and therefore my opinion is not, of course, worth the paper it is written on. Ask any Brass Hat!
An incident comes back to me of the action before the retreat. I had only one pip then. Two General Staffs wished to make a reconnaissance. I went off at 3 a.m. to explore a short way, got back at eight o’clock, after five hours on a cold and empty stomach, met the Staffs glittering in the winter sun, and led them up a goat track, ridable, of course. They left the horses eventually, and I brought them to the foot of the crest, from which the reconnaissance was desired. The party was some twenty strong, and walked up on to the summit and produced many white maps. I was glad to sit down, and did so under the crest against a rock. Searching the opposite sky line with my glasses, I saw several parties of Bulgars watching us,—only recognisable as Bulgars because the little of them that I could see moved from time to time. The Colonel was near me and I told him. He took a look and went up the crest and told the Staffs. The Senior Brass Hat said, “Good God! What are you all doing up here on the crest? Get under cover at once,”—and he and they all hurried down. The reconnaissance was over!
On leading them a short way back to the horses (it saved quite twenty minutes’ walk) it became necessary to pass through a wet, boggy patch about four yardsacross. The same Senior Brass Hat stopped at the edge of it, and said to me, “What the devil did you bring us this way for? You don’t expect me to get my boots dirty, do you?—Good God!”
I murmured something about active service,—but, as I say, I had only one pip then.—
It isn’t that one objects to being cursed. The thing that rankles is to have to bend the knee to a system whose slogan is efficiency, but which retains the doddering and the effete in high commands simply because they have a quarter of a century of service to their records. The misguided efforts of these dodderers are counteracted to a certain extent by the young, keen men under them. But it is the dodderers who get the credit, while the real men lick their boots and have to kowtow in the most servile manner. Furthermore, it is no secret. We know it and yet we let it go on: and if to-day there are twenty thousand unnecessary corpses among our million dead, after all, what are they among so many? The dodderers have still got enough life to parade at Buckingham Palace and receive another decoration, and we stand in the crowd and clap our hands, and say, “Look at old so-and-so! Isn’t he a grand old man? Must be seventy-six if he’s a day!”
So went the comedy at Stavros. One Brass Hat dug a defence line at infinite expense and labour. Along came another, just a pip senior, looked round and said, “Good God! You’ve dug in the wrong place.—Must be scrapped.” And at more expense and more labour a new line was dug. And then a third Brass Hat came along and it was all to do over again. Men filled the base hospitals and died of dysentery; the national debt added a few more insignificant millions,—and the Brass Hats went on leave to Alexandria for a well-earned rest.
Not only at Stavros did this happen, but all round the half circle in the increasingly hot weather, as the year became older and disease more rampant.
After we’d been down there a week and just got the hang of the country another Colonel came and took over the command of the group, so we packed up our traps and having bagged many woodcock and duck, went away, followed after a few days by “AC” and “Don.”
About that time, to our lasting grief, we lost our Colonel, who went home. It was a black day for the brigade. His thoughtfulness for every officer under him, his loyalty and unfailing cheeriness had made him much loved. I, who had ridden with him daily, trekked the snowy hills in his excellent company, played chess with him, strummed the banjo while he chanted half-remembered songs, shared the same tent with him on occasions and appreciated to the full his unfailing kindness, mourned him as my greatest friend. The day he went I took my last ride with him down to the rest camp just outside Salonica, a wild, threatening afternoon, with a storm which burst on me in all its fury as I rode back miserably, alone.
In due course his successor came and we moved to Yailajik—well called by the men, Yellow-Jack—and the hot weather was occupied with training schemes at dawn, officers’ rides and drills, examinations A and B (unofficial, of course), horse shows and an eternity of unnecessary work, while one gasped in shirt sleeves and stupid felt hats after the Anzac pattern; long, long weeks of appalling heat and petty worries, until it became a toss-up between suicide or murder. The whole spirit of the brigade changed. From having been a happy family working together like a perfect team, the spirit of discontent spread like a canker. The men looked sullen and did their work grudgingly, going gladly tohospital at the first signs of dysentery. Subalterns put in applications for the Flying Corps,—I was one of their number,—and ceased to take an interest in their sections. Battery Commanders raised sarcasm to a fine art, and cursed the day that ever sent them to this ghastly back-water.
I left the headquarters and sought relief in “C” battery, where, encouraged by the sympathetic commanding officer, I got nearer to the solution of the mysterious triangle T.O.B. than I’d ever been before. He had a way of talking about it that the least intelligent couldn’t fail to grasp.
At last I fell ill and with an extraordinary gladness went down to the 5th Canadian hospital, on the eastern outskirts of Salonica, on the seashore. The trouble was an ear. Even the intensest pain, dulled by frequent injections of morphia, did not affect my relief in getting away from that brigade, where, up to the departure of the Colonel, I had spent such a happy time. The pity of it was that everybody envied me.
They talked of an operation. Nothing would have induced me to let them operate in that country where the least scratch turned septic. After several weeks I was sent to Malta, where I was treated for twenty-one days. At the end of that time the specialist asked me if my career would be interfered with if he sent me home for consultation as to an operation. One reason he could not do it was that it was a long business, six weeks in bed, at least, and they were already overfull. The prison door was about to open! I assured him that on the contrary my career would benefit largely by a sight of home, and to my eternal joy he then and there, in rubber gloves, wrote a recommendation to send me to England. His name stands out in my memory in golden letters.
Within twenty-four hours I was on board.
The fact that all my kit was still with the battery was a matter of complete indifference. I would have left a thousand kits. At home all the leaves were turning, blue smoke was filtering out of red chimneys against the copper background of the beech woods—and they would be waiting for me in the drive.