Old Grandmother Lake used to take me, a small boy, to her knee, and bid me pray for the welfare of the British army. Now her grandsons fight in many corners of the world. Among thebattle maidens Grandmother Lake sits in Valhalla and waits serenely their coming.
Hardly was I asleep when someone shook me by the shoulder. I opened my eyes to find the stars shining, and Wilkinson kneeling beside me.
“What’s the time?” I mumbled.
“Twelve o’clock and your shift.” I muttered, yawned, and sat up.
“What’s to be done?”
“Watch Divisional Artillery for any lamp signals. Do an hour and wake Foster. He’s next man.”
I nodded, and while I let out another yawn Wilkinson disappeared. With many an unuttered curse I got to my feet. I found a weary wind had risen, as full of toothache as a stick of nougat. I put my coat on, turning up the collar; and over head and neck I pulled a big woollen cap, thanking as I did so the good women of Melbourne that had knitted it. I stumbled along the track to a better spot and sat down. The stars shone clearly; but the sea, the hillsides, and even more so the beach were folded in gloom. Like the boiling of a pot sounded ceaseless distant musketry fire—low now and fitful; now waking to life—never, never silent. Every few minutes a shell came whistling overhead, to burst threateningly in the sea. The transports had drawn several miles away, the battleships lay before them; and in and out moved restless destroyers. Other craft were there—numberless they seemed and of every kind—anchored among the shadows closer in shore. I saw the Morse lamps winking to oneanother, and felt companionship, knowing others watched with me. I followed great yellow searchlights in ceaseless journeyings round the bay, and knew that others too guarded the sleeping multitude.
Soon I stood up. The wind stirred perpetually the low bushes; but I heard few sounds of it. My mind was weary with the day just over: I saw anew dead men, torn beasts: and heard the voices of guns, and the thousand echoes of battle. Useless sacrifice the struggle seemed at this solemn hour. Presently the night air crept through my coat, and sent my hands into pockets and myself moving up and down. For all my watching no signal appeared; but instead my footsteps sounded ever more mournfully on the path. Nobody was here to say an army slept in the ragged scrub on either side. Finally, to lose my thoughts, I fell to putting together a battle prayer.
EVENING BATTLE PRAYERTrench by trench, along the line,Dies the spluttering musketry;And the gunners at their gunsLay the heavy shrapnel by.Now the wearied flying-manGlides in circles from the sky:And, across the dimming bay,Move the armoured ships away.God of Battle! God of Right!Guard and guide Thy troops this night!Here and here, among the hills,Gleam the tiny supper fires;There and there a hard-spent manTo a barren bed retires.Now across the darkened bowl,Pass the stars on their patrol,Staring down on War’s still feast,Mangled man and broken beast.God of Battle! God of Right!Guard and guide Thy troops this night!
EVENING BATTLE PRAYERTrench by trench, along the line,Dies the spluttering musketry;And the gunners at their gunsLay the heavy shrapnel by.Now the wearied flying-manGlides in circles from the sky:And, across the dimming bay,Move the armoured ships away.God of Battle! God of Right!Guard and guide Thy troops this night!Here and here, among the hills,Gleam the tiny supper fires;There and there a hard-spent manTo a barren bed retires.Now across the darkened bowl,Pass the stars on their patrol,Staring down on War’s still feast,Mangled man and broken beast.God of Battle! God of Right!Guard and guide Thy troops this night!
EVENING BATTLE PRAYER
Trench by trench, along the line,Dies the spluttering musketry;And the gunners at their gunsLay the heavy shrapnel by.Now the wearied flying-manGlides in circles from the sky:And, across the dimming bay,Move the armoured ships away.God of Battle! God of Right!Guard and guide Thy troops this night!
Trench by trench, along the line,
Dies the spluttering musketry;
And the gunners at their guns
Lay the heavy shrapnel by.
Now the wearied flying-man
Glides in circles from the sky:
And, across the dimming bay,
Move the armoured ships away.
God of Battle! God of Right!
Guard and guide Thy troops this night!
Here and here, among the hills,Gleam the tiny supper fires;There and there a hard-spent manTo a barren bed retires.Now across the darkened bowl,Pass the stars on their patrol,Staring down on War’s still feast,Mangled man and broken beast.God of Battle! God of Right!Guard and guide Thy troops this night!
Here and here, among the hills,
Gleam the tiny supper fires;
There and there a hard-spent man
To a barren bed retires.
Now across the darkened bowl,
Pass the stars on their patrol,
Staring down on War’s still feast,
Mangled man and broken beast.
God of Battle! God of Right!
Guard and guide Thy troops this night!
Steps and voices were coming behind me. Instantly I woke up and drew into deeper shadow, and stood there several moments while the shuffling sounds came forward. They proved to be a stretcher party, arriving painfully round the bend in the path.
There was a difficult place, where the ground sloped abruptly; but with much tenderness the Red Cross men lifted their burdens past. I left the path altogether for them to file by, and they did so—a sorrowful, halting procession—one lying here with torn shoulder, one here with a vast bloody wrap about his face, one here with shattered feet—so they went by silent and still, with closed eyes and grey faces.
After them shambled a numerous crowd with bandaged arms, and legs bound up, talking in low tones and smoking cigarettes. I heard a thin voice say, “Don’t think much of these smokes; but a bloke’ll take on anything here.” After followed a gruff voice. “Blarsted bad luck getting put out second day. Corporal Davis got outed altogether: you know ’im, a big bouncing brute in D Company. ’E got a bullet through the heart, and jumped about ten foot in the air.” And then a third voice. “I got three in the arm from a swine of a machine gun. Aching like Hell!” Sofrom the trenches they came, and passed to the Red Cross station on the beach.
My hour was up, the watch over; gladly I hurried off and pulled my relief out of bed. Next minute the blankets were over me, and I was falling asleep.
Faintest dawn climbed over the bay as I woke up in the morning. I opened one eye and then the other, and took courage and propped myself on an elbow. It was nearly dark; but already the beach showed life and movement, and vague battleships were taking up new stations out at sea. Nobody near by seemed awake, the bushes looked empty and rather mysterious; but far off the everlasting musketry went on—dying, growing, and dying away again. I took a long look round until courage failed me, when back I went under the blanket.
From that bed cut in the hillside, I watched the morning growing out of night. Again—and still again—new sights, new sounds were born. The curves among the hills took shape; the waters moved into life; and from a grey distance rose the faint peaks of Imbros. The bay filled with vessels—small and great. Cruisers and churlish battleships manœuvred from point to point; and scouts and destroyers sped along a thoroughfare where mine-sweepers, trawlers, tugboats, colliers,barges, pontoons, lifeboats, and rowing-boats jostled one another all the way. The transports rode beyond this highway, with thin smoke lines creeping to the sky; and with them waited the hospital ships for the burden the day would bring. While yet I watched, morning fully broke. I threw aside the blanket, and sat up; and put out a hand for my boots.
The beach quickly resembled the market-place of a town. Men in groups or singly hurried this way and that—Red Cross men bore wounded on stretchers, Indians led mules, sailors in parties hauled ashore guns and their waggons, artillerymen loaded themselves with ammunition, infantrymen formed up for a return to the trenches, Greeks stabled donkeys, Army Service men stacked high piles of bully beef and tins of biscuit. Guns and limbers blocked the way, lines of wounded lay beneath the shelter of the cliffs, farther on were ingathering vast stores of provisions, and farther yet tanks for fresh water stood where the waves lapped the pebbles.
Sacks of flour were thrown into growing heaps, and beside them sacks of sugar. Cases of tea were dumped upon the sand. Cheeses were arriving, and sides of bacon. Sheets of tin roofing lay on one another, waiting for the shins of the unwary.
Men loaded lengths of wood for bomb-proof roofings and men staggered under bales of hay. Gangs of sappers drove roads along the hillsides, and telephonists ran wires from bush to bush. Infantry parties bore sandbags on their headstowards the firing line, and other parties trudged uphill, loaded with water-bottles. Men mooched round with rifles on their backs, and men were there with picks and shovels. The murmurs of life rose up like a mighty ocean tide.
The hillside, too, awoke: it became peopled with men drawing on shirts and pulling at boots. Blue blankets appeared on half the bushes, waiting for the tardy sun; later wisps of smoke curled up from fifty places. Already our gunners were lingering round their guns, placing last sandbags along the parapets, and stacking the ammunition brought by men toiling up the hill. I was surprised at all that had gone forward while I slept. The guns were lowered nearly to the ground level, and protected by heavy ramparts of earth and sandbags, masked with leafy boughs. Trenches for approach ran out, and telephone wires linked up the observing station. The funk-holes for the gunners ran beside the guns.
Now at last, if reluctantly, the sun got up. I could not see him, but his beams came creeping round the corner. They made the bushland warm and cheerful, and the damp fled away from the patches of brown earth which appeared in places on the hills. The insects came out from cracks and crevices, and set briskly on new travels; and the little birds which were lovemaking in the greener puffed their breasts out, and chirruped with morning confidence. It was going to be a tropic day.
The cook, however he was, had boiled some tea and fried rashers of bacon. He sent me a “Cooee,”and I went over with a mess tin. There were half a dozen about the fire holding out pannikins for filling; and Hawkins was crouched among the ashes, stirring an evil-looking mess meant for Welsh rabbit. He was too interested to look up; but the others greeted me with “Well, and how are things?” I did not feel talkative myself, and answered by an all-round nod.
There were two rashers of bacon each, and as many biscuits as a man wanted. I went back to my funk-hole, balancing the biscuits and bacon in one hand and a pot of tea in the other.
Just then the old balloon went up.
I had grown so used to the perpetual musketry fire that I no longer heard it; and though the enemy still shelled us in a casual manner, they were overshooting the mark, and most of their endeavours ended in the sea. Sometimes, with a whizz and a bang, a hail of bullets descended on the beach, and some poor fellow would fall down, and maybe two or three others hobble away; but this was very seldom. From where we sat eating on the hillside we received no more notice than the tunes of shells in their passage, the hum of strayed bullets, and the sounds of an angry beehive when a machine gun sent part of a charge through space.
But just now one of the battleships drew to a standstill and swung slowly about; and even while I poured the pannikin of tea in joyous stream down my throat, with a roar like the last trump she vomited a thousand-pound shell half-acrossthe peninsula. As I stopped choking, a cruiser took up the running; and behold another round in the battle had begun.
I hurried breakfast after this, and hung within call of the observing station. The other fellows too seemed to think our ball would soon open, for they stretched jaws wide on the biscuits and bacon, and that duty done, collected the flags and telephones. The usual abuse was exchanged when nothing could be found.
“What the hell have you done with those flags? Can’t you leave a blasted cove’s things alone for a minute? They were there before breakfast!”
“I’ve not touched your damned things. You want a nurse, you do!”
The colonel, the adjutant, the sergeant-major, and Wilkinson, as telephonist, climbed presently up to the brigade observing station. Not far away, and lower down, Major Felix, his sergeant-major, and telephonist took possession of a dug-out—the B Battery observing station was higher up, to the left hand. The whole position was congested, but where was the room? A dozen yards below the brigade observing station Eaves curled himself up, his head fastened to a telephone running to Divisional Artillery; and I received orders to perch myself half-way between him and the observing station, under the shelter of an overhanging ledge.
The bombardment grew in volume: battleship after battleship engaged a target. Like a colossal thunderstorm the explosions roared around thebay. The very ground was a-tremble. Now the veteranTriumphopened fire; and theQueen Elizabethdrew farther out and came to a standstill. I became aware that the sun was mounting and his beams had turned unpleasantly fierce. There was not a puff of wind, there was not a cloud in the sky; and the blue waters of Saros were without ruffle or furrow. I became aware that the musketry was more intense, and that machine guns were opening in sharp bursts along the lines. We for our part were ready now—the gunners waiting in the funk-hole behind the guns, the section commanders at their posts, Major Felix megaphone in hand. But still no order for us came through.
The effect of the ships’ fire quickly became apparent, insomuch as the enemy woke up with a vengeance, and answered with salvos of shrapnel and lyddite, following hard on one another’s heels, and coming over our heads with a rush and a bang which were unholy, to say the least.
Many of the salvos fell about the craft in the bay, but some were better timed, and poured into the bushes, sending us close into whatever shelter was handy, or hissed on to the crowded beach, where there was a sporting chance of bagging anything from generals to tin cans. May be after a lucky shot a riot would start among the mules, or some poor chap would go to his Maker or fall down winged: and then would go forward a cry for stretcher-bearers and Red Cross men. Or may be a party hauling at some gun would scatterwithout warning behind a pile of stores, like mice into a hole. Yet in that bustling thoroughfare it was strange how few were the accidents.
Long ago conversation had grown impossible; but there would be moments of silence when from the head of the valley descended very plainly the frantic splutter of musketry, the fierce bursts of machine guns, and the game barking of our little Indian mountain batteries. Also at such times there rose up many strange cries from the beach. Then I could hear distinctly the loud buzz of the wireless plant calling to the navy what targets to engage. By now we gunners were all close in our funk-holes; but the road from the valley was still populous with long processions of wounded toiling to the Red Cross headquarters below.
An infantry fellow in fighting order and with a haversack on his back came scrambling up the hill just then, found room beside me and planted himself there. He could not speak for panting and was ready to break down; but the place he secured was fairly well protected, and confidence came back with breath. I glanced over him as he crouched there: he was a thin, weakly-bred fellow, and plainly a liar. I said nothing to him because he was upset, and because the sun was getting too hot for talking; but I went on watching the beach very hard.
“Halloa, cobber,” he said at last.
“Hallo,” I answered, and turned towards him.
He looked at me out of palest blue eyes. “Ijust come from the firing line,” he said. “It’s murder there. What are you blokes doing?”
“Going to shoot soon, I suppose,” said I.
“You ought ter be up in the firin’ line. They could do with you.”
“Oh!” I answered.
“Gettin’ any losses here?”
“Most of the fire is going over, but we’ll be shooting in a minute or two, and that ought to open the ball in earnest.”
He said nothing to this; but soon, very soon, he was up and creeping away. He passed from view, but not towards the firing line.
Yes, it was going to be a hot day. I pushed my finger into the neck of my shirt, which already was clammy with perspiration. A haze had fallen over the more distant parts of the bay; and round my ears a solitary fly buzzed with persistence worthy of a nobler cause. Neither shrapnel nor lyddite could move him. Yes, it was going to be a hot day!
Orders were through. Just near me someone called out: it was Major Felix, a megaphone to his mouth. He shouted something, and I caught most of it.
“Infantry advancing! Aiming point, left ridge of Battleship Hill! Line of fire, twenty degrees three-ough minutes right. Corrector one-five-ough——three-six hundred! Angle of sight three degrees one-ough minutes elevation! One round battery fire!”
The section commander saluted, and cried to his sergeants, the sergeants, kneeling at the trails,saluted and turned to the gunners. No. 3, on the left seat, laid the gun; No. 6 set the fuse, and No. 5 passed the shell to No. 4. No. 2, on the right-hand seat, opened the breech, No. 4 pushed home the shell, No. 2 closed the breech again. Then came a pause, then “Fire” was given, though I could not hear it. But there followed a mighty uproar, which seemed to beat the ground and plunge back again on to my ears, the boughs about the guns sprang into the air, long tongues of flame leaped forth, and the gun-barrels slid backwards and into place again.
The seconds went by. Again Major Felix was shouting. “C gun five minutes more left! Shorten corrector six! Drop two-ough-ough! Repeat!”
“What?” the section commander shouted.
“C Gun Five Minutes More Left! Shorten Corrector Six! Drop Two-ough-ough! Repeat!”
“What?” the section commander shouted.
“C GUN FIVE MINUTES MORE LEFT! SHORTEN CORRECTOR SIX! DROP TWO-OUGH-OUGH! REPEAT!”
The section commander saluted and turned to his sergeants, the sergeants saluted and directed the gunners, and again the yellow flames stabbed the air, and the uproar seemed to rebound and strike me.
A third time the order came: “C gun two minutes more left! Drop five-ough! Gunfire!”
We were into it with a vengeance now: by land, by sea equally engaged. Never a momentslackened the enemy fire: rather the sky became more terrible with the voices of travelling shells, and more beautiful with delicate bursts of shrapnel. At intervals mighty howitzer shells rumbled solemnly through space, and plunged into the sea amid columns of spray. We gunners must soon have made ourselves unwelcome, for the enemy guns started to search for us, and quickly the game of hide and seek became too hot for pleasure. I was still perched under the projecting ledge; but my time was coming. Eaves lifted up his transmitter and began to call—“’Ullo ’Ullo!” A message was coming through from Divisional Artillery. Presently, receiver at ear, Eaves wrote it heavily down. Next he read it slowly through. He was quite undisturbed: he was a good man, was Eaves. Then he beckoned me. “’Ere you are,” he said, holding out the message in a hairy hand.
I took the paper and began to crawl up the bank to the observing station. Matters were livelier than ever in the open. Shells were bursting like the devils of hell, and rifle bullets went by with the slashing sound of steel drawn tightly on steel. The ascent was a matter of seconds, and I leaned over the edge of the dug-out. Wilkinson, telephone at ear, lay in a half-moon in a funk-hole of his own; and in the main funk-hole sat the colonel, adjutant, and sergeant-major with maps across their knees. An argument was going on. News was through we were shelling our own infantry. “They’re dirty liars!” I heard the colonel burst out—and then the message wastaken in, and I was beckoned away by a quick gesture.
Round I went again, and down the hill. The major was shouting once more.
“Aiming point, straight edge of Gaba Tepeh! Two degrees four-five minutes elevation! Corrector one-four-five-three-four hundred! One round battery fire!”
The guns roared out, the long flames stabbed the air. A call came—“One gun out of action, sir.” “What’s wrong?” “What?” “What’s wrong?” “Finding out!” “All guns seven degrees more left. Shorten corrector six! Drop one-fifty! Gunfire!”
I had kept small account of the time, for I discovered next that the morning was growing old. I had no watch; but the sun had moved well across to our right hand, and the last patches of shade were disappearing. I blew into the hot air, and pushed a hand across my forehead. Still the cannonade went on, still the earth trembled, still the voice behind called out new orders. “Last target was F. Next target will be registered as H” fell on my dazed ears.
Then I noticed an aeroplane coming up from the south over the Turkish lines. Tender puffs of shrapnel followed its course. A second one sailed far to the left, a dot in a hazy distance. The man in the balloon still watched away, well out of reach of the longest gun. Presently the aeroplanes faded from sight, and I went back to the old pastime of staring at the beach.
Heat and howitzers, shrapnel and sunstroke,alike could not affect the buzzing throng there. From my perch I looked down on to another world. Directly below lay the Red Cross jetty whence pinnaces towed long strings of boats to the hospital ships. A white flag with a red cross waved at the jetty end. The boats lay into the sides, and the wounded men were borne along the planking, and placed in rows upon the decks. Unhappily, the spot was searched by enemy fire, and more than one poor fellow, who had survived long suffering, met his end lying there while the boats filled up. The wharf was in charge of a naval party, with a short-tempered old brute in blue jacket and white trousers in command. He stood in the middle of the thoroughfare, indifferent to everything, and bellowed through a megaphone at the Red Cross men. I thought if anything happened to him there, Old Nick would have a rough time down below. Whenever the firing lulled, up came his voice.
“I am taking severe stretcher cases only. Forward some severe stretcher cases. Yes, sir, I said stretcher cases only. My God, sir, are you the fool or am I?” And he added something else I won’t put down. Then would come another lull. “Now I shall take some standing-up cases.”
As fast as the pinnaces and their loads steamed to sea, new boats put into harbour; and throughout the day the procession of stretchers moving to the wharf did not stop. As the boats filled with recumbent men, all odd spaces were taken by those who still could stand or sit erect; andthese clambered painfully aboard with staring bandages round head or arm. Weary and broken were the most, I grant; yet more than once that day a voice piped out: “Are we downhearted?” and a chorus answered “No!” With shrapnel flecking the waters, and too often bursting overhead, string after string of loaded boats turned to the mother ship; and with their departure the bellow ever came up again, “I am taking severe stretcher cases! Forward me some stretcher cases!”
“C gun two minutes more right! Drop five-ough! Repeat!” The battle was wearing on. I wondered how we did on the right, and if the New Zealanders held firmly to the left.
Eaves beckoned violently: a message had arrived from Divisional Artillery. I went across and watched him put it laboriously to paper. “Guns in action, three o’clock five degrees east of Battleship Hill. Engage them.” I jerked the form from him, and started again for the observing station.
There was fascination as well as risk in the scramble through the open, where Death roamed overhead with threatening voice. I reached the big dug-out, leaned over, tossed in the message, and met the abrupt signal to return. Down I went, slipping and springing from tuft to tuft, and falling on my back somewhere near the ledge. Just here a brain wave came along: I bethought me of a four days’ beard, and rising up, bolted on to my own funk-hole at the bottom of the hill. Into my kit I dived, caught up the shaving tackle,and was back again at the ledge while you could count fifty. There I lay and perspired, while the voice of Major Felix called out the new target.
“Guns in action! Aiming point right-hand edge of Battleship Hill! Line of fire five degrees five minutes right! Corrector one-five-ough—three-three hundred! Angle of sight three degrees three-five minutes elevation! One round battery fire!”
I fell to watching the bay again. The transports lay at anchor beyond range of enemy guns, and the battleships riding at their stations never ceased to send loud voices over the deep. But nearer shore a thousand craft sped to and fro. Now and now again, a monster shell rumbled out of the hills, and rent a chasm in the even sea; but still the craft came and went, nor turned their course a hair’s breadth. Truly luck followed us this day.
But while I watched a hideous burst of smoke and coal dust leaped from a mine-sweeper, and all at once she fell a-shivering. Smoke and dust drifted away, and I scanned her keenly, but could make out no harm.
Just now the goodQueen Besspicked up a target—a howitzer in action on a far crest. I saw her swing at her station: I saw her move out to sea.
He was no fool, that howitzer. He crouched behind his sandbag ramparts, and boomed defiance at the foul infidel guns. Upon his stout overhead cover shells and shrapnel burst in vain.
But he had not met the goodQueen Bess.
The goodQueen Bessmoved out to sea, and there the goodQueen Besslay to: with care she read her angles, with cunning she laid her guns. She watched, she quivered—and with a bellow of rage she hurled a two-thousand-pound shell. She missed the howitzer and struck the crest below; and away went the crest, and away went the howitzer.
Somewhere else, drawn by ten horses, an enemy field gun trotted into the open. There he unlimbered, and the team turned for cover. But in the bay a British boat was watching, and forth leaped two flames. There was a whirlwind where the gun had been. The whirlwind climbed towards the sky. But there was no gun; there were no horses; there were no men. And many souls were speeding up to Allah.
And—thus runs the legend—where the fight raged thickest this day, the goodQueen Bessemptied a round from a fifteen-inch gun, whose shrapnel spreads a mile, and wiped from earth two companies of infantry. “Allah! Allah! Thy courtyards will be filled this night!”
“All guns three degrees more right! Shorten corrector six! Drop one-five-ough! Repeat!”
I began to consider my shaving. Every trace of shade had gone—as far as I was concerned, that is to say. I sat leaning forward on a bare ledge, and the sun blazed in my face. “So be it,” I muttered and swore, and spread out the shaving tackle. Into a pannikin went a fewdrops of water, meaning a drink lost; and picking up the soap from the sand, I rubbed it over my face. I was hot, tired, thirsty, and sticky with perspiration. A fur had grown over the roof of my mouth, for I was unwashed, and my clothes had not been off for half a week. And I thought—“Damn this! Is this life for the next two years, with maybe a bullet as final bonus? Damn this!” said I.
I looked down on the highway of the beach, where lines of wounded moved towards the boats; where under the cliffs doctors probed red wounds, and carved at arms and legs; where Indians urged mules; where sailors toiled at guns and waggons, and midget midshipmen or naval cadets, or whatever they were, ran round with mighty revolvers strapped at their hips; where the wireless man sent out his buzz—buzz—buzz; where cursing Army Service men hauled in new barges of provisions; where Greeks screamed at donkeys, and kept a wide eye on shelter; where sappers wielded picks; where officers of many ranks dodged from point to point, and waved hands and flourished canes; where men pumped water into tanks from barges. And I looked out at sea where the battleships rocked out flame; where destroyers sped up and down; where men toiled at oars; where boats emptied reinforcements on to shore; where pinnaces hooted; where loaded barges swung at anchor. I looked and I said: “Gunner Lake, not yet is the hour for complaint.”
Eaves woke me up. He waved a message form.I took it without a word, and started up to the observing station. The soap was on my face, and was a crust by the time I was back again. However, I made a second start at shaving when I found breath. To be honest, I was shy of the business. The ground shivered continually under the cannonade, and I pictured a hand slipping and a gallant gunner going to his doom. At last, with tender care, I engaged an upper jaw. I left a nick about half-way down, and three others at the point of the chin, and from there passed in a passage of blood to the farther side. It cost me many an oath, but the victory was mine.
I was putting things away with lighter heart, when my eye fell on the trawler I had seen shelled: she was going down by the stern. Already the water lapped her gunwales, and crept on to the deck. I watched entranced.
She was sinking very slowly—so slowly that the minutes made no difference—still when I looked away and looked again, the ocean had crept higher up her sides. It was a noble end for an ancient fishing tub. At intervals high-bursting shrapnel raked her from bows to stern; and the guns kept up a thunder that would follow her below the waves. And as I watched—ye gods!—the crew put off in an open boat, and pulled with the heart of a Yarra eight through a sea knocked up with bullets. Methought in days to come, in some village pothouse—when the mellow ale had done its work—methought of certain hoary seamen who would swell theirchests and relate to youth agape the epic of stout times departed.
Up I scrambled with another message, and down I came again. Major Felix and his section commander were shouting to one another.
“We can’t clear the crest at two-four hundred!”
“What?”
“The crest at two-four hundred!”
Streams of wounded still flowed along the road from the valley head. One Red Cross fellow with a donkey had passed twice or thrice that day. He was becoming known to all: they said no fire disturbed him. On his donkey he would mount a man wounded in leg or foot. He was always cheerful and never tired.
Now a mule battery laden with guns and ammunition wound like a serpent up the narrow way. I marked it twisting up and up the ridge, until the crest came between, and only a dead mule stayed to tell of the passage.
Eaves was beckoning again. I leaned forward and caught the message. Up through the tufty grasses I went, and then down again to my ledge. Next moment I was climbing the hill once more.
“All guns ten minutes more right! Shorten corrector four. Drop five-ough; battery fire!”
I was very weary of the uproar, and I looked over to the Red Cross jetty. A group of sailors waited on the quay while a string of boats drew in. I saw them break and scatter; I saw the puff of a bursting shell; and down went one poor fellow, and away into cover staggered another. A couple of comrades ran back and pickedup the fallen man, and the group passed under the cliff, where I could not follow.
“Stop!” Major Felix was shouting. “Stop!” There was the roar of the firing gun. “Who fired then?” There were quick answers and quick replies. The major burst out: “Take that sergeant off that gun, and put him under arrest!” There were more answers and replies. “All right,” the major shouted again. “Let him carry on; I shall see him after!” Again his voice came to me. “Guns in action at C. Aiming point left edge of false ridge. Line of fire five degrees one-five minutes right! Corrector one-five-ough—three-nine hundred! Angle of sight three degrees one-ough minutes elevation. One round battery fire!”
Messages began to hurry through, and I was tired out with climbing up and down. Finally, when there was time to sit still, I found an infantry fellow perched on my ledge. He looked hot and fagged.
“This dirty sun settles a cove quick,” he said. And he said no more. I crouched beside him.
“How are things going? Have you heard?” I said.
“Bonza! We’ve got ’em on the move. They say the British are joining us at five o’clock to-night. We’ve been cut up a good bit; but the navy has sent thousands of the other blokes skyhigh. I was sent here with a wounded man, and must get back. I’ll make a start. Well, so long, mate.”
“So long,” I answered.
He watched for the sky to clear of shrapnel, pulled the rifle on to his shoulder, and ambled off for the next cover. “A cheerful, misinformed liar,” thought I, “but a good man.”
For the time at all events my work appeared over. Divisional Artillery took a rest, so far so that I ended by forgetting Divisional Artillery and even the battle. I rested against the naked brown earth, and blinked lazily over the bay, until the sun laid weights on my eyelids. I had no hunger; hunger had departed long since, if it had ever arrived; but I thought of some bubbling stream until my sticky lips opened and shut. It was no good; I had to close my eyes in the end; the lids were too heavy. The last I noticed were dead mules lying along the sea shore. After that the firing went on, but dully; and in the lulls I heard faintly the voice calling through the megaphone: “Angle of sight,” I heard. “One-ough minutes right,” I heard.
Then all grew closer again: I distinguished musketry and machine guns. The sun blazed less: I could open my eyes. There was Eaves staring, and yes! pelting me with clods of earth. “Wake up,” he called out, “and get up with this!”
I opened my eyes wide then, and sat up straight. The sun was much lower down, and fewer ships were in action. Plainly now could be heard the rifle fire. I stood up and blinked. I took the form and started on another climb, and on the way ran into the sergeant-major and Wilkinson coming down. “Lake, you nearly had a newsergeant-major twice to-day. My belt stopped this.” And Gardiner held up a bullet in his fingers. Near the dug-out the colonel jumped almost on top of me. The adjutant was just behind. “Yards,” he called out, “this battle is already won!”
A couple of mornings later, I was pulled out of bed by the telephonist on duty. As usual he had my heartfelt curses, and as usual I bowed to circumstances and sat up.
The night was fine and clear and sharp; and quite silent if one forgot the roll of musketry. No shells passed over to the sea. Standing in the dark and pulling on my clothes, and lastly picking up the overcoat which had been a blanket, I rubbed my eyes wider open and greeted again my old friend the night. There was the bay with many a craft light on its bosom, some winking and winking on for ever; there and there rose up and fell away the folded hills. And the sky was like a giant’s blue punch-bowl, picked out from rim to centre with points of golden light. It was an Eastern night; a night for dreams and mysteries and happenings of the long ago.
And yet it was a deucedly cold night too! I fastened the coat collar round my ears, and pulled the woollen cap down to meet it. Over ashoulder went the bandolier, and over that a rifle. With tucker bag at waist I was ready.
Two figures I had noticed moving near the observing station, and, climbing to them, they became Mr. Cliffe and Wilkinson. Wilkinson was loaded up with telephones and tucker bag. The white bag stared through the dark. His head was hidden in a muffler; but he gave me a nod. Both must have been waiting for me, for Mr. Cliffe whispered: “Are you ready, Lake?” and we set off at once. For a space we had to pick a careful way through dug-outs, where sleepers were rolled from head to foot in blankets or rugs, and blocked the road, and snorted at us and groaned. Past all this the advance over the broken hillside was not easy, until we picked up a track leading us up the valley. It seemed some shepherd track made in happier days. Once on the path we went forward at best pace, for dawn was due in half an hour, and by then the trenches must be reached. The valley held snipers, and after daybreak was searched from head to foot by enemy shrapnel. It was no place for mass meetings.
Yes, it was deucedly cold! I stuffed my hands into my pockets, and the others did the same. We marched in Indian file, for the path itself was narrow and full of ups and downs, and we went always at the same hard pace. The road seemed ever rising. Little we said, unless the direction became uncertain, and for the most part our footsteps were all the sounds made.
In the open I had got used to the dark, butdown here in the valleys it was quite impossible to make out anything farther than a yard or two away. The country went up on either side steep and rugged, that much could be seen; and it was covered plentifully with low scrubby bushes, enough to hide an army corps of snipers. The path wound about and about and was much broken in places; and either rain had fallen lately or mountain streams crept down this way, for at one time frequently we splashed through heavy mud or even pools, or were set jumping from tussock to tussock to keep dry shod. As we got higher, matters grew a bit better; and next it seemed we were losing ourselves among the hills.
Mr. Cliffe guided: I was the last of the three. I saw Cliffe dimly four or five yards ahead, a rather small figure moving this way and that among the bushes, putting a hand out sometimes to push aside the branches, more often shouldering the way forward. Then followed Wilkinson on his heels, taller, narrower, and loaded up like a packhorse. Neither the one nor the other ever turned a head, except once when passing a strange object where the path broadened to a road—a mule curled round as if asleep. I wager that mule took a long time waking.
Three or four hundred yards beyond here came suddenly to us the whisperings of a number of voices, voices undecided and even timid. Next moment we were into the tail of a score of men—more there may have been, one could onlyguess—they formed an uncertain line along the track, and were in full marching order, with their packs up. Either they were coming from or going to the firing line. I poked my head forward to see better, and recognised them as a party of marines who had arrived to reinforce us last evening. They filled the path, obliging us to halt. From the hurried whispers I gathered they had lost the way, and a sergeant was bustling up and down in an attempt to keep all together. They stared at us curiously.
As there was no room we stepped off the path, and pushed through the bushes for a little distance until we were ahead of them. Somebody appeared to be in charge at this end, and Cliffe and he started in muffled conversation. In a few moments I heard Cliffe say: “You’d better hurry, for the place is well dosed with shrapnel at daybreak.” Then we went on again.
After this the going became very much stiffer, and though the path still existed, one climbed rather than walked. In a minute or two I forgot to feel cold, in five minutes I was ready to hang my coat on the nearest bush. I was not alone in this: I heard the others labouring. All the time we had been passing marines in groups of threes and fours. They must have been one body moving to the trenches, though now much broken up. In the end we left them all behind, for we travelled quickly in spite of the incline. For already dawn was near: I could not turn to it and say, “Look!”—it was a suggestion rather than a change. But dawn was coming.
We arrived at a spot high up on the hill where the path turned abruptly to the left. Here we halted a few moments and I was very glad. I sat down on the bank and threw open my coat collar. I became aware that a faint greyness had stolen over the world. The change was little, infinitely little; but it was there. On either hand were vague bushes, and the country revealed itself full of shallow trenches and funk-holes, which yawned like endless graves. I grew aware of many men sleeping in the shelter of these, and of tins of beef and bags of biscuit near them, and the ashes of yesterday’s fires. I wondered what the men were doing here behind the firing line.
Cliffe sat cross-legged on a tussock, his chin in his hands. He was quite still. All of a sudden he looked round and began to speak.
“Look at these fellows,” he said. “I can’t make out how it is allowed to go on. Every man there ought to be in the firing line. Instead of that they skulk here all day with plenty of tucker: I’m pretty sure most of them have never seen the trenches at all.”
“Why is nothing done?” I asked.
“I believe they are starting to do something, but things have been in a muddle, the battalions mixed up, and no one knows who is dead and who alive. That’s the excuse, I suppose. Last evening I was coming down here after that poor Mr. Byers was shot. I spoke to one lot with a fire going, who were filling themselves with bully beef and jam, and asked them what theywere doing. The fellow I spoke to seemed ready to give cheek, so I pulled out my revolver and he climbed down at once. Later on I met an officer who had lost his way and his men and everything else. He came to me and asked if I could direct him and was nearly incoherent. There was some shrapnel about at the time, and as each shell burst he dived under cover and refused to come out. I spoke to him roughly in the end, though he was senior to me, and finally he started to cry. I left him.”
Wilkinson was crouched up on the bank. When Cliffe stopped he began to talk in his rapid way, telling his disgust. As he finished Cliffe got up.
“We had better make another start,” he said. “It isn’t far.”
Even now there was no trace of dawn in the sky; but the greyness I had noticed was more marked and I could make out the leaves on the bushes. It was quite possible to see what was underfoot, and to avoid the numerous trenches zig-zagging about here. We struck the firm path again a little farther on, and from that point the road climbed quickly. We had marched perhaps five minutes, and objects were growing quite clear, when something moved through the sky—there was a bang and a mighty pattering and rustling in the bushes some way behind us, and overhead floated a delicate puff of smoke. The concert had opened. “There goes the first!” Wilkinson cried. “Aye,” I said, and Cliffe nodded his head.
We had little breath for remarks and went on as quickly as we could. The half light had penetrated everywhere, although still there were no signs in the sky. But the shrapnel had clapped over our heads, and this was the clock to follow. We turned to the left, we pushed up a fierce bit beside a fresh grave marked by pebbles and a rough cross; we took a half turn to the right, and then I found myself entering a tunnel with no top. The walls sloped down as we went on, until they were no more than four foot from the ground. “Duck,” Cliffe said, and set the example, and we ducked for a yard or two, moving at a half run. Again the walls rose high, and soon we could stand upright. I looked about me and found we were in the trenches.
It was now quite light: one could make out everything. This trench seemed seven, perhaps eight foot deep, and must have been a spot of especial importance, as it was well widened out, and farther on it narrowed again to the width of the passage by which we entered. There it took a sharp turn, and one could see no farther.
It was full of men in dull green uniforms, who sat and lay in scooped-out recesses, or stood and blocked the narrow passage. The rifles rested along the trench walls, some with bayonets fixed, some without. It was the first time for a long while I had seen so many Englishmen together, and their faces struck me as kindlier than the Australian face and more simple too. They looked at us with interest when we came in and marchedacross to the corner reserved for artillery observation. A lieutenant with a brown woollen cap on his head, which made him look like a stage smuggler, leaned from a funk-hole perched rather higher than the others, and asked our business; but beyond that nobody spoke at all.
“Who are you?” the lieutenant asked, leaning round.
“We’ve come here to observe for the artillery. This is the place we use,” Cliffe answered without turning his head. “You must have relieved our fellows in the night.”
“Oh, you’re Australians! Yes; we arrived last night.” And that was all that was said.
We settled ourselves. Wilkinson connected one of the telephones and attached himself to it, and he gave a second one to a rather knock-kneed person who appeared from nowhere. Cliffe began to prepare his lookout a couple of yards away. As for myself, I found the easiest seat I could—there was no work for me until the wire along the valley was cut by shrapnel or spies. A third telephonist joined to Z—Ak, the infantry brigade, lay on his back in a funk-hole beside me. This made the lot of us.
The trenches were topped with a sandbag rampart, and the observer needed to peer through a loophole in them, a risky proceeding. Where we were the rampart was very low, and not more than a foot above our heads, even when we sat down. The sandbags had been dumped on one another and placed a double thickness, and Cliffe and I started to pull them all ways, finishingby leaving several cracks, through one or other of which the whole landscape might be viewed. I took a look through and saw a stretch of desolate country sloping towards some hills. In the grey light it seemed covered with patches of heath and low bushes; and here and there flowers were springing. Not one living Turk could be seen; but the enemy trenches ran parallel with our own at no great distance, and were made out easily by the sandbagged parapets and mounds of newly turned earth.
There was no Turk visible, but in many places appeared the swift movement of a shovel above the parapet, or a heap of earth falling over the bank. The enemy were digging for their lives.
Now that our climbing was over, it grew quite cold again, and I kept on my coat. Cliffe and Wilkinson were of hardier mould, and after a good deal of turning round and thumping and scratching, they made their coats into arm-chair beds, and in this way sought to defeat the uncharitable ground. I settled back in my funk-hole and took stock of things. The musketry on both sides was brisk and loud and continuous; and frequently a machine gun rattled away for a few minutes, ending as abruptly as it began. Near the trench entrance, where the parapet was lowest, bullets plumped over into our opposite bank, and sent up tiny fountains of dust. By now many a shrapnel shell was coming over too, but happily the valley was their target, for they searched it with care from top to bottom.
On the opposite bank, not so far from me, was the grave of one of our fellows. An upright bayonet had been pushed into the ground, and from it hung a soldier’s belt. Below was placed a soldier’s hat. There were no words of farewell, there were no stones to mark a square of earth; but at long intervals an odd bullet splashed down there and beat an honest tattoo. “My friend,” said I; “I vouch there have been bitterer graves than yours.”
It was a chilly business and no mistake, sitting up here while the sun climbed tardily from bed. In the end he came over a hill, but the trench walls cut away his beams. The men sat very still, talking in low tones or dozing, and for the present the telephonists were unoccupied, and lay on their sides in a bored manner. To pass the time I decided on a breakfast of jam and biscuits to be washed down with a draught of stale water. Cliffe was taking a peep through one of his holes every now and then; but there were too many stray bullets to make the occupation healthy. He sought the puff of enemy guns.
Without troubling to get up, I unhitched my tucker bag and pushed a hand inside. There was a tin of bully beef, a tin of plum jam, and a lot of the little hard biscuits we had been given before landing. There was nothing interesting, but I started away. I left the beef for later on, and dipped the biscuits into the jam, taking care to bring out more jam than biscuit. I could hear the Englishmen talking among themselvesin rather depressed tones. They spoke with a broad accent, and I gathered they were from somewhere up north. “’Tis a bitter place this, choom,” I heard one say; and another grunted answer. Thereupon I cocked round my eye and put in a word. “You won’t be saying that in a few hours’ time,” I said. “It’s as hot as blazes here.”
Everybody looked at me and one or two grinned, but nobody spoke. They seemed to regard the Australians as curious and rather interesting; and they admired us too. It seemed our name as fighters was made when we took the place. I fixed on the nearest fellow. “What part of the old country d’you come from?” “Manchester.” And that was all he said. The others hailed from round that part, or from Lancashire at any rate; but conversation was at a discount, and before long I went back to the biscuits and jam.
As time went on, and it drew may be towards seven o’clock, more liveliness came into affairs. The men brightened up and moved about more and cracked heavy jokes. But I yet remained colder than charity, and kept on looking for the sun to climb up and send a little warmth over the parapet. Since our appearance on the scene a man or two had worked away with pick or shovel deepening the trench, and in desperation finally I got up from my funk-hole and took a hand at the work myself. I worked hard and fast until out of breath. I had just given the tools back when the word “Colonel” passedfrom mouth to mouth, and a party of officers came into the trench on a tour of inspection. The colonel was a middle-aged, middle-sized man in a woollen cap, and he led the way. He had not the least look of a soldier, but all the air of a business man who had never attempted anything more exciting than catching his tram after breakfast. He made several remarks, all of disapproval.
“Why isn’t this trench deeper? It was exactly like this when we took over. That’s not the way to shovel, man: give me the spade: there, do it like that. Now start, men, start. Don’t stand there idling.”
The lieutenant was leaning out of his funk-hole with an anxious face. The colonel looked up at him without overmuch kindness in the eye. “A Company is along here, isn’t it?” he demanded. “Yes, sir. Straight along. You must keep well down; the trenches are very shallow.” “I’m going along there now. Keep these men digging. Don’t let them slack. There’s been nothing done to-day!” And on the colonel went, bending down and scrambling out at the farther end, his retinue following in silence.
There was no doubt there was a good deal of the amateur in these men. Among other atrocities they had rigged a machine gun in some bushes on top of the parapet to our right hand. The situation was murderous—for us, not the enemy. There was no cover, and to fire the gun meant crouching among the bushes, a sure target for any bullets straying this way. A sergeant wasin charge of the gun, and lay on his stomach up there observing the enemy’s movements, and sending down reports every few minutes. For some reason the lieutenant in charge made no effort to keep the gun secret, but at frequent intervals ordered fifteen or twenty rounds rapid fire, so that our corner attracted a growing interest from the enemy. A conversation went on after this manner.
“Are you still there, sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is anything to be seen?”
“No, sir. Nothing important. There is a good deal of digging going on in one place: the men aren’t showing; but a lot of dirt goes up.”
“Well, give ’em a burst there, it’ll keep their heads down; a short burst, not more than twenty, with traversing movement.”
A silence followed, and then bang-bang, bang-bang went the gun.
“Any results, sergeant?”
“I’m not sure, sir: I think they’ve stopped digging.”
A few minutes later.
“Anything to be seen, sergeant?”
“Nothing special, sir. I saw a man look over the parapet just now.”
“Well, give him a burst. Five or six will do.”
Bang-bang, bang-bang, bang-bang went the damned gun again.
Cliffe proved something of a sportsman, and, being so far unoccupied, he had borrowed my rifleand sniped away at intervals through his loophole. I don’t know what he saw to shoot at any more than I could discover where all the rifle fire came from. All of a sudden Cliffe called out to me in an excited whisper: “D’you want a shot, Lake? There’s an old Turk here poking his head up?” I jumped up, scrambled across to him and took hold of the rifle. Cliffe was staring through a loophole. “Look through here after me,” he said. “He’s right ahead, about six hundred yards off.” I took a long look, but could not pick him up. “D’you see the dead fellow in blue trousers.” I picked up the dead Turk all right, lying spread out in a little patch of flowers; and then, thirty yards or more to the right, I did see something move. True enough it was a man. “I’ve got him,” I said. I lifted my head over the parapet to level the rifle; but I had been too long and friend Turk disappeared. I stayed ready some time in case he came back; but he never showed again. Instead the cold morning breeze drifted against my forehead, and climbed about my hair, and I knew a strange feeling looking across that waste to watch our bullets strike the opposite trenches, telling myself the while at any moment Death might stalk from over there and bow to me. “Don’t keep your head up too long, Lake,” Cliffe said presently. “It isn’t over healthy.” I took his advice, but settled down where I was in case of fun later on.
Time went along very, very slowly. There was absolutely nothing doing. I tried to talkto Wilkinson and then to Cliffe; but there was nothing to talk about. The Englishmen became more depressed, and finally nobody spoke at all. Yes—I forget the lieutenant—who never lost interest in his gun, and who also called out directions now and then to the men shovelling in the passage way.
The rifle fire continued all the while, and many a bullet knocked up the dust on the opposite bank three or four yards off. The fire had not ceased from the hour of our landing, only up here the noise was sharp and fierce and close at hand.
The enemy shrapnel passed constantly over our heads, though I don’t think it did much harm, for it fell in the valley, which was generally empty, except of skulkers, who knew how to look after themselves. Our own guns remained silent. I sat and shivered and felt bored beyond belief.
At last matters mended somewhat.
“You’re wanted on the ’phone, sir,” Wilkinson said. “Who wants me?” “The colonel, sir.”
Cliffe crept the two or three paces towards the ’phone, and put it to his mouth. “Hullo! Hullo there! Yes, Cliffe speaking.” A long pause. “Yes, I’ve got it. C target. Three o’clock right of false ridge. Straight away. Righto, sir.”
Back went Cliffe to his peepholes to stare through one of them. “They seem to have woken up down below at last,” he said. “The old balloon has spotted some guns in action three o’clockright of the false ridge up there. There’s one of them now!” We waited a minute or two, crouching down below the parapet, then Wilkinson, who had the ’phone strapped to his head, said, “Fired, sir.”
The voice of a gun travelled from the valley foot, and the same moment a shell swept over our heads and burst in a puff of smoke many hundred yards beyond us. I was staring through one of the cracks. The shot was over the target and rather to the left. “One degree three-ough minutes more right! Shorten corrector four! Drop two-ough-ough! Repeat!” Wilkinson echoed the words: a silence followed. The gun boomed below, and a shell whistled overhead. This time the burst was better. “Drop five-ough! Repeat!” Cliffe called out.
I moved away presently, and tried again to talk with the Englishmen. Nearly all were young, and none seemed overbright. By the time we had exchanged all news, the morning was wearing on; and finally the sun tossed his beams into the trench in a threatening manner.
These were still optimistic days, when we expected the British and French down south to join up with us at any moment. We were always believing to hear their guns, and daily reports came through that they were arriving at such and such an hour. To-day it was to be five o’clock in the afternoon. The village of Krithia had been taken, and Heaven knows what else besides, and at any instant now they ought to come pouring over the top of Achi Baba. Thefall of Constantinople was only a matter of days.
The marines were as confident as we Australians, and the belief that the whole affair would be over in a week or two was, I believe, the one thing that bore them up. But they were a homesick lot at best.
Our guns soon quieted down—shortage of ammunition, no doubt—and Cliffe left his post and came across where the trench was deeper to stretch his legs. The English lieutenant was sitting just above, and the two men drifted into conversation.
I had the luck to find aPenny Magazinewith a very sentimental love story inside. I carried it to my funk-hole, and made a comfortable bed, and read until the springs of romance welled in me. I fell asleep to dream of governesses and dukes, and incidentally of heiresses who smiled encouragement on broken gunners. When I woke up it must have been midday, as the sun was not far from the centre of the sky, and there was not a foot of shade. I opened a hopeless eye and looked round. All was the same. The men sat in the same places and talked with effort. Cliffe spoke to Wilkinson, and the sergeant lay beside his gun. I yawned and sat up, flapped at the flies and swore.
But why go on? Through endless afternoon things were the same. At times our guns opened and Cliffe observed for them; at times I peeped over the parapet, hoping to snipe a Turk. At times the machine gun rattled away. There waslittle movement on either side. The armies rested after the big attack. I don’t know who was best pleased when the light grew dim and orders came through to return to headquarters.
I met the marines once again. It was on the following afternoon. I had guided Major Felix to the trench; and there we found Sands observing, with Hawkins and Eaves for his telephonists. “Saida,” I said to Hawkins, and leaned against the wall beside him.
The same men were in the same places, and digging was going forward as before. The trench had been improved in the night, and was deeper and more secure. But on the other hand I noticed the rifle fire was very heavy, and enemy shells would burst unpleasantly close. Major Felix and I had one or two uneasy moments coming up the valley, so it was disappointing to find we were not to be left alone here.
Eaves sprawled on his back with the receiver strapped to his ear. “’Ullo,” he called out lustily when he saw me. “Wot are you doin’ ’ere?” I nodded to him and climbed nearer to Hawkins, who sat higher up than Eaves, and more under the lee of the bank.
“How are things?” I said, settling down.
“It’s been pretty hot all day,” he answered, putting down the transmitter and taking out a cigarette. “This morning they lobbed two or three percussion shells on to the wall over there. They’re after the machine gun. It’s these fools: they never leave the thing alone for five minutes.” He tried to borrow a match and failed. Gettingone elsewhere, he went on. “The gun ought to be taken out of the place: they’ll have us blown out of the hole in the end.”
We yarned away a long time, and I don’t know what happened to Major Felix: he disappeared. I stayed on, having no orders to return, and the longer I stayed, the hotter grew the rifle fire. Our own guns in the valley were active, and kept Sands fully occupied peering through his peep-holes, and giving contradictory orders to the telephonists. The Turkish guns were more aggressive than our own. Frequent shells came our way, bursting about fifty yards behind us and dismembering the bushes.
Presently while we sat in silence, for the noise made talking hard, and dreamed of no particular evil, word came down the line that the enemy was massing on our right. This woke the trench up. Two officers of marines were present at the time. One—the lieutenant of yesterday—sat in his favourite seat, the funk-hole commanding this corner of the trench, the other had been giving instructions about the digging. They exchanged excited glances. “Where did the message come from? Who passed the message down?” they demanded in one voice. Someone answered, “The message came by mouth down the trench, sir.” “Is that the whole message? Was there anything more? Is anything to be seen?” “I don’t know, sir.”
The officer in the funk-hole leaned out and looked up towards the machine gun.
“Are you there, sergeant?”
“No, sir,” was the answer. “I’m here instead.”
“Well, can you see anything? Can you see any special movement?”
There was no reply for a while. Then I heard: “No, sir, I can’t see anything particular.”
Sands was called into consultation, and his verdict, given in disinterested voice, bore out what the sergeant said. But all the while the fire from both sides was increasing. Bullets plumped time after time into our opposite bank, and a multitude of shells travelled forwards and backwards across the sky. I began to feel warlike. Rapid conversation went on between the officers; but as nothing further happened, excitement died a natural death. We were settling comfortably into our places again when a second message came along. “Enemy massing heavily on our right. Attack expected.”
This settled matters. The place buzzed like a beehive. Sands was appealed to again. “Can you see no movements at all from where you are?” “Absolutely nothing,” Sands answered in the blandest manner without turning round. A moment afterwards he called to me over his shoulder, “Climb up by the machine gun, Lake, and try to observe the next two shots. I can’t pick them up from here. I should try not to get killed if I were you. You probably will be up there.”
I did as he told me, and lay flat on my stomach beside the machine gun. There was absolutely no cover, so that I flattened out to the last inch.I looked across the wilderness of yesterday. Our bullets knocked up the dust along the Turkish line, and our shells broke in delicate white clouds about the sky. One thing I could not see, that was a living Turk. I had not much opportunity to look about, as I had to watch closely the square of ground on which one of our guns was trained. I saw the puff at last and called out the direction, and Sands answered he had picked it up too. The next shot Sands observed as well.
While I was flattened out there calculating how soon a bullet would come that way, a very young lieutenant walked over. “I say, keep down as much as you can,” he said, lifting up his face to me, “or you will draw fire on us.”
“You blighted ass, what am I doing now?” I thought. “Yes, sir,” I said.
The time was about four o’clock, and the men expected to be relieved by another company. In spite of the turn affairs had taken, the men made ready for departure, and quite soon the relieving company arrived and tried to find a way in. They, too, carried fixed bayonets and looked like business. The trench was quite choked up, and I took the hint and climbed into a funk-hole out of the way. Perhaps I was lucky. Officers of the old party were hunting their men out, and confusion was general, when a loud and dull explosion took place quite near, stones and a cloud of dust shot up—and then came silence. A percussion shell had come into the trench. The senior officer was beside me, and he cranedhis neck forward, and called out in a sharp voice to know who was hurt. “Forbes killed, sir, and two others hit.” “Get them away to the doctor, get them out at once: don’t block up the way!”
The soldiers pushed themselves against the walls, and the procession went by. The dead man came last. I peered from my funk-hole and looked him in the face. I do not think he was quite dead; but I heard someone say in a stage whisper his back was broken. His face was yellow, and his mouth a little open. Death had not stamped him with nobility.
Yet there was a moment when I forgot the trenches and instead saw another scene. Grey walls were there crossing purple moorland; and in the valley stood slated cottages about an aged church. From there at daybreak the labourers went abroad, and at even the herds came home; and ever there the old men dawdled, and women gossiped by their doors. Year by year the same faces looked on the same faces, but not again would one familiar face be seen.
The new company squeezed against the trench sides, and the old one filed away. The firing from both sides was overwhelming, and our trench bristled with bayonets. For my own part I had seen nothing threatening in the movements of the enemy when up by the gun; but excitement ran high and I caught it. Matters began to look really interesting when a call came for reinforcements on the right. Amid enquiries and commands, a sergeant was sent off at expressspeed with a party to find out details, and at the same time the trench began to fill up again with the men who had been relieved. Next an officer pushed his way along, revolver in hand. Indecision seemed so great that I began to doubt, in the event of a rush, whether we should hold the trench; and thus I made ready for the worst, fixed a bayonet to my rifle, and prepared to die as becomes an honest gunner. In five minutes back came the sergeant. “They want no reinforcements, sir. There’s nothing out of the way doing. They made a demonstration on the right, sir, and attacked our left.”
“Hum,” thought I.
On the way back to headquarters, we found the top of the valley lined with men upon their bellies, rifles in hand and bayonets fixed.
Another tragedy that corner of the trench showed me.
The marines were relieved next day by an Australian battalion. I was in the trench in the afternoon, and was making the first step on the way home when a shell came in. I swung round towards the uproar, and that moment something struck me on the foot. I looked down and saw a lump of quivering flesh. A captain of infantry had had his neck blown away.
I returned down the valley, sick to death. Shrapnel was spattering in the bushes, and at the cross roads waited three dead and still bleeding mules. I hurried along; but I could not escape that red lump of meat. I could not eatthat night: though thirsty I threw away the tea. I rolled into my blankets; but still that lump of flesh was there. Darkness and the cool of night had no power to banish it.
Beastly! Ah, beastly! Ah, very, very beastly!