First line of Allies' trench zigzagging along parallel to the Turkish trenches which are not thirty yards distantFirst line of Allies' trench zigzagging along parallel to the Turkish trenches which are not thirty yards distantToList
First line of Allies' trench zigzagging along parallel to the Turkish trenches which are not thirty yards distantToList
After the block-house trench, our next move was to a part of the firing line that I have never been able to identify. It was very close to the Turks, and in this spot we lost a large number of men. From one point, a narrow sap or rough trench ran out at right angles very close to the Turkish position. It may have been twenty-five or thirty yards away. To hold this sap was very important; if the Turks took it, it gave them a commanding position. About twenty men were in it all the time, four or five of them bomb throwers. The men holding this sap at the time we were there were the Irish, the DublinFusiliers or, as we knew them, the Dubs. The Turks made several attempts to take it, but were repulsed. When our men were not on sentry duty, several of them spent their rest hours out in this sap, talking to the Dubs. The Dubs were interesting talkers. They had been in the thing from the beginning, and spoke of the landings with laughter and a fierce joy of slaughter. Most of them had been on the Western front before coming to Gallipoli. From the Turkish trenches directly in front of this sap, the enemy signaled the effect of our shots. They used the same signals that we used in target practice, waving a stick back and forth to indicate outers, inners, magpies, and bull's-eyes. Whoever did it, had a sense of humor; because as soon as he became tired, he took down the stick for an instant, then raised it again and waved it back and forth derisively, with a large red German sausage on the end of it. This did not seem to bear out very well the tales that the enemy was slowly starving to death. Prisoners who surrendered from time to time told us that at any moment the entire Turkish army might surrender, as they were very short of food. One thingwe did know: the Turks felt the lack of shoes; out between the lines we found numbers of our dead with the boots cut off.
While we were in this place the Turks dug to within ten or twelve yards of us before they were discovered. One of the Dublins saw them first. He seized some bombs, and jumped out, shouting, "Look at Johnny Turrk. Let's bomb him to hell out of it." But Johnny Turk was obstinate; he stayed where he was in spite of our bombs. One of our fellows, the big chap whom I had heard at Aldershot complaining about being asked for his name and number, had crawled into the sap. He made his way through the smoke and dirt to the end of the sap where only a few yards separated him from the Turks. In one item of armament the British beat the Turks. We use bombs that explode three seconds after they are thrown; the Turks' don't explode for five seconds. The difference of only two seconds seems slight, but that day in the sap-head it was of great importance. For a short while the supply of bombs for our side ran out. The man who was trying to get the cover off a box of them found difficulty in doing it. The men in the sap-head were without bombs. Meanwhile the Turkskept up an uninterrupted throwing of bombs. Most of them landed in the sap. The big Newfoundlander who had crawled out looking for excitement found it. As soon as the supply of bombs ran out, instead of getting back into safety, he stood his ground. The first bomb that came over dropped close to him. He was swearing softly, and his face was glowing with pleasure. He bent down coolly, picked up the bomb and threw it back over the parapet at the Turks who had sent it. With our bombs he could not have done it, but the extra two seconds were just enough. Five or six of the bombs came in and were treated in the same way, before our supply was resumed. A brigade officer, who had come out into the sap, stood gazing awe-struck at the big Newfoundlander. Open-mouthed, with monocle in hand, the officer was the picture of amazement. At last he spoke, with that slow, impersonal English drawl:
"I say, my man, what is your name and number."
The look on the Newfoundlander's face was a study. He knew he should not have come out into that sap, and every time that question had been shot at him before it had meant areprimand. At last he shrugged his shoulders, then with a resigned expression, answered the officer in a fashion not entirely confined to Newfoundlanders—by asking a question: "What in hell have I done now?"
Without a word the officer turned on his heel and left the sap. The big fellow waited until he felt the officer was well out of sight, then departed for his proper place in the trench. One of the Dubs looking after him, said to me:
"There's a man that would have been recommended for a Distinguished Conduct Medal if he'd answered that officer right."
That Irishman was a man of wide experience.
"I've been seventeen years in the army, and I've been in every war that England fought in that time," said he, "and I'll tell you now, the real Distinguished Conduct Medal men and the real V.C. heroes never get them. They're under the ground." Coming from the man it did, this expression of opinion was interesting, for he was Cooke, the man who had been given a Distinguished Conduct Medal for his work on the Western front. Since coming to the Peninsula he had been acting as a sharpshooter, and had been recommended for the V.C., the Victoria Cross,which is the highest reward for valor in the British army. He was only waiting then, for word to go to London, to get the cross pinned on by the King.
"There's one man on this Peninsula," continued Cooke, "who's won the V.C. fifty times over; that's the donkey-man."
The man Cooke meant was an Australian, a stretcher-bearer. His real name was Simpson, but nobody ever called him that. Because he was of Irish descent, the Australians, who dearly love nicknames, called him Murphy, or, Moriarty, or Dooley, or whatever Irish name first occurred to them. More generally, though, he was called the Man with the Donkey, and by this name he was known all over the Peninsula. In the early days, the Anzacs had captured some booty from the Turks and in it were some donkeys. It was in the strenuous time when men lay in all sorts of inaccessible places, dying and sorely wounded, Simpson in those days seemed everywhere. As soon as he heard of the capture he went down, looked appraisingly over the donkeys, and commandeered two of them. On one donkey he painted F.A. No. 1, and on the other, F.A. No. 2; F.A. being his abbreviation for FieldAmbulance. Day and night after that Simpson could be seen going about among the wounded, here giving a man first aid, there loosening the equipment and making easier the last few minutes for some poor fellow too far gone to need any medical care. The wounded men who could not walk or limp down to the dressing station he carried down, one on each of the donkeys and one on his back or in his arms. He talked to the donkeys as they plodded slowly along, in a strange mixture of English, Arabic profanity, and Australian slang. Many an Australian or New Zealander who has never heard of Simpson remembers gratefully the attentions of a strangely gentle man who drove before him two small gray donkeys each of which carried a wounded soldier. In Australia long after this war is over men will thrill at the mention of the Man with the Donkey. I agreed with Cooke that this man had won the V.C. fifty times over.
Cooke was going out that night, he told me, to stay for three or four days, sniping, between the lines. As soon as he came back he expected to go to London.
"Before I go out," he said, "I'll show you agood place where you can get a shot at Abdul Pasha."
I followed Cooke out through the sap and up the trench a little way to where it turned sharply to avoid a large boulder. Just in front of this boulder was some short, prickly underbrush. Cooke parted the bushes cautiously with his hand, and motioned me to come closer. I did and through the opening he pointed out the enemy trench about four hundred yards away, and about thirty yards in front of it a little clump of bushes.
"Just in front of those bushes," said Cooke, "there's a sniper's dugout. Keep your eyes open to-morrow and you ought to get some of them."
I noted the place for the next day, and walked down to the sap with Cooke. There I shook hands with him, wished him good luck, and returned to my platoon.
That night I had to go out on listening patrol between the lines. At one o'clock my turn came. An Irish sergeant came along the trench for me to guide me out to the listening post. I went with him a short distance along the trench,picked up four others, then with a shoulder from a comrade, we got over the parapet. The listening post was about a hundred yards away. We had gone only a few yards when we heard firing coming from that direction, first one shot followed by twenty or thirty in quick succession, then silence. A man stumbled out of the darkness immediately in front of us. He was panting and excited. It was a messenger from the corporal that we were going to relieve. He had been walking along without the least suspicion of danger when he had run full tilt into a party of fifteen or sixteen of the enemy. He had dropped down immediately and yelled to one of his men to go back to the trench with word. We followed the panting messenger to the post. The enemy had now disappeared. We opened rapid fire in the direction in which they had gone. Evidently it was right, for in a few seconds they returned it, wounding one man. For about five minutes we kept up firing, with what success we could not tell, but at any rate we had the satisfaction of driving off a superior force. Those two hours straining through the darkness were not particularly pleasant. I did not know what moment or from what direction the enemy mightcome, and I knew that if he did come it would be in force. Apparently the whole thing was unplanned, because during the remainder of my two hours, although I peered unceasingly in all directions, I could see nothing, nor could I hear the slightest sound. Evidently Johnny Turk was willing to let well enough alone. That night when I returned to the trench I was told that the next night at dark we were to go into dugouts.
Ordinarily the thought of dugouts was distasteful, but it seemed years since I had taken my boots off. Our platoon had lost heavily, mostly from disease. All the novelty had worn off the trench life. Instead of six noncoms, there were only three. Each of us was doing the work of two men. Our ration had been the eternal bully beef, biscuit, and jam. Our cooks did their best to make it palatable by cooking the beef in stew with some desiccated vegetables, but these were hard and tasteless. Most of us had got to the stage where the very sight of jam made us sick. That night, looking down through the ravine, I saw, winking and blinking cheerfully, the only light that brightened the Stygian darkness, the Red Cross of the hospital ships. I have wondered since if the entrance to heaven isilluminated with an electric Red Cross. There was not a man in the whole battalion who was really fit. Most of them had had a touch of one or more of the prevalent diseases.
Stenlake, the young clergyman, who had been my dugout mate, was scarcely able to drag himself about the trench. And by this time we had the weather to contend with. It was nearing the middle of October, and the rainy season was almost upon us. Occasionally the sky darkened up to a heavy grayness that seemed to cover everything as with a pall. Following this came heavy, sudden squalls that swept through the trenches, drenching everything, and tearing blankets and equipments with them. Although the sun still continued to bore down unremittingly in the daytime, the nights had become bitterly cold, and to the tropical diseases were added rheumatism and pneumonia. On the men from Newfoundland the climate was especially telling. We had ceased to wonder at the crowd of men who reported sick each morning, and simply marveled that the number was not greater.
All over the Peninsula disease had become epidemic until the clearing stations and thebeaches were choked with sick. The time we should have been sleeping was spent in digging, but still the men worked uncomplainingly. Some, too game to quit, would not report to the doctor, working on courageously until they dropped, although down in the bay beckoned the Red Cross of the hospital ship, with its assurance of cleanliness, rest, and safety. By sickness and snipers' bullets we were losing thirty men a day. Nobody in the front line trenches or on the shell-swept area behind ever expected to leave the Peninsula alive. Their one hope was to get off wounded. Every night men leaving the trenches to bring up rations from the beach shook hands with their comrades. From every ration party of twenty men we always counted on losing two. Those who were wounded were looked on as lucky. The best thing we could wish a man was a "cushy wound," one that would not prove fatal, or a "Blighty one." But no one wanted to quit. Men hung on till the last minute. Often it was not till a man dropped exhausted that we learned from his comrades that he had not eaten for days. The only men in my platoon who seemed to be nearly fit were Art Pratt, and a young chap named Hayes. Art seemed to be enjoying thelife thoroughly. He went about the trench, cheerfully, grinning and whistling, putting heart into the others. Whenever there was any specially dangerous work to be done, Art always volunteered. He spent more time out between the lines than in the trench. Whenever a specially reliable, cool man was needed, Art was selected. Young Hayes was a small chap who had been in my platoon at Stob's Camp in Scotland. He had made a record for being absent from parade, and was always in trouble for minor offenses. I took him in hand and did my best to keep him out of trouble. Out in the trenches he remembered it, and followed me around like a shadow. Whenever I was sent in charge of a fatigue party he always volunteered. The men all did their best to make the work of the noncoms easy. As a study in the effects of colonial discipline it would have been enlightening for some of the English officers. The men called their corporals and sergeants, Jack, or Bill, or Mac, but there never was the slightest question about obeying an order. Everybody knew that everybody else was overworked and underfed, and every man tried to give as little trouble as possible. Such conduct from the Newfoundlanders was astonishing,as in training they simply loved to make trouble for the noncoms, and the most unenviable job in the regiment was that of corporal or sergeant.
Such were the conditions the next afternoon when we moved from the firing trench to rest near some dugouts that had been forsaken by the Royal Scots. They had been relieved, some said, to go to the island of Imbros, about fifteen miles away, for a rest. At Imbros, rumor said, you could buy, in the canteen, eggs and butter, and other heavenly things that we had almost forgotten the taste of. At Imbros, too, you were free from shell fire, and drilled every day just as you did in training. It was whispered, too, but scornfully discredited, that Imbros boasted shower baths, and ovens for the disinfecting of clothing. Others claimed that the Royal Scots had been withdrawn from the Peninsula and were going to the Western front. They were the first regiment to leave of the Twenty-ninth Division. The whole division was to be withdrawn gradually. The Twenty-ninth was our division, and we were to go with it to England. We were to winter in Scotland and after we had been recruited up to full strength were to go to France in the spring. An examination of the emptydugouts strengthened this belief. Blankets, rubber sheets, belts, pieces of equipment, and even overcoats were lying around. In one of the dugouts I found a copy of the Odyssey, and half a dozen other books. A few dugouts away I came upon one of our fellows gazing regretfully upon an empty whisky bottle. As I approached him, I overheard him murmur abstractedly, "My favorite brand too, my favorite brand." I passed on without interrupting him. It was too sacred a moment.
The afternoon sun poured down steadily on little groups of men preparing dugouts for habitation. I had a good many details to attend to before I could look about for a suitable place for a dugout. Men had to be told off for different fatigues. Men for pick and shovel work that night were placed in sections so that each group would get as much sleep as possible. All the available dugouts had been taken up by the first comers. The location here was particularly well suited for dugouts. A mule path to the beach ran along the bottom of a narrow ravine. On one side of the path the ground shelved gradually up till it merged into a plain, covered with long grass, overgrown and neglected. On the other side, a ridge sloped up sharply and formed a natural protection before it also merged into a "gorse" covered plateau. Small evergreen bushes served the double purpose of hiding our movements from the enemyand affording some shade from the broiling sun. At the foot of the ridge we made our line of dugouts. The angle of the ridge was so steep that an enemy shell could not possibly drop on our dugouts. A little further away some of A Company's dugouts were in the danger zone. After much hunting, I found a likely looking place. It was about seven feet square, and where I planned to put the head of my dugout a large boulder squatted. It was so eminently suitable that I wondered that no one else had preëmpted it. I took off my equipment, threw my coat on the ground, and began digging. It was soft ground and gave easily.
A short distance away, I could see Art Pratt, digging. He was finding it hard work to make any impression. He saw me, stopped to mop his brow, and grinned cheerfully.
"You should take soft ground like this, Art," I yelled.
"I've gone so far now," said Art, "that it's too late to change," and we resumed our work.
After a few more minutes' digging, my pick struck something that felt like the root of a tree, but I knew there was no tree on that God-forsaken spot large enough to send out big roots.I disentangled the pick and dug a little more, only to find the same obstruction. I took my small intrenching tool, scraped away the dirt I had dug, and began cleaning away near the base of a big boulder. There were no roots there, and gradually I worked away from it. I took my pick again, and at the first blow it stuck. Without trying to disengage it I began straining at it. In a few seconds it began to give, and I withdrew it. Clinging to it was part of a Turkish uniform, from which dangled and rattled the dried-up bones of a skeleton. Nauseated, I hurriedly filled in the place, and threw myself on the ground, physically sick. While I was lying there one of our men came along, searching for a place to bestow himself. He gazed inquiringly at the ground I had just filled in.
Washing day in war-timeWashing day in war-timeToList
Washing day in war-timeToList
"Is there anybody here?" he asked me, indicating the place with a pick-ax.
"Yes," I said, with feeling, "there is."
"It looks to me," he said, "as if some one began digging and then found a better place. If he don't come back soon I'll take it."
For about fifteen minutes he stood there, and I lay regarding him silently. At last he spoke again.
"I think I'll go ahead," he said. "Possession is nine points of the law, and the fellow hasn't been here to claim it."
"I wouldn't if I were you," I said. "That fellow's been there a hell of a long while."
I left him there digging, and crawled away to a safe distance. In a few minutes he passed me.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded, reproachfully.
"Because half of the company saw me digging there and didn't tell me," I said.
I was prospecting around for another place when Art Pratt hailed me. "Why don't you come with me," he said, "instead of digging another place?"
I went to where he was and looked at the dugout. It wasn't very wide, and I said so. Together we began widening and deepening the dugout, until it was big enough for the two of us. It was grueling work, but by supper time it was done. The night before, a fatigue party had gone down to the beach and hauled up a big field kitchen. Our cooks had made some tea, and we had been issued some loaves of bread. Art unrolled a large piece of cloth, with all the pomp and ceremony of a man unveiling amonument. He did it slowly and carefully. There was a glitter in his eyes that one associates with an artist exhibiting his masterpiece. He gave a triumphant switch to the last fold and held toward me a large piece of fresh juicy steak!
"Beefsteak!" I gasped. "Sacred beefsteak! Where did you get it?"
Art leaned toward me mysteriously. "Officers' mess," he whispered.
"I've got salt and pepper," I said, "but how are you going to cook it?"
"I don't know," said Art, "but I'm going up to the field kitchen; there's some condensed milk that I may be able to get hold of to spread on our bread."
While Art was gone, I strolled down the ravine a little way to where some of the Royal Engineers were quartered. The Royal Engineers are the men who are looked on in training as a noncombatant force, with safe jobs. In war-time they do no fighting, but their safe jobs consist of such harmless work as fixing up barbed wire in front of the parapet and setting mines under the enemy's trenches. For a rest they are allowed to conduct parties to listening posts and to give the lines for advance saps. Sometimesthey make loopholes in the parapet, or bolster up some redoubt that is being shelled to pieces. The Turks were sending over their compliments just as I came abreast of the Engineers' lines. One of the engineers was sifting some gravel when the first shell landed. He dropped the sieve, and turned a back somersault into some gorse-bushes just behind him. The sieve rolled down, swayed from side to side, and settled close to my head, in the depression where I was conscientiously emulating an ostrich. I gathered it to my bosom tenderly and began crawling away. From behind a boulder I heard the engineer bemoaning to an officer the loss of his sieve, and he described in detail how a huge shell had blown it out of his hands. Joyfully I returned to Art with my prize.
"What's that for?" said Art.
"Turn it upside down," I said, "and it's a steak broiler."
"Where did you get it?" said Art.
I told him, and related how the engineer had explained it to his officer.
Up at the field kitchen a group was standing around.
"What's the excitement?" I asked Art.
"Those fellows are a crowd of thieves," answered Art, virtuously. "They're looking about to see what they can steal. I was up there a few minutes ago and saw a can of condensed milk lying on the shaft of the field kitchen. They were watching me too closely to give me a chance, but you might be able to get away with it."
The two of us strolled up slowly to where Hebe Wheeler, the creative artist who did our cooking, was holding forth to a critical audience.
"It's all very well to talk about giving you things to eat, but I can't cook pancakes without baking powder. You can't get blood out of a turnip. I'd give you the stuff if I got it to cook, but I don't get it, do I, Corporal?" said Hebe, appealing to me.
I moved over and stood with my back to the shaft on which rested the tin of condensed milk.
"No, Hebe," I said, "you don't get the things; and when you do get them, this crowd steals them on you."
"By God," said Hebe, "that's got to be put a stop to. I'll report the next man I find stealing anything from the cookhouse."
I put my hand cautiously behind my back, until I felt my fingers close on the tin of milk."You let me know, Hebe," I said, as I slipped the tin into the roomy pocket of my riding breeches, "and I'll make out a crime sheet against the first man whose name you give." I stayed about ten minutes longer talking to Hebe, and then returned to my dugout. Art had finished broiling the piece of steak, and we began our supper. I put my hand in my breeches' pocket to get the milk. Instead of grasping the tin, my fingers closed on a sticky, gluey mass. The tin had been opened when I took it and I had it in my pocket upside down. About half of it had oozed over my pocket. Art was just pouring the remainder on some bread when some one lifted the rubber sheet and stuck his head into our dugout. It was the enraged Hebe Wheeler. As soon as he had missed his precious milk he had made a thorough investigation of all the dugouts. He looked at Art accusingly.
"Come in, Hebe," I said pleasantly. "We don't see you very often."
Hebe paid no attention to my invitation, but glared at Art.
"I've caught you with the goods on," he said. "Give me back that milk, or I'll report you to the platoon officer."
"You can report me to Lord Kitchener if you like," said Art, calmly, as he drained the can; "but this milk stays right here."
Hebe disappeared, breathing vengeance.
After supper that night a crowd sat around the dying embers of one of the fires. This was one of the first positions we had been in where there was cover sufficient to warrant fires being lighted. A mail had been distributed that day, and the men exchanged items of news and swapped gossip. There were men there from all parts of Newfoundland. They spoke in at least thirty different accents. Any one who made a study of it could tell easily from each man's accent the district he came from. Much of the mail was intimate, and necessitated private perusal, but much more was of interest to others. It was interesting to hear a man yell to a friend who came from his same "bay" that another man had enlisted from Robinson's, making up eighteen of the nineteen men of fighting age in the place. Sometimes the news was that "Half has volunteered, and Hed was turned down by the doctor."
This from some resident of the northern parts where the fog is not, and where aspirates are oflittle consequence. This news gives rise to the opinion that "that's the hend o' Half." This with much discussion and ominous shaking of the head. Sometimes a friend of the absent "Half" would tell of Half's exploit of stealing a trolley from the Reid Newfoundland Railway Company and going twenty miles to see a girl. Sometimes the hero was a married man. Then it was opined that his conjugal relations were not happy, and the reason he enlisted was that "he had heard something." All these opinions and suggestions were voiced with that beautiful freedom from restraint so characteristic of the ordinary conversation of the members of our regiment. Much was made of the arrival of a mail. It did not happen often, and the letters that came were three or four months old. "As cold waters to a thirsty soul," says Solomon, "so is good news from a far country." The Newfoundlanders in that barren, scorched country caught eagerly at every shred of news from that distant Northern country that they loved enough to risk their lives for. With such a setting it is little wonder that the talk was much of home. Behind the persiflage of the talk there was a poignant longing for those dark, cool forests of pinewhere the caribou roam, and the broad-bosomed lakes and rivers that were the highways for the monsters of the Northern forests on their journey to the mills. The lumbermen of Notre Dame Bay and Green Bay told fearsome and wondrous tales of driving and swamping, of teaming and landing, until one almost heard the blows of the ax, the "gee" and "haw" of the teamsters, and smelt the pungent odor of new-cut pine. The Reid Newfoundland Railway, the single narrow gage road that twists a picturesque trail across the Island, had given largely of its personnel toward the making of the regiment. Firemen and engineers, brakemen and conductors, talked reminiscently of forced runs to catch expresses with freight and accommodation trains. There is an interesting tale of two drivers who blew their whistles in the Morse code, and kept up communication with each other, until a girl learned the code and broke up the friendship. A steamship fireman contributed his quota with a story of laboring through mountainous seas against furious tides when the stokers' utmost efforts served only to keep steamers from losing way. By comparison with the homeland, Turkey suffered much; and the things they saidabout Gallipoli were lamentable. From the gloom on the other side of the fire a voice chanted softly, "It's a long, long way to Tipperary, It's a long way to go." Gradually all joined in. After Tipperary, came many marching songs. "Are we downhearted? NO," with every one booming out the "No." "Boys in Khaki, Boys in Blue," and at last their own song; to the tune of "There is a tavern in the town."
And when those Newfoundlanders start to yell, start to yell,Oh, Kaiser Bill, you'll wish you were in hell, were in hell;For they'll hang you high to your Potsdam palace wall,You're a damn poor Kaiser, after all.
And when those Newfoundlanders start to yell, start to yell,Oh, Kaiser Bill, you'll wish you were in hell, were in hell;For they'll hang you high to your Potsdam palace wall,You're a damn poor Kaiser, after all.
The singing died down slowly. The talk turned to the trenches and the chances of victory, and by degrees to personal impressions.
"I'd like to know," said one chap, "why we all enlisted."
"When I enlisted," said a man with an accent reminiscent of the Placentia Bay, "I thought there'd be lots of fun, but with weather like this, and nothing fit to eat, there's not much poetry or romance in war any more."
"Right for you, my son," said another; "your King and Country need you, but the trouble is to make your King and Country feed you."
"Don't you wish you were in London now, Gal?" said one chap, turning to me. "You'd have a nice bed to sleep in, and could eat anywhere you liked."
"Well," I said, "enough people tried to persuade me to stop. One fellow told me that the more brains a man had, the farther away he was from the firing-line. He'd been to the front too. I think," I added, "that General Sherman had the right idea."
"I wish you fellows would shut up and go to sleep," said a querulous voice from a nearby dugout.
"You don't know what you're talking about, Gal; General Sherman was an optimist."
"It doesn't do any good to talk about it now," said Art Pratt, in a matter of fact voice. "Some of you enlisted so full of love of country that there was patriotism running down your chin, and some of you enlisted because you were disappointed in love, but the most of you enlisted for love of adventure, and you're getting it."
Again the querulous subterranean voice interrupted: "Go to sleep, you fellows—there's none of you knows what you're talking about. There's only one reason any of us enlisted, andthat's pure, low down, unmitigated ignorance." Amid general laughter the class in applied psychology broke up, and distributed themselves in their various dugouts.
Halfway down to my dugout, I was arrested by the sound of scuffling, much blowing and puffing, and finally the satisfied grunt that I knew proceeded from Hebe Wheeler.
"I've got a spy," he yelled. "Here's a bloody Turk."
"Turk nothing," said a disgusted voice. "Don't you know a man from your own company?"
Hebe relinquished his hold on his captive and subsided, grumbling. The other arose, shook himself, and went his way, voicing his opinion of people who built their dugouts flush with the ground.
"What do you think of the news from the Western front?" said Art, when I located him.
"What is it?" I asked.
"The enemy are on the run at the Western front. The British have taken four lines of German trenches for a distance of over five miles in the vicinity of Loos. The bulletin board atBrigade headquarters says that they have captured several large guns, a number of machine guns, and seventeen thousand unwounded prisoners. If they can keep this up long enough for the Turks to realize that it is hopeless to expect any help from that quarter, Abdul Pasha will soon give in."
We were talking about Abdul Pasha's surrendering when we dropped off to sleep. We must have been asleep about two hours when the insistent, crackling sound of rapid fire, momentarily increasing in volume, brought us to our feet. Away up on the right, where the Australians were, the sky was a red glare from the flashing of many rifles. Against this, we could see the occasional flare of different colored rockets that gave the warships their signals for shelling. Very soon one of our officers appeared.
"Stand to arms for the Newfoundlanders," he said.
"What is it?" I asked.
"The Australians are advancing," he answered. "We'll go up as reinforcements if we're needed. Tell your men to put on their ammunition belts, and have their rifles ready.They needn't put on their packs; but keep them near them so that they can slip them on if we get the order to move away."
I went about among the men of my section, passing along the word. Everybody was tingling with excitement. Nobody knew just what was about to happen; but every one thought that whatever it was it would prove interesting. For about half an hour the rapid fire kept up, then by degrees died down.
"Did you see that last rocket?" said a man near me; "that means they've done it. A red rocket means that the navy is to fire, a green to continue firing, and a white one means that we've won."
In a few minutes Mr. Nunns walked toward us. "You can put your equipments off, and turn in again," he said, "nothing doing to-night."
"What is all the excitement?" I asked.
"Oh, it's the Anzacs again," he said; "when they heard of the advance at Loos, they went over across, and surprised the Turks. They've taken two lines of trenches. They did it without any orders—just wanted to celebrate the good news."
I was awakened the next morning by the soundof a whizz-bang flying over our dugout. Johnny Turk was sending us his best respects. I shook Art, who was sleeping heavily.
"Get up, Art," I said. I might as well have spoken to a stone wall. I tried again. Putting my mouth to his ear, I shouted, "Stand to, Art. Stand to."
Art turned over, sleeping. "I'll stand three if you like, but don't disturb me," he muttered, and relapsed into coma.
In a few minutes, two or three more shells came along. They were well over the ridge behind us, but were landing almost in the midst of another line of dugouts. I stood gazing at them for a little while. A man passed me running madly. "Come on," he gasped, "and yell for the stretcher." I followed him without further question. "It's all right," he said, slowing up just before we came to the line of dugouts that had just been shelled. "They've got him all right." We continued toward a group that crowded about a stretcher. A man was lying on it, with his head raised on a haversack. He rolled his eyes slowly and surveyed the group. "What the hell is the matter?" he said dazedly; then felt himself over gingerly for wounds.Apparently he could find none. "What hit me?" he asked, appealing to a grinning Red Cross man.
"Nothing," said the other, "except about a ton of earth. It's a lucky thing some one saw you. That last shell buried you alive."
The whistle of a coming shell dispersed the grinning spectators. I went back to my dugout, and found Art busily toasting some bread over the sieve that I had commandeered the day before.
"What was the excitement?" he asked.
"Charlie Renouf," I said, "was buried alive."
"Heavens," said Art, "he's the postman; we can't afford to lose him. That reminds me that I've got to write some letters."
Cleaning up after coming down from the trenches at SuvlaCleaning up after coming down from the trenches at SuvlaToList
Cleaning up after coming down from the trenches at SuvlaToList
After we had finished breakfast, Art produced some writing paper and an indelible pencil. I did not have any writing paper, but I contributed a supply of service postcards, that bear such meager information as "I am quite well," "I am sick," "I am wounded," "I am in hospital and doing well," "I am in hospital and expect to be discharged soon," "I have not heard from you for a long time," "I have had no letter from you since ——," "I have your letter of ——," "I have received your parcel of ——," and a space for the date and the signature. When a manwrites home from the front, he crosses out all but the sentences he wants read, puts in the date, and adds his signature. This is the ordinary means of communication. About once a week a man is allowed to write some letters; but these are censored by his platoon officer, who seals them, and signs his name as a record of their having been passed by him. Sometimes the censor at the base opens a few of them. Perhaps once a fortnight a few privileged characters are given large blue envelopes, that have printed in the corner:
Note.—Correspondence in this envelope need not be censored Regimentally. The contents are liable to examination at the Base.The following Certificate must be signed by the writer:I certify on my honour that the contents of this envelope refer to nothing but private and family matters.Signature(Name only)
Note.—
Correspondence in this envelope need not be censored Regimentally. The contents are liable to examination at the Base.
The following Certificate must be signed by the writer:
I certify on my honour that the contents of this envelope refer to nothing but private and family matters.
Signature
(Name only)
While we were writing, the orderly sergeant, that dread of loafers, who appoints all details for fatigue work, bore down upon our dugout. "Two men from you, Corporal Gallishaw," he said, "for bomb throwers. Give me their names as soon as you can. They're for practice this afternoon."
"One here, right away," said Art, "and put Lew O'Dea down for the other."
Lew O'Dea was a character. He was in the next dugout to me. The first day on the Peninsula, his rifle had stuck full of sand, and some one had stolen his tin canteen for cooking food. He immediately formed himself into an anti-poverty society of one thereafter, and went around like a walking arsenal. I never saw him with fewer than three rifles, usually he carried half a dozen. He always kept two or three of them spotlessly clean; so that no matter when rifle inspection came, he always had at least one to show. He had been a little late in getting his rifle clean once and was determined not to be caught any more. His equipment always contained a varied assortment of canteens, seven or eight gas masks, and his dugout was luxurious with rubber sheets and blankets. "I inherited them," he always answered, whenever anybody questioned him about them. With ammunition for his several rifles, when he started for the trenches in full marching order, he carried a load that a mule need by no means have been ashamed of.
"Do you want to go on bomb throwing detailthis afternoon?" I called to O'Dea across the top of the dugout.
"Sure," he answered; "does a swim want to duck?"
"Fine," I said; "report here at two o'clock."
At two o'clock, accompanied by an officer and a sergeant, we went down the road a little way to where some Australians were conducting a class in bomb throwing. A brown-faced chap from Sydney showed me the difference between bombs that you explode by lighting a match, bombs that are started by pulling out a plug, and the dinky little three-second "cricket balls" that explode by pressing a spring. I asked him about the attack the night before. He told me that they had been for some time waiting for a chance to make a local advance that would capture an important redoubt in the Turkish line. Every night at exactly nine o'clock, the Navy had thrown a searchlight on the part of the line the Anzacs wanted to capture. For ten minutes they kept up heavy firing. Then, after a ten minutes' interval of darkness and suspended firing, they began a second illumination and bombardment, commencing always at twenty minutes past nine, and ending preciselyat half past. After a little while, the enemy, knowing just the exact minute the bombardment was to begin, took the first beam of the searchlight as a hint to clear out. But the night before, a crowd of eager Australians had crept softly along in the shadow made doubly dark by the glare of the searchlight, the noise of their advance covered by the sound of the bombardment. As soon as the bombardment ceased and the searchlight's beam was succeeded by darkness, they poured into the Turkish position. They had taken the astonished Turks completely by surprise.
"We didn't expect to make the attack for another week," said the Australian; "but as soon as our boys heard that we were winning in France, they thought they'd better start something. There hasn't been any excitement over our way now for a long time," he said. "I'm about fed up on this waiting around the trenches." He fingered one of the little cricket-ball bombs caressingly. "Think of it," he said; "all you do is press that little spring, and three seconds after you're a casualty."
"Pressing that little spring," said I, "is my idea of nothing to do, unless you're a particularly fast sprinter."
"By the Lord Harry, Newfoundland," said the Australian, with a peculiar, excited glint in his eye, "that's an inspiration."
"What's an inspiration?" I asked, in bewilderment.
The Australian stretched himself on the ground beside me, resting his chin in his cupped hands. "When I was in Sydney," he said slowly and thoughtfully, "I did a hundred yards in ten seconds easily. Now if I can get in a traverse that's only eight or nine yards long, and press the spring of one of those little cricket balls, I ought to be able to get out on the other side of the traverse before it explodes."
Art and Lew O'Dea passed along just then and I jumped up to go with them. "Don't forget to look for me if you're over around the Fifteenth Australians," said the Australian. "Ask for White George."
"I won't forget," I said, as I hurried away to join the others.
We were about half way to our dugouts when we passed a string of our men carrying about twenty mail bags. It was the second instalment of a lot of mail that had been landed the day before. We followed the sweating carriers up theroad to the quarter-master sergeant's dugout, and waited around humbly while that autocrat leisurely sorted out the mail, making remarks about each letter and waiting after each remark for the applause he felt it deserved. With maddening deliberation he scanned each address. "Corporal W.P. Costello." "He's at the base," some one answered. Corporal Costello's letter was put aside. "Private George Butler." Private Butler, on the edge of the crowd, pushed and elbowed his way toward the quarter-master sergeant. "Here you are; letter for Butler." The august Q.M.S. placed the letter beside his elbow. "Wait till the lot's sorted, and you'll get them all together." Private Butler, with ill-restrained impatience, resumed his place on the outside. After the letters, the parcels had to be sorted. Some enterprising person at the base had opened a lot of them. One fellow received a large box of cigarettes that he would have enjoyed smoking if the man at the base had not seen them first. Art Pratt drew a lot of mail, including a parcel, intact except for the contents. A diligent search in a box a foot square failed to locate anything more than a pair of socks, which Art presented to me with his compliments.Some papers, two months old, with some casualty lists of the First Newfoundland Regiment, had no address; the wrapper had gone before, somewhere between Newfoundland and the Dardanelles. Everybody claimed the papers. Various proofs were offered to show the ownership. One fellow knew by the way they were rolled up that they were from his family. Another, more original than the rest, was certain they were his, because he had written for papers of those dates, in order to see the announcement of the casualty of a friend. It was pointed out derisively that a letter written after that casualty had occurred would only then have reached Newfoundland; and to get a lot of papers in reply would be a physical impossibility. The claimant, in no wise abashed, suggested that lots be drawn. This was pooh-poohed. At last, to avoid discussion, the quarter-master sergeant took the papers himself, and put them in his greatcoat. "I'll distribute them after I've read them," he announced, and pulled the rubber sheet across the top of his dugout, as a delicate hint that the interview was finished. The crowd slowly melted away. I received one letter, and was sitting on the edge of my dugout reading itwhen one of our men passing along, yelled to me. "Hey," he said, "you come from the United States, don't you?"
"Yes," I said; "what do you want to know that for?"
"I've got something here," he said, stopping, "that comes from there too." He dived into his pocket, and produced a medley of articles. From these he selected a small paper-wrapped parcel.
"What's that?" I said.
"It's chewing gum," he answered; "real American chewing gum like the girls chew in the subway in New York." He unwrapped it, selected a piece, placed it in his mouth, and began chewing it with elaborated enjoyment. After a few minutes, he came nearer. "By golly," he said, with an exaggerated nasal drawl, "it's good gum, I'll soon begin to feel like a blooming Yank. I'm talking like a Yank already. Don't you wish you had some of this?"
"I'll make you a sporting offer," I answered. "I'll fight you for the rest of what you've got."
"No, you won't," he answered nasally; "it's made me feel exactly like a Yank; I'm too proud to fight."