the weeks marched by, one upon the heels of the next; and summer came down upon that cruel land. all day long the suns stared at the baked ground, and the flies multiplied beyond imagination. the enemy, sitting in the opposite trenches, was less terrible than this pitiless season. there was no savour in the food; the water ration could not quench the thirst; there was no new scene on which to feed the eye; there was no change of duty. we were no step nearer the end of affairs. and typhus and dysentery began to stalk abroad. a man had but to keep his mouth shut to prove his heroism.
between the attacks, the fellows sat or lay all day long in a sort of dog’s doze. frequently they had put up awnings of waterproof sheets; but the heat below was close and sickly. fellows were bare legged and stripped naked to the waist, with big patches of broken skin where the sun had blistered. and there were men burnt as brown as niggers. here and here were groups smoking, playing cards, and talking. i heard little said of the war, which had long since failed[255] to interest; but there were endless stories of race-horses and prize-fighters, and endless boasts about girls. and many liars told and retold their most brilliant lies. thus crawled by the fiery hours between rise and set of sun.
little billy blake meets me in the valley one mid-day. “have you heard about poor bill eaves?” he says. “what’s up?” say i. “dead,” he says. “damned sorry to hear that,” say i. “how did it happen?” “don’t know. they found him at the top of the valley. a shrapnel bullet had copped him in the top of the napper. i helped to take him down to the beach. ’struth, i was sweating at the end!” “bad luck for old bill,” say i. “blasted bad luck,” says he. “so long,” say i. “so long,” says he. and he goes on down the valley; and i climb up the hill to headquarters.
sooner or later you met all the celebrities poking round in the trenches. once general rivers came daily to the pimple, smoking a cigarette in a long thin holder. he had a favourite seat beside one of c battery guns. he was tall and thin, with a slight stoop as i remember, and an air of great refinement for a soldier. his hands were white, with long fingers, and nails so clean he might have walked off the collins street block. he sat and smoked silently, or walked up and down, pointing quietly with his hand. i don’t know how he treated his staff; but he seemed reasonable in his dealings.
another man with the face of a student was captain carrot, the war correspondent. i took[256] him about the trenches more than once. he was rather tall and rather thin, with a peaky face and glasses. he carried a camera in place of a rifle. in egypt he had written an article which had much offended the army; and many were the threats against him. but someone told me, in a charge down cape helles way, he had exposed himself to get a good view, and so he was forgiven. i don’t know how true is the story; but his popularity came back. he had little to say to me.
a third man frequently run to earth in the trenches was colonel saxon, v.c. he was a quiet man with a polished manner and a lisp. i heard he came from a crack english regiment. he left his staff behind him, and poked about on his own account, periscope under arm, and nothing more. he was never put out; he took all as a part of a day’s happenings, even the shortage of men and ammunition, and the brigadier’s wrath. “the general is awfully angry with me this morning,” he lisped to the colonel once when we ran into him. “i don’t know what i’ve done. i thought i had better go for a walk while he cools down. everything is quite dead to-day. i’m off now by quinn’s post. good-bye.”
and last—and very far from least—on some fine mornings round the corner strolled general birdwood, with his a.d.c., his periscope bearer, his mapcase bearer, and all the following of a mighty man of war. he was a popular general. as often as not his dress was a sun helmet, a plain khaki shirt, corduroy knickerbockers, and leggings[257] out after the style of an english squire or well-to-do yeoman. he carried a walking-stick in his hand. in his ways he was calm and easy going. his face showed good temper; but there was a chin at the bottom of it; and he looked the manner of man who would haul off and lay you out rather than put you under arrest. he spoke to all and sundry in the trenches, and bathed freely with the men in the sea. i stood beside him once when he had a squeak from a sniper. the bullet chipped down the earth on us. “now, where’s that rascal?” the general said, lifting up his head. “can’t any of you men get rid of him? we ought not to allow that.” one or other of his a.d.c.’s followed at his heels; and it might be brigadiers and lesser fry swelled the train, until one had to push against the trench wall to let the procession go by.
as summer wore on, and the fighting slackened away to daily skirmishes, there came much talk of reinforcements of men and guns, and a second attempt to carry the peninsula by storm. there was much talk, i say; but there was nothing more. the endless suns baked the earth to brick, and parched in men’s hearts the seeds of hope. the stretchers took their loads down to the beach; and it was a trench won here and a trench lost there, that was all. but one looked in vain for the transports steaming east.
the colonel kept to his habits all the time: we tramped up and down hill in the morning, and in the evening we had our battle. once he went away for a change, and came back with his old[258] energy. the sun peeled the skin from the end of his nose, and burnt his face a fierce red; his clothes began to wear, and he changed them for a private’s issue, so that a great deal of his glory departed. but his keenness stayed after his beauty had faded.
our targets changed little. it might be the enemy brought up a new battery or retired an old one: and steadily they strengthened their trenches and sapped towards us, as we on our own account sapped towards them. they made two fortresses of lonesome pine and jackson’s jolly; and ever at sight of those the colonel wagged his head and was full of misgiving. the jolly was named after him on account of his fears of it, and i believe he christened lonesome pine. from our side lonesome pine was no more than a sandbagged mound, with a small blasted sapling standing up at one point. the sapling was of no appearance; but in that bare country it made a landmark. it was strange the enemy allowed it to stay. the colonel pointed it out to a friend. “they’re doing an awful lot of work over there,” says he. “right in our mouth,” says he. “you see where i mean, that mound with the stick on it. it reminds you of that book—what’s it, the trail of the lonesome pine or something.” the other man looks hard at it and shakes his head, and then they fall to talking on another subject. says the other man, “you had a gun blown out yesterday, didn’t you?” “i think it can be fixed up,” says the colonel. “three men went with it.” and then he wags[259] his head with very great sadness. “you can get new guns; but you can’t send down to hell for new gunners.”
there would be days when the sun was less terrible, and sea and sky were calm with the wonderful blue calm of the mediterranean. then the open country between us and achi-baba became a forbidden eden. i forget how often the colonel and i have stared at it covered with the sleepy sunshine. “look at it, look at it,” he would mutter. “what a place for love and fishing!”
towards evening the d battalion officers congregated at the top of shrapnel valley by a curtained dug-out used as an office. they drifted there in ones and twos to smoke and yawn and stare at the sea. from here you looked down the length of shrapnel valley on camps clustering all the way. the signallers wagged to one another to keep in practice, and the reinforcements drilled on a flat open space at the lower end. a few shells might be travelling forwards and backwards, but frequently there was no more sound than the lazy crack of the snipers. overlooking this, the d battalion officers sat on up-ended packing cases and smoked. and with them often sat the colonel, and not far off i leaned against the bank, exchanging news with the telephonists in the office. “who would think this was war?” says the colonel, rubbing his nose with the end of the periscope. “half a dozen men sitting on boxes smoking and cursing the flies. and a beautiful blue sea to look at, and a beautiful[260] blue sky overhead. i always pictured myself galloping into action at the head of my brigade and flourishing a sword. why a sword i don’t know; but it was like a picture in a story book, and there were red bombs bursting round my head. and now i have to tramp up and down these dirty hills. i won’t come again. i shall send someone else instead. did you see what hamilton said in brigade orders—‘the incomparable twenty-ninth.’ that rather blows us out, doesn’t it? you can’t easily beat ‘incomparable.’ i suppose when a general hasn’t had his name in the paper for a few days, he starts writing ‘incomparable’ and ‘glorious’ and ‘magnificent’ before his troops; and then the people at home say, ‘those men have been through a hard time. that general must be a hell of a clever fellow.’”
truly one might look down this valley and not think of war. there were no armed men about, and many fellows wore flannel shirts open at the neck, and knickerbockers cut above the knee, and legs bare the rest of the way, so that little was to show of the original uniform. roads worn solid by passage of many feet led to the principal places, and the thick scrub that once had made this valley so difficult and so romantic had long gone as firewood for the cooks. i have seen mining camps with all the same appearance. but in time the secret was given away. it might be the enemy sent us half a dozen big shells at tea-time, or on the way up or down you passed a stretcher making the journey to the beach.[261] once i met a dead man lying on the side of the road. his lower body was naked and mottled, and the two legs stuck stiffly into the air with toes apart. i saw nobody attending to him, though he was gone when i came back. another day there came a great burst of clapping from the lower part of the valley, so that fellows left their work and turned about to know what went forward. presently news hurried along that the war was over, as the kaiser had murdered the crown prince; but later i heard the peaceful morning had tempted from his funk-hole a well-known dug-out king. hence the applause.
we met a little man one tea-time just below infantry headquarters. we came down from our evening battle, and he was striding up. “good day, sir,” he says, and salutes. “hallo, captain,” cries the colonel. “i thought you were down at helles?” “back again,” says the captain. “you had a hot time down there,” says the colonel. “pretty hot,” says the captain; “ha! ha! it was their machine guns that played the deuce. ha, ha, ha! you know, two or three men with machine guns can hold up a battalion. ha, ha! you know, before very long war will be one man in an armoured box, turning a treadle, ha ha! and setting fifty machine guns going. ha, ha! ha, ha, ha!” “well, so long, i’m off to tea,” says the colonel. and away we go.
the bitter monotony of every day put men at their wit’s end to escape the place, and fellows went sick unaccountably, and had strange bullet wounds in hand or foot. and this brings to mind[262] a man i met near clayton’s trenches. the enemy was giving us hurry-up with five- and six-inch shells, and the colonel led the way in solid style by back trenches towards e battery observing station. the shells arrived one or two per minute, and burst with a dull roar. some fell ahead of us and some behind us, and there was no reason one should not fall atop of us. therefore, as we had no call here, it was prudent to choose a healthier locality. at a traverse corner a parapet had come down, and a man stood trapped by the legs, pulling to and fro to get free. i fell on my knees to drag away the dirt. soon i had loosed him so that his efforts did the rest. he came free, panting and rather scared; but in no manner hurt it seemed. i jumped up again, and the colonel, who waited near by, set the pace anew. i had forgotten all about him by tea-time, when i met a procession going down to the beach. the centre figure was the hero of the afternoon, and a man supported him on either side. a third man carried his equipment, and a fourth his pack and blankets. “off for a holiday,” thought i. “well, here’s luck.”
the triumph, who had laboured long and hard in our cause, was torpedoed in sight of the army. we came out of the trenches upon a group of officers and men staring to sea with glasses to their eyes. they were tongue-tied, except for one or two murmurs of regret. not far off gaba tepeh lay the battleship listing to one side: to her aid raced destroyers from all over the bay. they closed about her and began the work of[263] rescue; and gaba tepeh seized the opportunity of a lifetime, and opened fiercely with shrapnel. the destroyers blazed back, the flashes winked like morse lights; and a brisk engagement followed. the work of rescue went forward, and presently the triumph heeled over with increasing speed, and next with a plunge she disappeared—disappeared but for her red keel, which floated for some while. the destroyers remained to pick up survivors, and next they dispersed. gaba tepeh shut her mouth. and we men who watched from the hilltop put away our glasses and looked at one another. there was a great muttering and shaking of heads. “damned bad. damned bad!” this was the first warning submarines had come so far abroad, and the navy took fright and steamed away. in time remained only destroyers and such light craft. there followed submarine scares, and hunts were organised, when aeroplanes patrolled the bay and destroyers followed. the hunt might continue all day, but i never heard of a capture.
the aeroplanes of both armies grew bold, so that our men sailed over the enemy trenches to observe and bomb, and the enemy treated us to like programme, usually at tea-time. yards, the adjutant, went up sometimes, and the colonel would crane his neck and watch him. says the colonel one day: “i shall not try and fly until i become an angel. i’m a nervous little fellow.” the enemy planes were german taubes, which circled overhead in fashion most trying to those below. when the bomb came free, it sounded[264] as if it fell in a succession of dives, and gave no hint of its target. then came the final rush, and a moment of fierce suspense; and then the roar of the bursting bomb. and then may be went abroad the cry for stretcher-bearers.
with such diversions as i tell of, the summer wore on.
