Tell England Part 54

AN ATMOSPHERE OF SHOCKS AND SUDDEN DEATH

--1

One evening, three days later, I was sitting, inconceivably bored, in my new dug-out on the notorious Fusilier Bluff. This dug-out was a recess, hewn in damp, crumbling soil, with a frontage built of sand-bags. Its size was that of an anchorite's cell, and any abnormal movement or extra loud noise within it brought the stones and earth in showers down the walls. Indeed, the walls of my new home so far resembled the walls of Jericho that it only required a shout to bring them down upon the floor. In the sand-bag front were two apertures, called the door and the window, which overlooked the aegean Sea. For this reason the name "Seaview" had been painted above the door in lively moments by the preceding tenant, whose grave was visible lower down the Bluff. I watched the night gathering on the sea, while over my home the whizz-bang gun--that evil genius of the place, and the murderer of Jimmy Doon--spat its high-velocity sh.e.l.ls.

I was alone. The C.O. of the East Ches.h.i.+res, who did not seem to have grasped that Doe and I were friends, had attached me to D Company, which was in reserve on the slopes of Fusilier Bluff, and Doe to B Company, which was holding the fire-trenches. The man was a fool, of course, but what could a subaltern say to a colonel? And Monty, too, had gone to live by himself. Finding that his new parish was extensive and scattered, he had abandoned Fusilier Bluff, and, choosing the most central spot, had built himself a sand-bag hovel somewhere in the Eski Line. Struth! Everything was the limit.

I went to bed. And it was after I was deeply submerged in dreams that I awoke with a start, for someone seemed to be telling me to get up and dress, as there was an alarm afloat. A voice was saying: "All the troops have been ordered to stand to, sir. There's an attack expected. The Adjutant sent me to call you."

"Who are you?"

"Adjutant's orderly, 10th East Ches.h.i.+res, sir."

"Thanks." Hurriedly dressing, I went out and found that the Bluff, now white in the moonlight, was lined with men in full equipment.

Orders were being shouted, and telephones were buzzing.

"D Company, fall in."

"See that there are two men to every machine-gun at once."

D Company, with myself attached to it, left the Bluff and filed through a communication trench to the firing line. Here every man was a silent sentry, his bayonet s.h.i.+ning in the moonlight. Doe, whose eyes were bright with excitement, was walking hastily up and down the company front, looking over the parapet, giving orders in a fine whisper, and pretending in a variety of ways that he was uncommonly efficient at this sort of surprise attack. I touched his sleeve and asked:

"What's it all about?"

"Heaven knows! A sergeant spotted some trees waving in front of the moon, thought they were Turks, and gave the alarm. He saw trees as men walking. Sorry. Can't stay."

I wandered along the trench, seeing the men of my platoon properly disposed so as to stiffen the resistance of B Company. Then I returned for the latest news of the crisis to where Doe was conversing with an unknown officer. They were recalling how they had once travelled in the train together from Paddington to Falmouth, and never seen each other again till this moment. Doe was praising the lovely country through which the Great Western Railway pa.s.sed--Somerset, and the White Horse Vale, and the beautiful stretch of water at Dawlish; or the red cliffs of Devon, where the train ran along the coast. Some of the red earth of Gallipoli, he said, reminded him of Devon's red loam.

Evidently the Turkish attack was not going to materialise. I stood upon the firing-step and looked over the parapet. In the moonlight I could see the black sand-bags of the Turks' front line, and the desolate waste of No Man's Land.... Then my hand sprang to the b.u.t.t of my revolver. Something _had_ moved in No Man's Land. "Look out!"

I said. "They're coming!" just as from behind a bit of rising ground a figure rose on to its hands and knees. I pointed my revolver at it, and pulled the trigger. The figure collapsed, and rolled forwards till its progress was arrested by a rocky projection, over which it finally lay, doubled up like a bolster. As it fell my heart gave a sickening leap, either of excitement or of fright.

At once the whole of the company front opened rapid fire. A few things seemed to fall about in No Man's Land, and I saw some figures pa.s.s across the moon as they scurried back to their trenches.

"Cease fire!" ordered the O.C. firing line. "Merely a reconnaissance raid. Silly trouts, these Turks."

And Doe came up to me, saying almost enviously:

"You've killed your man, Rupert. Congratulations."

Without answering I stood on the firing-step again, and looked at the limp form of my victim. It was dead beyond question, shapeless and horrible.

I took my platoon back to the Bluff, dismissed it, and going up to my dug-out door, stood there for a moment thinking. Since leaving it an hour ago I had killed a man.

"You mustn't rest till you've slaughtered a Turk," our new C.O. had said, for he was an apostle of the offensive spirit. "Then, if they kill you, you'll at least have taken a life for a life. And any more that you kill before they finish you off will be clear gain for King George."

Not wis.h.i.+ng to go to bed yet, I went back to the firing line, and looked over our sand-bags once more. The body was still there, shapeless and horrible, and as limp as a half-empty sack of coals.

--2

Some of the officers of B and D Companies were drinking together the following day in a hole on the Bluff, when the Brigade Bombing Officer burst in among us, and seized a mug.

"Thanks. I will," he said. "Just a spot of whisky. Well, here's to you. Cheerioh!"

He drank half the mug, and addressed me.

"Ray, you have found favour in the sight of the General. He wants you for his A.D.C., and won't be happy till he gets you. He thinks you a pretty and a proper child and fairly clean. _What abaht it?_"

"Good Lord," said I. "I don't know what an A.D.C. is! What do I do?"

"Oh, see that the old gentleman is fed. And cut out the saucy girls from 'La Vie Parisienne,' and decorate the mess walls with them.

And--and all that sort of thing."

"Go on, Ray," urged Doe. "Of course you'll be it. Put him down for the job. I wish the old general had fallen in love with _me_.'

"I don't mind trying it," I said. "Anything for a change."

"Right," replied the Bombing Officer. "Ray, having been four days with a company of the East Ches.h.i.+res, feels in need of a change. He desires to better himself. Now for the next point. I'm chucking this Bombing Officer stunt. It's too dangerous. Both my predecessors were killed, and yesterday the Turk threw a bomb at _me_. Now, is there anybody tired of his life and laden with his sin? Anyone want to commit suicide? Anyone feel a call? Anyone want to do the b.l.o.o.d.y hero, and be Brigade Bombing Officer?"

Doe blushed at once.

"I'll have a shot at it.... Anything for a change," he added apologetically.

"That's the spirit that made England great!" said the Bombing Officer. "I do like keenness. Splendid! Ray goes to the softest job in the Army, and Doe, stout fellow, to the d.a.m.nedst. Thanks: just another little spot. Cheerioh!"

In name my new character was that of Brigade Ammunition Officer, but it amounted, as the Bombing Officer had said, to being A.D.C. to the Brigadier. I was entirely miserable in it. Painfully shy of the old general and his staff-officers, I never spoke at meals in the solemn Headquarters Mess unless I had carefully rehea.r.s.ed before what I was going to say. And, when I said it, I saw how foolish it sounded.

And Major Hardy--who, you will remember, was our Brigade Major--used to be unnecessarily funny about my youth, fixing me with his monocle over the evening dinner-table and asking me if I were allowed to sit up to dinner at home. I imagine he thought he was humorous.

Grand old Major Hardy! I must not speak lightly of him here. It is only because I have now to finish his story that I have mentioned my regrettable declension on to the staff.

Major Hardy had not been ten days on the Peninsula before he made his reputation. His monocle, his "what," and his rich maledictions were admired and imitated all along the Brigade front. From Fusilier Bluff to Stanley Street it was agreed that Major Foolhardy was a Sahib. Twice a day every bay in the trench system was cursed by him.

"G.o.d! give me ten Turks and a dog, and I'd capture the whole of this sector any hour of the day or night," and his head was over the parapet in broad daylight, examining the Turkish peepholes. It was a common saying that he would be hit one fine morning.

The morning came. The Signal Officer and I were sitting in the Headquarters Mess, sipping an eleven o'clock cherry brandy, and wondering why the General and the Brigade Major had not returned from their tour of the trenches. Headquarters were situated in Gully Ravine, that prince among ravines on the Peninsula. From my place I could see the gully floor, which was the dry bed of a water-course, winding away between high walls of perpendicular cliffs or steep, scrub-covered slopes, as it pursued its journey, like some colossal trench, towards the firing line. Down the great cleft, while I looked, a horseman came riding rapidly. He was an officer, with a slight open wound in his chin, and he rode up to our door and said: "Hardy's. .h.i.t. A hole in the face."

He was followed by the General, whose clothes and hands were splashed with Major Hardy's blood. The General told us what had happened. He had been talking to Hardy and some others on Fusilier Bluff, when the infamous whizz-bang gun--that messenger of Satan sent to buffet us--shot a sh.e.l.l whose splinters took the Major in the face and lungs. He dropped, saying "Dammit, I'm hit, _what_,"

and was now being taken in a dying condition down Gully Ravine to the Field Ambulance.

It surprised me what an everyday affair this tragedy seemed. There were expressions of sorrow, but no hush of calamity. Jests were made at lunch, and all ate as heartily as usual. "Well, he lasted ten days," said the Brigadier, "which is more than a good many have done."

Personally, I found myself repeating, in my wool-gathering way, the word "Two." Already two out of the five who sat down to lunch together that first day on board the _Rangoon_ had been killed--and, for that matter, by the same gun. "Two." "The knitting women counted _two_." Ah! that was what I was thinking of. The knitting women had knitted two off the strength of that little company. Monty, Doe, and myself were left. I wondered which of those would have fallen when the knitting women should count "Three."

It was not difficult to prophesy. Monty, though he was as venturesome as any combatant, could never quite share the dangers of the men who lived in the trenches. His dug-out, back in the Eski Line, was safe from everything but a howitzer sh.e.l.l. And I--ye G.o.ds!

I was comparatively secure, loafing about in the softest job in the Army. Everything pointed to Doe as Number Three.

I thought of our unbroken partners.h.i.+p, and decided--as much in rash defiance as in loyalty to my friend--that I would ask to be relieved of my position as Ammunition Officer and allowed to return to my battalion. The permission was granted. And oh! I cannot explain it, but it was good to be back with my company after the enervating experience of staff-life. And, better still, now that Doe was no longer a platoon commander but Brigade Bombing Officer, he could live where he liked, and had arranged to share my dug-out--that delectable villa on Fusilier Bluff known as "Seaview." Really, under these conditions, the Peninsula, we felt, would be quite "swish."