Tell England Part 59

"Message to retire at once, sir," reported my sergeant-major.

Look! Doe had something in his hand. He hurled it. A distant thud and a small report merged at once into a great explosion, which reverberated about the Bluff. Doe laughed shrilly. He fell. But it could only have been the shock which knocked him over, for he was on his feet again, and staggering home.

"Gawd!" screamed the sergeant-major. "He's bombed the gun and exploded the sh.e.l.l-dump. Finish whizz-bang!" And he bellowed with triumphant laughter.

"I knew he would," cried I. "I knew he would. This way, Doe!"

He was going blindly to his right.

"Message from C.O. to retire at once, sir."

"This way, Doe!" I roared at him, laughing, for I thought he was well and unhurt.

But no. He pitched, rolled over, and lay still.

I gasped. What was I to do? Ordered to retire, I wanted to jump out and fetch him in. In those few seconds of indecision, I saw a figure crash forward, pick up Doe's body, and run back.

"The padre! The padre!" exclaimed the sergeant-major.

"No? Was it?"

"Gawd, yes! The gor-blimey parson!"

"Pa.s.s the word to retire," I commanded. "Hang it! We seem to have done the job we set out to do."

--8

Covered with blood and dust, my jacket torn, I came half an hour later upon Monty, where he was sitting wearily upon a mound. I had but one question to ask him.

"Is he dead?"

"No. Hit in the shoulder the first time. Then, after he got up and bombed the gun, hit four times in the waist."

"Will he die?"

"Of course."

I walked away, as a man does from one who has cruelly hurt him.

"O Christ!" I said, just blasphemously, for in that moment of tearless agony all my moral values collapsed. "O Christ! d.a.m.n beauty! d.a.m.n everything!" Then there came a disorder of the mind, in which I could only repeat to myself: "The Germans are coming, oh dear, oh dear. The Germans are coming, oh dear, oh dear. The Germans--Oh, drop it, for G.o.d's sake, drop it!"

A night and a morning pa.s.sed: and the next afternoon I was sitting on the Bluff, glumly watching a destroyer flash and smoke, as she hurled sh.e.l.ls over my head to Achi Baba. An officer came up, and with grim meaning handed me the typed copy of an official telegram.

"Here's the key to yesterday's riddle," he explained.

I took it and read: "Suvla and Anzac successfully evacuated. No casualties."

The officer waited till I had finished, and then said:

"Well, what's our position on h.e.l.les now? A bit d.i.c.key, eh?"

Scarcely interested, I looked along the coast of the Peninsula and saw two great conflagrations, the smoke ascending in pillars to the sky, at Suvla and Anzac, where the retiring army had fired the remaining stores.

CHAPTER XV

TRANSIT

--1

Then Monty approached me, as I tossed stones down the slope on to the beach.

"I've seen him," he said. "He's in No. 17 Stationary Hospital, the 'White City.' Are you coming?"

"Of course," replied I uncivilly. Did he think _he_ would visit Doe and _I_ wouldn't--I who had known him ten years? The man was presuming on his six-months' acquaintance with my friend.

"Well, come down to the dump, and we'll find you a horse."

"How is he?" asked I, not choosing to be told what to do.

"Bad. Come along. There's no time to lose."

"All right--I'm coming, aren't I? I don't need to be ordered to go."

In silence we went down Gurkha Mule Trench into Gully Ravine, where the horse lines were.

"Saddle up Charlie," said Monty to his groom, "and get the Major's chestnut for Captain Ray."

The groom brought the horses, and, as he tightened up the girth on Monty's dark bay Arab, asked me:

"Are you going to see Mr. Doe, sir?"

I turned away without answering. I hadn't spoken to him, and there was no occasion for him to speak to me.

"Yes, we are," said Monty promptly.

"Sad about such a nice young gentleman. He's packing up, they say."

"The d.a.m.ned alarmist!" thought I. "He relishes the grim news."

But I knew in my heart that I was only grudging him his right to be sorry for Doe. Who was _he_ to grieve? Three months before he had not heard of us. On all the Peninsula there was only one just claim to the right of grieving: and that was mine.

Monty mounted. Seizing the reins carelessly, I put my foot in the chestnut's stirrup. As I rose, the bit pulled on the mare's mouth and she wheeled and reared, shaking me awkwardly to the ground.