Tell England: A Study in a Generation

"Oh, you've felt like that, have you?" said I. "So've I. Your poem exactly expresses my feeling, so it must be absolutely IT."

"Rupert, you ripping old liar!" answered Doe, aglow with pleasure.

"No, I mean it; honestly I do."

"Well, anyhow," said Doe, getting up and brushing thistles off his uniform, "don't you think that now, as 'this long day's closing,' it's time we two 'weary English sons go west'ring home'?"

I assured him that this was not only vulgar but also void of wit; and he sulked, while we turned our faces to the west and retraced our former path. Once again the summits of the hills, as we stepped upon them, showed us the lofty grandeur of the Ægean world. We halted to examine the wonderful sight that loomed in the sky-spaces to the north of Lemnos. This was the huge brows, fronting the clouds, of the Island of Samothrace. To me they appeared as one long precipice, from whose top frivolous people (such as Edgar Doe) could tickle the stars.

"St. Paul left Troas," ventured I, "and came with a straight course to Samothrace," a little blossom of news which angered Doe, because he had not thought of it first. So, after deliberate brain-racking, he went one better with the information:

"The great Greek god, Poseidon, sat on Samothrace, and watched the Siege of Troy. It looks like the throne of a god, doesn't it? I wonder if the old boy's sitting there now, watching the fight for the Dardanelles."

As he spoke the sun was falling behind the peaks of Lemnos and nearing the Greek mainland, which revealed itself, through the evening light, in the splendid conical point of Mount Athos. And, at our feet, the loose stones and broken rocks had assumed a pink tint on their facets that looked towards the setting sun. The browsing sheep, too, had enriched their wool with colours, borrowed from the sunset. Everywhere hung the impression that a day was done; over yonder a lonely Greek, side-saddle on his mule, was wending home.

"The sun's going west to Falmouth," said Doe, inflamed by my recent appreciation of his poem. "It'll be there in two hours. Wouldn't I like to hang on to one of its beams and go with it!"

"Don't stand there talking such gaff," I said, "but get a move on, if you want to be back in Mudros before nightfall."

We pursued the homeward journey, and suddenly surprised ourselves by emerging above a hill-top and looking down over a mile of undulating country upon the long silver sheet of water that was Mudros Harbour. To us, so high up, its vast shipping—even including the giant Olympic—seemed a collection of toy steamers. And all around the harbour were the white specks of toy tents.

"Our mighty campaign looks, I s'pose, even smaller and more toy-like to Poseidon, sitting on Samothrace," mused Doe. "What insects we are! 'As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.'"

Just at that moment "Retreat" was blown in the camps below. It was with the bugles as with the bells of a great city. One took the lead in proclaiming its message; then another, and yet another joined in, till at last all corroborated the news. And the trumpets and rifles of the French told the same story.

We hurried on, but within a few minutes darkness dropped a curtain over all that we had seen from the hills.

§2

We got home in time to be late for dinner, and as we sheepishly entered the mess the O.C. Rest Camp cried:

"Oh, here you are! Where have you been? Frantic wires have been buzzing all the afternoon for you—priority messages pouring in. You're to proceed forthwith to the Peninsula. Headquarters had forgotten all about you, so they are thoroughly angry with you."

We sat down and began the soup at once, intending to have dinner, even if it involved the loss of the campaign. Monty explained across the table that he was included in this urgent summons.

"Yes, rather," endorsed the O.C., who was very full of the news, "all East Cheshire Details. Apparently the East Cheshires are holding an awkward position on a place called Fusilier Bluff, and being killed like stink by a well-placed whizz-bang gun. They've got about fifty men and half an officer left per company. They're screaming for reinforcements. Salt and pepper, please. Thanks."

"Where is this Fusilier Bluff, sir?" asked I. "At Suvla or Helles?"

"Haven't the foggiest!" answered the O.C. "The Cheshires always used to be at Helles, but I daresay they were moved to Suvla for the new landing there, along with the 29th Division. Fusilier Bluff has only just become notorious. Poor young Doon got his ticket there—same gun."

"We've a score to settle with that gun, Rupert," said Doe.

Next day we dressed for our part on the Peninsula. Doe smiled grimly as he swung round his neck the cord that dangled two identity discs on his breast. "Now there's some point in these things," he said. We filled all the chambers of our revolvers and fixed the weapons on to our belts, wondering what killing men would feel like, and how soon it would begin. "It'll be curious," Doe suggested, "going through life knowing that you killed a man while you were still nineteen. Perhaps in Valhalla we'll be introduced to the men we've killed. Jove! I'll write a poem about that."

A fatigue party of Turkish prisoners carried our kit down to the "Egyptian Pier," whence we were ferried to the Headquarters Ship Aragon. Once aboard, Monty took the lead, seeking out the cabin of the Military Landing Officer and presenting to him our orders. He was an attractive little person, this M.L.O., and, having glanced over our papers, said: "East Cheshires? Oh, yes. And where are they? Are they at Suvla or Helles?"

Monty said that he hadn't the slightest idea, but imagined it was the business of Headquarters to have some notion of a division's whereabouts.

"East Cheshire Division? Let me see," muttered the M.L.O., chewing his pencil.

We let him see, with the satisfactory result that he brightened up and said:

"Ah, yes. They're at Suvla, I think."

"How nice!" commented Monty. It seemed a suitable remark.

"Well, anyhow," proceeded the M.L.O., in the relieved manner of one who has chosen which of two doubtful courses to adopt, and is happy in his choice, "there's a boat going to Suvla to-night. The Redbreast, I think. I'll make you out a passage for the Redbreast."

He did so, and handed the chit to Monty, who replied:

"Thanks. But supposing the Cheshires are not at Suvla?"

"Why, then," explained the M.L.O., smiling at having an indubitable answer ready, "they'll be at Helles."

And he beamed agreeably.

Just then there entered the cabin a middle-aged major with a monocle, none other than our old friend, Major Hardy of the Rangoon. He fixed us with his monocle and said: "Well, I'm damned! Young Ray! Young Doe! Young Padre!" Immediately there followed a fine scene of reunion, in which Monty explained our delay at Mudros; Major Hardy told us that he had been appointed Brigade Major to our own brigade, his predecessor having been killed on Fusilier Bluff by the whizz-bang gun; and the M.L.O. shone over all like a benignant angel.

"Ah! Another for the East Cheshires," said he. "Can I have your name, Major?"

"Hardy," came the answer.

"'Hardy'—let me see," and the M.L.O. ran his finger down a big Nominal Roll. "Harris, Harrison, Hartop, Hastings—no 'Hardy' here, Major. Are you sure it's not Hartop?"

The owner of the name declared that he was bloody sure.

"Well, I may be wrong," acknowledged the M.L.O. "Why, yes—here we are, 'Hardy.' Well, you left yesterday, and are with your unit." And he put the Nominal Roll away, as much as to say: "The matter's settled, so, as you're there already, you won't need a passage."

"I beg your pardon, damn you," corrected the Major. "I'm in your filthy office, seeking a chit to get to the East Cheshires."

"I don't see how that can be," grumbled the M.L.O., so far as such a delightful person was capable of grumbling. "But, of course, there may be a mistake somewhere."

"Well, perhaps you'll be good enough," suggested Major Hardy, "to give me a chit to proceed to the East Cheshires to look into the matter."

"Oh, certainly," agreed the M.L.O., with that prepossessing smile which came to his lips when he had discovered the solution of a problem. "There are two boats going to the Peninsula to-night, one to Suvla and the other to Helles. The Redbreast is the one that's going to Suvla, I fancy, and the Ermine to Helles. At any rate, try the Redbreast, Major."

"Yes," interrupted the Major, "but supposing the Redbreast doesn't go to Suvla—what?"

"Why, then," replied the M.L.O., promptly and brightly, "it'll go to Helles."

This enlightened remark produced such a torrent of oaths from Major Hardy as was only stemmed by the M.L.O.'s assurance that there was no real doubt about the Redbreast's going to Suvla. We left the cabin to the sound of a long "Ha-ha-ha!" from its engaging occupant, who had been tickled, you see, by the Major's outburst.

We were ferried on a steam-tug to the Redbreast, and climbed aboard. She seemed a funny little smack after the huge Rangoon. We could scarcely elbow our way along, so packed was she with drafts of men belonging to the Lovat Scouts, the Fife and Forfarshire Yeomanry, and the Essex Regiment.

I was standing among the crowd on her deck, when there was a sound of a rolling chain and a slight rocking of the boat, which provoked an indelicate man near me to take off his helmet and pretend to be sick in it. There was a rumbling of the engines as their wheels began to revolve, and a throbbing of the Redbreast's heart as though she found difficulty in getting under way with such a load. Then a sudden and alarming snort from her siren drew cries of "Hooter's gone!" "Down tools, lads!" "Ta-ta, Mudros!" "All aboard for Dixie!" "Hurry up, hurry up, get upon the deck, Find the nearest girl, and put your arms around her neck, For the last boat's leaving for home."

With cheering from the anchored ships that we passed; with a band playing somewhere "The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond"; with greeting and banter from the Ermine, which was steaming out with us on her voyage to Helles; and with all these things under an overcast sky that broke frequently into rain, we left Lemnos, the harbour and the hills, going out through a dulled sunset.

"Put trees on those hills," said Doe, approaching me, "and in this bad light you could imagine you were going out of the estuary of the Fal to the open sea."

"Do you wish you were?" asked I, looking at the hills we had climbed the day before.

"No. I like the excitement of this. It's the best moment in the war I've had. This is life!"

From the sunset and sounds of the harbour we steamed into the stillness and dark of the open seas. No lights were allowed on the decks, for the enemy knew all about these nightly trips to Turkey. Singing and shouting were suppressed, and we heard nothing but the noise of the engines, the splatter of the agitated water as it struck our hull, and the sound, getting fainter and fainter, of the Ermine ploughing to Helles.

"The stage is in darkness," whispered Doe in his fanciful way. "It's the changing of the acts."

The rain began to fall in torrents, and the sky periodically was lit by flashes of an electric storm. And then we suddenly became conscious of new flashes playing among those of the lightning.

"The guns?" I murmured.

"Sure thing," answered Doe.

A sharp shiver of delight ran through both our bodies. Our eyes at last were watching war. To think of it! We were off the world-famous Peninsula!

And it was pitch-darkness, with flashing lights everywhere! From Navy and Army both, searchlights swept the sea and sky, shut themselves off, and opened anew. Signals in Morse sparkled with their dots and dashes. From the distant trenches star-shells rose in the air, and seemed to hang suspended for a space, while we caught the rapid tick-tick of far-away rifle fire.

"It's a blinkin' firework show," said a Tommy's voice; and Doe announced in my ear: "Rupert, I'm inspired! I've an idea for a poem. Our lives are a pantomime, and the Genius of the Peninsula is the Demon King; and here we have the flashes and thunder that always illumine the horrors of his cave.... Jumping Jupiter! What's that?"

A tremendous report had gone off near us; a brilliant light had shown up the lines of a cruiser; a shell had shrieked past us and whistled away to explode among the Turks; and a loud, and swelling murmur of amazement and admiration, rising from the Redbreast, had burst into a thousand laughs.

"Fate laughs at my poem," grumbled Doe.

The rain raced down: and, at about ten o'clock, we learned that, for the first time in the history of the Redbreast, it would be too rough for anyone to land. We must therefore spend the night aboard, and take the risk of disembarking under the enemy's guns in the morning. So, wooing sleep, we huddled into the chairs of the saloon, and wished for the day. We slept through troubled dreams, and woke to a gathering calm on the sea. As our eager eyes swept the view by daylight, we found that we were in a semicircular and unsheltered bay, whose choppy water harboured two warships that were desultorily firing. Near us a derelict trawler lay half submerged.

The truth broke upon us: we were floating at anchor in Suvla Bay.

CHAPTER X

SUVLA AND HELLES AT LAST

§1

The morning sun was up as we lay in Suvla Bay. It lit the famous battlefield, so that we saw in a shining picture the hills, up which the invading Britons had rushed to win the steps of Sari Bair. From over Asia it had risen and, doubtless, beyond the unwon ridges that blocked our view, the Straits of the Narrows were glistening like a silver ribbon in its light. We would have been dull fools if we had gazed otherwise than spellbound at this sunlit landscape, where the blood of lost battles was scarcely dry upon the ground.

What surprised us most was the invisibility of the warring armies. On the beaches, certainly, there were tents and stores and men moving. But the rolling countryside beyond seemed bleak and deserted. Only occasionally a high-explosive shell threw up a spout of brown earth, or a burst of shrapnel sent a puff of white smoke to float like a Cupid's cloud along the sky. And yet two armies were hidden here, with their rifles, machine-guns, and artillery pointed at each other.

Yes, and yonder invisible Turk had behind him a sun whose rays were pouring down upon our guilty troopship. Any moment we might expect to hear a shell, addressed to us, come whistling down the sun-shaft. We had reached at last the shell-swept zone. From now onwards there could be no certainty that we would not be alive one moment and dead the next. We shivered pleasantly.

It was not till noon that a lighter came alongside, and, having taken us all aboard, proceeded to make for the beach. All the while the Turk left us unmolested, causing us to wonder whether he were short of ammunition, or just rudely indifferent to our coming to Suvla or our staying away. Two shells or three, we thought, would have had their courteous aspect. But without greeting of any kind from the enemy our lighter rose on the last wave and bumped against the jetty. We gathered our equipment, and with egotistical thrills stepped upon the Gallipoli Peninsula. For the first time we stood in Turkey. We felt in our breasts the pride of the invader.

Monty, as spokesman of our party, led us into the office of the M.L.O., and assured the gentleman that we had come to Suvla to find the East Cheshires.

"The Cheshires aren't at Suvla," said the M.L.O., with the acerbity of an overworked staff-officer. "They never were, and never will be at Suvla."

"Oh," answered Monty brightly, seeing a vision of his friend, the M.L.O. of the Aragon, "then they'll be at Helles."

The Suvla M.L.O. blasted Monty with a look, and said: "That's the remark of a fool."

"Exactly," agreed Monty; "it was the remark of an M.L.O."

And he explained how, all along, he had conjectured that the pleasant creature on the Aragon had blundered in sending us to Suvla.

"Well, why the devil did you come?" inquired the M.L.O.

"Because," answered Monty, imperturbably, "I wanted to see the world, and Suvla in particular; and I might not have had another opportunity of visiting your delightful bay."

"You mean to say," said the M.L.O., with his eyes on the badges of the Army Chaplains' Department, "that you deliberately traded on a mistake in order to get a holiday trip to Suvla? And still—ha—still you expect us to go to church."

If he was anxious to discuss the question why men didn't go to church, nobody was more ready to meet him than Monty, who therewith sat down upon a box, so as comfortably to do justice to a really interesting topic, I admit I felt a sudden horror lest he should hold forth on the Mass and Confession. I went quite cold with apprehension. It's dreadful the embarrassment you elders cause us young people lest you say something completely out of place and impossible. In very fact, youth is the age of embarrassing adults.

What Monty would have said remains a mystery, for at this moment Major Hardy, who had come in our wake, exploded into the discussion.

"Be damned to you, sir!" he said to the M.L.O., wiping his eyeglass furiously. "Be damned to you—what! I see nothing funny in being sent to the wrong front by a simpering, defective idiot on the Aragon. Kindly give me a chit to proceed to Helles to-morrow by some bloody trawler, or something."

"With the utmost pleasure," said the M.L.O.; "Suvla can well be rid of you. You can go to Helles, or Hell, by the 6 A.M. boat to-morrow."

Bless these M.L.O.'s! Were we not indebted to them? The mistake of one conceded us a visit to Suvla Bay, and the discourteous dismissal of another ensured that we should bear down upon Cape Helles, not, as normally, in a dead darkness, but in the bright light of an October morning. I began to understand Monty's unscrupulous opportunism. It would be a wonderful trip, skirting by daylight the coastline of the Peninsula, till we rounded the point and looked upon the Helles Beaches, the sacred site of the first and most marvellous battle of the Dardanelles campaign. It was a pilgrimage to a shrine that stretched before us on the morrow. The pilgrim's route was a path in the blue Ægean from Suvla Bay to Helles Point; and the shrine was the immortal battleground. Enough; let us make the most of Suvla this day, for to-morrow we should see Helles.

Leaving the office, we sought out some shelter for the night. We found a line of deserted dug-outs—little cells cut in the sloping hillside, and scantily roofed by waterproof sheets. It was now late in the afternoon, and no sooner had we thrown down our kit into these grave-like chambers than the Turk wiped his mouth after his tea and opened his Evening Hate. There was the distant boom of a shell. Before we could realise what the sound was, and say "Hallo! they've begun," the missile had exploded among the stores on the beach. That was my baptism of fire. Without the least hesitation I copied Major Hardy and Monty, and went flat on my face behind some brushwood. Only Doe, too proud to take cover, remained standing, and then blushed self-consciously lest he had appeared to be posing.

"Does this go on for long?" asked Monty of a man who, being near us, had hurled himself prone across my back.

"Don't know, sir," answered he, cheerily, as he picked himself up. "Yesterday they sent down seventy shells, and killed six men and four mules.... Oh! there it is again."

And our informant took up a position on his stomach, while a second shell shrieked into the stores.

"They've the range all right," said Monty, as we all got up again.

"Yes, sir. But they can't have many shells left after yesterday's effort. They're so starvation short that we reckon last night they had a surprise camel-load arrive. But ain't it plain, sir, that if the Germans could get through to the Turk with ammunition, they could send down ten thousand shells in a day and blow us into the sea? That's why the 'Uns are thundering along through Servia to Turkey now, sir. They're coming all right.... Oh! there it is again."

Once more the soldier stretched his length on the ground, and a third shell tore towards us.

"As I was saying, sir," continued our new friend, now on his hind legs again, and brushing dust from his clothes. "This Suvla army, unless it can get to the top of Sari Bair, is faced with destruction, and they tell me the Helles army is just the same, unless it can get to the top of Achi Baba. It never will now, sir. And how can we quit without being seen from those hills? The 'Uns know they've got us trapped. That's why they're coming through Servia, ammunition and all. They'll be on us soon."

"But we'll win," suggested Monty, tentatively.

"O Lord, yes, sir. But not here. Things are going to be interesting here.... God knows how it'll all end.... Oh! there it is again."

The gun boomed, and the speaker kissed the dust.

I had just decided that it was best to remain recumbent, and Doe, too, had sat down rather sheepishly, when the Turk either ran out of ammunition or felt that he had done all that formality required of him, and returned to his hookah in peace.

Knowing that night would fall quickly, we hastened to make ourselves some supper. Its last mouthfuls we finished in darkness; and, having nothing further to do, determined to go to bed in our little dug-outs on the hillside. Standing in the blue darkness outside these narrow dwelling-places, like lepers among our tombs, we wished each other good-night and a good sleep. Then we crawled into our graves. Wrapping my knees in my British warm, I disposed myself to rest.

But I could not sleep. My mind was too active with thinking that I was lying in the historic ground, over which the battle had rolled. As a light in a room keeps a would-be sleeper awake, so the bright glow of my thoughts kept my brain from rest. Here was I on that amazing Peninsula, towards which I had looked in wonder from the cliffs of Mudros. Around me, and in the earth as I was, the dead men, more successful than I, were sleeping dreamlessly. On higher slopes the tired army held the fire-trenches, with its faces and rifles still turned bravely landward and upward. Above them the Turks hung to the extremities of their territory with the same tenacity that we should show in defending Kent or Cornwall. Behind the Turk ran the silver Narrows, the splendid trophy of the present tourney. And, as I had been reminded that afternoon, far away the German armies were battling through the corridors of Servia that they might come and destroy the invaders of Suvla and Helles.

To increase my wakefulness the rapid fire of rifle and machine-gun, which had been almost unheard during the day-time, began with the fall of darkness, and continued sporadic through the night. Like the chirp of a great cricket, it was doubly insistent in the silent hours. The artillery, too, was more restless than it had been in the light of day. Seemingly all were nervous of the dark.

It is ever difficult to sleep in a strange bed. I found myself opening my eyes and looking up at my oil-sheet roof. So scanty was it that it left apertures, through which I could see the stars shining in a perfect sky. I shut my eyes and gave rein to my thoughts, gradually elaborating the wild dream of a thinker who was unaware that he had at last dropped off to sleep. It seemed to me that the whole army at Suvla was that night storming the hills that intervened between us and the silver Narrows. I was rushing with the attackers, while the shells roared and pitched harmlessly among us, and at length I was standing on the summit of Sari Bair, which showed the Narrows under the moon and stars. The Narrows seen at last! There, look, was the waterway to Constantinople. I waited patiently to see the Navy pour up it in triumphant procession. Beside me was the stranger who had spoken to us in the afternoon, and I said to him: "The coast seems clear. Let's go down and swim the Hellespont, where Leander and Byron swam." But at that moment there was a loud explosion near us, and a sound as of particles of earth falling upon an oil-sheet roof.

Conscious that this tremendous report was not the creation of a troubled dreamer, but something real, which had worked itself into the texture of my dreams, I lifted heavy eyelids, and learned that a stray night-shell from the Turkish lines had burst very close to my dug-out, and the debris was tumbling on the roof.... And we were still low down on the slope to victory.

After that, sleep passed from me, and I watched the dawn break.

§2

At six o'clock the next morning we were all on the little trawler, due to leave for Cape Helles. Helles! The stirring, pregnant name was a thing to toy with. Suvla was a great word, but Helles was a greater. So farewell to Suvla now. We must also see Helles.

"To Helles," said the hardened skipper, with the same dull unconcern that a cabman might show in saying "To Hyde Park."

The workmanlike boat got under way. As I gazed from its side towards the Suvla that we were leaving, the whole line of the Peninsula came into panorama before me. The sun, just awake, bathed a long, waving skyline that rose at two points to dominant levels. One was Sari Bair, the stately hill which stood inviolate, although an army had dashed itself against its fastnesses. The other, lower down the skyline, was Achi Baba, as impregnable as her sister, Sari Bair. The story of the campaign was the story of these two hills.

For perfect charm, I recall no trip to equal this cruise betimes in the sparking Ægean. Our trawler was travelling with the smoothness of a gondola on a Venetian canal. And the voyage, sunny and refreshing in itself, was given an added glamour, by reason of the shrine to which it was a pilgrimage. For, whether I could believe it or not, we were steaming fast to Helles.

My sensations, as we gaily bore through the sea upon the hallowed site, were those of one who awaits the rise of a curtain upon a famous drama. I sprang my imagination to the alert position, that I might not miss one thrill, when we should enter the bay whose waters played on W Beach. Conceive it: there would meet my gaze a stretch of lapping water, a width of beach, and a bluff hill; and I must say: "Here were confused battle, and blood filtering through the ground. There was agony here, and quivering flesh. Here the promises of straight limbs, keen eyes, and clear cheeks were cancelled in a spring morning. Our schoolfellows died here, Stanley, and Lancelot, and Moles White. Hither a thousand destinies converged upon the beach, and here they closed."

The boat was approaching a rounded headland. In a second the vision would be before me. Come now, could I think all these things—could I realise them, as we entered the bay? I found not. Before I had gripped half the thrilling ideas that were the gift of the moment, we were moored against the jetty at W Beach, and I was stepping ashore to take my part in the last chapters of the Gallipoli story.

CHAPTER XI

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 Ægean 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 shells.

I was alone. The C.O. of the East Cheshires, 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 Cheshires, 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 shining 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 passed—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 butt 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 pass 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 wishing 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 Cheshires, 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 bloody 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 damnedst. 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 rehearsed 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. "God! 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 hit. 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 shell 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 shell. And I—ye gods! 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 partnership, 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."

CHAPTER XII

SACRED TO WHITE

§1

On a certain morning Doe and I in our dug-out on Fusilier Bluff felt the pull and the fascination, coming over five miles of scrub, of the magical Cape Helles. It was but a score of weeks since the first invaders had stormed its beaches: and we wanted to drink again of the romance that charged the air. So, being free for a time, we walked to the brow overlooking V Beach, and stood there, letting the breeze blow on our faces, and thinking of the British Army that blew in one day like a gale from the sea.

The damage wrought by that tornado was everywhere visible. Near us were the ruins of a lighthouse. In old days it had glimmered for distant mariners, who pointed to it as the Dardanelles light. But, at the outbreak of war, the Turk had closed his Dardanelles and put out the lamp. He would never kindle it again, for the Queen Elizabeth, or a warship of her kidney, had lain off shore and reduced the lighthouse to these white stones. Across the amphitheatre of the bay were the village and broken forts of Seddel Bahr; and, aground at this point, the famous old hulk, the River Clyde. You remember—who could forget?—how they turned this vessel into a modern Horse of Troy, cramming its belly with armed men, running it ashore, and then opening square doors in its hull-sides and letting loose the invaders—while the plains of Old Troy looked down from over the Hellespont. What a litter old Mother Clyde carried in her womb that day! From where we stood we could see those square doors, cut in her sides, through which the troops and rushed into the bullet-hail: we could see, too, the semicircular beach, where they had attempted to land, and the ribbon of blue water in which so many, weighted with their equipment, had sunk and died.

And what was that thing a few cable lengths out, a rusty iron something, rising from the water, and being lapped by the incoming ripples? It was the keel of the old Majestic, which lay there, deck downwards, on the ocean bed.

"It's too pathetic!" exclaimed the sensitive Doe. "Let's go and visit the Clyde. Fancy, old Moles White was in that boat."

We dropped down from the headland into V Beach Bay, and, in doing so, passed the limit of the British zone and trespassed upon French territory. The slope, from the beach upward, was as alive with French and Senegalese as a cloven ant-hill is alive with ants. The stores of the whole French army seemed accumulated in the neighbourhood. There was an atmosphere of French excitability, very different from the stillness of the British Zone. Stepping from the British Zone into the French was like turning suddenly from the quiet of Rotten Row into the bustle of the Boulevard des Italiens. It was prenez-garde and attention là! depeches-vous and pardon, m'sieu, and sacré nom de dieu! before we got through all these hearty busy-bodies and drew near the hull of the Clyde.

With unwitting reverence we approached. I'll swear I was within an ace of removing my hat, and that, had I talked to Doe, I should have spoken in a whisper. It was like visiting a church. Look, there by the square doors were the endless marks of machine-gun bullets that had swept the men who tried to leave the boat for the shore. God! they hadn't a dog's chance. If those bullet indentations meant anything, they meant that the man who left the square door was lucky if he got ashore with less than a dozen bullets in his flesh.

We stepped on to the gangway that led to the nearest of the doors and hurried up to it, catching something of the "Get back—get back!" sensation of those who had been forced by the bullets to withdraw into the hold. A huge hold it showed itself to be when we bowed our heads and stepped into it through the square door. Yes, they could cram battalions here. What a hive the Clyde was when they hurled it ashore! And what a swarm of bees it housed! In this hold, now so silent and empty, what emotions throbbed that day!

"Poor old White!" murmured Doe. "He got ashore well enough, and wasn't killed till the fighting on the high ground. By Jove, Rupert! we'll search the Peninsula from here to Fusilier Bluff for his grave. Come on."

We left the comparative darkness of the hold, and stepped through the square door, that had been so deadly an exit for hundreds, into the bright daylight. At once there was given us a full view of V Beach, with the sea sparkling as it broke upon the shingle. The air all about was strangely opalescent. Seddel Bahr shone in the sun, as only a white Eastern village can. The hills rising from the beach looked steep and difficult, but sunlit and shimmering. Everything shimmered as a result of the sudden contrast from the darkness of the hold. Even so must the scene have flashed upon the eyes of the invaders as they issued from the sides of the Clyde. For many of them, how quickly the bright light went out!

We had hardly entered the ruined streets of Seddel Bahr before a shell screamed into the village and burst with a deafening explosion in a house, whose walls went up in a volcano of dust and stones.

"Asiatic Annie!" we both said, at once and in unison.

For all of us knew the evil reputation of Asiatic Annie—that large gun, safely tucked away in the blue hills of Asia, who lobbed her shells—a seven-mile throw—over the Straits on to the shores of Cape Helles—a mischievous old lady, who delighted in being the plague of the Beaches.

"If Asiatic Annie is going to begin," said Doe, "we'll have important business elsewhere. Hurry on. We're going to find White's grave."

To get from Seddel Bahr to Fusilier Bluff it was necessary to cross diagonally the whole of the Helles sector. There lay before us a long walk over a dusty, scrub-covered plateau, every yard of which was a yard of battlefield and overspread with the litter of battles. This red earth, which, when the Army first arrived, was garnished with grass and flowers, groves, and vineyards, was now beaten by thousands of feet into a hard, dry drill-ground, where, here and there, blasted trees stood like calvaries against the sky. The grass resembled patches of fur on a mangy skin. The birds, which seemed to revel in the excitements of war, soared and swept over the devastated tableland. Northward from our feet stretched this plateau of scarecrow trees, till it began to incline in a gentle rise, and finally met the sky in the summit of Achi Baba. That was the whole landscape—a plateau overlooked by a gentle hill.

And here on this sea-girt headland the land-fight had been fought. No wonder the region was covered with the scars and waste of war. Our journey took us past old trenches and gun-positions; disused telephone lines and rusting, barbed wire; dead mules, scattered cemeteries, and solitary graves.

And not a grave did we pass without examining it to see if it bore the name of White. Our progress, therefore, was very slow, for, like highwaymen, these graves held us up and bade us stand and inquire if they housed our friend. Whenever we saw an isolated cross some distance away, we left our tracks to approach it, anxious not to pass, lest this were he. And then, quite unexpectedly, we came upon twenty graves side by side under one over-arching tree, which bore the legend: "Pink Farm Cemetery." And Doe said:

"There it is, Rupert."

He said it with deliberate carelessness, as if to show that he was one not easily excited by sudden surprises.

"Where—where?" I asked.

"There—'Lieutenant R. White, Royal Dublin Fusiliers.'"

"Good Lord!" I muttered: for it was true. We had walked right on to the grave of our friend. His name stood on a cross with those of six other officers, and beneath was written in pencil the famous epitaph: