Tell England: A Study in a Generation

The perfect words went straight to Doe's heart.

"Roop," he said, "if I'm killed you can put those lines over me."

I fear I could not think of anything very helpful to reply.

"They are rather swish," I murmured.

CHAPTER XIII

"LIVE DEEP, AND LET THE LESSER THINGS LIVE LONG"

§1

One thing I shall always believe, and it is that Doe found on the Peninsula that intense life, that life of multiplied sensations, which he always craved in the days when he said: "I want to have lived."

You would understand what I mean if you could have seen this Brigade Bombing Officer of ours hurling his bombs at a gentleman whom he called "the jolly old Turk." Generally he threw them with a jest on his lips. "One hundred and two. One hundred and three," he would say. "Over she goes, and thank the Lord I'm not in the opposite trench. BANG! I told you so. Stretcher-bearers for the Turks, please." Or he would hurl the bomb high into the air, so that it burst above the enemy like a rocket or a star-shell. He would blow a long whistle, as it shot skyward, and say "PLONK!" as it exploded into a shower of splinters.

For Doe was young and effervescing with life. He enjoyed himself, and his bombers enjoyed him as their officer. Everybody, in fact, enjoyed Edgar Doe.

In these latter days the gifted youth had suddenly discovered that all things French were perfect. Gone were the days of classical elegancies. Doe read only French novels which he borrowed from Pierre Poilu at Seddel Bahr.

And why? Because they knew how to live, ces français. They lived deeply, and felt deeply, with their lovely emotionalism. They ate and drank learnedly. They suffered, sympathised, and loved, always deeply. They were bons viveurs, in the intensest meaning of the words. "They live, they live." And because of this, his spiritual home was in France. "You English," said he, "vous autres anglais, with your damned un-emotionalism, empty your lives of spiritual experience: for emotion is life, and all that's interesting in life is spiritual incident. But the French, they live!"

He even wrote a poem about the faith which he had found, and started to declaim it to me one night in our little dug-out, "Seaview":

"Yes, Roop, living through war is living deep. It's crowded, glorious living. If I'd never had a shell rush at me I'd never have known the swift thrill of approaching death—which is a wonderful sensation not to be missed. If I'd never known the shock of seeing sudden death at my side, I'd have missed a terribly wonderful thing. They say music's the most evocative art in the world, but, sacré nom de dieu, they hadn't counted the orchestra of a bombardment. That's music at ten thousand pounds a minute. And if I'd not heard that, I'd never have known what it is to have my soul drawn out of me by the maddening excitement of an intensive bombardment. And—and, que voulez-vous, I have killed!"

"Hm!" muttered I. He was too clever for me, but I loved him in his scintillating moments.

"Tiens, if I'm knocked out, it's at least the most wonderful death. It's the deepest death."

I laughed deprecatingly.

"Oh, I'm resigned to the idea," he pursued. "It's more probable than improbable. Sooner or later. Tant va la cruche à l'eau qu' à la fin elle se casse."

"Tant—'aunt,'" thought I. "Va—'goes.' La cruche—'the crust.' Qu' à la fin elle se casse." And I said aloud: "I've got it! 'Aunt goes for the crust at the water, into which, in fine, she casts herself.'"

"No," corrected Doe, looking away from me wistfully and self-consciously. "'The pitcher goes so often to the well that at last it is broken.'"

§2

About this time the great blizzard broke over Gallipoli. On the last Sunday in November I awoke, feeling like iced chicken, to learn that the blizzard had begun. It was still dark, and the snow was being driven along by the wind, so that it flew nearly parallel with the ground, and clothed with mantles of white all the scrub that opposed its onrush. This morning only did the wild Peninsula look beautiful. But its whiteness was that of a whited sepulchre. Never before had it been so mercilessly cruel. For now was opening the notorious blizzard that should strike down hundreds with frost-bite, and drown in their trenches Turks and Britons alike.

It was freezing—freezing. The water in our canvas buckets froze into solid cakes of ice, which we hewed out with pickaxes and kicked about like footballs. And all the guns stopped speaking. No more was heard the whip-crack of a rifle, nor the rapid, crisp, unintelligent report of a machine-gun. Fingers of friend and foe were too numbed to fire. An Arctic silence settled upon Gallipoli.

And yet I remember the first day of the blizzard as a day of glowing things. For on the previous night I had read in Battalion Orders that I was to be Captain Ray. And so, this piercing morning, I could go out into the blizzard with three stars on my shoulders. With Gallipoli suddenness I had leapt into this exalted rank, while Doe, a more brilliant officer, remained only a Second Lieutenant. For him, as a specialist, there was no promotion. For me, no sooner had my O.C. Company been buried alive by the explosion of a Turkish mine, and his second-in-command gone sick with dysentery, than I, the next senior though only nineteen, was given the rank of Acting Captain. And Doe, always most generous when most jealous, had been profuse in his congratulations.

I confess that not even the hail, with its icy bite, could spoil the glow which I felt in being Captain Ray. I walked along my company front, behind parapets massed with snow, to have a look at the men of my command. All these lads with the chattering lips—lads from twenty to forty years old—were mine to do what I liked with. They were my family—my children. And I would be a father to them.

And when, at the end of my inspection, a shivering post corporal put into my hands a letter addressed by my mother to 2nd-Lieut. R. Ray, I delighted to think how out-of-date she was, and how I must enlighten her at once on the correct method of addressing her son. I would do it that day, so that she might have opportunities of writing "Capt. Ray." For one never knew: some unpleasantly senior person might come along and take to himself my honourable rank.

I seized the letter and hurried home to our dug-out. Doe was already in possession of his mail, so, having wrapped ourselves in blankets to defeat the polar atmosphere, we crouched over a smoking oil-stove and read our letters.

I was the first to break a long silence.

"Really," I said, "Mother's rather sweet. Listen to this:—

"'Rupert, I had such a shock yesterday. I heard the postman's knock, which always frightens me. I picked up a long, blue envelope, stamped "War Office." Oh, my heart stood still. I went into my bedroom, and tried to compose myself to break the envelope. Then I asked my new maid to come and be with me when I opened it. After she had arrived, I said a prayer that all might be well with you. Then I opened it: and, Rupert, it was only your Commission as 2nd Lieutenant arriving a year late. Oh, I went straight to church and gave thanks!'"

Doe gazed into the light of the oil-stove.

"The dear, good, beautiful woman!" he said.

And so it is that the famous blizzard carries with it two glowing memories: the one, my promotion to Captain's rank; the other, the sudden arrival of my mother's letter like a sea-gull out of a storm. Her loving words threw about me, during the appalling conditions of the afternoon, an atmosphere of England. And, when in the biting night our elevated home was quiet under the stars, and Doe and I were rolled up in our blankets, I was quite pleased to find him disposed to be sentimental.

"I've cold feet to-night," he grumbled. "Roll on Peace, and a passage home. Let's cheer ourselves up by thinking of the first dinner we'll have when we get back to England. Allons, I'll begin with turtle soup."

"And a glass of sherry," added I from my pillow.

"Then, I think, turbot and white sauce."

"Good enough," I agreed, "and we'll trifle with the wing of a fowl."

"Two cream buns for sweets," continued the Brigade Bombing Officer, "or possibly three. And fruit salad. Ah, mon dieu, que c'est beau!"

"And a piece of Stilton on a sweet biscuit," suggested the Captain of D Company, "with a glass of port."

"Yes," conceded the Bombing Officer, "and then café noir, and an Abdulla No. 5 in the arm-chair. Sapristi! isn't it cold?" He turned round sulkily in his bed. "If it's like this to-morrow I shan't get up—no, not if Gladys Cooper comes to wake me."

So he dropped off to sleep.... And, with Doe asleep, I can say that to which I have been leading up. Always before the war I used to think forced and exaggerated those pictures which showed the soldier in his uniform, sleeping on the field near the piled arms, and suggested, by a vision painted on the canvas, that his dreams were of his hearth and loved ones. But I know now of a certain Captain-fellow, who, on that first night of the blizzard, after he had received a letter from his mother, dreamt long and fully of friends in England, awaking at times to find himself lying on a lofty wild Bluff, and falling off to sleep again to continue dreams of home.

CHAPTER XIV

THE NINETEENTH OF DECEMBER

§1

The grand incident in the last act of the Gallipoli Campaign—the grand motif—was the Germans' successful break through Servia. They had driven their corridor from Central Europe through Servia to Constantinople; and, for all we knew, the might of Germany in men and guns were pouring down it. Of course they were coming; they must come. Never had the generals of Germany so fine an opportunity of destroying the British Divisions that languished at Suvla and Helles. What chance had the Haughty Islanders now of escaping? The wintry storms were already cutting their frail line of communications by sea, and smashing up their miserable jetties on the beaches. The plot should unravel simply. The German-Turk combine would attack in force, and the British, unable to escape, would either surrender or, in good Roman style, die fighting.

We knew the Germans were coming. When the blizzard rolled away and left behind a glorious December, we began to hear their new guns throbbing on the distant Suvla front. Doubtless more guns were rumbling along the streets of Constantinople, and troops concentrating in its squares. They were out for the biggest victory of the Central Empires since Tannenberg. Six divisions from Suvla and four from Helles would be a good day's bag. Perhaps the Turks were not without pity for the tough little British Divisions that, depleted, exhausted, and unreinforced, lay at their mercy on the extremities of the Gallipoli Peninsula.

We knew they were coming, and joked about it.

"It's getting distinctly interesting, Captain Ray," said Doe, as we sat drinking tea in Monty's dug-out in the Eski Line. "I say, give me a decent funeral, won't you?"

"We shan't bury you," answered Monty unpleasantly. "We shall put you on the incinerator."

"If the worst comes to the worst, I shall swim for it," said I, always conceited on this point. "It'll only be a few miles easy going, in this gorgeous December weather, from Gully Beach to Imbros."

"But, au serieux," continued the picturesque Doe, "do you realise that this is December, 1915, and we shall probably never see the year of grace 1916? Damned funny, Captain Ray, isn't it?"

"Don't be so romantic and treacly," retorted Monty. "You'll do nothing heroic. You'll just march down to W Beach and get on a boat and sail away. There's going to be some sort of evacuation, I'm sure. They've cleared the hospitals at Alexandria and Malta, and ordered every hospital ship in the world to lie off the Peninsula empty. They are prepared for twenty thousand casualties."

"Yes," agreed I, "and, as there are no reinforcements, it can't mean a big advance, so it must mean a big retreat. There's nothing to bellyache about. We're going to evacuate, praise be to Allah!"

"Oh, try not to be foolish, Captain Ray," returned Doe impatiently. "Have you been so long on this cursed Peninsula without knowing that we couldn't evacuate Suvla without being seen from Sari Bair, nor Helles without being seen from Achi Baba? And, directly the jolly old Turk saw us quitting, he, and the whole German army, and Ludendorff, would stream down and massacre us as we ran. We'd want every man for a rearguard action to hold them off. The bally thing's impossible."

"Well, we did the impossible in getting on to the Peninsula," put in Monty, "and we shall probably do the impossible in getting off. Besides, not even Turks can see at night."

"That's all very fine," rejoined the lively youth. "But the impossible landing was done by the grandest Division in history, when they were up to full strength. Now our divisions are jaded and done for. Besides, only one army could get away. Even if the Suvla crowd did effect a surprise escape, the Turk would see to it that the Helles mob didn't repeat the performance. Our Staff would have to sacrifice one army for the other. And, as the Suvla army is bigger than ours, they'd sacrifice us for a certainty. So cheer up, and don't be so damned miserable."

"Oh, well," said Monty, refilling Doe's cup. "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die."

Doe lifted up the mug to toast his host.

"Morituri te salutamus," he said, and out of his abounding spirits began to sing:

§2

And amid all this speculation on Helles, there came suddenly a rumour that, so far from the Turks attacking us, our whole line was about to assume the offensive and move forward. This was a mere angel's whisper one morning: by the afternoon it had blown like a dust-drive into every dug-out.

It's a good rule, my friends who shall fight the next war, if you want to know the secrets about a forthcoming attack, always to ask the padre. He is the rumour-merchant of the fighting army. And Monty was no exception. Directly the strange rumour reached the Eski Line, Monty busied himself tapping every source for more detailed information.

First he inquired of the Battalion Intelligence Officer whether there were anything reliable in this talk of an imminent attack. Intelligence nodded its head, as much as to say: "I've promised that not a breath of it shall leave my lips, but—" Well, Intelligence nodded his head.

Then, on another occasion, the Quartermaster, having just returned from Ordnance (where they know everything), looked a profoundly sinister look at Monty, and said:

"They're going to keep you busy shortly."

"What, a show on?" asked Monty hypocritically.

"Yes, some stunt—some stunt. But don't know anything about it."

Next Monty was at Divisional Signals (always a well-informed and oracular body), who said they supposed he knew there would be very little opportunity for Divine Service on Sunday.

"You mean," said he, with brutal plainness, "that this beastly attack is fixed for Sunday."

"Now, nobody said that," was the reply. "But take it from us that on Sunday your men will be too busy parading for other purposes than for Divine Service. Strictly on the Q.T., of course."

The same day at the Bombing School Monty found but one subject of conversation.

"It'll be the stickiest thing we've had for some time, as ourselves, the Scotties, and the French are all involved in it. Your people, the East Cheshires, are going over at Fusilier Bluff, after we've blown up a huge mine. Their Brigade Bombers are going to occupy the crater. But, of course, mum's the word."

Lastly, Monty held mysterious communion with my sergeant-major, a wonderful cockney humorist, who possessed the truth on all points. As far as Fusilier Bluff was concerned, said he, the attack was an effort to reach and destroy the terrible whizz-bang gun. It was believed that the gun's location was in a nullah where its dump of ammunition was inaccessible to our artillery. Only bombers could reach it. So they were going to blow up a mine of 570 pounds of ammonel, and the bombers, supported by the infantry, were going to rush for the crater. From the crater they would sally forth and reach the gun. "And glory be to Gawd," concluded the sergeant-major piously, "that I ain't a bomber."

§3

On the eve of the attack Doe and I were in our dug-out discussing what part the C.O. would allot us in the operation, when an orderly appeared at the door.

"Brigade Bombing Officer here, sir?" he asked, saluting.

"Sure thing," said Doe.

"The C.O. wants to see you at once, sir."

Doe shrugged his shoulders. "Quand on parle du loup, on en voie le queue. Now we shall hear something." And he followed the orderly.

A trifle jealous, I awaited his return. He came back with joy sparkling in his eyes—how far assumed I know not—and, flinging himself down on a box, cried: "Rupert, the show in this sector is my show! They're going to blow up the jolly old mine; and the minute it goes up I've got to take the bombers over the top and occupy the crater. Then, if I think it possible, I'm to go further forward to the whizz-bang gun and blow it into the middle of the next war. Voyez-vous, they know they've a competent young officer in charge of the bombers. Rupert, we shall not stay long in the crater. And, if you please, the C.O. wishes to see Captain Ray immediately."

"Which means I'm for it too," said I, as I went out.

The C.O. explained my share. I was to take over all my company and capture the trenches on the right of the crater. On capturing them, I was to open a covering fire to enable the bombers to go further forward. A similar move was being made by B Company on the bombers' left. In short, a wedge was being driven into the Turkish line, and the point of the wedge—Doe's bombing party—was to penetrate to the gun-position. Both my task and Doe's were dam-dangerous, said the Colonel, but Doe's was the damnedest. On the effectiveness of my flanking support might depend his life and the success of the raid. Did I see?

"Yes, sir."

The hour of the attack was not known, he explained. Since the whole Helles line was moving, the final order must come from G.H.Q. But everybody was to be armed and ready in the trenches by dawn.... And ... well, good evening, Ray.

It was about dusk. I returned to the dug-out, and by candle-light wrote out my company orders. Then Doe and I decided that we ought to put together a few letters. And Doe tossed his pencil gaily into the air and caught it. The action was to cover with a veneer of merriness a question which it embarrassed him to ask.

"Oughtn't we to make a jolly old will?"

"Sure thing," agreed I, in imitation of him. "It'll be rather fun."

§4

Soon after Battalion Orders were out, Monty came and sat down in our dug-out. We had known he would come, and our reception of him was planned. Doe, whose affected gaiety had begun to give place to a certain wistfulness as the darkness fell, spoke first:

"D'you remember telling us one night on the Rangoon about some fellows who—who—gave you their wills the day before an attack?"

Monty turned his head, and started to frown through the dug-out door at the still Ægean Sea.

"Yes," he said.

"Well, Rupert and I thought that we'd—that p'raps you'd look after these envelopes, in case—"

"Oh, damn!" said Monty. I had never heard him swear before, but I knew that in the word his big heart spoke. Doe still held our envelopes towards his averted face, and at last he took them silently.

"Thanks, awfully," said Doe.

"Thanks," said I.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, shut up!" Monty grumbled, and started whistling unconsciously. Immediately in my mind the words "Dismiss me not thy service, Lord" framed themselves to the tune, and conjured up a vision of the smoking room of the Rangoon and its decks by starlight. Abruptly Monty broke off, and said, still frowning at the sea:

"Since those days you've been fairly loyal sons of the Church. Aren't you going to use her before to-morrow? To-night's a more literal Vigil than that voyage. Can't I—aren't you going to use me?"

It was the old Monty of the Rangoon speaking.

"We'd thought about it," answered Doe, reddening.

"I so want," murmured Monty, "to be of use to all the fellows who are going over the top to-morrow. But they don't understand. They don't think of me as a priest with something to do for them that nobody else can do. They think I've done my job when I've had a hymn-singing service, and preached to them.... And all the time I want to absolve them. I want to send them into the fight—white."

No word came from us to break a long pause. We had become again those listening people of Rangoon nights.

"But you understand," he recommenced. "And, if you'll come to your Confession, I'll at least have done something for somebody before this scrap. Rupert, you can thank Heaven you don't feel as I do—that you've nothing positive to do to-morrow—that you're not pulling your weight. I shall just skulk about, like a dog worrying the heels of an attack."

"Rot!" said Doe. "You've done wonders for the men."

"No, I haven't, except for those who come to their Mass and Confession. I've held no services a layman couldn't hold, and done nothing for the sick a hospital orderly couldn't do. And I want to be their priest."

"Well, we'll both come to-night."

Monty ceased frowning at the sea, and smilingly turned towards us.

"You may think," he said, "that I've been of some help to you; but you can never know of what help you two have been to me."

"Oh, rot!" said Doe, tossing a pencil into the air.

§5

It was about ten o'clock when I came away from Monty's home in the Eski Line, where I had made my Confession. I retain an impression of myself, as I walked homeward through the darkness, moving along the summits above Y Ravine. I was listening to the nervous night-firing of the Turk, who was apprehensive of something in the morning, and hearing in my mind Monty's last words: "Forget those things which are behind, and press towards the mark of your high calling."

Walking along the Peninsula at night being always a gloomy matter, I was glad to arrive at the dug-out, where Doe was already under his blankets. I lay down and spent a long time battling with my mind to prevent it keeping me awake by too active thinking. For, if only I could drop off into unconsciousness, I had the chance of sleeping till an hour before the dawn.

§6

There is something depressing in being called while it is still dark, and being obliged to dress by artificial light. As I laced my boots by the flame of the candle in the dusk before the dawn, I felt a sensation I used to experience at school, when they lit the class-room gas in the early twilight of a winter afternoon—a sensation of the sadness and futility of all things.

I awoke Doe, and could tell, as he sat up, rubbing his eyes and yawning, that returning memory was filling his mind with speculation as to what unthinkable things the morning might hold in its womb. With the feigned gaiety of the day before he flung off his blankets, and said:

"Well, Roop, it's 'over the top and the best of luck' for us this morning."

"Strange how quiet everything is," I replied. "The bombardment ought to have started before this."

"Yes, it's a still and top-hole morning." Saying this, Doe went to the dug-out window to look at the dawn. The moment that his face framed itself in the square of the window, dawn, coming in like an Ægean sunset with a violet light, lit up his half-profile, throwing into clear relief the familiar features, and dropping a brilliant spark into each of his wide, contemplative eyes. The effect was a thing of the stage: it lent him an added wistfulness, and I felt a pang of pity for him, and a throb of something not lower than love. He walked back to his bed, whistling, while I completed my preparations by fixing my revolver to my belt.

"Well, I'm ready," I said. "I must go and look at my braves."

"Don't s'pose I shall see you again, then, before the show," said Doe, pulling on his boots nonchalantly.

"No. We'll compare notes in the captured trenches this evening."

"Right you are. Cheerioh!"

"Chin-chin."

I went out, reviewing painful possibilities. In the trenches I found my company "standing-to," armed and ready. Knowing that idle waiting would mean suspense and agitation, I went about overhauling ammunition, and instructing my men on the exact objectives and the work of consolidation. My restlessness brought back vividly that day when I had suffered from nerves before the Bramhall-Erasmus swimming race. The same interior hollowness made me chafe at delay and long to be started—to be busied in the excitement of action—to be looking back on it all as a thing of the past.

The morning wore on. There was bustling in the communication trenches, pack-mules bringing up ammunition, and men shouldering cases of bombs. At ten o'clock the C.O. came round the line. Now that the imminence of the attack had made unpleasantly real his duty of sending us over the top, he had grown quite fatherly. "Don't get killed," he said. "I can't spare any of you—battalion dam-depleted already.... Is there anything you wish to ask, my boy?"

"Yes, sir. I want to know what time it begins, and what exactly it's all about."

"At two o'clock," he replied. "The mine goes up then. But what it's all about I know no more than you do. Personally, I think it is to cover some operations at Suvla. The Staff is obviously so dam-anxious to let the Turk know we're going to attack, that I'm sure this is a diversion intended to keep the Turk's Helles army occupied, and prevent it reinforcing Suvla. Go and have a look from the Bluff out to sea, and observe how well the show is being advertised. There may be reason for this ostentation, but it's dam-awkward for my lads, who'll have to run up against a well-prepared enemy."

"But s'posing it means they're going to evacuate Suvla, and leave us to our fate, what'll be our position on Helles then, sir?"

"Well, we shall be like the rearguard that covered the retreat at Mons—heroes, but mostly dead ones."

"Good Lord!" thought I, as the C.O. turned away. "We shall be lonely on Helles to-night if we hear that the Suvla Army has left for England."

I went, as he suggested, to glance at the preparations on the sea. I saw a string of devilish monitors, solemnly taking up their position between Imbros and our eastern coast. Destroyers lay round the Peninsula like a chain of black rulers. A great airship was sailing towards us. From Imbros and Tenedos aeroplanes were rising high in the sky.

The Turk, wide awake to these preliminaries, was firing shrapnel at the aircraft overhead, and hurling towards the destroyers his high-explosive shells, which tossed up water-spouts in the sea. The whizz-bang gun spat continuously.

"You won't spit after to-night," I mused, "if Doe reaches you."

And, from all I knew of Doe and his passion for the heroic, I felt assured that he would never stay in the crater like a diffident batsman in his block. He would reach the opposite crease, or be run out.

"He'll get there. He'll get there," I told myself persistently.

§7

The attack having been postponed till two o'clock, Monty held an open-air Communion Service in Trolley Ravine. The C.O., myself, and a few others stole half an hour to attend it. This day was the last Sunday in Advent, and a morning peace, such as reminded us of English Sundays, brooded over Gallipoli. Save for the distant and intermittent firing of the Turk, everything was very still, and Monty had no need to raise his voice. The Collect was probably being read thus softly at a number of tiny services dotted about the hills of Helles and Suvla. Never shall I hear it again without thinking of the last pages of the Gallipoli story, and of that Advent Sunday of big decisions. "O Lord, raise up thy power, and come among us ... that, whereas we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, Thy bountiful mercy may speedily help and deliver us." Like an answer to prayer came the words of the Epistle: "Rejoice.... The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds." Read at Monty's service in Trolley Ravine, it sounded like a Special Order of the Day. I remembered what the Colonel had hinted about Suvla, and wondered whether at similar services there it was being listened to like a last message to the Suvla Army.

Not long had I returned to my fire trenches before our bombardment opened. The shells streamed over, seeming about to burst in our own trenches, but exploding instead the other side of No Man's Land. Distant booms told us that the Navy had joined in the quarrel. The awful noise of the bombardment, lying so low on our heads, and the deafening detonations of the shells disarrayed all my thoughts. My temples throbbed, my ears sang and whistled, and something began to beat and ache at the back of my head. My brain, crowded with the bombardment, had room for only two clear thoughts—the one, that I was standing with a foot on the firing-step, my revolver cocked in my hand; the other, that, when the mine gave the grand signal, I should clamber mechanically over the parapet and rush into turmoil. Hurry up with that mine—oh, hurry up! My limbs at least were shivering with impatience to be over and away.

A great report set the air vibrating; the voice of my sergeant-major shouted: "It's gone up, sir!" a burst of rapid rifle and machine-gun fire, spreading all along the line, showed that the bombers had leapt out of the protection of the trenches and gone over the parapet—and, almost before I had apprehended all these things, I had scrambled over the sand-bags, and was in the open beneath a shower of earth that, blown by the mine into the air, was dropping in clods and particles. Confound the smoke and the dust! I could scarcely see where I was running. The man on my right dropped with a groan. Elsewhere a voice was crying with a blasphemy, "I'm hit!" Bullets seemed to breathe in my face as they rushed past. I stumbled into a hole. I picked myself up, for I saw before me a line of bayonets, glistening where the light caught them. It was my company; and I must be in front of them—not behind. Revolver gripped, I ran through and beyond them, only to fall heavily in a deep depression, which was the Turkish trench. An enemy bayonet was coming like a spear at my breast just as I fired. The shadowy foe fell across my legs. From under him I fired into the breast of another who loomed up to kill me. Then I rose, as a third, with a downward blow from the barrel of his rifle, knocked my revolver spinning from my hand. With an agony in my wrist, I snatched at his rifle, and, wrenching the bayonet free, stabbed him savagely with his own weapon, tearing it away as he dropped. Heavens! would my company never come? I had only been four yards in front of them. Was all this taking place in seconds? One moment of clear reasoning had just told me that this cold dampness, moving along my knee, was the soaking blood of one of my victims, when a Turkish officer ran into the trench-bay, firing backwards and blindly at my sergeant-major. Seeing me, he whipped round his revolver to shoot me. My fist shot out towards his chin in an automatic action of self-defence, and the bayonet, which it held, passed like a pin right through the man's throat. His blood spurted over my hand and ran up my arm, as he dropped forward, bearing me down under him.

"Hurt, sir?" asked the sergeant-major, kindly. "We've got the trench."

"Man the trench," said I, an English voice bringing my wits back, "and keep up a covering fire for the bombers."

At the mention of the bombers I thought of Doe. Getting quickly up, I stood on the piled bodies of my victims to see over the top. As I looked through the rolling smoke for the position of the bombers, I heard my sergeant-major saying to a man in the next bay:

"Our babe's done orl right. He's killed four, and is now standin' on 'em."

Without doubting that he was speaking of me, I yet felt no glow at this rough tribute, for I was worried at what I saw in the open. In the fog of smoke I descried a figure that must be Doe's. He was still out on the top, his party straggling and bewildered. It perplexed me. Why was he not under cover in the crater of the mine? Had all my blood-letting work only occupied the time it took him to run from his trench to the lips of the crater?

Seeing his danger, I rushed along my company, shouting: "Curse you! Double the rapidity of that fire. Do you want all the bombers killed?" till I reached our extreme left, where we had been in touch with Doe. Jumping up again, I watched his movements. I saw him running well in front of his bombers, who were now going forward, as if to a definite object. "Good—good—good! He'll get there." The words were mine, but they sounded like someone else's. Then, almost before the event which provoked it, I heard my own low groan.

Doe stopped, and staggered slightly backwards. His cap fell off, and the wind blew his hair about, as it used to do on the cricket-field at school. He recovered an upright position; he smiled very clearly—then folded up, and collapsed.

I saw his party retire rapidly, but in orderly fashion, under the command of their sergeant. Beyond them B Company, whose right flank had been left hanging in the air by the withdrawal of the bombers, began to execute a similar movement.

"Tain't the bombers' fault, sir," exclaimed my sergeant-major. "The mine failed to produce a crater. They'd nowt to occupy."

Sick with misery and indecision, I was realising that I must retire my company, its left flank being exposed—I was taking a last look at the huddled form that had been my friend, when I saw him rise and rush forward. Excitedly I cried: "Fire! Fire! Keep up that covering fire! Be ready to advance at any moment." Ha, there were no tactics about the position in front of Fusilier Bluff that minute. Doe was tumbling forward alone. A company, firing furiously to keep down the heads of the Turks, was "in the air"—and ready to advance.

"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 shell-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!"

"Pass 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! Damn beauty! Damn 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 God's sake, drop it!"

A night and a morning passed: and the next afternoon I was sitting on the Bluff, glumly watching a destroyer flash and smoke, as she hurled shells 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 Helles now? A bit dickey, 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 damned 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.

"Damn the bloody horse," I said aloud.

Monty stroked his bay's silk neck, as though he had heard nothing.

"You've got his rein too tight, sir," the groom told me.

"All right! I know how to mount a horse."

I swung into the saddle, and, ignoring Monty, set the mare, which was very fresh, at a canter towards Artillery Road. Artillery Road was a winding gun-track that climbed out of Gully Ravine up to the tableland beneath Achi Baba. Much too fast I ran the chestnut up the steep incline, and emerged from the ravine on to the high level ground. Straightway I looked across two miles of scrub to the seaward point of the plateau, where stood a large camp of square tents. It was No. 17 Stationary Hospital, the "White City." ... I wondered which of those tents he was in.

The chestnut, anxious for a gallop through the scrub, and excited by the noise of Monty cantering behind, pulled hard. My heart was in sympathy with her, and I let her open into a stretch-gallop. For I was absurdly thinking that, if once I allowed Monty to draw abreast of me, I should yield to him a share of my position as chief mourner. I wanted to be lonely in my grief.

At a point in front of me on the beaten road shells were dropping with regularity. Savagely grieving, I let the mare race the shells to the danger zone. What cared I if shell and mare and rider converged together upon their destruction?

I rode through a rush of confused impressions. At one moment I was passing Pink Farm Cemetery, which had two of its crosses nearly broken by a shell-splinter. I was wondering if they would bury him there, alongside of White, under the solitary tree. At another, I was galloping through the lines of the Lowland Division, where a band of pipers was playing "Annie Laurie," and an officer cried out to me: "Stop that galloping, you young fool." In answer I put heels to the mare's flanks and urged her on. And all the while the "White City" was growing nearer and larger, and my heart beginning to beat with anticipation and fear. I shouldn't know what to do or to say. Never shy of Doe living, I was shy of Doe dying.

Having pulled the excited mare into control and dismounted, I looked round, sneakily sideways, for Monty. I wanted his company now, for I feared what was coming. Too proud to appear to wait for him, I shammed difficulty with the animal's head-rope, and delayed long over the task of tethering her securely. And the time, during which Monty arrived and dismounted, I killed by unloosening girth and surcingle.

"Come along, Rupert, old chap."

Monty led the way to Doe's tent. And the chief mourner followed humbly behind. As we dipped our heads to pass under the porch, we went out of the glare of the open air into the subdued and gentle light of the tent. At once a coolness like that of evening displaced the warmth of the afternoon. And a strange quiet fell about our ears. It seemed to me that the eight cots were empty.

The orderly on duty greeted Monty with a soft whisper: "He's quite conscious, sir, but won't last long."

Following the glance of the orderly, I saw Doe's wide eyes fixed upon me.

"Hallo, Rupert."

I hurried to his bedside, feeling, even in that moment, a triumphant joy that his affectionate welcome had been for me and not for Monty.

"Hallo, Doe."

He looked very beautiful, lying there. His complexion, always as flawless as a little child's, had assumed a new waxen loveliness, no touch of colour varying its pale and delicate brown. And his eyes were brilliant.

"Well—we did in the old gun, Rupert, that killed—Jimmy Doon—and Major Hardy.... The Rangoon proved too strong for it, after all!"

How characteristic of our dear, dramatic Doe his words were!

"Yes," I said, and could think of nothing more to say.

He moved his body slightly, and I, cudgelling my mind for some remark, asked:

"Were you hurt much?"

"I was wounded—in the shoulder—and then hit four times, after I—the doctor seems to think it's pretty bad—but oh, it's nothing."

As he spoke I could see that he was rather pleased with the picturesqueness of being "Dangerously Wounded," and that, while he wished to inform us how interesting he had become, he wished also to appear to be stoically making light of his pain. And I loved him for being the same self-conscious heroic character up to the last.

The brilliant eyes sought out Monty, who was standing just behind me. Doe gazed at him, and, after a thoughtful pause, laughed nervously.

"I wonder if I shall be—here—to-morrow, when you come. I dare say I shan't."

Again I saw the thought behind his words. Probably my love for him was blazing up, in these farewell moments, brighter than it had ever been, and illuminating all things. I saw that he wanted to live, but feared he was going to die. I saw that he had gambled everything upon his last remark, and was waiting to see if he would draw life or death.

Had he said it to me I should have answered hurriedly: "Of course you will," but Monty was cast in more courageous metal. Boldly he seized this moment to convey the truth. He offered no denial to Doe's daring suggestion that the end was near: instead, he laid his hand very gently on the boy's wrist, as if to tell him that he wished to help him through with a difficult thought.

Throughout my life, till someone shall tell me that my time has come, I shall remember Doe's look when he saw that Monty was not going to dispute his statement. His wide eyes stared inquiringly. Then they filmed over with a slight moisture, for they belonged to a boy who was not yet twenty. He dropped his eyelids to conceal the welling moisture, but raised them a few seconds later, revealing that the tears had gathered still more abundantly, and his lashes were wet with them. Nevertheless he smiled, and said:

"Well, it can't be helped. If I'd known when I started that it would end like this—I'd have gone through with it just the same. I haven't got cold feet."

§2

"It's an end to all the ambitions and poems," said Doe later, when the windowless tent seemed to be getting dark, though the afternoon was yet early. "P'raps you'll be left to fulfil yours, Rupert. Do you remember you said in Radley's room—all those hundreds of years ago—that you wanted to be a country squire?"

"Yes," answered I, with a quivering lip.

"And Penny wanted—to be a Tory.... And I wanted to lead the people. Oh, well. I'd like just to have known—whether we won the war in the end. P'raps you'll know—"

"We're winning," said I feebly.

"O Lord, yes," agreed Doe, dreamily echoing an old memory.

It grew darker, though not yet three o'clock; and my brain seemed to be receding from me with the light. I felt tired and frightened. There was a long pause, till at last I said:

"Well, I s'pose I must be going now."

God! The futility of the words! And they were the last I could utter to Doe!... I grasped his wrist. If I couldn't speak, I could pass all my abounding love and misery through the pressure of my hand.

"Good-bye," he said. "Thanks for coming to see me."

The boyish words broke me up. My brows contracted in pain. My eyes burned, and misery filled my throat. I even felt a smile at the tragedy of it all pass over my face. Then with an audible moan I rushed away.

I went out to my horse without waiting for Monty. I could have waited for nobody. I wanted motion, action, something to occupy my hands and feet and mind. As I mounted the mare she began to walk away. But walking was not action enough. Impatiently I urged her to a canter and a gallop. And, while she galloped, increasing her distance from the "White City," I asked myself if I realised that I was riding away from Doe for ever.

The spirited mare, knowing that she was going home to her lines, opened out like a winner racing up the straight. The extravagance of her speed exactly fitted my extravagant mood. I promised myself that, just as I was letting my animal have its head, so I would slacken all moral reins, and let my life run uncontrolled. There was not more beauty in things than ugliness, nor more happiness in life than pain. Have done with this straining after ideals!... The horse gathered pace.

Then, as I rode savagely and thought savagely, a strange thing happened. I was gripping the mare with my knees, and, now that she was attaining her highest speed, I leaned forward like a jockey, throwing my weight on her withers. The wind rushed past me; the exhilaration of speed filled me; that invigorating sensation of strong life pulling upon my reins and springing between the grip of my knees ran through my veins; my lungs tightened; a pleasing weariness set in below the heart; and for a moment I almost felt the unconquerable joy of youth in life!

Instantly I pulled the wild animal in, and dropped into a melancholy walk. I felt as if I had been trapped. Not yet would I be disloyal to Doe by admitting beauty in creation or joy in living. I walked the lathering mare to the lines, like a tired jockey who has run his race. Then I wandered home to Fusilier Bluff—home to a dug-out for two! I couldn't enter the dug-out yet. I lay down on the Bluff, watching the late sun nearing the hills of Imbros.

The misery possessing me was of that passionate kind which embraces self-torture. I wilfully excavated the ten past years for memories of Doe, though, in so doing, I was pressing upon my wound to make it hurt. I watched him as a boy, getting into the next bed in the Bramhall dormitory, or rowing in the evening light up the river at Falmouth. I saw two young khaki figures, his and mine, setting out at midnight to sin and sully ourselves together. I heard him quoting on the hilltops of Mudros his haunting couplet: