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TRENCHING AT GALLIPOLI
[Illustration: Dugouts]
TRENCHING AT GALLIPOLI
THE PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF A
NEWFOUNDLANDER WITH THE ILL-FATED
DARDANELLES EXPEDITION
BY
JOHN GALLISHAW
_ILLUSTRATED WITH
PHOTOGRAPHS_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1916
Copyright, 1916, by
THE CENTURY CO.
_Published, October, 1916_
TO
PROFESSOR CHARLES TOWNSEND COPELAND
OF ALL THAT HARVARD HAS GIVEN ME I VALUE MOST
THE FRIENDSHIP AND CONFIDENCE OF "COPEY"
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I GETTING THERE 3
II THERE 33
III TRENCHES 63
IV DUGOUTS 93
V WAITING FOR THE WAR TO CEASE 123
VI NO MAN'S LAND 141
VII WOUNDED 164
VIII HOMEWARD BOUND 192
IX "FEENISH" 224
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Dugouts _Frontispiece_
Lord Kitchener talking to some Australians at Anzac 9
Scene at Lancashire Landing, Cape Helles 27
Allies landing reinforcements under heavy fire of Turks
in Dardanelles 38
Troops at the Dardanelles leaving for the landing beach 47
A remarkable view of a landing party in the Dardanelles 57
Australians in trench on Gallipoli Peninsula, using the
periscope 67
First line of Allies' trench zigzagging along parallel
to the Turkish trenches 78
Washing day in war-time 95
Cleaning up after coming down from the trenches at Suvla 114
Landing British troops from the transports at the
Dardanelles under protection of the battleships 131
Australians in the trenches consider clothes a superfluity 157
Some of the barbed wire entanglements near Seddel Bahr
are still in position 175
A British battery at work on the Peninsula 186
With the French at Seddel Bahr 203
Where troops landed in Dardanelles, showing Fort
Sed-ne-behi battered to pieces by Allied Fleet 213
TRENCHING AT GALLIPOLI
The reader is hereby cautioned against regarding this narrative as in
any way official.
It is merely a record of the personal experiences of a member of the
First Newfoundland Regiment, but the incidents described all actually
occurred.
TRENCHING AT GALLIPOLI
CHAPTER I
GETTING THERE
"Great Britain is at War."
The announcement came to Newfoundland out of a clear sky. Confirming
it, came the news of the assurances of loyalty from the different
colonies, expressed in terms of men and equipment. Newfoundland was
not to be outdone. Her population is a little more than two hundred
thousand, and her isolated position made garrisons unnecessary. Her
only semblance of military training was her city brigades. People
remembered that in the Boer War a handful of Newfoundlanders had
enlisted in Canadian regiments, but never before had there been any
talk of Newfoundland sending a contingent made up entirely of her own
people and representing her as a colony. From the posting of the
first notices bearing the simple message, "Your King and Country Need
You," a motley crowd streamed into the armory in St. John's. The city
brigades, composed mostly of young, beautifully fit athletes from
rowing crews, football and hockey teams, enlisted in a body. Every
train from the interior brought lumbermen, fresh from the mills and
forests, husky, steel-muscled, pugnacious at the most peaceful times,
frankly spoiling for excitement. From the outharbors and fishing
villages came callous-handed fishermen, with backs a little bowed from
straining at the oar, accustomed to a life of danger. Every day there
came to the armory loose-jointed, easy-swinging trappers and woodsmen,
simple-spoken young men, who, in offering their keenness of vision and
sureness of marksmanship, were volunteering their all.
It was ideal material for soldiers. In two days many more than the
required quota had presented themselves. Only five hundred men could
be prepared in time to cross with the first contingent of Canadians.
Over a thousand men offered. A corps of doctors asked impertinent
questions concerning men's ancestors, inspected teeth, measured and
pounded chests, demanded gymnastic stunts, and finally sorted out the
best for the first contingent. The disappointed ones were consoled by
news of another contingent to follow in six weeks. Some men, turned
down for minor defects, immediately went to hospital, were treated,
and enlisted in the next contingent.
Seven weeks after the outbreak of war the Newfoundlanders joined the
flotilla containing the first contingent of Canadians. Escorted by
cruisers and air scouts they crossed the Atlantic safely and went
under canvas in the mud and wet of Salisbury Plain, in October, 1914.
To the men from the interior, rain and exposure were nothing new.
Hunting deer in the woods and birds in the marshes means just such
conditions. The others soon became hardened to it. They had about
settled down when they were sent on garrison duty, first to Fort
George in the north of Scotland, and then to Edinburgh Castle. Ten
months of bayonet-fighting, physical drill, and twenty-mile route
marches over Scottish hills molded them into trim, erect, bronzed
soldiers.
In July of 1915, while the Newfoundlanders were under canvas at Stob's
Camp, about fifty miles from Edinburgh, I was transferred to London
to keep the records of the regiment for the War Office. At any other
time I should have welcomed the appointment. But then it looked like
quitting. The battalion had just received orders to move to Aldershot.
While we were garrisoning Edinburgh Castle, word came of the landing
of the Australians and New Zealanders at Gallipoli. At Ypres, the
Canadians had just then recaptured their guns and made for themselves
a deathless name. The Newfoundlanders felt that as colonials they had
been overlooked. They were not militaristic, and they hated the
ordinary routine of army life, but they wanted to do their share. That
was the spirit all through the regiment. It was the spirit that
possessed them on the long-waited-for day at Aldershot when Kitchener
himself pronounced them "just the men I want for the Dardanelles."
That day at Aldershot every man was given a chance to go back to
Newfoundland. They had enlisted for one year only, and any man that
wished to could demand to be sent home at the end of the year; and
when Kitchener reviewed them, ten months of that year had gone. With
the chance to go home in his grasp, every man of the first battalion
reenlisted for the duration of the war. And it is on record to their
eternal honor, that during the week preceding their departure from
Aldershot, breaches of discipline were unknown; for over their heads
hung the fear that they would be punished by being kept back from
active service. To break a rule that week carried with it the
suspicion of cowardice. This was the more remarkable, because many of
the men were fishermen, trappers, hunters, and lumbermen, who, until
their enlistment had said "Sir" to no man, and who gloried in the
reputation given them by one inspecting officer as "the most
undisciplined lot he had ever seen." From the day the Canadians left
Salisbury Plain for the trenches of Flanders, the Newfoundlanders had
been obsessed by one idea: they must get to the front.
I was in London when I heard of the inspection at Aldershot by Lord
Kitchener, and of its results. I had expected to be able to rejoin my
battalion in time to go with them to the Dardanelles; but when I
applied for a transfer, I was told that I should have to stay in
London. I tried to imagine myself explaining it to my friends in No.
11 section who were soon to embark for the Mediterranean. Apart
altogether from that, I had gone through nearly a year of training,
had slept on the ground in wet clothes, had drilled from early morning
till late afternoon, and was perfectly fit. It had been pretty
strenuous training, and I did not want to waste it in an office.
That evening I applied to the captain in charge of the office for a
pass to Aldershot to bid good-by to my friends in the regiment. He
granted it; and the next morning a train whirled me through pleasant
English country to Aldershot. At the station I met an English Tommy.
"I suppose you're looking for the Newfoundlanders," he said, glancing
at my shoulder badges. I was still wearing the service uniform I had
worn in camp in Scotland, for I had not been regularly attached to the
office force in London.
"I'll take you to Wellington Barracks," volunteered the Englishman.
"That's where your lot is."
We trudged through sand, on to a gravel road, through the main street
of the town of Aldershot, and into an asphalt square, surrounded by
brick buildings, three storied, with iron-railed verandas. Men in
khaki leaned over the veranda rails, smoking and talking. A regiment
was just swinging in through one of the gaps between the lines.
[Illustration: Lord Kitchener talking to some Australians at
Anzac]
"Company, at the halt, facing left, form close column of platoons."
Company B of the First Newfoundland Regiment swung into position and
halted in the square just in front of their quarters. "Company,
Dismiss!" Hands smacked smartly on rifle stocks, heels clicked
together, and the men of B Company fell out. A gray-haired,
iron-mustached soldier, indelibly stamped English regular, carrying a
bucket of swill across the square to the dump, stopped to watch them.
"Wonder who the new lot is?" said he to a comrade lounging near. "I
cawn't place their bloomin' badge."
"'Aven't you 'eard?" said the other. "Blawsted colonials; Canydians, I
reckon."
A tall, loose-jointed, sandy-haired youth who approached the two was
unmistakably a colonial; there was a certain ranginess that no amount
of drilling could ever entirely eradicate.
"Hello, Poppa," he greeted the gray-haired one, who had now resumed
his journey toward the dump. "What will you answer when your children
say, 'Daddy, what part did you play in the great war?'"
He of the swill bucket spat contemptuously, disdaining to answer. The
sandy-haired youth continued airily across the square and up the
stairs that led to his quarters. I followed him up the stairs and
through a door on which was printed "Thirty-two men," and below, in
chalk, "B Company." We entered a long, bare-looking room, down each
side of which ran rows of iron cots. Equipments were piled neatly on
the beds and on shelves above; two iron-legged, barrack-room tables
and a few benches completed the furniture. At one of the tables sat
two young men. One of them, a massively built young giant, looked up
as the door opened.
"Hello, Art," he said to my conductor. "You're just the man we want.
Don't you want to join us in a party to go up to London?"
"No," answered Art; "if you break leave this week, you don't get to
the front."
The big fellow stretched his massive frame in a capacious yawn.
"I don't think we'll ever get to the front," he said. "This isn't a
regiment. It's an officers' training corps. They gave out a lot more
stripes to-day, and one fellow got a star--made him a second
lieutenant. You'd think this was the American army; it's nothing but
stars and stripes. Soon 't will be an honor to be a private. The worst
of it is, they'll come along to me and say, 'What's your name and
number?' The only time they ever talk to me is to ask me my name and
number; and when I tell them, they put me on crime for not calling
them 'Sir,' and when I don't they have me up for insolence."
Art laughed. "Cheer up, old boy," he said; "you'll soon be at the
front, and then you won't have to call anybody 'Sir.'"
"What's the latest news about the regiment?" I inquired of my
conductor.
"I suppose you know that the King and Lord Kitchener reviewed us," he
said, "and this afternoon we are to be reviewed once more. It's a
formality. We should leave this evening or to-morrow for the front. I
suppose we'll go to some seaport town and embark there."
While we were talking a bugle blew. "There's the cook-house bugle,"
said Art. "Come along and have some dinner with us." He took some tin
dishes from the shelves above the beds, gave me one, and we joined in
the rush down the stairs and across the square to the cook house.
In the army, the cook house corresponds to the dining-room of
civilization. B Company cook house was a long, narrow, wooden
building. On each side of a middle aisle that led to the kitchen were
plain wooden tables, each accommodating sixteen men, eight on each
side. When we arrived, the building was full. When you are eating as
the guest of the Government, there is no hostess to reserve for you
the choice portions; therefore it behooves you to come early. In the
army, if you are not there at the beginning of a meal, you go hungry.
Thus are inculcated habits of punctuality. But if you are called and
the meal is not ready, you have your revenge. Two hundred and
sixty-two men of B Company were showing their disapproval of the
cooks' lack of punctuality. Screeches, yells, and cat cries rivaled
the din of stamping feet and the banging of tin dishes. Occasionally
the door of the kitchen swung open and afforded a glimpse of three
sweating cooks and their group of helpers, working frenziedly.
Sometimes the noise stopped long enough to allow some spokesman to
express his opinion of the cooks, and their fitness for their jobs,
with that delightful simplicity and charming candor that made the
language of the First Newfoundland Regiment so refreshing. Loud
applause served the double purpose of encouraging the speakers and
drowning the reply of the incensed cooks. This was a pity, because the
language of an army cook is worth hearing, and very enlightening. Men
who formerly prided themselves on their profanity have listened,
envious and subdued, awed by the originality and scope of a cook's
vocabulary, and thenceforth quit, realizing their own amateurishness.
Occasionally, though, one of the cooks, stung to retort, would appear,
wiping his hands on his overalls, and in a few well-chosen phrases,
cover some of the more recent exploits of the one who had angered him,
or endeavor to clear his own character, always in language brilliant,
fluent, and descriptive.
But the longest wait must come to an end, and at last the door of the
kitchen swung open and the helpers appeared. Some mysterious mess fund
had been tapped, and that day dinner was particularly good. First came
soup, then a liberal helping of roast beef, with potatoes, tomatoes,
and peas, followed by plum pudding. B Company soon finished. In the
army, dinner is a thing not of ceremony, but of necessity.
I did not wait for my sandy-haired friend; his name, I gathered, was
Art Pratt. He and a neighbor were adjusting a difference regarding the
ownership of a combination knife, fork, and spoon. I found my way back
to the room marked "Thirty-two men." Just as I entered, I heard the
bugle sound the "half-hour dress."
All about the room men were busy shining shoes, polishing buttons,
rolling puttees, and adjusting equipments. This took time, and the
half hour for preparation soon passed. In the square below, at the
sound of the "Fall In," eleven hundred men of the first battalion of
the First Newfoundland Regiment sprang briskly to attention. After
their commanding officer had inspected them, the battalion formed into
column of route. As the tail of the column swung through the square, I
joined in. A short march along the Aldershot Road brought us to the
dusty parade ground. Here we were drawn up in review order, to await
the inspecting general. When he arrived, he rode quickly through the
lines, then ordered the men to be formed into a three-sided square.
From the center of this human stadium he addressed them.
"Men of the First Newfoundland Regiment," said he, "a week ago you
were reviewed by His Majesty the King and by Lord Kitchener. On that
day, Lord Kitchener told you that you were just the men he needed for
the Dardanelles. I have been deputed to tell you that you are to
embark to-night. You have come many miles to help us; and when you
reach the Dardanelles, you will be opposed by the bravest fighters in
the world. It is my duty and my pleasure on behalf of the British
Government and of His Majesty the King to thank you and to wish you
God-speed."
This was the moment the Newfoundlanders had been waiting for for
nearly a year. From eleven hundred throats broke forth wave upon wave
of cheering. Then came an instant's hush, the bugle band played the
general salute, and the regiment presented arms. Gravely the general
acknowledged the compliment, spurred his horse, and rode rapidly away.
The regiment reformed, marched back to barracks, and dismissed.
I joined the crowd that pressed around the board on which were posted
the daily orders. My friend Art Pratt was acting as spokesman.
"A and B Companies leave here at eight this evening," he said. "C and
D Companies an hour later. They march to Aldershot railway station,
and entrain there."
I left the group around the board and walked over to the office of the
adjutant. He was busy giving instructions about his baggage.
"Well," he said, "what do you want?"
"I want to go with the battalion this evening, sir," I said.
He questioned me; and when he found out all the facts, told me that I
couldn't go. I didn't wait any longer. As I went out the door, I could
just hear him murmur something about my not having the necessary
papers. But I wasn't thinking of papers just then. I was wondering how
I could get away. I vowed that if I could possibly do it I would go
with the battalion. I was passing one of the stairways when I heard
some one yell, "Is that you, Corporal Gallishaw?" I turned. It was Sam
Hiscock, one of my old section.
"Hello, Sam," I said. "I didn't know where to look for old No. 11
section. They've all been changed about since they came here."
"Come up this way," said Sam, and I followed him up the stairs and
into a room occupied by the men of No. 11 section, my old section at
Stob's Camp in Scotland.
Disconsolately I told them my plight, and disclosed my plan guardedly.
Sam Hiscock, faithful and loyal to his section, voiced the sentiment.
"Come on with old No. 11; we'll look after you. All you have to do is
hang around here, and when we're moving off just fall in with us, and
nobody'll notice then; 't will be dark."
"The big trouble is," I said, "I have no equipment, no overcoat, no
kit-bag; in fact, no anything."
"You've got a rain coat," said Pierce Power, "and I've got a belt you
can have." Another offered a piece of shoulder strap, and some one
else volunteered to show me where a pile of equipments were kept in a
room. I followed him out to the room. In the corner a man was sitting
on the floor, smoking. He was the guard over the equipments. He
belonged to an English regiment, and so did the equipments. Sam
Hiscock engaged him in conversation for a few minutes. The topic he
introduced was a timely one: beer. While Hiscock and the guard went to
the canteen to do some research work in beverages, I took his place
guarding the equipments. By the time the two returned I had managed to
acquire a passable looking kit. I spent the rest of the afternoon
going around among my friends and telling them what I proposed to do.
At eight o'clock I joined the crowd that cheered A and B Companies as
they moved away, in charge of the adjutant and the colonel. When the
major called C and D Companies to attention, I fell in with my old
section C Company. The lieutenant in charge of the platoon I was with
saw me, but in the dusk he could not recognize my face. I was thankful
for the convenient darkness; and because it was fear of his invention
that caused it, I blessed the name of Count Zeppelin.
"Where's your rifle?" asked the lieutenant.
"Haven't got one, sir," I said.
The lieutenant called the platoon sergeant. "Sergeant," he snapped,
"get that man a rifle." The sergeant doubled back to the barracks and
returned with a rifle. The lieutenant moved away, and I had just begun
to congratulate myself, when disaster overtook me. The platoon was
numbered off. There was one man too many, and of course I was the man.
The lieutenant did not waste any time in vain controversy. He ordered
me out of his platoon.
"Where shall I go?" I asked.
"As far as I am concerned," he answered, "you can go straight to
hell."
I left his platoon; but when I did, I carried with me the precious
rifle. The sergeant, a thorough man, had been thoughtful enough to
bring with it a bayonet.
The time had now come to risk everything on one throw. I did. In the
army, all orders from the commanding officer of a regiment are
transmitted through the adjutant. I knew that both the colonel and the
adjutant had gone an hour ago, and could not now be reached. So I
walked up to Captain March, the captain of D Company, saluted, and
told him that I had been ordered to join his company.
"Ordered by whom?" he asked.
"By the Adjutant," said I, brazenly.
"I haven't had any orders about that," said Captain March.
Just then, Captain O'Brien, who had been my company commander in camp,
came up. I think he must have known what I was trying to do.
"If the Adjutant said so, it's all right," he said, thus leaving the
burden of proof on me.
"Go ahead then," said Captain March; "fall in."
I fell in. We formed up, and swung out of the square and along the
road that led to the station. At intervals, where a street lamp threw
a subdued glare, crowds cheered us; for even Aldershot, clearing house
of fighting forces, had not yet ceased to thrill at the sight of men
leaving for the front. Half an hour after we left the barracks, we
were all safely stowed away in the train, ten men in each of the
compartment coaches. Just as we were pulling out, a soldier went from
coach to coach, shaking hands with all the men. He came to our coach,
put his head in through the window, and shook hands with each man. I
was on the inside. "Good-by, old chap," he said, then gasped in
astonishment. The train was just beginning to move. It was well under
way when he recovered himself. "Gallishaw," he shouted, "you're under
arrest." It was the sergeant-major of the Record Office I had quitted
in London.
During war time in England, troop trains have the right of way over
all others. All night our train rattled along, with only one stop.
That was at Exeter where we were given a lunch supplied by the
Mayoress and ladies of the town. I spent the night under the seat; for
I thought the sergeant-major might telegraph to have the train
searched for me. Early next morning, we shunted onto a wharf in
Devonport, alongside the converted cruiser _Megantic_. Her sides were
already lined with soldiers; another battalion of eleven hundred men,
the Warwickshire Regiment, was aboard. As soon as our battalion had
detrained, I hid behind some boxes on the pier; and when the last of
the men were walking up the gangplank. I joined them. A steward handed
each man a ticket, bearing the number of his berth. I received one
with the rest. Since I was in uniform, the steward had no way of
telling whether or not I belonged to the Newfoundlanders.
All that day the _Megantic_ stayed in port, waiting for darkness to
begin the voyage. In the afternoon, we pulled out into the stream; and
at sunset began threading our way between buoys, down the tortuous
channel to the open sea. A couple of wicked-looking destroyers
escorted us out of Devonport; but as soon as we had cleared the
harbor, they steamed up and shot ahead of us. The next morning they
had disappeared. The first night out I ate nothing, but the next day I
managed to secure a ticket to the dining-room. With two battalions on
board, there was no room on the _Megantic_ for drills; the only work
we had was boat drill once a day. Each man was assigned his place in
the lifeboats. At the stern of the ship a big 4.7 gun was mounted; and
at various other points were placed five or six machine guns, in
preparation for a possible submarine attack. In addition, we depended
for escape on our speed of twenty-three to twenty-five knots.
During the boat drills, I stayed below with the Warwickshire Regiment,
or, as we called them, the Warwicks. This regiment was formed of men
of the regular army, who had been all through the first gruelling part
of the campaign, beginning with the retreat from Mons, to the battle
of the Marne. They were the remnants of "French's contemptible little
army." Every one of them had been wounded so seriously as to be unable
to return to the front. Ordinarily they would have been discharged,
but they were men whose whole lives had been spent in the army. Few of
them were under forty, so they were now being sent to Khartum in the
Sudan, for garrison duty. At night, I came on deck. In the submarine
area ships showed no lights, so I could go around without fear of
discovery. The only people I had to avoid were the officers, and the
caste system of the army kept them to their own part of the ship. The
men I knew would sooner cut their tongues out than inform on me.
Just before sunset of the third night out, because we passed several
ships, we knew we were approaching land. At nine o'clock, we were
directly opposite the Rock of Gibraltar. After we had left Gibraltar
behind, all precautions were doubled; we were now in the zone of
submarine operations. Ordinarily we steamed along at eighteen or
nineteen knots; but the night before we fetched Malta, we zigzagged
through the darkness, with engines throbbing at top speed, until the
entire ship quivered and shook, and every bolt groaned in protest.
With nearly three thousand lives in his care, our captain ran no
risks. But the night passed without incident. The next day, at noon,
we were safe in one of the fortified harbors of Malta.
After we left Malta, since I knew I could not then be sent back to
England, I reported myself to the adjutant. He and the colonel were in
the orderly room, as the office of a regiment is called. The
sergeant-major in charge of the orderly room had been taken ill two or
three days before, and the other men had been swamped by the extra
rush of clerical work, incident on the departure of a regiment for the
front. Perhaps this had a good deal to do with the lenient treatment I
received. The adjutant came to the point at once. That is a
characteristic of adjutants.
"Gallishaw," he said, "do you want to come to work here?"
"Yes, sir," I answered.
"All right," he said; "you're posted to B Company."
That night, it appeared in orders that "Lance-Corporal Gallishaw has
embarked with the battalion, and is posted to B Company for pay." The
only comment the colonel made on the affair was to say to the
adjutant, "I've often heard of men leaving a ship when she is going on
active service, but I've never heard of men stowing away to get
there." Thus I went to work in the orderly room; and in the orderly
room I stayed until we arrived at Alexandria, Egypt, and entrained
for Cairo. At Heliopolis, on the desert near Cairo, we went into camp.
There I joined my company and drilled with it, and bade good-by to the
orderly room and all its works.
[Illustration: Scene at Lancashire Landing, Cape Helles]
We stayed in Egypt only ten days or so to get accustomed to the heat,
and to change our heavy uniforms and hats for the light-weight duck
uniforms and sun helmets, suitable for the climate on the Peninsula of
Gallipoli. The heat at Heliopolis was too intense to permit of our
drilling very much. In the very early morning, before the sun was
really strong, we marched out a mile across the desert, skirmished
about for an hour or so, and returned to camp for breakfast. The rest
of the day we were free. Ordinarily we spent the morning sweltering in
our marquees, saying unprintable and uncomplimentary things about the
Egyptian weather. In the late afternoon and evening, we went to Cairo.
About a mile from where we were camped, a street car line ran into the
city. To get to it we generally rode across the desert on donkeys.
Every afternoon, as soon as we had finished dinner, little native boys
pestered us to hire donkeys. They were the same boys who poked their
heads into our marquees each morning and implored us to buy papers. We
needed no reveille in Egypt. The thing that woke us was a native
yelling "Eengaleesh paper, veera good; veera good, veera nice; fifty
thousand Eengaleesh killed in the Dardanelle; veera good, veera nice."
About a quarter of a mile across the desert from us was a camp for
convalescent Australians and New Zealanders. As soon as the Australians
found that we were colonials like themselves, they opened their hearts
to us in the breezy way that is characteristically Australian. There is
a Canadian hospital unit in Cairo. One medical school from Ontario
enlisted almost _en masse_. Professors and pupils carry on work and
lectures in Egypt just as they did in Canada. It was not an uncommon
thing to see on a Cairo street a group composed of an Australian, a New
Zealander, a Canadian, and a Newfoundlander. And once we managed to
rake up a South African. The clean-cut, alert-looking, bronzed
Australians, who impressed you as having been raised far from cities,
made a tremendous hit with the Newfoundlanders. One chap who was
returning home minus a leg, gave us a young wallaby that he had
brought with him from Australia. One of our boys had a small donkey,
not much larger than a collie dog, that he bought from a native for a
few shillings. The men vied with each other in feeding the animals.
Some fellows took the kangaroo one evening, and he acquired a taste for
beer. The donkey's taste for the same beverage was already well
developed. After that, the two were the center of convivial gatherings.
The wallaby got drunk faster, but the donkey generally got away with
more beer. When we were certain we were to go to the front, a meeting
was held in our marquee. It was unanimously decided that not a man was
to take a cent with him--everybody was to leave for the front
absolutely broke--"to avoid litigation among our heirs," the spokesman
said. The wallaby and the donkey benefited. The night before we left
the desert camp, they were wined and dined. The next morning, the
kangaroo, bearing unmistakable marks of his debauch, showed up to say
good-by. We were not allowed to take him with us, and he was relegated
to the Zoo in Cairo. The donkey, who had been steadily mixing his
drinks from four o'clock the afternoon before, did not see us go. When
we moved off, he was lying unconscious under one of the transport
wagons.
Although we took advantage of every opportunity for pleasure, we had
not lost sight of our real object. We were grateful for a chance to
visit the Pyramids, and enjoyed our meeting with the men from the
Antipodes, but Egypt soon palled. The Newfoundlanders' comment was
always the same. "It's some place, but it isn't the front. We came to
fight, not for sightseeing."