MAJOR HARDY AND PADRE MONTY FINISH THE VOYAGE
§1
But I must hurry on. Here am I dawdling over what happened indoors
in the minds of two boys, while out of doors nations were battling
against nations, and the whole world was in upheaval. Here am I
happily describing so local a thing as the effort of a big-hearted
priest to rebuild our spiritual lives on the quiet moments of the
Mass and the strange glorious mystery of penance, while the great
Division which captured the beaches of Cape Helles had been brought
to a standstill by the impregnable hill of Achi Baba, and uncounted
troopships like our own were pouring through the Mediterranean to
retrieve the fight.
On with the war, then. One morning I was wakened by much talking and
movement all over the boat, and by Doe's leaping out of his top
bunk, kicking me in passing, and disappearing through the cabin
door. Back he came in a minute, crying: "You must come out and see
this lovely, white dream-city. We're outside Malta."
I rushed out to find Valetta, the grand harbour of Malta, on three
sides of us. We were anchored; and the hull of the _Rangoon_, which
looked very huge now, was surrounded by Maltese bumboats.
Shore leave was granted us. And, ashore, we hurried through the
blazing heat to visit the hospitals and learn from the crowds of
Gallipoli sick and wounded something about the fighting at Helles.
These cheery patients shocked our optimism by telling us that it was
hopeless to expect the capture of the hill of Achi Baba by frontal
assault and that any further advance at Cape Helles was scratched
off the programme. The hosts of troops that were passing through
Malta must, they surprised us by declaring, be destined for some
secret move elsewhere than at Helles, for there was no room for them
on the narrow tongue of land beneath Achi Baba.
"We're wild to know what's in the wind," said a sister. "The stream
of transports has never stopped for the last few days."
That we could well believe. There were two huge liners crammed with
khaki figures in the harbour that morning.
"We are going to win, I imagine?" asked Monty, with a note of doubt.
"O lord, yes," replied a superbly bonny youngster, without a right
arm. "But I don't envy you going to the Peninsula. It's heat, dust,
flies, and dysentery. And Mudros is ten times worse."
"What's Mudros?" asked I.
"Mudros," broke in Doe, blushing, as he aired his classical
learning, "is a harbour in the Isle of Lemnos famous in classical--"
"Mudros," interrupted the one-armed man, proud of his experience,
"is a harbour in the Island of Lemnos, and the filthiest hole--"
"Mudros," continued Doe, refusing to be beaten, "is a harbour in the
Isle of Lemnos, which is the island where Jason and the Argonauts
landed, and found Hypsipele and the women who had murdered their
husbands. Jupiter hurled Vulcan from Heaven, and he fell upon
Lemnos. And it's sad to relate that Achilles and Agamemnon had a bit
of a dust-up there."
"Well, that may be," said the one-armed hero, rather crushed by
Doe's weighty lecture. "But you're going to Mudros first in your
transport, and you'll probably die of dysentery there."
"Good Lord," said I.
We selected the ward where we would have our beds when we came down
wounded, and the particular pretty sister who should nurse us; and
went out into the dazzling sun. Having climbed to a high level that
overlooked the harbour, we leaned against a stone parapet, and
examined the French warships that slept, with one eye open, up a
narrow blue waterway. For Malta in 1915 was a French naval base.
"Sad to see them there, sir," said a convalescent Tommy, pointing to
the grey cruisers flying the tricolour. "They've been bottled up
there, since the submarines appeared off Helles and sank the
_Majestic_ and t'other boats. There's only destroyers loafing around
Cape Helles now, sir."
"Great Scott, is that so?" asked Monty. "But I suppose we're going
to win?"
"O lord, yes," said the Tommy.
We got back to the _Rangoon_ just before sundown. And, when the sun
began to soften and to bathe the white buildings of Valetta in ruddy
hues, our siren boomed out its farewell, and two English girls in a
small boat waved an incessant good-bye. Crowds gathered to brandish
handkerchiefs, as our transport crept away, with the boys singing:
"Roaming in the gloaming on the banks of the Dardanelles," and
yelling: "Are we downhearted? NO! Are we going to win? YES!"
"Well, that's the last of Malta," murmured Jimmy Doon. "Another
landmark in our lives gone."
§2
Two days' run brought us outside Alexandria. And the confoundedly
learned Doe, pointing out to me the pink and yellow town upon the
African sands, among its palms and its shipping, said: "Behold the
city of Alexander the Great, of Julius Cæsar and Cleopatra; the home
of the Greek scriptures; and the see of the great saints, Clement,
Athanasius, and Cyril."
So I did what he wanted. I called him a Classical Encyclopædia, at
which he looked uncomfortable and pleased.
It was Alexandria right enough. We had reached at last the base of
the Dardanelles fight, and entered the outskirts of that ancient
imperial world, which the old Colonel had told us was the theatre of
the campaign.
Travelling very slowly, we steamed into the huge harbour. And soon
we were moored against one of its forty quays, and being addressed
in an infernal jangle of tongues by hundreds of begging Arabs who
came rushing through the guns, limbers and field kitchens arrayed on
the quay.
More anxious than ever for news of the fight, we applied for shore
leave, and, after lunch, went down the gangway, and trod the soil of
Africa for the first time.
At once, like an overpowering personality, the East rose up to
greet us, oppressing us with its merciless Egyptian sun and its
pungent smell of dark humanity. Heady with the sun, and sick with
the smell, we found ourselves in one of the worst streets of
Alexandria, the "Rue des Soeurs," a filthy thoroughfare of
brothels masquerading as shops, and of taverns, which, like the rest
of the world, had gone into military dress and called themselves:
"The Army and Navy Bar," "The Lord Kitchener Bar," and "The Victory
Bar."
Phew! the sweat and the stench! The East was a vapour bath. What a
climate for a white man to make war in! And yet everywhere in this
city of Alexander and Athanasius, British and Australian soldiers
sauntered on foot or drove government waggons through the streets.
Sick and wounded, too, roamed abroad in their blue hospital
uniforms. Only too pleased to display before three eager novices
their superior acquaintance with Gallipoli, they told us the story
we had heard at Malta: the Helles army, firmly stopped by the hill
of Achi Baba, was melting away in the atrocious heat; but some
startling new venture was expected, for the forty quays of
Alexandria had been scarcely sufficient to cater for the troops and
stores that had put in there; and all the hospitals in Egypt had
been emptied to admit twenty thousand casualties.
We hired a buggy, and drove back through the same odorous street to
the dockyard, and, having given the thief of an Arab driver a third
of his demands, went straight to our cabins to rinse our mouths out.
Next day at sundown, the siren boomed good-bye. Perhaps there was a
military reason for it, but we always left these ports at sunset. It
was sunset, as we steamed out of Malta; and now, with the sky
flushed and the air rose-tinted, we began to slip gently out of the
harbour, amid cheers and handwavings from every ship that we passed.
We were picking our course between the ships, when Monty plucked my
sleeve, and, pointing to a home-bound liner, murmured:
"Beauty, Rupert."
I looked, and saw what he meant. For in the big liner's bows two
tiny English children clad in white, a little boy and girl, waved
mechanically under the instructions of their sweet-faced English
mother, who, though a young one, looked with a mother's eyes at our
yellow rows of helmeted lads, and waved the more energetically (I
doubt not) as she strove to keep back her tears. In the sad eyes of
that youthful mother I saw looking out at us the maternal love of
her sex for all the sons of woman. She was the last Englishwoman
that many of these boys ever saw.
As we drew near the entrance of the harbour, a cheery Englishman was
swept past in a white-sailed craft, and called out, as the wind bore
him away: "Good-bye, lads. Do your duty, lads. Give 'em hell ev'ry
time." Almost the next minute he was a white speck among the
shipping of the harbour, and we were out in the open sea.
§3
The _Rangoon_ had taken aboard at Alexandria a number of new
officers who, after being wounded on Gallipoli and treated in Egypt,
were now returning as fit for duty. One showed a long, white scar
across his scalp, where a bullet had just missed his brain. Another,
who had still two bullets in his body, had been with our
schoolfellow Moles White in the _River Clyde_ on the great April
morning. These were people to be stared at and admired. They
occupied exactly the same position to us as the bloods did when we
were at school. They spoke with ease and grace of Mudros Harbour, of
the great April landing at Helles, of the _Eski Line_, the _River
Clyde_, the _Gully Ravine_, and _Asiatic Annie_. We felt very near
the trenches, when they thus tossed fabled names about in
commonplace conversations. They never used the name "Gallipoli," but
always "The Peninsula." We made a mental note of this.
And they affected very shrewd ideas about the surprise push that was
coming off; but since they only nodded their heads wisely and
refused to be drawn, we suspected that they knew no more about it
than we did. They would point, with the pride of previous knowledge,
to the purple-hilled islands of the Ægean that we were passing all
day: Rhodes, and Patmos, and Mitylene. They laughed with damnable
superiority at our extensive kit, declaring that for their part they
had left everything at the base, and were carrying only a few pounds
of necessaries to the Peninsula. Some of them walked the deck in
private's uniform, maintaining that it was suicide to go to the
Peninsula trenches in the distinctive dress of an officer. They were
quite modest, simple folk, no doubt, but they certainly thought they
were the only people who realised that there was a war on.
Jimmy Doon, who had heard nothing of his lost draft at Alexandria,
and was much relieved thereby, became incorrigible when he smelt the
whiff of the trenches brought by these heroes. He would invite our
subscriptions to the daily sweepstake with the words: "Come along,
fork out. Last few sweeps of your life." And he would take me aside
and say: "I suppose I shall be daisy-pushing soon. Tedious, isn't
it?"
Late one afternoon, when we were only an hour's run from Mudros,
there came by wireless the inspiring news that solved the riddle of
the chain of transports in the Mediterranean and the empty hospitals
in Alexandria. The simple typed message that was pinned on the
notice-board, and could scarcely be read for the crowds surrounding
it, ran: "_We have landed in strong force at Suvla Bay and
penetrated seven miles inland. Ends._"
A new landing, hurrah! April 25th over again! The miracle of Helles
repeated at Suvla! Out with the maps to study the strategy of the
move! The map showed us Suvla Bay far up the coast of the Peninsula,
a long way behind Achi Baba. We measured seven miles, and decided
that the Turks' communications with Achi Baba must have been cut.
"Curse it," said an enthusiast, "we're just too late." We had
visions of the Turkish Army flying from the Helles front in frantic
efforts to escape the surrounding threatened by this landing in
their rear. We saw them abandoning their impregnable positions at
Achi Baba, abandoning the forts of the Narrows, and retreating, if
they could elude destruction, upon Constantinople.
And while the strategists on deck were getting delirious in their
prophecies, the ship steered a path round two outlying islets, and
entered the deep indentation in Lemnos Island, which is the mighty,
hill-locked harbour of Mudros. A little French destroyer, pearl-grey
in the evening light, steamed past us, and the French sailors waved
their arms, and danced a welcome to this troopship of their allies.
The _Rangoon_ yelled at them: "What price Suvla?" Some English
sailors, towed past in coal barges, asked us whether we were
downhearted, and we called back: "NO! What--price--SUVLA! Are we
going to win? YES!"
Now, I ask you, have the subalterns an excuse, or have they not, for
a rough-house this night? It's their last night aboard, for
to-morrow morning the smaller boats will come and carry them to the
deadly Peninsula: and it's the evening that has brought the news of
the Suvla landing. Excuse or not, they fetch the money out of their
pockets at dinner, and order the champagne before the soup is off
the table. Jimmy Doon, whipping the golden cap off his magnum of
"bubbly wine," says: "I've the horrible feeling I shall be dead this
time to-morrow. Pass your glasses, damn you. Cheerioh! Many 'appy
returns from the Great War--some day." "Cheerioh, Jimmy," we
acknowledge. "'Appy days!"
And, when the hundred subalterns, who form the first sitting at
dinner, vacate their places at the tables to make room for the
seniors, who come in state to the second sitting, anyone who sees
them rushing upstairs to the lounge, the bar, and the piano, knows
that there will be noise before the clock is an hour older. It
begins in the lounge: but the impulse of the spirit of riot is too
strong for the rough-house to be localised there. It's the end of
the voyage, and they must forthwith go and cheer the General. They
must cheer the Captain. Above all they must cheer Major Hardy, the
old sport! The mass of subalterns flows down the first flight of
stairs to the square gallery which overlooks the dining saloon, like
railings looking down into a bear-pit. And, like the bears, the
seniors were feeding in the bottom of the saloon. They look up from
their nuts and wine to see a hundred flushed young faces staring
from the gallery at their meal.
"Three cheers for the General!" cries a voice in the gallery.
Three of the noisiest fill the ship. And, when a hundred British
officers have yelled three cheers, it's in the nature of them to go
on and sing: "For he's a jolly good fellow," and to finish up with a
final cheer that leaves its forerunners nowhere. It's a way they
have in the Army.
"Speech! Speech!" demand exalted voices.
The General rises: and that's an excuse, heaven help us, for more
cheers, and "He's a jolly good fellow" all over again. The seniors
are young enough to beat time on the tables by hammering with their
spoons till the plates dance; and by tinkling their glasses like
tubular bells. In the last cheer one major so far forgets
himself--his name is Hardy--as to let go with a cat-call, after
which he immediately retires into his monocle, and pretends he
hasn't.
The General, who is a kindly old brigadier with twinkling eyes,
says: "I can't make a speech, but I'll sing you a song." He raises
his glass to the gallery, and to the hundred faces looking down, and
starts in a wheezy tenor: "For _they_ are jolly good fellows." He
gets no further, but takes advantage of the tumult of cheering to
resume his seat.
The Captain, a naval hero of the Helles landing, is put through it.
And in his speech he says: "If the Navy is really the father and
mother of the Army in this Gallipoli stunt, then I say--father and
mother are proud of their children"--(cheers from the ship's
officers). "The ships came as close in shore as possible--and always
will, gentlemen, as long as you're on that plagued Peninsula--but,
by God! it was the Army that left the shelter of the ships, and went
through the blizzard of bullets on to the beaches of Cape Helles."
Can such a compliment be acknowledged otherwise than uproariously?
Close your ears, if you can't stand a noise.
The Chief Officer is put through it. And by way of a speech he says:
"Suppose, instead of cheering me, you cheer the fellows who have
landed at Suvla?"
"Highland Honours!" yells a voice. And the seniors rise, stand upon
their chairs, put one foot on the table amongst the plates, and,
raising their glasses, join in the musical honours given to the new
army at Suvla.
Major Hardy is called, and a speech demanded from him. Loudly
applauded, he limps to the middle of the saloon, puts his monocle in
his eye, and says one sentence: "I never heard such bloody nonsense
in all my life." Releasing his monocle so that it falls on his
chest, he limps back to his seat, and apologises to Monty.
The seniors having been thus sporting, it occurs to some bright
young devil that it would be a graceful thing to sing "Home, sweet
Home" to them, as they finish their meal. And "Home, sweet Home"
leads naturally to "Auld Lang Syne," sung with linked arms and
swaying bodies.
And then the crowd of subalterns, worked up by the licence allowed
it, like a horse excited by a head-free gallop, returns in force to
the lounge. The pianist strikes up "The Old Folks at Home." A
Scotsman breaks in with the proclamation that It's oh! but he's
longing for his ain folk; Though he's far across the sea, Yet his
heart will ever be Away in dear old Scotland with his ain folk. And
an Irishman, feeling that there's too much of Scotland about these
songs, begins to publish the attractions of the hills of Donegal:
"And, please God, if He so wills,
Soon I'll see my Irish hills,
The hills of Donegal, so dear to me."
Then the piano rings out with ancient dance-tunes, and Harry
Fenwick, prince of dancers, seizes Edgar Doe round the waist, and,
clasping the slim youth to him, leads the boy (who's as graceful as
a girl and as sinuous as a serpent) through the voluptuous movements
of the latest dance. Up and down go their outstretched arms like a
pump handle, but oh! so sweetly; round and round with eyes
half-closed swirl their bodies; and, just as you think they are
going round again, they surprise you by teasingly stepping out the
music in a straight line across the lounge; and, when you least
expect it, they are retracing dainty steps along the same straight
line--always seductive, tantalising, enticing.
But stop the dance. Here arrives Major Hardy to a din of welcome.
And under his instructions they burn the champagne corks, and
therewith decorate their faces. One is ornamented with a pointed
beard and the devil's horns, and turned into Mephistopheles. One is
given an unshaven chin, and made to represent Moses Ikeystein.
Another is a White-eyed Kaffir. And don't think Major Hardy omits
himself. Not he. He is Hindenburg.
Jimmy Doon, I regret to say, is undoubtedly drunk. He is walking
about seeking someone to fight. To my discomfiture he approaches me
as his best friend, and therefore the one most likely to fight him.
"Will you fight?" says he. "There's a decent shap."
I try with a sickly laugh to appear at my ease, and answer: "No,
damned if I will," blushing to the roots of my hair, and wishing the
painful person would go away.
"And you call yourself a Christian!" retorts Jimmy; which provokes
the rest of the subalterns to hold a court-martial on James Doon for
being tight. And they court-martial Fishy Fielding, an ugly fellow,
whose eyes are like a cod's. What for, you seek to know. Well, they
court-martial him because of his face. Both culprits are found
guilty.
At 1 a.m. Jimmy staggers to his cabin to rest a swimming head. But
he doesn't go to sleep till he has summoned his steward, and
instructed him to call him early in the morning--call him
early--call him early, for he's to be Queen of the May.
§4
The riot had been still young when Doe entered the lounge from the
deck, and, walking up to me, said:
"Come outside a minute."
He moved and spoke with the slight excitement and mysteriousness of
one who had discovered something. I followed him out from the noise
of the lounge into the silence of the deck.
"Come where it's quiet," he whispered.
We walked to the deserted bows.
"Now listen. Do you hear anything?"
"No," I answered, after awhile.
"Listen again. You won't catch it first go."
I strained my ears, while Doe stared at me.
"Yes, I hear it," I proclaimed at last. "Is it Helles, do you think,
or Suvla?"
"I expect some of it is the old Turk trying to resist the invasion
of Suvla."
For I had heard a distant throb in the air--no more--like a heart
beating miles away. At times the throb became a rumble which could
be felt rather than heard. Something in me jumped at the sound. The
startled feeling was rather pleasing than otherwise. It was not a
small thing to hear for the first time the guns of Gallipoli, to
whose mouths our lives had been slowly drawing us during nineteen
years.
§5
Padre Monty finished the voyage in his own style. Early the next
morning he had a corporate farewell Mass for all his servers and his
family. And this is the true story how Major Hardy chanced to limp
to the service.
He retired early from the revels of the previous night, and, as Doe
and I were getting into our bunks, we heard him in his cabin next
door whistling "Home, sweet Home," while he disrobed. We heard the
steward ask him:
"What time will you be called in the morning, sir?"
"What time?" answered the Major's voice, when he had finished the
tune. "What time? Let's see. I say, Ray," he inquired through the
wall, "this padre-fellow's got a service or something in the
morning--_what_?"
"Yes, sir," shouted I.
"Some unearthly hour, seven or what?"
"Seven-thirty, sir."
"Ah yes," said the Major's voice, soft again, to the steward, "call
me six-thirty."
"Yes, sir. Will you have shaving water then, sir?"
"Shaving water--_what_? Yes, surely." And the Major shouted through
the wall: "We shave, don't we, Ray?"
"Well, yes, sir," agreed I.
"Of course," continued the Major, reproachfully, to the steward.
"Bring shaving water. And there'll be the most deplorable row if
it's not hot."
"Will you have a cup of tea to get up with, sir?" asked the steward.
"Tea? What? No, I don't think so. No, surely not." Once more he
sought enlightenment through the wall. "We don't have tea, do we,
Ray?"
"Well, no, sir. That's as you please."
"No. No tea, steward. Of course not. What nonsense!"
"Very good, sir. Good night, sir."
"Good night, steward.... You see, Ray," shouted Major Hardy, "I am a
bit out of this church business. Must get into it again--_what_. And
the padre's a good fellow."
In such wise Major Hardy half apologised to two boys for being
present, and limped to the service.
Half a hundred others crowded the smoking room. This last Mass being
what Monty called his "prize effort," he insisted on having two
servers, and selected Doe and myself, whom he chose to regard as his
"prize products." On either side of the altar we took our places,
not now clad in white flannels, but uniformed and booted for going
ashore. Monty, as he approached the altar, gave one quick,
involuntary glance at his packed congregation, ready dressed for
war, and slightly sparkled and flushed with pleasure.
After the Creed had been said, Monty turned to deliver a little
farewell address. Very simply he told his hearers that, when in a
few hours' time the boats came to take them to the Peninsula
Beaches, they were to know that they were doing the right thing.
There was a tense stillness, as he said with suggestive slowness: "I
am only the lips of your Church. She has been with you on this ship,
and striven not to fail you. And now to God's mercy and protection
she commits you. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord give you
His peace this day and evermore."
If Monty desired to fill the room with an unworldly atmosphere, and
to raise the cloud "Shechinah" around his little altar, he knew by
the solemn hush, as he turned to continue the Mass, that he had
succeeded. And at the end of it all he added a farewell hymn, which
the congregation rose from their knees to sing. Sung to the tune of
"Home, sweet Home," like an echo from the purer parts of the
previous night, its words were designed by Monty to linger for many
a day in the minds of his soldier-servers.
"Dismiss me not Thy service, Lord,
But train me for Thy will:
For even I in fields so broad
Some duties may fulfil:
And I would ask for no reward
Except to serve Thee still."
So they sang: and they went out on to the sunlit deck trailing
clouds of glory.
§6
It really did seem the end of the voyage, and the beginning of
something utterly new--and something so dangerous withal that our
pulse-rate quickened with suspense--when the Military Landing
Officer came aboard, laden with papers, and, sitting at a table in
the lounge, gave into the hands of boys, who yesterday were playing
quoits-tennis, written orders to proceed at once to such places as
W. Beach on Helles or the new front at Suvla.
"Here we take our tickets for the tumbrils," murmured Jimmy Doon, as
we stood awaiting our turn. "Third single for La Guillotine."
And yet it was with a jar of disappointment that we heard the M.L.O.
say to Doe, after consulting his papers:
"Stop at Mudros. Report to Rest Camp, Mudros East."
"Why, sir, am I not going to--" began Doe.
"Next, please. What name?" interrupted the M.L.O. There was war
forty miles away, and no time to argue with a young subaltern. "What
name, you?"
"Ray, sir. East Cheshires."
"Rest Camp, Mudros."
"But is it for long, sir?" ventured I.
"Next, please. What name, padre?"
"Monty," answered our friend. "East Cheshires."
"Report Rest Camp," promptly said the M.L.O., and, raising his
voice, called to the waiting crowd: "All East Cheshire Details
detained at Mudros."
"But I have to relieve--" began Monty.
"Next, please. What name?" the M.L.O. burst in, looking up into
Jimmy Doon's face.
"Jimmy--I mean, Lieutenant Doon, Fifth East Lancs."
"Held up, Mudros. Report--"
"But my draft, sir, has--"
"Next, please."
And Jimmy came away, hoping he had heard the last of his draft. He
joined our Cheshire group, which was discussing the latest
thunderbolt.
"Lord, isn't it enormously unseemly?" he grumbled. "I'm left out,
too. Why, I've been a year in the Army, and not yet seen a man
killed. I hoped I was certain to see one now."
"You detestably gruesome little cad," said Monty.
"I wonder if it's for long," murmured Doe. "I'd take the risk of
being killed rather than not be able to say I'd seen the great Cape
Helles, or, failing Helles, this new Suvla front."
"As it is," grunted Jimmy, "we shall probably be at Mudros till the
end of the world."
The M.L.O. had not been gone an hour before the Navy sent its
pinnaces with large lighters in tow for conveying the first drafts
to the Peninsula ferry-boats. Each pinnace was in command of a
midshipman, generally a fair-haired English boy looking about
fifteen. These baby officers, who gave their orders to wide-chested
and bronzed Tars, old enough to be their fathers, were stared at by
us with romantic interest. For there had been stories in England of
the deeds of the middies in the famous First Landing at Helles, when
they remained in the bows of the boats they commanded, scorning
cover of any kind, as became British officers in charge of men.
After the lighters, the _Snaefell_, an old Isle of Man steamer, came
alongside, and, having taken some hundreds of men aboard, edged away
from us, while Major Hardy, his heart ever overthrowing his dignity,
said wrathfully:
"Give 'em a cheer or something, damn you."
We raised a cheer. The men responded, though not very effectively,
and cheered and waved as the _Snaefell_ carried them away.
"They know what they're going to, poor lads," mumbled Major Hardy.
Next came the _Redbreast_, whose decks were soon as crowded as the
_Snaefell's_ had been. Major Hardy scanned them through his
eyeglass, and then turned snuffily upon us and said:
"Damn your English reticence! Damn your unimaginative silence! Why
don't you study the psychology of these boys and this moment?"
Leaning over the rail, he cried at the crowd on the _Redbreast_:
"Good-bye, lads. Let fly! Three cheers for the king! Let 'em go!"
The boys caught his enthusiasm, as boys always will, and followed
his lead, cheering the king and singing: "For he's a jolly good
fellow.... And so say all of us. With a hip-hip-hip-hurrah!"
And with them cheering and singing thus, the _Redbreast_ slipped
quietly away.
Major Hardy dropped his monocle on his chest. A good voyage--a jolly
voyage--was over.
And now a little motor-launch puffed alongside to collect the Mudros
Details: and we went down the _Rangoon's_ hull to be ferried ashore.
We were ferried, as you shall see, out of our dazzling news of the
campaign into the darkness of collapsing things.
_Part II: The White Heights_