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:
"The Germans are coming, oh dear, oh dear,
The Germans are coming, oh can't you hear?"
§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.