Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
AT SUVLA BAY
Being The Notes And Sketches Of Scenes, Characters
And Adventures Of The Dardanelles Campaign
By John Hargrave
(“White Fox” of “The Scout “)
While Serving With The 32nd Field Ambulance, X Division, Mediterranean
Expeditionary Force, During The Great War
To
MINOBI
We played at Ali Baba,
On a green linoleum floor;
Now we camp near Lala Baba,
By the blue Aegean shore.
We sailed the good ship Argus,
Behind the studio door;
Now we try to play at “Heroes”
By the blue Aegean shore.
We played at lonely Crusoe,
In a pink print pinafore;
Now we live like lonely Crusoe,
By the blue Aegean shore.
We used to call for “Mummy,”
In nursery days of yore;
And still we dream of Mother,
By the blue Aegean shore.
While you are having holidays,
With hikes and camps galore;
We are patching sick and wounded,
By the blue Aegean shore.
J. H.
Salt Lake Dug-out,
September 12th, 1915.
(Under shell-fire.)
TURKISH WORDS
Sirt--summit.
Dargh--mountain.
Bair or bahir--spur.
Burnu--cape.
Dere--valley or stream.
Tepe--hill.
Geul--lake.
Chesheme--spring.
Kuyu--well.
Kuchuk--small.
Tekke--Moslem shrine.
Ova--plain.
Liman--bay or harbour.
Skala--landing-place.
Biyuk--great.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. IN WHICH MY KING AND COUNTRY NEED ME
II. A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY
III. SNARED
IV. CHARACTERS
V. I HEAR OF HAWK
VI. ON THE MOVE
VII. MEDITERRANEAN NIGHTS
VIII. THE CITY OF WONDERFUL COLOUR
IX. MAROONED ON LEMNOS ISLAND
X. THE NEW LANDING
XI. THE KAPANJA SIRT
XII. THE SNIPER-HUNT
XIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE WHITE PACK-MULE
XIV. THE SNIPER OF PEAR-TREE GULLY
XV. KANGAROO BEACH
XVI. THE ADVENTURE OF THE LOST SQUADS
XVII. “OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND!”
XVIII. TWO MEN RETURN
XIX. THE RETREAT
XX. “JHILL-O! JOHNNIE!”
XXI. SILVER BAY
XXII. DUG-OUT YARNS
XXIII. THE WISDOM OF FATHER S----
XXIV. THE SHARP-SHOOTERS
XXV. A SCOUT AT SULVA BAY
XXVI. THE BUSH-FIRES
XXVII. THE DEPARTUR
XXVIII. LOOKING BACK
AT SUVLA BAY
CHAPTER I. IN WHICH MY KING AND COUNTRY NEED ME
I left the office of The Scout, 28 Maiden Lane, W.C., on September 8th,
1914, took leave of the editor and the staff, said farewell to my little
camp in the beech-woods of Buckinghamshire and to my woodcraft scouts,
bade good-bye to my father, and went off to enlist in the Royal Army
Medical Corps.
I made my way to the Marylebone recruiting office, and after waiting
about for hours, I went at last upstairs and “stripped out” with a lot
of other men for the medical examination.
The smell of human sweat was overpowering in the little ante-room. Some
of the men had hearts and anchors and ships and dancing-girls tattooed
in blue on their chests and arms. Some were skinny and others too
fat. Very few looked fit. I remarked upon the shyness they suffered in
walking about naked.
“Did yer pass?”
“No, 'e spotted it,” said the dejected rejected.
“Wot?”
“Rupture.”
“Got through, Alf?”
“No: eyesight ain't good enough.”
So it went on for half-an-hour.
Then came my turn.
“Ha!” said the little doctor, “this is the sort we want,” and he
rubbed his gold-rimmed glasses on his handkerchief. “Chest,
thirty-four--thirty-seven,” said the doctor, tapping with his
tape-measure, “How did yer do that?”
“What, sir?” said I, gasping, for I was trying to blow my chest out, or
burst.
“Had breathing exercises?”
“No, sir--I'm a scout.”
“Ha!” said he, and noticed my knees were brown with sunburn because I
always wore shorts.
I passed the eyesight test, and they took my name down, and my address,
occupation and age.
“Ever bin in the army before?”
“No, sir.”
“Married?”
“No, sir.”
“Ever bin in prison?”
“No, sir.”
“What's yer religion?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“What?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Ah, but you've got to 'ave one in the army.”
“Got to?”
“Yes, you must. Wot's it to be--C. of E.?”
“What d'you mean?”
“Church of England. Most of 'em do.”
Awful thoughts of church parade flashed through my mind.
“Right you are--Quaker!” said I.
“Quaker! Is that a religion?” he asked doubtfully.
“Yes.”
I watched him write it down.
“Right, that'll do. Report at Munster Road recruiting station, Fulham,
to-morrow.”
We were all dressed by this time. After a lot more waiting about outside
in a yard, a sergeant came and took about eight of us into a room where
there was a table and some papers and an officer in khaki.
I spotted a Bible on the table. We had to stand in a row while he read
a long list of regulations in which we were made to promise to obey
all orders of officers and non-commissioned officers of His Majesty's
Service. After that, he told us he would swear us in. We had to hold up
the right hand above the head, and say, all together: “Swhelpmegod!”
I immediately realised that I had taken an oath, which was not in
accordance with my regimental religion!
No sooner were we let out than I began to feel the ever-tightening
tangle of red tape.
What the dickens had I enlisted for? I asked myself. I had lost all
my old-time freedom: I could no longer go on in my old camping and
sketching life. I was now a soldier--a “tommy”--a “private.” I loathed
the army. What a fool I was!
The next day I reported at Fulham. More hours of waiting. I discovered
an old postman who had also enlisted in the R.A.M.C., and as he
“knew the ropes” I stuck to him like a leech. In the afternoon an old
recruiting sergeant with a husky voice fell us in, and we marched, a
mob of civilians, through the London streets to the railway station.
Although this was quite a short distance, the sergeant fell us out near
a public-house, and he and a lot more disappeared inside.
What a motley crowd we were: clerks in bowler hats; “knuts” in brown
suits, brown ties, brown shoes, and a horse-shoe tie-pin; tramp-like
looking men in rags and tatters and smelling of dirt and beer and rank
twist.
Old soldiers trying to “chuck a chest”; lanky lads from the country
gaping at the houses, shops and people.
Rough, broad-speaking, broad-shouldered men from the Lancashire
cotton-mills; shop assistants with polished boots, and some even with
kid gloves and a silver-banded cane. Here and there was a farm-hand in
corduroys and hob-nailed, cowdung-spattered boots, puffing at a broken
old clay pipe, and speaking in the “Darset” dialect. At the station they
had to have another “wet” in the refreshment room, and by the time the
train was due to start a good many were “canned up.”
Boozy voices yelled out--
“'S long way... Tipper-airy...”
“Good-bye, Bill... 'ave... 'nother swig?”
“Don't ferget ter write, Bill...”
“Aw-right, Liz... Good-bye, Albert...”
We were locked in the carriage. There was much shouting and
laughing.... And so to Aldershot.