One had his stomach blown out, and the other his chest blown in. The two
bodies lay upon the sand as we stepped down.
The metallic rattle of the firing-line sounded far away. We man-handled
all our medical equipment and stores from the hold of the lighter to the
beach.
We had orders to “fall in” the stretcher-bearers, and work in open
formation to the firing-line.
The Kapanja Sirt runs right along one side of Suvla Bay. It is one
wing of that horse-shoe formation of rugged mountains which hems in the
Anafarta Ova and the Salt Lake.
Our searching zone for wounded lay along this ridge, which rises like
the vertebrae of some great antediluvian reptile--dropping sheer down
on the Gulf of Saros side, and, in varying slopes, to the plains and the
Salt Lake on the other.
Here again small things left a vivid impression--the crack of a rifle
from the top of the ridge, and a party of British climbing up the rocks
and scrub in search of the hidden Turk.
The smell of human blood soaking its way into the sand from those two
“stiffies” on the beach. The sullen silence, except for the distant
crackle and the occasional moan of a shell. The rain which came pelting
down in great cold blobs, splashing and soaking our thin drill clothes
till we were wet to the skin and shivering with cold.
We were all thinking: “Who will be the first to get plugged?” We moved
slowly along the ridge, searching every bush and rock for signs of
wounded men.
We wondered what the first case would be--and which squad would come
across it.
I worked up and down the line of squads trying to keep them in touch
with each other. We were carrying stretchers, haversacks, iron rations,
medical haversacks, medical water-bottles, our own private water-bottles
(filled on Lemnos Island), and three “monkey-boxes” or field medical
companions.
Those we had left on the beach were busy putting up the operating
marquee and other tents, and the cooks in getting a fire going and
making tea.
The stretcher-squads worked slowly forward. We passed an old Turkish
well with a stone-flagged front and a stone trough. Later on we came
upon the trenches and bivouacs of a Turkish sniping headquarters. There
were all kinds of articles lying about which had evidently belonged to
Turkish officers: tobacco in a heap on the ground near a bent willow and
thorn bivouac; part of a field telephone with the wires running
towards the upper ridges of Sirt; the remains of some dried fish and
an earthenware jar or “chattie” which had held some kind of wine; a few
very hard biscuits, and a mass of brand-new clothing, striped shirts and
white shirts, grey military overcoats, yellow leather shoes with pointed
toes, a red fez, a great padded body-belt with tapes to tie it, a pair
of boots, and some richly coloured handkerchiefs and waistbands all
striped and worked and fringed.
It was near here that our first man was killed later in the day. He was
looking into one of these bivouacs, and was about to crawl out when a
bullet went through his brain. It was a sniper's shot. We buried him
in an old Turkish trench close by, and put a cross made of a wooden
bully-beef crate over him.
The sun now blazed upon us, and our rain-soaked clothes were steaming
in the heat. The open fan-like formation in which we moved was not a
success. We lost the officers, and continually got out of touch with
each other.
At last we reached the zone of spent bullets.
“Z-z-z-z-e-e-e-e-e-pp!--zing!” “S-s-s-ippp!”
“That one was jist by me left ear!” said Sergeant Joe Smith, although
as a matter of fact it was yards above his head. Here, among a hail of
moaning spent shots, our officers called a halt, made us fall in, in
close formation, and we retired--what for I do not know.
We went back as far as the old Turkish well. Here Hawk had something to
say.
“Our place is advancing,” said he, “not retiring because of a few spent
bullets. There's men there dying for want of medical attention--bleeding
to death.”
The next time we went forward that day was in Indian file, each
stretcher-squad following the one in front.
A parson came with us. I marched just behind the adjutant, and the
parson walked with me. He was a big man and a fair age. We went past the
well and the bivouacs. I could see he was very nervous.
“Do you think we are out of danger here?” he asked.
“I think so, sir” (we were three miles from the firing-line). A few
paces further on--
“I wonder how far the firing-line is?”
“Couldn't say, sir.”
A yard or so, and then--
“D'you suppose the British are advancing?”
“I hope so.” And after a minute or two--
“I wonder if there are any Turks near here...?”
I made no answer, and marvelled greatly that the “man of God” should
not be better prepared to meet “his Maker,” of Whom in civil life he had
talked so much.
It was just then that I spotted it--a little black figure, motionless,
away beyond the bushes on the right.