STORIES THAT WILL NEVER DIE
"CANARIES"--THE SAVING GRACE--THE LOST HORSE BRIGADE--A FORGOTTEN
COUNTER-SIGN--"LET'S AT 'EM"--POLITE TURK AND SULKY GERMAN--MURPHY'S
MULES--MURPHY AT THE GATE
Life in the trenches became quite bearable--after a time. But it took
time. At first when a bullet skimmed the parapet and went whistling
overhead we ducked instinctively. But the experienced infantry laughed,
and said, "They're only 'canaries'." Again, when the shrapnel came
hurtling aloft and burst with an ugly roar, we crouched and waited for
death; but the old hands explained that if we could hear it burst we
were pretty safe. It was the shells we couldn't hear that we ought to
dodge. We understood that epigrammatic utterance better later on.
But one thing is absolutely essential for a philosophic enjoyment of
trench life--and that is a sense of humour. Failing that, most of the
soldiers would in the end go stark, staring mad. It is this saving
grace which makes our Australians such a wonderful fighting force. They
go laughing into the firing-line. They come laughing out again. They
laugh as they load and fire. Nearly every wounded man I've seen laughs.
A staff officer said the other day: "It's only when they're killed that
these Australians cease laughing."
Our three Australian Light Horse brigades have now been in the trenches
for some time. "We came to Egypt as horsemen," said a Hunter River
man; "then we did foot-slogging at Cairo and Alexandria, and now we're
living in caves and tunnels, like rabbits or troglodytes."
Since the days of Darwin quite a lot has been written about evolution.
But we never thought of evolution in connexion with our Light Horse
Brigade. We soon found that we couldn't escape the process any more
than the rest of the universe.
One would have thought that as new and awful weapons of destruction
were evolved, battles would become short, sharp, and decisive. Instead
of that, they are toilsome, long-drawn-out, and indecisive. I cannot
say why. The elucidation of the problem I leave to the "experts." All
I am concerned with is the story of how the 2nd Light Horse Brigade
became the Lost Horse Brigade. Australia sent four Light Horse brigades
to uphold the honour of the Commonwealth; first, Colonel Chauvel;
second, Colonel Ryrie; third, Colonel Hughes; fourth, Colonel Brown.
At first we thought we were going to be armed with swords as well as
rifles. When first mounted, despite our sombre khaki, we felt as proud
as Life Guardsmen. And we saw visions and dreamed dreams, and pictured
the Australian Light Horse on the left wing of the Empire army driving
the Huns in confusion over the Rhine and back to Berlin.
Hope on, hope ever. All we have done so far is, by process of
devolution, to change from prospective cavalry to mounted infantry, to
foot-sloggers, to pick and shovel artists, and finally to troglodytes.
The pen is mightier than the sword--but so is the spade.
We did not like the packs at first. Our horses used to carry our kits,
and it was rather irksome to be transformed suddenly into beasts of
burden. Also, we imbibed a new respect for the infantry, who seemed
to carry their heavy packs with consummate ease. Ours at first felt
like the Burden to Christian. But gradually we, too, developed the
necessary back and shoulder muscles for the infantryman's job. We
trudged up and down the hills of Anzac; we filed into the trenches and
took our stations at the loopholes; on the day of the armistice we
helped to bury the dead Turks whom Enver Pasha had ordered to drive
the Australians into the sea. Then it was that the infantry, seeing "2
L.H.B." on our shoulder straps, called us the 2nd _Lost_ Horse Brigade.
But we didn't mind losing our horses so long as we had a finger in the
Gallipoli Pie. Trench warfare suited us well enough. The firing-line
was always interesting. Everybody was light-hearted. Jokes and laughter
passed the time pleasantly when we were not sniping or observing. It
meant a little more work when the Turkish (or German) guns smashed in
our parapets and half-choked, half-blinded and half-buried us. Now and
then some of our chaps stopped a bullet or a bit of shrapnel. But we
dealt out more than we got. Every day the Officer Commanding and the
Brigadier made a tour of the firing-line, while we often had three
generals to see us on special days. The day after the big attack
General Birdwood asked one of the 1st Light Horse Regiment if he had
killed many Turks, and he answered, "Yes, miles of the cows."
As a matter of fact the Australians were almost quarrelling for
positions in the firing-line that night. When the fight was at its
hottest, men in the supports were offering bribes of tobacco and
cigarettes to the men in the firing-line to swap places with them just
for ten minutes. Our night patrols had great fun harassing the enemy;
but for the bulk of us it got monotonous. It was nothing but dig new
saps, new tunnels, new trenches, day after day and night after night.
The 6th Light Horse Regiment changed its badge and its motto. When we
left Sydney we had beautiful badges with a fighting cock and the motto
"Fight on, fight ever." We've got a new badge now--pick and shovel,
argent, crossed on an azure shield, and our new motto is "Dig on, dig
ever."
The 7th Light Horse Regiment also changed its motto, which used to be
"Patria te Salutamus." Now the troopers sport a shield with a picture
of a rabbit, and Colonel Arnott's new motto is "Infra dig. Tunnelabit."
The A.L.H. did their share of the trench fighting quite as well as
their infantry comrades. Day after day they took their posts as
observers or snipers. Night after night they manned the loopholes or
did patrol work or sapping. When off duty they bolted to Anzac Cove,
and all the shrapnel shells in the world didn't keep them out of the
water.
The truth is, a lot of our soldiers grew to be rank fatalists. "If
I'm to be killed, I'll be killed," they said. On the night of the
big attack the men in the supports were begging the men in the first
line to give them a chance: "Come on down, and let's at 'em; I'm
a better shot than you." With men clamouring for positions in the
firing-line, no wonder the Turks had 10,000 casualties. When it came to
the armistice to bury their dead, a soldier exclaimed, "I don't mind
killing, but I bar burying the cows!"
The Turks made the same mistake about the Australians that the
Yorkshiremen made about the Australian cricketers. They thought we
were all black. (The Germans knew better, but encouraged the false
idea.) In a Gallipoli paper we were referred to as Australian blacks,
with the comment that this was "the first time cannibals had landed on
Gallipoli." But after the wild bayonet charges our men made at Anzac
they called the Australians "the White Gurkhas." Later on when our
first few prisoners were taken to Gallipoli, the Turks admired their
physique, and exclaimed: "These are indeed soldiers."
"Our army swore terribly in Flanders," it is written. I'm afraid that
our historian will say the same of the army in Gallipoli. But this
is about their only vice, and they have all the soldierly virtues
that a general could desire. When the Turks made their big attack,
and advanced yelling "Allah, Allah!" "Mohammed!" "Allah!" one of our
devil-may-care infantrymen yelled as he fired: "Yes; you can bring them
along too!"
Then there was the Turk who bowed. It was when the burial parties met
between the trenches to bury the dead. The Turkish officers were polite
and the Germans surly. A Turk picked up a bomb and started to run back
to his trenches. A Turkish officer ran after him, kicked him, and
returned the bomb with a bow to one of our officers, thus observing
chivalrously the letter and spirit of the armistice. A Turkish soldier
came up to one of our men and volunteered the information: "English
good--German no good." It wasn't much, but it told a lot.
A number of prisoners were taken, and several more surrendered. But the
Turks were between the devil and the deep sea. If they came with their
rifles towards our trenches we shot them. If they came without them,
their own soldiers shot them. So they had to sneak in as best they
could, and risk being shot front and rear.
One of the finest things done in those first fatal days at Anzac must
be put to the credit of Murphy's mules. Murphy's ambulance was looked
for as anxiously as Gunga Din. It was "Murphy! Murphy! Murphy! an'
we'll thank you for your mules!" As a matter of fact "Murphy" was a
Scotsman, though he hailed from South Shields, County Durham. His real
name was, I believe, John Simpson Kirkpatrick; some say it was Latimer,
and others that it was Simpson; and he was a stretcher-bearer. He used
to hurry up with water to the firing-line, and carry back the wounded.
It was a terribly heavy pull up and down Shrapnel Gully, from the
cove to the top of Braund's Hill, so Murphy "pinched" a couple of
mules, and did yeoman service. He used to leave the mules just under
the brow of the hill and dash forward himself to the firing-line to
save the wounded. "Murphy's" voice near them sounded like a voice from
heaven. Time after time he climbed the hill and did his noble work. Day
after day he smiled and carried on. The mules were missed, and they
found out who stole them. But they also found out what splendid work
"Murphy" was doing; so the officers connived at the theft. They became
accessories after the fact.
[Illustration: Murphy's Mules at Anzac.
"Murphy" on the left, his mate on the right, and little "Shrapnel" in
the background.]
There came a day when "Murphy's mules" came not. Stretcher-bearers were
working overtime, and the wounded cried "For God's sake, send 'Murphy's
mules'!" Later on they found the mules grazing contentedly in Shrapnel
Valley. Then they found poor "Murphy".... He had done his last journey
to the top of the hill.
"Where's Murphy?" demanded one of the 1st Battalion.
"Murphy's at heaven's gate," answered the sergeant, "helping the
soldiers through."