"GEORGE"
A RECAPITULATION--INTO THE FIRING-LINE--IN SIGHT OF HISTORIC TROY--A
WELL-FED ARMY--A REAL GOOD COOK
George was the cook.
He blew into the Light Horse Camp at Holdsworthy when we were training.
The staff captain gave him the job because he was a sea cook. Any man
who can cook at sea ought to be able to cook on dry land. And all
through the weary weeks of waiting and working, George kept on cooking.
George was small, not to say puny. His height was five feet, and his
chest measurement nothing to cable home about. Had he gone to Victoria
Barracks in the ordinary way to enlist he wouldn't have passed even the
sentry at the gate, let alone the doctor. But George knew the ropes.
He had "soldiered" before. That's why he took the short cut direct to
camp.
We never saw much of him on the _Suevic_; when off duty he used to
climb to some cosy corner on the uppermost deck and read dry textbooks
on strategy and tactics. At odd times he would seek relaxation in
_Life of Napoleon_, _Marlborough_, or _Oliver Cromwell_, but this was
distinctly "not a study, but a recreation." Passing through the Suez
Canal we saw the Turks miles away on the rim of the desert. George
got out his rifle, set the sight at 2,500 yards, and waited. But the
invader kept well out of range, and George went back to his cooking.
It was mid-winter in Egypt and the nights were bitterly cold.
Greatcoats were vitally necessary. How welcome were the mufflers and
Balaclava caps and warm socks knitted by the girls we left behind
us! Welcome also was the hot coffee George provided to fill in the
shivering gap between réveillé and stables. And after the horses had
all been fed and watered, we returned with zest to breakfast--porridge
and meat and "eggs a-cook" and bread and marmalade. I've heard some
grumblers complain of the "tucker" in Egypt, but I've seen a bit of
war by this and I'm convinced that the Australians are the best-fed
army in the world. And George by the same token was not a bad cook.
Summer swooped down on Egypt. In its wake came heat and dust and
flies and locusts. Over the scorching sands of the desert we cantered
till the sweat poured from us and our horses, and the choking dust
enveloped all. "Gyppie" fruit-sellers scurried hither and yon yelling
"Oringes--gooud beeg one." And as we regaled ourselves with the
luscious thirst-quenchers we thought of camp and the dinner that
George was preparing. We trekked along the Nile, and almost before we
halted George was boiling the billy. We bivouacked at Aaron's Gorge,
or the Petrified Forest, or in a desert waste, and always George was
on the spot with his dixies and pans. The cook's cart was a pleasing
silhouette against the pyramid-pierced skyline, when we turned our eyes
westward in the long summer evenings.
When at last we started for the Dardanelles, we of the Light Horse
Brigade had (as you know) to leave our horses behind, and the cook's
cart stopped too. But George came along all right. Despite the
activities of the submarines we reached Gallipoli in safety, and
witnessed the allied warships pounding away at the Turkish defences.
Historic Troy was on our right; before us the entrance to the
Dardanelles; and on the left, firmly established on Helles, was the
great Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, making its first halt on
the road to Constantinople. But we had to go further north, a mile
beyond Gaba Tepe, where the Australians--particularly the 3rd Infantry
Brigade--had performed such deeds of valour that Dargai, Colenso, and
Magersfontein were declared by old soldiers to have been a mere picnic
in contrast.
We landed amid a hail of shrapnel. Transhipping from the transports,
we crowded into launches and sweepers and barges. These little boats,
heavily laden with khaki freight, made straight for Anzac Cove. Fair
targets for Tommy Turk, of course; so the guns of the Olive Grove
Battery sent us anything but peaceful messages. Plug-plong went the
shells into the water. Zip-zip hissed the bullets all round us. But,
marvellous to relate, not a man was hit. Next day some infantry
reinforcements, landing in the same place and manner, sustained forty
casualties. That's the luck of the game--the fortune of war. We landed
everything satisfactorily.
George brought up the rear, with his pots and dixies. It is because of
George that I recapitulate.
In a long, straggling khaki line ("Column o' lumps," said the brigade
major) we meandered past Casualty Point and Hell Spit, and up to our
bivouac in Shrapnel Valley. Snipers on the hill up beyond Quinn's Post
sent long-range shots at random down the track. Shells burst over our
heads, and the leaden pellets spattered over the landscape. It would
take too long to recount half the miraculous escapes some of our chaps
had. Our artillery worked overtime, and the row was deafening. But
our gunners could not silence the elusive cannon in the Olive Grove.
After a time, wherein the minutes seemed like hours, we reached the
camp site, and started to dig in feverishly. We burrowed like rabbits.
Picks, shovels and bayonets made the earth fly till we had scratched a
precarious shelter from the blast. Like troglodytes we snuggled into
the dug-outs, waiting for the bombardment to cease.
But George went on with his cooking.
[Illustration: Major-General W. T. Bridges.]
Next day we changed our quarters. The German artillerymen were too
attentive. We had sustained a few casualties, so we sought a more
retired spot under the lee of the hill. For the first time since we
had landed we were able to look about us. There was a lull in the
cannonade, though the musketry fusillade proceeded merrily. We saw the
long line of Australian and New Zealand trenches whence the Turks had
been driven in rout the night before, leaving 3,000 dead to mar the
landscape. We heard too, definitely, for the first time of the good
Australians who on this inhospitable shore had given their lives for
King and Empire--General Bridges, Colonel MacLaurin, Lieutenant-Colonel
Braund, Lieutenant-Colonel Onslow Thompson, Sergeant Larkin (who used
to sit on the opposite side to Colonel Braund in the New South Wales
Parliament, but found in war the leveller that makes us all one party),
and hundreds of others. Looking up to the precipitous cliffs above, we
marvelled anew at the reckless daring of our infantry comrades who had
scaled those heights in the face of rifle, machine-gun and shrapnel.
But we had not long to saunter and wonder. Our brigade was sent
straightway into the firing-line. We were initiated into the mysteries
of trench warfare, sapping and mining, bombs and grenades, observing
and sniping, posies and dug-outs, patrolling and listening, periscopes
and peepholes, demonstrations and reconnaissance, supports and
reserves, bully-beef and biscuits, mud and blood and slaughter, and all
the humours and rumours, the hardships and horrors of war.
And all the time we were doing our little bit George went on with his
cooking. He may have been thinking of Napoleon, or Marlborough, or
Cromwell, but he did not seem to be thinking much about this war of
ours--except that he had to do some cooking for it. The Turks were
shooting many of our officers down, and many of our dear old pals,
but George remained--and we hoped that they would spare him. Good
cooks--real, good cooks like George--are scarce.