MAIL DAY
RUM AND MAILS--"BATTLE OF MAIL RUM"--LETTERS FROM HOME--MARRIAGE NO
FAILURE--AN UNFORGIVABLE LOSS--THE CLERGYMAN'S "LANGUAGE"--PAPER
SCARCE--FAMINE IN ENVELOPES--"NO STAMPS"--FOOLING THE TURKS--"WELL OUT
OF IT"
"Serves 'em right, for sinking our mails and spilling our rum!"
This remark broke from the angry lips of one of our Light Horsemen as
our artillery inflicted a terrific bombardment on the enemy. The Turks
replied vigorously, and the result was an inferno; shells bursting
everywhere, gaping holes torn in the inoffensive earth, trench parapets
levelled, soldiers slaughtered. Then, as our warships steamed up and
added their quota to the conflict, the trooper reiterated, "Serve 'em
right!"
For a moment we wondered what he was driving at. Then we remembered
that a few days ago some unlucky Turkish shells had landed on a barge
coming from one of the supply ships to Anzac, and had sunk it. This
caused us but slight concern till we found out that several casks of
rum were spilled, and 250 bags of mails from Australia were sent to the
bottom of the sea. Then, as our ships' guns sent another salvo, we too
exclaimed, "Serve 'em right."
We did not mind the rum so much, for the Army Service Corps had quite
enough on hand for our ration when the issue was due. But every
Australian on Gallipoli bitterly resented the loss of the mails. It
made us really angry. Some of our chaps reckoned that the loss of the
mails and rum was the prime cause of the big battle which ensued during
the early days of August. So they have called it the Battle of Mail
Rum. Historians, however, will probably call this sanguinary struggle
the Battle of Suvla Bay.
Good folk at home, and even of the out-back country, receive mails
pretty regularly. We get ours once a fortnight, or once a month, or
at even longer intervals. I do not join in the general chorus of
condemnation of our postal service, for since the time I enlisted
nearly twelve months ago all my letters and parcels have come duly to
hand, while, so far as I know, none of my letters to Australia have
gone astray. When we came to Gallipoli we naturally expected some break
in the continuity of the service--and we got it. One reason is that,
while the New Zealanders provided an up-to-date, well-equipped postal
service, the Australians had only a skeleton postal corps--shockingly
undermanned. Hence the congestion at Alexandria and Lemnos and the
belated arrival of letters at Anzac.
There is nothing that cheers the soldiers up so much as letters from
home. You see their eyes light up with pleasure as the postal orderlies
toil up the hill with the mail bags. The postal corporal is the most
popular man in the army. But he always seems so slow with his sorting.
Those of us not in the trenches crowd round him and pounce eagerly on
our precious missives. I have seen a great, hulking, swearing, unshaven
trooper grab his letter, sneak into his dug-out, and kiss reverently
some love-letter from a sweetheart back in sunny New South Wales; or
perhaps it was from his mother or sister away in the great West land.
And I've seen anxious troopers, with yearning eyes, hang round till the
last letter and postcard were sorted--then wander away silently, and
gaze dry-eyed over the blue Mediterranean.
Some of our fellows are married men, and some of these married men
used jokingly to say that they had enlisted to get away from ... never
mind; but I know that there was not one of them but spent half his
time thinking of the old and the middle-aged and the young folks at
home--not one of them but would have given the world to be able to take
a peep at the wife who scanned the casualty lists so eagerly as they
appeared in the papers, and the kiddies who strutted round proudly,
saying, "Daddy's gone to the war."
It's cruel to be forgotten by the home folk when fighting the battles
of one's country; but most of our chaps are loyal, and they always
blamed the post office. One time our 6th L.H. Regiment mail had not
arrived, and I stood by miserably watching other lucky devils getting
their letters. Suddenly my eye caught the address on a newspaper, "To
any lonely soldier in the Australian army." I immediately grabbed
it. There was a protest from the postal official, who said the paper
was not addressed to me, and that unclaimed papers are considered as
"baksheesh" for the postal corporal. I pointed out that it was not
unclaimed, since I had claimed it; and that as I at that moment was a
lonely soldier it was clearly addressed to me. There was a fine row,
but I won my case--and the paper.
Always at the end of the sorting there are many, many letters
unclaimed. And the Regimental Sergeant-Major goes through the list, and
with heavy red pencil writes "killed," "wounded," or "missing" on the
envelope. What a tragedy lies hidden in these little heaps of letters
to dead soldiers who can never read them!
It was no small loss, that barge with 250 mail bags from Australia.
When I saw the barge sink I repeated the prayer of the popular English
preacher, who exclaimed, "God damn the Sultan!" Why should that
love-laden barge be the mark for the Turkish gunners? And why, after
the hundreds of boats they have missed, should they get a bull's-eye
there? It is sad to think of the thousands of soldiers who will never
know the loving thoughts penned in those precious missives. Many will
wonder why friends and relations have never written. And folks at home
will be wondering why they got no answer.
For a time we simply could not write home. There was an envelope famine
on Gallipoli. Not a single envelope could be had for love or money. We
readdressed our old envelopes, or turned them inside out. We made post
cards out of cardboard and cigarette boxes. Some of us even wrote home
on the biscuits, which were warranted not to break. We waylaid sailors
on the beach and offered fabulous prices for paper and envelopes. We
wrote to our friends in Ma'adi and to the stores in Alexandria. But
it's a long, long way to Egypt, and it seemed a long, long time before
the envelope famine was relieved. That's one reason why some of our
chaps never wrote home. Another reason was that we were all so tired
after our turn in the trenches and the eternal "dig on, dig ever." As
for stamps, everybody in Australia knows the legend on the soldier's
envelope: "No stamps available."
Some of the letters home were delightfully ingenuous. Nearly all were
brimful of cheerfulness. Now and then there was a growl; but we knew it
wouldn't help the home folk if we complained, so I might paraphrase the
Psalmist and say that all our men were liars--cheerful liars. I told
you of the trooper who wrote home, "Dear aunt, this war is a fair cow."
But that was exceptional. Most of the soldiers told cheerful lies about
the good time they were having, the romance of war, the excitement
of battle, and the exhilaration of victory. They told of the tricks
they played on the Turks, the dummies they held above the parapets for
Abdul to snipe at, the "stunts" for drawing the fire from the enemy's
trenches, the risky excitement of bomb duels, the joy of swimming while
"Beachy Bill" was showering shrapnel over them, and the extortionate
rates charged by the sailor on the beach for condensed milk and
chocolates.
But a real "grouse"--never. Well, hardly ever. And when there was one,
depend upon it there was some good reason for it. I remember one. It
was when a man in Australia wrote to a friend at Anzac: "We're having
a rather bad drought in this district; you're well out of it." The man
at Anzac fairly lost his temper. He wrote back: "Come over here." And
after painting a picture of a battle or two--a real growl, if ever
there was one--he concluded: "It's nearly as bad as your drought, and
you're 'well out of it'."
Later, I was told, these two men met on the bloodstained fields of
Gallipoli.