FROM AUSTRALIA TO THE FRAY (_Continued_)
That carrier-pigeon soldier had my sympathy for I had undergone his
same sensation of exasperation at the very beginning of things. This
was when I heard back in August, 1914, that because of proficiency
as physical instructor and drill master, it was the intention of my
superiors to keep me at post at the Royal Military College at Dunstroon
in New South Wales--keep me there to fit other men to go into the
fight. I am no bloodthirsty demon and I am no brother to the Hun, but
having been a professional soldier all my life what could you expect me
to be but hopping mad when it would appear that I wasn’t going to get
in the greatest fight of history, when it looked as if all of the huge,
smashing fight I would see would be from the side-lines? Surely that
would be a great deal like asking a prize-fighter to accept a job as a
dancing master!
Well, I was Irish enough to battle for what I considered my rights.
I kicked strenuously. These kicks got something of sympathy from my
immediate superiors and so found their way higher until finally I was
in actual correspondence in the matter with Mr. Pierce, Australia’s
Minister of Defense. To him I set forth my case vigorously and often
and if he was, perhaps, somewhat amused at my insistence he was just
enough to take into consideration the good points I offered for myself,
my long service, my Indian Frontier medal, and in the end, to accept
my own estimate, that I would be of greater value handling men on the
actual front than being school master to the rookies at home. There
were among the professional soldiers, I further pointed out to him,
older men as able as I in training men and who had families dependent
upon them, whereas I was not then thirty years old, and possessed no
close family connections who would suffer materially if I should go the
way that so many splendid, brave officers and men of my country and
of France had already traveled--to the hospitals, the German prison
camps or those rough-and-readily builded, nobly impressive, shell-swept
graveyards which had come to existence in France.
Now, perhaps, had I been clairvoyant, had I been able to see ahead what
was shortly to come--the savage, awful experience in Gallipoli, the
murderous, weary days and nights in Flanders and the Somme, the long
suffering, the tremendous scientific ferocity of it all, well, perhaps
I might not have tried so hard to bring the Minister of Defense to my
way of thinking. And, yet, while ducking the appellation of hero as I
would duck a Boche bomb, after all, I think that with present knowledge
of what comes to a man in this great war and what can come to him, I
would still have tried for my chance to play my part in the great game.
What soldier worth the name would not?
Well, soon enough there came a day that found us--the First Division of
the Australian Expeditionary Force--on our way. We had no clear idea
of whither we were bound. We thought for the most part that we were
going straight to the fighting in France. There were thirty transports
in all. My own crowd, about twelve hundred strong, were aboard the
_Themistocles_, a converted White Star Liner that formerly traveled
between Australian ports and Aberdeen, Scotland, a goodly-sized ship
she was of 13,000 tons. From every other port of size in Australia
other troopships had come laden. At Sydney the entire thirty were
mobilized and with the Australian fleet comprising some of Britain’s
greatest dreadnaughts, a complement of Japanese destroyers and a French
cruiser or two we set forth on fairly smooth seas.
At all the ports where the populace got hints of the time of sailing
of the ships there were great demonstrations and likewise impromptu
demonstrations of liveliest enthusiasm met us whenever we appeared
parading on the streets, to say nothing of the crowds that came to
cheer us at drill in our camps.
For by October, Australia had come to know how tremendous and
frightful a war Germany had planned, how viciously and hatefully
Germany had resolved to strike at the very life of the British Empire
and Australia began to realize that if the British Empire went under,
she herself would eventually have the Hun at her own throat.
It wasn’t only the news of the mammoth operations which had started in
Europe that brought this realization. Things had happened “at home.”
The German propaganda secretly, maliciously taking advantage of a
democratic country’s open hospitality, had effected bomb outrages, and
worked insidiously to bring about strikes in the coal and iron mines
and strikes on the railroads, had worked the same despicable “below the
belt” tactics in the Archipelago as she has in America. And the cables
were constantly bringing news of fresh, cowardly outrages upon the old,
and the women and the children of Belgium!
The firmness of Australia’s premier, the effectiveness of Australia’s
police in its cities and of the Government’s secret agents as well
(once the German propagandists had revealed their hands) soon
began securely to tie these same hands of the promoters of German
frightfulness. But the people by this time had been worked to a
towering rage and as we started away in our troopships, great crowds
in the cities were riotously asserting their resentment. They wrecked
scores of German shops, battered them into ruins and put them to the
torch.
With none of us knowing that Gallipoli was ahead we settled down to
make our ocean voyage. Where--we didn’t know at the time it was to
take us, but we did make it as enjoyable as might be in crowded bunks
and where we were forever touching elbows on the jammed decks. Men
never sailed on an expedition of war in better spirits and greater
confidence. The regular soldiers and amateur soldiers were about evenly
divided, but the amateurs were swiftly coming into line in physical
fitness and expertness in drill. Still there were some funny incidents
due to the novelty of the life that many of our men were leading. As
for instance, a little deck sentry, whom I approached one day and who
looked at me and said: “Are you an officer?”
“Can’t you tell that from my uniform?” I said, nodding toward the
sergeant-major’s chevrons on my arm.
“Well, then,” he said, suiting the action of the word, “I suppose I
will have to chuck you a blooming salute.”
We got together for all kinds of athletic fun--wrestling, potato and
wheel-barrow races, running races, but principally the sport was
boxing. Then there were serious-minded men who liked the sports all
right, but organized a sort of debating society. There were no lack of
interesting principals for this organization. There were professors
from the Australian universities, Captain Knyvett for example, who had
been the professor of psychology at the University of Brisbane, and
there were scores of his class. The debating club discussed everything
from Sanskrit to how to fry an egg or bayonet a Boche.
One of two great excitements of our journey was furnished by “Bushy
Bill,” a reckless larrikin of Melbourne. Bushy declared one evening
a few minutes after dark that he could do something that would stop
the whole fleet. We asked him what his little notion might be, but he
declined to tell. He said, however, that he was willing to wager a
pound that he could succeed in his threat. Somebody took him up and the
instant he did so “Bushy Bill” put up his pound note and also pressed
into the hand of a friend all other money and valuables that he had
in his pockets and without another word, hopped over the taffrail and
into the sea. Naturally the cry went up immediately of “Man overboard!”
Noisy signals were exchanged between ships of the fleet, searchlights
began to play widely in all directions, and afterward we learned that
in every other ship of the fleet, where like ourselves everybody
was on tenterhooks in expectancy of a raider’s attack, the _Emden_
possibly, orders were swiftly signaled for the ships to deploy. The
_Themistocles_ stopped and backed. Meanwhile, two soldiers had gone
over the side for the rescue of “Bill,” believed to have been suddenly
stricken with insanity. Following the two men who plowed through the
waves to his rescue, a boat was lowered.
Bill was all laughter and excitement when he was hauled aboard,
enthusiastically claiming to have won his bet, which was promptly paid,
but then Bill did some prompt paying. This was in the way of entering
on a six-months’ sentence in the brig, which held him for weeks also in
the guard house when our division got to Egypt.
Only the next day came a more thrilling event. This was when our
wireless told us that the depredations of the vicious raider, the
_Emden_, had been brought at Cocos Island to a swift end by the
_Sydney_.
Of course, there was tremendous rejoicing. On all the boats, at all
the “parades” (the assembling of the soldiers for afternoon drill),
the news of the sinking of the _Emden_ by the _Sydney_ was “read out.”
Commanders made no effort to stifle the cheers that arose.
One of the boys composed a parody on “Tipperary” to celebrate the
event, which we sang with greatest vim and vigor all the way to
Gallipoli and afterward. It was worded this way:
“It’s a long, long way to Cocos Island,
It’s a long way to go,
It was there the _Sydney_ met the _Emden_,
And made old Kaiser Bill swear,
It’s a long, long way to Cocos Island,
But the _Sydney_ boys got there!”
You can imagine that aboard this crowded ship, with men of all types
and character, and with all the rough play aboard, that it would not be
just the sort of a place for a girl. Yet we had one aboard. We didn’t
know it for some time after we were out, because little Betty Grainger,
in devotion to her sweetheart, had not only cut off her long, golden
locks, but had deliberately roughened her hands with toil, the more to
make good her disguise as a boy. Somewhere she had secured a uniform.
In those days the uniforms were of all manner of irregularities;
anything in a color and shade of khaki would serve. The very style
of military uniform belted with a skirt effect of the coat and loose
riding breeches would enable a girl to successfully disguise herself.
Betty did until one night when the men were playing a romping game
of “tilt the cart,” wherein your idea was principally to upset your
neighbor by a quick grasp of the legs and a heave of him over your
shoulder. When an unsuspecting rookie grabbed Betty and sought to
“tilt the cart” she uttered a most unmanly scream. The men gathered
around to further “rag” this effeminate boy when Betty gave further
evidence of her real sex by bursting into tears and scratching their
faces. And then “Long Jack” Kennedy, of Melbourne, suddenly sailed
into the men surrounding her, forgetting the camouflage that Betty
sought to enact, picked her up in his arms and faced the crowd with an
outburst of oaths. That settled it. Betty, who had registered as George
Grainger, was known for what she was. But even the authorities of the
ship felt no bitterness toward Betty. She was given over to the care of
a company of nurses aboard the _Themistocles_, and tried very hard to
make herself useful, but because of the deception she had practiced the
commander ordered her put off at Perth.
We had a short stop and walk around Colombo and then at Suez. Four
days later found us in an even stranger environment for Australians.
We had landed at Cairo--the first Australian Expeditionary force,
part of General Birdwood’s Division which besides our contingent,
comprised the 29th English Division (regulars). The Zion Mule Corps, a
detachment of French troops, four regiments of Ghurkas, several native
Indian regiments and the Indian Supply and Transport corps. Although
no efforts were made to put up barracks or permanent buildings, it
was soon evident that we were to be kept in our Egyptian camp for
some period of time. The magnitude of the commissary arrangements,
the settlements of the regiments into a general plan of a large and
permanent encampment, made this only too plain. We had all been hoping
and cheering for our advent to France. At this time we were, as I
believe, merely held by Lord Kitchener to further our training. For the
conquest of Gallipoli--that red hell of disaster--was not in the books
of our commanders.
German propaganda of the foulest and most awful sort swiftly made its
appearance at Cairo. German agents (medical men in this case) we were
afterward to learn, had gone among the women of the port, and advised
them for their own protection to submit to inoculations that would
armor them against the advent of the great thousands of soldiers. They
were told the Australians would of a certainty spread a strange and
deadly plague. In reality these agents inoculated the women with the
most awful disease, and in this way laid a plot of destruction against
our forces, which I am sorry to say met with some degree of success
before the discovery of the infernal plan.
Moreover, German propagandists had corrupted countless of the
proprietors of the small resorts where liquor and gambling were to be
found, had instilled all the inhabitants and keepers of bazaars in
the native village of Cairo with ideas of secret assassination of our
men for gain. Also after the arrival of our soldiers these insidious
workers did all they could to promote an enmity between the natives
and the Anzacs. The result of this campaign was nearly as sinister as
that of the inoculation of the women. Our men on leave were drugged
and secretly murdered, their bodies made away with, with a skill that
defeated all efforts at tracing the crimes. It is a fact that at
least two hundred and fifty of the first division of Anzacs encamped
at Cairo never returned to their regiments, and no trace of what had
befallen them, which doubtless was most sinister, has ever come to our
exact knowledge to this very day. So thoroughly had the natives been
instilled with an enmity toward us that the atmosphere and conditions
between us became intolerable. The natives assumed a surly and
insulting aspect toward us, and we in turn, I presume, swaggered and
frowned and treated them with growing sharpness. With the full extent
of the villainy that had been plotted and achieved against us in the
matter of afflicting hundreds of our men with horrible disease and of
assassinating fully two hundred and fifty others, there came a night
when resentment burst forth among a large company of the Anzacs and
took the shape of a fierce, violent and deadly reprisal.
The men secretly collected, armed themselves with revolvers, secured
paraffin and oil torches, and some even took up bombs.
They rushed through the native section of the city especially among
its disreputable resorts, and did their utmost to destroy it utterly
by the flames of their torches, and where resistance was met, did not
hesitate to use their fire-arms and bombs to kill. It was a night of
horror in Cairo. But the crimes against us had been more terrible than
the revenge. This summary and deadly action discredited the secret
German agents and their influence and brought about from the natives
a subserviency and desire to propitiate the Anzacs equal to their
attitude of enmity before. It was a drastic measure that was taken, but
under the circumstances, it may be left to the judgment of the reader
as to its justification.
There was intensive drilling in our cantonment, called Mena Camp,
near the Pyramids of Gizeh, but just the same we found time for the
indulgence in many sports, especially horse racing, camel and donkey
riding, hunts for buried treasure among the sacred tombs of the
ancients, and one party of the boys really returned to camp with a
genuine mummy for a prize.
But nevertheless, life became monotonous and we were all anxious and
alert for an opportunity to show ourselves in the fighting. It was
coming soon enough, though we didn’t exactly know it then. But we
realized that action was soon to begin for us when 10,000 men--500
of my own attachment aboard the _Euripides_, set sail under a convoy
of twenty war ships, including the great _Queen Elizabeth_, _Prince
of Wales_, _Tiger_, _Triumph_ and French boats in the early part
of April, for Lemnos Island in the Greek Archipelago. The physical
aspects of this country were nearly identical with those we were to
meet in the landing of Gallipoli. There was a vast promontory coming
down to open water, always at a tempestuous degree, and there we went
into a new form of intensive training. This consisted of lowering the
boats in the choppy, stormy waters, landing the boats in the perilous
surf, wading to our knees in water, swimming under the burden of our
knapsacks, making numerous landings, digging ourselves in, and target
practice at imaginary Turkish batteries, the real character of the
batteries at Gallipoli having been discovered and reported by efficient
British and French spies. When we were ready this was the order that
came to us from our Commander, General W. R. Birdwood:
LANDING ORDERS.
AUSTRALIAN NEW ZEALAND ARMY CORPS.
OFFICERS AND MEN:
April 1915.
In conjunction with the Navy, we are about to undertake one of the
most difficult tasks any soldier can be called to perform, and
a problem which has puzzled many soldiers for years past. That
we will succeed I have no doubt, simply because I know your full
determination to do so. Lord Kitchener has told us that he lays
special stress on the rôle the Army has to play in this particular
operation, the success of which will be a very severe blow to the
enemy indeed, as severe as any he could receive in France. It will
go down in history to the glory of the soldiers of Australia and
New Zealand. Before we start, there are one or two points which I
must impress on all, and I most earnestly beg every single man to
listen attentively and take them to heart.
We are going to have a real hard and rough time of it until, at all
events, we have turned the enemy out of the first objective. Hard,
rough times none of us mind, but to get through them successfully
we must always keep before us the following facts: Every possible
endeavor will be made to bring up transport as often as possible;
but the country whither we are bound is very difficult, and we
may not be able to get our wagons anywhere near us for days, so
men must not think their wants have been neglected if they do
not get all they want. On landing it will be necessary for every
individual to carry with him all his requirements in food and
clothing for three days, as we may not see our transport again
till then. Remember then that it is essential for everyone to take
the very greatest care not only of his food, but of his ammunition
the replenishment of which will be very difficult. Men are liable
to throw away their food first day out and to finish their water
bottles as soon as they start marching. If you do this now, we can
hardly hope for success, as unfed men cannot fight, and you must
make an effort to try and refrain from starting on your water
bottles until quite late in the day. Once you begin drinking you
cannot stop, and a water bottle is very soon emptied.
Also as regards ammunition--you must not waste it by firing away
indiscriminately at no target. The time will come when we shall
find the enemy in well-entrenched positions, from which we shall
have to turn them out, when all our ammunition will be required;
and remember,
Concealment whenever possible,
Covering fire always,
Control of fire and control of your men,
Communications never to be neglected.
(Signed) W. R. BIRDWOOD.
I am here reminded of an incident regarding this human, kindly
commander that may have a smile in it for the reader.
The Australians or Anzacs took pride in distinguishing themselves by
the wearing of an emu feather (the feather of their native bird) in
their caps. No Anzac was happy without an emu feather in his cap. I
have already said how willing and anxious the Australians were to make
good in their military duties, but how hard it was for them to enter
strictly into the conduct demanded by militarism.
A certain sentry didn’t salute General Birdwood, who at that time wore
no emu feather in his hat, an omission the Australians resented.
“What do you mean, sir,” demanded General Birdwood, “by not saluting
me? Do you know who I am?”
“No, who are you?”
“I am Birdwood.”
“Then,” said the sentry, without any loss of his own dignity, “why
don’t you wear a feather in your cap as a bird would?”
The general stared hard at the man for an instant, tried to frown, but
laughed instead, and there was no court martial.