Harry's platoon was settled in when I found him, hidden away somewhere
in the third (Reserve) line. He had conscientiously posted a few
sentries, and done all those things which a good platoon commander
should do, and was lying himself in a sort of stupor of fatigue.
Physically he was not strong, rather frail, in fact, for the infantry;
he had a narrow chest and slightly round shoulders, and his heart would
not have passed any civilian doctor; and--from my own experience--I knew
that the march must have tried him terribly. But a little rest had
soothed the intense nervous irritation whose origins I have tried to
describe, and his spirit was as sturdy as ever. He struggled to his feet
and leaned over the parados with me. The moon was now high up in the
north-east; the Turks had ceased their rapid fire at moonrise, and now
an immense peace wrapped the Peninsula. We were high up on the centre
slopes of Achi Baba, and all the six miles which other men had conquered
lay bathed in moonlight below us. Far away at the cape we could see the
long, green lights of the hospital ships, and all about us were
glow-worms in the scrub. Left and right the pale parapets of trenches
crept like dim-seen snakes into the little valleys, and vanished over
the opposite slopes. Only a cruiser off shore firing lazily at long
intervals disturbed the slumberous stillness. No better sedative could
have been desired.
'How did you like the march?' I said.
'Oh, all right; one of my men was wounded, I believe, but I didn't see
him.'
'All right?' I said. 'Personally I thought it was damned awful; it's a
marvel that any of us are here at all. I hear A Company's still adrift,
as it is.'
'Well, anyhow _we_ got here,' said Harry. 'What a wonderful spot this
is. And look at those damned glow-worms.'
I was anxious to know what impression the night had made on Harry, but
these and other answers gave me no real clue. I had a suspicion that it
had, in truth, considerably distressed him, but any such effect had
clearly given way to the romantic appeal of the quiet moon. I, too, was
enjoying the sense of peace, but I was still acutely conscious of the
unpleasantness of the night's proceedings; and a certain envy took hold
of me at this youth's capacity to concentrate on the attractive shadow
of distasteful things. There was a heavy, musty smell over all this part
of the trench, the smell of a dead Turk lying just over the parapet, and
it occurred to me, maliciously, to wake Harry from his dreams, and bring
home to him the reality of things.
'Funny smell you've got here, Harry,' I said; 'know what it is?'
'Yes, it's cactus or amaryllis, or one of those funny plants they have
here, isn't it? I read about it in the papers.'
This was too much. 'It's a dead Turk,' I told him, with a wicked
anticipation of the effect I should produce.
The effect, however, was not what I expected.
'No!' said Harry, with obvious elation. 'Let's find the devil.'
Forthwith he swarmed over the parapet, full of life again, nosed about
till he found the reeking thing, and gazed on it with undisguised
interest. No sign of horror or disgust could I detect in him. Yet it was
not pure ghoulishness; it was simply the boy's greed for experience and
the savour of adventure. Anyhow, my experiment had failed; and I found
that I was glad. But when I was leaving him for the next platoon, he was
lying down for a little sleep on the dirty floor of the trench, and as
he flashed his electric torch over the ground, I saw several small white
objects writhing in the dust. The company commander whom we had relieved
had told me how under all these trenches the Turks and the French had
buried many of their dead, and in a moment of nauseating insight I knew
that these things were the maggots which fed upon their bodies.
'Harry,' I said, 'you can't sleep there; look at those things!' And I
told him what they were.
'Rubbish,' he said, 'they're glow-worms gone to sleep.'
Well, then I left him. But that's how he was in those days.