ACTION FRONT
Faintest dawn climbed over the bay as I woke up in the morning. I
opened one eye and then the other, and took courage and propped myself
on an elbow. It was nearly dark; but already the beach showed life and
movement, and vague battleships were taking up new stations out at
sea. Nobody near by seemed awake, the bushes looked empty and rather
mysterious; but far off the everlasting musketry went on—dying, growing,
and dying away again. I took a long look round until courage failed me,
when back I went under the blanket.
From that bed cut in the hillside, I watched the morning growing out
of night. Again—and still again—new sights, new sounds were born. The
curves among the hills took shape; the waters moved into life; and from
a grey distance rose the faint peaks of Imbros. The bay filled with
vessels—small and great. Cruisers and churlish battleships manœuvred
from point to point; and scouts and destroyers sped along a thoroughfare
where mine-sweepers, trawlers, tugboats, colliers, barges, pontoons,
lifeboats, and rowing-boats jostled one another all the way. The
transports rode beyond this highway, with thin smoke lines creeping to
the sky; and with them waited the hospital ships for the burden the day
would bring. While yet I watched, morning fully broke. I threw aside the
blanket, and sat up; and put out a hand for my boots.
The beach quickly resembled the market-place of a town. Men in groups
or singly hurried this way and that—Red Cross men bore wounded on
stretchers, Indians led mules, sailors in parties hauled ashore guns
and their waggons, artillerymen loaded themselves with ammunition,
infantrymen formed up for a return to the trenches, Greeks stabled
donkeys, Army Service men stacked high piles of bully beef and tins of
biscuit. Guns and limbers blocked the way, lines of wounded lay beneath
the shelter of the cliffs, farther on were ingathering vast stores of
provisions, and farther yet tanks for fresh water stood where the waves
lapped the pebbles.
Sacks of flour were thrown into growing heaps, and beside them sacks of
sugar. Cases of tea were dumped upon the sand. Cheeses were arriving, and
sides of bacon. Sheets of tin roofing lay on one another, waiting for the
shins of the unwary.
Men loaded lengths of wood for bomb-proof roofings and men staggered
under bales of hay. Gangs of sappers drove roads along the hillsides, and
telephonists ran wires from bush to bush. Infantry parties bore sandbags
on their heads towards the firing line, and other parties trudged
uphill, loaded with water-bottles. Men mooched round with rifles on their
backs, and men were there with picks and shovels. The murmurs of life
rose up like a mighty ocean tide.
The hillside, too, awoke: it became peopled with men drawing on shirts
and pulling at boots. Blue blankets appeared on half the bushes, waiting
for the tardy sun; later wisps of smoke curled up from fifty places.
Already our gunners were lingering round their guns, placing last
sandbags along the parapets, and stacking the ammunition brought by men
toiling up the hill. I was surprised at all that had gone forward while I
slept. The guns were lowered nearly to the ground level, and protected by
heavy ramparts of earth and sandbags, masked with leafy boughs. Trenches
for approach ran out, and telephone wires linked up the observing
station. The funk-holes for the gunners ran beside the guns.
Now at last, if reluctantly, the sun got up. I could not see him, but his
beams came creeping round the corner. They made the bushland warm and
cheerful, and the damp fled away from the patches of brown earth which
appeared in places on the hills. The insects came out from cracks and
crevices, and set briskly on new travels; and the little birds which were
lovemaking in the greenery puffed their breasts out, and chirruped with
morning confidence. It was going to be a tropic day.
The cook, however he was, had boiled some tea and fried rashers of bacon.
He sent me a “Cooee,” and I went over with a mess tin. There were half a
dozen about the fire holding out pannikins for filling; and Hawkins was
crouched among the ashes, stirring an evil-looking mess meant for Welsh
rabbit. He was too interested to look up; but the others greeted me with
“Well, and how are things?” I did not feel talkative myself, and answered
by an all-round nod.
There were two rashers of bacon each, and as many biscuits as a man
wanted. I went back to my funk-hole, balancing the biscuits and bacon in
one hand and a pot of tea in the other.
Just then the old balloon went up.
I had grown so used to the perpetual musketry fire that I no longer
heard it; and though the enemy still shelled us in a casual manner, they
were overshooting the mark, and most of their endeavours ended in the
sea. Sometimes, with a whizz and a bang, a hail of bullets descended on
the beach, and some poor fellow would fall down, and maybe two or three
others hobble away; but this was very seldom. From where we sat eating on
the hillside we received no more notice than the tunes of shells in their
passage, the hum of strayed bullets, and the sounds of an angry beehive
when a machine gun sent part of a charge through space.
But just now one of the battleships drew to a standstill and swung slowly
about; and even while I poured the pannikin of tea in joyous stream down
my throat, with a roar like the last trump she vomited a thousand-pound
shell half-across the peninsula. As I stopped choking, a cruiser took up
the running; and behold another round in the battle had begun.
I hurried breakfast after this, and hung within call of the observing
station. The other fellows too seemed to think our ball would soon open,
for they stretched jaws wide on the biscuits and bacon, and that duty
done, collected the flags and telephones. The usual abuse was exchanged
when nothing could be found.
“What the hell have you done with those flags? Can’t you leave a blasted
cove’s things alone for a minute? They were there before breakfast!”
“I’ve not touched your damned things. You want a nurse, you do!”
The colonel, the adjutant, the sergeant-major, and Wilkinson, as
telephonist, climbed presently up to the brigade observing station.
Not far away, and lower down, Major Felix, his sergeant-major, and
telephonist took possession of a dug-out—the B Battery observing station
was higher up, to the left hand. The whole position was congested,
but where was the room? A dozen yards below the brigade observing
station Eaves curled himself up, his head fastened to a telephone
running to Divisional Artillery; and I received orders to perch myself
half-way between him and the observing station, under the shelter of an
overhanging ledge.
The bombardment grew in volume: battleship after battleship engaged
a target. Like a colossal thunderstorm the explosions roared around
the bay. The very ground was a-tremble. Now the veteran _Triumph_
opened fire; and the _Queen Elizabeth_ drew farther out and came to a
standstill. I became aware that the sun was mounting and his beams had
turned unpleasantly fierce. There was not a puff of wind, there was not
a cloud in the sky; and the blue waters of Saros were without ruffle
or furrow. I became aware that the musketry was more intense, and that
machine guns were opening in sharp bursts along the lines. We for our
part were ready now—the gunners waiting in the funk-hole behind the guns,
the section commanders at their posts, Major Felix megaphone in hand. But
still no order for us came through.
The effect of the ships’ fire quickly became apparent, insomuch as the
enemy woke up with a vengeance, and answered with salvos of shrapnel and
lyddite, following hard on one another’s heels, and coming over our heads
with a rush and a bang which were unholy, to say the least.
Many of the salvos fell about the craft in the bay, but some were better
timed, and poured into the bushes, sending us close into whatever shelter
was handy, or hissed on to the crowded beach, where there was a sporting
chance of bagging anything from generals to tin cans. May be after a
lucky shot a riot would start among the mules, or some poor chap would
go to his Maker or fall down winged: and then would go forward a cry for
stretcher-bearers and Red Cross men. Or may be a party hauling at some
gun would scatter without warning behind a pile of stores, like mice
into a hole. Yet in that bustling thoroughfare it was strange how few
were the accidents.
Long ago conversation had grown impossible; but there would be moments
of silence when from the head of the valley descended very plainly the
frantic splutter of musketry, the fierce bursts of machine guns, and
the game barking of our little Indian mountain batteries. Also at such
times there rose up many strange cries from the beach. Then I could hear
distinctly the loud buzz of the wireless plant calling to the navy what
targets to engage. By now we gunners were all close in our funk-holes;
but the road from the valley was still populous with long processions of
wounded toiling to the Red Cross headquarters below.
An infantry fellow in fighting order and with a haversack on his back
came scrambling up the hill just then, found room beside me and planted
himself there. He could not speak for panting and was ready to break
down; but the place he secured was fairly well protected, and confidence
came back with breath. I glanced over him as he crouched there: he
was a thin, weakly-bred fellow, and plainly a liar. I said nothing to
him because he was upset, and because the sun was getting too hot for
talking; but I went on watching the beach very hard.
“Halloa, cobber,” he said at last.
“Hallo,” I answered, and turned towards him.
He looked at me out of palest blue eyes. “I just come from the firing
line,” he said. “It’s murder there. What are you blokes doing?”
“Going to shoot soon, I suppose,” said I.
“You ought ter be up in the firin’ line. They could do with you.”
“Oh!” I answered.
“Gettin’ any losses here?”
“Most of the fire is going over, but we’ll be shooting in a minute or
two, and that ought to open the ball in earnest.”
He said nothing to this; but soon, very soon, he was up and creeping
away. He passed from view, but not towards the firing line.
Yes, it was going to be a hot day. I pushed my finger into the neck of
my shirt, which already was clammy with perspiration. A haze had fallen
over the more distant parts of the bay; and round my ears a solitary fly
buzzed with persistence worthy of a nobler cause. Neither shrapnel nor
lyddite could move him. Yes, it was going to be a hot day!
Orders were through. Just near me someone called out: it was Major Felix,
a megaphone to his mouth. He shouted something, and I caught most of it.
“Infantry advancing! Aiming point, left ridge of Battleship Hill!
Line of fire, twenty degrees three-ough minutes right. Corrector
one-five-ough——three-six hundred! Angle of sight three degrees one-ough
minutes elevation! One round battery fire!”
The section commander saluted, and cried to his sergeants, the sergeants,
kneeling at the trails, saluted and turned to the gunners. No. 3, on
the left seat, laid the gun; No. 6 set the fuse, and No. 5 passed the
shell to No. 4. No. 2, on the right-hand seat, opened the breech, No. 4
pushed home the shell, No. 2 closed the breech again. Then came a pause,
then “Fire” was given, though I could not hear it. But there followed a
mighty uproar, which seemed to beat the ground and plunge back again on
to my ears, the boughs about the guns sprang into the air, long tongues
of flame leaped forth, and the gun-barrels slid backwards and into place
again.
The seconds went by. Again Major Felix was shouting. “C gun five minutes
more left! Shorten corrector six! Drop two-ough-ough! Repeat!”
“What?” the section commander shouted.
“C GUN FIVE MINUTES MORE LEFT! SHORTEN CORRECTOR SIX! DROP TWO-OUGH-OUGH!
REPEAT!”
“What?” the section commander shouted.
“C GUN FIVE MINUTES MORE LEFT! SHORTEN CORRECTOR SIX! DROP TWO-OUGH-OUGH!
REPEAT!”
The section commander saluted and turned to his sergeants, the sergeants
saluted and directed the gunners, and again the yellow flames stabbed the
air, and the uproar seemed to rebound and strike me.
A third time the order came: “C gun two minutes more left! Drop
five-ough! Gunfire!”
We were into it with a vengeance now: by land, by sea equally engaged.
Never a moment slackened the enemy fire: rather the sky became more
terrible with the voices of travelling shells, and more beautiful with
delicate bursts of shrapnel. At intervals mighty howitzer shells rumbled
solemnly through space, and plunged into the sea amid columns of spray.
We gunners must soon have made ourselves unwelcome, for the enemy guns
started to search for us, and quickly the game of hide and seek became
too hot for pleasure. I was still perched under the projecting ledge;
but my time was coming. Eaves lifted up his transmitter and began
to call—“’Ullo ’Ullo!” A message was coming through from Divisional
Artillery. Presently, receiver at ear, Eaves wrote it heavily down. Next
he read it slowly through. He was quite undisturbed: he was a good man,
was Eaves. Then he beckoned me. “’Ere you are,” he said, holding out the
message in a hairy hand.
I took the paper and began to crawl up the bank to the observing station.
Matters were livelier than ever in the open. Shells were bursting like
the devils of hell, and rifle bullets went by with the slashing sound of
steel drawn tightly on steel. The ascent was a matter of seconds, and I
leaned over the edge of the dug-out. Wilkinson, telephone at ear, lay
in a half-moon in a funk-hole of his own; and in the main funk-hole sat
the colonel, adjutant, and sergeant-major with maps across their knees.
An argument was going on. News was through we were shelling our own
infantry. “They’re dirty liars!” I heard the colonel burst out—and then
the message was taken in, and I was beckoned away by a quick gesture.
Round I went again, and down the hill. The major was shouting once more.
“Aiming point, straight edge of Gaba Tepeh! Two degrees four-five minutes
elevation! Corrector one-four-five-three-four hundred! One round battery
fire!”
The guns roared out, the long flames stabbed the air. A call came—“One
gun out of action, sir.” “What’s wrong?” “What?” “What’s wrong?” “Finding
out!” “All guns seven degrees more left. Shorten corrector six! Drop
one-fifty! Gunfire!”
I had kept small account of the time, for I discovered next that
the morning was growing old. I had no watch; but the sun had moved
well across to our right hand, and the last patches of shade were
disappearing. I blew into the hot air, and pushed a hand across my
forehead. Still the cannonade went on, still the earth trembled, still
the voice behind called out new orders. “Last target was F. Next target
will be registered as H” fell on my dazed ears.
Then I noticed an aeroplane coming up from the south over the Turkish
lines. Tender puffs of shrapnel followed its course. A second one sailed
far to the left, a dot in a hazy distance. The man in the balloon
still watched away, well out of reach of the longest gun. Presently
the aeroplanes faded from sight, and I went back to the old pastime of
staring at the beach.
Heat and howitzers, shrapnel and sunstroke, alike could not affect
the buzzing throng there. From my perch I looked down on to another
world. Directly below lay the Red Cross jetty whence pinnaces towed long
strings of boats to the hospital ships. A white flag with a red cross
waved at the jetty end. The boats lay into the sides, and the wounded
men were borne along the planking, and placed in rows upon the decks.
Unhappily, the spot was searched by enemy fire, and more than one poor
fellow, who had survived long suffering, met his end lying there while
the boats filled up. The wharf was in charge of a naval party, with a
short-tempered old brute in blue jacket and white trousers in command. He
stood in the middle of the thoroughfare, indifferent to everything, and
bellowed through a megaphone at the Red Cross men. I thought if anything
happened to him there, Old Nick would have a rough time down below.
Whenever the firing lulled, up came his voice.
“I am taking severe stretcher cases only. Forward some severe stretcher
cases. Yes, sir, I said stretcher cases only. My God, sir, are you the
fool or am I?” And he added something else I won’t put down. Then would
come another lull. “Now I shall take some standing-up cases.”
As fast as the pinnaces and their loads steamed to sea, new boats put
into harbour; and throughout the day the procession of stretchers moving
to the wharf did not stop. As the boats filled with recumbent men, all
odd spaces were taken by those who still could stand or sit erect; and
these clambered painfully aboard with staring bandages round head or arm.
Weary and broken were the most, I grant; yet more than once that day a
voice piped out: “Are we downhearted?” and a chorus answered “No!” With
shrapnel flecking the waters, and too often bursting overhead, string
after string of loaded boats turned to the mother ship; and with their
departure the bellow ever came up again, “I am taking severe stretcher
cases! Forward me some stretcher cases!”
“C gun two minutes more right! Drop five-ough! Repeat!” The battle was
wearing on. I wondered how we did on the right, and if the New Zealanders
held firmly to the left.
Eaves beckoned violently: a message had arrived from Divisional
Artillery. I went across and watched him put it laboriously to paper.
“Guns in action, three o’clock five degrees east of Battleship Hill.
Engage them.” I jerked the form from him, and started again for the
observing station.
There was fascination as well as risk in the scramble through the open,
where Death roamed overhead with threatening voice. I reached the big
dug-out, leaned over, tossed in the message, and met the abrupt signal
to return. Down I went, slipping and springing from tuft to tuft, and
falling on my back somewhere near the ledge. Just here a brain wave came
along: I bethought me of a four days’ beard, and rising up, bolted on to
my own funk-hole at the bottom of the hill. Into my kit I dived, caught
up the shaving tackle, and was back again at the ledge while you could
count fifty. There I lay and perspired, while the voice of Major Felix
called out the new target.
“Guns in action! Aiming point right-hand edge of Battleship Hill! Line of
fire five degrees five minutes right! Corrector one-five-ough—three-three
hundred! Angle of sight three degrees three-five minutes elevation! One
round battery fire!”
I fell to watching the bay again. The transports lay at anchor beyond
range of enemy guns, and the battleships riding at their stations never
ceased to send loud voices over the deep. But nearer shore a thousand
craft sped to and fro. Now and now again, a monster shell rumbled out of
the hills, and rent a chasm in the even sea; but still the craft came and
went, nor turned their course a hair’s breadth. Truly luck followed us
this day.
But while I watched a hideous burst of smoke and coal dust leaped from
a mine-sweeper, and all at once she fell a-shivering. Smoke and dust
drifted away, and I scanned her keenly, but could make out no harm.
Just now the good _Queen Bess_ picked up a target—a howitzer in action on
a far crest. I saw her swing at her station: I saw her move out to sea.
He was no fool, that howitzer. He crouched behind his sandbag ramparts,
and boomed defiance at the foul infidel guns. Upon his stout overhead
cover shells and shrapnel burst in vain.
But he had not met the good _Queen Bess_.
The good _Queen Bess_ moved out to sea, and there the good _Queen
Bess_ lay to: with care she read her angles, with cunning she laid her
guns. She watched, she quivered—and with a bellow of rage she hurled a
two-thousand-pound shell. She missed the howitzer and struck the crest
below; and away went the crest, and away went the howitzer.
Somewhere else, drawn by ten horses, an enemy field gun trotted into the
open. There he unlimbered, and the team turned for cover. But in the bay
a British boat was watching, and forth leaped two flames. There was a
whirlwind where the gun had been. The whirlwind climbed towards the sky.
But there was no gun; there were no horses; there were no men. And many
souls were speeding up to Allah.
And—thus runs the legend—where the fight raged thickest this day, the
good _Queen Bess_ emptied a round from a fifteen-inch gun, whose shrapnel
spreads a mile, and wiped from earth two companies of infantry. “Allah!
Allah! Thy courtyards will be filled this night!”
* * * * *
“All guns three degrees more right! Shorten corrector six! Drop
one-five-ough! Repeat!”
I began to consider my shaving. Every trace of shade had gone—as far as I
was concerned, that is to say. I sat leaning forward on a bare ledge, and
the sun blazed in my face. “So be it,” I muttered and swore, and spread
out the shaving tackle. Into a pannikin went a few drops of water,
meaning a drink lost; and picking up the soap from the sand, I rubbed it
over my face. I was hot, tired, thirsty, and sticky with perspiration.
A fur had grown over the roof of my mouth, for I was unwashed, and my
clothes had not been off for half a week. And I thought—“Damn this! Is
this life for the next two years, with maybe a bullet as final bonus?
Damn this!” said I.
I looked down on the highway of the beach, where lines of wounded moved
towards the boats; where under the cliffs doctors probed red wounds, and
carved at arms and legs; where Indians urged mules; where sailors toiled
at guns and waggons, and midget midshipmen or naval cadets, or whatever
they were, ran round with mighty revolvers strapped at their hips;
where the wireless man sent out his buzz—buzz—buzz; where cursing Army
Service men hauled in new barges of provisions; where Greeks screamed at
donkeys, and kept a wide eye on shelter; where sappers wielded picks;
where officers of many ranks dodged from point to point, and waved hands
and flourished canes; where men pumped water into tanks from barges.
And I looked out at sea where the battleships rocked out flame; where
destroyers sped up and down; where men toiled at oars; where boats
emptied reinforcements on to shore; where pinnaces hooted; where loaded
barges swung at anchor. I looked and I said: “Gunner Lake, not yet is the
hour for complaint.”
Eaves woke me up. He waved a message form. I took it without a word, and
started up to the observing station. The soap was on my face, and was a
crust by the time I was back again. However, I made a second start at
shaving when I found breath. To be honest, I was shy of the business. The
ground shivered continually under the cannonade, and I pictured a hand
slipping and a gallant gunner going to his doom. At last, with tender
care, I engaged an upper jaw. I left a nick about half-way down, and
three others at the point of the chin, and from there passed in a passage
of blood to the farther side. It cost me many an oath, but the victory
was mine.
I was putting things away with lighter heart, when my eye fell on the
trawler I had seen shelled: she was going down by the stern. Already the
water lapped her gunwales, and crept on to the deck. I watched entranced.
She was sinking very slowly—so slowly that the minutes made no
difference—still when I looked away and looked again, the ocean had crept
higher up her sides. It was a noble end for an ancient fishing tub. At
intervals high-bursting shrapnel raked her from bows to stern; and the
guns kept up a thunder that would follow her below the waves. And as I
watched—ye gods!—the crew put off in an open boat, and pulled with the
heart of a Yarra eight through a sea knocked up with bullets. Methought
in days to come, in some village pothouse—when the mellow ale had done
its work—methought of certain hoary seamen who would swell their chests
and relate to youth agape the epic of stout times departed.
Up I scrambled with another message, and down I came again. Major Felix
and his section commander were shouting to one another.
“We can’t clear the crest at two-four hundred!”
“What?”
“The crest at two-four hundred!”
Streams of wounded still flowed along the road from the valley head. One
Red Cross fellow with a donkey had passed twice or thrice that day. He
was becoming known to all: they said no fire disturbed him. On his donkey
he would mount a man wounded in leg or foot. He was always cheerful and
never tired.
Now a mule battery laden with guns and ammunition wound like a serpent up
the narrow way. I marked it twisting up and up the ridge, until the crest
came between, and only a dead mule stayed to tell of the passage.
Eaves was beckoning again. I leaned forward and caught the message. Up
through the tufty grasses I went, and then down again to my ledge. Next
moment I was climbing the hill once more.
“All guns ten minutes more right! Shorten corrector four. Drop five-ough;
battery fire!”
I was very weary of the uproar, and I looked over to the Red Cross jetty.
A group of sailors waited on the quay while a string of boats drew in. I
saw them break and scatter; I saw the puff of a bursting shell; and down
went one poor fellow, and away into cover staggered another. A couple of
comrades ran back and picked up the fallen man, and the group passed
under the cliff, where I could not follow.
“Stop!” Major Felix was shouting. “Stop!” There was the roar of the
firing gun. “Who fired then?” There were quick answers and quick replies.
The major burst out: “Take that sergeant off that gun, and put him
under arrest!” There were more answers and replies. “All right,” the
major shouted again. “Let him carry on; I shall see him after!” Again
his voice came to me. “Guns in action at C. Aiming point left edge of
false ridge. Line of fire five degrees one-five minutes right! Corrector
one-five-ough—three-nine hundred! Angle of sight three degrees one-ough
minutes elevation. One round battery fire!”
Messages began to hurry through, and I was tired out with climbing up
and down. Finally, when there was time to sit still, I found an infantry
fellow perched on my ledge. He looked hot and fagged.
“This dirty sun settles a cove quick,” he said. And he said no more. I
crouched beside him.
“How are things going? Have you heard?” I said.
“Bonza! We’ve got ’em on the move. They say the British are joining us
at five o’clock to-night. We’ve been cut up a good bit; but the navy
has sent thousands of the other blokes skyhigh. I was sent here with a
wounded man, and must get back. I’ll make a start. Well, so long, mate.”
“So long,” I answered.
He watched for the sky to clear of shrapnel, pulled the rifle on to his
shoulder, and ambled off for the next cover. “A cheerful, misinformed
liar,” thought I, “but a good man.”
For the time at all events my work appeared over. Divisional Artillery
took a rest, so far so that I ended by forgetting Divisional Artillery
and even the battle. I rested against the naked brown earth, and blinked
lazily over the bay, until the sun laid weights on my eyelids. I had no
hunger; hunger had departed long since, if it had ever arrived; but I
thought of some bubbling stream until my sticky lips opened and shut. It
was no good; I had to close my eyes in the end; the lids were too heavy.
The last I noticed were dead mules lying along the sea shore. After that
the firing went on, but dully; and in the lulls I heard faintly the voice
calling through the megaphone: “Angle of sight,” I heard. “One-ough
minutes right,” I heard.
Then all grew closer again: I distinguished musketry and machine guns.
The sun blazed less: I could open my eyes. There was Eaves staring, and
yes! pelting me with clods of earth. “Wake up,” he called out, “and get
up with this!”
I opened my eyes wide then, and sat up straight. The sun was much lower
down, and fewer ships were in action. Plainly now could be heard the
rifle fire. I stood up and blinked. I took the form and started on
another climb, and on the way ran into the sergeant-major and Wilkinson
coming down. “Lake, you nearly had a new sergeant-major twice to-day. My
belt stopped this.” And Gardiner held up a bullet in his fingers. Near
the dug-out the colonel jumped almost on top of me. The adjutant was just
behind. “Yards,” he called out, “this battle is already won!”