THE MARCH OF MONOTONY
The weeks marched by, one upon the heels of the next; and summer came
down upon that cruel land. All day long the suns stared at the baked
ground, and the flies multiplied beyond imagination. The enemy, sitting
in the opposite trenches, was less terrible than this pitiless season.
There was no savour in the food; the water ration could not quench the
thirst; there was no new scene on which to feed the eye; there was no
change of duty. We were no step nearer the end of affairs. And typhus and
dysentery began to stalk abroad. A man had but to keep his mouth shut to
prove his heroism.
Between the attacks, the fellows sat or lay all day long in a sort of
dog’s doze. Frequently they had put up awnings of waterproof sheets;
but the heat below was close and sickly. Fellows were bare legged and
stripped naked to the waist, with big patches of broken skin where the
sun had blistered. And there were men burnt as brown as niggers. Here
and here were groups smoking, playing cards, and talking. I heard little
said of the war, which had long since failed to interest; but there were
endless stories of race-horses and prize-fighters, and endless boasts
about girls. And many liars told and retold their most brilliant lies.
Thus crawled by the fiery hours between rise and set of sun.
Little Billy Blake meets me in the valley one mid-day. “Have you heard
about poor Bill Eaves?” he says. “What’s up?” say I. “Dead,” he says.
“Damned sorry to hear that,” say I. “How did it happen?” “Don’t know.
They found him at the top of the valley. A shrapnel bullet had copped
him in the top of the napper. I helped to take him down to the beach.
’Struth, I was sweating at the end!” “Bad luck for old Bill,” say I.
“Blasted bad luck,” says he. “So long,” say I. “So long,” says he. And he
goes on down the valley; and I climb up the hill to headquarters.
Sooner or later you met all the celebrities poking round in the trenches.
Once General Rivers came daily to the Pimple, smoking a cigarette in a
long thin holder. He had a favourite seat beside one of C Battery guns.
He was tall and thin, with a slight stoop as I remember, and an air of
great refinement for a soldier. His hands were white, with long fingers,
and nails so clean he might have walked off the Collins Street Block. He
sat and smoked silently, or walked up and down, pointing quietly with his
hand. I don’t know how he treated his Staff; but he seemed reasonable in
his dealings.
Another man with the face of a student was Captain Carrot, the war
correspondent. I took him about the trenches more than once. He was
rather tall and rather thin, with a peaky face and glasses. He carried
a camera in place of a rifle. In Egypt he had written an article which
had much offended the army; and many were the threats against him. But
someone told me, in a charge down Cape Helles way, he had exposed himself
to get a good view, and so he was forgiven. I don’t know how true is the
story; but his popularity came back. He had little to say to me.
A third man frequently run to earth in the trenches was Colonel Saxon,
V.C. He was a quiet man with a polished manner and a lisp. I heard he
came from a crack English regiment. He left his staff behind him, and
poked about on his own account, periscope under arm, and nothing more.
He was never put out; he took all as a part of a day’s happenings, even
the shortage of men and ammunition, and the brigadier’s wrath. “The
general is awfully angry with me this morning,” he lisped to the colonel
once when we ran into him. “I don’t know what I’ve done. I thought I
had better go for a walk while he cools down. Everything is quite dead
to-day. I’m off now by Quinn’s Post. Good-bye.”
And last—and very far from least—on some fine mornings round the corner
strolled General Birdwood, with his A.D.C., his periscope bearer, his
mapcase bearer, and all the following of a mighty man of war. He was a
popular general. As often as not his dress was a sun helmet, a plain
khaki shirt, corduroy knickerbockers, and leggings out after the style
of an English squire or well-to-do yeoman. He carried a walking-stick
in his hand. In his ways he was calm and easy going. His face showed
good temper; but there was a chin at the bottom of it; and he looked the
manner of man who would haul off and lay you out rather than put you
under arrest. He spoke to all and sundry in the trenches, and bathed
freely with the men in the sea. I stood beside him once when he had a
squeak from a sniper. The bullet chipped down the earth on us. “Now,
where’s that rascal?” the general said, lifting up his head. “Can’t any
of you men get rid of him? We ought not to allow that.” One or other of
his A.D.C.’s followed at his heels; and it might be brigadiers and lesser
fry swelled the train, until one had to push against the trench wall to
let the procession go by.
As summer wore on, and the fighting slackened away to daily skirmishes,
there came much talk of reinforcements of men and guns, and a second
attempt to carry the Peninsula by storm. There was much talk, I say; but
there was nothing more. The endless suns baked the earth to brick, and
parched in men’s hearts the seeds of hope. The stretchers took their
loads down to the beach; and it was a trench won here and a trench lost
there, that was all. But one looked in vain for the transports steaming
East.
The colonel kept to his habits all the time: we tramped up and down hill
in the morning, and in the evening we had our battle. Once he went away
for a change, and came back with his old energy. The sun peeled the skin
from the end of his nose, and burnt his face a fierce red; his clothes
began to wear, and he changed them for a private’s issue, so that a great
deal of his glory departed. But his keenness stayed after his beauty had
faded.
Our targets changed little. It might be the enemy brought up a new
battery or retired an old one: and steadily they strengthened their
trenches and sapped towards us, as we on our own account sapped towards
them. They made two fortresses of Lonesome Pine and Jackson’s Jolly;
and ever at sight of those the colonel wagged his head and was full of
misgiving. The Jolly was named after him on account of his fears of
it, and I believe he christened Lonesome Pine. From our side Lonesome
Pine was no more than a sandbagged mound, with a small blasted sapling
standing up at one point. The sapling was of no appearance; but in that
bare country it made a landmark. It was strange the enemy allowed it to
stay. The colonel pointed it out to a friend. “They’re doing an awful
lot of work over there,” says he. “Right in our mouth,” says he. “You
see where I mean, that mound with the stick on it. It reminds you of
that book—what’s it, _The Trail of the Lonesome Pine_ or something.” The
other man looks hard at it and shakes his head, and then they fall to
talking on another subject. Says the other man, “You had a gun blown out
yesterday, didn’t you?” “I think it can be fixed up,” says the colonel.
“Three men went with it.” And then he wags his head with very great
sadness. “You can get new guns; but you can’t send down to Hell for new
gunners.”
There would be days when the sun was less terrible, and sea and sky
were calm with the wonderful blue calm of the Mediterranean. Then the
open country between us and Achi-Baba became a forbidden Eden. I forget
how often the colonel and I have stared at it covered with the sleepy
sunshine. “Look at it, look at it,” he would mutter. “What a place for
love and fishing!”
Towards evening the D battalion officers congregated at the top of
Shrapnel Valley by a curtained dug-out used as an office. They drifted
there in ones and twos to smoke and yawn and stare at the sea. From here
you looked down the length of Shrapnel Valley on camps clustering all
the way. The signallers wagged to one another to keep in practice, and
the reinforcements drilled on a flat open space at the lower end. A few
shells might be travelling forwards and backwards, but frequently there
was no more sound than the lazy crack of the snipers. Overlooking this,
the D Battalion officers sat on up-ended packing cases and smoked. And
with them often sat the colonel, and not far off I leaned against the
bank, exchanging news with the telephonists in the office. “Who would
think this was war?” says the colonel, rubbing his nose with the end of
the periscope. “Half a dozen men sitting on boxes smoking and cursing
the flies. And a beautiful blue sea to look at, and a beautiful blue
sky overhead. I always pictured myself galloping into action at the head
of my brigade and flourishing a sword. Why a sword I don’t know; but it
was like a picture in a story book, and there were red bombs bursting
round my head. And now I have to tramp up and down these dirty hills. I
won’t come again. I shall send someone else instead. Did you see what
Hamilton said in brigade orders—‘the incomparable Twenty-ninth.’ That
rather blows us out, doesn’t it? You can’t easily beat ‘incomparable.’ I
suppose when a general hasn’t had his name in the paper for a few days,
he starts writing ‘incomparable’ and ‘glorious’ and ‘magnificent’ before
his troops; and then the people at home say, ‘Those men have been through
a hard time. That general must be a hell of a clever fellow.’”
Truly one might look down this valley and not think of war. There were no
armed men about, and many fellows wore flannel shirts open at the neck,
and knickerbockers cut above the knee, and legs bare the rest of the way,
so that little was to show of the original uniform. Roads worn solid by
passage of many feet led to the principal places, and the thick scrub
that once had made this valley so difficult and so romantic had long gone
as firewood for the cooks. I have seen mining camps with all the same
appearance. But in time the secret was given away. It might be the enemy
sent us half a dozen big shells at tea-time, or on the way up or down you
passed a stretcher making the journey to the beach. Once I met a dead
man lying on the side of the road. His lower body was naked and mottled,
and the two legs stuck stiffly into the air with toes apart. I saw nobody
attending to him, though he was gone when I came back. Another day there
came a great burst of clapping from the lower part of the valley, so
that fellows left their work and turned about to know what went forward.
Presently news hurried along that the war was over, as the Kaiser had
murdered the Crown Prince; but later I heard the peaceful morning had
tempted from his funk-hole a well-known dug-out king. Hence the applause.
We met a little man one tea-time just below Infantry Headquarters. We
came down from our evening battle, and he was striding up. “Good day,
sir,” he says, and salutes. “Hallo, captain,” cries the colonel. “I
thought you were down at Helles?” “Back again,” says the captain. “You
had a hot time down there,” says the colonel. “Pretty hot,” says the
captain; “ha! ha! It was their machine guns that played the deuce. Ha,
ha, ha! You know, two or three men with machine guns can hold up a
battalion. Ha, ha! You know, before very long war will be one man in an
armoured box, turning a treadle, ha ha! and setting fifty machine guns
going. Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!” “Well, so long, I’m off to tea,” says the
colonel. And away we go.
The bitter monotony of every day put men at their wit’s end to escape the
place, and fellows went sick unaccountably, and had strange bullet wounds
in hand or foot. And this brings to mind a man I met near Clayton’s
trenches. The enemy was giving us hurry-up with five- and six-inch
shells, and the colonel led the way in solid style by back trenches
towards E Battery observing station. The shells arrived one or two per
minute, and burst with a dull roar. Some fell ahead of us and some behind
us, and there was no reason one should not fall atop of us. Therefore,
as we had no call here, it was prudent to choose a healthier locality.
At a traverse corner a parapet had come down, and a man stood trapped
by the legs, pulling to and fro to get free. I fell on my knees to drag
away the dirt. Soon I had loosed him so that his efforts did the rest. He
came free, panting and rather scared; but in no manner hurt it seemed. I
jumped up again, and the colonel, who waited near by, set the pace anew.
I had forgotten all about him by tea-time, when I met a procession going
down to the beach. The centre figure was the hero of the afternoon, and a
man supported him on either side. A third man carried his equipment, and
a fourth his pack and blankets. “Off for a holiday,” thought I. “Well,
here’s luck.”
The _Triumph_, who had laboured long and hard in our cause, was torpedoed
in sight of the army. We came out of the trenches upon a group of
officers and men staring to sea with glasses to their eyes. They were
tongue-tied, except for one or two murmurs of regret. Not far off Gaba
Tepeh lay the battleship listing to one side: to her aid raced destroyers
from all over the bay. They closed about her and began the work of
rescue; and Gaba Tepeh seized the opportunity of a lifetime, and opened
fiercely with shrapnel. The destroyers blazed back, the flashes winked
like Morse lights; and a brisk engagement followed. The work of rescue
went forward, and presently the _Triumph_ heeled over with increasing
speed, and next with a plunge she disappeared—disappeared but for her
red keel, which floated for some while. The destroyers remained to pick
up survivors, and next they dispersed. Gaba Tepeh shut her mouth. And
we men who watched from the hilltop put away our glasses and looked at
one another. There was a great muttering and shaking of heads. “Damned
bad. Damned bad!” This was the first warning submarines had come so far
abroad, and the navy took fright and steamed away. In time remained only
destroyers and such light craft. There followed submarine scares, and
hunts were organised, when aeroplanes patrolled the bay and destroyers
followed. The hunt might continue all day, but I never heard of a capture.
The aeroplanes of both armies grew bold, so that our men sailed over the
enemy trenches to observe and bomb, and the enemy treated us to like
programme, usually at tea-time. Yards, the adjutant, went up sometimes,
and the colonel would crane his neck and watch him. Says the colonel one
day: “I shall not try and fly until I become an angel. I’m a nervous
little fellow.” The enemy planes were German Taubes, which circled
overhead in fashion most trying to those below. When the bomb came free,
it sounded as if it fell in a succession of dives, and gave no hint of
its target. Then came the final rush, and a moment of fierce suspense;
and then the roar of the bursting bomb. And then may be went abroad the
cry for stretcher-bearers.
With such diversions as I tell of, the summer wore on.