GALLIPOLI AT LAST
The sun had just risen when the train, a clattering collection of
third-class cars, jangled laboriously over the low elevation on which
Alexandria stands. With a series of nerve-racking spasms, it came to a
halt on the water-front, where lay several large transports absorbing
men, horses and stores.
With some difficulty and many lurid epithets, the troopers slowly
disengaged themselves from the unhealthy boxes, and gathered in sleepy
groups to await developments, a thing they were in the habit of doing
for long periods at a time. Mac and Smoky availed themselves of the
first opportune moment, when all who mattered were engaged in
calculations and scraps of paper, to disappear in the direction of a
small buffet whence came a tempting rattle of crockery and an aroma of
tea.
Here, even at this early hour, the good English ladies of Alexandria
were dispensing refreshing tea and cakes to the soldiers.
Later they filed on board, and were taken, each unit to its own
mess-deck, to deposit their gear. Mac's own troop had just completed
the disintegration of themselves and their kit and the satisfactory
stowage of it, when it was discovered that they were in the wrong part
of the ship. Of course, that sort of thing was only to be expected,
but Smoky was particularly annoyed, as he had succeeded in procuring
the snuggest corner of the place. So, muttering and growling, they
gathered up their goods and chattels, and shoved and groused along
crowded alley-ways. Embarkations and disembarkations always were a
severe trial of the temper.
They eventually got settled again, and soon divested themselves of
unnecessary clothing and equipment. Then Mac and Smoky deemed it the
most tactful course to seek a secluded corner of the boat deck, not
infested by blustering non-coms, seeking fatigue parties. They
proceeded to go to sleep in the shady security of the lee side of a
life-boat; but, as ill luck would have it, their own sergeant soon
spotted them, and it was useless to pull his leg.
It was a loading fatigue, of course, and they were sent away along the
water-front to shove trucks about. They eventually selected one and
brought it down alongside their ship. Black, greasy, heavy cooking
apparatus it was, which had to be carried up the steep gangways and
transported to the bowels of the ship.
During the rest of the day, they mostly slept in quiet corners of the
ship.
Soon after dark they sailed. The vessel manoeuvred slowly through the
breakwaters, and passed out on the calm waters of the Mediterranean.
The low, blacker line of the Egyptian shore grew less distinct, and the
numerous lights of the port came closer and closer together, faded into
a dim halo and merged at length into the black sweep of the horizon.
So passed Egypt from the sight of many; with the gurgling monotone of
the propeller, they reeled off the knots of water which separated a
past of careless happy-go-lucky days from a future of unfathomable
depth.
There were no hammocks nor bunks on board the _Grantully Castle_.
Either it was not considered necessary that soldiers should sleep or
else, perhaps, that they were not at all particular. Anyhow there were
worse places than hard decks to sleep on. Mac and Smoky scorned the
fuggy atmosphere of the lower decks, and proceeded to select a breezy
spot on the after boat-deck. They loosened the canvas cover of a
lifeboat, levelled oars and other prominent obstacles, and disposed
their scanty bedding to the best possible advantage on this uneven
ground. The experiment was not altogether an unqualified success and
minor disadvantages made themselves apparent during the passage of the
night. The oars were rigid and uneven, and the breeze and the cold
penetrated from both above and below. Still they stuck it out, and for
the most part slept.
The following day fled by speedily and uneventfully. All gear was
overhauled and guards were mounted; spare time was passed in gambling.
Those who had money wanted to get rid of it. It was of no more value;
in the future it counted for nothing, so large stakes were won and
lost. Mac refrained from this indulgence, not that he was a
conscientious objector, but, alas, he had no piastres wherewith to
beguile the hours. His last two had been burst in one wild rapture on
indigestible cake at the ship's canteen.
That night Mac was detailed for ship's guard. His duty it was to stand
at the starboard quarter alongside a life-buoy, which he was to hurl at
any fool of a trooper who unwittingly fell overboard. He was to report
speedily of such affairs as submarines, fires and so forth.
During the long night watches, he forgot, more or less, all about his
duty, and meditatively regarded the whirling wave as it seethed away
into the darkness. All was silence, except for the mumble, mumble,
mumble of the propellers. They were in the AEgean Archipelago and
islands passed in an unbroken procession of indistinct shadows. Mac's
thoughts were far away, and he was thinking of just such a night off
Pelorus Sound, when a "Wake up, old sport! Time's up!" brought him
suddenly to the present. He found Smoky had made a comfortable
"possie" underneath two lifeboats and was sleeping soundly. He
muttered only a few protesting groans on being shoved into his own
share of the possie; and soon Mac had joined his cobber in the sound
undisturbed slumber of an ordinary trooper.
The next day passed in much the same manner; but, alas, the night--Mac
and Smoky were blusteringly ejected from their bivvie by an officious
sergeant, who said that the poop boat-deck was holy ground reserved for
machine-gunners and men on guard. So they retired to the upper deck,
and sought a spot whereon to lay their bones; but the ship was very
full, and space limited. In an ill-considered moment they settled down
partly under a seat, where passengers had sat in the palmy days of
peace, and partly in an open gangway. It proved an evil spot. Each
changing guard trod on them, and retreated with awful blasphemy echoing
in their ears. Then it chose to thunder, and rain fell in torrents.
Not only from the skies, but also from the deck above it came in
fountains, until the troopers were wretched in the extreme. There was
no refuge whence to flee. Leaving their oil sheets and blankets meant
only greater damp, so they stuck it out.
By daylight the rain had lessened, and the troopers, bedraggled and
sleepy, disentangled themselves from the sodden blankets, and set about
getting things in order. Smoky gathered up the wet clothes and
surreptitiously made his way to the engine-room, where he selected a
not too conspicuous steam main on which to hang them.
It was a damp grey morning. The vessel was steaming very slowly
towards where appeared dimly through the mist a host of vessels of all
descriptions, war-ships, transports, hospital ships and small craft.
Ahead loomed the land, not very high, and indistinct in the rain.
At last, Gallipoli! The trooper regarded it suspiciously. It looked
miserable, and he felt likewise. After the long, bright months in
Egypt, the damp penetrated his bones, and he hadn't had breakfast.
Anyhow, he supposed it wouldn't be so bad, and went off downstairs for
a wash.
When Mac and Smoky, having breakfasted, disentangled themselves from
the Bedlam of a troop-deck meal, and gained the upper air, they were in
better humour to regard their surroundings from a philosophical, if not
an appreciative, standpoint. The depressing drizzle had ceased, the
clouds were breaking, and the shore, except for the mist-filled nullahs
and the cloud-wrapped Asiatic hills, showed up more clearly in the
morning light.
The _Grantully_ had anchored about half a mile from the fort at Seddul
Bahr, which with the castle and the village was shattered and forlorn.
An untidy medley of tents, mules and stores of all description, covered
the seaward slope and the beach to the left. Small craft passed
rapidly to the shore from many French and British transports. Great
men-o'-war, grey and cold, lay without sign of life; destroyers cruised
slowly and meditatively, and pinnaces foamed along in energetic haste.
The two troopers watched the scene with interest. They were still very
hazy as to the actual degree of the success of the landing, or really
how far across the Peninsula the original force had progressed. The
papers said everything had been wonderfully successful, but Mac was
rather sceptical. At any rate, they were not wasting any time in
pushing the mounted men in as infantry. The future was obscure and
uncertain; but, with a feeling of eerie anticipation, he felt the
freshness of the dawn of a new mysterious life, when men met men in
mortal fight, when the false standards of civilization went to the
devil, and man was man. It was good to be alive; to be one of that
brigade of fine hefty fellows on the edge of the great adventure, when
they would join in the greatest sport on earth.
From across the misty uplands to the north-east, like the crushing of a
cart over a gravelly road, came the rattle of musketry fire. Then, as
the visibility increased, war-ships manoeuvred into position, and fired
slowly and deliberately at unknown inland targets. Occasionally the
troop-ship shook from the shattering crash of the _Queen Elizabeth's_
guns. Reflecting was not one of the trooper's habitual occupations;
but undoubtedly these first scenes and sounds of the real thing were
occasions for thought. A bugle-call for parade cut short further
philosophizing, and preparations for disembarkation found him faced
with questions far more worthy of mental effort than un-trooper-like
sentiments concerning what might or what might not occur in the future.
The leading difficulty was, of course, to get twice the permitted
amount of equipment into the kit, and some must be discarded. He had
two blankets, and decided to dispose of the lighter, then, changing
into a clean shirt, he threw away the old one. Everything was finally
reduced to the absolute minimum, and packed as neatly as possible in
the temporary kit.
* * * * *
Cape Helles was not the destination of the Mounted Rifle Brigade. In
mid-afternoon the _Grantully_, under slow steam, passed northwards
along the coast thirteen miles, and dropped anchor again in the middle
of another fleet of transports about two miles off Anzac. All traces
of the morning gloom had gone; and, to the troopers, accustomed so long
to the low, barren sand-dunes of Egypt, these high Gallipoli hills and
islands, bathed in the glory of an AEgean evening, brought memories of
other coast-lines, Cook Strait maybe, or the Great Barrier.
The fellows crowded along the landward rail, and, with or without
glasses, endeavoured to discover battle-signs and the positions of our
men. There were across the steep green hillsides several great scars,
where the scrub was withered and the bare earth showed; but surely our
main line was over that high ridge, for reports stated that the army
corps had penetrated several miles. The artillery was awakening to its
evening activity, field guns could be seen firing, and shells bursting
on high crests. Heavy shells, learned later to be those from the
_Goeben_ in the Dardanelles Channel, shrieked occasionally out of the
unknown, and sent up great geysers of water near a four-funnelled
cruiser to the right. A steady staccato of rifle fire floated faintly
from the heights.
The evening shadows deepened to darkness; the stars shone brightly, and
against them the land stood in a black, shapeless mass.
Many lights from the bivouacs on the seaward slope gleamed like a
miniature Wellington across the water. War seemed difficult to
reconcile with so serene and perfect a night.
Two destroyers came alongside, one on the port, the other on the
starboard. Struggling with their unwieldy equipment, the troopers
filed down the gangways on to them. Mac sat down by the engine-room
manhole and listened to great and wonderful stories from the leading
stoker of dashes up the Narrows, long patrols in winter storms, and
thrilling times during the landing.
They spun away shorewards. The hills loomed blacker overhead and the
dim staccato of rifle fire became a ceaseless rattle.
Spent bullets buzzed past and hit the water with a "plop." This was
interesting, and, with a thrill of pleasure, Mac felt at last he was
under hostile fire. For days--indeed, for months--he had been worried
internally by a great doubt. Would he be a funk? He was in a
frightful funk lest he should be one, and to him this was a matter of
great concern, though he mentioned it to no one, not even to Smoky. He
wondered whether his cobber was affected in the same way, but thought
not, as he was so keen to get to the front. So he had felt a little
ashamed. Well, anyhow, now he was entering the danger zone, he
experienced no abdominal sinking, such as one might expect under these
circumstances. His mind was relieved; and, with the full joy of life,
he turned with interest towards the steep hills.
Bells clanged below and the engines stopped and reversed, and, with a
seething of water, the destroyer lost way. Out of the darkness loomed
several unwieldy lighters, splendidly admiralled by a slip of a middy.
They came alongside and the men swarmed aboard. The lighters moved
lumberingly beachwards. From above, the firing grew loud, and a
falling bullet wounded a man--the first casualty. Men stood silent, or
spoke in subdued murmurs. The whole thing was weird, yet
beautiful--the still glory of the night, the eerie, echoing rattle from
above, and the flickering lights of the bivouacs.
They grounded at last alongside a stranded barge, crossed it, and,
filing down a plank to the shore, gathered in ragged line along the
beach to await orders. What was expected of them that night, none
knew. A few of the earlier arrivals, not too fully occupied with work
or sleep completely to ignore them, welcomed them warmly, and
immediately launched into long-winded accounts of previous fighting.
With an air of conscious superiority, they gave them hints and advice,
and told vividly of trials, troubles and dangers. All this the
new-comers accepted unchallenged and with deep respect.
The narrow beach, or those parts of it not occupied by great piles of
stores, or limbers and water-carts, was a seething mass of humanity and
mules. Few of the men spoke, beyond a welcoming "How do, cobber," or a
"Glad you've come, mate." They appeared out of the darkness and passed
into it again with an air of steady practical purpose. Ant-like, they
passed in continual streams from barges to stacks of boxes, whose size
rapidly increased.
At length the brigade filed off along the stony beach to the left,
halted frequently, while stray bullets passed with a low whirr overhead
and out to sea; and turned finally up a deep ravine to the right.
On the steep, scrub-covered sides they were ordered to bivouac for the
night. Things were not too comfortable, but that was no cause for
complaint. Mac and Smoky forced themselves under a holly bush,
enveloped themselves in their oil-sheets, and braced their feet against
stems of shrubs to prevent their sliding down the fifty degree slope.
There was no cessation of the firing, and, in this ravine each report
reverberated from one clay cliff to another in ringing, resonant notes.
There were no other signs or sounds of fighting--only this musical din
coming from the starry vault above.
The trooper thought a terrific battle must be raging, and pitied the
poor fellows in the trenches. He learned later it was just Abdul's
normal method of spending the night when he had the wind up. These
sounds were not disturbing, and soon the cobbers, for the first time,
were asleep under fire.