beside Robin, who was very badly wounded in the leg. The Germans gave
me water when I asked for it, but every time I drank it made me sick.
At, I suppose, 9.30 or 10 p.m. they took us off into an ambulance and
carried us to a house that had been turned into a hospital. I was left
outside, talking to a Dane who was very anti-German, though he was
serving with them as a Red Cross man. He cursed them loudly in German.
He said it was monstrous that I hadn’t been attended to, that the
Germans had had a defeat and would be beaten. I said: “Yes, it’s all
true, but please stop talking, because they’ll hear you and punish me.”
Just before 12 o’clock they carried me into the hospital on to the
operating table, and dressed my wound quickly.
Then I was helped out to an outhouse and lay beside Robin. It was full
of English and German wounded. They gave us one drink of water and
then shut and locked the door and left us for the night. One man cried
and cried for water until he died. It was a horrible night. The straw
was covered with blood, and there was never a moment when men were not
groaning and calling for help. In the morning the man next to Robin
went off his head and became animal with pain. I got the Germans to
do what was possible for him. I asked the Germans to let me out, and
they helped me outside into a chair, and I talked to an officer called
Brandt. He sent a telegram to the German authorities to say that Robin
and I were lightly wounded, and asking them to let our families know.
He would not let me pay. I would have liked to have done it for every
one, but that wasn’t possible. They took us away in an ambulance at
about 11 o’clock. It was a beautiful September day, very hot indeed.
The heat in the covered ambulance was suffocating, and Robin must have
suffered horribly. He asked me the German for “quick,” and when I told
him, urged the Germans on. There were great jolts and....
At Viviers I found Shields, who said to me: “Hullo, you wounded, and
you a volunteer, too?”--as if a volunteer ought to be immune from
wounds. We were carried upstairs and told that Valentine and Buddy,
whom I had last met under the cedars, were in the same hospital.
Valentine had the point of his elbow shot away just after I had
left him. He raised his hand to brush a wasp off his neck, and only
remembered pitching forward when a bullet struck his elbow. He woke
up in a pool of blood. A German came up and took the flask of brandy
that I had given him after my visit to Soissons. He gave Valentine a
drink, and then, when Valentine had said he did not want any more,
swigged the whole of the rest off. It was enough to make two men drunk,
solidly, for hours. Later, five Germans came up to Valentine and ragged
him. One of them kicked him, but an officer arrived, took all their
names, promised Valentine they should be punished, and attached an
orderly to him for the night. Buddy was badly wounded in the back and
arm. He found his servant in the church at Viviers. Then we all met at
the house in Viviers. The doctors gave Robin and me a strong dose of
morphia. That afternoon a German doctor, whose name was Hillsparck,
came in and woke me. He gave me a gold watch with a crest on it, and
a silver watch and a purse of gold (£8 in it). He said that a Colonel
to whom the watch belonged had been buried close by in the village of
Haraman, and asked me if I could say who he was. We heard that the
Colonel had been killed, and I imagined it must have been him, but
we could not tell, as apparently every single man of the seventy odd
who had charged with him had been killed. The doctor left this watch
with me. In the hospital we believed that the General of the Division,
Monro, and also our own Brigadier, General Scott Kerr, were wounded,
and that the Colonel and T. were killed; Hubert we knew was killed.
Our experiences on the field were all the same. We were all well
treated, though occasionally we were insulted. In hospital an old
_ober-stadt_ was in command of the doctors. He was very good to us. The
English doctors were W., in command, S. next, Rankin and Shields. They
were all good doctors. W., Rankin and Shields were excellent fellows.
Rankin, who has been killed since, himself wounded, was dressing the
wounded on the field and was recommended for the V.C. Shields has been
killed in the same way, and I believe would have been recommended but
that his C.O. was also killed. They were both the best sort of man you
can find.
After a couple of days I moved into Buddy and Valentine’s room. A
little way down the street there was the château, full of wounded
Germans. Our men were carried there to be operated upon.
W. and the other doctors who went to help discovered that there were
311 wounded Germans as against 92 of our own, so we didn’t do badly.
Every morning the German sentries used to come in and talk to us. My
German and Buddy’s was very weak, but we managed to get along all
right. Downstairs those who were lightly wounded sat outside in the
chairs they took from the house, in the sunny garden. It was a fairly
luxurious house, with paper marked “F. H.” I thought it was a girls’
school, for the only books we could find were the _Berger de Valence_
and Jules Verne. My side was painful the first few days. Then they cut
me open and took out the bullet, which was all in bits. It was rather
hard lines on the others to perform an operation in the room, but I
felt much better after it. The food difficulty was rather acute. There
was very little food, and what there was was badly cooked. We lived
principally on things that S. called “chupatti”--thick, unleavened
biscuits. The men began to give trouble. There was nobody in command of
them. There was an ex-comedian who was particularly tiresome. We had to
ask the Germans to punish one man for us. About the fourth day one of
the orderlies escaped--Drummer McCoy. He passed for four days through
the German lines, and on one occasion watched a whole Army Corps go by
from the boughs of a tree. Then he found the French, who passed him on
to the English, where he went to the Staff and told them of us. That is
how we were picked up so quickly on the 11th.
* * * * *
Here is a copy of my diary for September 9th:--
The people are beginning to return, but not the priest, who is with the
Army. We want him for the regiment. Up till this time only six of the
wounded have died. The Germans tell us every kind of story--the United
States are declaring war on Japan, Italy on France, Denmark on England,
etc., etc. Also that Paris has been given twelve hours to accept or
reject the German terms, and if the French Government is obdurate
the town will be bombarded. We are told that we are to be taken as
prisoners to Magdeburg. It is a week since I have had a cigarette.
_Thursday, September 10th._ We are all very anxious to get news home,
but there is no chance. Last night S. Herbert died. I had a Testament,
and Valentine and I found verses which W. read over his grave.
Valentine has bad pain. Three bones broken in his arm and the point of
his elbow gone. Buddy is better, but hit cruel hard. Robin has a bad
wound, and is very restless. They don’t like giving us morphia. Luckily
I have got my own medicine chest, which is a good thing for all of us,
as I can give the others sleeping draughts. Last night a French cavalry
patrol came within two miles of us. Early this morning there was rifle
fire close by. It sounded in the wood that we suppose is Haraman. We
think the Germans may evacuate this place any time. The bandages have
given out. Stores are not coming in. There is a big aeroplane depot
quite close by, and the whole air is full of aeroplanes. It looks and
feels as if there might be a big battle round here soon. They have shot
an old man wandering about the aerodrome. But he was asking for it.
_9 a.m._ The aeroplanes are being shifted from the depot. Last night we
heard that arms were issued to all the wounded Germans in hospital who
could carry them. This morning the Germans are digging trenches hard.
There are Red Crosses everywhere. The doctors want us to go down to the
cellars if we are shelled. The French women in the village say that the
French are coming. The firing is increasing.
_9.15 a.m._ The German hospital across the way is ordered to be ready
to move at once.
_10.25 a.m._ An order has come for all prisoners to parade at the
church at 12 o’clock. The German lightly wounded are being sent on. We
are very anxious as to whether they mean to take us too. More of our
wounded who have died are being buried.
_11.10 a.m._ A German doctor has come. He said: “They are going and
taking all (of our) prisoners, 18 (of our) lightly wounded, and leaving
25 (of their) badly wounded.” French wounded are now coming in. We have
no more bandages at all. A German sentry with whom I had talked has
just come in. I asked him some days ago to buy some handkerchiefs. He
said: “I have not been able to buy you any handkerchiefs, or to get the
cigarettes you wanted, but here is one of my own handkerchiefs, which I
have washed. We have got to go.”
_8 p.m._ The last order is that the previous orders are countermanded
and the Germans are to stay on ten days.
_Friday, September 11th._ Our English prisoners were marched off this
morning. We are full of speculation as to what has really happened.
Valentine, Buddy and I are well.
_10.10 a.m._ There are machine-guns about four miles away.
_10.30 a.m._ There is a heavy rifle fire within a mile. It is very
trying lying here in bed. We have nothing to read except _The
Rajah’s Heir_ which V. sent to me and which has become known as the
treasure-house of fun. It is a sort of mixture of Hymns Ancient and
Modern and the _Fairchild Family_.
_2 p.m._ There is a Maxim within a few hundred yards of the house.
Rifle volleys outside in the garden. A rising wind and rain threatening.
_3 p.m._ Heavy rain. The French are visible, advancing.
_3.10 p.m._ The French are here. They came in in fine style, like
conquerors; one man first, riding, his hand on his hip. The German
sentries who had been posted to protect us wounded walked down and
surrendered their bayonets. The German doctors came to us for help.
I offered to go, but W. went. The French infantry and cavalry came
streaming through. Our wounded went out into the pouring rain to cheer
them. They got water from our men, whose hands they kissed. The German
guns are on the skyline. The Germans are in full retreat, and said to
be cut off by the English.
_5 p.m._ A heavy bombardment of the German guns began from here. I have
come upstairs to a long low garret with skylights, in order to leave
Valentine and Buddy more room. Through the skylight one can see every
flash of the French and German guns. The doctors all come up here to
watch with their field-glasses through my skylights.
_Saturday, September 12th._ Yesterday, when W. went down, he found
the German doctors receiving cavalier treatment from the French. He
explained to the French that they had treated us with the greatest
kindness; after that the French treated with courtesy the old
_ober-stadt_. Shields carved a great wooden tombstone for the thirteen
men who had died up to date. It is a month to-day since I left England.
This afternoon Colonel Thompson, English Staff Officer attached to
General Manoury, who had been attached to the Serbian Army through the
last war, came in. McCoy, who had escaped, had found him and told him
about us at Viviers. He said he would take me into Villers Cotterets
after he had done some other business. We talked a lot about the
Balkans, but I finally went back and lay down in my garret and shall
not get up again to-day.
_Sunday, September 13th._ I went off with Thompson this morning. We
passed through the wood where we had had the fight, and a long grave of
120 men was shown to me by McCoy.
ANZAC
1915
[Illustration:
_SIFTON, PRAED & CO LTD ST JAMES’ ST LONDON S W_ ]
ANZAC, 1915
When I was passed fit for Active Service, after some time in hospital,
I left England for Egypt with five other officers. Four of these had
strange histories. One is, perhaps, the most romantic figure of the
war, another now governs a great Province, while two, after many
adventures, were prisoners of war in Turkey, for different but dreary
periods.
I was sent to the East because it had been my fortune to have travelled
widely, and I had a fairly fluent smattering of several Eastern
languages. On arriving at Gibraltar about December 14, 1914, we heard
the first news of submarines. One of these was reported to have passed
through into the Mediterranean a few days previously.
When I reached Egypt just before Christmas, superficially everything
was calm. This calm did not last very long. I was given Intelligence
work to do, under Colonel Clayton, who has played a very great part
in achieving our success in the East. Reports constantly came in from
Minia, Zagazig and Tanta of Turkish and German intrigues. General Sir
J. Maxwell commanded the Forces in Egypt. Prince Hussein had just been
proclaimed Sultan, and Egypt had been declared to be under British
protection. Rushdy Pasha was Prime Minister and a triumvirate of Sir
Milne Cheetham at the Residency, Sir R. Graham as Adviser to the
Ministry of the Interior, and Lord Edward Cecil as Adviser to the
Ministry of Finance, directed the Government.
It was difficult to believe that the Egyptian, who then had all the
advantages of neutrals without any of the disadvantages, really meant
mischief. Most people, I think, agreed with Lord Cromer, and believed
that his policy of making taxes light and life easy for the Egyptian
had succeeded, but the East is never logical, as we all know, and the
natural consequence constantly does not follow the parental cause.
Mecca rose to join us after Kut had fallen; the rebellion in Egypt
only took place when the English had achieved a complete victory over
Turkey, and held Palestine and Syria. I quote the following incident
as an illustration of the difficulty of sometimes following this
mentality:--
A Syrian reported to me that a great Egyptian family, whom I will call
the Ashakas, had conspired to bring 15,000 rifles into the country and
to engineer a rising. The rifles were to be imported from the Greek
islands and from Greece, by means of Greek sponge-fishers. One of
these, who had the pleasant and appropriate name of Son-of-the-Dagger,
met me in a café in an obscure side street in Cairo. There he revealed
the conspiracy, explaining that only the landing-place for the arms
had still to be decided upon. He and his companions were to receive
a commission on every rifle landed, and he wanted to know what the
British Government would be ready to pay for his betrayal of his
patrons.
On reporting this to the proper authorities, I was told that they were
aware of the existence of this plot. The next day frantic messages from
the Greek came, and I met him, disturbed in his mind. He said that the
Ashakas had become suspicious of him and the other Greeks, and that
he feared for his life. He asked to be arrested immediately after the
seizure of the arms and thrown into prison with the Egyptians, and
then to be flogged before them, in order to convince them that he was
acting honourably by them. He was very anxious to be paid for both
pieces of treachery, by the Egyptians and by us. On making my report to
the authorities I learned that the Ashakas had betrayed the Greeks by
denouncing them as traitors.
The whole affair had been a result of Levantine nerves. The Ashakas in
the past had been strong Nationalists. When the war between the Turks
and ourselves broke out, in spite of the fact that it seemed possible,
and indeed likely, that Egypt might again become a Turkish province,
their politics changed, and they hastily became Anglophile, but their
past record haunted them. They feared the British Government almost as
much as the Turks, and yearned to prove themselves loyal.
After much thought it appeared to them that the simplest way of
achieving this would be to supply valuable military information
to the British. That, however, was an article which they did not
possess, and they therefore hit upon the idea of getting up a bogus
conspiracy in order to be able to denounce it. This seemed the simplest
way to safeguard themselves, and they hurriedly adopted the plan.
The instruments that they chose were subtle Greeks, who were more
proficient in the art of intrigue than the Ashakas, and had an even
more degraded morality. It took only a few days for the Ashakas to
realize the infidelity of the Greeks, and to inform against them still
more hurriedly, but meanwhile the Greeks had spoken first. In the end,
when the hair of the Ashakas had turned grey, they made a clean breast
of the whole affair to the British authorities, and were, I believe,
forgiven.
* * * * *
“Happy is the country that has no history” is a proverb which is
often untrue, but Egypt was certainly happy, compared with the rest
of the world, early in 1915. Then history moved rapidly towards us.
The thunder of the guns in France was no longer something remote
and irrelevant. The Turks massed across the desert, and prepared to
attack the Canal. Many of the English thought that we were living on a
sleeping volcano, but there was general confidence, and no one doubted
our power to cope with the situation. The Turks attacked skilfully and
bravely, but the odds against them were too heavy. They were, however,
able to shell H.M.S. _Harding_ in the Canal, and a few of their men
swam across to Egypt. Complete serenity reigned in Cairo. I remember
going to the Opera that night. General Sir John Maxwell was listening,
quite unruffled, to the performance. I heard a civilian say in a
scandalized voice to him: “They have gone and broken the _Harding_.
What next?” To which Sir John answered: “Well, they’ll have to mend it,
I suppose.” Two ladies landed at Port Said and had their train shelled
as it steamed slowly along the banks of the Canal to Cairo. They
wondered placidly if this was the normal state of things in Egypt.
These attacks added to the labours and quickened the energies of the
Intelligence in Egypt, but still there were only vague rumours to be
heard. One of these foretold that there was to be a general rising of
Islam on April 27th.
I remember long conversations with a specialist with regard to this
possibility; he disbelieved in it, then or at any time, for, as he
said very rightly, Islam had to contend with great difficulties from
the point of view of communications--waterless deserts, impassable
seas, mountain ranges, unbridged by our telegraph. My friend, who
was remarkable, would not have an office like any other man in his
position; he disconcerted friend and foe alike by changing his address
every few days, and when one wished to see him, and after the unusual
event of catching him, he would make an appointment such as: “The third
lamp-post in the Street of Mohammed Ali at dusk.” When he had gone
beyond recall, one remembered that the Mohammed Ali Street was several
miles long, and that he had not said at which end was the appointed
lamp-post; so he was well qualified to speak of the disadvantages
accruing from lack of communications.
Prisoners began coming in, but not much news was to be obtained from
them. They were mostly shattered and rather pathetic men. The first to
arrive were some escaped Syrian schoolmasters, who had been conscripted
by the Turks, and gave a very graphic account of a hot and harassing
journey ahead of their comrades to Egypt, where their friends and
relations lived. Then came a blind old gentleman of eighty, who fell
into our front-line trench. It had been his habit, every two years, to
visit his son in Egypt, and he had not realized that there was a war
going on.
Amongst the Turkish prisoners of the first attack there was one old
quartermaster seriously ill, whose manners and courage made him the
friend of all his captors, but, like the rest, he told us nothing.
There was probably more information amongst the prisoners who had been
interned, if they had been willing to speak, but they were not. I met
one of these to whom fate had been unusually cruel. He was an Albanian
whose home had been in Montenegro. When the amiable Montenegrins seized
the land of the Albanians, he had been beaten and cast out; thence he
had gone to Turkey, but the Albanians had been the first to attack the
Turks, and were, indeed, the main cause of the ruin of the Ottoman
Empire, so in Turkey he was bastinadoed and thrown into prison. Somehow
he managed to escape and arrived in Egypt. In Egypt he was arrested
as a Turk, and again thrown into prison. In prison he was continually
beaten by his fellow-prisoners, who were Turks, as an Albanian and an
enemy of Islam.
There were no tangible proofs of a conspiracy; one used sometimes
to get black looks in the bazaar, and scowls from the class of the
Effendis. On the other hand, we were very strongly supported by men of
the type of the late Sultan Hussein and Adly Yeghen Pasha.
It would be difficult to meet a more attractive or courteous gentleman
than the late Sultan. He was of the advanced school of enlightened
Islam; neither his literary tastes, his philosophy, nor his pleasure in
European society allowed him to forget his own people for a moment.
Adly Yeghen Pasha, then Minister of Education, is an exceptional and
outstanding figure in Egypt, with a marked personality. The other
Ministers mixed freely with European society, and there was no sign of
anything but friendliness.
At the end of February I was sent on the battleship _Bacchante_,
commanded by Captain Boyle,[1] which lay for about a fortnight off
Alexandretta, occasionally bombarding telegraphs, or wagons that were
said to be loaded with artillery wheels. One morning we saw two carts
crawling along, drawn by bullocks, carrying the alleged wheels of
artillery northward from Alexandretta. In order to warn the two drivers
shells were fired from the great battleship a hundred yards ahead of
them. The men left their oxen, taking refuge in a neighbouring ditch,
while the oxen went slowly forward alone, like automata. Our guns then
fired upon the carts, which were about half a mile distant, and one
of the oxen was immediately hit. On this one of the two Turks left
the ditch, cut the wounded animal free, and continued to lead the two
carts. Again our guns fired ahead of him to give him warning, but he
went on steadfastly at about a mile an hour to what was certain death.
In the end he was left lying by his dead oxen and his broken cart. We
had given him every chance that we could, and if the admiration of a
British ship for his courage could reward a dead Anatolian muleteer,
that reward was his.
Life outside Alexandretta was uneventful. Occasionally a Turkish
official came out to discuss various questions that arose. He used to
sway and bow from the tiller of his boat while I swayed and bowed
from the platform below the gangway of the cruiser. It is perhaps
worth saying that when I expressed to him Captain Boyle’s regret for
the death of the Turkish muleteer it was an event that he would not
condescend to notice.
We discovered one curious fact of natural history, that with a
searchlight you can see the eyes of dogs or jackals at night more than
half a mile away. A previous ship had reported that men came down to
the shore with electric torches, and it was only after some days that
we discovered that these will-o’-the-wisp appearances were in reality
the eyes of dogs.
But though life was uneventful, it was very pleasant on the ship, and
all were sorry when the cruise came to an end.
I remember the last night at dinner in the wardroom the name of a
distinguished Admiral occurred in the conversation. He was a man who
had a great reputation for capacity and also eccentricity, that came
mainly from his habit of concentrated thinking. When he was deep in
thought and his eyes caught any bright object, he would go up to it
like a magpie and play with it. He would sometimes go up and fiddle
with the button of a junior officer on the quarter-deck, looking at it
very attentively, to the great discomfort of the junior officer, or
even with that of a stranger to whom he had been introduced. The legend
grew from this idiosyncrasy, that those may believe who wish to. It was
said that one night at a dance he sat out for a long time with a girl
in a black dress. His eye caught a white thread on her shoulder, and
unconsciously while he talked he began pulling at it. The story goes
on to say that when the girl went home she said to her mother: “I know
I went out with a vest to-night, and now I wonder what has happened to
it.”