In Egypt, while the 8th Battalion A.I.F. was under training, the men
worked very hard indeed. Marches over the desert for fourteen hours
at a stretch were not uncommon. When the troops returned at night
they were too tired for any other relaxation than sleep. One evening,
however, it was rumored that the _fiancée_ of a corporal in Private
Coleheart's platoon had come into Mena Camp. She had landed at Suez
from Melbourne the previous day and had journeyed direct to Cairo. She
had been unable to endure the long separation from her lover.
The corporal, obtaining three days' leave, married her. On the second
day of the honeymoon, however, he was wired for to return immediately
to Mena. The regiment was proceeding to Alexandria to embark for the
Dardanelles.
Husband and wife said good-bye, and the corporal sailed from Egypt
with a heavy heart. During the voyage out he was sick, lying in his
bunk the whole time until the ship arrived at Anzac. When his men fell
in on deck he was too ill to make more than a perfunctory examination
of their kits. From the sergeant, however, he learned that two men
from a draft had been dispatched to the regiment at the last moment to
complete its war establishment. One of them looked curiously familiar,
but the corporal was too unwell to bother about trifles at that moment.
They were all sent almost at once to the trenches, where--unlike the
troops in France, who often spend no more than four days in their
burrows--three weeks and even longer was the customary time for
soldiers to be entrenched at a stretch.
One of the two new hands, a slight little fellow named Whitening, found
considerable difficulty in fetching up the supplies of water for his
comrades. He seemed to have no grit in him, too, when the bullets were
whizzing round, and appeared to have neither strength of frame nor
strength of mind. Coleheart often saw him crying softly to himself at
night. At last, in the early summer of last year, the Turks made their
great onslaught on our trenches. They peppered the ground first with
their great guns, and charged with fierce Oriental bravery, despising
death as much as they seemed to despise our own preparations for
driving them off. They came on in droves, and they were beaten down in
herds, for our quick-firers and machine-guns never had a better target.
At length, when they were almost over our trenches, their hearts failed
them. They broke and turned tail in headlong flight. It was then that
Coleheart and his companions were ordered out to disperse the flying
enemy. But the Turkish guns had already opened on both friend and
foe. Within a few yards of the trench Coleheart fell, his leg mangled
horribly. Now it is well known that during a charge soldiers must leave
their wounded comrades bleeding on the ground and await the final
decision of arms before the injured may be tended. This latter duty is
the care of the Red Cross men and the stretcher-bearers of a regiment.
To Coleheart's surprise, however, he was picked up and helped along by
one of his comrades to a first-line dressing-station. Coleheart saw
that his companion was Whitening.
"You'll get into trouble," he said, feebly. "You're not supposed to
fall out. You'll be court-martialled."
"I don't care!" responded the other, fiercely. "My husband's just been
killed. He was Corporal----"
And before the astonished Coleheart could respond, "Whitening" had
snatched up the rifle, which had previously formed a rough splint
around Coleheart's leg, and was dashing back to the trenches.
The surgeon in the dressing-station decided to amputate the injured
leg, but Coleheart was obdurate. He was born with that leg, he said,
and he would die with it. Patched up, he was soon afterwards put on a
hospital ship, and finally arrived in London.
"But what became of 'Whitening'?" I asked, curious to learn the end of
the history.
"Killed the same day," responded Coleheart. "It never got into the
papers. The whole business was hushed up."