At Suvla Bay Part 10

The bullet struck a ledge of white rock with the now familiar metallic "tink!"

I went on moving quickly to get behind a thorn-bush--the only cover near at hand. Here, at any rate, I should be out of sight.

"Ping!"

"Crack--ping!"

I could hear the report of the rifle. I lay flat on my stomach, grovelled my face into the sandy soil and lay like a snake and as still as a tortoise.

I waited for about ten minutes. It seemed an hour, at least, to me. The sniper did not shoot again. In front of my thorn-bush was an open s.p.a.ce of pale yellow gra.s.s, with no cover at all. I crawled towards the left flank and tried to creep slowly away. I moved like the hands of a clock--so slowly; about an inch at a time, pushing forward like a reptile on my stomach, propelling myself only by digging my toes into the earth. My arms I kept stiff by my side, my head well down.

But the sniper away behind that little pear-tree (which stood at the far end of the open s.p.a.ce) had an eagle eye.

"Ping! z-z-pp! ping!"

I lay very still for a long time and then crept slowly back to my thorn-bush.

I tried the right flank, but with the same effect. And now he began shooting through my thorn-bush on the chance of hitting me.

Behind me was a dense undergrowth of thorn, wild-rose bramble, thistle, willow and sage.

I turned about and crawled through this tangle, until at last I came out, scratched and dishevelled and sweating, into the old water-course.

The firing-line was only a few hundred yards away, and the bullets from a Turkish maxim went wailing over my head, dropping far over by the Engineers whom I had pa.s.sed.

I wanted to find those wounded, and I wanted to get past that open s.p.a.ce, and I wanted above all to dodge that sniper. The old scouting instincts of the primitive man came calling me to try my skill against the skill of the Turk. I sat there wiping away blood from the scratches and sweat from my forehead and trying to think of a way through.

I looked at the mountains on my left--the lower ridge of the Kapanja Sirt--and saw how the water-course went up and up and in and out, and I thought if I kept low and crawled round in this ditch I should come out at last close behind the firing-line, and then I could get in touch with the trenches. I could hear the machine-gun of the M--'s rattling and spitting.

I began crawling along the water-course. I had only gone three yards or so, and turned a bend, when I came suddenly upon two wounded men. Both quite young--one merely a boy. He had a bad shrapnel wound through his boot, crushing the toes of his right foot. The other lay groaning upon his back--with a very bad shrapnel wound in his left arm. The arm was broken.

The boy sat up and grinned when he saw me.

"What's up?" asked his pal.

"Red Cross man," says the boy; and then: "Any water?"

"Not a drop, mate," said I. "Been wounded long?"

"Since yesterday evening," says the boy.

"Been here all that time?" I asked. (It was now mid-afternoon.)

"Yes: couldn't get away"--and he pointed to his foot.

"'E carn't move--it's 'is arm. We crawled 'ere."

"I'll be back soon with stretchers and bandages," I said, and went quickly back along the water-course and then past the Engineers.

"Found 'em?" they asked.

"Yes: getting stretchers up now," said I. "Awful stink here! Found any dead?" I asked.

"Yes, there's one or two round here. We buried one over there yesterday: 'e fell ter bits when we moved 'im."

I went on. Soon I was back in the ditch beside the wounded men. I had successfully dodged the sniper by following along the bottom of the bed of the stream. With me I brought two stretcher-squads, and they had a haversack containing, as I thought, splints and bandages. But when I opened it, it had only some field dressings in it and some iodine ampoules.

I soon found that the man's arm was not only septic, but broken and splintered.

"Got a pair of scissors?" I asked.

One man had a pair of nail-scissors, and with this very awkward instrument I proceeded to operate. It was a terrible gash. His sleeve was soaked in blood. I cut it away, and his shirt also.

I broke an iodine phial and poured the yellow chemical into his great gaping wound. Actually his flesh stunk: it was going bad.

"Is it broke?" he asked.

"Be all right in a few minutes; nothing much." I lied to him.

"Not broke then?"

"Bit bent; be all right."

With the nail-scissors I cut great chunks of his arm out, and all this flesh was gangrenous, and mortification was rapidly spreading. My fingers were soaked in blood and iodine.

I cut away a piece of muscle which stunk like bad meat.

"Can you feel that?" I asked.

"Feel what?" he murmured.

"I thought that might hurt. I was cutting your sleeve away, that's all."

I cut out all the bad flesh, almost to the broken bones. I filled up the jagged hole with another iodine ampoule. I plugged the opening with double-cyanide gauze, and put on an antiseptic pad.

"Splints?" I asked.

"Haven't any."

So I used the helve of an entrenching-tool and the stalks of the willow undergrowth.

I set his arm straight and bandaged it tightly and fixed it absolutely immovably. Then we got him on a stretcher, and they carried him three and a half miles to our ambulance tents. But I'm afraid that arm had to come off. I never heard of him again.

The other fellow was cheerful enough, and only set his teeth and drew his breath when I cut off his boot with a jack-knife. Wonderful endurance some of these young fellows have. There's hope for England yet.

CHAPTER XV. KANGAROO BEACH