At Suvla Bay Part 13

This is how I would think--

"What a waste of life; what a waste... Christianity this; all part of civilisation; what's it all for? Queer thing this civilised Christianity... very queer. So this really IS war; see now: how does it feel? not much different to usual... But why? It's getting awfully sickening... plenty of excitement, too--plenty... too much, in fact; very easy to get killed any time here; plenty of men getting killed every minute over there; but it isn't really very exciting... not like I thought war was in England... England? Long way off, England; thousands of miles; they don't know I'm sick in England; wonder what they'd think to see me now; not a bad place, England, green trees and green gra.s.s...

much better place than I thought it was; wonder how long this will hang on... I'd like to get back after it's finished here; I expect it's all going on just the same in England; people going about to offices in London; women dressing themselves up and shopping; and all that...

This is a d----place, this beastly peninsula--no green anywhere... just yellow sand and grey rocks and sage-coloured bushes, dead gra.s.s--even the thistles are all bleached and dead and rustling in the breeze like paper flowers...

"And we WANTED to get out here... Just eating our hearts out to get into it all, to get to work--and now... we're all sick of it... it's rotten, absolutely rotten; everything. It's a rotten war. Wonder what they are doing now at home..."

CHAPTER XVIII. TWO MEN RETURN

I shall never forget those two little figures coming into camp.

They were both trembling like aspen leaves. One had ginger hair, and a crop of ginger beard bristled on his chin. Their eyes were hollow and sunken, and glittered and roamed unmeaningly with the glare of insanity.

They glanced with a horrible suspicion at their pals, and knew them not.

The one with the ginger stubble muttered to himself. Their clothes were torn with brambles, and p.r.i.c.kles from thorn-bushes still clung round their puttees. A pitiful sight. They tottered along, keeping close together and avoiding the others. An awful tiredness weighed upon them; they dragged themselves along. Their lips were cracked and swollen and dry. They had lost their helmets, and the sun had scorched and peeled the back of their necks. Their hair was matted and full of sand. But the fear which looked out of those glinting eyes was terrible to behold.

We gave them "Oxo," and the medical officer came and looked at them.

They came down to our dried-up water-course and tried to sleep; but they were past sleep. They kept dozing off and waking up with a start and muttering--

"... All gone... killed... where? where? No, no... No!.. . don't move...

(mumble-mumble)... keep still... idiot! you'll get shot... can you see them? Eh? where?... he's dying, dying... stop the bleeding, man! He's dying... we're all dying... no water... drink..."

I've seen men, healthy, strong, hard-faced Irishmen, blown to shreds.

I've helped to clear up the mess. I've trod on dead men's chests in the sand, and the ribs have bent in and the putrid gases of decay have burst through with a whhh-h-ff-f.

But I'd rather have to deal with the dead and dying than a case of "sniper-madness."

I was just recovering from that attack of fever and dysentery, and these two were lying beside me; the one mumbling and the other panting in a fitful sleep.

When they were questioned they could give very little information.

"Where's Lieutenant S---?"

"... Gone... they're all gone..."

"How far did you go with him?"

No answer.

"Where are the others?"

"... Gone... they're all gone..."

"Are they killed?"

"... Gone."

"Are any of the others alive?"

"We got away... they're lost... dead, I think."

"Did you come straight back--it's a week since you were lost?"

"It's days and days and long nights... couldn't move; couldn't move an inch, and poor old George dying under a rock... no cover; and they shot at us if we moved... we waved the stretchers when we found we'd got too far... too far we got... too far... much too far; shot at us..."

"What about the sergeant?"

"We got cut off... cut off... we tried to crawl away at night by rolling over and over down the hill, and creeping round bushes... always creeping an' crawling... but it took us two days and two nights to get away... crawling, creeping and crawling... an' they kep' firing at us..."

"No food... we chewed gra.s.s... sucked dead gra.s.s to get some spittle...

an' sometimes we tried to eat gra.s.s to fill up a bit.. . no food... no water..."

They were complete wrecks. They couldn't keep their limbs still. They trembled and shook as they lay there.

Their ribs were standing out like skeletons, and their stomachs had sunken in. They were black with sunburn, and filthily dirty.

Gradually they got better. The glare of insanity became less obvious, but a certain haunted look never left them. They were broken men. Months afterwards they mumbled to themselves in the night-time.

Nolan, one of the seafaring men of my section who was with the lost squads, also returned, but he had not suffered so badly, or at any rate he had been able to stand the strain better.

It was about this time that we began to realise that the new landing had been a failure. It was becoming a stale-mate. It was like a clock with its hands stuck. The whole thing went ticking on every day, but there was no progress--nothing gained. And while we waited there the Turks brought up heavy guns and fresh troops on the hills. They consolidated their positions in a great semicircle all round us--and we just held the bay and the Salt Lake and the Kapanja Sirt.

So all this seemed sheer waste. Thousands of lives wasted--thousands of armless and legless cripples sent back--for nothing. The troops soon realised that it was now hopeless. You can't "kid" a great body of men for long. It became utterly sickening--the inactivity--the waiting--for nothing. And every day we lost men. Men were killed by snipers as they went up to the trenches. The Turkish snipers killed them when they went down to the wells for water.

The whole thing had lost impetus. It came to a standstill. It kept on "marking time," and nothing appeared to move it.

In the first three days of the landing it wanted but one thing to have marched us right through to Constantinople--it wanted, dash!

It didn't want a careful, thoughtful man in command--it wanted dash and bluff. It could have been done in those early days. The landing WAS a success--a brilliant, blinding success--but it stuck at the very moment when it should have rushed forward. It was no one's fault if you understand. It was sheer luck. It just didn't "come off"--and only just.

But a man with dash, a devil-may-care sort of leader, could have cut right across on Sunday, August the 8th, and brought off a staggering victory.

CHAPTER XIX. THE RETREAT

It happened on the left of Pear-tree Gully.

Pear-tree Gully was a piece of ground which neither we nor the Turks could hold. It was a gap in both lines, swept by machine-gun fire and haunted by snipers and sharp-shooters.

We had advanced right up behind the machine-gun section, which was hidden in a dense clump of bushes on the top of a steep rise.

The sun was blazing hot and the sweat was dripping from our faces. We were continually on the look-out for wounded, and always alert for the agonised cry of "Stretcher-bearers!" away on some distant knoll or down below in the thickets. Looking back the bay shimmered a silver-white streak with grey battleships lying out.

In front the fighting broke out in fierce gusts.