At Suvla Bay Part 9

"Any water?"

"Not a drop left."

"We're trying to get back to the firing-line but we're all lost--there's eight of us."

"I'm trying to get to the 32nd Field Ambulance--d'you know the way?"

"Yes; go right ahead there," he pointed, "and keep well down off the hills--you'll see the beach when you've gone for a mile or so--"

"How far is it?"

"'Bout four miles;" and then, "Got a match?"

"Yes--but it's dangerous to light up."

"Must 'ave a smoke--nothink to eat or drink."

"Well, here you are; light up inside my helmet."

He did; this hid the lighted match from any sniper's eye. The other seven men came crawling out of the bushes to light up their "woodbines"

and f.a.g-ends.

"Well, I'm off," said I, and once more went forward in the direction pointed out by the corporal and his lost squad.

"So long, mate--good luck!" he shouted.

"Same to you!" I called back.

And now came sleep upon me. Even as I walked an awful weariness fell upon every limb. My legs became heavy and slow. That short rest had stiffened me, and my eyelids closed as I trudged on. I lifted them with an effort and dragged one foot after the other. I knew I must get back to my unit, and that here it was very dangerous. I wanted to lie down on the dead gra.s.s and sleep and sleep and sleep. I urged my muscles to swing my legs--for I knew if once I sat down to rest I should never keep awake.

It was while I was thus trying to jerk my sleepy nerves on to action that I came upon a zigzagged trench. It was fully six feet deep and about a yard wide. It was of course an old Turkish defence running crosswise along the great backbone of the Sirt. I knew now that I was nearing the bay, for most of these trenches overlooked the beach.

There was a white object about ten yards from me. What it was I could not tell, and a quiver of fear ran through me and threw off the awful sleepiness of fatigue.

Was it a Turkish sniper's shirt? Or was it a piece of white cloth, or a sheet of paper? In the gloom of night I could not discover.

However, I determined to go steady, and I crept up to a dark thorn-bush and stood still. It did not move. Still standing against the dark bush to hide the fact that I was unarmed, I shouted--

"Halt! who are you?" in as gruff and threatening a tone as I could command.

Silence. It did not move. I ran forward along the trench and there found a white pack-mule all loaded up with baggage; I could make out the queerly worked trappings, with bra.s.s-coins on the fringed bridle and coloured fly-ta.s.sels over the eyes. It was stone dead and stiff. Its eyes glared at me--a gla.s.sy glare full of fear. The Turkish pack-mule had been bringing up material to the Turks in the trench when it had been killed--and now the deep sides of the trench were holding it upright.

I trudged away towards the beach and lay down to sleep at last among the other men of the ambulance, who were lying scattered about behind tufts of bush or against ledges of rock.

When weighed down with sleep any bed will serve.

And this was the end of our first day's work on the field.

CHAPTER XIV. THE SNIPER OF THE PEAR-TREE GULLY

We used to start long before daylight, when the heavy gloom of early morning swept mountain, sea and sand in an indistinct haze; when the cobwebs hung thick from thorn to thorn like fairy cats'-cradles all dripping and beaded with those heavy dews. The guard would wake us up about 3.30 A.M. We were asleep anywhere, lying about under rocks and in sandy dells, sleeping on our haversacks and water-bottles, and our pith helmets near by. We got an issue of biscuit and jam, or biscuit and bully-beef, to take with us, and each one carried his iron rations in a little bag at his side.

So we set off--a long, straggling, follow-my-leader line of men and stretchers. The officer first, then the stretcher-sergeant--(myself)--and the squads, two men to a stretcher, carrying the stretchers folded up, and last of all a corporal or a "lance-jack" bringing up the rear in case any one should fall out.

Cold, dark, shivery mornings they were; our clothes soaked in dew and our pith helmets reeking wet, with the puggaree all beaded with dew-drops. We toiled up and up the ridges and gullies of the Kislar Dargh and the Kapanja Sirt slowly, like a little column of ants going out to bring in the ant eggs.

Often we had to wait while the Indian transport came down from the hill-track before we could proceed, and we always came upon the Engineers' field-telegraph wires on the ground. I would shout "Wire!"

over my shoulder, and the shout "Wire!... Wire!... Wire!" went down the line from squad to squad.

From the old Turkish well I led my stretcher-squads past the gun of the Field Artillery (mounted quite near our hospital tents) along a track which ran past a patch of dry yellow gra.s.s and dead thistles--here among the p.r.i.c.kly plants and sage-bushes grew a white flower--pure and sweet-scented--something like a flag--a "holy flower" among the dead and scorched-up yellow ochre blades and the khaki and dull grey-greens of thorns. We went along this track, past the dead sniper which Hawk and I had so carefully stalked. Near by, hidden by bushes and rank willow thickets lay a dozen more dead Turks, swollen, fly-blown and stinking in the broiling sun. We hurried on past the Turkish bivouacs--many of the relics had been picked up by the British Tommies since last I saw the place: the tobacco had all gone--many of the shirts and overcoats which had been lying about had disappeared--the place had been thoroughly ransacked. We trudged past the wooden cross of our dead comrade and we were silent.

Indeed, throughout those first three days--Sat.u.r.day, Sunday and Monday--when the British and Turks grappled to and fro and flung shrapnel at each other incessantly; when the fighting line swayed and bent, sometimes pushing back the Turks, sometimes bending in the British; when the fate of the whole undertaking still hung in the balance; when what became a semi-failure might have been a staggering success: in those days the death-silence fell upon us all.

No one whistled those rag-time tunes; no one tried to make jokes, except the very timid, and they giggled nervously at their own.

No one spoke unless it was quite necessary. Each man you pa.s.sed asked you the vital question: "Any water?"

For a moment as he asks his eyes glitter with a gleam of hope--when you shake your head he simply trudges on over the rocks and scrub with the same fatigued and sullen dullness which we all suffered.

Often you asked the same question yourself with parched and burning lips.

One after another we came upon the wounded. Here a man dragging a broken leg along with him. Here a man holding his fractured fore-arm and running towards us. Sometimes the pitiful cry, faint and full of agony: "Stretchers! Stretcher-bearers!" away in some densely overgrown defile swept with bullets and shrapnel.

And so at last all my squads had turned back with stretchers loaded with men and pieces of men. I went on alone--a lonely figure wandering about the mountains, looking and listening for the wounded.

I came now upon a party of Engineers at work making a road. They were working with pick-axe and spade--clearing away bush and rocks.

"Any water?" they asked.

I shook my head.

"Any wounded?" I said.

"Some down there, they say," said a red-faced man.

"d.a.m.n rotten job that," muttered another, as I went on.

"Better keep well over in the bushes," shouted the red-faced man.

"They've got this bit of light-coloured ground marked--you're almost sure ter git plugged."

"Thanks!" I called back, and broke off to my left among the sage and thistle and thorn.

I went now downhill into an overgrown water-course (very much like the one in which I used to sleep and eat away back by the artillery big gun). Here were willows and brambles with ripe blackberries, and wild-rose bushes with scarlet hips. "Just like England!" I thought.

And then, as I crossed the little dry-bed stream and came out upon a sandy spit of rising ground: "Z-z-ipp! Ping!"--just by my left arm.