Tell England Part 55

CHAPTER XII

SACRED TO WHITE

--1

On a certain morning Doe and I in our dug-out on Fusilier Bluff felt the pull and the fascination, coming over five miles of scrub, of the magical Cape h.e.l.les. It was but a score of weeks since the first invaders had stormed its beaches: and we wanted to drink again of the romance that charged the air. So, being free for a time, we walked to the brow overlooking V Beach, and stood there, letting the breeze blow on our faces, and thinking of the British Army that blew in one day like a gale from the sea.

The damage wrought by that tornado was everywhere visible. Near us were the ruins of a lighthouse. In old days it had glimmered for distant mariners, who pointed to it as the Dardanelles light. But, at the outbreak of war, the Turk had closed his Dardanelles and put out the lamp. He would never kindle it again, for the _Queen Elizabeth_, or a warship of her kidney, had lain off sh.o.r.e and reduced the lighthouse to these white stones. Across the amphitheatre of the bay were the village and broken forts of Seddel Bahr; and, aground at this point, the famous old hulk, the _River Clyde_. You remember--who could forget?--how they turned this vessel into a modern Horse of Troy, cramming its belly with armed men, running it ash.o.r.e, and then opening square doors in its hull-sides and letting loose the invaders--while the plains of Old Troy looked down from over the h.e.l.lespont. What a litter old Mother Clyde carried in her womb that day! From where we stood we could see those square doors, cut in her sides, through which the troops and rushed into the bullet-hail: we could see, too, the semicircular beach, where they had attempted to land, and the ribbon of blue water in which so many, weighted with their equipment, had sunk and died.

And what was that thing a few cable lengths out, a rusty iron something, rising from the water, and being lapped by the incoming ripples? It was the keel of the old _Majestic_, which lay there, deck downwards, on the ocean bed.

"It's too pathetic!" exclaimed the sensitive Doe. "Let's go and visit the _Clyde_. Fancy, old Moles White was in that boat."

We dropped down from the headland into V Beach Bay, and, in doing so, pa.s.sed the limit of the British zone and trespa.s.sed upon French territory. The slope, from the beach upward, was as alive with French and Senegalese as a cloven ant-hill is alive with ants. The stores of the whole French army seemed acc.u.mulated in the neighbourhood. There was an atmosphere of French excitability, very different from the stillness of the British Zone. Stepping from the British Zone into the French was like turning suddenly from the quiet of Rotten Row into the bustle of the Boulevard des Italiens.

It was _prenez-garde_ and _attention la! depeches-vous_ and _pardon, m'sieu_, and _sacre nom de dieu!_ before we got through all these hearty busy-bodies and drew near the hull of the _Clyde_.

With unwitting reverence we approached. I'll swear I was within an ace of removing my hat, and that, had I talked to Doe, I should have spoken in a whisper. It was like visiting a church. Look, there by the square doors were the endless marks of machine-gun bullets that had swept the men who tried to leave the boat for the sh.o.r.e. G.o.d!

they hadn't a dog's chance. If those bullet indentations meant anything, they meant that the man who left the square door was lucky if he got ash.o.r.e with less than a dozen bullets in his flesh.

We stepped on to the gangway that led to the nearest of the doors and hurried up to it, catching something of the "Get back--get back!" sensation of those who had been forced by the bullets to withdraw into the hold. A huge hold it showed itself to be when we bowed our heads and stepped into it through the square door. Yes, they could cram battalions here. What a hive the _Clyde_ was when they hurled it ash.o.r.e! And what a swarm of bees it housed! In this hold, now so silent and empty, what emotions throbbed that day!

"Poor old White!" murmured Doe. "He got ash.o.r.e well enough, and wasn't killed till the fighting on the high ground. By Jove, Rupert!

we'll search the Peninsula from here to Fusilier Bluff for his grave. Come on."

We left the comparative darkness of the hold, and stepped through the square door, that had been so deadly an exit for hundreds, into the bright daylight. At once there was given us a full view of V Beach, with the sea sparkling as it broke upon the shingle. The air all about was strangely opalescent. Seddel Bahr shone in the sun, as only a white Eastern village can. The hills rising from the beach looked steep and difficult, but sunlit and shimmering. Everything shimmered as a result of the sudden contrast from the darkness of the hold. Even so must the scene have flashed upon the eyes of the invaders as they issued from the sides of the _Clyde_. For many of them, how quickly the bright light went out!

We had hardly entered the ruined streets of Seddel Bahr before a sh.e.l.l screamed into the village and burst with a deafening explosion in a house, whose walls went up in a volcano of dust and stones.

"Asiatic Annie!" we both said, at once and in unison.

For all of us knew the evil reputation of Asiatic Annie--that large gun, safely tucked away in the blue hills of Asia, who lobbed her sh.e.l.ls--a seven-mile throw--over the Straits on to the sh.o.r.es of Cape h.e.l.les--a mischievous old lady, who delighted in being the plague of the Beaches.

"If Asiatic Annie is going to begin," said Doe, "we'll have important business elsewhere. Hurry on. We're going to find White's grave."

To get from Seddel Bahr to Fusilier Bluff it was necessary to cross diagonally the whole of the h.e.l.les sector. There lay before us a long walk over a dusty, scrub-covered plateau, every yard of which was a yard of battlefield and overspread with the litter of battles.

This red earth, which, when the Army first arrived, was garnished with gra.s.s and flowers, groves, and vineyards, was now beaten by thousands of feet into a hard, dry drill-ground, where, here and there, blasted trees stood like calvaries against the sky. The gra.s.s resembled patches of fur on a mangy skin. The birds, which seemed to revel in the excitements of war, soared and swept over the devastated tableland. Northward from our feet stretched this plateau of scarecrow trees, till it began to incline in a gentle rise, and finally met the sky in the summit of Achi Baba. That was the whole landscape--a plateau overlooked by a gentle hill.

And here on this sea-girt headland the land-fight had been fought.

No wonder the region was covered with the scars and waste of war.

Our journey took us past old trenches and gun-positions; disused telephone lines and rusting, barbed wire; dead mules, scattered cemeteries, and solitary graves.

And not a grave did we pa.s.s without examining it to see if it bore the name of White. Our progress, therefore, was very slow, for, like highwaymen, these graves held us up and bade us stand and inquire if they housed our friend. Whenever we saw an isolated cross some distance away, we left our tracks to approach it, anxious not to pa.s.s, lest this were he. And then, quite unexpectedly, we came upon twenty graves side by side under one over-arching tree, which bore the legend: "Pink Farm Cemetery." And Doe said:

"There it is, Rupert."

He said it with deliberate carelessness, as if to show that he was one not easily excited by sudden surprises.

"Where--where?" I asked.

"There--'Lieutenant R. White, Royal Dublin Fusiliers.'"

"Good Lord!" I muttered: for it was true. We had walked right on to the grave of our friend. His name stood on a cross with those of six other officers, and beneath was written in pencil the famous epitaph:

"Tell England, ye who pa.s.s this monument, We died for her, and here we rest content."

The perfect words went straight to Doe's heart.

"Roop," he said, "if I'm killed you can put those lines over me."

I fear I could not think of anything very helpful to reply.

"They are rather swish," I murmured.

CHAPTER XIII

"LIVE DEEP, AND LET THE LESSER THINGS LIVE LONG"

--1

One thing I shall always believe, and it is that Doe found on the Peninsula that intense life, that life of multiplied sensations, which he always craved in the days when he said: "I want to have lived."

You would understand what I mean if you could have seen this Brigade Bombing Officer of ours hurling his bombs at a gentleman whom he called "the jolly old Turk." Generally he threw them with a jest on his lips. "One hundred and _two_. One hundred and _three_," he would say. "Over she goes, and thank the Lord I'm not in the opposite trench. BANG! I told you so. Stretcher-bearers for the Turks, please." Or he would hurl the bomb high into the air, so that it burst above the enemy like a rocket or a star-sh.e.l.l. He would blow a long whistle, as it shot skyward, and say "PLONK!" as it exploded into a shower of splinters.

For Doe was young and effervescing with life. He enjoyed himself, and his bombers enjoyed him as their officer. Everybody, in fact, enjoyed Edgar Doe.

In these latter days the gifted youth had suddenly discovered that all things French were perfect. Gone were the days of cla.s.sical elegancies. Doe read only French novels which he borrowed from Pierre Poilu at Seddel Bahr.

And why? Because they knew how to live, _ces francais_. They lived deeply, and felt deeply, with their lovely emotionalism. They ate and drank learnedly. They suffered, sympathised, and loved, always deeply. They were _bons viveurs_, in the intensest meaning of the words. "They live, they live." And because of this, his spiritual home was in France. "You English," said he, "_vous autres anglais_, with your d.a.m.ned un-emotionalism, empty your lives of spiritual experience: for emotion is life, and all that's interesting in life is spiritual incident. But the French, they live!"

He even wrote a poem about the faith which he had found, and started to declaim it to me one night in our little dug-out, "Seaview":

"For all emotions that are tense and strong, And utmost knowledge, I have lived for these-- Lived deep, and let the lesser things live long, The everlasting hills, the lakes, the trees, Who'd give their thousand years to sing this song Of Life, and Man's high sensibilities--

"Yes, Roop, living through war is living deep. It's crowded, glorious living. If I'd never had a sh.e.l.l rush at me I'd never have known the swift thrill of approaching death--which is a wonderful sensation not to be missed. If I'd never known the shock of seeing sudden death at my side, I'd have missed a terribly wonderful thing.

They say music's the most evocative art in the world, but, _sacre nom de dieu_, they hadn't counted the orchestra of a bombardment.

That's music at ten thousand pounds a minute. And if I'd not heard that, I'd never have known what it is to have my soul drawn out of me by the maddening excitement of an intensive bombardment.

And--and, _que voulez-vous_, I have _killed_!"

"Hm!" muttered I. He was too clever for me, but I loved him in his scintillating moments.

"_Tiens_, if I'm knocked out, it's at least the most wonderful death. It's the _deepest_ death."