The Tale of a Trooper Part 7

CHAPTER XIV

A WEARY DAY

Mac sat in the dust, his back against a bank, with his rifle leaning slantwise across him, and his equipment hanging awkwardly. Beside him sat Smoky, and both were melancholy. The sun beat strong in upon them, and the dust clung thickly to their perspiring bodies. The shady side of the wide communication trench was exposed to shrapnel, which the Turks had kept up more or less continually since the failure of their night attack. Against the opposite bank lay a body, half-covered by a blanket, and the padre was quietly removing the dead man's identification disc and the contents of his pockets. His two cobbers had gone on to the top to dig him a grave, and had both been wounded by shrapnel.

Mac and Smoky were sad. It was not the sorrow of grief, nor yet the thoughts that a speedy end might any time be theirs; but rather they were touched partly by the sight of the good old padre silently removing the soiled, time-worn articles from his pockets, small things which would be so greatly valued and revered by his people away in a sunny Wairarapa homestead, and partly the vision of a fine strapping, cheery fellow pa.s.sing so rapidly from laughter to cold silence.

Thoughts such as these, deep and sincere as they were, cast but a pa.s.sing shadow over their careless, happy natures. Friends of bush-whacking and shepherding days, camp mates of the past, and casual cobbers in Cairene escapades day after day went West; and always there came the momentary sadness, and, maybe, the remark, "Poor old Bill.

They hooked him this morning. He was a good old sport." That was his requiem and, save for a few stray thoughts in the silent watches of the night, old Bill went unremembered.

The Turkish dead lay thick between the lines; but there was no knowing whether they had finally abandoned the attack. Their sh.e.l.ling continued, and the rifle fire indicated a nervous temperament.

Consequently the squadron still remained in reserve as near as possible to the firing line. Mac could see through a sap which ran to the edge of the precipice the beach and the cool, wonderfully cool-looking water. The few lucky beggars were splashing there, for practically every man was up in the firing-line. There were no troops to spare in those days--the line was but thinly held, and, if the Turks broke through anywhere, the whole position must be involved in disaster.

The day dragged slowly on to early afternoon. Then their troop was stirred into animation and excitement by the information that they and two other troops were to make a counter-attack "Light as possible, fifty rounds of ammunition only... First and second trenches ... some machine guns and a few Turks... Clear them out and come back," were the orders.

They filed silently and with set faces to their a.s.sembly positions.

They were in for something serious. They had all seen the waves of advancing Turks in the early morning dissolve away. Mac thought he didn't mind how soon peace was declared, and felt a bit tired of the war, but, still, here was their first real, live chance. A heavy covering fire had been opened all round the Anzac lines, and the enemy replied with equal force. His troop slipped over the parapet, and lay, awaiting the word, among the many dead, Turkish and Australasian, of last night, and of three weeks earlier. Minutes pa.s.sed slowly, five, ten, twenty, thirty--what on earth did this mean? The sun blazed fiercely on the flattened figures, the smell was awful, and the fire slackened not a bit. Mac had examined his breech a dozen times, adjusted and readjusted his ammunition to facilitate its easy handling, and had made certain several times of the firmness of his bayonet. He had thrown away his bayonet scabbard. It was long and might trip him up. If he came back he could recover it; if he didn't--it wouldn't matter. He had heard it said that waiting was the worst time of all, and he longed to be off, even into that hail of bullets which whizzed low over his head.

More minutes marched funereally by, and then he heard in the trench behind the sound of voices, and an order pa.s.sed along the line to clamber back into the trench. Surely there was some mistake, thought Mac, but no, it was repeated, and they wormed themselves back over the parapet, gathered hazily that the attack had been deemed inadvisable, and sauntered tiredly back to their old place in the communication sap.

Talking it over later. Smoky and the Trooper came to the conclusion that the cancelling of the attack was the best thing that had ever happened for them. Theirs would have been the fate of the enemy in their shattered attacks of the previous night, though, having made up their minds to it, and stood the forty-five minutes' strain of waiting, it had seemed a bit tough not to be repaid with a whack at the Turks.

The long hot day drew at length to a close. The setting of the sun amidst the islands was full of wild beauty. The airy pinnacles of Samothrace and the wild hills of Imbros, scarred and parched, stood silhouetted against a glorious background of wonderful colouring, high tones and low tones, an idealized Turner canvas. Out to the sinking sun stretched a golden path, while to the right and to the left lay untroubled leagues of blue. The gloaming slowly enveloped the horizon to the north and south, the shining path of light broadened and burnished, as the sun rested a moment, then disappeared, while the island grew darker against the riot of deep colouring.

Resting on a clay ledge on the edge of the cliff which rose precipitously to a height of 600 feet a few hundred yards from the sh.o.r.e, Mac and Smoky drank in the glory of these rare moments. Both sides were tired, the Turks weary of the carnage and their failure, and the invaders of the hot, waterless hours of waiting, but conscious of their successful defence and increased security. They discussed the events of the day, the prospect of a swim on the morrow, and, as always, of the long shandies, the ham and eggs, and the apple pie which they would have on that great occasion when they returned once more to New Zealand. Yes, a bush whare was all that Smoky would want for the rest of his life, a possie where he could eat and drink and sleep just as much as he wished. He aspired also to brands of tobacco other than those the Army thought suitable to his taste. These pleasant antic.i.p.ations of the future were abruptly cut short by the order, "Stand to." From Mac's point of view this was quite an unnecessary proceeding, involving much inconvenience and discomfort, and, in the early morning hours, loss of valuable sleep. Still, these things had to be put up with, and "stand to" could be profitably spent cleaning rifles and other gear. The issue of rum, when not stopped by the higher command or absorbed by the A.S.C. and quartermasters, was occasionally a relieving and pleasant interlude about this time.

"Stand to" ended, they composed themselves to sleep where they were, which was still in the same communication trench in reserve. The trench was five feet in width--in favourable spots it may have been six--and the bottom was deep in dust, which, to a certain extent, moderated the sharpness of ammunition pouches in the middle of one's back. From the heaps of piled-up spoil above came irregular avalanches of dust and dirt, and due care had to be taken to prevent it getting in one's ears, eyes, nose and mouth. Still, notwithstanding these minor discomforts, Mac had managed to get about an hour's sleep before matters became trying. The artillery were immediately responsible for it all--the artillery, for which, in spare moments from the firing line, they had dug this communication trench and gun-pits beyond, and had even dragged the pieces up. Now, at this infernal hour, they chose to bring their ammunition up. Trains of mules arrived, halted close alongside where Mac lay huddled against the bank, moved at right angles across the sap, were relieved of their burdens and departed again, led by their shadowy Indian muleteers.

Mac was hardened to being walked on by men, but mules laden with eighteen-pounder sh.e.l.l...... Badly pinched and deeply angered, he stuck it for a while. There was nothing to be gained by swearing, for the mules and the Indians were equally indifferent. More mules were followed by still more mules, which, as they turned, trampled on him severely. Heavy hoofs were placed squarely on his shrinking person, and he had at length to give them best. There was nowhere else to go, so, leaning against the wall, he awaited brighter moments. Often he cursed wrathfully, occasionally he smoked. This ruthless violation of his valuable hours of sleep was a crime he would not readily forgive the artillery, and he wished their bally guns had been shoved somewhere else. The mules came and went for hours, occasional suspensions of their comings and goings only creating in his breast false hopes.

Towards dawn he slept once more, only to be aroused again for the purpose of swinging up towards the front line for support. No attack came, and now, the sun rising above the eastern hills, he and his troop trailed wearily back to their own bivouacs. His section four discussed breakfast, the contents and limited possibilities of the larder, the disappearance of firewood, which had been carried off by some person during their absence, and the absolute non-existence of water.

"Breakfast be blowed!" said Mac. He crawled into his niche in the side of the trench, covered himself in his grey blankets, head included, for protection from flies, left breakfast worries to the others, and pa.s.sed into the deep slumber of the utterly weary.

CHAPTER XV

MAC IS SLEEPY

Mac's luck was out. He had had practically no sleep the night previous, or, for that matter, for the two nights before that again, and he was not going to get any chance to make it up now. A distant echo of his name from somewhere up the sap brought a swift awakening.

It was an evil omen, portending the worst fatigue. He decided to follow the lazy course of action, namely, to avoid it if possible.

"Mac! Where in the devil are you? Mac! Mac!"

The exhorting voice of the corporal came nearer; but the trooper decided he was a heavy sleeper and knew, moreover, that his whole form was well shielded by his grey blanket. As usual though, all this was futile, and no effort of will could persuade the corporal to pa.s.s unmolested his shrouded form. The blanket was pulled from over his face, and, with a slap on the thigh and "Come on, Mac!" shouted down to him, he could hardly, with decency, pretend to be asleep any longer.

He carried the thing to rather too flourishing a finish, awakened violently with a suspicious suddenness, and blinked rapidly at the corporal, "Oh! Rations you're after. All right. I'll dodge away down after them. You might give a feller a chance to sleep though." He knew well it was about his turn to wander away down the hill for rations, but a fellow was sorely tempted to put off the evil moment to the last, when, utterly weary, he was enjoying some rare hours of settled sleep.

Mac trudged wearily away down the ridge, at times almost letting his legs run away with him on the steep paths. At the depot, he persuaded the water-guard to let him fill his water-bottle, and then, while the Quarters calculated together, he drowsed in the shade of a bank. For some time the Quarters chewed the ends of their pencils, studied note-books and tapped boxes. Then they retired in the direction of a comfortable service corps dug-out, whence issued spirals of blue smoke and odours of rum. By and by they emerged, and all struggled into activity again. Some of the fatigue party had disappeared though, for they were not often so close to the beach. Still, the Quarter was not worried, for he knew all would return anon, each to lump his load up the track. Mac had been too sleepy to wander off for a bathe, though, as a matter of fact, he had been endeavouring for the last twenty minutes before the Quarter's return to summon up sufficient energy to follow his cobbers' example. Still, boxes of biscuits would be their portion, while, getting in early, he would be able to secure easy freight, flitches of bacon or the like.

He shouldered his load and set off homewards. He rested often for the first half of the journey, but then, pulling himself together, plugged steadily upwards. Towards the summit, where the track ran up a razor-back, his progress was hastened by the Turkish artillery on the "W" Hills. He deposited his bacon at the Quarter's bivvie, and wandered down the sap to his ledge under the wall. Delving into a battered biscuit tin, he produced some characterless dried flour tiles, a tin of bully and a tin of apricot, the choicest of Deakin. His three cobbers, who were the only other inhabitants of this section of the sap, had breakfasted, and now lay, like three mummies, on their respective ledges. This trench was merely the wing of a sector, and was not directly opposed to an enemy trench. Here it was the privilege of his section to make its headquarters every third day, when it was their additional privilege to do the ration and water fatigues, to furnish sapping and burying parties, sentries and guards, and such other toilers as might be necessary; while occasionally, with great luck and better management, an hour or two on the beach might be worked.

Here, with his back against a traverse, Mac set about his repast. He devoured half a tin of bully. That was his limit, no matter how hungry he was, for he was aware by experience of the effects of overmuch bully. He shied the remainder over the parapet, and promptly set about his second and last course. The flies were fonder than he of Deakin's apricot, and he had to be circ.u.mspect to dodge them successfully. He knew too well their other sources of food supply--and was not over keen on swallowing any, nor of having them beating him for his jam, Deakin's though it was. With some difficulty he broke the bullet-proof biscuits into mouthful sizes, grasped the tin of jam between his knees with his hand over it, and dipping each bit first into the jam, popped it into his mouth. Mac had good teeth, but, all the same, it took many long minutes of hard jaw work to get on the outside of a biscuit and a half.

This, he had calculated, was as much dry tack as his daily ration of dirty water could comfortably counterbalance.

He then set about putting his domestic affairs in order--tidying up his kit and his bivvie, overhauling the larder, shaking his dusty blankets and the like. He surveyed his weather-beaten countenance in a broken triangle of gla.s.s. "What-o, mother, that you should see me now!" and he winked whimsically at himself. A fortnight's black beard formed a dark halo round his features, plenty of dust from the heaps of earth above stuck in his hair, and he was already a bit thinner than in Egyptian days. At the present moment a pair of ragged shorts, hanging insecurely about his middle, was his only garment. The rest of his body was, like his face, tanned and dusty.

He now performed to the full such toilet as was possible in his present quarters. He rubbed himself vigorously with a towel, cleaned his teeth with about two dessert-spoonfuls of water, and brushed his hair. He gave his rifle a few runs through and a dust, and restored round the bolt a careful wrapping of cloth. This completed the setting of his house in order.

A corporal sang out from up the sap that the troop was to be ready for the front line at one o'clock, so Mac roughly, but good-naturedly, tumbled his cobbers off their ledges and admonished them to turn to and prepare.

The next half-hour was spent in getting ready, dressing, having some lunch, which varied not from the earlier repast, and attaching gear.

They looked a shabby mob, with their equipment slung round them and their clothing adapted to individual taste. As mounted men put in suddenly to reinforce the foot, their equipment was not all it might have been for trench warfare; but they had come to work and not to a beauty show.

They filed away up the dusty, sun-scorched sap, through narrow communication trenches, bringing forth disgusted curses from the dwellers therein, whose cooking and living arrangements were suspended during their pa.s.sage; and settled finally in an advanced sap leading out towards the enemy lines. It was deep and narrow and had no conveniences either for comfort or fighting. The afternoon drowsed slowly past, a spell of sapping at the sap-head occasionally breaking the monotony.

With sundown, both sides revived for the evening activity, a meal, and preparations for the night. The Turks, since their heavy but futile attacks of two nights previous, had not returned into that placidity which betokened cessation of evil intentions. There was an erratic nervousness of fire; instructions were that an attack would eventuate during the night, and that no one was to sleep.

Just about sunset, word floated up from behind that a white flag was approaching, but it was some time before it and several attendant Turks appeared through the scrub about a chain to the right. Too many accompanied the flag, but nearer approach being severely discouraged they retired speedily again into the scrub. A few minutes later, the flag returned, this time direct towards the sap-head, and now the Colonel, armed with German and Turkish vocabularies, was there to welcome it. They halted about twenty yards away, and a rather fruitless conversation followed. The Turks jabbered excitedly a meaningless chorus, to which the Colonel, full of importance and dignity, replied with deliberate and forceful phrases of alleged Turkish and German, fluttering the while through the vocabularies and prompted and admired on all sides by an audience of officers and men.

The Turks were unimpressed, and gabbled on. Now arrived the right man, the interpreter--all would be well. But, alas, he was so nervous and alarmed at being thrust on the parapet that the conversation profited little by his presence! All that could be impressed upon the flag-bearers was that they were to return home as speedily as possible, which course they wisely adopted, and immediately a burst of firing broke out along both lines. This calmed as rapidly as it had begun, and the troopers, chuckling over the comical scene of the Colonel airing his German and Turkish, drank their rum and settled down to the long vigil.

A glorious night it was, still and starry, and sound travelled far.

But it was very weary, standing hour after hour waiting for the attack.

From the sap-head came the steady tapping of the picks and occasionally the sound of m.u.f.fled voices. Water was very scarce, but the drowsiness which crept over the trooper was the worst of his troubles. Attack or no attack, he could not keep awake. Every few seconds he fell asleep, his knees kinked under him, and he was once more awake. This grew monotonous, but there was no stopping it. His interest was caught at times by the jabbering of a.s.sembling Turks in the hollow just over the scrub-covered rise. Searchlight beams had been scouring the hills to the north, and one was suddenly thrown on no man's land. Batteries ash.o.r.e and destroyers opened fire. Sh.e.l.ls whirred up from below, screamed overhead and burst beyond the rise. The jabbering rose into an impa.s.sioned chanting to Allah. The searchlight switched off, the sh.e.l.ls fell less frequently, the Oriental obligato fell away in a diminuendo of pathetic cries and a staccato of terrified jabbering.

Mac's knees again kinked frequently.

In his state of alternate consciousness, the minutes dragged wearily, he lost all count of time, and the whole business merged into a vivid distorted dream. The drama was repeated, the mutterings of the a.s.sembling Turks, the long-searching beam coming up from the sea, the sudden tearing and crashing of the artillery, and the agonized howlings of the enemy. Then came another period of quiet and deep drowsiness.

There may have been a third enactment, though on this point Mac has always been hazy. At any rate, in due course came the dawn. The sky brightened behind the Turkish lines, the searchlights faded away, and gradually the spasmodic rifle fire of the night fell to occasional single shots along the line. "Stand to" laboured by on leaden wings.

A single sentry was posted at the sap-head; then, in awkward att.i.tudes and angles, like the corpses on the ground above, they fell asleep in the bottom of their sap.

CHAPTER XVI

VARIOUS MISFORTUNES

Mac, minus most of his clothing, squatted on a heap of rubble, keenly following through his gla.s.ses naval tactics on the sea below. One favourable point about Anzac was that, if one was bored with everything else, there was always plenty to look at, especially with a good pair of gla.s.ses. This morning, coming out on to the little flat top behind his position, he discovered all the shipping in a turmoil. The whole fleet of twenty or more transports was going helter-skelter for Imbros harbour, the winches of a few laggards still rattled as they laboured with their anchors, cruisers patrolled uneasily up and down, fleet-sweepers moved about nowhere in particular, while destroyers dashed round in wide circles, leaving behind them trails of heavy black smoke and foaming white water. Only a couple of white hospital-ships remained undisturbed.

"Submarines--d.a.m.n them!" thought Mac. This was a new and unpleasant development and not to his liking at all. He descried through the haze the anchorage at Cape h.e.l.les, and noted that the vessels there--among them a huge four-funnelled Atlantic liner--were also making off.

Towards evening all transports had disappeared, and cruisers and destroyers resumed a leisurely patrol.

That was Sat.u.r.day. In the early light of next morning, while the mist-wraiths still clung to the hills and filled the dongas, Mac was disturbed in his breakfast preparations by the sound of a heavier cannonade than usual to the south. Going to an observation post he saw a battleship aground off Gaba Tepe Point. The morning mists had just revealed her, and now she was emptying her broadsides in rapid succession up the great valley below Kilid Bahr. Another battleship was right alongside attempting, apparently, to push her off. White smoke from many bursting Turkish sh.e.l.ls mingled with the heavy black pall from the discharging broadsides. The bombardment continued for some time, and Mac at length returned to his neglected breakfast preparations, his going hastened by the fact that, carelessly exposing his head, he had attracted the attentions of a sniper. When he looked later, both men-o'-war were some distance away steaming west.