Officers, N.C.O.'s, and men were tired out with overwork. This young officer came up to the Kapanja Sirt to take over the next spell of duty.

I remember him now, pale and sickly, with the fever still hanging on him, and dark, sunken eyes. He spoke in a dull, lifeless way.

"Do you think you'll be all right?" asked the adjutant.

"Yes, I think so," he answered.

"Well, just stick here and send down the wounded as you find them. Don't go any farther along; it's too dangerous up there—you understand?"

"All right, sir."

It was only a stroke of luck that I didn't stay with him and his stretcher-squads.

"You'd better come down with me, sergeant," says the adjutant.

Next day the news spread in that mysterious way which has always puzzled me. It spread as news does spread in the wild and desolate regions of the earth.

"... lost... all the lot..."

"Who is?"

"Up there... Lieutenant S—- and the squads..."

"How-joo-know?"

"Just heard—that wounded fellow over there on the stretcher... they went out early this morning, and they've gone—no sign, never came back at all—"

"'E warn't fit ter take charge... 'e was ill, you could see."

"Nice thing ter do. The old man'll go ravin' mad."

"It was a ravin' mad thing to put the poor feller in charge... "

"Don't criticise yer officers," said some wit, quoting the Army Regulations.

The adjutant and a string of squads turned out, and we went back again to the spot where we had left the young officer the evening before.

The cook and an orderly man remained, and we heard from them the details of the mystery.

Early that morning they had formed up, and gone off under Lieutenant S—- along the mule track overlooking the Gulf of Saros. That was all. There was still hope, of course... but there wasn't a sign of them to be seen. The machine-gun section had seen them pass right along. Some officers had warned them not to go up, but they went and they never came back.

There were rumours that one of the N.C.O.'s of the party, a sergeant, had been seen lying on some rocks.

"Just riddled with bullets—riddled!"

The hours dragged on. I begged of the adjutant to let me go off along the ridge on my own to see if I could find any trace.

"It's too dangerous," he said. "If I thought there was half a chance I'd go with you, but we don't want to lose any more."

Those ten or twelve men went out of our lives completely. Days passed. There was no news. It was queer. It was queer when I called the roll next day—

"Briggs!"—"Sar'nt!"

"Boots!"—"Sarn't!"

"Cudworth!"—"Here, Sar'nt!"

"Dean!"—"Sar'nt!"

"Desmond!"—"Sar'nt!"

"D—-."

I couldn't remember not to call his name out. It seemed queer that he was missing. It seemed quite hopeless now. Three or four days dragged on. Everything continued as usual. We went up past the place where we had left them, and there was no news, no sign. They just vanished. No one saw them again, and except for the "riddled" rumour of the poor old sergeant the whole thing was a blank.

We supposed that the young officer, coming fresh to the place, did not know where the British lines ended and the Turks' began, and he marched his squads into that bit of No Man's Land beyond the machine-gun near "Jefferson's Post," and was either shot or taken prisoner.

It made the men heavy and sad-minded.

"Poor old Mellor—'e warn't a bad sort, was he!"

"Ah!—an' Bell, Sergeant Bell... riddled they say... some one seen 'm—artillery or some one!"

It hung over them like a cloud. The men talked of nothing else.

"Somebody's blundered," said one.

"It's a pity any'ow."

"It's a disgrace to the ambulance—losin' men like that."

And, also, it made the men nervous and unreliable. It was a shock.



CHAPTER XVII. "OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND!"

It may be that I have never grown up properly. I'm a very poor hand at pretending I'm a "grown man."

Impressions of small queer things still stamp themselves with a clear kodak-click on my mind—an ivory-white mule's skull lying in the sand with green beetles running through the eye-holes... anything—trivial, childlike details.

I remember reading an article in a magazine which stated that under fire, and more especially in a charge, a man moves in a whirl of excitement which blots out all the small realities around him, all the "local colour." He remembers nothing but a wild, mad rush, or the tense intensity of the danger he is in.

It is not so. The greater the danger and the more exciting the position the more intensely does the mind receive the imprint of tiny commonplace objects.

Memories of Egypt and the Mediterranean are far more a jumble of general effects of colour, sound and smell.

The closer we crept to the shores of Suvla Bay, and the deathbed of the Salt Lake, the more exact and vivid are the impressions; the one is like an impressionist sketch—blobs and dabs and great sloshy washes; but the memories of Pear-tree Gully, of the Kapanja Sirt, and Chocolate Hill are drawn in with a fine mapping pen and Indian ink—like a Rackham fairy-book illustration—every blade of dead grass, every ripple of blue, every pink pebble; and towards the firing-line I could draw it now, every inch of the way up the hills with every stone and jagged rock in the right place.

Before sailing from England I had bought a little colour-box, one good sable brush, and a few H.B. pencils—these and a sketch-book which my father gave me I carried everywhere in my haversack. The pocket-book was specially made with paper which would take pencil, colour, crayon, ink or charcoal. I was always on the look out for sketches and notes. The cover bore the strange device—

JOHN HARGRAVE, R.A.M.C. 32ND FIELD AMBULANCE.

printed in gilt which gradually wore off as time went on. Inside on the fly-leaf I had written—

"IF FOUND, please return to

Sgt. J. HARGRAVE, 32819, R.A.M.C. 32nd Field Ambulance, X Division, Med. Exp. Force."

And on the opposite page I wrote—

"IN CASE OF DEATH please post as soon as possible to

GORDON HARGRAVE, Cinderbarrow Cottage, Levens, Westmorland."

I remember printing the word "DEATH," and wondering if the book would some day lie with my own dead body "somewhere in the Dardanelles." Printing that word in England before we started made the whole thing seem very real. Somehow up to then I hadn't realised that I might get killed quite easily. I hadn't troubled to think about it.

We moved our camp from "A" Beach farther along towards the Salt Lake. We moved several times. Always Hawk and I "hung together." Once he was very ill in the old dried-up water-course which wriggled down from the Kislar Dargh. He ate nothing for three days. I never saw anything like it before. He was as weak as a rat, and I know he came very near "pegging out." He felt it himself. I was sitting on the ground near by.

"I may not pull through this, old fellow," says Hawk, with just a tear-glint under one eyelid. He lay under a shelf of rock, safe from shrapnel.

"Come now, Fred," says I, "you're not going to snuff it yet."

"Weak as a rat—can't eat nothink, PRACtically... nothink; but see here, John,"—he seldom called me John—"if I do slip off the map, an' I feel PRACtically done for this time—if I SHOULD—you see that ration-bag"—he pointed to a little white bag bulging and tied up and knotted.

"Yes?"

"It's got some little things in it—for the kiddies at home—a little teapot I found up by the Turkish bivouac over there, and one or two more relics—I want 'em to have 'em—will you take care of it and send it home for me if you get out of this alive?"

Of course I promised to do this, but tried to cheer him up, and assured him he would soon pull round.

In a few days he threw off the fever and was about again.

Hawk and I had lived for some weeks in this overgrown water-course. It was a natural trench, and at one place Hawk had made a dug-out. He picked and shovelled right into the hard, sandy rock until there was quite a good-sized little cave about eight feet long and five deep.

The same sickness got me. It came over me quite suddenly. I was fearfully tired. Every limb ached, and, like all the others, I began to develop what I call the "stretcher-stoop." I just lay down in the ditch with a blanket and went to sleep. Hawk sat over me and brought me bovril, which we had "pinched" on Lemnos Island.

I felt absolutely dying, and I really wondered whether I should have enough strength to throw the sickness off as Hawk had. I gave him just the same sort of instructions about my notes and sketches as he had given me about his little ration-bag.

"Get 'em back to England if you can," I said; "you're the man I'd soonest trust here."

If Hawk hadn't looked after me and made me eat, I don't believe I should have lived. I used to lie there looking at the wild-rose tangles and the red hips; there were brambles, too, with poor, dried-up blackberries. It reminded me of England. Little green lizards scuttled about, and great black centipedes crawled under my blanket. The sun was blazing at mid-day. Hawk used to rig me up an awning over the ditch with willow-stems and a waterproof ground-sheet.

Somehow you always thought yourself back to England. No matter what train of thought you went upon, it always worked its way by one thread or another to England. Mine did, anyway.

It was better to be up with the stretcher-squads in the firing line than lying there sick, and thinking those long, long thoughts.

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 grass... 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 grass—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 prickles 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 grass... sucked dead grass to get some spittle... an' sometimes we tried to eat grass 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.

"Pop-pop-pop-pop!—Pop-pop!" went the machine-gun. We could see one man getting another belt of ammunition ready to "feed." Bullets from the Turkish quick-firers went singing with an angry "ssss-ooooo! zzz-z-eeee!... whheee-ooo-o-o! zz-ing!"

"D'you know where Brigade Headquarters is?" asked the adjutant.

"I'll find it, sir."

"Very well, go up with this message, and I shall be here when you come back."

I took the message, saluted and went off, plunging down into the thickets, and at last along my old water-course where I had crawled away from the sniper some days before.

I made a big detour to avoid showing myself on the sky-line. I knew the general direction of our Brigade Headquarters, and after half-an-hour's steady trudging with various creepings and crawlings I arrived and delivered my message. I returned quickly towards Pear-tree Gully. I stopped once to listen for the "Pop-pop-pop!" of our machine-gun but I could not hear it. I hurried on. It was downhill most of the way going back. I crept up through the bushes and looked about for signs of our men and the officer.

I saw a man of the machine-gun section carrying the tripod-stand, followed by another with the ammunition-belt-box.

"Seen any Medical Corps here?"

"They've gone down—'ooked it... you'd better get out o' this quick yourself—we're retreating—can't 'old this place no'ow—too 'ot!"

"Did the officer leave any message?"

"No—they've bin gone some time—come on, Sammy."

Well, I thought to myself, this IS nice. So I went down with the machine-gunners and in the dead grass just below the gully I found a wounded man: he was shot through the thigh and it had gone clean through both legs.

He was bleeding to death quickly, for it had ripped both arteries. Looking round I saw another man coming down, hopping along but very cheerful.

"In the ankle," he said; "can you do anything?"

"I'll have a look in a minute."

I examined the man who was hit in the thigh and discovered two tourniquets had been applied made out of a handkerchief and bits of stick to twist them up. But the blood was now pumping steadily from both wounds and soaking its way into the sandy soil. I tightened them up, but it was useless. There was no stopping the loss of blood.

All the time little groups of British went straggling past—hurrying back towards the bay—retreating.

It was impossible to leave my wounded. I helped the cheerful man to hop near a willow thicket, and there I took off his boot and found a clean bullet wound right through the ankle-bone of the left foot. It was bleeding slowly and the man was very pale.

"Been bleeding long?" I asked.

"About half an hour I reckon. Is it all right, mate?"

"Yes. It's a clean wound."

I plugged each hole, padded it and bound it up tightly. I had a look at the other man, who was still bleeding and had lost consciousness altogether.

It was a race for life. Which to attend to? Both men were still bleeding, and both would bleed to death within half an hour or so. I reckoned it was almost hopeless with the tourniquet-man and I left him passing painlessly from life to death. But the ankle-man's wound was still bleeding when I turned again to him. It trickled through my plugging. It's a difficult thing to stop the bleeding from such a place. Seeing the plug was useless I tried another way. I rolled up one of his puttees, put it under his knee, braced his knee up and tied it in position with the other puttee. This brought pressure on the artery itself and stopped the loss of blood from his ankle. I could hear the Turkish machine-gun much closer now. It sputtered out a leaden rain with a hard metallic clatter.

"Thanks, mate," said the man; "'ow's the other bloke?"

"He's all right," I answered, and I could see him lying a little way up the hill, calm and still and stiffening.

I found two regimental stretcher-bearers coming down with the rest in this little retreat, and I got them to take my ankle-man on to their dressing station about two miles further back.

It's no fun attending to wounded when the troops are retiring.

Next day they regained the lost position, and I trudged past the poor dead body of the man who had bled to death. The tourniquets were still gripping his lifeless limbs and the blood on the handkerchiefs had dried a rich red-brown.



CHAPTER XX. "JHILL-O! JOHNNIE!"

"A" BEACH

SUVLA BAY

There's a lot of senseless "doing" And a fearful lot of work; There are gangs of men with "gangers," To see they do not shirk. There's the usual waste of power In the usual Western way, There's a tangle in the transport, And a blockage every day. The sergeants do the swearing, The corporals "carry on"; The private cusses openly, And hopes he'll soon be gone.

One evening the colonel sent me from our dug-out near the Salt Lake to "A" Beach to make a report on the water supply which was pumped ashore from the tank-boats. I trudged along the sandy shore. At one spot I remember the carcase of a mule washed up by the tide, the flesh rotted and sodden, and here and there a yellow rib bursting through the skin. Its head floated in the water and nodded to and fro with a most uncanny motion with every ripple of the bay.

The wet season was coming on, and the chill winds went through my khaki drill uniform. The sky was overcast, and the bay, generally a kaleidoscope of Eastern blues and greens, was dull and grey.

At "A" Beach I examined the pipes and tanks of the water-supply system and had a chat with the Australians who were in charge. I drew a small plan, showing how the water was pumped from the tanks afloat to the standing tank ashore, and suggested the probable cause of the sand and dirt of which the C.O. complained.

This done I found our own ambulance water-cart just ready to return to our camp with its nightly supply. Evening was giving place to darkness, and soon the misty hills and the bay were enveloped in starless gloom.

The traffic about "A" Beach was always congested. It reminded you of the Bank and the Mansion House crush far away in London town.

Here were clanking water-carts, dozens of them waiting in their turn, stamping mules and snorting horses; here were motor-transport wagons with "W.D." in white on their grey sides; ambulance wagons jolting slowly back to their respective units, sometimes full of wounded, sometimes empty. Here all was bustle and noise. Sergeants shouting and corporals cursing; transport-officers giving directions; a party of New Zealand sharp-shooters in scout hats and leggings laughing and yarning; a patrol of the R.E.'s Telegraph Section coming in after repairing the wires along the beach; or a new batch of men, just arrived, falling in with new-looking kit-bags.

It was through this throng of seething khaki and transport traffic that our water-cart jostled and pushed.

Often we had to pull up to let the Indian Pack-mule Corps pass, and it was at one of these halts that I happened to come close to one of these dusky soldiers waiting calmly by the side of his mules.

I wished I had some knowledge of Hindustani, and began to think over any words he might recognise.

"You ever hear of Rabindranarth Tagore, Johnnie?" I asked him. The name of the great writer came to mind.

He shook his head. "No, sergeant," he answered.

"Buddha, Johnnie?" His face gleamed and he showed his great white teeth.

"No, Buddie."

"Mahomet, Johnnie?"

"Yes—me, Mahommedie," he said proudly.

"Gunga, Johnnie?" I asked, remembering the name of the sacred river Ganges from Kipling's "Kim."

"No Gunga, sa'b—Mahommedie, me."

"You go Benares, Johnnie?"

"No Benares."

"Mecca?"

"Mokka, yes; afterwards me go Mokka."

"After the war you going to Mokka, Johnnie?"

"Yes; Indee, France—here—Indee back again—then Mokka."

"You been to France, Johnnie?"

"Yes, sa'b."

"You know Kashmir, Johnnie?"

"Kashmir my house," he replied.

"You live in Kashmir?"

"Yes; you go Indee, sergeant?"

"No, I've never been."

"No go Indee?"

"Not yet."

"Indee very good—English very good—Turk, finish!"

With a sudden jerk and a rattle of chains our water-cart mules pulled out on the trail again and the ghostly figure with its well-folded turban and gleaming white teeth was left behind.

A beautifully calm race, the Hindus. They did wonderful work at Suvla Bay. Up and down, up and down, hour after hour they worked steadily on; taking up biscuits, bully-beef and ammunition to the firing-line, and returning for more and still more. Day and night these splendidly built Easterns kept up the supply.

I remember one man who had had his left leg blown off by shrapnel sitting on a rock smoking a cigarette and great tears rolling down his cheeks. But he said no word. Not a groan or a cry of pain.

They ate little, and said little. But they were always extraordinarily polite and courteous to each other. They never neglected their prayers, even under heavy shell fire.

Once, when we were moving from the Salt Lake to "C" Beach, Lala Baba, the Indians moved all our equipment in their little two-wheeled carts.

They were much amused and interested in our sergeant clerk, who stood 6 feet 8 inches. They were joking and pointing to him in a little bunch.

Going up to them, I pointed up to the sky, and then to the Sergeant, saying: "Himalayas, Johnnie!"

They roared with laughter, and ever afterwards called him "Himalayas."

THE INDIAN TRANSPORT TRAIN

(Across the bed of the Salt Lake every night from the Supply Depot at Kangaroo Beach to the firing-line beyond Chocolate Hill, September 1915.)

(footnote: "Jhill-o!"—Hindustani for "Gee-up"; used by the drivers of the Indian Pack-mule Corps.)

The Indian whallahs go up to the hills— "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!" They pass by the spot where the gun-cotton kills; They shiver and huddle—they feel the night chills— "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!"

With creaking and jingle of harness and pack— "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!" Where the moonlight is white and the shadows are black, They are climbing the winding and rocky mule-track— "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!"

By the blessing of Allah he's more than one wife; "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!" He's forbidden the wine which encourages strife, But you don't like the look of his dangerous knife; "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!"

The picturesque whallah is dusky and spare; "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!" A turban he wears with magnificent air, But he chucks down his pack when it's time for his prayer; "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!"

When his moment arrives he'll be dropped in a hole; "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!" 'Tis Kismet, he says, and beyond his control; But the dear little houris will comfort his soul; "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!"

The Indian whallahs go up to the hills; "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!" They pass by the spot where the gun-cotton kills; But those who come down carry something that chills; "Jhill-o! Johnnie, Jhill-o!"



CHAPTER XXI. SILVER BAY

On the edge of the Salt Lake, by the blue Aegean shore, Hawk and I dug a little underground home into the sandy hillock upon which our ambulance was now encamped.

"I'm going deep into this," said Hawk—he was a very skilful miner, and he knew his work.

"None of your dead heroes for me," he said; "I don't hold with 'em—we'll make it PRACtically shell-proof." We did. Each day we burrowed into the soft sandy layers, he swinging the pick, and I filling up sand-bags. At last we made a sort of cave, a snug little Peter Pan home, sand-bagged all round and safe from shells when you crawled in.

I often thought what a fine thing Stevenson would have written from the local colour of the bay.

Its changing colours were intense and wonderful. In the early morning the waves were a rich royal blue, with splashing lines of white breakers rolling in and in upon the pale grey sand, and the sea-birds skimming and wheeling overhead.

At mid-day it was colourless, glaring, steel-flashing, with the sunlight blazing and everything shimmering in the heat haze.

In the early afternoon, when Hawk and I used to go down to the shore and strip naked like savages, and plunge into the warm water, the bay had changed to pale blue with green ripples, and the outline of Imbros Island, on the horizon, was a long jagged strip of mauve.

Later, when the sunset sky turned lemon-yellow, orange, and deep crimson, the bay went into peacock blues and purples, with here and there a current of bottle-glass green, and Imbros Island stood clear cut against the sunset-colour a violet-black silhouette.

Queer creatures crept across the sands and into the old Turkish snipers' trenches; long black centipedes, sand-birds—very much resembling our martin, but with something of the canary in their colour. Horned beetles, baby tortoises, mice, and green-grey lizards all left their tiny footprints on the shore.

"If this silver sand was only in England a man could make his fortune," said Hawk. ("We wept like anything to see—!")

I never saw such white sand before. One had to misquote: "Come unto these SILVER sands." It glittered white in a great horse-shoe round the bay, and the bed of the Salt Lake (which is really an overflow from the sea) was a barren patch of this silver-sand, with here and there a dead mule or a sniper's body lying out, a little black blot, the haunt of vultures.

I made some careful drawings of the sand-tracks of the bay; noting down tracks being a habit with the scout.

In these things Hawk was always interested, and often a great help; for, in spite of his fifty years and his buccaneerish-habits, he was at heart a boy—a boy-scout, in fact, and a fine tracker.

One of the most picturesque sights I ever saw was an Indian officer mounted on a white Arab horse with a long flowing mane, and a tail which swept in a splendid curve and trailed in the sands. The Hindu wore a khaki turban, with a long end floating behind. He sat his horse bolt upright, and rode in the proper military style.

The Arab steed pranced, and arched its great neck. With the blue of the bay as a background it made a magnificent picture, worthy of the Thousand-and-One Nights.

Day by day we improved our dug-out, going deeper into the solid rock, and putting up an awning in front made of two army blankets, with a wooden cross-beam roped to an old rusty bayonet driven into the sand.

We lived a truly Robinson Crusoe life, with the addition of Turkish high-explosives, and bully-beef-and-biscuit stew.

Our dug-out was back to the firing-line, and at night we looked out upon the bay. We lay in our blankets watching the white moonlight on the waves, and the black shadows of our ambulance wagons on the silver sand.

It was in this dug-out that Hawk used to cook the most wonderful dishes on a Primus stove.

The language was thick and terrible when that stove refused to work, and Hawk would squat there cursing and cleaning it, and sticking bits of wire down the gas-tube.

He cooked chocolate-pudding, and rice-and-milk, and arrowroot-blancmange, stewed prunes, fried bread in bacon fat, and many other tasty morsels.

"The proof of a good cook," said Hawk, "is whether he can make a meal worth eating out of PRACtically nothink"—and he could.

There were very few wounds now to attend to in the hospital dug-out. Mostly we got men with sandfly-fever and dysentery; men with scabies and lice; men utterly and unspeakably exhausted, with hollow, black-rimmed eyes, cracked lips and foot-sores; men who limped across the sandy bed, dragging their rifles and equipment in their hands; men who were desperately hungry, whose eyes held the glint of sniper-madness; men whose bodies were wasting away, the skin taut and dry like a drum, with every rib showing like the beams of a wreck, or the rafters of an old roof.

Always we were in the midst of pain and misery, hunger and death. We do not get much of the rush and glory of battle in the "Linseed Lancers." We deal with the wreckage thrown up by the tide of battle, and wreckage is always a sad sight—human wreckage most of all.

But the bay was always full of interest for me, with its ever-changing colour, and the imprint of the ripples in the gleaming silver-sand.

And the silver moonlight silvers the silver-sand, while the skeletons of the Xth sink deeper and deeper, to be rediscovered perhaps at some future geological period, and recognised as a type of primitive man.



CHAPTER XXII. DUG-OUT YARNS

Oft in the stilly night, By yellow candle-light, With finger in the sand We mapped and planned.

"This is the Turkish well, That's where the Captain fell, There's the great Salt Lake bed, Here's where the Munsters led."

Primitive man arose, With prehistoric pose, Like Dug-out Men of old, By signs our thoughts were told.

I have slept and lived in every kind of camp and bivouac. I have dug and helped to dig dug-outs. I have lain full length in the dry, dead grass "under the wide and starry sky." I have crept behind a ledge of rock, and gone to sleep with the ants crawling over me. I have slept with a pair of boots for a pillow. I have lived and snoozed in the dried-up bed of a mountain torrent for weeks. A ground-sheet tied to a bough has been my bedroom. I have slumbered curled in a coil of rope on the deck of a cattle-boat, in an ambulance wagon, on a stretcher, in farmhouse barns and under hedges and haystacks. I have slept in the sand by the blue Mediterranean Sea, with the crickets and grasshoppers "zipping" and "zinging" all night long.

But our dug-out nights on the edge of the bay at Buccaneer Bivouac were the most enjoyable.

It was here of a night-time that Hawk and I—sometimes alone, sometimes with Brockley, or "Cherry Blossom," or "Corporal Mush," or Sergeant Joe Smith, the sailormen as onlookers and listeners—it was here we drew diagrams in the sand with our fingers, and talked on politics and women's rights, marriage and immorality, drink and religion, customs and habits; of life and death, peace and war.

Sometimes Hawk burst into a rare phrase of splendid composition—well-balanced rhetoric, not unworthy of a Prime Minister.

At other times he is the buccaneer, the flinger of foul oaths, and terrible damning curses. But as a rule they are not vindictive, they have no sting—for Hawk is a forgiving and humble man in reality, in spite of his mask of arrogance.

A remarkable character in every way, he fell unknowingly into the old north-country Quaker talk of "thee and thou."

Another minute he gives an order in those hard, calm, commanding words which, had he had the chance, would have made him, in spite of his lack of schooling, one of the finest Generals the world could ever know.

On these occasional gleams of pure leadership he finds the finest King's English ready to his lips, while at other times he is ungrammatical, ordinary, but never uninteresting or slow of intuition.

He was a master of slang, and like all strong and vivid characters had his own peculiar sayings.

He never thought of looking over my shoulder when I was sketching. He was a gentleman of Nature. But when he saw I had finished, his clear, deep-set eyes (handed down to him from those old Norseman ancestors) would glint with interest—

"Dekko the drawing," he would say, using the old Romany word for "let's see."

"PRACtically" was a favourite word.

"PRACtically the 'ole Peninsula—"

"PRACtically every one of 'em—"

"It weren't that," he would say; or, "I weren't bothering—"

"I'm not bothered—"

"Thee needn't bother, but it's a misfortunate thing—"

"Hates me like the divil 'ates Holy Water."

"Like enough!"

"A pound to a penny!"

"As like as not!"

"Ah; very like."

These were all typical Hawkish expressions.

His yarns of India out-Rudyard Kipling. They were superb, full of barrack-room touches, and the smells and sounds of the jungle. He told of the time when a soldier could get "jungling leave"; when he could go off with a Winchester and a pal and a native guide for two or three months; when the Government paid so many rupees for a tiger skin, so many for a cobra—a scale of rewards for bringing back the trophies of the jungle wilds.

He pictured the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush, describing the everlasting snows where you look up and up at the sheer rocks and glaciers; "you feel like a baby tortoise away down there, so small, as like as not you get giddy and drunk-like."

One night Hawk told me of a Hindu fakir who sat by the roadside performing the mango-trick for one anna. I illustrated it in the sand as he told it.

caption: Dug-out, September 9, 1915.

1. The fakir puts a pinch of dust from the ground in a little pile on a glass plate on a tripod.

2. He covers it up with a handkerchief or a cloth.

3. He plays the bagpipes, or a wooden flute, while you can see the heap of dust under the cloth a-growing and a-growing up and up, bigger and bigger.

4. At last he lifts up the cloth and shows you the green mango-tree growing on the piece of glass.

"He covers it again—plays. Lifts the cloth, shows you the mango tree in leaf. Covers it again—plays again. Takes away the cloth, and shows you the mango-tree in fruit, real fruit; but they never let you have the fruit for love or money. Rather than let any one have it, they pluck it and squash it between their fingers."



CHAPTER XXIII. THE WISDOM OF FATHER S——

One day, while I was making some sketch-book drawings of bursting shells down in the old water-course, the Roman Catholic padre came along.

"Sketching, Hargrave?"

"Yes, sir."

And then: "I suppose you're Church of England, aren't you?"

"No, sir; I'm down as Quaker."

"Quaker, eh?—that's interesting; I know quite a lot of Quakers in Dublin and Belfast."

Who would expect to find "Father Brown" of G. K. Chesterton fame in a khaki drill uniform and a pith helmet?

A small, energetic man, with a round face and a habit of putting his hands deep into the patch pockets of his tunic. Here was a priest who knew his people, who was a real "father" to his khaki followers. I quickly discovered him to be a man of learning, and one who noticed small signs and commonplace details.

His eyes twinkled and glittered when he was amused, and his little round face wrinkled into wreaths of smiles.

When we moved to the Salt Lake dug-outs he came with us, and here he had a dug-out of his own.

When the day's work was finished, and the moonlight glittered white across the Salt Lake, I used to stroll away for a time by myself before turning in.

It was a good time to think. Everything was so silent. Even my own footsteps were soundless in the soft sand. It was on one of these night-prowls that I spotted the tiny figure of Father S—- jerking across the sands, with that well-known energetic walk, stick in hand.

"Stars, Hargrave?" said the little priest.

"Very clear to-night, sir."

"Queer, you know, Hargrave, to think that those same old stars have looked down all these ages; same old stars which looked down on Darius and his Persians."

He prodded the sand with his walking stick, stuck his cap on one side (I don't think he cared for his helmet), and peered up to the star-spangled sky.

"Wonderful country, all this," said the padre; "it may be across this very Salt Lake that the armies of the ancients fought with sling and stone and spear; St. Paul may have put in here, he was well acquainted with these parts—Lemnos and all round about—preaching and teaching on his travels, you know."

"Talking about Lemnos Island," he went on, "did you notice the series of peaks which run across it in a line?"

"Yes."

"Well, it was on those promontories that Agamemnon, King of Mycenx, lit a chain of fire-beacons to announce the taking of Troy to his Queen, Clytaemnestra, at Argos—"

Here the little priest, as pleased as a school-boy, scratched a rough sketch map in the sand—

"All the islands round here are full of historical interest, you know; 'far-famed Samothrace,' for instance." Father S—- talked much of classical history, connecting these islands with Greek and Roman heroes.

All this was desperately interesting to me. It was picturesque to stand in the sand-bed of the Salt Lake, lit by the broad flood of silver moonlight, with the little priest eagerly scratching like an ibis in the sand with his walking-stick.

I learnt more about the Near East in those few minutes than I had ever done at school.

But besides the interest in this novel history lesson, I was more than delighted to find the padre so correct in his sketch of the island and the coast, and I took down what he told me in a note-book afterwards, and copied his sand-maps also.

After this I came to know him better than I had. I visited his dug-out, and he let me look at his books and Punch and a month-old Illustrated London News, or so. I came to admire him for his simplicity and for his devotion to his men. Every Sunday he held Mass in the trenches of the firing-line, and he never had the least fear of going up.

A splendid little man, always cheerful, always looking after his "flock." Praying with those who were about to give up the ghost; administering the last rites of the Church to those who, in awful agony, were fluttering like singed moths at the edge of the great flame, the Great Life-Mystery of Death.

He wrote beautifully sad letters of comfort to the mothers of boy-officers who were killed. Father S—- knew every man: every man knew Father S—- and admired him.

His dug-out was made in a slope overlooking the bay, and was really a deep square pit in the sand-bank, roofed with corrugated iron and sandbagged all round. Here we talked. I found he knew G. K. C. and Hilaire Belloc. Always he wanted to look at any new drawings in my sketch-books.

It is a relief to speak with some intelligent person sometimes.

Such was Father S—-, a very 'cute little man, knowing most of the troubles of the men about him, noticing their ways and keeping in touch with them all.



CHAPTER XXIV. THE SHARP-SHOOTERS

Just after the episode of the lost squads we were working our stretcher-bearers as far as Brigade Headquarters which were situated on a steep backbone-like spur of the Kapanja Sirt.

One of my "lance-jacks" (lance-corporals) had been missing for a good long time, and we began to fear he was either shot or taken prisoner with the others who had gone too far up the Sirt.

One afternoon we were resting among the rocks, waiting for wounded to be sent back to us; for since the loss of the others we were not allowed to pass the Brigade Headquarters. There was a lull in the fighting, with only a few bursting shrapnel now and then.

This particular lance-jack was quite a young lad of the middle-class, with a fairly good education.

But he was a weedy specimen physically, and I doubted whether he could pull through if escape should mean a fight with Nature for food and water and life itself.

Fairly late in the day as we all lay sprawling on the rocks or under the thorn-bushes, I saw a little party staggering along the defile which led up to the Sirt at this point.

There were two men with cow-boy hats, and between them they helped another very thin and very exhausted-looking fellow, who tottered along holding one arm which had been wounded.

As they came closer I recognised my lost lance-jack, very pale and shaky, a little thinner than usual, and with a hint of that gleam of sniper-madness which I have noticed before in the jumpy, unsteady eyes of hunted men.

The other two, one each side, were sturdy enough. Well-built men, one short and the other tall, with great rough hands, sunburnt faces, and bare arms. They wore brown leggings and riding-breeches and khaki shirts. They carried their rifles at the trail and strode up to us with the graceful gait of those accustomed to the outdoor life.

"Awstralians!" said some one.

"An' the corporal!"

Immediately our men roused up and gathered round.

"Where's yer boss?" asked the tall Colonial.

"The adjutant is over here," I answered.

"We'd like a word with him," continued the man. I took them up to the officer, and they both saluted in an easy-going sort of way.

"We found 'im up there," the Australian jerked his head, "being sniped and couldn't git away—says 'e belongs t' th' 32nd Ambulance—so here he is."

The two Australians were just about to slouch off again when the adjutant called them back.

"Where did you find him?" he asked.

"Up beyond Jefferson's Post; there was five snipers pottin' at 'im, an' it looked mighty like as if 'is number was up. We killed four o' the snipers, and got him out."

"That was very good of you. Did you see any more Medical Corps up there? We've lost some others, and an officer and sergeant."

"No, I didn't spot any—did you, Bill?" The tall man turned to his pal leaning on his rifle.

"No," answered the short sharp-shooter; "he's the only one. It was a good afternoon's sport—very good. We saw 'e'd got no rifle, and was in a tight clove-'itch, so we took the job on right there an' finished four of 'em; but it took some creepin' and crawlin'."

"Well, we'll be quittin' this now," said the tall one. "There's only one thing we'd ask of you, sir: don't let our people know anything about this."

"But why?" asked the adjutant, astonished. "You've saved his life, and it ought to be known."

"Ya-as, that may be, sir; but we're not supposed to be up here sharp-shootin'—we jist done it fer a bit of sport. Rightly we don't carry a rifle; we belong to the bridge-buildin' section. We've only borrowed these rifles from the Cycle Corps, an' we shall be charged with bein' out o' bounds without leave, an' all that sort o' thing if it gits known down at our headquarters."

"Very well, I'll tell no one; all the same it was good work, and we thank you for getting him back to us," the adjutant smiled.

The two Australians gave him a friendly nod, and said, "So long, you chaps!" to us and lurched off down the defile.

"We'll chuck it fer to-day—done enough," said the tall man.

"Ya-as, we'd better git back. It was good sport—very good," said the short one.

Certainly the Australians we met were a cheerful, happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care crew. They were the most picturesque set of men on the peninsula.

Rough travelling, little or no food, no water, sleepless nights and thrilling escapes made them look queerly primitive and Robinson Crusoeish.

I wrote in my pocket-book: "September 8, 1915.—The Australians have the keen eye, quick ear and silent tongue which evolves in the bushman and those who have faced starvation and the constant risk of sudden death, who have lived a hard life on the hard ground, like the animals of the wild, and come through.

"Fine fellows these, with good chests and arms, well-knit and gracefully poised by habitually having to creep and crouch, and run and fight. Sunburnt to a deep bronze, one and all.

"Their khaki shorts flap and ripple in the sea-wind like a troop of Boy Scouts. Some wear green shirts, and they all wear stone-gray wide-awake hats with pinched crown and broad flat brims."

When at last the mails brought us month-old papers from England, we read that "The gallant Australians" at Suvla "took" Lala Baba and Chocolate Hill; indeed, as Hawk read out in our dug-out one mail-day—

"The Australians have took everythink, or practically everythink worth takin'. They stormed Lala Baba and captured Chocolate 'ill—in fac' they made the landin'; and the Xth and XIth Divisions are simply a myth accordin' to the papers!"



CHAPTER XXV. A SCOUT AT SUVLA BAY

Many times have I seen the value of the Scout training, but never was it demonstrated so clearly as at Suvla Bay. Here, owing to the rugged nature of the country—devoid of all signs of civilisation—a barren, sandy waste—it was necessary to practise all the cunning and craft of the savage scout. Therefore those who had from boyhood been trained in scouting and scoutcraft came out top-dog.

And why?—because here we were working against men who were born scouts.

It became necessary to be able to find your way at night by the stars. You were not allowed to strike a light to look at a map, and anyhow the maps we had were on too small a scale to be of any real use locally.

Now, a great many officers were unable to find even the North Star! Perhaps in civil life they had been men who laughed at the boy scout in his shirt and shorts because they couldn't see the good of it! But when we came face to face with bare Nature we had to return to the methods of primitive man.

More than once I found it very useful to be able to judge the time by the swing of the star-sky.

Then again, many and many a young officer or army-scout on outpost duty was shot and killed because, instead of keeping still, he jerked his head up above the rocks and finding himself spotted jerked down again. The consequence was, that when he raised himself the next time the Turks had the spot "taped" and "his number was up."

This means unnecessary loss of men, owing entirely to lack of training in scoutcraft and stalking.

Finding your way was another point. How many companies got "cut up" simply because the officer or sergeant in charge had no bump of location. As most men came from our big cities and towns, they knew nothing of spotting the trail or of guessing the right direction. Indeed, I see Sir Ian Hamilton states that owing to one battalion "losing its way" a most important position was lost—and this happened again and again—simply because the leaders were not scouts.

Then there were many young officers who when it came to the test could not read a map quickly as they went. (Boy scouts, please note.) This became a very serious thing when taking up fresh men into the firing-line.

Those men who went out with a lot of "la-di-da swank" soon found that they were nowhere in the game with the man who cut his drill trousers into shorts—went about with his shirt sleeves rolled up and didn't mind getting himself dirty.

There were very few "knuts" and they soon got cracked!

Shouting and talking was another point in scouting at Suvla Bay. Brought up in towns and streets, many men found it extremely difficult to keep quiet. Slowly they learnt that silence was the only protection against the hidden sniper.

I remember a lot of fresh men landing in high spirits and keen to get up to the fighting zone. They marched along in fours and whistled and sang; but the Turks in the hills soon spotted them and landed a shell in the middle of them. Silence is the scout's shield in war-time.

It fell to my lot to make crosses to mark the graves of the dead. These crosses were made out of bully-beef packing-cases, and on most of them I was asked to inscribe the name, number and regiment of the slain. I did this in purple copying pencil, as I had nothing more lasting: and generally it read:—

"In Memory of 19673, Pte.——— Royal Irish Fus. R.I.P."

I had to be tombstone maker and engraver—and sometimes even sexton—a scout turns his hand to anything.

We had our advanced dressing station on the left of Chocolate Hill—the proper name of which is Bakka Baba.

Our ambulance wagons had to cross the Salt Lake, and often the wheels sank and we had to take another team of mules to pull them out.

The Turks had a tower—a gleaming white minaret—just beyond Chocolate Hill, near the Moslem cemetery in the village of Anafarta. It was supposed to be a sacred tower, but as they used it as an observation post, our battle-ships in the bay blew it down.

Flies swarmed everywhere, and were a great cause of disease, as, after visiting the dead and the latrines they used to come and have a meal on our jam and biscuits!

During the whole of August and September we were under heavy shell-fire; but we got quite used to it and hardly turned to look at a bursting shell.

I must say khaki drill uniform is not a good hiding colour. In the sunlight it showed up too light. I believe a parti-coloured uniform, say of green, khaki and gray would be much better. Therefore the Scout who wears a khaki hat, green shirt, khaki shorts and gray stockings is really wearing the best uniform for colour-protection in stalking.

The more scouting we can introduce the better.

Carry on, Boy Scouts! Bad scoutcraft was one of the chief drawbacks in what has been dubbed "The Glorious Failure."



CHAPTER XXVI. THE BUSH-FIRES

There are some things you never forget...

That little Welshman, for instance, lying on a ledge of rock above our Brigade Headquarters with a great gaping shrapnel wound in his abdomen imploring the Medical Officer in the Gaelic tongue to "put him out," and how he died, with a morphia tablet in his mouth, singing at the top of his high-pitched voice—

"When the midnight chu-chu leaves for Alabam! I'll be right there! I've got my fare... All aboard! All aboard! All aboard for Alla-Bam! ... Midnight... chu-chu... chu-chu..."

And so, slowly his soul steamed out of the wrecked station of his body and left for "Alabam!"

One evening, the 25th of August, bush-fires broke out on the right of Chocolate Hill.

The shells from the Turks set light to the dried sage, and thistle and thorn, and soon the whole place was blazing. It was a fearful sight. Many wounded tried to crawl away, dragging their broken arms and legs out of the burning bushes and were cremated alive.

It was impossible to rescue them. Boxes of ammunition caught fire and exploded with terrific noise in thick bunches of murky smoke. A bombing section tried to throw off their equipment before the explosives burst, but many were blown to pieces by their own bombs. Puffs of white smoke rose up in little clouds and floated slowly across the Salt Lake.

The flames ran along the ridges in long lapping lines with a canopy of blue and gray smoke. We could hear the crackle of the burning thickets, and the sharp "bang!" of bullets. The sand round Suvla Bay hid thousands of bullets and ammunition pouches, some flung away by wounded men, some belonging to the dead. As the bush-fires licked from the lower slopes of the Sari Bair towards Chocolate Hill this lost ammunition exploded, and it sounded like erratic rifle-fire. The fires glowed and spluttered all night, and went on smoking in the morning. I had to go up to Chocolate Hill about some sand-bags for our hospital dug-outs next day, and on the way up I noticed a human pelvis and a chunk of charred human vertebrae under a scorched and charcoaled thorn-bush.

Hawk and I kept a very good look-out every day. We noted the arrival of reinforcements, and the putting up of new telegraph lines; we spotted incoming transports, and the departure of our battle-ships in the bay.

In fact, between us, we worked a very complete "Intelligence Department" of our own. We made a rough chart showing the main lines of communications, and the position of snipers and wells, telegraph wires to the artillery, and the main observation posts and listening saps.

"It's just as well," said I, "to know as much as we can how things are going, and to keep account of details—it's safer, and might be very useful."

"Very true," said Hawk; "'ave you noticed 'ow that little cruiser comes in every morning at the same time, and goes out again in the late afternoon? Also, two brigades of Territorials came in last night and went round by the beach early this morning towards Lala Baba; I see the footprints when I went down for a wash."

The colonel had camped us on the edge of the Salt Lake on this side of an incline which led up to a flat plateau. Into this incline we had made our dug-outs, and he was now planning the digging out of a square-shaped place which would hold all our stretchers on which the sick and wounded lay, and would be protected from the Turkish shell-fire by being dug into the solid sandstone.

I was looking about for sand-tracks and shells, and I noticed that the grass had grown much more luxuriously at one level than it did lower down. This grass was last year's and was now yellow and dead and rustling like paper flowers.

"This," said I to Hawk, "was last year's water-mark in the rainy season."

"That's gospel," said Hawk; "and what would you make out o' that observation?"

He smiled his queer whimsical smile.

"Why, I guess we shall be swamped out of this camp in a month's time."

"Yes; practically the 'ole of this, up to this level, will be under water."

"Then what's the good of starting to dig a big permanent hospital here when——?"

"Yours not to reason why," said Hawk; "it's a way they have in the army; but I'm not bothering."

Each section dug in shifts day after day until the men were worn out with digging.

Then the long, flat rain-clouds appeared one morning over the distant range of mountains.

"You see them," said Hawk, lighting a "woodbine," and pointing across the Salt Lake; "that's the first sign of the wet season coming up."

Sure enough in a few days the colonel had orders to shift his ambulance to "C" Beach, near Lala Baba, as our present position was unfavourable for the construction of a permanent field hospital, owing to the rise of water in the wet season.

Soon after this, Hawk was moved to the advanced dressing station on Chocolate Hill, and I had to remain with my section near the Salt Lake. Thus we were separated.

"It's to break up our click, too thick together, we bin noticing too much, we know the workin' o' things too well, must break up the combine, dangerous to 'ave people about 'oo spot things and keep their jaws tight. Git rid o' Hawk—see th' ideeah? Very clever, ain't it? Practically we're the only two 'oo do feel which way the wind blows, an' that's inconvenient sometimes."

I asked Hawk while he was on Chocolate Hill to note down in his head the various snipers' posts, and the general positions of the British and Turkish trenches.

There came a time when I wanted to send him a note. But it was a dangerous thing to send notes about. They might fall into the hands of some sniper and give away information.

Therefore I got a bar of yellow soap from our stores, cut it in two, bored out a small hole in one half, wrapped up my note, put it inside the soap, clapped the two halves together, stuck them together by wetting it, and completely concealed the cut by rubbing it with water.

I then asked one of the A.S.C. drivers who was going up with the ambulance wagon in the morning to give the piece of soap to Hawk.

"He hasn't got any soap," I explained, "and he asked me to send him a bit. Tell him it's from me, and that I hope he'll find it all right—it's the best we have!"

Hawk got the soap, guessed there was a reason for sending it, broke it open and found the note. So a simple boy-scout trick came in useful on active service.



CHAPTER XXVII. THE DEPARTURE

Now came a period of utter stagnation

It was a deadlock.

We held the bay, the plain of Anafarta, the Salt Lake, the Kislar Dagh and Kapanja Sirt in a horse-shoe.

The Turks held the heights of Sari Bair, Anafarta village, and the hills beyond "Jefferson's Post" in a semicircle enclosing us. Nothing happened. We shelled and they shelled—every day. Snipers sniped and men got killed; but there was no further advance. Things had remained at a standstill since the first week of the landing.

Rumours floated from one unit to another:

"We were going to make a great attack on the 28th"—always a fixed date; "the Italians were landing troops to help the Australians at Anzac"—every possible absurdity was noised abroad.

Hawk was on Chocolate Hill with our advanced dressing station. I was on "C" Beach, Lala Baba, with the remainder of the ambulance. I had lost all my officers by sickness and wounds, and I was now the last of the original N.C.O.'s of "A" Section. Except for the swimming and my own observations of tracks and birds and natural history generally, this was a desperately uninteresting period.

Orders to pack up ready for a move came suddenly. It was now late in September. The wet season was just beginning. The storm-clouds were coming up over the hills in great masses of rolling banks, black and forbidding. It grew colder at night, and a cold wind sprang up during the day.

Every one was bustling about, packing the operating tent and equipment, operating table, instruments, bottles, pans, stretchers, "monkey-boxes," bandages, splints, cooking dixies, bully-beef crates, biscuit tins—everything was being packed up and sorted out ready for moving.

But where? No one knew. We were going to move... soon, very soon, it was rumoured.

Within every mind a small voice asked—"Blighty?" And then came another whiff of rumour: "The Xth Division are going—England perhaps!"

But it was too good to believe. Every one wanted to believe it... each man in his inmost soul hoped it might be true... but it couldn't be England... and yet it might!

One night the Indian Pack-mule Corps came trailing down with their little two-wheeled, two-muled carts and transported all our medical panniers away into the gloom, and they went towards Lala Baba. It was a good sign.

Everything was gone now except our own packs and kit, and we had orders to "stand by" for the command to "Fall in."

We lay about in the sand waiting—and wondering. At last towards the last minutes of midnight we got the orders to "Fall in." The N.C.O.'s called the "Roll," "numbered off" their sections and reported "All present and correct, sir!"

In a long straggling column we marched from our last encampment towards Lala Baba. The night was very dark and the sand gave under our feet. It was hard going, but every man had a gleam of hope, and trudged along heavy-laden with rolled overcoat, haversack and water-bottle and stretcher, but with a light heart.

The advanced party from Chocolate Hill met us at Lala Baba. Here everything was bustle and hurry.

Every unit of the Xth Division was packed up and ready for embarkation. Lighters and tugs puffed and grated by the shore. Horses stamped and snorted; sergeants swore continually; officers nagged and shouted.

Men got mixed up and lost their units, sections lost their way in the great crowd of companies assembled.

Once Hawk loomed out of the darkness and a strong whiff of rum came with him... he disappeared again: "See you later, Sar'nt—lookin' after things—important—practically everythink——"

He was full of drink, and in his hurry to look after "things" (mostly bottles) he lost some of his own kit and my field-glasses. He worked hard at getting the equipment into the lighters, notwithstanding the fact that he was "three-parts canned."

Every now and then he loomed up like some great khaki-clad gorilla, only to fade away again to the secret hiding-place of a bottle.

And so at last we got aboard. It was still a profound secret. No one knew whither we were going, or why we were leaving the desolation of Suvla Bay.

But every one was glad. Anything would be better than this barren waste of sand and flies and dead men.

That was the last we saw of the bay. A sheet of gray water, a moving mob on the slope of Lala Baba, the trailing smoke of the tug, and a pitch-black sky—and Hawk lurching round and swearing at the loss of his bottle and his kit.

An old sea-song was running in my mind:—

"But two men of her crew alive— What put to sea with seventy-five!"

Only three months ago we had landed 25,000 strong; and now we numbered about 6000. A fearful loss—a smashed Division.

We transferred to a troop-ship standing out in the bay with all possible speed.

Still with the gloom hanging over everything we steamed out and every man was dead tired.

However, I found Hawk, and we decided not to sleep down below with the others, all crowded together and stinking in the dirty interior of the ship.

We took our hammocks up on deck and slung them forward from the handrail near one of the great anchors.

I had a purpose in doing this. I had no intention of going to sleep. By taking note of a certain star which had appeared just to the right of a cross-spar, and by noticing its change of position, I was enabled to guess with some exactitude the course we were laying.

For the first two or three hours the star and the mast kept a perfectly unchangeable position.

I woke up after dozing for some minutes, and taking up my old stand near the companion-way again took my star observation. But this time the star had swept right round and was the other side of the mast. We had changed our course from south-west to north. Just then Hawk came up the companion-way, no doubt from a bottle-hunt down below.

"It's—Salonika!" said he.

"We've turned almost due north in the last quarter of an hour."

"I know it,—been down to the stokers' bunks—it's Salonika—another new landing."

"They keep the Xth for making new landings."

And so to the Graeco-Serbian frontier and a fresh series of adventures, including sickness, life in an Egyptian hospital—and then England.



CHAPTER XXVIII. LOOKING BACK

The queer thing is, that when I look back upon that "Great Failure" it is not the danger or the importance of the undertaking which is strongly impressed so much as a jumble of smells and sounds and small things.

It is just these small things which no author can make up in his study at home.

The glitter of some one carrying an army biscuit-tin along the mule track; the imprinted tracks of sand-birds by the blue Aegean shore; the stink of the dead; a dead man's hand sticking up through the sand; the blankets soaked each morning by the heavy dew; the incessant rattle of a machine-gun behind Pear-tree Gully; the distant ridges of the Sari Bahir range shimmering in the heat of noon-day; the angry "buzz" of the green and black flies disturbed from a jam-pot lid; the grit of sand in the mouth with every bite of food; the sullen dullness of the overworked, death-wearied troops; the hoarse dried-up and everlasting question: "Any water?"; the silence of the Hindus of the Pack-mule Corps; the "S-s-s-e-e-e-e-o-o-o-op!—Crash!"—of the high explosives bursting in a bunch of densely solid smoke on the Kislar Dargh, and the slow unfolding of these masses of smoke and sand in black and khaki rolls; the snort and stampede of a couple of mules bolting along the beach with their trappings swinging and rattling under their panting bellies; the steady burning of the star-lit night skies; the regular morning shelling from the Turkish batteries on the break of dawn over the gloom-shrouded hills; the far-away call of some wounded man for "Stretchers! Stretchers!"; the naked white men splashing and swimming in the bay; the swoop of a couple of skinny vultures over the burning white sand of the Salt Lake bed to the stinking and decomposing body of a shrapnel-slaughtered mule hidden in the willow-thickets at the bottom of Chocolate Hill; a torn and bullet-pierced French warplane stranded on the other side of Lala Baba—lying over at an angle like a wounded white seabird; the rush for the little figure bringing in "the mails" in a sack over his shoulder; the smell of iodine and iodoform round the hospital-tents; the long wobbling moan of the Turkish long-distance shells, and the harmless "Z-z-z-eee-e-e-o-ooop!" of their "dud" shells which buried themselves so often in the sand without exploding; the tattered, begrimed and sunken-eyed appearance of men who had been in the trenches for three weeks at a stretch; the bristling unshaven chins, and the craving desire for "woodbines"; the ingrained stale blood on my hands and arms from those fearful gaping wounds, and the red-brown blood-stain patches on my khaki drill clothes; the pestering curse of those damnable Suvla Bay flies and the lice with which every officer and man swarmed.

The awful—cut-off, Robinson Crusoe feeling—no letters from home, no newspapers, no books... sand, biscuits and flies; flies, bully and sand...

Stay-at-home critics and prophets of war cannot strike just that tiny spark of reality which makes the whole thing "live."

However many diagrams and wonderful ideas these remarkable amateur experts publish they won't "go down" with the man who has humped his pack and has "been out."

Mention the word "Blighty" or "Tickler's plum-and-apple," "Kangaroo Beach" or "Jhill-o! Johnnie!" or "Up yer go—an' the best o' luck!" to any man of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force and in each case you will have touched upon a vividly imprinted impresssion of the Dardanelles.

There was adventure wild and queer enough in the Dardanelles campaign to fill a volume of Turkish Nights' Entertainments, but the people at home know nothing of it.

This is the very type of adventure and incident which would have aroused a war-sickened people; which would have rekindled war-weary enthusiasm and patriotism in the land. Maybe most of these accounts of marvellous escapes and 'cute encounters, secret scoutings and extraordinary expeditions will lie now for ever with the silent dead and the thousands of rounds of ammunition in the silver sand of Suvla Bay.

The stars still burn above the Salt Lake bed; the white breakers roll in each morning along the blue sea-shore, sometimes washing up the bodies of the slain—just as they did when we camped near Lala Baba.

But the guns are gone and there the heavy silence of the waste places reigns supreme.

THE END