The weeks marched by, one upon the heels of the next; and summer came down upon that cruel land. All day long the suns stared at the baked ground, and the flies multiplied beyond imagination. The enemy, sitting in the opposite trenches, was less terrible than this pitiless season. There was no savour in the food; the water ration could not quench the thirst; there was no new scene on which to feed the eye; there was no change of duty. We were no step nearer the end of affairs. And typhus and dysentery began to stalk abroad. A man had but to keep his mouth shut to prove his heroism. Between the attacks, the fellows sat or lay all day long in a sort of dog’s doze. Frequently they had put up awnings of waterproof sheets; but the heat below was close and sickly. Fellows were bare legged and stripped naked to the waist, with big patches of broken skin where the sun had blistered. And there were men burnt as brown as niggers. Here and here were groups smoking, playing cards, and talking. I heard little said of the war, which had long since failed[255] to interest; but there were endless stories of race-horses and prize-fighters, and endless boasts about girls. And many liars told and retold their most brilliant lies. Thus crawled by the fiery hours between rise and set of sun.
Little Billy Blake meets me in the valley one mid-day. “Have you heard about poor Bill Eaves?” he says. “What’s up?” say I. “Dead,” he says. “Damned sorry to hear that,” say I. “How did it happen?” “Don’t know. They found him at the top of the valley. A shrapnel bullet had copped him in the top of the napper. I helped to take him down to the beach. ’Struth, I was sweating at the end!” “Bad luck for old Bill,” say I. “Blasted bad luck,” says he. “So long,” say I. “So long,” says he. And he goes on down the valley; and I climb up the hill to headquarters.
Sooner or later you met all the celebrities poking round in the trenches. Once General Rivers came daily to the Pimple, smoking a cigarette in a long thin holder. He had a favourite seat beside one of C Battery guns. He was tall and thin, with a slight stoop as I remember, and an air of great refinement for a soldier. His hands were white, with long fingers, and nails so clean he might have walked off the Collins Street Block. He sat and smoked silently, or walked up and down, pointing quietly with his hand. I don’t know how he treated his Staff; but he seemed reasonable in his dealings.
Another man with the face of a student was Captain Carrot, the war correspondent. I took[256] him about the trenches more than once. He was rather tall and rather thin, with a peaky face and glasses. He carried a camera in place of a rifle. In Egypt he had written an article which had much offended the army; and many were the threats against him. But someone told me, in a charge down Cape Helles way, he had exposed himself to get a good view, and so he was forgiven. I don’t know how true is the story; but his popularity came back. He had little to say to me.
A third man frequently run to earth in the trenches was Colonel Saxon, V.C. He was a quiet man with a polished manner and a lisp. I heard he came from a crack English regiment. He left his staff behind him, and poked about on his own account, periscope under arm, and nothing more. He was never put out; he took all as a part of a day’s happenings, even the shortage of men and ammunition, and the brigadier’s wrath. “The general is awfully angry with me this morning,” he lisped to the colonel once when we ran into him. “I don’t know what I’ve done. I thought I had better go for a walk while he cools down. Everything is quite dead to-day. I’m off now by Quinn’s Post. Good-bye.”
And last—and very far from least—on some fine mornings round the corner strolled General Birdwood, with his A.D.C., his periscope bearer, his mapcase bearer, and all the following of a mighty man of war. He was a popular general. As often as not his dress was a sun helmet, a plain khaki shirt, corduroy knickerbockers, and leggings[257] out after the style of an English squire or well-to-do yeoman. He carried a walking-stick in his hand. In his ways he was calm and easy going. His face showed good temper; but there was a chin at the bottom of it; and he looked the manner of man who would haul off and lay you out rather than put you under arrest. He spoke to all and sundry in the trenches, and bathed freely with the men in the sea. I stood beside him once when he had a squeak from a sniper. The bullet chipped down the earth on us. “Now, where’s that rascal?” the general said, lifting up his head. “Can’t any of you men get rid of him? We ought not to allow that.” One or other of his A.D.C.’s followed at his heels; and it might be brigadiers and lesser fry swelled the train, until one had to push against the trench wall to let the procession go by.
As summer wore on, and the fighting slackened away to daily skirmishes, there came much talk of reinforcements of men and guns, and a second attempt to carry the Peninsula by storm. There was much talk, I say; but there was nothing more. The endless suns baked the earth to brick, and parched in men’s hearts the seeds of hope. The stretchers took their loads down to the beach; and it was a trench won here and a trench lost there, that was all. But one looked in vain for the transports steaming East.
The colonel kept to his habits all the time: we tramped up and down hill in the morning, and in the evening we had our battle. Once he went away for a change, and came back with his old[258] energy. The sun peeled the skin from the end of his nose, and burnt his face a fierce red; his clothes began to wear, and he changed them for a private’s issue, so that a great deal of his glory departed. But his keenness stayed after his beauty had faded.
Our targets changed little. It might be the enemy brought up a new battery or retired an old one: and steadily they strengthened their trenches and sapped towards us, as we on our own account sapped towards them. They made two fortresses of Lonesome Pine and Jackson’s Jolly; and ever at sight of those the colonel wagged his head and was full of misgiving. The Jolly was named after him on account of his fears of it, and I believe he christened Lonesome Pine. From our side Lonesome Pine was no more than a sandbagged mound, with a small blasted sapling standing up at one point. The sapling was of no appearance; but in that bare country it made a landmark. It was strange the enemy allowed it to stay. The colonel pointed it out to a friend. “They’re doing an awful lot of work over there,” says he. “Right in our mouth,” says he. “You see where I mean, that mound with the stick on it. It reminds you of that book—what’s it, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine or something.” The other man looks hard at it and shakes his head, and then they fall to talking on another subject. Says the other man, “You had a gun blown out yesterday, didn’t you?” “I think it can be fixed up,” says the colonel. “Three men went with it.” And then he wags[259] his head with very great sadness. “You can get new guns; but you can’t send down to Hell for new gunners.”
There would be days when the sun was less terrible, and sea and sky were calm with the wonderful blue calm of the Mediterranean. Then the open country between us and Achi-Baba became a forbidden Eden. I forget how often the colonel and ............