3
So I forgot the little I ever knew about gunnery and laid spiders’ webs from my cable wagon all over Deepcut, and galloped for the Colonel on Divisional training stunts with a bottle of beer and sandwiches in each wallet against the hour when the General, feeling hungry, should declare an armistice with the opposing force and Colonels and their Orderly Officers might replenish their inner men. Brave days of great lightheartedness, untouched by the shadow of what was to come after.
May had put leaves on all the trees and called forth flowers in every garden. Then came June to perfect her handiwork and with it the call to lay aside our golf clubs and motor-cycles, to say good-bye to England in all her beauty and go out once more to do our bit.
There was much bustle and packing of kits and writing of letters and heartburnings over last week-end leaves refused and through it all a thirst for knowledge of where we were going. Everything was secret, letters severely censored. Rumour and counter-rumour chased each other through the camp until, an hour before starting, the Captain in whose battery I had begun appeared with a motor car full of topees.
Then all faces like true believers were turned towards the East and on every tongue was the word Gallipoli.
Avonmouth was the port of embarkation and there we filled a mass of waiting boats, big and little.
The Colonel, the Adjutant and I were on one of the biggest. My horses had been handed over to a battery for the voyage and I had only the signallers to look after. Everything was complete by ten o’clock in the morning. The convoy would not sail till midnight, so some of us got leave to explore and took train to Bristol, lunching royally for the last time in a restaurant, buying innumerable novels to read on board, sending final telegrams home.
How very different it was to the first going out! No red lead. No mud. The reality had departed. It seemed like going on a picnic, a merry outing with cheery souls, a hot sun trickling down one’s back; and not one of us but heard the East a-calling.
A curious voyage that was when we had sorted ourselves out. The mornings were taken up with a few duties,—physical jerks, chin inspection and Grand Rounds when we stood stiffly to attention, rocking with the sway of the boat while the two commanders of the sister services inspected the ship; life-boat drill, a little signalling; and then long hours in scorching sunshine, to lie in a deck chair gazing out from the saloon deck upon the infinite blue, trying to find the answer to the why of it all, arguing the alpha and omega with one’s pals, reading the novels we had bought in Bristol, writing home, sleeping. Torpedoes and mines? We never thought about them.
Boxing competitions and sports were organized for the men and they hammered each other’s faces to pulp with the utmost good fellowship.
Then we passed The Rock and with our first glimpse of the African coast—a low brown smudge—we began to stir restlessly and think of terra firma. It broke the spell of dreams which had filled the long days. Maps were produced and conferences held, and we studied eagerly the contours of Gallipoli, discussed the detail of landings and battery positions, wagon lines and signalling arrangements, even going so far as to work off our bearing of the line of fire. Fragments of war news were received by wireless and a communiqué was posted daily, but it all seemed extraordinarily unreal, as though it were taking place in another world.
One night we saw a fairyland of piled-up lights which grew swiftly as we drew nearer and took shape in filigreed terraces and arcades when our anchor at last dropped with a mighty roar in Valetta harbour. Tiny boats like gondolas were moored at the water’s edge in tight rows, making in the moonlight a curious scalloped fringe. People in odd garments passed in noiseless swarms up and down the streets, cabs went by, shop doors opened and shut, and behind all those lights loomed the impenetrable blackness of the land towering up like a mountain. From the distance at which we were anchored no sound could be heard save that of shipping, and those ant-sized people going about their affairs, regardless of the thousands of eyes watching them, gave one the effect of looking at a stage from the gallery through the wrong end of an opera glass.
Coaling began within an hour, and all that night bronze figures naked to the waist and with bare feet slithered up and down the swaying planks, tireless, unceasing, glistening in the arc light which spluttered from the mast of the coaling vessel; the grit of coal dust made one’s shoes crunch as one walked the decks in pyjamas, filled one’s hair and neck, and on that stifling night became as one of the plagues of Pharaoh.
A strange discordant chattering waked one next morning as though a tribe of monkeys had besieged the ship. Then one leaped to the port-hole to get a glimpse of Malta, to us the first hint of the mysterious East. There it was, glistening white against the turquoise blue, built up in fascinating tiers with splashes of dark green trees clinging here and there as though afraid of losing their hold and toppling into the sea. All round the ship the sea was dotted with boats and dark people yelling and shouting, all reds and blues and bright yellows; piles of golden fruit and coloured shawls; big boats with high snub noses, the oarsmen standing, showing rows of gleaming teeth; baby boats the size of walnut shells with naked brown babies uttering shrill cries and diving like frogs for silver coins.
Was it possible that just a little farther on we should meet one end of the line of death that made a red gash right across Europe?
We laughed a little self-consciously under the unusual feel of our topees and went ashore to try and get some drill khaki. Finding none we drank cool drinks and bought cigars and smiled at the milk sellers with their flocks of goats and the café au lait coloured girls, some of whom moved with extraordinary grace and looked very pretty under their black mantillas. The banks distrusted us and would give us no money, and the Base cashier refused to undo his purse strings. We cursed him and tried unsuccessfully to borrow from each other, having only a few pounds in our pockets. Down a back street we found a Japanese tattooist and in spite of the others’ ridicule I added a highly coloured but pensive parrot to my collection. But the heat was overwhelming and our puttees and tunics became streaked with sweat. We were glad to get back to the boat and lie in a cold bath and climb languidly into the comparative coolness of slacks. The men had not been allowed ashore but hundreds of them dived overboard and swam round the boat, and the native fruit sellers did a thriving trade.
After dinner we went ashore again. It was not much cooler. We wandered into various places of amusement. They were all the same, large dirty halls with a small stage and a piano and hundreds of marble-topped tables where one sat and drank. Atrociously fat women appeared on the stage and sang four songs apiece in bad French. It didn’t matter whether the first song was greeted with stony silence or the damning praise of one sarcastic laugh. Back came each one until she’d finished her repertoire. Getting bored with that I collected a fellow sufferer and together we went out and made our way to the top of the ramparts. The sky looked as if a giant had spilt all the diamonds in the world. They glittered and changed colour. The sea was also powdered as if little bits of diamond dust had dropped from the sky. The air smelled sweet and a little strange, and in that velvety darkness which one could almost touch one’s imagination went rioting.
As if that were not enough a guitar somewhere down below was suddenly touched with magic fingers and a little love song floated up in a soft lilting tenor.—We were very silent on the old wall.