THE HOURS BEFORE THE END
§1
On the following day we buried Doe at sundown. In a grave on Hunter Weston Hill, which slopes down to W Beach, he lies with his feet toward the sea.
The same evening the medical orderly abused my confidence and informed the doctor that I was running a high temperature; and the doctor told me to pack up, as he was sending me to hospital. I refused.
I pointed out to him that if I, as a Company Commander, were to go sick at this juncture of the Gallipoli campaign, I could never again look the men of my company in the face. I tried to be funny about it. I asked him if he knew that Suvla had been evacuated; and that the Turks had therefore their whole Suvla army released to attack us on Helles—to say nothing of unlimited reinforcements pouring through Servia from Germany. I offered him an even bet that a few days hence we should either be lying dead in the scrub at Helles, or marching wearily to our prison at Constantinople. How, then, could I desert my men at this perilous moment? "The Germans are coming, oh dear, oh dear," I summed up; and then shivered, as I remembered whose merry voice had first chanted those words.
All this I explained to the doctor, but I did not tell him that, when I discovered my abnormal temperature, I had felt a quick spring of joy bubbling up, for here was an excuse for getting out of this Gallipoli, of which I was so sick and tired; and then I had remembered how, in loyalty to Doe, I had replaced my old ideals, and by their light I must stay. I must only leave the Peninsula when I could leave it with honour of holding Helles for the Empire.
In the end the doctor and I compromised. He said he would not send me to hospital, but that I must go down to the dump, and take things easy for a few days. From there I could be summoned, since I took myself so devilish seriously, to die with my men when the massacre began. I told him that the dump was too far back, but that, if he liked, I would go and live with Padre Monty in the Eski Line.
So a few days before Christmas I arrived with my batman and my kit at Monty's tiny sand-bag dug-out. He gave me a joyous welcome, stating that he would order the maids to light the fire in the best bedroom and air the sheets. Meanwhile, would I step into his study?
§2
"I'm glad," said I to Monty at breakfast the next morning, "that I shall spend Christmas alone with you here. I couldn't have stood just now a riotous celebration with the regiment."
"Of course not," he agreed, and we both kept a silence in honour of the dead.
"Though I doubt if it'll be a riotous Christmas for anyone," I resumed. "Probably the last most of us will ever know."
"Stuff!" murmured Monty.
"'Tisn't stuff. Have you seen the Special Order of the Day that has been printed and stuck up everywhere, congratulating us on our attack of December 19, which, it says, 'contributed largely to the successful evacuation of Suvla,' and telling us that to our Army Corps 'has been entrusted the honour of holding Helles for the Empire'?"
"Heavens!" he muttered. "We can't do it."
"Of course we can't; and we can't quit."
"Not without being wiped out," he agreed.
"Exactly. I wonder what it'll feel like, having a Turco bayonet in one's stomach."
"Rupert," said Monty suddenly, "we've had a bad jar, and we're getting morbid. Cheer up. Muddly old Britain will get us out of this mess. And now we're jolly well going to make all we can out of this Christmas. It'll certainly be the most piquant of our lives. Adams!"
"Sir?" Monty's batman appeared at the dug-out door in answer to the call.
"Get your entrenching tool. We're going to dig up a little fir for a Christmas tree."
So we spent the next days making our Christmas preparations, determined to keep the feast. We decorated the sand-bag cabin—oh, yes! Over the pictures of our people, pinned to the sand-bag walls, we placed sprigs of a small-leaf holly that grew on the Peninsula. We planted the little fir in a disused petrol-tin, and, after a visit to the canteen, decorated it with boxes of Turkish delight, sticks of chocolate, packets of chewing-gum, oranges, lemons, soap, and bits of Government candles. It was a Christmas tree of some distinction. And mistletoe? No, we couldn't find any mistletoe, but then, as Monty said, it would have no point on Gallipoli, there being no—just so; when we should be home again for Christmas of next year, we would claim an extra kiss for 1915.
"Pest! Rupert," exclaimed Monty, "we've forgotten to send any Christmas cards. To work at once!"
We sat down at the tiny table and cut notepaper into elegant shapes, sticking on it little bits of Turkish heather, and printing beneath: "A Slice of Turkey" (which we thought a very happy jest); "Heather from Invaded Enemy Territory. Are we downhearted? NO! Are we going to win? YES!"
And by luck there arrived a parcel from Mother with a cake. Of plum pudding we despaired, till one fine morning there came a present (half a pound per man) of that excellent comestible from the Daily News (whom the gods preserve and prosper).
"All is now ready," proclaimed Monty.
Christmas Day dawned beautiful in sky and atmosphere. It would have been as mild and gracious as a windless June day had not the Turk, nervous lest these dogs of Christians should celebrate their festival with any untoward activity, opened at daylight a prophylactic bombardment.
We stood in the dug-out door and watched the shells dropping.
"Does it strike you, Rupert," asked Monty, making a grimace, "that Old-Man-Turk has more guns firing than ever before?"
"Yes," I answered. "The guns from Suvla have come."
The words were no sooner out of my mouth than a shell shrieking into our own cookhouse, drove us like rabbits into the dug-out.
"Does it strike you, Rupert," said Monty, "that Turk Pasha has some pals with him who are firing heavier shells than ever before?"
"Yes," said I. "The Germans have come."
§3
The afternoon we devoted to preparations for the feast of the evening. We laid the table. There was a water-proof ground-sheet for the cloth. There were little holly branches stuck in tobacco tins. And there were candles in plenty (for they were a Government issue, and we could be free with them). At Monty's suggestion, who maintained that the family must be gathered at the Christmas board, we placed photographs of our people on the table. There was a picture of Monty's sister and (for shame, Monty! fie upon you for keeping it dark so long) the picture of somebody else's sister. There was the portrait of my mother, and oh! in a silent moment, I had nearly placed on the table the dear face of Edgar Doe, but, instead, I put it back in my pocket, saying nothing to Monty, and feeling guilty of a lapse.
We were glad when the darkness came, for we wanted to try the effect of the candles, both those on the table and those on the Christmas tree. And truly the darkness, the candles, the flying sparks from our Yule log, and the smell of burning wood made Christmas everywhere.
Then we sat down to the meal. The menu said: "Consommé Gallipoli, Stew Dardanelles, Plum Pudding, Dessert, Lemonade à la Tour Eiffel." The soup was very good, even if it was only the gravy from the next course. And the stew in its plate looked almost too fine to disturb; the very largest onion was stuck in the middle—was it not Christmas Day? The pudding we set on fire with the Army rum issue. And the dish of dessert was a fine pile of lemons and oranges—the lemons not being there to be eaten, of course, but to make the show more brave.
Then the batmen were fetched in and given the presents from the Christmas Tree. And we drank healths in lemonade à la Tour Eiffel. We toasted the King, the Allies, "Johnny Turk beyond the Parapet," and, above all, "Our People at home, God bless 'em!" We sang "For they are jolly good fellows," and it was wonderful what a fine thing two officers and their soldier-servants made of it. Somebody, warmed up by this lively chorus, raised his glass and suggested "To Hell with the Kaiser!" But this toast we disallowed, on the ground that it would spoil our kindly feeling, and besides, as Monty observed compensatingly, he would be toasted enough when he got there.
And, when it was all over, I went out into the darkness to walk alone for a little, and to get the chill night air blowing upon my forehead. It was as clear and fine a night as it had been a day—cloudless, still, and starlit. And—forgive me—but I could only think of him whom we had left on Hunter Weston Hill, with his feet toward the sea, lying out there in the cold and the quiet. O God, when should I get used to it?