CHAPTER XXI
WORK OF THE ZION MULE CORPS
During all these battles in May, June and July, the Zion men and mules were kept steadily at work, and wherever they went it was gratifying to know that they performed their duties satisfactorily. Sometimes little parties of them would be attached to different battalions, and when their tour of a week or ten days' duty was over they would invariably bring back a letter from the Transport Officer to say how well the men had worked, and how well they had behaved when under fire. I have dozens of such letters, which testify to their good work and how well they got on with their British comrades, with whom they were great favourites; the party commanded by Corporal Nehemiah Yahuda was always in great request, as this bright, cheery young N. C. O. had a happy knack of inspiring his men with his own zeal for work and devotion to duty, regardless of all danger.
Sometimes while away from Headquarters on these detached duties a man would get killed. His comrades always brought the body back to camp, and then the whole Corps attended the funeral, which was a very solemn ceremony. Over the grave of each hero whom we buried in Gallipoli was erected a little memorial, the Shield of David, with his name and the date of his death engraved underneath. Nothing brought the old days of the Bible back more vividly to my mind than to see, when one of my Zion men was wounded, how his friends would literally fall on his neck, weep, and embrace him most tenderly. The outward expression of such emotion as I have witnessed is of course impossible for us Westerners, but I doubt if our feelings are not harrowed all the more by the rigid restraint which we perforce place on them.
The gallant Captain Trumpledor differed from his compatriots in this respect, and I never once saw him give way to any of these emotions. On the contrary, he would remark to me over the body of a badly wounded Zionist: "Ken, ken! (Hebrew for "Yes, yes!") A la guerre comme à la guerre!" And I must say that he himself bore a bullet wound through his shoulder with the greatest fortitude, carrying out his duties as if nothing had happened and absolutely refusing to go into hospital. I am glad to say he made a speedy and good recovery.
A couple of my Zionists were not quite so brave as the Captain, for I observed them one day, when we were being somewhat heavily shelled, making tracks for the beach for all they were worth.
Their flight reminded me of a story which I had heard, of an Irish soldier at the Battle of the Boyne, who, relating to a friend how his Captain, before leading them to the charge, said: "Now, boys, strike for your King, your country, and your home." "Some of the fools," said the Irishman, "struck for their King and country, but I struck for home!"
I am glad to say that the valour shown by some of my men made up for the lack of it shown by others. No one could be a braver or a better soldier than Nissel Rosenberg, who, through shot and shell, led his mules with their loads of ammunition right into the firing line, when all others, both Jewish and British—for both were there—made a strategic and hurried movement to the rear. I was watching this myself, and, as I considered it very plucky of him to go forward with his much-needed loads of ammunition, while men were being killed all round him, I recommended him for the D. C. M., a distinction he well deserves. He escaped all wounds that day, but a fortnight later, when again on his way to the trenches, he was severely wounded by a piece of shell; I am glad to say he made a good recovery and is still going strong. In appreciation of his gallant services, I promoted him to the rank of sergeant.
It must not be supposed that we only came under fire on specific occasions. It broke upon us at all times, night and day, without warning. In these "strafes," as we used to call them, many men and mules were killed and wounded.
During one such "strafe," I can even now see Gye and myself running across a couple of hundred yards of fire-swept ground to the rescue of two stricken men, and I should not like to say the number of times we both had to throw ourselves down and grovel on the ground, while shells plunged round us, making holes big enough for our graves and covering us with dirt and gravel. We luckily got through without a scratch and helped to get the wounded men removed, as fast as ever we could, out of danger.
Both were very badly injured, and I never expected to see either of them alive again; one, indeed, Corporal Frank Abraham, died soon after we got him to the hospital; the other, who seemed even more severely wounded, with two bullets through his back, and his thigh smashed to pulp, I was surprised to find in a fair way to recovery, when I visited my sick and wounded men in hospital during a recruiting trip to Alexandria. The poor fellow, when he saw me, seized my hand and embarrassed me by covering it with kisses, saying that but for my lifting him out of that dangerous fire-zone he would certainly have been killed. I was surprised to see that the man remembered that I had been there to help him, as he was in such agony at the time that I did not think he would have remembered or known what was going on around him. I reminded him that he owed quite as much gratitude to Lieutenant Gye as to me, for we had both helped to get him away.
I must mention here, however, that, as a rule, Gye would take on much greater risks to rescue a mule than a man, for which on one occasion he was highly commended by General Hunter-Weston.
Many of the Zionists whom I had thought somewhat lacking in courage showed themselves fearless to a degree when under heavy fire, while Captain Trumpledor actually revelled in it, and the hotter it became the more he liked it, and would remark: "Ah, it is now plus gai!"
It must not be supposed that all the Zionists were saints, or that I did not have my times of trouble and difficulty with them, because some would occasionally murmur and hanker after the "flesh-pots of Egypt." They were, indeed, true descendants of those forefathers of theirs who wandered in the wilderness, and whom Moses had so often to chide severely for their stiff-neckedness. Now Moses, in his dealings with his troublesome children, had a tremendous pull over me, because, when my men grumbled about lack of water, I could strike no rock and make it gush forth for them, neither when the meat and food were scarce could I call down manna or quails from Heaven, nor was there any black cloud to interpose and hide us from the devastating fire of our enemy. Although Moses had these Divine aids, yet his task in shepherding over half a million of people through a barren wilderness was truly gigantic and could only be compared to mine as the ocean to a bucket of water; with that great example before me I felt it was up to me not to fail in shepherding through our trials the little host confided to my charge, so, like Father O'Flynn with his flock, I kept my children in order by:
"Checkin' the crazy ones,
Coaxin' unaisy ones,
Liftin' the lazy ones on with the stick."
I found that the racial characteristic of the Israelite made it necessary to hold him in with a thread light as silk and yet strong as a steel cable, and it required a tremendous amount of tact and personal influence to weather the various little storms which sometimes threatened to wreck our family life.
There was great excitement amongst the Zionists when I told them that the much coveted reward for bravery, the Distinguished Conduct Medal, had arrived from England for Corporal Groushkousky, and had been forwarded to me by the Commander-in-Chief. The Corps was paraded in the afternoon and marched to the Headquarters Camp, where General Stopford, the General Officer in Temporary Command of the 8th Army Corps, inspected the men, shook hands with all the officers and finally had Corporal Groushkousky out to the front, and, after congratulating him warmly on his gallant action, pinned the medal on his breast.