Every morning there was a pyjama parade at six o’clock when we all trooped across to the sea and went in as nature made us. Or else we rode the horses with snorts and splashings. The old hairy enjoyed it as much as we did and, once in, it was difficult to get him out again, even with bare heels drumming on his ribs.
The infantry, instead of landing at Alexandria, had gone straight to the Dardanelles, and after we had been in camp about a fortnight the two senior brigades of Gunners packed up and disappeared in the night, leaving us grinding our teeth with envy and hoping that they wouldn’t have licked the Turk until we got there too.
Five full months and a half we stayed in that camp! One went through two distinct phases.
The first was good, when everything was new, different, romantic, delightful, from the main streets of Alexandria with European shops and Oriental people, the club with its white-burnoused waiters with red sash and red fez, down to the unutterable filth and foul smells of the back streets where every disease lurked in the doorways. There were early morning rides to sleepy villages across the desert, pigeons fluttering round the delicate minarets, one’s horse making scarcely any sound in the deep sand until startled into a snort by a scuttling salamander or iguana as long as one’s arm. Now and then one watched breathless a string of camels on a distant skyline disappearing into the vast silence. Then those dawns, with opal colours like a rainbow that had broken open and splashed itself across the world! What infinite joy in all that riot of colour. The sunsets were too rapid: one great splurge of blood and then darkness, followed by a moonlight that was as hard as steel mirrors. Buildings and trees were picked out in ghostly white but the shadows by contrast were darker than the pit, made gruesome by the howling of pariah dogs which flitted silently like damned souls.
The eternal mystery of the yashmak caught us all,—two deep eyes behind that little veil, the lilting, sensuous walk, the perfect balance and rhythm of those women who worshipped other gods.
Then there was the joy of mail day. Letters and papers arrived regularly, thirteen days old but more precious because of it. How one sprang to the mess-table in the big marquee, open to whatever winds that blew, when the letters were dumped on it, and danced with impatience while they were being sorted, and retired in triumph to one’s reed hut like a dog with a bone to revel in all the little happenings at home that interested us so vitally, to marvel at the amazingly different points of view and to thank God that although thousands of miles away one “belonged.”
Then came the time when we had explored everything, knew it all backwards, and the colours didn’t seem so bright. The sun seemed hotter, the flies thicker and the days longer. Restlessness attacked everybody and the question “What the devil are we doing here?” began to be asked, only to draw bitter answers. Humour began to have a tinge of sarcasm, remarks tended to become personal and people disappeared precipitately after mess instead of playing the usual rubbers. The unfortunate subaltern who was the butt of the mess—a really excellent and clever fellow—relapsed into a morose silence, and every one who had the least tendency to dysentery went gladly to hospital. Even the brigade laughter-maker lost his touch. It had its echo in the ranks. Sergeants made more frequent arrests, courts-martial cropped up and it was more difficult to get the work done in spite of concerts, sports and boxing contests. Interest flagged utterly. Mercifully the Staff held aloof.
The courts-martial seemed to me most Hogarthian versions of justice, satirical and damnable. One in particular was held on a poor little rat of an infantryman who had missed the boat for Gallipoli and was being tried for desertion. The reason of his missing the boat was that she sailed before her time and he, having had a glass or two—and why not?—found that she had already gone when he arrived back in the harbour five minutes before the official time for her departure. He immediately reported to the police.
I am convinced that she was the only boat who ever sailed before her time during the course of the war!
However, I was under instruction—and learnt a great deal. The heat was appalling. The poor little prisoner, frightened out of his life, utterly lost his head, and the Court, after hours of formal scribbling on blue paper, brought him in guilty. Having obtained permission to ask a question I requested to know whether the Court was convinced that he had the intention of deserting.