The position of the English did not seem enviable. They had trenches directly in front of them, and several hundred feet above them a second line (from which we were looking) dominating the whole neighborhood. The first-line Turkish trenches were too close to their own to be bombarded from the ships, so that that preliminary advantage was cut off; the second-line defenses, in the twisting gullies over the hill, could stand bombardment about as well as could trenches anywhere—and behind them was the water. They were very literally between the devil and the deep sea.
With the periscope we worked from Kaba Tepe on the left clear across the ground in front of us to the north. Over in the west, by hazy Imbros, were five or six ships; there was another fleet in the north to-ward the Gulf of Saros, and little black beetles of destroyers crawled here and there across the blue sea floor. The major took us into his tent for cigarettes and another thimbleful of the coffee. He, too, had been educated in Germany, spoke German and French, and with his quick, bright eyes and soft smile, would easily have passed for a Frenchman or Italian.
They had just had a seven hours' armistice to bury the dead and bring in the wounded, some of whom had been lying between the trenches for a week. The English had proposed the armistice; an officer had come out from each side, and they had had a long pow-wow and drawn up a written agreement with meticulous care lest there should be a misunderstanding or danger of breaking the truce. Everything, the major said, had been most good-natured and correct. The English had sent a "diplomat" in addition to their military delegate, a civilian whom he had known well in Constantinople. It was altogether quaint and interesting, meeting and talking with this man, with whom he might, so to speak, have been playing bridge the night before—"Sehr nett! Sehr nett!" he said. With his soft smile.
While he was waiting to receive the English delegate, five shrapnel- shells had been fired at him, he said; but he understood that it was a mistake and made no protest, and during the truce a wounded Turk had refused to take the water an English officer had tried to give him, firing at the Englishman instead. A little fanatical, perhaps, but then—and again the major smiled in his charming way—"a little fanaticism in one's soldiers is a good thing!"
No, one didn't care to be hanging on to that strip of beach with those Australians and New Zealanders. We drove back to camp for lunch, which we had in the captain's little brush-covered balcony, set into the hill. He did not eat, but showed us his photograph, very smooth and dapper, compared with his bristling service face, taken with his two children, one a little girl and the other a grave little boy, with a face like a miniature pasha. The captain came from the Asiatic side, near Broussa, on the slopes of Olympus, and was all Turk, without any foreign frills or a word of English, German, or French. He took no lunch, but ate some of the helva left over from Stamboul, and then started with us up the hill behind the camp.
This was about midway in the peninsula, and, facing south from the summit, we looked down over the twisting hills, pockmarked with holes from shells and aeroplane bombs, to the Marmora on the left, and on the right to the Aegean and hazy Imbros, and, in front, almost to the end of the peninsula. The sun was down in the west, and in its track a cruiser steamed a mile or two out from the coast, while from under Ari Burnu, where we had been that morning, a transport put out, rather recklessly it seemed, and went straight across the open water. From the south and west there was the continual Br-r-umr-m… br-r-um-m! of big guns, and over Kaba Tepe way we could see shells bursting. We sat there for an hour or so, waiting for one of the little specks out on the blue sea floor to fire or sink, and then, as nothing happened, returned to camp.
An orderly brought us supper that night—mutton, bread and cheese, haricots, stewed fruit, and coffee—and we dined on a little table outside the tent, with the twilight turning to moonlight and the sheep-bells tinkling against the opposite hill. Soldiers were carrying their suppers from the cook tent—not at all the bread-and-cigarette diet with which one is always being told the hardy Turk is content. He may be content, but whenever I saw him eating he had meat and rice, and often stewed fresh beans or fruit—certainly better food than most Turkish peasants or artisans are accustomed to at home.
I sat outside watching the moon rise and listening to the distant Crack… crack-crack! of rifle and machine-gun fire from over Ari Bumu way. Evidently they were fighting in the trenches we had seen that morning. The orderly who had served us, withdrawn a little way, was standing like a statue in the dusk, hands folded in front of him, saying his last prayer of the evening. Beyond, from a bush-covered tent, came the jingle of a telephone and 'the singsong voice of the young Turkish operator relaying messages in German—"Ja!… Ja!… Kaba Tepe… Ousedom Pasha… Morgen frith… Hier Multepe!… Ja!… Ja!"
And to this and the distant rattle of battle we went to sleep.