Then the evil Peninsula sent straight to Monty's feet something that seemed like a direct message of scornful warning to our little Rangoon group. It was such a message as defiant kings have sent to banter those who contemplated an invasion of their realms. This is how it came.
Day after day (you must know) in the early morning, the dead, sewn up in their blankets, were landed from the ships that had picked them up in a dying condition at Suvla and Helles. They were laid in rows on the little landing-jetty, the "Egyptian Pier." After awhile the men would put them by in a mortuary tent, where they rested till the evening, when a G.S. waggon conveyed them to the cemetery.
Generally Monty, whose duty it was to bury them, would sit on the driver's seat and ride to the cemetery, after persuading Doe and me to ride with him.
On a certain September evening Monty glanced at the Camp Commandant's "chit," and read it aloud to us: "'Seven bodies for burial at 1700.' Are you coming?"
Doe turned towards me. "Coming, Rupert?"
"No. I'm too tired."
"Oh, rot, you scrimshanker. You've been hogging it all the afternoon."
"Yes, come on," said Monty. "We'll drive on the waggon."
The G.S. waggon with its seven blanketed forms was outside waiting for Monty. It was drawn by two teams of mules with mounted drivers. The driver's seat was therefore vacant, and on to it Monty, Doe and I climbed. The waggon started, as Monty whispered: "It's rather like the Dead Cart in the days of the Great Plague, isn't it?" We never spoke loud with that load behind us.
The waggon jolted along the straight white road to the cemetery, which was a little dusty acre on a plain between the hills. We halted at the gate, and Monty, getting down from his seat, robed by the front wheels. And, when the seven bodies had been removed in their stretchers from the waggon and laid in a line upon the road, the corporal of the Burial Party saluted Monty, and said: