"A good death for him, too," said Sam, thinking of the fine fellows this man had killed and wounded. A sniper, let it be known, does not play the clean game of war, and any punishment is justifiable.
Bill had given him his deserts.
CHAPTER VIII
"HELL-FIRE POST"
"Bullets here, bullets there,
Bullets, bullets everywhere."
Such is trench life. Death at every corner, death at every moment of the day. Bullets plunk against the parapet with a monotonous regularity; others crack in the air like a whip, while some whiz past the ear like a great queen bee. At odd intervals a dose of shrapnel heightens the nerves, and now and again a high-explosive comes down with a shuddering boom!
A trench isn't the place for a lady, it isn't the place for a mild-mannered curate. It's the place for blunt, hard and active men. In fact, the nearer man is to the brute creation the better he is at this game. The highly strung, carefully fed, hot-house plant, such as a mamma's darling, hasn't a look in. He finds it a beastly bore, and longs for the drawing-room cushions and afternoon tea. Trench life reveals the best and shows the worst. A man's nature stands out like a statue. For trench life a man needs the stomach of a horse, the strength of a lion, and the nerves of a navvy. Any man can do a bayonet charge; any man can shoot down the charging host; but it takes a braver man to live in a trench month after month. His nostrils are filled with the stench of the fallen, for his parapet is frequently built up with the dead. His tea is made with water polluted with germs, the bully beef stew is generally soaked in dust and sand.
And the flies! They're worse than all, the pestilential breed! Flies kill more men than bullets. Flies were surely invented by some ancient Hun.
Trench life in France is a picnic compared with the Dardanelles. In France, one can get soft bread, fresh coffee and yesterday's Times. But, in the Dardanelles it is biscuits and bully, bully and biscuits—without the news of Pollokshields and Mayfair. Yet, despite the severity of things, the Australasians were ever serene. To them it was a sporting game. They had been used to boiling their own billy cans; used to looking for firewood; used to making a shanty wherein to lay their heads. Where the Cockney might die from heat and thirst, the Australasian can thrive like a Zulu or aborigine. City bred troops demand an organisation of things; Australasian troops organise things for themselves. And where our friends of The Kangaroo Marines were certainly demanded all their cunning and courage. It was called "Hell-Fire Post." This was on the left of the Australian line, within thirty yards of the Turks. The post had developed from a thin line of holes into a strong redoubt. Many had died, more had been wounded in defending this place, but it was worth it. This was the key of the whole line. That was why The Kangaroo Marines were there. When they took it over, they found the parapets thin and bullets coming in all round.