Towards evening the D battalion officers congregated at the top of Shrapnel Valley by a curtained dug-out used as an office. They drifted there in ones and twos to smoke and yawn and stare at the sea. From here you looked down the length of Shrapnel Valley on camps clustering all the way. The signallers wagged to one another to keep in practice, and the reinforcements drilled on a flat open space at the lower end. A few shells might be travelling forwards and backwards, but frequently there was no more sound than the lazy crack of the snipers. Overlooking this, the D Battalion officers sat on up-ended packing cases and smoked. And with them often sat the colonel, and not far off I leaned against the bank, exchanging news with the telephonists in the office. “Who would think this was war?” says the colonel, rubbing his nose with the end of the periscope. “Half a dozen men sitting on boxes smoking and cursing the flies. And a beautiful blue sea to look at, and a beautiful blue sky overhead. I always pictured myself galloping into action at the head of my brigade and flourishing a sword. Why a sword I don’t know; but it was like a picture in a story book, and there were red bombs bursting round my head. And now I have to tramp up and down these dirty hills. I won’t come again. I shall send someone else instead. Did you see what Hamilton said in brigade orders—‘the incomparable Twenty-ninth.’ That rather blows us out, doesn’t it? You can’t easily beat ‘incomparable.’ I suppose when a general hasn’t had his name in the paper for a few days, he starts writing ‘incomparable’ and ‘glorious’ and ‘magnificent’ before his troops; and then the people at home say, ‘Those men have been through a hard time. That general must be a hell of a clever fellow.’”
Truly one might look down this valley and not think of war. There were no armed men about, and many fellows wore flannel shirts open at the neck, and knickerbockers cut above the knee, and legs bare the rest of the way, so that little was to show of the original uniform. Roads worn solid by passage of many feet led to the principal places, and the thick scrub that once had made this valley so difficult and so romantic had long gone as firewood for the cooks. I have seen mining camps with all the same appearance. But In time the secret was given away. It might be the enemy sent us half a dozen big shells at tea-time, or on the way up or down you passed a stretcher making the journey to the beach. Once I met a dead man lying on the side of the road. His lower body was naked and mottled, and the two legs stuck stiffly into the air with toes apart. I saw nobody attending to him, though he was gone when I came back. Another day there came a great burst of clapping from the lower part of the valley, so that fellows left their work and turned about to know what went forward. Presently news hurried along that the war was over, as the Kaiser had murdered the Crown Prince; but later I heard the peaceful morning had tempted from his funk-hole a well-known dug-out king. Hence the applause.
We met a little man one tea-time just below Infantry Headquarters. We came down from our evening battle, and he was striding up. “Good day, sir,” he says, and salutes. “Hallo, captain,” cries the colonel. “I thought you were down at Helles?” “Back again,” says the captain. “You had a hot time down there,” says the colonel. “Pretty hot,” says the captain; “ha! ha! It was their machine guns that played the deuce. Ha, ha, ha! You know, two or three men with machine guns can hold up a battalion. Ha, ha! You know, before very long war will be one man in an armoured box, turning a treadle, ha ha! and setting fifty machine guns going. Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!” “Well, so long, I’m off to tea,” says the colonel. And away we go.
The bitter monotony of every day put men at their wit’s end to escape the place, and fellows went sick unaccountably, and had strange bullet wounds in hand or foot. And this brings to mind a man I met near Clayton’s trenches. The enemy was giving us hurry-up with five- and six-inch shells, and the colonel led the way in solid style by back trenches towards E Battery observing station. The shells arrived one or two per minute, and burst with a dull roar. Some fell ahead of us and some behind us, and there was no reason one should not fall atop of us. Therefore, as we had no call here, it was prudent to choose a healthier locality. At a traverse corner a parapet had come down, and a man stood trapped by the legs, pulling to and fro to get free. I fell on my knees to drag away the dirt. Soon I had loosed him so that his efforts did the rest. He came free, panting and rather scared; but in no manner hurt it seemed. I jumped up again, and the colonel, who waited near by, set the pace anew. I had forgotten all about him by tea-time, when I met a procession going down to the beach. The centre figure was the hero of the afternoon, and a man supported him on either side. A third man carried his equipment, and a fourth his pack and blankets. “Off for a holiday,” thought I. “Well, here’s luck.”
The Triumph, who had laboured long and hard in our cause, was torpedoed in sight of the army. We came out of the trenches upon a group of officers and men staring to sea with glasses to their eyes. They were tongue-tied, except for one or two murmurs of regret. Not far off Gaba Tepeh lay the battleship listing to one side: to her aid raced destroyers from all over the bay. They closed about her and began the work of rescue; and Gaba Tepeh seized the opportunity of a lifetime, and opened fiercely with shrapnel. The destroyers blazed back, the flashes winked like Morse lights; and a brisk engagement followed. The work of rescue went forward, and presently the Triumph heeled over with increasing speed, and next with a plunge she disappeared—disappeared but for her red keel, which floated for some while. The destroyers remained to pick up survivors, and next they dispersed. Gaba Tepeh shut her mouth. And we men who watched from the hilltop put away our glasses and looked at one another. There was a great muttering and shaking of heads. “Damned bad. Damned bad!” This was the first warning submarines had come so far abroad, and the navy took fright and steamed away. In time remained only destroyers and such light craft. There followed submarine scares, and hunts were organised, when aeroplanes patrolled the bay and destroyers followed. The hunt might continue all day, but I never heard of a capture.
The aeroplanes of both armies grew bold, so that our men sailed over the enemy trenches to observe and bomb, and the enemy treated us to like programme, usually at tea-time. Yards, the adjutant, went up sometimes, and the colonel would crane his neck and watch him. Says the colonel one day: “I shall not try and fly until I become an angel. I’m a nervous little fellow.” The enemy planes were German Taubes, which circled overhead in fashion most trying to those below. When the bomb came free, it sounded as if it fell in a succession of dives, and gave no hint of its target. Then came the final rush, and a moment of fierce suspense; and then the roar of the bursting bomb. And then may be went abroad the cry for stretcher-bearers.
With such diversions as I tell of, the summer wore on.