Says the colonel to me one day as we pass the fork where Shrapnel and Monash Valleys join—“I can send you down to the Column as acting bombardier.”
“Sir,” I answer, “acting bombardier is a thankless job. The men know an acting bombardier draws no extra pay, and they value him accordingly.”
“Well,” says the colonel, “a man has got to make a beginning.”
That is all our speech, but next day I am ordered down to the Column, and I go as full bombardier.
CHAPTER XIX
THE LAST OF ANZAC
The Column had dug themselves in on the ruins of our old headquarters. They were handy to the beach, and boasted an uninterrupted view of the sea. The place had much to recommend it; but it suffered from the attentions of Beachy Bill and his comrade of Anafarta. As a newcomer, I had poor choice of funk-holes; but I picked one in a hollow, screened from Beachy Bill and moderately protected from the Anafarta gun. Here I laid my kit and waited what might be in store.
I was growing ill. I had suffered long from dysentery, but that was in common with all the army. Now a terrible weariness took hold of me, with headache and bodily pains. I thought the attack would prove the affair of a day; but I could get no better. I wondered what was becoming of me.
I had no complaint to lodge on the score of duty. Two days after arrival, I was detailed three men and sent a little way up the valley to guard a provision depot built in anticipation of the reinforcements. These reinforcements now were expected daily. I divided the guard into shifts of two hours on duty and four hours off, and after seeing that the work was carried out, I could call my time my own. I put up an awning, and slept under its shadow through the heat of the day, in defiance of the searching odours of the yellow cheeses simmering in the sun. At five o’clock in the afternoon it was possible to move abroad, and about then the enemy put in a few rounds of some ancient field-piece, half cannon and half trench mortar. It hurled a rough iron ball which shattered into three or four pieces. The provision stack seemed always the target. And visiting Taubes commonly left a card in the shape of a bomb. Several stretcher-parties started from our neighbourhood on the journey to the beach, but the provision stack and its guard remained. But, as I hint, if nothing demanded your stay, it was as well about five o’clock to visit other parts.