The Straits Impregnable

by Sydney Loch

Now the men on the rope pulled away, some with an even pull and some in a heartless, jerky fashion, for their minds were on the shells hurling over. There were those who dropped down nearly to the ground, and grinned in sheepish and unhappy manner. The warrant officer trod heavily up and down as cool as you like, and I wondered how soon he would say something—something to the point, I mean. All suddenly sounded a rush and a bang right over our heads, and that poor line of cockneys crouched this way and that, and a fellow dropped the rope and ran away under the cliff. The warrant officer turned round—revolved is the word, for round objects revolve—and he did not wave his arms or do any other thing, lest he should burst perhaps; but he roared out—and I liked his voice less than the shrapnel—“Come out of that, you skulker! If you be killed, you be killed!” Feebly the man came back, and the rope straightened again, and the barge came ashore.

“My salute, sir. In all humility Gunner Lake offers his salute.”

Finally the colonel’s business on the beach ended, and he went the way I had gone overnight. The sappers had driven the road out of sight, and farther on the stairway over the hill was completed. We followed up the ravine, until I made sure we were about to look for the A Battery gun; but we moved somewhat to the right hand and gained the crest that way. I say “gained the crest,” but we stopped just short of the top, for on the farther side went forward with utmost spirit a dainty little battle. Had all been quiet one would have looked and beheld only the wilderness, for the guns were hidden in odd clumps of scrub, and of infantry there was no sign. Later I found a few of them in a trench behind the guns and quite close to us. I wondered then what they did there.

Now the sun had climbed up into the sky, a jolly warming sun who searched alike open and thicket with his glances. To be sure, he drew away to him the fresh morning scents; but he left all the scrubland silvery and quivering, and threw a glad haze over the open country. Hills and valleys were about us, and next a broad plain, and beyond that the great breast of Achi-Baba. Hills and valleys were before us, and the flat sea behind.

We stayed but a few instants just here ere a bullet skimmed by and set us thinking of healthier places. It happened that on the right of this crest was a scooped-out spot, not exactly a trench, probably some old Turkish observing station. The colonel saw there what he wanted, and we went for it at the double, jumped down into it and dropped on our knees. It had a depth of three or four foot, and we could stay fairly protected and look over the top and scan the whole countryside. The morning was wonderfully pretty—the place was ablaze with sunlights, browns and smoky blues. When one found the guns and gunners, which was only possible of those near by, their dress harmonised so exactly that they did not offend. And the roar of battle was less hideous here. The musketry rolled from all around, and the hissing bursts of machine guns were born and died. There was the plucky “bang-bang” of a mountain battery, and the heavier voice of our own gun, which opened its mouth ever and anon. But there was nothing of that bellow of the ponderous guns at sea.

I was on my knees with only my head above the parapet, and not an inch more of that than need be. The firing came from all over the place, so much so that one was put to it to tell which was from us and which from the enemy. Thus an extra inch was of account.

Briskly as went forward the battle, it must wait my attention while I roamed a farmer’s eye across the landscape. All was so charming and so full of contrast. We—the colonel and I—were perched in a land of heights and depths, which in happier days may have grazed lean flocks of sheep and goats. Over in the distance there was a wide flat country of vines and cropland, even now filling with the harvest. Humble homes were hid there, with anxious wife or aged mother as guardian. For the lords had gone forth, changing the sickle for the musket.

Somewhere in that flat country the enemy lay, though I never picked them up, as I was without glasses. I found our men slowly, and in every case suddenly. They were beneath us, and rather to the left hand. A mountain gun and our own A Battery gun were close—quite close, a matter of yards. Yet one must look keenly to see the brown puggareed men at their posts, and our own green-uniformed gunners beyond. It was their movements and the flashes which made this possible.

I have said there was an old trench behind the guns, filled with a number of our infantry. It had little depth, and from up here one might look right in. The fellows crouched or sat, rifle in hand, helping nothing towards the business. I could not understand it.