The Straits Impregnable

by Sydney Loch

Now a track ran round the shoulder of our hill, joining the beach with a broad valley thrusting into the mountains. One could not follow the course of the valley far, as hills interrupted; but I had the belief that at its head lay the trenches our infantry held. The track I speak of curved in front of the guns, and was exposed all the way to such attentions as the enemy liked to give. Yet continually passengers passed up and down. All manner of men went, and all paces they went at. There were curious, lonely infantrymen, who came out of the valley and disappeared towards the beach. There were those who passed at a walk, and those who went by at a halting run, dodging before the guns and losing themselves in no time. Several lines of stretcher cases arrived at slower pace, or a single stretcher advanced down the road, or even a walking wounded man appeared, leaning on the shoulder of a friend. Not one who went that way but was dusty, parched, and tired. And some men would return towards the valley—stretcher-bearers in general case. Some ran over the open as fast as weariness allowed, but others plodded forward worn past anxiety.

But of all who came and went, I remembered best two men approaching with utmost slowness from the valley. They were a chaplain and a wounded man whom he supported. I watched them all the way, for they came so slowly and with such small concern of the hubbub round; the chaplain engrossed in his task, and the wounded man beyond all caring for what befell. They passed near to us, at one time below our breast-work, the chaplain talking to his friend or looking along the path towards the hospitals on the beach. I am glad to have seen those men go by.

Merrily the fight went forward. Officers came up beside us, and talked a little with the colonel and watched a little, and went away again. One who came was Major Andrews, and I heard we were landing more guns, and some of the Staff were on the way over. He spoke of meeting them and went off.

All the while the colonel said never a word to me; but he scanned the field with his glasses, and once or twice he used a telescope. Often he would look towards the beach and curse the absence of his guns.

This cup in the hills was not the only spot of battle: the enemy still remembered the beach and the sea, and many a shell went whistling past us over that way. I began to tire of the place, and would have welcomed a move; but just then I caught sight of some of our Staff climbing from the beach. They had just landed, for they were loaded with flags and field telephones, besides personal equipment. They panted from their efforts, and coming to the top of the rise nearly below us, bunched together in the open, and looked as though they knew it too. I was sending a good-day nod from my funk-hole, when the colonel brushed me on one side, and, lifting over the parapet all of his head that was wanted, called out impatiently to Mr. Gardiner in charge.

“What about the guns, Mr. Gardiner? What have you done with them?”

“They’re here, sir. We met the major!”

And then there followed explanations, and it turned out the guns were going the wrong way, and Gardiner went back in a hurry, put about for the first time.

Though things straightened finally, the morning was confused and full of running about. Afternoon was no better. Until evening I followed on the colonel’s heels; and he went this way, that way, and every way, over the shingle, and up and down the small hills which met the beach. All day the shells came from inland, tumbling about us at every angle, or tearing up the waters for a brief moment. All day the transports sent reinforcements; and new guns and barges of ammunition and provisions arrived. The hospital ships sailed away, and others steamed from the horizon. Men dug in wherever an inch of cover was. Gangs of sappers drove roads, and toiling lines of men dragged the field guns from the beach along the roads to positions on the hills. Every hour left us surer of our footing.