“Yes, sir, I’m all right.”
He did not look at me at all, it was a trait of his; but he showed no signs of going away, and sat on crumpling the leaf to powder. All at once he said, “How d’ye like this?”
“It’s better than Mena.” He answered with a kind of chuckle. “What sort of time have you had, sir?” He said nothing, but sniggered again. “You were over pretty early, weren’t you, sir?”
“Oh, yes, Lake, pretty early,” he answered. “But I wasn’t in the rush up the hill. I was with the brigadier then.”
“The infantry seem to have done all right,” I said. “You can see their packs at the bottom of the hill over there, where they threw them off.”
“Yes, the Third did all right,” he went on, after a pause. “But you know it wasn’t the great affair it was made out to be. We were expected to land lower down, on the flat where the entanglements are. But there was some mistake or other, and we were put off here. The Turkish army was lower down, and there was only a machine gun detachment on the beach. After that had been rushed, there was practically no resistance until we were at the top of the hill. By then the Turks had brought their men up, and when we got to the open country and came properly under fire, our men began to waver and fall back, and that was how so many officers were lost, rallying them. Afterwards they advanced too far, and pushed on nearly into the Turkish camp, and as the reinforcements were not there, they had to retreat under heavy fire, and so the losses happened.” He snivelled as he finished, and as afterthought brought out the handkerchief.
This seemed a more likely story than the other one. The scrub lay on the hills as thick as hairs on a mat, and no men could rush through it, and no enemy could see to shoot them if they did. The first story was a fine one, but this second more true. Sands took up his tale again.
“You hear every man say there are only a hundred men left of his battalion, and that he is the last man of his platoon, and that kind of thing; but, of course, it isn’t so. The battalions lost themselves the first day, they’re all mixed up, and until there’s a chance to reorganise a bit, thousands will be missing.”
We sat a long time without speaking again; but at last Sands looked sideways at me.
“Lake, next time you are down at the beach, do you think you could find me a pair of boots somewhere? These are done for.” And he pushed forward the one with the heel gone. “You ought to be able to get something at the hospital or the morgue. One boot will do if you can’t get a pair.”