General Birdwood taking a Dip
Photograph by C. E. W. BEAN
Shrapnel over Anzac Beach
The shrapnel cloud can be seen, and also the water off the beach whipped up by the pellets from the shells
At the burial of Sir John Moore was heard the distant and random gun. Here the shells sometimes burst in the midst of the burial party. Bearers are laid low. A running for cover. The grave is hastily filled in by a couple of shovel-men; the service is over; and fresh graves are to be dug forthwith for stricken members of the party. To die violently and be laid in this shell-swept area is to die lonely indeed. The day is far off (but it will come) when splendid mausolea will be raised over these heroic dead. And one foresees the time when steamers will bear up the Ægean pilgrims come to do honour at the resting places of friends and kindred, and to move over the charred battlegrounds of Turkey.
Informal parades for Divine Service are held on Sabbath afternoons for such men as are off duty. Attendances are scanty. The late afternoons are becoming bleak; men relieved from labour seek the warmth of their dug-outs.
The chaplain stands where he can find a level area and awaits a congregation. When two or three are gathered together he announces a hymn. The voices go up in feeble unison, punctuated by the roar of artillery and the crackle of rifle fire. The prayers are offered. The address is short and shorn of cant. This is no place for canting formula. Reality is very grim all round. There is a furtive under-watchfulness against shrapnel. One almost has forgotten what it is to sit in security and listen placidly to a sermon at church.
The chaplains have come out to do their work simply and laboriously. They are direct-minded, purposeful men. One is a neighbour in a Light Horse regiment—a colonel. He flaunts it in no sandbagged palace. His dug-out is indistinguishable from those of the privates between whom he is sandwiched—mere waterproof sheet aloft and bed laid on the Turkish clay; a couple of biscuit boxes with his oddments—jam, and milk, and bread: writing materials and toilet requisites. A string line beneath the roof holds his towel and lately washed garments. He is a simple parson, hard-worked by day and night in and about the trenches, careful for such comforts as can be got for his men in this benighted land; lying down at nights listening to the forceful lingo of his neighbours, and confessedly admiring its graphic if well-garnished eloquence. He sees his duty with a direct gaze—a faithful Churchman at work in the throes of war.
In a land of necessarily hard fare a regimental canteen in Imbros does much to compensate. Unit representatives proceed thence weekly by trawler for stores. One feels almost in the land of the living when so near lie tinned fruit, butter, cocoa, coffee, sausages, sauces, chutneys, pipes, tobacco, and chocolate. Such a repertoire, combined with a monthly visit from the paymaster, removes one far from the commissariat hardships of the Crimea.