Told by John Hargrave, the Famous Scoutmaster in
the Mediterranean Expeditionary Forces
John Hargrave is known throughout England as "White Fox," the famous scoutmaster. On September 8th, 1914, he said farewell to his little camp in the beechwoods of Buckinghamshire and to his woodcraft scouts and went off to enlist in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was assigned to the 32nd Field Ambulance, X Division, Mediterranean Expeditionary Forces, and sailed away to Suvla Bay, where he passed through the tragic scenes of the Dardanelles Campaign. He soon began sending stories "back home," achieving for the Gallipoli Campaign what Ian Hay did for the Western Front. These stories have been collected into a volume entitled: "At Suvla Bay," which is published in America by Houghton, Mifflin and Company. There are twenty-eight narratives told in the jargon of the common soldier. He tells about its being "A Long Way to Tipperary"; "Mediterranean Nights"; "Marooned on Lemnos Island"; "The Adventure of the White Pack Mule"; "The Sniper of Pear-Tree Gulley"; "The Adventure of the Lost Squads"; "Dug-Out Yarns"; "The Sharpshooters"; and many other incidents of Army life. One of his narratives, "Jhill-O! Johnnie!" is here retold by permission of his publishers.
I—STORY OF THE INDIAN PACK MULE CORPS
One evening the colonel sent me from our dugout near the Salt Lake to "A" Beach to make a report on the water supply which was pumped ashore from the tank-boats. I trudged along the sandy shore. At one spot I remember the carcass of a mule washed up by the tide, the flesh rotted and sodden, and here and there a yellow rib bursting through the skin. Its head floated in the water and nodded to and fro with a most uncanny motion with every ripple of the bay.
The wet season was coming on, and the chill winds went through my khaki drill uniform. The sky was overcast, and the bay, generally a kaleidoscope of Eastern blues and greens, was dull and gray.
At "A" Beach I examined the pipes and tanks of the water-supply system and had a chat with the Australians who were in charge. I drew a small plan, showing how the water was pumped from the tanks afloat to the standing tank ashore, and suggested the probable cause of the sand and dirt of which the C.O. complained.
This done I found our own ambulance water-cart just ready to return to our camp with its nightly supply. Evening was giving place to darkness, and soon the misty hills and the bay were enveloped in starless gloom.
The traffic about "A" Beach was always congested. It reminded you of the Bank and the Mansion House crush far away in London town.
Here were clanking water-carts, dozens of them waiting in their turn, stamping mules and snorting horses; here were motor-transport wagons with "W.D." in white on their gray sides; ambulance wagons jolting slowly back to their respective units, sometimes full of wounded, sometimes empty. Here all was bustle and noise. Sergeants shouting and corporals cursing; transport-officers giving directions; a party of New Zealand sharpshooters in scout hats and leggings laughing and yarning; a patrol of the R.E.'s Telegraph Section coming in after repairing the wires along the beach; or a new batch of men, just arrived, falling in with new-looking kit-bags.
It was through this throng of seething khaki and transport traffic that our water-cart jostled and pushed.