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NOTE BY THE AUTHOR
NOTE BY THE AUTHOR
These sketches were not originally written for publication in the form of a book; and there has been little opportunity of revising them with that object. The idea of collection and publication came late, after they (most of them) had appeared in the daily press or in some other journal; and it came rather by suggestion from friends than on the writer's initiative. The collection is rough and inconsecutive. It does not attempt to give a complete picture of what was to be seen by an Australian at
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
TRANSPORT There is something high-sounding in the name Australian Imperial Expeditionary Force. The expedition with which our troop-ship cast loose justified, so far, our part in that name. The false alarms relating to the date of embarkation, raised whilst we were still in camp, had bred in us a kind of scepticism as to all such pronouncements. When it was told that we would go aboard on Tuesday, most of us emitted a sarcastic "te-hee!" And it was not until on Monday morning our black kit-bags
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
UP THE CANAL We put into the outer harbour at Aden for some hours to wait for the main fleet, from which we had been parted mysteriously off Colombo. They came in the early morning, handed us a heavy home-mail, and by sundown we were all in motion, steaming up into the heat of the Red Sea. If this is the Red Sea in midwinter, the Lord deliver us from its summer! The heat is beguiled by heavy betting as to the port of disembarkation. But as we get up towards Suez the hand of the war-lords begins
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
ABBASSIEH We left the ship's side in a barge that might have carried twice our number without crowding. Every man of us had chafed at the confinement of the voyage, but not one did not now regret the dissociation from our unit, with all the chances it carried of never rejoining, and even, possibly, of never getting to Europe at all. Private friendships do not fall within the consideration of motives in the issue of military orders. Men were calling a farewell from the deck with whom we would hav
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
ON LEAVE IN CAIRO It is not so long ago as to render it untrue now that Dean Stanley said, looking down from the Citadel: "Cairo is not the ghost of the dead Egyptian Empire, nor anything like it." The interval elapsed since that reflection was uttered has, indeed, only deepened its truth. Cairo is becoming more modern every season. The "booming" of Cairo as a winter resort for Europeans was begun at the opening of the Canal by the Khedive Ismail. His ambition was the transforming of Cairo into
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
THE MOOSKI The camp at Tel-el-Kebir is a good camp, as camp sites go. None the less exhilarating for that is the prospect of leave in Cairo. After retiring, you spend most of the night before you go in planning the most judicious economy of the few hours you will have in the great city. And so you wake up short of sleep—for the train leaves soon after sunrise—and curse yourself for an incontinent fool, no better than some mercurial youngster who cannot sleep for thinking of the party on the next
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
THE JOURNEY We were given twelve hours to collect bag and baggage and clear out from Abbassieh. It was a night of alarms and excursions. In the midst of it all came a home-mail. That was one of many occasions on which one in His Majesty's service is forced to postpone the luxury of perusal. Sometimes a mail will come in and be distributed just before the "Fall-in" is blown. This means carrying about the budget unopened and burning a hole in the pocket for a half-day—and more. In this case the ma
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
GLIMPSES OF ANZAC I It's the monotony that kills; not hard work, nor hard fare. We have now been disembarked on the Peninsula rather longer than three months. But there has been little change in our way of living. Every day there is the same work on the same beach, shelled by the same guns, manned by the same Turks—presumably the same; for we never seem to knock-out those furtive and deadly batteries that enfilade the Cove Beach and maim or kill—or both—almost daily. Every morning we look out on
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
GLIMPSES OF ANZAC II A whole legion of Gallipoli maps has been published in the Press. They show the landing-places. All Australians know the Anzac positions where their sons and brothers scrambled from the boats, splashed to the fatal sand, and fell forthwith or fixed the steel and charged to conquer or fall above. This spot, where Australians showed the world what manner of man is nurtured beneath the Southern Cross, is fair to look on. We saw it first from the sea, in the full burst of the sp
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
SIGNALS The step is a far one from the signal-office of the first month in Anzac to that of December. The first crude centre of intelligence was like a Euclidean point—without magnitude, with position only. It was a mere location from which signals could be despatched, without any of the show of a compartment, and without apparatus. And the wireless station was a hastily scratched hole in the sand, where the operator supported himself on an elbow and received. Now in December this is all changed
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
THE DESPATCH-RIDERS But though Army Corps Headquarters is in touch with the flanks by both telephone and telegraph, that is not enough. Either or both may fail. But apart from that, there are some communications which no officer will trust to a wire. And until that is premised one wonders vaguely what is the use for despatch-riders. Almost it would seem that in these days, when so much of the romance of war has departed, telephone and telegraph would do all; indeed, the despatch-rider and his st
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
THE BLIZZARD One knows little of the times and the seasons at which the early Gallipoli winter plays its pranks. It is fairly gymnastic in its turns of temperature. Still, we never expected a snow-blizzard in November. For thus spoke the official weather-god (through the Peninsula Press ) regarding that fair month: "November generally comes in fine, with a lovely first ten-days or so. It, however, becomes rather sharp at night, and there may be expected a cold snap in the second or third week of
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
EVACUATION There will be a leavening of Egyptian in the Australian vernacular after peace has broken out. It will persist, and perhaps have a weighty etymological influence—at any rate on the colloquial vocabulary. "Baksheesh" will be a universal term, not confined to sketches of Oriental travel. "Baksheesh" is merely one of the many grafted Arabic terms, but it will be predominant. "Sae'eda" will be the street greeting (varied by the Sikh "Salaam, sahib"). "Feloose kiteer," "mafish," "min fadla
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
LEMNOS After many delays we landed, and after many wanderings arrived at a camping-ground, and went supperless and tentless to bed—too tired to remark, rolled in our blankets, either drenching dew or stony ground, but not so weary as to be unconscious of the absence of shell. Our Last Post for many months had been sounded by bursting shell (for many a man it had been Last Post indeed); the massed buglers of the battalions seemed now a voice from the land of spirits. There were men (they are to b
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
MAHSAMAH "The ——th and ——th Divisions will move from —— to —— in flights of —— thousands daily. Two hundred and fifty camels will be allotted to each flight for baggage-transport. Mahsamah will be the end of the first stage.... You will proceed to Mahsamah, taking with you —— thousand rations, establish a depôt, and issue rations to the flights for twenty-four hours." So ran the order. Confound the flights! Why can't they train it? Mahsamah's out of the world. These camps in desert places are gh
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
CANAL ZONE At Serapœum, sprawled upon the Canal-banks just above the Bitter Lakes, you are sufficiently far from Cairo to be delivered from the hankering after the city such as gnaws you intermittently at such a place as Tel el Kebir. From the old battle-ground you may run up in a couple of hours; from the Canal the length of the journey is trebled, and encroaches seriously upon your feloose , and that is a consideration which ought not to—which will not—be despised on service. And beside the fa
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
ALEXANDRIA THE THIRD TIME It's like returning to visit an old friend—rushing towards the sea of masts behind the sea of white towers glittering beside the sea of Mediterranean blue. At the first glimpse of that multitudinous shipping you lose interest in the sea of green delta through which you are rushing; the mud-walled village-islands rising from it lose charm in anticipation of the big city you know so well. You remember it with a sort of yearning for its nobility. For noble it is. There is
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
THE LAST OF EGYPT The map shows Port Said dumped at the end of a lean streak of sand flanking the Canal. For half the distance from Ismailia the train sweeps along this tract. There is the Canal on your right, rich-blue between its walled banks and foiled by the brown heat-hazed world east; and on your left are the interminable shallows exuding the stink of rank salt, and traversed drearily by fishing-craft. Port Said at the approach much resembles Alexandria: the same brown, toppling irregulari
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
ENTRÉE You can conceive the sense of exaltation with which one would enter the South of France in June, after five months in Egypt. You can conceive better than describe it. So can the writer. In a moment it comes back from this distance, with a reality that elates; but it defies description. The universal sand of Egypt: the timbered heights and the flowered valleys of the Riviera; the stinks of the Egyptian cities: the June fragrance breathing down from the hills of Marseilles; the filth and de
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
BILLETED The natural course was to advertise. The Journal de Rouen received us tolerantly, even compassionately. No one of us could speak French, but one pretty member of the office staff (more accurately, one member of the pretty office staff) could speak a kind of English. The first demand was for a petite annonce in French. And when the lady saw this was out of the question for us, she offered a translation of an English paragraph. It brought a shoal of responses in French. A kind of horse-se
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
THE SEINE AT ROUEN I don't know what the Seine at Rouen is like in times of peace-trade. They say war has quadrupled its congestion. I well believe it. The pool is crammed below the Grand Pont—there's nothing above but barge traffic—with ships disgorging at a frenzied rate at the uneven cobbled quays. One can imagine the port lazing along before the War in the informal and leisurely way that is French. The French enjoy living. They are industrious enough for that. But they don't take their work
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
ROUEN REVUE Except when Lena Ashwell comes with her English concert-party, evening entertainments—that is, public entertainments—in Rouen are limited by some cinemas and two theatres that stage revue . The cinemas are like all other cinemas, except that the humour is broader and sexual intrigue is shown in a more fleshly and passionate form. The audience differs from an English, not in that flirtation is more fierce, but in the running fire of comment directed at the film, and from the way in wh
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
LA BOUILLE The steamer leaves the Quai de Paris every afternoon at two. Most days it is crowded. The War does not hinder women and the ineligible and les blessés from taking their pleasure down the lovely Seine. Why should it? People should in war-time look to the efficiency of civilians as well as of soldiers. It is as profitable, to this end, that the Seine pleasure-boats should run as that the London theatres should keep open under the darkened anti-Zeppelin sky. It's women who crowd the boat
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
BEHIND THE LINES—I The road between —— and —— is a fearful and wonderful place in the swift-closing winter evening. The early winter rains are drifting gustily across it. The last of the autumn leaves are whirling away. The far western valley is a gulf of mist; the rain-squalls wash about its slopes. The road beneath you, between its low flanks, is a channel of mobile black slush, too far churned for striation. Ever since the rains began, two weeks ago, there has been a traffic on it that is con
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
BEHIND THE LINES—II The lines of communication one can expect to be trailed with interest. There the strings are being pulled—though that is a pitiable figure. It is more than a rehearsal for the soul-shaking drama enacting on the Front; but it is as full of interest as orchestral rehearsal is more interesting than the performance coram publico . Rehearsal in orchestra shows the final performance in the making: here you see the Somme Battle in the making. A French town that is within seven miles
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
C.C.S. The ——th C.C.S. claims to be the hospital farthest advanced on the Somme. The claim is justified. Its grounds are lit at night by the gun-flashes. The discharge of our own heavies rattles the bottles in its dispensary and makes its canvas tremble. Sleep is sometimes driven from the eyes of its patients, not by pain, but by the thunder of bombardment. Convoys from the dressing stations have but a short run. The wounded arrive with the trench-mud wet upon them. Clearing them up is quick, if
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
THE FOUGHTEN FIELD I visited the fields of Beaumont-Hamel and Miraumont and Bapaume soon after they had been abandoned, in the pleasant sunshine of an April Sabbath afternoon. It was the abomination of desolation I saw—and felt. Of Beaumont-Hamel there was not a stone left standing, it was not until I had been told that a village once stood there that I began to distinguish the powdered rubble from its surroundings. There was difficulty in doing that, for not only were the buildings demolished,
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
AN ADVANCED RAILHEAD At an advanced railhead one has to contend with other difficulties than that of the congestion of railway traffic, which is inevitable near the line. There are the French, who control all the traction. This includes the shunting: you must not forget the shunting. It's the shunting that kills. Your pack ( pack is the technical term for supply-train) may arrive at railhead at 5 p.m.; but it may not be in position for clearance by divisions until midnight. This plays the devil
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
ARRAS AFTER THE PUSH The traffic on the cobbled road to Arras raises a dust—although it is cobbled. The spring green of the elms that line it is overcast with the pallor of a man under the anæsthetic. The fresh breeze raises a dust that sometimes stops a motor cyclist; sometimes it is the multiplicity of traffic that stops him. His face and hair are as dust-pallid as the trees. The push is over. The traffic in and out is as heavy as it could be. There is no intermission in it. It files past the
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
A MORNING IN PICARDY The beginning of spring in Northern France is elating above the month of May in the Rhône Valley—not because spring in Southern France is not more beautiful, but because it is less welcome. It is by comparison that the loveliness of the Picardy spring takes hold upon you: by comparison with the bitterness of the Picardy winter. You may walk about Marseilles or Lyon in January without a great-coat; in Arras this would be the death of you. The frozen mud, the sleet, the snow,
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
THÉRÈSE I was sitting on a log at the crest of the splendidly high La Bouille ridge gloating over the Seine Valley. Here, from the grounds of La Maison Brûlée (now raucous with revellers in the late afternoon) you have a generous sweep of the basin and of its flanking forest slopes. A Frenchman and his wife sauntered past with their daughter and took a seat beyond. The daughter was beautiful, with an air of breeding that sorted well with the distinguished bearing of the old man and the well-sust
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
LEAVES FROM A VILLAGE DIARY Sunday, —th. —This morning a Taube came over our village, dropping bombs. They all fell in the neighbouring wood. Our aircraft defences made a fervent response, but ineffectual. At 6.30 this evening I counted eighteen of our 'planes flying home. They have a facetious trick of shutting off their engines high and far from home and floating down on resistance. It's curious watching a 'plane suddenly dissociated from the raucous buzz of its engine. To-night the whole east
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
THE CAFÉ DU PROGRÈS The Café de Progrès stands in the Rue de —— half-way down to the river. It's the place where merchants most do congregate. The manager of the Banque de —— leads them. The place that the first bank manager in the town frequents daily is thereby given a tone which no other café in D—— can have. So it is the first among the lounging-places only. That leads to a rough division of all the cafés in the town into two great classes: those you lounge and drink in, and those to which y
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
L'HÔTEL DES BONS ENFANTS It stands facing the Place de l'Église, with its back to the Route de ——. There is something medieval in its name; so is there in its surroundings and in its appearance. The gargoyles of the Église frown down upon its southern door. There is an old Flemish house facing it in the Place . It is Flemish and rambling in design itself. Its stables are low and capacious, like those of a Chaucerian inn. The rooms of the hotel are low-roofed, and each is large enough for an asse
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
PROVINCIAL SHOPS All magasins of any standing are served by pretty girls. This is a point of policy. Proprietors of French shops in the towns of the War area have come to know that the man to whom they sell is largely the English officer in rest about the town or on his way through it. He also knows enough of the psychology of the English officer to be sure that if his shop is known to be served by pretty girls, the officer who has been segregated from women for three months will enter, ostensib
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