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28 chapters
CHAPTER I. IN WHICH MY KING AND COUNTRY NEED ME
CHAPTER I. IN WHICH MY KING AND COUNTRY NEED ME
I left the office of The Scout, 28 Maiden Lane, W.C., on September 8th, 1914, took leave of the editor and the staff, said farewell to my little camp in the beech-woods of Buckinghamshire and to my woodcraft scouts, bade good-bye to my father, and went off to enlist in the Royal Army Medical Corps. I made my way to the Marylebone recruiting office, and after waiting about for hours, I went at last upstairs and “stripped out” with a lot of other men for the medical examination. The smell of human
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CHAPTER II. A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY
CHAPTER II. A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY
Aldershot was a seething swarm of civilians who had enlisted. Every class and every type was to be seen. We found out the R.A.M.C. depot and reported. A man sat at an old soapbox with a lot of papers, and we had to file past him. This was in the middle of a field with row upon row of bell-tents. “Name?” he snapped. I told him. “Age?” “Religion?” “Quaker.” “Right!—Quaker Oats!—Section 'E,' over there.” But my old postman knew better, and, having found out where “Section E” was camped, we went off
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CHAPTER III. SNARED
CHAPTER III. SNARED
“Off with his head,” said the Queen.—Alice in Wonderland. Born and bred in a studio, and brought up among the cloud-swept mountains of Westmorland, amid the purple heather and the sunset in the peat-moss puddles, barrack-life soon became like penal servitude. I was like a caged wild animal. I knew now why the tigers and leopards pace up and down, up and down, behind their bars at the Zoo. We only stayed a week in the great, gray, prison-like barracks at Tipperary. We looked about for the “sweete
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CHAPTER IV. CHARACTERS
CHAPTER IV. CHARACTERS
It may be very amusing to read about “Kipps” and those commonplace people whom Mr. H.G. Wells describes so cleverly, but to have to live with them in barracks is far from pleasant. There were shop-assistants, dental mechanics, city clerks, office boys, medical students, and a whole mass of very ordinary, very uninteresting people. There was a fair sprinkling of mining engineers and miners, and these men were more interesting and of a far stronger mental and physical development. They were huge,
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CHAPTER V. I HEAR OF HAWK
CHAPTER V. I HEAR OF HAWK
Seldom are we lucky enough to meet in real life a character so strong and vivid, so full of subtle characteristics, that his appearance in a novel would make the author's name. Such a character was Hawk. When you consider, you find that many an author of note has made a lasting reputation by evolving some such character; and in most cases this character has been “founded on fact.” For example, Stevenson's “Long John Silver,” Kipling's “Kim,” and Rider Haggard's “Alan Quatermain.” Had Kipling met
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CHAPTER VI. ON THE MOVE
CHAPTER VI. ON THE MOVE
We moved to Dublin after seven months of drill and medical lectures in barracks at Limerick. After about a fortnight in the Portobello Barracks we crossed to England and pitched our camp at Basingstoke. Here we had two or three months' divisional training. The whole of the Xth Division—about 25,000 men—used to turn out for long route-marches. We were out in all weathers. We took no tents, and “slept out.” This was nothing to me, as I had done it on my own when scouting hundreds of times. It amus
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CHAPTER VII. MEDITERRANEAN NIGHTS
CHAPTER VII. MEDITERRANEAN NIGHTS
Intricate and vivid detail leave a more startling imprint on the memory-film than the main purport of any great adventure, whether it be a polar expedition, a new discovery, or such a stupendous undertaking as that in which we were now involved. The fact of our departure had been carefully kept quiet, and our destination was unknown. It might have been a secret expedition in search of buried treasure. Yet, in spite of all precaution, we might be torpedoed at any moment and go down with all hands
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CHAPTER VIII. THE CITY OF WONDERFUL COLOUR: ALEXANDRIA
CHAPTER VIII. THE CITY OF WONDERFUL COLOUR: ALEXANDRIA
The coal-yards and dingy quays looked gray and chill. Here were gray-painted Government sheds, with white numbers on the sliding doors, dull gray trucks, and dirty sidings. A couple of Egyptian native police in khaki drill, brown belts, side-arms, red fezes, and carrying canes, both smoking cigarettes, swaggered up and down in front of an arc-light. There were dump-yards and gray tin offices, rusty cranes, and a gray floating quay. Gangs of Egyptian beggars in ragged clothes and a flock of littl
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CHAPTER IX. MAROONED ON LEMNOS ISLAND
CHAPTER IX. MAROONED ON LEMNOS ISLAND
July the twenty-seventh. The deadly silence... The tenderfoot on an expedition of this sort naturally expects to find himself plunged into a whirl of noise and tumult. The crags were colourless and shimmering in the heat. The harbour was calm and greeny-blue. One by one, with our haversacks and water-bottles, belts and rolled overcoats, we went down the companion-way into the waiting surf-boats. Again and again these boats, roped together and tugged by a little launch, went back and forth from t
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CHAPTER X. THE NEW LANDING
CHAPTER X. THE NEW LANDING
A pale pink sunrise burst across the eastern sky as our transport came steaming into the bay. The haze of early morning dusk still held, blurring the mainland and water in misty outlines. Hawk and I had slept upon the deck. Now we got up and stretched our cramped limbs. Slowly we warped through the quiet seas. You must understand that we knew not where we were. We had never heard of Suvla Bay—we didn't know what part of the Peninsula we had reached. The mystery of the adventure made it all the m
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CHAPTER XI. THE KAPANJA SIRT
CHAPTER XI. THE KAPANJA SIRT
One had his stomach blown out, and the other his chest blown in. The two bodies lay upon the sand as we stepped down. The metallic rattle of the firing-line sounded far away. We man-handled all our medical equipment and stores from the hold of the lighter to the beach. We had orders to “fall in” the stretcher-bearers, and work in open formation to the firing-line. The Kapanja Sirt runs right along one side of Suvla Bay. It is one wing of that horse-shoe formation of rugged mountains which hems i
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CHAPTER XII. THE SNIPER-HUNT
CHAPTER XII. THE SNIPER-HUNT
He lay flat under a huge rock. I left the stretcher-squads, and, crawling behind a bush, looked through the glasses. It certainly was a Turk, and his position was one of hiding. He kept perfectly motionless on his stomach and his rifle lay by his side. I sent a message to pass the word up to the leading squads for Hawk. Quickly he came down to me and took the glasses. He had wonderful sight. After looking for a few seconds he agreed that it looked like a Turkish sniper lying in wait. “Let's go a
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CHAPTER XIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE WHITE PACK-MULE
CHAPTER XIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE WHITE PACK-MULE
That night was dark, with no stars. I didn't know what part of Gallipoli we were in, and the maps issued were useless. The first cases had been picked up close to the firing-line, and were mostly gun-shot wounds, and now—late in the evening—all my squads having worked four miles to the beach, I was trying to get my own direction back to the ambulance. The Turks seldom fired at night, so that it was only the occasional shot of a British rifle, or the sudden “pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!” of a machine-gun
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CHAPTER XIV. THE SNIPER OF THE PEAR-TREE GULLY
CHAPTER XIV. THE SNIPER OF THE PEAR-TREE GULLY
We used to start long before daylight, when the heavy gloom of early morning swept mountain, sea and sand in an indistinct haze; when the cobwebs hung thick from thorn to thorn like fairy cats'-cradles all dripping and beaded with those heavy dews. The guard would wake us up about 3.30 A.M. We were asleep anywhere, lying about under rocks and in sandy dells, sleeping on our haversacks and water-bottles, and our pith helmets near by. We got an issue of biscuit and jam, or biscuit and bully-beef,
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CHAPTER XV. KANGAROO BEACH
CHAPTER XV. KANGAROO BEACH
Kangaroo Beach was where the Australian bridge-building section had their stores and dug-outs. It was one muddle and confusion of water-tanks, pier-planks, pontoons, huge piles of bully-beef, biscuit and jam boxes. Here we came each evening with the water-cart to get our supply of water, and here the water-carts of every unit came down each evening and stood in a row and waited their turn. The water was pumped from the water-tank boats to the tank on shore. The water-tank boats brought it from A
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CHAPTER XVI. THE ADVENTURE OF THE LOST SQUADS
CHAPTER XVI. THE ADVENTURE OF THE LOST SQUADS
Things became jumbled. The continual working up to the firing-line and the awful labour of carrying heavy men back to our dressing station: it went on. We got used to being always tired, and having only an hour or two of sleep. It was log-heavy, dreamless sleep... sheer nothingness. Just as tired when you were wakened in the early hours by a sleepy, grumbling guard. And then going round finding the men and wakening them up and getting them on parade. Every day the same... late into the night. Th
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CHAPTER XVII. “OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND!”
CHAPTER XVII. “OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND!”
It may be that I have never grown up properly. I'm a very poor hand at pretending I'm a “grown man.” Impressions of small queer things still stamp themselves with a clear kodak-click on my mind—an ivory-white mule's skull lying in the sand with green beetles running through the eye-holes... anything—trivial, childlike details. I remember reading an article in a magazine which stated that under fire, and more especially in a charge, a man moves in a whirl of excitement which blots out all the sma
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CHAPTER XVIII. TWO MEN RETURN
CHAPTER XVIII. TWO MEN RETURN
I shall never forget those two little figures coming into camp. They were both trembling like aspen leaves. One had ginger hair, and a crop of ginger beard bristled on his chin. Their eyes were hollow and sunken, and glittered and roamed unmeaningly with the glare of insanity. They glanced with a horrible suspicion at their pals, and knew them not. The one with the ginger stubble muttered to himself. Their clothes were torn with brambles, and prickles from thorn-bushes still clung round their pu
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CHAPTER XIX. THE RETREAT
CHAPTER XIX. THE RETREAT
It happened on the left of Pear-tree Gully. Pear-tree Gully was a piece of ground which neither we nor the Turks could hold. It was a gap in both lines, swept by machine-gun fire and haunted by snipers and sharp-shooters. We had advanced right up behind the machine-gun section, which was hidden in a dense clump of bushes on the top of a steep rise. The sun was blazing hot and the sweat was dripping from our faces. We were continually on the look-out for wounded, and always alert for the agonised
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CHAPTER XX. “JHILL-O! JOHNNIE!”
CHAPTER XX. “JHILL-O! JOHNNIE!”
One evening the colonel sent me from our dug-out 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 carcase 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 c
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CHAPTER XXI. SILVER BAY
CHAPTER XXI. SILVER BAY
On the edge of the Salt Lake, by the blue Aegean shore, Hawk and I dug a little underground home into the sandy hillock upon which our ambulance was now encamped. “I'm going deep into this,” said Hawk—he was a very skilful miner, and he knew his work. “None of your dead heroes for me,” he said; “I don't hold with 'em—we'll make it PRACtically shell-proof.” We did. Each day we burrowed into the soft sandy layers, he swinging the pick, and I filling up sand-bags. At last we made a sort of cave, a
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CHAPTER XXII. DUG-OUT YARNS
CHAPTER XXII. DUG-OUT YARNS
I have slept and lived in every kind of camp and bivouac. I have dug and helped to dig dug-outs. I have lain full length in the dry, dead grass “under the wide and starry sky.” I have crept behind a ledge of rock, and gone to sleep with the ants crawling over me. I have slept with a pair of boots for a pillow. I have lived and snoozed in the dried-up bed of a mountain torrent for weeks. A ground-sheet tied to a bough has been my bedroom. I have slumbered curled in a coil of rope on the deck of a
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CHAPTER XXIII. THE WISDOM OF FATHER S——
CHAPTER XXIII. THE WISDOM OF FATHER S——
One day, while I was making some sketch-book drawings of bursting shells down in the old water-course, the Roman Catholic padre came along. “Sketching, Hargrave?” “Yes, sir.” And then: “I suppose you're Church of England, aren't you?” “No, sir; I'm down as Quaker.” “Quaker, eh?—that's interesting; I know quite a lot of Quakers in Dublin and Belfast.” Who would expect to find “Father Brown” of G. K. Chesterton fame in a khaki drill uniform and a pith helmet? A small, energetic man, with a round f
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CHAPTER XXIV. THE SHARP-SHOOTERS
CHAPTER XXIV. THE SHARP-SHOOTERS
Just after the episode of the lost squads we were working our stretcher-bearers as far as Brigade Headquarters which were situated on a steep backbone-like spur of the Kapanja Sirt. One of my “lance-jacks” (lance-corporals) had been missing for a good long time, and we began to fear he was either shot or taken prisoner with the others who had gone too far up the Sirt. One afternoon we were resting among the rocks, waiting for wounded to be sent back to us; for since the loss of the others we wer
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CHAPTER XXV. A SCOUT AT SUVLA BAY
CHAPTER XXV. A SCOUT AT SUVLA BAY
Many times have I seen the value of the Scout training, but never was it demonstrated so clearly as at Suvla Bay. Here, owing to the rugged nature of the country—devoid of all signs of civilisation—a barren, sandy waste—it was necessary to practise all the cunning and craft of the savage scout. Therefore those who had from boyhood been trained in scouting and scoutcraft came out top-dog. And why?—because here we were working against men who were born scouts. It became necessary to be able to fin
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CHAPTER XXVI. THE BUSH-FIRES
CHAPTER XXVI. THE BUSH-FIRES
There are some things you never forget... That little Welshman, for instance, lying on a ledge of rock above our Brigade Headquarters with a great gaping shrapnel wound in his abdomen imploring the Medical Officer in the Gaelic tongue to “put him out,” and how he died, with a morphia tablet in his mouth, singing at the top of his high-pitched voice— And so, slowly his soul steamed out of the wrecked station of his body and left for “Alabam!” One evening, the 25th of August, bush-fires broke out
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CHAPTER XXVII. THE DEPARTURE
CHAPTER XXVII. THE DEPARTURE
Now came a period of utter stagnation It was a deadlock. We held the bay, the plain of Anafarta, the Salt Lake, the Kislar Dagh and Kapanja Sirt in a horse-shoe. The Turks held the heights of Sari Bair, Anafarta village, and the hills beyond “Jefferson's Post” in a semicircle enclosing us. Nothing happened. We shelled and they shelled—every day. Snipers sniped and men got killed; but there was no further advance. Things had remained at a standstill since the first week of the landing. Rumours fl
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CHAPTER XXVIII. LOOKING BACK
CHAPTER XXVIII. LOOKING BACK
The queer thing is, that when I look back upon that “Great Failure” it is not the danger or the importance of the undertaking which is strongly impressed so much as a jumble of smells and sounds and small things. It is just these small things which no author can make up in his study at home. The glitter of some one carrying an army biscuit-tin along the mule track; the imprinted tracks of sand-birds by the blue Aegean shore; the stink of the dead; a dead man's hand sticking up through the sand;
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