Evan's Gallipoli (4 page)

I could not think of anything to say to that. Every Australian calls Britain ‘Home'. We are all loyal subjects of the King. Of course.

We could hear the guns, as always, growling and muttering. After a few minutes Sister Lucas got up and she and Kokkino went away towards the hospital. She told me that if I needed anything to find her and she would help me. She patted my shoulder. She is a very nice woman. When I told Major Western about her he said she was an angel and sang me a song called ‘The Rose of No-Man's-Land'. It was a very pretty song. I sang it to myself as I climbed and sloshed through the sap, handing out my bounty.

June 17th

Hot today. The troops have all taken off their shirts. Some of them are very sunburnt. They are almost the same colour as the Senegalese. Though they haven't got pointed teeth. Today a shell landed in a nearby trench and the stretcher-bearers came running to collect the wounded. The bullets whipped down on them and several fell. Then I saw the most amazing thing. A man was leading a donkey down Hellfire Gully as the bullets skipped and whizzed around him. The donkey had a blinded man sitting on its back. They stopped next to me. I was wiping sand from my face when the man said to me, ‘Help me with this, will you?'

As the blinded soldier dismounted, I grabbed him by the arm and steadied him while he found his feet.

‘Just get him along to casualty clearing, will you, boy?' said Simpson. ‘I gotta get back. There's more up there.'

He patted the donkey on the nose and it nuzzled him. Then, quite casually, as though leading a donkey up a muddy track while being peppered with bullets was normal, he went away.

I suppose that is normal, for the Dardanelles.

‘Where have you come from?' I asked the soldier.

‘Lone Pine,' he said, waving an arm vaguely east. ‘They've got a bloody machine-gun nest up there. Where am I? Can't see a thing. It's this bloody bandage that the choom put on.'

‘Just this way,' I told him. ‘Not far. They'll take you to Lemnos.'

‘Out of this hellhole,' he said. ‘That'd be beaut if . . .'

I knew what he was thinking. It would be beaut if he wasn't blinded. I didn't dare touch the bandage. But it was very bloody and I feared for his eyes. I said a prayer for him as I led him towards the casualty clearing station which the red-faced major had established under an overhang of rock. There was a little cover there against the ever-present bullets. I sat the soldier down with the others. The sand stank of blood. It smelt like a butcher's shop.

As I came back I sighted Simpson again, upright, unafraid, leading the donkey up the steep slope, with ordnance pinging around him like hail.

‘I give him a week,' commented one of the injured. ‘A week before he cops it.'

‘Might be two,' said another, lighting the stub of a cigarette. The cigarette and his lips were all stained red.

‘Simpson and his donk,' said the injured man. ‘Now there's a sight. There's a thing to put in the letters home.'

‘What's a choom?' I asked my soldier. ‘You said a choom put on your bandage.'

‘A Pom,' the blind man told me. ‘There's a lot of them up there. Always call us “chum”, like we'd say “cobber” or “mate”. You got a smoke?'

‘No, sorry,' I said.

‘Too bad,' he said, and then the group fell silent. High-explosive shells burst quite near us. I was flung to the ground and got up, spitting filthy sand.

‘No fair,' said one man, cradling a broken arm. ‘They're using live ammunition.'

That got a creaky laugh from the congregation under the rock.

‘I reckon,' said a man with bandages all round his chest, ‘that we might be well out of here.'

‘Bloody poor sheep country,' agreed another.

The Hindi bearers arrived to carry them down to the boat which would take them to Lemnos and Sister Lucas, if they survived the crossing. I went back to the cave for more tins of this and that and started up the main sap again.

Something's happening to my ears. I don't seem to mind the shells as much as I did, but I can't hear properly. This afternoon, I watched a bird singing. Birds don't seem to mind the shells and bombs, but go on with their lives in the thorny scrub. I could see his little beak move, but I couldn't hear his song.

Dinner tonight is purslane, spinach and an egg. I hope I can get Father to eat some of it. I know he won't touch bully beef but this is a fresh egg. He is looking very thin and I don't think he is sleeping much. I hear him praying every time I wake in our little cave. And he covers miles of trenches every day.

June 18th

Major Western says that it is the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, where Wellington beat Napoleon. I hope that this is a good omen. He has to do something very dangerous. He has to go up to Quinn's Post where the Turks can hear him and call on them to surrender. The prisoner in hospital told him that the Turks think that we murder every prisoner. He is going to tell them that if they surrender they will be well treated. He has a proverb in Turkish,
Eski dost düşman olmaz
, which means, ‘An old friend cannot be an enemy'. He also wants to tell them that our quarrel is with Germany and not with them; they have been led astray. I asked Bluey and Curly about this.

‘Yair, poor bloody Turks is like us. We got led astray by the Poms and they got led astray by the Huns. We're both a mob of poor little baa-baas that have lost our way. And here we are,' he concluded. ‘You got any more of that mustard?'

A nice thing happened today. Letters from home arrived. There was even one for me, from my Aunt Euphie in Apollo Bay.

I did not open it right away. I put it in my shirt, close to my heart. I took it out during the day and sniffed it as though it might smell of home. I did think that I caught a faint fragrance of wattle. I was following the letter-carriers and I saw how the men grabbed for their parcels and letters and hugged them, stroked them, held them to their faces and did as I had, breathed in the smell of peace and quiet and families. Places that did not know what it was like to cringe when the shells went over. Places where death did not rain through the smoke every hour, every day. Bluey had a parcel which contained a fruit cake, in its tin, all sewn into calico. He said, ‘My wife Madge, she's a good sheila all right,' and the others agreed. Curly had an envelope from the tax department which said that he had not filed his return. I cannot tell you what he said about the tax department, because I am not allowed to listen to such language.

I spent the evening reading my letter. My aunt is concerned about me and says that I must guard my virtue against all these rough men; she reminds me that I promised not to learn to drink or swear. She is still silly. Not much war news seems to have got to Australia. She does not know what Gallipoli is like. She told me not to enjoy myself too much at regimental dances. But I miss her. She says that Diligence continues to be well. I miss her, too.

June 19th

Major Western is back from talking to the Turks. He said that he had some interesting conversations and a lot of hand grenades. He does not know if he has done any good. He told me that the Turks are mostly farm boys and poor men's sons, and that they had been rounded up like cattle and sent away from their families. He said he met a Turkish man on Lemnos who had walked and swum from Turkey, looking for his son who had been kidnapped. I still do not understand what the Turks are doing, allied with the Germans. They don't even share a border. They should not have anything to say to one another. The soldiers say that they have seen German officers in the Turkish trenches and they target them.

June 20th

Terrible shelling today. I could not get up the main sap so took a different trench. I did not know these men. They were English. I had to take refuge with them when the shelling got too hot. Half the trench was full of men who were either sleeping or dead and I walked on them as I burrowed for cover. It was horrible. The Englishmen were arguing among themselves. They actually punched one another, though they couldn't get a really good swing in that close confined place.

I tried to find out what the argument was about. One of them had called out to the Turkish trench ‘
Allahu Akbar
', which is the Muslim call to prayer. In response they got a lot of bombs. The idolaters were obviously upset. When I finally found out what this ‘choom' had done I could have punched him myself. But someone else was already doing that. Besides, I am a pacifist. I spent the rest of the day wriggling through mud and asking God to forgive me for my unworthy impulse.

I hope that he has because I have to sleep tonight in all my dirt. Perhaps I can get across to Mudros soon and ask Major Western for another bath. Skin diseases are rife in these filthy conditions. I have to collect some more of our indispensable golden ointment for the troops. And for me. There is a spotted rash across my thighs where the sweaty cloth has chafed me. It itches cruelly. Father has the same and says it is sent by God to test us. I do feel that I have been tested enough. But that is committing the sin of pride, I should not think that. Prayed a lot. When I took off my tunic I found a spent bullet in it. Mended the hole.

June 21st

It's cold and wet. A storm has come up out of Troy and it's raining hard. The gullies are running with mud and it's very hard not to fall over. The Turks must be suffering the same conditions and we are all so muddy no one can tell what side we are on. The troops say that it will be all right when the big guns—they are called howitzers—are delivered. Bluey said rude things about the Royal Navy being lazy. I had seen ships burning in the straits and did not think them lazy. Cautious, perhaps. ‘If only them buggers would shell the heights we might get up there without being filleted,' he told me. He still had some cake left and gave me a tiny sliver. It tasted wonderful. Fruit. Sugar. I could almost taste the butter. We do not get butter here. There is tinned butter but it is rancid and oily. When I think of my aunt's scones, loaded down with fresh-churned butter and topped with homemade raspberry jam, I could cry. But I have found a way of making purslane taste nice. Stew the purslane (the soldiers call them ‘weeds') in a little seawater, making sure that the water boils. Then add a pinch of nutmeg. If you have an egg, break it into the water. Tonight Father ate it and even said that it was good. Have to find some more eggs. Somewhere.

June 22nd

Rain like the deluge. Sat in our cave and read the Bible all day. Father seems unwell. He would not let me ask anyone to help him. He has a fever. Boiled water for tea and made him drink it. The guns have died down. Perhaps they are wet also. Simpson came in and sat with us. It was too wet to get the donkey up those paths. He is an Englishman. He contrived to cover the donkey—his name is Murph— with a length of muddy tarpaulin which quite extended our little house. Murph stood meekly and stamped occasionally. I fed our small fire with driftwood and tried to keep Father warm. He was shivering. I wish he would just try my bully-beef stew.

Simpson was quite jolly. He said his name was John Kirkpatrick really but people called him Simpson and he had got used to it. He came off a ship. When I asked him where he had got Murph—he is the sweetest donkey—he just told me that he had ‘organised' him. Which means that no one was watching him and he just took him away. There is a herd of donkeys belonging to the Hindu water-carriers, the Bhisti; I expect Murph was one of theirs. Lots of things get organised if they are not guarded. It was nice, feeding Murph some of my bedding, stroking his nose and listening to Simpson talk about his home, South Shields, where it is always green and always raining. I almost forgot where I was. Simpson said he had been four years in Australia and enlisted as a way of getting home. When he realised that he wasn't going home, he joined the Third Ambulance Unit and ‘borrowed' Murph. The only confusing thing is that some of the soldiers call Simpson Murph. He doesn't seem to mind. He is an easygoing man. ‘You can do anything that they can't stop you from doing,' he told me.

A shell came down close enough to shake the cave and flap the tarpaulin, but it missed us. Spilled the tea, though.

June 23rd

The rain stopped during the night and the sun came out, baking the mud. The sun here is as hot as Australia. Set out as usual with my supplies, having prevailed on Father to rest today. I left him with his Bible and a good supply of boiled water and hoped that he would sleep. He is worn out with his good works. I managed to get higher today, because the mud is drying out. I distributed my load of tins and bottles and was making my way down again when there was a really close bang and I was flung into a hole. Quite a deep hole, luckily. I was just trying to clear my eyes so that I could see to climb out when someone stirred and I realised that I was not alone. A boy was lying in the hole with me.

He was a Turk. About the same size and age as me, with that round Turkish hat, covered in mud just as I was. The guns opened up again and I put my hands over my ears. He did the same. When the barrage had died down I said ‘Hello' in English then in Greek. I thought that perhaps Greek might be close to Turkish. But he answered me in English!

‘Hello,' he said. ‘Don't shoot, in the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate.'

‘I have no gun,' I said. ‘I won't shoot in any name. Am I behind Turkish lines or are you lost?'

‘There was a shell,' he said, ‘and I just dived into the hole. I don't know which side we are on. What are you doing here? Are you a soldier?'

‘No, I'm on a mission to comfort the soldiers,' I told him. ‘I bring them food and things to make them happier.'

‘Pity there aren't any of you on our side,' he said. ‘My name is Abdul.'

I smiled because that was what the soldiers called the Turks, Abduls. ‘I am Evan. You speak good English!'