The Darkness and the Thunder

by Stewart Binns

  ‘You’re a strong man, Colour Serjeant Tait, DCM.’

  ‘Sorry, sir?’ Maurice can just about see the outline of a white-coated doctor.

  ‘It’s the chloroform. You’ll be able to see straight in an hour or so. I said, you’re as tough as old boots. You’ll survive.’

  ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘The wound to your side is deep, but it missed your lung and your liver. Your collarbone will heal, but your pelvis is a mess. It will take a long time.’

  ‘But I can go back to my battalion?’

  ‘Certainly not. I’m talking about a long time before you can walk again, and that might always be with a limp and no small amount of pain. Your fighting days are over. By the way, your colonel’s been through: you’re getting a bar to your DCM. The three men you pulled out have all survived. Very bad burns to their legs. They’re going home too, but they’re alive.’

  ‘Listen, Doc. My mate, Colour Serjeant Harry Woodruff, is recoverin’ in Boulogne; we’ve been together since South Africa. Couldn’t send me to his gaff, could yer?’

  ‘But that’s for men who can come back into service.’

  ‘Yeah, he was pretty badly shot up too, but he’s a tough old bird, an’ old Captain Chavasse let him try to get fit again.’

  ‘Noel Chavasse, MC, the hero of Hooge?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the man. Top geezer.’

  ‘Well, anything Chavasse can do, I can do. I’ll see what I can arrange. I think your friend will be in Red Cross 7, that’s in Boulogne. Good hospital – full of lots of pretty Red Cross volunteer nurses, VAD, and all that lot.’

  ‘Thanks, Doc, that’ll suit old ’Arry down to the ground.’

  Maurice notices the decoration on the doctor’s uniform. ‘I see from your ribbons, Doc, that you’ve got an MC as well.’

  ‘Yes, earlier this year.’

  ‘Where, sir?’

  ‘Second Ypres.’

  ‘Tough one, that. And your name, sir?’

  ‘Fred Davidson, Cameronians.’

  ‘Thanks again, sir.’

  Part Eight: August

  * * *

  MUSTAFA KEMAL

  Friday 6 August

  Suvla Bay, Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey

  It hardly seems possible, but for Allied troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula, conditions are even more harrowing than on the Western Front. For the men in Flanders, summer has brought relief from the miseries of the wet and cold of winter. In the Eastern Mediterranean, high summer has brought searing heat for sixteen hours a day, desperate water shortages, the curse of plagues of flies and the onslaught of excruciating disease.

  At the beginning of August the standard water ration is three pints a day for all purposes. The men’s daily rations are melting in their tins and putrefying before they can be eaten. Conversely, the Turks, although no better fed, do have fresh springs on their higher ground. Worst of all, dysentery is now blighting almost the entire Allied Army, including an increasing number of medical staff, and in many cases it is proving fatal.

  Bron is worried about Margaret. Although she is loath to admit it, it is obvious that she too is suffering from dysentery.

  ‘It’s just a tummy upset, Bron,’ is her constant answer, but Bron has seen too many cases not to know the difference.

  It is early morning, already 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, and very humid.

  ‘Margaret, you must rest,’ says Bron.

  ‘I can’t. There’s to be a big attack today. It will be chaos. I have to keep going.’

  ‘You’ll fall over. You’ve lost so much fluid, and you’re running a temperature.’

  Margaret does not answer. She has had to make another dash to the staff WC on the Essequibo, her fourth visit of the morning. There is blood in her stool, confirming that Bronwyn’s diagnosis is accurate.

  Essequibo is empty of patients and has been made ready for a new influx of men. Medical preparations have been meticulous for an attack Sir Ian Hamilton has been planning for weeks. He has over 100,000 men at his disposal, but they are either untried New Army recruits, or territorials, whose leadership is, at best, questionable.

  There will be two diversionary attacks, one, led by General Harold Street at Cape Helles at the bottom of the peninsula, where 26,000 men – four British divisions and two French – will repeat the three previous attacks on Krithia and one at Anzac Cove, where the Anzacs, reinforced by Britain’s 29th Division, will try to break out of their claustrophobic bridgehead. General Birdwood will be CO for the attack and will have 40,000 men at his disposal.

  The main, disguised, attack will be north of Anzac Cove at Suvla Bay. The landing will be led by General Sir Frederick Stopford, a senior army officer but one with no major battle experience. He will have 30,000 men at his disposal. Opposing them will be only a small force of Turkish defenders, less than 1,500, and many of them gendarme units. Unfortunately, Stopford vastly overestimated the strength of the Turkish deployment.

  Although it is not a pretty sight and resembles a piece of leather which has been chewed by a dog, Hywel Thomas’s wounded ear has healed. He has been assigned to 11th Battalion Manchester Regiment and has landed with them just south of Nibrunesi Point, on what the Allies have named B Beach. Nearby are his old friends, 9th Lancashire Fusiliers, from the landing at Cape Helles at the end of April. Except for some sniper fire, the Manchester’s landing has been almost entirely unopposed, and they have marched inland to take a small hillock called Lala Baba. Captain Oliver, CO of C Company, tells Hywel to find his own ground and to wait for the Turkish counter-attack.

  ‘But, sir, wouldn’t it be better to move on to Hill 10? It’s barely a mile.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Colour. It’ll be dark soon, and I have no orders to move on from Lala Baba.’

  ‘But it’s a clear night, sir, and a half-moon. The men will move better in the cool of the night.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me my business, Colour Serjeant?’

  ‘Not at all, sir. Sorry.’

  ‘You stick to sniping, and I’ll give the orders.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Hywel knows he is right, but he also knows not to push the point any further or he will be put on an insubordination charge, and that could lead to a field punishment.

  He finds a spot on the top of Lala Baba, a mound not much bigger than a large sand dune, and digs a hide for himself. Unable to sleep, he uses his telescopic sight to watch the Turks moving more and more men into position for a counter-attack in the morning. The officers with the East Lancs and the Manchesters debate what to do next, but no orders come from General Stopford, who is still at sea, so, assuming they have done their job by taking the high ground, they agree to stay where they are.

  On board Essequibo, Margaret is feeling better. She has been drinking water by the gallon and is feeling more hydrated. ‘Bron, I’ve had a word with the captain,’ she says. ‘We can go ashore tonight with half the orderlies and help set up the dressing station on the beach.’

  ‘I thought that wasn’t allowed?’

  ‘It isn’t, but I smiled sweetly and he agreed.’

  ‘I don’t want to sound negative, but aren’t there bombs and bullets on the beach?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m fed up with cleaning and re-dressing wounds that have already been infected by sloppy practice at the dressing stations. I’ll go on my own if you like, and I’ll leave you in charge here, Sister Thomas.’

  ‘What do you mean, “Sister Thomas”?’

  ‘I got the telegram this morning from Matron-in-Chief McCarthy: you’re promoted to Sister, QAIMNS.’

  ‘Good God, Margaret, but I’ve had no training.’

  ‘What do you call this? Besides, this is a war. Formal qualifications are forgotten about; experience is what counts. Anyway, it’s up to you. You can stay here in charge of Essequibo, or come with me and I’ll put Griffiths, the senior orderly, in charge.’

  ‘I’m coming with you; wherever I can be of most help.
’

  ‘Thanks, Bron.’

  While the main attack at Suvla Bay is wasting a golden opportunity, thanks to the caution of the junior officers on the ground and the failings of high command to issue clear orders, the men in the diversionary attacks are locked in bloody hand-to-hand combat. The most intense is the breakout at Anzac, where much of the fighting takes place in narrow approach tunnels dug in secret by Australian and New Zealand sappers. Some open only yards from the Turkish trenches; others exit directly in the walls of their trenches. The result is not unlike two swarms of rats fighting for territory.

  Bodies fill the narrow burrows three or four deep as a vicious encounter with bayonets and hand grenades rages. The Turkish grenades have an eight-second fuse, so, on occasion, the same bomb is thrown back and forth three times before it explodes. Some men lose a hand but carry on fighting with their other one. One Australian serjeant, a proper Digger – surly, quarrelsome and as strong as an ox – battles on with the remnants of his right eye resting on his cheek. Men use whatever is to hand in the tunnels and fight like animals. They scream, kick, punch and bite for most of the night, until there is no one left alive to carry on.

  At Cape Helles another frontal assault with heavy casualties gains the Allies about 400 yards of ground, still well short of Krithia, before they are thrown back to where they started.

  The morning of 7 August dawns with a barrage of Turkish artillery on all three of the Allied attack groups from the previous day. Margaret and Bron are already ashore and have brought some order to the dressing station on B Beach. The three junior doctors at the station are very uneasy about their presence and have sent for the senior RAMC officer available, Captain John Sutherland, Battalion Medical Officer. When he arrives, he is already furious, and bellows at the top of his voice, ‘Where are those two bloody nurses?’

  Margaret hears him loud and clear. ‘The two bloody nurses are here!’

  Sutherland throws back the flap of the tent where Margaret and Bronwyn are organizing the orderlies’ preparation for the first casualties. ‘What the bloody hell are you two doing here?’

  Margaret turns to him with a withering look. ‘Don’t you dare rush in here kicking up sand; this is a sterile area. And close that flap; you’ll let more flies in!’

  ‘You’ve got ten minutes to get off this beach or I’ll have you carried off.’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that. What’s the date of your commission?’

  ‘What the hell has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘As a senior nursing sister with QAIMNS, I carry the equivalent rank of Captain. I joined on 2 August 1914 and was made Sister straight away. I think that means I outrank you. I’ll ask you again, when were you commissioned?’

  Margaret is bluffing. Very few male officers, especially at the War Office, accept the QAIMNS claims about the equivalence of ranks between the Regular Army and QAIMNS. But, in this instance, the bluff seems to be working.

  ‘Twenty-fifth August. But Sister, women are not allowed in forward positions, whether you’re nurses or not.’

  ‘Piffle! The dressings coming off the beaches are appalling. So we’ve come here to sort it out. Now, please get about your business, and we’ll get on with ours.’

  ‘Are you making the impertinent suggestion that we are not doing our dressings properly?’

  ‘Yes, and I’ve been asked for a full report by the Surgeon General in Egypt, General Richard Ford.’

  Sutherland has heard of Ford and knows he is a fanatic about hygiene and clean wounds. He does not know that Margaret is blagging even more outrageously than before. Outwitted and embarrassed, he struts out of the tent, muttering to himself. Bron cannot stop herself from giggling.

  ‘Margaret, you’ve got the cheek of the devil. How do you keep a straight face?’

  ‘Practice, Bron. Living in a man’s world all my life!’

  It is not long before a steady stream of stretcher-bearers begins to bring in the dead, dying and wounded. Margaret has insisted that wounds are immediately doused in antiseptic carbolic acid from the buckets she has had put in key places. While Margaret oversees the triage stage, Bron, in charge of this antiseptic stage, is in her element, feeling so proud in her new sister’s uniform and badge, which Margaret has made sure arrived from Lemnos. Every so often Margaret glances at her and smiles to herself. She admires Bron’s strength, courage and her devotion to her cause. Occasionally, Bronwyn looks back at Margaret, and they exchange smiles. Their love for one another is a great source of strength for them both.

  Margaret feels another bout of diarrhoea beckoning and makes her way to the latrine she has dug for herself behind the dressing-station tent. When she returns, Captain Sutherland is waiting for her.

  ‘I’m sorry I was so rude to you earlier,’ he says.

  ‘It’s forgotten, Captain.’

  ‘Thank you. Now, I want to speak to you as a doctor. This time you will be leaving this beach, not on the orders of an officer but on doctor’s orders. You’ve got dysentery.’

  ‘No, it’s a stomach upset.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ve seen enough dysentery to recognize it when I see it.’

  ‘There’s too much to do. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘No, you won’t. You’ll fall over soon; then you will be no use to anyone. Besides, you’re putting your life at risk.’

  Margaret sighs. She knows Sutherland is right.

  ‘So, when this spate of casualties has cleared, you must go to Lemnos. You need rest and proper care. Sister Thomas can take care of things here. Is that clear, Sister Killingbeck?’

  ‘Yes, Doctor. When the Essequibo docks on Lemnos, I’ll stay.’

  Up above the beach, Hywel Thomas is still in his hide on Lala Baba. The Turkish counter-attack occurring in front of him is ferocious. Driven on by pride in defence of a country and tradition that has been centuries in the making, the Turks throw themselves at the invaders of their homeland. Hywel has lost count of how many men he has killed, but he has only one rifle and the Turks are advancing in such vast numbers they are rapidly extinguishing the opportunity the Allies had at the beginning of their attack.

  A Turkish officer suddenly appears in the crosshairs of his sights. A sturdy, trim figure with an eleven-a-side moustache, he looks immaculate in his tailored khaki uniform, knee-length brown leather boots and officer’s enverieh – his Enver Pasha cap. He has recently been made a full colonel and awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, by his German allies. He has emerged over a ridge and stridden out into the open on his own. Before him is a slit trench of Loyal North Lancs, all of whom are men of Kitchener’s New Army and none of whom have ever been in battle before. As bullets ping the ground and fly past him, he turns back to his own men, 20 yards behind him, and raises his hand. As he does so, a huge phalanx of Turkish infantry rushes forward at the signal of its leader.

  Hywel still has the Turk in the cross-hairs, but something makes him hesitate. He admires the courage of the man and does not pull the trigger. Moments later, with their leader at their forefront, sword in hand, the Turks fall upon the Loyal North Lancs, who are cut to pieces with bayonets and grenades. Hywel, realizing that he has missed the chance to put an end to the kind of leader who is making the difference between the resolute Turkish defenders and the vacillating Allied attackers, tries to find his quarry again but, in the chaos of the melee, he cannot identify him.

  With Hywel’s hide now under threat from the counter-attack, he decides to withdraw down Lala Baba to find a new position on the beach, should he need to cover an Allied withdrawal to the boat.

  Only later will Hywel know that the figure who has been in his sights is the man who will become Kemal Atatürk, the father of modern Turkey, the legendary Mustafa Kemal.

  Sunday 29 August

  Red Cross Stationary Hospital 7, Hôtel Christol, Boulogne, France

  Maurice Tait and Harry Woodruff are enjoying life in Boulogne. Hôtel Christol, commandeered by the British i
n 1914 as a military hospital, sits on the waterfront, just opposite Le Pont Marquet, which fords La Liane, Boulogne’s main waterway to the Channel. Once a grand seaside hotel, it is now a little run-down, but for men recovering from wounds on the Western Front it is paradise. There are countless bars and cafés in the area, all of which are full of Allied servicemen, and the two-francs girls stand at every corner in twos and threes.

  Harry has been in Boulogne almost two and a half months, Maurice just over one. Both are healing well. Maurice still needs to be pushed around in a wheelchair but, with Harry in charge, they are regular visitors to the bars along the waterfront. Word has got around that they have declined the chance to be invalided home, and visiting generals and dignitaries, both British and French, have come to see them several times. Indeed, both have been awarded the Croix de Guerre, to add to their DCMs and bars.

  It has been possible to remove the bullet that had lodged against Maurice’s pelvis and, fortunately, it had caused only minimal damage to the pelvic bone. His bayonet wound has healed, but his collarbone is still troublesome and may well give him pain for some time to come.

  August at the Front is proving to be a quiet month, just the usual daily quota of sniping and light shelling. Only thirty casualties a day, on average.

  Mick Kenny, Vinny Sagar and Twaites Haythornthwaite are deep underground near St Eloi. They have been there since the end of June. They have no idea what the tunnels are for; they just know that there are lots of them and that they are very deep. They have been transferred to 172nd Tunnelling Company and are under the command of Lieutenant Horace Hickling, a mining engineer much admired by ‘Hell-fire Jack’ Norton-Griffiths. Hickling’s solution to the water encountered at higher levels is to go deep, to at least 60 feet, where the thick blue clay is dry and easy to dig. However, at this depth, the tunnels take not weeks but months to dig. It is going to be a long autumn and winter for the Burnley moles.