Tobias wriggled to Chesnaye’s side. `They’ve got us pinned down, sir.’
Chesnaye shut his ears to the sounds behind him, the bark and rattle of guns, the harsh, desperate voices and the clatter of rifle bolts. He must think. He had to decide. Like a wind the machine-gun fanned the air above his head, and he heard his men cursing and praying as they dug their fingers into the hillside.
Chesnaye could feel the early sunlight already warm against his neck, and saw a small beetle scurrying across the ground near his cheek.
He looked at the dirt on his hands and the scratches on the skin where he had torn at the loose stones to get clear of the trench. Perhaps the others were right. It was a futile gesture which had already cost a seaman’s life. But he remembered the soldiers who were fighting for their lives with the blind desperation of all front-line troops. Not knowing what was happening or even why they were there. For all they knew, the whole front might have collapsed, with the enemy already encircling them for final destruction. He shook his head as if to clear his tortured mind.
Eventually he said : `We’ll work our way round the side of that small rise in the ground, Tobias. Once there we’ll be under cover for a bit. Then we’ll take the last hundred yards in short stages.’ He gripped the other man’s sleeve, `But we can’t hang about!’
The journey to the top was a nightmare. By a twist of fate it was the smoke from the burning hillside which saved them. The enemy machine-gunners fired long bursts through the drifting black cloud, but it was difficult for them to range their sights on the long slope, and so, gasping and sweating, the two midshipmen and five seamen found themselves once again in the spotting post. The cleft in the rock was scarred and disfigured by shellfire, and the wall of boulders was scattered amidst the black score marks of the Turkish barrage.
There were three soldiers waiting by the sandbagged wireless position. One was dead, one was white-faced and wounded in both legs, whilst the third sat by the wireless smoking a cigarette. The latter nodded companionably.. “Mornin’, gentlemen ! I suppose you’re ready to start?’
It was nearly half an hour before Chesnaye could plot some idea of the change in the enemy positions and from which direction the main assault was being directed. The smoke eddied and swam across the valley, trapped and demented, its colours changing to the flicker of countless rifles, and later to the brightly flashing grenades. Once there was a brief gap in the smoke, and Chesnaye lost valuable seconds as he stared mesmerised at the battle which raged below.
For the first time he saw the enemy. Not as individuals, but as a vast surging throng, colourless and without apparent shape. It broke across the narrow strip of wire, while the chattering machine-guns mowed down rank after rank, and left the scattered remnants hanging on the gleaming barbs, twisting and kicking. Still they came on, until the soldiers below could no longer fire, but leapt from their trenches to meet them on the parapets face to I face. Chesnaye saw the madly struggling throng sway’ back and forth, while the flash of bayonets brought colour to the shrill cries and desperate movements of the battle.
Chesnaye caught his breath as a body of Turkish inantry overflowed the trench and began to run madly up he side of the hill itself. Another machine-gun came into )lay, and with systematic care cut the small figures to hreds and left them scattered around the body of the lead seaman. Chesnaye also saw the Australian lieutenant, ;atless and with his revolver held like a club, fighting stride a pile of corpses, while dark-faced Turks closed in rom every side. Even as reinforcements surged along the Nattered trench Chesnaye saw the flash of yet another ayonet and watched sickened as the lieutenant screamed and fell clutching his stomach.
Behind him he heard the army wireless operator say, ‘contact with the beach party, sir!’
He had already scribbled the signal and range orders n his pad, and blindly he passed it to the man’s eager sand.
How could he be sure he had done the right thing? there was no way of knowing in this confusion. Lieuenant Thornton would have known, but he was dead. Where was Robert Driscoll? He would have known too. Chesnaye peered through the smoke as the morse key began to stammer. Driscoll was probably down there, dead vith the others in that bloody carnage, where terror was naking men fight like wild beasts. It had all seemed so ;asy. An order. An alteration perhaps, but then the big ,uns would do the work cleanly and impartially. That was not war at all. This was real. Where you could see ;your enemy first as a living mass which came on in spite .If everything until it was broken into individuals and Iesh and blood. Until it was too close even for bullets, and you could feel his desperate breath on your face even as you twisted and struggled to drive home your bayonet.
The Turkish assault faltered and swayed back from the trench. In an instant the Australian infantry were at them once more. Down the slope from the parapet the battlecrazed Australians surged in pursuit, only to be met by a savage cross-fire of well-sited machine-guns. As officers fell they were replaced by sergeants. Within an hour the sergeants were dead and junior corporals found themselves in command.
At the head of the valley, where Turkish reinforcements waited for the order to advance, the sky was bright and clear of smoke. It looked at peace and beyond reach through Chesnaye’s telescope. Then a wind seemed to ruffle the hillsides and the end of the valley appeared to fade within a shadow. Chesnaye watched the sudden change with cold satisfaction. The Saracen’s first salvo had landed.
Tobias rolled on to his side and looked at the sky as the big shells sighed overhead. `Just in time,’ he said at length. He glanced quickly at Chesnaye’s drawn face. `You’ve done a nice job, sir.’
Chesnaye did not speak. He looked down at the shellbattered defences, the scattered corpses where here and there a hand or a foot still moved as if its owner believed in the right to survive. A bugle blared, and the Australians fell back, some still shooting, others dragging wounded comrades behind them. He could see the white brassards and red crosses moving up the line, the limp stretchers with their telltale scarlet stains. He saw it all with the patient horror of a man looking at some terrible panorama of death. Men without arms or faces, men who ran in circles blinded and lost, and others who whimpered like idiots until led away. Even the dead were without dignity, he thought. Ripped and torn, grinning and grimacing, broken and forgotten, their blood mingled with that of the enemy.
Chesnaye retched and leaned his head against a sunwarmed boulder.
A runner panted up the hill, his jacket soaked in sweat. `Cease fire, sit!’ He handed Chesnaye a grimy signal.
`Message from Brigade.’ He glanced at the dead soldier without curiosity. `This section will re-group and reinforcements are already movin’ up!’ He removed the bayonet from his rifle and stooped to wipe it on the gorse at Chesnaye’s feet.
Chesnaye noticed for the first time that the blade was patterned with bright red droplets. He stared, fascinated at the soldier’s lined face. `How was it?’
The man took a cigarette gratefully from Tobias and sucked in slowly. As he breathed out his limbs began to quiver, and Tobias turned away as if ashamed to watch.
The soldier wiped his eyes with his cuff. `Christ, it was awful. Lost me two mates, y’see.’ He stared blindly at the bayonet. `It was just a bloody slaughter!’ He swallowed hard and then said harshly, `Thanks fer the fag.’
They watched him go, loping down the hillside. A small individual who for a brief instant had detached himself from the mass.
The Australians counter-attacked in the late afternoon. The Saracen, this time supported by a far-off battleship and two destroyers, laid down a barrage which held the Turks in hiding until it was too late to stem their advance. By nightfall the enemy had lost Hill Seventy-Five and a mile and a half of the valley. Between dawn and sunset three thousand dead and wounded marked the rate of advance, but when the stars showed themselves above the highest ridge the new line was established.
Chesnaye followed his men down the hillside, his jacket open to the waist, th
e night air cold across his damp skin. He did not turn his head as he passed the shadowy shapes which littered the ground and lay inside the broken trench itself.
He was ordered to return to the beach and find his way back to the monitor. He still found it hard to believe that there was to be a break in this new world of noise and suffering.
A figure loomed from the darkness and a groping hand found his. Chesnaye swayed and heard Driscoll’s voice say : `I’m glad you made it, Dick ! You did damned well!’
Even on the beach amongst the groaning lines of wounded which seemed to stretch into the infinity of the night Chesnaye could still feel the warmth of that handshake, and understood how the soldier with the reddened bayonet must have felt when he had lost his friends. His thoughts were becoming jumbled and confused, and he felt Tobias’s hard hand at his elbow.
`You all right, sir?’ The man’s face seemed to swim against the stars.
Tobias added : `I can see a boat comin’, sir. That’ll be fer us!’
He spoke with the fervent hope of a man lost in an unfamiliar world, but as the cutter moved smartly inshore and the rowers tossed their oars, Chesnaye was suddenly reluctant to leave.
He fell into the boat, and the last thing he heard before exhaustion claimed him was the voice of one of his remaining seamen.
`Move over there, lads ! Let ‘im sleep !’ Then in a voice tinged with awe : `Proper little tiger is Mister Chesnaye ! You should ‘ave seen ‘im !’
6
Driftwood
Richard Chesnaye shielded his eyes from the sun’s glare and peered astern. Like the purple back of a basking whale the island of Mudros was already merging with the shimmering horizon, its shape distorted by the heat haze. The sun was high overhead, and on the monitor’s upper deck there seemed to be no cover at all in spite of the narrow awnings, so that Chesnaye’s small working party toiled halfheartedly, their paint-brushes hardly moving across the shield of one of the small quick-firing guns below the tall funnel. Soon they would be released from the pretence of working and go below to their stuffy messdeck and the tempting tot of watered rum. Then, lunch over, they would once more be kept active for a few hours while the ship moved slowly and ponderously along her set course. Back to the Peninsula. Back to the bombardment and the mounting frustrations.
Chesnaye winced as a shaft of sunlight seared his neck like a flame. The ship was so slow, so completely airless that every movement was an effort. It seemed incredible to believe that it was less than three weeks since he had left the darkened beach and found his way back to the Saracen. They had weighed anchor almost at once and returned to Mudros, and there unloaded the wretched cargo of wounded soldiers. Some had died on the way, and the Captain had buried them at sea. April had given way to May, and the probing sun left no room for corpses in an overcrowded ship of war.
Chesnaye could not remember when he had enjoyed a full night’s rest. There always seemed to be some crisis or other. Loading stores and ammunition from the ubiquitous lighters, the decks of which still bore the dark stains of wounded men, and then out again at dawn to
take the monitor alongside the deep-bellied oiler to replenish the half-empty tanks.
Tempers became frayed, seamen overstayed their miserable shore-leaves, and were punished with the same weary resignation which had made them rebel in the first place.
The monitor had returned briefly to the Peninsula and had carried out two minor bombardments in conjunction with a battleship and some destroyers. No spotting party had been landed, but Chesnaye had stood on the upper bridge, his plugged ears conscious of the angry barrage, yet his mind constantly with the other world beyond the glittering shoreline and craggy hills. Ile imagined the tiny, antlike soldiers and the persistent probing and attacking which was going on beyond the range of his telescope. He remembered that last run up the hillside when the seaman had been cut down by the machine-gun. When he had pressed his face into the ground and seen the small beetle scurrying through the sand. Now distance had made the armies into insects, but this time he could understand their suffering.
The Saracen had waddled back to Mudros and disgorged another three hundred broken bodies, taken on more stores and was returning once more.
It seemed incredible to understand that the daring and desperate attack on the Dardanelles had been forced to a bloody stalemate. Day after day ships of the Fleet patrolled the slender Peninsula, like dogs worrying an aged deer, yet nothing happened to break the deadlock. Eighteen battle
ships, twelve cruisers, twenty destroyers and eight submarines, plus an armada of auxiliaries had pressed home attacks, blockaded, and covered innumerable landings, yet
still the well-defended Turks held their own, and hit back again and again.
In the midst of it all the Saracen, unlovely and unloved, moved alone. Too slow to work with the destroyers, and too ungainly to keep with the battleships, she wandered from one allotted task to the next. Even the ship’s company sensed their situation, and the Captain had ordered that no matter what else happened they were to be kept busy at all times and the ship maintained at a level of peacetime discipline.
There had been one break in the ship’s misfortune, however. Mail had awaited the Saracen in Mudros, and Chesnaye had received two letters from his mother. His father was apparently ill, brought on by his mounting depression and his inability to return to active duty. Between the lighter comments his mother made about the weather and the state of the garden Chesnaye could sense her despair, and he was reminded of the great distance which separated him from his home. He had written a carefully worded reply, and even more thoughtfully had sent a letter to Helen. He had used the Gibraltar address, and wondered if it would ever reach her. Already he was regretting the impulse. Afraid she would not answer. More afraid of what her reply might be.
A bugle blared `Up Spirits!’ In a moment the sickly smell of rum would float along the spotless decks and the seamen would stir themselves like old cavalry horses at the sound of a trumpet.
Chesnaye yawned. `Right, start securing that paint.’ The seamen did not even glance at him. They were lost in their own thoughts.
Soon it would be time, too, to return to the gunroom, to Lukey’s rasping patter as he served another unsuitable meal of hot stew or leathery beef. Pringle would be sitting, glowing with health and vigour, at the head of the table, eating with obvious relish, while the midshipmen sat immersed in thought or hoping that their overlord would fall down dead. There was more room in the small mess now. With Maintland killed, and the overhanging threat of more action, the midshipmen seemed to draw further apart, a situation encouraged by Pringle, who took every opportunity to remark on Maintland’s absence, as if to watch their reactions, or perhaps, as Chesnaye suspected, to show them how hardened and unmoved he was himself.
But the most changed member of the mess was Pickles. Morose and stiff-faced, he had borne Pringle’s taunts without flinching, as if he had completely withdrawn into himself. Once Pringle had remarked loudly that he had
heard some story that a certain snotty had lost his nerve ashore on the Peninsula and had broken down in front of the men. Pringle had yawned elaborately and added, `Just the thing one might expect from a poor type with no breeding!’
Chesnaye had tried to ignore the constant friction in the gunroom, but it was beginning to wear him down. He noticed that Pringle was careful to be polite to him in front of the others, and had once seen the flash of anger in Pickles’ eyes.
To Pringle it was just a game. But it could not last under these conditions,
Almost guiltily he heard Pringle’s voice at his side. `What the hell are these loafers doing? Who gave you permission to pack up your gear?’ Pringle’s question was directed at the bearded A.B. Wellard.
The seaman stiffened. `Mister Chesnaye, sir.’
Pringle showed his teeth. `Well?’ He looked at. Chesnaye without expression.
Chesnaye shrugged wearily. `They were finished. There’s only a minute or so
to go.’
Pringle turned back to the watching men. `Never take advantage of an inexperienced officer ! Now take the lids off those paint tins and get back to work !’
`We’ve finished!’ Wellard glared from beneath his shaggy brows.
A bugle blared sharply, but Pringle tapped the side of his nose with his finger and said pleasantly : `Well you can do fifteen minutes’ extra work to make up for your laziness. Now get to it!’
He stood aside and said quietly to Chesnaye : `They’re an idle lot of swine. You’ve got to keep them at it all the time.’
`I don’t agree.’ Chesnaye’s cheeks were still smarting from Pringle’s behaviour in front of his own men.
`Well, of course you wouldn’t !’ Pringle rocked back on his heels. `You think that by being slack with ‘em you’ll win their hearts. Imagine you’ll be their little idol, eh?’ His face darkened. `Remember what I said. They’re the scum of the earth, and only understand firmness and discipline!’
Chesnaye felt the heat beating across his neck. `I think I’ll make up my own mind about that, if you don’t object?’
Pringle paused as he turned to leave, his eyes red and angry. `I thought so ! Like father like son, eh? No wonder your old man got the bloody sack !’
The world seemed to explode around Chesnaye, and he was only half aware of the suddenly watchful seamen, the sun on his neck and the rasp of Pringle’s words. He was conscious too of the pain in his knuckles and the jarring shock which travelled up his right arm.
His vision cleared just as quickly, and he found himself staring down at Pringle’s upturned face. Pringle was holding his mouth, and his fingers were bright red with blood.
f he seaman Wellard put down his brush and said flatly : `Christ ! ‘E’s ‘it the sod!’
Captain Lionel Royston-Jones bit his lower lip to control the rising irritation he always felt when watching Holroyd, the Paymaster, at work. The latter was perched on the edge of one of the Captain’s pale green chairs in the spacious day-cabin below the monitor’s quarterdeck, and as usual was nervously absorbed in the endless matter of ship’s business. Royston-Jones stared slowly round his wide cabin, crossing his legs as he did so to force himself to relax. All forenoon he had made himself listen to Holroyd, the session interrupted at irregular intervals by the various heads of departments as the Saracen moved slowly towards the enemy coast. Soon it would be time to leave these comfortable quarters once more and return to the spartan restrictions of bridge and sea-cabin, but for the moment it was good to get away from the others and the pressing problems of command.
HMS Saracen Page 11