CHAPTER VII

WOUNDED

The gorgeous tropical sunset had given place to the inky darkness of a Turkish night, when we moved into trenches well up on the side of a hill that overlooked Anafarta Plain. Here an advance had been unsuccessful, and the Turks had counter attacked. Half way, the British had dug in hastily, in hard limestone that resisted the pick. No. 8 platoon held six traverses. Four of these were exposed to enfilade fire. About two hundred yards away, at an angle on the left front, a number of snipers had built some dugouts on Caribou Ridge. These they manned with machine guns. From this elevation, they could pour their fire into our trenches. Several attempts had been made to dislodge them; but their machine guns commanded the intervening ground and made an advance impossible. Their first line trench was about two hundred yards in front of us. Thirty or forty yards nearer us they were building a sap that ran parallel with their lines for about five hundred yards. At that point it took a sharp V turn inward toward us. The proximity of the enemy, and the contour of the ground so favorable to them, made it necessary to take extra precautions, especially at night. Each night, at the point where the enemy sap turned toward us, we sent out a listening patrol of two men and a corporal. The fourth night, my turn came. That day it had rained without cessation; and in the early part of the evening I had tried to sleep, but my wet clothes and the pouring rain had made it impossible. I felt rather glad when I was told that at one-thirty I was to go out for two hours on listening patrol. That night we had been issued some rum, and I had been fortunate enough to get a good portion. I decided to reserve it until I went out. About ten o'clock I gave up attempting to sleep, and walked down the trench a little way to where a collection of trees and brush had been laid across the top. Some one, with memories of London's well-known meeting place, had christened it the Marble Arch. I stood under this arch, where the rain did not penetrate, and talked with the corporal of an English regiment who were holding the line on the other side of the Marble Arch. A Sergeant Manson, who had been loaned to us from another platoon, came along and we talked for a while. He had received some chocolate that evening, and the next morning he was going to distribute it among the men. It was in a haversack under his head, he said, and he was going to sleep on it to prevent it from being stolen. About eleven he returned to his place on the firing platform and went to sleep. I was ravenously hungry, and had nothing to eat. I could not find even a biscuit. I did find some bully beef, and ate some of it, washing it down with a swallow of the precious rum from my water bottle. Then I remembered the chocolate under Sergeant Manson's head, and went over to where he was lying. He was breathing heavily in the deep sleep of exhaustion. Quietly I slipped my hand into the haversack, and took out four or five little cubes of chocolate about an inch long. Manson stirred sleepily and murmured, "What do you want?" then turned over and again began breathing regularly. It was now almost time to start for the listening post. So I went along the trench to where I knew young Hayes was sleeping. He had volunteered as one of the men to accompany me, and from D Company I got the second man. My platoon by this time had been reduced to eighteen men, and I was the only non-com. We had to get men from D Company to take turns on the parapet at night, although they were supposed to be resting at the time. Between us and the Turkish sap a small rise covered with short evergreen bushes prevented us from seeing them. To get to this we had to cross about fifty yards of ground with fairly good cover, and another fifty yards of bare ground. Where the bare ground began, a ditch filled with dank, wet grass served as our listening post. A large tree with spreading boughs gave us some shelter. From behind this we could watch the rising ground in front. Any of the enemy attempting an advance had to appear over this rise. Our instructions were to watch this, and report any movement of the enemy, but not to fire. I left young Hayes about half way between this tree and the trench, and the other man and I spread a rubber sheet under the tree and made ourselves as comfortable as possible. The rain was still coming down with a steadiness that promised little hope of stopping. After a little while I became numbed, and decided to move about a little. When I came on the Peninsula, I had no overcoat, but a little time before had secured a very fine gray woolen great-coat from a Turk. It had been at one time the property of a German officer, and was very warm and comfortable, with a large collar and deep thick cuffs. I had worn it about the trench and it had been the subject of much comment. That night I wore it, and over it a raincoat. So that my movements might be less constricted, I took off the raincoat, and left it with the D Company man, who stayed under the tree. It was pitch dark, and I got across the open space to the evergreen-covered rise without being seen. Here I dropped on my stomach and wriggled between wet bushes that pricked my face, up to the top.

It was only about thirty feet, but it took me almost an hour to get up there. By the time I had reached the top it had stopped raining and stars had come out. I crawled laboriously a short distance down the other side of the little hill; I parted the bushes slowly and was preparing to draw myself a little further when I saw something that nearly turned me sick with horror. Almost under my face were the bodies of two men, one a Turk, the other an Englishman. They were both on their sides, and each of them were transfixed with the bayonet of the other. I don't know how long I stayed there. It seemed ages. At last I gathered myself together, and withdrew cautiously, a little to the right. My nerves were so shaken by what I had just seen that I decided to return at once to the man under the tree. When I had gone back about ten feet I was seized with an overwhelming desire to go back and find out to what regiment the dead Englishman belonged. At the moment I turned, my attention was distracted by the noise of men walking not very far to the front. I crawled along cautiously and peered over the top of the rise where I could see the enemy sap. The noise was made by a digging party who were just filing into the sap. For almost an hour I lay there watching them. It gave me a certain satisfaction to aim my rifle at each one in turn and think of the effect of a mere pressure of the trigger. But my orders were not to fire. I was on listening patrol, and we had men out on different working parties, who might be hit in the resulting return fire. At intervals I could hear behind me the report of a rifle, and wondered what fool was shooting from our lines. When I thought it was time to go back I crawled down the hill, and found to my consternation that the moon was full, and the space between the foot of the little rise and the tree was stark white in the moonlight. I had just decided to make a sharp dash across when the firing that I had heard before recommenced. Instead of being from our lines it came from a tree a short distance to the left, at the end of the open space. It was Johnny Turk, cozily ensconced in a tree that overlooked our trench. Whenever he saw a movement he fired. He used some sort of smokeless powder that gave no flash, and it was most fortunate for me that I happened to be at the only angle that he could be seen from. I resumed my wriggling along the edge of the open space to where it ended in thick grass. Through this I crawled until I had come almost to the edge of the ditch in which I had left the other man. But to reach it I had to cross about ten feet of perfectly bare ground that gave no protection. Had the Turk seen me he could have hit me easily. I decided to crawl across slowly, making no noise. I put my head out of the thick grass and with one knee and both hands on the ground poised as a runner does at the start of a race. Against the clear white ground I must have loomed large, for almost at once a bullet whizzed through the top of the little brown woolen cap I was wearing. Just then the D Company man caught sight of me, and raised his gun. "Who goes there?" he shouted. I did some remarkably quick thinking then. I knew that the bullet through my cap had not come from the sniper, and that some one of our men had seen my overcoat and mistaken me for a Turk. I knew the sniper was in the tree, and the D Company's man's challenge would draw his attention to me; also I knew that the Newfoundlander might shoot first and establish my identity afterwards. He was wrong in challenging me, as his instructions were to make no noise. But that was a question that I had to postpone settling. I decided to take a chance on the man in the listening post. I shouted, just loud enough for him to hear me, "Newfoundland, you damn fool, Newfoundland," then tore across the little open space and dived head first into the dank grass beside him. When I had recovered my breath, with a vocabulary inspired by the occasion, I told him, clearly and concisely, what I thought of him. While it may not have been complimentary it was beyond question candid. When I had finished, I sent him back to relieve young Hayes with instructions to send Hayes out to me. In a few minutes Hayes came.

"Do you know, Corporal," he said as he came up beside me, "I almost shot you a few minutes ago. I should have when the other fellow challenged you if you hadn't said 'Newfoundland.' I fired at you once. I saw you go out one way, and when you came back I could just see your Turkish overcoat. 'Here,' says I to myself, 'is Abdul Pasha trying to get the Corporal, and I'll get him.' Instead of that I almost got you."

Whether or not the noise I made caused the sniper to become more cautious I don't know, but I heard no further shots from him from then until the time I was relieved.

The arrival of a relief patrol prevented my replying to young Hayes. I went back to my place in the trench, but try as I might I could not sleep; I twisted from side to side, took off my equipment and cartridge pouches, adjusted blankets and rubber sheet, tried another place on the firing platform; I threw myself down flat in the bottom of the trench. Still I could not get asleep. At last I abandoned the attempt, took from my haversack a few cigarettes, lit one, and on a piece of coarse paper began making a little diagram of the ground I had covered that night, and of the position of the sniper I had been watching. By the time I had completed it daylight had come, and with it the familiar "Stand to." After "Stand to," I crawled under a rubber sheet and snatched a few hours' sleep before breakfast. Just after breakfast, a man from A Company came through the trench, munching some fancy biscuits and carrying in his hand a can of sardines. The German Kaiser could not have created a greater impression. "Where had he got them, and how?" He explained that a canteen had been opened at the beach. Here you could get everything that a real grocery store boasts, and could have it charged on your pay-book. "A Company men," he said, "had all given orders through their quarter-master sergeant, and had received them that morning." Then followed a list of mouth-watering delicacies, the very names of which we had almost forgotten. A deputation instantly waited on Mr. Nunns. He knew nothing of the thing, and was incensed that his men had not been allowed to participate in the good things. He deputed me to go down and make inquiries at A Company's lines. I did so, and found that the first man had been perfectly correct. A Company was reveling in sardines, white bread, real butter, dripping from roast beef, and tins of salmon and lobster. If we gave an order that day, I was told, we should get it filled the next. Elated, I returned to B Company's lines with the news. The dove returning to the ark with the olive branch could not have been more welcome. Mr. Nunns fairly beamed satisfaction. A few of the more pessimistic reflected aloud that they might get killed before the things arrived.

Just before nine o'clock I went down to see the cooks about dinner for my section. On my way back I passed a man going down the trench on a stretcher. One of the stretcher bearers told me that he had been hit in the head while picking up rubbish on top of the parapet. He hoped to get him to the dressing station alive. As I came into our own lines another stretcher passed me. The man on this one was sitting up, grinning.

"Hello, Gal," he yelled. "I've stopped a cushy one."

I laughed. "How did it happen?" I asked.

"Picking up rubbish on top of the parapet."

He disappeared around the curve of the trench, delightedly spreading the news that he had stopped a cushy one in the leg. I kept on back to my own traverse, and showed the diagram I had made the night before to Art Pratt. Mr. Nunns had granted us leave to go out that day to try to get the sniper in the tree. Art was delighted at the chance of some variety. While Art and I were making out a list of things we wanted at the canteen, a man in my section came down the trench.

"Corporal Gallishaw," he said, "the Brigade Major passed through the lines a few minutes ago, and he's raising hell at the state of the lines; you've got to go out with five men, picking up rubbish on top of the parapet."

Instantly there came before my eyes the vision of the strangely limp form I had met only a few minutes before that had been hit in the head "picking up rubbish on top of the parapet." But in the army one cannot stop to think of such things long; orders have to be obeyed. Since coming into the trench we had constructed a dump, but the former occupants of the trench had thrown their refuse on top of the parapet. My job with the five men was to collect this rubbish and put it in our dump. At nine o'clock in the morning we mounted the parapet and began digging. There was no cover for men standing; the low bushes hid men sitting or lying. Every few minutes I gave the men a rest, making them sit in the shelter of the underbrush. The sun was shining brightly; and after the wet spell we had just passed through, the warmth was peculiarly grateful. The news that the canteen had been opened on the beach made most of the men optimistic. With good things to eat in sight life immediately became more bearable. Never since the first day they landed had the men seemed so cheerful. Up there where we were the sun was very welcome, and we took our time over the job. One chap had that morning been given fourteen days' field punishment, because he had left his post for a few seconds the night before. He wanted to get a pipe from his coat pocket, and did not think it worth while to ask any one to relieve him. It was just those few seconds that one of the brigade officers selected to visit our trench. When he saw the post vacant, he waited until the man returned, asked his name, then reported him. Field punishment meant that in addition to his regular duties the man would have to work in every digging party or fatigue detail. I asked him why he had not sent for me, and he told me that it had happened while I was out in the listening patrol. He was not worrying about the punishment, but feared that his parents might hear of it through some one writing home. But after a little while even he caught the spirit of cheerfulness that had spread amongst us at the news of the new canteen. To the average person meals are like the small white spaces in a book that divide the paragraphs; to us they had assumed the proportions of the paragraph themselves. The man who had just got field punishment told me the things he had ordered at the canteen, and we compared notes and made suggestions. The ubiquitous Hayes, working like a beaver with his entrenching tool, threw remarks over his shoulder anent the man who had delayed the information that the canteen had been established, and offered some original and unique suggestions for that individual's punishment. When we had the rubbish all scraped up in a pile, we took it on shovels to the dump we had dug. To do this we had to walk upright. We had almost finished when the snipers on Caribou Ridge began to bang at us. I jumped to a small depression, and yelled to the men to take cover. They were ahead of me, taking the last shovelful of rubbish to the trench. At the warning to take cover, they separated and dived for the bushes on either side. That is, they all did except Hayes, who either did not hear me or did not know just where to go. I stepped up out of the depression and pointed with outstretched arm to a cluster of underbrush. "Get in there, Hayes!" I yelled. Just then I felt a dull thud in my left shoulder blade, and a sharp pain in the region of my heart. At first I thought that in running for cover one of the men had thrown a pick-ax that hit me. Until I felt the blood trickling down my back like warm water, it did not occur to me that I had been hit. Then came a drowsy, languid sensation, the most enjoyable and pleasant I have ever experienced. It seemed to me that my backbone became like pulp, and I closed up like a concertina. Gradually I felt my knees giving way under me, then my head dropped over on my chest, and down I went. In Egypt I had seen Mohammedans praying with their faces toward Mecca, and as I collapsed I thought that I must look exactly as they did when they bent over and touched their heads to the ground, worshiping the Prophet. Connecting the pain in my chest with the blow in my back, I decided that the bullet had gone in my shoulder, through my left lung, and out through my heart, and I concluded I was done for. I can distinctly remember thinking of myself as some one else. I recollect saying, half regretfully, "Poor old Gal is out of luck this morning," then adding philosophically, "Well, he had a good time while he was alive, anyway." By now things had grown very dim, and I felt everything slipping away from me. I was myself again, but I said to that other self who was lying there, as I thought, dying, "Buck up, old Gal, and die like a sport." Just then I tried to say, "I'm hit." It sounded as if somewhere miles away a faint echo mocked me. I must have succeeded in making myself heard, because immediately I could hear Hayes yell with a frenzied oath, "The Corporal's struck. Can't you see the Corporal's struck?" and heard him curse the Turk who had fired the shot. Almost instantly Hayes was kneeling beside me, trying to find the wound. He was much more excited over it than I.

"Don't you try to bandage it here," I said; "yell for stretcher bearers."

Hayes jumped up, shouting lustily, "Stretcher bearers at the double, stretcher bearers at the double!" then added as an after-thought, "Tell Art Pratt the Corporal's struck."

I was now quite clear headed again and told Hayes to shout for "B Company stretcher bearers." On the Peninsula messages were sent along the trench from man to man. Sometimes when a traverse separated two men, the one receiving the message did not bother to step around, but just shouted the message over. Often it was not heard, and the message stopped right there. One message there was though, that never miscarried, the one that came most frequently, "Stretcher bearers at the double." Unless the bearers from some particular company were specified, all who received the message responded. It was to avoid this that I told Hayes to yell for B Company stretcher bearers. Apparently some one had heard Hayes yell, "Tell Art Pratt the Corporal's struck," because in a few minutes Art was bending over me, talking to me gently. Three other men whom I could not see had come with him; they had risked their lives to come for me under fire. "We must get him out of this," I heard Art say. In that moment of danger his thought was not for himself, but for me. I was able to tell them how to lift me. No women could have been more gentle or tender than those men, in carrying me back to the trench. Although bullets were pattering around, they walked at a snail's pace lest the least hurried movement might jar me and add to my pain. The stretcher bearers had arrived by the time we reached the trench, and were unrolling bandages and getting iodine ready. At first there was some difficulty in getting at the wound. It had bled so freely that the entire back of my coat was a mass of blood. The men who had carried me looked as if they had been wounded, so covered with blood were they. The stretcher bearer's scissors would not work, and Art angrily demanded a sharp knife, which some one produced. The stretcher bearer ripped up my clothing, exposing my shoulder, then began patching up my _right_ shoulder. I cursed him in fraternal trench fashion and told him he was working on the wrong shoulder; I knew I had been hit in the _left_ shoulder and tried to explain that I had been turned over since I was hit. The stretcher bearer thought I was delirious and continued working away. I thought he was crazy, and told him so. At last Art interrupted to say, "Just look at the other shoulder to satisfy him." They looked, and, as I knew they would, found the hole the bullet had entered. To get at it they turned me over, and I saw that a crowd had gathered around to watch the dressing and make remarks about the amount of blood. I became quite angry at this, and I asked them if they thought it was a nickel show. This caused them all to laugh so heartily that even I joined in. This was when I felt almost certain that I was dying. I can't remember even feeling relieved when they told me that the bullet had not gone through my heart. The pain I felt there when I was first hit was caused by the tearing of the nerves which centered in my heart when the bullet tore across my back from shoulder to shoulder. Never as long as I live shall I forget the solicitude of my comrades that morning. The stretcher bearers found that the roughly constructed trench was too narrow to allow the stretcher to turn, so they put me in a blanket and started away. Meanwhile the word had run along the trench that "Gal had copped it." I did not know until that morning that I had so many friends. A little way down the trench I met Sergeant Manson. He was carrying some sticks of chocolate for distribution among the men. I asked him for a piece. To do so on the Peninsula was like asking for gold, but he put it in my mouth with a smile. Hoddinott and Pike, the stretcher bearers, stopped just where the communication trench began. The doctor had come up. He asked me where I was hit, and I told him. He examined the bandages, and told the stretcher bearers to take me along to the dressing station. Captain Alexander, my company commander, came along, smiled at me, and wished me good-by. Hoddinott asked me if I wanted a cigarette, and when I said, "Yes," placed one in my month and lit it for me. I had never realized until then just how difficult it is to smoke a cigarette without removing it from your mouth. Poor Stenlake, who by this time was worn to a shadow, was in the support trench, waiting with some other sick men, to go to hospital. He came along and said good-by. A Red Cross man gave me a postcard to be sent to some organization that would supply me with comforts while I was in hospital. "You'll eat your Christmas dinner in London, old chap," he said.

We had to go two miles before the stretcher bearers could exchange the blanket for the regular stretcher. The trenches were narrow, and on one side a little ditch had been dug to drain them. The recent wet weather had made the bottom of the trench very slippery, and every few minutes one of the bearers would slide sideways and bring up in the ditch. When he did the blanket swayed with him, and my shoulders struck against the jagged limestone on the sides. To avoid this as much as possible the bearers had to proceed very slowly. Those two miles to me seemed endless. I had now become completely paralyzed, all control of my muscles was gone, and I slipped about in the blanket. Every few yards I would ask Hoddinott, "Is it very much farther?" and every time he would turn around and grin cheerfully, and answer, as one would answer a little child, "Not very much farther now, Gal."

At last we emerged into a large wide communication trench, with the landmarks of which I was familiar. I was suffering severely now, and was beginning to worry over trifles. Suddenly it came to me that I was still a couple of miles from the dressing station, and when we came out of the communication trench on to open ground that had been torn up by shrapnel, I was consumed with fear that at any moment I might be hit by another shell, and might not get aboard the hospital after all, for by this time my mind had centered on getting into a clean bed. A dozen different thoughts chased through my mind. I was grieved to think that in order to get at the wound it had been necessary to cut the fine great-coat that I had so much wanted to take home as a souvenir. I asked Hoddinott what they had done with it, and he told me that part of it was under my head as a pillow, but that it was so besmeared with blood that it would be thrown away as soon as I arrived at the dressing station. From thinking of the great-coat, I remembered that before I went out with the digging party I had taken off my raincoat and left it near my haversack in the trench, and in the pocket of it was the little diagram I had drawn of the position of the sniper I had seen the night before. Again I called for Hoddinott, and again he came, and answered me patiently and gently. "Yes, he would tell Art about the little diagram." Where a fringe of low bushes bordered the pathway at the end of the open space, Hoddinott and Pike turned. For the distance of about a city block they carried the stretcher along a road cut through thick jungle. At the end of it stood a little post from which drooped a white flag with a red cross. It was the end of the first stage for the stretcher bearers. A great wave of loneliness swept over me when I realized that I was to see the last of the men with whom I had gone through so much. I was almost crying at the thought of leaving them there. Somehow or other it did not seem right for me to go. I felt that in some way I was taking an unfair advantage of them. Hoddinott and Pike slipped the straps from their shoulders and lowered the stretcher gently. Under the blanket Hoddinott sought my hand. "Good-by, Gal," he said. "Is there any message I can take back to Art?"

"Yes," I said, "tell him to keep my raincoat."

Since the moment I had been hit, I had been afraid of one thing--that I should break down, and not take my punishment like a man. I was tensely determined that no matter how much I suffered I would not whine or cry. In our regiment it had become a tradition that a man must smile when he was wounded. One thing more than anything else kept me firm in my determination. Art Pratt had walked just behind the blanket until we came to the communication trench. Even then he was loath to leave me. He could not trust himself to speak when I said, "Good-by, Art, old pal." He grasped my hand, and holding it walked along a few feet. Then he dropped my hand gently. There are some things in life that stand out ineffably sweet and satisfying. For me such a one was that last moment of farewell to Art. I had always considered him the most fearless man in a regiment whose name was a byword for reckless courage. Of all men on the Peninsula I valued his opinion most. No recommendation for promotion, no award for valor, not even the coveted V.C., could have been half so sweet as the few words I heard Art say. With eyes shining, he turned to the man beside him and said, almost savagely, "By God, he's a brick."