The Secret Battle

It was one of the Great Dates: one of those red dates which build up the calendar of a soldier's past, and dwell in his memory when the date of his own birth is almost forgotten. It is strange what definite sign-posts these dates of a man's battle—days become in his calculation of time—like the foundation of Rome. An old soldier will sigh and say, 'Yes, I know that was when Jim died—it was ten days after the Fourth of June,' or, 'I was promoted the day before the Twelfth of July.'

The years pile up, and zero after zero day is added for ever to his primitive calendar, and not one of them is thrust from his reverent memory; but at each anniversary he wakes and says, 'This is the 3rd of February, or the 1st of July,' and thinks of old companions who went down on that day; and though he has seen glorious successes since, he will ever think with a special tenderness of the black early failures when he first saw battle and his friends going under. And if in any place where soldiers gather and tell old tales, there are two men who can say to each other, 'I, too, was at Helles on such a date,' there is a great bond between them.

On one of these days we sat under the olive-tree and waited. Up the hill one of that long series of heroic, costly semi-successes was going through. We were in reserve. We had done six turns in the trenches without doing an attack. When we came out we were very ready to attack, very sure of ourselves. Now we were not so sure of ourselves; we were waiting, and there was a terrible noise. Very early the guns had begun, and everywhere, from the Straits to the sea, were the loud barkings of the French 'seventy-fives,' thinly assisted by the British artillery, which was scanty, and had almost no ammunition. But the big ships came out from Imbros and stood off and swelled the chorus, dropping their huge shells on the very peak of the little sugar-loaf that tops Achi Baba, and covering his western slopes with monstrous eruptions of black and yellow.

Down in the thirsty wilderness of the rest-camps the few troops in reserve lay restless under occasional olive-trees, or huddled under the exiguous shelter of ground-sheets stretched over their scratchings in the earth. They looked up and saw the whole of the great hill swathed in smoke and dust and filthy fumes, and heard the ruthless crackle of the Turks' rifles, incredibly rapid and sustained; and they thought of their friends scrambling over in the bright sun, trying to get to those rifles. They themselves were thin and wasted with disease, and this uncertainty of waiting in readiness for they knew not what plucked at their nerves. They could not rest or sleep, for the flies crawled over their mouths and eyes and tormented them ceaselessly, and great storms of dust swept upon them as they lay. They were parched with thirst, but they must not drink, for their water-bottles were filled with the day's allowance, and none knew when they would be filled again. If a man took out of his haversack a chunk of bread, it was immediately black with flies, and he could not eat. Sometimes a shell came over the Straits from Asia with a quick, shrill shriek, and burst at the top of the cliffs near the staff officers who stood there and gazed up the hill with glasses. All morning the noise increased, and the shells streamed up the hill with a sound like a hundred expresses vanishing into a hundred tunnels: and there was no news. But soon the wounded began to trickle down, and there were rumours of a great success with terrible losses. In the afternoon the news became uncertain and disturbing. Most of the morning's fruits had been lost. And by evening they knew that indeed it had been a terrible day.

Under our olive-tree we were very fidgety. There had been no mail for many days, and we had only month-old copies of the Mail and the Weekly Times, which we pretended listlessly to read. Eustace had an ancient Nation, and Hewett a shilling edition of Vanity Fair. Harry in the morning kept climbing excitedly up the trees to gaze at the obscure haze of smoke on the hill, and trying vainly to divine what was going on; but after a little he too sat silent and brooding. We were no longer irritable with each other, but studiously considerate, as if each felt that to-morrow he might want to take back a spiteful word and the other be dead. All our valises and our sparse mess-furniture had long been packed away, for we had now been standing by for twenty-four hours, and we lay uneasily on the hard ground, shifting continually from posture to posture to escape the unfriendly protuberances of the soil. In the tree the crickets chirped on always, in strange indifference to the storm of noise about them. They were hateful, those crickets.... Now and then Egerton was summoned to Headquarters; and when he came back each man said to himself, 'He has got our orders.' And some would not look at him, but talked suddenly of something else. And some said to him with a painful cheeriness, 'Any orders?' and when he shook his head, cursed a little, but in their hearts wondered if they were glad. For the waiting was bad indeed, but who knew what tasks they would have when the orders came.... Often the Reserves had the worst of it in these affairs ... a forlorn hope of an attack without artillery ... digging a new line under fire ... beating off the counterattack....

But the waiting became intolerable, and all were glad, an hour before sunset, when we filed off slowly by half-platoons. Every gun was busy again, and all along the path to the hill batteries of 'seventy-fives' barked suddenly from unsuspected holes, so close that a man's heart seemed to halt at the shock. The gully was full of confusion and wounded, and tired officers and odd groups of men bandying rumours and arguing in the sun. Half-way up the tale came mysteriously down the line that we were to attack a trench by ourselves; a whole brigade had tried and failed—there was a redoubt—there were endless machine-guns.... Some laughed—'a rumour'; but most men felt in their heart that there was something in it, and inwardly 'pulled themselves together.' At last they were to be in a real battle, and walk naked in the open through the rapid fire. And as they moved on, there came over them an overpowering sense of the irrevocable. They thought of that summer day in 1914 when they walked light-hearted into the recruiting office. It had seemed a small thing then, but that was what had done it; had brought them into this blazing gully, with the frogs croaking, and the men moaning in corners with their legs messed up.... If they had known about this gully then and these flies, and this battle they were going to, then, perhaps, they would have done something else in that August ... gone into a dockyard ... joined the A.S.C. like Jim Roberts.... Well, they hadn't, and they were not really sorry ... only let there be no more waiting ... and let it be quick and merciful, no stomach wounds and nastiness ... no lying out in the scrub for a day with the sun, and the flies, and no water.

Look at that officer on the stretcher ... he won't last long ... remember his face ... his platoon relieved us somewhere ... where was it?... Hope I don't get one like him ... nasty mess ... would like one in the shoulder if it's got to be ... hospital ship ... get home, perhaps ... no, they send you to Egypt ... officer said so.... Hallo, halting here ... Merton trench ... old Reserve Line.... Getting dark ... night-attack?... not wait till dawn, I hope ... can't stand much more waiting.... Pass the word, Company Commanders to see the Colonel ... that's done it, there goes Egerton ... good man, thinks a lot of me ... try not to let him down....

But what Egerton and the others heard from the Colonel made a vain thing of all this bracing of men's spirits. There was a muddle; the attack was cancelled ... no one knew where the Turks were, where anybody was ... we were to stay the night in this old reserve trench and relieve the front line in the morning....

When Egerton told his officers only Burnett spoke: he said 'Damn. As usual. I wanted a go at the old Turks': and we knew that it was not true. The rest of us said nothing, for we were wondering if it were true of ourselves. I went with Harry to his platoon; they too said nothing, and their faces were expressionless.

But they were cold now, and hungry, and suddenly very tired; and they had no real fire of battle in them; they had waited too long for this crowning experience of an attack, braced themselves for it too often to be disappointed; and I knew that they were glad. But they did not mind being glad; they pondered no doubts about themselves, only curled up like animals in corners to sleep....

Harry, too, no doubt, had braced himself like the rest of us, and he, too, must have been glad, glad to lie down and look forward after all to seeing another sunrise. But I thought of his doubts about himself, and I felt that this business was far from easing his burden. For me and for the men it was a simple thing—the postponement of a battle with the Turks; for Harry it was the postponement of a personal test: the battle inside him still went on; only it went on more bitterly.

II

There was a great muddle in front. Troops of two different brigades were hopelessly entangled in the shallow trenches they had taken from the Turks. They had few officers left, and their staffs had the most imperfect impressions of the whereabouts of their mangled commands. So the sun was well up when we finally took over the line; this was in defiance of all tradition, but the Turk was shaken and did not molest us. The men who passed us on their way down grimly wished us joy of what they had left; their faces were pale and drawn, full of loathing and weariness, but they said little; and the impression grew that there was something up there which they could not even begin to describe. It was a still, scorching morning, and as we moved on the air became heavy with a sickening stench, the most awful of all smells that man can be called to endure, because it preyed on the imagination as well as the senses. For we knew now what it was. We came into a Turkish trench, broad and shallow. In the first bay lay two bodies—a Lowlander and a Turk. They lay where they had killed each other, and they were very foul and loathsome in the sun. A man looked up at them and passed on, thinking, 'Glad I haven't got to stay here.' In the next bay there were three dead, all Englishmen; and in the next there were more—and he thought, 'It was a hot fight just here.' But as he moved on, and in each succeeding bay beheld the same corrupt aftermath of yesterday's battle, the suspicion came to him that this was no local horror. Over the whole front of the attack, along two lines of trenches, these regiments of dead were everywhere found, strung in unnatural heaps along the parapets, or sprawling horribly half into the trench so that he touched them as he passed. Yet still he could not believe, and at each corner thought, 'Surely there will be none in this bay.'

But always there were more; until, if he were not careful or very callous, it began to get on his nerves, so that at the traverses he almost prayed that there might be no more beyond. Yet many did not realize what was before them till they were finally posted in the bays they were to garrison—three or four in a bay. Then they looked up at the sprawling horrors on the parapet and behind them—just above their heads, and knew that these were to be their close companions all that sweltering day, and perhaps beyond. The regiment we had relieved had been too exhausted by the attack, or too short-handed, to bury more than a few, and the Turkish snipers made it impossible to do anything during the day. And so we sat all the scorching hours of the sun, or moved listlessly up and down, trying not to look upwards.... But there was a hideous fascination about the things, so that after a few hours a man came to know the bodies in his bay with a sickening intimacy, and could have told you many details about each of them—their regiment, and how they lay, and how they had died, and little things about their uniforms, a missing button, or some papers, or an old photograph sticking out of a pocket.... All of them were alive with flies, and at noon when we took out our bread and began to eat, the flies rose in a great black swarm and fell upon the food in our hands. After that no one could eat. All day men were being sent away by the doctor, stricken with sheer nausea by the flies and the stench and the things they saw, and went retching down the trench. To keep away the awful reek we went about for a little in the old gas-helmets, but the heat and burden of them in the hot, airless trench was intolerable. The officers had no dug-outs, but sat under the parapets, like the men. No officer went sick; no officer could be spared; and indeed we seemed to have a greater power of resistance to this ordeal of disgust than the men. But I don't know how Harry survived it. Being already in a very bad way physically, it affected him more than the rest of us, and it was the first day I had seen his cheerfulness defeated. At the worst he had always been ready to laugh a little at our misfortunes, the great safety-valve of a soldier, and make ironical remarks about Burnett or the Staff. This day he had no laugh left in him, and I thought sadly of that first morning when he jumped over the parapet to look at a dead Turk. He had seen enough now.

In the evening the Turk was still a little chastened, and all night we laboured at the burying of the bodies. It was bad work, but so strong was the horror upon us that every man who could be spared took his part, careless of sleep or rest, so long as he should not sit for another day with those things. But we could only bury half of them that night, and all the next day we went again through that lingering torment. And in the afternoon when we had orders to go up to the front line after dusk for an attack, we were glad. It was one of the very few moments in my experience when the war-correspondent's legend of a regiment's pleasure at the prospect of battle came true. For anything was welcome if only we could get out of that trench, away from the smell and the flies, away from those bodies....

III

I am not going to tell you all about that attack, only so much of it as affects this history, which is the history of a man and not of the war. It was a one-battalion affair, and eventually a failure. D Company was in reserve, and our only immediate task was to provide a small digging-party, forty men under an officer, to dig some sort of communication ditch to the new line when taken. Burnett was told off for this job; we took these things more or less in turn, and it was his turn. And Burnett did not like it. We sat round a single candle under a waterproof sheet in a sort of open recess at the back of the front line, while Egerton gave him his orders. And there ran in my head the old bit about 'they all began with one accord to make excuse.' Burnett made no actual excuse; he could not. But he asked aggressive questions about the arrangements which plainly said that he considered this task too dangerous and too difficult for Burnett. He wanted more men, he wanted another officer—but no more could be spared from an already small reserve. He was full of 'the high ground on the right' from which his party would 'obviously' be enfiladed and shot down to a man. However, he went. And we sat listening to the rapid fire or the dull thud of bombs, until in front a strange quiet fell, but to right and left were the sounds of many machine-guns. As usual, no one knew what had happened, but we expected a summons at any moment. We were all restless and jumpy, particularly Harry. For a man who has doubts of himself or too much imagination, to be in reserve is the worst thing possible. Harry was talkative again, and held forth about the absurdity of the whole attack, as to which he was perfectly right. But I felt that all the time he was thinking, 'Shall I do the right thing? shall I do the right thing? shall I make a mess of it?'

I went out and looked over the parapet, but could make nothing out. Then I saw two figures loom through the dark and scramble into the trench. And after them came others all along the line, coming in anyhow, in disorder. Then Burnett came along the trench, and crawled in under the waterproof sheet. I followed. 'It's no good,' he was saying, 'the men won't stick it. It's just what I told you ... enfiladed from that high ground over there—two machine-guns....'

'How many casualties have you had?' said Egerton.

'One killed, and two wounded.'

There was silence, but it was charged with eloquent thoughts. It was clear what had happened. The machine-guns were firing blindly from the right, probably over the heads of the party. The small casualties showed that. Casualties are the test. No doubt the men had not liked the stream of bullets overhead; at any moment the gun might lower. But there was nothing to prevent the digging being done, given an officer who would assert himself and keep the men together. That was what an officer was for. And Burnett had failed. He had let the company down.

Egerton, I knew, was considering what to do. The job had to be done. But should he send Burnett again, with orders not to return until he had finished, as he deserved, or should he send a more reliable officer and make sure?

Then Harry burst in: 'Let me take my platoon,' he said, 'they'll stick it all right.' And his tone was full of contempt for Burnett, full of determination. No doubts about him now.

Well, we sent him out with his platoon. And all night they dug and sweated in the dark. The machine-gun did lower at times, and there were many casualties, but Harry moved up and down in the open, cheerful and encouraging, getting away the wounded, and there were no signs of the men not sticking it. I went out and stayed with him for an hour or so, and thought him wonderful. Curious from what strange springs inspiration comes. For Harry, for the second time, had been genuinely inspired by the evil example of his enemy. Probably, in the first place, he had welcomed the chance of doing something at last, of putting his doubts to the test, but I am sure that what chiefly carried him through that night, weak and exhausted as he was, was the thought, 'Burnett let them down; Burnett let them down; I'm not going to let them down.' Anyhow he did very well.

But in the morning he was carried down to the beach in a high fever. And perhaps it was just as well, for I think Burnett would have done him a mischief.

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