Oliver Hogue

A RECAPITULATION—INTO THE FIRING-LINE—IN SIGHT OF HISTORIC TROY—A WELL-FED ARMY—A REAL GOOD COOK

George was the cook.

He blew into the Light Horse Camp at Holdsworthy when we were training. The staff captain gave him the job because he was a sea cook. Any man who can cook at sea ought to be able to cook on dry land. And all through the weary weeks of waiting and working, George kept on cooking.

George was small, not to say puny. His height was five feet, and his chest measurement nothing to cable home about. Had he gone to Victoria Barracks in the ordinary way to enlist he wouldn't have passed even the sentry at the gate, let alone the doctor. But George knew the ropes. He had "soldiered" before. That's why he took the short cut direct to camp.

We never saw much of him on the Suevic; when off duty he used to climb to some cosy corner on the uppermost deck and read dry textbooks on strategy and tactics. At odd times he would seek relaxation in Life of Napoleon, Marlborough, or Oliver Cromwell, but this was distinctly "not a study, but a recreation." Passing through the Suez Canal we saw the Turks miles away on the rim of the desert. George got out his rifle, set the sight at 2,500 yards, and waited. But the invader kept well out of range, and George went back to his cooking.

It was mid-winter in Egypt and the nights were bitterly cold. Greatcoats were vitally necessary. How welcome were the mufflers and Balaclava caps and warm socks knitted by the girls we left behind us! Welcome also was the hot coffee George provided to fill in the shivering gap between rÉveillÉ and stables. And after the horses had all been fed and watered, we returned with zest to breakfast—porridge and meat and "eggs a-cook" and bread and marmalade. I've heard some grumblers complain of the "tucker" in Egypt, but I've seen a bit of war by this and I'm convinced that the Australians are the best-fed army in the world. And George by the same token was not a bad cook.

Summer swooped down on Egypt. In its wake came heat and dust and flies and locusts. Over the scorching sands of the desert we cantered till the sweat poured from us and our horses, and the choking dust enveloped all. "Gyppie" fruit-sellers scurried hither and yon yelling "Oringes—gooud beeg one." And as we regaled ourselves with the luscious thirst-quenchers we thought of camp and the dinner that George was preparing. We trekked along the Nile, and almost before we halted George was boiling the billy. We bivouacked at Aaron's Gorge, or the Petrified Forest, or in a desert waste, and always George was on the spot with his dixies and pans. The cook's cart was a pleasing silhouette against the pyramid-pierced skyline, when we turned our eyes westward in the long summer evenings.

When at last we started for the Dardanelles, we of the Light Horse Brigade had (as you know) to leave our horses behind, and the cook's cart stopped too. But George came along all right. Despite the activities of the submarines we reached Gallipoli in safety, and witnessed the allied warships pounding away at the Turkish defences. Historic Troy was on our right; before us the entrance to the Dardanelles; and on the left, firmly established on Helles, was the great Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, making its first halt on the road to Constantinople. But we had to go further north, a mile beyond Gaba Tepe, where the Australians—particularly the 3rd Infantry Brigade—had performed such deeds of valour that Dargai, Colenso, and Magersfontein were declared by old soldiers to have been a mere picnic in contrast.

We landed amid a hail of shrapnel. Transhipping from the transports, we crowded into launches and sweepers and barges. These little boats, heavily laden with khaki freight, made straight for Anzac Cove. Fair targets for Tommy Turk, of course; so the guns of the Olive Grove Battery sent us anything but peaceful messages. Plug-plong went the shells into the water. Zip-zip hissed the bullets all round us. But, marvellous to relate, not a man was hit. Next day some infantry reinforcements, landing in the same place and manner, sustained forty casualties. That's the luck of the game—the fortune of war. We landed everything satisfactorily.

George brought up the rear, with his pots and dixies. It is because of George that I recapitulate.

In a long, straggling khaki line ("Column o' lumps," said the brigade major) we meandered past Casualty Point and Hell Spit, and up to our bivouac in Shrapnel Valley. Snipers on the hill up beyond Quinn's Post sent long-range shots at random down the track. Shells burst over our heads, and the leaden pellets spattered over the landscape. It would take too long to recount half the miraculous escapes some of our chaps had. Our artillery worked overtime, and the row was deafening. But our gunners could not silence the elusive cannon in the Olive Grove. After a time, wherein the minutes seemed like hours, we reached the camp site, and started to dig in feverishly. We burrowed like rabbits. Picks, shovels and bayonets made the earth fly till we had scratched a precarious shelter from the blast. Like troglodytes we snuggled into the dug-outs, waiting for the bombardment to cease.

But George went on with his cooking.

Next day we changed our quarters. The German artillerymen were too attentive. We had sustained a few casualties, so we sought a more retired spot under the lee of the hill. For the first time since we had landed we were able to look about us. There was a lull in the cannonade, though the musketry fusillade proceeded merrily. We saw the long line of Australian and New Zealand trenches whence the Turks had been driven in rout the night before, leaving 3,000 dead to mar the landscape. We heard too, definitely, for the first time of the good Australians who on this inhospitable shore had given their lives for King and Empire—General Bridges, Colonel MacLaurin, Lieutenant-Colonel Braund, Lieutenant-Colonel Onslow Thompson, Sergeant Larkin (who used to sit on the opposite side to Colonel Braund in the New South Wales Parliament, but found in war the leveller that makes us all one party), and hundreds of others. Looking up to the precipitous cliffs above, we marvelled anew at the reckless daring of our infantry comrades who had scaled those heights in the face of rifle, machine-gun and shrapnel.

But we had not long to saunter and wonder. Our brigade was sent straightway into the firing-line. We were initiated into the mysteries of trench warfare, sapping and mining, bombs and grenades, observing and sniping, posies and dug-outs, patrolling and listening, periscopes and peepholes, demonstrations and reconnaissance, supports and reserves, bully-beef and biscuits, mud and blood and slaughter, and all the humours and rumours, the hardships and horrors of war.

And all the time we were doing our little bit George went on with his cooking. He may have been thinking of Napoleon, or Marlborough, or Cromwell, but he did not seem to be thinking much about this war of ours—except that he had to do some cooking for it. The Turks were shooting many of our officers down, and many of our dear old pals, but George remained—and we hoped that they would spare him. Good cooks—real, good cooks like George—are scarce.