Evan's Gallipoli (14 page)
Our duties mean that we get to sit in a large comfortable tent until someone comes and asks us to interpret for them. I will bring Father tomorrow. We have companions. Boys like us. They run errands and often they are the only support of their families so it isn't surprising that they nick everything which isn't nailed down. I saw my boot vanishing when I took it off to scratch my foot and when I grabbed it back, the boy who had stolen it didn't even look ashamed. He just grinned and gave back the boot. I must remember to keep my boots on in future.
An orderly came rushing into our tent to summon us to a new transport of wounded. Father, who had been sitting quietly reciting the beatitudes to Sirius, jumped up and came too. I didn't want him to but he seemed determined. So we went to where they were unloading the ambulances and talked to the groaning men, who were filthy with mud and shivering with cold. It is warmer here than in the Dardanelles, apparently. They were in an awful state but Abdul and I tried to speak to them to tell them they were safe. We said it over and over again. In Turkish. In English. In Greek for a few Greeks. Then I realised that the man who was holding my hand desperately tight was a German. I wanted to hide my face. I wanted to hit him. I was so ashamed of myself. And I could not remember the German word for âsafe'. I froze. Then Father leant over me and took the man's hand and said, â
Du bist frish und gesund, Camarade
.' The patient tried to smile. He was carried inside. I stared at Father. Was this the man who had wandered with me so far and so blindly? He said, âThis is God's work, Evan,' and more wounded came so we went on talking.
We ate in the hospital mess. The food is quite good and there is a lot of meat and green vegetables. Father is still mostly silent but when he speaks he makes sense. It is a miracle. Abdul has been talking to the Turkish wounded. He says that Gallipoli is a disaster for both sides. Both armies are exhausted and wounded and sick. Neither will give up. He quoted his hero, Mustafa Kemal, who said to the soldiers: âI am not asking you to fight. I am asking you to die.' Abdul thinks this is a fine heroic sentiment. He must be mad. All I can see is the harvest of war. Dead and mutilated men. Burnt fields. Lost children. Starving mothers. Madness.
More wounded coming in, needing to be comforted. Conditions here are not too bad. I had a cup of tea with Sister Lucas. She says at least there is enough hot water to wash everyone because a lot of the injuries can start minor but quickly become infected because of the filth and the mud which is foul with human waste and dead horses and men. Father came today to talk to the Germans. The sound of German still makes me feel sick. Sister has been soaking bandages off and removing uniforms as fragile as paper. She says she needs to get her wounded inside quickly because winter is coming. It doesn't snow here often but it is very cold. She arranged for us to draw army overcoats from the quartermaster. He is a scowling soldier with one arm. My overcoat would take two of me and the dog. It trails on the ground. But I think I will be glad of it soon. It rained today and the whole hospital is a sea of mud. They had to put down duckboards.
Today I thought I saw the gypsies coming in along the main street. People here do not like them; they call them thieves. One knows another, I say. Dinner was steak. I haven't seen a steak for months. It was delicious. Sirius got the scraps. He likes steak, too.
I cannot get over the change in Father. I haven't dared to ask him how much of our journey he remembers. He goes every day to the wards to talk to the patients. Sirius goes too. The men like Sirius. Sometimes a man who has not spoken will brighten up and reach out to caress Sirius's ears. Sirius always licks them. He is such a friendly little doggie.
Terrible dreams last night. But today I was called to talk to more prisoners. A doctor said to Father that he was working hard. âNot I but the grace of God in me,' Father replied. St Paul said that, I think.
The Turks are in a bad state. They worry terribly about their own families so far away. A lot of them have gangrene. Some would rather die than lose their leg or arm. If they are mutilated they don't want to live. I think that Abdul is a great comfort to them. He can tell them that Allah still loves them even if they are short an arm or a leg. I don't know what will happen to them when they are sent home, if they ever see home again.
Sister Lucas says that we must have a day off tomorrow. She says we should go and look at the National Museum. I told her that I had been reading Homer until that thief Mehmet stole it and she found me another copy. I am so grateful. Today we were in the incurables ward. It was so sad. These men have lost their minds. Their bodies are whole but they cannot see or hear or walk. It's shell shock. Sirius managed to get one of them to smile at him. Father managed to get one of the deaf to pray with him. It is like a whole tent full of ghosts. God have mercy on them. And Father. And me.
That National Archaeological Museum is wonderful. It is a big neoclassical-style building stuffed with treasure. Abdul said it wasn't a patch on Topaki in Istanbul but then admitted he had never been there. There were Ancient Greek pots and plates and vases. And sculptures. The boy on the bolting horse is an amazing thing. Once I rode a horse that bolted and I bet it looked just like that. Even Abdul was impressed after a while. We wandered back through Athens in a sudden rainstorm. Some of the streets are lined with orange trees. We got very sticky with baklava. A very nice day.
A shipfull of Somali soldiers came in. We can't speak Somali. Not a moan out of them, even though they were dreadfully wounded by shrapnel. Abdul and I ran through all our languages and found that some of them could speak French. They say that Gallipoli must fall soon. I wish it was all over. Then they will have to send us home.
I haven't been sleeping very well. Every time I close my eyes I see terrible things. Dead men sinking in mud, destroyed villages. I went out in the middle of the night for a breath of fresh air. There were patients walking around. They couldn't sleep either. I saw one ask for a cigarette. They stood together under the light. One said to the other, âYou got the bloody nightmares?' and the other said, âO' course I've bloody got the bloody nightmares!' And so have I.
That thin man is back, watching us. I don't like it. Which of all our enemies could he be? Bulgarian? Turkish? Maybe even English? He never speaks or makes any movement. I will ignore him. There's a lot to do here. Father goes every day to speak to the soldiers and Abdul and I are really useful. Today he managed to get through to a Turkish prisoner speaking a strange dialect. I am going back to reading
The Iliad
. Achilles is bargaining with Priam for his son Hector's body.
Rain again, and it is getting cold. I was sent to the convalescents today. They are all making ready for a troop ship which is going to Australia on Monday. One man said he could tailor my coat to fit me. He was a tailor when he was at home. He only wanted a tin of apricots to do it. He will be all right, he says, with no legs, because tailors just have to sit down. He was weeping as he told me this. I left him my coat and asked the QM for two tins of apricots, which he gave me after much grumbling. Patients have no military pay, so they cannot buy comforts. This seems hard. If they hadn't been soldiers they would not have been wounded. I shall ask around for more little treats for them. Poor fellows.
I met Sergeant O'Rourke of the Salvation Army and asked him about comforts. I told him how Father and I had distributed lice powder and other things. He seemed interested. He is a small man with bright fierce eyes like a hawk. He said he had heard of us but thought that we had been killed. He agreed to allow us to hand out some of the small comforts. He also asked me to help mutilated soldiers write home, so their relatives wouldn't get such a shock when they saw them. He also told me that Simpson and his donkey had been killed. I wonder what happened to Bluey and Curly? I expect they are dead. Almost everyone is.
Today no transport. Time to get the soldiers writing home. The Salvation Army has set up a refreshments tent which has tea and coffee and tables and pens and papers and even a gramophone. I had a table of my own and pens and paper and men came and sat down to dictate their letters. The Salvation Army will give them the stamp. They try to be cheerful. But they have to write such terrible things.
Dear Mum, I have lost my leg and all my mates have been killed
. Those letters must be awful to read, as well as to write. I can imagine the excitement in the house when a letter arrives and then they open it to read of disaster and ruin. I wonder what a breaking heart feels like?
Went with Sister Lucas to the embassy. Mr Richardson was taken aback. She said very firmly that she could identify both me and my father, having seen us on Gallipoli. He hummed and hawed but Sister Lucas was firm. Nurses mostly are. He finally gave her a lot of forms to fill out and told her to come back with them and he might see about issuing us with papers. She bought us each an ice cream on the way back.
âHonestly,' she said. âThat man is an imbecile!' I had to agree. Sister says that she will talk to her commanding officer about us. It looks like Father's first battlefield attempt to convert the Germans wasn't seen or noticed. There was a battle going on at the time, I suppose. I don't even know if Father remembers what he did. The city is uneasy. Lots of yelling in the tavernas. That thin man is still there, outside the hospital.
We are making friends with the Greek boys who share our tent. Particularly George. He is the only one of his family who has a job. They were farmers on Samothrace driven out by the Bulgarians. George is cheerful. He says that the King dismissed the governmentâthis Eleftherios Venizelos they are so proud ofâon the fifth of October. The King's wife is a sister of Kaiser Wilhelm, so he doesn't want to join in the war on the side of the Allies. But he has declared war on Bulgaria. That's where the Greek army has gone. Poor Thrace. Just what it needs, another war.
We are sad today because one of our patients, a nice man called Teddy who had a beautiful singing voice, has died. He used to sing âRose of No-Man's-Land' to Sister Lucas. She is sad, too. She ordered us to take a brisk walk to cheer ourselves up. We climbed up to the Plaka. It is really interesting.
Went back to the Plaka. Homer's cities must have been like this. All crowded together inside a wall. There are little houses and little shops on the steep little streets. They sell interesting things. One shop, for example, sells nothing but baskets. All sizes and shapes, from little tiny ones for a baby's rattle to ten-bushel baskets for grain. Abdul, George and I wandered around for an hour.
New transport in today. They came late in the afternoon. It's getting dark earlier. The winter is coming on. I collected my coat from the tailor. It fits perfectly. I am glad of it.
Many men came in today so muddy and chilled that Sister had to order them washed before she could even work out which army they came from. Not that it matters. They are all wounded. Finding out who they were and getting names and numbers took us all day and I am worn out. The work was so hard Sister issued us a tot of ouzo. I still don't like that stuff. But I am sleepy. News of Gallipoliâ much as usual. The Battle of the Nek didn't work. The Turks still hold the heights. The suffering continues. I am so tired.
Father got up this morning singing prayers but I just couldn't. Get up, that is. All the strength seems to have gone out of me. Sister told me to stay in bed and ordered Abdul to get me a rice pudding for breakfast. She says I am to rest. I am reading
The Iliad
. Heroes. They haven't changed at all. That idiot Paris has just challenged Achilles.
I am still in bed. Because Sister said. Never argue with a nurse.
Feeling better. Went to the interpreters' tent and stayed all day drinking tea and talking to George and the others. No more wounded came in. It's raining really hard.
More wounded. Sister sent me and Abdul to fetch more carbolic. She wants gallons of the stuff. It's a disinfectant and it keeps down the smell. The poor gangrened ones smell frightful. They know this and are ashamed so we can't afford to wrinkle our noses. The carbolic makes this easier. Men are coming in with frostbite. They talk of sentries frozen to death at their posts. Men who died because they could not walk on their frozen feet. Usually they have to amputate the toes and fingers but can sometimes save the hands and feet. We pop them into a deep warm bath to thaw out. Sometimes this works. One man in such a bath told Father that he must have died and gone to heaven. He hadn't been warm for months. In Belgium, the Germans have shot a nurse called Edith Cavell for spying. All she was doing was helping the injured. Barbarians.
Father has been helping the German prisoners to write home and he asked me to help him. I didn't want to, but I did. I was writing at the dictation of a soldier called Franz to his mother.
Liebe Mutter
, he began. Just like all the other letters I have written.
Dear Mother, don't worry, I'm alive. I have been wounded but I am recovering. Kiss my little brother and sister for me. I don't know when I will see you again
. Poor Franz. I felt sorry for him. Even though he is a German. The sisters are allowed to refuse to care for the Germans. None of them has done so. They are nurses, after all. It's not up to me to flinch when the nurses don't. Sister Lucas comes from Lorne. We talk sometimes about the beach.
