Leon Uris (59 page)

“Well, the lads did themselves proud, today. Jesus, for a minute I didn’t think they were going to come out into no-man’s-land after me.”

“They always intended to do so, sir. They just had to stop for a few seconds and piss their pants.”

“Well, damned if I pissed my pants,” the Colonel said, “I shit mine.”

“I lost my squad today, sir. I think due to my bad judgment.”

“Well, this is the place to do it,” Malone said, shocking me. “Hell, if every colonel and general had to account for the men he’d killed needlessly, nobody would take the damned jobs, and by golly, what would the human race do without the kind of thing that went on out there, today?”

“I pushed a man over the bridge who had no call to be pushed over the bridge,” I said.

“And if you hadn’t and he survived the day, his life would have been ruined. Hell, Landers, those three lads followed you over every hill in this wretched place, day after day. There’s a problem. When someone survives a day like this, his cobber out in no-man’s-land, he then finds himself wallowing in survivor’s guilt syndrome.”

“Yourself, sir?”

“No,” he answered. “Soldiering is an honorable profession. I’m not speaking of Alexander and Caesar, but little soldiers who defend little nations. New Zealand is the smallest nation in this war and has come the longest way to fight. We owe the Brits and the Brits owe us.
Unfortunately, no nation ever existed that didn’t need soldiers. It’s the order of things. Soldiering is an honorable profession that makes more mistakes over human life than any other.”

“Does the guilt ever pass?”

“No,” he answered. “But you have to learn to live with it.”

“Why are you bothering with me after a day like this?”

“I admired the way you and Major Hubble and Jeremy and the Gaffers put your unit together in Egypt. I understand you had the best whorehouse in Cairo and pulled Hubble out of deep shit in the Hotel Aida. Besides, I won twenty quid on you when you torpedoed that Aussie in Port Albany. Get over today. You’re going to make a great officer. I’ve got to make a round of the lines. You want to come with me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I think I lost my adjutant, my exec, and a couple battalion commanders today. Suppose Major Hubble could spare you for a few days?”

The Turks did not come at dawn.

The Turks never counterattacked again.

It would have been a lovely time for us to go after them but we had nothing to go after them with. Both sides were in shock, unable to follow up.

The bodies in no-man’s-land were three and four deep around Quinn’s Post. Two more days of rotting in the sun and ships could navigate their way into Anzac Cove by the smell. The stink kept us in a constant state of nausea. Then followed the world, international, universal, cosmic convention of flies, maggots, mosquitoes, and rats.

The flies were so thick that if you tried to take a spoon of bully beef, you’d have to place the spoon on your lips, shoo off the flies, and take a bite in a blink. It didn’t help. You always had a half dozen flies to spit out.

Dysentery ran rampant, drawing yet more flies.

By the end of May, Quinn’s Post and its environs was
an unfit place for decent, civilized human beings to conduct a battle.

“Colonel, sir.”

“Aye?”

“The Turks are waving a white flag.”

I followed him down the trench where an officer pointed to the Turkish lines.

“Corporal Perkins,” he said, knowing hundreds by name, “put a white cloth on your bayonet and wave above the trench.”

We watched through periscopes as a Turkish and a German officer rose out of their trench holding their hands up. Malone called for a loud hailer. The enemies walked a couple steps and halted.

“We are not armed!” the German said in commanding English.

“What do you want?” Malone shouted through the loud hailer.

“We wish to speak with an officer!”

Lieutenant Colonel Eastman put his hand on Malone’s shoulder as Malone started to climb the ladder and, in a look that was all but an order, shook his head no. Three other officers, including myself, also gently eased the Colonel back down the ladder.

Malone had spoken to me too much in the past couple of days. He knew I had an insatiable urge to get into no-man’s-land and look for my squad.

“I’ll go,” Eastman said.

“I’m coming with you,” I said.

It was impossible to walk without pushing aside rotting and bloated bodies with your toe. All I could think of for the first minute was that I would not give the enemy the satisfaction of seeing me vomit. I thought Eastman, a very fine soldier, was going to pass out. The German and the Turk were in no better condition.

Damned if the German didn’t click his heels and snap his head in a bow. “Major Krause.”

“I am Captain Ramadam,” the Turk said, extending his hand. Eastman nodded recognition, not offering his hand in return. Nor did I offer mine.

“I am representing General Limon von Sanders. We think, for reasons obvious to both sides, we should arrange a truce so each side can collect and bury its dead.”

It took another two days to set up the rules, but this was the kind of good-fellow negotiations the British relished. Malone sent me out with the first fatigue party, hoping it would help me exorcise my demons.

Captain Ramadam had learned his English in London. What does one say? How are the wife and kids back in Constantinople? Or, try it again and we’ll kick the shit out of you, again? Or, funny job we’ve got, Captain…well, let’s get on with it?

We measured the distance from trench to trench and pegged down a string halfway down no-man’s-land. Each work party could work either side, bringing their own men to their own side of the string.

I fashioned a primitive mask but the smell got through. Flies were almost as thick as concrete. We agreed to keep rotating the working parties as they could bear the stench for only a few minutes.

Captain Ramadam offered me a cigarette. It was so strange.

Nothing worked. Those men still wearing trousers had pretty much the same color uniform on both sides. The faces and flesh had been eaten off a goodly number. Many of the bodies were bloated and we had to stab them with bayonets to release the gas and whatever else blew out before we tried to move them, spewing all over us.

But the corpses had locked into one another with rigor mortis. We tried grappling hooks and ropes, but arms and legs and heads pulled off.

After another high-level meeting it was decided that a common grave be dug right down the center of no-man’s-land and all bodies—Turk, Kiwi, Aussie, Ghurka, Maori,
German—be put into a common grave and covered with lime.

We exchanged identification tags and personal possessions, both sides agreeing not to strip for souvenirs and wallets. Miraculously I got the tags of all three of my men and the wallet of Happy Stevens…of Palmerston North.

We and the Turks dug alongside each other, traded cigarettes, rations, mementos. Nobody seemed pissed at anyone, but more ashamed than anything else. I think a couple of the enemy even traded addresses…for after the war.

The diggers rotated every few moments, some going back to puke their guts out. When the lime was spread the predators were pissed off. Some of the smell went away. It would fade from our noses after they had turned to skeletons…it would never fade from our brains.

We had killed over five thousand Turks and there were a couple thousand of our dead. Along with the wounded on both sides, the battle had cost nearly twenty-five thousand casualties.

When the dirt was thrown over the lime and the site patted down with shovel backs to clear new fields of fire, we shook hands with the Turks, returned to our trenches, and waited for 1800, when a flare from both sides signaled that it was all right to start shooting again.

I stayed with Colonel Malone for as long as I could. Through him. Through the incredible silence of his suffering I began to regain my own strength and sense of duty.

At last Jeremy came up to Quinn’s to personally escort me back to Mule Gully. He and Chester and Modi took me to the beach, got me deloused and Jaysus, I got to take off my shoes again. No matter how much you are hurting, taking off the shoes and putting the feet in the water must have been what Jesus felt when he was baptized.

I slept for thirty hours.

When I awakened, Major Chris was sitting opposite me. “Well, you’ve vacationed at Quinn’s resort long enough,” he said.

“Colonel Malone said that if you could spare me, he’d like to have me as his aide.”

“Sorry. Yurlob is quite ill.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Dysentery. I think it’s starting to kill more of our people than the Turks.”

“Yeah, I should stay here.”

“Goodo. We’ve lost a lot of mules, as well.”

“Maybe Yurlob will go back to Lemnos, now,” I said.

“I ordered him back. I think sometimes you colonials don’t believe you have to take our orders.”

I know he meant that as black humor, but there was too much of the old Christopher Hubble twinkling in his voice.

“We’ve a long way to go here yet,” he continued.

That got my attention and my clenched teeth got his attention.

“Why don’t you just come out and say it, Landers?”

“Who am I to argue with the brilliant minds who put us on Gallipoli?”

“Llewelyn Brodhead was not one of them,” Chris said, stunningly. “He protested this entire expedition. Generals do not get to choose their commands. He has fought tooth and nail for the Anzac and he has refused to leave Gallipoli because he believes he can do the best job for us.”

Do I say it? Do I shut up? I do not doubt Brodhead’s courage or his resolve or his standing with his troops. But something is fucked up in this command. A thousand men could have been saved by a simple howitzer barrage executed at the right moment. Fortunately for the general he has a cast-iron stomach when it comes to needlessly killing his men. That’s part of the unique credentials a general has to have to be a general—to divorce himself from the consequences of his decisions over life and death. If you’re wrong…well, “Carry on, old chaps.” Somewhere down
the line, doesn’t something catch up with these people? Maybe not…so long as soldiering is an honorable profession.

“I’ll get over to the paddock,” I said.

Modi once had weight to spare. The Gallipoli diet took care of that. His embrace still had a good sharp bang to it. We went about the paddock. A gang of Turkish prisoners were chained together with ankle bracelets, shoveling up the dung into a big wagon to be dumped into a nearby pit with the executed animals. Not too bad. We had over four hundred mules in service and the replacement packers were excellent

Nasty green flies were getting the best of the mules’ ears. Leather, hay, feed, medication, and water were all in good stead.

“They are a hell of a lot better off than the two-legged troops,” I said.

“They’ve really held up under the heat. It can’t get too hot for them,” Modi said, “but we’re still losing twenty to forty animals a week.”

“Where’s Yurlob?”

Modi shook his head. “He and a couple hundred other men sleep by the latrines. All most of them can do is pass their own blood and stomach linings. One lad fell into the trench and drowned before they could get to him.”

Yurlob was inspecting a train. Whew! He was barely able to walk. He lit up when he saw me.

“I always thought English soldiers exaggerated when they said they shit their guts out. It is no exaggeration. I think, worse than cholera. To answer your questions. Modi keeps me stuffed with rice and tea. No, I will not go back to Lemnos. Did you have a good time at Quinn’s?”

“Fantastic.”

Yurlob broke off and became martial. “You, number four.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your name?”

“Private Shannon, sir.”

“You and your mate better work together. Line up the right side better or the pack will start sliding. Are both sides equal in weight?”

“I suppose not, sir.”

“Wake up, Shannon.”

“Yes, sir.”

When the packer took the train out, Yurlob watched intently. “What I have tried to do is give the same train the same set of trails. The mules adapt quickly. Rotation was putting too many over the side in strange places. We’re saving quite a few animals.”

“How about Sikhs?” I said. “Let me explain something to you. You’re going to be dead in a week if you don’t get out of here. What I mean is, go to Lemnos and get off your feet for a fortnight. Deal? Just a fortnight?”

“Ah Rory, you are like a rapier with your words. I like you.” He started to walk away. I turned him around.

We went into a starting contest which I lost. He put an extremely weak hand on my shoulder. I could not bear to look. The man was all but rotting away before my eyes.

“There are certain things in my culture more important. For me, things are in good order. With my years of service, my family will receive a fine pension. Landers, my old battalion is up in the hills here doing the real fighting. My family and the people of my village must know I died on Gallipoli and not in a hospital bed. Are we clear?”

“Clear,” I said, “but off your feet. You schedule the loads at the office. I’ll send the trains out. And one more thing, you move in with Jeremy, Goodwood, and me.”

“I prefer here…it’s closer to the latrine. Be of good cheer, the Sikh religion makes all kinds of convenient delusions for the moment of death.”

*  *  *

Days and night passed. Nothing got better. Wounded filled up Widow’s Gully every night. We shelled, they shelled. Feints, patrols, small probes, ambushes, broken piers, trains going out, mules executed, bully beef, lice, flies, teeth falling out from the biscuits.

Jeremy came in early one evening. Lovely. We hadn’t had much time to talk since I’d come down. He started at his boots. “To take off or not to take off,” he recited. “haven’t had a swim for six nights.”

“Let’s go. We’ll leave one shoe off and one shoe on.”

“Isn’t there an old nursery rhyme about that?”

Oh…the water felt good…oh, center of the universe…