Evan's Gallipoli (3 page)

I can't imagine that I will. It is very loud. Major Western told me to go down to the cargo hold and make sure that our crates were removed safely. Then he told me to go to a certain Mr Kyriakis and have them stored in his shed.

‘You need to hire a couple of guards,' he said. ‘Or you'll never see them again. Our Aussies would steal a biscuit from a hungry baby. They say that before they arrived in Cairo there were four pyramids . . .'

I was very shocked. Our heroes, thieves! I went and got Father and told him. We took our own baggage—we have only one bag each—and did as the Major had suggested. I hired carriers to take the crates to Mr Kyriakis, then managed—in Greek—to hire his shed. He said he couldn't think of any people he could trust to guard it. I told him I would guard it myself. I did not greatly like Mr Kyriakis. He had a strange smile and looked sidelong at us. If he was a dog, I would not trust him with a sandwich. Or my ankles. So here I am, writing by kerosene lantern. I have made the crates into a platform and taken my blankets to the top of it. Father has gone to get our permissions to cross to Anzac. He will sleep tonight in a real bed in Mr Kyriakis's house. He is still weak from being so sick.

Lemnos is green and dotted with flowers. I haven't really had a chance to look at it yet. This shed has little green lizards. I wonder if they are relatives of the little green lizards in Apollo Bay?

June 6th

Last night was dreadful. I said my prayers and went to sleep on the crates and was awakened in the black dark by voices. I was about to denounce them in Greek when I realised that they were speaking English. Australian, in fact.

One said, ‘There's only a kiddie as guard,' and the other said, ‘They say there's bonzer booze in the crates.'

I sat up and told them that there was only bug powder and antiseptics in the crates, that they were for all of the heroes, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

There was a silence, then the first voice said, ‘Strewth!'

By then I had found the matches and lit my lantern. There were the two of them, in khaki, both with bandages; one on the head, the other on the leg.

One of them asked, ‘Who the blazes are you?' and I told him my name and Father's mission. They shifted from foot to foot.

‘So there's no booze?' asked the second.

I said no, only medical supplies.

‘C'n I sink the fangs inter yer for a deener, son?' asked the first. ‘Only we're perishin' for a drink.'

I said I only had the coins in my pocket but they were welcome to them. I also told them that Mr Kyriakis sold raki: Major Western had told me. They took the money.

‘You're a good boy,' said the first one. ‘Even though that gyppo's raki would bleach a black dog.' ‘Night,' they said, and they both went away.

I sat up the rest of the night. Just before dawn someone tried to open the door quietly. It disturbed the old cart frame I had leant against it. There was a loud clatter and whoever it was ran away.

This morning I handed over the guarding of the crates to Father while I went for breakfast. Mr Kyriakis was cross and scowled at me. But I drank the weak coffee and ate my dark bread and two boiled eggs. I could see that I was going to need my strength. When I went back to Father he said he had the permissions and we needed to find a boat to take us and the crates. He asked me to do the negotiating and warned me against the sin of pride in my knowledge of languages. ‘Remember the Tower of Babel,' he said. This was a very proper reproof. I had been pridefully pleased with myself. Now I am modestly cast down again. But I managed to get us a boat. Not a very good boat, but the captain swore it would manage.

The Dardanelles are not very far away; I suppose I could swim that far. But the stores could not. At first it seemed unreal. The beach is so busy. From the sea, it looked like an anthill overturned. And the noise from the big guns was so loud that I could not hear. And the smell. It was like a burning farm midden. Burnt flesh and a coppery smell I later learnt was blood, mixed with sewage and high explosive. The captain beached his little boat and soldiers ran to unload it, and us. We jumped into thigh-deep water. I was expecting it to be cold, but it was as warm as blood and filthy with rotting carcasses. Mules and dead men. One washed up against me. My first dead man. He was so very dead that he didn't seem ever to have been a human. His flesh was like pickled chicken. White and peeling and salty. I called on God to protect me and I went on. There was nothing else to do.

The red-faced major in charge of the beach yelled, ‘Get those crates stowed!', so we were crushed into a small cave with all the stuff and we just sat there, shivering under the terrible sound, until it stopped so quickly that I swallowed, thinking I had gone deaf. Then the major stormed up and yelled, ‘Who are you people?' and said to me, ‘You ought to be in uniform, boy,' though I was in uniform, and my father explained in his quiet voice, and the major laughed and said, ‘Get on, then, and try not to get killed, the burial parties are flat out like a lizard drinking.' He waved a hand up the hill and I could see tall cliffs, and around them and behind them rows of trenches. The army had burrowed into the hills like rabbits. We took a small knapsack each and loaded it with lice powder and started to climb. As I started to move I noticed that my fingernails had turned blue and I did not seem to be able to stop shaking. Father, however, went fearlessly on, so I followed. I'll write more tomorrow. I just want to sleep now.

June 7th

The soldiers were pleased to see us when we explained what we were there to do. No one could not be impressed by Father. I passed one little tin to a big man with black powder marks on his face and he noticed how I shook.

‘Got the shakes, eh, kid?' he said. ‘We all get 'em. Passes off after a few weeks. I'm Bluey. Pleased to meetcha. Got anything else?'

‘A few things,' I said. ‘What's that cooking?' There was a dreadfully black iron kettle on a small fire, and it smelt awful.

‘Bully stew,' said the second man. ‘I'm Curly, I'm the poisoner for this troop.'

‘Might be better with some curry powder,' I said, though I couldn't see that curry-flavoured mess was going to taste better than bully beef-flavoured mess. It smelt spoiled. ‘I'll bring some tomorrow if I come back this way.'

‘You gotta,' he said, tapping the side of his nose. ‘This is the main sap. It's a good 'un. Nice and deep. Cosy billet, this, compared with some.'

I could not imagine how this stinking, muddy, fetid trench could be cosy. Only in some strange other world. But this was a strange other world, of course. These were my heroes, the ones which Homer wrote about. They were filthy and ragged and some of them snarled, snatching the lice-powder tins, growling that I should have brought raki if I was going to go to all that trouble.

I was so tired when I crept back into our cave and started a tiny fire to try to cook something out of bully beef, biscuits and a handful of purslane—at least it looked like purslane. I bit it and it tasted like purslane. It grows by the sea at Apollo Bay. Bully is terrible stuff. It melts into a sort of thick glue as soon as it is heated, with lumps of gristle in. I knew Father wouldn't eat it. He's a very strict vegetarian. So I made mustard and purslane for him. He ate it. He wrinkled his nose at what I was choking down. But he has never made me give up meat. And I don't think that there's a lot of meat in bully beef, anyway. I wish we'd brought tinned fruit. And even good old Camp Pie . . . I am writing this in our tiny cave by the light of a candle, and I had better stop. At least I haven't got lice, thanks to our own powder.

June 8th

Too awful to write.

June 9th

Still awful.

June 12th

The guns never cease. All night, and the thudding goes through the earth and rattles my teeth. I feel like screaming. No one would hear me.

June 13th

Today I wanted to just curl up in my little cave and die. But I went on. Somehow.

June 14th

There are rats and cockroaches the size of my palm and I couldn't sleep. I don't think Father slept either. I heard him praying. The high explosive shells never seem to stop. At dawn, Major Western looked in. I was very pleased to see him. He looked so clean.

‘Got a boat going back to Lemnos,' he said. ‘Want to replenish the supplies? Also might be able to get you an egg or two, maybe some fruit, and I can offer you a bath.'

Father waved at me to go so I went. The boat was awash, weighed down with wounded men. They were masked in blood and soot, they didn't look human. They groaned and someone was crying for his mother. The major was just as usual. He chatted about languages as we rowed our awful cargo over to Lemnos. ‘Why aren't there nurses and doctors for them?' I asked him. ‘Because Command is a collection of morons and dolts,' he said, just as though he was talking about the weather. ‘Who couldn't find their backsides with both hands.' ‘Amen,' said one of the wounded, and some of them actually laughed.

We got into harbour with only a couple of near misses from the big guns and people came forward to unload us. There is a hospital on Lemnos and nurses, tall ladies in white with red capes, even though it is so hot. They look so cool and beautiful. There are millions of flies on the beach. I must get some repellent as well as pick an armload of this strong thyme which carpets the rocks. It will be nice to sleep on and we can flavour food with it.

Mr Kyriakis did not look pleased to see me and the major again, but the stores were all still there and I assembled a load which I could carry, picked my thyme, and found the insect repellent. Then the major showed me to a hut with a big bucket of boiling water, a lump of soft soap and a bucket of cold water, and told me I could bar the door. I didn't lose any time scrubbing myself and my hair and my clothes and changing into my spare kit. I felt so clean. I laid out the clothes on the sun-heated iron roof of the hut and they will be dry soon.

I am sitting on a bench under a tree, waiting for the major to come back from seeing a mad Turk in the hospital. The tree is a eucalyptus and I am suddenly so homesick. For Australia, and peace, and gum trees, and food and pure seas with no dead mules in them. I must not cry so I am doing our accounts. Number of tins powder distributed: 78. Number remaining: 922. Must remember curry powder and mustard and all the spices I can find to flavour that terrible stew. Cooked, it's awful. Cold, the men call it ‘dead man's tongues'. And I expect that's what it tastes like. Slept and lazed all day on Lemnos and came back to the beach at night.

June 15th

I got back late with the major's boat loaded with stuff, but the thyme made a lovely bed and I slept, even though the big guns banged and thumped. Now we are confined because it is pouring rain and nothing can keep its feet, and more traffic in the trenches would be very bad. And the Turks are shooting at everything that moves. As usual. I'm reading Homer and my Turkish phrasebook in case I need it . . . The Turks are very close. One can hear them talking from the main trench and yesterday they say that two Englishmen jumped into the wrong trench and found themselves among the enemy. Who laughed and let them go, they say. Gossip here is called ‘the beach'. As in, ‘The beach says' or ‘Word on the beach is . . .' I've found out the mountain is called Kaba Tepe. I don't know what it means. But ‘hello' in Turkish is
salaam aleikum
. And Achilles is still sulking in his tent in Homer. I wish this rain would stop. No amount of God's waters will wash this place clean.

June 16th

Heavy shelling. I went back to Bluey and Curly with my mustard and my curry powder. They tried curry right away and it did taste better. It tasted of curry. ‘You beaut!' said Curly. They all ate it. I suppose you will eat anything when you are really hungry. I sat with them for a while, then continued up the sap. Thinking all the way. Yesterday I met a nurse. She came up to me as I was waiting for the major to come back and sat down next to me in the sun.

‘Hello,' she said to me, and repeated it in Greek.

‘Hello,' I replied in both languages.

She smiled. Her face is almost grey and she has black shadows under her eyes but I don't think she is very old. Not as old as my father.

‘I'm Sister Lucas,' she told me. ‘What's your name?

You're too young to be a soldier.'

I told her my name and my mission. She laughed.

‘There's a good boy,' she said. ‘We're all volunteers here. And if I had known, before I left Melbourne, what this was like, I don't think I would have had the courage to come.'

‘Nor me,' I agreed. ‘God must be very wrath with the world.'

‘And that's true,' she said.

As we were sitting there a cat came and sat at her feet. He was a scarred old tomcat. Sister Lucas stroked his ears.

‘This is Red,' she said. ‘Kokkino, the Greeks call him. He's my champion ratcatcher. The hospital tents are overrun with rats. Red's sudden death on them. I wish I had a battalion of cats.'

‘Pleased to meet you,' I said to the cat, who gave me a bored green-eyed glance. I was so pleased to see him. He was the first pet animal I had seen in this dreadful place. He let me stroke him. His fur was rough and his ears were all ragged from rat bites. I found a piece of the Greek cheese and he ate it from my hand, licking my fingers in case he had missed a bit. I felt honoured.

‘Sister, can I ask you something?'

She nodded, closing her eyes against the sun. She looked so tired.

‘Why are we here? Fighting the Turks? What have the Turks got to do with the war in Europe?'

‘Turkey has allied herself with Germany, our enemy,' said Sister Lucas. ‘Germany wants to rule the world. We can't have that. The British Empire will last for a thousand years. The sun never sets on the British Empire. It never will. This is a trial, but we will manage.'