Redemption. - Redemption. Part 62
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Redemption. Part 62

Elgin was lovely...a real machine-gunner...short bursts...picking up first on those who might make a charge at us...a scramble...they poured back toward the ridge and escaped. Elgin's tracers kept finding them. I don't know if any of their patrol got back over the ridge alive.

The light over the gully went from fierce white to dull bloody red and popped out...

"We'd better move to the opposite wall of the gully," I said, "in case they come back. Good go, lads."

"I didn't even use a half a belt of ammo," Elgin said, taking the carrying handle of the gun and draping it over his shoulder.

"I've got the ammo case," Spears said.

Chester Goodwood was frozen, then shivering and dried up. I slapped him and he grunted a not. "Want me to carry you or can you hold on to the back of my shirt?"

"I can move," he assured me, wobbling to his feet.

I had studied the lines of the gully during the daylight hours and hoped that in near blackness I could find my way down the center and up the other side. Holding hands or shirts, we skidded and huffed into the gully bed. Something soft under my feet. Shit, a Turk!

He moaned and cried, begging for his life. I dared turn my torch on him for an instant. Poor bastard's stomach was out. His eyes screamed to me for mercy!

"I'd better finish him," I said, "or else he may call to another patrol."

"I'm sorry, Abdul," I said, and shot him.

Elgin and Spears were restless but dropped off to sleep, flinging themselves about and muttering. Chester said nothing. He was going through the same shit I had in the landing boat when I froze.

So, what did the day bring? I had lost much of the awe I had for men wearing admiral's stripes and the red collar of a general. They had done some fucking stupid things today.

As for Chester Goodwood, I suppose wars had been crafted for guys like us. He had become a very big man in my eyes.

All right, Rory, you've now known ultimate fear. You felt it again when the Turkish patrol entered the gully, but by God, the second time you had your head on.

Elgin...what a gunner...Happy Stevens from Palmerston North...where the hell was he? That's right, I sent him back to the beach. I hope he made it...

The Turk moaned...he refused to die. I couldn't get rid of that wild look he wore. Who would be crying tomorrow in Constantinople? A couple of little kids?

I never thought there would come the day I would wake up with sheer elation at the sight of Major Hubble. Happy had done his job. He had reached the beach. Just before dawn, the platoon and battalion company moved into the beach end of the gully with reels of barbed wire.

I saw them in the middle of the gully! Eight dead Turks! The wounded fellow had crawled halfway up to us when he gave out.

Jeremy handed me his canteen. Nothing ever felt as good going down...nothing.

"It was a good thing you were here," Christopher said. "This gully was wide open right down to the beach. The Turks could have come back with a battalion and attacked if you hadn't gotten their patrol."

"Shithouse luck," I mumbled.

Why did I put a Very pistol into my pack? Why did I call for a machine-gun squad even though I knew it would slow me down? Why did I select this ravine? Luck? Luck? Luck? How many lucks do you get before you are Johnny Tarbox? Why Johnny? Why not me? Chester told me that every soldier who ever experienced it probably wondered why he lived and the guy next to him died.

"I understand we lost Tarbox on the landing?" the Major asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Bad luck. Good fellow," Chris said. He scanned our area. "I see you've staked out the paddock. Good go. Jeremy, can you get it enclosed with wire?"

"Yes."

"Up at the top of the gully, don't spare the wire. Lay it down heavy. Major, I got a suspicion that there's a zigzag route into here. We'd better get a company of infantry up there with a couple of Vicker guns."

"I totally agree," Chris said. "You help Jeremy here. I'll take Goodwood back with me so he can explain this draw to General Brodhead."

"How goes the battle?" I asked.

"We're putting a lot of men ashore today," Christopher said. "We'll get everything tidied up."

When Christopher was gone, Jeremy sat alongside me. "Monumental fuckup," Jeremy said. "Naval gunfire, zero. Our landing, one mile north. The Anzacs are digging in for dear life a thousand to fifteen hundred yards uphill. Well, this looks like a fairly good spot."

It was. Not only did we have our paddock but also our battalion headquarters. Later Anzac Corps headquarters dug in in our general area.

With the paddock perimeter laid out and Major Hubble having more hands than needed to dig out battalion headquarters, I went back to the beach to help evacuate the wounded.

The day was all about men pouring onto the beach from the sea, rushing up to shore up our lines while we were getting our wounded into boats...getting gear...trying to anchor down the pontoon piers, which were being blown almost as fast as we could set them up.

I glimpsed a blur of faces...Happy from somewhere... Chester...Dan Elgin, my machine-gunner last night, limped in with a leg wound...whistling artillery, explosions, and the constant cries and moans of the wounded.

I stripped to the waist as the midday heat became insufferable and found myself in charge of one of the working piers, pulling in boat after boat unloading, then loading them with wounded. I filled them up until bodies totally covered the bottom of the craft. Most of them lay ankle deep in blood. As boats pulled off to the troop transport area, I could see the dead being dumped overboard.

By early evening I learned that there were no proper hospital facilities aboard the troopships. It seems that all the Red Cross transports were in service in the English Channel taking men back from the Western Front. We were using cattle boats here with virtually no medical personnel or equipment aboard. Some ships were making for Lemnos, others for Alexandria.

I don't know how many men I loaded that day...maybe fifty...maybe a hundred boatloads. I was so soggy with their blood, their bodies continually oozing and slipping through my hands.

Chester found me. A perimeter had been established at the head of what was now Mule Gully with two infantry companies digging in to protect it.

We found Jeremy on the beach, somehow managing to keep a line of order in the chaos.

"Let's take a bath," I said.

We couldn't take our boots off, the sea was too filled with sharp-edged bits of lava, and it was equally difficult to find a clean pool of water away from the blood and slime. We came out of the sea sticky. Then, my second delicious tin of bully beef and hard biscuits.

The Major had set up a fairly decent little cave for battalion headquarters in the hillside. "We've ten to twelve thousand more men ashore in this sector," he announced. "They're forming a line up there as best they can. Seems to be lots of open spots. How's the beach, Jeremy?"

"Reasonable. We have our boxes sorted out, more or less, and know about where to send the new units up."

"Rough paddock is ready," Chester said.

"The mules will be coming in another day," I said. "Right now we haven't got the slightest idea of where to dispatch them. I'd like to go out with a squad tomorrow and find our front lines and figure out the best route to each major post."

"Good."

Just like that, Major General Alexander Godley was standing over us in a semicircle of officers. We limped to our feet.

"What have we here?" Godley asked, not even knowing Major Hubble!

"Christopher Hubble, sir, Mule Transportation Battalion. We're making headquarters in this hill and we've set out a barbed wire fence for the paddock, right over there."

"You're the one who put those men stationed at the head of the gully?"

"Yes, sir..."

"Next time, get permission from me."

With no more, no less, he stomped off.

Captain Paul, the battalion executive officer, a ruddy farmer from Mataura, grunted his way in looking a bit shaky. "News from Cape Helles," Paul said. "The first wave landed and took up the left flank, meeting no resistance. Instead of pushing inland till they engaged the Turks, they sat on the beach and had tea."

"What!"

"The Twenty-ninth Division landed on the right flank. The Turks are cutting them to pieces."

II.

Quinn's Post I learned that some officers submerged while other officers and enlisted men took charge. I knew clearly what my job and territory was and acted as though I had the authority. What I needed, I took. More and more folks thought me hard and I didn't bother to correct them.

I discovered that Happy Stevens of Palmerston North was a fabulous artist and confiscated him as well as Spears and Dan Elgin and the Vickers gun. I needed to lay out route maps from the beach to frontline posts in the next week or two and these men would make a sweet team.

Where were the goddamned mules? One day late and counting. I had told Modi to round up as many boats as he could with lowering ramps in the front to get the animals ashore more easily. Big sigh of relief as I saw a line of drop ramps heading into Anzac Cove.

Elgin, Happy, and Spears were standing by. As each boat unloaded they were to take the handlers and mules to Mule Gully and into the enclosure. Chester was at my side to go to the gully with Modi and show him where we were going to stash the gear and generally how the paddock was going to operate.

Shyte! We were at low tide and the first boat hit a sandbar twenty feet from the beach. The mules didn't want to go into the surf. As their packers wrestled with them I spotted Mordechai Pearlman. Beautiful sight!

"Modi! Over here, baby!"

"Rory! Chester! Comrades!"

A bear hug. A slobbery kiss. Chester got his as well.

"Noisy place," Modi said.

"Just wait."

"There's a real mess back on Lemnos. Not half enough beds for the wounded. We've been hearing bad stories."

"You've heard right. It's bad."

"How are the gaffers?"

"Johnny's dead," Chester said.

"Johnny! Johnny Tarbox is dead!"

"We'll talk about it later."

As the mules were coerced ashore, some fifty wounded men who had been in a holding gully limped to the beach. As the last mule hit land, the wounded began loading onto the boat.

"The boats are filthy," Modi protested. "They're full of shit."

"I told you it was bad. How many more boatloads do you have coming today?"

"A dozen. Four of them are barges. I thought we would be able to unload them on a pier."

"All the permanent piers are down. The pontoons bounce like kangaroos." I tried to sort it out. "We may have to beach the barges and smash them open, drive the animals out."

Elgin reported that the first load of mules and handlers was ready. I told him to take them to Mule Gully. "Modi, you go to the paddock with Chester and take a look, then better come back here and help me get the rest unloaded. Turn the paddock over to a warrant officer."

"Before I depart," Modi said, pulling me aside, "I have maybe a small surprise." He waved to a soldier standing almost hidden in waist-deep water at the rear of a landing craft. It was Yurlob Singh!

"Chester," I said, "where's Jeremy?"

"Second pier down."

"Get him. Get out of here, Modi."

Yurlob Singh waded in holding a ramrod posture as though he was determined to be soldierly to the bitter end, as if he were walking up the steps of the hangman's scaffold.

"Let me explain," Modi said.

"Wait over there for Chester!" I commanded, then turned to Mr. Singh. "Any fucking thing you want to say before we pay a visit to the brass?"

"Strictly according to regulations I am to use my judgment in being allowed to examine a forward position," he recited.

"Bullshit. Try again."

He stood at attention, as though to say, "No blindfold."

"It is not within the realm of my human capacity to remain on Lemnos. I am prepared for anything from the whipping post to the firing squad. Send me back to Lemnos and I will leave again."

"Oh, you big hero, you. You fucking raghead! You abandoned your post. How do we get replacement men and mules over here? Are the fucking mules going to walk on the fucking water!"

"If you will forgo your anger for a moment, I will explain."

"Explain! You better fucking pray to your fucking fat Buddha!"

"I do not think that remark was appropriate."

"Yurlob, you have no idea how many mules we are going to lose in a week."

"But there is no problem. My home battalion, the Sikh Mountain Howitzers, was training next to us on Lemnos, as you know. We always carry many extra packers. I have ordered two warrant officers, men of extremely high caliber, to be transferred into the Seventh Light Horse and run the operation in my absence."

"Yeah, I know, cousins from your home village."

"How did you know that? Actually, only one is a cousin. The other is a brother-in-law."