Redemption. - Redemption. Part 74
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Redemption. Part 74

The Asquith government fell and a coalition cabinet was formed to conduct the balance of the war.

Brodhead's probable fate was that he might well not be considered for another field command, a devastating blow to him.

As the shock and scandal of Gallipoli raged and the inquiries began, Keith Murdock, the Australian journalist, rocked the empire with his exposure of what had been done to the soldiers of Australia and New Zealand.

Despite an obvious defeat, the British continued to cling to their wretched acres on Gallipoli. They were confused as to what to do and desperate not to lose face.

August, September, and October came and passed. Gallipoli showed the other side of her ugly face as summer's inferno shifted into a cold and brittle autumn. We were less prepared for the great chill than we had been for the heat.

In mid-November a blizzard of near biblical proportions tormented the trenches. An Antarctic bluster of gale force winds and blinding snows found us with little shield against it.

The day after the blizzard passed, hundreds of men were found frozen to death or blackened with frostbite, requiring amputations of fingers and toes.

Through a night in late November, Chester, Modi, and I worked at the beach and paddock unloading and packing blankets, gloves, winter coats, scarves, and getting them to the front.

A most desperate situation existed at Chatham's Post and Ryder's Ridge. Because of their proximity to the sea, the sting was greater.

We were going 'round the clock and suddenly found ourselves short of trail men. Chester decided to make a night run to Chatham's and Ryder's. It had a bad scent to it because the Turks had set up a shooting gallery atop the Valley of Despair.

I made a run to a distribution point up Monash Gully, staggering home close to midnight. Chester's train had returned without him. Modi had been told that Chester had taken a light wound to the shoulder on the way to Chatham's and told the trailmaster he was walking back to Widow's Gully to get patched up.

Modi did not panic. The pair of us went to Widow's and uncovered the face of every man there dead or waiting for evacuation or surgery. No Chester.

In the hours before light, I did something I had not done in seven months of Gallipoli. I got on my knees and prayed.

We found him soon after daybreak on the side of the trail at Brighton Beach. He had frozen to death, curled up with his knees against his chest, not thinking to take a few of the blankets he was delivering to the post.

His wound was almost superficial. That was not what killed him. He had no strength or stamina left. He was so weakened that any hard blow was apt to do him in.

I did something else I had not done at Gallipoli.

I wept.

Late in November, secret plans came through for the evacuation of the Anzac Corps. Strangely, it was the best worked-out plan of the entire expedition. All heavy gear would be left so the men could travel unhindered. On the first night enough ships would appear to haul off as many men as possible and sail out of sight.

On the second night, the balance of the Corps would repeat the procedure. The problem was that on the second night, Farting Ferdinand and the other artillery might just light up the beach and the entire Turkish Army could pour down on us.

As fortune would have it, the main pair of eyes directing the Turkish artillery was an observation post called the Guillotine.

The Guillotine was in a freak position, so common at Anzac Cove. Mule's Gully on our side of the line continued upwards and narrowed, with numerous S-turns. To make the Guillotine almost invulnerable, a sudden rise of sheer cliffs stood on either side of the gully. The post was embedded in solid rock and could not be reached by climbing over it or trying to outflank it.

The only option was simply to rush at it. The gully was so narrow that only two or three men at a time could make the final S-turn and mount a charge. God only knows how many men we had lost in unsuccessful attempts to knock out the Guillotine.

A day after I had seen the secret evacuation plans, Corps advised me that all the mules were to be destroyed on the final night of the evacuation. We had gathered in nearly six hundred animals for the winter's siege.

I told command I did not want these orders to go beyond me. The reasons for their destruction were simple. There was no way on earth we could evacuate the animals. They would be left either to freeze or starve to death, or to be used against us later by the Turks, or to be slaughtered by the Turks for food.

I did not want Mordechai Pearlman to be involved in this final horror. Having prayed for Chester's life and wept for the death of my brothers, I saw no harm in asking God to grant me some sort of wisdom to help stave off a disaster on the second night of the evacuation.

After a staff meeting at Corps, Colonel Monash, of all people, came to my troglodyte to have a chat-up. We had come to care for each other as friends and I think he wanted some neutral ground to sit on and hear his voice aloud. He was a man with a large mind, somewhat like Conor.

"Sorry about the mules," he said.

As he spoke those very words, a plan came to me. It would be a hell of a lot better sending these mules to a soldier's death up Mule's Gully charging the Guillotine, than it was to send his soldiers over the Nek against his wishes.

"I'll cry a little for them as well," I said.

"The rains have washed away the shallow graves of no-man's-land," he said. "This land will be eternal valleys and hills of bones, theirs and ours, and you can't even tell the difference."

He looked at me knowingly.

"Was it worth it?" he asked. "No one will ever know the true figures, but there were no less than a half-million casualties, theirs and ours. Tens of thousands of them were New Zealanders and Australians. That's a vast number for countries so small as ours. We have to find something out of this that didn't make it an entire waste. What did you find out, Landers?"

"All men have a measure of cowardice in them. I learned that love of one's mates can overcome your fears. I learned that every survivor of this horror must try to live a good life because he lives for many men."

"That's very decent, Landers. I'll remember that."

"And you, sir?"

"We came to this field of battle, Landers, I from a former penal colony proud of its wild men and free ways. You came from a place of pioneers, woodsmen, sheepmen, and farmers. Neither of us were truly defined as a people. We leave as Australians and New Zealanders with a clear definition of who we are as men and as nations. In a manner of speaking, your country and mine were born at Gallipoli. We have shown our stuff to the world and ourselves, and only by such tragedy did we have this moment to show it."

I had orders cut for Mordechai Pearlman to go to Lemnos to survey our supplies of timothy hay, grain, blankets, and equipment for the balance of the winter. He still had no idea the mules were to be destroyed or an evacuation was to take place.

Even as I gave him the orders, I feigned complaining that it would be difficult to spare him, even for a few days. I believed I had duped him. He didn't realize he was not going to return...or did he?

I took him to the dock, slapped him on the back and told him I'd see him back here in a couple of days, gave him a hand into the boat, and tossed his gear to him.

"Thanks, Rory," he said, "for everything. There'll never be another one like Cairo."

After his boat pulled away, I whispered, "I love you, man."

"You requested to see me, Landers," Brodhead said.

"Yes, sir. I believe I have an idea to knock out the Guillotine. If the Turks have to go without their eyes, we might be saved from artillery on the final night-"

"God, I wish we could. If the Turks get wind of us, it might mean a massacre, or at least they'll take thousands of our lads prisoner. I've been trying for six months to get the Guillotine. How the hell? We have to send men through the S-turns two or three at a time."

"How about stampeding the mules into the Guillotine?"

"My God," he whispered.

"We have to destroy the animals, anyhow."

"My God," he repeated, "it would certainly create a tremendous diversion. The Turks might either freeze in their positions or rush their reserves over there. It might just keep the beach clear for a few precious hours."

We set a line of fire blazing behind the mules and hustled them along, screaming and lashing at them, and they soon rampaged up Mule Gully through barbed wire, up and up into the S-turns, rolling over each other as the gully narrowed.

Flynn and I with two others tracked a path maybe used in ancient Greek history that roughly followed the gully line. We waited until the animals began hitting the final turns, hoping that our presence would go unnoticed.

The cries and screams of these beautiful soldiers was all but unbearable. As they hit the last turn, Flynn and myself and other lads, loaded down with Turkish grenades, stood on a wee narrow path ten feet over the top of the mules.

As they turned the bend, up went Turkish flares and the last fifty yards of the "charge" was illuminated. The Turks blazed gunfire from two weapons. Animals in front collapsed, while other mules behind them kept coming...coming...coming...piling up right in front of the Guillotine.

Oh God in heaven! One of the lads skidded down into the gully, and was mangled and crushed by the mules in an instant.

Now or never!

We hopped on a rock unseen, for the Turks had their hands full stopping the charge-one...two...three...four...ten...eleven-twelve grenades erupted right on their nest.

Get the hell out fast...fast...be careful now, don't slip into the gully....

I felt very light-headed and warm.... What the hell does a man do on his knees and not able to stand up! What the hell! Blood was pouring down my front....

Flynn jerked me to my feet.

"Hang on to me, Landers, we'll get you back, cobber, we'll get you back."

Epilogue.

Secret Files of Winston Churchill,

Christmas 1915

The greatest generals appear to be the historians of future generations who had no decisions to make at the time the history was being made.

When all the commissions of inquiry are done, the finger-pointing and the cover-ups and the lying and the justifications are told and retold, I realize that one glaring fact shall remain, and that is that the name of Winston Churchill will forever be synonymous with one of the greatest disasters in military history.

What I say here is that the knowledgeable men of high station, men who created the world's greatest empire, favored the military and political strategy of attempting to open the Dardanelles. It was their judgment that Gallipoli was a naval and military probability, if not possibility.

What fell apart subsequently will fill hundreds of volumes yet unwrit. But to infer now that the plan was of evil or foolish intent or too much of a risk, or that it was undertaken to advance individual careers, or that we did not have compassion for the lives of our troops, is a damnable lie. I could stand before the Parliament or any commission and argue my case. I could enlighten them on blunder upon blunder that was not my doing, but I choose not to spend the rest of my life pointing my finger at the competency of many generals, admirals, and ministers. No, I shall be the flogging boy for them all.

As First Lord of the Admiralty, I made my share of good decisions and my share of poor decisions. What is deplorable is the accusation that I did not care. It will not be remembered that many undertakings occurred after my resignation. It will be little remembered that most of the decisions were always beyond my control.

The War Council went into the venture with great confidence. After the failure of our naval firepower to produce the expected results, and after meeting unexpectedly fierce Turkish resistance on the landing, the entire venture began to cloud.

Resolve to win this campaign, and the means with which to win it, began to vanish in our highest councils.

The Suvla Bay landing was a disgrace to British arms. Field Marshal Kitchener was the man responsible for the appointment of General Darlington and General Stopford. Yet we do not hear Kitchener damned.

My most terrible personal moment came when I had to inform Lady Caroline Hubble that both her sons had been killed. Through my own sorrow I found majesty in the way this magnificent woman handled the most wrenching moment of her life. Her continued display of dignity and courage during the months of grief was incomparable.

Lord Roger Hubble was informed of the tragedy by cable, which reached him at his summer home, Daars, near Kinsale. The account is thus: Hubble, an aficionado of shark-fishing, ordered a small craft readied, although a terrible storm was sweeping in. Forewarned, he sailed deliberately into a fierce gale. Flotsam and jetsam of his boat later washed ashore, but his body was never found.

Thus, at the age of forty, my career stands on the threshold of disaster. Apparently I am still of sufficient value to His Majesty's Government to have been recalled from my regiment in France to become Munitions Minister, although I no longer have a seat on the War Council.

Can I overcome a half-million casualties of Gallipoli, or must I die with its stigma engraved on my tomb? I am determined, because of this disaster, to continue to find a way to serve. I shall serve so well that in the end Gallipoli will be a footnote rather than the name of my volume.

I do not know how leaders must bear the result of having caused death in battle. There is no textbook written to give one guidance on the subject. Every king, every general, every minister, every president must deal in his own way with the deaths that result from his orders. May God have mercy on him who ends up with a Gallipoli.

I shall do my best, in future writings, to precisely explain my role and my thinking. Can I ever cleanse the gnaw in me? Perhaps some future day will allow me to make a cleansing gesture.

WSC.

Prelude.

A Retrospective.

on the Easter.

Rising of 1916.

By Theobald Fitzpatrick.

Part One: Conor's Wake.

To refresh your memory, I am Theobald Fitzpatrick, the son of Atty and the late Desmond Fitzpatrick. I inherited enough of my father's legal skills to carry on his life's work as the barrister for the republican movement. His partner, Robert McAloon, is now my partner, though of an age where all motion is accompanied by a creak.

My mother had been Conor Larkin's lover for several years, since he returned to Ireland from America after his prison escape. He lived life on the run, the most wanted man in Ireland, and brought the Brotherhood up to a very respectful fighting level.

He was killed leading the raid on Lettershambo Castle. Some say, and not without a touch of wisdom and truth, that Conor saw a torturous road ahead, bound to end in life imprisonment or violent death. He also realized he could not continue his function as a loner in a Brotherhood growing large with a cumbersome Supreme Council.

Finally, he could never live a normal life for a single day with my mother. So, Conor wrote his own amen by blowing Lettershambo Castle halfway to Scotland.

The death of Conor Larkin at Lettershambo Castle spelled a loss of will and strength in my beloved mother, Atty Fitzpatrick.

When my own father, the late Desmond Fitzpatrick, died of the heart while arguing a republican cause in the Four Courts of Dublin, Mother mourned in measured tones of dignified dignity with never a display of public desolation.