Anzac

“ But it is a noble old river, and it slides placidly along as if well aware of the fact that Egypt exists on its good-natured benevolence. Its average breadth near Cairo would work out at about 300 yards, I should say. There is no sign of hustle or flurry about the Nile, and if you live near it for a spell you'll have a tough job keeping in the collar, for its spirit is apt to get into your blood some, and you'll find yourself dropping into as big a slow-go as the slowest of the natives who pray to it. ”

“ Shopping in Cairo is a slow game, so we kill an hour in the making of our purchases—and emerge with a balance still at the bank.
And now we come on a street almost entirely given over to the vendors of silks and ostrich feathers. What a wealth of colour! And how harmoniously the myriad tints blend with the flowing robes of the natives, the duller [Pg 65] hues of the crumbling walls, rickety, projecting balconies, and sun-blanched lattices! ”

“ And yet in the Valley of the Nile what a contrast! The very atmosphere is redolent of fertility. Here is, indeed, a "land flowing with milk and honey"; a land which, give it the water, will bloom like a garden and smell like a huge pot-pourri. I have seen some of the best country in four continents, yet I never ran across richer soil or more exuberant growth than that of the Nile Valley. When one bears in mind that the methods of irrigation and system of tillage are those of the dim and distant past; that a metal plough is an object of mixed curiosity and distrust ”

“ Then I ask the "gentler" sex to forgive me, for well I know that nine out of every ten women in the British Empire have far more true pluck and sand in their little fingers than the whole slacker brigade have in their useless tender-footed bodies. What right have these damned cowards to go to theatres, dances, football matches, and concerts; to lie warm in bed at night and eat soft tucker by day—to live their soft, easy-going useless lives, while I and the like of me have to go out and live, fight—aye, and die—like beasts? ”

“ The climate of Egypt was rather a surprise to us. True, it was winter when we arrived, but we had an idea that such a season existed in name only in the Land of the Pharaohs. The first night, however, made us sit up and think things, it was bitterly cold. Even packed nine in a tent with two blankets and a greatcoat over us we could hardly get to sleep; the tent felt like a refrigerator. Indeed, until we hit on the plan of donning our greatcoats, and pulling on a pair of woollen socks, we were anything but comfortably warm. ”

“ We thread our way slowly through the noisy crowd of guttural-tongued natives, and emerge with something approaching a shock into the clang and rattle of a modern city street with its electric cars, resplendent automobiles, and plate-glass windows. Yet even here the East holds its own: you see it in the strings of camels and the numerous donkeys that dispute the right of way with the big touring cars and electric runabouts; in the open-air cafés; in the dress of the natives, especially the sherbet and lemonade sellers, and the hawkers of sweetmeats and cigarettes ”

“ All lights out and general air of suppressed excitement on all hands. Some of the chaps making a book on the event, and laying odds on the chances of the takers getting through the slather-up unharmed. Others tossing up to see if certain of their mates will finish up in heaven or hell! No one the least downhearted; all determined to at least give the enemy the time of his life when they come to grips. They are certainly as tough a crowd as ever got into uniform. ”

“ Attar of Roses, and an Irish pigsty a featherbed in heaven; and yet in these streets—these cesspools—the painted ladies of low degree live and move and carry on abominations which are unnamable; things which the brute creation is guiltless of. ”

“ Finally the men, their dignity upset by the thought of so much good tucker going into other stomachs than their own, joined in the general mix-up, and the show ended in a flurry of legs and wings for all the world like a cross between a ballet dance and a Rugby scrum. ”

“ There are other streets in Cairo where the painted ladies of higher degree—the very patricians of their profession—follow their calling in an atmosphere of luxury permeated by all the seductive and sensual voluptuousness of a land which for countless æons has been the home of the voluptuary and the pleasure seeker ”

“ The strongest men in the world are only human. Loss of sleep, insufficient food, and practically no water, combined with the exertions we had already gone through, began to tell their tale. Our losses were also very heavy; and owing to the slippery state of the clay soil, following on an all-night of rain, our reserves could not get up quickly enough. Thus yards and yards of trench were at times empty of all save dead and wounded men, and in some cases the Turks effected a footing in them; they were always driven out again, however, or bayoneted to a man. ”

“ The submarine couldn't have been more than 200 yards away when she launched the torpedo, which appeared to cut the water at a great bat. A destroyer was cruising about close handy, and she at once backed in against the battleship, the crew jumping and tumbling on board like rats. Meantime she (the destroyer) opened fire every time the submarine shoved her periscope above the surface. One shot was fired at a distance of only about fifty yards. The sea was soon alive with all kinds of small craft hastening to the work of rescue. ”

“ Egypt is surely one of the most cosmopolitan countries in this old planet. It is also one of the most interesting. You will find all the breeds you want in or about Cairo, Alexandria, and Port Said—and some you don't. Quite a variety of languages, too, although English, French, and Arabic are most in favour.
The natives stick to Arabic, but many of them have a smattering of French and English of a sort. They are all there at picking up a new language, especially if there is money back of it. They will do anything for the dollars. They may have had souls once ”

“ One son of a gun tickled the back of my neck with a bullet, and another put one so close to my ear that I felt the organ to make sure it was still hanging to my head. That was good enough for me; I wasn't greedy; so I just ducked and ran, never stopping till I had to —— head down in three feet of mud at the bottom of a ten-foot donga! However, I got my bearings at last, hit the trail, and staggered into camp, more dead than alive, at about midnight. ”

“ As a matter of fact, we drove slap into the mix-up in a gharri, and before we got shut of it the battle had developed into a first-class slather-up. The street was packed full of Australians and New Zealanders, with here and there little groups of badly scared effendis working overtime in their efforts to get clear of the struggling mass of grim Colonials, who, to an ear-splitting accompaniment of yells, cat-calls and coo-ees, were devoting their energies to an all-round wrecking and smashing game. ”

“ Whatever hopes the enemy may have cherished of breaking through and causing a rising in Egypt were squashed by the arrival of the Australian and New Zealand Expeditionary Forces. With those forces actually on the scene it is hard to comprehend what devil of rashness and crass folly impelled the Turkish leaders to go on with the venture. Perhaps it was pride; perhaps German influence lay back of the move; perhaps some queer twist in the Eastern character—who knows? Not I. But this I do know: they came on bravely enough—as [Pg 99] Turks always do—and were slaughtered like sheep. ”

“ As I couldn't use my arm I was put on sentry-go, and spent hour after hour lying in the scrub with the bullets hissing and spitting in the air round my head or knocking sparks out of the flinty soil. It wasn't a bit jolly. We ran into a dead man while we were working—a Ceylon chap—who must have lain there since the landing. One of our chaps went down to camp and fetched up a padre—a fine old sort—who stood up and read the Burial Service under fire, and remained on the ridge until we had buried the corpse. ”

“ Nothing short of killing every man of that magnificent soldiery could have stopped their onslaught. The machine-guns and rifles took their toll—but they utterly failed to beat down that desperate assault delivered by those iron-nerved men—those men who openly boasted that they feared "neither God, man, nor devil." ”

“ I had served in the South African campaign, so, of course, I realised that it was up to me to roll up again and do my bit towards keeping the old rag flying. It's a queer thing, but let a man once go on the war-path and it's all the odds to a strap ring he's off again, full cry, to the sound of the bugle. I reckon it's in the Britisher's blood; he kind of imbibes it along with his mother's milk. When all's said and done we are a fighting breed. A sporting crowd, too, and we tackle war much as we would a game of football—or a big round-up in the Never-Never. ”

“ Enemy doesn't seem to like our bombs thrown from trench mortars. They are a Japanese invention, and when they pitch into the Turkish trenches they fairly raise hell—and human remains! Heard that over 400 were lost in the Triumph: hope it isn't true. Finding enemy was mining towards our trenches we put in a counter mine. Enemy exploded his—and ours at the same time. W-o-o-o-o-uf! she went. So did the writer—bringing up waist deep in a heap of soft sticky clay, hard jam tins, and discarded accoutrements at the foot of the ridge. Felt a bit "rocky" after being dug out. ”

“ They are keen on the dollars, are the Egyptians. They swarmed round our camp like a mob of steers round a water-hole in a dry spell; everywhere you ran across their matchboard stores where you could buy 'most anything, from a notebook to a glass of ice cream, made from camel's milk! They had the time of their lives, especially the orange-sellers. I have bought seven jolly good oranges for a half-piastre (1-1/4d.) ”

“ But why do they give us "medium strength" when nine out of ten of our chaps have been used to hard tack? This soft stuff [Pg 175] only burns our tongues and makes us say our prayers backwards. Got to bed early and was lulled to sleep by the music of bursting bombs and heavy rifle fire in the neighbourhood of "Quinn's" and "Courtney's." Our camp is at the foot of the cliff to the left of "Dead Man's Ridge," only thirty yards behind the firing line; all day and night we hear the song of bullets and the scream of shells passing overhead. ”

“ At last, after a very trying time, we gained the top and found that the leading companies of infantry had carried the position and were engaged in digging themselves in under one of the hottest fires I ever ran up against. Our little half-section of about eighteen men were ordered to spread themselves along the line, their duties being to advise and assist the infantry. We did so, and at once men began to fall. The Turks were only about fifty yards away, and although it was dark they could see our chaps fairly well against the background of stars. ”

“ There are other things in our trenches that we don't care overmuch to have as company. Maggots—maggots crawling in battalions about a chap's feet and dropping from the sides of the trench down his neck. Maggots from the dead! You can't sit down hardly without flattening a dozen or two out. It's bad for [Pg 158] one's uniform. Something will have to be done, or we'll all be down with disease. It's a good job we were all inoculated against enteric, anyway. The smell is worse than a glue factory. We have dead Turks right on our very parapets. ”

“ In fact, things got so warm that several lively bouts with Nature's own weapons took place between our patrols and some of the enemy who had crawled up with the intention of cutting the wire.
The next attack in force came off in the early hours of the morning, and after a long and fierce scrap the position was carried. In spite of the fact that they were under a deadly Maxim and rifle fire at point-blank range, those heroic infantrymen set to work [Pg 46] in grim earnest, pulling down our entanglements and stamping out our flares. ”

“ What power on earth could stop such men? Not the Turks, anyway. With imploring cries of "Allah!—Allah!" they abandoned their trenches and scurried up through the scrub, the panting Colonials straining every nerve to overtake them.
It is difficult to understand the Australasian character. He will joke even in the midst of danger, nay, death. He is, as a rule, a "hard doer"; and even his best friends must admit that he is often a hard, and fairly original, swearer. Nothing is safe from him when looking for a butt ”

“ One is comparatively safe in a deeply cut dug-out; if you shove only your head up some sniper lets go at it. And this behind our own trenches. We aren't likely to die of ennui here, anyway—nor old age.
Heard that the Turks are mutilating our dead and wounded, but haven't seen anything of it myself. Strange yarns going the rounds that some of our chaps have been indulging in reprisals. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is the motto of the men from [Pg 144] Australia and New Zealand, so if the enemy has been playing up in a way of that kind he'll get his own back—with interest. ”