Frederick P. Gibbon

“ Day and night the guns of both sides barked and thundered, and the strain on the gunners would have been considered unbearable before the Great War had taught the lesson that the limit of man’s endurance cannot be calculated. British and Germans lost more guns and gunners here in a week than an army would have lost in a year’s campaigning in any previous war. At night, high above the flashes of our 18-pounders, the beautiful coloured stars and golden rain of the German signal-rockets recalled memories of Belle Vue nights. ”

“ Soon after sunrise all—women, civilians, black soldiers, and white officers—were gathered together to watch the mutineers assemble for the final assault. Of its issue there could be no doubt. As they stood there awaiting their fate Ethel Woodburn could not remain insensible, even at so trying a moment, to the beauty of the early Indian morning. The slanting rays of the Eastern sun were gilding the mosques and minarets of the town and lighting up with lurid glow the reddish buildings behind the fort, and the thought of Nature’s beauty added to her sorrow. ”

“ The start was made at 4 a.m., the 42nd Division on the right, the 52nd on the left, with cavalry on both flanks. Viewed from a ridge, the advance on Katia was picturesque. The plain was covered with long lines of infantry, mounted troops on the flanks, batteries of field-guns with traction-engine wheels hauled through the sand by huge teams of horses. Far away to the rear came endless strings of grunting, bubbling camels, and miles in front, a tantalizing sight, lay the green oases that brought to mind the desert pictures of childhood. ”

“ Down the Agra road clattered the would-be murderers, Ted, Govind Singh, and Ramzan Khan at their heels. Round the bend they went, and, behold, the road was blocked by Hira Singh and his dozen Sikhs, who awaited the mob with levelled carbines.
The terrified rascals tried to turn aside, and the carbines cracked and the lance-points fell and rose again, and Ramzan Khan’s tulwar was merciless. There was no fight left in these rebels. They had set out to murder and despoil those weaker than themselves; they had hunted the deer, as Govind Singh had said, and had caught the tiger. ”

“ My admiration for the conduct, fighting qualities, grit, and endurance of all ranks is profound. Never have I met a more responsive, willing and lovable lot of men than these Lancashire lads, and, to my last days, I shall remember with affection and pride the three and three-quarter years that I have had the honour to command them. I know how well you, officers and men, will add to the great name you have already earned for the Division, I wish you the best of good fortune and a rich reward. ”

“ Yet, in spite of victory, gloom was over the camp, for a hero lay dying, and there was no hope of saving his life. John Nicholson’s wound had proved mortal: a life that had [Pg 254] promised to be of unusual brilliance would soon be cut short, even before its work was more than half done—but that half had been done well. The career of this dying leader of men had been unique, even in the annals of British rule in India, whose pages teem with the deeds and lives of heroes in the noblest sense of that word—men worthy of all admiration, men whose lives inspire others to follow the gleam. ”

“ You are fighting in the cause of righteousness and freedom, fighting to defend the children and women of our land from the horrors that have overtaken other countries, fighting for our very existence as a people at home and across the seas. You are offering your all. You hold nothing back, and day by day you show a love so great that no man can have greater. We, on our part, send forth with full hearts and unfaltering will the lives we hold most dear. ”

“ To our hero and to the hundreds of onlookers the bombardment formed a grand but awful spectacle. Fascinated by the sight, they watched the salvoes of artillery directed at the bastions, every shot striking home, sending up clouds of dust, and followed often enough by a fall of masonry. The rebel shots whistled and rattled in the air, guns flashed and shells exploded both over their own men and over the doomed city. From the highest to the lowest, from the general in command to the youngest drummer-boy, all knew that this was the crowning work of anxious months of toil. ”

“ They had been made at a time when little thought was given to “batter” and “berm,” and, under the influence of rain, frost, and thaw, shell fire and trench-mortar fire, duckboards had disappeared under pits of mud, and walls had collapsed and blocked the trenches in a tangle of wood, rabbit-netting, and mud. It seemed enough to ask a man merely to keep alive in the awful discomfort of the trenches in winter, and under such conditions to carry on the offensive and defensive work of the garrison. ”

“ Small wonder that British blood should boil over when the story was told; small wonder that the men of the 60th Rifles should shake their fists as they looked from the Ridge into the rebel capital, towards the distant palace and home of vice, and should vow vengeance on every faithless sepoy, be he Mohammedan like the King of Delhi or Hindu like the Mahratta rajah. ”

“ The flares at night showed up in silhouette the figures of ration and ammunition carriers and of transport men, and brought swift destruction upon them. The runners who bore messages from one headquarters to another took their lives in their hands every time. Even for those few who were endowed by nature with the sixth sense of locality the odds were against their safe arrival and return. But the average town-bred lad has little sense of locality, so the carrying of a message meant wandering in a maze in which lurked enemies real and imaginary, varied by tumbles into shell-holes. ”

“ Proud men were the engineer officers, Baird Smith and Taylor, one the brain, the other the hand that had thought out and directed this supreme finish. Proud also were Brind, Tombs, and the other artillerymen, for without their magnificent heroism and skill the plans of the engineers would have come to naught.
One building there was in Delhi close to the Kashmir Gate and the Water Bastion, which the Sikhs and Pathans and Gurkhas, and the rebel sepoys themselves, began to regard with awe—a white-domed edifice not unlike a mosque, save for the cross surmounting its cupola. ”

“ THE SUEZ CANAL AND SINAI
(January, 1916—March, 1917)
The Division remained at Sarpi Camp, Mudros, until the middle of January. Gallipoli had left the body weak and the spirit dulled; every unit was much below strength, and most had less than half, and some barely a quarter, of their full establishment. Death, wounds and sickness had played havoc with the organization, and squad, platoon, and company drills disclosed the fact that the men had lost much of their barrack-square smartness, but drills and exercises, guards and pickets soon put an edge on the dulled blade. ”

“ With his pistol Ted shot one, gave another the point of his sword, and Merban Sing, again at his side, struck down two more whose bayonet-points were almost plunged in the ensign’s breast. The Gurkha subadar, felled from behind, dropped over his wounded brother, who at the same time received his death-wound. A rush from behind brought a dozen more Guides around the lad, who saw steel flash in front of his face, and felt a burning sensation in his cheek; then his head seemed to split, and he remembered no more.
With yells of triumph the myriad enemy pushed forward, but not to victory. ”

“ In the afternoon the 10th Manchesters were ordered to move into position for a night attack upon Riencourt. Crossing the Bapaume—Peronne road they were heavily shelled, and an enemy observation plane kept in touch only a few hundred feet above them. Machine-gun bullets raised spurts and dust all around or glanced off the stones, and several road-mines exploded close to where they passed, sending up great columns of earth. It was Oldham Wakes Friday, and the men talked of bygone wakes and of the people at home, and made grim jests in contrasting past and present. ”

“ Ethel was a graceful horsewoman, and this accomplishment told in Ted’s eyes, for he himself was an uncommonly good rider to hounds. Accustomed to horses from his earliest childhood, he loved and understood the noble creatures. When home from school in the winter he had rarely missed a meet of the Cheshire hounds, and had more than once been in at the death. So fond was he of horses that he had set his heart upon joining a cavalry regiment, but Major-General Russell had decided against that expensive luxury. ”

“ These were the most trying hours that the Lancashire men had ever known. “If ever man knew terror, I knew it that night,” said one of the officers, and the others admitted that his experience was theirs no less. It cost them a real effort to appear calm and collected, and to talk to their men in tones of apparent unconcern. No sound pierced the stillness of the night save the occasional crack of a Turkish rifle, or of one of the fixed rifles left in the trenches, and now and then the bursting of a shell on one of the southern beaches. ”

“ It has invariably acted up to that motto, and it is my pride to be able to say that never has the Division been called upon to undertake an operation in which it did not succeed, and never was it set a task which it did not more than accomplish.
Such honours have not been won without a heavy toll in wounded and in dead. Many a gallant Lancashire lad lies in a soldier’s grave in Gallipoli, Sinai, France and Belgium, but the memory of their glorious deeds will live in our hearts for ever. ”

“ Before the stalwart captain, who had successfully held his own against Sikhs and Afghans, had been with Ted a couple of days, he had actually suffered defeat at the hands of a slip of a girl of twenty-one—a girl about five feet in height, the daughter of Ted’s colonel! Jim, who of all men should have been proof against such silly nonsense—such idiocy!—had succumbed at first sight, and instead of spinning yarns about his campaigns and his defence of Chiras Fort, he was mooning about all day long in the wake of this Ethel Woodburn. ”

“ On April 25 General Sir Ian Hamilton’s army landed, the 29th Division at various beaches of the southern extremity of the peninsula, around Cape Tekke, Cape Helles, and the village of Sedd-el-Bahr, and the Anzacs on the western shore a dozen miles to the north, just beyond the headland of Gaba Tepe. The loss incurred had been appalling. The marvel was that the feat had been accomplished. History records no grander achievement, no more inspiring example of heroism. Surely men who could achieve the impossible as these had done could go anywhere or do anything! ”

“ Each rebel urged his neighbour to face the fire of those death-dealing muskets; each man knew that the end was at hand, and preferred to hold himself back that he might share in the plunder. Now that they were no longer a glorious regiment but a mere mob of rebels, none was ready to give his life for the cause. The garrison also knew that the end was drawing near, and were in no way deceived by the momentary calm. ”

“ The operations of the end of May, the digging in No Man’s Land to push the first line closer to the enemy, while the Turk knew perfectly well what was intended and had been able, by the light of a waxing moon, to thin out the working-parties, had been highly dangerous and trying to the nerves. The losses had been deplorable, but the will to overcome the difficulties and to face the dangers with resolution had prevailed, and had given officers, N.C.O.s and men confidence in one another. Each platoon, each company, knew that it would not let the others down when the big event should come off. ”

“ I suppose you didn’t much care to be under Hodson after what’s happened?”
Claude Boldre turned on Ted with a queer expression in his eyes—half vexation, half amusement.
“You’re alluding to the shooting of the old emperor’s sons, I suppose?” said he.
Ted nodded. “Hodson’s a brave man—there’s no one who risks his own life more; but one can hardly respect an English officer who could deliberately shoot his prisoners in cold blood.”
“Cold blood be hanged, Russell! Your blood wouldn’t be very cold if you were faced by ten times your own number, clamouring for the rescue of your prisoners.” ”