David Fallon

“ But against the tank they were quick to make their farewells. It was a still black night, but under the star-shells we could see them scurrying out of our way.
This was very sensible of them because we were certainly making a clean sweep of everything in sight and had the earth ahead throwing up chocolate showers of spray as if the ground we rode was an angry sea of mud.
Every man in the tank was shouting and yelling with the excitement of the thing and we were tossed up against each other like loosened peas in a pod. Only Joffre remained perfectly cool. ”

“ I had lost all revulsion at destroying human life when it was German human life, because I had already seen that they rather took an insane joy in killing their fellow man. But to sneak up behind one and stab him to death was a very difficult thing to do. I had to bring into my mind the reason and cause for my act. There were dead men right behind me in No Man’s Land to create a moral support. ”

“ The cave dwellers by Shrapnel Gully, Quinn’s Post and Courtenay’s are as quiet and still as tombs. Grass and weeds have grown over the winding paths that thread the valleys and scrape the hilltops. The sandbags of the traverses80 have rotted and burst, spilling their earth on the litter of these battles of yesterday. And out through the chessboard field the grave-mounds of earth that we pattered down with spade and entrenching tool have blossomed with wild flowers and green grass. ”

“ While the artillery did some damage yet when its attack ended the Germans were still there among the little, sunken concrete forts on the hill crest with a force of infantry below in the hollow ground.
We began all over again the bitter, bloody struggle. Out we advanced from the shelter of the woods to endure the fiery abomination. And this time we “got there”! Even now I do not know just how we gained success where before we had failed.
There was the enemy still on the slope, still protected in his concrete forts and with machine guns and bombs at hand. ”

“ As a scout I went forward to the German trenches, wearing my British uniform. If caught, I was entitled to treatment as a prisoner of war. Were I to wear a German uniform and suffer capture, then the assumption of a disguise would bring upon me a spy’s death. This is according to the agreements laid down by the Hague convention. Germany, however, has proven itself so utterly incapable of “playing cricket” in the game of civilization and mankind, that I am heartily glad they never caught me at my scouting tasks. ”

“ As for the dead whose countless prone bodies strewn upon the beach with curious pitiful inertness so different from that of sleep, that you know instinctively means death—there was no use then risking live men to give the dead the attention, to award them such decencies of care and burial as were their due. This also would be the work of the night. Yes, and with many a man as he worked over the graves of his fallen comrades pitching into that grave, himself become a dead man—betrayed to a sniper by the moonlight’s gleam. ”

“ As I was rushing toward the German trenches, a Boche let go a bomb at me. It hit the stump of a tree. The stump got the full force of the explosion. With my revolver I got that particular Boche.
But I tell you there is hardly a day when I am not thankful for having seen in this war the heroisms and sacrifices of which my fellow man is capable. It is splendid to have had an opportunity to move in the ranks of these aristocrats of human bravery.
They took us out of the hell-hole in Delville wood after we had stood the deadly gaff for four days, sending up a much larger relief force. ”

“ Two years ago forty thousand men walked these paths. They slept in these dug-outs, or in the trenches, and the detonation of the guns of the warships shook loose the earth and sand above them so that it rattled down in their faces, waking them from dreams of home to an uncomfortable reality. Think of those three days two years ago! Think of the waterless fight for Chocolate Hill; of the wounded lying in the brushwood and waiting for the sweeping grass fires to reach their resting place. Men lay there unable to move ”

“ With none of us knowing that Gallipoli was ahead we settled down to make our ocean voyage. Where—we didn’t know at the time it was to take us, but we did make it as enjoyable as might be in crowded bunks and where we were forever touching elbows on the jammed decks. Men never sailed on an expedition of war in better spirits and greater confidence. The regular soldiers and amateur soldiers were about evenly divided, but the amateurs were swiftly coming into line in physical fitness and expertness in drill. ”

“ At half-past one o’clock in the morning of August 7th the Turks came back, seeking to regain the Lone Pine position. They fought us fiercely. They stormed their way against terrific machine-gun fire to the very brink of our trenches. Sometimes they got into the very trenches themselves and our men found them hard fighters in hand to hand struggles and, not like the Germans as we were to discover later, cowards under the rip and stab of cold steel. ”

“ For I knew enough of ambulances to know that the bottom bunk is reserved for the carrying of the most dangerously wounded and it was into the bottom bunk they slid me.
I am perfectly willing that Henry Ford should have such advertising as may be from me, for it was an ambulance of his make I rode in, and the fact that it could proceed at all over the roads we had to travel and often enough no roads whatsoever—in and out of gulleys, shell-holes, over sunken fields up pathless hills and finally land me at No. 9 Clearing Station of the Red Cross, certainly earns it honest commendation. ”

“ If only a wounded soldier out of the dirty trenches could turn poet! He could knock the spots off a lot of things other poets have written about love and Springtime and a’ that and a’ that! He could make the song of a thrush sound like a beaten tin pan by his ode to a little white cot and the angels that hover round it! ”

“ Nothing is too much trouble that has enough fun in it. And you may be sure that the audiences at these shows, which are sometimes held in the wreck of a theater of a smashed French town or in a barn or again in a dug-out possibly 100 feet under ground, are rapturously appreciative. There are always many recalls. But the actors receive no reverence. They are yelled at by name and “kidded” extravagantly.
In “Restville” are foot races, steeple-chases, catch-the-ring-on-the-bayonet races, dashes with gas masks, all manner of obstacle races invented on the spur of the moment. ”

“ I was soon to find out the difference between fighting Turks and fighting Germans. The Turk will fight you like the devil, but he is a sportsman. He is incapable of the treacheries and ghoulish tricks of the German. He abhors attacking the helpless. I say this with full knowledge of the Armenian cruelties and outrages. I can only speak of my own knowledge. I am writing of how the Turks behaved in Gallipoli. ”

“ The British soldier is heroic in defending his officers. They are splendidly loyal. Once when advancing through Delville wood, a German sniper dropped out a tree just behind me and would have riven my body with his bayonet, for I was utterly taken by surprise and had no chance to turn and defend myself. But one of my men struck the German on the head with the butt of his gun, splintering his skull.
I have seen men willingly sacrifice themselves to save their comrades. ”

“ But the piteous images of children with bleeding, severed throats, of tiny human bodies dismembered, of decent girls and women subject to the foulest acts of vicious cowardice, sent the larrikins to us seething with rage and resolved, as it was especially hard for men of this sort to resolve, to accept the strict discipline of army life for the chance to spill the blood of the horror-makers of Europe. ”

“ The Lancashires, the Hampshires, Gloucesters, Australians and New Zealanders—all did men’s work in those days. None of their deeds will die, none of the names of men or regiment will ever be forgotten.”
I was in the attack of Lone Pine which carried our armies nearest to the goal of capturing the coveted strip between the Ægean and the Straits of Dardanelles. I got my first wound of the war in the winning of these timber-roofed trenches, a bayonet thrust in the darkness ripping my right hand open but doing my hand in the matter of its future usefulness no permanent injury. ”

“ Since Gallipoli German propagandists, with an idea of humiliating England in the world’s opinion, have spread reports that if the British forces had held out a month longer we would have triumphed on the peninsula—that the Turks were on the verge of surrender.
Such reports are childish in their palpable falsity. As a matter of fact we were less than 40,000 men against 500,000. Against the great guns of the Turkish fort we had only in like artillery the great guns of our battle ships. ”

“ No star-shells were glaring over No Man’s Land as we made our way across. But we were cautious. It took us all of three hours, starting at midnight, before we came to the first line of enemy barbed-wire. We nipped it down successfully and still without discovery went through the second wire barrier.
But by this time the Germans were awake. They started everything they had at us in the way of rifle- and machine-gun fire, but the only men of my company who hesitated were the ten who were shot down. We got at them with the bayonet and they didn’t like it. ”

“ It was enough that I would have to cross No Man’s Land under enemy fire without placing on me the risk of losing my life by the fire of our own guns. Small arms would have no difficulty in carrying over the strip. No Man’s Land here was no more than five hundred yards across. So shells, machine-gun drums and snipers’ bullets from the Germans were ignored, our trenches making no answer. ”

“ During the past months the troops of Great Britain and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, Newfoundland and India fighting side by side have invariably proved their superiority over the enemy, have contained the best fighting troops in the Ottoman Army in their front, and have prevented the Germans from employing their Turkish allies against us elsewhere.
No soldier relishes undertaking a withdrawal from before the enemy. It is hard to leave behind the graves of good comrades, and to relinquish positions so hardly won and so gallantly maintained as those we have left. ”

“ Officers were snapping out commands—heroically holding their presence of mind and organizing their men. Organizing, that is, what they could find of them, or any men, for that matter, that they could find around them.
54 All these things had now become visible in the dawn—the sudden dawn of the East. You must understand that the bombardment was ceaseless from the forts, the guns of all our ships roaring back at them the while. But it was the machine-gun fire and the rifle fire from the Turks concealed among the sand dunes and the clefts of the cliffs that were tearing our men down. ”

“ Imagine the peace and pleasure for men who were just returning from hell to have289 such companionship, to listen to songs beautiful and soft, where they had been listening to the scream of shells, to hear voices sweet and gentle where they had been for months hearing only the sharp moans of the wounded or the raucous voices of authority raised in deadly emergencies! ”

“ Regimental officers, non-commissioned officers and men carried out, without a hitch, the most trying operation which soldiers can be called upon to undertake—a withdrawal in the face of the enemy—in a manner reflecting the highest credit on the discipline and soldierly qualities of the troops.
It is no exaggeration to call this achievement one without parallel. To discharge and withdraw from a bold and active enemy is the most difficult of all military operations ”

“ Five were killed outright, six put out of the battle by serious injuries. The fire not only came from an enemy we could not see behind the trees but from snipers up in the trees and hidden in bushes. The wire itself was crowded with bomb traps. And there came also the drum fire of machine guns and the hail of shrapnel.
205 Then I thought the last hour of all of us was at hand. For as we now advanced each man practically for himself, but also aligned about abreast, the ground gave way under us. ”

“ It is a tendency an officer must combat since men in mass can be pulverized by machine-gun fire and bomb and shell explosions.
When a man falls someone is sure to say, “Poor old boy—his day’s work is done.”
Or again in passing the wounded, the characteristic cry is: “Cheer up, I’ll soon be joining you.” Another kindly call to a wounded comrade is: “Keep a place for me in the next bed in hospital.” I’ve heard the Tommies running through German trenches, throwing bombs to the tune of, “You made me what I am today, I hope you’re satisfied.” ”

“ At any rate, once I realized my condition, once I had looked upon my red, smashed hand, the slit sleeve and the flesh all torn beneath it, I immediately reached with my serviceable hand into the little pocket in the inside of my jacket for the precious vial of iodine.
Subconsciously I lifted the bottle with the idea of pulling the cork out with my teeth—good, strong, wholesome teeth they had been—when I realized the maimed condition of my mouth. Then you may believe I hesitated. But I did not dare risk the loss of any of that fluid. I must get antiseptic on my wounds. ”

“ Larkin shot his plane not fifty feet above the Boche trenches, but none of them took even so much as a rifle shot at us. They either ran or cowered in the trenches as we swept past. Then he shot up again, cleared a small, wooded section of knolls and dropped behind them, thus successfully getting out of the range of the archeys.
Larkin turned once again to me his blood-reddened countenance. This time he grinned bravely, coolly.
“It’s quite all right, Dave,” he called. “The wounds are nothing. I’m feeling quite fit again. We’ve got to spot that battery.” ”

“ There came a rush of men out of the trench to our rescue and they carried us both into its protection. They pushed a cigarette between my lips, the first thing that’s always done for a wounded comrade in the trenches, but I was too weak and sick to want that small, immediate comfort. The cigarette hung on my wounded lips. I tried to thank them, but could say nothing. I was making a desperate fight to hold on to consciousness. ”

“ Human nerves could not stand the strain of this modern warfare without some chance to alternate the light and frivolous with the tragedy of the struggle. It is not only that all war and no play would make the soldier a dull boy, but the fact is it would finish him up in short order. ”