Читать книгу The Desert Column - Ion Idriess - Страница 17

December 1st—We have been quarantined. An outbreak of scarlatina. All well, now. Captain Dwyer made time drag far less heavily by getting us all sorts of games. By the way, the invention came to nothing. The submarine officer could not be found. He has disappeared on secret duty. A number of Intelligence Officers are living in the native quarters, as Kitchener used to do. Any that the Arabs find out, they slit their throats. Those chaps live fascinating lives but they must be possessed of a sort of supernatural courage.

December 4th—Medical Board declared me on Class B. Am on guard duty here now, until judged fit to return to the Peninsula. ... I tried hard to enlist with the Composite Regiment. They are all recovered wounded men from all regiments and armies, going out to quieten the Senoussi Arabs who have started a Holy War in the Tripoli desert. Nearly all the able-bodied soldiers are now on Gallipoli.

December 5th—The city is seething with unrest. There are rumours everywhere that at Christmas the Greeks are to unite with the Arabs and murder all foreigners and Christians. They think we are getting beaten on the Peninsula. What a surprising shock awaits the mob if they tackle this walled convalescent home. We are ready.

December 10th—Alongside our frowning entrance gate there is a forbidding wall. We know that inside is a garden. A stone house towers up, the narrow windows ominously barred. We are told the place is a harem, so of course it is of interest to us. While on guard duty this morning I noticed a head of fuzzy black curls peering between the bars of a top window. I stamped my iron-shod rifle-butt on the stone flags. The head turned into a strangely pretty face, the big black eyes trying hard to gaze between the bars. I smiled hard and it brought a scarlet-cloaked Egyptian girl to peer over the shoulder of the little dark curls. I smiled—they smiled back. I sloped arms smartly and gave them a military salute. They smiled a whole lot and acknowledged the salute by the Coptic sign. I threw them a kiss. They seemed puzzled but smiled as if they realized what it meant. I threw more kisses; they nodded vigorously and made the Coptic sign and pressed hard against the bars. I beckoned them to come down into the garden and talk to me over the wall, but they shook their heads, and smiled and made the Coptic sign. Suddenly they drew back, the shutters closed, I “sloped arms” and limped sternly up and down my beat. I’m leaning against the wall now, writing in the old diary. I always carry it in the haversack.

Two hours later—A shuttered window of the big house has just been partly opened. I was watching all the time. She of the curly head was just visible. The Red Riding Hood girl was behind her and another Egyptian girl trying to squeeze a look in, or rather, out. The third girl smiled very much when I threw kisses. The window was so directly above me that I could see the henna stain on her tiny fingers, when she reached out over the curls and twinkled them through the bars. But they all made the sign across their eyes when I tried to coax them down into the garden. After a while the shutters were closed. I will be quite sorry when my forty-eight hours’ guard ends. ... The city is ominous with rumours. It is almost certain there will be trouble with the Arabs.

Next day—During the night there were two little sparks of light from the dark window of the big house. I was standing under a lamp and waved my hand. The cigarettes waved from the window. Later, in the small hours, there was a persistent little tapping coming down from that window. But if they thought I was going to scale a forty-foot wall to a shuttered window, they found I was no blooming Romeo at all. ... Heard sad news of the poor old 5th today.

1916

January 3rd—Detailed for Cairo to-morrow to rejoin regiment. Goodbye Alexandria. It has been quite a happy stay here: the convalescents of all units are a huge happy family, the great dark city outside, intensely interesting. We could not believe the news of the Evacuation.

January 5th—Cairo again! Am at Gezira Overseas Base. From here they draft all convalescents to their separate units. It is exhilarating to be moving about among large bodies of men again, to experience the warm comradeship of everyone, with the feeling in the air that there might be something doing. Last night a regiment of Yeomanry fully accoutred passed us on the big English bridge over the Nile, going to an unknown destination. Their heavy horses rumbled over the bridge, their scabbards rattled, bits champed, sparks flew from hooves as the silent English regiment rode by. The 1st Light Horse Brigade are soon in harness. They have already marched out en route to the Upper Nile against the Senoussi, marauding bands of whom are massing to blow up the sweet water canals.

January 6th—With the old regiment at Ma’adi, again. It was real lonely, wandering down the old familiar lines, looking for familiar faces, and saddening to find only an odd one here and there. I think the boys of my regiment were the nicest lads in the world. The regiment is filled up with reinforcements. We landed on the Peninsula nearly five hundred strong. Our casualties were eleven hundred and forty-five. As fast as the reinforcements dribbled across, they were knocked. Only two original officers survived right through the Peninsula without being casualtied away. In my own troop, there are only four old hands left, and two of them are first reinforcements who came over with us.

January 7th—Ma’adi. Same old routine, drill, etc. I wish this damned war was over.

February 13th—The Old Bird is back, happy as a lark. All the old hands are glad to see him. The whole brigade is lucky with its officers. Some are pigs; but I suppose they can’t help that. The big majority however are well liked. All the brigade likes the Old Brig. By the way, he can sling a boomerang better than any white man I know. Then the 5th like Colonel Wilson. He fined me five shillings yesterday, though, for clearing out on Sunday without leave. Major Cameron is a very decent sort, too; I think all the officers of our own regiment are liked. I detest two of them; but I suppose other men think they are all right. I haven’t felt much like writing up the old diary. There’s nothing doing anyway, except everlasting drill and manoeuvres to prepare us for desert fighting. At night time the city Arabs sneak into camp and try to pinch our rifles. They are getting very cheeky. They dig up our spent bullets from the rifle-range and melt them down again, into bullets for us, I suppose. We’ve had to organize a Flying Picket against them to patrol the camp at night.

February 19th—We are getting it hot about not saluting officers in the street. A man would need an automatic arm. We have been told, too, that the disgraceful Australian soldiers will not be allowed to go to France if they do not salute officers in the streets. Bow-wow!

February 23rd—At last there is movement—bustling camps—thousands of men packing. The excitement is mostly among the reinforcements, who have never heard bullets. The old hands just smoke away and take things as a matter of course. We are going mounted this time.

February 24th—Serapeum, on the Suez Canal. We entrained at Abu-El-Ela station, for this place. Warships in the distance appear like squatting ducks in the canal. Rumour has it that the Turks are out in the desert only a day’s march away.

March 5th—We heard distant guns towards Ismailia Lakes to-day, but hardly think the Turks are there. General Birdwood with the Old Brig, was around.

March 6th—Heard guns again to-day, but I don’t think anything is on. There is intriguing movement of troops though.

At night—The searchlights flashing over the canal sweep eerily across the desert and then melt up into the sky.

Any old date—Sand, sand, sand, flying sand, blooming sand everywhere. Sometimes we have to sit in camp with our greatcoats over our heads. Some days it is impossible to see the length of the horse lines for flying sand.

...The Turks have not come yet, worse luck. Anything to relieve this cursed monotony and sand. Yesterday was awful. In the evening I was riding from the canal, with three led horses prancing with the pain of driving sand in their eyes. I couldn’t see five yards ahead. Presently I realized we must have passed the camp, so as the horses persistently tugged to the right I let them try their luck. We pranced right into the sick-horse lines. I had been making right out into the open desert.

March 20th—Clear days, thank heavens, even if blazing hot. The Prince of Wales inspected us today. We were curious to have a look at him.

...We stared through the brazen sunlight, to-day, surprised to hear a band, to see marching across the desert the 1st Infantry Brigade. We watched them longingly as they swung smartly over the pontoon bridge across the canal, en route to their train. How we wish we were going to France too. Numbers of our men have volunteered for the infantry, odd ones have cleared out to stowaway with them. Anything to escape this flying sand.

March 22nd—It was queer on sentry duty this morning, watching the big ships gliding down the Canal, and being able to talk to the men with their heads out of the portholes. A mighty work, this river cut by man! Fancy, a ship of the deep sea steaming across a desert! Last night, a P. & O. boat glided past; we could feel her engines throbbing; the desert was so quiet they seemed like the heart-beats of a mammoth out of breath. She just glided by so close, so brilliantly lit up, that we almost imagined ourselves lounging on her deck-chairs. Some of the passengers cooeed to us and shouted: “Go it, Australia!”

...Close by, is the old battlefield of Tel-el-Kebir. Remnants of buttons, bullets, bayonets and cartridge-cases are littered there, while yellowed skulls show up where the Khamseens have blown the sand away. The scurrying winds have uncovered odd bodies in an uncanny state of preservation, surely due to some chemical preservative in the sands. Several boys looked mustily young and sleeping. It was a shock to see them, so still and quiet and old. They gave me an uneasy impression that from some aloof world they were accusing me—and really I never knew they once existed. Our boys buried them deep.

March 25th—Bright weather at last, and some gift tobacco came with it, making life much more cheerful.

March 29th—A bottle of pickles, a tin of peaches and a tin of bonza golden syrup to a section (four men) arrived today from the Citizen’s War Chest Fund, Sydney. What a feast-day we will have!

...A squadron of the 8th Regiment had an interesting patrol out to attack a party of Austrian engineers engaged on the water-cisterns at Wady um Muksheib. The column rode over eighty miles of desert. The horses finished fresh, but the camels knocked up. The men are still discussing a hairy Bedouin camel-tender they rode upon. He wolfed biscuits like a dog. He had been entirely alone with his camels for two months, living on camels’ milk only.

March 31st—B Squadron returned. The weather is fine. Less night duties now. All are as happy as it is possible to be—the boys are such a comradely lot.

...Two days ago, a long line of infantry staggered across the desert towards Serapeum on a route march. Men were perishing of thirst, all were in a terrible state; no water; the desert blazing; all men with heavy packs up. Reliefs were rushed out to them. Men were lying far across the desert. We heard that one officer blew his brains out. Today, some of the exhausted men showed us their tongues, covered with blisters.

April 1st—Last night a troop of us were stationed on top of a sand-ridge. The night was cold: the stars looked like chilled steel. The desert at night is utter silence: a man’s mind sees shadows moving. We of the first watch rolled up in our greatcoats and slept. The sentry prodded us awake with his rifle. We were completely buried by the fine sand the wind had blown over us. As our officer remarked: “A man will never need a grave dug if he is shot in this desert.”