H.M.S Saracen (1965)

by Reeman, Douglas

  All at once it was very still, and Chesnaye could feel his legs quivering violently. He was almost afraid to move lest they collapsed under him. He looked at Pickles, and when he saw the naked fear on his face he felt suddenly unsure and alone.

  Wellard spat into the sand at his feet. ‘Not our bloody job!’ He jerked his head at the rising pall of black smoke. ‘Let’s make for the beach now!’

  Chesnaye knew that the other seamen were behind Wellard, hidden by the curve in the trench. They would be listening. Waiting. Pickles was useless, and Tobias was an impassive neutral. Either way it did not seem to matter to him.

  Chesnaye felt let down and vaguely betrayed. He heard himself say sharply, ‘Say “sir” when you address me, Wellard!’

  The seaman plucked at his black beard and squinted at the midshipman. ‘Aye, aye, sir!’ He looked sideways at Tobias. ‘Well, Hookey, don’t you think it’s bloody daft?’

  Tobias picked up his rifle and stared at it as if for the first time. He glanced up quickly at Chesnaye’s desperate face. ‘Everythin’ is daft ’ere, Wellard!’ He gave a brief grin. ‘Now do as you’re bloody well told and get ready for the off!’

  Chesnaye opened his mouth to speak but was almost deafened by a shrill whistle blast at his side. The Australian officer seemed suddenly tall and remote, his features a mask of fierce determination. A bright whistle gleamed in one hand, while with the other the man groped at the flap of his holster. ‘Come on, you Aussie bastards!’ His voice cut across the encroaching rattle of small-arms like a saw. ‘Stand to! Face your front!’

  Obediently and dazedly, like animals, the soldiers came alive and began to scramble on to the crudely hewn firing step.

  The lieutenant stood down in the trench for a while longer, his eyes darting along the bowed soldiers, the levelled rifles. ‘Right, fix bayonets!’ A hissing, metallic rattle rippled along the thin khaki barrier, and Chesnaye watched fascinated as the long blades were snapped into position and then vanished over the sandbagged barrier.

  The lieutenant coughed in the smoke and then spun the chamber of his revolver. ‘Best get going, sport. Up the hill like a Queensland rabbit, and the best of luck!’

  A great sullen bellow of sound, like nothing Chesnaye had heard, echoed over the crouching heads on the firing step. He tried to place it. The baying of hounds, the thunder of surf. It was impossible to describe it.

  The soldier said sharply: ‘Here they come! Calling on their god to protect ’em!’ He pushed his way up beside his men, the sailors already forgotten.

  Chesnaye ran quickly to the rear of the trench and vaulted over the loose stones. It was now or never. A second longer and that dreadful, booming storm of voices would have held him powerless to move. As if from miles away he heard the lieutenant shout: ‘One hundred yards, five rounds rapid . . . Fire!’ The air jumped again to the savage bark of rifles, whilst from somewhere on each flank came the searching, vicious rattle of machine-guns.

  Chesnaye found his feet and began to run. Behind him he sensed rather than heard the thudding footfalls of his small party. The summit of the hill seemed far away, and as he ducked behind a natural wall of boulders Chesnaye could see the advancing barrier of short angry flames where the gorse had been set alight.

  The valley was hidden in smoke, yet Chesnaye could imagine the enemy already within a hundred yards of the defence line. They must be up to the wire, even across it! He heard himself cry, ‘We must get there in time!’

  A seaman started to overtake, his boots and gaiters scything through the sparse stubble with all the power he could muster. The machine-guns chattered louder, and with sudden panic Chesnaye realised that the new sounds were coming from the flank, from the other hill. Hoarsely he yelled: ‘Down! Get down!’

  The seaman who had passed him peered back, his teeth bared with the determination of his own efforts to reach shelter. ‘Get down yerself!’ He turned to run on, but was plucked from his feet as the machine-gun found him. The corpse rolled down the hillside, followed and flayed by the hidden gun. The running man changed to a corpse even as the others watched. From a man to a rolling thing. From a recognisable, breathing companion to a tattered, scarlet bundle.

  Tobias wriggled to Ghesnaye’s side. ‘They’ve got us pinned down, sir.’

  Chesnaye shut his ears to the sounds behind him, the bark and rattle of guns, the harsh, desperate voices and the clatter of rifle bolts. He must think. He had to decide. Like a wind the machine-gun fanned the air above his head, and he heard his men cursing and praying as they dug their fingers into the hillside.

  Chesnaye could feel the early sunlight already warm against his neck, and saw a small beetle scurrying across the ground near his cheek.

  He looked at the dirt on his hands and the scratches on the skin where he had torn at the loose stones to get clear of the trench. Perhaps the others were right. It was a futile gesture which had already cost a seaman’s life. But he remembered the soldiers who were fighting for their lives with the blind desperation of all front-line troops. Not knowing what was happening or even why they were there. For all they knew, the whole front might have collapsed, with the enemy already encircling them for final destruction. He shook his head as if to clear his tortured mind.

  Eventually he said: ‘We’ll work our way round the side of that small rise in the ground, Tobias. Once there we’ll be under cover for a bit. Then we’ll take the last hundred yards in short stages.’ He gripped the other man’s sleeve, ‘But we can’t hang about!’

  The journey to the top was a nightmare. By a twist of fate it was the smoke from the burning hillside which saved them. The enemy machine-gunners fired long bursts through the drifting black cloud, but it was difficult for them to range their sights on the long slope, and so, gasping and sweating, the two midshipmen and five seamen found themselves once again in the spotting post. The cleft in the rock was scarred and disfigured by shellfire, and the wall of boulders was scattered amidst the black score marks of the Turkish barrage.

  There were three soldiers waiting by the sandbagged wireless position. One was dead, one was white-faced and wounded in both legs, whilst the third sat by the wireless smoking a cigarette. The latter nodded companionably. ‘’Mornin’, gentlemen! I suppose you’re ready to start?’

  It was nearly half an hour before Chesnaye could plot some idea of the change in the enemy positions and from which direction the main assault was being directed. The smoke eddied and swam across the valley, trapped and demented, its colours changing to the flicker of countless rifles, and later to the brightly flashing grenades. Once there was a brief gap in the smoke, and Chesnaye lost valuable seconds as he stared mesmerised at the battle which raged below.

  For the first time he saw the enemy. Not as individuals, but as a vast surging throng, colourless and without apparent shape. It broke across the narrow strip of wire, while the chattering machine-guns mowed down rank after rank, and left the scattered remnants hanging on the gleaming barbs, twisting and kicking. Still they came on, until the soldiers below could no longer fire, but leapt from their trenches to meet them on the parapets face to face. Chesnaye saw the madly struggling throng sway back and forth, while the flash of bayonets brought colour to the shrill cries and desperate movements of the battle.

  Chesnaye caught his breath as a body of Turkish infantry overflowed the trench and began to run madly up the side of the hill itself. Another machine-gun came into play, and with systematic care cut the small figures to shreds and left them scattered around the body of the dead seaman. Chesnaye also saw the Australian lieutenant, hatless and with his revolver held like a club, fighting astride a pile of corpses, while dark-faced Turks closed in from every side. Even as reinforcements surged along the shattered trench Chesnaye saw the flash of yet another bayonet and watched sickened as the lieutenant screamed and fell clutching his stomach.

  Behind him he heard the army wireless operator say, ‘Contact with the beach party, sir!’

  He had alread
y scribbled the signal and range orders on his pad, and blindly he passed it to the man’s eager hand.

  How could he be sure he had done the right thing? There was no way of knowing in this confusion. Lieutenant Thornton would have known, but he was dead. Where was Robert Driscoll? He would have known too. Chesnaye peered through the smoke as the morse key began to stammer. Driscoll was probably down there, dead with the others in that bloody carnage, where terror was making men fight like wild beasts. It had all seemed so easy. An order. An alteration perhaps, but then the big guns would do the work cleanly and impartially. That was not war at all. This was real. Where you could see your enemy first as a living mass which came on in spite of everything until it was broken into individuals and flesh and blood. Until it was too close even for bullets, and you could feel his desperate breath on your face even as you twisted and struggled to drive home your bayonet.

  The Turkish assault faltered and swayed back from the trench. In an instant the Australian infantry were at them once more. Down the slope from the parapet the battle-crazed Australians surged in pursuit, only to be met by a savage cross-fire of well-sited machine-guns. As officers fell they were replaced by sergeants. Within an hour the sergeants were dead and junior corporals found themselves in command.

  At the head of the valley, where Turkish reinforcements waited for the order to advance, the sky was bright and clear of smoke. It looked at peace and beyond reach through Chesnaye’s telescope. Then a wind seemed to ruffle the hillsides and the end of the valley appeared to fade within a shadow. Chesnaye watched the sudden change with cold satisfaction. The Saracen’s first salvo had landed.

  Tobias rolled on to his side and looked at the sky as the big shells sighed overhead. ‘Just in time,’ he said at length. He glanced quickly at Chesnaye’s drawn face. ‘You’ve done a nice job, sir.’

  Chesnaye did not speak. He looked down at the shell-battered defences, the scattered corpses where here and there a hand or a foot still moved as if its owner believed in the right to survive. A bugle blared, and the Australians fell back, some still shooting, others dragging wounded comrades behind them. He could see the white brassards and red crosses moving up the line, the limp stretchers with their telltale scarlet stains. He saw it all with the patient horror of a man looking at some terrible panorama of death. Men without arms or faces, men who ran in circles blinded and lost, and others who whimpered like idiots until led away. Even the dead were without dignity, he thought. Ripped and torn, grinning and grimacing, broken and forgotten, their blood mingled with that of the enemy.

  Chesnaye retched and leaned his head against a sunwarmed boulder.

  A runner panted up the hill, his jacket soaked in sweat. ‘Cease fire, sir!’ He handed Chesnaye a grimy signal. ‘Message from Brigade.’ He glanced at the dead soldier without curiosity. ‘This section will re-group and reinforcements are already movin’ up!’ He removed the bayonet from his rifle and stooped to wipe it on the gorse at Chesnaye’s feet.

  Chesnaye noticed for the first time that the blade was patterned with bright red droplets. He stared, fascinated at the soldier’s lined face. ‘How was it?’

  The man took a cigarette gratefully from Tobias and sucked in slowly. As he breathed out his limbs began to quiver, and Tobias turned away as if ashamed to watch.

  The soldier wiped his eyes with his cuff. ‘Christ, it was awful. Lost me two mates, y’see.’ He stared blindly at the bayonet. ‘It was just a bloody slaughter!’ He swallowed hard and then said harshly, ‘Thanks fer the fag.’

  They watched him go, loping down the hillside. A small individual who for a brief instant had detached himself from the mass.

  The Australians counter-attacked in the late afternoon. The Saracen, this time supported by a far-off battleship and two destroyers, laid down a barrage which held the Turks in hiding until it was too late to stem their advance. By nightfall the enemy had lost Hill Seventy-Five and a mile and a half of the valley. Between dawn and sunset three thousand dead and wounded marked the rate of advance, but when the stars showed themselves above the highest ridge the new line was established.

  Chesnaye followed his men down the hillside, his jacket open to the waist, the night air cold across his damp skin. He did not turn his head as he passed the shadowy shapes which littered the ground and lay inside the broken trench itself.

  He was ordered to return to the beach and find his way back to the monitor. He still found it hard to believe that there was to be a break in this new world of noise and suffering.

  A figure loomed from the darkness and a groping hand found his. Chesnaye swayed and heard Driscoll’s voice say: ‘I’m glad you made it, Dick! You did damned well!’

  Even on the beach amongst the groaning lines of wounded which seemed to stretch into the infinity of the night Chesnaye could still feel the warmth of that handshake, and understood how the soldier with the reddened bayonet must have felt when he had lost his friends. His thoughts were becoming jumbled and confused, and he felt Tobias’s hard hand at his elbow.

  ‘You all right, sir?’ The man’s face seemed to swim against the stars.

  Tobias added: ‘I can see a boat comin’, sir. That’ll be fer us!’

  He spoke with the fervent hope of a man lost in an unfamiliar world, but as the cutter moved smartly inshore and the rowers tossed their oars, Chesnaye was suddenly reluctant to leave.

  He fell into the boat, and the last thing he heard before exhaustion claimed him was the voice of one of his remaining seamen.

  ‘Move over there, lads! Let ’im sleep!’ Then in a voice tinged with awe: ‘Proper little tiger is Mister Chesnaye! You should ’ave seen ’im!’

  6

  Driftwood

  Richard Chesnaye shielded his eyes from the sun’s glare and peered astern. Like the purple back of a basking whale the island of Mudros was already merging with the shimmering horizon, its shape distorted by the heat haze. The sun was high overhead, and on the monitor’s upper deck there seemed to be no cover at all in spite of the narrow awnings, so that Chesnaye’s small working party toiled halfheartedly, their paint-brushes hardly moving across the shield of one of the small quick-firing guns below the tall funnel. Soon they would be released from the pretence of working and go below to their stuffy messdeck and the tempting tot of watered rum. Then, lunch over, they would once more be kept active for a few hours while the ship moved slowly and ponderously along her set course. Back to the Peninsula. Back to the bombardment and the mounting frustrations.

  Chesnaye winced as a shaft of sunlight seared his neck like a flame. The ship was so slow, so completely airless that every movement was an effort. It seemed incredible to believe that it was less than three weeks since he had left the darkened beach and found his way back to the Saracen. They had weighed anchor almost at once and returned to Mudros, and there unloaded the wretched cargo of wounded soldiers. Some had died on the way, and the Captain had buried them at sea. April had given way to May, and the probing sun left no room for corpses in an overcrowded ship of war.

  Chesnaye could not remember when he had enjoyed a full night’s rest. There always seemed to be some crisis or other. Loading stores and ammunition from the ubiquitous lighters, the decks of which still bore the dark stains of wounded men, and then out again at dawn to take the monitor alongside the deep-bellied oiler to replenish the half-empty tanks.

  Tempers became frayed, seamen overstayed their miserable shore-leaves, and were punished with the same weary resignation which had made them rebel in the first place.

  The monitor had returned briefly to the Peninsula and had carried out two minor bombardments in conjunction with a battleship and some destroyers. No spotting party had been landed, but Chesnaye had stood on the upper bridge, his plugged ears conscious of the angry barrage, yet his mind constantly with the other world beyond the glittering shoreline and craggy hills. He imagined the tiny, antlike soldiers and the persistent probing and attacking which was going on beyond the range of his tele
scope. He remembered that last run up the hillside when the seaman had been cut down by the machine-gun. When he had pressed his face into the ground and seen the small beetle scurrying through the sand. Now distance had made the armies into insects, but this time he could understand their suffering.

  The Saracen had waddled back to Mudros and disgorged another three hundred broken bodies, taken on more stores and was returning once more.

  It seemed incredible to understand that the daring and desperate attack on the Dardanelles had been forced to a bloody stalemate. Day after day ships of the Fleet patrolled the slender Peninsula, like dogs worrying an aged deer, yet nothing happened to break the deadlock. Eighteen battleships, twelve cruisers, twenty destroyers and eight submarines, plus an armada of auxiliaries had pressed home attacks, blockaded, and covered innumerable landings, yet still the well-defended Turks held their own, and hit back again and again.

  In the midst of it all the Saracen, unlovely and unloved, moved alone. Too slow to work with the destroyers, and too ungainly to keep with the battleships, she wandered from one allotted task to the next. Even the ship’s company sensed their situation, and the Captain had ordered that no matter what else happened they were to be kept busy at all times and the ship maintained at a level of peacetime discipline.

  There had been one break in the ship’s misfortune, however. Mail had awaited the Saracen in Mudros, and Chesnaye had received two letters from his mother. His father was apparently ill, brought on by his mounting depression and his inability to return to active duty. Between the lighter comments his mother made about the weather and the state of the garden Chesnaye could sense her despair, and he was reminded of the great distance which separated him from his home. He had written a carefully worded reply, and even more thoughtfully had sent a letter to Helen. He had used the Gibraltar address, and wondered if it would ever reach her. Already he was regretting the impulse. Afraid she would not answer. More afraid of what her reply might be.