Captain

by Sam Angus

  A shadow moved fleetingly on the ceiling somewhere, but when I stopped to listen, there was only the familiar breathing and chomping and shuffling of the animals.

  There was a loud hee-haw, and another. I heard the laugh running through those hee-haws, so I knew them straightaway for Hey-Ho’s. I waited, and after a while picked out, amidst the shuffling hoofs, the wincing scrape of metal on metal. I moved along the line, past one mule after another—all run-of-the-mill things, short-eared and plain as pikestaffs. From tail to tail I went, all the way to the stern of the Victoria, and there—there it was again, louder, the clink of a shovel on an ironclad floor: clink, scrape, scrape. Then silence. The steady, rhythmic work had stopped. I listened and peered into the dim light. A hand placed a bucket in the passage and a voice whispered, “Still, Hey-Ho, keep still.”

  Hey-Ho barked again.

  “Shh, Hey-Ho!”

  I tiptoed closer and saw him, head low and chomping, only the long black-tipped ears poking above the trough, and I smiled at the sweetness of that: one upright, the other lopsided and drooping.

  Hey-Ho nosed Captain and brayed again.

  “Shhh…,” Captain whispered. “Not talk so much.”

  He set the shovel down between the lines. I slipped behind the rump of a copper-colored she-mule, hoping she was not a kicker. Captain was walking towards me, the bucket in his hands. I shrank back against the she-mule. With whip-crack speed, a hind leg lifted, crooked, and a hoof hit my shin. I yelped and doubled over. Captain dropped the bucket and ran. I tried to call out to him, but there was no answer except for the clanking of the bucket as it rolled lonesomely down the aisle. I sank to the ground, just out of reach of the she-mule and I was cursing her for a miserable, mincing, malevolent, malicious, murderous, monstrous molly, and I don’t know how long I went on like that, but I was sitting there cursing and whimpering when it slowly dawned on me that someone was laughing—just like that: laughing—while I whimpered, and the sound of it was sort of tumbling and twinkling, like water running over stone. I looked up, and Captain was standing there, all shiny-eyed with mirth, so I scowled at him. Still laughing, he crouched and lifted my leg and ran his hands over the shinbone; small hands, but assured and competent.

  “All right, bone is all right,” he said, pressing the skin just where it was turning the color of one of Mother’s ripest. “Father is a doctor,” he added.

  “I was looking for you,” I said, still scowling at him. He made as if to stand and I clutched at his arm. He was as light on his feet as a bird, you see, always ready to take flight then; thin, too, as a sparrow.

  “Does anyone know—your father, does he know you’re here?” I asked. He started a little at that, so I held his arm firmly,

  “You can trust me,” I told him. “I won’t say anything to anyone.”

  Still ready to fly, he watched me carefully, then said—and his gaze was frank and open as his eyes met mine—“Father always told me, trust nobody.”

  “I won’t say anything,” I repeated. “You see, I’m not supposed to be here either.” I waited an instant, then with my forefinger drew two numbers on the dusty surface of the floor:

  15

  Captain raised his eyes and a smile opened slowly across his face. He moved his hand to the ground. His forefinger hesitated an instant, then wrote:

  14

  “Why’re you here?” I asked.

  Fear and regret flickered across his face, but I went on clumsily, “Are you in the Army too?”

  He was suddenly free, and on his feet, and running, silent and barefoot, down the aisle. I stayed there, cursing myself now for asking, because I already knew he wasn’t in the Army.

  PART II

  GALLIPOLI

  ABOARD THE VICTORIA

  AUGUST 17, 1915

  I dressed carefully that night, following every instruction they’d given us, my fingers shaking a little as I hung my identity disc round my neck. Captain had no such thing, it occurred to me then, and I wondered what he would do when we landed, where he would go. I wondered too (because I still cared about such things then) if Abel Rudge knew how many rules there were in the Army, that they even told you how to pack your socks: one pair in the pocket of your greatcoat and one in your kitbag, at the bottom of it.

  Gallipoli.

  We’d land in the dark of the predawn and surprise the Turk and drive him at point of bayonet back into the hills.

  I was blacking the brass buttons of my tunic to stop the glint of them drawing fire when I felt the throb in the belly of the Victoria, heard the rumble of her engine and roll of her chain, and grew nauseous with fear.

  Gallipoli.

  “There’ll be little opposition—there aren’t many Turks in the immediate area. You’ll have no difficulty reaching your objective.”

  That was what Colonel Colville had told us.

  The Victoria fought her way to the mouth of the bay. Every deck rail was thick with men from all the corners of the British world. Ships, ships, and more ships, all heading out of the harbor together.

  “A gathering,” whispered Firkins, “to quicken the blood with pride.”

  Firkins was still in a rousing, history-in-the-making sort of mood, but my own blood had turned to water.

  The crew of a warship gave us a rousing cheer as we rounded the mouth of the bay.

  “You fellows can smoke and talk quietly, but all lights out when I give the orders,” the Captain said.

  The Victoria picked up speed. The breeze lifted our hair—we were in the thick of the fleet now, and we were, all of us, racing, bow by bow, to that tail end of Europe I’d seen from the hill. Navy searchlights swept the sea. Across the water I saw flashing lights, little dots and dashes of Morse.

  An old sailor moved along the deck handing round hot cocoa. Firkins was standing beside me, and it occurs to me now that he’d got the shakes too, because he’d stopped talking for once about Jason and the Argonauts and all of that. It might have been the pitch and roll of the open sea that made me vomit, but it was more likely (and I don’t like to admit it even now, when nothing matters anymore) the sound of the revolving grindstones that really did it. You see, Merrick and Robins were sharpening their bayonets, and the glint of the knife edges in the dark made me think that in every nook and cranny of Gallipoli there’d be a bunch of turbaned Turks, and that all the hills glittered with naked, sharpened blades.

  “No talking. No light. We’re going in now.”

  A shiver rippled along the deck. There was silence but for the purr and growl of the engine and the splatter of water against the bow. The air was bitter. We huddled into our greatcoats, each of us alone with his thoughts and fears. The Victoria was making for what might have been a beach, set between two headlands, hills rising in a watchful semicircle round a bay. At the mouth of Suvla sat our warships, and there was something about them waiting there in readiness to protect us that made me almost retch again. I’d have given everything, just then, to be back at Bredicot.

  I shifted the pack on my back, thinking of all the things that were in there—water bottle, mess tin; shirts—two; socks—eight; handkerchief; pajamas; towels—two; soap, notebook, pencil, prayer book, two boxes of matches, two hundred rounds, three days’ iron rations—thinking, too, as I glanced from the hills to what looked like gravel at their feet, that it might be better, like Captain, to have no pack. I thought of Hey-Ho and the officers’ horses and wondered how they’d manage here. Trumpet would’ve been no good in this country, used as he was to a gentle meadow with a carpet of cowslips and clover.

  The moon faded and we glided through that deep, pitchy dark that comes just before dawn.

  * * *

  There’ll be little opposition.

  The Colonel’s words played in my head as we drew closer.

  In the dark there were darker shadows, forms that glided to and fro, one of them a troopship, perhaps, by the shape of her, and she was closing into the shore, launching pontoons, someone said, w
hich together would form a quay. The Victoria reached the mouth of the bay. She trembled as her speed slackened. My heart was flapping just then like a wind sock, and my limbs shaking, so I held one arm across the other to stop them quivering, and braced myself against the weight of my kit. The Pasha was already in the bay and I saw movement down her flank, troops scaling the ladders down into a string of rowing boats.

  The Victoria’s engines stopped. Messages were exchanged in the dark. The tow that ferried the rowboats from the Pasha was close to the shore, and behind her the rowing boats, white as Mother’s pearls against the dark water.

  A destroyer glided up alongside us.

  “Proceed to Suvla Bay.”

  Not a word was spoken now above a whisper as the Victoria sliced through the inky water. Merrick and everyone were looking up at the sky again, wondering how long we had till dawn. I thought of Captain. The mules would be the last to disembark, and Captain would have a rough time of it if it had grown light.

  “Remain steady, men, and strict silence.”

  Beasley was seeing to the closing of his cartridge pouch. I placed my rifle between my knees and did the same, hoping the dark hid my trembling fingers.

  * * *

  A picketboat was approaching us. Old Colonel Colville stood, arms folded, at our bow, inspecting the bay, as casual as if he’d got money on a horse and the sea were the green Ludlow turf.

  “Closer in! Closer in!” A naval officer stood beckoning from the prow of the picket, behind him twelve rowing boats. When my turn came at the ladder, I breathed deeply to staunch the telltale quivering of my jacket, then jumped the last few feet into the tow.

  “Man the boats, men!”

  A barge was waiting to draw up alongside the Victoria. She was coming for the animals, I thought. The picket turned for the shore and quickened her speed. I heard the lapping of the waves and felt the thump of my heart.

  “Go ahead and land!”

  “Stay close. Make sure you have the quicker finger,” whispered Beasley to me, grinning and crooking his trigger finger.

  The picket was struggling to get closer into the shore. Beasley shifted in his seat, readying himself, and then we were all shifting, all readying ourselves, all loading magazines. The picket had slipped the rope and was turning back. I saw officers motioning, urging men up the beach. Tandy and Sparrow were trying to disentangle the oars from our legs and kitbags, hoping to row us closer in. It was growing lighter, and the Lieutenant was fidgety and anxious to get ashore. Our string of boats was running into one another, the men in the first boat already scrambling ashore.

  I remember what happened next very clearly, because time slowed almost to a standstill, and every second is frozen, as if in a photograph. A single shot rang out. We turned our heads to one another. Suddenly the hilltops spurted red and were laced with running fire.

  “Overboard!” the Colonel roared.

  There was a great crash and boom. My gut twisted. We turned, as one, from the hilltops to the bay and watched, openmouthed.

  “Good God,” said the Lieutenant.

  The Turk howitzers had opened fire on our transports—they’d got our range—the barge that had drawn up to the Victoria—she’d been hit, a great hole ripped in her gut. On her deck there was pandemonium, men running, shouting, screaming. There were two mules—more—five, six perhaps—all stampeding. Somewhere, from a different boat, fragments of “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” drifted somehow through the roars and crashes. The water of the bay, lashed with a hail of Turk fire, grew white with froth.

  “Overboard! Overboard!” roared old Colonel Colville again.

  Where was Captain?

  There was another earsplitting crash and the barge was hit again. Captain, Hey-Ho—they’d be there somewhere, but I couldn’t make anything out, such confusion and chaos and smoke there was. I heard disembodied shouts and screams and suddenly the barge was dipping at her stern.

  “Get the animals overboard! Push ’em off! Push them off!”

  As the smoke cleared I made out figures on the deck, some scrambling up the deck rail, some hurling themselves over, mules all bunched together. A man was lashing them—not Hey-Ho, the shape was too stout—trying to push one from behind as the barge lurched from side to side. The terrified shrieks of the animals pierced even the deafening roar of fire. One animal stood alone, rigid with fear, legs braced against the tilting deck.

  “Come on, Bayliss, get ready,” said Lieutenant Straker.

  “All documents destroyed!” the Paymaster was shouting. A wireless man crawled along the deck, a steel chest in his arms.

  “Billy, Billy!” It was the Lieutenant and he was pulling me, but I resisted.

  Men and animals were jumping from the sides of the barge.

  “Water knee-deep below deck!”

  I saw Captain—suddenly I saw him—on the near deck—shouting across the water: “Father! Apa! Father!”

  He ran to the far side, searching the deck … That was Hey-Ho, head down, careering from port to starboard.

  “Make your landing, lads, where you can,” shouted the Colonel, who seemed only the tiniest bit ruffled by what was happening.

  Words of warning passed from man to man along my side of the deck, then from Beasley to me.

  “There’s barbed wire in the water, the current’s strong…”

  I barely heard. Get him off, get Hey-Ho off, I was thinking. Go on. Lash him. Lash him. I’d do the same, if it were Trumpet and me, I wouldn’t leave, not till I’d got Trumpet off.

  “All ashore, lickety-split.” Colville was still barking in a jolly sort of way as if we were all schoolboys on an excursion.

  “Father! Apa! Apa!” Captain screamed. I saw him lean out over the handrail waving frantically. He turned to rip a buoy from the splintering deck rail. As the barge settled deeply into the water at her stern, he hurled the buoy into the water. His father can’t swim, I thought, neither can Captain. Hey-Ho shrieked and spun round, shrieked again, and Captain was running after him, dodging and leaping coils of rope and the loose things that slid down the deck.

  “Abandon ship!” came a yell from the barge.

  Captain scrambled along on all fours; he’d got a rope around Hey-Ho, was dragging him to reach a point from which they could jump overboard. The water around the barge was splattered with fire. A great rending and hissing erupted from her as her rafts and rams splintered to matchwood.

  “All ashore!” Colville was still yelling to us in the rowing boats.

  The barge suddenly reared into the air, then began to plummet, stern first, the water rushing and roaring at her in a foaming crest, bits of wood shooting out of the quivering water, jagged and splintering things snapping from her deck. Where were Captain and Hey-Ho?

  “Chop-chop!” roared the Colonel.

  “Overboard, Bayliss, now!” the Lieutenant said, grasping my arm and pushing. “Just get to that ridge, get to the ridge, then get down.”

  A low ridge ran along the curve of that bay and I wondered if it gave any kind of cover. A cheer went up on the beach as our naval guns at last began to roar, men shouting to one another in joy as our guns belched fire, and the peal of them was like nothing I’d ever heard. The enemy guns fell silent, in shock, perhaps at our own, and in their silence I took my chance and threw myself into the water.

  I don’t remember any more of what happened in the minutes that followed, nor in what order. It might be the fever in me now or it might be that I couldn’t apprehend it all at the time, but all I see are flashes of things glimpsed passingly and they are all confused now and muddled in my head. But I can feel the barbed tentacles of wire snag the cloth of my uniform and rip the flesh of my shins, still see the men sorting crates as shrapnel fell in showers round them, still see other men scuttle like rabbits up the beach, still feel the swirl of the current, the slippery shingle, still see the water red with blood.

  “Up the beach! Up the beach!”

  Somehow or other I reached tha
t small ridge and flung myself down on the sand beside the Lieutenant and Merrick. They were wriggling to get their packs off, both now fixing bayonets. I did the same, conscious of Lieutenant Straker’s deft hands when I was all fingers and thumbs.

  “Up to the foot of the hill! Get to the gully!” the Beach Master was shouting through a megaphone.

  “Come on,” whispered Lieutenant Straker. He was gentle, and sort of encouraging, and I knew he didn’t speak to Beasley or anyone else like that. He and Merrick rose and raced to the base of the hills. Paralyzed with fear I clung to the shingle. A moment or two passed like that till I was given a sharp prod. An officer was standing over me, pistol cocked.

  “Move on. Join your unit.”

  I turned my head to reach for my pack.

  “Up the beach, turn left, go uphill three miles, and try to find your unit. Now.”

  Between the spumes of sand, the spurting water, falling clods, and swelling smoke, I glimpsed, just above the dark waterline, a single ear bobbing comically. Hey-Ho’s long silvery nose was headed in a calm and purposeful line for the shore, the curve of a slender arm over his neck and on either side a figure almost submerged.

  SUVLA BAY

  AUGUST 18, 1915, LATE AFTERNOON

  “Up!”

  A flattish stretch of coarse grass and scrub and scattered thistle lay ahead.

  “Move on, move on!”

  By a ruined building at the foot of the cliff, we were assembled into an approximate sort of order, battalions all mixed up, then loaded with provisions and harried on up a rugged, near vertical track.

  All that morning we Yeomen were on fatigues. Up and down that barbarous hill we trudged, humping ammunition, kit, rations, firewood, three miles up, three miles down, all in the brutal blast of the sun. There were mules too, laden to the rafters, each picking his way up the loose and slipping stone, but Hey-Ho wasn’t amongst them. In the gully I saw some Australians—big, easy, comfortable men, always laughing and joshing, whatever sort of shape they were in—a group of them coming down as I went up. One looked at me and I was probably looking uncertain or sort of hopeless because he said, “Watch, out, kid. Jacko’s everywhere up there.” I must’ve looked confused because he said, “Abdul … Johnny Turk … Jacko. He’s all over the place.” I clenched my rifle and he smiled and shook his head in a despairing kind of way, clapped me on the back and went on.