Page from a world-old palimpsest
Shrined on the altar of the sea,
Whereon a Nation's new-limned crest
Glitters in glorious blazonry!
Grave that our race shall kneel anigh
For aye—Gallipoli; good-bye!
Dying to rank as men with those
Who manned the wall while Ilium burned--
This is the crown your story knows,
The need their rare dear madness earned!
Troy's heroes cry to ours and thee,
Gallipoli, Gallipoli!
They watched through fierce weeks many a one
While, from his tent of rose-hued lawn
The unclenched fingers of the sun
Unloosed the westering birds of dawn;
For them those sun-birds stoop and fly
No more! Gallipoli, good-bye!
God's acre, bare and barren woods,
Cross-guarded mounds where noon-rays burn--
Like pale knights praying by their swords,
Set upright in the bracken-fern--
Thy love shall keep our freemen free,
Gallipoli, Gallipoli!
J. ALEX. ALLEN in the Sydney Bulletin.
The Army Chaplain, drawn by Mars from his quiet round of parish work and life, made up, as it is, of pastoral visitation, educational and devotional meetings, and the public services of the Sabbath, is certain to find active service a restless experience. His battles aforetime, fierce enough sometimes, were in the arena of Synod or Conference Hall, and his duels were of the more or less friendly sort of the Ministers' Fraternal. Now he sees something of battles more dramatic, in which the missiles are more than words. He moves in an atmosphere of romance mingled with grim reality, and he begins to feel that he is living in heroic days. He sees the world in process of reconstruction, and looks on whilst the fabric of man's life and character is taken down and built up again according to a new pattern.
Our disappointment in not being allowed to proceed straight to the front in France was somewhat mitigated by the news that we were to train and wait beneath the shadows of the mighty Pyramids at Cairo. On the ground where Napoleon, addressing his troops, reminded them that 'forty centuries looked down upon them' and awaited their achievements, we trekked through the sand, sweated through the hot days and shivered during the cold nights, as we camped amid sand which is always either very hot or cold. There was a hard winter's work for padres here who desired to do something to counteract the evil attractions of Cairo for the troops. The reality was, however, always tinctured with the romantic glamour of Egypt and the Nile.
There was Vieux Cairo—the ancient Forstad—with its undoubted earliest Christian Church; the place to which we can say with almost certainty that Joseph and Mary came with the Infant Christ. Wanderings amid the antiquities of this ancient place full of Coptic traditions, and an occasional mingling with the multi-coloured crowds gathering among the Bazaars of the Monsky, somewhat relieved the tedium of evolutions amid the eternal sand of the Libyan Desert.
A hard three days' manœuvring was set over against the interesting fact that we fought our sham battles at Sakkara, the City of the Dead, and our Brigade signallers flashed or flagged their messages from the Step Pyramid—the very oldest building in the world to-day.
'Going down to Egypt' had the same dangerous fascination for us as for the ancient Israelites, and padres had to be modern Isaiahs, warning the men of the languorous seductions which Egypt in modern times, as in ancient, holds out to men of a sturdy race.
Then came the never-to-be-forgotten day when we marched out of our Mena Camp, headed by our bands—away from the sand of the desert, and on through the crowded streets of Cairo, singing, 'Advance, Australia Fair' and 'Good-bye, Cairo.' We were going to fight, and we were glad. We had left the back-block townships away beyond sunset for this very purpose: to strike a blow for Old England.
That we were going to strike a blow at the heart of the Turkish Empire made it all the more thrilling. Whether we would succeed or not we could not tell, but we knew that we were going to strike hard. No ancient crusaders ever felt higher enthusiasm than did we amid the marshalling of the armada of transports at Alexandria. Then, with Pompey's Pillar looking down upon us, we sailed away from the city of Alexander the Great, passed the Pharos and out to the blue Mediterranean.
Whither bound? We hardly knew, but in those days, when padres stood upon the higher decks and spoke to the men in their ranks below in the deep well decks of those huge transports, the romance of it all impelled them to call men to high endeavour and heroic faith. We had to 'do censor' on this voyage, and we found that the men's letters were surcharged in almost equal quantities with reality and romance. They complained that they had to sleep on an iron deck, eat iron rations, and, to crown all, some one said, 'We are commanded by a General called Iron Hamilton.' But they felt the glory of it, and displayed the spirit of adventurers.
With St. John's Patmos in sight, with its white buildings on the summit of the hill, we steamed on for Lemnos. Lemnos, the island to which, in Greek myth, Jove's son was hurled from heaven, in disgrace, and where the Greek army called on its way to the Trojan War, was beautiful to us after the hot sands of Egypt.
We manœuvred on shore among the most beautiful wild flowers, and we sailed in Mudros Bay around the formidable battleships of a mighty allied fleet.
Those were romantic days for the padre. Everything one said was flavoured with the seriousness of last words and final exhortations. The last Communion service, and the last service on the huge flagship of the A.I. Force, the Minnewaska, is something to remember. On April 11 the topic was 'Consecration.' 'And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves; for to-morrow the Lord will begin to do wonders among you.' The lesson was the story of the preparation of Joshua's army for the crossing of the Jordan. Knowing how desperate was our enterprise, we girded ourselves for the attack, and whatever the result of our campaign may have been—and we shall not know that fully until the war is over—we can claim that we obeyed the word which said, 'When ye come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan.' How many of our brave fellows on the brink of the water of the last Jordan stood firm on that bit of land we wrested from the Turk?
The last service of all on the deck of the flagship, on April 18, 1915, had for its message: 'Faith in God's leadership,' 'The Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night.' It was a pillar of cloud—clouds of battle-smoke—and a pillar of fire from the thunderous guns of our Fleet; and although it was not written in the Book of Fate that we should take Gallipoli, we may yet believe that God was with us.
In that address, after showing, first, that God does lead nations, and, secondly, we are not in the war for Empire aggrandizement, but for the preservation of God-given ideals—I turned to ask: 'Are we suitable instruments for the fulfilment of God's will?'
I look back with thankfulness to the fact that my last words to the men who were going to land at Gallipoli were on 'personal salvation.' 'Some of you may be satisfied that we are right as a nation in regard to God, but you may have confused and troubled thoughts about your own relation to God. You say, "I am not a church member or communicant. What about my personal salvation?" In regard to the forgiveness of sins, there is no magic or mystery about it. A man can be a Christian without knowing the creeds, just as a man can be a soldier without knowing the military text-books. The great revelation of the Bible is of God as a Father. Think of a good father. He would forgive even a prodigal son. So will God. But there must be repentance. If you thus come, God will accept you and say: "Thy sins which were many are all forgiven; go in peace and sin no more." Thus you may go forward, and fight all your battles knowing that at last, when you ground your arms before the Throne of God, and answer the roll-call of eternity, you will hear the Father say, "Well done, thou hast been faithful unto death; enter into Life."'
On a brilliant day of Mediterranean beauty our ships lifted their anchors, and, amid resounding cheers, one after another steamed out into the Ægean Sea, in the wake of the fabled Argonauts and on the ancient track of the Greek army sailing for the Plains of Troy. In the darkness battleships and transports took up their allotted positions, and in the early dawn there began one of the greatest combined naval and military battles which the world has ever seen.
Even amid the tragedy of those Gallipoli days we lived under the spell of the storied past. We were living in St. Paul's world. On a certain bright Sunday morning we addressed some hundreds of men on 'Paul's vision and call to Macedonia.'
We were fairly safe, for the shells flew over us on their way to the beach, and the hill intervening stopped the rifle-fire of the enemy. It is a good thing to be on the right side of the hill.
The men were always glad to hear about that indomitable fighter, Paul. We were able to point to Kum Kale in the distance, which our battleships had bombarded some days previously. It is the ancient Troas, from which Paul sailed, and Troas again is the more ancient Troy. He 'made a straight course to Samothrace.'
This would take his little ship (something like that Greek lugger sailing in our sight) over the place where a few days before our good friend, H.M.S. Triumph, was sunk by a submarine. And there, to the right, was Samothrace, in its snow-capped beauty, facing us.
That was the romance. We were in the ancient world. The reality was that we were verminous, plagued with flies and all the diseases they bring.
After visiting the dug-outs that day, I had to bathe in the Gulf of Saros, wash all my clothes, and, dressed in others less worrying, try to sleep in my cave of Adullam that night. Experiences solemn and weird were ours on that craggy shore.
A Communion service at that same place stands out in my memory. How freely the men came to the Table of the Lord! In the beautiful twilight they sang hymn after hymn as relays of men took their places. It was a setting solemn and impressive as any cathedral of man's building for such a service. But there was a grim reality about it too, for as they sang:
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless!
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness:
Where is death's sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still if Thou abide with me!
others, who had left the service for duty, were passing in single file up the long communication trench armed for the fray.
It seems a strange and romantic fact that when we returned to Egypt, after the evacuation of Gallipoli, our main camp was at Tel-el-Kebir. Sir Garnet Wolseley's trenches were visible on the outskirts of our camp. But what is more interesting, is that on the march to the desert front our force followed the line mainly of the sweet-water canal, which is probably the route of the Israelites under the wise generalship of Moses.
Some units took a route through the Desert to Ismailia. There was less romance about their experiences, and a reality which does not lend itself to description here. Crossing the Suez Canal, we campaigned for some months on a route which ultimately brought us to a post seventeen miles out in the desert. What an opportunity for the padre of re-telling the story of the wandering and fighting of the hordes of Israel under Moses and Joshua!
Our Arab camel convoys, on a new-made road parallel with a strategic railway, traversed by electric locomotives—East and West together!--lent an air of romance to this period of service. But it was counterbalanced by a severe reality, for on occasions we marched at 7 a.m. with the thermometer at 100 degrees. And a padre's Sunday, beginning with the first church parade at 5 a.m. and conducting others at various posts among the sand-dunes, was a day which left one more conscious of reality than romance.
An atmosphere of romantic interest hangs about our French campaign. The scene changes, and for the white-robed hosts following Saladin or Mehemet Ali, for the bronzed warriors who followed Cambyses, Alexander the Great, Rameses II, for the Red and Blue arrayed against each other under Napoleon or Abercromby, we have to exchange the chivalry and battle represented by such names as Poictiers, Cressy, or Waterloo. In our fleet of six transports, our division en route had to watch and pray, wearing a lifebelt always.
We steamed into a bay of Malta on a Sunday morning. This gave us another memory of Paul, and we had to speak of his shipwreck and landing there.
Arriving in La Belle France, we realize that it is a land of chivalry and romance. We move under the banner of Joan of Arc, and fight on old battle-fields. Every town has its storied past; but this is no war of chivalry, and our battalions do not flaunt the banners of heraldry. The reality is cold mud, dripping dug-outs, and hard fighting night and day; and yet over all are the crossed flags of the two most romantic and adventurous races in the world—the British and the French.
The achievements both of Napoleon and Wellington call us, the one to the path of glory and the other to the path of duty; and a second greater Waterloo awaits us as victors in the struggle for the freedom of Europe.
At this time we may still hear the ringing cry of Henry V at Harfleur in our English ears:
'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height!--On, on, you noblest English.’