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Chapter XIII Of the Rest Camp at Lemnos

—H. B. K. in The Anzac Book.

At last on 14 September the New Zealanders were ordered to concentrate in the Chailak Dere. "Hallelujah," the spell had come at last! A few more days, and there would not have been anybody to relieve. The men staggered down the Dere, past the Outpost and along a weary way to Anzac Cove. Here they were packed on board lighters and taken off to the Osmanieh. They had left New Zealand in ten large transports, and now the remnants were taken off from Anzac in one small steamer. With the reinforcements over ten thousand men went ashore at Anzac. About eight hundred embarked for the spell.

In Mudros Harbour an ancient paddle steamer that had all the appearance of having been abandoned after the Crimean War wheezed alongside and commenced to take men and stores towards the "wharf." As the old craft neither sank nor capsized on the way everyone landed safely after successfully negotiating an ingenious obstacle that had been erected by the page 127R.Es, who were evidently under the delusion that the structure bore some resemblance to a landing stage. From the landing place to the hillside selected as the camping-ground was barely three miles—but they seemed like thirty. A few very strong men— mainly 5th Reinforcements, who had been ashore barely a month, managed to cover the distance in two hours; of the others some took five hours, some ten, some simply lay out exhausted and only managed to stray in late that night or the next day. A few marquees were available, and when these had been erected the weary men crowded into them, lay down on the hard, stony ground, and went to sleep.

Although the weather was threatening and black thunder clouds were sweeping overhead, no one could summon the necessary energy to dig trenches round the tents. In the morning a thunder storm burst over the camp and the rain poured down in torrents. In a few minutes the whole hillside was running with water. The flood rushed in under the tent flaps and the floor space was soon a running stream. The miserable men stood up holding their more valued possessions in their arms, and so remained for the best part of an hour, until the rain ceased, and then, galvanized into action, went outside and dug ditches round the tents. Naturally, after this there was no more rain while the spell lasted.

That afternoon was Christmas Day and a birthday rolled into one. There was an issue of fresh meat as much as anyone chose to take, fresh eggs and new bread. Little groups of men sat happily round cooking-fires, with steak and eggs frizzling merrily and page 128filling the air with most appetizing smells. A bottle of stout was served out between every two men. A cold and bitter drink after months of luke-warm tea and brackish water was the nectar of the gods. The few teetotallers who kept the pledge had a tremendous struggle to give away their share. The craving was terrible. After this good beginning, gift stores of all kinds from New Zealand were distributed in quantity. Some men received a dozen tins of milk —more than they could possibly use. It was really rather tragic, because if the milk had been sent over earlier instead of the worthless bully and cheese and bacon, hundreds of evacuations for intestinal diseases could have been avoided. Tinned milk was possibly considered too expensive, or, more likely, as it had not been on the ration list at the time of Waterloo, some hide-bound pedant vetoed its purchase.

For the next fortnight the men did little except eat and sleep and rejoice in the good food and the easy time. Everyone, almost, seemed to be of the opinion that the New Zealanders had done their bit and that they would almost certainly be sent away to India or Egypt or some such pleasant land to do garrison duty. It was even considered by some that a grateful Empire would be sending the remnant back for a trip to New Zealand. These pleasant day dreams were very soon shattered. On the first Sunday a church parade was held. The eight hundred, still a disreputable, emaciated collection of skeletons, shuffled out into some sort of order, expecting comfortable words. To their astonishment and disgust the padre preached a sermon to the effect that no man had done his bit while he had a leg left to stand page 129on or life left in him. He was followed by General Godley who had already uttered the prophecy that all the New Zealanders would go home on one boat. They had certainly all come to Lemnos on the Osmanieh. At the parade he endeavoured to cheer the troops by making the startling announcement that the war had only just begun.

"Just beginning! Oh hell! the silly old b_____ is mad."

The 6th Reinforcement arrived, bursting with health and high spirits, and very nearly as fit as the Main Body had been before the Landing. They did not receive the most cordial of receptions. The old hands looked upon them at first as the most out and out "leadswingers"—men who had been pushed out of New Zealand by the sheer weight of public opinion. Like all aristocracies, the Main Body took themselves very seriously and endeavoured to hedge their (to them) obvious superiority with a certain divinity, as it were. They were a separate caste. Not only had they done great deeds, but they let it be fairly clearly understood that no such deeds could be looked for from the degenerate class who had just joined now that the war was practically over. On their part the reinforcements were torn between two feelings. The fame of the Anzacs was very great and their doings had been noised round the world:

I'd count it the greatest reward
That ever a man could attain,
I'd sooner be Anzac than—Lord!
I'd rather be Anzac than Thane.

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But it was very difficult to connect honour and fame and high, heroic deeds with the handful of decrepit, homesick, thoroughly verminous and blasphemously fed-up scarecrows who paraded in the place of honour.

Training started again and the barrack square people came into their own once more. Commencing their ritual in the ordinary manner they worked up from right and left turn, through sloping and ordering arms, and fixing and unfixing bayonets, to the various ceremonial evolutions of squad platoon, company and battalion drill. They seemed to have realized surprisingly little of the fact that there was a very considerable technique of war to be learned and that modern conditions demanded of the individual soldier initiative, resource and knowledge, such as was not contemplated in the training manuals. There is no manner of doubt that the Anzacs badly needed to be straightened out again, but recruit drill went very much against the grain. After all, they were relatively new to war, and they still had to learn that soldiers can never graduate to courses of instruction beyond those that are comprehensible to their instructors. Reasonable exercise in the open air, however, was of considerable value, and by slow degrees the sick men came back to something like normal health.

Life was good without being especially exciting. Leisure was plentiful. Many men climbed up into the hills to the little village of Thermae where there were hot springs known to the ancients, and not a few went beyond to the considerable town of Castro page 131which seemed a fairly civilized place with a strong old castle crowning the hill above the town. In all directions from the camp were villages large and small which were inhabited by a rather low type of Levantine Greek. These people regarded the troops as being something in the nature of a gold mine, and they at once set about endeavouring to make their fortunes by selling at the most exorbitant prices, grapes, figs, raisins, chocolates, eggs, omelets and drinks. Most of them managed to overreach themselves badly, and in their endeavour to make huge profits rather tended to diminish the volume of thenown trade. No doubt they were desperately poor, and the possibility of easy money went to their heads. Soon the outskirts of the camp were besieged by crowds of children, peddling goods, hunting for scraps and begging for "baksheesh."

The water-supply was somewhat scanty and was obtained by hand-pumping. As a result there was nearly always a long queue at the wells. Crown and anchor boards were established here by certain extremely hard-looking personages, evidently of the professional type with faces of brass, eyes as soulless as those of a stingaree, raucous voices and a wonderful command of the Australian language. Huge sums in all manner of coinage went on to the boards and thence into the pockets of the hardened rogues who ran them.

The time passed pleasantly enough. There were a couple of camp-fire concerts. No one who was present will ever forget the glow of firelight, the darkness and the stars and a man with a splendid page 132voice singing "The Last Rally." It was a charmed moment and the ghosts of many comrades were there in the darkness round about.

By this time with the reinforcements and the return of many sick and wounded, the units were up to about half-strength. The news of Loos, proclaimed like Suvla Bay to be a great British victory, caused some of the reinforcements to fear that the war was over—and some of the old hands to hope that it was. Needless to say both hopes and fears were groundless. There was a tremendous deal of speculation as to where we would be going next: some were for Egypt and the Canal; some for Salonika; some for a fresh landing on the Turkish coast, and many of course for France.

But shortly before the move was made a very strong rumour amounting to a certainty got round that the New Zealanders were going back to Anzac. In consequence the canteens were rushed and the men fell in, carrying enormous packs stuffed with every delicacy that could be procured, and so staggered down to the rough pier and embarked. On a grey afternoon they ran out through the boom and swung round on the well-known sea-road to the Peninsula. When night came the great crag of Walker's Ridge showed black against the sky. From the heights came the occasional crack of rifleshots, and the "pit-pot" of the Turkish Mausers. As the barges moved in toward the Landing, the occasional whine of a spent bullet, the splash and hiss in the water near by, showed that the Anzacs were nearly home again.