R. Hugh Knyvett - Over There with the Australians
R >>
R. Hugh Knyvett >> Over There with the Australians
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 17206-h.htm or 17206-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/2/0/17206/17206-h/17206-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/2/0/17206/17206-h.zip)
"OVER THERE" WITH THE AUSTRALIANS
by
CAPTAIN R. HUGH KNYVETT
ANZAC Scout
Intelligence Officer, Fifteenth Australian Infantry
[Frontispiece: Captain R. Hugh Knyvett.]
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1918
Copyright, 1918, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Published April, 1918
BILL-JIM'S CHRISTMAS
(Bill-Jim is Australia's name for her soldier)
Here where I sit, mucked-up with Flanders mud,
Wrapped-round with clothes to keep the Winter out,
Ate-up wi' pests a bloke don't care to name
To ears polite,
I'm glad I'm here all right;
A man must fight for freedom and his blood
Against this German rout
An' do his bit,
An' not go growlin' while he's doin' it:
The cove as can't stand cowardice or shame
Must play the game.
Here's Christmas, though, with cold sleet swirlin' down . . .
God! gimme Christmas day in Sydney town!
I long to see the flowers in Martin Place,
To meet the girl I write to face to face,
To hold her close and teach
What in this Hell I'm learning--that a man
Is only half a man without his girl,
That sure as grass is green and God's above
A chap's real happiness,
If he's no churl,
Is home and folks and girl,
And all the comforts that come in with love!
There is a thrill in war, as all must own,
The tramplin' onward rush,
The shriek o' shrapnel and the followin' hush,
The bosker crunch o' bayonet on bone,
The warmth of the dim dug-out at the end,
The talkin' over things, as friend to friend,
And through it all the blessed certainty
As this war's working out for you an' me
As we would have it work.
Fritz maybe, and the Turk
Feel that way, too,
The same as me an' you,
And dream o' victory at last, although
The silly cows don't know,
Because they ain't been born and bred clean-free,
Like you and me.
But this is Christmas, and I'm feeling blue,
An' lonely, too.
I want to see one little girl's sly pout
(There's lots of other coves as feels like this)
That holds you off and still invites a kiss.
I want to get out from this smash and wreck
Just for to-day,
And feel a pair of arms slip round me neck
In that one girl's own way.
I want to hear the splendid roar and shout
O' breakers comin' in on Bondi Beach,
While she, with her old scrappy costume on,
Walks by my side, an' looks into my face,
An' makes creation one big pleasure-place
Where golden sand basks in that golden weather--
Yes! her an' me together!
I do me bit,
An' make no fuss of it;
But for to-day I somehow want to be
At home, just her an' me.
(From the Sydney "Sunday Times")
CONTENTS
An Introduction Mainly About Scouts
PART I
"THE CALL TO ARMS"
CHAPTER
I. The Call Reaches Some Far-Out Australians
II. An All-British Ship
III. Human Snowballs
IV. Training-Camp Life
V. Concentrated for Embarkation
VI. Many Weeks at Sea
PART II
EGYPT
VII. The Land of Sand and Sweat
VIII. Heliopolis
IX. The Desert
X. Picketing in Cairo
XI. "Nipper"
PART III
GALLIPOLI
XII. The Adventure of Youth
XIII. The Landing That Could Not Succeed--But Did
XIV. Holding On and Nibbling
XV. The Evacuation
XVI. "Ships That Pass . . ."
PART IV
THE WESTERN FRONT
XVII. Ferry Post and the Suez Canal Defenses
XVIII. First Days in France
XIX. The Battle of Fleurbaix
XX. Days and Nights of Strafe
XXI. The Village of Sleep
XXII. The Somme
XXIII. The Army's Pair of Eyes
XXIV. Nights in No Man's Land
XXV. Spy-Hunting
XXVI. Bapaume and "a Blighty"
PART V
HOSPITAL LIFE
XXVII. In France
XXVIII. In London
XXIX. The Hospital-Ship
XXX. In Australia
XXXI. Using an Irishman's Nerve
PART VI
MEDITATIONS IN THE TRENCHES
XXXII. The Right Infantry Weapons
XXXIII. The Forcing-House of Bestiality
XXXIV. The Psychology of Fear
XXXV. The Splendor of the Present Opportunity
XXXVI. Not a Fight for "Race" but for "Right"
XXXVII. "Keeping Faith with the Dead"
Poem, "But a Short Time to Live"
ILLUSTRATIONS
R. Hugh Knyvett . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
From inland towns . . . men without the means of
paying their transportation . . . started out to
walk the three or four hundred miles . . . to the
nearest camp
"On Show" Before Leaving Home
Anzac Cove, Gallipoli
An Australian Camel Corps
"Us--Going In"
My Own Comrades Waiting for Buses
Ammunition Going Through a Somme City
AN INTRODUCTION MAINLY ABOUT SCOUTS
I am a scout; nature, inclination, and fate put me into that branch of
army service. In trying to tell Australia's story I have of necessity
enlarged on the work of the scouts, not because theirs is more
important than other branches of the service, nor they braver than
their comrades of other units. Nor do I want it to be thought that we
undergo greater danger than machine-gunners, grenadiers, light
trench-mortar men, or other specialists. But, frankly, I don't know
much about any other man's job but my own, and less than I ought to
about that. To introduce you to the spirit, action, and ideals of the
Australian army I have to intrude my own personality, and if in the
following pages "what I did" comes out rather strongly, please remember
I am but "one of the boys," and have done not nearly as good work as
ten thousand more.
I rejoice though that I was a scout, and would not exchange my
experiences with any, not even with an adventurer from the pages of B.
O. P. [1] Romance bathes the very name, the finger-tips tingle as they
write it, and there was not infrequently enough interesting work to
make one even forget to be afraid. Very happy were those days when I
lived just across the road from Fritz, for we held dominion over No
Man's Land, and I was given complete freedom in planning and executing
my tiny stunts. The general said: "It is not much use training
specialists if you interfere with them," so as long as we did our job
we were given a free hand.
The deepest lines are graven on my memory from those days, not by the
thrilling experiences--"th' hairbreadth 'scapes"--but by the fellowship
of the men I knew. An American general said to me recently that scouts
were born, not made. It may be so, but it is surprising what opposite
types of men became our best scouts. There were two without equal:
one, city-bred, a college graduate; the other a "bushie," writing his
name with difficulty.
Ray Wilson was a nervous, highly strung sort of fellow, almost a girl
in his sensitiveness. In fact, at the first there were several who
called him Rachel, but they soon dropped it, for he was a lovable chap,
and disarmed his enemies with his good nature. He had taken his arts
course, but was studying music when he enlisted, and he must have been
the true artist, for though the boys were prejudiced against the
mandolin as being a _sissy_ instrument, when he played they would sit
around in silence for hours. What makes real friendship between men?
You may know and like and respect a fellow for years, and that is as
far as it goes, when, suddenly, one day something happens--a curtain is
pulled aside and you go "ben" [2] with him for a second--afterward you
are "friends," before you were merely friendly acquaintances.
Ray and I became friends in this wise. We were out together scouting
preparatory to a raid, and were seeking a supposed new "listening post"
of the enemy. There had been a very heavy bombardment of the German
trenches all day, and it was only held up for three-quarters of an hour
to let us do our job. The new-stale earth turned up by the shells
extended fifty yards in No Man's Land. (Only earth that has been blown
on by the wind is fresh "over there." Don't, if you have a weak
stomach, ever turn up any earth; though there may not be rotting flesh,
other gases are imprisoned in the soil.) This night the wind was
strong, and the smell of warm blood mingled with the phosphorous odor
of high explosive, and there was that other sweet-sticky-sickly smell
that is the strongest scent of a recent battle-field. It was a vile,
unwholesome job, and we were glad that our time was limited to
three-quarters of an hour, when our artillery would re-open fire. I
got a fearful start on looking at my companion's face in the light of a
white star-shell; it might have belonged to one of the corpses lying
near, with the lips drawn back, the eyes fixed, and the complexion
ghastly. He replied to my signal that he was all right, but a nasty
suspicion crept into my mind--his teeth had chattered so much as to
make him unable to answer a question of mine just before we left the
trench, but one took no notice of a thing like that, for stage fright
was common enough to all of us before a job actually started. But
"could he be depended on?" was the fear that was now haunting me.
Presently some Germans came out of their trench. We counted eight of
them as they crawled down inside their broken wire. We cautiously
followed them, expecting that they were going out to the suspected
"listening post," but they went about fifty yards, and then lay down
just in front of their own parapet. After about twenty minutes they
returned the way they came, and I have no doubt reported that they had
been over to our wire and there were no Australian patrols out.
This had taken up most of our time, and I showed Wilson that we had
only ten minutes left, and that we had better get back so as not to cut
it too fine. I was rather surprised when he objected, spelling out
Morse on my hand that we had come out to find the "listening post," and
we had not searched up to the right. The Germans were evidently
getting suspicious of the silence, and to our consternation suddenly
put down a heavy barrage in No Man's Land, not more than thirty yards
behind us. There was no getting through it, and we grabbed each
other's hand, and only the pressure was needed to signal the one word
"trapped." When the shelling commenced we had instinctively made for a
drain about four feet deep that ran across No Man's Land, and "sat up"
in about six inches of water. Had we remained on top the light from
the shells would have revealed us only too plainly, being behind us. I
was afraid to look at my wristwatch, and when I did pluck up sufficient
courage to do so, I might have saved myself the trouble, as the opening
shell from our batteries at the same moment proclaimed that the time
was up. As we huddled down, sitting in the icy water, we realized that
the objective of our own guns was less than ten yards from us, and we
could only hope and pray that no more wire-cutting was going to be done
that night. Once, when we were covered with the returning debris, we
instinctively threw our arms round each other. When we shook ourselves
free, what was my amazement to find my companion shaking
with--laughter. There was now no need for silence, a shout could
hardly be heard a few yards away. He called to me: "Did you ever do
the Blondin act before, because we are walking a razor-edge right now.
We're between the devil and the 'deep sea,' anyway, and I think myself
the 'deep sea' will get us." As I looked at him something happened,
and I felt light-hearted as though miles from danger--all fear of death
was taken away. What did it matter if we were killed?--it was a
strange sense of security in a rather tight place.
After a short while our bombardment ceased. We learned afterward that
word was sent back to the artillery that we were still out. As the
boche fire also stopped soon afterward, we were able to scurry back and
surprise our friends with our safe appearance.
After this experience Ray Wilson and I were closer than brothers--than
twin brothers. It was only a common danger shared, such an ordinary
thing in trench life, but there was something that was not on the
surface, and though I was his officer, our friendship knew no barrier.
I went mad for a while when his body was found--mutilated--after he had
been missing three days. Don't talk of "not hating" to a man whose
friend has been foully murdered! What if he had been yours?
A very different man was Dan Macarthy, a typical outbacker. All the
schooling he ever got was from an itinerant teacher who would stay for
a week at the house, correct and set tasks, returning three months
later for another week. This system was adopted by the government for
the sparsely settled districts not able to support a teacher, as a
means of assisting the parents in teaching their children themselves.
But Dan's parents could neither read nor write, and what healthy
youngster, with "all out-of-doors" around him, would study by himself.
Dan read with difficulty and wrote with greater, but I have met few
better-educated men. His eyesight was marvellous, and I don't think
that he ever forgot an incident, however slight. After a route march
our scouts have to write down everything they saw, not omitting the
very smallest detail. For example, if we pass through a village they
have to give an estimate by examining the stores, how many troops it
could support, and so on. No other list was ever as large as Dan's.
He saw and remembered everything. He had received his training as a
child looking for horses in a paddock so large that if you did not know
where to look you might search for a week. Out there in the country of
the black-tracker powers of observation are abnormally developed--lives
depend on it, as when in a drought the watercourses dry up, and only
the signs written on the ground indicate to him who can read them where
the life-saving fluid may be found. Dan was a wonderful scout, a true
and loyal friend, but he had absolutely no "sense of ownership." He
thought that whatever another man possessed he had a right to; but, on
the other hand, any one else had an equal right to appropriate anything
of his (Dan's). He never put forward any theory about it, but would
just help himself to anything he wanted, not troubling to hide it, and
he never made any fuss if some one picked up something of his that was
not in use. I never saw such a practical example of communism. At
first, there were a number of rows about it, but after a while if any
of the boys missed anything they would go and hunt through Dan's kit
for it. The only time he made a fuss at losing anything was when one
of his mates for a lark took his rosary. He soon discovered, by shrewd
questioning, who it was, and there was a fight that landed them both in
the guard-tent. The boys forbore to tease him about his inconsistency
when he said: "It was mother's. She brought it from Ireland." Dan was
still scouting when I was sent out well-punctured, and I doubt if there
are any who have accounted for more of the Potsdam swine single-handed.
His score was known to be over a hundred when I left. If I can get
back again, may I have Dan in my squad! These two are but types of the
boys I lived with so long, and got to love so well. Few of my early
comrades are left on the earth; but we are not separated even from
those who have "gone west," and the war has given to me, in time and
eternity, many real friends.
The following pages are not a history of the Australians. I have no
means of collecting and checking data, but they are an attempt to show
the true nature of the Australian soldier, and sent out with the hope
that they will remind some, in this great American democracy, of the
contribution made by the freemen who live across the ocean of peace
from you to "make the world safe for democracy."
I also have the hope that the stories of personal experience will make
real to you some of the men whose bodies have been for three years part
of that human rampart that has kept your homes from desolation, and
your daughters from violation, and that you will speed in sending them
succor as though the barrier had broken and the bestial Hun were even
now, with lust dominant, smashing at your own door.
[1] _Boys Own Paper_.
[2] "Ben" was the living-room of a Scotch cottage where only intimate
friends were admitted. Ian Maclaren says of a very good man: "He was
far ben wi God."
PART I
"THE CALL TO ARMS"
CHAPTER I
THE CALL REACHES SOME FAR-OUT AUSTRALIANS
Just where the white man's continent pushes the tip of its horn among
the eastern lands there is a black man's land half as large as Mexico
that is administered by the government of Australia. New Guinea has
all the romance and lure of unexplored regions. It is a country of
nature's wonders, a treasure-chest with the lid yet to be raised by
some intrepid discoverer. There are tree-climbing fish, and pygmy men,
mountains higher and rivers greater than any yet discovered. To the
north of Australia's slice of this wonderland the Kaiser was squeezing
a hunk of the same island in his mailed fist.
The contrast between the administration of these two portions of the
same land forms the best answer to the question: "What shall be done
with Germany's colonies?"
In German New Guinea there have always been more soldiers than
civilians, cannibalism is rife, and life and property are insecure
outside the immediate limits of the barracks. In British New Guinea or
Papua there has never been a single soldier and cannibalism is
abolished. A white woman, Beatrice Grimshaw, travelled through the
greater part of it unprotected and unmolested.
The following story told of Sir William Macgregor, the first
administrator, shows the way of Britishers in governing native races.
He one day marched into a village where five hundred warriors were
assembled for a head-hunting expedition. Sir William, then Doctor
Macgregor, had with him two white men and twelve native police. He
strode into the centre of these blood-thirsting savages, grasped the
chief by the scruff of the neck, kicked him around the circle of his
warriors, demanded an immediate apology and the payment of a fine for
the transgression of the Great White Mother's orders for peace--the
bluff worked, as it always does.
Australia has now added the late German colony Hermanlohe, or German
New Guinea, to the southern portion, making an Australian crown colony
of about two hundred and fifty thousand square miles. This was taken
by a force of Australian troops conveyed in Australian ships. I was
not fortunate enough to be a member of the expedition, but the
ultimatum issued to the German commandant resulted in the Australian
flag flying over the governor's residence at Rabaul within a few hours
of the appearance of the Australian ships.
It was soon evident to the Australians that this was intended to be a
German naval station and military post of great importance. Enough
munition, and accommodation for troops were there to show that it was
to be the jumping-off place for an attack on Australia. Such armament
could never have been meant merely to impel _Kultur_ on the poor,
harmless blacks with their blowpipes and bows and arrows.
Every Australian is determined that these of nature's children shall
not come again within reach of German brutality, but that they shall
know fair play and good government such as the British race everywhere
gives to the "nigger," having a sense of responsibility toward him that
the men of this breed cannot escape. It would almost seem that the
Almighty has laid the black man's burden on the shoulders of the
Briton, as he was the first to abolish slavery, and no other people
govern colored peoples for the sole benefit of the governed.
In every British colony other nations can trade on equal terms, and
millions of pounds sterling are squeezed from the British public every
year to provide for the well-being of native peoples, worshipping
strange deities and jabbering a gibberish that would sound to an
American like a gramophone-shop gone crazy! While other nations make
their colonies _pay_ for the protection they give them, the British
people pay very heavily for the privilege (?) of sheltering and
civilizing these far-flung, strange peoples. No true friend of the
black man can consider the possibility of handing him back to the
cruelty of Teutonic "forced Kultur."
The most heartless of Japanese gardeners could never twist and torture
a plant into freak beauty more surely than the German system of
government would compress the governed into a sham civilization.
Australia would fight again sooner than that a German establishment
should offend our sense of justice and menace our peace near our
northern shores.
The western half of New Guinea (and the least known) belongs to
Holland, and it was in the waters of this coast that the Australians
whose story I am telling were living and working when the tocsin of war
sounded. These sons of empire were registered under a Dutch name with
their charter to work there from the Dutch Government, yet when they
heard that men were needed for the Australian army, they dropped
everything and hastened south to enlist. The long-obeyed calls of
large profits and novel experiences, the lure of an adventurous life,
were drowned by the bugle notes of the Australian "call to arms."
These were young men who had left the shores of their native country,
venturing farther out a-sea, ever seeking pearls of great price. They
had once been engaged in pearl-fishing from the northernmost point of
Australia--Thursday Island--that eastern and cosmopolitan village
squatting on the soil of a continent sacred to the white races.
When the handful of white people holding this newest continent first
flaunted their banner of "No Trespassers" in the face of the
multicolored millions of Asia, they declared their willingness to sweat
and toil even under tropic skies, and develop their country without the
aid of the cheap labor of the rice-eating, mat-sleeping, fast-breeding
spawn of the man-burdened East. But this policy came well-nigh to
being the death-blow to one little industry of the north, so far from
the ken of the legislators in Sydney and Melbourne as to have almost
escaped their recognizance.
The largest pearling-ground in the world is just to the north of this
lovely Southland. It would seem as though the aesthetic oyster that
lines its home with the tinting of heaven and has caught the "tears of
angels," petrifying them as permanent souvenirs, loves to make its home
as near to this earthly paradise as the ocean will permit.
When the law decreed that only white labor must be employed on the
fleets a number of the pearlers went north and became Dutch citizens,
for from ports in the Dutch Indies they could work Australian waters up
to the three-mile limit. But as soon as it was known that Australia
needed _men_, that _we_ were at war, then politics and profits could go
hang: at heart they were all Australians and would not be behind any in
offering their lives. It took but a few days to pay off the crews,
send the Jap divers where they belonged, beach the schooners, and take
the fastest steamer back HOME--then enlist, and away, with front seats
for the biggest show on earth.
CHAPTER II
AN ALL-BRITISH SHIP
We flew the Dutch flag, we were registered in a Dutch port, but every
timber in that British-built ship creaked out a protest, and there
paced the quarter-deck five registered Dutchmen who could not croak
"Gott-verdammter!" if their lives depended on it, and who guzzled "rice
taffle" in a very un-Dutch manner. Generally they forgot that they had
sold their birthright. Ever their eyes turned southward, which was
homeward, and only the mention of the Labor party brought to their
minds the reason for leaving their native land. Each visit to port
rubbed in the fact that they were now Dutchmen, as there were always
blue papers to be signed and fresh taxes to be paid.
There was George Hym, who was a member of every learned society in
England. The only letter of the alphabet he did not have after his
name was "I," and that was because he did not happen to have been born
in Indiana. Had that accident happened to him, even the Indiana
Society would have given him a place at the speaker's table. He was
the skipper of our fleet, had an extra master's certificate entitling
him to command even the _Mauretania_. Many yarns were invented to
explain his being with us. It was as if "John D." should be found
peddling hair-oil.
Some said he had murdered his grandmother-in-law and dare not pass the
time of day with Mr. Murphy in blue. Others claimed that the crime was
far greater--_the murder of a stately ship_--and that the marine
underwriters would have paid handsomely for the knowledge of his
whereabouts. At any rate, he never left the ship while in port, and he
seemed to have no relatives.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17