Tell England: A Study in a GenerationRaymond, Ernest
General
Tell England: A Study in a Generation
Raymond, Ernest
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
"Good Lord!" thought I, as the C.O. turned away. "We shall be lonely
on Helles to-night if we hear that the Suvla Army has left for
England."
I went, as he suggested, to glance at the preparations on the sea. I
saw a string of devilish monitors, solemnly taking up their
position between Imbros and our eastern coast. Destroyers lay round
the Peninsula like a chain of black rulers. A great airship was
sailing towards us. From Imbros and Tenedos aeroplanes were rising
high in the sky.
The Turk, wide awake to these preliminaries, was firing shrapnel at
the aircraft overhead, and hurling towards the destroyers his
high-explosive shells, which tossed up water-spouts in the sea. The
whizz-bang gun spat continuously.
"You won't spit after to-night," I mused, "if Doe reaches you."
And, from all I knew of Doe and his passion for the heroic, I felt
assured that he would never stay in the crater like a diffident
batsman in his block. He would reach the opposite crease, or be run
out.
"He'll get there. He'll get there," I told myself persistently.
Sec.7
The attack having been postponed till two o'clock, Monty held an
open-air Communion Service in Trolley Ravine. The C.O., myself, and
a few others stole half an hour to attend it. This day was the last
Sunday in Advent, and a morning peace, such as reminded us of
English Sundays, brooded over Gallipoli. Save for the distant and
intermittent firing of the Turk, everything was very still, and
Monty had no need to raise his voice. The Collect was probably being
read thus softly at a number of tiny services dotted about the hills
of Helles and Suvla. Never shall I hear it again without thinking of
the last pages of the Gallipoli story, and of that Advent Sunday of
big decisions. "O Lord, raise up thy power, and come among us ...
that, whereas we are sore let and hindered in running the race that
is set before us, Thy bountiful mercy may speedily help and deliver
us." Like an answer to prayer came the words of the Epistle:
"Rejoice.... The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing. And the
peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts
and minds." Read at Monty's service in Trolley Ravine, it sounded
like a Special Order of the Day. I remembered what the Colonel had
hinted about Suvla, and wondered whether at similar services there
it was being listened to like a last message to the Suvla Army.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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