At Suvla Bay; being the notes and sketches of scenes, characters and adventures of the Dardanelles campaign, made by John Hargrave ("White Fox") while serving with the 32nd field ambulance, X division, Mediterranean expeditionary force, during the great w by John Hargrave
page 40 of 136 (29%)
page 40 of 136 (29%)
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remembered the gray barracks at Limerick and the incessant drill.
At last we marched back through the docks and aboard the Canada. Next morning we were sailing far away upon a blue sea. Just a glimpse of the city of wonderful colour and we were once more creeping closer and closer to the mystery of our unknown venture. Many of us would never pass that way again--and each one wondered sometimes if he would be claimed by that Mechanical Death which none of us fully realised. Only a few short hours--a day or two longer--and we should be plunged into battle. A bullet for one, shrapnel for another, dysentery for a third, a bayonet or death from weakness and starvation. The great game of luck was gathering faster and faster. We loafed about on deck and wondered where we were going and what it would be like . . . our minds were thinking of the immediate future. Each one tried to make out he didn't care, but each one was thinking upon the same subject--his luck, fate, kismet. How many would return to old England--should I be one; or would the Eastern sunshine blaze down upon my decomposing body on some barren sandy shore? We passed many of the Greek Islands--some came up pink and mauve out of the sea, others were green with vineyards; once or twice a little triangular-sailed boat bobbed along the coast. The uncertainty was a strain, and we felt utterly cut off, until at last we sighted a sandy streak, and later a line of volcanic-looking peaks--the Isle of Lemnos. |
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