FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44  
45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   >>   >|  
side us also went elsewhere. We felt thoroughly aggrieved. I suppose every unit at some time or other during a period of enforced stagnation has had this grievance. Nobody loves you. You feel that some one in the high places has a grudge against you. You can hear him saying to his underlings: "Let me see. So-and-so is a pretty rotten camp, isn't it? I'll keep this battalion or that squadron or the other battery there. Do 'em good. Mustn't coddle 'em." And you are kept "there" for weary months. Most of us knew that the conditions in Salonica were as bad as, if not worse than, those obtaining in Egypt, so why on earth were we pining to go there? There is no prize for the answer, but I suspect it was the eternal desire for a change, of whatever nature. Besides, except for the heat, flies, septic sores, the khamseen, bad water, dysentery, vaccination, inoculations many and various, digging holes, and a depressing sameness about the scenery, we had, according to some, little to grumble at. [Illustration: SUNDAY MORNING IN THE GULF OF SUEZ. [_To face p.32_.] We were not unduly harassed by the Turks; indeed, it was our function to harass them. We slept peacefully in our beds o' nights except for a pernicious system of false alarms. We had now a metre-gauge line on which our forage was brought into camp, thus saving us a fatigue. Moreover, on this line we could take an occasional joy-ride in a tram like an Irish jaunting-car, drawn by two mules probably also of Irish descent, who invariably ran away with the tram, and, desiring later to rest awhile, were as invariably thrust forward again by the violent impact from behind of the oncoming vehicle. We had a very passable canteen with sometimes real beer in it. And above and beyond all these joys we had recently made an ice-chest. True, we were dependent upon a somewhat fortuitous supply of ice, brought by boat across the Gulf from Suez to the Quarantine Station, thence by special fatigue-party, armed to the teeth, into camp; and it usually suffered considerably _en route_. But think of a long, really cold drink waiting for you at the end of a three-days' stunt into those iniquitous hills, when you came in covered with sand and with a throat like a dust-bin! Half of it went at a gulp to wash the sand down; the rest one drank slowly and with infinite content. That ice-chest had the prestige of a joss. Looking back, however, on the summer of 1916 and taking count, as it we
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44  
45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

invariably

 

fatigue

 

brought

 
impact
 

oncoming

 
vehicle
 

passable

 
canteen
 

occasional

 

jaunting


Moreover

 

saving

 

forage

 

desiring

 
awhile
 
thrust
 
forward
 

recently

 

descent

 

violent


Station
 

throat

 

covered

 
iniquitous
 

summer

 

taking

 

Looking

 

infinite

 
slowly
 
content

prestige
 

waiting

 
Quarantine
 

supply

 
dependent
 

fortuitous

 

special

 

suffered

 

considerably

 

battery


coddle

 

squadron

 

battalion

 

pretty

 

rotten

 

obtaining

 

pining

 
months
 

conditions

 

Salonica