"STAND TO!"

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2681, 29 January 1916, Page 3

"STAND TO!"

THE GRUESOME HOUR AT GALLIPOLI (Bv Augustus Muir in the "Daily Mail.") "Stand to!" The call goes round. "Standing to" is the very devil. I'm giving you Tommy's phrase—our own phrase—hot-pressed, and tingling; for the picturesque epithet of tlio seasoned rough-neck, the man who has smelt blood, contains a potency which no sugared stylist _ spinning at home can impart. Thero is a biting flavour in the utterance of the old-hand parapet lounger. He deals out his wisdom to the tyro in small doses, but what he does say cuts deep. "AYhat is JStand to' ?" I asked on my first day in the trenches at Gallipoli. "Stand to," said someone—let mo repeat it—"is the very devil!" I soon learned the abiding truth of his assertion. A glimpse of . the nightroutine of trench life will disclose the core of the situation. At night yon have to work. In daytime work is undoubtedly done; tat it does not compare either in quantity or quality with night work. Through the day you can work and still have time to keep your pipe alight. "But at night it is fever-heat all the time. You are indeed working against time. So much brush-wood must be cut; that traverse must be a certain height; the advanced communication trench must be a definite depth; a certain parapet must be thickened so many feet.. The subaltern ill charge must see to it. Somewhere the company captain heaves in sight. He casts a critical eye in the darkness over the night's "job," and if results do not speak for themselves the subaltern will have the task of explaining what the blankoty-blank he has been, doing all the time with.his_ platoon. Thus night in the trenches is not all beer and skittles. It spells work. In the bottom of a communication trench, or in shallow, scooped-out holes among rocks and scrub, the men—perspiring and weary—settle down for a few. hours' sleep. They drop over to tlip ring of picks. It is a splendid moment ; you have that soothing feeling of .something accomplished, something done with for a few hours; the music of pick and shovel, the thudding of 'spades at the root or brushwood, the pithy comments of some irate corporal, lull you to delicious slumber. You are deeply conscious of a supreme felicity. The s-sping! of bullets on the rock behind you affects you not. A quick s-spud!,on the sandbag over your head does not evoke so much as the blink of a drowsy eye. You merely spit out the sand and turn over. For these little leaden messengers come pattering all the night. They quaintly punctuate the phrases of your last letter from home which (in this brief moment before sleep takes you) run with a melancholy beauty through your, brain; and you are- on the point of dreaming you are listening to a wellremembered tongue, when a tactless bullet, bringing you back to reality, spits home the certainty that it/is not a living voice, but the written jingle of lovea words: ... Then sleep comes. .

1 When the Sleepers Wake, "Stand to!" It emanates from the sergeant-major's dug-out. It rouses the company captain, who shakes himself and mutters as if ho were remembering something ho'd forgotten. "Ah, yes! Stand to!" It penetrates to the ear of the nearest platoon-sergeant, whi leaps to his i'eet with a bellow' which wakens {Tie section commanders.' The section commanders sit up and blink. They confer for a moment with their eouls and decide that five minutes' more .sleep,. though smacking of Paradise,. won't compensate for the risks of sitting tight. So they do their duty. "Stand to!" , . . The bitt-er words are passed on; bitter because "Stand to! comes at the bleakest hour, the darkest hour, of the night. The moon has waned, but the stars throw a chill, steely glimmer ,in tho trenches. The sky looks. blacker and more depressing than at any.other time of the night. There is' a sting in the biting -air. Groans rise from all corners of the trench as tho. non-coms. . get busy; groans and grunts and imprecations. Sections newly yanked into -wakefulness stumble down in the. darkness from their scoop-outs—the Suvla Bay travesty for dug-outs—and file into the communication trench. They are pale and weary.. They aro yawning and stiff. Their brief hour of joy is gone.

The stumbling of many feet can be heard. A long line of men appear from a gap in tlie fire-trench and file downhill on their journey home; they are engineers who have been out in front blasting or ereqting wire-entangle-ments; they carry tho implements of their trade, and make a musicaljingling as they fade in the dimness. More men file in. They are a neighbour platoon of our company, who have been out digging an advance trench. Their spades and picks clang loudly as -in passing they toss them into the" company store. Following are a counle •of stretchers. . . . For Johnnie Turk has a keen ear; and the machine-guns from ovor there spit hotly for 10 minutes. Lastly, from out of the desolation of No Man's Land come our patrols. They have beeu lying between our workingparties and the Turk trenches; on them has rested the safety of our pick-and-shovel toilers. Stumbling over dead, exposed to every inch of the Turkish lines, ready to pounce .at an instant's notice 1 on ,in enemy's patrol and conclude the matter with bayonets; less, alert, jack-easy of life, the.v have borne the brunt of the night's labour, and are filing in to-drag out another hour of watching.

"Standing To." ■ Gradually the noises in tho trenches cease. ■ Non-commissioned officers move back and forward shivering in greatcoats, muffler, and. sleeping-lielmet. Tommy sits on the firing-step, nursing Ms' rifle and 'bayonet between his knees, and tries to keep up a toothchattering conversation with his mate, who is on look-out duty; it is easier to keep awake if you talk. Ho eyes the stars and tllie darkness of the sky, and realises that dawn is a long way off. Tho row of fixed bayonets down tho trench glitters vaguely like a perpetual menace. The 6ubaltcrri passes. It is his duty to see that his platoon is alert, that they have their equipment on, .their bandoliers slung, audi that their rifles are ready, for business. "Here.' you, you're asleep!"' His voice has a grating edge. _ "M'unips," responds Tommy, then ails up with a jerk. "N-no, sir; no, sir; no, sir ... Awake, sir." "Don't let is happen again." With muttered threats of "orderly room" the subaltern passes on. He chats for a moment- with tho section-commander, receives tho report that the section is present and correct, and moves again into tho darkness. Tho minutes pass. Silenco is shatt'reed by sudden bursts of firing, which dio again; so that a death-like stillness settles on everything—a stillness liwro trying to tho nerves than tho din of battle.' ' Someone scratches a match which makes a little burst of light on tho broniscd face. It is a kindly sight, that little yellow pool of colour and the cluster of cigarettes pushed towards it. A voice calls it put it out. It drops to the ground spluttering, and 1 you wonder at its beauty and its death—a flaroo! For life's little things count i in that hour* And the. moments.

slowly pass, and you are waiting patiently. At last! Swiftly the word of release runs along. There is a cliok, and your bayonet is in your hand; another click and it is homo in the scabbard. You unsling the bandolier and drop . your equipment. And with & stout biscuit in one hand and your ration of rum in the other, you settle back comfortably.