THE RED MIST OF WAR
ft FIRST CHARGE THRILLS GHURKA AND SNIPER (By Private R., in the "Sydney Morning Herald.") Gallifjoli, December 22. The big things pass; it is tlie little things that remain. The fate of nations may hang on the success of the cou- ■ certed attack, but to you the whole light is only the eyes of one Turk aB he took your steel. That is why I have forgotten major fights to remember only—several incidents. To me bayonet lighting has become hateful. There is the long week's artillery preparation, when each you anxiously wait for the order which you know will ultimately come. At last comes one —the order to pour oil down the barrel of your rifle. There is now in your mind no doubt; yon know what that means— a bayonet.charge.. So, should a Turk's blood flow down your rifle it will not rest the steel. . ' There is the wild, mad, fifty vards' rush —the red mist that comes Wore your eyes, almost blinding you. Anything that impedes your progress you . demolish —biit it is 6uo-cousciously. Only when all is over do you find how terrified you are, how you sweat with fear and your knees quiver as one who has wakened from a ghastly nightmare. But in a few minutes more you are cool and self-controlled. A dim recollection of something soft. . . . Your bayonet is red. These things I have endured, and could endure again. Only they have beoome more hateful than I thought possible. I remember the initial fear, then the ixa'iation and insensate rage as I A huge form that cut at me, missed, and my'fifteen inches of steel in its soft throat. It cried • 'Allah 1" ?t called ou Allah, but I killed it, crying on .Allah. The chill of something worse than fear froze me still. Often I hear him in my sleep.. Th 6 Horror Of It. The day's wearying attacks and coun-ter-attacks ; the dense yellow, lyddite fumes; the roar of artillery that shook the earth; the lavish mud and blood of the battlefield- -these I recollect dimly, but clear as yesterday comes the memory of a war-stained figure of an infantryman that staggered and tum- ( bled from the held of death. .At first 1 thought he was drunk. Then J understood. A fragment of shell had hit him in the stomach, ripping it open. God knows what pain he was suffering; some of ■ t you could see in hia oyet>, though his great heart, let no nioan pass his liju. "Where's the hospital, cobber?" That was all. It is not the memory of tho ilercG assault—the fire and the thrill of it— that rem'linn; rather, it is t£it pang ti your heart when, turning to your com. rade, you dis-'orer he is L'o .onger Lv your side—and, maybe, the sight of Ins crumpled form lying in the mud; wt the thought of the varied hells you've endured through the flame and' shocli of battle, but instead the clear remembrance of .mates who fell with a vivid curse.on their lips. ... So many of us here die uttering a curse.- Surely the Recording Angel must blot these debit entries with a tear. "Hell I" said the Ghurka officer. "I'd give my very life for that sniper's head." Two arms went out in a gesture of despair; the Australian lieutenant, shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "What, sir; his head?" said a dusky private softly, putting his hands, together,. his eyes observing a few scattered trees some hundred yards from the trench. For 'two. days now had the sniper been at work, and each day he had taken toll. It was maddening. Previously Captain Blank's company had W; several lives from the fire of two Turkish snipers concealed in some bushes, but these, with the aid of a machine-gun, had been harried 'from their artful hiding-place. And now came this nerve-racking devil. Those five scattered trees could not conceal him, for each time a scout had ventured forth to examine them it had been to no purpose. Little wonder Captain Blank's men grew restless, and that officer dreamed uglily o' nights. The Head Hunt. Night came, and a moon shone in a starry sky. Lai Dhar regarded the . heavens with disfavour. The night passed jx?acefuUy, as light almost as day, until within two hours of sunrise; thick, heavy clouds obscured the moon's light, and the Ghurka crept from his position, worming his way' along the furn&s of what had once been a cultivated field, ! but now strangely regular and ordinary, save where bursting shells had torn huge holes in the wet earth. Truly, thought Lai Dhar, it would be honour to rid his noble officer of this pest of a hidden Turk, whose every shot was death to some soldier. Had not another Ghurka even that day earned praise from his captain's lips—and who had-this man been that he should "(thus be singled out. So his thoughts ran as he drew near the clump of trees. He reached them, stealthily, noiselessly, drawing himself into a' clump of bushes. ■ And then he waited—for what he knew not. Two hours passed. In the east' a rosy glow heralded the coming of day, and the Ghurka, madly disappointed that nothing had happened as he had expected, prepared to leave his hidingplace. It was now so light as- to be no longer safe. He stirred himself. Just then the crack of a rifle came from the very tree beneath which he lay, and a sudden understanding came to him. Where several branches separated from the trunk, tho Turk had dug himself bodily into the .tree, secure from the scrutiny of any eye. Like lightning the Ghurka swarmed ■up the trunk. Taken unawares, the sniper was powerless, hemmed in as he was, and the struggle was shQrt. Lai Dhar threw tho lifeless\ body to the ground, and busied himself there. Then he crept back to the trench occupied by tho Australians and Ghurkas. His comrades looked at lim inquiringly. "Where is our captain?" asked Lai Dhar. proudly, in his native tongue. Quickly they answered him. "He is Idead—shot, but an hour ago." Lai Dhar cried out in agony, and stretched forth lijs hands with something between them. Tho Australian lieutenant recoiled shuddering from a grinning, bloody head, grasped and suspended before him by either ear. The_ words of his dead friend and ; superior officer had surely been heard by cynical and malicious gods; for he had given up his very life ... and tc-re was "the snitior's head!"
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Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2691, 10 February 1916, Page 5
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1,089THE RED MIST OF WAR Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2691, 10 February 1916, Page 5
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