THE LAST LOAD

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLII, Issue 12823, 15 April 1916, Page 8

THE LAST LOAD

A HOSPITAL SHIP AT SLA. j THL OFFICF.RS' WARD FILL-. ! 1T.:.. M.-.itolr:: lU-a. 0::i< iai \V.:r Cor-i-Jo-'i.'. "' '"' On day., when bullets fell like hcivy ...: ::i. and chrapnei and high explosive ■ tearing through the air towards ir-.-nch and pier and bivouac, one v.atched with curious interest the .-weating stretcher-bearers with strain. tag thews carrying their, inert burdens down the narrow paths of the "deres" to the dressing stations, and from the I latter to the casualty clearing stations. | One saw also, with sadness relieved ; by their uncomplaining bravery, the line of blood-stained wounded marching slowly along the winding, dusty sap to the jetties where the motor launch was waiting to take them to the safe haven of the hospital ships. The badly wounded and the very sick were car. ried down under cover* of the darkness. The Sea of Saros in its- summer calm re. fleeted the graceful lines.of these ships floating between the brae of a cloud-" less sky and the deeper blue of the glassy water. In the night-time their, lights sent shimmering lines of red and green and gold towards the shore-r beckoning fingers to the sick and wonnded. There was always a ship, sometimes two or three ships, there watting—waiting for its load from the t;u kwash of the battlefield. As soon ;\s one went another took its place. Imagination followed them to the <.;itor islands and the other lands "where •ri.y unloaded their battered freight, •■ i wondered how many moons would - mf and go before they steamed away •uh their last load. The day camo t; -eh sooner than we expected. On a grey morning, with the smoke '". oar burning stores rising in a •straight columns and mingling with the rr;ist_ s that shrouded the heights of the J rninsula, two war correspondents, v.hose home had been at Anzac and t>°' Outpost, left the shores of the l enmsula for the last time to witness irom a warship the closing scenes of the great drama. Looking back at the receding outlines of the high land looming through the smoke and mist v .? u lO ,eaden water, one remembered the broad atmospheric effects of J.'"™/' thc dim blurred efforts of j f ■ The warship itself appeared r-uddenly as a spectral form out of the The little pinnace—short of roal and water—came to a dead stop tinder the great white-painted hull of an Allan liner—a hospital shio awaitin? her last load. It was the fate of one of the war correspondents to watch the closing scenes from a nort-hole in this ship the while the officers' ward slowly filled with sick and wounded, u? was Sunday—day of battles—and while the Padre was cheering the sick, and the nurses were dressing the wounded, enemy shells were bursting in our trenches. They had blown up a mine and were "strafing" Hill 60 The Apex got its share, and Suvla, too. Our own depleted batteries made feeble reply, for it was the "last day," and nearly all the guns had gone. All this one conld see dimply through the grcyness. Abdul, unaware of the fact was sending us our last load. It came as a sad surorise to find two of one s own friends already in the cots occupied by the wonnded. One, hard hit, was struggling bravely against the Onm Warrior, who so often settles the accounts of wounded soldiers. But a Jew hours before, we had laughingly said good-bye to one another at-Ansae, promising ourselves a good" time in -Egypt, or England, or wherever we were going to in the near future. Brave fellow! He almost won through. By noon the officers' ward began to mi. Two Ghurka officers, the one moaning, the other sadly silent and inert, headed the procession. They were victims of the explosion on Hill to. The little Subadahar, in great pain, fought with his hands—thev were small, like a woman's—as thev" lifted iiim from stretcher to cot. Following these two came other wounded and some sick. These sick had been fighting disease and doctors in a vain hope that they might be with the "Diehards atr the finish. One was an Anzac battalion commander, a man wiio had seen the world. Straining his memory for a few Indian phrases learnt wounded Subadahar. He could not rest m his own bed, but wandered through the ward, going from cot to cot, gazing at each patient verv much as a curious robin might look'at objects that were strange to him. To the doctor who questioned him he said ne was quite well. But another Anzac officer told us the true story. He had been wounded in the landing, and wounded again—riddled the officer called it—in the Lone Pine affair. You win remember that there were seven ki S i fol i. L ? ne Pine - Sapped to .hngland. he had finally broken loose from tue doctors, paid his passage back ?** »i°"«I-Ms. battalion. But the strain had been too great. Wounds and sickness had told their V-t S e had hroken down at the lunsli. The word --debilitv" had been wr opposite his name. The officers' ward filled slowly until darkness descended upon us. Through the port hole we could see the wellremembered beacon lights—signals beyond which the Navy could shoot at night. A few lights still glimmered in the dug-outs of the almost depopuated corps and divisional headquar- • * /'*, gleams from incinerators P' erced . the darkness, and the glow of the still burning provision depots illumined the skv. k i» ssed /and the ship's wireless buzzed the signal for departure The anchor chain rattled. The screws began to turn t and the ship steamed slow ahead airrying her last load across the £ U L*?f f 3 ™?" J !bere had been no -turfcish attack; there were still emptv cots m the hospital ships; the evacua"tion was almost at an end. Fed and washed, and with their wounds dressed, the patients one by one fell into S lO tr ßS? ,e * skep that is their lot. iven "Debflity" was in the land of dreams. The wakeful, with all their recent hopes and fears now behind th em, lay thinking and listening the while to the slow, monotonous throb of the engines and the soothing swish of water along the r"JP\ - S £ e - *¥, night nurse—a tall, bright, capable English girl—went quietly through the ward, smoothing a pillow here, talking softly to a restless patient there. The Subadar ?£2 ke . wifc h a moan and a crv of 'Water! water!" The Sister "was qpicklv at his side. In his delirium, his little brown hand'gripped her slender arm with all its power. The grip mat; but she bore it uneomplajmngly as she tried to calm her patient. Over the other-Indian a doctor, with another sister in attendance, was bending thoughtfully, listening. For this one there was nothing more to lie done. They lowered the curtains from the brass rods above his cot, and left him there, with a light brightly burning. He had never once spoken. Unconsciously and without a moan he. had passed into the Unknown. The Reaper had claimed his last toil from thc Hill; he had lightened the last load from the Peninsula. When we looked again the cot was empty. Then the slow throb of the engines became still slower, the swish of thc water along the ship's side died away, and there was a splash in the dark water. The fire-bars at hi* feet were carrying him down —one more body to .dot -the line of sleeping soldiers marking the ways of the white ships from Gallipoli to* Lemnos and. Malta and Alexandria—even to Mother England. On the floor of the sea these lines still lie, with the dim shadows of the submarines passing over them after all the Jiving have sailed away. It is not only on the heights of Anzac' that our gallant dead find sepulture. Yet w would- fain 'believe that not one" life has been given, not one drop of blood shed in vain.

Tiie other .Indian, knowing nothing of ail this, had fallen asleep, and quiet, reigned once more ia the ward; The silence was .broken with" a ringing 'voice of command!:

"Got that 31m! Get that trnn!"' It was-the voice of "Debility." He was fighting, his battles over aagin in dreamland. One oictured the scene—the brave "Anzacs leaving their trench: charging, forward to almost certain death :C"the nsual-machine-guns on the 'Scnks" mowing themr down; - then ' tne enemy trench— the bayonet! Moving quickly, bnt quietly through, the ward the 'sister was at his side soothing him back to-slumber. Then

silence reigned .ij-nir.. T'r.oro vs= rS>' overt .1 mc.in. I: was unr-anny. '""jhr.; f.r. 'h- !•''■:■;.••- r.y. - L ; :( . out!' '" YV-. '.v::-:o-ii". ;: r;:.;::■:. i" :.- Lone Pino. He i:;! S iv...:i •-.:- trench and is holding it. 15tit. tk«-r.-.- is i fringe of dead aVir.2 the np-rapt-:. and a thousand dead —friend and roe —inside the trench. The seven V.C.'s —aye many more hare been honorahly won. When dawn had come we were once more at anchor, and the circle of brown hills that rise above the Lemnos Harbor lay around us. Five hundred sick and wounded that had been transferred to a trooper in the earlier stages of, the evacuation were now re-embarked. Again the anchor chain rattled.in the. ■winch, and this time the ship headed • full speed for Egypt: ' < . A little less than two days brought ■us into port again. "The two .New Zeai landers in the officers' ward parted company, for they were going into different hospitals. The~6orely stricken one-was still brave and cheerful. "They said good-bye, promising'-each other a dinner at Shepheard's in the near future. But that dinner, like many another promised dinner" in the great war, was never eaten. Opposite the name of the one, next day ~ appeared! the three words that have meant tears in many a distant home—"Died''-.of wounds." While the ship lay empty at the quay he had set out, smiling, on his last, long journey. But he had come bravely through with the last load.