THE NEXT PHASE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11669, 8 April 1916, Page 2

THE NEXT PHASE.

(By MAYNE LINDSAY in the " West- / minster Gazette."):

You may remember Arthur George Freestone, who went to sea out of tho classrooms of tho Royal Naval College, and was transformed in the twinkling of an eye from a schoolboy cadet to ail active unit in tho Navy at war. If you do you will not have forgotten how he passed through the deep waters when his ship was torpedoed and eunk in the night of the winter Channel. Followed a month on leave, land tho new ship. Ono night in early spring she slipped south out of home waters, threshing through the tail-end of & north-westerly gale past Ushaut and Finisterre to iGib., and on to Malta, festive and yet bristling with war. People at home were, chafing at delays j but at a certain place in the Eastern Mediterranean there was nothing but ceaseless preparation, and con'tinual vigilance, and the labour _of thousands of men. Freestone, plying between the ships and the > landingstage, and watch-keeping, and learning the new game assiduously with the rest, ran up an inch or so out of his new jackets and trousers. He thought he knew what it was to bo tired to tho limit. He did,notj the limit was not nearly reached. Tho real work, in fact, was shortly to begin. The ship, which was one among many ships doing the same thing, took a regiment of 700 men on board, and with four-and-twenty (boats in- tow moved, on a night ordained, towards the enemy [ shore. The "boats were manned all | night, and in tho stern-sheets of each was a midshipman in a khaki misfit, arnied with, a revolver and sixty bounds, and equipped with a haversack and a water-bottle. Spending; the night in the'boat's was no joke. Freestone had no particularly comforting certainties . about himself beyond that he knew exactly what his orders were, and that with all the powers of his small, chilly ■ body ho would carry them out. . . He felt proudly for the big revolver. In his livelier reflections he perceived that, looked at in a certain light, the whole thing was really a tremendous rag. His people would be awfully bucked when he should be able to tell them about it. At last came the grey streak of dawn. Tho soldiers from the ship were silently embarked, the tow-ropes tightened bet-wen tte boats, and away went the picket-boats to the shore, towing them at full speed. The loom of cliffs grew distinct. Freestone loaded the revolver; and • the boatload of fighting men stirred with a. common impulse. Tho sua roso. and in a Sash it was full day. All the fleet was firing, and the great of their own ship boomed over their heads as they rushed in. Something was hampering the people oil tho mxl beach; m much they had time to see before they grounded themselves. An unaccountable number of the men had failed to get beyond the lip or the'water, and lay, in curiously indifferent attitudes, where 'their first sprint had carried them.

Freestone breathed hard. That was failure 011 tho next beach—failure' by destruction and violent death, a horrid thing. If they failed too. . . He pulled himself, together. This was his job. He was responsible; he knew what had been given him to do. The queer feeling at tho pit of his stomach passed, and he heard his own voice raised : ''ln bow I Way enough!" The boat grounded, and was run up thfc bench by men knee to waist-deep in water. The soldiers jumped and tumbled out of her. The fire from the ship had made hay with the snipers under the cliff, and their detachment, nagged at by a half-hearted dribble of shots, fixed bayonets and scrambled over the beach. They established themselves on the ledgo. behind it. The crackle 1 ol their rifles came back thinly through the roar of tho heavier firing. The men were splendid. How splendid they wero was impressed on Freestone over and over again through that day, after the thrill of success in his first landing, as he ferried backwards and forwards between the beaches and the transports. The flotilla of boats poured reinforcements on to the trampled, littered landing places, and carried away, as tho afternoon wore on, return loads of the wounded. The Fleet was putting out evey ounce of its energies to stay anrl support the Army: and the Army was clinging bloodily to positions the brains behind the ■ defence had boasted could never be carried from the sea. The Expeditionary Fores had been planted in Galiipoli. It was a time when nobody slept his fill, and many people never slept at all. The new life •would have ben sufficiently strenuous if it had begun and ended there; but its rigours were enhanced by a busy enemy, who .attended the beaches conscientiously unlimited shrapnel. Also there were always snipers, and even the sporting passages of aeroplanes.". . . But these latter were, by way of light relief, practice for the anti-aircraft gunners in the ships. Freestone grew cunning in snatching oddments of sleep. The days and nights had flown past, and lie was now in tho picket-boat, grouijd between the upper and nether millstones of tho lighter officers and tho beach-masters, who had vocabularies commensurate with their labours. ... Ho foraged for himself and his aw

in nefarious "ways, conjuring cocoa out of the black midnight. Ho personally conducted many 6orts of people, from tho little brown Fronch infantrymen, packed like herrings, who had been holding tho Asiatic shcro, to tlio gilded Headquarters Staff itself. Between these duties, when ho -was in tho ship, ho joined tho spectators of tho pageant of the advance. "With a pair of binoculars, and from tho deck, you could see the forward surge of tho khaki dots under the puffs of bursting shrapnel, and the reinforcements going up, and the field-guns firing in the rear, and the ebb of the Turkish tide that was falling back, fighting, to Krithia, and the cover of the Aclii Balm heights. Ho learned more of life and death than comes to most people in a long lifetime. The commander of a newly arrived transport looked over the side of his ship one morning early. Somebody from General Headquarters had come off to interview the commanding officer of tho troops aboard, and tho pic-ket-boat that brought him was rocking at the foot of the gangway-ladder. Seated at the tiller was p figure in crumpled khaki. It was dozing fitfully, nodding and lurching forward, and pulling itself upright again. Tho transport man looked down at it thoughtfully. Then he descended the ladder, and spoke.

" How long have you been on duty?" Tho boy's eyes opened a little; and ho iblinked. " Forty-eight hours, sir." " Would l you like somo breakfastP" Freestone woke up completely. " Would I like Some? Rather 1" "Come on, then," said the kind man, and led tho way to his oabin on deck. "How about eggs ami bacon? Coffee, eh? And perhaps a sausage or two?"

i In a littlo time they knew each other quite well. They talked of ships, as sailors talk when they forgather. The transport had had her near shaves too. She had been in the Indian Ocean when there was still a raider ravaging 'the trade routes. She had zig-zagged through waters where submarines might reasonably be supposed to lurk; she had carried troops and stores round half the globe.since the war began. It was not of the graver issues that either of them spoke while Freestone did justice to the breakfast; nor did they refer, even distantly, (to the manners of tho strange new breed of enemy that knew so little of the chivalry of the sea.

"I've got a topping collection of souvenirs for my people," Freestone said. " I wish you could see them. 'A Turkish field-gun shell, shrapnel, found on the beach, and a clip pf Turkish cartridges. A pom-pom shell, and a. complete leather gear-set from a dead Turk's Jba-ndalier. They will be fine at home. I hope to get somo more, too. Tou see, we're a lucky ship. We generally come jn for the sporting stunts.''

His host leaned across the table. He looked at the roughened, freokled hands, at the tired eyes, and at the demolition of the marmalade.

"By the way," he said, " would you mind telling me how old you are?" "Not at all, sir," Freestone said politely. "It's rather odd you should ask me that; because, as a matter of fact', ifc happens to be my seventeenth birthday."

He stood up. " Thanks awfully for the ripping grub, sir," he eaid. "'Fraid I must be getting back to my boat. If you should run across my people when you aro home after this, would you mind letting them know that you happened to "have met me?"

" I shall make a point of it," the transport captain said j and he kept his word.