The Fires of Gallipoli

CHAPTER TWO

In the following days it became clear that Thorne was indeed a most welcome addition to B Company, whose mix of officers Edward had found to be a little dysfunctional and jarring. Paul Rossi, the company commander, was perfectly pleasant and friendly in his clipped, frank style, but not a great greaser of the wheels of conversation. Haynes-Mattingly tried gallantly if ineffectually to add some humour but always got it slightly wrong with his sharp-elbowedness and bite.

Meanwhile the second in command, David Marks - a bluff, hearty type with a loud voice that clearly grated on Rossi inordinately, although he was too polite to say it - lacked the finesse to bridge the gap between the company commander and his platoon commanders. The other platoon commander, Harold Tufnell, was nineteen if he was a day and, while personable enough, was possessed of such little bearing, made worse by a ratty weak chin and lank hair, that it was amazing that he had been granted a commission at all. Company orders groups and mealtimes together were slow, stop-and-start affairs, with no free flow of conversation. Each man's residual fear of making a fool of himself limited any kind of growth of familiarity, let alone friendship.

Thorne's arrival changed all that in a stroke, bringing them all together from scattered and gritted sprockets into something like a fluently moving unit. Something about him just gave them all a desire to be the best version of themselves. Even Tufnell came out of his shell slightly when Thorne was around. He also somehow tempered the rough edges of Haynes-Mattingly.

The days in Valletta passed in a welter of confusion, impatience, waiting, hurrying up to move somewhere before eventually moving only two hundred yards and then waiting there again, only this time no longer in shade. And everywhere the heat, the bustle, the smells, the Mediterranean patchwork of noise. The huge military presence of British, Australian, New Zealander and French troops mingled in jam-packed proximity with the locals as the city grew into its role as a staging post for troops headed east to the Gallipoli Peninsula - known by all just as 'the Peninsula'. Landings had started there in April and bitter fighting was now well-established as the Allies sought to seize control of the Dardanelles straits and force a way into the sea of Marmara, capture Constantinople and so knock Turkey out of the war.

The expeditionary edge to the air was indescribably exciting. Everywhere around Valletta was activity. Buildings were being hurriedly converted into military hospitals to cope with the pulses of hospital ships that came back daily from the Peninsula. Teams heaved requisitioned beds through the streets as though they were stagehands getting ready for a play. Engineers hauled vast drums of wire to rig up lights in the rooms that were to become wards. Packs of nurses immaculate in their blue and white uniforms thronged the streets, sometimes passing in chaste silence, sometimes chatting and cackling.

Tempers in the battalion frayed as rumour and counter rumour flew backwards and forwards. Were they going to Cape Helles on the Peninsula as they had been told when they had left Southampton? Or would it be Cairo, which now felt an enormous letdown.

One morning, the battalion trooped onto a ship where they were packed into the lower decks and baked in its bowels until evening. It seemed they were finally on their way, although no one knew where exactly to. B Company took up a compartment between two huge bulkheads, a hundred men nearly on top of each other, their hair matted with sweat and many of them topless due to the heat, skin glistening in the low light.

Edward, bored, clambered half-blind over a few of his platoon to get to Thorne, who was deep in conversation with a few of his own men about what each had been up to the previous summer before war had been declared. He noted, not for the first time and with a mix of admiration and envy, how good Thorne was at speaking to soldiers, with the quiet, unshakeable confidence of someone who had been popular all his life and who knew instinctively how to establish an easy communion with anyone.

'Room for a small one?' said Edward as the conversation wound up, and Thorne budged along for Edward to squeeze in next to him, the floor a mess of packs and rifles.

Carrying on the theme of his previous conversation, Thorne turned to Edward and said, 'So what were you doing when Franz Ferdinand got shot?'

'You won't believe it, but I was actually in Russia.'

'Russia?'

'Yup. I was visiting my old governess. My father worked in St Petersburg with his textiles company for a few years; moved there just after I was born. Katarina Kovalyova was my governess. My first true love. I doted on her. Now, sadly, she's Mrs Zubareva. Married a grim engineer from Moscow. Rather like my sister, Cynthia, who married a grim engineer on the railways in India. Dreadful man. Story of my life; both the women I've ever loved stolen from me by engineers. Anyway, I was staying with the Zubarevs on holiday when the news came through. Don't know if I saw what way the wind was blowing exactly, but I pretty soon guessed that I needed to get back home so I cadged a ride on a merchantman back to London. And then the rest of the summer happened as it happened.'

'Do you still speak Russian?'

'Just as a hobby. There was a chap in Brighton, an old boy from Yekaterinburg who repaired pianos. I'd often go and meet him after work and we'd chat away. Quite fun to keep it going.'

Thorne waved his hand to indicate where they were. 'But why all this? Didn't you want to say you spoke it so you could get some intelligence job? Cloak and dagger spy stuff?'

'Not really. Rather fancied just being in the normal army. I'm sure if they really need someone they'll find me.'

Thorne smiled. Edward was about to ask him more about what he had been doing himself but a low murmur started going round the hold. Were they finally to be told where they were headed? Edward was convinced that they were still going to the Peninsula, with Thorne sure that it was Cairo, saying, 'Either way it doesn't really matter. We'll still get a suntan.'

They were quiet for a while in the heavy twilight before Thorne went on. 'You know I've seen the Peninsula before?'

'What? When?'

'A couple of years ago. Summer before my final year at Oxford.'

'What were you doing?'

'Travelling round the Lycian coast, way further south. Just me on my own. It was a great trip. On the way back to Constantinople to get the train home I decided on a whim to stop off at Troy, just to see what it's like.'

Edward smiled. 'To tread in the footsteps of Achilles, eh?'

'Bugger off. I hate that claptrap. All that grandstanding and navel-gazing about us being the heirs to the Trojan war. Never liked the Iliad anyway.'

'Heresy!' Edward laughed. 'Or are you being like people who say they hate Mozart, just to stir a reaction?'

'Maybe a little. But for me, it's just a load of loudmouths babbling away about glory and never any mention of their soldiers or the common man. I mean, maybe with the exception of Sarpedon. Look, I'm no bloody socialist but that entire poem is pampered aristos falling over themselves to see who can gain the most honour.'

'Says the pampered aristo.'

'Touché. But, you know, the Iliad's still the Iliad, so I had to stop and see Troy. I remember quite clearly looking across the water and seeing the Peninsula.'

Edward waited a little as Thorne paused, seemingly serious at last, before saying, 'Go on.'

'Honestly can't say I've seen a more nondescript piece of land in my life. I mean, I bet there are valleys and gullies and high ground and places to bathe in the wine-dark Aegean and watch the rosy-fingered dawn every day and all that rot, but at no point did I ever think, "Oh my, what a signal honour it would be to go there and get my face shot off by a Turk."'

He wound up and said, 'Now, I know I'm the junior platoon commander here, but shall we go and find out what the hell's going on? At least get some fresh air? This place reeks.'

Edward nodded in amusement.

They made to pick their way out of the humidity of the hold, when the burble of low chatter and snores around them stopped and the eyes of the company as one turned to the door. Rossi stood silhouetted there, his nasal voice rising to reach all the men. 'I've just come from the CO. I've got good news and bad news. Good news - we're not going to Egypt; we're going to Helles.'

A weird mix of excited gasps, groans and low cheers reverberated around the metal walls, as though Rossi had his foot on a sustaining piano pedal. 'The bad news is we're not going to get there for a while. We're going to Lemnos, where the battalion is to provide garrison guard at Mudros harbour. But only for a couple of weeks. And then Helles.'

Sensing the downward shift in mood at this delay, he reasoned, 'Cheer up, chaps. It'll be a good opportunity for training-' more groans '-and the Turks aren't going to go away. There'll be enough opportunity for you to all have your...