December 26, 1918 
LAND &? WATER 
13 
solving waves of men and imagined as best he could the 
r61e he should have fulfilled. 
And under the stimulus of his infectious imagination his 
men rallied to one final effort. 
Now they were over the low shoulder of the hill. So small 
a barrier, but so impenetrable, and shielding so goodly a 
sight. The little village untouched by the ravishing of war, 
the olive trees bearing green fruit for the hungry eyes of 
men to feast on with an incalculable envy, in the distance 
a shepherd and his flock framed against the skyline of a further 
hill. 
No body of men could resist the enchantment. They had 
to go on. He found himself repeating to himself what he 
had told his company on the eve of the attack . . . but 
as in a dream. It was not the discipline of the soldier which 
urged him. The egoism of the adventurer drove him, and 
all unknowingly his company followed, true to the leader 
whom they trusted too well, and whose promise was fulfilled. 
They would not go back. 
The fire poured on them from all sides. A hundred men 
became fifty in a moment of time'. But with their eyes set 
on the green horizon the fifty went on ... to become five 
and twenty. They strewed their path with the bodies of 
their enemies, grim signposts on the road to ... to where ? 
. . . but they went on- . . . five men now . . . scattered, 
stumbhng blindly on. . . 
A little later consciousness returned — he was lying on his 
back, a strange deadening calm creeping over him — on his 
back, in a field of standing com, hidden from view, looking 
into the blueness of space . . . and he remembered. . . 
He had known men and cities, but the memory faded with 
his desires. Once more, as in his youth, the peace of the 
cornfields was his, the freedom of wide blue skies and the songs 
of birds. This was the climax . . . and the slow romantic 
agony of the prelude came back to him. 
He remembered the frogs croaking in the gullies their 
aristophanic chorus, the olive tree of their first shelter cast- 
ing its reluctant shade to calm the habitual argument, the 
walk to the beach at sundown, Indians prajang by the 
wayside with their faces to the setting sun, and the goats 
clambering restlessly up and down the cliffs, -and then as the 
evening sun touched the placid waters to a delicate purple, 
he remembered how they would plunge in and for a moment 
or two revel in the cool luxury of the sea. That was Gallipoli 
in its peaceful twilight. Then there were moments of a menac- 
ing grandeur — a night alann which lit up the short front from 
sea to sea ; or a sortie up the Straits by destroyers seeking to 
silence the recurring menace of the Asiatic guns, or the narrow 
gulUes on the day of battle swanning with fevered excited 
men moving into action, the gunners responding indomitably 
to the needs of the crucial hour, the wounded crawling pain- 
fully down the converging roads that led to peace and to the 
sea, and the great sliips gathered off the western shore, a 
spectacular menace to the bravest of enemies. But it was 
the memory of the twilight that lingered the most, where the 
sun in a blaze of glory sank beliind Imbros, the torment of 
flies had abated awhile, and while peace reigned for an inter- 
val, the coolness of the welcome night gathered the tired 
warrior beneath her enveloping shade. 
And every unutterable suffering, the utmost soul's destitu- 
tion, men were enduring for a sight of what he alone had 
known . . . just for a moment. And it was only as a 
romantic episode that his egoism recalled {these sufferings . . 
a memory evoked for pleasure's sake as he lay at peace. 
Rhineland : The New Front Line 
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THE PFALZ CASTLE 
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Donald McLtUh 
ST. GOARHAUSEN 
Th* Cat Castle 
