The Crackie by Gary Collins

Author:Gary Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flanker Press
Published: 2018-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

18

On May 22, at 6:49 a.m., tragedy struck which numbed every soldier in the United Kingdom. A troop car carrying the pride of the Scottish Army, the Royal Scots Leith Battalion, collided with a local train while speeding to the channel port of Devonport for embarkation to Gallipoli. Minutes later, another train northbound out of London piled into the wreckage. A thousand sparks ignited gas, adding conflagration to the carnage. More than half of the soldiers were killed, and many more badly wounded. The wooden carriages with bodies and body parts inside burned like kindling. The Royal Scots’ ranks were destroyed. There were reports of officers sobbing like children, drawing their pistols and mercy-killing the burning, limbless men as they screamed. The Newfoundland Regiment would be going to Gallipoli in their stead.

On a morning with the English sun beaming down upon them, the 1,042 soldiers of the 1st Newfoundland Battalion boarded His Majesty’s 16,000-ton troopship ship Megantic in the channel harbour of Devonport. Before dark they sailed with a destroyer escort out into the English Channel and headed south across the Bay of Biscay and the coast of Spain. Jake caught a glimpse of the Catholic in the milling crowd as they moved out. It gave him comfort knowing he had a friend aboard. For Jake the temperature was already the hottest he had ever experienced. Now in the swelter of summer, it would only get hotter.

The Megantic’s deck was lined with soldiers three days out of England when her captain hauled her to port, heeling into the Gibraltar Strait flanked by her two escorts. Jake was one of them, and standing beside him was the Catholic. The temperature was climbing, and both men were trying to tie their scarf-like puggrees to their new khaki-coloured helmets, which matched their khaki uniforms, to keep their necks from burning. They were passing between the Pillars of Hercules, the Catholic told Jake. The Rock of Gibraltar in Spain formed the northern pillar, and Jebel Musa in North Africa the southern. “We are entering the lands of many gained and lost empires, the Moors, the Franks, the Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Romans. The old Ottoman Empire where we are headed still exists. There are several more that I have forgotten,” he said.

“This land has been fought over, the water under our keel broiled with battle, since long before they set Moses adrift in a basket. And now we are to fight over it. Truth is, I’m not sure what we are fighting for. Not really.”

The Catholic flung his arms wide with a flourish, indicating the entire bowl of the Mediterranean Sea and the vast lands they were approaching. Jake enjoyed the revelations coming from the learned man and said nothing. He just kept staring ahead at the warm water and the blue hills they were approaching, suddenly wishing he were steaming up one of the long, cool bays of home, the old one-lunger quivering her beat under his feet. The Catholic continued, his talk rich with images of a modern army being carried to war over a sea churned with battles.

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