The Passing Bells by Phillip Rock

Author:Phillip Rock
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Sagas, Family Life, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780062229328
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,

A summer’s day; and with the setting sun

Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star,

On Lemnos, the Aegean isle.

“Makes one think, doesn’t it? The proximity of the past. Vulcan up there in the hills looking down on us all. Wonder what he thinks.”

“That we’re a bunch of damn fools, I expect,” Charles muttered. “Don’t you have anything better to do than hang about quoting Paradise Lost?”

Roger tipped his sun helmet to the back of his head and then pointed off across the bay.

“Not till A Company arrives. That’s them now . . . just crossing Swiftsure’s stern.”

Troops had been coming out all morning from the transport ships. There were twelve hundred men aboard the collier now, fretting in the stifling hold. Eight hundred more were due—B and C Companies of the Windsors and two companies from the Munsters.

“You don’t seem very happy about things,” Roger said. “Anything the matter?”

“No, just tired. Talbot’s supposed to be battalion machine-gun officer, but he’s done fucking-all nothing since we came aboard.”

Roger put his hands to his ears in mock horror. “My, my . . . what dreadful language. Haven’t heard such speech since Aunt Mary caught her tits in the wringer!”

Charles laughed. “Hop to it and get your chaps stowed away.”

He watched his friend go off down the deck toward the boarding ladders at midship. Not walking with languid grace any longer, the poet’s stroll, but moving with a cocky swagger, a seasoned subaltern more than capable of keeping his platoon of tough South Londoners in line. He looked away and scrutinized the sandbag revetment.

“Pack ’em down hard with the flat of a spade, Corporal.”

“Right you are, sir.”

“Then start setting up the guns . . . and place bags on the tripod feet.”

“Very good, sir.”

He watched the Fusiliers and some Royal Marines clamp the Vickers guns to their mounts and uncrate the boxes of belt ammunition. The men knew what they were doing and needed no further direction. He leaned against one of the sandbag walls and gazed out at the host of ships in the vast harbor. Lemnos in the Aegean! The phrase rang through his head like poetry. Looking at the warships and the myriad transport ships floating so serenely on the bluest of waters under the bluest of skies, he thanked God for His mercy in not sending him to France. He could have conjured up a hundred images to dwell upon—Xerxes and his fleet sailing toward Salamis, Jason and the Argonauts seeking the Golden Fleece, Ulysses and Achilles tarrying here on their reluctant journey to Troy. And Byron, of course, seeking Hero’s tower overlooking Homer’s wine-dark sea. Well, the blind bard had been wrong about that. An ocean like any other, blue or gray depending on the sky. But it was the sunlit Aegean and not the muddy wastes of Picardy that he looked at over the sandbag rampart. He whispered a silent prayer.

“Mr. Greville, sir.” The megaphoned voice of Lieutenant Colonel Askins.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.