Windstorm by Frances Burke

Author:Frances Burke [Burke, Frances]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Adventure/Romance
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 2008-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Diary of Rick Holman

I’ve sent Cally letters by chaps returning to Cairo for medical treatment or on leave. Her replies haven’t been so frequent. Firstly she was too ill, then she had to find someone returning to the Corps. But she seems to have a hospital full of followers willing to do almost anything she wants.

She’s written that her experiences have had a major affect on her, changing the horror she had of terrible injuries to an empathy with the sufferers. Not that she’s turning into a saint, or even a would-be Florence Nightingale. Cally couldn’t change that much! But I can sense that she’s grown. It’s the sort of thing that happens to men in the field. It happened to me. There’s an acceptance and willingness to get in and cope with whatever comes to hand, no matter how terrible, because someone’s got to do it. And the more people who help, the sooner this war will be over and we can get back to living. If that sounds preachy, I can’t help it. It’s the only way I know to say what I feel. You deal with things or you go under. It’s as simple as that.

Cally liked the limerick I sent. I’ll pass it on to the chaps in camp. We could do with a few jokes to cheer us after the past two balls-up. Twice we’ve tried to take Gaza, and twice come within an inch of doing it then pulled back, with a lot of casualties. I don’t know what the dickens goes on in the minds of the High Command, and I don’t think they do, either. The first go had some of us fighting through cactus hedges! That was memorable. However, the real problem stemmed from poor communications and poor leadership. Hardly something new, considering the Fromelles experience. We withdrew when we should have stood firm and were then ordered to retake the position. As a result, a lot of good men were lost. That’s the word around the trenches, and it usually turns out to be right.

Three weeks later we tried again, because Gaza is important as a gateway to Palestine. Of course the Turks were more than ready for us this time, with a strengthened garrison. The British off-shore bombardment was about as useful as a slap on the hand, our few tanks broke down, and we didn’t have nearly enough artillery to make a dent in the defence. Then, if you please, supplies of ammunition and water dried up! We were all tired and angry over the earlier defeat, and morale was down in our boots.

All the same, there were incidents of tremendous courage that day, considering we had to advance over bare slopes right in the face of enemy machine guns. My God, did that bring back memories! Some of us followed one tank that took point-blank fire while mowing down a barbed wire entanglement around a Turkish redoubt. That tank kept on going, even thought it was red hot and belching smoke.

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