Redemption - Leon Uris [281]
I did not want Mordechai Pearlman to be involved in this final horror. Having prayed for Chester’s life and wept for the death of my brothers, I saw no harm in asking God to grant me some sort of wisdom to help stave off a disaster on the second night of the evacuation.
After a staff meeting at Corps, Colonel Monash, of all people, came to my troglodyte to have a chat-up. We had come to care for each other as friends and I think he wanted some neutral ground to sit on and hear his voice aloud. He was a man with a large mind, somewhat like Conor.
“Sorry about the mules,” he said.
As he spoke those very words, a plan came to me. It would be a hell of a lot better sending these mules to a soldier’s death up Mule’s Gully charging the Guillotine, than it was to send his soldiers over the Nek against his wishes.
“I’ll cry a little for them as well,” I said.
“The rains have washed away the shallow graves of no-man’s-land,” he said. “This land will be eternal valleys and hills of bones, theirs and ours, and you can’t even tell the difference.”
He looked at me knowingly.
“Was it worth it?” he asked. “No one will ever know the true figures, but there were no less than a half-million casualties, theirs and ours. Tens of thousands of them were New Zealanders and Australians. That’s a vast number for countries so small as ours. We have to find something out of this that didn’t make it an entire waste. What did you find out, Landers?”
“All men have a measure of cowardice in them. I learned that love of one’s mates can overcome your fears. I learned that every survivor of this horror must try to live a good life because he lives for many men.”
“That’s very decent, Landers. I’ll remember that.”
“And you, sir?”
“We came to this field of battle, Landers, I from a former penal colony proud of its wild men and free ways. You came from a place of pioneers, woodsmen, sheepmen, and farmers. Neither of us were truly defined as a people. We leave as Australians and New Zealanders with a clear definition of who we are as men and as nations. In a manner of speaking, your country and mine were born at Gallipoli. We have shown our stuff to the world and ourselves, and only by such tragedy did we have this moment to show it.”
I had orders cut for Mordechai Pearlman to go to Lemnos to survey our supplies of timothy hay, grain, blankets, and equipment for the balance of the winter. He still had no idea the mules were to be destroyed or an evacuation was to take place.
Even as I gave him the orders, I feigned complaining that it would be difficult to spare him, even for a few days. I believed I had duped him. He didn’t realize he was not going to return…or did he?
I took him to the dock, slapped him on the back and told him I’d see him back here in a couple of days, gave him a hand into the boat, and tossed his gear to him.
“Thanks, Rory,” he said, “for everything. There’ll never be another one like Cairo.”
After his boat pulled away, I whispered, “I love you, man.”
“You requested to see me, Landers,” Brodhead said.
“Yes, sir. I believe I have an idea to knock out the Guillotine. If the Turks have to go without their eyes, we might be saved from artillery on the final night—”
“God, I wish we could. If the Turks get wind of us, it might mean a massacre, or at least they’ll take thousands of our lads prisoner. I’ve been trying for six months to get the Guillotine. How the hell? We have to send men through the S-turns two or three at a time.”
“How about stampeding the mules into the Guillotine?”
“My God,” he whispered.
“We have to destroy the animals, anyhow.”
“My God,” he repeated, “it would certainly create a tremendous diversion. The Turks might either freeze in their positions or rush their reserves over there. It might just keep the beach clear for a few precious hours.”
We set a line of fire blazing behind the mules and hustled them along, screaming and lashing at them, and they soon rampaged up Mule Gully through