Evan's Gallipoli Read Online Free PDF

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    June 25th
    Major Western was kind and sent us to Lemnos. My father is ill. His skin is peeling and he has a cough, and he says that his teeth are loose. He is also losing his hair. Major Western sent a flask of lime juice and told me to make sure that my father drank some every day because he thinks we have the beginnings of scurvy. I mixed the juice with lots of water because it is very bitter and I have no sugar to sweeten it. Father complained but he drank it. The soldiers dilute their lime juice with raki but Father never touches spirits. And Father will not take the quinine tablets issued to everyone because of malaria. He says that the quinine is a drug and he will not take drugs. I tasted it and it too is very bitter so perhaps I could crush the tablets and put them in his lime juice. But perhaps that would be sinful. If God wants Father to have malaria then he will have it. I don’t know what to do. I shall pray.
    June 26th
    Father cannot sleep. I woke several times in our hut and heard him praying aloud. Then he quoted scripture. Isaiah, I think. ‘How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings; that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, thy God reigneth.’ I fell asleep again but he didn’t. He did eat some breakfast. I managed to get an egg. It is sunny and warm and I have nothing to do today. It is a strange feeling. I am writing this sitting against the farmhouse wall, watching the chickens. Father is feeding them with scraps from the kitchen. It is quiet, except for the big guns from the ships answered by the Turkish guns from the heights. I hope that Bluey and Curly have taken cover. How odd that a war is happening just across that stretch of water. And we are sitting here watching the birds cluck and peck.
    June 27th
    Father didn’t sleep again. He prays for peace without ceasing. So do I. But the guns never stop. Not even in the dark. But at least on Lemnos we can see the stars.
    June 28th
    Today I met Sister Lucas again. She is about to set out for Alexandria with a boatload of wounded. She spoke to Father and looked at him very closely. ‘I think you should get your father away from here, Evan,’ she told me. I think so too. I said so. Then I asked her, ‘Why do you say that?’ And she said his condition worried her. She thinks he might have shell shock. She has a lot of shell-shock cases. I told her that I would love to take Father back to Australia, but how can I make him leave? He has a holy mission and purpose, he says. All I can do is go with him on his mission and try to keep him safe. She kissed me and gave me a basket of comforts. In exchange I gave her a tin of lice powder. She says her patients are so tattooed with ingrained dirt that they will have to be soaked in carbolic for days when they get to Alex. She said that it was a miracle that typhoid hadn’t swept the trenches. Father told her that God can do anything and she agreed.
    June 29th
    I reclaimed our remaining stores from the hut and we went back to Gallipoli today. Two Senegalese had moved into our little cave but left when they saw Father, saying that he was a holy man. Which he is, of course. He looks a little better with the lime juice and the vegetables I managed to organise on Lemnos. I believe that those lentils are very nourishing. I asked about a ham bone to make pea soup with them but no one had a scrap left of their winter pig. Not even for money.
    I climbed the sap, and found that Bluey and Curly were still there. I gave them a tin of boiled sweets which Sister Lucas had given me. They said, you beaut! Soon we will have distributed all our goods. Then perhaps we can go home. I hate leaving these brave, funny men. But I need to get Father away.
    Major Western came and brought more lime juice and looked sad. I asked him what was wrong and he said that he had just had a big fight with Command