Come, friend, and swim

Cape Helles, Gallipoli peninsula

 AP Herbert's poem "The Bathe" considers the question, "What would you do if you knew today was your last day on earth?" 

The Gallipoli campaign (the Allies' attempt to establish a sea route between the Mediterranean and its Russian ally), began on April 25, 1915 when Allied troops landed on the shores of the Turkish peninsula.  By early June, two failed attempts had been made to attack Turkish positions and gain the high ground just beyond the village of Krithia. 

On June 4, 1915, the Third Battle of Krithia was launched at noon, part of the British commander's attempt to maintain "ceaseless initiative," an ironic description of a campaign that resulted in an estimated 500,000 total casualties, of which approximately 50,000 men had died from both sides by January of 1916.  The Third Battle of Krithia gained the Allies approximately 200 – 250 yards of forward territory, at the cost of an estimated 6,500 British and French casualties, while the Turkish army lost an estimated 9,000 – 10,000 men. 

Writing in the days just before the battle, AP Herbert writes of the simple joys of life in the shadow of death. 

The Bathe

by AP Herbert

Come friend and swim. We may be better then,

But here the dust blows ever in the eyes

Swimming at Cape Helles, National Army Museum

And wrangling round are weary fevered men,

Forever mad with flies.

I cannot sleep, nor even long lie still,

And you have read your April paper twice;

To-morrow we must stagger up the hill

To man a trench and live among the lice.

But yonder, where the Indians have their goats,

There is a rock stands sheer above the blue,

Where one may sit and count the bustling boats

And breathe the cool air through;

May find it still is good to be alive,

May look across and see the Trojan shore

Twinkling and warm, may strip, and stretch, and dive.

And for a space forget about the war.

Then will we sit and talk of happy things,

Home and 'the high' and some far fighting friend,

And gather strength for what the morrow brings,

For that may be the end.

It may be we shall never swim again,

Never be clean and comely to the sight,

May rot untombed and stink with all the slain.

Come, then, and swim. Come and be clean to-night.

The experience of war is vividly drawn with specifics:  dust, fever, flies, sleeplessness, lice, rot, and stink.  But that is for tomorrow.  Today offers the opportunity to "for a space forget about the war."  The present moment holds out the promise of bathing in the waters of the Mediterranean with a friend, breathing "the cool air through," stretching and diving into the blue, sitting and talking of "happy things," -- a time to "gather strength for what the morrow brings." The word "may" is repeated twice here:  it is still possible to see the "Trojan shore" and be reminded of glorious epic battles of the past, just as it is possible on the eve of battle to "find it still is good to be alive." 

Yet this poem is written by a man who has seen enough of war to know that the dead are not glorious, but "rot untombed," and it may be his fate shortly to join those who "stink with all the slain."  The continued repetition of the word "may" highlights the uncertainties of life during war time.  On May 24^th, the stench of the bodies decaying between the lines caused a truce to be called so that the dead of both sides could be buried.  One of the men assigned to the burial detail recalls, "Some of the bodies were rotted so much that there were only bones and part of the uniform left. The bodies of the men killed on the nineteenth (it had now been five days) were awful. Most of us had to work in short spells as we felt very ill. We found a few of our men who had been killed in the first days of the landing" (Albert Facey). 

Most likely, at some time in the next ten days "The Bathe" was written.  Following the previous five weeks of stumbling attacks into the filth of battle, the poem simply invites a friend, "Come, then, and swim. Come and be clean to-night."  Washed clean both literally and metaphorically, the men in the water are baptized into life and comradeship before the baptism of fire that is shortly to come. 

The author of the poem, AP Herbert, had his swim with friends, as described by Lt. William Ker in a letter home dated May 30, 1915:  "You never saw such a conglomeration of strange troops. You should have seen me and A. P. Herbert the other evening bathing in the Dardanelles near some Frenchmen and Senegalese, with the Turkish lines (or, rather, the place where they were) in sight on a ridge to our left beside some dismantled forts, the Plain of Troy before us on the other side, some guns on the Asiatic side in sending an occasional shrapnel shell over on our right, and a French battery immediately behind us having shots at them. I took a bathing party down to the beach yesterday. The scene was a cross between Blackpool in the season and the Ganges. The men think it a fine picnic, but we are going in the firing line tomorrow night." 

A.P. Herbert

On June 4^th, Herbert joined the attack with his unit, the Hawke Battalion.  He survived Gallipoli and other battles on the Western Front until he was seriously wounded in April of 1917 and invalided back to England.  One-hundred years after the Third Battle of Krithia, the longing to be cleansed from war echoes across the years: "Come, then, and swim.  Come and be clean to-night."      

Second-guessing the war with Achilles

One-hundred years ago, in April of 1915, Patrick Shaw-Stewart sailed with Rupert Brooke for Gallipoli.  After Brooke's death from blood poisoning, Shaw-Stewart was one of the fellow officers who buried Brooke on the island of Skyros, taking charge of the graveside gun salute (Elizabeth Vandiver in  A Companion to Classical Receptions, 456). 

Before Brooke's death, anticipating the fight at Gallipoli, Shaw-Stewart wrote, "It is the luckiest thing and the most romantic. Think of fighting in the Chersonese [the classical name for Gallipoli]... or alternatively, if it's the Asiatic side they want us on, on the plains of Troy itself! I am going to take my Herodotus as a guide-book."  Patrick Shaw-Stewart also took with him a small book of poems, AE Housman's A Shropshire Lad, and on a blank page of that book, he wrote this poem: 

I Saw a Man This Morning 

I saw a man this morning 

   Who did not wish to die:

I ask, and cannot answer,
   If otherwise wish I.

Fair broke the day this morning
   Upon the Dardanelles;
The breeze blew soft, the morn's cheeks
   Were cold as cold sea-shells.

But other shells are waiting
   Across the Aegean sea,
Shrapnel and high explosive,
   Shells and hells for me.

Oh hell of ships and cities,
   Hell of men like me,
Fatal second Helen,
   Why must I follow thee?

Achilles came to Troyland
   And I to Chersonese:
He turned from wrath to battle,
   And I from three days’ peace.

Was it so hard, Achilles,
   So very hard to die?
Thou knowest and I know not—
   So much the happier I.

I will go back this morning
   From Imbros over the sea;
Stand in the trench, Achilles,
   Flame-capped, and shout for me.

            —Patrick Shaw-Stewart

The poem is prompted by the sight of a fellow soldier "Who did not wish to die."  Written while on leave that was abruptly ended when his company was called back into action, Shaw-Stewart's poem circles around one central question: am I ready and willing to die in battle? 

From UK Huffington Post, April 14, 2015

Throughout the poem, we can almost feel the visceral tension pulling this man between two imaginary wars: the noble heroism of ancient battle it appears in the Greek myth The Iliad -- and the anticipated test of the looming fight at Gallipoli.  Neither is fully real to this soldier.  He has read the ancient stories, and he can anticipate his own headlong rush into battle, but neither are fully real.   What is real is what he knows he must leave behind:  a peaceful morning overlooking the Dardenelles, the narrow body of water that joins the Mediterranean and Black Sea.  Although he is soon to return to the war, the speaker pauses to notice the soft breezes and the "cold sea shells" of early dawn near the lapping waves of the shore.    

Yet even the sight of the sea shells draws his mind inexorably to what awaits him in just a few days' time:  "Shrapnel and high explosives,/Shells and hell for me."  The present moment is touched by both the promise of glorious war and the threat of blood and death. 

Like the Greek epic and tragic story it references, the poem and its speaker seem obsessed with a lack of control: fated to follow the "Fatal second Helen," the men approaching battle feel as if they, too, have no real choice in the matter.  The country expects it of them, their friends are all joining up, it would be cowardly not to enlist – the reasons for fighting seem to change very little from the wars of ancient Greece to modern conflicts. 

In many ways, this is a poem of second guessing – was it right to enlist?  Am I ready to die?  Looking around him at the other young men who have signed up and are attempting to appear brave, gallant, and soldierly, the speaker of the poem most likely knows that answers won't be found within the ranks, and so instead, he turns to the ultimate warrior of his school studies, the Marvel super hero of the day – the ancient Greek warrior Achilles, who is driven by his thirst for glory. 

And what does he ask?  "Was it so hard, Achilles,/ So very hard to die?"  The soldier wants to be sure that he will have the strength not to fight – but to die.  He needs to know that he can endure any anguish that the looming conflict might bring.  The poem lays bare the heart of a soldier who is soul-searching, examining himself to see if he is strong enough to relinquish not only his life, but all his future hopes and dreams, leaving them on the desolate shore of the Turkish coast. 

The question is asked, but no answer is given.  Achilles remains silent, but asking the question allows this soldier to move forward and to go back to the war, with a last request:  "Stand in the trench, Achilles,/Flame-capped, and shout for me."  As he prepares to face the enemy and looks ahead to his own hour of testing, he asks that Achilles stand in the trench with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, as a comrade-in-arms, crowned in flames as when the mighty warrior showed himself to the enemy troops, protesting the death of his friend Patroclus in Book 18 of The Iliad.  

Hell, shells, shrapnel, and death:  all can be borne with the spirit of Achilles as a companion, a spirit that cannot help but inspire other soldiers like Achilles to "stand in the trench" and protest each man's death. 

Shaw-Stewart's poem reassures fighting men with the knowledge that they are not numbers, but known to one another.  The poem cries out to the ancient Greek warrior, and in doing so, to every man who stands on the fire step ready to go over the top.  The protest is not against war, but against death and against the senseless loss of each man who meant something to someone, who was dear, who was loved, and who is lost. 

Patrick Shaw-Stewart

Although he survived the battle of Gallipoli, Shaw-Stewart was killed by an artillery shell on December 30, 1917 in fighting on the Western Front near Cambrai.  Writing of his death, an artillery officer reported, "It was early morning, about dawn; he was going round his line; the Germans put up a barrage….He was hit by shrapnel, the lobe of his ear was cut off and his face spattered so that the blood ran down from his forehead and blinded him for a bit.  The gunner tried to make him go back to Battalion H.Q. to be dressed, but he refused, and insisted on completing his round.  Very soon afterwards, a shell burst on the parapet, and a fragment hit him upwards through the mouth and killed him instantaneously." 

One can imagine the flame-capped Achilles' sorrow at the death of yet another soldier and the shouts echoing in the trench as Shaw-Stewart fell.  

Perishing things and strange ghosts

Imagining the future has an added poignancy in a time of war.  Rupert Brooke, one of the most famous of the soldier poets of the Great War, is best known for his poem “The Soldier” and its memorable first lines, “If I should die, think only this of me:/That there’s some corner of a foreign field/That is forever England.”  In that poem, he speculates on his own death. 

Brooke’s lesser-known poem “Fragment,” however, imagines the future of others, of soldiers on troop ships headed for the Dardanelles and the battle of Gallipoli in the spring of 1915.  

 Fragment

I strayed about the deck, an hour, to-night

Under a cloudy moonless sky; and peeped

In at the windows, watched my friends at table,

Or playing cards, or standing in the doorway,

Or coming out into the darkness. Still

No one could see me.

                                          I would have thought of them

—Heedless, within a week of battle—in pity,

Pride in their strength and in the weight and firmness

And link’d beauty of bodies, and pity that

This gay machine of splendour ’ld soon be broken,

Thought little of, pashed, scattered …

                                                                        Only, always,

I could but see them—against the lamplight—pass

Like coloured shadows, thinner than filmy glass,

Slight bubbles, fainter than the wave’s faint light,

That broke to phosphorus out in the night,

Perishing things and strange ghosts—soon to die

To other ghosts—this one, or that, or I.
              --Rupert Brooke

The poem’s first stanza creates a mood of eerie tension:  the speaker of the poem is an outsider, a self-imposed exile from the camaraderie of his friends and fellow soldiers.  He haunts the deck unseen and “still.”  Recklessly careless – “heedless”-- the men dining, playing cards, and enjoying the last week before battle are both admired and pitied for their “link’d beauty of bodies” that will soon be “pashed” -- violently thrown and shattered to bits.  Despite their strength, “weight and firmness,” these are men without any control over the future that awaits them.

As fleeting as bubbles, their lives flicker in the lamplight with a wondrous and glowing beauty, made more real by its transience   Seeing them as ghosts, as men about to die, these men linger in memory forever, fixed for all time in this darkly lit moment on a ship quietly moving through the night.   The last lines of the poem capture the randomness of war death – who lives and who dies is also entirely out of anyone’s control. 

It’s a curiously prescient poem, as if Brooke stares into the future and sees not only the brutal losses of the Gallipoli campaign, but also the ways in which war creates its own despairing beauty and consigns survivors to a future that is fixated on memories of a time when “this gay machine of splendour,” was not utterly wrecked and broken.   

Brooke was one of the most popular of the First World War poets. W.B. Yeats is reported to have said he was “the handsomest young man in England,” and Brooke’s early death in April of 1915 transformed him into an iconic figure.  The man was far more complicated than the myth, however, and scholars such as Timothy Kendall have argued that neither Brooke’s views of war and nor his poetry are as naïve or idealistic as often assumed.  “The Fragment” enacts a complexity and subtlety for which Brooke is seldom recognized.