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THE BIG FIGHT


[Illustration: Captain David Fallon, M.C.]




    THE BIG FIGHT

    (_Gallipoli to the Somme_)

    BY
    CAPT. DAVID FALLON, M.C.

    [Illustration]

    NEW YORK
    W. J. WATT & COMPANY
    PUBLISHERS




    Copyright, 1918, by
    W. J. WATT & COMPANY


    PRESS OF
    BRAUNWORTH & CO.
    BOOK MANUFACTURERS
    BROOKLYN, N. Y.




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER                                PAGE
        I. FROM AUSTRALIA TO THE FRAY         1
       II. FROM AUSTRALIA TO THE FRAY        15
      III. GALLIPOLI                         35
       IV. THE GHASTLY LANDING               48
        V. HOLDING ON                        64
       VI. GIVING UP GALLIPOLI               79
      VII. COMPLIMENTS OF THE KING           97
     VIII. AN INTERMISSION                  106
       IX. NO QUARTER                       113
        X. TRAPPING SAPPERS                 126
       XI. SPOTTING                         143
      XII. “RAZZLE DAZZLE”                  157
     XIII. MOQUET FARM                      167
      XIV. SPIES                            185
       XV. “WOODFIGHTING”                   201
      XVI. THE PLAY SIDE OF WAR             220
     XVII. THE RAT IN THE NIGHT             233
    XVIII. THE WORST ORDEAL                 248
      XIX. BLIGHTY                          274
       XX. HONORED BY THE KING              287
      XXI. THE GRAY MOTHER                 298




THE BIG FIGHT




CHAPTER I

FROM AUSTRALIA TO THE FRAY


When great historians with their learned pens shall come to set forth
the complete story of the most sweeping and horrible war the world
has ever known, I figure they may perhaps have need of such evidence,
information and material as a man like myself can give. I mean a man
who has been through the red hell of the vast conflict in places where
it has flamed most fiercely, a soldier who has been eye-witness of its
superb heroisms, its stupendous tragedies, scientific marvels, has
undergone its tense emotional and psychological experiences, bears
on his body its wounds, has seen at first hand with the amazement
all civilization has felt, the cowardice, bestiality, utter moral
abandonment to which a nation may fall in a mad dream of the conquest
of the world.

My name is David Fallon. I am of the County Mayo, Ireland. And I’d
ask your pardon for a word or two by way of boasting in stating that
my ancestors for a pretty-long journey back into history, have always
figured in the man-sized battles of their generations. My father, a
naturalist, rushed away from gentle scientific pursuits in 1870 to bear
arms for France against the Prussians. And it isn’t only because I’m
Irish that I fought to get into this present big fight--and I did fight
to get into it--but for the pertinent and additional reason that it was
in France father met Mlle. Sarah Voltaire who not very long thereafter
became Mrs. Fallon.

And small wonder, with my boy’s mind stirred so many an evening by the
exciting stories of the Franco-Prussian battles my father and mother
would tell us of in the glow of the old library fireplace, that I had
no trouble electing the course of my life. I left the University
of Dublin to enlist in the British army. I joined a Northumberland
regiment, Nov. 19, 1904, and the military examiners were not at first
quite so enthusiastic about the performance as I was for I offered
them no Hercules. I was then only eighteen years old, a little under
medium height and slim as a whalebone. A weighing machine as far as I
was concerned escaped with the small effort of marking one hundred and
ten pounds. But I was sound of eye, tooth, blood and heart and so they
cordially handed me my uniform--even if they did have to trim off the
sleeves of the tunic a bit.

It is only fair I should say for myself that I was a rather good
boy--that the temptations besetting youths in the army have never
left their marks on me. Not, believe me, that I was a sanctimonious
kid--a good many miles away from that. But I was