| 29 GALLIPOLI BY MICHAEL J. WHELAN
Today I stood above the Aegean Sea listening for echoes I could not hear. The silent tempo of the ground resonates still on unnatural landscapes. The zig-zag lines where dead men toil dug deep into blood smeared soil, buried now with their bones on beaches and gullies where once they fought the Turk, stormed the shores and hills as if thrown against the wind by Agamemnon himself.
The silence bade me look towards Troy across the Straits from Helles. I still could hear no voice, nor thunder in the sky except the launching waves pushing ancient pebbles up the beach to rest, where once they drowned the hearts of men.
Then behind me I could feel it, the noise of peace and echoes of war in a thousand monuments to the dead, stretched out in marching order.
And there, watching me my shadow took on the spectre of a ghost and spoke,
'Like Hector I was the defender brave and virtuous - but of Irish stock, I am the soldier my country forsook.'
And in response I said 'I have come at last to pay my respects, I have come to take you home!'
THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE
