Victoria Cross
I was at Granpa’s house again. BORING! There was nothing to do. Old 99 year old Granpa. No Playstation Twos, no computers, nothing! And then I saw, it. I recognised it from the old WW1 games I’d played. The Maltese Cross made from bronze. The Victoria Cross.
What was it doing there? Had Granpa stolen it? Or�?/FONT>
“Where did you get that?�?I asked. Granpa leant forward, and sighed.
“Now that, is a story worth the telling…�?
“It was in 1914, when I was sixteen years old, that I was conscripted into the army, and got called to Gallipoli. So I was sent over to Turkey, and inder cover of darkness, we crawled into our trenches. At 1 am that morning, we heard a whistle blow from the Turkish trenches, and with a roar, our quickest men were up fighting, tripping the enemy and making them stab themselves. Well, by seven that morning, the trenches were littered with graves. It went on like that, every day. It was a miracle the ANZACs didn’t run out of troops. Until, nine weeks after I arrived, the Turks ordered us to leave Gallipoli on threat of death. They said they could shell the trenches on ten minutes notice, and we saw it was true. So, on that day in October 1914, eight of us hatched a plan. It had to do with the Trojan Horse concept, twelve sticks of powerful explosive, and three barrels of gunpowder…�?/FONT>
I was amazed. My grandfather had been in World War One! This was better than�?It was hard to admit, but this was better than Playstation Two! Whoa�?And Granpa came back, and started telling again�?/FONT>
“On the day the ships got ready to leave, eight of us crept away. And then, the night before the ships were to leave, the night of the operation, three of us dropped the plan. So there were five of us that night. One carried the explosive sticks, another three carried a barrel of gunpowder each. And I stood as guard, with four grenades and a bayonet equipped rifle. We crept into the Turkish territory. I had to dispose of two night guards, but otherwise we had an easy run. It took us four hours to set up the explosives and gunpowder in the perfect positions. But it was done. We returned to camp at 3 am.
At nine o’clock in the morning, the men trudged through the sand onto the ships. And as the boats began to leave, the Turks went up in smoke. Amber and crimson tore through the air, charred corpses surfed the fiery waves. The explosives had done their work. Dozens of men grabbed weapons and swam back towards the shore. And us five men, we yelled ourselves hoarse, and the captains asked what we were cheering for.
We laughed and laughed and laughed.�?/FONT>
I sat speechless. Granpa chuckled. And then�?my arm stretched out, pointing, motionless. It was pointing at another medal,
“I get to hear about that one next time.�?/FONT>
Granpa laughed.
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