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Title: Trooper Bluegum at the Dardanelles
Descriptive Narratives of the More Desperate Engagements
on the Gallipoli Peninsula
Author: Oliver Hogue
Release Date: June 25, 2014 [EBook #46097]
Language: English
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_Trooper Bluegum_
_at the_
_Dardanelles_
DESCRIPTIVE NARRATIVES OF THE
MORE DESPERATE ENGAGEMENTS
ON THE GALLIPOLI PENINSULA
By
OLIVER HOGUE
(Second Light Horse Brigade)
Preface by the Hon. J. A. Hogue
"When cannons are roaring and bullets are flying,
The lad that seeks honour must never fear dying."
SECOND EDITION
LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE, LTD
3 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C
Printed June 1916
Reprinted August 1916
DEDICATED
TO
ALL THE BRAVES
Who fought for Australia and the Empire
in the
GREAT WAR;
The Dead who yet live,
And the Living who bear their Battle scars
upon them, or, scatheless, thank God for
His Mercy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Author desires to thank the Proprietors of the _Sydney Morning
Herald_ for permission to incorporate in this book the "Trooper
Bluegum" articles which originally appeared in that journal, and the
Proprietors of the _Passing Show_ for permission to reprint the verses
"Anzac," by "Argent." He desires to thank many friends in Australia,
previously unknown to him, for kind letters sent to him whilst fighting
(and writing) in the trenches on Gallipoli; and also that little
band of Red Cross workers in country towns of New South Wales who,
in appreciation of his stories from the Front, knitted him socks and
Balaclava caps and scarves to ward off the winter winds. Especially
does he desire to thank his esteemed colleague on the _Herald_,
Mr. Farmer Whyte, for valuable assistance, generously rendered, in
the preparation and arrangement of the contents of this book for
publication in their present form.
PREFACE
Among the legacies, good and evil, tragic and inspiring, which the
Great War of Nations is destined to hand down to posterity, one of the
most valuable and permanent in its influence will be the LITERATURE
which this Armageddon will have brought forth. In that fountain of
knowledge the world will have command of vast stores of intellectual
treasure--History, Poetry, the Drama, Philosophy, Fiction--which will
continue to fascinate, to appal, to instruct, so long as books are read
and the crimes, the virtues, the calamities and follies of mankind are
subjects of human interest.
Such a literature, sanctified by the blood of millions of heroes--the
world's best manhood--and by sacrifices and sufferings that have
literally staggered humanity, will comprehend and crystallize events,
compared with which all former world-cataclysms will seem but passing
ripples on the ocean of life.
While in its inception and progress this greatest breach of the world's
peace has exhibited a section of mankind as hardly at all removed from
fiends incarnate, it has also shown men inspired by the highest virtues
and striving for the loftiest ideals; and it has produced women only
a little lower than the angels. Thus we seem to see, in all its naked
deformities as well as in its beauty and majesty, the very soul of
nations.
Not to "the future historian," but to whole battalions of historians
will it fall to relate the tragic story of this mighty conflict, to
pass judgment on the guilty authors of it, while giving to valour and
the champions of right their due. They will have ample material to
work upon, and they should have little difficulty in sifting out from
the mass of evidence before them that which is true from that which is
false, certainly as to the real instigators of the rupture.
As to the conduct and prosecution of this war of big battles, the
fighting over (and under) thousands of miles of land and ocean, and in
the air, the work of the armies of war correspondents has been, on
the whole, worthy of the highest traditions of that dangerous class
of literary work. In many respects it has even surpassed that of the
great war chroniclers of the past, from Russell and Forbes onwards, who
have shed lustre on British and foreign journalism. The old race of war
correspondents has passed away, but their spirit survives. A new school
has been founded. They who graduate in it must accommodate themselves
to new conditions of warfare, wherein the Censor plays his part.
To the work of these writers the historians of the war will be largely
indebted for their material in relating the operations of the opposing
hosts. The private letters of soldiers throw a clear light on minor
phases of the engagements in which they took part. These provide
intensely interesting reading, too often of a painfully absorbing
kind, their authors the eyewitnesses of and actors in the scenes they
describe.
The "Trooper Bluegum" contributions to the literature of the war were
written for and have appeared in the _Sydney Morning Herald_. They
are the work of a Sydney native, a trained journalist, who for the
time gave up a responsible position on the literary staff of that
journal to enlist as a trooper and serve at the front. As a military
writer his reputation had been well on in the making when General
Sir Ian Hamilton, a few years ago, came to Australia to inspect the
Commonwealth Forces. Here came his chance as a military critic and
descriptive writer on training operations. For his insight into
the manoeuvres and sham fight engagements of our troops, and his
descriptions in the _Sydney Morning Herald_ of the important movements
under Sir Ian Hamilton's observation, the future "Trooper Bluegum"
earned the special commendation of that distinguished British General.
From the rank of trooper the author of these sketches speedily rose
in the service, obtained a commission, and, as Second Lieutenant,
was chosen orderly to Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-General) Ryrie,
Commander of the Second Light Horse Brigade. Soon after landing at the
scene of operations at Gallipoli, he was promoted to First Lieutenant.
It was just before Christmas, close on five months after war was
declared, that the Expeditionary Force which included General Ryrie's
Brigade sailed from Sydney. Nearly the whole of Trooper Bluegum's
descriptions of the operations in the Anzac sphere were written in
dugouts between intervals of the fighting, often with shells screaming
overhead, shrapnel bursting, and bullets flying about him.
A feature of the descriptions in this book is the clear light thrown
on the rollicking yet unconquerable spirit of the Australian soldier
in action, on his never-failing good humour and love of fun even
in the face of death in any form, his amenableness to discipline,
his cheerful, patient endurance of hardship, and his fine contempt
of danger whenever and wherever confronting him. Here is seen the
Australian (his New Zealand brother in all respects his exact
prototype) in the full integrity of his young manhood.
Whence came these qualities in a branch of an immortal race bred to
peaceful pursuits? The analytical psychologist may not unprofitably try
his hand at explaining. The root principle is that the fighting spirit
which to the astonishment of the whole world, flashed out on Gaba Tepe
heights, was in the blood of the race, fostered in the schools, on the
playgrounds, and sustained by undying attachment to the great Empire
whose flag is the symbol for all that free men hold dear.
This book is a narrative, with sidelights and commentary, of the
operations of the Australian Imperial Expeditionary Forces, from the
training encampment at Holdsworthy to the time when, chastened but
still unconquered, the heroic band of Australians, or rather the
remnant that was left of them, returned from Anzac after the most
glorious failure in the annals of war.
J. A. HOGUE.
Sydney,
_December, 1915_.
CONTENTS
I A Soldier of the King 17
II We Sail Away 28
III The First Fight 38
IV In Egypt Still 50
V Heroes of April 25 58
VI Light-hearted Australians 73
VII At the Dardanelles 82
VIII Anzac 96
IX Stories that Will Never Die 109
X To Drive Back the Turk 118
XI War Vignettes 128
XII "George" 136
XIII "Robbo" 143
XIV "Come and Die" 153
XV The Bombs 165
XVI Aeroplanes 172
XVII "Padre" 179
XVIII "Stunts" 186
XIX Lonesome Pine 196
XX Lucky Escapes 212
XXI The Church Militant 219
XXII Sergeants Three 229
XXIII Mail Day 236
XXIV Reinforcements 244
XXV Shell Green 249
XXVI The Anzac V.C.'s 257
XXVII The Final Phase 267
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE
PAGE
Anzac Cove, Gallipoli 17
Portraits of (1) Col. McCay; (2) Lt.-Col. C. F.
Cox, C.B.; (3) Lt.-Col. Hubert Harris;
(4) Col. M. Laurin; (5) Lt.-Col. Braund;
(6) Lt.-Col. Onslow Thompson 68
Officers of the 6th Australian Light Horse
Regiment, 2nd Light Horse Brigade 90
Murphy's Mules at Anzac 116
Major-General W. T. Bridges 141
Anzacs in Reserve 172
Entrance to Lone Pine 204
Brigadier-General G. Ryrie 255
[Illustration: Anzac Cove, Gallipoli.]
CHAPTER I
A SOLDIER OF THE KING
RIDING TESTS--THE SOLDIER'S OATH--SIR IAN HAMILTON--MOUNTED
PARADE--BUSHMEN AND CITY MEN ON TRIAL--LIGHT HORSE WAR SONG
"Trooper Bluegum, you're next."
I stepped forward. A hundred volunteers had been marched down from
Victoria Barracks, Sydney, and were undergoing the riding test prior to
being drafted into the Australian Light Horse.
"Mount and ride," said the sergeant.
I leaped on the bare back of a hog-maned colt. Three other candidates
were already mounted waiting for the signal. One was a Sydney "bushman"
and was obviously nervous. The other two were bushmen from Riverina and
the Hunter River and they grinned confidently.
"Cross this flat," continued the sergeant; "leap the bog, jump the sod
wall, gallop to that marker, and return."
Some fool orderly gave my mount a crack over the back with a rope
and away we galloped. The flat was easy, though I had not ridden
bare-backed for some time. The bog offered no resistance and we leaped
the sod wall neck and neck. Then the horses wanted to bolt and they
took some stopping. Anyhow, the first half of the test was safely
through.
The Sydney bushman was looking more at ease. The others grinned
expansively. "That's dead easy," said the man from Narrandera. "Call
that a riding test?"
The return signal was given, and the quartette started off. All went
well till the water jump loomed ahead. Here half a dozen yelling
orderlies were posted to spur on the chargers to the leap. The three
bushmen cleared the obstacle with hardly a splash, but disaster was in
store for the City bushman. Right on the brink the horse stopped dead
and the hapless rider was shot with catapultic force head first into
the bog, amid roars of merriment from the assembled army. We three
countrymen "passed," were promptly marshalled with the horsemen, and
marched to the doctor's for medical examination. The City bushman was
sent to "the gravel-crushers."
In a huge marquee in Rosebery Park were a score of virile young
Australians stripped for the fray. Sun-tanned bushmen they were for
the most part, lean and wiry, with muscles rippling over their naked
shoulders. Splendid specimens--strong but not too heavy, rarely topping
thirteen stone, for all the heavier men had been sent to the infantry.
But these were ideal Light Horsemen.
"Bluegum forward."
I stood, and the sergeant ran the tape over me: Weight, 11 stone;
height, 5 feet ten; chest, 37, expanded 41; age 34; beauty spots
and identification marks, none; eyes, brown; hair, brown; religion,
Presbyterian.
Then the doctor got busy; tapping here, sounding there, finally with
a word of approval sending me over to the sight specialist. There was
a jumble of letters of various sizes set before me, and finally, with
a score of others satisfactory in wind and limb, I was sent on to the
adjutant. My name, age, occupation, next-of-kin, and other essential
details were recorded. Then we were lined up to swear allegiance.
On the flat the volunteers were still doing the riding test, with
hundreds of onlookers keenly enjoying it. Each time some luckless
aspirant for fame and glory was precipitated into the bog the crowd
roared with delight, and when he emerged, mud-bespattered and
crestfallen, the hilarity of the bushmen knew no bounds. Pointed
advice was hurled at the failures, and they were urged to join the
"gravel-crushers," which most of them did.
For a couple of hours the fun continued, and with the end of the day
another hundred rough-riders were drawn up, passed and enlisted ready
for anything and everything. One by one we went forward and took the
oath.
The sun was just setting over the western rim of dear old Sydney town
when my turn came. The clouds were all gold and rose and amethyst, and
the whole scene was as peaceful as could be. The First Light Horse
Regiment--in fine fettle, ready at a moment's notice to sail for
Europe--cantering gaily back to camp, reminded us that the nation was
in a state of war, that the empire was engaged in a life and death
struggle, and that on the issue of the great conflict depended the
fate of Australia. And we of the Sixth Regiment were to make good the
"wastage of war."
So, solemnly, I kissed the Book and swore this oath: "I, James Bluegum,
swear that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lord the King in
the Australian Imperial Force from September 1914 until the end of the
war, and a further period of four months thereafter, unless sooner
lawfully discharged, dismissed, or removed therefrom; and that I will
resist His Majesty's enemies and cause His Majesty's peace to be kept
and maintained; and that I will in all matters appertaining to my
service faithfully discharge my duty according to law. So help me God."
I was a Soldier of the King!
Once more we were lined up and marched away to the quartermaster. Each
man was given a waterproof sheet, a pair of blankets, a knife, fork,
spoon, tin plate, and pannikin. We were to form part of the Second
Light Horse Brigade, and being minus tents we were relegated to the
stables. We raided the straw store, made beds, and lay upon them.
It was not ours to go with the first lot of heroes to take part in the
Great War. Most of us had waited till the Germans got within cannon
shot of Paris. Then we "butted in." We were selected to supply the
wastage--that was all. If we could not be the first in the firing-line,
it was something to know that we would take the place of the men
who were killed or wounded--all of us, the man from Narrandera, in
Riverina, the man from Hunter River, the men from out-back everywhere,
Trooper Bluegum among them, all whistling merrily "Soldiers of the
King, my Boys!"
We of the Light Horse started with many things in our favour. We
reckoned we could ride as well as, if not better than, any body of men
in the world, for we could ride almost as soon as we could walk. Also,
we were pretty good shots. Many were Rifle Club men. All had done a bit
of shooting in the bush, for dingoes and kangaroos and wallabies are
not yet extinct in Australia. So half of our lesson was learned before
we started. The drill and the discipline only remained. We did not mind
the drill, but the discipline was irksome.
It is a recognized flaw in our military make-up, this want of
discipline. Sir Ian Hamilton, when he visited Australia in 1914, found
the colonial compulsory trainees much more amenable to discipline than
he expected. But the militia are caught young. We of the Expeditionary
Force were a little bit too old to rid ourselves readily of the habits
of the bush, and adapt ourselves to the rigid routine of military life.
But perhaps it would come in time.
It is a strange world, my masters! I have before me as I write a
copy of a Sydney newspaper, dated May 21, 1914, giving the report
and recommendations made by General Sir Ian Hamilton in Australia,
and it is headed "If War Came." And there I read of the Australian
Infantry: "I have now seen the greater portion of the Australian
Infantry, and I wish very much I could transplant 10,000 of these
young soldiers to Salisbury Plain. They would do the croakers good
and make them less frightened of other nations, who have no overseas
children getting ready to lend them a hand. The majority of the
non-commissioned officers and men are still very young, but they are
full of intelligence and grit. On at least two occasions I have seen
brigades tested severely, once by heat and heavy marching, the other
time by floods and mud. In each case the men made light of their trying
experiences, treating them as an excellent joke."
It was of the same men that the same man was to write but a few short
months afterwards: "They have created for themselves an imperishable
record of military virtue."
But it is a long, long way to ----. Day after day we performed the
tiresome evolutions of troop and squadron drill on foot, for the horses
were not yet ready. We mastered the mysteries of sections right, form
troop, form squadron column; then day after day we engaged in rifle
drill--"stand at ease," "attention," "slope arms," "present arms," till
our arms ached. Then we fixed our bayonets, and in fancy bayoneted
thousands of "kultured" Germans.
But it was not till the horses came that we really felt like Light
Horsemen.
Let the sailor tell of the roaring gale,
Or the blue waves' rippling laughter;
Let the soldier sing of the sabre swing
And the laurels of glory after;
There's a melody in the changeful sea,
A charm in the battle's thunder,
But sweeter than those the bushman knows
Is the bound of a good horse under.
It was not child's play tackling those horses. Some of the kind-hearted
station folk in the backblocks had sent down some wild warrigals of
the West; bucking brumbies that beat the band; old outlaws off the
grass that the station hands could never master. But Colonel Cox
("Fighting Charlie" we called him) had in his command some of the crack
rough-riders of Australia. And it was a joy to see these men tackle the
outlaws. There were Crouch of Wagga, McDonald of Barrington, Whiteley
of Wellington, Bullock of Melbourne, Sievewright of Gunnedah, Kennedy
of Gloucester, Rex Moffatt of Goulburn, Harry Heath of Moree, and a
score of others. Nearly every man in the regiment could sit a buck, or
puff nonchalantly at his pipe while his mount pigrooted merrily. So
when the wild horses were led forth there were hundreds volunteering
for the honour of riding the rebels. One after another the horses were
saddled up, and while the regiment cheered itself hoarse, there was
enacted again and again the old-time struggle for mastery. There were
plunging and reefing and rooting and sidling and rearing and bucking,
as the panting chargers swung this way and that in vain endeavour to
dislodge the riders. But the bush boys stuck to the saddles as the Old
Man of the Sea stuck to Sindbad the Sailor, and one after another the
bucking brumbies were broken and led away.
Then came the first mounted parade. A squadron of Scots Greys or Life
Guards might have kept better line; they might probably have wheeled
with more order and precision for each troop here had a few half-broken
colts prancing and dancing all over the shop, but--well, somebody said
that these troops would compare favourably with any body of mounted
infantry in the world. Certain it is that when, one fine day, the
officer commanding, Colonel Cox, accompanied by the Brigadier, Colonel
Ryrie, made a careful inspection of the whole regiment, every one from
the officer commanding down was satisfied. And certain it is that we
sang the Australian Light Horse war song with unusual enthusiasm--
Sound the good old bugle, boys,
Let's sing another song,
Sing it with a spirit
That will send the troops along;
Sing it as we'll sing it
When we're twenty thousand strong,
When we go marching through Germany!
Hurrah! Hurrah! We're off to Germany!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the A.L.H. are we!
We're rounding up the bushmen from the
Darling to the sea
And we'll go marching through Germany!
How the bushmen shouted
When they heard the joyful sound,
"'Fighting Charlie's' going to lead,
So pass the word around;
Australia wants another batch
Of bushmen to astound
Poor old Kaiser Bill of Germany!"
CHAPTER II
WE SAIL AWAY
CEYLON MISSED--LAND-HO--AT ADEN--BAKSHEESH--"THE TRANSPORT
TRUMPETER"--A LITERARY COINCIDENCE--ON HISTORIC GROUND--THE
PYRAMIDS--PAST AND PRESENT--AN EGYPTIAN HANDKERCHIEF--MA'ADI.
"Who's the Jonah?" That was mild.
"Curse our luck!" That was moderate.
But when Trooper Newman said, "To hell with the ship!" most of us felt
that he showed a proper appreciation of the position.
For days and days we had ploughed our way across the Indian Ocean, and,
as the long leagues in front joined their comrades behind, we felt
that we were getting farther and farther from sunny New South Wales.
But we were steering straight for Ceylon, and looking forward with
keen anticipation to a few days of the picturesque Orient. Some of
the impressionable young subalterns were singing "Cingalee, Cingalee,
I have lost my heart to a Cingalee." All of us for the last day or two
had been taking station on the forecastle-head, shading our eyes and
gazing into the misty horizon for the first glimpse of the enchanted
isle.
But alas for hopes unfulfilled! Ceylon's spicy breezes, after all,
were not to fan our fevered brows, neither were Cingalese to minister
to our need with "tea in the morning, tea in the evening, tea in the
afternoon." Early in the morning of January 12 we got word that a
special squadron of three ships was to be detached from the main fleet,
and with Colonel Ryrie in command, steam straight to Aden. So we stood
on deck and swore unrestrainedly.
However, there was still corn in Egypt, and we would be the first to
get there. Besides, there was quite a chance that there was something
doing--a Dervish expedition or an Arab raid might be on, and we would
have the laugh at the other chaps if we could have first smack at
the unspeakable Turk. So by the time the bugle sounded for the usual
inspection, we were all in high good humour again. The three liners
swung out from the convoy and, cheering a farewell, were soon steaming
westward. One after another the transports dipped down under the
horizon, and soon a few grey smudges on the rim of the ocean were all
that remained to remind us of the fleet.
We had seen no land since leaving Australia. It seemed such a long
time. So when, a couple of days later, somebody shouted "Land-ho," we
rushed to the nearest post of advantage. Far away to eastward, like a
green pimple on the blue face of the waters, was a tiny little island.
In an hour we were abreast of it--Minikoi, surely one of the islands
of the blessed; how green it looked after the everlasting blue of the
Indian Ocean; from end to end it was covered with cocoa-nut palm. A
long line of snow-white surf beat upon the sandy shore. Gleaming in the
tropical sun was the lighthouse--a silent sentinel. And in the offing
were a score of picturesque canoes, and dhows, with brown hempen sails,
managed by gaudily-dressed islanders, who seemed rather annoyed that
the transports did not stop and purchase their fruit-offerings.
Passing by the rugged Socotra, we soon sighted the mountainous southern
coast of Arabia, and by midday on January 20 we were focussing our
binoculars on the picturesque gate of the Indian Ocean, Aden. Curious
it is how Britain has secured all the great strategical points of the
world--Gibraltar, Suez, Aden, Singapore, Thursday Island, the Cape of
Good Hope, and the rest. And one has only to see Aden, with its rocky
peaks piercing the skyline, to realize how strong it is, and how futile
would be any effort to capture it. For all the defences of Aden seem to
be hewn out of solid granite.
No sooner had we got anchored in the harbour than the _Suevic_ was
surrounded by swarms of boats, in which were crowded Asiatics of all
descriptions yelling like demons in wild anxiety to sell their wares.
Then the colliers came alongside and proceeded to coal. Scores of thin,
undersized, but wiry Arabs did the work, and as they loaded the bunkers
they kept up a perpetual yelling and singing, and the weird cacophony
lasted all through the night.
Aden is a curious mixture of the Orient and the Occident. In the
streets silent Arabs stalk along with camels, and Europeans buzz
around in automobiles. One section of the port belongs to the Asiatics;
the other is all Western. Arab dhows float across the harbour and steam
tugs scurry hither and yon. One section of the town has thatched roofs;
the other is all galvanized iron. And one of the natives sang us "Songs
of Araby." They yelled harshly for baksheesh all the while. Clad in
their own coloured loin cloths, or in discarded khaki tunics from the
Force, they were a motley tatterdemalion crowd. Here East and West
met--but did not mingle.
We had had no word of news for weeks. So we eagerly searched for
the newspapers, and demanded news of the outer world. The war was
still on. The Allies were more than holding their own. Here was news
indeed!--news such as _The Transport Trumpeter_ (published aboard the
_Suevic_) had never heard of. Yet we loved that little paper of ours
on the transport--"a little thing, but our own." If it lacked news it
did not lack reporters whose imagination made up for the deficiency.
We were all reporters for _The Transport Trumpeter_. Even I. And I am
wondering to this day about a certain curious coincidence connected
with one of my painstaking efforts. I wrote on December 28, 1914, a
skit on Lissauer's "Hymn of Hate," and Arthur Adam's reply to it--"My
Friend, Remember." A month later I got the Sydney _Bulletin_, and there
I saw almost exactly the same article with the same excerpts from each
poem. They were probably written on the same day, a thousand miles or
so apart. You who delve into the mysterious, will you explain?
* * * * *
Egypt! What memories! What life here! What a quest we have set out
upon! What Alexanders are we!
I feel the blood coursing through my veins as I have never felt it
before. I live in the present, but the past stands up before me. Dead
kings and emperors pass in endless succession. Libyans and Ethiopians
pass by, Assyrians and Macedonians, Babylonians and Persians, Romans,
Arabs, Turks and Mamelukes--and French and British. Great names are
sprinkled over the pages of Egypt, from Menes, the first king, and
Rameses the Second, down to the present day. Nebuchadnezzar and
Alexander the Great, Constantine, Saladin and Napoleon, Mohammed Ali
and Kitchener have all left their mark on the Nile Delta. What history!
and here are we--soldiers of King George V, from Australia--treading
this historic ground, making new history. Nebuchadnezzar knew us not.
Constantine never dreamed--and they used to dream dreams in those
days--that from a land he knew not of would one day come armed men
marching on the wonderful city he built.
Nor did I, nor did any of us, know it--well, not yet.
I know what it means to see the blush clouds beating the night shades
back in the van of a golden morning, but there is a quality of richness
about the sunrises of Egypt that Australia lacks. Egypt has the glint
of gold, the cloud ridges of rosy red, the blaze of amethyst and
opal. So also has the Australian sky. But Australia has no pyramids.
The first beams of the sun in this land tip the cones of the age-old
pyramids, and soon these drab giants shine like molten copper. Then the
sky turns all gold, and the scene is duplicated in the placid bosom of
the ancient Nile, which skirts our camp. In the murky distance the
desert is shrouded in a misty haze which has the same blue that one
sees in the distance on the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, but once
the sun is fairly above the horizon, the brilliant transformation scene
dissolves itself into a glaring white light that lasts till sunset.
Then the morning's glory is reenacted with softer tones and a riot of
colour that I can never describe.
Then, as the Pyramids of Gizeh were due west from Ma'adi, we always saw
these giant triangles sharply silhouetted against the red horizon. They
looked like little toy tents, yet when alongside them their magnitude
staggered us.
The day was so hot that helmets were necessary. Some "went down" under
the fierce rays of the sun, but there were some with us who said it was
not hot at all. They spoke of the sun-baked Western Plains. They spoke
of Bourke. They spoke of Northern Queensland. But they wore helmets,
nevertheless.
Yet was Ma'adi, for all its heat, a joy to the senses. If we had the
everlasting desert wilderness on one side, we also had the oasis of
Ma'adi on the other. The irrigationist has caused the desert hereabout
to blossom as the rose, and Ma'adi is like an English village, with
gracious gardens and green, luscious fields and rippling canals.
I have spoken of the blue of the desert haze that is like that of
the Blue Mountains. And here and there one finds other touches of
old Australia. I went out one day to Sir Alexander Baird's beautiful
mansion near Zeitoun, and there I saw some fine old gums and wattles;
and it just felt like home.
And the people, how kind they all were! Even the shopkeepers did
all they could to make us feel at home. "Special Australian Shop,"
"Australian Soldiers' Rendezvous"--signs like these met us at every
turn. Especially grateful did we feel for the warning one Cairo
shopkeeper gave us: "Don't go elsewhere to be cheated, Australians.
Come here!" Nor shall we ever forget the laborious days and nights
which that shopkeeper who put out the sign must have spent in mastering
our language--"English and French spoken; Australian understood."
Truth to tell, the Australian soldiers were as a shower of gold to the
thirsty Cairo traders. They all loved the Australians. We scattered
money far and wide--till we had none left. We threw piastres to the
winds--thinking nothing of them, they were such little coins--till we
had none left. From morning till night we distributed largess. It was
baksheesh everywhere and all the time. Whichever way we turned we found
somebody dangling something in front of our eyes--ready to sacrifice
it for our sake. Even Trooper Newman, who previously had expressed his
best wishes to the ship, comes up to me with a gaudy handkerchief he
has just bought for ten piastres. It has King George in one corner,
Kitchener in another, French in another, Jellicoe in another, and
generals and admirals and dukes and earls all round it. "It may be the
only chance I'll get," says he, "of poking my nose into high society."
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST FIGHT
ACROSS FORTY CENTURIES--EGYPTIAN MAGIC--A SCARAB SELLER--THE ENEMY
REPULSED--THE UBIQUITOUS GERMAN SPY--SPREADING DISAFFECTION--ATTACKS
ON KANTARA, TOUSSOUM, ISMAILIA AND SERAPEUM--FIRST BRUSH WITH THE
ENEMY.
I am living Egypt, living.... Your pyramids and your mosques and your
old Nile can talk to me of things long past and gone, and I shall
listen with interest to what they have to say, but I would rather be
a living dog of an Egyptian than the dead lion of an Egyptian king--I
would rather be a moving, talking native dressed in garish clothes than
a Prince of the House of Rameses, _sans_ eyes, _sans_ ears, _sans_
tongue, in the shrivelled brown form of a mummy.
For there is something about these living ones that brings the dead to
life. Sometimes when I look into their eyes I seem to see a strange,
mysterious light in them--a light that never was on sea or land. It is
then that I think of the things these people have seen in the forty
centuries of which Napoleon spoke. I don't believe in magic, but I have
seen strange things--things that make me remember that the magicians of
Pharaoh were able to turn their rods into serpents!
There came one day a very wise Egyptian--one whom I know as a
Freemason--and he gave a valuable scarab, mounted in a gold ring, to
Major Lynch. There was no doubt that the wise man valued it, and there
is no doubt that he left an impression on Major Lynch. It is a talisman
and a protection to the owner, but it has deadly powers. Nothing
can harm the owner so long as he has it in his possession, and the
owner can shrivel up an enemy by merely pointing at him and muttering
incantations--just as the Northern Territory natives in Australia can
_will_ an enemy to die by pointing a bone at him. Major Lynch lost no
time in putting the scarab to the test. There was a very troublesome
native who used to bother him several times a day about things that
don't matter, and the day after the wise Egyptian had made his
presentation the major pointed at the native and muttered a powerful
Australian incantation. Since then the native has not been seen.
A dragoman wanted to sell me some scarabs.
"You like fine scarab?"
"No scab here," said I, "all good Unionists."
"Not scab. Scarab--good scarab."
"Oh!"
"Beautiful scarab. Very precious."
"Ah!"
"I buy them for English officer; beautiful scarab. Now he go to Suez
Canal. I sell cheap."
"Very cheap?"
"Yes, very cheap. Sell now, lose plenty money, sir."
"How much?"
"Five pounds."
"Ah! Is it really worth five _piastres_?"
"Piastres! Ach! No, no, no! Five _pounds_!"
"Five pounds a dozen!"
"No, no, no! Five pounds for one beautiful scarab."
"Ha ha!"
"Not ha! ha! It is three thousand years old! Time of Rameses II."
"Too old. Got any nice _new_ ones?"
"No, no. Not _new_. Old--very valuable--three thousand years!"
"Too old. Show me a new one."
"You no understand. Very old, very valuable, out of tombs in pyramid."
"Any more there?"
"No more--all gone."
"Oh, well I oughtn't to take them from you."
"Yes, you take. I sell you for five pounds."
"Not me."
"Yes, you. _Four_ pounds!"
"Try again."
"Three pounds ten."
"Once more."
"Two pounds ten. Finish."
"No business; _Imshi_."
Then the old man went away, muttering angrily in his beard because I
would not pay three golden sovereigns for a little stone that looked
like a petrified beetle. Even if it had been genuine--even if it _was_
three thousand years old--I would have thought it a shame for him to
take the money. But the reputation these "gyppies" have for faking
antiquities and curios made me sceptical. In the Cairo Museum are
genuine thousand-year-old relics from the tombs and pyramids, and the
natives copy them and sell the replicas as the genuine article.
When I was leaving the Museum one afternoon a dragoman shuffled up
to me in a mysterious kind of way and thrust an antiquated statuette
into my hand. "Five shillings," he whispered hoarsely. He wanted me to
think it genuine, and, I suppose, stolen. (Even honest people don't
mind being "receivers" when they can get a genuine relic of antiquity
cheap.) I examined it with the concentrated gaze of a connoisseur in
Egyptology, scratched it with my knife, and then exclaimed, "Bah,
rubbish! One piastre." And the old sinner cried, "Yes, yes," and put
his hand out eagerly for the money.
And all this time we were "training for the front." We did not know
when we were likely to leave for the front, nor what front it would be,
but already some of the Australians and New Zealanders had been in a
fight. That was before we came. Egypt had been "invaded"; there had
been a fight at El Kantara, some prisoners had been taken, and then the
invaders turned their heads north and eastward, folding their tents,
like the Arabs they are, and silently stealing away. The Great Invasion
of which Kaiser Wilhelm had dreamed for months had simply petered out.
I am no historian--I write only of the little things I care about--but
I would be no Australian if I failed to mention this invasion
which some of the Australians helped to stamp out. It was almost
inconceivable that the "thorough-going, methodical" Germans could have
started an army of 75,000 men across the desert, sent only 25,000 of
them into action, and then decamped. But that is what happened.
Although the Australians and New Zealanders saw but little of the
actual fighting, they played no unimportant part in the scheme of
things. The seeds of disloyalty and discord had been assiduously sown
by German spies and agents all over Egypt. The so-called Nationalist
party was intriguing to oust the British and facilitate the entry of
the Turks. It was confidently anticipated by the German wire-pullers
that the moment the invaders appeared on the Canal the Egyptians and
Arabs would rise _en masse_ and drive the British into the sea. Drastic
measures were taken months ahead for dealing with the English residents
in Cairo and elsewhere. Everything seemed to be going nicely for the
plotters. Obvious signs of disaffection were noticed all over Lower
Egypt. The British were so few; the German-Arab-Turkish combination was
so strong. It only wanted a favourable opportunity to fire the train.
Then the Australians arrived.
There may be a tendency on our part to exaggerate the influence of the
Australian and New Zealand troops on the Egyptian situation; but there
is not the slightest doubt that the presence of 50,000 Colonial troops
had a wonderfully steadying effect on the disaffected natives. They
suddenly became loyal again. All talk of sedition ceased. The best-laid
schemes of the German plotters went "agley."
One could not help contrasting this large force from Australia and New
Zealand--a force that was to be doubled and trebled ere long--with the
little force of 500 men which William Bede Dalley, Australian Orator
and Patriot, sent from New South Wales to the Sudan just thirty years
before. It spoke not only of the wonderful growth in population of
Britain's Dominions of the South, but it was a living proof that the
years had only served to cement the bonds of love and loyalty that
bind the grand old Mother land to her Oversea Dominions. The rising in
India, the intention of the Australians to proclaim their independence
the moment when Britain found herself in peril--where were they? Where
now was the "disintegration" of the British Empire which the German
Emperor and his War Lords had so confidently predicted?
With Cairo and the Nile safe, General Wilson was able to deal
effectively with the invaders. Towards the latter end of January,
Northern Sinai was overrun with them. From a couple of captured
Shawishes of the 75th Turkish Regiment I learned that the staff
arrangements by the German officers were excellent. Everything had been
foreseen and provided for--or nearly everything. Water was available at
each stage of the journey across the desert. Many boats and pontoons
were dragged by oxen and camels along the caravan route from Kosseima,
El Arish, and Nekl. A few six-inch guns were also transported to the
Canal. To supplement the Turkish force on its south-westerly march all
the pilgrims and Bedouins met with were pressed into service and rifles
were given to them.
It was on the morning of January 28 that the initial conflict took
place at Kantara. A reconnoitring party from Bir El Dueidar attacked
the British outposts but was repulsed, our losses being only one
officer and one soldier killed and five Gurkhas wounded. Further south,
near Suez, a nocturnal demonstration by the Turks merely served to
prove the alertness of the defenders, though unfortunately two of our
air scouts met with disaster. Their aeroplane came down outside our
lines, and on returning on foot they were both shot dead by our own
Indian patrols. The pity of it.
The main attack developed on the night of February 2-3, and a
determined effort was made to cross the Canal at several points. A
number of boats, each carried by forty men, were silently hurried to
the front. A small force attacked Kantara, but after losing twenty-one
killed, twenty-five wounded and thirty-six prisoners, they decamped.
Later on they renewed the attack from the south, with no more success,
for they lost eight men killed, whilst a number were wounded. Our
losses were four killed and twenty-four wounded.
Meantime a more vigorous assault was made at Toussoum to pierce the
line just before daybreak. An infantry attack was followed by artillery
fire, and under cover of the maxims a more determined effort was made
to cross the Canal by means of boats, rafts, and pontoons. A shrapnel
shell smashed the first boat and killed several Turks. Other boats
followed and met with a similar fate--most of their occupants were
killed or drowned. Not a single boat crossed. About twenty-five men
swam across, however. Four penetrated the lines and escaped to Cairo,
where they subsequently surrendered. The rest were captured.
Serapeum was attacked about the same time, and at dawn the battle raged
along the Canal for about two and a half miles. H.M.S. _Hardinge_
moved up and down the Canal, responding to the enemy's artillery. Two
Turkish shells landed on our warships, and ten men were wounded. For a
couple of hours the battle raged, and although the Turks outnumbered
the defenders at Toussoum by ten to one, they were repulsed all along
the line.
Further north, at Ismailia Ferry, the enemy entrenched 800 yards away,
and a battalion of Turkish infantry (entrenched overnight) opened
fire. But they did little damage. They blazed away all day, and our
casualties were only six men wounded. Then we drove them off.
So the great Germano-Turkish attack resolved itself into simultaneous
onslaughts at Kantara, Ismailia, Toussoum and Serapeum; and when all
attacks had failed the guns of the British and French cruisers and
the shore artillery harried the enemy in their retreat and added
considerably to their losses. Our casualties were only about twenty
killed and 100 wounded. The invaders lost more than 420 men killed
and over 700 prisoners. Their total casualties--killed, wounded, and
prisoners--were computed at 3,000.
Yet it was a small thing, after all--a small thing when I look back and
think of all that has happened since. But it was the first fight in
the Great War that Australians and New Zealanders had a hand in.
We of the Light Horse were not in it. We saw the Turks away on the rim
of the desert horizon; but the enemy attacked where we were not. We
never fired a shot.
CHAPTER IV
IN EGYPT STILL
LOCUSTS AND EGYPTIAN NIGHTS--THE GREAT BARRAGE--IRRIGATING THE
DELTA--THE SCOT AGAIN--EGYPTIAN ROADS--ARABIAN NIGHTS--CAIRO BY
NIGHT--A MAGIC OF COLOUR--"A SOUND OF REVELRY BY NIGHT"--THE "GRANDE
FÊTE DU 75."
Yes, we were biding our time in Cairo; and I am telling no secrets when
I say that the Australians swore terribly in Cairo. We had left our
happy homes in order to take part in the war, and here we were burning
our heels on the Egyptian sand--day after day, week after week. No
wonder many of us, as we tramped along on a route march to Helwan on
the day preceding Good Friday, said we would prefer to be spending the
day at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney.
On the right of our line of march lay the Nile with its green strip of
verdure on either side, and a dozen pyramids out westward. The day was
as hot as a furnace. The mirage seemed to shimmer on the rim of the
earth, and horsemen, camels and Bedouins a few miles away seemed to
be floating in the air. Like white wings gliding up and down the Nile
were the triangular sails of the native dhows--wonderfully picturesque,
with their tremendous spars that tower into the sky. At old Cairo there
was a veritable forest of masts. The rudders of these river boats are
huge things, and the noses are painted in gaudy colours, and are always
turned up disdainfully, as if they had been bumped against a pier.
You had heard of the Plagues of Egypt; we have seen them, and are able
to vouch for the authenticity of the Scriptures. Instead of hot cross
buns, Easter brought us a plague of locusts. The entertainment started
at about three o'clock in the afternoon and lasted till after sundown.
Millions and billions and quadrillions of locusts danced and sang for
us. The air was absolutely full of them, darkening the sun--big yellow
and brown and black things, mostly about two inches long. They sounded
like thousands of whirring wheels, and they dropped on the roofs with a
noise like rain. Where they landed they left everything bare as a bone.
All along the Nile the "gyppies" turned out and banged tin cans to
drive them off. Here was an invasion, if you like! The telegraph wires
were black with them--like long beads. Some of the beautiful Ma'adi
gardens were quite spoilt. These locusts of Egypt have absolutely no
love for the beautiful--in fact, the more beautiful a thing is the more
delight do they take in devouring it.
But even a plague of locusts does not last for ever--and Egypt does.
Egypt the wonderful! Egypt the kaleidoscopic! No, gentle reader, do
not waste your sympathies on us. It was tiresome work, marching,
training--training for the front, which for months never seemed to get
any nearer, and some of "the boys"--those of them who were "spoiling
for a fight," as the saying is--used at times to kick over the traces
and paint the town vermilion; but there are compensations in Egypt
for all who would seek them. What did it matter that we had no hot
cross buns for Easter, no hard-boiled eggs, no ling, no salmon? We had
omelettes and quail on toast, and chicken and curry and strawberries
(no cream) and oranges and custard and jelly and Turkish coffee and
Nile fish and pancakes and fritters and iced butter and beautiful jam
and marmalade--and cigars. So we managed to get "a snack," you see.
And I know that I, for one, had no desire just then to swap places with
any man in Australia.
On Easter Sunday some of us went out to see the Barrage--one of the
most wonderful works in Egypt. Mohammed Ali started it to irrigate the
Delta, but his engineers made some mistakes and the works were looked
upon as a white elephant--until Britain took charge. Wonderful the
things that Britain does! A board of eminent engineers examined the
whole scheme and decided that it would cost over £2,000,000 to complete
it. But a Scotsman came along--Sir Colin Campbell Scott-Moncrieff--and
he fixed the whole show up for £1,200,000. Right at the apex of the
Delta triangle they have laid out beautiful gardens, with lovely
flower-beds, canals and grassy lawns; and it was a treat to rest our
tired eyes on the green grass after the everlasting sand, sand, sand of
the desert.
It was night when we got back to camp. Oh, those Egyptian nights! The
winter cold has gone, and spring is in the air. The nights are fine and
fair, clear and cloudless, with the moon pure silver. The reflections
in the Nile are just wonderful. The huge date palms stand out sharply
from a star-spangled sky that somehow has a tint of green in its blue.
One thinks of the Arabian Nights. The very street scenes make one
think of them. Motors glide up and down the streets with rich Syrians,
Greeks, Egyptians, Italians, Frenchmen and Englishmen, going to the
Continental, or to Shepheard's, or to private entertainments. It is a
gorgeous splash of colour. They had no motor-cars that I remember in
those old Arabian Nights, but the magic of the thing and the colour of
it all were surely much the same. And the roads of Egypt--how beautiful
they are!--clean and smooth as a billiard table. Are there any finer
roads in the whole world than the Mena road and that to Heliopolis?
Fifty miles an hour is easy. I sometimes shudder now when I recall the
races that we used to have along those roads at night, crying "Egre!
Egre!"--Faster! Faster!
One night stands out--a gorgeous night--a carnival in honour and aid of
brave little Serbia. Kipling says that "East is east and west is west,
and never the twain shall meet"; but he surely has not seen a Venetian
carnival in Cairo, with its intermingling of the progressive Occident
and the picturesque Orient. One will always remember that. When the
tourists from the West overrun the land of the Pharaohs, as they do
once a year, a Venetian fête is held at Shepheard's--the social event
of the season. Sightseers from England, idle rich from the Continent,
plutocrats from America, tourists from the four quarters of the world,
all meet and make merry here. This year of grace witnessed a somewhat
different spectacle, it is true. It was a polyglot gathering of all
nations, to be sure, but the tourist element was wanting. In the place
of the tourists, however, was the "Army of Occupation." Hundreds of
officers, British, French, Egyptian, Australian and New Zealand, in
smart uniforms, gave striking colour to the scene, which was made
additionally picturesque by the vari-coloured silks and satins,
scarfs and veils of the ladies. The garden was a blaze of splendour.
There were the flags of the nations, there were flowers and palms and
purling fountains, mirth and music, lights and laughter, and over
all--confetti. All night the air was thick with confetti, like snow
falling off a rainbow. Revellers flew hither and thither, flinging it
everywhere. Merry maidens threw handfuls of confetti and eyesful of
bold glances at the sun-tanned colonials. There was no respite until
the ground was ankle-deep with confetti.
Tired at last of the revelry, we adjourned to the Moorish Hall, and
while the orchestra played the ravishing strains of the barcarolle we
danced the red stars to their death.
Loud explosions in the courtyard sent us rushing forth once more. And
then we saw the most wonderful pyrotechnic display in all the world.
Without warning, odd corners of the garden burst into a blaze of light.
Rockets, Roman candles, Catherine wheels, shooting stars and all the
fireworks we loved as youngsters were there in full working order,
but ever so many more and ever so much grander than at those "Queen's
Birthday" exhibitions which ourselves when young did eagerly frequent.
Shall we ever forget that final burst of coloured lights outlining the
words "Hurrah for Serbia!" Not _I_. No more than I shall ever forget
the deeds of glory of the Serbians.
And I remember another fête--the "Grande Fête du 75," held in the Cairo
International Sporting Club's grounds, in honour of the 75 millimetre
field gun of the French, and in aid of the sick and wounded soldiers
of the "Army of the East," then at the Dardanelles. There was a great
crowd present. In the viceregal stand was a distinguished gathering of
generals, consuls, ministers and diplomats. Scores of beautiful French
girls, escorted by British officers--by way of emphasizing the Entente
Cordiale, no doubt--meandered amongst the crowd selling commemorative
medals. There were military sports by day, and there was a torchlight
procession round the arena and through the streets of Cairo by night.
Then we went back to our camp in the desert to wait for the word to
"move on." But I will never forget those Egyptian nights ... and one
girl of girls. Tall and stately, like a queen she moved amongst the
revellers. The rest of the dancers were just the frame round her
picture.... We danced. Her blue eyes laughed into mine.... And the
world has never been the same world since.
CHAPTER V
HEROES OF APRIL 25
WAITING FOR THE CALL--A RIOT IN CAIRO--MAORIS ON THEIR
DIGNITY--GENERAL BIRDWOOD ARRIVES--WOUNDED AUSTRALIANS--A FRENCH
OFFICER'S TRIBUTE--THE PROBLEM OF THE DARDANELLES--SPIES EVERYWHERE--A
TRICK OF THE OLD GUARDS--LOSS OF GALLANT OFFICERS--BRAVE MEDICOS.
Some of the Australians and New Zealanders had already got the call,
but we of the Light Horse still waited--growing more and more impatient
every day. I have vivid recollections of a captain swearing. I have
still more vivid recollections of a certain private's reminiscences. It
was generally thought that he had spent some time in hell, or Booligal,
so familiarly did he speak of the infernal regions. I remember his
saying--but no, I will not repeat it.
Chiefly do I remember the riot. It seemed that something must be done
to stir the authorities up; and some of the "hot heads" got up a riot
in Cairo. They went into Cairo singing "There'll be a hot time in the
old town to-night"; and sure enough there was. It was not meant to be
quite so hot as it turned out. Things have a way of shaping themselves
sometimes. Nobody could tell afterwards exactly how it all happened;
but before the night was spent some houses had been burned down, some
shots had been fired and some men had been wounded. There were some
Australians, some New Zealanders, some Maoris and a few Territorials
in it. And it all happened so simply. Some publicans and other sinners
presumed to treat the Maoris as "niggers." This was too much for the
New Zealanders, and they began to pull some of the furniture out of a
public-house, and to make a bonfire of it in the street, the while the
Maoris danced a war dance round it.
One or two other bonfires were started. The native police rolled up and
kept the crowd back, one of the police inspectors remarking that it
would be a good thing for Cairo if a few more of the "dens" were burned
down. "I've been wishing for a fire among these rotten tenements for a
long time," he said, "and now the fire-engines are coming, and it looks
as if they'll be saved again!"
The fire-engine came clattering up the street. The soldiers raided it.
In self-defence the firemen repelled the attack with the fire-hose.
The soldiers renewed the attack and, reinforcements having arrived,
captured the hose and turned it on the firemen, completely routing
them. Then they cut the hose up--and the Maoris went on with their
"haka."
But in the end, of course, law and order had to prevail. Other engines
came upon the scene, escorted by a squadron of Territorial Dragoons.
The soldiers cooled down. The fires were put out. There's a lot more
about this battle of the Wazir, but I cannot tell it.
Not creditable, of course. Not quite the sort of thing they had been
sent there for. But human nature is human nature, and a crowd of
soldiers is a crowd of soldiers, and bad grog will make the best of
soldiers bad, especially in Cairo; and the evil that's in men must
come out of them as well as the good. Hence to call the Maoris
"niggers"--well, who can blame the New Zealanders for resenting it,
and who can blame the Australians for siding with the New Zealanders,
or the Territorials for assisting their Oversea brethren, when we have
Mr. Asquith's own word for it that "Who touches them touches us"? Not
creditable!--but human nature--British brotherhood! And high spirits,
and the chafing under the monotony of camp life in Egypt! Trooper
Bluegum, at all events, long ago forgave them. The same men were among
those who were to create for themselves and their country, in the
words of General Ian Hamilton, "An imperishable record of military
virtue." Many of them are no more. Maoris and all have given their
lives cheerfully for their Empire and the sacred cause of Right. Let us
remember their virtues and forget their faults.
There came a day when there was sudden movement in the camp. General
Birdwood had arrived--one of Kitchener's "hard riding" generals, with a
wonderful string of medals and decorations--and there were other "signs
of the zodiac" pointing to our early departure. When at last, at the
"Stadium," Colonel Ryrie announced to us of the 2nd Light Horse that
we were to make ready, you could have heard the cheering miles away.
The residents of Ma'adi, when they heard it, thought peace had been
declared!
It was the arrival of our Australian wounded back from the Dardanelles
that settled it. It was a wrench to leave our horses behind--the dear
old horses that we petted and loved, the horses that were a very part
of us--but it had to be done. When we saw our fellows coming back
with their wounds upon them--when we heard of what they had been
through--when we listened to their story of that wonderful landing on
Gallipoli on April 25, and of the wild charge they made up the frowning
hill--all of us, to a man, begged to be sent to the front as infantry!
We were Light Horsemen, and we hadn't been trained as infantry, but it
didn't matter--we were soldiers of the King!
I saw the Red Crescent train as it steamed in loaded with the wounded,
and I went to the base hospital to see and chat with the men who knew
now what war was--the men who had clamoured so impatiently for so many
weeks to be sent where "the fighting" was, and then came back again to
be nursed in an Egyptian hospital! Yet they were happy. They had "done
their bit." They smoked cigarettes and yarned about their experiences.
I watched the slightly wounded ones marching from the train to the
hospital--an unforgettable sight. Most of them were shot about the arms
or scalp. Their uniforms had dried blood all over them, and were torn
about where the field doctors had ripped off sleeves or other parts to
get at the wounds. As they marched irregularly along, one young fellow
with his arm in a sling and a flesh wound in the leg limped behind and
shouted out: "Hey, you chaps, don't make it a welter!"
Our men were just splendid in the fight. An Imperial officer who
has been all over France and Flanders said that Colonel Maclagan's
Australian Brigade was the finest brigade of infantry in the whole of
the Allied armies. That was praise indeed. And I remember another fine
tribute that was paid to them. "No troops in the whole world could
possibly have done better than those magnificent Australian infantry.
They performed the impossible. In the face of exploding mines and
withering fire from machine guns, shrapnel and rifles, they stormed
the hills and, with bloody bayonets, routed the Turks and Germans."
That was a tribute the more valuable because it was not an Australian
who spoke, neither was it an Englishman, but a Frenchman. It was
the remark of a French naval officer who watched the landing of the
Australian Division on Gallipoli. And when the whole tale was told the
world saw how rightly our boys deserved all that was said of them.
What a terribly expensive business it was all to be! How many brave
Australians and New Zealanders--yes, and Englishmen, Frenchmen and
Indians--were yet to be sacrificed! It is well that the Great Ruler
over all, Who holds us in the hollow of His hands, does not permit poor
mortals to see into the future. The "forcing of the Dardanelles"--the
words were on the lips of all of us and were printed in newspapers all
over the world--it seemed only a matter of a little while, and then----
Great is the British Navy, magnificent are its officers and men, but
hellish was the work of "forcing the Dardanelles." You remember how
the _Goliath_ and the _Irresistible_ went down. You remember how a
great French ship--the _Bouvet_--was sunk. You remember the mines that
came down the waters, and the shore torpedoes, and the strength of
the Turkish forts, the power of the Turkish guns, erected and manned
by German officers. The Navy could not force the Dardanelles alone!
It was necessary to have the co-operation of land forces. Perhaps the
operations should never have been begun until the Army was ready to
co-operate. I do not know; it is not for me to judge.
General Sir Ian Hamilton first visited the Dardanelles and carried
out a reconnaissance on one of the warships and then came to Egypt--a
lightning visit--and our forces began to move. Australia, for the first
time, was right up against the Hun! South Africa was a picnic to it.
There were spies everywhere. There were spies in the transports, spies
amongst the interpreters, spies in the supply depots. The Turks, or
rather their German officers, were kept informed of every move the
Allies made. They knew exactly the hour of disembarkation and the
places of landing. They learned all the Australian bugle calls and used
them with telling effect. The French landed and formed up as if on
parade, and then, with beautiful precision, marched on and drove the
enemy before them. The British, despite the fusillade which greeted
them on landing, were steady as veterans and there was no hope of
withstanding their landing.
But there was an electric quality about the charge of the Australians
that inspired panic in the Turkish trenches. Fiercely angry at the loss
of several of their officers, they charged with fixed bayonets, not
waiting for supports.
One charge was led by a doctor; another by a priest. Several times
they charged so fiercely that they looked like getting out of hand.
Scorning cover, they also scorned rifle fire. They scaled the
steel-lined heights like demons. It was the bayonet all the time.
One huge farmer actually bayoneted a Turk through the chest and
pitchforked him over his shoulder. The man who performed this feat was
a huge Queenslander--Sergeant Burne, of the 9th Battalion, who was
afterwards wounded and returned to his Australian home--a man whose
modesty is as great as his size. We smiled at first when we heard the
story, and people in England and Australia read of it with amazement.
But Sergeant Burne, standing over six feet high, and massively
proportioned, looks quite capable of the feat. He himself tells the
story in these words: "It is not a case for me to take any credit at
all," he said. "I was in the platoon that landed first on the right.
Our lieutenant was the first man to get ashore--and as game a man as
ever faced fire. I followed him. I was ordered to take in hand a line
of Turkish sharpshooters who were causing a lot of trouble. There was
also a machine-gun on the hill. Somebody had to stop it. Myself and
two lads went up, and we stopped it. That's all. There were ten Turks
there. We got the Turks and we got the machine-gun, but I lost my two
lads. They were only boys, but let me tell you the Australians are the
best fighters in the world. One of the lads 'fixed' the German officer
who was working the machine-gun. The Turks were higher up than we were,
and I suppose that is how I was able to throw one of them over my
shoulder. It's an old trick that is taught in the Guards."
Sergeant Burne once served in the Irish Guards, and he carries a scar
on his forehead, the result of a blow from the butt-end of a rifle
at Rhenosterkop, during the South African war. He had been living in
Australia for about six years when the Great War broke out, and he was
one of the first to answer the Empire's call. His stay on Gallipoli was
short, for on the same day as that on which he performed the feat of
which I have written he received a bullet in the shoulder.
"It was a very short experience," he said, "but I'll be back there
again."
And that was, and is, the spirit of them all.
It is sad to think that so many senior officers lost their lives right
at the outset of the fighting in the Dardanelles. Australia could ill
afford to lose men like Colonel Onslow Thompson, Colonel MacLaurin,
Major F. D. Irvine and Colonel Braund. Colonel MacLaurin was in the act
of warning soldiers to be certain to keep behind cover when he was shot
in the head. He was hurriedly conveyed to the rear, but only lingered
half an hour. Curiously enough, he had a presentiment that he would be
killed, and mentioned it to one of our Light Horse officers just before
leaving for the Dardanelles.
[Illustration: 1. Col. McCay, Brigadier 2nd Australian Infantry
Brigade. Wounded.
2. Lt.-Col. C. F. Cox, C.B., Commanding 6th Light Horse Regt.
3. Lt.-Col. Hubert Harris, 5th Light Horse Regt. Killed.
4. Col. M. Laurin, Brigadier 1st Australian Infantry Brigade. Killed.
5. Lt.-Col. Braund, V.D., O.C., 2nd Batt. 1st Infantry Brigade. Killed.
6. Lt.-Col. Onslow-Thompson. Killed.]
It was a wicked trick that resulted in the slaughter of so many
gallant men of the 1st (N.S.W.) Battalion. They had been holding the
line splendidly, despite shrapnel and maxim fire and rifles, and had
repulsed several attacks by the enemy. Then a message was passed down
the line for the battalion to attack and capture the guns in front. Not
doubting the genuineness of the order, the battalion charged, only to
be met with a withering fire, which immediately told them that a trap
had been set.
Their leader, Colonel Onslow Thompson, was killed instantaneously by
a cannon shot which struck him in the head. He was one of the first
to volunteer in Sydney when war broke out. Colonel Arnott knew that
Colonel Onslow Thompson was a splendid Light Horse officer, and begged
of him to wait for a mounted regiment. "No," he replied, "I'm going,
and I'll take the first chance that offers."
The casualties among the officers were tremendous--brave men who led
Australia's soldiers in that awful charge! And among the bravest
of them were the young officers from the Duntroon Military College
that stands amid delightful country surroundings near the capital of
Federated Australia that is now in the making in the Mother State of
New South Wales. These young fellows fought in a way that showed their
native courage and the excellence of their training. Only the year
before, when Sir Ian Hamilton, as Inspector-General of the Oversea
Forces, visited Australia and inspected these lads who were training
for the army at Duntroon, as the representative of the _Sydney Morning
Herald_ I remember seeing them laugh and cheer when Sir Ian Hamilton,
on leaving Duntroon, jokingly wished them "plenty of wars and rapid
promotion." And it seems only a few days since we were dancing and
flirting in a Cairo ballroom. Now many of them lie sorely wounded at
the base hospital, and several will never again hear the réveillé. But
the College will not forget its firstfruits offered up so gladly for
empire. Officers and men, it was all the same--they went to their death
with a cheer for King and Country. I heard an Imperial officer, newly
returned from Flanders, say that the 3rd Australian Infantry Brigade
was the finest brigade of infantry in the whole of the allied armies.
In physique they were far superior to any of the British, French, or
Belgian troops. Whether this be true or not, there is no doubt that
the sturdy Thirds under Colonel Maclagan fought like Trojans on the
Gallipoli Peninsula, and covered themselves with glory. Incidentally,
I might mention, some of them never fired a shot during the fierce
fighting of April 25. They simply trusted to the cold steel, and
flung themselves at the Turkish trenches. The 1st Brigade (Colonel
MacLaurin), the 2nd (Colonel McCay), and the rest of the Australians
and New Zealanders fought with equal valour, but the brunt of the
attack was borne by the Thirds. So many hundred gallant lives was a
heavy price to pay for a footing in Gallipoli, but those impetuous
charges, absolutely irresistible in their fury, would, we knew, bear
rich fruit, for the Turks could never again withstand a bayonet charge
by the Australians.
It was noteworthy that only a few thousand prisoners were taken. I
asked one of the 1st Battalion boys (Lieutenant-Colonel Dobbin's
command) why that was. He replied: "How could 12,000 of us take
prisoners when we were up against 35,000?"
And through it all our Army Medical Corps did yeoman service. Several
stretcher-bearers were shot, for they dashed forward too soon to
succour the wounded. The doctors were right up in the firing-line
all the while. Colonel Ryan and some other doctors were attending to
serious cases on the beach, where the landing was effected, and snipers
shot two orderlies who were assisting, one on each side of the colonel.
I doubt if there was a single branch of the service that did not suffer
and share in the glory of that charge.
General Bridges handled his gallant Australians with consummate skill.
He seemed to anticipate the Turkish attacks. His dispositions for
defence were brilliant. Then General Godley and his New Zealanders
landed and threw themselves into the fray. General Birdwood came and
took charge of the Australian, New Zealand Army Corps ... A.N.Z.A.C.!
From that fateful day, April 25, Anzac has been a name to conjure with.
CHAPTER VI
LIGHT-HEARTED AUSTRALIANS
THE TURK GERMANIZED--ATTACKS AND COUNTER-ATTACKS--SNIPERS ABOUT--"BIG
LIZZIE" AT WORK--SOLDIERS' HOME LETTERS--TIRED OF WAITING--OFF AT LAST.
"Bah!" he exclaimed as he lit his cigarette. "The Turks can't shoot for
nuts! But the German machine-guns are the devil, and the shrapnel is no
picnic!"
His arm was in a sling, and his leg was bandaged from hip to ankle.
But he was cheerful as could be, as proud as Punch, and as chirpy as
a gamecock. For he was one of the band of Australian heroes, wounded
and back from the front. And we who listened to the deathless story of
the wild charge they made could not help wishing we had shared in the
glories of that fight.
"It's the Germans we're up against," he went on. "You see they have
taught the Turks all sorts of nasty tricks. One of the tricks is to
surrender just at the last minute. One Turk in a trench shot my pal on
my right and a chap on my left; then when we got right into the trench
he suddenly dropped his rifle and put up his hands. I reckoned that
wasn't fair, so I jammed my bayonet into him. Time and again the Turks
would shoot till we were right on top of them, and then drop guns and
surrender. Call that fair fighting?"
Another chap with his tunic all clotted with blood and his head in a
bandage here interpolated: "Say, you needn't fear the Turks' shooting.
It's safer to be in the firing-line than in the reserves. But look
out for those machine-guns; they spit death at you at the rate of ten
a second. Also, keep your eyes open for the snipers. We drove them
back for miles behind Sari Bair, but there were snipers everywhere.
They never minded being killed so long as they could pick off a few
officers. One black devil shot our captain at only fifty yards. Five of
us got to him, and gave him just what Brutus, Cassius, Casca and the
rest gave Julius Cæsar."
"We fought them for three days after landing," said a big bushman in
the 2nd Brigade, "and they made about a dozen counter-attacks. But
when we had a chance of sitting down and letting them charge us it
was dead easy--just like money from home. They never got near enough
to sample the bayonets again. But on the 27th they tried to get all
over us. They let the artillery work overtime, and we suffered a
bit from the shrapnel. The noise was deafening. Suddenly it ceased,
and a new Turkish division was launched at us. This was just before
breakfast. There is no doubt about the bravery of the Turks. But we
were comfortably entrenched, and it was their turn to advance in the
open. We pumped lead into them till our rifles were too hot to hold.
Time and again they came on, and each time we sent them about their
business. At three o'clock we got tired of slaughtering them that way,
so we left our little home in the trench and went after them again with
the bayonet."
"Say, what do you think of 'Big Lizzie'?" asked another
blood-bespattered Cornstalk. "Ain't she the dizzy limit?"
Is it necessary to explain that this was the affectionate way our
fellows alluded to the super-Dreadnought _Queen Elizabeth_? The
soldier continued: "All the while our transports were landing, 'Big
Lizzie' just glided up and down like an old hen watching her chickens.
Every now and then the Turkish destroyers from Nagara tried to cut in
and smash up the transports. But the moment 'Lizzie' got a move on they
skedaddled. One ship was just a bit slow. Didn't know that 'Big Liz'
could hit ten miles off. Shell landed fair amidships, and it was good
night, nurse."
One of the 9th Battalion (Queenslanders, under Colonel Lee) chipped
in here: "Ever tried wading through barbed wire and water with maxims
zipping all round you?"
This pertinent question explained the severe losses of the 3rd Brigade.
The landing was effected simultaneously at several points on the
peninsula, but one spot was a hornet's nest and they started to sting
when the Australians reached the beach. A couple of boats were upset
and several sailors and soldiers killed. Others dashing into the
shallow water were caught in the barbed wire.
"My legs are tattooed prettier than a picture," added the
Queenslander, "and I've a bit of shrapnel shell here for a keepsake,
somewhere under my shoulder."
"Fancy ten thousand miles and eight months' training all for nix," said
a disgusted corporal. "Landed at 4 a.m. Shot at three seconds past
four. Back on the boat at 5 a.m."
And so on.
To have gone through all they had gone through, and then to treat it
all so lightly, seemed an extraordinary thing. All the doctors and
nurses commented on the amazing fortitude and cheerfulness of the
Australian wounded. I used to think the desire to be in the thick of
things, that I had so often heard expressed, was make-believe, but
I know better now. I used to say myself that I "wanted to be there"
(and _sotto voce_ I used to add "I don't think"); and now, in my
heart-searchings, I began to wonder if I didn't really mean it, after
all. I used to strike an attitude and quote, "One crowded hour of
glorious life is worth an age without a name," whilst all the time I
felt in my heart that I would prefer a crowded age of glorious life to
an hour of fame. Now I began to wonder whether in my heart's core,
in my very heart of hearts, I did not agree with the poet. The proper
study of mankind is Oneself. And what was I doing there, anyway?
Yes, it was extraordinary--not a doubt of it. Doctors and nurses said
they never saw anything like it in the world. Those soldiers back from
the Dardanelles, many of them sorely wounded, were laughing and joking
all day, chatting cheerfully about their terrible experiences, and
itching to get back again and "do for the dirty Turks"!
"Nurse," said one of them, with a shattered leg, as he raised himself
with difficulty, "will you write a little note for me?"
She came over and sat at the side of the bed, paper and pencil in hand.
"'My dear mother and father, I hope this letter finds you as well as it
leaves me at present.'... How's that for a beginning, nurse?" he said
with a smile.
I heard of another man who sent a letter from the Dardanelles. It ran:
"Dear Aunt, this war is a fair cow. Your affectionate nephew." Just
that, and nothing more. The Censor, I have no doubt, would think it a
pity to cut anything out of it.
I heard of another, and at the risk of an intrusion into the private
affairs of any of our soldiers, I make bold to give it. It was just
this: "My darling Helen, I would rather be spending the evening with
you than with two dead Turks in this trench. Still it might be worse, I
suppose."
Those cheerful Australians!
Can you wonder that the Light Horse wanted to get a move on and make a
start for the front? Can you wonder that when we heard of the terrible
list of casualties which were the price of victory, and when we saw
our men coming back, many of them old friends, with their battle-scars
upon them, we fretted and fumed impatiently? We had a church parade,
and the chaplain, Captain Keith Miller, preached from the text, "Let us
run with patience the race that is set before us," and it only made us
angry. There was only one text that appealed to us, and that was "How
long, O Lord, how long?"
We could stand it no longer. Our boys needed reinforcements, and that
was all we cared about. They must have reinforcements. It would be
some days before men could arrive from England and France. Sir Ian
Hamilton wanted men to push home the attack and ensure the victory. We
knew that no cavalry could go for a couple of weeks, and our fellows
were just "spoiling for a fight." They were sick and tired of the
endless waiting, with wild rumours of moving every second day. Men from
all the troops and squadrons went to their officers and volunteered
to go as infantry, if only they could go at once. B Squadron, 6th
Regiment, volunteered _en masse_.
Colonel Ryrie, accurately gauging the temper of the men, summoned the
regimental commanders, Lieutenant-Colonel Cox, Lieutenant-Colonel
Harris and Lieutenant-Colonel Arnott. What happened at this little
Council of War we don't know. But we guess. Word was sent on to the
general that the whole brigade would leave for the front within an
hour, on foot if necessary.
A similar offer had just been made by the 1st Light Horse Brigade
(Colonel Chauvel) and the 1st Brigade of New Zealand Mounted Rifles.
What it cost these gallant horsemen to volunteer and leave their horses
behind only horsemen can guess. Colonel Ryrie's brigade was said to
be the best-horsed brigade in Egypt. Scores of men had brought their
own horses. After eight months of soldiering we were deeply attached to
our chargers. Fighting on foot was not our forte. We were far more at
home in the saddle. But Colonel Ryrie expressed the dominant thought of
the men when he said: "My brigade are mostly bushmen, and they never
expected to go gravel-crushing, but if necessary the whole brigade will
start to-morrow on foot, even if we have to tramp the whole way from
Constantinople to Berlin."
There was cheering all along the line when the news filtered through.
Men who had of late been swearing at the heat and dust and the flies
and the desert suddenly became jovial again. At dinner they passed the
joke along, sang songs, and cheered everybody, from Kitchener to Andy
Fisher, and the brigadier down to the cooks and the trumpeters.
So we are off at last, after weary months of waiting--on foot.
Blistered heels and trenches ahead; but it's better than sticking here
in the desert doing nothing.
CHAPTER VII
AT THE DARDANELLES
ON THE MOVE--SEND-OFF FROM MA'ADI--THE BLUE MEDITERRANEAN--OFFICERS
AND MEN OF THE A.L.H.--A COLLISION--AN AIR RECONNAISSANCE--OUR COLONEL
ADDRESSES HIS MEN
As I sit and gaze over the limpid waters of Aboukir Bay I think of
the old-time rivalry of France and Britain, and the struggle for the
possession of Egypt.
In 'ninety-eight we chased the foe
Right into Bouky Bay!
These are the opening lines of the old sea ditty which describes
how Nelson won the Battle of the Nile. Right here it was that the
_Orient_--flagship of the French admiral--was blown up.
And now, a hundred years after, we see French and British warships
again off Alexandria. But this time the Union Jack and the Tricolour
are intertwined, and in the streets of Alexandria French and British
soldiers and sailors walk arm in arm, while the ancient city is gay
with flags and bunting. For big things are brewing in the Levant.
Before the eyes of the citizens during the past week was a unique
international naval and military pageant--Zouaves, with their blue
jackets and red trousers, French infantry in their blue-grey uniform,
cavalry with gay tunics, British Jack Tars in blue and white,
Australians in sombre khaki, swarthy-skinned Maoris from the Wonderland
of the Southern Seas, and dusky warriors from the Punjab. British
troops--and especially those young giants from Australia--had the
better of the Frenchman in the matter of physique; but there was clear
evidence of "grit" in the intelligent, humorous faces of the French,
which helped one to understand why, for instance, they are said to be
the finest marchers in Europe, and why the Germans never got to Paris!
At last the Australian Division is on the move. After weary weeks of
waiting the order has come. There were wild cheers at Mena when the
news buzzed round; lusty cheering at Zeitoun when the New Zealanders
heard it; more wild cheering at Heliopolis and Abassia as the message
flashed further afield. Out at Mena camp there was great excitement as
battalion after battalion marched away, encouraged by the cheers of
their comrades behind. Trams brimming over with jubilant human freight
moved off from Mena House, and glided along the well-known road to
Cairo, where trains were waiting to convey the men to Alexandria. At
Alexandria the transports were waiting to take us to the Dardanelles.
Turkey, forgetting the traditional friendship of Great Britain, had
allowed Germany to bluff her into invading Egypt. Now, in return,
Britain was knocking at the front door--the impregnable front door of
Constantinople.
We had a final concert in the cinema tent, and it was a huge success.
The good folk of Ma'adi rolled up in full force. Charles Knowles, the
famous baritone, came out and sang "The Trumpeter" and "My old Shako"
and "The Old Brigade" and "Land of Hope and Glory," and we all joined
in the choruses. The brigadier made a farewell speech, and thanked the
residents for all their kindness to the men of the 2nd Brigade. He
said we were sorry to part with such good friends, but were glad at
last to have a chance of striking a blow for freedom and justice and
the grand old flag of the Empire. Of course, we cheered all the time,
and we laughed when genial Mr. Hopkins, President of the Citizen's
Committee, farewelled us with the words, "God bless you" and "God help
the Turks if you get at them with the bayonet."
We marched away at last. British folk at Ma'adi and Cairo were
enthusiastic, and gave us a great farewell. Some of the "gyppies"
and Arabs along the roadway were sullenly passive and apathetic. At
the main station, Cairo, crowds of soldiers assembled to cheer the
horseless horsemen. "We went to South Africa as infantry, and they
mounted us," said a philosophic Riverina grazier. "Now, we come to
North Africa as Light Horsemen, and they bundle us off as infantry."
We profited by the experience of the infantry. Our officers dressed
exactly like the men. They carried rifles and wore bandoliers. All
their pretty uniforms that they "swanked" in at the continental dances
and dinners went by the board, and they roughed it in service jackets
and hobnailed boots.
Seen from aloft, the 2nd Light Horse embarking resembled nothing
so much as a swarm of khaki ants covering the quays at Alexandria.
They scurried hither and thither, and to the onlooker it seemed all
confusion worse confounded by the arrival of additional trains from
Cairo.
But the confusion was more apparent than real. One noticed soon that
all the soldiers going to the transports were loaded with arms and
ammunition and stores. Those coming from the ships were empty-handed.
And soon the trains rattled off, the wharves were cleared and all the
troops were aboard. But there were no fond farewells this time. All the
folk who were near and dear to us were far, far away. A coffee stall
on the quay "manned" by the Y.W.C.A. worked overtime from four o'clock
in the morning, and our fellows were very grateful to the ladies of
Alexandria who did us this kindness. They wished us "Good luck," and
we glided out. There were no cheers or sirens to hearten us. That
was all past. We were starting off in grim earnest this time. A few
embarkation officers and transport officials on the wharf called out
"Good luck, boys"; and that was all.
Half an hour later we were out on the Mediterranean--the blue
Mediterranean--and we thought of all the fleets that in the centuries
gone by had sailed these waters--Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians,
Spaniards, Turks, French and British. Our ship was numbered A25--the
_Lutzow_, one of the many German liners that had fallen to the mighty
British Navy. And on board were crowded 2,000 men. No horses! Our
gallant steeds had all been left behind at Ma'adi, ready to follow the
moment we drove the Turks from the hills and reached "cavalry country."
Our boys had had the chance of coming without horses or stopping
behind; they never hesitated for a moment.
"Submarine," whispered some one the first day out. And all eyes
searched the waters round us. But no submarine had been seen. We had
simply been warned that there was a Turkish submarine somewhere outside
the Dardanelles. So the brigadier, Colonel Ryrie, took steps to give
it a warm reception in case it poked its nose--its periscope--above the
surface of the sea.
The whole brigade was remarkably happy. Despite the fact that within
a couple of days these men would be fighting for their lives, despite
the fact that their comrades of the Australian Infantry had just
suffered 4,000 casualties in four days, they went as cheerily forward
as their relations in Sydney went to the Easter Show. And that reminds
me that right here near the Dardanelles I came across a copy of the
Easter number of the _Sydney Mail_. What a joy it was to escape the war
pictures for a brief while and see, instead, the photographs of prize
pumpkins, of milking shorthorns, and the great stock parade, and the
high jump, and all the other attractions of one of the greatest shows
on earth! It was just like a message of good cheer from sunny New South
Wales.
We had left Alexandria under sealed orders. We had to meet a certain
warship in a certain place and get certain instructions. We travelled
at night with all lights out, and threaded our way with care through
the Archipelago. Passing Rhodes and Crete and Tenedos, we reached the
scene of what has been described as the most picturesque phase of the
Great World War--the attack on the Dardanelles.
There had been many changes in the brigade, since the men first went
into camp at Rosebery Park, Sydney, nine months before. Nearly a
thousand men passed through Colonel Cox's regiment before it finally
started out to smash the Turk and thrash the Hun. There had been
changes also amongst the officers, and as the exact list has never
been published and many of these officers were soon to lay down their
lives in the service of their country, let me give their names here--a
permanent record which will be cherished by those officers and men who
remain and by the families of all the brave dead.
Headquarters Staff: Brigadier, Colonel Granville Ryrie; Brigade Major,
Major T. J. Lynch; Staff Captain, Captain R. V. Pollok; Orderly
Officer, Lieutenant Oliver Hogue; Field Cashier, Lieutenant B. E.
Alderson.
5th Light Horse Regiment (Queensland): Lieutenant-Colonel Hubert
Harris, V.D., Major L. C. Wilson, Major H. H. Johnson, Major S.
Midgley, D.S.O., Captain P. D. Robinson, Captain Donald Cameron,
Captain J. C. Ridley, Captain G. P. Donovan, Captain J. E. Dods
(Medical Officer), Chaplain Captain Michael Bergin, Lieutenants Pike,
Nimmo, Chatham, Wright, Hanley, Fargher, Rutherford, McNeill, Irving,
Bolingbroke, McLaughlin, Lyons and Brundrit.
6th Light Horse Regiment (New South Wales): Lieutenant-Colonel C. F.
Cox, C.B., V.D., Major C. D. Fuller, Major W. T. Charley, Major F. D.
Oatley, Major J. F. White, Captain G. C. Somerville, Captain (Medical)
A. Verge, Chaplain Captain Robertson, Captain H. A. D. White, Captain
M. F. Bruxner, Lieutenants Richardson, Ferguson, Anderson, Huxtable,
Cross, Roy Hordern, H. Ryrie, Robson, Cork and Garnock.
7th Light Horse Regiment (New South Wales): Lieutenant-Colonel J. M.
Arnott, Major G. M. Onslow, Major E. Windeyer, Major T. L. Rutledge,
Major H. B. Suttor, Captain (Medical) T. C. C. Evans, Chaplain Captain
J. Keith Miller, Captain J. D. Richardson, Lieutenants Board, Elliott,
Fulton, Bice, Higgins, Hession, Gilchrist, Stevenson, Maddrell, Bird,
Barton and Lake.
Brigade Train: Lieutenant R. G. Bosanquet and Lieutenant G. D. Smith.
Field Ambulance: Lieutenant Colonel Bean, Major D. G. Croll, Captains
Fraser, McDonnel, Pitcher and Buchanan.
Signal Troop: Captain R. A. Stanley.
[Illustration: Officers of the 6th Australian Light Horse Regiment, 2nd
Light Horse Brigade.
Left to right.--Standing at back: Lieut. R. N. Richardson, Lieut. J. M.
Chisholm, Lieut. D. Drummond, Capt. L. McLaglan, Lieut. G. Ferguson,
Lieut. R. Hordern, Lieut. H. S. Ryrie.
Sitting: Capt. H. O'Brien, Capt. M. F. Bruxner, Major F. J. White,
Major C. D. Fuller, Lt.-Col. C. F. Cox, C.B., V.D., Lieut. M. D.
Russell, Capt. A. Verge, R.M.O., Capt. H. A. D. White.
In front: Lieut. N. M. Pearce and Lieut. W. M. Anderson.]
The exact strength of the brigade as it entered Turkish waters was
76 officers and 1,455 other ranks. Back at Ma'adi we had left about
twenty-five per cent of our men and all our horses. Major Righetti, of
the 5th Light Horse Regiment, had been appointed Camp Commandant, and
we were hoping that in a couple of weeks at the latest he and his merry
men would join us and then, once more mounted, we would canter gaily
along the Gallipoli road to Constantinople. We were mostly young and
optimistic! We were soon to find what a long, long road it was.
It seemed as if they had made special arrangements for a fine big
bombardment just to let the Light Horse see how it was done. As the 2nd
Light Horse Brigade arrived off Gallipoli we were eyewitnesses of a
spectacular bombardment that thrilled us. It was about seven o'clock on
the evening of May 18 that our transport glided in between Tenedos and
Imbros and anchored off Helles. Long before we anchored we could hear
the rumbling of heavy artillery, and we knew that the fleet was busy.
Soon we saw the intermittent flashes of the guns, and then there loomed
up out of the dusk the spectre-like shapes of the allied warships. A
long, impregnable-looking line they made, stretching from Kum Kale
north and west, and north again, till they were lost to sight in the
murky pall which was fast settling down on the Ægean Sea.
All night long the firing continued, but we slept just as soundly as
we had done out on the desert at Ma'adi. By sunrise the troopers were
astir, crowding the rigging and watching with intense interest the
panorama spread before them. As the sun peeped over the hills we could
see the tents of the field hospital whitening in the growing light. All
around us were warships and transports and colliers and supply ships of
all descriptions. Here and there were the low grey hulls of destroyers
streaking across the waters. From our warships came a desultory fire on
the Turkish trenches.
So intent were we as we watched the camp of the Allies that we never
noticed that our own vessel had dragged its anchor and was fast bearing
down on a French transport a few cable-lengths off. The ships came
together with a crunch that startled us. We thought for the moment that
we had either been torpedoed or rammed. Then the nose of the Frenchman
crunched along our port side, smashing stanchions and gangways,
twisting sheet iron into fantastic shapes and breaking horse-boxes into
matchwood. The active troopers all sprang free of the danger--all but
one, who was so intent on adjusting his puttees that he never noticed
what was happening. First thing he knew was when an anchor fluke caught
him bending and drove him with the force of a battering ram headlong
amongst the pans and dixies. His angry "Imshi yaller" was drowned in
the roar of laughter from his comrades.
Just before breakfast an airman went up--up with the lark. He flew
up the Dardanelles towards the Narrows, cut across Maidos to the
Australian Division, doubled back, then swung round over our heads and
turned in and landed. A valuable reconnaissance was made, the report
was sent to headquarters, and then the airman strolled into breakfast.
This man and his aeroplane were a target for Turkish shells and German
gunners all the time. Shell after shell burst around him, but he took
not the slightest notice--he said afterwards, with a laugh, that
they were quite "beneath his notice." At one time we counted eight
shell-bursts round about the aeroplane. It seemed to us who watched him
that the aviator must have borne a charmed life.
Every time I see an air pilot I feel like saluting him. Colonel Ryrie
said that morning, when he saw the spot on which our infantry had
landed: "After that, I'll take off my hat to the Australian soldier
every time." And that's how I feel about those gallant airmen.
The enemy's gunners were good; there was no doubt of that, even though
they failed to "wing" the aeroplane. They next turned their attention
and their fire on the British trenches. For a while the shells flew
wide. Some fell into the sea; others burst high. Then they got the
range, and kept it. To what extent our comrades suffered, or how well
they were dug in, we could not see. But the warships soon got to work
and silenced the enemy's guns. Then we went in to breakfast.
Just before we disembarked Colonel Ryrie addressed the assembled
soldiers. He said his only fear was that they would be too impetuous.
Their comrades who had gone before had made history. Their courage
and dash and their invincible charge on a well-nigh impregnable
position would be a theme for historians throughout the ages. Their
only fault was--they were too brave. They were ordered to take one
strongly-fortified line of trenches and they actually took three.
Concluding, the brigadier said: "If I get back to Australia and some of
you fellows don't, I know I shall be able to tell your people that you
fought and died like heroes. If you get back and I don't, I hope you
will be able to tell my countrymen that Colonel Ryrie played the game."
CHAPTER VIII
ANZAC
FIRST WEEK OF TRENCH WORK--OUR NEAR NEIGHBOURS--SNIPING--BOMBS AND
AEROPLANES--SIR IAN HAMILTON'S SPECIAL FORCE ORDER--THE "PENINSULA
PRESS"--TO BURY THE DEAD TURKS--VENIZELOS--"WHERE STANDS GREECE?"--THE
"LUSITANIA" CRIME--SWIMMING IN THE ÆGEAN--THE ROAR OF ARTILLERY--DEATH
OF COLONEL BRAUND, M.L.A.
We've had our first week in the trenches. The Turks have killed some of
us, and we have killed some of them. They certainly fared the worst;
and we agree with the chaplains that it is more blessed to give than to
receive.
In some places our trenches are only seven yards from the Turks; in
others they are 700. All day and night the sniping continues. Hand
grenades and bombs are thrown to and fro. Aeroplanes circle aloft
and drop bombs on the opposing trenches. When our aeroplane goes up
the boys yell out: "Lay an egg on the Turkeys!" When the Taube drops
bombs we "duck" to shelter. Most of our spare time we spend in dodging
shrapnel. It's fine fun, but no one can guess where the splinters will
fly to. We've all had the sorrow of seeing old comrades struck down at
our sides, and yet we carry on cheerfully.
On Empire Day--five days after we landed--the Turks asked for an
armistice to bury their dead. It took eight hours. In front of our
trenches were 3,500 dead. We reckon that in the attack on our position
on May 18-19 the enemy had at least 10,000 casualties. The Australians
lost about 500. Time and again the Turks charged in solid phalanx, but
withered away before the deadly fire of our riflemen. Whenever they did
effect a breach they were speedily ejected by dashing bayonet attacks
by the Australians and New Zealanders.
To-day--May 28--we are all in the highest spirits, for we have received
a special "Force Order" from General Sir Ian Hamilton, and it shows
that we have not been idle. Here is the order:--
"FORCE ORDER NO. 17.
"General Headquarters,
"_May 25, 1915_.
"1. Now that a clear month has passed since the Mediterranean
Expeditionary Force began its night and day fighting with the
enemy, the General Commanding desires to explain to officers,
non-commissioned officers and men the real significance of the calls
made upon them to risk their lives, apparently for nothing better than
to gain a few yards of uncultivated land.
"2. A comparatively small body of the finest troops in the world,
French and British, have effected a lodgment close to the heart of
a great continental empire, still formidable even in its decadence.
Here they stand firm, or slowly advance, and in the efforts made by
successive Turkish armies to dislodge them the rotten Government at
Constantinople is gradually wearing itself out. The facts and figures
upon which this conclusion is based have been checked and verified
from a variety of sources. Agents of neutral powers possessing good
sources of information have placed both the numbers and the losses of
the enemy much higher than they are set forth here, but the General
Commanding prefers to be on the safe side and to give his troops a
strictly conservative estimate.
"Before operations began the strength of the defenders of the
Dardanelles was:--
"Gallipoli Peninsula, 34,000 and about 100 guns.
"Asiatic side of Straits, 41,000.
"All the troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula and fifty per cent of the
troops on the Asiatic side were Nizam, that is to say, regular first
line troops. They were transferable, and were actually transferred
to the side upon which the invaders disembarked. Our Expeditionary
Force effected its landing, it will be seen, in the face of an enemy
superior not only to the covering parties which got ashore the first
day, but superior actually to the total strength at our disposal. By
May 12 the Turkish army of occupation had been defeated in several
engagements, and would have been at the end of their resources had
they not meanwhile received reinforcements of 20,000 infantry and
twenty-one batteries of Field Artillery.
"Still the Expeditionary Force held its own, and more than held its
own, inflicting fresh bloody defeats upon the new-comers; and again
the Turks must certainly have given way had not a second reinforcement
reached the Peninsula from Constantinople and Smyrna, amounting at the
lowest estimate to 24,000 men.
"3. From what has been said it will be understood that the
Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, supported by its gallant comrades
of the Fleet, but with constantly diminishing effectives, has held in
check or wrested ground from some 120,000 Turkish troops elaborately
entrenched and supported by a powerful artillery.
"The enemy has now few more Nizam troops at his disposal and not many
Redif or second-class troops. Up to date his casualties are 55,000,
and again, in giving this figure, the General Commanding has preferred
to err on the side of low estimates.
"Daily we make progress, and whenever the reinforcements close at hand
begin to put in an appearance, the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force
will press forward with a fresh impulse to accomplish the greatest
Imperial task ever entrusted to an army.
"W. P. BRAITHWAITE, Major-General,
"Chief of General Staff,
"Mediterranean Expeditionary Force."
And I have by me a copy of the little one-page _Peninsula Press_
published at Sir Ian Hamilton's headquarters some distance from Anzac.
It is No. 13, and is dated May 25, 1915; and it gives this "Official
Account" of the enemy's losses:--"The burial of the dead on the
Australian and New Zealand front was completed yesterday under the
armistice asked for by the Turks. The number of the enemy's dead lying
between the trenches was estimated at 3,500, counting only those who
have fallen since May 18. Rifle fire broke out soon after the close of
the armistice."
That _Peninsula Press_, little thing though it was, used to be read
and re-read till we could almost repeat all its contents word for
word. It gave us the war news on all fronts in a nutshell. In this
particular number we read of the great Russian victory in East Galicia,
when the Austrians were pushed back from the Dniester to the Pruth,
and on a 100-mile battle-front the Russians took 20,000 prisoners in
five days. We read of von Bethmann-Hollweg's threat to Italy--his
threat to punish Germany's "faithless ally" who had seen fit to
throw over the Powers of Darkness for those of Light and Freedom and
Civilization. We read of the German losses between Steenstraete and
Ypres, despite their use of asphyxiating gas which their enlightened
scientists had been able to place at their disposal. We read this:
"The British Navy has rescued 1,282 German seamen and marines from
German warships sunk. Not one British seaman or marine has been saved
by Germans in like circumstances." We read an extract from the Greek
newspaper _Athinai_ relating to the elections in that country: "If
the people give the victory to the party of M. Venizelos, then the
Entente Powers will have no further anxiety concerning us; Greece will
be ready for war in accordance with the programme of M. Venizelos and
with the engagements he has assumed." (And the people did give the
victory to M. Venizelos--but Greece, oh, where was she?) And this also
we read in our paper: "The people of Gallipoli Town," says a Turkish
correspondent, "have seen only four British (Australian) prisoners of
war. The men excited great admiration among the people, because it
was seen that they were indeed soldiers. They wandered about freely
and drank coffee, creating great excitement by their queer remarks
and causing no ill-feeling." And the _Lusitania_! We read the lines
from _Punch_ of May 12--Britain to America, on the sinking of the
_Lusitania_:
In silence you have looked on felon blows,
On butcher's work of which the waste lands reek;
Now, in God's name, from Whom your greatness flows,
Sister, will you not speak?
We ourselves had seen a ship go down. We saw the _Triumph_ torpedoed.
We saw her shiver from stem to stern--and then go down in the sea. She
was a triumph of man's handiwork, and man's handiwork had destroyed
her. The sea was very calm, but submarines and mines lurk in still
waters as well as rough--and out of the calm sea came the thing of
death. From the moment she was struck till she turned turtle but
fourteen minutes elapsed. A dozen launches and torpedo boats rushed
to rescue the crew, and all were saved except about forty. And we who
saw it all from the trenches looked on at it stupefied. With a mighty
lurch--as it were a giant in the agonies of death--the _Triumph_ heeled
over and was gone.
Such things are done, and will be done, as long as there are Hymns of
Hate in the world. War is a gruesome business.
Just as I walked out of my dug-out this morning two men were shot by a
machine-gun not ten yards off--one in the shoulder and the other in the
eye. Two seconds ago a big shrapnel shell burst right in front of our
dug-out. The bullets flew everywhere, and we bolted to shelter. No one
was injured. It is marvellous. Up to the present it has been the most
wonderful week in my life--full of excitement and hair-breadth escapes.
Sunday came--May 30. The day dawned peacefully, minus the artillery
duel which ordinarily heralds the coming day. The blue Mediterranean
lay like a sea of glass at our feet. Imbros Island, opposite Anzac
Cove, lay wreathed in the morning mists. Torpedo boats glided to and
fro across the waters, lest some adventurous submarine should attack.
All was peaceful. Ashore, the wild flowers blossomed on the hillsides.
Birds chirruped contentedly in the scrub. Soldiers released from a
night's vigil in the trenches sauntered along the winding road to the
beach, dived in and sported freely in the sea. The transport mules
munched contentedly, and the Indians lay back smoking hubble-bubbles.
Light Horsemen (minus their horses) and infantrymen emerged from their
dug-outs and stretched themselves lazily in the sun.
It was too good to last--too good altogether. Some activity behind the
Turkish trenches attracted the attention of our artillery observation
officers, and our guns boomed out a warning. It was evidently
disregarded by the enemy, for more of our guns opened fire. Then the
Turks replied. The hills around spat fire, and the valleys echoed and
re-echoed with peals of thunder. Shrapnel shells and "Jack Johnsons"
went screaming overhead, to burst with a deafening report over our
trenches and bivouacs. Our guns were so cunningly concealed that the
German artillery officers could not locate them, and for the most part
their shells ploughed up the unoffending earth, or made harmless rents
in the atmosphere. Our artillery had better success. Our guns tore down
the Turkish trenches, and the Turks flying to shelter were met with a
devastating fire from our machine-guns. Still, we did not have it all
our own way. Now and then a shell landed in our trenches, and the story
of it was told in the casualty lists.
About one o'clock the artillery duel began, and it continued without
cessation for over an hour. The roar was awful. Bullets spattered
everywhere. The marvel was that our losses were so few. Gradually
the big guns grew silent. Our warships aimed a few salvos on to the
enemy's position, then drew off. Soon there was comparative calm. There
remained but the interminable fusillade of musketry which never wholly
ceased on the trenches round Anzac.
At eventide the Ægean Sea took on new colourings. The sun set in a
blaze of splendour; the whole western horizon was alight with its
reflected brilliance. The islands seemed to rest against a superb
canvas on which Nature had splashed lavishly a wealth of gold and
rose-red and saffron and purple and amethyst. The sea in turn mirrored
and accentuated the beauties of the scene. The angry armies gazed in
quiet contemplation of Nature's craftsmanship, forgetting their mutual
hate.
Up on Braund's Hill--where Colonel Braund, who used to sit for
Armidale in the New South Wales Parliament, had met with a tragic
fate soon after the historic landing was made--right at the entrance
to the trenches in the firing-line, Divine Service was being held.
In the days of my wanderings I have attended many church services,
in shearing-sheds and on mining fields, on board troopships, and in
the bush; but never had I attended such a service as this. Captain
McKenzie, of the 1st Infantry Brigade, and Captain Robertson, of the
2nd Light Horse, were the officiating chaplains. Soldiers, unkempt,
unshaven, unwashed, lolled around on the path or the hillside.
Men coming from the trenches joined in the singing. Men going to
the trenches for the night lingered awhile. And they sang the old
well-known hymns. None asked for "Onward, Christian Soldiers," or any
of the warlike hymns at all. They wanted the old gospel hymns. So we
sang, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," "Sweet Hour of Prayer," and "Abide
with Me." ...
Firing had recommenced before we finished the service, and the
chaplain's voice was now and then drowned in the rattle of musketry
or the bursting of shrapnel. And because of the shells and bombs
which continually burst overhead, we meant it when we sang "Cover my
defenceless head with the shadow of Thy wing."
A few words of prayer, a few words of exhortation and commendation,
and then the service was over. Some filed off to the trenches for the
vigil of the night. Others formed up for the reserves. The rest of us
returned to our dug-outs, to snuggle in while the roar of battle raged
overhead. And one soon gets used to the battle noises. I fell asleep
thinking of dear old New South Wales, my dear old home, and--my dear
old mother.
CHAPTER IX
STORIES THAT WILL NEVER DIE
"CANARIES"--THE SAVING GRACE--THE LOST HORSE BRIGADE--A FORGOTTEN
COUNTER-SIGN--"LET'S AT 'EM"--POLITE TURK AND SULKY GERMAN--MURPHY'S
MULES--MURPHY AT THE GATE
Life in the trenches became quite bearable--after a time. But it took
time. At first when a bullet skimmed the parapet and went whistling
overhead we ducked instinctively. But the experienced infantry laughed,
and said, "They're only 'canaries'." Again, when the shrapnel came
hurtling aloft and burst with an ugly roar, we crouched and waited for
death; but the old hands explained that if we could hear it burst we
were pretty safe. It was the shells we couldn't hear that we ought to
dodge. We understood that epigrammatic utterance better later on.
But one thing is absolutely essential for a philosophic enjoyment of
trench life--and that is a sense of humour. Failing that, most of the
soldiers would in the end go stark, staring mad. It is this saving
grace which makes our Australians such a wonderful fighting force. They
go laughing into the firing-line. They come laughing out again. They
laugh as they load and fire. Nearly every wounded man I've seen laughs.
A staff officer said the other day: "It's only when they're killed that
these Australians cease laughing."
Our three Australian Light Horse brigades have now been in the trenches
for some time. "We came to Egypt as horsemen," said a Hunter River
man; "then we did foot-slogging at Cairo and Alexandria, and now we're
living in caves and tunnels, like rabbits or troglodytes."
Since the days of Darwin quite a lot has been written about evolution.
But we never thought of evolution in connexion with our Light Horse
Brigade. We soon found that we couldn't escape the process any more
than the rest of the universe.
One would have thought that as new and awful weapons of destruction
were evolved, battles would become short, sharp, and decisive. Instead
of that, they are toilsome, long-drawn-out, and indecisive. I cannot
say why. The elucidation of the problem I leave to the "experts." All
I am concerned with is the story of how the 2nd Light Horse Brigade
became the Lost Horse Brigade. Australia sent four Light Horse brigades
to uphold the honour of the Commonwealth; first, Colonel Chauvel;
second, Colonel Ryrie; third, Colonel Hughes; fourth, Colonel Brown.
At first we thought we were going to be armed with swords as well as
rifles. When first mounted, despite our sombre khaki, we felt as proud
as Life Guardsmen. And we saw visions and dreamed dreams, and pictured
the Australian Light Horse on the left wing of the Empire army driving
the Huns in confusion over the Rhine and back to Berlin.
Hope on, hope ever. All we have done so far is, by process of
devolution, to change from prospective cavalry to mounted infantry, to
foot-sloggers, to pick and shovel artists, and finally to troglodytes.
The pen is mightier than the sword--but so is the spade.
We did not like the packs at first. Our horses used to carry our kits,
and it was rather irksome to be transformed suddenly into beasts of
burden. Also, we imbibed a new respect for the infantry, who seemed
to carry their heavy packs with consummate ease. Ours at first felt
like the Burden to Christian. But gradually we, too, developed the
necessary back and shoulder muscles for the infantryman's job. We
trudged up and down the hills of Anzac; we filed into the trenches and
took our stations at the loopholes; on the day of the armistice we
helped to bury the dead Turks whom Enver Pasha had ordered to drive
the Australians into the sea. Then it was that the infantry, seeing "2
L.H.B." on our shoulder straps, called us the 2nd _Lost_ Horse Brigade.
But we didn't mind losing our horses so long as we had a finger in the
Gallipoli Pie. Trench warfare suited us well enough. The firing-line
was always interesting. Everybody was light-hearted. Jokes and laughter
passed the time pleasantly when we were not sniping or observing. It
meant a little more work when the Turkish (or German) guns smashed in
our parapets and half-choked, half-blinded and half-buried us. Now and
then some of our chaps stopped a bullet or a bit of shrapnel. But we
dealt out more than we got. Every day the Officer Commanding and the
Brigadier made a tour of the firing-line, while we often had three
generals to see us on special days. The day after the big attack
General Birdwood asked one of the 1st Light Horse Regiment if he had
killed many Turks, and he answered, "Yes, miles of the cows."
As a matter of fact the Australians were almost quarrelling for
positions in the firing-line that night. When the fight was at its
hottest, men in the supports were offering bribes of tobacco and
cigarettes to the men in the firing-line to swap places with them just
for ten minutes. Our night patrols had great fun harassing the enemy;
but for the bulk of us it got monotonous. It was nothing but dig new
saps, new tunnels, new trenches, day after day and night after night.
The 6th Light Horse Regiment changed its badge and its motto. When we
left Sydney we had beautiful badges with a fighting cock and the motto
"Fight on, fight ever." We've got a new badge now--pick and shovel,
argent, crossed on an azure shield, and our new motto is "Dig on, dig
ever."
The 7th Light Horse Regiment also changed its motto, which used to be
"Patria te Salutamus." Now the troopers sport a shield with a picture
of a rabbit, and Colonel Arnott's new motto is "Infra dig. Tunnelabit."
The A.L.H. did their share of the trench fighting quite as well as
their infantry comrades. Day after day they took their posts as
observers or snipers. Night after night they manned the loopholes or
did patrol work or sapping. When off duty they bolted to Anzac Cove,
and all the shrapnel shells in the world didn't keep them out of the
water.
The truth is, a lot of our soldiers grew to be rank fatalists. "If
I'm to be killed, I'll be killed," they said. On the night of the
big attack the men in the supports were begging the men in the first
line to give them a chance: "Come on down, and let's at 'em; I'm
a better shot than you." With men clamouring for positions in the
firing-line, no wonder the Turks had 10,000 casualties. When it came to
the armistice to bury their dead, a soldier exclaimed, "I don't mind
killing, but I bar burying the cows!"
The Turks made the same mistake about the Australians that the
Yorkshiremen made about the Australian cricketers. They thought we
were all black. (The Germans knew better, but encouraged the false
idea.) In a Gallipoli paper we were referred to as Australian blacks,
with the comment that this was "the first time cannibals had landed on
Gallipoli." But after the wild bayonet charges our men made at Anzac
they called the Australians "the White Gurkhas." Later on when our
first few prisoners were taken to Gallipoli, the Turks admired their
physique, and exclaimed: "These are indeed soldiers."
"Our army swore terribly in Flanders," it is written. I'm afraid that
our historian will say the same of the army in Gallipoli. But this
is about their only vice, and they have all the soldierly virtues
that a general could desire. When the Turks made their big attack,
and advanced yelling "Allah, Allah!" "Mohammed!" "Allah!" one of our
devil-may-care infantrymen yelled as he fired: "Yes; you can bring them
along too!"
Then there was the Turk who bowed. It was when the burial parties met
between the trenches to bury the dead. The Turkish officers were polite
and the Germans surly. A Turk picked up a bomb and started to run back
to his trenches. A Turkish officer ran after him, kicked him, and
returned the bomb with a bow to one of our officers, thus observing
chivalrously the letter and spirit of the armistice. A Turkish soldier
came up to one of our men and volunteered the information: "English
good--German no good." It wasn't much, but it told a lot.
A number of prisoners were taken, and several more surrendered. But the
Turks were between the devil and the deep sea. If they came with their
rifles towards our trenches we shot them. If they came without them,
their own soldiers shot them. So they had to sneak in as best they
could, and risk being shot front and rear.
One of the finest things done in those first fatal days at Anzac must
be put to the credit of Murphy's mules. Murphy's ambulance was looked
for as anxiously as Gunga Din. It was "Murphy! Murphy! Murphy! an'
we'll thank you for your mules!" As a matter of fact "Murphy" was a
Scotsman, though he hailed from South Shields, County Durham. His real
name was, I believe, John Simpson Kirkpatrick; some say it was Latimer,
and others that it was Simpson; and he was a stretcher-bearer. He used
to hurry up with water to the firing-line, and carry back the wounded.
It was a terribly heavy pull up and down Shrapnel Gully, from the
cove to the top of Braund's Hill, so Murphy "pinched" a couple of
mules, and did yeoman service. He used to leave the mules just under
the brow of the hill and dash forward himself to the firing-line to
save the wounded. "Murphy's" voice near them sounded like a voice from
heaven. Time after time he climbed the hill and did his noble work. Day
after day he smiled and carried on. The mules were missed, and they
found out who stole them. But they also found out what splendid work
"Murphy" was doing; so the officers connived at the theft. They became
accessories after the fact.
[Illustration: Murphy's Mules at Anzac.
"Murphy" on the left, his mate on the right, and little "Shrapnel" in
the background.]
There came a day when "Murphy's mules" came not. Stretcher-bearers were
working overtime, and the wounded cried "For God's sake, send 'Murphy's
mules'!" Later on they found the mules grazing contentedly in Shrapnel
Valley. Then they found poor "Murphy".... He had done his last journey
to the top of the hill.
"Where's Murphy?" demanded one of the 1st Battalion.
"Murphy's at heaven's gate," answered the sergeant, "helping the
soldiers through."
CHAPTER X
TO DRIVE BACK THE TURK
THE TWELFTH OF JULY--AN AFFAIR OF CONSEQUENCE--A TURKISH
DRIVE--ACCURATE ENEMY FIRE--"COME AND SURRENDER"--RAPID ENEMY
MOVEMENT--OUR PURPOSE ACHIEVED--A WONDERFUL PROCLAMATION, MADE IN
GERMANY
We had scores of little affairs of outposts, and our patrols enjoyed
some fine skirmishes and night encounters. None of them, however, quite
deserved mention in the official chronicle. But the affair of _July
12_--of "glorious and immortal memory"--was more important.
It began and coincided with an advance down south at Helles. The plan
of operations there was to seize the right and right-centre sections
of the foremost system of Turkish trenches, from the spot where the
Kereves Dere meets the sea to the main Seddel-Bahr--Krithia Road, a
front of about 2,500 yards. The object was to complete the driving
back of the Turks to their second system.
It was a double-barrelled attack, and was opened after the shore
batteries and the ships' guns had completed the preliminary
bombardment. The first phase was an assault by the French and our
155th Brigade, who captured the enemy's trenches after a splendid
charge. But they had to fight like grim death to withstand the fierce
counter-attacks which were made from the maze of Turkish trenches in
the vicinity. This done, the second phase was entered upon by the 157th
Brigade. They, too, after fierce fighting, gained their objective,
with the help of the Royal Naval Division. Meanwhile the French pushed
their extreme right on to the mouth of the Kereves Dere, where it runs
into the sea. The whole position was maintained, despite the persistent
counter-attacks of the Turk.
So much for the southern--and main--operation. Our rôle up north at
Anzac was so to harass the enemy that he would expect a big attack, and
so be unable to reinforce his comrades down south. The Australian and
New Zealand Army Corps early in the morning engaged the enemy, and
after our artillery had opened the ball, the 2nd Light Horse Brigade
advanced from the new position it had taken up at Ryrie's Post towards
the Turkish trenches. The 6th Light Horse (Colonel Cox) and the 7th
Light Horse (Colonel Arnott) sent a squadron over their trenches. The
troopers jumped on to the parapet with a cheer, and swarmed down the
hill to the comparative safety of the valley below. By a stroke of luck
not one man was hit in this charge, though they encountered a hail of
bullets. The Turks were too surprised to shoot straight. Later on the
enemy's shrapnel did much execution, but the only casualty in this
initial manoeuvre was when a trooper of the Sixth tripped over some
of our own barbed wire and rolled, kicking and swearing, down the hill,
to the huge delight of his comrades.
Pushing out over Holly Spur, towards Pine Ridge, the Light Horse
advance, under Lieutenant Ferguson, drove the enemy's patrols back and
opened a hot fire on their trenches. Meanwhile, to stimulate a general
attack, the parties were sent forward in full view of the enemy, and
withdrawn under cover to their original position. Long lines of
bayonets were seen passing along our trenches and disappearing at the
communication tunnels, thus lending additional colour to the idea
of a general attack. Further demonstrations by the 5th Light Horse
(Lieutenant-Colonel Harris) on the right wing provoked a wild fusillade
from the enemy, who promptly reinforced his position all along the
line, and the fusillade became general.
Most noticeable was the rapidity with which the Turkish--or
German--artillery came into action. Within three minutes of the
commencement of operations the Turkish shells were falling thick and
fast on Holly Ridge. They had the range to a nicety, and it was a
miracle how any of our advance parties escaped annihilation. As it was,
we had five killed and fourteen wounded. It is estimated that the Turks
fired two hundred rounds of shrapnel on the Light Horse position in one
hundred minutes. Our artillery was by no means idle. Colonel Rosenthal
concentrated a devastating fire on to the enemy's trenches and gun
emplacements. Our howitzers landed high explosives amongst the enemy's
reserves, while the enemy's guns battered our trenches. The roar of
the cannonade was terrific.
We did not know exactly how fared the infantry on our left, or the New
Zealanders further north. But we did know, by the rapid reinforcement
of the enemy's position, that our demonstration had achieved its
purpose.
One would like to mention all the acts of gallantry which were done on
this occasion. But no one saw them all. I was so busy dodging shrapnel
shells that I saw only a few. Anyhow, our chaps did not come with a
view to getting medals. Other gallant soldiers of the Seventh and Sixth
and Fifth will never get mentioned in dispatches.
After eight weeks on the inhospitable shores of Gallipoli, the Turks at
last took pity on the Australians. They promised us excellent treatment
and ample provisions. All we had to do was to "Come and surrender."
This cheery invitation was scattered broadcast over the Gallipoli
Peninsula by a German aeroplane. But the pilot was such a poor shot
that not one of the messages fell in the league-long trenches of the
Australians and New Zealanders. The wind wafted them all across into
the Turkish lines. But our friends next door (they are only ten feet
away in one place) wrote nasty messages on the papers and threw them
back into our lines.
It was a most interesting document, the one we received. It informed us
that the British Navy had abandoned us to our fate. Unfortunately for
the Turks, half a dozen warships and a flotilla of submarines were at
that moment thundering away at the Turkish batteries. Another bit of
news to the Australians was that "Greedy England made us fight under a
contract." Anyway, as we had not completed the contract we did not like
the idea of quitting the job.
However, here is the grandiloquent German-made proclamation:--
"_Proclamation to the Anglo-French Expeditionary Forces._
"Protected by a heavy fire of a powerful fleet, you have been able to
land on the Gallipoli Peninsula on and since April 25.
"Backed up by those same men-of-war, you could establish yourself at
two points of the peninsula. All your endeavours to advance into the
inner parts of the peninsula have come to failure under your heavy
losses, although your ships have done their utmost to assist you by a
tremendous cannonade, implying enormous waste of ammunition. Two fine
British battleships, _Triumph_ and _Majestic_, have been sunk before
your own eyes by submarine boats, all protective means against them
being found utterly insufficient. Since those severe losses to the
British Navy, men-of-war had to take refuge, and have abandoned you to
your own fate.
"Your ships cannot possibly be of any help to you in future, since a
great number of submarines are prepared to suppress them. Your forces
have to rely on sea transport for reinforcements and supply of food,
water, and every kind of war material. Already the submarines have
sunk several steamers carrying supplies for your destination. Soon all
supplies will be entirely cut off from your landed forces.
"You are exposed to certain perdition by starvation and thirst. You
could only escape useless sacrifice of life by surrendering. We
are assured you have not taken up arms against us by hatred. Greedy
England has made you fight under a contract. You may confide in us for
excellent treatment. Our country disposes of ample provisions. There
is enough to feed you well and make you feel quite at your comfort.
Don't further hesitate. Come and surrender.
"On all other fronts of this war, your own people and your allies, the
situation is as hopeless as on this peninsula. All news spread amongst
you concerning the German and Austrian armies are mere lies. There
stands neither one Englishman, nor one Frenchman, nor one Italian on
German soil. On the contrary the German troops are keeping a strong
hold on the whole of Belgium and on conspicuous parts of France since
many a month. A considerable part of Russian Poland is also in the
hands of the Germans, who advance there every day. Early in May,
strong German and Austrian forces have broken through the Russian
centre in Galicia. Przemysl has fallen back into their hands lately.
They are not in the least way handicapped by Italy's joining your
coalition, but are successfully engaged in driving the Russians out of
Galicia. These Russian troops, whose co-operation one moment you look
forward to, are surrendering by hundreds and thousands. Do as they do.
Your honour is safe. Further fighting is mere stupid bloodshed."
Lovers of peace will regret to learn that the hard-headed and ferocious
Australians rejected this kind invitation, and persisted in "stupid
bloodshed." Incidentally, it might be mentioned, most of the blood shed
was Turkish.
One other literary effort from our friend the enemy reached us about
the same time. It was issued by the Director of the Military Museum at
Constantinople, and was to the following effect:--
"The public are hereby informed that the 700 British mitrailleuses
and 300 French cannon captured during the battle of Ari-Bournu at
Gallipoli by our heroic troops, in the course of bayonet charges in
which they drove into the sea and drowned more than twenty thousand
of the enemy, will be on exhibit in the foreign gallery of the Museum
immediately after the cessation of hostilities."
This startling item of information was so unexpected that it made
us all long to get to Constantinople to see the trophies of Turkish
prowess. It was solely with this object in view that we began making
fresh preparations for a special trip to that city beautiful.
CHAPTER XI
WAR VIGNETTES
AT ANZAC LANDING--SHRAPNEL VALLEY--THOSE WEIRD NAMES--MULES AND
DONKEYS--SPLENDOURS OF AN ANZAC NIGHT--OUR GREAT GUNS AND OUR
GUNNERS--VISIONS OF HUNTER RIVER AND WILLIAMS RIVER SCENES.
Vignettes of battle!
These are the kaleidoscopic pictures that remain mirrored in the
memory. I have forgotten what the transports looked like when we
reached Gallipoli. I only half remember the panorama of battle when
we first tackled the Turk. Yet there is no forgetting these little
snapshots of soldiering, the vivid vignettes which stand out in
clear-cut silhouette against the background of our experiences. Somehow
they seem more like tableaux vivants than a moving picture show.
Certainly the impression is not blurred by action, so the mind, like a
camera plate, retains the scene down to the minutest details. Perhaps,
when we think of the big things that our lads have done, these little
visions may seem hardly worth chronicling. But the Censor will not let
me take photographs, and after all it might interest the old folks
at home to scan these hurried lines and construct their own mental
pictures of the rugged and inhospitable Gallipoli Peninsula where so
many young Australians have fought and died for empire.
First, the Cove! It was in Anzac Cove we first landed. In spite of
the shrapnel shells which burst on the beach or plunged into the sea,
we could take stock of the whole scene before us--afloat and ashore.
Straight ahead the hills rose almost from the water's edge to a height
of 400 feet. To right and left were the army stores: little mountains
of bully beef and biscuits. Scores of soldiers moved hither and thither
on fatigue duty, giving Anzac the appearance of a thriving port. At
least five hundred men were swimming in the Cove entirely indifferent
to the enemy's shells. Under the sheltering shadow of the hill was
the field ambulance--doctors working overtime, orderlies running here
and there, stretcher-bearers coming and going with their burdens of
wounded and dead; seaward, transports lolled lazily on the placid
bosom of the Mediterranean; torpedo boats streaked about looking for
submarines; warships wreathed in battle-smoke belched broadsides;
aloft, a circling aeroplane.
... There are weird names on Anzac. Hell Spit, Shell Green, Casualty
Corner, Valley of Despair, The Bloody Angle, Dead Man's Hill, Sniper's
Nest, and Cooee Gully. Every name conjures up memories. At the Bloody
Angle Turks and Australians were at death-grips, day after day, and
week after week, with the trenches only a few yards apart. It was back
through the death-strewn Valley of Despair that the Australian infantry
withdrew after their first glorious charge inland. On Dead Man's Hill
the Turks lay slaughtered in hundreds after their fierce attack on May
19.
And we all know Shrapnel Valley. Here the Light Horse lay all through
the night of the 20th, learning what shell-fire really meant. Since the
first landing on April 25 the Turks must have landed tons and tons of
lead and iron in Shrapnel Valley, but we soon knew the safety spots
and the danger zones. The tortuous, waterless creek bed wound its
aimless way to the sea; steep hills, scrub-faced, rose on either side;
wild flowers, pink and white and lilac and yellow and blue, graced
the uplands where we first landed; but they were all gone now. On the
crest of the hill, sharply silhouetted against the skyline, were our
trenches, so manned that the devils of hell could not break through,
let alone the turbaned and malignant Turk. On the ledges behind--rather
ragged and unkempt now--lounged the reserves, ready in case of attack,
but knowing well that their comrades in front could easily hold the
line. MacLaurin's Hill is at the top. A little further down projects
Braund's Hill. Little graves dot the hillside; little wooden crosses
mark the graves.
... And then the Mules! Just mules and donkeys; but they play no
unimportant part in the war game at Anzac. They too, with their Indian
attendants, landed at Anzac with only the Turkish guns to voice a
welcome. They too sheltered in dug-outs when the artillery duel waxed
warm. But day after day, and night after night, they toiled for the
transport. Water and ammunition and stores of all kinds had to be
carried from the depots to the firing-line, and the bulk of the burden
fell on the mules. Along the meandering paths they filed, scrambling up
the stiff pinches, resting awhile on the crests. Now and then a shell
would slaughter a few. Anon, snipers' bullets would take toll. But the
imperturbable Indian would just carry on. We had two little donkeys
in Shell Green. They divided their time between the 2nd Light Horse
Brigade and the 3rd Infantry Brigade, and the boys gave them biscuits.
Morning and evening the Turks shelled our lines, and Shell Green was
plastered with pellets and splinters. Yet by some miraculous chance
the donkeys escaped harm. Men were struck down on either side, but for
a couple of months the lucky animals escaped scatheless. The soldiers
swore by the donkeys' luck, and when the shells burst stood by the
animals rather than fly for shelter. At last the luck turned. A high
explosive burst over thirty men, scattered everywhere, wounded both
donkeys, and never touched a single man. We buried one of the donkeys
next day. The other, wounded and lonely, wandered about disconsolate.
... Night at Anzac! The sun, a sphere of flaming red, sank into the
sea. The western horizon glowed rich and splendid, while the waters of
the Archipelago shimmered like molten gold. Imbros and Samothrace stood
out in bold relief on the crimson skyline, while the coast of distant
Bulgaria softened till lost in a purple haze. Down south spurts of
fire and booming thunder told of the British warships still hammering
away at the forts of the Dardanelles. Slowly, there was unfolded for
the millionth time the miracle of nature's transformation scene. Like
a white-hot furnace cooling, the blazing west turned to rose-red and
amethyst, lilac and purple. Faithful as an echo, the mirroring sea
reflected the softened shades of the sky, and the chastened waters
grew mystic and wonderful in the afterglow. As the deepening twilight
mantled the Ægean Sea, twinkling lights appeared on land and water,
while one by one the little stars joined the crescent moon for company.
All blurred and indistinct were the hills and hollows, and during a
brief respite from the never-ending fusillade we forgot the war. But
just behind was the long line of Australian bayonets pointing towards
Constantinople.
... The Guns! Thick-lipped and cold, cruel and menacing, were the Guns
of Anzac. Death-dealing monsters were they, heartless and vindictive,
but, oh, how we soldiers loved them! For they were our very best
friends; field guns, mountain guns and howitzers. We knew when the
German and Turkish artillerymen started their snarling hymn of hate
that our gunners would soon be barking defiance. Enemy shells might
roar and thunder, and shrapnel claim its victims; high explosives might
wreck parapets and trenches, but we knew our guns and our gunners, and
that was enough. We lay low while the artillery duel raged overhead
and the echoing hills reverberated with the thunderous roar of battle.
So cunningly concealed were our guns, with such acumen were our
emplacements selected and built that Tommy Turk had continually to be
guessing. His shells searched the hills and the valleys in vain. His
gunners too were skilful and brave. They took position in gullies,
behind hills and in villages, and blazed away at our lines. But our
aeroplanes circled overhead to spot them. Then our guns got busy and
fired like fury till the Hun cried "Hold!"
Then when our spell in the trenches was over, and we sought the
seclusion of our dug-outs, there came visions that are not vignettes
of war. I saw the old homestead in the Hunter Valley. Hard by Erringhi
it stands, where the Williams River meanders through the encircling
hills and flows on towards Coalopolis. There are roses 'neath the
old-fashioned windows, and in the fields the scent of lucerne ripe
for the scythe. Magpies yodel in the big trees, and the wattle-gold
is showing down the river. I wonder will I ever see dear old Erringhi
again?
CHAPTER XII
"GEORGE"
A RECAPITULATION--INTO THE FIRING-LINE--IN SIGHT OF HISTORIC TROY--A
WELL-FED ARMY--A REAL GOOD COOK
George was the cook.
He blew into the Light Horse Camp at Holdsworthy when we were training.
The staff captain gave him the job because he was a sea cook. Any man
who can cook at sea ought to be able to cook on dry land. And all
through the weary weeks of waiting and working, George kept on cooking.
George was small, not to say puny. His height was five feet, and his
chest measurement nothing to cable home about. Had he gone to Victoria
Barracks in the ordinary way to enlist he wouldn't have passed even the
sentry at the gate, let alone the doctor. But George knew the ropes.
He had "soldiered" before. That's why he took the short cut direct to
camp.
We never saw much of him on the _Suevic_; when off duty he used to
climb to some cosy corner on the uppermost deck and read dry textbooks
on strategy and tactics. At odd times he would seek relaxation in
_Life of Napoleon_, _Marlborough_, or _Oliver Cromwell_, but this was
distinctly "not a study, but a recreation." Passing through the Suez
Canal we saw the Turks miles away on the rim of the desert. George
got out his rifle, set the sight at 2,500 yards, and waited. But the
invader kept well out of range, and George went back to his cooking.
It was mid-winter in Egypt and the nights were bitterly cold.
Greatcoats were vitally necessary. How welcome were the mufflers and
Balaclava caps and warm socks knitted by the girls we left behind
us! Welcome also was the hot coffee George provided to fill in the
shivering gap between réveillé and stables. And after the horses had
all been fed and watered, we returned with zest to breakfast--porridge
and meat and "eggs a-cook" and bread and marmalade. I've heard some
grumblers complain of the "tucker" in Egypt, but I've seen a bit of
war by this and I'm convinced that the Australians are the best-fed
army in the world. And George by the same token was not a bad cook.
Summer swooped down on Egypt. In its wake came heat and dust and
flies and locusts. Over the scorching sands of the desert we cantered
till the sweat poured from us and our horses, and the choking dust
enveloped all. "Gyppie" fruit-sellers scurried hither and yon yelling
"Oringes--gooud beeg one." And as we regaled ourselves with the
luscious thirst-quenchers we thought of camp and the dinner that
George was preparing. We trekked along the Nile, and almost before we
halted George was boiling the billy. We bivouacked at Aaron's Gorge,
or the Petrified Forest, or in a desert waste, and always George was
on the spot with his dixies and pans. The cook's cart was a pleasing
silhouette against the pyramid-pierced skyline, when we turned our eyes
westward in the long summer evenings.
When at last we started for the Dardanelles, we of the Light Horse
Brigade had (as you know) to leave our horses behind, and the cook's
cart stopped too. But George came along all right. Despite the
activities of the submarines we reached Gallipoli in safety, and
witnessed the allied warships pounding away at the Turkish defences.
Historic Troy was on our right; before us the entrance to the
Dardanelles; and on the left, firmly established on Helles, was the
great Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, making its first halt on
the road to Constantinople. But we had to go further north, a mile
beyond Gaba Tepe, where the Australians--particularly the 3rd Infantry
Brigade--had performed such deeds of valour that Dargai, Colenso, and
Magersfontein were declared by old soldiers to have been a mere picnic
in contrast.
We landed amid a hail of shrapnel. Transhipping from the transports,
we crowded into launches and sweepers and barges. These little boats,
heavily laden with khaki freight, made straight for Anzac Cove. Fair
targets for Tommy Turk, of course; so the guns of the Olive Grove
Battery sent us anything but peaceful messages. Plug-plong went the
shells into the water. Zip-zip hissed the bullets all round us. But,
marvellous to relate, not a man was hit. Next day some infantry
reinforcements, landing in the same place and manner, sustained forty
casualties. That's the luck of the game--the fortune of war. We landed
everything satisfactorily.
George brought up the rear, with his pots and dixies. It is because of
George that I recapitulate.
In a long, straggling khaki line ("Column o' lumps," said the brigade
major) we meandered past Casualty Point and Hell Spit, and up to our
bivouac in Shrapnel Valley. Snipers on the hill up beyond Quinn's Post
sent long-range shots at random down the track. Shells burst over our
heads, and the leaden pellets spattered over the landscape. It would
take too long to recount half the miraculous escapes some of our chaps
had. Our artillery worked overtime, and the row was deafening. But
our gunners could not silence the elusive cannon in the Olive Grove.
After a time, wherein the minutes seemed like hours, we reached the
camp site, and started to dig in feverishly. We burrowed like rabbits.
Picks, shovels and bayonets made the earth fly till we had scratched a
precarious shelter from the blast. Like troglodytes we snuggled into
the dug-outs, waiting for the bombardment to cease.
But George went on with his cooking.
[Illustration: Major-General W. T. Bridges.]
Next day we changed our quarters. The German artillerymen were too
attentive. We had sustained a few casualties, so we sought a more
retired spot under the lee of the hill. For the first time since we
had landed we were able to look about us. There was a lull in the
cannonade, though the musketry fusillade proceeded merrily. We saw the
long line of Australian and New Zealand trenches whence the Turks had
been driven in rout the night before, leaving 3,000 dead to mar the
landscape. We heard too, definitely, for the first time of the good
Australians who on this inhospitable shore had given their lives for
King and Empire--General Bridges, Colonel MacLaurin, Lieutenant-Colonel
Braund, Lieutenant-Colonel Onslow Thompson, Sergeant Larkin (who used
to sit on the opposite side to Colonel Braund in the New South Wales
Parliament, but found in war the leveller that makes us all one party),
and hundreds of others. Looking up to the precipitous cliffs above, we
marvelled anew at the reckless daring of our infantry comrades who had
scaled those heights in the face of rifle, machine-gun and shrapnel.
But we had not long to saunter and wonder. Our brigade was sent
straightway into the firing-line. We were initiated into the mysteries
of trench warfare, sapping and mining, bombs and grenades, observing
and sniping, posies and dug-outs, patrolling and listening, periscopes
and peepholes, demonstrations and reconnaissance, supports and
reserves, bully-beef and biscuits, mud and blood and slaughter, and all
the humours and rumours, the hardships and horrors of war.
And all the time we were doing our little bit George went on with his
cooking. He may have been thinking of Napoleon, or Marlborough, or
Cromwell, but he did not seem to be thinking much about this war of
ours--except that he had to do some cooking for it. The Turks were
shooting many of our officers down, and many of our dear old pals,
but George remained--and we hoped that they would spare him. Good
cooks--real, good cooks like George--are scarce.
CHAPTER XIII
"ROBBO"
A GREAT TRANSPORT OFFICER--HOW HE HANDLED HORSES--AND HOW HE
DIED--LIEUTENANT HENRY ROBSON--A NORTH COAST HERO
George and Bill, Tom and Dick and Harry--all a happy family, having
a wonderful time. You never knew what was going to happen next. At
any moment your turn might come. You could not tell. But you saw
old pals in the morning, and you didn't see them in the evening.
Sometimes the mate who had shared your tent and fought alongside you
in the trench--the mate who was with you at Holdsworthy, who was with
you in Egypt, and laughed and joked with you at Anzac--was suddenly
snatched away from you, and then you realized what a thin line it is
that separates life from death. Have you ever dreamed that you were
standing on the edge of a precipice and that an enemy was racing along
behind you to push you over? That was how we felt during these days on
Gallipoli. A moment, and then you too might be falling headlong down
the precipice. But we found it best not to let our minds dwell upon it.
So we went on burrowing into the side of the hill. We banked up the
sides of our dug-outs with sandbags and tins and earth. Most of the
fighting was being done in the trenches. In some places they were now
1,500 yards apart, in some only twenty-one feet apart; and in the
latter case life was all excitement. It was sap and mine and bomb and
fusillade all the time. My brigade had now been here for some time, and
despite the "accidents" which were always occurring we all had, somehow
or other, a feeling of absolute security. We laughed at the Turks, and
we smiled at what Liman von Sanders said--that he would drive us into
the sea. We were just waiting, content and confident, for the big move
that was going to lead to Constantinople!
And as I have said, we were a fairly well-fed army. We had none of
the luxuries that the British Expeditionary Force had in France and
Flanders. But on the whole we did not do too badly. The brigadier ate
the same "tucker" as his batman.
We were given meat and vegetables and biscuits and cheese and jam. If
only we could have had a lump of bread for a change! For the biscuits
were so hard that they could be used to defend the trenches, if
necessary--either as missiles or as overhead cover. Colonel ---- broke
one of his teeth on one. So we tried to soak them in our tea. Then we
made them into porridge.
There was fighting on land and sea, in the air and under the water.
Aeroplane reconnaissance was a daily spectacle. Our airmen would go
aloft and have a good look at the enemy's position. The enemy's guns
would boom out all the time, and shrapnel shells would burst all round
the 'plane without ever seeming to hit it. We thought it was great
sport watching the white puffs of smoke where the shells burst. Then
the aeroplanes would drop bombs on the Turks for spite--"throw-downs"
we called them. Sometimes the position was reversed, and the Germans
dropped bombs on us. Two can play at the same game in war. Take the
hand grenades. You should have seen Corporal Renwick take them! Before
he became a soldier Renwick was well known on the cricket field--as
indeed were hundreds of others--and on Gallipoli he used to catch the
bombs and throw them back before they exploded. Nor was he the only one
who did this. It was like tossing live coals back and forth--playing
with fire. Some of our boys used to say it was the best "slip practice"
they ever had! Sometimes a bomb would explode prematurely and a man's
fingers would be blown off, and worse than that. But the others went on
with the game.
And we went swimming down at the beach, just as if it had been Manly
or Coogee. Only it was more exciting: Shells took the place of sharks.
Instead of the sudden cry one would sometimes hear at Manly or Coogee
of "'Ware shark," it was "'Ware shell!" The Turks are not the surfers
that the Australians are. They had little sympathy with such healthy
exercise, and they showed their disapproval of it by opening fire on
the beach; and then there was a warning whistle, and we all rushed in
to shelter. Afterwards we had the pleasure of initiating some Turkish
prisoners into the joys of surf-bathing, but the majority of them did
not take kindly to it.
And all the time the fighting went on. One night we had a great set-to.
The Turks mined one of our trenches and rushed in and captured it. This
was the affair at "Quinn's Post." We counter-attacked and re-took the
trench, killed and captured some of the Turks, and then took one of
their trenches. Then the hand grenades began to come, and the cricket
commenced. It was an exciting match. The Turks made a determined
attempt to recapture the position. They charged in strong force, but
our chaps all along the line "hit them to leg." We enfiladed them with
rifle and machine-gun fire, and they were eventually repulsed with a
loss of about 2,000.
Wiggins, of the Field Ambulance, was sitting in his dug-out, and two of
his mates went out and called to him. He leaned out and said: "Not yet;
the shrapnel hasn't stopped." Then a shrapnel shell passed between the
other two and struck him on the head and killed him.
Life and death! A very thin line.... One never knows. "In the morning
the grass groweth up, in the evening it is cut down and withered."
One day the word went round that "Robbo" had been killed. We would not
believe it at first. It seemed a silly lie, one of those baseless camp
rumours that some fool starts for a joke. Some of the officers went
round to see for themselves. Colonel Cox stood by the dug-out, looking
old and stricken. "Robbo's killed," he said. Then we knew it was true.
Alas, alas, here was a loss! For "Robbo" was great.
The Turks had been subjecting us to a heavy bombardment for some days,
and our artillery had been responding vigorously. Mostly their shells
buried themselves in the sides of the hills, or exploded somewhat
harmlessly in the air. Then one unlucky shrapnel shell burst right over
the headquarters of the 6th Light Horse Regiment--and "Robbo" was there.
Lieutenant Henry Robson lay on the floor of the dug-out, a shrapnel
bullet in his breast. And we who had lived with him in camp and on the
march for eight strenuous months, sorrowed as keenly as will his North
Coast friends. To Colonel Cox it was not only the loss of an officer;
it was also the loss of an old friend who years before had shared the
dangers of battles and the stress of war.
All of us liked Lieutenant Robson. His bark was far worse than his
bite. He'd give a shirking soldier the full force of his tongue, but
his heart--"right there" as "Tipperary" has it--was in the right place.
Kind of heart, genial of temper, and always willing to help others
along, we mourn a man that can ill be spared. He was reckoned the best
transport officer in Egypt. He knew horses as few men did. Australians
are reputed to be good horsemen, but poor horse-masters. But Lieutenant
Robson was good all round with horses. He would get more work out of a
team than any one I know. He could get a full measure of work from his
men also. But he never overdrove man or beast. That's why we liked him.
Harry Robson was forty-eight years of age when he died a soldier's
death on Gallipoli Heights. He was one of the original Northern River
Lancers, and went to England with the New South Wales Lancers in 1893.
Later on he went home with the Lancers under Colonel Cox in 1899.
Standing six feet two in his socks, he was as straight as the lance
he carried. He was an expert swordsman, and won several prizes at the
tournaments in Scotland and at Islington. At tent-pegging he was an
acknowledged champion. On the transport and in Egypt we had many bouts
with the sword and singlesticks, but none of the younger officers could
worst Robson, although he was old enough to be their father.
When the South African war broke out, he was sergeant-major in the
New South Wales Lancers under Colonel Cox, they being the first
Colonial troops to land at the Cape. He went right through the war, and
participated in the battles of Modder River, Magersfontein, Grasspan,
Paardeberg, Driefontein, and the Relief of Kimberley. He was with
French's column during the main advance. When the 3rd Imperial Mounted
Rifles were formed, Lieutenant Robson became transport officer under
Colonel Cox, and saw a lot of service in Natal, the Orange Free State,
and Eastern Transvaal. He participated in Kitchener's big drives,
wherein his resourcefulness was of great help to the column. On one
occasion Remington's column was held up by an impassable, boggy
morass. The Inniskillens and Canadians were bogged. The Australians
halted. Lieutenant Robson improvised a crossing with bales of hay and
reeds, and got his transport over while the others were wondering how
far round they would have to go. On another occasion in the Transvaal,
by a simple device, he crossed the Wilge River with all his mules and
wagons at a place reckoned absolutely hopeless for wheeled transport.
After the South African war he settled down on the Northern Rivers,
and prospered. But when this great cataclysm convulsed the world, he
heard the call of Empire, and responded like a patriot. He wired to
Colonel Cox, offering his services, and left the comforts of home for
the discomforts of war. On board the transport he was most painstaking
and zealous in the performance of his duties. At Ma'adi he had his
transport running as smoothly as a machine. When we found we were going
without our horses, we thought that Lieutenant Robson would be left
behind. But at the last moment the regimental quartermaster fell ill,
and Robson filled the breach. And so for nine weary weeks of fighting
he looked after the needs of the regiment, and not one trooper ever
went to bed hungry. (I say "bed," but none of us has seen a bed for
many months.)
As quartermaster, there was no need for him to be poking about the
trenches and up in the firing-line as he did. But it was not in the
firing-line he was killed. That is the fortune of war. He was standing
just near headquarters watching the warships gliding over the Ægean
Sea. Then came the fatal shell, and "Robbo" passed out to the Beyond.
CHAPTER XIV
"COME AND DIE"
TRENCH LIFE--THE SNIPER IS BORN--HOLIDAY ON A HOSPITAL SHIP--"WAR IS
HELL"--SHIFTING SCENES--NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE--HEAVY FIGHTING--DEATH AND
BURIAL OF A GALLANT OFFICER
We were told at the outset that the trenches were the safest place to
be in, and this is quite true. Shrapnel now and then knocks down the
parapets and does a little damage, but in Shrapnel Valley and Suicide
Walk it bursts at all times. And even in the dug-outs one is not wholly
safe. Many a brave spark has gone out in the dug-outs. The Turks have
their snipers, and we have ours, as the sea hath its pearls. A good
sniper is indeed a pearl--unless he is fighting on the "other side,"
and in that case he is "a cow." Most of us try our hand at sniping,
with more or less success--climbing up and down these hills in search
of what we call "big game"--but although I am a tolerable shot myself,
I have come to the conclusion that your true sniper, like your true
poet, is born, not made. I have heard it said that a good tennis-player
makes a good sniper (providing he can shoot) because he has the knack
of anticipating his opponent's movements. It is not enough to see
your man and have a "pot" at him, for the chances are that just as
you let go, he stoops down to pick a pretty flower, or he stumbles
over a scrub-root. Now, the successful sniper is he who anticipates
that stumble, or with an uncanny sort of second sight sees that pretty
flower which the enemy gentleman is going wantonly to pluck, and aims
low accordingly. Only by some such sort of intelligent anticipation
could some of our men have put up the astonishing records that stand to
their credit. But of that more anon.
Just at the moment I am out of the firing-line, and it is time enough
to write of snipers and shot and shell when I get back to it--lots
of time. For the present I am otherwise engaged. I have seen a
girl--several of them--real girls--beautiful girls. To one who has
not seen a girl for nearly six weeks girls seem wonderful. It is a
red-letter day. For the first time for five weeks I feel absolutely
safe from snipers and shells. I'm on the hospital ship _Gascon_, a
couple of miles off Anzac. No, I'm not sick, neither am I wounded;
it is just a little matter of duty that has brought me over, and I'm
having a glorious holiday--two hours of real holiday. Presently I shall
go back to my little grey home in the trench; and so I am enjoying
every minute of my time on the ship. After weeks of bully-beef and
bacon and biscuits I have had a DINNER. Can you who live at home at
ease realize what that means? I had soup, fish, grilled chop, sausage,
potatoes, rhubarb tart, cheese, bread and butter, coffee--fit for a
king! Before dinner I hungrily watched the stewards as they walked in
and out of the saloon. And after dinner I bought two cigars for two
shillings and smoked the smoke of absolute peace and contentment.
I quite forgot the war. I could scarcely hear the sound of the
fusillade and bombardment of Anzac, and I kept on the other side of the
ship so that I should not see the place. The only thing to remind me of
the war was the occasional booming of the guns of our warships. After
the trenches it was just like heaven. The view was delightful. Imbros,
Samothrace and Tenedos were near by. The sea was smooth; the weather
perfect, the blue of the sky rivalling the blue of the Mediterranean.
And the girls! There were nurses on board. I shook hands with them
all and talked to half a dozen of them. One was a very sweet little
thing--an angel! I longed for a broken arm or leg, so that I might stay
there.... Come, shade of brave old Sir Walter, and help me here.
O, woman! In our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!
But they are all angels, ministering angels, tending the sick and
wounded, whispering sweet words into the ears of brave men who lie
there, suffering tortures of mind and body, but never uttering a
complaint.
There were several doctors on board, and quite a lot of officers and
men, some wounded, others sick and broken down with the stress of the
last few weeks. Several of our brigade were among them. Heroes all.
Yes, I felt that if anything happened to me I should like to be taken
aboard that hospital ship. But nothing had happened to me worth
recording--only a few narrow escapes such as we all have in war
time. I never felt better in my life. My appetite was of the best.
My tongue had no coat of fur upon it. I had no excuse for remaining.
I commandeered a few sheets of paper and some envelopes (precious
things!). I went in and had a BATH--none of your ordinary swims, with
one eye on the shrapnel and the other on the shore, but a real bath
with soap and fresh water--and then I said good-bye to the nurses,
good-bye to the doctors and the men, and went back from this heaven on
the water to that hell upon the earth.
It WAS hell! All war is hell, as General Sherman said. And there never
was one that better deserved the name than this one. Oh, God! I have
stood on Braund's Hill admiring the sunset views, when the islands of
the Ægean Sea seem to be floating on the edge of a gorgeous canvas
of shimmering gold, and I have stood on other hills and watched the
dawn-blush and the rising sun, and I have said to myself, What a blot
upon God's beauties is war!... And then I have taken up my rifle and
gone forth to kill men! Every prospect pleases and only the enemy is
vile. Oh, these shifting scenes and changing moods!
On the other side were forty thousand Turks (we are told) watching for
the opportunity to kill us. Our mission was to get to Constantinople;
theirs to drive us into the sea. We were "dug in"; they were "dug in."
If we found it a long, long way to Constantinople, they were finding
it's a long way to the sea, which is much nearer as the crow flies.
They shivered at the sound of our land guns; they heard the broadsides
of our ships; they watched the _Queen Elizabeth_ fire her 15-inch gun;
the shells landing on the sides of the hills, tossing hundreds of tons
of earth and rock high into the air, so that when the smoke cleared
away they would not know those hills; and they trembled, as all men who
have seen have trembled at the fury of the monstrous gun!
But they fought on. Every yard of ground won cost us dear. I have seen
our boys fall like ninepins before a hail of bullets. I have heard
the cry "Lie low" in an advance, and every man has fallen flat upon
the ground to escape certain destruction; and I have heard that other
pitiful cry, time and time again, of "Stretcher-bearers wanted!" Once
the men lay prone for four hours in the midst of the scrub, with the
air full of bursting shells and rifle and machine-gun fire passing just
over them. I do not wonder that some men lost their nerve during those
terrible hours.
But never yet did Australian officer call upon his men to take a
position, no matter how impossible the feat, and find them wanting.
"Impossible!" There was no such word in their vocabulary. Nothing
was impossible to them--until they died. Colonel McCay, Brigadier in
Command of the Second Infantry Brigade, spoke the truth when he said:
"The way, the cheerful, splendid way, they face death and pain is
simply glorious, and if no Australian ever fought again, April 25,
April 26 and May 8 specially mark them as warriors. On the eighth of
May I said in effect to them (my own brigade), 'Come and die,' and they
came with a cheer and a laugh. They are simply magnificent."
The men were led by brave officers--officers who would not ask their
men to go where they themselves were afraid to go. It was thus, leading
their men to the fight, that General Sir William Throsby Bridges,
commanding the Australian Imperial Force when it made its historic
landing, Colonel MacLaurin, Colonel Onslow Thompson, Lieutenant-Colonel
Braund, and other gallant officers fell. And it was thus that,
later, Colonel McCay received the wounds that put him out of action.
Australian officers, like any other officers, are human and have erred
at times, but they have never asked their men to take risks they would
not share themselves. There is a letter written by Colonel McCay in
which he says: "When my men have to go into a veritable hell, as they
did on April 25, April 26 and May 8, I must lead them, not send them. I
won their confidence because I shared the risks with them." And that is
the spirit of all the Australian officers--gallant leaders of gallant
men.
Such was the spirit of Lieutenant-Colonel Hubert Harris, V.D.,
commanding the 5th Light Horse Regiment, who was killed in action on
Gallipoli on the night of July 31. Curious it was that the only man
hit in the regiment that night was its commander. They were firing
from the trenches and occupying the attention of the Turks while the
infantry on our left blew up the enemy's trench, dashed out, bayoneted
the defenders, and captured the position. There was a wild fusillade by
the enemy's riflemen, and a heavy bombardment of our lines. One unlucky
bullet came through a loophole, struck Colonel Harris in the neck, and
he died in a few minutes.
There was heavy fighting along the whole league-long line that night.
But the main work was left to MacLagan's famous 3rd Infantry Brigade.
The Turks had sapped in and dug trenches opposite Tasmania Post. They
looked dangerous, and it was thought they would try to undermine
our trenches and blow us up. So we mined in under them, and blew up
their advanced trench. On our left the New Zealanders made a lively
demonstration to keep the enemy opposite engaged, and the big guns
blazed away at the main Turkish position. From the sea a warship
fired high explosives in the same direction. Then Captain Lean with a
storming party of the 11th Infantry Battalion, dashed out with great
gallantry and seized the objective. They used boards to surmount the
barbed wire entanglements, swept down on the Turks, bayoneted and shot
about fifty of them, and entered into possession. Engineers immediately
bolted out under a heavy fire, and hurriedly built up sandbag defences.
And having got it, the Eleventh held on.
Meanwhile the 2nd Light Horse Brigade on the right poured a heavy
fire into the Turkish trenches on the immediate left of the captured
position. All attempts at reinforcing the Turkish advanced line were
thus frustrated, and no counter-attack had any chance of getting home.
Thinking a further attack was intended from Ryrie's Post, the Turkish
artillery concentrated their field guns on the Light Horse, and the
bombardment was terrific; yet--and here is the luck of the game--not
one man in the firing-line of the 6th Light Horse was wounded. I was up
with B Squadron, and the hail of shrapnel was something to remember.
That was about half-past ten at night; and the moon having just risen,
we concentrated our rifle fire on the enemy's trenches, leaving our
artillery to deal with their reserves. Then it was that the fatal
bullet killed Colonel Harris.
In a special order issued by General Birdwood next day reference
was made to the excellent qualities of Colonel Harris, and to the
conspicuous ability he had shown during the few months he had led his
regiment on Gallipoli. We of the Sixth knew his value, and liked him;
the Queenslanders loved him, and would have followed him anywhere.
Colonel Harris was a comparatively young man, not yet forty-five years
of age. He started his soldiering in the Brisbane Grammar School
cadets, and then became a bugler in the Queensland Rifles. Later on
he joined the Mounted Infantry, volunteered for the South African
War, going with the second Queensland contingent as a lieutenant,
and returned a captain. He maintained his interest in the military
forces after his return, became adjutant, and later on succeeded to
the command of the 13th Australian Light Horse Regiment. Curiously
enough, Colonel Spencer Brown, whom he succeeded in that command, and
Lieutenant-Colonel Stoddart, who succeeded him, have also come to the
war. For five years, Lieutenant-Colonel Harris commanded the 13th
Regiment, and then was placed on the unattached list. When the war
broke out he offered his services, and in November, 1914, took command
of the 5th Light Horse Regiment in Colonel (now Brigadier-General)
Ryrie's 2nd Brigade. He wore the Victoria Decoration and the Queen's
South African ribbon with five clasps.
So here in the hills of Gallipoli there passes to the Great Beyond
another good Australian, a brave and gallant officer, a kindly and
courteous gentleman. The Americans used to sing "John Brown's body
lies a-mouldering in the grave; his soul goes marching on." So the 5th
Regiment may well feel that the spirit of Hubert Harris will go with
them on to victory.
We buried him next night. The Dean of Sydney, Chaplain-Colonel
Talbot, officiated, assisted by Chaplain-Captain Gordon Robertson.
Officers and men of the regiment--all who could be spared from the
trenches--attended with Major Wilson, who assumed command of the Fifth.
Brigadier-General Ryrie and staff, and Lieutenant-Colonel Arnott, of
the Seventh, were also present. As the earth was heaped upon him, the
brigadier remarked sadly: "The brigade has lost a gallant officer, and
Australia a patriot."
CHAPTER XV
THE BOMBS
A WAR OF ANOMALIES--BACK TO PRIMITIVE WEAPONS--BOWS AND ARROWS--HAND
GRENADES AND BRICKBATS--AN INDIGNANT DOCTOR--"ARE YOU THERE,
ABDUL?"--MASSIVE MASSIE THE CRICKETER--A RESOURCEFUL COOK--A VERY GRIM
STORY
Some talk of Alexander,
And some of Hercules,
Of Hector and Lysander,
And such great men as these:
But of all the world's great heroes
There's none that can compare
With the tow-row-row-row-ri-ro,
The British Grenadiers!
A year or more ago, when we sang this old song, we thought that the
days of the grenadiers were numbered, that future warfare would know
them no more.
Yet here we were on Gallipoli, reverting to the grenades of the
Peninsular War, and the old Roman catapult, and even the bows and
arrows. The enemy was so close to us that we could not use some of
our guns to demolish his trenches. We even had to take some of our
howitzers back a mile in order to hit the enemy in front of us. What a
conglomeration of anomalies this war presents! In an age when our big
guns can hurl huge projectiles many miles, we are compelled to fight
with bows and bayonets and bombs and brickbats.
Bricks were not often used. But when the Turkish snipers "sneaked"
close up to our lines through the scrub, we threw stones at the likely
places. Thinking these missiles were bombs, the Turk would often run,
or else disclose his position. Then we gave him a few rounds rapid.
One day a German aeroplane flew along the coast, and in plain view of
the army dropped a huge bomb at our hospital ship, only missing the
target by about fifty yards. There were no other ships near, so there
was no excuse. This cowardly act so incensed our medical officer that
he went straight out to our firing-line and threw a brick at the Turks,
forty yards off. "I wear the Red Cross," he apologized, "so I cannot
fire at them, and they are not supposed to fire on me. But I must show
my indignation somehow."
As to the bows and arrows: this was Major Midgley's idea. At night the
Turkish patrols crawled up close to our lines, and sniped away without
being seen. Our flares could not be thrown far enough to show them up.
So we made bows out of pine saplings and wire and sent fiery arrows
into the scrub. This made the unwelcome visitors keep a respectful
distance.
But if bows and bricks were only incidentals, the bombs were the
real thing. In the wild bayonet charges our footballers were simply
irresistible. But with the bombs our cricketers excelled. One of them
exclaimed: "We've got the cows bluffed." Another boasted: "We've got
'em beaten to a frazzle"--shade of Roosevelt! Anyhow, our chaps could
beat the Turks at the bomb business. Have I not already told how some
of our cricketers caught the enemy's bombs and hurled them back again?
There was a picture--in _Punch_ I think--of the incident of the
Irishman who yelled out to the Germans, "How many of yez are there?"
and on getting the answer "T'ousands," he heaved a bomb, saying,
"Well, share that amongst ye!" The Australians have quite the same
humorous appreciation of the situation. With the trenches anything
between 10 and 1,000 yards apart, there was ample scope for the passing
of compliments as well as bombs between the contending forces. It
was quite common for a trooper to cry out: "Are you there, Abdul?
Well, here's baksheesh." Or may be, "Here you are, Mohammed, here's
a Christmas box"; and a hand grenade would accompany the sally. When
a Turkish bomb arrived the Australian merely observed: "Maleesch,"
or "Ver' good, ver' nice," in imitation of the "gyppie" dragoman.
If a bomb exploded right in the trench or on the parapet the real
Australian "Slanguage" was sure to be heard. One Light Horseman was
heard to observe as a bomb exploded over his head: "These Turks are
clumsy cows; they'll be killing some of us if they ain't more careful!"
Once the voice of a Hun sounded from a Turkish trench: "Come on
you--kangaroo-shooters!" But prisoners told us that the German officers
were rarely seen in the firing-line. They felt safer further back.
A curious incident happened in the infantry lines. A kangaroo-shooter
from the Kimberley country threw a bomb at a Turkish trench only
fifteen yards away, and the cries of "Allah," "Allah," told him that
his aim was true. He turned to his mates and remarked casually, "That's
the first man I've killed without getting into a heap of trouble." A
much more unsophisticated youth--one of the recent reinforcements--had
been a week in the trenches without actually seeing one of the enemy.
Then a Turk jumped on the parapet, threw a bomb, and jumped down again.
And the guileless one exclaimed, "That's the first Turk I've seen in
his wild state!"
Lieutenant Massie, the giant Varsity cricketer, son of the General
Manager of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney--known in the 1st
Brigade as "Massive"--was throwing bombs one night (he can throw bombs
farther than any man on Gallipoli), and after landing a few in the
Turkish trenches, he accidentally struck his hand on the back of the
trench. The bomb he was about to throw rolled along the bottom of the
trench and then exploded. Everybody in the vicinity bolted to the
nearest traverse, so no one was hurt badly. But Massie was kept busy
for a week picking bomb splinters out of himself.
Massie had several miraculous escapes since landing on Gallipoli. The
closest shave occurred when he was out in front of the firing-line
fixing some barbed wire. He was clambering back over the parapet when
one of his own men mistook him for a Turk and lunged at him with his
bayonet. Massie ducked just as if he were dodging a "straight left,"
but the point of the bayonet caught him in the neck, inflicting,
fortunately, only a slight wound. Later he was seriously wounded, and
was taken off to hospital.
There was one senior officer in the Light Horse who occasionally
enjoyed fresh fish for breakfast. This was very rare on Gallipoli.
The cook would never tell whence the fish came, but it was noted that
the regimental supply of bombs was always one or two short. Nobody
ever connected the absence of bombs with the presence of fish. But one
morning very early the officer noticed the cook making stealthily in
the direction of the cove. He followed. Then he saw the bombs explode
in the water, and he saw the cook swim out and gather in half a
dozen fine big mullet. An hour later he had delicious fresh fish for
breakfast, while most of the officers had bully-beef and bacon. The
officer was in a quandary. He did not know whether to court-martial the
cook or promote him!
One other bomb incident I hesitate to give, as I did not see it, and
cannot vouch for it. But up at Quinn's Post they swore it was true. I
give it in the words of the callous-hearted soldier who told me the
story. "We were giving Abdul a 'bit of hurry-up up' at Quinn's," he
said. "Jim always was slow, and it settled him. He had a 5-seconds
bomb, made out of a 'baccy' tin, and he was told to count one, two,
three, and on the 'three' chuck the blame thing into the Turkish
trenches. Well, he lit it, and it never burned too good, so he starts
blowing at the fuse. He looked awful comical, and we yelled at him to
'shot.' But he kept on blowing till the dash thing exploded, and blew
half his head off. He was a humorous bloke."
CHAPTER XVI
AEROPLANES
THE ANGEL OF DEATH ABROAD--THREE MATES--LAUGHING IN THE FACE OF
DEATH--HARD SWEARERS, HARD FIGHTERS--A CURATE'S "LANGUAGE"--GERMAN
AEROPLANE DROPS BOMBS ON TURKS--SAFETY IN AIR FLIGHT--"SAVE US FROM
OUR FRIENDS"
"My turn at cooking comes round every third day," wrote a gunner of the
6th Battery, Victorian Division of Artillery, Anzac, at a time when
victuals were not too plentiful. "I give them bully-beef and biscuits
one day, and biscuits and bully-beef the next for a change. How I think
with envy of the wonderful messes of pottage the mater used to make for
the hens at Sandringham!... It is a most peculiar sensation at first to
have 'Weary Willies' bursting over you and to see the pellets dropping
on the dusty road like rain after a dry spell."
[Illustration: Anzacs in Reserve.
An Australian Brigade in dug-outs in Rest Gully.]
And another wrote: "The trenches are certainly the safest place to be
in. One 8-inch shell took the roof (blankets) off our officers'
heads, just missing Major Hunt, O.C., Lieutenant Smith and Lieutenant
Perry, of our Company, by inches--not the whole shell, but a piece of
it. The shell killed a couple of our men when it burst.... We were
continuously at it for five solid weeks, and then we were taken to Rest
Gully for a rest, which consisted of fatigues, sapping, trenching under
fire and working parties on the famous beach, where 'Beachy Bill' and
'Lonely Liz' used to scatter men by the score, with also an 11-inch
shell dropping now and then from the Straits. Splendid rest, this!"
Change! What change could one have there? Rest! What rest? "The Angel
of Death is abroad throughout the land," said John Bright in one of
his most memorable orations. "You can almost hear the beating of his
wings!" But on Gallipoli you could hear the beating of his wings day
and night, knowing not what the next moment might bring forth.
There were three mates in Junee, a western town of New South Wales,
who used to play cricket and football together. When their country
asked for soldiers they answered the call. The three enlisted
together, shared the same tent in camp, and fought side by side in each
successive engagement, from the landing to the fight for Lonesome Pine.
One of them--Reg. Humphreys--fell with a bullet in his brain, and died
in the arms of his comrade, Joe Charlton. Later in the day, Charlton
fell, and the third man, Paul White, carried him back to the ship,
where he died of his wounds. Out of 120 men of A Company only White and
one other man remained. The rest were all killed or wounded or sick.
Such is War. And yet our boys went cheerfully on with their work. Hard
work--hot work, so hot that we followed the example of the Indian Army
and cut our trousers short. Very comfortable were these "shorts" when
climbing about the hills. We looked like Boy Scouts. You should have
seen the gunners on a hot day, stripped to the waist, and stripped from
the knee to the feet--wearing their "shorts" and nothing but their
"shorts"! Infantry and Light Horsemen, you could scarce tell one from
the other. "Shorts" put us all on the same level. And we were all as
jolly as sandboys, having our fun and cracking our jokes, reading the
official _Peninsula Press_ and enjoying the unofficial humour of our
own trench organs, such as the _Dinkum Oil News_ and _The Dardanelles
Driveller_. We knew that Death was near, but we laughed in his face.
One day a bread ration was issued, instead of the inevitable biscuit
ration. "Well, they might have given us butter with it!" exclaimed one
trooper, with a smile. "Butter!" cried his mate--"you'll be wanting
flowers on your grave next!"
They had many names for the Australians on Gallipoli, and one of them
was "The Linguists." Some of the British Tommies used to stand in
awe when they heard an Australian bullock driver giving vent to his
feelings. I have even heard it said that a reputable Australian curate
who went to the front in the ranks used the most disreputable language
in charging a Turkish trench. One morning a German aeroplane dropped
two huge bombs behind our lines. They exploded with a terrific blast,
but did no damage. As the glistening bombs shot earthward, one of the
men exclaimed, "'Ere comes 'er 'ymn of 'ate from 'ell!"
Another day we thought we would see an aerial duel. Already we had seen
about everything else that twentieth-century war could show us. But
the duel never came off. One of our 'planes took wing and flew north
from Helles, over Anzac, towards Enos. Shortly afterwards, a German
aeroplane took the air, and hovered over our lines. Evidently our
airman could not see the Taube, for he circled aimlessly about over
the Ægean Sea. Meanwhile, the German got quite venturesome. He sailed
low--barely 2,000 feet above us--and though we blazed away with rifles
and guns, he managed to have a good look at our position. Also, he
dropped a couple of bombs at the right of our line before he bolted.
But they fell harmlessly into the sea.
We got several good laughs every day. It made life worth living to
note the wonderful good humour of our soldiers. Sometimes we laughed
at the Turks, sometimes at each other. We had one great laugh at a
German airman. He went up with a big bomb, evidently intent on some
frightfulness. A British aeroplane immediately sighted him, and started
in pursuit. Then a couple of French airmen took the air, and joined in
the chase. With three of them hot on his trail, the German fled over
the Turkish lines. The Allies gained on him, so to lighten his load he
dropped his bomb overboard. But it landed on the Turkish trenches. They
thought he must have been an enemy, for they at once opened fire with
rifles, machine-guns, and anti-aircraft artillery, and the poor Taube
had a very sultry time.
The Germans erected a new aerodrome, "somewhere on Gallipoli." The
French airmen sighted it, dropped a few bombs, set fire to the petrol
store, and did considerable damage. We had an aerial night attack on
the Turkish camps at the Soghan Dere. Our aeroplanes first fired with
their machine-guns at the flashes of the enemy's rifles. Then they
dropped a couple of 20-lb. bombs, which burst in the centre of the
Turkish camp. Finally they dropped 300 arrows amongst the bewildered
enemy.
After watching the airmen operating over the Suez Canal and the
Mediterranean, and in Gallipoli, we came to the conclusion that flying
is easily the safest job in war time. We used to think otherwise. To
the onlooker it appeared so hazardous, that the marvel was that those
dare-devils were not all blown to smithereens. But for about three
months, we watched them at work, and not a hair of one of their heads
was harmed. Time and again the airman sailed across the enemy's lines,
while their anti-aircraft guns worked overtime. The blue of the sky
was flecked with white puffs of smoke where the shells burst, yet the
aeroplane flew on serenely. I counted forty-one shells one day, which
burst all round one of our airmen on reconnaissance. Many seemed to go
very close indeed; others flew wide of the mark. The Turkish trenches
would spring to life as our 'planes passed over, and thousands of
rounds would be poured into the atmosphere. Their machine-guns would
sound the rataplan as the belts were emptied. But the wild fusillade
never disconcerted the airmen. All of which proves what an exceedingly
difficult target the aeroplane must be.
We did not have any Zeppelins buzzing round the Dardanelles. Perhaps
they were too busily engaged on their baby-killing enterprises on the
east coast of old England. The nearest thing we had was an observation
balloon, looking for all the world like a huge German sausage suspended
in mid-air. But it was very helpful to our warships for observation
purposes.
CHAPTER XVII
"PADRE"
BERGIN--ROBERTSON--MILLER--GOOD AND BRAVE CHRISTIAN DIVINES--TURKISH
IMAMS--A CHESS-PLAYING CLERIC--POCKET TESTAMENTS AND SUNDAY
SERVICES--HILL-SIDE WORSHIP--HYMNS AND THE CANNONS' ROAR
In the training camps in Australia the chaplains conducted services,
helped at the concerts, and generally made themselves useful and
agreeable. On the transports they did pretty much the same thing; but
somehow we never seemed to know them, and they, in turn, knew very few
of us by name. It was when we settled down in Egypt that we first began
to know them, and to appreciate their work. And since Cairo has the
reputation of being the wickedest city in the world, there was ample
scope for the operations of the chaplains.
But one of the chaplains had adamantine ideas on theological subjects.
He was a great scholar, and had other virtues, but his conscience
would not let him participate in the combined services with the other
ministers. So when we came away to thrash the Turk we left him behind
in Egypt.
In his stead we took an Irishman--Father Bergin. He was a good sport,
a good priest, brave as a lion, and with wounded soldiers gentle as a
nurse. His only fault was that he always wanted to be right up in the
firing line, for he dearly loved a "scrap"--being Irish. When the 5th
Light Horse Regiment had their fight near Gaba Tepe, Father "Mike" was
everywhere tending the wounded, and as a water-carrier he rivalled
Gunga Din. Those of us who were not of the "faithful" learned to like
him more and more, and if the campaign had lasted much longer I fear we
would have all been "Romans."
Then there was Captain Robertson, young and quiet, and kind of heart. I
don't think any of us ever saw him in a pulpit. Mostly he had to preach
in tents or in the open air. I have heard him hold forth in an Anzac
gully, with the shells bursting overhead. Again, I have sat at his feet
right in the support trenches, just behind the firing-line, while his
sentences were punctuated by the report of snipers' rifles. He used to
dwell on "historic associations." He told us that our feet had trod
the same streets and fields as Moses and Aaron and Pharaoh, Joseph and
Mary, the Apostle Paul, Antony and Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Mahomet
Ali, Napoleon and Byron, and a host of others. His forte, however,
was not preaching, but practising. He practised most of the Christian
virtues. He was the soldiers' friend, and when we'd sit and smoke and
yarn round the camp fire at night, and some one swore inadvertently, he
was not righteous overmuch.
Our third padre, the Senior Chaplain of the Brigade, was Captain
Keith Miller. As the Americans say, he was "some preacher." At Ma'adi
we used to have the big tent packed with 2,000 soldiers. Visitors
from Cairo and beyond used to go from our services as much impressed
with the preacher as with the physique and bearing of the Light
Horsemen. Sermon-tasters from St. Andrew's, Cairo, nodded their heads
in grave approval. Elders, with an air of finality, said, "Yon's a
fine deliverance"; and other elders answered "Aye." The padre's final
oration and peroration before we left for the front won the special
commendation of General Birdwood, who was present. I forget now what
the sermon was about--but I know I wanted to cheer at the end of it.
On one of the Turkish prisoners captured, we found a copy of a
divisional order, in which the O.C. stated:--"I have many times been
round the fire trenches, but have never met any Imam. I lately gave an
order that Imams were to be constantly in the trenches, in order to
keep up the morale of the men by preaching and exhorting; and whenever
possible men should be assembled for prayer, and the call for prayer
should be cried by a fine-voiced Imam."
Now, it is pleasing to record that no such order was necessary in the
ranks of the Australian division. Our chaplains since the memorable day
of the landing played their part manfully in the great game. McKenzie
of the Salvation Army was real grit; one of the finest of our militant
Churchmen. They were in the trenches day and night, talking with the
men, writing letters home to their people, visiting the sick; and every
man in our brigade was supplied with a neat little pocket Testament
by a friend of the New South Wales Auxiliary of the British and
Foreign Bible Society. And on Sundays there were services in all the
brigades--in the gullies, or under the crests of the hills behind the
firing line. And sometimes we couldn't hear the singing because of the
cannons' roar; there was not one solitary spot in Anzac absolutely safe
from the enemy's fire. And yet I have never heard of any soldier being
wounded at any of these services! Once Padre Miller was conducting a
service in Shrapnel Valley, and had finished his firstly, secondly, and
thirdly, and was just coming to the peroration, when shrapnel shells
burst overhead. So the service had to be abandoned. That was a "sair"
trial to the "Meenister."
Yet, in spite of his many estimable qualities, I regret to state that
Padre Miller had one besetting sin. It was a secret sin. Only a few of
us knew of his weakness. He played chess. Yes, played chess over and
over and over again. When in Cairo others of us would play tennis, he
would slink away with some old crony and play chess. I have known him
play till two o'clock in the morning at a game. (There is no doubt
about the hour, because he called for me on the way back to camp.) He
was often late at mess, playing chess. He scarce had time to dress,
playing chess. Admittedly he played well, and after defeating the
Ma'adi champions he sought fresh victims in Cairo. The Scotch engineer
on the transport was a fine player, but he couldn't checkmate the padre.
When we landed in Gallipoli the first thing the padre did was to dig a
dug-out. The second was to seek a chess-mate. There was no chessboard,
so he got the lid of a box. There were no chessmen, so he carved
Queens and Bishops and Knights and Pawns out of the flotsam and jetsam
on Anzac Beach. Then, safely ensconced in a snug little dug-out, the
padre and his mate stalemated and checkmated to their hearts' content,
oblivious of the shells which burst around. Immediately after his tour
of the trenches, and his visit to the sick, the padre would make for
his chess-mate.
Later on we found him making periodical visits to the hospital ship. I
admit he religiously did the rounds of the wards, and looked after the
wounded, and I frankly admit that I went on board to see the nurses,
but I'm positive the driving force behind the padre's visits was the
prospect of a game of chess with the skipper.
After a few months on Gallipoli the Padre was transferred to the
hospital at Lemnos. We all sympathized with him, stuck at the base, and
missing all the fun of the fighting. Then we heard that the M.O. at the
hospital was a great chess-player, and we knew that the Padre never
deserved our sympathy.
CHAPTER XVIII
"STUNTS"
AN INCONVENIENT COUGH--"IMSHI"--AN EMPTY NEST AND A DASH FOR COVER--A
CLOSE SHAVE--SNIPER SING--MIDGLEY'S MYRMIDONS--A GOOD "BAG"--A WAR OF
TROGLODYTES--BEATING THE TURK AT HIS OWN GAME
They are not battles or fights; they are hardly skirmishes even. They
are just "stunts."
I don't like the word "stunt"; it sounds like an American vaudeville
turn. But somehow it attained a general vogue on Gallipoli, and it
meant any of the little incidents, episodes, and brushes with the enemy
which served to relieve the monotony of trench warfare.
Having been ousted from their "impregnable" positions on the coast, the
Turks dug in deep to block the advance of the Australians on the west
and the Allies on the south. Slowly they were being shifted; more by
the pick and shovel than the rifle. The trenches were only a few yards
apart in some places; several hundred yards apart in others. And it was
in the neutral zone between the hostile armies that these "stunts" took
place.
Mostly they were planned and executed under cover of darkness, for a
head couldn't be shown above the trenches in daylight without getting a
score of bullets. Our chaps were far more enterprising and venturesome
than the Turks, but the latter were better patrols. The reason was that
the Turks know the country, wear a kind of moccasin on their feet, and
move about quite noiselessly. With our heavy service-boots silence is
impossible. So we got out early--just after dark--waited in ambush, and
caught Tommy Turk when he came poking his nose into our business.
One fine "stunt" was spoilt by a cough. Lieutenant Chatham, of the
5th Light Horse, had a troop out in ambush near the Balkan gun pits,
where the Turks were working each night. Just when the enemy's patrol
approached, one of our troopers felt a tickling in the throat. He
tried to swallow the tickle and couldn't. He gulped, but the tickling
continued aggravating. At last he stuffed his handkerchief in his
mouth and coughed. It was only an insignificant little cough; but
it sufficed. The Turkish patrol halted and the leader investigated.
Stealthily he crept up till he could almost touch the crouching
Australian. Bang! Finish Turk. Patrol "imshi." That was one to us. But
for the unfortunate cough we might have got half a dozen.
The enemy scored next time. One of their snipers, over-bold, crept up
in the scrub to within twenty yards of the trenches of the 7th Light
Horse, and started blazing away. Our fellows could not get him from the
trenches, so Sergeant Ducker and three others volunteered to rush the
Turk's "posey" and bring him in, dead or alive. Cautiously they fixed
bayonets, climbed on to the parapet, and then dashed out. They found
the sniper's nest, but the bird had flown. A number of empty cartridge
cases bore testimony to his activity. But the scrub was full of
snipers, and as our dashing quartette dashed for home a hot fusillade
was opened on them from the Turkish trenches and the scrub. Ducker
dashed into shelter so fast that he landed on General Ryrie's back.
No. 2 sent a miniature avalanche of dust and débris on top of Colonel
Cox; No. 3 landed on my pet corn; and No. 4, Trooper Edgeworth, got a
Turkish bullet in the arm. "Maleesch."
One of our best exploits was "White's one-night stunt," as it was
called. The General wanted a certain position taken and occupied.
Our brigade had to do it. Under cover of night a patrol went out,
reconnoitred the position, and formed a covering party for the work to
come. Major Fred. White then took 150 men of the 6th Light Horse, armed
with picks and shovels as well as their rifles, and dug a long sap six
feet deep, right out to Harris Ridge. Then the trenches were dug, and
the position occupied. The Sixth dug like miners, and burrowed like
rabbits. Next morning when Abdul awoke he beheld the smoke of the Light
Horse camp fires and the hill in possession of the enemy. And the Turks
wondered what had happened.
One morning early, Major Windeyer, of the 7th, poked his head over the
parapet to enjoy the panorama, and a Turkish sniper let fly, the bullet
just whizzing past his ear. Several snipers had been heard in front
of our lines, but not located. So it was decided to drive them off.
Fifty volunteered for the job; six were chosen, but it was found that a
dozen joined in the rush. The Turkish patrol was easily driven back by
Sergeant Walker and his comrades, and the Turks in the foremost trench
were so surprised that about fifty rounds were poured into them before
they got busy. At least one was killed before their reinforcements came
tumbling up. Then the Australians bolted for home, and reached safety
without any casualties, though the Turks blazed away like fury. That's
the luck of the game.
Sergeant Brennan, who used to be in the Dublin Fusiliers, and whose
camp kitchens at Liverpool have often been admired by Sydney visitors,
was in charge of the cooks and dixies of the 7th Light Horse. Every
morning, breakfast over, he took down his rifle, strolled across to
the trenches, and had innumerable duels with Turkish snipers. He had
the range of all their trenches, and when he saw a sniper's "posey"
he blazed away till he silenced the enemy. Now and then an unwary Turk
showed half a head, and this Irish sharpshooter was on to him like a
shot. Some days he would come back to camp angry and disappointed.
"Thirty shots and not a single scalp," he exclaimed, kicking aside some
innocent mess tin. But at other times he stalked back as if he had won
the battle of Anzac "on his own." "Killed three Turkeys," he cried. And
then he was as happy as Larry all day.
But there was one man in the 5th Light Horse Regiment whom we called
"The Murderer." He played the Turks at their own game, and beat them
badly. He himself admitted it was "a shame to take the money." He used
to sit with his rifle set at a certain track which the enemy thought
was well concealed behind the hills. His mate had a telescope, and
spotted for him. They waited till they saw a head appear, and they knew
that three seconds later a Turk would be in full view for two seconds.
That was quite enough. "The Murderer" was ready. The spotter said
"Right"; the rifle fired, and another victim of German "kultur" fell.
The man's name was Billy Sing, a Queenslander, belonging to "Midgley's
Myrmidons." The 5th Light Horse Regiment was nominally composed of
Queenslanders; but the North Coast rivers of New South Wales were
included in the 1st Commonwealth Military District. A great many men
from the Tweed, Richmond, and Clarence Rivers enlisted in Brisbane.
This was particularly true of the 5th Light Horse, for the majority
of Major Midgley's squadron hailed from Northern New South Wales.
They revelled in the exploits of the gallant little Major, swearing
to follow him anywhere, so we called them Midgley's Myrmidons. If he
were casually to remark, "Come on, boys, I think we'll take Achi Baba
to-night," not one of them would have hesitated an instant. Major
Midgley reckoned that since the glorious game of War degenerated into
a battle of troglodytes, we might as well make it interesting and
diverting. So, in this particular section of our line of battle, things
were always happening. We never wanted for diversion. But this same
diversion was always at the expense of our friend the enemy, and poor
Abdul was correspondingly angry.
Sing held the Australian snipers' record. He was a crack shot, and had
often won prizes at Brisbane and Randwick. Day after day, night after
night, he used to settle down comfortably in his "posey" and wait for
his prey. His patience was inexhaustible. He would sit for hours on end
with a telescope glued to his eye, watching the tracks or trenches,
where sooner or later a Turk was sure to show himself. If a Turk
looked up, and then bobbed down quickly, Sing only grinned and waited.
He would get his Turk later on. Emboldened by fancied immunity, the
unsuspecting one would show his head again, then his shoulders, then
half his body. Then Sing's rifle would crack, and another notch be made
in the stick. There was not the slightest doubt of his performances,
for every day an officer or non-commissioned officer checked the shot
and recorded the kill. Before he left Anzac Billy Sing bagged over 150
Turks.
One night he went with the rest of Midgley's Myrmidons on a rather
hazardous enterprise. It turned out to be one of the most successful
affairs undertaken. General Ryrie wanted to know how strongly held were
the Turkish trenches on an imposing ridge opposite our lines. The 5th
Light Horse Regiment (Major Wilson) had to find out. Major Midgley's
squadron had to make the attack. Major Johnson's squadron skirted the
coast to keep Gaba Tepe quiet and guard against a flank attack. Captain
Pike's squadron manned our outpost, and brought covering fire to bear
on the enemy's right. One of our destroyers fired a few salvos at the
Turks' position; just something to go on with. Then the Myrmidons
sneaked out. It was about four o'clock in the morning. The moon had
just set. Through the scrub they crept silently and stealthily. Not a
sound escaped them till they were within thirty yards of the enemy's
trenches. Then something warned a sentry, and he fired half a dozen
shots into the scrub. But our lads lay low and made no sound, and the
sentry evidently thought he was mistaken.
At a word from the Major the line started slowly forward again, and,
unnoticed, reached a little knoll, not ten yards from the Turkish
trenches. Then the music began, with a pyrotechnic display thrown
in. Our "grenadiers" threw bombs and grenades thick and fast on the
bewildered garrison, while on either wing our riflemen blazed away,
driving back the supports which hurried up from the enemy's rear. On
the shore line, B Squadron opened on the Gaba Tepe defences, while we
in the trenches blazed away at Pine Ridge till our rifles burned our
hands. The silence of the night was broken by a fierce fusillade, as
pin-points of fire burst from the whole length of the Turkish trenches.
But the regiments on our left lay low in their trenches, and laughed
at the Turks' impotent rage. We on the post had one man very slightly
wounded--just a scratch. The shore line squadron had also one man
wounded--rather badly.
Midgley's gallant Myrmidons effected a splendid withdrawal, for after
they had cleaned out the Turks' advance trench they came back to our
lines with only one man wounded in the leg. When he came in Major
Midgley reported to the General: "We've got 'em stone cold. My birds
simply bombed them out, cleaned out the trench, bagged about thirty,
and are now back for breakfast."
CHAPTER XIX
LONESOME PINE
A MEMORABLE ENGAGEMENT--TARDY BRITISH ADVANCE--SIR IAN HAMILTON'S
MESSAGE--FIVE DAYS' FIGHTING--OUR GALLANT INFANTRY--OFFICERS WHO
FELL--HOT BAYONET WORK--THE NAVY SPEAKS--LONE PINE TAKEN
August on Gallipoli will be long remembered by the Australian troops on
account of the terrific fighting in which they participated. July was
fairly quiet. But August witnessed the great flanking movement of the
British troops, which we were confident at the time would result in the
final defeat of the Turks on the Peninsula.
The new movement took the form of an attack and demonstration in front,
while under cover of darkness a new British force landed at Suvla Bay
and enveloped the enemy's flank. In the better understood parlance of
the ring, we feinted with our right, and landed a terrific blow with
our left. So successful was this feint that all the local reserves of
the Turks were hurried up to counter it, thus leaving an opening for
the main attack from Suvla.
All the honour and glory of the magnificent charge of our Australians
and the capture of Lone Pine Ridge belongs to our infantry comrades of
the 1st Brigade. We of the Light Horse can claim none of the kudos for
that gallant feat of arms, though the 2nd Light Horse Brigade and 2nd
Infantry Brigade fought like tigers day after day and night after night
to hold the line during the consequent counter-attacks.
There was some fierce and bloody fighting during those early days of
August all along the line, but the capture of Lone Pine Ridge stands
out, not only because of the complete success of the operation but on
account of the irresistible dash and daring of the lads from New South
Wales.
Just before the battle we got a message from Sir Ian Hamilton. It
was in a Special Order issued from the general headquarters of the
Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, and was as follows:--
_"August 5, 1915._
"Soldiers of the old army and the new:--
"Some of you have already won imperishable renown at our first
landing, or have since built up our foothold upon the peninsula, yard
by yard, with deeds of heroism and endurance. Others have arrived
just in time to take part in our next great fight against Germany and
Turkey, the would-be oppressors of the rest of the human race.
"You, veterans, are about to add fresh lustre to your arms. Happen
what may, so much at least is certain.
"As to you, soldiers of the new formations, you are privileged indeed
to have the chance vouchsafed you of playing a decisive part in events
which may herald the birth of a new and happier world. You stand for
the great cause of freedom. In the hour of trial remember this, and
the faith that is in you will bring you victoriously through.
"IAN HAMILTON, General."
For five days and nights the battle raged on Gallipoli. The cannon
roared incessantly; big guns, little guns, field guns, mortars, ships'
guns, and howitzers belching forth their iron hail till the earth
trembled again.
Hardly heard amid the thunderous roar of artillery were the
interminable rattle of musketry, and the spiteful snapping of Maxims.
From the firing fine to the base, hardly a square foot of ground seemed
safe from shrapnel shells and high explosives. Probably 200,000 men
were engaged, hacking at each other day and night; for this seemed the
decisive battle of the Gallipoli campaign.
It made one's blood flow faster and tingle with pride to see the
magnificent way our young Australians played the great game of war.
Hemmed in and cooped up in the trenches for weary weeks, they had at
last been let loose upon the enemy at Lone Pine. Like hounds from
the leash, they charged across the bullet-swept area between the
contending armies. The Turkish lines spat fire from every loophole,
and machine-guns seemed to revel in murderous music. On swept the
line, thinned but dauntless. Heroes fell on every side. Enfilading
volleys swept across from the side. To us on the right the men seemed
to falter for a space; but it was only to hack their way through the
maze of barbed wire. Then they scrambled over the sandbags, their last
obstacle, and bayoneted the Turks by scores. One wild mêlée on the
parapet--thrust, lunge, and parry--then the trenches were ours.
This charge was only one little episode in the long, long struggle
of those early days of August. Each time the Turks massed for a
charge Colonel Rosenthal's guns tore great rents in their ranks,
and wrought havoc in their trenches. But again and again their
bomb-throwers--hidden behind the communication trenches--massed and
endeavoured to retake the position.
On the left the Australian and New Zealand Division, with whom were our
3rd Light Horse Brigade, made a splendid advance over shrapnel-swept
ravines, defended by trenches and machine-guns cunningly hidden in the
scrub. They charged the heights like the Highlanders at Darghai, but
against a far more formidable foe. They suffered terribly, especially
the Light Horsemen, but there was no stopping them.
Hundreds of prisoners were captured, much ammunition, many rifles, and
a few machine-guns. The prisoners stated that the Australians' attack
was a complete surprise. But a far greater surprise awaited them. At
night in the offing there was only seen one hospital ship, though now
and then a destroyer sent its searchlight on to the hills. But when
the first streaks of dawn-light fell on the Ægean Sea the amazed Turks
beheld a vast flotilla, and in futile anger the German staff officers
witnessed another landing on Gallipoli. Almost unmolested, a new
British force landed at Suvla Bay, for the Turks had hurried all their
reinforcements back to stem the onrush of the Australasians. Several
warships and a score of destroyers glided into the bay or round the
projecting horns, and sent a veritable tornado of shells on to the
enemy's position.
A dozen big transports came up and emptied their khaki freight into a
hundred barges, pinnaces, launches, and sweepers. The new force landed,
formed up, and marched inland against the Turkish right. At first the
resistance was feeble, and the enemy was driven back beyond the salt
lake towards the hills. More troops were hurried up from Gallipoli,
and the fight waxed more strenuous. Nothing in the war has provoked
so much keen disappointment and vitriolic criticism as the Suvla Bay
business. We who saw the landing, mingled with the British troops and
knew how much depended on the success of the venture, are perhaps not
the best critics. We do not know all the facts of the case. We think
Sir Ian Hamilton's strategy was brilliant. We know the work of the Navy
was magnificent. We fear that after the landing, the attack was not
pushed home with that vigour and determination which were essential for
the success of the operation. Precious time was lost, and while the
British hesitated the Turks hurried up reinforcements and once more
barred the way to Constantinople. And we had hoped that August would
herald the beginning of the end.
* * * * *
The First Infantry Brigade of the Australian Division did big things
since landing on Gallipoli--glorious deeds that will be the pride
and boast of successive generations of Australians. It was Colonel
Maclagan's 3rd Brigade that achieved undying fame by the electric
daring of its picturesque landing, but it was the 1st Brigade which,
following hot on the heels of the gallant Thirds on that memorable
day, swarmed up the heights and drove back at the point of the bayonet
the successive swarms of fanatical Turks who tried in vain to drive
them into the sea. But how dearly was that victory won! How the ranks
of these gallant Sydneysiders were decimated! It was small comfort to
us to know that Constantinople reported 120,000 Turkish casualties for
the three months after our landing.
The list of senior officers killed was appalling; not one of the
original battalion commanders retained his command. Not less tragic was
the loss of junior officers. In the Lone Pine attack the 3rd Battalion
lost eight officers killed and nine wounded; while the 2nd Battalion
lost nine killed and eight wounded. We captured many prisoners, several
machine-guns, and many thousands of rounds of ammunition. But the cost
to young Australia was so heavy!
* * * * *
Lone Pine Ridge was situated right in front of the centre of the
Australians' position, and was strongly held and fortified like a
little Gibraltar. The overhead cover was so strong that our shells made
little impression on the Turkish trenches. Machine-guns punctuated
the line at regular intervals. The open space in front was swept by
enfilading fire from the Bloody Angle on the left and the Pine Ridge
on the right, while the German gunners behind Gun Ridge had the range
to a nicety. A network of barbed wire entanglements provided a nasty
obstacle right in front of their trenches, while "posies" for expert
snipers and bomb-throwers completed their defence works. To the trained
soldier the position looked absolutely impregnable.
But our lads were well trained. They reckoned they were veterans. I who
had visited them in camp and on the march round about Liverpool knew
the stuff of which they were made. Yet there were those who, ere they
left Sydney, said the Australians would only do garrison duty, as it
would be murder to put them in the firing line. Competent critics held
that General Birdwood was the luckiest man in the army in getting the
command of the Australians, for no troops in the world could do what
they have done. Is this boasting? Ask the British staff officers. Ask
the French. Ask the Gurkhas and the other Indian soldiers.
[Illustration: Entrance to Lone Pine, which was so hardly won.]
The First Infantry Brigade fired not a single shot during the great
charge. It was all bayonet work. In the ranks were many of the heroes
who landed on the memorable 25th of April, were wounded, and were now
back in the firing line. Others had been in the thick of it all the
time; no periodical spells such as the soldiers in Flanders get. Others
again were the latest reinforcements who left Sydney in June, and
landed the evening before the battle. Yet these raw youngsters, having
their first experience under fire, charged with the best, and wielded a
bloody bayonet within the hour. And many of them--Dr. Digges la Touche
amongst the number--perished in their first fight.
Prior to the charge our artillery opened a heavy bombardment of the
Lone Pine trenches. Shrapnel and high explosives rained down on the
Turkish lines. The Turkish gunners in turn opened on our lines a
devastating fire, and the resultant roar of heavy guns and screeching
of shells created a veritable inferno.
I don't know how long it lasted, but suddenly our guns ceased, and
on the instant our gallant infantry sprang from their trenches and
charged straight ahead. They were over our parapets and well on their
way before the Turks could realize it. Then rifles and machine-guns
started a murderous fusillade, while the guns in the background sent
a hail of shrapnel. Thick and fast fell the attackers. One marvels
how any escaped that hell of fire. But, fortunately, only a small
percentage of the Turks are marksmen. The German machine-gunners,
however, were very deadly, and the enfilading fire from Pine Ridge
increased in volume and effectiveness and the trail to Lonesome Pine
was strewn with khaki figures. Our Light Horse on the right had all
their crack shots picking off the Turks on Pine Ridge, while our field
guns in Hughes's battery at point-blank range helped to keep the
enfilading fire from this quarter down to a minimum.
Meanwhile the Firsts had almost reached their goal. They were checked
for a space by the barbed wire; but hacking their way through they
scaled the enemy's parapets, tore aside the overhead cover, leaped
into the trenches, and then, free from the murderous cross-fire of
machine-guns, they resolutely set to work with the bayonet to finish
the job. Since the days of Plevna the Turk has been reckoned second to
no soldiers in the world behind the trenches and parapets. I am not in
a position to dispute this, but I do claim that in the open or with the
bayonet the Turk is not a match for the Australians. Right along the
trenches and saps the Firsts fought their way, bayoneting every Turk or
German who did not immediately throw down his rifle. Here and there the
defenders made some resistance, and little knots of them would rally
for a minute or two. But the Firsts flew at them like eagle-hawks, and
a neat bit of bayonet work settled the Turks for good and all.
As to the part played by the Light Horse Brigades in the general scheme
of attack, it fell to General Ryrie's Second Brigade to hold the right
of the line opposite Gaba Tepe. We made minor demonstrations against
the enemy, cleaned out a few of his trenches, kept his snipers very
much in subjection, mined and counter-mined, and blew up Abdul's tunnel
just when he thought he was going to do the same to us. Also, we kept
each day a fresh squadron in Lonesome Pine to assist in defending
against the Turkish counter-attacks. Our losses had not been great,
considering the slaughter all along the line. Since landing we had had
just over 600 casualties, of whom 105 were killed; also we had had
several hundred sent sick to hospital.
General Chauvel's First Brigade had suffered much more heavily. They
had well performed their share of the trench fighting since May. In the
big battle the First Regiment had to advance under a murderous fire
from Pope's Hill, and take the Turkish trenches opposite the Bloody
Angle. Captain Laurie, with A Squadron, scaled the parapets and charged
across the bullet-swept interval, while Captain Cox, with B Squadron,
crawled up a gully; and then both squadrons rushed to the attack.
Without firing a shot, they captured three successive trenches,
bayoneting the defenders, and then swept on. Twelve officers and 200
troopers made that dashing charge, and without reinforcements they
withstood all the Turkish counter-attacks from four o'clock in the
afternoon till half-past six. But the slaughter was cruel. Fewer and
fewer were left to defend the hard-won trenches. From all sides the
enemy threw bombs and grenades. Our bombs were all gone. At last
the remnant had to retire. Major Reid was killed; Captain Cox so
badly wounded that he died a few days later; only fifty unwounded men
regained our trenches. Of all the officers, Major Glasgow alone was
unwounded.
A worse fate befel the 3rd Brigade, under General Hughes. In their
attack on Walker's Ridge they lost thirty-two officers and 400 men in
ten minutes. They swarmed out of our trenches and sprang forward; and
then so terrific was the hail of bullets that they fell in heaps. It
almost looked as if they had thrown themselves prone to get cover.
Machine-guns swept the area from end to end. The 8th (Victorian) and
10th (Western Australian) Light Horse Regiments just thinned out and
wilted away. About a hundred unwounded men came back from that hell.
Later on the 3rd Brigade had their revenge. When the New Zealand and
Australian Division swept forward, driving the enemy before them, and
capturing trench after trench, there remained one spot on the line
of ridges that baffled the attack. Both sides dug in, and had a few
days' respite. Then the 10th Light Horse hurled themselves on the
stubborn Turks, cleaned out their trenches, and with bloody bayonets
stood masters of the hill. It was only a remnant of the regiment that
remained, but they baffled every effort of the Turks to dislodge them.
One spot further along the line had at length given way to the pressure
of the enemy's attacks. The New Zealanders, after some magnificent
fighting for several days, had been driven back from one point on the
line. It was essential that the position should be retaken and our
advanced line linked up. So the 9th Light Horse Regiment was sent
forward to do the job, and they did it brilliantly....
The pen seems so futile a thing to depict the scene. It was the same
thing day after day. A stealthy advance through the scrub, a rattle of
snipers' rifles, then wild cheers, as the Australians scrambled up the
hill; a terrific fusillade as they neared their objective; a glint of
gleaming bayonets as they charged the trenches; then the wild mêlée of
hand-to-hand fighting, when one Australian always reckons himself a
match for three Turks; and finally the shout of victory.
And through it all the stretcher-bearers were real true-blue. Under
the heaviest fire they went right up to the firing-line, tended the
wounded, and carried them back to the field hospitals. Oh, you, who
think the Army Medical Corps is always comfortably and safely situated
at the base, pray be undeceived! Their part is just as hazardous as
that of the soldier of the line.
Soon the cheers of the victors and the cries of the Turks died down.
Above the groans of the wounded could be heard the staccato tones of
the officers ordering platoons and sections this way and that to defend
the position against counter-attacks.
Scores of prisoners were led away. Hundreds of captured rifles were
stacked. German machine-guns were faced about and manned. Bomb-throwers
were placed in position. Hot tea was served out to the men. Night fell.
Lone Pine was ours. The successive ridges on our left towards Hill
971 had all been captured by the New Zealanders, and our 4th Infantry
Brigade under General Monash and the 3rd Light Horse Brigade under
General Hughes. The big battle of Suvla Bay was over. But it was only
a partial victory. Despite our gains and our losses the Turks still
blocked the way to Constantinople.
CHAPTER XX
LUCKY ESCAPES
TRUTH IN WAR STRONGER THAN FICTION--IS IT FATE OR LUCK?--CLOSE SHAVES
FOR GENERALS AND SERGEANTS--SWIMMERS, AND SHELLS NOT OF OCEAN--A FATAL
RICOCHET--BURIED AND DISENTOMBED
When I was a good little boy going to Sunday school, teacher gave me a
book entitled _Wonderful Escapes_. I read it with absorbing interest,
for it told of the marvellous escapes of princes and princesses from
fortified castles in the hands of their enemies.
Yet these delightful tales which so thrilled my youthful imagination
pale into insignificance and seem quite commonplace when compared
with the hair-breadth escapes which I have witnessed, and which I
have myself experienced since the 2nd Light Horse Brigade landed on
battle-scarred Gallipoli.
With the Taubes dropping bombs and darts from the sky, with the
Turks undermining and blowing up our advanced trenches, with snipers
cunningly concealed on the ridges, and the enemy's big guns sending
high explosives right across the Peninsula, there is really not a
single safe spot in all Gallipoli. So, when these Australian soldiers
get home again and fight their battles o'er again, don't disbelieve
them. The truth here is much more startling than any fiction.
I vouch for the absolute accuracy of the following incidents, for they
all came within my own ken. Some will say 'tis "luck"; some, "fate."
Others speak of the law of averages. It may be that the prayers of
thousands of Australian mothers and sisters beseeching Heaven for the
safety of their loved ones are not all in vain. For in very truth there
have been occasions when escape from instant death has savoured of
the supernatural. Men have left their dug-outs for a few seconds, and
almost on the instant a shell has wrecked those same dug-outs. Others
have seen shells fall on the identical spot they occupied a few seconds
before. Men have come back scatheless from the open field which has
been ploughed with shrapnel. Some have charged across the hills in
the teeth of murderous machine-guns, which were spitting death-pellets
unceasingly.
General Birdwood was having a look at the enemy's position when a
sniper's bullet parted his hair and split his scalp. Half an inch lower
would have been certain death. It would take pages and pages to tell of
the lucky escapes I could relate.
Take the case of Colonel Ryrie, now a brigadier-general. There is a
very comforting idea that regimental headquarters are always a long way
behind the firing-line, while brigade headquarters are further back
still. Therefore, it is argued, a brigadier has a nice, safe job. This
may be all right in theory, but it does not work out so in practice. I
call to mind that hearty send-off given to the then Colonel Ryrie by
his constituents at North Sydney, and what the recipient of that favour
said on the occasion. "Don't you worry about me," he said, "I'll come
back all right. They may knock some corners off me, but they won't
get me." Some "corners" have been knocked off him. I do not believe
there has been a day when the Brigadier-General has not visited the
firing-line of his brigade--up to the time when a bullet got him in the
neck and he was lost to us for some time in hospital. Time and again he
has taken the sniper's "posey" and mingled in a bit of sharpshooting
himself. Also, he has at different times gone in advance of our
firing-line to select new positions. Once, with his brigade-major and
orderly officer, he suddenly stopped to watch a squadron at bayonet
exercise, and a shrapnel shell burst, and the case landed right in
front of him. Had he not stopped, it is certain the party would have
been wiped out.
On another occasion the Brigadier-General and Major Onslow, Major
Suttor, Major Windeyer, Major Rutledge, Captain Miller and Captain
Higgins were outside Colonel Arnott's dug-out, when three shells burst
overhead. No one was hurt, though a fragment of shell landed in the
midst of them. There is always so much more landscape to hit than man.
Such incidents can be multiplied by the score. Sergeant Christie
Hayden--who was badly wounded in South Africa--emerged from his
dug-out the other day, and a shell missed him by inches, and wrecked
his little grey home. Sergeant Paddy Ryan, Sergeant Ken Alford, and
Lieutenant Pearce were standing together on Holly Ridge a few days
ago and a sniper's bullet perforated the hats of both the sergeants,
and missed the officer by a fraction of an inch. I wonder did that
sniper wait till he got the three in line, instead of making sure
of one? Trooper Sandy Jacques showed his head over a parapet for a
couple of seconds, and a sniper fired, but by a merciful dispensation
of Providence, the bullet split just before reaching him. The nickel
casing went to the right, and the leaden missile to the left. So
Jacques got a slight wound on each side of the head, and was able to
walk to the ambulance. Some wag has suggested that the bullet knew
very well what to expect if it struck Sandy's head, so it took the
line of least resistance; another said that Jacques was wounded by two
different bullets from a machine-gun. Lieutenant Lang sent a man for
water. As he walked away a high explosive shell passed right between
his legs and then exploded. The soldier merely exclaimed "Strewth!"
Here's an example of good and bad luck following one upon the other's
heels. The Turks bombarded our lines, and hurled half a dozen shells
into our trench, smashing down parapets, wrecking rifles and gear,
splathering bullets and splinters everywhere, and yet miraculously
missing everybody. Later on a single stray bullet found its way through
a loophole, ran off at an eccentric angle, and killed young Trooper
Bellinger, one of the best lads in the Sixth.
I went down to Anzac Cove for a swim. About 500 soldiers were having
a glorious time--better than Bondi. Half a dozen shells landed in the
water, while the pellets splashed all round like hail. Most of the
swimmers sought shelter; some took not the slightest notice. Not one
man was hit! But they are not always as lucky as that. Sometimes they
pay for their temerity. Trumpeter Newman and I stood outside the field
hospital a week ago, and a big howitzer shell burst fairly in front of
us, killing or wounding a dozen men. Neither of us suffered a scratch,
but there was a ringing in my ears for hours afterwards.
Lieutenant Ferguson was out on Ryrie's Post, beyond the firing-line,
for over an hour, while the Turkish artillery just dotted the whole
area with shrapnel. Hardly a square yard missed getting something, yet
he never stopped one. When Sergeant Shelley walked along Shell Green
a shell burst, and we could hardly see him for the dust kicked up by
the flying shrapnel bullets, yet he never got a scratch. Another shell
just shaved an infantryman, who turned round, shook his fist at it,
and swore loud and long. A second shell came after the first, so close
that it almost took the soldier's breath away. He did not wait to swear
again, but ran like a scared rabbit to his dug-out!
An infantry officer vouched for the accuracy of the following
story:--Two "Jack Johnson" shells (probably fired from the _Goeben_)
landed in quick succession in a trench occupied by half-a-dozen
Australians. The first tore down the parapet and buried one of the
soldiers. Before his mates could dig him out the second shell burst in
and disentombed him.
CHAPTER XXI
THE CHURCH MILITANT
DEATH OF DIGGES LA TOUCHE--A GREAT SPIRITUAL LOSS--THE CROSS AND
THE CRESCENT--A SPLENDID RECORD--ANDREW GILLISON'S DEATH--A GALLANT
CHRISTIAN SOLDIER--DUTY'S SACRIFICE
La Touche is dead....
Digges La Touche, the brilliant scholar, the fervid evangelist,
the militant divine, the fiery orator, the pugnacious debater, the
uncompromising Unionist, the electric Irishman--Digges La Touche, the
patriot, is dead: killed in his first battle, yea, in the first minute
of his first battle.
It came as a shock to those of us who knew him in camp. It will come
as a bigger shock to those who knew him in the Church, for it seems
scarcely more than a month since they bade him God-speed in Sydney. He
landed in Gallipoli on August 5, the eve of the big battle. That night
he went into the trenches. Next day he participated in the gallant
charge of the First Brigade which found its culmination in the capture
of Lone Pine Ridge. But La Touche never reached the Turkish trenches.
Charging at the head of his platoon, he had barely got beyond our
own trenches when a bullet struck him in the body. He fell. Later he
managed to crawl back to our trenches--and died.
For ten months he had pleaded with Church and State to let him serve
as a soldier of the king. For ten weeks he wore the uniform of an
officer of the Australian Imperial Force. For ten hours he did duty in
the trenches. For ten brief seconds he knew the wild exultation of the
charge. Then there passed away a great-hearted Britisher, strong of
soul and clear of vision, who counted it a great privilege to fight and
die for his king and country. The Crescent had glorified the Cross.
The pity of it all was that none of his friends knew he had arrived.
The Dean of Sydney--Chaplain-Colonel Talbot--was about to read the
burial service over eighteen soldiers who had perished in the charge.
He heard the name, and looked and saw his friend. That was the first he
knew of Lieutenant La Touche's arrival on Gallipoli--his arrival and
departure.
When we of the Sixth Light Horse first went into camp at Rosebery
Park, La Touche was there with the Thirteenth Battalion, under Colonel
Burnage, one of the most popular, as he afterwards proved one of the
most gallant, officers who ever donned a uniform. Dr. Digges La Touche
desired first to go as a chaplain, but was not selected. Far be it from
me to reflect on the judgment of the Archbishop of Perth who selected
the Anglican chaplains, but I have seen chaplains with not one tithe of
the qualifications that La Touche had for the job. Failing selection as
a chaplain, he enlisted as a private in the First Contingent. But he
was not over-robust and was transferred to the Second Contingent, and
rose to be a colour-sergeant in the Thirteenth. The Primate objected
to ministers serving as soldiers, and the friends of Digges La Touche
time and again urged him to remain behind. But his determination was
fixed, and though health considerations compelled his withdrawal from
the Thirteenth Battalion he attended an officers' training school and
gained a commission as second lieutenant; and he left Sydney in June
with the Sixth Reinforcements of the Second Battalion. Then, after a
brief spell in Egypt, he came to Gallipoli.
Before he got his commission La Touche was a great recruiting sergeant.
He never left in the minds of his hearers any doubts as to his opinion
of Prussian militarism and savagery. His addresses on the war were
fiery orations, inspiring men to patriotic self-sacrifice and zeal
for Empire. He summoned all the riches of his intellect to confound,
refute and castigate the nation that had done such scathe to Belgium.
And though no Turk or Hun died by his hand, Dr. La Touche inspired many
young Australians to take their place in the firing-line. Some of these
were with him in the fatal charge. He saw them dash on through the
bursting shrapnel, and he heard the cheers of victory as they gained
the parapets, bayoneted the defenders and captured the position. As
one thinks of him cut off in the prime of life, when the unbalanced
enthusiasm of his youth had hardly been tempered by experience, there
comes a feeling of revolt against the decrees of the God of Battles.
But Everard Digges La Touche was only one of the many brilliant young
men who have laid down their lives in this cruel war. Remembering the
inspiration of his example, one feels that he did not die in vain.
Others will speak of his scholarship--he was a student in law, arts and
theology, and a lecturer of Trinity College, Dublin, before he went to
Australia. I have seen him in the pulpit, in Synod and on the public
platform, but I leave it to others to appraise his churchmanship. I
merely record, with heartfelt sorrow, how Lieutenant La Touche died a
soldier's death on Gallipoli.
The Church Militant! Was it ever so militant as now, when all the
powers of darkness, all the forces of the Devil, are arrayed against
Christianity and all the manifold blessings of Civilization? Look at
stricken Belgium and the battlefields of France, where hundreds of
priests combine their holy offices as chaplains with the duties of the
soldier, a Bible in one hand, a sword in the other! See, at the head of
Russian armies, priests leading the soldiers into battle! And here, on
Gallipoli ...
We have our chaplains, and we have ministers of the Gospel fighting as
"happy warriors" in the ranks. Digges La Touche had the character of
the happy warrior, who
While the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause.
But it matters little whether they go forth as armed men in the Great
Crusade, or to fight the good fight by ministering to the dying, or to
read the burial service over the dead, they all must needs be brave
men, ready to risk their lives. Death is very close to all of us in
this war--chaplains, doctors, stretcher-bearers and all.
Brave men, yes. Fighting parsons, soldier saints, whether they be
chaplains, or whether they have forsaken the study for the stricken
field, the pulpit for the platoon, or whether they be in the Army
Medical Corps, heroes of the Red Cross of Geneva. Some have been
killed, some wounded.
Andrew Gillison is one of those who has gone to his rest--one of
Gallipoli's heroes. Chaplain-Captain Andrew Gillison, of the Fourteenth
Battalion, Fourth Infantry Brigade, was the first of the Australian
army chaplains to be killed. Prior to the war--and that seems a long,
long time ago--he was a minister of St. George's Presbyterian Church,
East St. Kilda, and before that he was at St. Paul's, Brisbane. He
was well known and greatly loved throughout the whole Presbyterian
Church of Australia. He was no sour-visaged, long-faced Christian.
His religion was cheerful, optimistic and joyous. I met him at St.
Andrew's, Cairo, and then I knew why the Fourth Brigade almost
worshipped him. On the transport he was a prime favourite. He sang a
good comic song. He entered into the boxing tournament. He won his
first bout in fine style. Then he got a hiding, and took his beating
like a man.
It was meet that such a man should die giving his life for another.
Greater love hath no man than this; and Andrew Gillison would not have
willed it otherwise. It was while performing a work of necessity and
mercy on Sunday morning, August 22, that he was shot, and he died a few
hours afterwards.
The New Zealand and Australian Division had made a most gallant attack
on the hills occupied by the Turks. Pressing home the attack with the
bayonet, they drove the enemy from trench to trench and from ridge
to ridge. Deeds of valour were performed day after day and night
after night. Heroes died on every side, with no historian to tell how
gallantly they died. One of these young Australians was wounded in the
charge, and lay some distance behind the advanced position. It was then
that two fighting parsons came along a communication trench, which was
comparatively safe from rifle fire, but offered little protection from
shrapnel. From a slight hollow they saw the wounded man, in evident
agony, raise his hand, and try to move. Captain Gillison and Corporal
Pittenrigh--who is a Methodist minister when not a soldier--decided
to try to effect a rescue, though they knew a machine-gun was trained
on the trench, and had been warned to beware of snipers. Mounting the
parapet, they crawled along some distance towards the wounded man. A
couple of bullets zipped by, but they pushed on. More bullets flew, and
both the rescuers were wounded.
Then they tried to regain the shelter of the trench, and Gillison was
wounded again, but his companion managed to scramble in. Mortally
wounded in the chest and the side, the poor chaplain lay in the open,
but was soon carried in and conveyed to the field hospital. He was
conscious for a while and cheerful, though he knew his hours were
numbered. He was able to greet Chaplains F. Colwell and G. T. Walden,
who had just arrived with Colonel Holmes's Australian Brigade, and
Chaplain J. M. Dale of Brisbane. Before two o'clock he was dead, dying
as he had lived, a gallant Christian soldier.
That night, wrapped in a Union Jack, he was buried. It was bright
moonlight. Out in the Ægean the warships and hospital ships lay
passive. Back in the hills sounded the ceaseless rattle of musketry.
Chaplain-Colonel E. N. Merrington conducted a brief service, at which
were chaplains of all denominations and several officers and men of his
brigade and battalion. The little shallow grave lies a couple of miles
north of Anzac, on the edge of the five-mile beach that stretches on to
Suvla Bay. As with the hero of Corunna, "we carved not a line, and we
raised not a stone--but we left him alone with his glory." His comrades
went back to the firing-line with the memory of his self-sacrifice to
cheer them on. And we thought then of Longfellow's beautiful lines--
Dust thou art, to dust returneth,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Soon the battalion will erect a little wooden cross over his grave--one
more of those little wooden crosses that are so numerous on Gallipoli.
We who knew and loved him will never forget Andrew Gillison.
CHAPTER XXII
SERGEANTS THREE
PARKES, TRESILIAN, ELLIS--POSITION OF THE NON-COMS.--THE "FIGHTING
SIXTH"--THE GERMAN SPY AGAIN--EASILY BEATS THE CENSOR--WHAT THE
NIGGERS KNEW ABOUT US--PADDY RYAN'S LUCK
Non-commissioned officers are the backbone of the British army!
This is high praise, of course, yet it is well merited; and I think the
same tribute can be paid to the non-coms. of the Australian Imperial
Force.
For our non-coms. hold their office by virtue of their merit. It is
simply a case of the survival of the fittest. We all started off
scratch. There was keen competition for stripes when our regiment was
first formed. The best men were selected. There was no favouritism.
Some old soldiers had an initial advantage, but all the appointments
were provisional at first, and they were all tried in the crucible.
Only the pure gold was retained; the baser metal was rejected.
The result was that when the 6th Light Horse Regiment left Sydney it
had a body of non-commissioned officers who would compare favourably
with any in the world. It was a great pity that the people of Sydney
never saw the "Fighting Sixth" ride through the metropolis. In Egypt
they were reckoned the best mounted regiment that ever left Australia.
The limelight has been turned right on to subsequent volunteers. Other
contingents--months and months and months after we left--bathed in the
smiles of the multitude. Special trains were run in order that the
country folk should see them. But our brigade, the 2nd Light Horse
Brigade, comprising the 5th, 6th and 7th L.H. Regiments, were hunted
off like thieves in the night. In deadly secrecy we struck camp. In
the dawn hush we stealthily slunk through the city streets. We were
all on board the transports before Sydney was well awake. The papers
were not allowed to publish a line about our departure. So the country
folk came to see their sons and brothers off--too late. The whole city
knew it--too late. Every German spy in Australia knew it--early. When
we arrived at Aden a nigger on the gangway of the transport told us
to a man the constitution of the force, the number of ships, and our
destination. So cleverly had our censors concealed our movements!
* * * * *
So it is a pity the brigade never rode with clinking snaffles and
clanking stirrups through the city--more for the sake of the city than
the soldiers themselves. Also because many of our soldiers will never
again see George Street, or Pitt Street, or Martin Place, or Macquarie
Street. The wastage of war has had its effect. We have been under fire
day and night. Snipers have taken their toll. Machine-guns have added
to the casualties. Shrapnel shells and high explosives have torn gaps
in our ranks. In killed and wounded we have lost over half our original
strength.
There were three sergeants of the 6th Light Horse Regiment, who now
are resting in little shallow graves in Gallipoli. Never again will
they watch the sun go down in splendour into the Ægean Sea. When we go
marching into Berlin they will be with us--but only in spirit; and
when the war is over and the boys from the bush ride home again, there
will be three sergeants missing. But their names will be emblazoned on
Australia's roll of honour. And we of the Sixth won't forget Sergeant
Sid Parkes, Sergeant F. R. Tresilian, and Sergeant Fred Ellis.
Sid Parkes was small and slight, so small that he was almost rejected
by the medical examiner. He had to show his South African record, and
remind the doctor that giants were not wanted in the Light Horse, but
light, active, wiry horsemen. So he just scraped through and went into
camp. I remember him at Rosebery Park. Not much over five feet three,
only about nine stone, but active and strong. He knew his mounted drill
like a book, and he knew how to handle men; so he soon got his three
stripes--and stuck to them. The men liked him. The officers appreciated
him. We saw several other sergeants made and unmade, but Parkes of B
Squadron was a fixture.
Already he had seen four years' peace service, and eighteen months'
active service in South Africa with the New South Wales Mounted
Rifles. So he brought the lessons of his previous experience to bear
on his new job. On parade he did his duty well. Off duty he was a
humorist, and as care-free as a schoolboy. On the transport he entered
into all the fun going. In Egypt he played the game. Somehow, I always
thought Parkes would come safely through the war. We joked together the
night we first went into the trenches, never anticipating ill. Yet he
was the first man of the regiment killed in the trenches. A sniper's
bullet came through a loophole and killed him on the spot.
* * * * *
Frederick George Ellis, sergeant in C Squadron, was an Englishman from
Hants. He had spent five years in the Royal Navy, some of the time on
the China station. He was one of the few survivors of H.M.S. _Tiger_,
which was rammed and sunk during the naval manoeuvres off Spithead.
Three years ago he came to Australia to get colonial experience, prior
to settling on the land. A few years in the nor'-west, at Bogamildi
and Terala stations, transformed the sailor into a bushman. So he came
to Sydney when war broke out, and joined the 6th Light Horse. He rose
to be lance-sergeant. On July 12 he was killed by a shrapnel shell on
Holly Ridge. Several of our fellows were killed and wounded that day,
for the Turks dropped 200 shells on the Light Horse lines, and for an
hour or two it was terrific.
* * * * *
A strong, dominant personality was Tresilian, one of the very best
troop sergeants that ever joined the Light Horse. He seemed to love
the firing-line like home. He was quite fearless. Somehow he seemed
to revel in the roar of battle. On one occasion the Turks sent a
dozen shells at our little section of the trenches, smashing down
the parapets, making the place a wreck, wounding two men, and half
blinding, half deafening, half choking, half burying six of us. When I
could see and hear and breathe again I saw Tresilian laughing merrily.
"Hello, Bluegum," he said, "not killed yet?"
He came from Humula, near Wagga, where his people were well-known
farmers. Till a young man he remained on the farm, and was known
throughout the district as a good "sport"--a good cricketer and
footballer, and a fine rider and shot, just the typical Australian
Light Horseman, though more sturdily built than the average. He tired,
however, of the farm, and yearned for the freer life of the Western
plains. So he tackled station life, became a station manager, rode over
the whole of the north-west, went to the Northern Territory in search
of pastoral lands, and when the war broke out was managing a station in
the Boggabri district. He had seen service in South Africa, and he once
more volunteered to serve the King.
On Gallipoli his scouting and patrol work were excellent. He seemed to
have a charmed life, for he had many narrow escapes in the open and in
the trenches. On the day he was killed a bullet whizzed past his head,
just wounding his cheek slightly. Later on he and Sergeant Paddy Ryan
were putting barbed wire entanglements in front of our trenches. A
sniper's rifle cracked. Ryan escaped. Tresilian fell dead.
CHAPTER XXIII
MAIL DAY
RUM AND MAILS--"BATTLE OF MAIL RUM"--LETTERS FROM HOME--MARRIAGE NO
FAILURE--AN UNFORGIVABLE LOSS--THE CLERGYMAN'S "LANGUAGE"--PAPER
SCARCE--FAMINE IN ENVELOPES--"NO STAMPS"--FOOLING THE TURKS--"WELL OUT
OF IT"
"Serves 'em right, for sinking our mails and spilling our rum!"
This remark broke from the angry lips of one of our Light Horsemen as
our artillery inflicted a terrific bombardment on the enemy. The Turks
replied vigorously, and the result was an inferno; shells bursting
everywhere, gaping holes torn in the inoffensive earth, trench parapets
levelled, soldiers slaughtered. Then, as our warships steamed up and
added their quota to the conflict, the trooper reiterated, "Serve 'em
right!"
For a moment we wondered what he was driving at. Then we remembered
that a few days ago some unlucky Turkish shells had landed on a barge
coming from one of the supply ships to Anzac, and had sunk it. This
caused us but slight concern till we found out that several casks of
rum were spilled, and 250 bags of mails from Australia were sent to the
bottom of the sea. Then, as our ships' guns sent another salvo, we too
exclaimed, "Serve 'em right."
We did not mind the rum so much, for the Army Service Corps had quite
enough on hand for our ration when the issue was due. But every
Australian on Gallipoli bitterly resented the loss of the mails. It
made us really angry. Some of our chaps reckoned that the loss of the
mails and rum was the prime cause of the big battle which ensued during
the early days of August. So they have called it the Battle of Mail
Rum. Historians, however, will probably call this sanguinary struggle
the Battle of Suvla Bay.
Good folk at home, and even of the out-back country, receive mails
pretty regularly. We get ours once a fortnight, or once a month, or
at even longer intervals. I do not join in the general chorus of
condemnation of our postal service, for since the time I enlisted
nearly twelve months ago all my letters and parcels have come duly to
hand, while, so far as I know, none of my letters to Australia have
gone astray. When we came to Gallipoli we naturally expected some break
in the continuity of the service--and we got it. One reason is that,
while the New Zealanders provided an up-to-date, well-equipped postal
service, the Australians had only a skeleton postal corps--shockingly
undermanned. Hence the congestion at Alexandria and Lemnos and the
belated arrival of letters at Anzac.
There is nothing that cheers the soldiers up so much as letters from
home. You see their eyes light up with pleasure as the postal orderlies
toil up the hill with the mail bags. The postal corporal is the most
popular man in the army. But he always seems so slow with his sorting.
Those of us not in the trenches crowd round him and pounce eagerly on
our precious missives. I have seen a great, hulking, swearing, unshaven
trooper grab his letter, sneak into his dug-out, and kiss reverently
some love-letter from a sweetheart back in sunny New South Wales; or
perhaps it was from his mother or sister away in the great West land.
And I've seen anxious troopers, with yearning eyes, hang round till the
last letter and postcard were sorted--then wander away silently, and
gaze dry-eyed over the blue Mediterranean.
Some of our fellows are married men, and some of these married men
used jokingly to say that they had enlisted to get away from ... never
mind; but I know that there was not one of them but spent half his
time thinking of the old and the middle-aged and the young folks at
home--not one of them but would have given the world to be able to take
a peep at the wife who scanned the casualty lists so eagerly as they
appeared in the papers, and the kiddies who strutted round proudly,
saying, "Daddy's gone to the war."
It's cruel to be forgotten by the home folk when fighting the battles
of one's country; but most of our chaps are loyal, and they always
blamed the post office. One time our 6th L.H. Regiment mail had not
arrived, and I stood by miserably watching other lucky devils getting
their letters. Suddenly my eye caught the address on a newspaper, "To
any lonely soldier in the Australian army." I immediately grabbed
it. There was a protest from the postal official, who said the paper
was not addressed to me, and that unclaimed papers are considered as
"baksheesh" for the postal corporal. I pointed out that it was not
unclaimed, since I had claimed it; and that as I at that moment was a
lonely soldier it was clearly addressed to me. There was a fine row,
but I won my case--and the paper.
Always at the end of the sorting there are many, many letters
unclaimed. And the Regimental Sergeant-Major goes through the list, and
with heavy red pencil writes "killed," "wounded," or "missing" on the
envelope. What a tragedy lies hidden in these little heaps of letters
to dead soldiers who can never read them!
It was no small loss, that barge with 250 mail bags from Australia.
When I saw the barge sink I repeated the prayer of the popular English
preacher, who exclaimed, "God damn the Sultan!" Why should that
love-laden barge be the mark for the Turkish gunners? And why, after
the hundreds of boats they have missed, should they get a bull's-eye
there? It is sad to think of the thousands of soldiers who will never
know the loving thoughts penned in those precious missives. Many will
wonder why friends and relations have never written. And folks at home
will be wondering why they got no answer.
For a time we simply could not write home. There was an envelope famine
on Gallipoli. Not a single envelope could be had for love or money. We
readdressed our old envelopes, or turned them inside out. We made post
cards out of cardboard and cigarette boxes. Some of us even wrote home
on the biscuits, which were warranted not to break. We waylaid sailors
on the beach and offered fabulous prices for paper and envelopes. We
wrote to our friends in Ma'adi and to the stores in Alexandria. But
it's a long, long way to Egypt, and it seemed a long, long time before
the envelope famine was relieved. That's one reason why some of our
chaps never wrote home. Another reason was that we were all so tired
after our turn in the trenches and the eternal "dig on, dig ever." As
for stamps, everybody in Australia knows the legend on the soldier's
envelope: "No stamps available."
Some of the letters home were delightfully ingenuous. Nearly all were
brimful of cheerfulness. Now and then there was a growl; but we knew it
wouldn't help the home folk if we complained, so I might paraphrase the
Psalmist and say that all our men were liars--cheerful liars. I told
you of the trooper who wrote home, "Dear aunt, this war is a fair cow."
But that was exceptional. Most of the soldiers told cheerful lies about
the good time they were having, the romance of war, the excitement
of battle, and the exhilaration of victory. They told of the tricks
they played on the Turks, the dummies they held above the parapets for
Abdul to snipe at, the "stunts" for drawing the fire from the enemy's
trenches, the risky excitement of bomb duels, the joy of swimming while
"Beachy Bill" was showering shrapnel over them, and the extortionate
rates charged by the sailor on the beach for condensed milk and
chocolates.
But a real "grouse"--never. Well, hardly ever. And when there was one,
depend upon it there was some good reason for it. I remember one. It
was when a man in Australia wrote to a friend at Anzac: "We're having
a rather bad drought in this district; you're well out of it." The man
at Anzac fairly lost his temper. He wrote back: "Come over here." And
after painting a picture of a battle or two--a real growl, if ever
there was one--he concluded: "It's nearly as bad as your drought, and
you're 'well out of it'."
Later, I was told, these two men met on the bloodstained fields of
Gallipoli.
CHAPTER XXIV
REINFORCEMENTS
BATTLE-WORN VETERANS--"FOR THIS RELIEF MUCH THANKS"--THE
"SOUTHLAND"--ONE OF THE GRAND THINGS OF THE WAR--WAR'S TERRIBLE
WASTAGE--CIVILIZATION ONLY SKIN-DEEP--AUSTRALIA WILL ALWAYS BE PROUD
At last the Second Australian Division arrived in Gallipoli, and their
advent meant that we of the First Australian Division would get a
well-earned relief--and "for this relief much thanks."
We had been waiting for some time for our comrades to come and take
over the trenches, and it was good for our tired eyes when we saw
General Holmes and his 5th Infantry Brigade landing on Gallipoli.
We note that nearly all the new-comers had the name of their home town
printed in indelible ink on the front of their hats. So it felt just
like a railway journey all over New South Wales to see the brigade
marching by. There we saw Bathurst, Maitland, Goulburn, Glen Innes,
Wellington, Dubbo, Kiama, Kempsey, Moree, Cootamundra, Albury, Hay,
Dungog, Tamworth, Nowra, Narrandera, Yass, and scores of other towns
and villages scattered over the length and breadth of New South Wales.
The next thing we noted was that all the new-comers looked big and
strong and fit. They looked just like our First Australian Division
when it marched out of Mena.
General Legge and the Headquarters Staff of the Second Division had
a lot of luck getting to Gallipoli at all, for the _Southland_ was
torpedoed with them on board. It is believed that an Austrian submarine
did it. Our casualties were about twenty killed and fifteen drowned,
Brigadier-General Linton dying after he was rescued from the water. It
happened at about ten o'clock on the morning of September 2. The S.O.S.
wireless signal was immediately sent off, and seven boats eventually
steamed up to the rescue. The troops behaved magnificently, and were
all put into the boats without much trouble. The firemen and stewards,
however, got panicky, and three were shot before they sobered down.
But the _Southland_ did not sink. So the skipper called for volunteers
to take the ship back to Lemnos, and fifty Australians took on the job.
General Legge and Staff stayed on board also. One soldier had a stroke
of luck. He was blown unhurt into the air, and by the time he came down
the water was in the hold, and he landed softly and safely.
The behaviour of our troops upon the _Southland_ is to be numbered
among the grand things of this war--one of the grandest. It has been
likened to the _Birkenhead_.
When the Second Australian Division arrived how few of the old hands
were left from the heroic band that landed on April 25! Just to show
something of the wastage of war, here are some authentic figures.
Of the 1,200 men in the 3rd Battalion who marched out of Kensington
Racecourse, 100 were left. Eleven hundred were among the killed,
wounded, missing and sick. Of the original sergeant's mess of the same
battalion fifty-six left Kensington; five remained, and of these four
were officers. The original G Company had 121 men--eight are left.
Of the original 2nd Battalion, sixty remain out of 1,200. Of course,
the majority of these are sick and wounded, and will rejoin their
battalions. It is the immediate wastage that affects the army. That's
why we want a continual stream of reinforcements.
Of the First Australian Division there remained on Anzac only the 2nd
Light Horse Brigade, and the 3rd Infantry Brigade--plus, of course, the
artillery and engineers. We were daily expecting to get our well-earned
spell, and retire to the islands of the blessed in the Ægean Sea.
General Ryrie's brigade of Light Horsemen had their fair share of
casualties. Of the original three regiments, Lieutenant-Colonel Cox's
6th, Lieutenant-Colonel Harris's 5th, and Lieutenant-Colonel Arnott's
7th, had 110 killed, 550 wounded and 1,050 sick with dysentery and
enteric and other ills, or a total of 1,710 casualties. But the
reinforcements kept us fairly up to strength.
Brigadier-General Ryrie, the brigade-major, Major Foster, and the staff
captain, Captain Pollok, were all wounded. Of the fifty New South Wales
officers of the brigade who landed on Gallipoli, the orderly-officer,
Lieutenant Hogue, and the adjutant of the 6th Light Horse, Captain
Somerville, were the only two who had not been killed, wounded or sick.
A great many officers who had been sick and wounded, after a month or
two in hospital returned to duty.
The landing of the 3rd Brigade, and the subsequent terrific three days'
fighting on the heights of Gallipoli by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Brigades
made Wolfe's exploit on the Heights of Abraham sound like a picnic. The
thrilling capture of Lone Pine by the 1st Brigade was one of the finest
exploits of the war, while the splendid defence of that stronghold by
the 2nd Infantry Brigade and the 2nd Light Horse Brigade against the
repeated counter-attacks of the Turks was worthy of all praise. The
magnificent charge of the 2nd Infantry Brigade down at Helles made
the British and French troops thrill with pride. The charge of the
1st Light Horse Brigade at Walker's Ridge was a glorious sacrifice.
Australians have every reason always to be proud of the first fights of
her First Division.
CHAPTER XXV
SHELL GREEN
THE NEW WARFARE--ALTOGETHER UTILITARIAN--ITS HUMOUR AND PATHOS--THE
LUCK OF THE GAME--GOD'S ACRE--AERIAL WARFARE--GALLANT DEEDS--GENERAL
RYRIE
My dug-out overlooked Shell Green.
From the comparative safety of this retreat I could sit and watch the
pomp and circumstance of war, its pageantry and pathos.
To be sure there was little that was picturesque in war as we saw it in
Gallipoli. There was no martial music. The "thin red line" had given
place to drab khaki. There were no fiery war-horses with tossing manes
and champing bits, no dashing cavalrymen with flashing sabres. There
were no gun teams, spanking bays and blacks, for we had to man-handle
the guns up and down the hills into action. The nearest approach to a
pageant was when the British fleet flew along the Ægean waterway, and
fired some reverberating salvos at the Turkish batteries.
Ashore all was strictly utilitarian; no ceremony, no display. It was
midsummer, so we curtailed our trousers and wore shorts. Our shirts
were sleeveless. Putties and leggings were mostly discarded. When out
of the trenches shirts were usually considered superfluous. Our backs
and arms and legs were so sun-tanned that the brownest of the beach
surfers at Bondi would envy our complexions. So when on fatigues or off
duty it was a tatterdemalion army that marched to and fro over Shell
Green.
Humour and pathos were strangely intermingled. We saw after a skirmish
a score of fine young Australians laid out for burial, wounds gaping
and clothes blood-clotted. Our hearts were wrung with anguish for
mothers and sisters and wives back in the great South Land, ignorant as
yet of their bereavement. A minute later the antics of some humorist
would set the camp roaring with laughter. Anon some of our chaps would
be wounded, and carried in on stretchers; then some bolting mules or
a wrecked dug-out, or an explosion in the commissariat would set us
laughing again. It is this saving grace of humour, as I have written
before, that made life worth living in Gallipoli; but it also made
the Gurkhas and the Tommies wonder what manner of men we were. The
Englishmen regarded the Gallipoli campaign with great seriousness. The
Indians appeared stoically indifferent. The Australians regard the
whole show as a great adventure.
It's not hard to guess how Shell Green got its name. No gift for
nomenclature is needed to find names for Hell Spit, Casualty Corner,
The Bloody Angle, or Shell Green. The whole green is pitted with holes
made by the enemy's shells. Some months ago these shells played havoc
with our men. Some were killed as they lay in their dug-outs, others
slaughtered on their way to and from the beach, some while in swimming.
But we learned our lesson. We got to know the safety spots and the
danger zones. Day after day the shells fell harmlessly, pock-marking
the face of the earth, but doing us no ill. The Turks thought we
had guns on Shell Green. So when our artillery got busy, the Turks
blazed away, "searching" the area. But after four months' searching
they failed to silence our guns. The remarks of our troopers as the
shells landed were many and varied, but all were inspired by a quaint,
unquenchable humour. When the quartermaster's store of the 4th Light
Horse was wrecked, and four soldiers crawled uninjured from the débris,
their mates called out, "Your luck's in. Get a ticket in Tatt.'s."
There are many graves on Shell Green--graves of Australian heroes.
There's a little God's acre near the crest of the hill, overlooking
the blue Ægean Sea. Sometimes towards evening the Turks tired of their
fierce fusillade, and all seemed peaceful and quiet. The report of an
odd sniper's rifle sounded more like the crack of a stock-whip. The sun
sank in splendour on Samothrace, and the gloaming hour was sweet with
meditation and thoughts of home. It darkened, and only the searchlights
of the destroyers and the green streak of the hospital ship reminded
us of war. We had our burials mostly in the evening. The padre came
along, and a few of the dead soldier's friends straggled down from
the trenches. The services were short but impressive. The shallow
grave was filled in, and a rude cross marked the spot. Here's where
we buried Colonel Harris, the loved leader of the 5th; Lieutenant
Robson, the genial quartermaster of the 6th; Lieutenant Thorne, the
brilliant Duntroon footballer, of the 7th; giant Gordon Flanagan, who
was shot through the heart while asleep in his dug-out; Tresilian, the
dare-devil sergeant, who revelled in battle; and many more gallant
horsemen of the 2nd Brigade, who will never more hear the réveillé.
Shells and bullets were not the only things that flew over Shell Green.
Aeroplanes were frequent visitors. Mostly they were French or British,
but now and then a German Taube streaked overhead, dropped a bomb or
two, or a shower of darts, and then bolted for safety back to Turkish
territory. So far we had not witnessed a duel in the heavens. It's
about the one thing we missed. Several times we saw our airmen give
chase to the Germans, but the latter never waited for a bout. One day
we thought we were going to see an aerial scrap, and like rabbits from
their burrows, the whole troglodyte population of Shell Green emerged
from their dug-outs to witness the spectacle. A Taube appeared over
Suvla Bay, and a British airman took the air at Helles, and started in
pursuit. The anti-aircraft guns of the Turks opened on our plane, and
flecked the blue with a dozen shells, but scored no hit. Our gunners
opened on the Taube, and made far better practice than the enemy,
but could not bring the machine to earth. The two planes streaked
across the sky like huge eagles, with outstretched wings. The Taube
manoeuvred over the German guns, and our airman followed, despite
the unfriendly greeting of the landlubbers below. We on Anzac focussed
our binoculars and strained our eyes till the fliers passed beyond the
hills. Finally we heard the Taube had justified the maxim, "Discretion
is the better part of valour." Just as the aerial exhibition was over
a couple of high explosives burst on Shell Green, and the "rabbits"
bolted once more to their burrows.
It is the little incidents that relieve the monotony of war. I have
seen some gallant deeds done here on Shell Green. One day a shell
cut a telephone line between our observation post and a battery. It
happened to be right on the most dangerous spot on the Green. But
without a moment's hesitation a signaller sauntered out established
the connexion, and sauntered back, despite the shrapnel. I saw Captain
Evans, the little medical officer of the 7th, time and again
streaking across the danger zone and tending men under fire. I have
heard the cry, "Stretcher-bearers," and on the instant the devoted
A.M.C. men have grabbed stretchers, and bolted to the rescue; this
not once, but a hundred times. Some day I'll get a virgin vellum
roll, a pen richly chased and jewelled, and in letters of gold I'll
try to tell the people of Australia something of the heroism of these
stretcher-bearers.
[Illustration: Brigadier-General G. Ryrie.]
It was on Shell Green that the genial General Ryrie was injured. If he
had been more careful of his own skin he would have got off scot-free.
But a shell had just landed amongst the "rabbits," and the cry of
"Stretcher-bearers" told us that some of the boys had stopped a bit of
shrapnel. Without a second's thought General Ryrie walked out on to the
Green from headquarters with his brigade major and orderly officer....
"You know, Foster," he said to the former, "they could get us here too."
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than there was a crash.
Shrapnel splinters and pellets zipped all round us. The cook's camp
was a wreck. Pots and pans were perforated prettily. For a second
I thought that no one was hit, for cook crawled out of the débris
grinning. Then I heard the General in his cheery voice exclaim: "Holy
Moses, they've got me where the chicken got the axe."
It was a close shave. The bullet entered the right side of the neck,
penetrated a few inches, and stopped right on the sheath of the carotid
artery. A fraction of an inch further and it would have been "Good
night, nurse." ... That night the old brigadier was taken off to the
hospital ship and on to Alexandria. Colonel Cox of our 6th Light Horse
Regiment took temporary command of our brigade.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE ANZAC V.C.'S
THE LUCK OF THE GAME--UNKNOWN HEROES--YOUNG JACKA--CAPTAIN SHOUT--LONE
PINE--WILD COUNTER-ATTACKS--THE HEROIC SEVENTH--LIGHT HORSE
THROSSELL--KEYZOR AND HAMILTON--MEN WHO NEVER WERE SEEN
As there passes before my mind's eye a kaleidoscopic picture of the
wildly hilarious fighting of the early days of Anzac, and the rough and
tumble jumble of Lone Pine, I can't help thinking of the luck of the
game. "Were honour to bestow her crowns on those who had a right to
them, the skull up on the battlefield would often wear a diadem."
So many unknown heroes lie buried on Anzac. So many passed the crucial
test of supreme trial and with strong arm and true heart performed
prodigies of valour--but no one saw them. As a rule there was hardly
time to take stock of everything. Time and again did individual
Australians do great deeds, but the historians will never know of it.
They are mostly too modest to talk of it. And the officers who might
have reported and recommended are dead.
Take that wonderful landing on the fateful day, April 25, when
Australia made such a gloriously picturesque début. How many men of
Maclagan's gallant 3rd Brigade in that never-to-be-forgotten charge up
the heights won the greatest military honour that the King can bestow.
But so many officers were picked off; so many men really deserved the
V.C. The only solution seemed to be the conferring of the coveted medal
on the whole brigade. But there was no precedent for this. So none of
them got it.
Our first Australian V.C. was young Jacka of the 4th Brigade. He was
young and not of the splendid physique of most of the Australians,
but he was greased lightning with the bayonet. It all happened on
Courtney's Post. The Turks had been sapping in towards the front
trench, and after a shower of bombs they swarmed in and captured the
trench. But Lance-corporal Jacka, posted behind the traverse in the
fire trench, blocked their advance. An officer and a few men hurried
up and volunteers were immediately ready to eject the intruders. Then
while the officer and three men engaged in a bombing exchange with
Abdul, Albert Jacka jumped from the front trench into the communication
trench behind, ran round and took the Turks in the rear. He shot five
of them and bayoneted two. The officer's party then charged and shot
the four remaining Turks who tried to escape. They found Jacka leaning
up against the side of the trench with flushed face, a bloody bayonet
in the end of his rifle and an unlighted cigarette in his mouth.
The boys that took Lone Pine, who did that fine charge amid a shower of
lead and shrapnel such as the war had not previously seen, got no V.C.
for their valour. But the lads who held the hard-won post against all
the subsequent counter-attacks did manage to secure a few. One of these
was Captain Shout. But he never lived to wear the cross. For three long
days and longer nights he participated in the furious hand-to-hand
fighting in Lone Pine. Captain Sass and Lieutenant Howell Price both
did great deeds in that thrilling time and each had several scalps to
their credit. But Captain Shout with his bombing gang was ubiquitous.
Laughing and cheering them on he time and again drove the Turks back,
and then when he reached a point where the final sandbag barrier was
to be erected, he tried to light three bombs at once and throw them
amongst the crowding Turks. To throw a single bomb is a risky job.
To throw three bombs simultaneously was a desperate expedient. One
exploded prematurely, shattered both his hands, laid open his cheek and
destroyed an eye, besides minor injuries. Conscious and still cheerful
he was carried away. But he died shortly afterwards.
The heroic Seventh Battalion--victorious Victorians--participated in
the great charge of the 2nd Australian Infantry Brigade down at Helles;
the charge that made the French and English marvel at the dash of
the young colonials. Then the Seventh managed to bag four V.C.'s in
Lone Pine. The 2nd Light Horse Brigade and 2nd Infantry Brigade were
holding the line against repeated counter-attacks, and it was then that
Captain Fred Tubb, Lieutenant Symons, Corporal Dunstan and Corporal
Burton won the V.C. On the night of August 8, while the British troops
in the Suvla area were struggling to wrest the hills from the Turks,
the Turks round Lone Pine were vainly endeavouring to recapture this
stronghold from the Australians. On the right of the 7th Battalion
things were particularly sultry, and early on the morning of the 9th
some determined attacks by Abdul resulted in six of our officers and
several men being killed and wounded. A bit of the front sap was lost,
but Lieutenant Symons headed a charge, retook the sap, shot two of the
Turks with his revolver and finally erected a barricade which defied
all the attacks of the enemy. It was a bitter struggle and Abdul set
fire to the overhead cover in the hope of driving back the Seventh. But
the fire was extinguished and the position held for good.
It was give and take, attack and counter-attack all through August 9,
that showed the qualities of pluck and determination which won the
V.C. for Captain F. H. Tubb, Corporal Dunstan and Corporal Burton.
Three times the enemy attacked with bombs, blew up our barricades, and
swarmed into the trench, but each time Tubb and his companions returned
to the assault, repulsed the invaders, rebuilt the barricades, and
in spite of a shower of bombs held the post. Captain Tubb was wounded
in the head and arm, but stuck to his job and baffled all Abdul's
machinations.
Lance-corporal Keyzor was one of a band of heroes who did wonders in
the hell-zone at the south-eastern corner of Lone Pine. It was a murder
hole and after much slaughter we found that we could not hold the outer
trench, while Abdul found that he also was unable to hold it. Finally
it was abandoned as no man's land. But round about here there were
lively times during August. As a bomb-thrower, Keyzor was pre-eminent.
He was one of those who repeatedly caught the enemy's bombs and hurled
them back before they could explode. It was here that Colonel Scobie
was killed shortly afterwards, and here it was that for days and nights
Keyzor moved amongst the showers of bombs with dead and dying all
around, and threw bombs till every muscle ached and he could not lift
his arm.
Young Hamilton was very young. But lots of these young Australians had
old heads on their young shoulders. It was at Lone Pine where the 3rd
Battalion was defending a section of the line against the repeated
attacks of the Turks that young Hamilton won the coveted honour. He
climbed on to the top of the parapet and with a few sandbags as a
precarious shield against bombs and bullets he stayed there for five
solid hours sniping merrily, potting off any stray Turks that showed
up, and giving warning to the officer below each time the enemy started
out to attack. There was plenty of shrapnel flying and the zip of
bullets into the sandbags grew monotonous. But young Hamilton hung on.
It was away on the left of our line at Hill 60 that Lieutenant
Throssell of the 10th Light Horse performed his great act of valour.
There was one section of the enemy's line that obstinately defied the
Australasian attack. At last the 3rd Light Horse Brigade received
orders that the redoubt had to be taken. The brigadier sent the 10th
Light Horse Regiment out to do the job. Just after midnight--August
28-29--the Westralians suddenly leaped on to the parapet and charged
ahead. They were met with a hail of machine-gun and rifle fire and a
shower of bombs, but nothing could stop those horseless horsemen. A
brief mêlée on and in the Turkish trenches and the position was won.
But holding it was a far more difficult matter. Lieutenant Throssell
in charge of the digging party worked overtime putting the new line
in a state of defence. Soon the Turks massed for the inevitable
counter-attack, and Throssell, with Captain Fry and a troop of the
Light Horse, repulsed the first charge. But just as dawn was breaking
the Turks came again with a shower of bombs as a prelude. The grenades
were smothered as they fell or thrown back again, but Captain Fry paid
the final penalty. One bomb rolled over the parapet into the trench,
and spluttered. The men yelled "Let it rip." But the only safe thing
to do was to smother the bomb or heave it out. The gallant captain
chose the latter alternative, but the bomb exploded and killed him. The
holding of this threatened elbow of the line devolved upon Throssell,
who rose manfully to the occasion. With his rifle he shot half a dozen
Turks and with his cheery example he heartened his command, and Abdul
attacked in vain. Twice indeed they swarmed in and the Light Horsemen
had to give ground. But only a few yards and a fresh barricade was
immediately erected. Early in the afternoon Throssell was wounded in
the shoulder. But he kept on. At four o'clock he got another bullet in
the neck. He kept on. Then just after nightfall relief came and his
superior officer sent him back to the field hospital.
There were other Australians who gained the V.C.--Captain Hawker of
the Flying Corps, Corporal William Cosgrove of the Royal Munster
Fusiliers, who did such a fine performance down at Helles, and others.
But other historians will tell of their deeds. Corporal Bassett of the
New Zealand Signallers won his V.C. for a daring exploit--laying a
telephone wire right on to Chunuk Bair in broad daylight under a heavy
fire. But Maori-land will do him full justice.
The 2nd Light Horse Brigade had a sultry time in Lone Pine during
August. After the big attack early in August they complained that for
twenty-four hours they did nothing but bury dead Turks. The stench was
shocking--sickening. There was no time for decent burial. Dozens of
Turks were placed in the short communication trenches between the lines
and covered up with earth, and the ends of the trench bagged up. Partly
to kill the insufferable stench the boys smoked dozens and dozens
of cigarettes.... Later on the boys had more than their share of the
bombing. Sergeant Ryan won the D.C.M. But scores of the boys did big
things that in lesser wars would have won distinction. Here they just
were numbered with the unknown heroes. Every man on Lone Pine deserved
special honour. If they had been Germans they would have been covered
with iron crosses. As it is they are just satisfied that they were able
to do their job. Anyhow, Australia won't forget Lone Pine.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE FINAL PHASE
A LITTLE PESSIMISM--HANGING ON--THE BLIZZARD--FROST-BITE
AGONIES--PATRIOTISM AND CRITICISM--TALK OF EVACUATION--"THE FOOL
ENGLISH"--KITCHENER COMES--LAST DAYS--THE DIE-HARDS--THE GREAT
EXODUS--FAREWELL TO ANZAC--A GLORIOUS FAILURE
Days dragged drearily on. Pessimism peeped into the trenches. Later
in the solitude of the dug-out pessimism stayed an unwelcome guest,
and would not be banished. All the glorious optimism of April, the
confidence of May, June and July had gone, and the dogged determination
of August, September and October was fast petering out. Abdul had
fringed the dominating hills with barbed-wire and bayonets, and in very
surety Australia was "up against it."
Not that any one dared talk pessimism. The croakers would have
been squelched instanter. But deep down there was a feeling that
unless heavy reinforcements arrived we could never break through
to Constantinople. But at Anzac and Suvla the British hung on,
desperately, heroically.
September's cold snap was forgotten in the unexpected warmth of
October--just like an afterglow of summer. Then came the wintry winds
of November--and the blizzard.... Of course we have snow in Australia.
Kosciusko is all the year round covered with a soft white mantle. Down
on Monaro it can be bleak and wintry. And the old Blue Mountains now
and then enjoy a spell of sleet and snow.... But taking us by and large
we are a warm-blooded race, we Australians. That is why we viewed the
approach of winter with some concern. We knew Abdul could never, never,
never break through our lines, and drive us--as Liman von Sanders had
boasted--into the sea. But we were beginning to fear that we were a
long, long way from Constantinople.
The blizzard swooped down on Anzac. Just like a shroud the white
visitation settled on Gallipoli. It was cold as a Monaro gale.
Soldiers crowded round the fires, and at night in the trenches it
was terribly hard to keep awake. The cold was something to remember.
We could keep our hands a bit warm by giving "five rounds rapid"
and hugging the rifle barrel. Talk about cold feet; we had heard of
"cold feet" when we were in Egypt. But this was the real thing....
How we invoked rich blessings on the heads of the Australian girls
who had knitted us those warm socks! How we cursed the thieves along
the lines of communication who pillaged and pilfered, while the men
in the firing-line went begging! But through it all the indomitable
cheerfulness of the Australian soldier would not be crushed.
They laughed and joked when their teeth chattered, so that clear
articulation was impossible.
To preserve some circulation they stamped their feet till exhaustion
bade them cease. But the blizzard was inexorable. The cold permeated
everywhere. We got just a glimpse of what the British army suffered in
the Crimea.
Frost-bite was something to fear and dread. It was agonizing. Hundreds
of men were carried down to the field hospitals and sent across to
Lemnos. There were scores of amputations daily.... We had cursed the
heat of July and the plague of flies, but now we prayed for summer
again.
Now and then the English home papers blew in and we eagerly scanned
the pages of the dailies for news of the war. We were astounded at the
tone of the criticism hurled at the Government. So much of it was Party
criticism, captious criticism. So little of it was helpful constructive
criticism. In Parliament and in the Press the critics were "agin the
Gov'ment" rather than against the Hun. We felt wonderfully proud of
our Australian papers, the _Herald_ and _Telegraph_ and _Argus_. Also
we were rather proud of the commendable restraint of our politicians.
Not one word of captious criticism had there come from responsible
Australian papers and people. We knew that mistakes had been made.
We knew that it was a big gamble sending the fleet to hammer their
way through without the aid of an army. But we did not slang-wang the
Government. In the dark hour when everybody was blaming everybody there
was only one message from Australia. Press and politicians struck the
same note. It was merely a reiteration of the Prime Minister's message
that the last man and the last shilling in Australia were now and
always at the disposal of the Empire.
Then came talk of evacuation. It staggered us. In the House of Commons
and in the Press columns were devoted to discussing the Dardanelles
question and evacuation was freely recommended. The Australians rose
in wrath and exclaimed, "_We're d----d if we'll evacuate. We are going
to see this game through_." It was unthinkable that, having put our
hands to the plough, we could turn back. The Turks and their German
masters were kept well informed of the discussions at home and it made
them tremendously cocky. England had practically admitted failure. The
great Dardanelles expedition--the greatest crusade in the world--was an
admitted fiasco. Then the Turks reasoned together. And they agreed that
even "the fool English" would never talk so much about evacuation if it
were even remotely likely. But it was worth an army corps to Abdul, and
it did not make General Birdwood's task any easier.
Then Kitchener came. Many of us had seen him in Australia and South
Africa. We had confidence that he would see the thing through. He
landed on the beach and soon the word buzzed through the dug-outs,
up the gully, and along the firing line. "K. of K." was on Anzac and
the boys off duty congregated to give him a rousing welcome. He went
round the Anzac defences with General Birdwood, saw everything and then
started in to weigh the pros and cons of a knotty problem.
Ever since the day of landing, we had discussed in an offhand way
the possibility of "getting out." Not that we had ever considered
it remotely possible that we should ever turn back. But just as a
strategical and tactical exercise, we had figured out how it might be
done. And it seemed that the job of getting out was fraught with more
potentialities of disaster than the job of getting in. The landing
on April 25 was responsible for some slaughter. The evacuation, we
reckoned, would be carnage. At a most moderate computation 25 per
cent. of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps would have to be
sacrificed to ensure the safe withdrawal of the remainder. But of
course this was only a theoretical exercise. It was really outside the
sphere of practical politics.
Then like a bomb came word that in very surety we were going to
evacuate. In the House of Commons members had asked in an airy way why
the troops were not withdrawn from Suvla and Anzac. To them, in their
ignorance, it was merely a matter of embarking again and returning to
Egypt or Salonica or France. So simple it seemed to those armchair
strategists. They did not know that the beach at Anzac, our main
depôts, and our headquarters were within a thousand yards of the main
Turkish line; that the beach had been constantly shelled by "Beachy
Bill" and other batteries for eight solid months on end.
However the powers that be had so ordained it and that was sufficient.
The Australians had talked about "never retreating," but that was only
a manifestation of the unconquerable spirit that animated them. They
might talk, but they never yet disobeyed an order. It nearly broke
their hearts to leave the spot where so many thousand gallant young
Australians had found heroes' graves; but they knew how to obey orders.
The only kick was for the honour of being the last to leave. So many
wanted to be amongst the "die-hards."
It was to be a silent "get-away." Absolute secrecy was essential for
its success. It sounds just like a wild bit of fiction. Just imagine
the possibility of withdrawing an army of 90,000 men with artillery,
stores, field hospitals, mules and horses, and all the vast impedimenta
of war, right from under the nose of an active enemy, and all on a
clear moonlight night. One single traitor could have queered the whole
pitch. But British, Indians, New Zealanders and Australians were loyal
to the core.
The final attack of the Turks on the right of our line had been
repulsed by the 2nd Light Horse Brigade, though the enemy in determined
fashion had pushed forward with sand-bags right to within a few yards
of our trenches. There were half a dozen spots in the Anzac firing line
where we and the Turks could hear each other talking; Quinn's Port,
Lone Pine, The Neck, Apex, Turkish Despair, Chatham's Post. It would
be fine fun sticking it out here while the army made its get-away. Men
clamoured for the honour of being the last to leave....
It is the night of December 19; the fatal night which will see the
evacuation of Anzac. Men talked cheerily, but thought hard. Had the
Turks any idea of our projected departure? Two nights ago, a little
after midnight, there was an unrehearsed incident. A fire broke out
in a depôt near the North Beach. Soon the whole sky was reddened with
the glare and the rugged outline of Anzac was brightly illuminated.
Bully-beef and biscuits blazed merrily. Oil drums burst with terrific
force. Then we wondered if the Turks would deduce anything from this.
Would they guess it was a preliminary to the "get-away." It was hardly
likely. The "fool English" would never burn the stores till the last
minute. So the accidental fire did no harm. Maybe it did good. For
during the past month the Anzacs had tried by all manner of tricks
and subterfuges to induce Abdul to attack. But Abdul knew how costly
a business it was attacking the Australians, and after a few abortive
attempts he remained on the defensive....
Now all was normal. Down at Helles the British had, during the
afternoon, made a big demonstration. The warships had joined in the
fray and the bombardment of the Turkish lines was terrific. But on
this last night there was nothing untoward happening. General Birdwood
during the day had gone the rounds of the trenches and the boys yarned
with him as of old. It was a good thing for us to have had a General
like that--one who understood the gay devil-may-care Australian
character. That's why the boys called him the "idol of Anzac."
Away to the northward at Suvla on the shoulder of Chocolate Hills the
British divisions are getting ready to retire. On Hill 60, which saw so
much sanguinary fighting, the stolid Indians are awaiting orders. This
way a bit the New Zealand and Australian Division has started its first
parties towards North Beach. On the right above Anzac and opposite Gaba
Tepe the Australians were streaming away; all but the rearguard and
the final "die-hards." Before the morning Anzac will have seen a great
tragedy, or else the greatest bluff in history.... There is the usual
desultory interchange of musketry at odd places along the line, now and
then punctuated with the rattle of a maxim ... nothing abnormal. Down
at Helles there is a fierce fusillade. This will help us....
Since dusk the first contingents had been steadily streaming down
towards the North Beach and Anzac Cove. Quickly and silently they
embarked in the waiting flotilla of small craft and streaked out to the
transports. Like guardian angels the warships hovered around seeing to
the security of the army. Up at Suvla we knew similar scenes were being
enacted. Along the line the musketry played its usual accompaniment to
the intermittent bombing. But the whole plan was working beautifully.
The tension was gradually relaxing. There would be no 20 per cent.
casualties as the pessimists foretold. Already from Suvla and Anzac
over 60,000 soldiers had re-embarked without a single casualty.
Now and then there was a round of shrapnel sent by Beachy Bill on to
the southern depôt at Brighton Beach. This clearly showed that the
enemy suspected nothing. Yet it is bright moonlight.... It is midnight,
and nearly all the men have embarked save the thin khaki line of
"die-hards" in the trenches. An odd bomb or two is thrown by the Turks.
The "die-hards" with insolent imperturbability heave a few bombs back
and invite Abdul to come on.
If Abdul had entered our trenches then he would have found only a
skeleton army waiting to fight a forlorn hope rearguard action. But all
along the trenches he would have found other things. Cigarettes and
jam and tobacco; all sorts of presents and Christmas boxes. Scores of
the boys before leaving wrote little farewell messages to the Turks.
Typical examples were these:--"Au revoir, Abdul. See you later on";
"Good-bye, Mahomet. Better luck next time"; "Abdul, you're a good clean
fighter and we bear you no ill-will"; "Merry Christmas, Abdul; you're
a good sport anyhow, but the Hun is a fair cow"; "So long, Abdul." And
having told Abdul what he thought of him, the irresponsible Australian
sauntered down to the beach and embarked! But many a silent tear was
shed for the pals they had left behind, the quiet dead sleeping on
Gallipoli....
It didn't seem quite right to clear out and leave Australia's dead
behind. Some of the boys voiced the thought of many, "Tread softly,
boys, and don't let them hear us deserting them." Some of the padres
planted wattle round about the graves on Shell Green and Shrapnel
Valley and Hell Spit and Brown's Dip....
By half-past one all were away but the "die-hards." Then from the
Apex, after a final volley, streaked the first batch of the skeleton
rearguard. There is a breach in the brave Anzac line at last. But Abdul
does not know it yet. Soon the dare-devils at Quinn's Post heave a
few bombs, then silently slink back, down the precipitous hill-side,
and along the gully to the beach. From Courtney's and the Neck and
the Pimple and Ryrie's Post and Chatham's all along the line came
the "die-hards," full lick to the beach. But to their unutterable
surprise there is no attack. They are not followed. The trenches that
for eight long months defied the Turkish attacks are now open, not a
solitary soldier left. But Abdul does not know it. There is still an
intermittent fire from the Turkish trenches. They think our silence is
some trick....
At half-past three on the morning of December 20 there was a burst of
red flame and a roar like distant thunder. This was repeated shortly
afterwards, and our two big mines on the Neck blew up. It was our
last slap at the Turk. We cannot say what harm it did, but thinking
the explosions were a prelude to attack the Turkish line all round
Anzac burst into spiteful protest. There was a wild fusillade at our
empty trenches, and on the transports the Australians smiled grimly.
Shortly afterwards the Light Horsemen on the extreme right--Ryrie's
lucky Second Brigade rearguard--entered the waiting cutters on Brighton
Beach. Then the stores--such as we could not take away--burst into
flame. Only two men were wounded.
Before dawn word came that the whole force had been safely taken off,
together with many of the mules and horses and guns which it was
thought would have to be abandoned. At dawn the Turkish batteries
opened a wild bombardment of our trenches, all along the line.
Marvellous to relate the enemy had not yet ascertained what had
happened. But the silence soon told them the truth. Then they charged
in irregular lines over the skyline at our empty trenches. The warships
fired a few salvoes at the enemy swarming over the hills, and they
hurriedly took cover in our old trenches. These were the last shots
fired over Anzac at the Turks. Then the flotilla turned its back on
Gallipoli and swung slowly and sadly westward.
So ended the great "get-away"; a feat quite unparalleled in the annals
of war. Historians will pay tribute to Sir Charles Munro and the
Fleet. We only take our hats off to General Birdwood and his staff and
the staffs of the Australasian divisions. But deep down we know the
wonderful work our navy did during the eight months of the Gallipoli
campaign. The army may make mistakes, but the navy is all right.
As we swing off our last thought is not concerned with the bitterness
of defeat. We think of our comrades quietly sleeping on Anzac. They
gave their lives gladly, proudly, for Australia and the Empire. They
showed the world that Australians could live and fight and die like
Britishers. There are many sad hearts on the transports to-night. And
there are very many breaking hearts back in dear old Australia. But old
England has showered so many good gifts on her Colonies. The Colonies
will not grudge this sacrifice for Empire.
Maybe our feelings are best expressed in the words of "Argent,"
written at the end of the most glorious failure in history:--
ANZAC
Ah, well! we're gone! We're out of it now. We've
something else to do.
But we all look back from the transport deck to the
land-line far and blue:
Shore and valley are faded; fading are cliff and hill;
The land-line we called "Anzac" ... and we'll call
it "Anzac" still!
This last six months, I reckon, 'll be most of my life
to me:
Trenches, and shells, and snipers, and the morning
light on the sea,
Thirst in the broiling mid-day, shouts and gasping cries,
Big guns' talk from the water, and ... flies, flies,
flies, flies, flies!
And all of our trouble wasted! all of it gone for nix!
Still ... we kept our end up--and some of the story sticks.
Fifty years on in Sydney they'll talk of our first big fight,
And even in little old, blind old England possibly some one might.
But, seeing we had to clear, for we couldn't get on no more,
I wish that, instead of last night, it had been the night before.
Yesterday poor Jim stopped one. Three of us buried Jim--
I know a woman in Sydney that thought the world of him.
She was his mother. I'll tell her--broken with grief and pride--
"Mother" was Jim's last whisper. That was all. And died.
Brightest and bravest and best of us all--none could
help but to love him--
And now ... he lies there under the hill, with a wooden
cross above him.
That's where it gets me twisted. The rest of it I don't mind,
But it don't seem right for me to be off, and to leave
old Jim behind.
Jim, just quietly sleeping; and hundreds and thousands more;
For graves and crosses are mighty thick from Quinn's
Post down to the shore!
Better there than in France, though, with the Germans' dirty work:
I reckon the Turk respects us, as we respect the Turk;
Abdul's a good, clean fighter--we've fought him, and we know--
And we've left him a letter behind us to tell him we found him so.
Not just to say, precisely, "Good-bye," but "_Au revoir_"!
Somewhere or other we'll meet again, before the end of the war!
But I hope it'll be in a wider place, with a lot more room on the map,
And the airmen over the fight that day'll see a bit of a scrap!
Meanwhile, here's health to the Navy, that took us there, and away;
Lord! they're miracle-workers--and fresh ones every day!
My word! those Mids in the cutters! aren't they properly keen!
Don't ever say England's rotten--or not to _us_, who've _seen_!
Well! we're gone. We're out of it all! We've somewhere else to fight.
And we strain our eyes from the transport deck, but "Anzac"
is out of sight!
Valley and shore are vanished; vanished are cliff and hill;
And we'll never go back to "Anzac" ... _But I think that
some of us will!_
GALLIPOLI
[By L. H. ALLEN, in the _Sydney Morning Herald_.]
1
Winter is here, and in the setting sun
York's[1] giant bluff is kindled with the ray
That smites his gnarléd sides of red and dun:
And the spired obelisk that points the way
Where heroes looked, the first of English blood
To break the spell of Silence with a cry
Startling the ancient sleep in prophecy
Of you, my people of the Lion-brood.
2
Does his old vision watch that alien hill,
Embrowned and bleak, where strain upon the height,
Amid sharp silences that burn and chill,
Those heroes' sons, set in sterner fight
Than primeval war with solitude?
Lo now, the sullen cliff outjets in smoke.
And life is groaning death, blooded and broke!
So fell ye, brothers of the Lion-brood.
3
I weep the dead; they are no more, no more!
Oh, with what pain and rapture came to me
Full birth of love for dazzling-sanded shore,
For heaven of sapphire, and for scented tree!
Keen-eyed and all desire I feel my mood
Still fruitless, waiting gust of quickening breath--
And lo, on darkened wing the wind of death
Summoned austere the soul to nationhood.
4
Where cornfields smile in golden-fruited peace
There stalk the spirits of heroes firmly-thewed
As he that sailed their path to win the Fleece
For gods that still enchant our solitude.
I weep the dead; they are no more, no more!
Their sons that gather in the teeming grain
Walk sadlier than the men of hill and plain,
Themselves are harvest to the wrath of war.
5
I weep the dead; they are no more, no more!
When dusk descends on city and on plain,
Dim lights will shine from window and from door,
And some will guard the vigil of dull pain,
Yet, in the city or in solitude,
There is a burden in the starry air,
An oversong that cries, "The life is fair
That made its triumph nobler with its blood."
6
If English oaks should fret with shade their tomb,
Let them have burial here; for one would say
"I shall sleep soft if some once haunted room,
Keep token of me when I take my way."
And one again, "The boon of quietude
Is sweet if that old corner of the stream
Where last I saw the creepered window gleam
Keep memory of my days of lustihood."
7
Some blossoming orchard-plot, some fencéd field,
Some placid strip of furrow-stainéd earth,
Or some grey coil of cottage smoke shall yield
Tribute to them that brought their kin to birth.
And this, in city or in lonely wood,
Shall be the guerdon of the death they died,
The cry of Folk made one in pangs of pride--
"They fell, not faithless to the Lion-brood."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mount York, in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, where stands
a monument erected in memory of three intrepid Australian explorers:
Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth.
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