TRENCHES
Somebody has said that a change of occupation is a rest. Whoever sent
us into dugouts for a rest, evidently had this definition in mind.
After breakfast the first morning we were ordered out for digging
fatigue just behind the firing line. In this there was one
consolation. We did not have to carry our packs. Each man took his
rifle and either a pick or a shovel. Communication trenches had to be
dug to avoid long tramps through the firing line; and connecting
trenches had to be made between the existing communication trenches.
While we were in dugouts we had eight hours of this work out of every
twenty-four; four hours in the daytime and four at night.
The second day in dugouts when we came back from our morning's
digging, we found some new arrivals making some dugouts about two
hundred yards behind our lines. They were Territorials, who correspond
to the militia in the United States. "The London Terriers," they
called themselves. Mostly they were young fellows from eighteen to
twenty-two years old. They had landed only that morning and were in
splendid condition, and very eager for the coming of evening when they
were to go to the firing line. The ground they had selected was
sheltered from observation by the little ridge near our line of
dugouts; but some of our men in moving about attracted the attention
of the Turkish artillery observer. Instantly half a dozen shells came
over the ridge, past our line, and bang! right in the midst of the
Londons, working fearful destruction. Every ten or fifteen minutes
after that, the Turks sent over some shells. Some regiments are lucky,
others seem to walk into destruction everywhere they turn. The shells
fired at the Newfoundlanders landed in the Londons. About two minutes'
walk from our dugouts our cooks had built a fire and were preparing
meals. A number of our men passed continually between our line and the
cooks'. Not one of them was even scratched. The only two of the
Londons who ventured there were hit; one fellow was killed instantly,
the other, seriously wounded through the lungs, lay moaning where he
had fallen. It was just dusk, and nobody knew he had been hit until
one of our men, coming down, heard his hoarse whispering request to
"get a doctor, for God's sake get a doctor." While somebody ran for
the doctor, our stretcher bearers responded to the all too familiar
shout, "Stretcher bearers at the double," but by the time they reached
him he was beyond all need of doctor or stretcher bearers. Before the
London Terriers even saw the firing line, they lost over two hundred
men. They simply could not escape the Turkish shells. The enemy had a
habit of sending over one shell, then waiting just a minute or less,
and following it with another. The first shell generally wounded two
or three men; the second one was sent over to catch the stretcher
bearers and the comrades who hastened to aid those who were hit.
Before they had completed their dugouts, the shrapnel caught them in
the open; after they were dug in, it buried them alive. Never did a
regiment leave dugouts with so much joy as did the London Terriers
when they entered the trenches for the first time. Ordinarily a man is
much safer in the firing line than in rest dugouts. Trenches are so
constructed that even when a shell drops right in the traverse where
men are, only half a dozen or so suffer. In open or slightly protected
ground where the dugouts are, the burst of a shrapnel shell covers an
area twenty-five by two hundred yards in extent.
A shell can be heard coming. Experts claim to identify the caliber of
a gun by the sound the shell makes. Few live long enough to become
such experts. In Gallipoli the average length of life was three weeks.
In dugouts we always ate our meals, such as they were, to the
accompaniment of "Turkish Delight," the Newfoundlanders' name for
shrapnel. We had become accustomed to rifle bullets. When you hear the
zing of a spent bullet or the sharp crack of an explosive, you know it
has passed you. The one that hits you, you never hear. At first we
dodged at the sound of a passing bullet, but soon we came actually to
believe the superstition that a bullet would not hit a man unless it
had on it his regimental number and his name. Then, too, a bullet
leaves a clean wound, and a man hit by it drops out quietly. The
shrapnel makes nasty, jagged, hideous wounds, the horrible
recollection of which lingers for days in the minds of those who see
them. It is little wonder that we preferred the firing line.
[Illustration: Australians in trench on Gallipoli Peninsula,
using the periscope
Note the different shaped hats worn by the men, five kinds
appearing in the little group]
Every afternoon from just behind our line of dugouts an aeroplane
buzzed up. At the tremendous height it looked like an immense
blue-bottle fly. We always knew when it was two o'clock. Promptly at
that hour every afternoon it winged its way over us and beyond to the
Turkish trenches. At first the enemy's aeroplanes came out to meet
ours, but a few encounters with our men soon convinced them of the
futility of such attempts. After that, they relied on their artillery.
In the air all around the tiny speck we could see white puffs of smoke
that showed where their shrapnel was exploding. Sometimes those puffs
were perilously close to it; at such times our hearts were in our
mouths. Everybody in the trench craned his neck to see. When our
aeroplane manoeuvered clear, you could hear a sigh of relief from
every man.
After about the eighth day in dugouts we were ordered back to the
firing line. We had to take over a part of the trench near Anafarta
Village. In this vicinity the Fifth Norfolks, a company formed of men
from the King's estate at Sandringham, had charged into the woods,
about two hundred and fifty strong, and had been completely lost sight
of. This was the most comfortable trench we had yet been in. It had
been taken over from the Turks, and when we faced toward them we had
to build another firing platform. This left their firing platform for
us to sleep on. After the cramped, narrow trenches of the first couple
of weeks, this roomy trench was very pleasant. On both sides of the
trench were some trees that threw a grateful shade in the daytime.
Along the edge grew little bushes that bore luscious blackberries, but
to attempt to get them was courting death. Nevertheless, the
Newfoundlanders secured a good many. Best of all though was the "Block
House Well." For the first time we had a plenitude of water. But by
this time conditions had begun to tell on the men. Each morning more
and more men reported for sick parade. They were beginning to feel the
enervating effect of the climate, and of the lack of water and proper
food. While we were intrenched near the block house, the men were
sickening so fast that in our platoon we had not enough men to form
the sentry groups. The noncommissioned officers had to take their
place on the parapet, and the ordinary work of the noncoms, changing
sentries, waking reliefs, and detailing working parties had to be done
by the commissioned officers. Just about an hour before my turn to
watch, I was suddenly stricken by the fever that lurks on the
Peninsula. In the army, no man is sick unless so pronounced by the
medical officer. Each morning at nine there is a sick parade. A man
taken ill after that has to wait until the next morning, and is
officially fit for duty. My turn came at eleven o'clock at night. The
man I was to relieve was Frank Lind. He went on at nine. When eleven
o'clock came, I was burning up with fever. Lind would not hear of my
being roused to relieve him, but continued on the parapet until one
o'clock, although in that part of the trench snipers had been doing a
lot of execution. Then he rested for a couple of hours and at three
o'clock resumed his place on the parapet for the remainder of the
night. At daybreak he was still there. I slept all through the night,
exhausted by the fever, and it was not till a few days after that some
one else told me what Lind had done. From him I heard no mention of
it. Whenever somebody says that war serves only to bring out the
worst in a man I think of Frank Lind. The fever that had weakened me
so, continued all that day. I reported for sick parade and was given a
day off duty. The next day I was given light duty, and the following
day the fever left me and that night I was fit for duty again, and was
sent out to a detached post about halfway between us and the enemy.
The detached post was an abandoned house about twenty feet square. All
the doors and windows had been torn out, and now it was nothing but
the merest skeleton of a house. We had been there about three hours
when there occurred something most extraordinary and unaccountable. It
was a pitch dark night, and working parties were out from both sides.
Ordinarily there would have been no firing. Suddenly from away on the
right where the Australians were, began the sharp crackling of rapid
fire. A boy pulling a wooden stick along an iron park railing makes
almost the same sound. The crackling swept down the line right past
the trench directly behind us and away on to the left. The Turks,
fearing an attack, replied. Between the two fires we were caught.
There were eight of us in the blockhouse. Only two of us came from No.
8 platoon, Art Pratt, my sandy-haired friend of Aldershot days, and I.
The sergeant in charge was from another platoon. When the rapid fire
began, he became melodramatic. He had the responsibility of seven
other men's lives, and the thing that seemed rather comic to us was
probably very serious to him. There was nothing the matter, though,
with the way in which he handled the situation. There were eight
openings in the house for the missing doors and windows. At each
window he placed a man, and stood at the door himself, then ordered us
to fill our magazines and fix our bayonets. But psychologically he
made a mistake. He turned to me and said,
"Corporal, we're in a pretty tight place. We may have to sell our
lives dearly. I want every man to stand by me. Will you stand by me?"
When the thing had started I had just experienced a pleasant tingle of
excitement, but at this view of the situation I felt a little serious.
Before I had a chance to reply Art Pratt relieved the situation by
shouting,
"Did you say stand by you? I'll stand by this window and I'll bayonet
the first damn Turk I see."
There was a general laugh and the moment of tension passed. In a few
minutes the exchange of rapid fire died down as suddenly as it had
started. The rest of the night passed uneventfully. Just before
daybreak we returned to our platoons.
We never found out the reason for the sudden exchange of rapid fire.
Some Australians away on the right had started it. Everybody had
joined in, as the firing ran along the line of trenches. As soon as
the officers began an investigation it was stopped.
It seems to me that most of the time we were in the blockhouse trench
we spent our nights out between the lines. Most of our work was done
at night. When we wished to advance our line, we sent forward a
platoon of men the desired distance. Every man carried with him three
empty sandbags and his intrenching tool. Temporary protection is
secured at short notice by having every man dig a hole in the ground
that is large and deep enough to allow him to lie flat in it. The
intrenching tool is a miniature pickax, one end of which resembles a
large bladed hoe with a sharpened and tempered edge. The pick end is
used to loosen hard material and to break up large lumps; the other
end is used as a shovel to throw up the dirt. When used in this
fashion the wooden handle is laid aside, the pick end becomes a
handle, and the intrenching tool is used in the same manner as a
trowel. The whole instrument is not over a foot long, and is carried
in the equipment.
Lying on our stomachs, our rifles close at hand, we dug furiously.
First we loosened up enough earth in front of our heads to fill a
sandbag. This sandbag we placed beside our heads on the side nearest
the enemy. Out in no man's land with bullets from rifle and machine
guns pattering about us, we did fast work. As soon as we had filled
the second and third sandbags we placed them on top of the first. In
Gallipoli every other military necessity was subordinated to
concealment. Often we could complete a trench and occupy it before the
enemy knew of it. In the daytime our aeroplanes kept their aerial
observers from coming out to find any work we had done during the
night. Sometimes while we were digging, the Turks surprised us by
sending up star shells. They burst like rockets high overhead.
Everything was outlined in a strange, uncanny light that gave the
effect of stage fire. At first, when a man saw a star shell, he
dropped flat on his face; but after a good many men had been riddled
by bullets, we saw our mistake. The sudden, blinding glare makes it
impossible to identify objects before the light fades. Star shells
show only movement. The first stir between the lines becomes the
target for both sides. So, after that, even when a man was standing
upright, he simply stood still.
[Illustration: First line of Allies' trench zigzagging along
parallel to the Turkish trenches which are not thirty yards
distant]
After the block-house trench, our next move was to a part of the
firing line that I have never been able to identify. It was very close
to the Turks, and in this spot we lost a large number of men. From one
point, a narrow sap or rough trench ran out at right angles very close
to the Turkish position. It may have been twenty-five or thirty yards
away. To hold this sap was very important; if the Turks took it, it
gave them a commanding position. About twenty men were in it all the
time, four or five of them bomb throwers. The men holding this sap at
the time we were there were the Irish, the Dublin Fusiliers or, as
we knew them, the Dubs. The Turks made several attempts to take it,
but were repulsed. When our men were not on sentry duty, several of
them spent their rest hours out in this sap, talking to the Dubs. The
Dubs were interesting talkers. They had been in the thing from the
beginning, and spoke of the landings with laughter and a fierce joy of
slaughter. Most of them had been on the Western front before coming to
Gallipoli. From the Turkish trenches directly in front of this sap,
the enemy signaled the effect of our shots. They used the same signals
that we used in target practice, waving a stick back and forth to
indicate outers, inners, magpies, and bull's-eyes. Whoever did it, had
a sense of humor; because as soon as he became tired, he took down the
stick for an instant, then raised it again and waved it back and forth
derisively, with a large red German sausage on the end of it. This did
not seem to bear out very well the tales that the enemy was slowly
starving to death. Prisoners who surrendered from time to time told us
that at any moment the entire Turkish army might surrender, as they
were very short of food. One thing we did know: the Turks felt the
lack of shoes; out between the lines we found numbers of our dead with
the boots cut off.
While we were in this place the Turks dug to within ten or twelve
yards of us before they were discovered. One of the Dublins saw them
first. He seized some bombs, and jumped out, shouting, "Look at Johnny
Turrk. Let's bomb him to hell out of it." But Johnny Turk was
obstinate; he stayed where he was in spite of our bombs. One of our
fellows, the big chap whom I had heard at Aldershot complaining about
being asked for his name and number, had crawled into the sap. He made
his way through the smoke and dirt to the end of the sap where only a
few yards separated him from the Turks. In one item of armament the
British beat the Turks. We use bombs that explode three seconds after
they are thrown; the Turks' don't explode for five seconds. The
difference of only two seconds seems slight, but that day in the
sap-head it was of great importance. For a short while the supply of
bombs for our side ran out. The man who was trying to get the cover
off a box of them found difficulty in doing it. The men in the
sap-head were without bombs. Meanwhile the Turks kept up an
uninterrupted throwing of bombs. Most of them landed in the sap. The
big Newfoundlander who had crawled out looking for excitement found
it. As soon as the supply of bombs ran out, instead of getting back
into safety, he stood his ground. The first bomb that came over
dropped close to him. He was swearing softly, and his face was glowing
with pleasure. He bent down coolly, picked up the bomb and threw it
back over the parapet at the Turks who had sent it. With our bombs he
could not have done it, but the extra two seconds were just enough.
Five or six of the bombs came in and were treated in the same way,
before our supply was resumed. A brigade officer, who had come out
into the sap, stood gazing awe-struck at the big Newfoundlander.
Open-mouthed, with monocle in hand, the officer was the picture of
amazement. At last he spoke, with that slow, impersonal English drawl:
"I say, my man, what is your name and number."
The look on the Newfoundlander's face was a study. He knew he should
not have come out into that sap, and every time that question had been
shot at him before it had meant a reprimand. At last he shrugged his
shoulders, then with a resigned expression, answered the officer in a
fashion not entirely confined to Newfoundlanders--by asking a
question: "What in hell have I done now?"
Without a word the officer turned on his heel and left the sap. The
big fellow waited until he felt the officer was well out of sight,
then departed for his proper place in the trench. One of the Dubs
looking after him, said to me:
"There's a man that would have been recommended for a Distinguished
Conduct Medal if he'd answered that officer right."
That Irishman was a man of wide experience.
"I've been seventeen years in the army, and I've been in every war
that England fought in that time," said he, "and I'll tell you now,
the real Distinguished Conduct Medal men and the real V.C. heroes
never get them. They're under the ground." Coming from the man it did,
this expression of opinion was interesting, for he was Cooke, the man
who had been given a Distinguished Conduct Medal for his work on the
Western front. Since coming to the Peninsula he had been acting as a
sharpshooter, and had been recommended for the V.C., the Victoria
Cross, which is the highest reward for valor in the British army. He
was only waiting then, for word to go to London, to get the cross
pinned on by the King.
"There's one man on this Peninsula," continued Cooke, "who's won the
V.C. fifty times over; that's the donkey-man."
The man Cooke meant was an Australian, a stretcher-bearer. His real
name was Simpson, but nobody ever called him that. Because he was of
Irish descent, the Australians, who dearly love nicknames, called him
Murphy, or, Moriarty, or Dooley, or whatever Irish name first occurred
to them. More generally, though, he was called the Man with the
Donkey, and by this name he was known all over the Peninsula. In the
early days, the Anzacs had captured some booty from the Turks and in
it were some donkeys. It was in the strenuous time when men lay in all
sorts of inaccessible places, dying and sorely wounded, Simpson in
those days seemed everywhere. As soon as he heard of the capture he
went down, looked appraisingly over the donkeys, and commandeered two
of them. On one donkey he painted F.A. No. 1, and on the other, F.A.
No. 2; F.A. being his abbreviation for Field Ambulance. Day and night
after that Simpson could be seen going about among the wounded, here
giving a man first aid, there loosening the equipment and making
easier the last few minutes for some poor fellow too far gone to need
any medical care. The wounded men who could not walk or limp down to
the dressing station he carried down, one on each of the donkeys and
one on his back or in his arms. He talked to the donkeys as they
plodded slowly along, in a strange mixture of English, Arabic
profanity, and Australian slang. Many an Australian or New Zealander
who has never heard of Simpson remembers gratefully the attentions of
a strangely gentle man who drove before him two small gray donkeys
each of which carried a wounded soldier. In Australia long after this
war is over men will thrill at the mention of the Man with the Donkey.
I agreed with Cooke that this man had won the V.C. fifty times over.
Cooke was going out that night, he told me, to stay for three or four
days, sniping, between the lines. As soon as he came back he expected
to go to London.
"Before I go out," he said, "I'll show you a good place where you can
get a shot at Abdul Pasha."
I followed Cooke out through the sap and up the trench a little way to
where it turned sharply to avoid a large boulder. Just in front of
this boulder was some short, prickly underbrush. Cooke parted the
bushes cautiously with his hand, and motioned me to come closer. I did
and through the opening he pointed out the enemy trench about four
hundred yards away, and about thirty yards in front of it a little
clump of bushes.
"Just in front of those bushes," said Cooke, "there's a sniper's
dugout. Keep your eyes open to-morrow and you ought to get some of
them."
I noted the place for the next day, and walked down to the sap with
Cooke. There I shook hands with him, wished him good luck, and
returned to my platoon.
That night I had to go out on listening patrol between the lines. At
one o'clock my turn came. An Irish sergeant came along the trench for
me to guide me out to the listening post. I went with him a short
distance along the trench, picked up four others, then with a
shoulder from a comrade, we got over the parapet. The listening post
was about a hundred yards away. We had gone only a few yards when we
heard firing coming from that direction, first one shot followed by
twenty or thirty in quick succession, then silence. A man stumbled out
of the darkness immediately in front of us. He was panting and
excited. It was a messenger from the corporal that we were going to
relieve. He had been walking along without the least suspicion of
danger when he had run full tilt into a party of fifteen or sixteen of
the enemy. He had dropped down immediately and yelled to one of his
men to go back to the trench with word. We followed the panting
messenger to the post. The enemy had now disappeared. We opened rapid
fire in the direction in which they had gone. Evidently it was right,
for in a few seconds they returned it, wounding one man. For about
five minutes we kept up firing, with what success we could not tell,
but at any rate we had the satisfaction of driving off a superior
force. Those two hours straining through the darkness were not
particularly pleasant. I did not know what moment or from what
direction the enemy might come, and I knew that if he did come it
would be in force. Apparently the whole thing was unplanned, because
during the remainder of my two hours, although I peered unceasingly in
all directions, I could see nothing, nor could I hear the slightest
sound. Evidently Johnny Turk was willing to let well enough alone.
That night when I returned to the trench I was told that the next
night at dark we were to go into dugouts.
Ordinarily the thought of dugouts was distasteful, but it seemed years
since I had taken my boots off. Our platoon had lost heavily, mostly
from disease. All the novelty had worn off the trench life. Instead of
six noncoms, there were only three. Each of us was doing the work of
two men. Our ration had been the eternal bully beef, biscuit, and jam.
Our cooks did their best to make it palatable by cooking the beef in
stew with some desiccated vegetables, but these were hard and
tasteless. Most of us had got to the stage where the very sight of jam
made us sick. That night, looking down through the ravine, I saw,
winking and blinking cheerfully, the only light that brightened the
Stygian darkness, the Red Cross of the hospital ships. I have wondered
since if the entrance to heaven is illuminated with an electric Red
Cross. There was not a man in the whole battalion who was really fit.
Most of them had had a touch of one or more of the prevalent diseases.
Stenlake, the young clergyman, who had been my dugout mate, was
scarcely able to drag himself about the trench. And by this time we
had the weather to contend with. It was nearing the middle of October,
and the rainy season was almost upon us. Occasionally the sky darkened
up to a heavy grayness that seemed to cover everything as with a pall.
Following this came heavy, sudden squalls that swept through the
trenches, drenching everything, and tearing blankets and equipments
with them. Although the sun still continued to bore down unremittingly
in the daytime, the nights had become bitterly cold, and to the
tropical diseases were added rheumatism and pneumonia. On the men from
Newfoundland the climate was especially telling. We had ceased to
wonder at the crowd of men who reported sick each morning, and simply
marveled that the number was not greater.
All over the Peninsula disease had become epidemic until the clearing
stations and the beaches were choked with sick. The time we should
have been sleeping was spent in digging, but still the men worked
uncomplainingly. Some, too game to quit, would not report to the
doctor, working on courageously until they dropped, although down in
the bay beckoned the Red Cross of the hospital ship, with its
assurance of cleanliness, rest, and safety. By sickness and snipers'
bullets we were losing thirty men a day. Nobody in the front line
trenches or on the shell-swept area behind ever expected to leave the
Peninsula alive. Their one hope was to get off wounded. Every night
men leaving the trenches to bring up rations from the beach shook
hands with their comrades. From every ration party of twenty men we
always counted on losing two. Those who were wounded were looked on as
lucky. The best thing we could wish a man was a "cushy wound," one
that would not prove fatal, or a "Blighty one." But no one wanted to
quit. Men hung on till the last minute. Often it was not till a man
dropped exhausted that we learned from his comrades that he had not
eaten for days. The only men in my platoon who seemed to be nearly fit
were Art Pratt, and a young chap named Hayes. Art seemed to be
enjoying the life thoroughly. He went about the trench, cheerfully,
grinning and whistling, putting heart into the others. Whenever there
was any specially dangerous work to be done, Art always volunteered.
He spent more time out between the lines than in the trench. Whenever
a specially reliable, cool man was needed, Art was selected. Young
Hayes was a small chap who had been in my platoon at Stob's Camp in
Scotland. He had made a record for being absent from parade, and was
always in trouble for minor offenses. I took him in hand and did my
best to keep him out of trouble. Out in the trenches he remembered it,
and followed me around like a shadow. Whenever I was sent in charge of
a fatigue party he always volunteered. The men all did their best to
make the work of the noncoms easy. As a study in the effects of
colonial discipline it would have been enlightening for some of the
English officers. The men called their corporals and sergeants, Jack,
or Bill, or Mac, but there never was the slightest question about
obeying an order. Everybody knew that everybody else was overworked
and underfed, and every man tried to give as little trouble as
possible. Such conduct from the Newfoundlanders was astonishing, as
in training they simply loved to make trouble for the noncoms, and the
most unenviable job in the regiment was that of corporal or sergeant.
Such were the conditions the next afternoon when we moved from the
firing trench to rest near some dugouts that had been forsaken by the
Royal Scots. They had been relieved, some said, to go to the island of
Imbros, about fifteen miles away, for a rest. At Imbros, rumor said,
you could buy, in the canteen, eggs and butter, and other heavenly
things that we had almost forgotten the taste of. At Imbros, too, you
were free from shell fire, and drilled every day just as you did in
training. It was whispered, too, but scornfully discredited, that
Imbros boasted shower baths, and ovens for the disinfecting of
clothing. Others claimed that the Royal Scots had been withdrawn from
the Peninsula and were going to the Western front. They were the first
regiment to leave of the Twenty-ninth Division. The whole division was
to be withdrawn gradually. The Twenty-ninth was our division, and we
were to go with it to England. We were to winter in Scotland and after
we had been recruited up to full strength were to go to France in the
spring. An examination of the empty dugouts strengthened this belief.
Blankets, rubber sheets, belts, pieces of equipment, and even
overcoats were lying around. In one of the dugouts I found a copy of
the Odyssey, and half a dozen other books. A few dugouts away I came
upon one of our fellows gazing regretfully upon an empty whisky
bottle. As I approached him, I overheard him murmur abstractedly, "My
favorite brand too, my favorite brand." I passed on without
interrupting him. It was too sacred a moment.