A pale pink sunrise burst across the eastern sky as our transport
came steaming into the bay. The haze of early morning dusk still held,
blurring the mainland and water in misty outlines.
Hawk and I had slept upon the deck. Now we got up and stretched our
cramped limbs. Slowly we warped through the quiet seas.
You must understand that we knew not where we were. We had never heard
of Suvla Bay--we didn't know what part of the Peninsula we had reached.
The mystery of the adventure made it all the more exciting. It was to be
“a new landing by the Xth Division”--that was all we knew.
Some of us had slept, and some had lain awake all night. Rapidly the
pink sunrise swept behind the rugged mountains to the left, and was
reflected in wobbling ripples in the bay.
We joined the host of battleships, monitors, and troopships standing
out, and “stood by.”
We could hear the rattle of machine-guns in the distant gloom beyond
the streak of sandy shore. The decks were crowded with that same khaki
crowd. We all stood eagerly watching and listening. The death-silence
had come upon us. No one spoke. No one whistled.
We could see the lighters and small boats towing troops ashore. We saw
the men scramble out, only to be blown to pieces by land mines as
they waded to the beach. On the Lala Baba side we watched platoons and
companies form up and march along in fours, all in step, as if they were
on parade.
“In fours!” I exclaimed to Hawk, who was peering through my
field-glasses.
“Sheer murder,” said Hawk.
No sooner had he spoken than a high explosive from the Turkish
positions on the Sari Bair range came screaming over the Salt Lake:
“Z-z-z-e-e-e-o-o-o-p--Crash!”
They lay there like a little group of dead beetles, and the wounded were
crawling away like ants into the dead yellow grass and the sage bushes
to die. A whole platoon was smashed.
It was not yet daylight. We could see the flicker of rifle-fire, and the
crackle sounded first on one part of the bay, and then another. Among
the dark rocks and bushes it looked as if people were striking thousands
of matches.
Mechanical Death went steadily on. Four Turkish batteries on the Kislar
Dargh were blown up one after the other by our battleships. We watched
the thick rolling smoke of the explosions, and saw bits of wheels, and
the arms and legs of gunners blown up in little black fragments against
that pearl-pink sunrise.
The noise of Mechanical Battle went surging from one side of the bay to
the other--it swept round suddenly with an angry rattle of maxims and
the hard echoing crackle of rifle-fire.
Now and then our battle-ships crashed forth, and their shells went
hurtling and screaming over the mountains to burst with a muffled roar
somewhere out of sight.
Mechanical Death moved back and forth. It whistled and screamed and
crashed. It spat fire, and unfolded puffs of grey and white and black
smoke. It flashed tongues of livid flame, like some devilish ant-eater
lapping up its insects... and the insects were the sons of men.
Mechanical Death, as we saw him at work, was hard and metallic,
steel-studded and shrapnel-toothed. Now and then he bristled with
bayonets, and they glittered here and there in tiny groups, and charged
up the rocks and through the bushes.
The noise increased. Mechanical Death worked first on our side, and then
with the Turks. He led forward a squad, and the next instant mowed them
down with a hail of lead. He galloped up a battery, unlimbered--and
before the first shell could be rammed home Mechanical Death blew the
whole lot up with a high explosive from a Turkish battery in the hills.
And so it went on hour after hour. Crackle, rattle and roar; scream,
whistle and crash. We stood there on the deck watching men get killed.
Now and then a shell came wailing and moaning across the bay, and
dropped into the water with a great column of spray glittering in the
early morning sunshine. A German Taube buzzed overhead; the hum-hum-hum
of the engine was very loud. She dropped several bombs, but none of them
did much damage. The little yellow-skinned observation balloon floated
above one of our battleships like a penny toy. The Turks had several
shots at it, but missed it every time.
The incessant noise of battle grew more distant as our troops on shore
advanced. It broke out like a bush-fire, and spread from one section
to another. Mechanical Death pressed forward across the Salt Lake. It
stormed the heights of the Kapanja Sirt on the one side, and took Lala
Baba on the other. Puffs of smoke hung on the hills, and the shore
was all wreathed in the smoke of rifle and machine-gun fire. A deadly
conflict this--for one Turk on the hills was worth ten British down
below on the Salt Lake.
There was no glory. Here was Death, sure enough--Mechanical Death run
amok--but where was the glory?
Here was organised murder--but it was steel-cold! There was no
hand-to-hand glory. A mine dispersed you before you had set foot on dry
land; or a high explosive removed your stomach, and left you a mangled
heap of human flesh, instead of a medically certified, healthy human
being.
Mechanical Death wavered and fluctuated--but it kept going. If it
slackened its murderous fire at one side of the bay, it was only to
burst forth afresh upon the other.
We wondered how it was that we were still alive, when so many lay dead.
Some were killed on the decks of the transports by shrapnel.
Our monitors crept close to the sandy shore, and poured out a deadly
brood of Death.
The crack and crash was deafening, and it literally shook the air... it
quivered like a jelly after each shot.
The fighting got more and more inland, and the rattle and crackle
fainter and farther away. But we still watched, fascinated.
The little groups of men lay in exactly the same positions on the beach.
That platoon by the side of Lala Baba lay in a black bunch--stone
dead. We could see our artillery teams galloping along like a team of
performing fleas, taking up new positions behind Lala Baba. So this is
war? Well, it's pretty awful! Wholesale murder... what's it all for?
Wonder how long we shall last alive before Mechanical Death blows our
brains out, or a leg off...
Queer thing, war! Didn't think it was quite like this! So mechanical and
senseless.
And now came the time for us to land. A lighter came alongside, with a
little red-bearded man in command--
“Remind you of any one?” I said to Hawk.
“Cap'n Kettle!”
“Yes!”
He was exactly like Cutcliffe Hyne's famous “Kettle,” except that he
smoked a pipe. We huddled into the lighter, and hauled our stores down
below. Some of us were “green about the gills,” and some were trying to
pretend we didn't care.
We watched the boat which landed just before us strike a mine and be
blown to pieces. Encouraging sight... At last we reached the tiny cove,
and the lighter let down a sort of tail-board on the sand.