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.