IN THE REST CAMP
HOW THE LEINSTERS CAUGHT A GLIMPSE OF THE NARROWS
For five days and nights the Irish troops who took Chocolate Hill, or
Dublin Hill, on Saturday, August 7th, lay in the captured Turkish
entrenchments before they could be relieved. The men were in the
highest spirits over their exploit. But they felt stiff and sore and
very, very dirty. They had sand in their clothes, sand in their hair,
sand in their eyes, sand in their mouths and nostrils, and their faces
and hands were black with the grime of powder and the smoke of the
bush fires. And now, upon all that, they had to endure the particular
discomforts and hardships which attend a campaign in a dry and torrid
land.
The greatest trouble arose from the scarcity of fresh water to
mitigate the tropical heat. The wells were few and far between, and
being within range of the Turkish guns, were, all of them, constantly
shelled. The quantity of water that could be brought to Dublin Hill
was totally inadequate to satisfy the demand. The supply was strictly
reserved for drinking purposes. Water was too scarce and precious to
be wasted on personal ablutions. Better a filthy face than a parched
mouth. The dirtiest water was drunk with a relish. A Dublin Fusilier
sighed for a draught of the cool and crystal water from the Wicklow
hills. "Vartry water," exclaimed another; "I'd be quite content with a
bucketful from the Liffey, even off the North Wall." Food was also
hard to get. The commissariat had not yet been evolved out of the
disorganisation attendant upon the landing. Under such a scorching sun
the eating of the bully-beef in the men's ration bags was unthinkable.
So their meals consisted chiefly of biscuits. Then there was the pest
of myriads of flies. The Gallipoli flies were having the time of the
life-history of their species. Big, ferocious, and insatiable
freebooters, they would not be denied joining the troops at their
meals and getting the bigger share of the scanty rations into the
bargain. The worst affliction of all, however, was the stench of the
half-buried and rapidly decomposing corpses in the captured trenches.
During the week which thus elapsed between the capture of Chocolate
Hill and the still fiercer series of battles for the heights of
Kiretsh Tepe Sirt, to the north, and of Sari Bair, to the south, which
were to follow, regiments of the Irish Division were constantly
engaged with the enemy on the foothills. Sari Bair was the strongest
strategical position of the Turks in this part of Gallipoli. Like Achi
Baba, towards the lower end of the Peninsula, it commands the
Dardanelles, and especially the great military road along the shore of
the Straits, over which the Turks were enabled quickly to send
reinforcements of men, munitions, and stores from one point to
another. One Irish Battalion actually gained a point on Sari Bair,
from which they caught a glimpse of the Dardanelles. This was the 6th
Royal Leinster Regiment of the 29th Brigade, which, as I have already
mentioned, was separated from the 10th Division and sent south to
co-operate with the forces from the Dominions. On Monday, August 9th,
a party of New Zealanders had fought their way up to a ridge of Sari
Bair, but were unable to hold it; and as they came retreating down to
the place where the 6th Leinsters were in reserve, they shouted: "Fix
your bayonets, lads; they're coming over the hill." Sergeant-Major T.
Quinlan, of the Leinsters, lying wounded in hospital, tells the story.
"Everyone ran for his rifle and fixed his bayonet, picked up a
bandolier or two of ammunition, and charged up the hill like a pack of
deers, some without boots or jackets. I bet you the Turks never ran so
quick in their lives, for our rifle fire and plunging bayonets, as we
charged, were too much for them to stand. We regained the lost
position in almost twenty minutes." And down below them, to the east,
they could see that narrow ribbon of water which was the object of all
this horrible killing--the Dardanelles glistening in the sun.
The positions held by the Irish regiments around Chocolate Hill were
regularly bombarded. On August 9th Lieutenant D.R. Clery, of the 6th
Dublins (a fine young Dublin man, very popular as a footballer), was
missed. Captain J.J. Carroll, of the battalion, writing to a relative,
says: "I know that he was in the very front of the firing line on
August 9th, and one of our men told me on the ship coming home of
Dan's magnificent conduct in carrying man after man out of danger. The
man I refer to said that in saving others Dan had seemed utterly
regardless of danger to himself." It was also in one of these
outbursts of Turkish artillery that on Tuesday, August 10th, Captain
James Cecil Johnston, Adjutant of the 6th Royal Irish Fusiliers, was
killed. Before the war Captain Johnston--a County Fermanagh man--was
Master of the Horse to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Second
Lieutenant R.S. Trimble, who was wounded on the same occasion,
describes the incident in a letter to his father, Mr. W. Copeland
Trimble, of Fermanagh. He was standing between his Colonel and his
Adjutant in conversation when a shell came along. It tore the
Colonel's arm to pulp, and though it passed Mr. Trimble, who was
slightly out of the line of fire, the concussion of it dashed him
violently to the ground, and then exploding, it blew Captain Johnston
literally to pieces.
The Irish troops were greatly harassed by the enemy's sharpshooters.
These snipers assumed all sorts of disguises and occupied every
conceivable hiding place--up in the dwarf oak trees, lying prone in
the scrub thickets, down in the rocks of the gullies--so that it was
very difficult to spot them. Among those discovered was a peasant
woman--the wife of a Turkish soldier--who lived with her old mother
and her child in a little house near the Irish lines. She was a fine
shot, and apparently confined her attention to stragglers, whose
bodies she rifled; for several identification discs and a large sum of
money were found in her possession. The daring and resource of the
sharpshooters made them a deadly peril. One man caught in a tree wore
a head covering and cloak formed of leaves. Another was found in a
khaki uniform, stripped from a dead British soldier. The most
perplexing feature of the sniping was that shots often came from the
scrub behind. One of the victims of these tactics was Lieutenant E.M.
Harper, of the 7th Royal Munster Fusiliers, who, while advancing with
his company on August 9th, fell from a rifle shot fired from the rear.
The men of all the Irish battalions suffered from this game of
hide-and-seek with death as they lay in the trenches on Dublin Hill.
Relief came to them in the early hours of the morning of Friday,
August 13th. They left at 1.30, and marched seven miles to a rest camp
in a gully of Karakol Dagh running down to the Gulf of Saros, which
they reached at 4.30, and a footsore, sleepy, haggard, unkempt,
bedraggled, hairy, unwashed, and unshaven crowd they were. They owed
this bivouac to the success of the Munsters and Royal Irish Regiment
in expelling the Turks from part of the ridge. When dismissed in the
camp every man, officer and private alike, flung himself down in the
open where he was and as he was, and had his first undisturbed sleep
for a week. In the morning they had the luxurious experience of
getting out of their clothes and plunging into the sea. How they
revelled in it, after that awful week of forced marches, battle,
flies, smoke, stench, and sweat! What laughter and splashing! The
shouts and the merry jests and their accents made the scene just such
a one as might be witnessed at home in a swimming pool under Howth or
Bray Head.
Afterwards the chief desire of all was to write home. As the men lay
almost naked on the warm sands, under the scorching sun, many a letter
was written to loved ones in Ireland, each telling how he got safely
through his baptism of fire--the best news he could possibly send--and
what a grand name his battalion had made for itself. Words of comfort
and cheer are freely used in such of the letters as have been made
public. "I'm happier than ever I was; it's just the sort of life I
like." "You can't realise what high spirits I am in when I'm fighting.
I feel as if it were all one long exciting Rugger match." "Don't you
fret, I'll get through it all right; and even if I fall, sure we'll
all meet again in the next world after a few brief years."
To call the camp a "rest" camp is, perhaps, a misnomer. It certainly
afforded no refuge from the flies. "There is a fellow near me doing
nothing but killing them in millions," writes one of the Dublins. "I
had ten in a mug of tea as soon as it was handed to me," says another.
This place of shelter was not safe even from the Turkish guns. As many
as twenty-five men were knocked out by a shell. But such as the camp
was, the stay of the Irish in it was very brief indeed. On the morning
of Sunday, August 15th, they were ordered to take up positions on the
ridge above them, and wait for the word to go forward and attack.
Though "burned like a red herring, and just as thin and thirsty," as
one of the officers of the 7th Dublins said, describing himself and
giving a comic picture of them all, they were again in good physical
condition. And they had need to be. For they were now assigned a task
that was to demand of them more fortitude and resolution and a bigger
toll of life than even the taking of Dublin Hill.
It was fortunate, then, that on that very Sunday, August 15th, the
great Irish Catholic festival of Our Lady's Day, the Catholic members
of the forces were able to reinforce themselves with that sustaining
power which the Mass and Holy Communion impart. The services were held
by Father W. Murphy, one of the chaplains, under the sheltering hill,
in the open air, not only within sound of the guns, but within sight
of the bursting shells. It was a rudely improvised altar--a stone laid
on trestles, a crucifix, and two candles--and the priest in his khaki
service uniform under the vestments. Many of the men thought of the
village chapel at home on that fine Sunday morning. They saw the
congregation, all in their Sunday best, gathered outside, and while
waiting for the bell to stop, exchanging gossip about the war, and
inquiring of one another what was the latest from the Dardanelles,
about Tom, and Mike, and Joe. The familiar scene was distinct to their
mind's eye, and their beating hearts kept time to the measured tones
of the chapel bell. After the Mass they were given the General
Absolution. "It was very impressive," says Sergeant Losty, of the 6th
Dublins, "to see Father Murphy standing out on the side of the hill,
and all the battalions, with their helmets off and holding up their
right hands, saying the Act of Contrition and he absolving them."
At this point it is appropriate that I should refer to the cordial and
intimate relations which existed between the Protestant and Catholic
chaplains of the 10th Division. An officer of the 30th Brigade,
consisting of the 6th and 7th Dublins and the 6th and 7th Munsters,
gives the following pleasant picture of Father W. Murphy, Catholic
priest, and the Rev. Canon McClean, Church of Ireland minister:--
"This morning Father Murphy said Mass in the trenches, where
bullets, etc., were falling like hailstones. Oh! he is a
splendid man. The Canon, a dear, good Irishman from Limerick,
holds his services side by side with Father Murphy. They put a
great spirit into the men, who love them both; in fact, almost
adore them. I personally think that nothing I know of is half
good enough for those two noble gentlemen. Catholic and
Protestant are hand-in-hand, all brought about by the gentleness
and undaunted courage displayed by these two splendid soldiers
of Christ. Never since the landing has the roar of battle, be it
ever so ferocious (and God only knows it is bad here at times),
prevented these clergymen from forcing their way into the firing
line and attending to our gallant sons of Ireland. Canon McClean
is over fifty years of age and Father Murphy is forty-eight. You
can imagine them, even though of such an age, never off their
feet, as they go to and fro daily to their duties."
Both have been mentioned in Sir Ian Hamilton's despatches.
Brigadier-General Nicol, in command of the 30th Brigade, writes in the
warmest appreciation of their services. "We of the 30th Brigade are
never likely to forget your fearless devotion to your duty," he writes
to Canon McClean. "With you and Father Murphy we were indeed
fortunate; and it was so nice to see you two the best of friends
working hand in hand for the common good. You both set us a fine
example." Canon McClean is rector of Rathkeale, County Limerick.