PART II

[Illustration: LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR W. BIRDWOOD--"THE SOUL OF ANZAC."

Frontispiece.]

AUSTRALIA IN ARMS

SOLDIER-SONGS

FROM ANZAC

By Signaller TOM SKEYHILL.

With an Introduction by

Major-General J. W. McCAY, C. B.

Paper cover, 1s. net.

Private Skeyhill trained in Egypt from January 1915 to April 1915. He

landed with his battalion on Anzac Beach on 25th April, taking part in

the fighting of that first fierce week. The next week he was with his

battalion at Cape Helles, and shared in the well-known charge by the

2nd Brigade on the 8th May, when a high-explosive shell burst beside

him and sent him to hospital, a blind and helpless man. There are hopes

that eventually he may recover his sight, but at best the time must be

long. His poems breathe love of country and of courage, the spirit of

battle, soldiers' comradeship, and sympathy for the fallen.

T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., LONDON

AUSTRALIA IN ARMS

A NARRATIVE OF THE AUSTRALASIAN IMPERIAL

FORCE AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENT AT ANZAC

BY

PHILLIP F. E. SCHULER

Special War Correspondent of _The Age_, Melbourne

WITH 9 MAPS AND 53 ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON

T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.

ADELPHI TERRACE

_First published in 1916_

(_All rights reserved_)

TO

THE MOTHERS OF THE HEROES

WHO HAVE FALLEN

I HUMBLY DEDICATE THESE RECORDS OF

GLORIOUS DEEDS

_TO THE MOTHER COUNTRY_

_Because you trusted them, and gave them dower

Of your own ancient birthright, Liberty--

Forwent the meagre semblances of power

To win the deepest truth and loyalty--

Now, when these seeming slender roots are tried

Of all your strength, behold, they do not move;

The stripling nations hasten to your side,

Impelled, as children should be, by their love._

_And who shall grudge the pride of Motherhood

To this old Northern Kingdom of the sea?

Indeed our fathers' husbandry was good;

This is the harvest of our history;

Yet boast not. Rather pray we be not found

Unworthy those great men who tilled the ground._

_F. D. Livingstone_

PREFACE

One hot, bright morning early in the Dardanelles campaign, so the story

goes, Lieut.-General Sir William Birdwood was walking up one of the

worn tracks of Anzac that led over the hills into the firing-line when

he stopped, as he very often did on these daily tours of the line,

to talk with two men who were cooking over a fireplace made of shell

cases. General Birdwood wore no jacket, therefore he had no badges of

rank. His cap even lacked gold lace. Under his arm he had tucked a

periscope. But the Australian addressed did not even boast of a shirt.

Stripped to the waist, he was as fine a type of manhood as you might

wish to see. He was burned a deep brown; his uniform consisted of a

cap, shorts, and a pair of boots. His mate was similarly clad.

"Got something good there?" remarked the General as he stopped near the

steaming pot of bully-beef stew.

"Ye-es," replied the Australian, "it's all right. Wish we had a few

more spuds, though." Conversation then branched off into matters

relating to the firing-line, till at last General Birdwood signified

his intention of going, bidding the soldier a cheery "Good-day," which

was acknowledged by an inclination of the head. The General walked up

the path to his firing-line, and the Australian turned to his mate,

who had been very silent, but who now began to swear softly under his

breath--

"You ---- ---- ---- fool! Do you know who you were talking to?"

"No!"

"Well, that was General Birdwood, that was, yer coot!"

"How was I to know that? Anyway, he seemed to know me all right."

Those were the types of soldiers with whom I spent the first year of

their entry into the Great War. I watched them drafted into camps in

Australia, the raw material; I saw them charge into action like veteran

troops, not a year later. Never downhearted, often grumbling, always

chafing under delays, generous even to an alarming degree, the first

twenty thousand who volunteered to go forth from Australia to help

the Mother Country in the firing-line was an army that made even our

enemies doubt if we had not deliberately "chosen" the finest of the

race. Since then there have been not twenty, but two hundred thousand

of that stamp of soldier sent across the water to fight the Empire's

battles at the throat of the foe.

This narrative does not pretend to be an "Eye-witness" account. In most

instances where I have had official papers before me, I have turned in

preference to the more bold and vigorous stories of the men who have

taken part in the stirring deeds.

I left Melbourne on 21st October on the Flagship of the Convoy, the

_Orvieto_, that carried the 1st Division of Australian troops to

Egypt, as the official representative of the _Melbourne Age_ with

the Expedition. I landed with the troops and went with them into the

desert camp at Mena. It was then that I realized what staunch friends

these young campaigners were. Colonel Wanliss and officers of the 5th

Infantry Battalion insisted that I should become a member of their

mess. I can never be grateful enough for that courtesy.

I wish also to gratefully acknowledge the kindly help and courtesy

extended to me at all times by the Divisional Staff, and especially by

Brigadier-General C. B. B. White, C.B. (then Lieut.-Colonel), Chief of

the Staff, whom I always found courteous and anxious to facilitate me

in my work as far as lay in his power.

It was while witnessing the welding of the Australasian Army in Egypt

that I met Mr. W. T. Massey, representative of the _Daily Telegraph_,

London, and Mr. George Renwick, _Daily Chronicle_. We became a council

of three for the four months we were together in Egypt, and it was

a keen regret when Mr. Massey was unable to accompany me to the

Dardanelles on the trip we had planned together, whereby, taking the

advice of General Sir Ian Hamilton that we were "free British subjects

and could always take a ticket to the nearest railway-station to the

fighting," we had intended to witness together the landing. As it was,

I went alone on a small 500-ton Greek trading steamer; but on arrival

at Mitylene I was fortunate to find Mr. Renwick there and Mr. Stevens,

who was now representing the _Daily Telegraph_, and they, having a

motor-launch, invited me to join them in a little enterprise of our

own. For a fortnight we watched the operations from the shores of

Imbros and the decks of the launch, steaming up to the entrance of the

Straits, living on what resources the island might deliver to us, which

was mostly a poor fish, goat's milk, eggs, and very resinous native

Greek wine. Eventually the motor-boat (and correspondents) was banished

from "The Zone" by British destroyers.

So I returned to Alexandria at the end of May, and was able to visit

the hospitals and chat with the men from the firing-line. Then in July,

General Sir Ian Hamilton--who had told us prior to his departure that

he intended to do all in his power to help Mr. Massey and myself to

visit the Anzac front--wrote from his headquarters at Imbros giving me

his permission to come on to the famous battlefields.

In four hours I was on my way to the Dardanelles on a transport, and

by stages (visiting the notorious _Aragon_ at Mudros Harbour) reached

Kephalos Bay, where the Commander-in-Chief had pitched his tent. The

cordiality of General Hamilton's welcome will ever linger in my memory.

I remember he was seated at a deal table in a small wooden hut with a

pile of papers before him. He spoke of the Australians in terms of the

highest praise. They were, he said, at present "a thorn in the side of

the Turks," and when the time came he intended that that thorn should

be pressed deeper. He advised me to see all I could, as quickly as I

could.

I received a passport through the British and French lines and

travelled from Helles to Anzac and Suvla Bay at will. Lieut.-General

Birdwood and his Staff, Major-General Legge and the officers throughout

the 1st Australian Division, and Major-General Godley and the leaders

of the New Zealand Brigades, extended to me such courtesies as lay in

their hands. I was able to witness the whole of the August offensive

from the closest quarters, being in our trenches at Lone Pine during

the engagement of the 6th.

At Anzac I was heartily welcomed by Captain Bean, the official

correspondent with the Australian forces, who of all men was the most

enthusiastic, painstaking, and conscientious worker that I have ever

met, and I desire to acknowledge my debt to him for kindly criticism

and good fellowship.

I would never be able to record the names of friends in the force, both

in the firing-line and at the base, from whom I have received valuable

suggestions and practical help.

I wish to express my gratitude to Mr. Geoffrey Syme, proprietor of _The

Age_, for permission to use certain of the war dispatches I sent him

for publication; to Mr. Osboldstone for permission to utilize some of

the photographs he had already printed; and to the Minister of Defence

for the reproduction of photographs and orders.

I am deeply indebted also to Mr. J. R. Watson for the spontaneous

manner in which he offered to handle the manuscript for me in London

while I was far across the water and corrected the proofs, thus

enabling me to join the ranks of our Army. The apparent delight with

which he entered on the work removed from my mind all thought of

overtaxing a friendship.

Finally, I am most anxious to remove, at the outset, any suggestion

that might be gained from this narrative that the Australians alone

were the outstanding heroes of the Dardanelles campaign. When the

history of the British forces--the magnificent 29th Division, the

Lowland Division, and the Yeomanry--comes to be recorded, and the story

of the French participation in the assault of Achi Baba told, it will

be seen that, glorious as has been the name won by the Australians,

heroically as they fought, proudly and surely as they held all they

gained, they played a part in this "Great Adventure," and it is of that

part that I have written because it was the only one of which I had

full knowledge.

PHILLIP F. E. SCHULER.

Melbourne, _5th April 1916_.

CONTENTS

PART I

AUSTRALIA ANSWERS THE CALL

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE TOCSIN IN AUSTRALIA 15

II. THE ASSEMBLY 24

III. ADVENTURES ON THE CONVOY 35

IV. THE FIRST PAGE OF AUSTRALIAN NAVAL HISTORY--FROM

THE DECKS OF THE CONVOY 40

V. THE FIRST PAGE OF AUSTRALIAN NAVAL HISTORY

(_continued_)--THE DESTRUCTION OF THE _EMDEN_ 46

VI. UP THE RED SEA 61

VII. THE CAMPS ROUND CAIRO 67

VIII. RUMOURS OF THE TURKS' ATTACK 75

IX. FIRST SUEZ CANAL BATTLE 78

PART II

THE ANZAC CAMPAIGN

X. THE PLAN OF ATTACK 92

XI. THE DAWN OF ANZAC--THE LANDING 99

XII. A TERRIBLE THREE DAYS 115

XIII. A BATTLE PANORAMA OF GALLIPOLI 127

XIV. AN UNFULFILLED ARMY ORDER 134

XV. VICTORIANS' CHARGE AT KRITHIA 143

XVI. TURKISH MAY ATTACK AND ARMISTICE 157

XVII. ANZAC COVE 168

XVIII. THROUGH THE FIRING-LINES 179

XIX. LIFE AT QUINN'S AND POPE'S 193

XX. JUNE AND JULY PREPARATIONS 204

PART III

THE GREAT ADVENTURE

XXI. THE AUGUST PHASE AND NEW LANDING 212

XXII. LONE PINE 221

XXIII. THE HEROIC LIGHT HORSE CHARGE 236

XXIV. THE BATTLE OF SARI BAIR--FIRST PHASE 245

XXV. THE BATTLE OF SARI BAIR--THE CAPTURE OF THE

RIDGE AND ITS LOSS 257

XXVI. HILL 60, GALLIPOLI 272

XXVII. THE EVACUATION OF THE PENINSULA 279

APPENDIX

I. DISTINCTIONS FOR GALLANTRY AND SERVICES IN THE FIELD 293

II. MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES 311

INDEX 318

ILLUSTRATIONS

LT.-GEN. SIR W. BIRDWOOD, "THE SOUL OF ANZAC" _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

THE STAFF OF THE FIRST AUSTRALIAN DIVISION 22

A QUIET AFTERNOON ON A TROOP DECK 36

TATTOOING WITH A HOME-MADE ELECTRICAL NEEDLE 36

H.M.A.S. _SYDNEY_ 42

OFFICERS FROM THE _EMDEN_ ON THE FLAGSHIP 56

THE DIRK OF PRINCE FRANCIS JOSEPH OF HOHENZOLLERN 56

THE FIRST TENTS IN THE MENA CAMP 62

VIEW OF MENA CAMP 62

AUSTRALIANS COMING INTO CAIRO FROM THE CAMPS 68

GENERAL HAMILTON REVIEWING THE AUSTRALIANS AT ZEITOUN 72

AUSTRALIANS AT THE SUEZ CANAL 82

TURKISH PRISONERS IN CAIRO 82

THE 29TH DIVISION 92

PRESENTATION OF COLOURS TO THE FRENCH COLONIAL TROOPS 92

AUSTRALIANS LEAVING FOR THE FRONT 96

BRIGADIER-GENERALS M'CAY AND MACLAGAN 96

FLEET IN MUDROS HARBOUR 100

TRANSPORTS LYING OFF THE DARDANELLES 100

GABA TEPE AND THE PLANNED LANDING BEACH 104

SHELLING ANZAC COVE 104

ANZAC COVE AS IT FINALLY BECAME 108

EARLY VIEW OF ANZAC BEACH 116

HOSPITALS ON ANZAC BEACH 116

"BEACHY BILL'S" SHRAPNEL OVER ANZAC COVE 122

BULLY BEEF GULLY 122

ARMY SERVICE WAGONS AT CAPE HELLES 128

THE _RIVER CLYDE_ IN SEDDUL BAHR BAY 128

THE 29TH DIVISION DUGOUTS AT CAPE HELLES 144

THE GREAT DERE, CAPE HELLES 144

WATER CARRIERS FROM THE SPRINGS AT CAPE HELLES 148

HEADQUARTERS 1ST AUSTRALIAN ARTILLERY BRIGADE 148

THE ROAD INTO KRITHIA 152

THE TURKISH EMISSARY LEAVING ANZAC BLINDFOLDED 160

TROOPS GOING INTO THE FIRING-LINE ON THE FIRST DAYS

OF THE LANDING 164

THE BEACH CLEARING STATION 164

BRIGADIER-GENERAL MONASH'S HEADQUARTERS, REST GULLY 172

SPHINX ROCK AND REST GULLY 172

SHRAPNEL AND MONASH GULLY 180

CHAPLAIN DEXTER AND A TRENCH MORTAR 188

SHELL GREEN 188

HEADQUARTERS OF 5TH INFANTRY BATTALION 198

THE GREAT SAP LEADING TO NO. 2 OUTPOST 210

TURKISH PRISONERS DIGGING DUGOUTS 210

A GLIMPSE OF NO MAN'S LAND 228

THE COOKS' LINES IN BROWN'S DIP 232

DEAD ON THE PARAPETS OF LONE PINE TRENCHES 232

TURKISH MIA MIAS OCCUPIED BY THE AUSTRALIAN TROOPS 250

WATER-TANKS IN THE GULLIES 250

THE OVERHEAD COVER AT LONE PINE 260

A SAP LEADING UP AN EXPOSED HILL-SIDE 260

A GERMAN OFFICER'S DUGOUT 278

MAPS AND PLANS

ANCHORAGE OF AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORTS

IN KING GEORGE SOUND, ALBANY, OCT. 31, 1914 _face page_ 28

PLAN OF THE _SYDNEY-EMDEN_ FIGHT _page_ 51

PLAN OF THE ATTEMPTED CROSSING OF SUEZ CANAL " 87

ANZAC POSITION ON MAY 19, 1915 _face page_ 112

AN AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE MAP OF THE TURKISH

TRENCHES _face page_ 180

GALLIPOLI PENINSULA AND THE OUTSTANDING FEATURES OF

THE AUSTRALIAN AND BRITISH POSITIONS _face page_ 216

AUSTRALIAN AND TURKISH TRENCHES AT LONE PINE " 224

OPPOSING TRENCHES ON THE NEK _page_ 239

HILL 60, GALLIPOLI " 273

AUSTRALIA IN ARMS

PART I

_AUSTRALIA ANSWERS THE CALL_

CHAPTER I

THE TOCSIN IN AUSTRALIA

It is impossible to look back and recall without a glow of intense

pride the instantaneous response made by the young manhood of Australia

to the first signal of danger which fluttered at the central masthead

of the Empire. As time goes on that pride has increased as battalions

and brigades have followed one another into the firing-line; it has

become now a pride steeped in the knowledge that the baptism of fire

has proven the young nation, has given it an indelible stamp of

Nationhood, has provoked from the lips of a great English soldier the

phrase, "These men from Australasia form the greatest army that an

Empire has ever produced." To-day that pride is the courage with which

the people face and mourn the loss of their thousands of braves.

Let me recall the first dark days of August 1914, when the minds of the

people of the Australian Commonwealth were grappling with and striving

to focus the position of the British Empire in the war into which

they had been so precipitately hurled. On Sunday, 2nd August, I well

remember in Melbourne an army friend of mine being hastily recalled

from a tennis party; and when I went to see him at the Victoria

Barracks that same night, I found the whole place a glare of lights

from end to end of the grim, grey stone building. It was the same the

next and the next night, and for weeks, and so into the months. But

even when the Governor-General, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson, sent to the

Prime Minister (Mr. Joseph Cook), at noon on 3rd August the telegram

bearing the announcement that we all knew could not long be withheld,

the strain seemed unlifted. "England has declared war on Germany" was

the brief but terrible message quickly transferred to the broadsheets

that the newspapers printed at lightning speed and circulated, while

the crowds in the streets cheered and cheered again as the message was

posted on the display boards.

That night the streets were thronged (as they were for weeks to

follow), and there was a series of riots, quickly subdued by the

police, where raids had been made on German premises. Feeling was

extraordinarily bitter, considering the remoteness of the Dominion. The

Navy Office was barred to the casual visitor. Military motor-cars swept

through the streets and whirled into the barracks square. Army and

Fleet, the new Australian Naval unit, were ready. More than one person

during those grey days felt a thrill of satisfaction and comfort in the

knowledge that of that Fleet unit the battle-cruiser _Australia_ was

greater and more powerful than any enemy vessel in Pacific waters.

Now it is no secret that arrangements exist with the British Admiralty

under which the Commonwealth naval authorities receive at the first

signs of hostilities a telegram in the nature of a warning. The

second message simply says "Strike." The fact that the Navy Office

in Melbourne received its warning cablegram not from the Admiralty,

but from a message sent from H.M.S. _Minotaur_, then flagship of the

China Squadron, asking particulars concerning the Australian unit, and

"presuming" that the naval authorities had received their warning, was

only subsequently whispered. Where, then, was the Australian message?

The original cable apparently was sent at the moment when Mr. Winston

Churchill and Prince Louis of Battenberg between them took steps to

keep mobilized the Grand Fleet in British waters, subsequent to the

review, and sent them forthwith to their war stations. According

to the pre-arranged understanding, the Australian unit was to pass

automatically under the control of the Admiralty. Urgent wires were

sent to the then Minister of Defence, Senator E. D. Millen, who was

absent in Sydney, and the missing cablegram was brought to light in

his possession. As soon as that final message came, the Australian

ships, having coaled and prepared, moved to their war stations. It is

not within the scope of this brief review to go further into this naval

mobilization, though I shall make reference later on to the Fleet unit

and its war history.

On everybody's lips there now (4th August) arose the question of the

young nation's part in the war. Would there be need of contingents? For

the first period, at least, the Australian military authorities were

too keenly occupied with home defence to vouchsafe much attention to

this question, though high officers told me that it was inevitable that

Australia would play her part very soon--to what extent and when, they

could not judge. The immediate need lay in the mobilization of part or

all of the available forces at hand for coastal defence. The nervous

tenseness of the situation was apparent on all hands; an underflow

of intense uncertainty was plainly traceable in all the military

movements. At the barracks day and night I found the military machine

that Australia had so recently set running, rapidly speeding up.

All leave had been stopped on 1st August, and officers were hurrying

back to their posts from various States of the Commonwealth. The

defences of the ports along the coast were manned, and on the day

when war was declared arrangements were completed for the extension

of these defences to a mobile army, certainly of no great size as

armies now are, to be used as shore patrols round the entrances of the

great harbours of the capital cities. These men were the first draft

of the Citizen Army that the Australian nation was training, and the

rapidity with which they were mobilized, albeit it was only a small

group, gave off the first spark from the machine, tested in a time

of need. Yet the question that was ever to the fore during the first

forty-eight hours after the declaration of war, and in fact until the

following Wednesday, 10th August, was whether the whole of the Citizen

Army was not to be mobilized. In other words, would there be a general

mobilization, the plans for which were lying ready waiting to be opened

all over the Commonwealth? The higher commands were told to hold

themselves in readiness, and every one, from the youngest cadet to the

Chief of the Staff, was expecting the word.

What would have been the need for such action? Remotely, of course,

the position of the German High Sea Fleet and the integrity of

the British Grand Fleet, but more closely the proximity of the

German Pacific Squadron, consisting of two powerful cruisers, the

_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, a number of smaller warships, colliers,

and perhaps transports. Fortunately, the battle-cruiser _Australia_

had been kept in Australian waters, and while she remained afloat, the

German ships would not venture in her vicinity. But the possibility to

which the military authorities looked was that of the German squadron

eluding our patrols that stretched across the north of Australia from

Darwin to the Marshall Islands, and convoying a landing party, arriving

off our eastern or southern coasts. They might or might not land; they

might content themselves with shelling the towns. At one time it was

believed that secretly Germany had been pouring troops into German New

Guinea and collecting stores there. That she had intended New Guinea or

Papua as a base in the Pacific was evident enough. However, the worst

fears were far from being realized. The British Fleet in the Pacific

(now containing the Australian warships), and soon the Japanese Fleet

cooperating, after an unsuccessful attempt to trap the enemy, edged

them from the Australian coasts across the Pacific to South America,

where they were eventually destroyed in the Falkland Islands engagement.

By this time the need for a general mobilization in Australia was

daily becoming less, as the enemy's ships were swept from the sea

and the High Sea Fleet had been reduced to the category of floating

forts. Accordingly the Government and military authorities turned their

attention to the sending of an army to help the Motherland. German

hopes had led them to suspect that the war would present for the people

of the Commonwealth an excellent opportunity for revolt. Never did a

young Dominion cling more closely or show its deep-rooted sense of

gratitude and affection and responsibility to the parent nation. Having

helped to secure herself, Australia immediately offered troops for

active service overseas. A tremendous wave of enthusiasm swept over the

land, and the acceptance by the Home Government of the offer was the

occasion of great outbursts of cheering by the crowds that thronged

the streets of the chief cities and eagerly scanned the news sheets

and official announcements posted outside the newspaper offices.

Recruiting began without delay. Already, in anticipation of events, the

Defence Department had received names of officers and men from every

State offering their services and anxious to join the first force. The

composition of the force, after due consideration and consultation with

the War Office, was to be a complete Division and a Brigade of Light

Horse, 20,000 men in all. Depots were established at the barracks, and

soon in the suburban drill-halls--halls which were already the centres

of the Compulsory Service movement in Home Defence--as well. The men

poured into the depôts. There was the keenest competition for selection.

In making these drill-halls centres for recruiting the authorities were

anxious to link up the regiments of the established Citizen Army with

those that were going forth to battle across the seas, giving them in

this way a tradition for all time. Young as the new army was, some 10

per cent. enlisted, those whose age was just twenty-one years. In this

way, throughout the battalions was a sprinkling of the young Citizen

Army, while the rest of the men were from the old militia regiments

that had existed in past years. There were, I suppose, 60 per cent. of

these men who flocked to the colours, and of these a proportion had

seen service abroad, mostly in the South African War. Only a small

number that went sloped a rifle for the first time.

Who would lead the force--Australia's first complete Division to take

the field? No doubt seemed to cloud the minds of the General Staff,

however much the mind of the Minister of Defence, Senator Millen, was

swayed hither and thither. Brigadier-General Bridges was just entering

on the fourth year of his command of the Duntroon Military College. The

success of that college was already an established fact; the men who

have left it have since proved that beyond question. It was, therefore,

on Brigadier-General Bridges (raised to the rank of Major-General) that

the choice eventually fell, and he at once handed over the control of

the college to Colonel Parnell, Commandant of Victoria, and immediately

commenced, on or about the 14th August, the selection of his higher

commands for the force designated "The First Australian Imperial

Expeditionary Force."

His task was no light one. Essentially a just man, but a man who

demanded the utmost capacity from those beneath him in rank, he soon

drew round him a brilliant Staff. The college, indeed, he robbed of

most of its English leaders, and their places were filled by Australian

officers. The Brigadiers were left the choice of their battalion

commanders, and that choice fell on the men actively engaged in leading

the young Citizen Army in the various centres, each State contributing

its quota. The battalion commanders at first had free choice to select

their officers, but subsequently a Board was established. Thousands

of names were available, and, with one or two exceptions, it is with

satisfaction I can write that every man chosen has proved himself in

that force again and again as being worthy of the trust put in him,

from high leaders to the most junior subalterns.

While recruiting went on apace, the Barracks remained illuminated day

and night, and the tension remained for many weeks at a high pitch.

Though the matter had been pondered over, the truth was, little or

no provision had been made to form the nucleus of an Expeditionary

Force. All Australia's energies had been devoted to preparing her Home

Defence Army. Yet the machinery that had been created for that army now

proved itself to be capable of such expansion as to provide all the

mass of material necessary for the organization and equipment of the

Division under Major-General Bridges. The rapidity, the completeness,

and efficiency with which that First Australian Contingent was equipped

(referred to now by the men with such pride in comparison with other

Empire troops) is eloquent enough praise in itself for the several war

departments that met the strain, always remembering that in addition

there was the partially mobilized Citizen Army to equip and maintain,

and the growing army of 30,000 young soldiers each year, to train. Much

impatience was exhibited at the delay in getting the Expedition away

from Australia. That delay was inevitable in the circumstances, though

apparently comparing so unfavourably with the Continental armies that

were in the field in a few days, and in three weeks numbered millions

of men. Australia in times of peace had never contemplated raising

an Expeditionary Force, and what reserve supplies she had were not

intended for such an emergency as this. Nevertheless, the General

Staff rose to the occasion in a manner which, as I have said, reflects

on them not only the greatest credit but high praise. Too much cannot

be said either of the manner in which the general public co-operated in

the assembling of the army, and especially in regard to the gifts of

horses for all branches of the service.

I consider myself indeed fortunate in having had an opportunity

of witnessing the march through the streets of Melbourne of 4,000

Victorians who were to form the backbone of Victoria's contribution to

the first 20,000 men. When I think of those lads on that bright August

morning, and the trained army which General Sir Ian Hamilton reviewed

in the desert in Egypt, one can laugh at those croakers who predicted

the need for eighteen months' training to make these men real soldiers.

I remember them on this morning, a band of cheerful youths (for the

army is, and always must be, thought of as a young army--a mingling of

freshness, vigour, eagerness, and panting zeal, the stuff that veterans

are made of), headed by a band of Highland pipes and bugles that had

volunteered to lead them, swinging with irregular, broken step along

the main streets. Their pride swelled in their veins as they waved

brown felt hats, straw-deckers, bowlers to their mates watching from

office windows and roofs. It was the first sight of the reality of war

that had come to really grip the hearts of the people, and they cheered

these pioneers and the recklessness of their spirits. There were men in

good boots and bad boots, in brown and tan boots, in hardly any boots

at all; in sack suits and old clothes, and smart-cut suits just from

the well-lined drawers of a fashionable home; there were workers and

loafers, students and idlers, men of professions and men just workers,

who formed that force. But--they were all fighters, stickers, men with

some grit (they got more as they went on), and men with a love of

adventure. So they marched out to their camp at Broadmeadows--a good

ten-mile tramp.

As they swung round through the break in the panelled fencing of

Major Wilson's property (placed generously at the disposal of the

Government), there was weariness in their feet and limbs, but not

in their spirits. Some shuffled now, and the dust rose from the

attenuated column right along the undulating dusty road, stretching

back almost to the city's smoke, just faintly visible on the horizon,

where the smoke-stacks and tall buildings caught the last rays of the

setting sun. And they found their tents pitched, and they had but to

draw their blankets and break up into groups of eight or ten or eleven

for each tent. Then they strolled round the green fields till the bugle

called them to their first mess, cooked in the dixies. And the rising

odour of well-boiled meat and onions whetted their appetite.

Then on the morrow they rose before the sun. Every morning they were

thus early roused, were doing exercises with rifle and bayonet, and

the drab black of their clothing changed to khaki uniforms; and as

rapidly as this change came, so the earth was worn more brown with

the constant treading of thousands of feet, and the grass disappeared

altogether from the camp and the roads became rutted. More men and

still more men crowded in and filled the vacant tents till other lines

had to be pitched. The horses began to arrive, and motor-lorries with

immense loads thundered across the paddocks to the stores, where huge

tarpaulins covered masses of equipment and marquees tons of meat and

bread. From four thousand the army grew to ten; for fresh contingents

were offered, accepted, and sent into training. Tents peeped from

between pine-trees that enclosed a field, and guns began to rumble in

and were parked in neat rows pointing to the road. They waited for

the horses which the gunners were busily lashing into control. It was

rapid, effective horsebreaking that I saw in this artillery school,

where the animals were left to kick logs till they tired, and then were

compelled to drag them, in place of the valuable artillery pieces. The

foam gathered on their haunches at such times and they flung themselves

to the earth--and then they threw their riders for a change--until

at length they grew weary of the play and subsided as fine artillery

horses as ever dragged guns

Into the jaws of death,

Into the mouth of Hell.

[Illustration: THE STAFF OF THE FIRST AUSTRALIAN DIVISION AT MENA CAMP.

To face p. 22.]

All around the hills were green still. Each day they were covered with

lines of moving troops. Infantry passed the guns on the road, and

Light Horse passed the infantry and wheeled in through the same break

in the panelled fence. The Commandant, Colonel Wallace, inspected the

units in the making, so did the Brigadiers and the General himself or

his representative. Then the State Governor, Sir Arthur Stanley, took

a part, and the Governor-General spent an afternoon at the camp and

reviewed the whole of the troops. The people flocked in thousands on

holidays and Sundays to see their soldier sons. The camp each night

was full of visitors till dusk, for those few precious hours permitted

after the day's duties were done when family ties might be drawn close

just a little longer. Every train and tram was filled with bands of

soldiers; the traffic on the roads showed its quota of khaki. Bands

turned the people's thoughts to war with their martial music, as they

woke the troops with their persistent beating in the early morning.

What it was in Melbourne, so in every State capital of the

Commonwealth, where the camps lay scattered on the outskirts of the

suburbs. Each State trained its own men for a common interest for the

First Division, and in each State the method, like the routine, was the

same.

The time was approaching for departure. Camps were closed to the

public. All leave was stopped. Nobody knew the date of going, and yet

everybody knew it and chafed under the wait. But before the men went

they showed "the metal of their pasture." In one never-to-be-forgotten

glistening line they swept through the centres of the cities, marching

from end to end. What once had been a heavy day--the march out to

camp--they made light of now; and while the Light Horse headed the

columns, the horses prancing and dancing to the drums, the guns rumbled

heavily with much rattling after the even infantry lines. And still it

was not farewell. Those tender partings were said in the quiet of the

hearth. It could only be taken as the cities' greetings and tributes

to the pioneers--those men of the 1st Australian Division--who went

quietly, silently, without farewells to the waiting transports in the

bright mid-October sunlight--train after train load of them--down to

the wharves.

And the people who watched them go were a few hundreds.

CHAPTER II

THE ASSEMBLY

[Illustration: Bugle Call.]

While it was general knowledge that the First Australian Contingent

was about to leave its native shores--26th September--no exact date

was mentioned as the day of departure. For one very sound reason. The

German cruisers had not been rounded up and some of them were still

known to be cruising in Australian waters. They could be heard talking

in the loud, high-pitched Telefunken code, but the messages were not

always readable, lucky as had been the capture early in the war of

a code-book from a German merchant ship in New Guinea waters. The

newspapers were prohibited by very strict censorship from giving any

hint of the embarkation of troops, of striking camps, or of anything

that could be communicated to the enemy likely to give him an idea of

the position of the Convoy that was now hurrying from the northern

capitals--from, indeed, all the capital cities--to the rendezvous, King

George's Sound, Albany. That rendezvous, for months kept an absolute

official secret, was, nevertheless, on the lips of every second

person, though never named publicly. It was apparent that the military

authorities had an uncomfortable feeling that though they had blocked

the use of private wireless installations, messages were leaving

Australia. I will say nothing here of the various scares and rumours

and diligent searches made upon perfectly harmless old professors and

others engaged in peaceful fishing expeditions along the coastal

towns; that lies without the sphere of this book. It seemed almost

callous that the troops going so far across two oceans, the first great

Australian army that had been sent to fight for the Mother Country,

should be allowed to slip away uncheered, unspoken of. For even the

final scenes in Melbourne, where there were some four or five thousand

people to see the _Orvieto_, the Flagship of the Convoy, depart, formed

an impromptu gathering, and for days before great liners, with two

thousand troops aboard, had been slipping away from their moorings with

only a fluttering of a few handkerchiefs to send them off. Still, the

troops had crowded into the rigging and sang while the bands played

them off to "Tipperary." In every port it was alike. How much more

touching was the leaving of the Flagship, when the crowd broke the

barriers and rushed the pier, overwhelming the scanty military guards

and forcing back Ministers of the Crown and men of State who had gone

aboard to wish Major-General Bridges success with the Division. It

was unmilitary, but it was magnificent, this sudden welling up of the

spirit of the people and the burst of enthusiasm that knew no barriers.

Ribbons were cast aboard and made the last links with the shore. Never

shall I for one (and there were hundreds on board in whose throat a

lump arose) forget the sudden quiet on ship and shore as the band

played the National Anthem when the liner slowly moved from the pier

out into the channel; and then the majestic notes of other anthems

weaved into one brave throbbing melody that sent the blood pulsing

through the brain.

Britons never, never will be slaves

blared the bugles, and the drums rattled and thumped the bars with

odd emphasis till the ribbons had snapped and the watchers on the

pier became a blurred impressionist picture, and even the yachts and

steamboats could no longer keep pace with the steamer as she swung her

nose to the harbour heads.

All this was, let me repeat, in striking contrast to the manner in

which the ships in Sydney Harbour, in Hobart, in Port Augusta, and

from other capitals had pulled out into the stream at dusk or in the

early hours of the cold September mornings and hastened away to the

rendezvous. Before the final departure I have just described on the

afternoon of 21st October there had been a false alarm and interrupted

start. The reasons for this delay are certainly worth recording. The

Flagship was to have left Melbourne--the last of the Convoy from

Eastern waters--on 29th September. That is to say, by the end of the

month all the details of the Division had been completed, and were

embarked or ready for embarkation. Indeed, some had actually started,

and a number of transports left the northern harbours and had to anchor

in Port Phillip Bay, where the troops were disembarked altogether or

each day for a fortnight or more. For the reasons of this we have to

extend our view to New Zealand. It was not generally known at the

time that a contingent of 10,000 men from the sister Dominion were to

form portion of the Convoy, and that two ships from New Zealand had

already left port, when a hasty message from the Fleet drove them back.

Now it became the Navy's job, once the men were on the ships, to be

responsible for their safety--the safety of 30,000 lives. It had been

arranged that the New Zealand transports should be escorted across the

Southern Ocean to Bass Straits by the little cruiser _Pioneer_--sister

ship of the _Pegasus_, later to come into prominence--and another

small cruiser, as being sufficient protection in view of the line

of warships and destroyers patrolling the strategic line north of

Australia, curving down to the New Zealand coast. The German cruisers,

admittedly frightened of an encounter with the _Australia_, had been

successfully eluding that battle-cruiser for weeks, and were skulking

amongst the islands of the Pacific destroying certain trading and

wireless stations, and apparently waiting for an opportunity to strike

at the Convoy. One scare was, therefore, sufficient. The Dominion

Government refused to dispatch the troops without adequate escort,

and in consequence all the programme was thrown out of gear, and the

_Minotaur_--flagship of the escort--went herself with the _Encounter_

and the two original cruisers to New Zealand and brought across the

whole Maoriland Contingent. The alteration in the plans resulted in

a delay of three weeks, for the warships had to coal again before

proceeding across the Indian Ocean. However, it was better to be

safe than sorry, and the delayed Australian Convoy was released in

the third week of October and the ships commenced to gather at the

appointed rendezvous.

Yet I am loath to think that this alone was the reason for the delay.

One can read now into events happening at the heart of Empire a very

significant cause for hesitancy to send this Australian Contingent

to England for service in France. For matters in Turkey were already

unsatisfactory. On 25th September messages had reached London of the

preparations of the Turks on the Sinai Peninsula and the activity

of the Germans in the Ottoman Empire, led by that extraordinary

personality Enver Pasha. It was certain that every effort was being

made by Great Britain to preserve peace with the Turks, but the

Porte was taking a high hand, and it appeared that war would become

inevitable. How far the Australian Government was taken into the

confidence of the Foreign Office one can only guess. It must be

supposed that Major-General Bridges, the Prime Minister, and Minister

of Defence, together with the Governor-General of the Commonwealth,

were in possession of the main points of the diplomatic relations

between Great Britain and Turkey. Matters, too, in the Persian Gulf

were very unsatisfactory in the beginning of October, and by the time

that the last ship of the Convoy had left port it was certain from the

attitude of Turkey, as reflected in the reports of Sir Louis Mallet,

British Ambassador at Constantinople, that war would be declared.

Military preparations pointed to an attack on the Suez Canal being

pushed forward with all speed, and it was therefore necessary to have

a large defending force available to draw on. So far as it is possible

to read the inner history of events, this was the actual reason for

the holding up (strange paradox as it may sound) of the Convoy until

the destination of the 30,000 men should be determined. For it must be

conceded that, with the Cape route open, not very much longer and far

safer, with the venomous _Emden_ raiding Indian waters and the German

Pacific Fleet ready to dart out from the Northern islands, it was more

feasible than using the Suez Canal with such a vast convoy of ships. As

a matter of fact, this was the route chosen. True enough, when the time

came, the landing of this army in Egypt for training "and war purposes"

must have carried great significance to the Turks; and the plea of

the badness of the English climate at the time preventing training in

England, served as good an excuse as did the German cruiser menace in

New Zealand waters. For while there may have been a lingering suspicion

in Lord Kitchener's mind that perhaps the camps at Salisbury might not

be ready, it was a trump card to have a body of 30,000 troops ready

to divert either at once or in the near future to a strategic point

against Turkey. Be all this as it may, the combined Convoys did not

leave Australian shores until 1st November, and on the 30th October

Sir L. Mallet had been told to ask for his passports within twelve

hours unless the Turkish Government dismissed the German crews of the

_Goeben_ and _Breslau_ from Constantinople. So actually when leaving

the last port the Convoy were directed against Turkey. Yet I suppose no

one for a moment read in all the portents of the future even a remote

possibility of the landing of the Australian troops in Turkey. Later

it was admitted that while training they would simply defend Egypt--to

German plotting the one vital point to strike at the British Empire.

Let us return, however, with an apology for the digression, to the

gathering up of the Convoy. King George's Sound, the chosen rendezvous

of the fleet, is a magnificent harbour, steeped already in historical

associations. It offered as fine an anchorage as could be wished for

the forty transports and escorting warships. The harbour might have

easily held three or four times the number of ships. Yet was this host

of forty leviathians sufficient to find no parallel in history! True,

the Athenians in ancient times, and even the Turks in the sixteenth

century, had sent a fleet of greater size against the Order of St. John

at Malta, had entered on marauding expeditions, but hardly so great an

army had they embarked and sent across the Mediterranean. Here was a

fleet crossing three seas, still disputed--though feebly enough, it is

true.

[Illustration:

Anchorage of Australian

AND

NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORTS

IN

KING GEORGE SOUND

ALBANY, OCTOBER 31^{st} 1916]

Of many thrilling scenes it needs no great effort of memory to recall

that Albany Harbour as those on the flagship saw it first through the

thick grey mists of the early morning of 26th October. Almost the last

of the Australian ships to enter port, the wind drove the waves over

her bows and cast the spray on the decks. Most of the Divisional Staff,

barely daylight as it was, were on deck, peering through the mists to

catch the first glimpse of the host that they knew now lay at anchor

in the harbour. First it was a visionary, fleeting glimpse of masts and

funnels, and then, as the coast closed in darker on either bow and the

beacons from the lighthouses at the entrance flashed, I could see ships

gradually resolving themselves into definite shape, much in the way a

conjurer brings from the gloom of a darkened chamber strange realities.

The troops were astir and crowded to the ships' sides. They stood to

attention as the liner glided down the lines of anchored transports,

for the mass of shipping was anchored in ordered lines. The bugles rang

out sharp and clear the assembly notes, flags dipped in salute to the

General's flag at the mast-head. It was calm now inside this refuge. A

large warship was creeping under the dark protection of a cliff like

a lobster seeking to hide itself in the background of rocks, and the

men learned with some surprise it was a Japanese cruiser, the _Abuki_.

She remained there a few days and then steamed out, lost in a cloud of

dense black smoke, while in her place came the two Australian cruisers,

the _Melbourne_ and _Sydney_. Each night the troops watched one or

others of these scouts put to sea, stealing at dusk to patrol, and not

alone, the entrance to the harbour wherein lay the precious Convoy.

On the morning of the 28th the New Zealand Convoy, consisting of ten

ships, arrived, and anchored just inside the entrance of the harbour.

From shore the sight was truly wonderful. Three regular lines of

steamers, each crammed with troops and horses, were lying in an almost

forgotten and certainly neglected harbour. What signs of habitation

there were on shore were limited to a whaling station on the west and a

few pretty red-roofed bungalows on the east; while the entrance to an

inner harbour, the selected spot for a destroyer base of the Australian

Navy, suggested as snug a little cove as one might wish. Opposite the

main entrance behind the anchored Convoy was the narrow channel leading

to the port where the warships anchored, protected from outer view

behind high cliffs from which frowned the guns of the forts. It was

from these forts, commanded then by Major Meekes, that I looked down

on to the ships--that was after nearly being arrested as a spy by a

suspicious vigilant guard. Each day three ships entered the port to

coal, until the bunkers of the whole fleet were filled to overflowing,

to carry them across the Indian Ocean. All was in readiness. It only

needed the signal from the Admiralty to the Convoy and its escort and

the army of 30,000 would move finally from Australian shores. This was

the mustering of a complete Division for the first time in the history

of the young Dominion. It had not as yet even been operating as an

army in the field, but here it lay, taking thirty ships to transport

(with ten more ships for the Maorilanders), in the same historical

harbour where as early as 1780 a British frigate had put in for refuge

from a storm and for water. It was this port, too, that two Princes of

royal blood had visited; while later, at the beginning of the present

century and a new era for Australia--the Commonwealth era--the King of

England, then the Duke of York, had come. His visit was as unavoidable

as certainly it was unexpected, for he had sought refuge, like the

ancient British frigate from a violent storm; but, liking the spot,

the King decided to stay, and festivities were transferred to Albany

in haste. In 1907 the American Atlantic Squadron, under Rear-Admiral

Speary, during its visit to Austral shores, had anchored in the broad

bay. Thus had tradition, in which this assembly of the First Australian

Expeditionary Force marked so deep a score, already begun to be formed

round the beautiful harbour.

It will not be out of place to quote here the disposition of the troops

and the ships bearing the men of the Contingent. It was the largest of

any convoy during the war, steaming over 6,000 leagues. The records

need no comment beyond pointing out that the indicated speeds of the

ships show how the speed of the Convoy had to be regulated by the speed

of the slowest ship--the _Southern_--and that the arrangement of the

three divisions of transports was based on the pace of each, the object

of which is apparent when viewed in the light of the necessity of the

Convoy scattering on the approach of enemy ships, and avoidance of slow

ships hindering those of greater speed.

In the closing days of October the message was flashed through the

fleet that the Convoy should get under way on 1st November, and that

right early in the morning, for Major-General Bridges, no less than

Captain Gordon Smith, who had command of the Convoy (he was Second

Naval Member on the Australian Naval Board), was anxious to be off to

his destination. That that point was to some degree fixed when the

ships left port I have no doubt, though the masters of the transports

actually did not know the route until they were some hundred miles

clear of the coast and the _Minotaur_ set the course to the Equator.

Incessantly all through the night previous the tug-boats had churned

the waters round our vessel's sides, darting off now to the uttermost

ship of the line--the _Miltiades_ (she had English reservists on

board), now to return from the lighted town which lay behind the

Flagship with rebellious spirits, who had come near to being left

behind, to explain away their return now as best they might. To and

fro panted the motor-boats, with their eyes of red as if sleepy from

overwork. The General of the Division, in fact all his Staff, were

up late settling these cases. I wondered at the matters that needed

his personal attention; even though the ships were to be together for

weeks, still they were in a sense isolated. When the last tug had

departed and the last lingering soldier been brought from the shore and

sent off to his own ship, there stole over the whole sleeping fleet a

great peace. It was Sunday morning.

Heaving up her anchor at six o'clock by the chimes of the distant

clocks on shore, the Flagship led the way from port. The waters were

calm. No white-winged yachts came to circle round the fleet, only a tug

with a cinematographer on board waited for the ships as they slowly

went forth on to the perilous deep, each ship dipping its flag, paying

tribute to the General on the Flagship, even down to the New Zealand

transports, painted all a dull warship grey. The cruiser _Melbourne_

lay in harbour still, while the other warships had gone ahead to the

open sea, the _Minotaur_ and _Sydney_ gliding gracefully through the

dull waters, leaving in their wake a terrible wash of foam, as warships

will. The bugles still rang in our ears, though the wind from the south

blew the notes astern. Amongst a group of officers I was standing on

a skylight of the dining saloon watching the moving panorama behind.

To bring the fleet, anchored facing the head of the Sound, into motion

meant the gradual turning of each ship so that they passed one another,

and because the entrance to the harbour was not quite wide enough,

the Flagship went out first, barely making 10 knots, followed by the

_Southern_, and the others in their line behind. We watched her bows

buried in the sea one minute and then

DISPOSITION OF UNITS OF THE 1ST DIVISION IN THE CONVOY AND PLACES OF

EMBARKATION.

---+--------------------+--------+------+---------------------------+----------------------------------+---------+-----+-------

No.| Name. |Tonnage.|Speed.| Embarking at-- | Troops. |Officers.| Men.|Horses.

---+--------------------+--------+------+---------------------------+----------------------------------+---------+-----+-------

A1 |_Hymettus_ | 4,606 |11-1/2| { Sydney, Melbourne, } | A.S.C. and horses | 5 | 106| 686

| | | | { and Adelaide } | | | |

A2 |_Geelong_ | 7,951 |12 | Melbourne and Hobart | Mixed | 47 |1,295| --

A3 |_Orvieto_ | 12,130 |15 | Melbourne | G.O.C., Infantry and details | 94 |1,345| 21

A4 |_Pera_ | 7,635 |11 | Sydney | Artillery horses | 5 | 90| 391

A5 |_Omrah_ | 8,130 |15 | Brisbane | Infantry and A.S.C | 43 |1,104| 15

A6 |_Clan MacCorquodale_| 5,058 |12-1/2| Sydney | Horses | 6 | 113| 524

A7 |_Medic_ | 12,032 |13 |Adelaide and Freemantle |{ Two companies Infantry, } | 28 | 977| 270

| | | | |{ Artillery, A.S.C., and A.M.C. } | | |

A8 |_Argyllshire_ | 10,392 |14 | Sydney | Artillery | 32 | 800| 373

A9 |_Shropshire_ | 11,911 |14 | Melbourne | Artillery | 42 | 794| 433

A10|_Karoo_ | 6,127 |12 | Sydney and Melbourne | Signallers and A.M.C. | 13 | 388| 398

A11|_Ascanius_ | 10,048 |13 |Adelaide and Freemantle | Infantry | 65 |1,728| 10

A12|_Saldanha_ | 4,594 |11 | Adelaide | Horses | 4 | 52| 274

A13|_Katuna_ | 4,641 |11 | Sydney and Hobart | Horses | 5 | 94| 506

A14|_Euripides_ | 14,947 |15 | Sydney | Infantry | 29 |2,202| 15

A15|_Star of England_ | 9,150 |13-1/2| Brisbane | Light Horse | 25 | 487| 457

A16|_Star of Victoria_ | 9,152 |13-1/2| Sydney | Light Horse | 26 | 487| 461

A17|_Port Lincoln_ | 7,243 |12 | Adelaide | Light Horse | 19 | 351| 338

A18|_Wiltshire_ | 10,390 |14 | Melbourne | Light Horse and A.M.C. | 35 | 724| 497

A19|_Afric_ | 11,999 |13 | Sydney | Infantry, A.S.C., and Engineers | 48 |1,372| 8

A20|_Hororata_ | 9,491 |14 | Melbourne | Infantry | 66 |1,986| 118

A21|_Marere_ | 6,443 |12-1/2| Melbourne | Horses | 4 | 80| 443

A22|_Rangatira_ | 10,118 |14 | Brisbane | Artillery, Infantry, and A.M.C. | 15 | 430| 450

A23|_Suffolk_ | 7,573 |12 | Sydney | Infantry | 32 | 979| 8

A24|_Benalla_ | 11,118 |14 | Melbourne | Infantry and A.S.C. | 49 |1,185| 10

A25|_Anglo-Egyptian_ | 7,379 |12 | Brisbane and Melbourne | Horses | 6 | 105| 492

A26|_Armadale_ | 6,153 |11 | Melbourne | Lines of Communication | -- | --| --

A27|_Southern_ | 4,709 |10-1/2| Sydney and Melbourne | Horses | 5 | 136| 281

A28|_Miltiades_ | 7,814 |13 | Sydney and Melbourne | Imperial Reservists | -- | 600| --

---+--------------------+--------+------+---------------------------+----------------------------------+---------+-----+-------

ORGANIZATION OF CONVOY.

----+--------------------+--------+--------+------------------------------

No.| Name. |Tonnage.| Speed. | Officer Commanding Troops.

----+--------------------+--------+--------+------------------------------

| 1st Division. | | |

| | | |

A3 |_Orvieto_ | 12,130 | 15 |{Lieut.-Colonel D. S. Wanliss

| | | |{ (Flagship of G.O.C.)

A27 |_Southern_ | 7,635 | 11 | Lieutenant R. T. Sutherland

A4 |_Pera_ | 7,635 | 11 | Lieutenant E. W. Richards

A26 |_Armadale_ | 6,153 | 11 | Major P. W. Smith

A12 |_Saldanha_ | 4,594 | 11 | Lieutenant P. A. McE. Laurie

A13 |_Katuna_ | 4,641 | 11 | Major S. Hawley

A1 |_Hymettus_ | 4,606 | 11-1/2 | Major A. A. Holdsworth

A23 |_Suffolk_ | 7,573 | 12 | Lieut.-Colonel C. F. Braund

A25 |_Anglo-Egyptian_ | 7,379 | 12 | Lieutenant W. Standfield

| | | |

| 2nd Division. | | |

| | | |

A18 |_Wiltshire_ | 10,390 | 14 |{Lieut.-Colonel L. Long

| | | |{ (Divisional leader)

A7 |_Medic_ | 12,032 | 13 | Major A. J. Bessell-Browne

A11 |_Ascanius_ | 10,048 | 13 | Lieut.-Colonel S. P. Weir

A15 |_Star of England_ | 9,150 | 13-1/2 | Lieut.-Colonel R. M. Stoddart

A2 |_Geelong_ | 7,951 | 12 | Lieut.-Colonel L. F. Clarke

A17 |_Port Lincoln_ | 7,243 | 12 | Lieut.-Colonel F. N. Rowell

A10 |_Karoo_ | 6,127 | 12 | Captain H. L. Mackworth

A21 |_Marere_ | 6,443 | 12-1/2 | Captain C. H. Spurge

A6 |_Clan MacCorquodale_| 5,058 | 12-1/2 | Major A. J. Bennett

| | | |

| 3rd Division. | | |

| | | |

A14 |_Euripides_ | 14,947 | 15 |{Colonel H. N. McLaurin

| | | |{ (Divisional leader)

A8 |_Argyllshire_ | 10,392 | 14 | Major S. E. Christian

A9 |_Shropshire_ | 11,911 | 14 | Colonel J. J. T. Hobbs

A19 |_Afric_ | 11,999 | 13 | Lieut.-Colonel L. Dobbin

A24 |_Benalla_ | 11,118 | 14 | Lieut.-Colonel W. K. Bolton

A22 |_Rangatira_ | 10,118 | 14 | Lieut.-Colonel C. Rosenthal

A16 |_Star of Victoria_ | 9,152 | 13-1/2 | Lieut.-Colonel J. B. Meredith

A20 |_Hororata_ | 9,491 | 14 | Lieut.-Colonel J. M. Semmens

A5 |_Omrah_ | 8,130 | 15 | Lieut.-Colonel H. W. Lee

A28 |_Miltiades_ | 7,814 | 13 | Major C. T. Griffiths

----+--------------------+--------+--------+------------------------------

NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORTS.

----+-----------------+--------+------

No.| Name. |Tonnage.|Speed.

----+-----------------+--------+------

| 1st Division. | |

| | |

3 | _Maunganui_ | 7,527 | 16

9 | _Hawkes Bay_ | 7,207 | 13

8 | _Star of India_ | 6,800 | 11

7 | _Limerick_ | 6,827 | 13

4 | _Tahiti_ | 7,585 | 17

| | |

| 2nd Division. | |

| | |

10 |_Arawa_ | 9,372 | 12

11 |_Athenic_ | 12,234 | 12

6 |_Orari_ | 6,800 | 12

5 |_Ruapehu_ | 7,885 | 13

12 |_Waimana_ | 10,389 | 14

----+-----------------+--------+------

the red of her keel, and saw her speed cone at the mast-head. We smiled

at the efforts of this craft to keep pace, a smile which later in the

voyage became wry at the mention of the ill-speeded vessel's name.

Gradually on either quarter there crept towards us the leaders of the

other lines or divisions, the _Euripides_ and _Wiltshire_ and their

nine followers. Each ship was coaling and threw her smoke in the air,

and each ship that left made a smoky trail, till the harbour became

obscured like in a fog. As the _Orvieto_, following the course of the

_Minotaur_ half a mile ahead, now turned to the westward, astern we saw

nothing but a bank of dark grey cloud, and from it masts and funnels

and sometimes the bows of a ship protruding. It was all so smoothly

and finely planned that it seemed almost unreal, as the ships took up

their positions, our central line slowing down to permit of the other

ships making up leeway. As I looked down the lines of ships each became

a little smaller and a little more indistinct, until the last was

scarcely more than "hull up" on the horizon. On either hand a warship;

ahead a warship. The coast faded to a dim blue, more distinct once the

sun rose over the hills, but soon vanishing over the swelling horizon.

It was the last link with the Homeland, and who knew how many would see

those shores again--and when! It was at last the real start.

Two days out--on the 3rd November--during the afternoon, the last two

transports joined the fleet, escorted to their places by the Japanese

cruiser _Ibuki_ and the _Pioneer_. They came through a storm, I

remember, and slipped into line without the least fuss. The _Minotaur_

had signalled across to the Convoy, and soon we saw the warships that

brought our escort up to five. This is how they lay beside the Convoy:

the _Minotaur_ a mile ahead marked the course (at night we steered by

a stern light); the _Ibuki_ on our right and starboard beam, a mile

away; the _Sydney_ on the left a similar distance. The _Melbourne_ was

a mile astern of the last New Zealand ship that followed hard in the

track of the Australian Convoy, their ten ships ranged up on either

side of the central division. The _Pioneer_ turned back. Each transport

was two cables length ahead of the one following; each division (on

parallel courses) four cables from the other. So went the fleet with

its precious Convoy into the Indian Ocean.

CHAPTER III

ADVENTURES ON THE CONVOY

Now the course set by the _Minotaur_, once the Convoy was well clear

of the Western Australian coast, was not the ordinary trade route to

Colombo. In the first place we steamed farther west, and then shaped

a course to pass some 60 or 70 miles to the east of Cocos Islands.

This was on the opposite side of that group to the ordinary track of

the mail steamers. The reason for the change of route was to ensure

protection. Other courses were open to us; for instance, the one which

would have led us amongst the Deia Garcia Islands off the Madagascar

coast. However, our destinies were guided by information received by

wireless on the Flagship from the Admiralty. The troops were not aware

of it, but there was a Japanese squadron operating round the coasts of

Java and in this distant way protecting our flank. The speed of the

Convoy varied from 9-1/2 to 11 knots an hour, though the usual run for

a day was about 244 knots.

The black sheep of the fleet--if one may call a vessel such--was the

_Southern_, the 4,000-ton vessel which I have already referred to as

following the _Orvieto_, the Flagship of the central line. She became

the cynosure of every eye, regarded in turn with interest, mirth,

derision, and finally anger and compassion. There was something in

the attitude of the steamer with her great heavy bows that suggested

she was always doing her best to keep up, and always she seemed to

be stoking. One pictures her ghost stalking each night along her

confined decks looking with alarm at the terrific pace! (10 knots) and

wondering for how long it would continue. Not the least amusing part

was that sometimes, gathering speed, she made spurts, and all but "came

aboard" the _Orvieto_, taking this opportunity of hauling her speed

cone part way down the mast, with an arrogance that she hastily had

to abandon some ten minutes later. It was never quite understandable

why she was chosen as a transport, and I have heard since that it was

a hasty bargain of the Government when an early departure of the force

was contemplated. The Medical Board had condemned certain ships as

overcrowded, and this ship was taken on as an extra vessel, thereby

reducing the speed of the Convoy by at least a knot an hour. The

shortsightedness of this policy will be apparent when one calculates

that the ships were hired by the day. With the _Southern_ absent, one

and a half knots an hour would have been added to the speed of the

Convoy. This meant the dropping of 36 knots in a day, which in a voyage

of thirty-five days was the same as two days wasted. Now, reckoning

coal at 15s. a ton, as a Government price, the cost of that first

Convoy a day was at least £6,000. That is to say, probably a great

deal more than £12,000 was flung away by keeping the _Southern_. I

cannot help including this incident. Captain Kiddle, of the _Minotaur_,

had been given power by the Navy Office to discard the vessel if she

was a nuisance, and it was thought at one time of turning her into a

hospital ship at Colombo; in fact, that zealous officer signalled to

Captain Gordon Smith, commanding the Convoy, telling him "to distribute

the horses and men when you get to Colombo, and then allow her [the

_Southern_] to return to the obscurity from which she should never

have emerged." Unfortunately, for some reason this was not done, and

she remained there faithfully with us till the end of the voyage--the

constant source of our gibes.

Routine on the transports was not a very strenuous affair after the

hard days of drill in the training camps and the long marches. To

begin with, there was very little marching; only on the _Orvieto_ and

ships like the _Euripides_, where there was a certain length of deck

available, did it permit of companies of men being marched round the

ship. Many is the time I have sat writing in my cabin listening to the

steady tramp of unbooted feet along the decks above, and the bands,

stationed amidships, thumping out march after march. Never, however,

could I grow accustomed to the distant squeal of the bagpipes, a band

of which we were unfortunate enough to have with us. One threw down

one's pen and tried to piece together some melody in the panting pipes.

[Illustration: A QUIET AFTERNOON ON A TROOP DECK.]

[Illustration: TATTOOING WITH HOME-MADE ELECTRICAL NEEDLE.

To face p. 36.]

Each day the men roused out at réveillé, sounded at six o'clock, and

did physical jerks (exercises) before breakfast. Then they cleaned

ship and prepared for the ten o'clock inspection by the officer in

command of the troops, who went round with the Medical Officers and the

Captain. The troops by this time would be mustered on deck, gathered

in groups, learning all about rifles, machine guns, signalling,

listening to lectures by the officers on trenches and the way to take

cover, sniping, observation, and even aiming at miniature targets

realistically made by enthusiastic leaders. At 11.30 the main work was

over for the day. For an hour or two in the afternoon there were more

exercises, but as the ships steamed into the tropics this afternoon

drill was relaxed. The officers attended classes, and regular schools

were formed and an immense amount was done to advance their technical

knowledge. Besides all this, there were boat and life-belt drills

and occasional night alarms to vary the monotony--but a precaution

very necessary indeed. As the Convoy for the greater part of the six

weeks' voyage steamed without lights, or only lights very much dimmed,

work for the day ceased at dusk. Always there were guards and orderly

duties, for the correct running of the ship, which occupied about a

hundred men on the largest transport with a definite duty each day.

It was on the voyage that the skin sun-tanning process began, to be

carried to perfection in Egypt, and later on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

A pair of "slacks" (short pants) and a shirt and white hat was enough

for the men to wear on deck. They did not put on boots for three weeks,

and their feet became as hard as those of the mariners. One heard them

stumping round the deck with muffled tramp. But the physical exercises

regularly given, the rifle exercises and the earlier training, and high

standard demanded on enlistment, made this first contingent into a

force of young athletes.

It was the raiding _Emden_ that rendered the precautions taken on the

first Convoy that left Australia so very essential--a matter which

subsequent contingents knew nothing of, with the German commerce

and warships swept from the seas. The anxiety of Captain Gordon

Smith--the naval officer on the Flagship of the Convoy responsible for

the safe conduct of each transport, as the _Minotaur's_ captain, and

subsequently Captain Silver of the _Melbourne_, was responsible for the

whole fleet--at times turned to exasperation as he watched the lines of

transports through his telescope. The dropping out of a ship from the

long column through a temporary engine defect, the losing of position,

the constant disregard by the New Zealand transport of instructions

(they pulled out of the line deliberately to engage in target

practice), and other matters, caused caustic, and characteristically

naval, signals to go flying up and down the divisions. Once, when boxes

and the like were being thrown overboard, providing ample evidence to

the enemy, if found, of the track of the Convoy, the signal was made:

"This is not a paperchase." At night too, when some ship incautiously

showed lights through an open porthole, or a saloon door was left

open on deck, after certain warnings, would buzz the message: "You

are showing too much light; turn off your dynamos." When it came to

the merchant skippers steering by stern lights hung over each vessel

just above the propeller, throwing a phosphorescent light on the

whitened waters, it was a task at the same time their terror and their

despair, especially when orders came to draw closer together, during

the nights' steaming in the vicinity of Cocos Islands. The transports

were forbidden to use their wireless, and a buzzer was provided, with a

"speaking" radius of about 15 miles, for intercommunication throughout

the fleet. Relative to the tension at this period, I will make an

extract from my notes written on the _Orvieto_:--

"So we sailed on, drawing nearer and nearer into the middle of the

Indian Ocean. Looking at the chart each day, I feel that while we are

a large fleet, the largest that has ever crossed this ocean, after all

the seas are very broad. There is comfort as well as uneasiness in

the thought. It will be as difficult for a foreign ship to find us as

for us to run into a foreign ship by some chance. However, the lads

are taught to grow accustomed to meet any emergency and to muster on

deck with lights out.... It was on the night before we reached Cocos

Islands--to be exact, 7th November--shortly after our evening meal,

while the troops were lying about the decks loath to turn in on such

a hot night, that the lights suddenly went out altogether. I remember

wandering out of the saloon, having last seen the glowing end of

General Bridges' cigar, and stumbled on companies of troops falling

into their lines. I got to my station amidships, and remained there

for what seemed hours, but which in reality was fifteen minutes, while

I could only hear whispering voices round me, and just make out dim,

silhouetted figures and forms. There were muffled commands. It was

eerie, this mustering in the dark. I had been in alarms at night in a

darkened camp, when I had risen from warm blankets and the hard ground

and stumbled over guide-ropes to one's company down the lines, but to

feel one's way round a crowded deck was a very different proposition.

Over the whole fleet had been cast this shadow, for, in turn, each of

the ships disappeared from sight. I hardly like to contemplate what

would have happened to the soldier who ventured, thoughtlessly, to

light a cigarette at this moment. The Australian is a good talker,

and it seems impossible to absolutely stifle conversation. The ship

was strangely quiet. However, the alarm was exceedingly well carried

out.... Yet little did we dream that this testing was shortly to be

put into stern actuality. On the following Saturday night, while we

were steaming with very dimmed lights, cabin shutters closed, making

the interior of the ship intensely stuffy, all lights went out. Yet

that night, with a single light thrown on the piano, we held a concert.

But the very next night the evening meal was taken before dusk, and at

7.30 all lights were again extinguished. In not one of the ships was a

dynamo generating. The fleet had become almost invisible, like phantom

ships on a still sea. One undressed in the dark, and felt one's way

from point to point, bumping into people as one went. A few candles

stuck in heaps of sand flickered in the smoke-room. It did not take

long to get round that the reason for this drastic step was because it

was thought that, if any danger threatened--which none of us thought

it did, with the escort of warships around us--then to-night was the

night...."

How we passed the _Emden_ on this very evening, quite ignorant of our

danger and of that daring cruiser's destruction, needs to be related in

a separate chapter.

CHAPTER IV

THE FIRST PAGE OF AUSTRALIAN NAVAL HISTORY

I. FROM THE DECKS OF THE CONVOY

Taking events in their chronological order, I halt here in the

narrative of the advance of the Australian Contingent into Egypt to

deal with the incidents relating to the chase and destruction of the

notorious raiding cruiser _Emden_ by the Australian cruiser _Sydney_,

which, together with her sister ship, the _Melbourne_, at the time of

the action was part of the Convoy. It was singularly significant that

this first page of Australia's naval history--a glorious, magnificently

written page--should have occurred in the very presence, as it were,

of an Australian army. Well did it merit the enthusiasm and relief

that followed the exploit not only throughout India, but through the

Straits Settlements and amongst all the Allied merchant service that

sailed the seas. About this time the _Minotaur_, till then the Flagship

of the escort, had departed and was over 300 miles away on the route,

I believe, to the Cape of Good Hope to replace the _Good Hope_, sunk

by the German Pacific Squadron off Valparaiso a few days before. She

left at 5.30 on the evening of the 8th November with the parting

message: "Off on another service. Hope Australians and New Zealanders

have good luck in Germany and give the Germans a good shaking." This

had reduced our escort to the two Australian cruisers and the _Ibuki_.

It was, however, very evident that there was nothing now to fear

from the German ships after their short-lived victory off the South

American coast, so only the _Emden_ remained at large (the _Königsberg_

meanwhile having been successfully bottled up on the South African

coast). At the risk of tiring the reader's patience I will tell first

of the relative position of the Convoy, believing that the knowledge

that this great fleet, carrying 30,000 Australasians, had so narrow an

escape will strengthen the dramatic interest of the naval battle when

it shall be told. I intend to quote from a letter written at this time,

but which the Censor in Australia, for some reason I have been unable

to discover, refused to allow to be published, although approved by the

naval officers directly connected with the fight and the escort. In

consequence of which action, I may mention, much nonsense appeared in

the Press from time to time relating to the closeness of the _Emden_ to

the fleet.

Little did the people in Australia, when the news of the victory was

announced, know of the danger which their transports had run. The bald

announcement made some days later by the Minister of Defence (when the

news leaked out) that the Convoy had been within 100 miles of the sea

fight, was the only information vouchsafed. Sea romances have been

written by the score, but I doubt if there is any more thrilling than

the tale from mid-Indian Ocean of a fight to the finish which took

place quite unexpectedly in a calm tropical sea on a bright morning in

November. It seemed, indeed, nothing short of a fairy-tale (Captain

Silver's own words were: "It seems like a fairy-tale just to think that

when we are trying our utmost to avoid the _Emden_ we should run across

her tracks") that the ship for which the fleet--and no mean fleet--was

seeking high and low, which had eluded capture so long, should be

caught red-handed in the very presence of a Convoy of forty ships that

were creeping across the ocean, anxious above all else to avoid such an

awkward meeting.

In the light of what actually occurred, events previous to the fight

(which I described in the last chapter) had a curious significance.

I suppose that none of us at the time fully appreciated the reasons

which actuated the very drastic precautions against detection which

were taken three days before we reached Cocos Islands. We had boat

drills and day and night alarms. "On the evening of the 8th," I find

I wrote, "we were called to our evening meal earlier than usual, and

by dusk the fleet was plunged in darkness for the whole night. Of all

conjectures for this action, the one which gained most support was

that before dawn we would reach the danger-point of our voyage--the

Cocos Islands--the only possible rendezvous for a hostile ship in

mid-Indian Ocean. We knew that our course would carry us 50 miles to

the eastward of the islands and was far away from the ordinary trade

route, but still danger might lurk at this spot. Even mast-head lights

were extinguished, and not a gleam could be seen from any ship. So they

travelled through the night, while barely three hours ahead of them

the _Emden_ was crossing their path, silently, very secretly, bent on

a very different mission from what she might have undertaken had she

known of the proximity of the fleet. One, however, can only conjecture

what might have happened had the lights not been doused."

On Monday morning, 9th November, the troops were already astir when

they saw, at seven o'clock, the _Sydney_ preparing for action. Half an

hour previously they had watched the _Melbourne_, then in charge of the

Convoy and at the head of the line, dart away towards the south-west.

Captain Silver had not gone far on this course when he remembered he

was in charge, and there remained for him but to stay at his post

and send forward the sister ship, the _Sydney_, into action. It was

a sad blow for him and for the keen crew on board, who saw thus the

opportunity for which they had been longing snatched from under their

eyes. Nevertheless, he honourably stuck to his post, and I saw him

gradually edge his cruiser towards the Convoy until it almost came

alongside the _Orvieto_, the Flagship. Meanwhile the searchlight on her

forward control was blinking speedily, in the pale, chill morning air,

messages in code that sent the _Sydney_ dashing away to the south from

the position she had held on the port beam of the Convoy. In less than

ten minutes she disappeared behind a cloud of smoke. When the troops

saw, as I could with good glasses, a warship travelling at 26 knots an

hour with a White Ensign run up to her fore-peak, an Australian ensign

at her truck, and the Union Jack floating from her after-mast, with

the decks being cleared for action, they realized that some trouble

was brewing, though the Convoy as a whole knew nothing very definitely

for hours. On the Flagship we knew that a strange warship had been

seen at the entrance to the harbour of Keeling Island, then 40 miles

away. As the officers came on deck at 7.30, the _Melbourne_ was still

signalling and the _Ibuki_ was preparing for action. The wireless

calls for help had ceased abruptly, and we could see nothing but the

two threatening warships. For all on board it was a period of supreme

suspense and suppressed excitement. Captain Gordon Smith, Mr. Parker

(Naval Secretary), and General Bridges were on the bridge waiting for

the messages coming through from the _Sydney_ as she raced south.

Scraps of news were reaching me as they were taken by the operators

in the Marconi-room amidships. "It was Cocos Island that had called,

about 50 miles away--it might not be the _Emden_, but some other

ship--probably there was more than one, perhaps five!" Who was the

enemy? Would the _Sydney_ reach her in time? Would the other ships

go? Those were the thoughts drumming in our ears. The _Melbourne_,

quite near us again, was semaphoring rapidly, and then she darted away

between the lines of ships to a position 10 miles on our port-beam,

lying almost at right angles to the course we were taking. Obviously

she was waiting to catch any messages and act as a shield against the

approaching enemy should she escape the _Sydney_ and try and push in on

the Convoy.

[Illustration: H.M.A.S. "SYDNEY" IN COLOMBO HARBOUR AFTER THE COCOS

ISLAND ENGAGEMENT.

To face p. 42.]

Meanwhile the Japanese cruiser _Ibuki_ presented a magnificent

sight. Long shall I remember how her fighting flags were run up to

the mast-heads, as they had been on the _Sydney_, where they hung

limp until the breeze sprung up and they floated out great patches

of colour. The danger was imminent enough for her to move, slowly at

first, and then rapidly gaining speed as she swept across our bows

towards the west. So close did she pass that I could see plainly enough

the white figures swarming over her decks. They worked in squads of

twenty or thirty and very rapidly, standing on the gun-turrets and on

the fire-control stations fastening the sandbags and hammocks round

the vulnerable points to stop the flying splinters of the shells. The

sun caught the dull colour of the guns and they shone. Masses of thick

smoke coiled from her funnels, growing denser every minute. Each thrust

of the propeller she was gaining speed. As the cruiser passed, there

flew to the truck of her after-mast the national ensign, with another

at her peak, half-way down the mast. Lit by the sun's rays, these flags

looked blood-red streaks on a background of white. In battle array the

cruiser won the admiration of all. Barely ten minutes after being

signalled was she ready. The breeze was so light that the smoke rose

in a column 40, 60 feet in the air; but as she gathered way the wind

caught it, and drew it back behind, just as it caught and stretched the

limp flags. And all the while were the great 12-in. guns being turned

this way and that, as if anxious to nose out the enemy. We watched them

swing in their heavy turrets.

Both _Melbourne_ and _Ibuki_ during the hours of the battle were

constantly changing their course, the latter turning and twisting,

now presenting her broadside, now her bows only, to the direction in

which the _Sydney_ had disappeared. Both were edging farther away, but

always lay between the enemy and the Convoy. Warning had come from

the _Sydney_ that the enemy was escaping northward, and a thrill ran

through the watchers on board as it was spread around. It seemed as

if any moment the Japanese guns might boom with their long range of

fire. At five minutes to ten we heard from the Australian cruiser, "I

am engaging the enemy," and again that "The enemy is escaping north."

In suspense for another hour we waited, until the message arrived

at 11.20, "Enemy ran ashore to save sinking." Though sent to the

_Melbourne_, these signals were received on the _Orvieto_, being the

Flagship of the Convoy, and knowing the code, as we had the chief naval

transport officer on board, they were quickly interpreted. At 11.28 we

heard, "Enemy beached herself to save sinking; am pursuing merchant

collier." Meanwhile the _Minotaur_ had been asking for information, and

accordingly the _Sydney_ sent the message, "_Emden_ beached and done

for" at 11.44 to that cruiser, which, I believe, had turned back ready

to give assistance if needed. A cheer rose from the troop decks and

spread through the fleet as the message, definitely stating it was the

_Emden_ that was destroyed, was semaphored from ship to ship down the

lines. By noon flashed the message across the calm, vivid blue waters

that our casualties had only been two (later three) killed and thirteen

wounded. I well recall what relief that news brought, no one daring to

hint how much the _Sydney_ had suffered. I thought, as I watched the

troops talking excitedly on deck, of Wordsworth's line:--

Smiles broke from us and we had ease.

That tense two hours had bathed us all in perspiration. The troops had

broken from their drill to look longingly in the direction of the

battle which was raging 50 miles away. Not even the distant rumble of

a gun reached us on the transports. A little calculation showed that

the _Sydney_ must have steamed nearly 70 miles in the three and a half

hours before she dispatched her quarry. The victory seemed to draw us

all closer together. A kind of general thaw set in. That night at mess,

besides the toast of "The King," General Bridges proposed "The Navy,

coupled with the name of the _Sydney_." Need it be related how it was

honoured by soldiers?

Now that it was known that the other enemy ship was but a collier,

there was no need for the other cruisers to remain in fighting trim.

But before I saw the fighting flags stowed away on the Japanese cruiser

there was yet another instance of the fine spirit which animated

our Ally. From the captain of the _Melbourne_ she sought permission

a second time to enter the fight and join the _Sydney_, with the

request, "I wish go." Indeed, at one time she started like a bloodhound

straining at the leash towards the south, believing that her services

were needed, when Captain Silver reluctantly signalled, "Sorry,

permission cannot be given; we have to rest content in the knowledge

that by remaining we are doing our duty." So in accordance with that

duty she doubled slowly, and it seemed reluctantly, back, and went,

unbinding her hammocks and sandbags, to her former post. Now, early in

the morning there had come the same message sent from Cocos Island from

the _Osaki_, a sister ship of the _Ibuki_, which ship, too, had picked

up the call for help. This led us to the knowledge that a Japanese

squadron was cruising off the coast of Java, a few hundred miles on our

right, as part of that net which was gradually being drawn round the

_Emden_.

It will be realized that amongst the crews of the two warships excluded

from a share in the fight there should be a certain disappointment.

Captain Silver's action showed that high sense of, and devotion to,

duty of which the Navy is justly proud. And feeling for brother

officers, Captain Gordon Smith, as officer in charge of the Convoy,

sent across to the two cruisers the typically facetious naval message:--

"Sorry there was not enough meat to go round."

CHAPTER V

THE FIRST PAGE OF AUSTRALIAN NAVAL HISTORY (_continued_)

II. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE "EMDEN"

It may indeed be considered a happy omen that the first chapter of

Australia's naval history should be written in such glowing colours as

those that surrounded the destruction of the German raider _Emden_,

for whose capture no price was deemed too high to pay. Hearing the

recital of that chapter by Captain Glossop in the cabin of the _Sydney_

two days after the engagement, I consider myself amongst the most

fortunate. In the late afternoon I had come on board the _Sydney_, then

lying in the harbour of Colombo cleaning up (having just twenty-four

hours before handed over the last of her prisoners), from one of the

native caïques, and except for the paint that had peeled from her guns

and the wrecked after fire-control, I saw, at first glance, very little

to suggest an action of the terrific nature she had fought. But as I

walked round the lacerated decks I began to realize more and more the

game fight the _Emden_ had put up and the accuracy of her shooting (she

is alleged to have been the best gunnery ship in the German Fleet). On

the bow side amidships was the yellow stain caused by the explosion of

some lyddite, while just near it was a dent in the armour-plated side

where a shell had struck without bursting. The after control was a

twisted wreck of darkened iron and steel and burnt canvas. There were

holes in the funnels and the engine-room, and a clean-cut hole in an

officer's cabin where a shell had passed through the legs of a desk and

out the cruiser's side without bursting. The hollows scooped out of the

decks were filled with cement as a rough makeshift, while the gun near

by (a shell had burst on it) was chipped and splattered with bullets

and pieces of shell. Up in the bow was a great cavern in the deck,

where a shell had struck the cruiser squarely, and had ripped up the

decks like matchwood and dived below, where it burst amidst the canvas

hammocks and mess tables, splintering the wood and riddling a notice

board with shot. A fire had been quickly extinguished. Mounting then to

the top of the forward fire-control, I saw where the range-finder had

stood (it had been blown away), and where the petty officer had been

sitting when the shell carried him and the instrument away--a shot,

by the way, which nearly deprived the _Sydney_ of her captain, her

range-finding officer, and three others. Returning to the after deck we

found Captain Glossop himself. He was walking the decks enjoying the

balmy evening, and he went with Captain Bean, the Australian Official

War Correspondent, and myself below to his stateroom, where he told us

in a beautifully clear and simple manner the story of the action. I

saw, too, the chart of the battle reproduced here. After what we then

heard, what we had already seen and learned from the officers at mess

later that evening (they sent us off to the _Orvieto_ in the picket

boat), we hastened back to set down the story of the fight. Perusal of

reports, plans, and data obtained from one source and another leads

me now to alter very little the first impressions I recorded of that

famous encounter, which, I may add, was taken in a spirit of modesty

mingled with a genuine and hearty appreciation of the foe by all the

officers and crew of the _Sydney_.

It is quite beyond the region of doubt to suppose that the _Emden_

knew anything of the approach of the Convoy, or of the presence of

Australian cruisers in Indian waters. What she did believe was that the

warship she saw approaching her so rapidly was either the _Newcastle_

or _Yarmouth_, and right up to the concluding phases of the action she

believed this. On the other hand, the _Emden_ herself had been mistaken

for the _Newcastle_ by the operators at the wireless station on Cocos

Islands when she had put in an appearance on the evening before the

action, 8th November, just at dusk. The coming of the cruiser to the

island at sunset had not excited the suspicions of the people on shore,

for her colour was not distinguishable, and she had apparently four

funnels similar to the _Newcastle_. Having reconnoitred the harbour

and seen all was safe, the _Emden_ had lain off all night, and next

morning before dawn had steamed into the harbour and dropped anchor

close inshore. Still the people at the station were unsuspicious

until by some mischance (I have heard also, by orders) the astonished

islanders saw one of the funnels wobble and shake, and then fall to

the deck in a heap. It was the painted dummy canvas funnel. Meanwhile

the _Emden_ had sent off a landing party, and there was just time for

the operators to rush to their posts and send through the message by

wireless which the Convoy had received, and which the _Melbourne_ and

_Sydney_ had heard: "Strange cruiser at entrance to harbour" and the

S.O.S. call. At the same time the cable operator was busy sending over

the cable message after message, which was being registered in London,

of the approach of the landing party, ending with the dramatic: "They

are entering the door"--and silence.

This revelation of the identity of the vessel at once explained to the

operators where the German wireless signals, that had been choking the

air overnight, had been emanating from. The endeavour of the cruiser

to drown the calls for assistance by her high-pitched Telefunken waves

was frustrated, and, as I have said, the arrival of the landing party

put a stop to further messages. Still, the call had gone forth and was

picked up at 6.30 a.m. by the Convoy, with the result that the _Sydney_

went into action steaming considerably over 20 knots an hour, and at

each revolution of the propeller gaining speed until she was tearing

through the water, cutting it with her sharp prow like a knife. It was

not long before the lookout on the cruiser saw lights ahead from the

island and the tops of palm-trees, and almost at the same moment the

top of the masts of the "strange warship." Quickly the funnels rose

over the horizon, and by the time the whole ship came into view there

was very little doubt that it was the _Emden_. Yet the enemy showed no

signs of attempting to escape and make a long chase of it (which she

might have done, being a ship with a speed of 25 knots) and a dash for

liberty, although the _Sydney's_ smoke she must have seen come up over

the rim of the seas, probably long before she saw the ship itself.

Even with the knowledge that her guns were of smaller calibre than her

antagonist, she dashed straight at the _Sydney_ and tried to close.

The _Emden_ opened fire at 9.40 at the extreme range of her guns,

slightly under 10,000 yards. She let loose a whole broadside, but

while this was in the air our guns had been trained on her and had

fired too--the port-side batteries coming into action. With a shriek

the German shells went over the heads of the men and the masts of the

_Sydney_, while it was seen that the _Sydney's_ shots had also carried

over the chase by about 400 yards. The next broadsides from both ships

fell short, and the water was sent into the air like columns of crystal

before the eyes of the gunners. Within the next few salvos both ships

found the range, halving the first ranges, and hit the target. The air

was filled with the sickening swish of the shells and the loud, dull

explosions. As the German opened fire an exclamation of surprise broke

from the lips of the officer in charge of the _Sydney's_ range-finder.

That a cruiser with such light guns was able to open and engage a

cruiser carrying 6-in. guns at such extreme range was disquieting. With

the next shell his cap was almost raised from his head as it whistled

past between him and his assistant and carried away the range-finder

that was immediately behind him in the centre of the control. The

man seated there was instantly killed, while the captain and another

officer, a few feet away, were flung back against the sides of the

control station. Lucky it was that this shell, the blast of which

had scorched the men, passed through the starboard side of the lofty

station and, without exploding, over the side of the ship. It was

shells from this salvo, or ones following hard on it--for the Germans

were firing at a furious rate, and three of their shells would be in

the air at one time--that made the most telling hits on the _Sydney_.

A shell had searched the after control and gouged a cavity the size

of a man's body along the wall nearest the after funnel, and passed

on without exploding there, but it struck the deck, scooping out a

huge mass of iron before it ricochetted into the water. The five men

had been thrown to the floor of the control, wounded in the legs, and

while still stunned by the impact another shell tore its way through,

completely wrecking the control and bursting inside as it struck the

opposite wall. As the enemy's guns were firing at extreme range the

angle of descent was steep, and therefore the impact not so great, for

the _Sydney_, with a superior range of fire, kept edging off from

the _Emden_, still trying to close. Again the enemy scored, and the

next minute a shell blew two holes in the steam-pipe beside the funnel

and exploded behind the second starboard gun, killing two of the gun

crew and wounding others, while it ignited a quantity of guncotton

and charges lying on deck. That, due to the remarkable coolness of a

gunner, was at once thrown overboard and the fire extinguished. Great

gashes were made in the deck where the bits of the shell (it was high

explosive) had struck, and the gear of the gun itself was chipped all

over, while one of the breech pins was blown away. At the time the gun

was not in action, and when the _Sydney_ doubled, as she soon did,

conforming with the move by the _Emden_, the gun was ready again for

firing, worked by the port-side crew. Meanwhile shells had hulled the

cruiser, and there had been a shudder through the vessel as a shell

burst through the deck just below the forward control and wrecked the

mess deck. But so intent on the enemy were the gunners that none I have

talked to, seemed to have noticed the shells very much.

[Illustration: _PLAN OF THE SYDNEY-EMDEN FIGHT at Cocos Islands 9^{th}

November 1914 as prepared by Gunnery Observing Officer HMAS Sydney._]

But what of the _Emden_? The greater power of our guns and the

appalling accuracy of our fire had, in that first half-hour--when the

air was thick with shot and shell and the stench of lyddite fumes

filled the nostrils, when faces were blackened by the smoke from the

guns and funnels--wrought fearful havoc in the enemy's ship. The

_Sydney_ was not firing so rapidly as her opponent, but her fire

was surer, and the shells went swifter, because more directly, to

their mark. It was, I believe, the third or fourth salvo when the

fore funnel of the _Emden_ went with a terrific crash over the side,

dragging with it stays and rigging. Each of our salvos meant five

guns aimed, and each of these appeared to be finding the mark. The

water round the cruiser was alive with shell that sent the spray over

her decks. In another few minutes a whole broadside hit the stern by

the after port-holes. The shells--there must have been fully three

of them--exploded in the interior of the ship, blowing and bulging

up the deck, and twisting the iron plates as if they had been so

much cardboard instead of toughened steel. Fires broke out from all

points astern, and it has been learned since that this salvo wrecked

the steering gear and communication system. After this the _Emden's_

speed appreciably diminished and she was compelled to steer by her

propellers. In this manner were the whole of the after guns put out of

action, and, indeed, one of the gun's crew was blown into the water

by the shock of the impact and the blast of the arriving shells. The

ship trembled in her course, and shuddered over her whole length. In

between decks the fires were gaining, licking up the woodwork and the

clothing of the crew. Smoke enveloped at this time the whole of the

stern. It gushed from the hatches and the rents in the side, smothering

the wounded that lay about the decks. The iron plates became white hot,

and the crew were forced further and further forward as other fires

broke out. Then, too, the after funnel came crashing down, cut off

near the deck, and the inner funnel fell out and dragged in the water.

Already the after control had gone by the board, and another salvo

shot the foremast completely away, wrecking the whole of the forward

control and bringing the rigging, iron plates, sandbags, and hammocks

tumbling down to the decks on the crew below, mangling them in an

indistinguishable, horrible heap.

By this time the _Emden's_ fire had slackened considerably, as the

guns were blown out of action. In the first quarter of an hour the

Germans had been firing broadside after broadside as rapidly as the

shells could be crammed into the breeches of the guns. The ship had

doubled like a hare, bringing alternate broadsides into action, but

the _Sydney_, unscathed as to her speed, and her engines working

magnificently (thanks to the work of the chief engineer), at one time

topped 27 knots, and was easily able to keep off at over 6,000 yards

and, taking the greater or outside circle, steam round her victim. On

the second time of doubling, when the fire from the _Emden_ had died

down to an intermittent gun fire, the _Sydney_ ran in to close range

(4,000 yards) and fired a torpedo. The direction was good, but it never

reached its mark. It was seen that the enemy was beaten and must soon

sink. A fresh burst of fire had greeted the Australian cruiser, which

continued to pour salvo after salvo into her foe, sweeping the decks

and riddling her sides until she crawled with a list. Early in the

action a lucky shot had flooded the _Emden's_ torpedo chamber, and in

this regard she was powerless. Fires now burst from her decks at all

points, and smoke indeed covered her from stem to stern. For one period

she was obscured from view by a very light yellow smoke that seemed

to the _Sydney's_ gunners as if the ship had disappeared, as she had

stopped firing. The gunners ceased fire.

"She's gone, sir--she's gone!" shouted the men, their pent-up feelings

for the first time bursting forth. "Man the lifeboats!" Cheers filled

the air, but the next minute the _Emden_ emerged from the cloud,

fired, and the men returned to serve their guns. It was then that the

third and last remaining funnel went by the board. It was the centre

one of the three, and it came toppling down, and lay across the third

and after funnel, which had fallen over to port. The fires had driven

the crew into the bows, which were practically undamaged, but the

ship was in flames. The decks were unbearably hot. The German shells

were falling very short, the guns no longer accurate. The _Sydney_

had ceased to fire salvos, and for the last half-hour individual gun

fire had been ordered. The end came when the _Emden_, already headed

for the shores of the north Keeling Island, struck on the reef and

remained with her bows firmly embedded in the coral. It was just 11.20,

and while the _Emden's_ flag was still flying Captain Glossop decided

to give the foe two more salvos, and these found a target below the

waterline. Still the German ensign flew at the after mast-head.

In the meantime the enemy's collier, ignorant of the fray, had come up

(it was arranged that the _Emden_ should coal at Cocos at 1 o'clock),

and soon showed herself bent in some way or other on assisting the

cruiser. The _Sydney_ kept guns trained on her, and now, when there

was breathing space after an action lasting an hour and forty minutes,

she gave chase, and at ten minutes past twelve caught up with the

collier and fired a shell across her bows. At the mast-head was flown

the international code signal to stop. This the Germans proceeded to

do, first having taken measures to scuttle the ship by removing the

sea-cock, and to make doubly sure they destroyed it. An armed crew

put off from the _Sydney_ to the collier, which was now found to be

the captured British merchantman s.s. _Buresk_. They finding it now

impossible to save the ship, her crew were brought off, offering no

resistance. There were eighteen Chinamen aboard, an English steward, a

Norwegian cook, and a prize crew from the _Emden_ consisting of three

officers, one warrant officer, and twelve men. When these had been

taken in tow by the _Sydney's_ boats, the cruiser fired four shells

into the collier, and she quickly subsided beneath the waves.

Turning south again, the _Sydney_ proceeded back to the _Emden_ and

picked up some survivors of the battle who were struggling in the

water. They were men from the after guns who had been blown into

the water when the salvo had struck the _Emden_, doing such fearful

execution to her stern. These men had been in the water from ten

o'clock, and were almost exhausted. As the waters hereabouts are shark

infested, their rescue seemed all the more remarkable. Arriving now

back before her quarry at 4.30, the _Sydney_ found the _Emden_ had

still her colours flying. For some time she steamed back and forth,

signalling in the international code for surrender, but without

obtaining any answer. As the German flag still fluttered at the mast,

there was nothing to do but to fire further broadsides, and these, with

deadly accuracy, again found the target. It was only when the German

captain hauled down his ensign with the Iron Cross in the middle and

the German Jack in the corner and hoisted a white flag that the firing

ceased. As it was after five o'clock, the _Sydney_ immediately steamed

back to pick up the boats of the _Buresk_ before it grew dusk, and

returning again, rescued two more German sailors on the way. A boat

was sent off, manned by the German prize crew from the collier with

an officer. Captain Müller was on board, and he was informed that

the _Sydney_ would return next morning to render what assistance was

possible. To attempt rescue work that night was impossible for one

reason above all others--that the _Königsberg_ might still have been at

large and coming to the scene. The German cruiser was an absolute wreck

on the southern shores of the island, and the surf beat so furiously

that it would have been dangerous for boats to have approached in the

dusk. The island itself was quite deserted.

Leaving these unfortunate men of war, let me turn to a section of the

chapter which is really a story within a story. For, as the _Sydney_

approached the cable station on Direction Island, the largest of

the Cocos Group, she learned for the first time that much had been

happening on shore. The Germans had at daybreak that eventful morning

landed a crew, consisting of three officers (Lieutenants Schmidt,

Kieslinger, and Capt.-Lieutenant Von Möcke) and fifty men, including

ten stokers, with four maxims, in charge of the first officer of the

_Emden_, for the purpose of taking possession of the cable station and

wireless plant. The majority of the men were the best gunners from the

cruiser. Not having met with any resistance, as the population of the

island is in all not more than thirty-eight whites (it belongs to the

Marconi Company), the Germans proceeded leisurely with their work until

they found the _Emden_ signalling furiously to them. They had no time

to get away to their ship in the heavy boat before she up-anchored and

steamed out to meet the smoke that was soon to resolve itself into the

_Sydney_.

With the other people on the station the Germans then proceeded to

the roof of the largest of the cable buildings, where they watched

the fight from beginning to end. With absolute confidence they seemed

to have anticipated a victory for the _Emden_, and it was not till

the broadsides from the _Sydney_ carried away the funnel that the

inhabitants were hurried below and placed under a guard. With what

feelings the gunners must have seen their cruiser literally blown to

pieces under their eyes can but be imagined. They hardly waited until

the _Sydney_ went off after the collier before they seized a schooner

lying in the harbour. She proved to be the _Ayesia_, of 70 tons burden

only. She had no auxiliary engine, so that if the raiders were to

escape, which they had now determined to attempt, their time was very

limited. The party, on landing, at first had proceeded to put out of

action the cable and wireless instruments, which they smashed, while

they managed to cut one of the cables. Fortunately, a spare set of

instruments had been buried after the experience of a station in the

Pacific, raided some weeks before by the German Pacific Squadron. Beds

were next requisitioned, and supplies taken for a three months' cruise.

Water was taken on board, and the schooner was loaded, so that just

before dusk she slipped out and round the southern end of the island

at what time the _Sydney_ was again approaching from the north after

her last shots at the _Emden_. In fact, had not the _Sydney_ stopped

to pick up another German sailor struggling in the water, she in all

probability would have sighted the escaping schooner, which was later

to land this party of Germans on the coast of Arabia. Having learned of

the situation, the _Sydney_ was unable to land any men on the island,

as it was imperative that she should lie off and be ready for any

emergency, such as I have already hinted. This prohibited her going

to the aid of the Germans on the vanquished _Emden_. All night she

cruised slowly and her crew cleared away the wreckage, while the doctor

tended to the wounded and made what arrangements were possible for the

reception of the prisoners and wounded next day. The space on a cruiser

is always cut to a minimum, so not much could be done. Fortunately, her

own casualties had been slight for such an action. There were three

killed, five seriously wounded (one of whom subsequently died), four

wounded, and four slightly wounded.

Early next morning the _Sydney_ once again steamed back to the _Emden_.

The task before her was as difficult as it was awful. The ship was a

shambles and the decks too appalling to bear description. The Germans

lent what assistance they could, but the whole ship was in the most

shocking condition. The men who remained alive on board were either

half-mad with thirst or so stunned and stupefied with the detonation of

the guns that they did not comprehend anything at all, or were unable

to appreciate their position. They had all been without water for

almost two days, as the _Sydney's_ salvos had wrecked the water-tanks.

The fires had to burn themselves out, and though the decks were now

cooled, the charred bodies that lay around showed only too plainly what

an inferno the vessel must have been when she ran ashore. "At 11.10

a.m.," writes an officer, "we arrived off the _Emden_ again in one of

the cutters. Luckily, her stern was sticking out beyond where the surf

broke, so that with a rope from the stern of the ship one could ride

close under one quarter with the boat's bow to seaward. The rollers

were very big and surging to and fro, and made getting aboard fairly

difficult. However, the Germans standing aft gave me a hand up, and I

was received by the captain of the _Emden_." Nevertheless, it was a

work of the utmost difficulty getting the wounded (there were fifteen

bad cases), and even those who were only slightly injured, into the

boats. Water was what the men wanted most, and a cask was hauled on

board and eagerly drunk. The boarding party found the stern of the

cruiser a twisted mass of steel, and her decks up to the bows were rent

and torn in all directions, while plates had buckled, bolts had sprung,

and the vessel was falling to pieces in some parts. Nearly every gun

had been put out of action, and whole gun's crews had been incinerated

inside the armoured shield. Our lyddite had done appalling, even

revolting, execution. The aim of the gunners was deadly in the extreme.

As one prisoner quite frankly admitted to an officer, "Your artillery

was magnificent."

The last man was rescued from the ship at 5 p.m. The captain and a

nephew of the Kaiser, Prince Joseph of Hohenzollern, who was torpedo

officer and just twenty years of age, were amongst those who had

not sustained any injuries. During the absence of the _Sydney_ a party

of twenty Germans had managed in some way to get ashore to the island.

Either they had scrambled from the bows of the wrecked cruiser on to

the reef and taken their chance in the surf or they had been washed

ashore. It was, at any rate, too late that evening to rescue these men,

and it was not till the next morning that a cutter and some stretchers

were put off and ran up on the westward side of the island on a sandy

beach, just at 5 a.m. The Germans on shore were in a terrible state.

They had been too dazed to attempt even to get the coco-nuts for food

and drink. The ship's doctor, through the strain, had insisted on

drinking sea-water, and had gone mad and had died the previous night.

In the meantime the _Sydney_ had returned overnight to Direction Island

and brought another doctor to tend the wounded. She was back again off

Keeling Island by ten o'clock, and the remaining wounded and prisoners

embarked at 10.35 and the _Sydney_ started to steam for Colombo.

[Illustration: PRISONERS FROM THE "EMDEN" ON THE FLAGSHIP GUARDED BY

SENTRY AS THEY TAKE EXERCISE ON DECK.

The group, from the left, is the German Doctor Captain Finklestein,

Captain Debussy (in charge of prisoners), the Prince of Hohenzollern,

Captain Gordon Smith, who is talking to Captain Müller, hidden behind

sentry.]

[Illustration: THE DIRK OF PRINCE FRANCIS JOSEPH OF HOHENZOLLERN.

It was beautifully embossed but greatly damaged by the fire on the

"Emden."

To face p. 56.]

On the _Sydney's_ decks the men were laid out side by side and their

wounds attended to as far as possible. The worst cases were given

accommodation below, the doctor of the _Sydney_ with the German surgeon

working day and night to relieve the men of their pain. The heat from

the ship and from the tropical sun made the conditions dreadful. The

prisoners had in most cases nothing but the clothes they stood up

in. One man, who had received a gash in his chest, had tied a kimono

in a knot and plugged the wound with it by tying round a piece of

cord. Otherwise he was naked. The death-roll on the cruiser had been

appalling. There were 12 officers killed and 119 men. The wounded taken

on board numbered 56, while there were 115 prisoners, including 11

officers. Many of the wounded subsequently died of their wounds. The

prisoners were placed in the bows, with a small guard over them. The

cruiser, at no time meant to carry extra men, was horribly congested.

The less seriously wounded were removed to the _Empress of Russia_,

which had passed the Convoy, hastily summoned from Colombo, about 60

hours' steam from that port, and this gave some relief.

It was only after close inspection that I realized the full extent

of the _Sydney's_ scars, which her crew point to now with such pride.

A casual glance would hardly have detected a hole, about as big as

a saucer, on the port side. This was the result of one of the high

trajectory shots that had made a curious passage for itself, as I

described earlier. This tracing of the course of the shells was

most interesting. I saw where the paint had been scorched off the

fire-control station, and where the hammocks that were used to protect

the men from flying splinters had been burned brown, or black, or dyed

crimson with blood. I saw, too, the shape of a man's leg on a canvas

screen where it had fallen. Looking in at the door of one of the petty

officers' mess-rooms below, I was told I was just in the same position

as one of the crew who had been standing there when a shell struck the

side of the ship opposite him and tried to pierce the armoured plate,

though he himself had not waited long enough to see the great blister

it raised, almost as large as a football, before it fell back spent

into the sea. The men were below, writing home, when I went through

to the bows to see the damage done by the shells that had torn up

the decks. They laughed as they pointed to places now filled up with

cement, and laughed at the notice board and draught-flue, riddled

with holes. So far as the interior of the ship was concerned, there

was nothing else to suggest the stress she had been through. The only

knowledge the engineers had of the action was a distant rumbling of the

guns and a small fragment of shell that tumbled down a companion-way

into the engine-room. And I wonder if too great praise can be bestowed

on the engineers for their work in this crisis. From 9.20 a.m., which

was when the cruiser sighted the _Emden_, until noon, when she left

the _Emden_ a wreck, the _Sydney_ steamed 68 miles at speeds varying

between 13 and 27 knots.

As I grew accustomed to look for the chips off the portions of the

ship, I marked places where shells must have just grazed the decks and

fittings. All the holes had been filled with cement till the cruiser

could get to Malta to refit. Stays had been repaired and the damaged

steam-pipe was working again. The only break had been a temporary

stoppage of the refrigerating machinery, owing to a shell cutting the

pipe. So I went round while the officers accounted for fourteen bad

hits. I wondered how many times the _Emden_ had been holed and belted.

Our gunners had fired about 650 rounds of ordinary shell, the starboard

guns firing more than the port guns. The German cruiser had expended

1,500 rounds, and had practically exhausted all the ammunition she

carried.

I am unwilling to leave the story of the battle without reference to

the action of a petty officer who was in the after fire-control when it

was wrecked, at the beginning of the fight. It will be recalled that

there were two shells that got home on this control, and the five men

stationed there were injured, in some extraordinary way, not seriously.

The wounds were nearly all about the legs, and the men were unable to

walk. Yet they knew their only chance for their lives was to leave this

place as soon as possible. Shells were streaming past, the ship was

trembling under the discharge of the guns. Less badly damaged than his

mates, a petty officer managed to stand, and though in intense pain,

half-fell, half-lowered himself from the control station to the deck,

about 5 feet below. The remainder of the group had simply to throw

themselves to the deck, breaking their fall by clinging to the twisted

stays as best they might. All five of them pulled themselves across the

deck, wriggling on their stomachs until they reached the companion-way.

They were all making up their minds to fall down this as well, as

being the only means of getting below, when the gallant petty officer

struggled to his feet and carried his mates down the companion-way

one by one. As a feat alone this was no mean task, but executed under

the conditions it was, it became a magnificent action of devotion and

sacrifice.

Before concluding this account, let me say that Major-General Bridges

was anxious that the _Sydney_ should be suitably welcomed as she

steamed past the Convoy on her way to Colombo, and sent a request to

Captain Glossop asking that she might steam near the fleet. The answer

was: "Thank you for your invitation. In view of wounded would request

no cheering. Will steam between 1st and 2nd Divisions." The same

request to have no cheering was signalled to Colombo, and it touched

the captain of the _Emden_ deeply, as he afterwards told us. But the

Convoy were denied the inspiring sight, for it was just 4.30 in the

morning and barely dawn when the _Sydney_ and the _Empress of Russia_,

huge and overpowering by comparison with the slim, dark-lined warship,

whose funnels looked like spars sticking from the water, sped past in

the distance. Once in port, however, when any boats from the fleet

approached the _Sydney_, hearty, ringing cheers came unchecked to the

lips of all Australasians.

CHAPTER VI

UP THE RED SEA

At Colombo the Australian troops found the sight of quaint junks, and

mosquito craft, and naked natives, ready to dive to the bottom for a

_sou_, very fascinating after coming from more prosaic Southern climes.

Colombo Harbour itself was choked with shipping and warships of the

Allied Powers. There was the cruiser _Sydney_, little the worse for

wear, and also several British cruisers. There was the five-funnelled

_Askold_, which curiously enough turned up here just after the _Emden_

had gone--the two vessels, according to report, had fought one another

to the death at the very beginning of the war in the China seas. There

was a Chinese gunboat lying not far from the immense Empress liners,

towering out of the water. The Japanese ensign fluttered from the

_Ibuki_ (now having a washing day), her masts hung with fluttering

white duck. There were transports from Bombay and Calcutta and

Singapore, with ships bringing Territorials from England, to which now

were added the transports from Australasia. Most of these latter were

lying outside the breakwater and harbour, which could contain only a

portion of that mass of shipping.

So after two days' delay the great Convoy, having taken in coal and

water, steamed on, and a section waited by the scorched shores of Aden

for a time before linking up again with the whole.

On the evening of the 27-28th November the destination of the Convoy,

which was then in the Red Sea, was changed. A marconigram arrived at

midnight for Major-General Bridges, and soon the whole of the Staff

was roused out and a conference held. It had been then definitely

announced from the War Office that the troops were to disembark in

Egypt, both the Australians and New Zealanders, the purpose being,

according to official statements, "to complete their training and for

war purposes." The message said it was unforeseen circumstances, but at

Aden I have no doubt a very good idea was obtained that Egypt was to

be our destination, owing to the declaration of war on Turkey, while

it seems quite probable that the G.O.C. knew at Albany that this land

of the Nile was most likely to be the training-ground for the troops.

The message further announced that Lieut.-General Sir William Birdwood

would command. He was in India at the time.

That the voyage was going to end far sooner than had been expected

brought some excitement to the troops, though most had been looking

forward to visiting England. None at this time believed that the stay

in Egypt would be long. It was recognized that the climatic conditions

would be enormously in the army's favour, which afterwards was given

out as one of the chief reasons for the dropping down like a bolt

from the blue of this army of 30,000 men, near enough to the Canal to

be of service if required. There, too, they might repel any invasion

of Egypt, such as was now declared by the Turks to be their main

objective, and which Germany, even as early as October, had decided to

be their means of striking a blow at England--her only real vulnerable

point.

But I hasten too fast and far. Arrangements, of course, had at

once to be made for the distribution of the ships and the order of

their procedure through the Canal (Alexandria was to be the port of

disembarkation owing to lack of wharf accommodation at Suez). At the

last church parade on Sunday the troops began to appear in boots and

rather crumpled jackets that had been stowed away in lockers, and the

tramp of booted feet on deck, with the bands playing, made a huge

din. But the troops were looking marvellously fit--such magnificent

types of men. The Flagship hurried on, and was at Suez a day before

the remainder of the Convoy, so as to disembark some of the Staff, who

were to go on to Cairo to make arrangements for the detraining and

the camp, which of course was already set out by the G.O.C. in Egypt,

General Sir John Maxwell. On 30th November, in the early morning, the

_Orvieto_ anchored at Suez, and during the afternoon the rest of the

ships began to come in, mostly New Zealanders first, and by three

o'clock our ship started through the Canal. By reason of the nearness

of the enemy an armed party was posted on deck with forty rounds each

in their belts, for it was just possible that there might be raiding

parties approaching at some point as we went slowly through, our great

searchlight in the bows lighting up the bank. Before it was dusk,

however, we had a chance of seeing some of the preparations for the

protection of the Canal and Egypt, including the fortified posts and

trenches, which are best described in detail when I come to deal with

them separately when discussing the Canal attack.

[Illustration: THE FIRST TENTS IN THE MENA DESERT CAMP ON 4TH DECEMBER,

1915.]

[Illustration: VIEW OF MENA CAMP (COMPLETED) LOOKING ACROSS THE

ENGINEER TO THE ARTILLERY LINES.

To face p. 62.]

A general impression I shall give, though, indicative of the feelings

of many Australians travelling for the first time this great waterway.

Not half a mile from the entrance to the Canal, with the town of Suez

lying squat and white on the left, is the quarantine station of Shat.

It was surrounded by deep trenches, out of which now rose up Indian

troops, Sikhs and Gurkhas, and they came running across the sand to

the banks of the Canal, where they greeted us with cheers and cries,

answered by the troops, who had crowded into the rigging and were

sitting on the ships' rails and deckhouses. Close beside the station

was a regular, strong redoubt, with high parapets and loopholes and

trenches running along the banks of the Canal, connected up with

outer posts. About 20 miles farther on we came across a big redoubt,

with some thousands of men camped on either side of the Canal. They

belonged to the 128th Regiment, so an officer told us, as he shouted

from a punt moored alongside the bank. It was just growing dusk as the

transport reached this spot. The hills that formed a barrier about 15

miles from the Canal were fading into a deep vermilion in the rays of

the departing sun that sank down behind a purple ridge, clear cut, on

the southern side of the Canal outside of the town of Suez. Between

it and the Canal was a luxurious pasturage and long lines of waving

palm-trees. It was deathly still and calm, and the voices broke sharply

on the air. "Where are you bound for?" asked an officer, shouting

through his hands to our lads.

"We're Australians, going to Cairo," chorused the men eagerly, proud of

their nationality.

"Good God!" commented the officer; and he seemed to be appalled or

amazed, I could not tell which, at the prospect.

Then there came riding along the banks a man apparently from a Canal

station. A dog followed his ambling ass. "Get any rabbits?" shouted the

Australian bushmen, and the man with the gun laughed and shouted "Good

luck!"

The desert sands were turning from gold into bronze, and soon nothing

but the fierce glare of the searchlights lit up the banks. The bagpipes

were playing, and this seemed to rouse the instincts of some of the

Indian tribesmen, whom we saw dancing, capering, and shouting on the

parapet of trenches as we swept slowly and majestically on. The troops

on shore cheered, and our troops cheered back, always telling they were

Australians, and, in particular, Victorians. We came across a sentinel

post manned by Yorkshiremen, who spoke with a very broad accent. One

such post, I remember, had rigged up a dummy sentry, and a very good

imitation it was too. Out in the desert were hummocks of sand which

had been set up as range marks for the warships and armed cruisers

which we began now to pass anchored in the lakes. We asked one of the

men on the Canal banks, who came down to cheer us, were they expecting

the Turks soon to attack across the desert, and the answer was in the

affirmative, and that they had been waiting for them for nights now

and they had never come. Various passenger steamers we passed, and the

Convoy, which closely was following the Flagship (almost a continuous

line it was, for the next twenty hours), and they cheered us as we went

on to Port Said, reached just after dawn.

In those days Port Said was tremendously busy; for there were a number

of warships there, including the French ships the _Montcalm_, _Desaix_,

and _Duplex_. The strip of desert lying immediately to the north of

the entrance to the Canal, where there had been great saltworks, had

been flooded to the extent of some 100 square miles as a safeguard

from any enemy advancing from the north by the shore caravan route.

Beside which protection there were patrol and picket boats, which we

now saw constantly going up and down the coast and dashing in and out

of the Canal entrance. On the 1st December I watched the transports

as they tied up on either side, leaving a clear passage-way for the

late arriving ships that anchored further down towards the entrance

to the Canal, near the great statue of De Lesseps that stands by the

breakwater overlooking the Mediterranean. Amongst the transports were

the warships, and a few ordinary passenger steamers outward bound to

India. I remember that they were landing hydroplanes from a French

"parent" ship, and we could see three or four being lifted on to a

lighter, while others were tugged, resting on their floats, up to the

hangar established at the eastern end of the wharves. Coaling was an

operation that took a day, and gave the troops plenty to occupy their

time, watching the antics of the Arabs and causing endless confusion by

throwing coins amongst them, much to the distress of the chief gangers,

who beat the unruly lumpers until they relinquished their searchings.

The _Desaix_ and _Requiem_ were lying just opposite to the _Orvieto_,

and also an aeroplane ship, so M. Guillaux, a famous French aviator,

who was on board, told me. It carried only light guns, but had stalls

for camels on the forward deck and a workshop amidships. It was

altogether a most curious-looking vessel. The _Swiftsure_ was a little

further down, and one of the "P" class of naval patrol boats, with

Captain Hardy, of the Naval Depôt, Williamstown, curiously enough, in

charge. As I went on shore to post some letters, for the first time

I saw at the Indian Post Office written "The Army of Occupation in

Egypt," and proclamations about martial law and other military orders,

rather stern to men coming from the outskirts of Empire, where such

things were unnecessary as part and parcel of dread war. I heard here

rumours of the approach of the Turkish Army to the Canal, and it was in

this spirit, and amidst thoughts of a possible immediate fight, that

the troops looked forward to disembarking.

It is impossible, almost, to describe the excitement amongst the

troops on board (steadily growing and being fomented during the 1st

and 2nd December) as the transports came past one another close enough

for friends to exchange greetings. Each ship saluted with a blare of

trumpets, and then the bands broke into a clatter. Never shall I, for

one, forget the departure for Alexandria, twelve hours' steam away.

The men, to add to their spirits, had received a few letters, one

or two scattered throughout the platoons, and, as soldiers will in

barrack life in India, these few were passed round and news read out

for the general company. On the afternoon of the 2nd December the

Flagship drew out and passed down between lines of troopships. Bugles

challenged bugles in "salutes"; the bands played "Rule Britannia," the

National Anthem, and the Russian Hymn, while the characteristic short,

sharp cheers came from the French and British tars on the warships,

in appreciation. We must have passed eight or ten ships before the

entrance was cleared. The men, so soon as the salute had been duly

given, rushed cheering to the sides to greet their comrades and

friends, from whom now they had been separated some seven weeks.

Early next morning the Flagship reached Alexandria Harbour, and by the

tortuous channel passed the shattered forts (that British guns had

smashed nearly forty years before), and at length, at eight o'clock,

the long voyage came to an end. The men, their kitbags already packed

and their equipment on, rapidly began to entrain in the waiting troop

trains. It was the 5th--I call them the Pioneer 5th Battalion, under

Lieut.-Colonel Wanliss, who landed first, while at adjacent wharves the

_Euripides_ disgorged New South Wales Battalions and the New Zealand

transports landed their regiments. Thus I saw three troop trains away

into the desert before, with the officers of the 5th, I boarded one for

the camp at Cairo.

CHAPTER VII

THE CAMPS AROUND CAIRO

Mena Camp, when I saw it at daybreak on the morning of 4th December,

consisted of a score of tents scattered about in a square mile of

desert, and perhaps a thousand men lying in their great-coats, asleep

in the sand, their heads resting on their packs. The men of the 5th

Battalion--those that are left of them--are not likely to forget that

march out from Cairo on the night of the 3rd-4th, and the subsequent

days of settling down to camp, and the greetings they gave to regiment

after regiment as they came crowding into the camp. On the night the

first troop trains came into Abbu Ella station, near Cairo, which was

the siding on the southern side of the city, it was cold and sharp,

but a bright moon came up towards midnight. Outside the sprinkling of

Staff officers present to meet the train was a line of dusky faces

and a jabbering crowd of natives. Electric trams buzzed along outside

the station yard, and after the men had been formed up and detrained,

they had a few minutes to get, from a temporary coffee-stall, some hot

coffee and a roll, which, after the journey, was very much appreciated.

It was nine o'clock. Guides were ready waiting. Territorials they were,

who had been in Cairo for some time, and they led the men out on a long

10-mile march to Mena Camp. Baggage was to go by special tram, and it

went out, under guard, later.

Less a company of the 5th which had been sent forward as an advance

party from Port Said, the battalion set out, pipes and bands playing,

through the dimly seen minaretted city. These Australians will remember

the long, hearty cheers they got as they tramped past the Kasr El

Nil Barracks, situated on the banks of the River Nile, where the

Manchester Territorials turned out to do honour to the new army in

Egypt. Across the long Nile bridge and through Gezirah, down a long

avenue of lebbock-trees, out on the main road to the Pyramids, the

troops marched, singing, chipping, smoking, their packs getting a wee

bit heavier at each step. Life on board ship had not made them as

hard as they believed, and by the time they left the gem-studded city

behind and turned on to the road that ran between irrigated fields they

began to grow more silent. Overhead, the trees met in a vast arabesque

design, showing only now and then the stars and the moon. The shadows

on the path were deep, dispersed for a few seconds only by the passing

electric trams, which the men cheered. Then they began, as the early

hours of the morning drew on, to see something of the desert in front

of them and the blurred outline of the Pyramids standing there, solemn

sentinels, exactly as they had stood for over six thousand years.

They grew in hugeness until the troops came right to the foot of the

slope which led up to their base. Their thoughts were distracted from

the sight by the advance party of their own battalion coming to meet

them and conduct them through a eucalyptus grove (what memories of a

fragrant bush!) along a great new-made white road, and through the sand

for the last quarter of a mile to their camp lines. Was it any wonder,

therefore, in the face of this, that when at dawn next morning I came

amongst the troops they were still lying sleeping, and not even the

struggling rays of the sun roused them from their slumber?

How cheery all the officers were! Gathered in one tent, sitting on

their baggage, they ate the "twenty-niners," as they called the

biscuits ("forty-threes" they had been called in South Africa), with

a bit of cheese and jam and bully beef. There was the Padre, Captain

Dexter, and the Doctor, Captain Lind, Captain Flockart, Major Saker,

Captain Stewart, Lieutenant Derham, and Lieutenant "Billy" Mangar,

and scores of others, alas! now separated by the horror of war. That

morning their spirits were high, and as soon as possible most of the

regiments set out on what might be called an exploration expedition

to the ridges of hills that ran along the eastern side of the camp,

and above which peeped the Pyramids in small triangles. That day, I

must say, little effort was made to settle down to camp, and the

5th, pioneers that they were, was the first Australian regiment to

scramble over the ancient holy ground of Mena, the City of the Dead and

burial-place of the forgotten monarchs of ancient Egypt. But what could

be done? Tents had not yet arrived, and it was, indeed, weeks before

all the troops were under canvas, though in the meantime they made

humpies and dugouts for themselves in the sand with the help of native

matting.

[Illustration: AUSTRALIANS COMING INTO CAIRO FROM THE CAMPS.

To face p. 68.]

I turned back from the hill, dotted with whooping Australians, to watch

another battalion march into camp, one of the New South Wales regiments

of Colonel M'Laurin, and saw the wheeled transport drawn by mules (the

horses, of course, being yet unfit for use after so long a sea voyage)

almost stick in the sand, until shoulders were put to the wheel and

they got the heavy vehicles to the lines. The whole camp had been laid

out by the engineers on the Staff of the General Officer Commanding

(General Sir John Maxwell) the week before. It must be remembered that

barely a week's notice was given of the landing of the great overseas

force, and it was one of the happy features of the troops' arrival in

Egypt that they found arrangements so far advanced as they were. I

remember walking along the white road, which a couple of steam-rollers

were flattening, into the desert. The stone was being brought on a

string of camels from quarries in the hills. Lines of small white

stones marked where the road was going to lead right through the centre

of the camp. It was a rectangle at that time, branching off from the

Mena road through an orchard belonging to the Mena House Hotel, where

the main road ended abruptly at the foot of the Pyramids; hard it was,

too, as any cement, and each day lengthening, with cross sections

sprouting out further into the desert. A loop of the electric tramway

was being run along by one side of it, a water-pipe by the other, to

reservoirs being constructed in the hills. Nevertheless, I cannot help

commenting that the site of the camp lay in a hollow between, as I have

said, two rows of hills running south into the desert and starting from

a marsh in the swampy irrigation fields. Later on, the follies of such

a site were borne out by the diseases that struck down far too high a

percentage of the troops during their four months' residence there.

Day after day, enthralled, I watched this encampment growing and

spreading out on either side of the road, creeping up the sides of the

hills, stretching out across the desert, until the furthermost tents

looked like tiny white-peaked triangles set in the yellow sand. The

battalions filed into their places coming from the seaboard, where

twelve ships at a time were discharging their human cargoes; while each

day ten trains brought the troops up 130 miles to the desert camps.

After the men came the gear, the wagons, the guns, the horses. For this

was the divisional camp, the first divisional camp Australia had ever

assembled. It was, also, the first time that Major-General Bridges

had seen his command mustered together. With his Staff he took up his

headquarters in a section of Mena House for use as offices, with their

living tents pitched close by. This was the chance to organize and

dovetail one unit into another, work brigade in with brigade, artillery

with the infantry, the Light Horse regiments as protecting screens and

scouts. The Army Service Corps, Signallers, Post Office, all came into

being as part of a larger unit for the first time. The troops became

part of a big military machine, units, cogs in the wheel. They began to

apply what had been learnt in sections, and thus duties once thought

unnecessary began to be adjusted and to have a new significance.

Of course, it could not all be expected to work smoothly at first. For

some six weeks the horses were not available for transport work, and so

the electric tramway carried the stores the 10 miles from the city, and

brought the army's rations and corn and chaff for the animals. Donkeys,

mules, and camels were all to be seen crowding along the Pyramid road

day and night, drawing and carrying their queer, ungainly loads.

Besides Mena Camp, two other sites had been selected as training

areas for the army corps, which, as I have said, was commanded now by

Lieut.-General (afterwards Sir William) Birdwood, D.S.O. One of these

was at Zeitoun, or Heliopolis, some 6 miles from Cairo, on directly

the opposite side of the town--that is, the south--to the Mena Camp;

while the other was situated close to an oasis settlement, or model

irrigation town, at Maadi, and lying just parallel with Mena Camp, but

on the other (eastern) side of the river, and some 12 miles distant

from it. Zeitoun was the site of the old Roman battlefields, and later

of an English victory over an Arab host. In mythology it is recorded as

the site of the Sun City. The troops found it just desert, of rather

coarser sand than at Mena, and on it the remains of an aerodrome,

where two years before a great flying meeting had been held. For

the first month, only New Zealanders occupied this site, both their

infantry and mounted rifles, and then, as the 2nd Australian and New

Zealand Division was formed, Colonel Monash's 4th Brigade (the Second

Contingent) came and camped on an adjacent site, at the same time as

Colonel Chauvel's Light Horse Brigade linked up, riding across from

Maadi. Then into the latter camp Colonel Ryrie led the 3rd Light Horse

Brigade.

As sightseers I am satisfied that the Australians beat the Yankee in

three ways. They get further, they see more, and they pay nothing for

it. Perhaps it was because they were soldiers, and Egypt, with its

mixed population, had laid itself out to entertain the troops right

royally. It must not be thought I want to give the impression that the

Australian soldier, the highest paid of any troops fighting in the

war, saved his money and was stingy. On the contrary, he was liberal,

generous, and spoiled the native by the openness of his purse. Some

believe that it was an evil that the troops had so much funds at

their disposal. It was, I believe, under the circumstances--peculiar

circumstances--that reflects no credit on the higher commands, and to

be explained anon. It would be out of place just at the moment to bring

any dark shadow across the bright, fiery path of reckless revelry that

the troops embarked on during the week preceding and the week following

Christmas. It was an orgy of pleasure, which only a free and, at that

time, unrestrained city such as Cairo could provide. Those men with

£10 to £20 in their pockets, after being kept on board ship for two

months, suddenly to be turned loose on an Eastern town--healthy, keen,

spirited, and adventurous men--it would have been a strong hand that

could have checked them in their pleasures, innocent as they were for

the most part.

In all the camps 20 per cent. leave was granted. That meant that some

6,000 soldiers were free to go whither they wished from afternoon till

9.30 p.m., when leave was supposed to end in the city. Now, owing to

lax discipline, the leave was more like 40 per cent., and ended with

the dawn. Each night--soft, silky Egyptian nights--when the subtle

cloak of an unsuspected winter hung a mantle of fog round the city and

the camps--10,000 men must have invaded the city nightly, to which

number must be added the 2,000 Territorial troops garrisoning Cairo at

the time that were free, and the Indian troops, numbering about 1,000.

The majority of the men came from Mena and from the New Zealand camp

at Zeitoun. The Pyramids Camp was linked to the city by a fine highway

(built at the time of the opening of the Canal as one of the freaks

of the Empress Eugénie), along the side of which now runs an electric

tramway. Imagine officials with only a single line available being

faced with the problem of the transport of 10,000 troops nightly to and

from the camps! No wonder it was inadequate. No wonder each tram was

not only packed inside, but covered outside with khaki figures. Scores

sat on the roofs or clung to the rails. Generally at three o'clock

the exodus began from the camps. What an exodus! What spirits! What

choruses and shouting and linking up of parties! Here was Australia at

the Pyramids. Men from every State, every district, every village and

hamlet, throughout the length and breadth of the Commonwealth, were

encamped, to the number of 20,000, in a square mile. An army gains in

weight and fighting prowess as it gains in every day efficiency by

the unitedness of the whole. Now, the true meaning of camaraderie is

understood by Australians, and is with them, I believe, an instinct,

due to the isolated nature of their home lives and the freedom of their

native land. When the troops overflowed from the trams, they linked up

into parties and hired motor-cars, the owners of which were not slow to

appreciate the situation. They tumbled ten or twelve into these cars,

and went, irrespective of speed limits, hooting and whirring towards

the twinkling city. And when the motors gave out, there was a long line

of gharries (_arabehs_), which are open victorias, very comfortable,

and with a spanking pair of Arab steeds, travelling the 10 miles to the

city.

[Illustration: GENERAL HAMILTON RETURNS THE SALUTE OF THE 4TH

AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY BRIGADE AT ZEITOUN.

Brigadier-General Monash immediately on the left of the

Commander-in-Chief.]

Imagine, therefore, this Pyramid road arched with lebbock-trees that

made a tunnel of dark living branches and green leaves. By five o'clock

night had fallen, coming so suddenly that its mantle was on before one

realized the sun had sunk behind the irrigated fields, the canals, and

the waving sugar-canes. Imagine these men of the South, the warm blood

tingling in their veins (and sovereigns jingling in their pockets),

invading the city like an avalanche!

So much was novel, so much strange and entrancing in this city of

Arabian fables. Cairo presents the paradox of the Eastern mind, and

the reverse nature of events and incidents amused and excited the

imaginations of the Australians.

By midnight had commenced in earnest the return of the troops along

that great highway, an exodus starting each night at nine o'clock.

Again was the tram service inadequate, nor could the motors and

gharries cope with the rush of the men back to the lines before leave

expired. Donkey-men filled the breach with their obstinate asses, and

the main streets were crowded with wild, shouting troops as a drove of

twenty or thirty donkeys went clattering past, whooping Australians on

their backs, urging on their speed to a delicate canter. But it was

hard work riding these donkeys, and a 10-mile ride brought resolutions

not to again overstay leave or, at least, to make adequate arrangements

for return by more sober and comfortable means. The main highway such

nights became a stream of flickering fire. The motors picked their way

at frantic speed through the traffic, past the burdened camels and

loaded carts of rations and fodder for the camp. No speed was too high;

the limit of the engines was the only brake. By great good fortune no

disaster occurred: minor accidents were regarded as part and parcel of

the revels.

Whatever may have been the attitude of the military authorities when

the troops landed and up till Christmas week, the very first day of the

New Year saw a vast change in the discipline of the camp. It was really

a comparatively easy matter, had a proper grip been taken of the men,

to have restrained the overstaying and breaking of leave that occurred

up till New Year's Day. Mena Camp, situated 10 miles from the city in

the desert, with only one avenue of practicable approach, required but

few guards; but those guards needed to be vigilant and strong. True,

I have watched men making great detours through the cotton-fields

and desert in order to come into the camp from some remote angle,

but they agreed that the trouble was not worth while. Once, however,

the guards were placed at the bridge across the Canal that lay at

right angles to the road and formed a sort of moat round the south of

the camp, and examined carefully passes and checked any men without

authority, leave was difficult to break. From 20 it was reduced to 10

per cent. of the force. General Birdwood's arrival resulted in the

tightening up of duties considerably, while the visit of Sir George

Reid (High Commissioner for the Commonwealth in London) and his

inspiring addresses urging the troops to cast out the "wrong uns" from

their midst, at the same time bringing to their mind the duty to their

Country and their King that lay before them still undone, settled the

army to its hard training. He, so well known a figure in Australia, of

all men could give to the troops a feeling that across the seas their

interests were being closely and critically watched. After a few

weeks of the hard work involved in the completion of their military

training, even the toughening sinews of the Australians and their love

of pleasure and the fun of Cairo were not strong enough to make them

wish to go far, joy-riding.

CHAPTER VIII

RUMOURS OF THE TURKS' ATTACK

News in Egypt travels like wildfire. Consequently, during the end of

January, just prior to the first attack on the Canal and attempted

invasion of Egypt by the Turks, Cairo was "thick," or, as the troops

said, "stiff," with rumours, and the bazaars, I found from conversation

with Egyptian journalists, were filled with murmurs of sedition. It

was said hundreds of thousands of Turks were about to cross the Canal

and enter Egypt. The Young Turk party, no doubt, were responsible for

originating these stories, aided by the fertile imagination of the Arab

and fellaheen. So were passed on from lip to lip the scanty phrases of

news that came direct from the banks of the Canal, where at one time

rather a panic set in amongst the Arab population.

Naturally these rumours percolated to the camps, and, with certain

orders to brigades of the 1st Division and the New Zealanders to get

equipped and stores to be got in as quickly as possible, it was no

wonder that the troops were eagerly anticipating their marching orders.

They would at this time, too, have given a lot to have escaped from

the relentless training that was getting them fit: the monotony of the

desert had begun to pall.

At any rate, on 3rd January the 3rd Company of Engineers, under Major

Clogstoun, had gone down to the Canal to assist the Royal Engineers,

already at work on trenches, entanglements, and pontoon bridges. To

their work I shall refer in detail later on, when I come to deal with

the invasion. In the first week of February the 7th Battalion, under

Lieut.-Colonel Elliott, and 8th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Bolton,

V.D., and the whole of the New Zealand Brigade of Infantry were hastily

dispatched to the Canal, and were camped side by side at the Ismailia

station. Meanwhile the New Zealand Artillery had already been sent to

take up positions on the Canal banks.

During January the Buccaneer Camel Corps, under Lieutenant Chope, met,

during reconnoitring and patrol duty, a strong party of Arabs, Turks,

and Bedouins, to the number of 300, and he gallantly engaged them

and carried on a running fight in the desert for miles, successfully

putting to flight the enemy and capturing some of their number, while

they left dead and wounded on the sand. For this Lieutenant Chope was

decorated with the D.S.O.

Fresh rumours began now to float into Cairo as to the estimate of the

Turkish force and the number of Germans likely to be in it. Djemal

Pasha was known to be in command, but it was said that he was under the

German General Von der Goltz, who had stiffened the force with about

300 of his barbarians, mostly non-commissioned officers and officers.

The Turkish force, which was certainly a very mixed host, was declared

to number about 80,000, which was more than four times the number that

actually made the raid on the Canal, though I have no reason to doubt

that there were that number on the borders of Egypt, ready to follow up

the attack were it successful. Some dissent existed amongst the Turkish

force, and was faithfully reported to the War Office in Cairo, and many

Arabs and some Indians captured on the Canal told how they had been

forced into the service and compelled to bear arms. Serious trouble

had occurred with a party of Bedouins in Arabia, who brought camels

to the order of the Turkish Government, and who found their animals

commandeered and no money given in payment. On this occasion a fight

occurred, and the Bedouins promptly returned to their desert homes.

Summing up the opinion in Egypt at that time, it appeared tolerably

certain, in the middle of January, that the Turkish attack was to be

made. In what strength it was not quite known, but it seemed unlikely

to be in the nature of a great invasion, as the transport troubles and

the difficulties of the water supply were too great. One day the Turks

would be said to have crossed the Canal, another that the Canal was

blocked by the sinking of ships (from the very outset of the war one

of the main objects of the invaders, using mines as their device). I

suppose that British, Indian, and Egyptian troops (for the Egyptian

mounted gun battery was encamped on the Canal) must have numbered over

80,000, not including the force of 40,000 Australians held as a reserve

in Cairo, together with a Division of Territorials.

If ever troops longed for a chance to meet the enemy, it was these

Australians. The Engineers had been down on the Canal, as I have said,

since January, and it was rumoured every day towards the end of January

that there was to be at least a brigade of Australians sent down to the

Canal. Imagine the thrill that went through the camp, the rumours and

contradictions as to which brigade it should be. Finally, on the 3rd

February the 7th and 8th Battalions, under Colonel M'Cay, Brigadier

of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, were dispatched, and encamped outside of

Ismailia. I saw these troops go from the camp. They were enormously

pleased that they had been told off for the job, not that other

battalions did not believe they would soon follow. As they marched

out of the Mena lines (and from the desert, for they had to go at a

moment's notice right from drill, with barely time to pack their kits)

they were cheered lustily by their comrades, who deemed them "lucky

dogs" to get out of the "blasted sand." However, they were going to far

worse, and no tents; but then there was before them the Canal and a

possible fight, and, anyway, the blue sea and a change of aspect from

the "everlasting Pyramids." They entrained in ordinary trucks and got

into bivouac somewhere about midnight. They found the New Zealanders

there, two battalions of them. On the way down they passed a large

Indian encampment, which I subsequently saw, where thousands of camels

had been collected, ready to go out to meet the invaders or follow

them up in the event of their hasty retreat. The camp lay sprawled out

over miles of desert, and, just on the horizon, about 4 miles from the

Canal, was an aeroplane hangar. I used to watch the aeroplanes going

and coming on their reconnaissances out over the desert to the Turkish

outposts and concentration camps. The Territorial guns, 15-pounders,

were already in position round, or rather to the east of, Ismailia.

On the 2nd February the attack began to develop. It was important

enough, rather for its significance than its strength or result, to be

treated at length.

CHAPTER IX

FIRST SUEZ CANAL BATTLE

The Turkish Army, gathered under the direction of General Liman von

Sanders, the German Military Governor of Turkey, was composed of Turks,

Bedouins, Arabs, refugees from Asia Minor, and a few Germans. About

20,000 men in all, under the command of Djemal Pasha, they crossed

the peninsula, dashed themselves vainly against the defences of the

Canal, and fell back broken into Turkey again. Very briefly, or as

concisely as is consistent with accuracy, let me review the Canal and

the approaches to the waterway, and the troops that the Turks had

available. Small as was the operation in actual degree of numbers, its

purpose, likely to be repeated again, was to dislocate the machinery of

the British Empire. The link that narrow waterway, 76 feet wide, means

to Australia, is something more than a sea route. It was, therefore,

not inappropriate that Australians should have taken part in its

defence then, as well as later.

One day, talking to a British officer who knew well the character of

the Sinai Peninsula, he remarked, "This is a race to water for water."

He was not sanguine of any success attending an attack, though he

remembered the crossing of the desert by 10,000 men under the Egyptian

General Ibraham, and without a railway line near the frontier at

the end of his journey. But I do not want to convey the idea that

the desert tract of 150 miles which lies between the Suez Canal and

the borderland of Turkey is waterless, or that it is level. On the

contrary. During January and February, when the chief rainfall occurs,

there are "wadis," or gorges, where the water runs away in raging

torrents until at length it disappears into the sand. So it comes about

there are any number of wells, some good, some rather bad; but if

carefully guarded, protected, and additional bores put down, the wells

would make a sufficient water supply for any invading host, even up

to as many as 40,000 men. Now this figure was, I believe, about the

actual number of the army that took part in the attempt to pierce the

line of the Canal. It was a quarter of the army stationed in Syria,

and contained some of the finest, as it did some of the poorest, of

the Turkish troops at that time under arms. It was impossible for the

Turkish military authorities to draw away from the coast-line of the

Mediterranean all of the army that had to be kept there in anticipation

of a British landing at such spots as Gaza and Adana, where the railway

to Constantinople runs close to the coast. Nor was the army well

trained or well equipped. On the contrary, scouting parties that were

captured, were in tattered garments and often without boots. Throughout

the army the commissariat was bad in comparison with what it was when

the Gallipoli campaign started.

Now, the Canal is approached by caravan routes from three points, a

northern, southern, and central zone. Gaza might be said to be the

starting-point of the northern route, and it runs just out of artillery

range along the coast until El Arisch is reached. It was along this

sea route that Napoleon took his 10,000 men in retreat from Egypt.

From this last town the route branches south towards El Kantara. The

intervening space between that important crossing and Port Said is

marshy, and is occupied with saltworks. In order to make Port Said

impregnable these were flooded, giving a lake of some 300 miles in area

and about 4 feet or 5 feet deep. Kantara therefore remained the most

vital northerly spot at which the Canal could be pierced, and next to

that, Ismailia. The northern route lies along almost level desert. But

the further one gets south, the loftier become the curious sandstone

and limestone ridges that, opposite Lake Timsah, can be seen, 12 or 14

miles from the Canal, rising up to 800 feet in height. Southwards from

this point there lies a chain of hills running parallel to the Canal,

with spurs running towards the central portion of the peninsula, where

the ranges boast mountain peaks of 6,000 and 7,000 feet in height.

There are gullies and ravines of an almost impassable nature, and the

route winds round the sides of mountains, which features made the

armies on the march hard to detect, as I learned our aviators reported.

Maan may be described as the jumping-off point for the starting of any

expedition against the central and southern portions of the Canal.

To Maan leads a railway, and it runs beyond down past the Gulf of

Akaba, parallel with the Red Sea. From Maan the caravan would go to

Moufrak, and from thence to Nekhl, high up in the hills and ranges of

the desert. Nekhl is not a large settlement, but, like most Arab and

Bedouin villages, just a few mud huts and some wells, with a few palms

and sycamore-trees round them. But when the end of January came there

were 300 Khurdish cavalry there and a great many infantry troops.

Nekhl is exactly half way on the direct route to Suez, but the force

that was to attack the Canal branched northward from this point until

it came over the hills by devious routes to Moiya Harah, and over the

last range that in the evening is to be seen from the Canal--a purply

range, with the pink and golden desert stretching miles between. Just

out of gun range, therefore, was the camp which the Turkish force made.

I am led from various official reports I have read to estimate that

Turkish force here at nearly 18,000. A certain number of troops, 3,000

perhaps, came by the northern route, and linked up on a given date with

the forces that were destined for the attack on Ismailia, Serapeum,

and Suez. That is to say, half the army was making feint attacks and

maintaining lines of communication, while the remainder, 20,000 men,

were available to be launched against the chosen point as it turned

out, Toussoum and Serapeum. But one must remember that, small as that

force was, the Turkish leader undoubtedly reckoned on the revolt of the

Moslems in Egypt, as every endeavour had been tried (and failed) to

stir up a holy war; and that at Jerusalem there must have been an army

of 100,000 men ready to maintain the territory won, should it be won,

even if they were not at a closer camp.

Therefore, the Turks overcame the water difficulty by elaborating the

wells and carrying supplies with them on the march, and they got the

support of artillery by attaching caterpillar wheels to get 6-in. and

other guns through the sand towards the Canal (I am not inclined to

believe the statements that the guns were buried in the desert years

before by the Germans, and had been unearthed for the occasion), and

for the actual crossing they brought up thirty or forty pontoons,

which had been carried on wagons up to the hills, and then across the

last level plain on the shoulders of the men. It was in very truth the

burning of their boats in the attack if it failed. They had no railway,

such as they had built in the later part of 1915, but relied on the

camels for their provision trains. The rainfall in January, the wet

season, was the best that had been experienced for many years, and so

far as the climatic conditions were concerned, everything favoured the

attack.

This brings us down to the end of January 1915. For the whole of the

month there had been parties of Turkish snipers approaching the Canal,

and in consequence, the mail boats and cargo steamers, as well as

transports, had had to protect their bridges with sandbags, while the

passengers kept out of sight as far as possible. On all troopships an

armed guard with fifty rounds per man was mounted on the deck facing

the desert. It was anticipated that the Turkish plan of attack would

include the dropping of mines into the Canal (which plan they actually

succeeded in), and thus block the Canal by sinking a ship in the

fairway.

Skirmishes and conflicts with outposts occurred first at the northern

end of the Canal defences, opposite to Kantara. The Intelligence Branch

of the General Staff was kept well supplied with information from

the refugees, Frenchmen, Armenians, and Arabs, who escaped from Asia

Minor. They told of the manner in which all equipment and supplies

were commandeered, together with camels. This did not point to very

enthusiastic interest or belief in the invasion. By the third week

in January the Turkish patrols could be seen along the slopes of the

hills, and aeroplanes reported large bodies of troops moving up from

Nekhl.

On 26th January the first brush occurred. It was a prelude to the real

attack. A small force opened fire on Kantara post, which was regarded

as a very vital point in the Canal line. The Turks brought up mountain

guns and fired on the patrols. At four o'clock on the 28th, a Thursday

morning, the attacks developed.

The British-Indian outpost line waited purely on the defensive, and

with small losses to either side, the enemy withdrew. Minor engagements

occurred from this time on till the attack which synchronized with

the main attack--40 miles away--on 3rd February. Reinforcements were

observed entrenched behind the sand dunes. Now, that night the Indian

outposts successfully laid a trap for the Turks by changing the

direction of the telegraph line and the road that led into Kantara.

They led the Turks, when they eventually did come on, into an ambush.

At this post was stationed the 1st Australian Clearing Hospital, and

very fine work was performed by it. Sergeant Syme, though contrary to

orders, drove a motor ambulance out under fire and brought in a number

of wounded.

Never have new troops won quicker appreciation from their officers than

did the companies of Australian Engineers, under Major H. O. Clogstoun,

who began in January to build up the defences of the Canal. They were

a happy, hard-working unit, and showed rare skill and adaptability in

making a series of bridges at Ismailia. You would see a large load of

them going up the Canal perhaps to improve trenches, and they began

a friendship (that Anzac cemented) with the Indian troops, which I

doubt if time will do anything but strengthen. There were seventeen to

twenty pontoons, or rowing boats, which they applied to the purpose,

constructed, while the materials for other floating bridges were

obtained from iron casks. In, I believe, eleven minutes these bridges

could be thrown across the width of the Canal. Tugs were available

to tow the sections to whatever point they might be required. As the

traffic of shipping was heavy, the bridges were constantly being joined

and detached again. Bathing in the Canal was a great luxury, and the

men at the time, and the infantry later on, took full advantage of

it. Before passing on, let me give the comment of Colonel Wright,

the Engineer officer on General Maxwell's Staff, on a suggestion of

removing these Engineers back to Cairo after having completed the

bridges:--

I sincerely hope that you are not going to take this company from me

until the present strife is over. They are simply invaluable, both

officers and men, and have thoroughly earned the excellent reputation

they have already acquired everywhere they have been. They have worked

up till 2.30 by moonlight. Their work has been excellent. The men

have been delighted with the work, and they have been exemplary in

their conduct. Even if you can produce other companies as good, I

should be rather in a hole if No. 3 were to be taken away.

Thus we arrive at the day before the main attack was delivered. It

was intended by the Turkish and German leaders that there should be

feints all along the 70 miles of fightable front, and that between

Toussoum and Serapeum the main body would be thrown in and across the

Canal. Plans were formulated to deceive the defenders as to the exact

point of the attack, troops marching diagonally across the front (an

operation which had brought disaster to the German Army at the Marne),

and changing position during the days preceding the main venture; but,

nevertheless, this manoeuvre was limited to a 20-mile section, with

Ismailia as the central point.

The Turks commenced on the afternoon of Tuesday, 2nd February, to

engage our artillery at a point some miles north of Ismailia, called

El Ferdan, but there was little force in the attack. Really it seemed

only designed to cover the movement of bodies of troops which had

been massed at Kateb el Kheil, and which were now with camel trains

proceeding south and taking up position for the attack. A party of

British and Indian troops moved out to locate, and silence if possible,

the artillery, but a sandstorm of great violence compelled both the

Indian and Turkish forces to retire within their camps.

[Illustration: AUSTRALIANS MANNING A COMMUNICATION TRENCH LEADING TO

ISMAILIA FERRY POST.]

[Illustration: TURKISH PRISONERS IN CAIRO.

To face p. 82.]

On the morning of the 3rd the main attack was delivered. I was enabled

to visit the defences at Ismailia, and was taken through the Ismailia

ferry post round through the long length of communication trenches that

led to the forward positions and back to the banks of the Canal, many

hundred yards farther north. I saw the extraordinary pits that had

been dug by the Gurkhas, in the centre of which had been placed spiked

iron rails, on which many of the enemy subsequently became impaled.

There were flares and trip wires round the lines, making, even on the

darkest night, a surprise attack an impossibility. Ismailia post, like,

for that matter, all the posts I saw along the Canal, was exceedingly

strong. The trenches were 10 feet deep, and many of them protected

with overhead cover, with iron and wood and sandbags. Extreme care

had been taken to conceal the exact contour of the trenches, and from

two or three hundred yards away out in the desert I would never have

suspected that there was a post bristling with machine guns on the edge

of the yellow desert dunes behind which lay the blue waters of the

Canal. For at this place, like so many spots along the Canal, the banks

are as much as 80 feet high, which, while they serve as a protection,

do not always enable the warships to fire over the banks. Gaps,

however, were to be found, and the Bitter Lakes presented suitable

stations for the battleships that took part in the battle, as I shall

indicate.

Before dawn on the 3rd, therefore, between Toussoum and Serapeum, at

each of which places there were posts held by Indian troops, the main

attempt was delivered and failed, though it was pressed home against

a weak spot with some force. In choosing this point to drive in their

wedge the Turks had borne in mind that the Suez-Cairo Railway was

within a few miles of the Canal, and that one of the branches of the

great Freshwater Canal, that supplies the whole of the length of the

Canal settlements, lay not a mile away. Weather conditions favoured the

Turks. It was cloudy and overcast. One would not say that the defenders

were unprepared, for there had been too much quite apparent preparation

by the enemy on the previous days. What was not known was the exact

point of launching the attack. No doubt Djemal Pasha, who was present

in person, gained much information from his spies, but he seems to

have been rather wrongly informed. An early move of this adroit leader

was an attempted bluff some days before the attack, when a letter was

received by General Sir John Maxwell suggesting that, as the Canal was

a neutral zone, and that shipping should not be interrupted, the fight

should take place on ground to be selected on the Egyptian or western

side of the Canal. One can picture the Turkish General, tongue in his

cheek, writing the note.

As regards the defence works: at the point of attack there was a post

at Toussoum, which lies not 3 miles from the southern extremity of

Lake Timsah and about 6 or 8 miles from Ismailia. A series of trenches

had been dug on the east bank of the Canal. They were complete and

strong, practically intended as a guard for the Canal Company's station

of Toussoum, on the west bank. A ferry was in the vicinity, close to

the station on the side next to the lake. A mile south was Serapeum,

another post on the east bank, with trenches on the western bank and a

camp. At Serapeum proper was a fine hospital.

[Illustration: _Plan of the attempted Crossing of the Suez Canal at

Toussoum & Serapeum by a TURKISH FORCE on 3^{rd} Feb ·1915·_]

The alarm was sounded at 3.25, when sentries noticed blurred

figures moving along the Canal bank not 100 yards distant from the

Toussoum post. It was soon reported that the enemy were coming up in

considerable strength on the south side (see point marked 47, on map)

of the post. Therefore it may be taken that the enemy approach was

carried out very quietly and silently, for two pontoons were already

in the water when they were fired on from the groups of Indian troops

entrenched on the western bank, and were sunk. This was the signal

for launching the great effort, and immediately firing broke out in

tremendous volume from Toussoum post. Artillery firing soon opened

from both sides; the air was noisy with shell. Curiously, though the

Turkish gunners had at first the range, they soon lengthened it,

evidently in the belief that they would cut off reinforcements; their

shells went high and little damage was done. The Toussoum guard-house

escaped with a few hits only, and bullets riddled posts and rafters.

Vainly about 1,000 Turks endeavoured to seize Toussoum post, while

three times that number launched the pontoons, which had been carried

on the shoulders of thirty men across the soft sand to the bank. There

were places here suitable for the launching, for V-shaped dips or

gullies enabled the enemy to approach, protected on either flank,

though exposed to a murderous frontal fire from the opposite Canal

bank, which apparently they had not expected. At the distance-post

at 47/2 the first launching was attempted, but almost simultaneously

came the launching for an attack at 47/6. Shouts of "Allah!" were now

started by the enemy south of the Toussoum post. At once machine guns

came into action and the shouting of "Allah!" died away. By this time

the Turks got their machine guns into action, and were ripping belts of

lead into the British post, making any attempt at a flanking movement

impossible. This was, however, unnecessary to foil the main plan; for

the pontoons that had been carried with such terrible difficulty across

the desert were being sunk almost as they were launched. A few reached

midstream--the rowers were riddled with bullets, the sides of the

pontoons ripped, and they sank almost immediately with their freight.

Two only reached the opposite bank. One was sunk there immediately

and the Turks killed. From the other the men scrambled and entrenched

themselves, digging up the soft mud in their desperation with their

hands. Next morning they capitulated. Four men alone reached the upper

portion of the shore and escaped, only to be captured a few days later

in the villages.

An hour after the first shot was fired, the 5th Battery Egyptian

Mounted Artillery came into action from the opposite bank, and the

Turkish position and head of the wedge being definitely determined,

companies from the 62nd Punjabis from the reserve at Serapeum opened

fire from midway between the two stations on the west Egyptian bank.

The noise of rifles and the intense popping of machine guns resounded

up and down the banks of the Canal between the two posts. The ground

across which the Turks had made their final dash was tussocky,

and behind these tussocks they gained some shelter and entrenched

themselves, once the crossing had so dismally failed.

It is estimated that some eighteen pontoons were launched. Some were

dropped in the water over a low rubble wall that had been left close

to the water's edge, others were brought down part of the bank less

steep, and which offered easy access. Four boatloads of the enemy were

sunk in midstream, the boats riddled with bullets, either from the

shore batteries or from a torpedo-boat destroyer that came down from

Serapeum at a quarter to eight. As daylight came, the Turks who still

were in the water or struggling up the banks were shot down, while some

few, as related, managed to dig themselves in on the west bank. The

remainder of the attackers (killed, wounded, and prisoners numbered

nearly 3,000), about 3,000, retired some hundred yards. As far as those

in command at Toussoum and Serapeum can estimate it, after reading

Turkish captured orders, a whole brigade of Syrians, Armenians, and

Turkish troops, some the flower of the Army, took part in the attack;

but for some reason not explainable the main body, about 12,000 men,

never came into action. The initial attack failed to push back the

resistance offered, and the Turks, one supposes, became disheartened,

though actually the troops guarding those posts were barely 2,000. Boat

after boat the enemy had hurried up till daylight broke, but often the

bearers were shot down as they reached the Canal bank and pinned under

their own pontoons. Dawn, no doubt, brought realization to the enemy

that the attack had signally failed. All their boats were gone. They

had lost eggs and baskets as well. New Zealand infantry companies were

in the trenches on the west bank, and they kept up a withering fire

directly opposite on the entrenched foe. In the meantime the _Hardinge_

and the _d'Entrecasteaux_ opened fire with 5-and 8-inch guns, and soon

silenced the 6-inch battery which the Turks had dug in, some 5 miles

from the Canal, between Toussoum and Ismailia. But, entrenching, the

Turks continued to fight all through the morning and afternoon of the

3rd. The British received reinforcements shortly after noon and the

position was safe. But the last phase of the attack was not ended

quickly.

At twenty minutes to nine that morning five lines of the enemy

were seen advancing on Serapeum post, with a field battery of four

15-pounder guns in support. Their objective was evidently a frontal

attack on Serapeum. Our Indian reinforcements crossed the Canal at that

post, and the 92nd Punjabis moved out from the post and were ordered to

clear up the small parties of Turks believed to be still amongst the

dunes on the banks. About the same time a number of the Turkish troops

amongst the hummocks commenced to retire. It was evidently done with a

view to massing their forces; at the same time the enemy deployed two

brigades in two lines some 3 miles from Serapeum, west and facing that

post. The Punjabis met this attack. As supports there had been sent the

Gurkha Rifles. The Punjabis occupied a ridge about 500 yards from the

Serapeum post in a south-easterly line. An hour later three battalions

of the enemy seemed to be advancing on the post in close order, with

wide intervals between each battalion. That attack was never pressed

home.

A mile north, on the Toussoum flank, the battle still raged.

Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Glover, just before noon, led a force of 92nd

Punjabis in an attempt to dislodge the enemy from our day trenches,

which they had occupied to the east of Toussoum post. At noon seven

battalions of the enemy, with numerous field guns, could be seen about

3,500 yards away. Curiously enough, these units were halted. So the

Indian troops' work of clearing the day trenches, continued, the Turks

sending no reinforcements to their doomed comrades. It was here that

occurred an incident which was thought to be treachery, but which

perhaps may have been a misunderstanding on the part of the men in the

trench. As it was related officially it is stated: "The enemy in the

trenches made signs of surrender several times, but would not lay down

their arms. Finally, some men of the left counter-attack got within 20

yards of the enemy's trench, and one machine gun took up a position

enfilading it at point-blank range. The enemy's commander came across

and made signs that they would surrender. He then returned to his own

trench, seized a rifle, fixed a bayonet, and fired a shot at our men.

Several of the enemy aimed at our troops. The machine gun opened fire

at once, killing the commander, and the remainder of the enemy laid

down their arms and were taken prisoners. Many prisoners were wounded,

and fifty dead were counted by this post, where some pontoons were also

found."

Thus late in the afternoon the trenches near Toussoum were free; all

pontoons in the vicinity had been destroyed; there remained but the

enemy opposite the Serapeum position to deal with. Fresh British

reinforcements began to arrive at dusk, including the 27th Punjabis.

It was cold and raining, and during the night the enemy showed no

disposition to renew the attack, though an intermittent fire was kept

up. The enemy still held a small point on the east bank at 47/8,

which seemed to indicate a fresh attempt to cross. None was made, and

evidently the party was sacrificed while preparations were made for

flight of the main army and orders could be circulated over the 90-mile

front.

At daylight on the morning of the 4th the enemy could be seen still

digging themselves in opposite the ridge near Serapeum, occupied by

the 92nd Punjabis. Successful steps were immediately taken to capture

the few enemy remaining in the trenches on the east bank, and Captain

Cohran in charge, with two companies, moved up in extended formation.

Progress was slow. The enemy was very scattered, and the sand dunes

uncertain. Again there were signs of treachery on the part of the enemy

intimating surrender. Considerable British reinforcements had been sent

up, and Major MacLachlan, who had taken over command, at once ordered

a charge at a moment when the enemy commenced to stand up, apparently

about to charge themselves. Fire was directed immediately against them,

and they quickly got down again into the trenches. Shortly after this

six officers and 120 men surrendered.

Little more remains to be told. At the height of the engagement a

Prussian officer, Major von den Hagen, was shot, and a cross marks the

place of his burial, and can be seen to-day from passing steamers on

the top of the Canal bank. On him was found a white flag folded in a

khaki bag. It was some 2 feet square, and, while it might have been

merely a night signalling flag, it is more probable that it was carried

for the purpose of trickery.

The enemy lost some 600 killed and about 3,000 wounded or taken

prisoner. The British losses were comparatively light, about 50 killed

and 200 wounded.

Once the main Turkish Army started to retire they fled hurriedly,

retreating precipitately to the south-east, while the main body

withdrew into the hills. Many people have wondered since that the

opportunity of trapping the Turkish Army by a rapid pursuit, when all

the cavalry was available, and when camel trains were ready to move off

in support, was not seized. As a matter of fact, orders were issued

for a pursuing force to leave on the evening of the 4th, but early

in the morning of the 5th countermanding orders came through. As the

Australian troops and New Zealanders I referred to as being in reserve

near Ismailia station were to form a part of the pursuing force, it was

to them a keen blow. I rather suspect that the countermanding came from

the War Office and Lord Kitchener, who understood the Moslem mind so

clearly. For I have it from the lips of the officer, Lieut.-Colonel

Howard, who was out on many reconnaissances to the eastern hills, that

it was probably a good thing that the counter-attack had not been

persisted in, for the Turks, on the evening of the 4th, when the whole

of the main body so unexpectedly withdrew to the ridges, took up a

thoroughly well entrenched position, which he thought it was reasonable

to regard as an ambush. Patrols subsequently went into the hills and

destroyed some of the wells that had been sunk, cleared up many points

of doubt about the attack, and captured camel trains and provisions. By

the end of the week not a Turk was within 60 miles of the Canal.

PART II

_THE ANZAC CAMPAIGN_