LIFE AT QUINN'S AND POPE'S
It is doubtful if the true history of Quinn's and Pope's positions
will ever be collated. But any soldier will tell you that these two
posts made Anzac, for it was on the holding of these precarious and
well-nigh impossible positions in the early days of occupation that
the whole Australian line depended. The names will be for ever bound
up with the gallant officers who defended them, though it will be only
meet that their subsequent commanders should have their names inscribed
on the roll of the bravest of brave men that clung to the edges of
the hillsides at the head of Monash Gully. There was, till the last
days, always some fighting going on round Quinn's and Pope's, where
the Turkish trenches approached to within a few yards of ours. Sorties
by one side or the other were frequently made there; always bombing,
alarms, mines, and countermines. I would never have been surprised if
at any time the whole of Pope's and Quinn's had collapsed, blown to
atoms by some vast network of mines, or wrecked by shell fire. The
two places were a mass of trenches, burrows, secret tunnels, and deep
shafts. They bristled with machine guns. My greatest difficulty is to
adequately convey some detailed idea of the positions as I saw them--a
few of the desperate conflicts have been already recorded, and I hope
that what will follow will enable the nature of the fighting to be
better realized.
Quinn's! The famous post was soon after the landing known throughout
the Eastern Mediterranean, and its history, or a portion of it, reached
England and Australia early in the accounts of Anzac. That it "held,"
the Turk found to his cost. He tried to overwhelm it; he was driven
back into his trenches, not once, but scores and scores of times.
In the first weeks of the fighting, the Turk came on against Quinn's
with cries of "Allah! Allah!" and retired amidst weepings and
moanings, leaving men dead and dying before the Post. From that
day it became a desperate position, but when I examined it the men
(they were Canterbury men from New Zealand and some of our own lads)
under Lieut.-Colonel Malone, a magnificent stamp of leader, were
quite cheery, and the whole tone of the Post was one of confidence,
notwithstanding any attack the enemy might make. "We are waiting for
him, and wish he would come," were the words of the commanding officer.
"Brother Turk has learnt his lesson; so he sits still and flings
bombs--he gets two back for every one he throws." That was the spirit
which enabled Quinn's to be successfully held.
Once, in the early days, the way to Quinn's was through a hail of
bullets up Shrapnel Gully, dodging from traverse to traverse, till you
came to the foot of a ridge that ran almost perpendicularly up 200
feet. On the top and sides clung Quinn's. The ridge was bent here,
where one of the heads of the great gully had eaten into the plateau.
That was what made the hillside so steep. Quinn's helped to form one
side of the ravine called the "Bloody Angle." Yes, in the early history
of Quinn's and Pope's, just across the gully, not 100 yards away, had
flowed down those hillsides the best blood of the Australian army.
For the enemy peered down into the hollow--then not afraid, as he was
later, to expose his head and shoulders to take deliberate aim. The
moral ascendancy of our sharpshooters was the first step in the victory
of Quinn's.
After June it was no longer a matter of the same extreme peril coming
up the broad valley, for there was a secret sap most of the way along
Shrapnel Gully. Once you turned north, half way up the gully, you
lost the view of the sea behind the hills, and you found yourself
among a variety of Army Service Corps units--among water-tanks and
water-carriers. You heard the clatter of pumps and the rattle of
mess-tins as the men stood out in long lines from the cooks' fires that
gleamed at half a dozen points. There was only a space of a few feet
on either side of the path that contained the dugouts; the rest of
the hillside was still covered with prickly undergrowth and shooting
grasses. The sound of a mouth-organ resounded up the valley; bullets
sped past very high overhead, and shells dropped very occasionally at
this point among the inner hills behind the ridge. From the gully I
turned on my left into a sap that wound about and shut off all views
except that of Quinn's and Pope's. I came out of the sap again into
the gully to a place where sandbags were piled thick and high to stop
the bullets, for here it was not so comfortable, as far as the enemy's
rifles were concerned. You went into a perfect fortress of low-lying
squat huts, to which you found an entrance after some difficulty. I had
to squeeze through a narrow, deep trench to reach it.
That was the headquarters of Brigadier-General Chauvel, who commanded
the central section of the line that I could see all along the edge
of the ridge about 150 yards away--almost on top of us--Pope's on the
left, the isolated hilltop; then Quinn's, Courtney's, and Steel's.
They were a group of danger points--a constant source of anxiety and
despair to the General who commanded them. It was delightfully cool
inside those caves in the gully after the heat of the sap. I was told
by Major Farr and Major Williams, who were talking to the commanders
of the posts by telephone, that I could not lose my way. "Keep on
following the narrow path, and if you are lucky you will be in time for
a battle." Each hung up the receiver and gave a curt order for some
further boxes of bombs to be dispatched.
Battles on Quinn's were no mild engagements, for usually the hillside
was covered with bursting shells and bombs that the Turks hurled over
in amazing numbers. Fortunately, these "stab" attacks were brief. As I
pushed on towards the narrow sap that ran into the side of the hill, I
could see by the excavated earth how it zigzagged up the side of the
ridge.
I passed great quantities of stores, and, under the lee of a small
knoll, cooks' lines for the men holding the Post above, which was
still obscured from view. All one could see was a section of the
Turkish trench just where it ended 20 yards from our lines, and the
barbed-wire entanglements that had been thrown out as a screen. The
air was filled with the appetizing odour of sizzling bacon, onions,
and potatoes, while shells whizzed across the valley. I was glad to be
safely walking between high sandbag parapets.
Soon the path became so steep that steps had been made in the
hill--steps made by branches interlaced and pegged to the ground. It
was a climb, one ascending several feet in every stride. Sandbags
were propped up here and there in pillars to protect us from the
sight of the enemy on our left. One's view was confined to the wire
entanglements on the skyline and the steep, exposed slope of the hill
on the right. Behind lay the valley, full of shadows and points of
light from dugouts and fires. They were quite safe down there, but you
were almost on the edge of a volcano that might break out above you
at any moment. You passed various sandbagged huts, until quite near
the crest of the hill trenches began to run in various directions,
and you saw the rounded top of the hill chipped away and bared under
the constant rifle and bomb attacks. What had appeared ledges in the
distance resolved themselves into a series of terraces, where the men
found protection and, as busy as bees, were preparing for tea.
Lieut.-Colonel Malone was my guide. He was an Irishman, and keen about
the Post and just the man to hold it. His great motto was "that war
in the first place meant the cultivation of domestic virtues," and
he practised it. He brought me up a gently inclined track towards a
point at which barbed wire could be seen across a gully which ended
in a sharp fork. That was the "Bloody Angle." Then we turned around
and looked back down the gully. In the distance, 100 yards away on the
right, along the top of the ridge, were two distinct lines of trenches,
with ground between which you at once knew was "dead" ground. The
hill doubled back, which almost left Quinn's open to fire from the
rear. "That is our position--Courtney's Post and Steel's to the east,"
said my guide, "and those opposite are the Turkish trenches. We call
them the 'German Officers' Trenches,' because we suspect that German
officers were there at one time. Now we have given them a sporting
chance to snipe us; let us retire. I always give a visitor that
thrill." It was only the first of several such episodes which vividly
brought home to one's mind the desperate encounters that had been waged
around this famous station. The men who held on here had a disregard of
death. They were faced with it constantly, continuously.
There were four rows of terraces up the side of the hill. Once the
men had just lived in holes, dug as best they could, with a maze of
irregular paths. That was in the period when the fighting was so fierce
that no time could be spared to elaborate the trenches not actually in
the firing-line. Afterwards, when the garrison was increased to 800 and
material came ashore--wooden beams and sheet-iron--conditions underwent
a change. Four or five terraces were built and long sheds constructed
along the ledges and into the side of the hill. These had sandbag cover
which bullets and bombs could not penetrate. Just over the edge of the
hill, not 30 yards away, were our own lines, and the Turkish trenches
4 to 25 yards beyond again. When the shells came tearing overhead from
our guns down in the gully the whole hillside shook with the concussion
of the burst. No wonder the terraces collapsed one day! I was standing
talking to Lieut.-Colonel Malone and saw about 100 of the men who were
in reserve leaning against the back of the shed that belonged to a
terrace lower down. They were all looking up at an aeroplane, a German
Taube, skimming overhead. A huge bomb burst in the trenches on the top
of the hill, and the men, involuntarily, swayed back. That extra weight
broke away the terrace, and it collapsed with a roar. Fortunately, the
damage done was small, though about eight men were injured.
To go through Quinn's was like visiting a miniature fortress. The
whole extent of the front was not more than 200 yards. One dived down
innumerable tunnels that ran 10 or 20 feet in the clay under the
enemy trenches, and contained mines, ready set, to be blown up at the
first sign of an enemy attack in mass. A certain amount of protection
had been gained at Quinn's from the deluge of bombs that the enemy
accurately threw, by a screen of wire-netting that caught the bombs so
they burst on the parapets. But such protection was no use against the
heavy football bomb. Loopholes were all of iron plating, and in most
cases of double thickness, and even thus they were almost pierced by
the hail of bullets from the Turkish machine guns. The Turks did not
occupy their forward trenches by day. Only at night they crept up into
them in large numbers. Several craters formed a sort of danger-point
between the lines where mines had been exploded, and into these it was
the endeavour of some Turks to steal at night on their way to an attack.
Now, one of the stories about Quinn's--alas! how many tales of
gallantry must go unrecorded--is that the enemy's troops became so
demoralized by the nearness of the trenches and the constant vigilance
of our men that, in order to properly man their trenches in this
sector, the Turks had to give non-commissioned rank to all the men
there posted. Our own garrison in June and July were changed every
eight days. Lieut.-Colonel Malone, however, remained in charge, having
under him mixed forces of New Zealanders and Australians. One day
I went with him into one series of tunnel trenches that wound back
and forth and that opened up unexpectedly into a strongly fortified
emplacement either for a machine gun or an observation post. Lying all
along the tunnels, either on the ground, pressed close to the walls,
or in a niche, or ledge, were the garrison. It was difficult not to
tread on them. We came to a point where, pegged to the earthen walls,
were any number of pictures--of Sydney beach, of St. Kilda foreshore,
of bush homes and haunts, of the latest beauty actresses, and--most
treasured possession--some of Kirchner's drawings and coloured work
from French papers.
They were a happy family at Quinn's. Once orders had been given that
conversations could be carried on only in whispers, so close was the
enemy. For the most part, however, that was not necessary, but there
were certain places where we had machine-gun emplacements--traps
they were really, and the guns had never been fired. They were to be
surprises for "Johnny Turk" when he should attack again in force. Here
certainly it would not have been wise to discuss the position, for the
enemy, some few yards distant, might have heard and understood. One had
only to show a periscope above the trenches at Quinn's to bring down a
hail of bullets, and three periscopes was the signal for the turning
of a machine gun on the sandbag parapets, with a broken glass in the
periscope the only result.
[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS OF THE 5TH INFANTRY BATTALION LOOKING
TOWARDS POPE'S HILL.
The terraces dug out of the side of the hill can be traced. The
firing-line is forty yards over the crest.
To face p. 198.]
The shells from our guns in the valley just skimmed the tops of the
trenches, clearing them about 12 feet and bursting in the enemy's
lines. It was a very sensational experience until one got used to the
sound and could detect which way the shells were travelling. It is
told of this Post that two men were sitting in the trench talking in
whispers when a shell came whining and roaring towards them. It burst.
They did not rise to see where, but it was near. Said the new arrival
to his mate, "Is that ours?"
"No," came the hissed reply, "theirs!"
"The----!" was the only vouchsafed and typically Anzac comment.
Yes, the Post was undoubtedly strong, for it could enfilade any attack
from German Officers' Trench on the right, and the Turks knew that
and attempted none. What was most amazing about the position were the
series of gun-pits, dug out of the centre of a shoulder of the hill
which ran down the right side of the position on the flank of the
gully nearest to Courtney's. I went up through a winding passage-way,
where blue-bottle flies kept up a drowsy humming. Every half-dozen
yards there were small concealed openings in the side of the tunnel,
through which I looked out on to the terraces and towards Pope's. When
I reached the summit and found a series of three chambers each with
ledges ready for machine guns, Lieut.-Colonel Malone explained. "This,"
he said, "is the place to which we might retire if the Turks did break
through the Post and come down the gully side. We would catch them
here. They cannot detect the guns, for they are hidden by this thick
scrub. We are now on the side of that hill you saw on to which the
Turks, from in front of Pope's and the Bloody Angle, can fire. We could
reach them, but the Staff will not give me the machine guns. The reason
is we have not enough, as it is, on the Post--not as many as I would
like. I would like a dozen--we have seven. The enemy would never get us
out of here till we starved." I no longer ceased to wonder why Quinn's
was declared "perfectly safe."
To get across to Pope's you had to go down into the gully again by the
steep way you had come, and travel another 200 yards up towards its
head until you came to an almost bare and precipitous hillside, which
you climbed the best way you could, picking a path in and out amongst
the dugouts. If you had a load of stores, you could go to a part where
a rope hung down from the crown of the hill, about 100 feet up, and by
it you might haul yourself to the top. Pope's was even more exposed
than Quinn's when you entered it. The Commander's dugouts were perched
on the back of the hill, facing the gully, and bullets and shells burst
round his cave entrances. Lieut.-Colonel Rowell, of the 3rd Regiment of
Light Horse, was in charge the day I went over every section of it. The
Light Horsemen were desperately proud of their holding this dangerous
and all-important knoll that blocked the entrance to the gully.
Here, again, there were tunnels connecting up the front and support
trenches. They twisted about and wound in and out, conforming to the
shape of the top of the hill. But they were not connected on either
flank. It was just an isolated post. There were positions for machine
guns that by a device were made disappearing guns. They were hauled up
rapidly by a pulley and rope and then lowered out of sight again. It
was a rough-and-ready makeshift, but the only means of keeping secret
positions (on a hill that did not offer much scope for selection)
for the guns. Iron loopholes were absolutely essential; an iron flap
fell across them as soon as the rifle had been withdrawn. I remember
standing opposite one of these till I was warned to move, and, sure
enough, just afterwards some bullets went clean through and thumped
against the back of the trench. Many men had been shot through the
loopholes, so close were the enemy's snipers.
Down on the right flank of the post, just facing the head of Monash
Gully and the Nek and Chessboard Trenches, was a remarkable series of
sharpshooters' posts. They were reached through a tunnel which had
been bored into the side of the hill. The bushes that grew on the edge
had not been disturbed, and the Turks could know nothing of them. It
was through these our crack rifle-shots fired on the Turks when they
attempted, on various occasions, to come down through the head of
Monash Gully from their trenches on the Chessboard and round the flank
of Pope's Hill. Maps show the nearness of the Turks' line to ours,
scarcely more than 15 yards away in places: what they do not show is
the mining and countermining beneath the surface. Constantly sections
of trenches were being blown up by the diligent sappers, and in July,
Pope's Hill had become almost an artificial hill, held together,
one might say, by the sandbags that kept the saps and trenches
intact. Words fail to convey the heartbreaking work of keeping the
communications free and the trenches complete, for every Turkish shell
that burst did damage of some sort, and nearly every morning early
some portion of the post had to be rebuilt. Looking here across the
intervening space--it was very narrow--to the right and left I could
see the Turkish strong overhead cover on their trenches, made of wooden
beams and pine logs. Between was no man's land.
What tragedy lay in this fearful neutral zone! The immediate foreground
was littered with old jam-tins, some of which were unexploded "bombs."
There was a rifle, covered with dust, and a heap of rags. My attention
was called to the red collar of the upper portion of what had been a
Turkish jacket, and gradually I made out the frame of the soldier, who
had mouldered away, inside it. It was a pitiful sight. There were four
other unburied men from the enemy's ranks. Nearer still was a boot and
the skeleton leg of a Turk, lying as he had fallen in a crumpled heap.
I gathered all this from the peeps I had through the periscope.
Such is an outline of what the posts that Lieut.-Colonel Pope and Major
Quinn won and established, had developed into after months of fighting.
Something has already been told of the early battles round them. It is
impossible to chronicle all the attacks and counter-attacks. It must
here suffice to continue the history already begun in other chapters
by referring briefly to the sortie on 9th May, the third Sunday after
landing.
Quinn's was still a precarious position. On both sides the engineers
had been sapping forward, and the trenches were so close that the men
shouted across to one another. Near midnight on the 9th, the 15th
Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Cannan, with two companies of the
16th in support, about 900 men in all, attacked the Turkish trenches
in front of Quinn's. They issued forth in three separate bodies,
and after a fierce struggle routed the Turks. Rapidly communication
trenches were dug connecting up the forward with the rear trenches,
which meant that two island patches of ground were formed. Then it was
found that all three parties had not linked up, and the Turks held an
intervening section of the line. An attempt by companies of the 15th
and 16th Battalions failed to gain the Turkish parapets in the face of
a terrible fire. When dawn broke the whole of the captured trenches
became the centre of concentrated Turkish fire from two flanks, and
our gallant men were compelled to make their way back along their new
communication trenches to their own lines again. This, therefore,
left the Turkish trenches and our own connected by three saps. It was
an amazing position. Sandbag parapets had been hastily erected, and
on either side of these the troops stood and bombed one another. The
infantry called in Arabic they had learnt in Egypt, believing that
the Turks would understand, "Saida" (which is "Good day") and other
phrases. They threw across bully-beef tins or bombs, indiscriminately.
It was what the troops called "good sport."
So the positions remained for five days until Friday, 14th May, when
a Light Horse squadron of the 2nd Light Horse--C Squadron, under
Major D. P. Graham--was chosen to attack the Turks and rout them from
this unpleasantly close proximity to our line. The communication
sap had first to be cleared. Two parties of men, 30 in each, with
bayonets fixed, dashed from the trenches at 1.45 a.m. In the face of a
tremendous machine-gun and musketry fire from the enemy they charged
for the parapets, so short a distance away. The troops dropped rapidly.
Major Graham, seeing his men melt away, endeavoured to rally those
that remained. But the Turkish fire was too fierce, and the few that
survived were compelled to jump into the communication sap, and thus
make their way back to their lines. Major Graham himself, with the
utmost coolness, brought in some of the wounded after the attack had
failed, but at length he fell, mortally wounded. So ended the first May
attack.
Desperate endeavours were made by the Turks, in their grand attack
on 19th May, to enter our trenches, but the line was held safely
under Major Quinn's command until Saturday, 29th May, when, after
exploding a mine under part of our forward position, a strong body of
Turks managed to penetrate, during the early morning, to our second
line. The Post was at that moment in a desperate position. Major Quinn
himself, at the head of the gallant 15th Battalion, commenced to lead a
counter-attack. The din of battle was terrific. Few fiercer conflicts
had raged round the famous posts than on this cool, clear morning. The
Turks were routed and driven back to their lines, but the brave leader,
Major Quinn, fell, riddled with bullets, across the very trenches
which his men had dug. So fierce had been the charge that a certain
section of trench held by the enemy had been run over by our troops.
In that the Turks clung. They were caught in between cross-fires, but
held desperately the communication trenches. After various attempts
to dislodge them it was suddenly thought that they might surrender,
which solution, on being signalled to them, they willingly agreed to.
The post was immediately strengthened, and the dangerous communication
trenches were effectively blocked and held by machine guns.
Lieut.-Colonel Pope, after desperate fighting on the hill that bore
his name, still survived to lead his battalion in the great August
attacks. The brigade, and, indeed, the whole Division, mourned the loss
of so gallant an officer and so fearless a leader as Major Quinn. They
honour his name no less than that of the dauntless Pope.