THE NIGHT BATTLE ON CHANAK BAIR
Of the general progress of the battle through the night and indeed
until he was wounded, Mac knew little. He heard but vaguely what was
going on on other portions of the front and could see little, and
gathered only indefinite impressions of happenings elsewhere.
He passed the second night of the battle in alternately trenching and
resting, when he occasionally had a few moments of sleep. It was very
dark, warm and clear with a glorious showing of stars. The noise of
battle increased and seemed to fill the whole sky and earth as it had
not in the daytime. Star rockets shot skyward from the enemy lines and
burst into dazzling falling lights while the fellows crouched low in
the scrub to escape notice. The flash of the artillery and of the
bursting shells were here, there and everywhere, but mostly along the
ridge tops, and the musketry roared spasmodically in squalls along the
ridges, or drifted down from the high summits.
At length the stars slowly faded before the eastern glow, and the
hill-tops stood out darker than before. Did dawn find them gained?
Mac waited eagerly for more light; but, when it came, found little to
discover. The summits seemed to be won, but he could find no trace of
the British nearer Anafarta.
Sunday passed much in the same way as Saturday. The Suvla Bay force
was still hanging about the landing-place, and there was no indication
of a heavy engagement on their front. The New Zealanders had reached
the high ridges of Chanak Bair, but no one knew, if they had progressed
at all, how far they had gone over on the Dardanelles side. Nearly all
the hospital ships had vanished with full cargoes of wounded; but
otherwise the whole scene was little different from that of the
previous day. The hot hours passed slowly, the battle roared on, and
Mac and his mates wondered what might be their next move, for they were
not at present opposed to any direct enemy force.
In the middle of the afternoon they received orders to prepare to move,
with the exception of one Squadron which was to garrison the positions.
They moved off almost immediately, passing down the steep northern
slope of the plateau and forcing their way through the dense thicket
until they reached the bottom of the hollow. They turned to the right
and jostled their way up through the struggling traffic along the
narrow, suffocating bed of the ravine. There were places where many
fine fellows had been laid low by snipers, places where they hurried,
if possible. There were times when they were jammed between mules and
the banks, and others when they had to wait many minutes for
opportunities of pushing on. After an hour of this sort of thing, they
came practically to the head of the ravine, and pushed into the scrub
on one side to make temporary bivouacs.
Here all slacked and rested their weary bodies, stretched out full
length under the stunted bushes. Weak, most of them, with dysentery
when the battle started, they had now had two days of it, and with the
heat, the short commons of water, and little sleep, they felt a wee bit
tired, and they made the most of the short hours.
The cool of evening came again, and with it orders to prepare for
further movements, this time to the firing line in support of their own
men on the summit of the hills above. They made the best possible meal
from the dry rations, dry enough when there was unlimited water, but
quite impossible to more than nibble in these almost waterless days.
Mac did not feel very hungry; but he had room inside his thin frame for
a tankful of water. He had started on Friday evening with a liberally
rum-tinctured bottleful, which had since been restocked with water as
strongly tainted with petrol. For the purpose of the advance, sealed
petrol tins of water had been brought from Alexandria, but the fillers
of the tins seemed to have paid no particular attention as to whether
they had first been emptied of petrol. His bottle was almost
half-empty, and he did not care for the prospect of going up to those
struggling lines without a fresh supply; but, just in time, a mule
train came up with full fantassas, and he got a half-bottle.
When dusk had almost deepened to darkness they joined the surging
traffic of mules, men and stretchers on the dusty track, and filed
laboriously up the steep hill. The din of battle heightened with the
deepening night. Indian mountain batteries barked furiously behind
them, and the heavier artillery sent shells shrieking up from far
below, to burst somewhere up there where the crest stood silhouetted
against the stars. From above came the incessant roar of bursting
bombs and shells and rattle of musketry. At dawn the summit had been
gained, but just how good or bad our position was Mac had not the
vaguest idea. He had not heard of, nor had he seen any progress,
except the taking of this summit, since Saturday morning, and had no
idea as to whether the battle was progressing favourably or otherwise.
What was expected of them up there to-night none knew. Each carried a
pick or a shovel and two bombs.
They passed the dressing-stations, perched on either side on the steep
slope, where hundreds of wounded lay, then over a ridge where the track
stopped and out into the pitch black open. The bullets zipped past or
thudded into the ground. The troop lay down while they got their
bearings. A fellow close by Mac gave a yell and was dead. A few
wounded men, limping or crawling back, passed them. Then in extended
order they went forward again, guided by a telephone wire, keeping
touch with difficulty in the scrub and the darkness. Frequently there
would come from the blackness in front of their feet a warning "Keep
clear o' me, cobber, I'm wounded," or groans and the gleam of a white
bandage, and sometimes they stumbled over prone still forms. Slowly
they picked their way forward, making towards the centre of the firing,
which was in a semicircle round them, and the whistling bullets came
from both sides as well as from in front, and the din grew fiercer.
They reached at length a hollow full of wounded, then went slowly up a
slope littered with equipment and dead, and, at last, topping the rise,
they came upon a scene so weird and infernal that Mac instantly stopped
and stared with awe.
Lit fantastically by flickering flames which were licking slowly
through the scrub was a small ghastly, battle-rent piece of ground, not
one hundred yards in width and rising slightly. Beyond and close on
either side, it was bounded by the starry heavens, and seemed a
strange, detached dreamland where men had gone mad. The Turks lined
the far edge, their ghostly faces appearing and vanishing in the eerie
light, as they poured a point-blank fusillade at the shattered series
of shallow holes where the remnants of the New Zealanders were fighting
gallantly. Sweeping round to the left was the flashing semicircle of
the enemy line, bombs exploded with a lurid glare, their murky pall
drifting slowly back towards Mac. Shells came whirring up from the
black depths behind, and burst beyond the further lip. Above the
rending of the bombs, the rattle and burr of the rifles and
machine-guns and the crash of shells, sometimes sounded faintly men's
voices--the weird "Allah, Allah, Allah" of the enemy in a chanted
cadence, and the fierce half-humorous taunts of the attackers.
Everywhere lay dead and dying men--mostly the former, Turkish and
British. Equipment and rifles were strewn in the greatest confusion
over the torn earth, and all the time the creeping flames cast weird
lights upon the passing drama.
"Say, old boy," came a voice from his feet, "you'd better not stand
there too long--it's pretty thick."
Mac leaned down to the wounded man, and found him one of the Aucklands.
"It's been simply blanky hell up here all day and now I'm just waiting
for them to give me a hand out. You boys have come up none too soon.
Mind you give the devils hell!"
"You there with the pick," Mac found himself addressed, "get over to
those holes up front there and dig in for all you're blanky well worth."
"Good luck, matey, Kia Ora," came the parting blessing from the wounded
Aucklander in the scrub.
So brimming over with good fellowship were the tones, so short, yet so
deeply affectionate that Mac instinctively felt much more lighthearted
as he stumbled across the shattered battlefield to the thin line of
toiling, hard-pressed fighters, close to the rim where the cliff fell
away on the Dardanelles side. He found a line of shallow holes, some a
foot deep, some eighteen inches, aided a little by a few almost useless
sandbags. The cliff brink was six or eight yards away, and under it
lay the enemy--whose spectral figures, popping up and disappearing
rapidly, blazed point blank into the exposed line. A few yards on the
left the Turks poured across from the cliff to a small knob which
protruded into the attackers' line, and upon which they bore down
constantly and bombed furiously. From the ravine below the enemy, came
the constant "Allah, Allah, Allah," of many Turks encouraging
themselves for the attack, and occasional yells when shells or bombs
fell among them.
Mac knelt on the ground and endeavoured to deepen the hold by steady
picking, while two other men kept a steady fire on the agile heads of
the enemy. But try his best, he was now beginning to feel severely his
decreasing strength and could make but little impression on the trench
on this parched, sun-baked hill-top. Another trooper offered to take
his place, and he went to the less arduous work of carrying such
tattered sandbags as still contained earth from the second line about
fifteen feet back and piling them up in some sort of a parapet for the
front line. The second line was only half a dozen square holes whose
fine garrisons lay dead within them, except a few who raved in delirium
for water which was not to be had. They and their arms lay prostrate
across each other, many half-buried by flying earth from shells and
bombs.
He finished this work and then responded to an oft-repeated call from
farther along, "Reinforcements for the right. Reinforcements for the
right. Enemy getting round behind!" Here was a shallow bit of a hole
with three or four men, the right flank of this part of the line, while
the cliff edge was only four or five yards distant, and the enemy was
thought to be crawling back and gathering for a heavy assault. Mac set
about improving the trench and forming a small right angle to prevent
enfilade and to protect the flank. The sap had been deeper earlier in
the day, for the first foot he shovelled out consisted of a sticky
muddy mass of blood, soil, ammunition and gear of all sorts. He sifted
it carefully for good ammunition and bombs, and formed the rest into a
parapet with the assistance of sandbags. Sometimes when he was tired
he took a turn at keeping the enemy from becoming too venturesome on
the cliff brink. Queer shapes stood out against the stars, but whether
they were always Turks he could not tell, as from long sleeplessness
and strain his sight was inclined to play him tricks. Anyhow he ran no
risks. Somehow or other the troops farther on the left were constantly
shouting warnings concerning figures passing back to the right, but
these he could not see; while, curiously enough, he could plainly
follow Turkish figures flitting across the sky-line on the left from
the cliff to the small knob which could enfilade the trench from the
left. His rifle jammed from heat and dust. He took two from dead men
and kept them both on the parapet ready for instant action. The others
did much the same sort of thing, helping each other, sticking grimly to
the job and not worrying much, apparently, about their future.
The battle raged on through hour after hour with unabated fierceness;
and the din of it all, the whirring and crashing of the shells, the
furious rattle of musketry, the yells of men and the cries of the
wounded, became almost an unnoticed monotone in Mac's ears. The Turks
threw bombs steadily, but fortunately only in ones and twos. They were
fairly slow to explode, and, if they landed on the parapet, the troops
crouched in the bottom of the trench, or, if into the trench, they got
out until the explosion and the fumes had cleared away. The enemy was
almost safe from bombing, for grenades which were thrown at him found
no resting-place until far down into the ravine, where their explosion
sounded only as a dull unsatisfactory thud. Sometimes big shells
whirring up from the warships or the heavy land batteries burst short
and caught some of the already too sparse attackers, or brought the
sufferings of the wounded to an end. Mac's line lost men who went
bleeding to the rear. Sometimes their places were taken--more often
they were not.
He wondered vaguely what would happen, but all were too busy with
affairs of immediate importance, and somehow it did not seem to matter
in the least--the outlook was not bright. The Turkish mound on the
left could enfilade the trench at short range when daylight came, the
enemy was in great force in front and was creeping back to the
rear--already a fire-swept zone impossible to cross. Where was that
great force from Suvla Bay? They had landed three miles away at
midnight on Friday and it was now just before dawn on Monday.
The night came in time near to its end. He could not describe it as
having gone quickly, nor yet slowly--it had simply passed. Dawn
brought no particular pleasure, only the transition from the unearthly
phantasmagoria of bitter night fighting to the practical fierce
hand-to-hand struggling of day. The paling sky figured the sky-line
and the Turkish heads in definite silhouette, and many of the large
shrubs of the night where Turks might lurk revealed themselves as small
tufts of grass. Vigilance increased. If rifles did not sweep that
crest continually the old Turk would leave his head and shoulders above
the edge long enough to take aim, instead of blazing away rather at
random.
It was now definitely seen that the Turks had got well round the right
flank during the darkness, in spite of a machine-gun which had been
said to sweep this zone; but of it Mac saw no sign. Some Turks were
creeping through a hollow immediately to the right, and he being the
tallest man at this point directed his attention at the wriggling backs
with some success. One wounded Turk there signalled by waving his
rifle to some of the advanced party, but was soon after lifted by a
mate who ran with him to safety.