MAC IS WOUNDED
That August dawn revealed a ghastly scene on this Gallipoli hill-top,
where the tired, outnumbered attackers fought desperately for the
summit of the Peninsula, possession of which would mean victory and the
command of the Straits. It seemed to Mac that decision must come soon,
for this desperate, more or less continual hand-to-hand encounter could
not last much longer. Bad as their position was, it could not be long
now before those many thousands of Imperial troops would be taking the
enemy in flank from the Suvla Bay direction, or at least would be
strongly reinforcing them from the rear.
And now, even before it was full daylight, the activity along the line,
though it had scarcely seemed possible, grew more violent, and Mac felt
that each side tensely watched the other, expecting every moment a
final, desperate coming to grips. The Turks appeared to be gathering
in great numbers, and were even now on the point of making a
whole-hearted attack. But the British artillery intervened. The
shelling had been increasing steadily, and at this moment several
men-o'-war close inshore opened their broadsides and were joined by all
the field artillery which could be brought to bear, and there broke
along the crest such a tornado of bursting shells as had never been
seen during the whole campaign.
The battleships were concealed by a thick pall of brown smoke through
which spurted the flashes of their batteries, field guns of all sizes
barked from ravines and ridges; the shells roared and shrieked up
towards the summit, and burst in a continual shattering crash on those
few hundred square yards of deadly battlefield, or passed aimlessly
beyond the ridge and exploded harmlessly far over enemy territory. The
Turks, being mostly under the farther lip of the small plateau,
suffered little from the bombardment except on the knob which protruded
into the line to Mac's left. It was torn constantly by high explosive,
and Turkish bodies were flung high in the air, in whole or in part.
Equipment, earth and sandbags mixed with the sickly, murky green smoke
which drifted in a choking cloud across Mac's line. Rapidly fresh
Turks filled the places of their dead, and they in turn were blasted by
the bombardment.
But many of the shells were falling short; or may be they were not
falling short, rather it was a position which should never have been
bombarded in this fashion. The artillery was directed upon a hill high
above it, lying between it and the breaking day. On its crest,
separated by only a few yards, were both the defenders and the
attackers. Few of the shells were likely to hit the enemy, for the
majority must either spend themselves in the air beyond the crest or
else fall among our own men on the crest itself; so they fell thickly
along Mac's line, and thus to the danger of an enemy on three sides was
added the tragedy of our own artillery on the fourth. Helpless they
were to shield themselves or to stop this mad destruction. They had
red and yellow flags to mark their positions, and these they waved
violently, but it could be of no avail in the dawn light, the dust and
the smoke.
What telephone communication there was with the rear, Mac did not know;
but, whether there was any or whether it had been cut by the enemy, no
sign came that the artillery knew where its shells were falling. One
after another those shells burst with a yellow glare and a fountain of
black smoke, sending men, some alive, and many dead, flying upwards;
and when Mac could see again there would be a space in the line where
one, two or more of his troop had taken the long trail. They rained
faster, bursting incessantly on that narrow strip between them and the
edge of the cliff, often falling behind and always odd ones and twos
dropping into the trench itself. Mac felt sick with the fumes and the
horror of it, and sometimes the blast of a shell sent him against the
side of the trench. The helplessness of the position appalled him.
There were fewer and fewer of them left, and there was a growing gap in
the line. Yet there was no means of stopping it; and he longed for the
bombardment to cease. He sniped away at the Turks along the cliffs,
and turned his attention at times to some who had been hunted from the
knob by the shelling. There were only three or four of them left in
this corner and yet there was no slackening of that mad artillery fire.
Then swiftly there was an awful lurid flash close in front of him, on
the level ground almost in his face, and it seemed he had been hit
across the head with a bar of wood, and he could not see. He pressed
his hand to his face and sank slowly to the ground.
"Old Mac's a goner," he heard the voice of one of his mates say in
those same affectionate, final tones which had followed the
disappearance of comrade after comrade on the left.
"Poor old fellow," said another.
"No," muttered Mac. "By God though, I'm blind for life!" He felt the
blood rushing down his face, and he knew it. He sat up, and no one
said anything. He thought for a second or two and decided on a course
of action. "Well, it's no longer any good staying here. I'm off." So
saying, he undid the buckles of his Webb equipment, and struggled out
of all his gear, keeping only the case of his glasses, for he thought
he might as well stick to them.
He remembered the way to the second line, and crawled along the
shattered trench to the left, feeling his way past the legs of the one
or two men who were left. They paid no attention to him, being too
busy with the enemy to be concerned with other matters. He felt his
way along on his hands and knees, down into holes, over dead bodies,
avoiding wounded, across the open ground, until he came to where he
thought the communication trench ought to be and turned to the left.
There seemed to be little of it remaining. It had never been much of a
thing, and was now blown about and full of wounded and dead. He was
finding himself in difficulties about getting past some wounded men,
when some one came out from the second line and led him in. There his
Captain took his hand and patted him on the back.
"I'm afraid I've lost my sight, sir," said Mac.
"I'm afraid so, old boy," replied he. "I'll send a chap back with you."
One of the boys took charge of him, and Mac stumbled off through the
little piece of trench into the open, across which, from both sides,
the bullets fled whistling and zipping. Jogging awkwardly short
distances over the rough ground, then lying in hollows for brief rests,
they covered at length that exposed slope of about one hundred and
fifty yards which separated the trench from the shallow head of a
ravine, wherein lay hundreds of wounded and dead. The trooper guided
Mac carefully over a space where bodies lay thick, and made him lie
down on a sloping clay bank, took his field dressing from his pocket
and bandaged his head.
Mac lay there through the whole of that long terrible day, a day of
strange unearthliness, when he seemed to float away into a weird
dreamland and at times into nightmare, and yet it was not a day of
unmixed suffering. The sun glared down pitilessly through the hot
hours, the tormenting flies swarmed in their millions, the dead lay
thick around, already blackening in the heat, the dying raved in
delirium for water which never came, and the battle raged on with
unceasing violence. Lying uncomfortably on a slope, propped against a
dead Turk, he scarcely seemed to feel the burning heat of the sun, the
irritation of the flies, the torturing thirst nor the pain of his
wound, for his spirit lay soothed in a strange restfulness, in the
satisfaction of peace, in a manner like the weary wishing for nothing
but sleep after a day of honest work. For Mac the fight was over; he
had done what had been asked of him, and his spirit, serenely happy in
this knowledge, seemed to rise above earthly discomfort and to concern
itself little with the shattered state of his body, nor yet with the
fact that he was far from out of the wood. Death was all around; and,
had it come to him, he would have had no terror of it, but simply the
resigned acceptance of a happy soul.
Early in the morning Mac had inquired whether he could not be taken on
to the dressing-station, but learned that it was impossible as the
enemy swept the country between with an impassable hail of bullets.
The lower end of the ravine was in Turkish hands, elsewhere there were
unscalable cliffs, and the only means of getting back was by crossing a
ridge close under the enemy rifles. There was nothing for it but to
await nightfall.
The ravine was full of wounded. The more lightly injured had drifted
towards the bottom, but those who had not been able to walk lay crowded
close in the shallow head near Mac. Most of them were already dead,
for many had been wounded two nights previously, and few so seriously
injured could stand a second day of such torment. Mac asked sometimes
if there was water, but there was none. Occasionally he inquired how
the battle was going, and if there were any men near to hear him, they
replied only with unassuming grunts. He sat up once for a change of
position and moved away a little from the dead Turk, but the flying
bullets sent him back. He may have been light-headed once or twice,
but this he himself could not tell. Queerly enough, he troubled not at
all about the form his wound had taken. Though he knew with absolute
certainty that he would never see again, he was not worried by the
horrors of a future world of darkness; and found himself in his vague
wanderings of mind deeply pitying those round him, and his heart was
full of grief at their sufferings.
Gradually a lessening of the heat told of coming evening. A little
water arrived and was distributed in small potions. Mac was conscious
that those who came periodically to the hollow to do for the wounded
all that lay in their power were performing fine actions of
self-sacrifice. It grew cool, and Mac stirred himself to expect aid
from the rear; word had come, too, that a large Imperial force would be
sent up at nightfall to relieve the tattered remnant of the garrison,
who had dwindled to a desperate handful from attack after attack by the
enemy through all the long day, and who were almost light-headed from
fatigue. The hours still dragged on without anything happening, and
Mac almost feared they had been forgotten. At last, shortly after he
had heard a voice say it was eleven o'clock, some one came into the
ravine, and inquired in the dark who were there. Few answered, for, it
seemed to Mac, most of them were too far gone. All those who could
look after themselves had long ago drifted farther down the ravine.
"Who are you?" sang out Mac.
"I'm an Auckland stretcher-bearer."
"Well, if you can show me the way, you can take me back. I can't see,
but I can walk all right."
"I dunno how I'm goin' to get you out of there. There are too many
wounded round you."
"Oh, if you show me where to tread I'll be all right. You might as
well take me back. I'm the only one here who can walk," said Mac
appealingly.
After a little more persuasion, he picked his way over the bodies, and,
Mac, swaying a little, stood up. He forgot to take the case of his
glasses which he had been using as a pillow, though he had remembered
afterwards that the glasses themselves were still on the parapet where
he had been wounded. He picked his steps carefully over the prostrate
forms, and then, grabbing the Ambulance man firmly by the belt,
stumbled after him up the slope. They toiled down the long ridge,
falling frequently into hidden holes in the thick scrub; and all the
time the rifles blazed along the ridges and the bullets zipped past
them in the darkness. They reached the dressing-station, where, from
the sounds which reached his ears, it seemed to him many men were
lying, and a crowd passed constantly to and fro. A medical officer
took Mac in hand, dressed his wound as well as might be--for there was
no water for such purposes--and gave him a drink. Though Mac protested
he could quite well walk, the M.O. insisted on putting him on a
stretcher, giving orders to the bearers to take him without delay to
the hospital life-boats. And so, swaying precariously, he was taken
away down the rough, steep slope, the bearers halting often to regain
their breath. Then, taking not the slightest heed of his mild
protests, they dumped him off the stretcher after they had gone about
half a mile, spread a blanket over him and departed. He lay there
peacefully for an hour or two, and then, becoming thoroughly fed up at
this lack of progress and seeing no point in such delays, called out to
some one he heard near him, to know what possibility there was of a
further move.
"None, old boy," came the discouraging reply. "Stretchers are just
about finish, and there 're dozens of stretcher-cases lying everywhere.
From the looks of things you might be here for a day or two yet."
Mac thought for a minute or two and decided to take matters into his
own hands. He heard some one passing along the path.
"Hullo you! Come over here," he called.
Some one approached.
"What's up, cobber?"
"If you're going to the rear you might as well take me along with you.
I can walk all right. I only want a helping hand. What about it?"
"Well, I'm a Fifth Reinforcements just landed, an' I dunno where all my
mates are gone."
"All right. You might as well come along with me." And so saying, Mac
stood up, shed his blanket, and went off with the man who had lost
himself.
It was broad daylight again, and the Artillery activity was steadily
increasing. They wandered down the dusty bottom of the ravine, Mac
directing the way as best he could. At the bottom of the ravine, near
a battery in furious action, they had to halt for some time owing to a
congestion in the traffic through the big communication saps. Mac
wanted to go along the top, but the other fellow refused flatly as
there were too many bullets flying, and so they had to progress when
opportunity offered through the hot dusty crowded saps. They were
close to the sea by No. 2 Outpost, but the hospital boats had ceased
taking wounded off from there, owing to the heavy rifle fire. Mac
decided to go on to Anzac without delay as, with weakness growing, he
wished to keep going until he reached a hospital-ship. Dragging one
foot after another, he plodded on through the interminable trenches,
though swiftly his strength was going and he had to rest every twenty
yards.
His companion, taking the wrong turning, led him over an unnecessary
hill, which nearly exhausted his walking powers, but about nine o'clock
they at length reached the Cove and the clearing station. Mac's head
was again dressed, he swallowed with the deepest joy many cups of tea,
bid farewell to his escort, and lay down on some bales of hay to await
the arrival of a hospital-ship, of which there were none at present off
the landing.