FLIES, DUST AND BATTLE
July was a scorching month, and to add to the discomfort of heat there
was a plague of flies; flies, flies, flies everywhere, and I have no
doubt that they were responsible for the serious epidemics which broke
out among the troops. Doubtless it was the self-same pestilence which
Homer tells us attacked the Grecian Army camped round Troy, and which
they attributed to the anger of Apollo, though none of our mules
suffered as did those of the Greeks.
These flies were disgusting, horrible pests, for they would come
straight from the rotting corpses of the Turks, which lay in unburied
hundreds in front of our trenches, and blacken every scrap of food on
which they could obtain a foot-hold. The only way to get a clean bite
into one's mouth, without taking the flies with it, was to blow
vigorously all the time until the lips had actually closed on the
morsel, and even then these pests would hover round, waiting for a
chance opening to dart in and chase it down.
The dust, too, in these days was very trying, for the whole peninsula
was now one vast dust heap, which the slightest wind would swirl about
in blinding, choking clouds. I noticed that on several occasions our men
had to do battle with this dust storm blowing directly in their eyes, so
that it was impossible to see anything in front of them, while the
Turks, with their backs to it, could see our men coming along plainly
enough and could slate them at their leisure. I always found, as was to
be expected, that when we foolishly attacked on such days as these we
effected nothing beyond getting ourselves killed. The Turks must have
marvelled at our blind folly.
I well remember that one of our most successful battles was fought on a
day when the wind carried the dust into the faces of the Turks; towards
the close of this fight I saw a couple of battalions go right through
and over all the Turkish trenches within sight, and then get engulfed in
a great ravine on the very slope of Achi Baba itself, where they were
hidden from view, and then I saw thousands of Turks stream down through
communication trenches on each side of our men, filling the trenches in
their rear, as could be plainly seen by the bristling bayonets which
showed above the parapets.
I felt that these two battalions were lost, as indeed they were for two
or three days, but somehow or other, after some extraordinary
hide-and-seek experiences among the Turkish trenches, they fought their
way back again, clearing the Turks out of their path, in hand-to-hand
fighting, as they hacked their way back to our own lines.
A friend of mine, Captain Braham of the 6th Manchesters, had a narrow
escape on one occasion when he made an attempt to lead his men in an
assault. Being short of ammunition for the guns, the Turkish trenches
had not been properly bombarded; Turkish machine-guns and riflemen were
still in position, ready to mow our men down the moment they leaped from
their trenches. This was the fate which overtook the 6th Manchesters;
they were practically cut to pieces before they had advanced more than a
dozen yards from their lines, and the few survivors thought it wiser to
get back to cover as quickly as possible. Captain Braham, however, tried
to rally them out of the trench again, and at that moment, while
standing on the parapet, a bullet struck his knapsack, cut through the
buckle, a box of chocolate and a tin-opener. The tin-opener diverted the
bullet out through the bottom of the haversack by his heels, but the
impact of it was so great that it knocked him off the parapet into the
trench, as if he had been struck with a sledge hammer. He told me
afterwards that he did not know at the time what had knocked him over,
and it was not until he had removed his haversack that the mystery was
explained.
During one of these dog days Rolo and I went as far forward as it was
possible to go, so that we might get a close view of a battle which was
to begin at 11 A. M. on the 12th of July.
Punctually to the minute our guns crashed out along the line and pounded
away steadily for an hour. Then we watched the attack, and what
impressed me in this battle, as it did also in others, was the
inadequate force with which we attempted to take the offensive. A line
of our men would dash forward, take two or three Turkish trenches,
losing perhaps half its effective strength in so doing, and then find
itself too weak to do more than hold on, and very often they could not
even do that. There seemed to be no regular system of sending line after
line at intervals into the fight. I know that this was arranged for in
orders, but it did not always come off, and the men who had, with such
gallantry and at such a cost, taken the trenches, would be forced out
of them in a counter-attack by overwhelming numbers of Turks, and, in
getting back to their own lines, would again lose heavily.
To obtain a view of the battlefield from a different point we made our
way along a communication trench, and here our interest in the fight in
the front was abruptly switched off and centred on ourselves, for the
Turks had spotted a Battalion of Lancashire Fusiliers coming along to
reinforce the firing line, and they turned a most deadly and accurate
fire upon us from the Turkish guns. Shells hopped from the parapets or
broke them in all round us, crashed over our heads, and even plumped
right into the trench itself, sending men flying in all directions.
The Lancashire Fusiliers had, therefore, to halt and take cover under
the lee of the parapet, and during this time one of the men asked Claude
Rolo what his job was in these parts, for, being in our shirt-sleeves,
and pretty grimy with dust and with climbing about the trenches, he
could not make out who or what we were.
When Rolo replied: "Oh, I've only come to see the show," "Oh, Hell,"
said the Lancashire man, "you must be mad to come to a show like this on
your own."
I felt very sorry for the poor lads when they finally marched off. The
day was hot enough to make one feel that the only way to keep cool was
to sit in one's bones under the shade of a tree, and yet here were these
Lancashire men loaded down with the whole weight of their packs--food,
ammunition, blanket, belts, bayonet and rifle--marching on through this
infernal heat to a bloody combat, where they would have to put forth all
their efforts in getting rapidly across the fire-swept ground, plunge
into and out of deep trenches, and, in addition, grapple hand to hand
with no mean foe.
Some things are more than human nature can stand. You cannot overload
the soldier, and then expect him to pull his full weight in battle with
the broiling sun burning out his throat.
The Lancashire lads were soon in the thick of the fight, and a great
many never again needed the shelter of a friendly trench.
We lost a few prisoners to the Turks in this battle owing to exhaustion,
and it is a comfort to know that our gallant enemies treat such men of
ours as fall into their hands with kindness. I never heard anything but
praise for the Turk and the way he played the game. I only knew of one
case of a prisoner being mutilated, and this may have been the work of a
German, for the victim was a Sikh, and died before any evidence could
be taken. The Turk is a clean fighter, and more than once they have
pointed out to us that they would be glad if we would move a hospital
ship a little further from the transports, for they feared that in
firing at the latter they might hit the hospital, and, so far as the
records go, this is more than would have been done by the Germans.
Among the prisoners taken in one of these battles were some German
sailors from the _Goeben_, who had been working the machine-guns. When
taken they had no more ammunition left, their officer and many others
had been killed, and their position was quite hopeless, so they gladly
surrendered. They looked crestfallen and sullen when I saw them as
prisoners on their way to the beach.
During these hot July days the Turkish shells would often set fire to
the dried-up gorse and bracken near our lines, and, as the wind usually
came from the north, I have seen a raging line of fire, hundreds of
yards long, with flames forty feet high, roaring and crackling down to
our trenches.
Our men, however, had taken the precaution of cutting gorse down in
front, so that the fire never actually overwhelmed our lines.
The Turks did not lack initiative; their snipers gave us a considerable
amount of trouble all the time we were on the Peninsula. Two of these
men obtained some celebrity by their daring and originality. They
actually concealed themselves between some of our guns, and before they
were hunted down and shot they had killed and wounded several of our
officers and men. They were painted green all over, face, hands,
clothes, and even their rifles, while little green bushes, similar to
the gorse around, were tied to their heads.
Their sense of humour showed itself in some rather quaint ways. Once,
when a bomb was thrown over a barricade by a French soldier, hitting a
Turk on the head without exploding, the latter shouted back "Assassin,
Assassin!" On another occasion, on the completion of one of the heaviest
bombardments to which we had subjected their trenches--a perfect storm
of shells from field guns, siege guns, howitzers and battleships--as
soon as the firing ceased and the dust cleared away, a huge placard was
slowly raised from the front trench, on which was printed in large
letters "No Casualties."