"Stretcher-bearers!--Stretcher-bearers to the right!"
"Stretcher-bearers to the left!"
"_Ammunition!_ Send up ammunition--we haven't a----round here!"
"Reinforce! _For God's sake reinforce!_ They're into No. 8! _Christ!
boys, get a move on!_"
At this time we had neither support trenches nor communications--just
one thin line, which, if broken, meant the loss of the ridge with all
that _that_ meant. We were also so clogged up with dead in our trenches
that to make room for the living we had to throw the bodies over the
back. In many cases where our line was cut on the edge of the ridge
these bodies rolled right down to the foot of the cliff. At "Quinn's
Post" things were about as bad as they could be. There was only the
merest apology for a track from the "Gully" up to the trenches situated
on the very lip of the crest, and at one time when reinforcements were
making their way in single file up this track they had to scramble
in and out through and over dead men lying tossed about anyhow,
while all the way, right down to the valley the wounded were lying
"heads and tails" awaiting transport to the beach. It wasn't the most
encouraging sight in the world for the fellows coming up straight off
the transports.
In one place quite a little stack of bodies had been huddled together
to one side of the track; there might have been eighteen or twenty in
the lot. Owing to the water running down this stack began to move,
and kept on moving till it blocked the track up altogether. I don't
know how many chaps tumbled into that heap and got tied up in it, but
eventually a fatigue party had to be told off to build up the bodies
as you would build sheaves on a wagon. We had no time to bury our dead
for the first few days--and in that climate you don't want to keep them
above ground for many _hours_.
As the day wore on it became evident that the Turks had shot their
bolt. The attack died down, then ceased altogether, and save for the
heavy rifle and artillery fire they kept up on our trenches, we weren't
troubled by them for some time. They had lost tremendously; the ground
along our front looked like a heavy crop of wheat after the binder had
been through it--either 4000 or 7000 dead lay there. (And they lay
there unburied for _three weeks_.) At last we were able to get a little
sorely needed rest. We had been pushed to the extremest limit of human
endurance.