AT GRIPS
From now on I fancy this "history" of the doings of the Anzacs is going
to be more of a diary than anything else. I kept a rough note of things
as they happened day by day. For one thing the diary style pins the
various events down to a kind of sequence and insures their being told
in the order in which they happened; for another it saves the author
a deal of labour. This by way of explanation and apology. Here goes,
then—
_April 17, 1915._—Sailed from Alexandria in transport _A26_, otherwise
the s.s. _Goslar_, a captured German prize. We had a Danish skipper
and a Greek crew—a poor lot as seamen go. We were quartered in
the forepeak, the quarters being rough, but on the whole fairly
comfortable. We shared them with a healthy and mighty lively lot of
brown bugs. The tucker wasn't too bad.
The weather was fine and the sea calm all the way to Lemnos Island.
Had a pow-wow with the O.C., who read out aloud the General's orders,
informing us that we should land under cover of the warships' guns,
that we were to drive the Turks back, secure a footing, and hold it _at
all costs_. Anticipated heavy losses. When dismissed went and made our
wills.
Were met on the 19th by the cruiser _Dartmouth_ and escorted by her
till the evening, when a destroyer took us in charge and saw us safely
into Mudros Harbour. The _Dartmouth_ informed us by semaphore that
transport _B_12, steaming one hour ahead of us, had been attacked by an
enemy torpedo boat, three torpedoes being fired at her, all of which
missed. A number of soldiers jumped overboard, thinking the transport
was doomed, and were drowned. The torpedo boat was engaged by our
ships, driven ashore and destroyed.
We arrived in Mudros Harbour, in Lemnos, on the night of the 19th. It
was just crowded with shipping, and looked for all the world like a big
floating town. Were informed that there were over 200 transports and
60 warships gathered in the harbour. Had a splendid view of the _Queen
Elizabeth_ as she lay quite close to our old hooker. The anchorage
was simply alive with destroyers, torpedo boats, submarines, etc.,
both French and English. The French craft struck me as being a bit
mouldy-looking, not so up-to-date as the British. You could always tell
a French destroyer, she was so crowded up with all kinds of deck gear,
and had a general Back of Beyond look about her—like a chap who had
stopped washing and shaving for a longish spell.
During our stay at Lemnos we amused ourselves by practising boat drill,
landing of troops, etc. It was no joke swarming down a rope ladder
loaded up in full marching order—and it was just as bad climbing up
again. One of our chaps let go his rifle; the rest contented themselves
with language. No one was drowned.
It was while lying here we had our first solid day and night's rain,
the first really heavy fall since leaving home. The temperature rapidly
dropped in consequence till it became like early summer in England.
Were told that we should find no firewood where we were going, and
orders issued that each man was to carry a bundle of kindling wood
strapped on top of his pack. We shall look like a mob of walking
Christmas Trees when we get all on. Living on bully beef and biscuits
now; no bread.
_April 23._—Had a rather pleasant sail in one of the ship's boats
to-day. Landed on a small island in the harbour and cut a big supply
of green fodder for the horses we had on board. Found the formation of
the island to be volcanic in character, as all the land round about
these parts seems to be. Not much sign of water, yet the sole of grass
was good, and the colour a vivid green. Plenty of white clover, some
of what looked like English cocksfoot, and a plant that struck me as
Italian rye-grass. Heard the cuckoo and the lark, and noticed some
small green lizards scurrying over the outcropping rocks. _Thought_ I
saw a tarantula spider, but wouldn't swear to it.
Coming back to ship found we had to beat against a head wind. Our craft
was lug-rigged, the sail something like a dirty pocket-handkerchief.
She had no use for beating; there wasn't a beat in her. Tried to ram
an outward bound mine-sweeper which refused to get out of our way.
Mine-sweeper's captain called us names that may have been true but
didn't sound nice. Doused the sail and rowed back. In the evening
we watched the French and English transports and warships leaving
the harbour. Rumours fill the air—the latest that we leave for the
Dardanelles to-morrow (24th).
_April 24._—Preparations for the big event. Told that the staff were
prepared to lose 80 per cent. of the forces to effect a landing; also,
that the fleet could see us ashore but that _it couldn't take us off
again_; once ashore we'd got to look after ourselves. The fellows
stroked their chins and looked thoughtful for a spell; I reckon they
were thinking of the pie that mother used to make—or of their latest
girls. We were also told that as like as not all the wells on Gallipoli
would be poisoned, and that we should have to do on our water-bottles
for three days. Three days on about a pint and a half! And biscuits
ditto! We began to cotton on to it that it wasn't a picnic or mothers'
meeting we were out to take a hand in. Were served out with a 2-oz.
tin of tobacco between four men, and three packets each of cigarettes.
Handed in our blankets and waterproof sheets, so will be going ashore
as we stand. Very stiff fight expected, as it is fairly sure that the
Turks will do all that is in them to beat us back. Wonder how many of
the boys will go under?
_Later._—Under way. All lights out and general air of suppressed
excitement on all hands. Some of the chaps making a book on the event,
and laying odds on the chances of the takers getting through the
slather-up unharmed. Others tossing up to see if certain of their mates
will finish up in heaven or hell! No one the least downhearted; all
determined to at least give the enemy the time of his life when they
come to grips. They are certainly as tough a crowd as ever got into
uniform.
Landing expected to take place just at daybreak or slightly earlier.
Creeping along like a "mob of thieves in the night," as one of the
chaps put it. Distance from Lemnos about 45 miles, I hear, so will be
there in whips of time. Funny thing to think that one's folks will be
lying in bed sound asleep at the moment we go into the enemy, and never
dreaming of what their men will be taking on. Just as well, too, come
to think of it. Weather A1. Sea calm; nothing to complain of in that
line, anyway.
_April 28._—First chance of scribbling anything for three days. Been
through hell—just that. War! It wasn't war; it was just cold-blooded
butchery. How the position has been held beats me. But held it has
been—and it's going to be held—at a cost! I wonder what the price of
crêpe will rise to out in Australia and New Zealand! Here goes for a
shy at describing our amusement of the past three days.
It was dark when we left the transports off Gaba Tepe and crept in
towards the denser blackness that represented the shore. The night—or
early morning, rather—was still; everything seemed in our favour; not
a sound welled out seaward, not a light twinkled in the murk ahead.
Could it be that we had taken the Turks by surprise? Or were they
simply lying low and playing a waiting game? Soon we were to know.
On—on crept the boats loaded to the gunwales with the citizen soldiers
from the Dominions. Every jaw was set hard as agate, every eye was
fixed on the forbidding-looking heights now taking form dimly as the
east reddened and the sky became shot with lengthening spears of
greenish-yellow. Minutes passed—minutes that seemed as hours—while
ever shoreward crawled the fleet of boats, and ever plainer and
gloomier loomed the frowning cliffs that dominated the Bay of Anzac.
Back of the flotilla, away to seaward, lay the British warships, their
grey hulls floating ghostlike in the first of the dawn—like couchant
lions scenting blood. A sense of protection, modified to some extent
by the stretch of intervening water and the ghostliness of their
outlines, emanated from those cruisers and battleships squatting like
watch-dogs on the chain, alert and eager. Our gaze wandered ever and
anon from the forbidding shore ahead to where those uncouth grey hulls
broke the sea-line. Would they never give tongue!
... We were close to the land. The _wouff!_ of a gentle surf breaking
on a sloping shingle beach, followed by the _soughing_ of the undertow,
came plainly to our straining ears. Back of the crescent-shaped strand,
now dimly outlined in a flatted monotint of leaden grey, rose the
darker, scrub-clothed slope, its breast seamed and gashed by _dongas_
and water-courses, that stretched to the foot of the sheer bluff whose
summit cut the sky-line 400 feet above our heads. As the minutes passed
the scene changed. Sand and shingle took form and colour in the rapidly
growing half-tones. The blackness of the slope beyond merged into
a velvet green. The serrated crest of the ridge grew roseate as the
first of the sun-rays stretched forth athwart the fields of Troy and
touched it with gold-tipped fingers. A newborn day begotten of early
summer had sprung from the womb of an Eastern night—a day fraught with
much of suffering, much of mutilation and death, but surely a day that
shall live in the history of the British Empire so long as that Empire
stands....
Was it the surprise we all hoped for, after all?—the surprise that
seemed beyond the bounds of possibility. Were there _any_ Turks there
waiting to oppose us at all? And if so, where were they hidden? In
trenches cut on the beach? In the scrub? Behind the crest of the cliff?
God! were they never going to show themselves——?
_Crash! Bang! Z-z-z-z-z-ip!_ It was hell let loose—hell with the
bottom out! The whole beach belched flame and spat bullets. The scrub
behind burst forth into a sheet of fire. Maxims—maxims everywhere! The
place seemed alive with them. It was as if we had received a blizzard
of lead in our faces. The physical shock was almost more than flesh and
blood could bear. For a moment it seemed as if the whole flotilla was
doomed—a moment in which whole boatloads of brave men were absolutely
cut to pieces and mangled out of all recognition—in which boats were
blown from the water, smashed into matchwood and riddled from stem to
stern by the high explosive and shrapnel fire that came over the crest
of the cliff hot on the heels of the rifle and machine-gun fire. Just
a moment! Then the men from the bush, the plains, and the cities of
Australasia showed the stuff they were made of. In dashed the boats—in
anyhow, no matter how, so long as they touched Turkish soil—some bow
on, some stern on, some broadside. All higgledy-piggledy, a confused
mass like a huge dismembered raft tossed on a sea that hissed and
spouted as its surface was torn by the never-ceasing rain of lead and
iron. Over the sides of the boats dived and rolled those splendid
infantrymen, their bayonets already fixed. They knew what to do; no
need to give them orders. No time to form—no time to think. The cold
steel—nothing but the steel! Off fell their packs; down dropped their
bayonet points, and with a wild yell that rose even above the awful
battle roar that made day hideous they hurled themselves straight as
their rifles at the unseen enemy. In sixes and sevens, in tens and
twenties, in platoons, in half-companies—just as they tumbled out
of the boats—those great-hearted fellows dashed up the beach and
into that sickening inferno. They didn't fire a shot; they didn't
waste a single second. They just flung their heavy packs from their
shoulders, bent their heads to the storm, and with every inch of
pace at their command they charged the Turkish trenches, some fifty
yards distant. Charge! I never saw a charge like it. It was a wild,
breakneck rush, regardless of losses. Nothing short of killing every
man of that magnificent soldiery could have stopped their onslaught.
The machine-guns and rifles took their toll—but they utterly failed
to beat down that desperate assault delivered by those iron-nerved
men—those men who openly boasted that they feared "neither God, man,
nor devil." In a moment they were into the enemy's front line of
trench, machine-guns were captured, and the Turks got a taste of the
bayonet that will never be forgotten by those who escaped. And they
were few. Just a minute of hacking, slashing, and stabbing—one minute
of sickening yet exhilarating butchery in which no quarter was given;
when to _kill!_ and _kill!_ was joy unspeakable—and those long, lean,
brown-faced men with the square jaws and fierce eyes were up again,
their bayonets smoking, and charging the second line of trenches with
the same dare-devil recklessness. What power on earth could stop such
men? Not the Turks, anyway. With imploring cries of "_Allah!—Allah!_"
they abandoned their trenches and scurried up through the scrub, the
panting Colonials straining every nerve to overtake them.
It is difficult to understand the Australasian character. He will joke
even in the midst of danger, nay, death. He is, as a rule, a "hard
doer"; and even his best friends must admit that he is often a hard,
and fairly original, swearer. Nothing is safe from him when looking for
a butt; very little is sacred, I fear, and his humour takes a queer
bent sometimes: which accounted for the behaviour of the landing force
on this occasion, dear reader—that and the desire to inflict all the
Arabic he knew (picked up in Egypt) on the fleeing Turk.
"_Imshi! Yalla!_" yelled the now laughing Colonials, as they followed
hard on the heels of the enemy.
"_Allah! Allah!_" continued the Turks, and they put on an extra spurt.
"_Allah_ be d——d! Clean 'em boots! Eggs is cook! Three for a l'arf!
_Imshi_, you all-fired illegitimates!"
Such, with the addition of ear-splitting coo-ees, wild bush oaths,
and a running fire of blasphemy and unearthly cat-calls were the
battle cries of the men from Down Under as they drove the enemy out
of his trenches and up the hill, through the scrub, over _dongas_
and gullies, right to the base of the sheer cliff itself, up which
finally, all mixed together and sliding, crawling, and clinging like
monkeys, scrambled pursuer and pursued in one loosely strung mob of
panting, war-drunken men. It was the personification of grandeur: it
was the apotheosis of the ludicrous. In a word it was the old reckless,
dare-devil spirit of their ancestors—the men who carved out the
British Empire—re-born in those virile youths and young men from that
bigger and fresher and brighter Britain overseas.
Meantime the guns of the fleet were pouring in a terrific fire, their
shells screaming overhead and bursting well beyond the ridge. It was
difficult at first to see what execution they were doing, and at this
stage of the fight I don't think many of the enemy were bagged. As our
chaps advanced farther inland the shells from the ships began to pitch
amongst them, so their elevation was raised and their fire concentrated
on the Turkish communications and on the dominating hills that lay on
our flanks. They also tried hard to locate and silence the enemy's big
guns, but they were so well concealed that it was almost impossible to
silence them.
Once on top of the ridge our fellows paused for a minute or two to
get their breath, then, as full of fight as ever, they doubled into
the scrub and pursued the retreating Turks with unabated ardour. It
was now an open battle, and except for the fact that the Anzacs were
exposed to a heavy shrapnel fire, Jack was as good as his master. In
threes and fours at a time the shells burst over and swept through the
lines of advancing men, taking their toll all the time. The Turks took
full advantage of the plentiful cover; they knew the country and we
didn't. Now and then one caught a glimpse of a fleeing figure or two;
that was all. We had no field artillery to cover our advance, and the
consequence was we suffered heavily, our guns not coming into action
till the evening, and then only one or two had been landed. Add to
this the natural difficulties of a broken and rugged country which we
had never seen before, and the reader will have some conception of the
task that faced the Dominion troops. It was next to impossible to keep
in touch with each other, let alone preserve something approaching an
unbroken line. Thus the fight resolved itself largely into one of
units. Here and there isolated bodies of infantry pushed far ahead,
then lying down they held on grimly until the main force came up and
eased the pressure.
One or two lots got caught in the beds of deep gullies, were opened on
by concealed enfilade fire from machine-guns and rifles, and died to a
man. But they died fighting. One party at least fought its way almost
to the Narrows, and then disappeared: not a single man returned. The
rest pushed on and on, trusting to the reserves coming up and enabling
them to hold the captured ground—those reserves that came in driblets
only. The fact was that the men could not be thrown ashore quickly
enough to reinforce in the strength required. Where battalions landed
there should have been brigades; where brigades, divisions. It was
just sheer bad luck. No blame attached to the fleet—every man worked
like a Trojan, worked on without paying the slightest attention to
the hail of projectiles falling around. They were white right through,
those boys from the warships, from the plucky little middies and the
jolly "Jacks" right up to the senior officers. I pity the chap who
ever says a word against them if any of the Anzacs happen to be within
coo-ee of him! Come to think it over, I don't see that blame could be
fixed on any one. The country was just made for defensive purposes;
it would have required division after division to have been thrown in
on each other's heels in order to reduce it, or to seize the ground
to the Narrows and hang on. We simply hadn't the men. And the natural
difficulties in the way of getting up such reinforcements as we had,
not to speak of supplies, ammunition, etc., were nigh insurmountable.
There were no tracks, much less roads; the guns that _were_ landed that
first evening had to be pulled by hand through the standing scrub; the
landing parties on the beach were open to continuous shell fire, not
to mention snipers—altogether I don't think there was ever such a
daring or hazardous enterprise attempted in the world's history.
And now strong Turkish reinforcements appeared on the scene. Battalion
after battalion of fresh troops joined the enemy firing line. It
stiffened up: we failed to break it. Our men were falling fast; half
our strength seemed to be down, killed or wounded, while the remainder
were beginning to feel the effects of their tremendous gruelling in the
fierce heat of a sub-tropic sun. Still on came the masses of Turkish
reserves. The naval guns, especially those of the _Lizzie_, cut them
up, but didn't stagger them. They took the offensive. For a time it was
charge and counter-charge, give and take. But it couldn't last; the
odds were too great. We retired fighting—and in that retirement our
losses were something cruel. Machine-guns and shrapnel did the damage
mostly, but the Mausers took their share. Only in one thing had we the
advantage—the bayonet. When we got to hand grips with them the Turks
couldn't stand up to our chaps, who went for them with the cold steel
like devils red-hot from hell.
No man who took part in that retirement will ever forget it. Overhead
burst the shells, underfoot the dust rose and the twigs snapped as the
unending rain of rifle, machine-gun, and shrapnel bullets _zipped!_ and
spattered around. Men fell fast, killed and wounded; every temporary
stand we made was marked by little groups of grotesquely postured
khaki-clad forms still with the stillness of death. Here and there one
saw a sorely wounded man feebly raise his head and gaze pathetically
after the retiring line of hard-pressed men; others (and these were
many) limped and hobbled painfully along in the wake of the retreating
infantry, till in many cases another bullet laid them low. Most of our
wounded fell into the hands of the enemy. It was hard to leave them,
but what could we do?
Time after time we tried to dig ourselves in. In vain! The line had to
be shortened, else we should be outflanked by the enormously superior
forces opposed to us. There was nothing for it but to retire right back
to the ridge and hold the crest—or try to! Back then we went, retiring
by companies and half-companies. There was no running, no panic at any
time. When the Turks pressed us too closely we gave them a shake-up
with the bayonet. In many cases men had to rely on the steel alone,
their ammunition giving out. Time after time the enemy drew back while
his big guns and maxims wrought their will on us. He didn't half like
the steel.
We reached the ridge, and, exhausted as we were, started to dig
ourselves in. Our throats were parched, for we dare not broach our
water-bottles lest we should be tempted to finish them straight away.
Once a man begins to drink he will keep on. In many cases bottles had
been shot through and the contents drained away. Others had left them
with wounded comrades. For food we munched a biscuit—when we had time!
There weren't many biscuits eaten until after nightfall.
We dug a line of holes, scratching fiercely with our trenching tools,
all the while subjected to a withering shrapnel fire. The naval gunners
seemed quite unable to locate and silence the Turkish artillery, so
cleverly was it concealed. Lying down as flat as possible we scraped
away, working frantically for the much-needed cover that should enable
us to hold the position, if it were possible to hold it. At times we
dropped the trenching tools—to lift our rifles and beat back the
oncoming enemy. Yet it was evident that the Turks were beginning to
feel the strain too. Perhaps they thought they had us anyhow, for their
assaults began to lose a lot of their sting, and we were enabled to get
a half chance to dig. As the day waned and nightfall approached they
came again, and we were hard put to it for a time to hang on. Charge
and counter-charge followed rapidly on each other's heels, and all the
time a deafening fire was kept up along the whole position. Then the
brief twilight changed into night; the fire slackened off; the moon
rose, and for the first time since early morning we were enabled to
obtain a few minutes' rest before going on digging again in the attempt
to connect up and deepen the shallow holes we had scratched into one
continuous trench.
We stuck to it hard all through the night, grafting away for all we
were worth. It was our only chance. Yet at times we were absolutely
forced by sheer fatigue to drop our tools and stretch out for a spell.
Sixteen hours of hard, solid fighting through a broken and hilly
country, followed by a whole night's digging; then stand-to before
daybreak, and all the succeeding hours of the second day hold the
trenches against intermittent attacks. At night go on working at
strengthening the trenches; stand-to again before daylight the third
day—and from before dawn till well on in the evening of that day do
your bit at beating off the enemy's attack in force with a fresh army
that outnumbers you by five to one—_the_ attack by which he means to
seize your position _at all costs_! Just do the foregoing, dear reader,
and you will realise what those Australasian troops endured. And do it
(as they did) on a pint and a half of water and a few biscuits.
It was on Tuesday, April 27, that Enver Pasha launched the attack
against our lines that was to drive us into the sea. All through Monday
and Monday night our transports were landing fresh troops under heavy
and constant shelling from the Turkish big guns; under cover of the
darkness these troops were marched up and placed, some in the fire
trenches to fill up the many gaps caused by the enemy's shrapnel and
machine-guns, others massed in reserve at the base of the cliff. Yet
not a man of those who had stormed the position the first day, and who
had been hard at it ever since, could be spared from the front line.
Come to think, I don't fancy a single one would have left it. The
feeling had got abroad that the change was going to be taken out of the
Turks this time (it had leaked out that the big attack would certainly
take place on Monday night or Tuesday morning), and the chaps were fair
mad to get a bit of their own back. They did, too.
Our position as finally formed extended along the very crest, or rim,
of the cliff for a distance of about two miles, or rather better. Here
and there deep gullies, or cañons, ran into and cut the line, or caused
the line itself to "bulge" considerably towards the enemy position.
Such was "Shrapnel Gully," at the head of which lay "Quinn's Post,"
where our trenches had to be pushed perilously forward owing to the
configuration of the ground. "Quinn's Post," in fact, formed the key
to the whole position; it lay right in the centre of the line, and had
it been carried the whole bag of tricks would, in my opinion, have
crumpled up badly, and a big disaster might have occurred. When your
centre is pierced it's no picnic. To the left of "Quinn's" was "Dead
Man's Ridge," held by the Turks, and from which they were able to snipe
right down "Shrapnel Gully"—and, incidentally, our camps and dug-outs.
It was from "Dead Man's Ridge" that General Bridges was shot close to
Brigade Headquarters down in the "Gully." No man was safe from those
snipers; they seemed to be everywhere—before, alongside, and _behind_
our lines even. Hence no supplies could be brought up in daylight;
everything had to be done at night when there was only shell-fire
to worry about. Afterwards we got those snipers fossicked out (they
met strange deaths sometimes!), but in the meantime our life wasn't
anything to hanker after.
Now had the enemy only succeeded in pushing us over the rim of the
ridge, nothing would have saved us. Below lay the open beach. We
couldn't possibly have been taken off with the heights in the hands of
the Turks. I guess it would have been one of the biggest and finest
wipe-outs in history. Old Enver Pasha thought it would look jolly
well in the morning papers, I expect. Anyway he had no end of a hard
try—and to give him and his men their due I don't mind admitting that
they weren't so very far from succeeding.
I don't pretend to describe that struggle. No man could. It was grit,
tenacity, and gameness opposed to overwhelming numbers. A battle of
giants. It was sickening; brutal—and yet splendid. Men fought that
day stripped to the waist; fought till their rifles jammed, picked
up another—and went on fighting. Men with broken legs refused to
leave the trench, cursing those who would have assisted them—went
on firing until a second bullet crippled their rifle arm. Yet still
they clung on, handing up clips of cartridges to their mates, all the
time imploring them to "give the sons of —— hell!" They weren't
Sunday-school models, those big-hearted, happy-go-lucky toughs from
the Back of Beyond. But they knew how to fight—and die. They were men
right through, not kid-glove soldiers. They lived hard, fought hard,
and died hard. And what if they did die with curses on their lips! Who
shall dare to judge them, dying as _they_ died? And it may be that the
Big Padre up aloft turned a deaf ear to those oaths begotten of the
life they had lived—or perhaps He failed to hear them in the noise of
battle!
The Turks attacked gamely, like the big, brave soldiers they are and
always were. Led by their splendid officers, they came on in masses,
shoulder to shoulder, and did all that in them lay to rush our
trenches. They were met by a storm of bullets that would have staggered
anything born of woman. It did stagger them: they recoiled before
that leaden blast that piled their dead and wounded up in ghastly
heaps and ridges like broken-down walls—before that smashing fire
delivered at twenty yards range. They recoiled—yes. But run—no! They
charged, charged right through that hurricane of machine-gun and rifle
fire—charged right up to our parapets.
And now it was our turn. Like one man the colonial infantry leaped
from their cover. _Crash!_ They were into the Turks. Followed a wild
hurly-burly of hacking and stabbing while one might count twenty
slowly; then the enemy were beaten back, and the defenders ran, limped,
and crawled back to their trenches and took to their rifles again.
Thus it went on from before dawn till towards evening. Charge and
counter-charge, till men reeled from sheer exhaustion, and their
bloodclotted weapons slipped from hands sticky with the same red
paint. I am not exaggerating; those who were present on that awful
Tuesday will bear me out.
We were hard pressed. The strongest men in the world are only human.
Loss of sleep, insufficient food, and practically no water, combined
with the exertions we had already gone through, began to tell their
tale. Our losses were also very heavy; and owing to the slippery state
of the clay soil, following on an all-night of rain, our reserves could
not get up quickly enough. Thus yards and yards of trench were at times
empty of all save dead and wounded men, and in some cases the Turks
effected a footing in them; they were always driven out again, however,
or bayoneted to a man. Our fellows were simply magnificent; budge they
would not. To capture those trenches meant the killing of the men who
held them; you couldn't _drive_ them out. And the officers were just
the same.
But it was cruel to hear the continual cries of—
"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
out 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.