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Five Months at Anzac

POST OFFICE The postal arrangements on the whole were good, considering the circumstances under which the mails were handled. It was always a matter of interest for all of us when we saw mail-bags in the barges, whether or no we were to participate in the good luck of receiving letters. And here I might make the suggestion to correspondents in Australia to send as many snap-shot photos. as possible. They tell more than a letter, for one can see how the loved ones are looking. Papers were what we needed most, and we got very few indeed of these. I wrote home once that I was fortunate in having a paper to read that had been wrapped round greasy bacon. This was a positive fact. We were up the gully at the advance dressing station, and a machine gun was playing right down the position. Four men were killed and six wounded right in front of us, so that it was not prudent to leave until night fell. It was then that reading matter became so necessary. The paper was the Sydney Morning Herald and contained an advertisement stating that there was a vacancy for two boarders at Katoomba; I was an applicant for the vacancy. The Bulletin was a God-send when it arrived, as was Punch. Norman Morris occasionally got files of the Newcastle Morning Herald, which he would hand on to us, as there were a lot of men from the Newcastle district in the Ambulance. Later on it was possible to register a small parcel in the Field Post Office—for home. SANITARY ARRANGEMENTS In order to keep the health of the troops good it was necessary to be exceedingly careful in the matter of sanitation. Lieutenant-Colonel Millard was the Sanitary Officer for our Division, and Lieutenant-Colonel Stokes for the 1st Australian Division. The garbage at first was collected in casks, placed in a barge and conveyed out into the bay; it was found, however, that a lot of it drifted back. It reminded one so much of Newcastle and Stockton. The same complaints were made by the men on the right as are put forth by Stockton residents regarding the Newcastle garbage. We, of course, occupied the position of the Newcastle Council, and were just as vehement in our denial of what was a most obvious fact. The situation was exactly the same—only that, instead of dead horses, there were dead mules. Three incinerators were started, enclosures built up with stone, and a fire lighted. This was effective, but gave rise to a very unpleasant smell along the beach. The only time I was shot was from an incinerator; a cartridge had been included in the rubbish and exploded just as I was passing. The bullet gave me a nasty knock on the shin. It was a fairly common practice among men just arrived to put a cartridge in their fire just to hear the noise. Of course down on the beach it was not usual to hear a rifle fired at close range, and the sound would make everybody look up to "see where the —— that came from." The discovery of the culprit would bring out a chorus from the working parties: "Give him a popgun, give him a popgun!" "Popgun" was preceded by the usual Australian expletive. The water found on the Peninsula was always subjected to careful examination, and, before the troops were allowed to use it notices were placed on each well stating whether the water was to be boiled or if only to be used for washing. SIMPSON Everyone knows of Simpson and his donkey. This man belonged to one of the other Ambulances, but he made quite frequent trips backwards and forwards to the trenches, the donkey always carrying a wounded man. Simpson was frequently warned of the danger he ran, for he never stopped, no matter how heavy the firing was. His invariable reply was "My troubles!" The brave chap was killed in the end. His donkey was afterwards taken over by Johnstone, one of our men, who improvised stirrups out of the stretcher-slings, and conveyed many wounded in this manner. CHURCH SERVICES No account of the war would be complete without some mention of the good work of the chaplains. They did their work nobly, and gave the greatest assistance to the bearers in getting the wounded down. I came into contact chiefly with those belonging to our own Brigade. Colonel Green, Colonel Wray, and Captain Gillitson; the latter was killed while trying to get one of our men who had been wounded. Services were held whenever possible, and sometimes under very peculiar circumstances. Once service was being conducted in the gully when a platoon was observed coming down the opposite hill in a position exposed to rifle fire. The thoughts of the audience were at once distracted from what the Padre was expounding by the risk the platoon was running; and members of the congregation pointed out the folly of such conduct, emphasizing their remarks by all the adjectives in the Australian vocabulary. Suddenly a shell burst over the platoon and killed a few men. After the wounded had been cared for, the Padre regained the attention of his congregation and gave out the last verse of "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow." There was one man for whom I had a great admiration—a clergyman in civil life but a stretcher-bearer on the Peninsula—Private Greig McGregor. He belonged to the 1st Field Ambulance, and I frequently saw him. He always had a stretcher, either carrying a man or going for one, and in his odd moments he cared for the graves of those who were buried on Hell Spit. The neatness of many of them was due to his kindly thought. He gained the D.C.M., and richly deserved it. All the graves were looked after by the departed one's chums. Each was adorned with the Corps' emblems: thus the Artillery used shell caps, the Army Medical Corps a Red Cross in stone, etc. <ANTIMG src="images/06.jpg" alt="Mules in a Gully." height-obs="540" width-obs="396"> Mules in a Gully. <ANTIMG src="images/07.jpg" alt="Graves of Major Ellis and Lieut.-Col. Braund." height-obs="508" width-obs="394"> Graves of Major Ellis and Lieut.-Col. Braund. <ANTIMG src="images/08.jpg" alt="Wounded being placed on Hospital Ship." height-obs="506" width-obs="375"> Wounded being placed on Hospital Ship. <ANTIMG src="images/09.jpg" alt="Stretcher Bearers carrying Col. Cox." height-obs="505" width-obs="390"> Stretcher Bearers carrying Col. Cox. THE ENGINEERS The Engineers did wonderfully good work, and to a layman their ingenuity was most marked. Piers were made out of all sorts of things; for instance, a boat would be sunk and used as a buttress, then planks put over it for a wharf. They built a very fine pier which was afterwards named Watson's. Again, the "monkey" of a pile driver they erected was formed out of an unexploded shell from the Goeben. This warship, a German cruiser taken over by the Turks, was in the Sea of Marmora, and occasionally the Commander in a fit of German humour would fire a few shells over Gallipoli neck into the bay—a distance of about eight or nine miles. As soon as the Goeben began firing, one of our aeroplanes would go up, and shortly afterwards the Queen Elizabeth could be seen taking up a position on our side of the Peninsula, and loosing off. Whether she hit the Goeben or not we never heard. It was Mafeesh. The Engineers also made miles upon miles of roads and, furthermore, created the nucleus of a water storage. A number of large tanks from Egypt were placed high up on "Pluggey's," whence the water was reticulated into the far distant gullies. TURKS ATTACK One night in May the Turks made a fierce attack on us, apparently determined to carry out their oft-repeated threat of driving us into the sea. The shells just rained down over our gully, lighting up the dug-outs with each explosion. It was like Hell let loose. Word came up from the beach station that they were full of casualties and on getting down there one found that the situation had not been over-estimated. The whole beach was filled with stretchers, the only light being that from bursting shells. We worked hard all night operating and dressing, and when one had time to think, one's thoughts generally took the shape of wondering how the men were keeping the Turks off. It was useless to be sentimental, although many of my friends were amongst those injured; the work just had to be done in the best way possible. One night a strong wind got up, just like our "Southerly Busters," and in the middle of it all firing began on our left. I heard that the Turks nearly got into the trenches, but they were beaten off and rolled right round the position—passed on, as it were, from battalion to battalion. It was very interesting to watch the warships bombarding Turkish positions. One ship, attacking Achi Baba, used to fire her broadside, and on the skyline six clouds would appear at regular intervals, for all the world like windmills. On another occasion I watched two ships bombarding the same hill a whole afternoon. One would think there was not a square yard left untouched, and each shot seemed to lift half the hill. Twenty minutes after they had ceased firing, a battery of guns came out from somewhere and fired in their turn. They must have been in a tunnel to have escaped that inferno. One day we were up on "Pluggey's" while our beach was being shelled; at last the stack of ammunition caught fire and was blazing fiercely until some of the men got buckets and quenched the fire with sea water most courageously. Later a shell landed among a lot of dug-outs. There was quietness for a bit; then one man began scraping at the disturbed earth, then another; finally about six of them were shovelling earth away; at last a man appeared with his birthday suit for his only attire. He ran like a hare for the next gully, amid the yells of laughter of all who witnessed the occurrence. I think he had been swimming, and being disturbed by "Beachy," had run for a dug-out only to be buried by the shell. That was the extraordinary thing about our soldiers. Shelling might be severe and searching, but only if a man was hit was it taken seriously. In that case a yell went up for stretcher-bearers; if it was a narrow squeak, then he was only laughed at. That beach at times was the most unhealthy place in the Peninsula. Men frequently said they would sooner go back to the trenches. One day we had five killed and twenty-five wounded. Yet, had Johnny Turk been aware of it, he could have made the place quite untenable. I saw one shell get seven men who were standing in a group. The effect was remarkable. All screwed themselves up before falling. They were all lightly wounded. RED CROSS About the middle of July I sent a corporal and two men over to Heliopolis with a letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Barrett, asking for some Red Cross goods. I had already received issue vouchers for two lots, but these had been intercepted in transit, so the men were ordered to sit on the cases until they gave delivery to the Ambulance. Fifty cases came, filled with pyjamas, socks, shirts, soap and all sorts of things. The day they arrived was very, very hot, and our hospital was full of men whose uniform had not been off since they landed. No time was lost in getting into the pyjamas, and the contented look on the men's faces would have gratified the ladies who worked so hard for the Red Cross. Talk about peace and contentment—they simply lolled about in the scrub smoking cigarettes, and I don't believe they would have changed places with a Federal Senator. Those Red Cross goods saved one man's life at least. All the unopened cases were placed outside the tent. One afternoon a shell came over into a case of jam, went through it, and then into another containing socks. A man was lying under the shelter of this box, but the socks persuaded the shell to stay with them, and thus his life was saved. It was on this day that my nephew, Staff-Sergeant Nickson, was wounded. He had just left his dug-out to go to the dressing station on the beach when a shrapnel shell severely wounded him in the leg. The same shell killed Staff-Sergeant Gordon, a solicitor from Adelaide, and one of the finest characters I knew. He was shot through the spine and killed instantly. Two other men were wounded. Our Ambulance was ordered to pitch a hospital up Canterbury Gully to provide for a possible outbreak of cholera, as almost every writer on the subject stated that, when European troops occupied trenches that had been previously held by Turks, an outbreak of cholera invariably followed. Major Clayton was detailed for the work, and soon had accommodation for a hundred men. As there was no cholera, the sick men were kept here. We had been so long in this place without a change, and so many troops were crowded into such a small area, without a possibility of real rest, that the men began to get very stale. Sickness was prevalent, and this hospital seemed to help them a great deal. It was a picture to see them all lying in their pyjamas reading the Bulletin and Punch, and swapping lies. The New Zealanders held a concert here one night. Major Johnston, the O.C., filled the position of chairman, the chair being a cask. One man with a cornet proved a good performer; several others sang, while some gave recitations. We all sat round in various places in the gully, and joined in the choruses. It was very enjoyable while it lasted; but, as darkness came on, rifle-fire began on the tops of the surrounding hills—also, occasionally, shell fire. This completely drowned the sound of the performers' voices, and the concert had to be brought to a close; Abdul had counted us out. PREPARING FOR THE ADVANCE Towards the end of July great preparations were made for an offensive movement, the object being to take Hill 971 and so turn the Turk's right. Large platforms were dug out of the hillsides in Monash Gully, each capable of holding three to five hundred men; they were constructed well below the sky line, and were fairly secure from shell fire. On these the incoming battalions were placed. There was not much room for sleep, but the main object seemed to be to have as many men handy as possible. The Turks seemed to be aware of the influx of troops, as they shelled the whole position almost all night. The beach, of course, was attended to most fervently, but considering the numbers of men landing few casualties occurred. A 4.7 naval gun, which, I understand, had served in the relief of Ladysmith, was swathed in bags and landed on a barge, which conveyed it to a position alongside the pier. A party was put on to make a shield on the pier of boxes of our faithful friends the "forty-niners," in case there were any Turks of an enquiring turn of mind along the beach towards Suvla. The Engineers then constructed a landing place, and the gun was hauled ashore, again covered up, and conveyed to its position on our right during the night. General Birdwood outwitted the Turks that time, as they did not fire a shot during the whole operation. On the third of August we received orders to remove to the left flank, the right being held by the Australian Division which participated in the operation known afterwards as Lone Pine. The last day on the beach proved to be pretty hot with shelling, chiefly from Beachy Bill. A number of pinnaces were busy all day towing in barges from the transports, and this could be easily seen from the olive grove where Bill had his lair. At one time the shells came over like rain; two of the pinnaces were hit below the water-line, and were in imminent danger of sinking. Through all the shelling Commander Cater ran along the pier to give some direction regarding the pinnaces, but was killed before he got there. He was a brave man, and always very courteous and considerate. Our casualties during this afternoon were pretty considerable, and our stretcher-bearers were constantly on the "go" getting men under shelter. Early in the morning the Ghurkas came ashore, but the Turks spotted them, and gave them a cordial welcome to Anzac. They are a small-sized set of men, very dark (almost black), with Mongol type of face and very stolid. One was killed while landing. They were evidently not accustomed to shell-fire, and at first were rather scared, but were soon reassured when we told them where to stand in safety. Each carried in addition to his rifle a Kukri—a heavy, sharp knife, shaped something like a reaping-hook, though with a curve not quite so pronounced. It was carried in a leather case, and was as keen as a razor. I believe the Ghurkas' particular delight is to use it in lopping off arms at the shoulder-joint. As events turned out we were to see a good deal of these little chaps, and to appreciate their fighting qualities. The 2nd Field Ambulance was to take our position on the beach. We packed up our panniers and prepared to leave the spot where we had done so much work during the last three months, and where we had been the unwilling recipients of so much attention from Beachy Bill and his friend Windy Annie. Our donkeys carried the panniers, and each man took his own wardrobe. Even in a place like this one collects rubbish, just as at home, and one had to choose just what he required to take away; in some cases this was very little, for each had to be his own beast of burden. Still, with our needs reduced to the minimum, we looked rather like walking Christmas-trees. The distance to Rest Gully was about a mile and a half, through saps and over very rough cobble-stones, and our household goods and chattels became heavy indeed before we halted; I know mine did. THE ATTEMPT ON SARI BAIR Our Ambulance was attached to the Left Assaulting Column, which consisted of the 29th Indian Brigade, 4th Australian Infantry Brigade, Mountain Battery and one company of New Zealand Engineers under Brigadier-General Cox. The commanding officers of all the ambulances in General Godley's Division met in the gully and had the operation orders explained to them by the A.D.M.S. of the Division, Colonel Manders, a very capable officer. To my great regret he was killed two days later; we had been acquainted for some time, and I had a great regard for him. The 4th Infantry Brigade was to operate in what was known as the Aghyl Dere (Dere in Turkish means "gully"). The operation order gave out that we were to establish our Field Hospital in such a position as to be readily accessible for the great number of wounded we expected. Meantime, after making all arrangements for the move and ascertaining that each man knew his job exactly, we sat about for a while. The bombardment was to commence at 5 p.m. Precisely at that hour the Bacchante opened fire, the howitzers and our field guns co-operating, the Turks making a hearty response. The din was frightful. To make a man sitting beside me hear what I was saying, I had to shout at the top of my voice. However, there were not many men hit. We had tea—for which Walkley had got three eggs from somewhere, the first I had tasted since leaving Egypt. We tried to get some sleep, but that was impossible, the noise being so great; it was hard, too, to know where one was safe from bullets. Mr. Tute, the Quartermaster, and I got a dug-out fairly well up the hill, and turned in. We had not been long there when a machine-gun appeared to be trained right on to us—bullets were coming in quantities. It was pitch-dark, so we waited until they stopped, and then got further down the gully and tried to sleep there—but this particular dug-out had more than ourselves in it, and we passed the night hunting for things. The Division started to march out just after dark, the 4th Brigade leading. It was almost daylight before the rear of the column passed the place at which we were waiting. The men were all in great spirits, laughing and chaffing and giving the usual "Are we down'earted?". I think those men would laugh if they were going to be hanged. Our bearer divisions, in charge respectively of Captains Welch, Jeffries and Kenny, followed in rear of the Brigade, while the tent divisions came in rear of the whole column. Major Meikle and I had often, like Moses viewing the Land of Promise, looked at the country over which the fight was now to take place—a stretch of flats about three miles long, from the beach up to the foot of the hills. As the day broke, we found a transformation at Nibronesi Point, which is the southernmost part of Suvla Bay. At nightfall not a ship was there; now there was a perfect forest of masts. The place looked like Siberia in Newcastle when there was a strike on. I counted ten transports, seven battle-cruisers, fourteen destroyers, twelve trawlers and a lot of pinnaces. These had landed the force which was afterwards known as the Suvla Bay Army. A balloon ship and five hospital ships were also at anchor in the bay. As we passed what was known as our No. 3 Outpost, we came across evidences of the fight—dead men, dead mules, equipment, ammunition boxes and rifles lying all over the place. We noted, too, little hillocks of sand here and there, from behind which the Turks had fired at our column. It was evident that our men had soon got in touch with the enemy and had driven him back. The Aghyl Dere proved to be a fairly wide gully with steep hills on either side. A little distance, about three quarters of a mile up, we came to what had been the Turkish Brigade Headquarters. Here everything was as they had left it. The surprise had been complete, and we had given them very short notice to quit. Clothing, rifles, equipment, copper pans and boilers were in abundance, and it was evident that Abdul makes war with regard to every comfort, for there were visible also sundry articles of wearing apparel only used by the gentler sex. The men had comfortable bivouacs and plenty of bed-clothing of various patterns. The camp was situated in a hollow, round in shape and about a hundred yards in diameter, with dug-outs in the surrounding hillsides; all was very clean, except for the fleas, of which a good assortment remained. The dug-outs were roofed in with waterproof sheets, buttoned together and held up by pegs which fitted into one another. These sheets, with the poles, made handy bivouac shelters, easily pitched and struck. Altogether, their camp equipment was better than ours. We annexed all the pans and boilers and made good use of them for our own Ambulance. Then, proceeding further up the gully, we found it almost impassable by reason of dead Ghurkas and mules; a gun on a ridge had the range of this place to a nicety, and the ammunition train was held up for a time. I never saw such a mess of entangled mules; they were kicking and squealing, many of them were wounded, and through it all the Indian drivers were endeavouring to restore some kind of order. One had to keep close under the banks to escape the shells. Not far from here was the emplacement of our old friend "Windy Annie," but alas! Annie was constant to Abdul, and they had taken her with them. It was a great pity we did not get the gun. No wonder our guns never found the place. The ground had been dug out to some depth and then roofed over with great logs and covered with earth and sandbags; the ammunition—plenty of it—was in deep pits on either side; artillery quarters were in close proximity, and the tracks of the gun were clearly seen. The shelling was far too heavy to let us pitch a dressing station anywhere here, so we retired to the beach to find a place more sheltered under the hills; the bearers meanwhile followed the troops. Soon scores of casualties began to arrive, and we selected a position in a dry creek about six yards wide, with high banks on either side. The operating tent was used as a protection from the sun and stretched from bank to bank, the centre being upheld by rifles lashed together; the panniers were used to form the operating table, and our drugs were placed round the banks. We were, however, much handicapped by not having any transport, as our donkeys had been requisitioned by the Army Service Corps. Everything had to be carried from a distance, and water was exceedingly scarce. All day we were treating cases and operating until late at night. Major Meikle and I divided the night, and we were kept going. From one until four in the morning I slept in a hole in a trench like a tomb. At daylight we could see our men righting their way through the scrub over Sari Bair, the warships firing just ahead of them to clear the scrub of the Turkish Infantry. The foremost men carried flags, which denoted the farthest point reached and the extent of the two flanks, as a direction to the ship. With the glasses one could see that the bayonet was being used pretty freely; the Turks were making a great stand, and we were losing a lot of men. They could be seen falling everywhere. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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