Part 16

I have just had a visit from a couple of Senegalese--French troops. They were going through our camp, grinning as only a nigger can, our men making fun of them. One carried off a tin of jam in great glee. They stopped at my dugout and I could not get rid of them till I gave each a chunk of Turkish delight, which pleased them immensely. I had to get rid of two sailors the same way yesterday, giving each a Turkish nose cap. Every Turkish curio is valued in the Navy, extensive barter being carried on between them and men ashore, whisky and all sorts of goods being received by us.

10 p.m.--I have been watching a big green frog which came jumping through our tents at a great speed, as if bound on business. He went straight to the cook's tent and crept under the flap. Plainly he had been there before. Flies are everywhere by the million, but he knew where they were particularly plentiful. Half an hour ago I saw a brilliant speck of light on a piece of heath, which I thought was too bright to be the reflection of the moon from some bright object. I found it came from an insect nearly one inch long, jointed like a lobster, the glow coming from the last two joints on the under side. Even when held close to the flame of a candle the apple-green glow was still very bright.

June 25th.--Walked to Aberdeen Gully, but nothing worth noting to-day.

June 26th.--Like yesterday an uneventful day--unless a visit from a Taube is worth noting, and a thunderstorm over in Imbros. The sky has been more or less cloudy, which is certainly unusual, while yesterday in The Gully the heat was perhaps more trying than I ever felt it.

All preparations are ready for a very big day on Monday (28th) when the Turks on our left are all to be blown sky high; such a bombardment as Flanders has never seen the like of. So says General de Lisle who has been in France from the beginning of the war until the other day, when he became our Divisional-General.

June 27th.--I went to Aberdeen Gully to-day with Kellas, Agassiz, and Morris. We wondered if we could extend our accommodation for wounded in anticipation of to-morrow's fight. We did nothing in that direction, but Kellas getting a message to attend a meeting at Brigade H.Q. as we went up The Gully, he brought up word that General de Lisle wished us to open another dressing station, as far as I could make out, in the slight dip immediately in front of our first firing line to which we are expected to creep out, and dig ourselves in, and wait for to-morrow's advance. I know the ground, and saw his sketch of the site, and pronounced it impossible. We next went to Y. Beach and along a small gully beside Gurkha Bluff, till we were stopped by our front trenches, and could find no possible way of opening another station. We next visited the A.D.M.S., Major Bell, who had not heard of this suggestion.

The bombardment by the naval and field guns commences at 9 to-morrow, and as Thomson and I, who are at present in reserve at W. Beach, are both anxious to take part in what is likely to be one of our biggest fights, we have permission to be out in Aberdeen Gully before it starts. I have just been ordering breakfast for 6.45 to-morrow, the cook remarking sarcastically to a bystander, "Widna five be a better oor": "I dinna think ye shud gang to bed, min," was the reply.

We had seven aeroplanes up at one time this evening, viewing the land and the movements of the Turks, preparing for to-morrow's row.

June 28th.--After an early breakfast Thomson and I set off for Aberdeen Gully, and as our three mule ambulance wagons were going up for the day we had a ride in a four-in-hand to Gully Beach. All the way out we watched the Turks' shells falling right along The Gully, all the batteries, which are numerous there, getting their attentions, while we sat and wondered what we were to do. At the foot of the steep descent into Gully Beach Major Bell shouted to me from a high terrace in which he lives, and advised us not to risk taking the wagons and mules further, especially as mules were getting scarce and are very valuable, so, after consulting with Col. O'Hagan, he suggested parking them where they were. Col. O'Hagan, thinking this gave him the power to do with our wagons as he liked, dared our men to do anything without consulting him, otherwise he would put them under arrest--a threat not much to the liking of Serg. Philip.

We now decided to give The Gully as wide a berth as possible and took the track by the foot of the rocks to Y. Beach, about 2-1/4 miles further on. The attack was to commence at 9 a.m. and we had three-quarters of an hour to do this, climb the long, steep ascent at Y. Beach, and cross by the sunk mule track to Aberdeen Gully. The guns had been unusually active for the last two days, and to-day from daybreak the heavy howitzers had been throwing shells among the Turks to knock in their trenches, and these and many others were dropping their shells a short way to our left as we crossed the mule track. The heat by this time was intense, and I was absolutely soaked by the time I reached the top of the cliff, scrambling through the Gurkha and Sikh dugouts by the nearest cut possible, not much to their relish I thought. Many of the Gurkhas were handling their knives, and one or two sharpening them on stones. These knives of theirs are not so sacred as some say they are, although I was once warned sharply not to touch one I was to pick up beside its owner. I have often seen them chopping wood and meat with these, hence the necessity for their requiring sharpening this morning. Poor Gurkhas! later in the day some of our men mistook them for Turks and mowed down seventy of them with their machine-guns. In every battle we have had some such mistake, and the Dublins in the afternoon had the same experience as the Gurkhas.

We were not many minutes in Aberdeen Gully when the Turks shrapnelled the mule track very thoroughly, as they did in our last battle, and wounded came in thick from here. Of course the Turks, by means of spies, who are said to be numerous, knew the exact minute of the attack, and were fully prepared to give us a hot time. The mule track is merely an old trench widened and deepened, and when there is fighting many troops pass along this, and the Turks guessed they could get a rich harvest here.

From 9 to 11 every gun on the peninsula fired as fast as it could be loaded--between 300 and 400 guns. We were in the thick of it, between the two artillery lines, and the shells of both passed directly over our heads. Orders to the artillery were that ammunition was not to be spared.

At 11 the infantry assault on the first Turkish trench was to be made, and the guns were then to lift and be trained on the third. All along the first line seemed to fall easily, and many of our men rushed to the second, some even taking a third, while a Scotch battalion even took five. This sort of thing usually proves disastrous, as most of our own big guns are out of sight of their objective, and fire entirely by range, and in this case the guns were trained on the third trench while this battalion rushed through to the fifth, with calamitous results. This battalion--either Royal Scots, Scotch Fusiliers, or K.O.S.B.'s I forget which--had lost all its officers, but, with no one to lead them, they dashed on, greatly to the admiration of all onlookers. Two Munster officers had finally to go forward and recall them. Pushing forward at this rate, even apart from the chance of running into your own artillery fire, generally ends disastrously; if too much progress is made we can rarely retain our position.

The Turks were entirely demoralised by the heavy bombardment and cleared out of their trenches, some of our men, as they came to us wounded, complaining that they ran so fast that they could not get near them. Many got down on their knees and surrendered, still shouting their war cry, "Allah, Allah".

Large bodies of prisoners, all motley crews, passed us during the day, and we had a good many wounded Turks to attend to. I dressed one I was much interested in--a short, swarthy chap of middle age, who was brought in by some Fusiliers. This man had jumped on the parapet of his trench, where he coolly stood upright and shot five Fusiliers dead before they managed to bowl him over, but a shattered left arm left him helpless. He walked in with about sixty other prisoners, with a bullet through his upper jaw and tongue, which had come out at the back of his neck; another shattered completely his left arm, the splintered humerus being at a very sharp angle, and a third through his thigh. He had lost much blood from the divided brachial artery, and was very thirsty, and soon drained the fill of a feeding cup of water, in spite of the state of his mouth. He soon wanted more "su" (Turkish for "water") and was given a bowlful, but he would have nothing to do with the bowl, he stuck his finger to its side to show that he wanted the one with the spout. Evidently he was surprised I did not cut his throat, and all the time I was dressing him he patted me with his sound hand.

All the guns were trained on a small patch to begin with, a troublesome part known as the "boomerang," a redoubt with sixteen machine-guns. This was blown to smithereens.

The whole fight was on our extreme left, with a front of not much over half a mile. This must have been very thoroughly ploughed up, and a large number of Turks blown to pieces. One woman was found among the dead, but it is believed that many of them had their wives with them. Many of their underground dwellings were so elaborate that they had evidently made up their minds that they were to spend the coming winter here.

Our casualties, although light compared with the Turks, must be heavy. Over 300 passed through our station before dark, but at that time perhaps the bigger half was still to come. Those lying between trenches have usually to lie where they fall till dark. Our losses would likely be 3000 to 4000.

The Asiatic guns, finding they could take little active part in the proceedings, although they fired occasionally on the French, amused themselves by firing at W. Beach and the battery on Tekke Burnu, and with forty-two shots managed to kill two men and wound eight. One of our men, Corporal Dunn, got badly hit while in Aberdeen Gully by a two-pound shell cap. It was due to the premature bursting of one of our own shells. (Corporal Dunn died a day or two afterwards.) So far the wounds received by our Ambulance have been slight.

Padre Creighton had a peculiar experience at 1 a.m. to-day, while asleep in his "crow's nest". He has taken up his quarters with us in Aberdeen Gully, and has a dugout about 15 feet above the path that winds the length of our Gully. This is almost sheer up and is reached by steps cut in the rock and sandbags. It was formed by levelling a natural recess, and had a galvanised iron roof. Sheer up from this again the rock rises another 70 or 80 feet to the mule track above. A packhorse with two heavy tanks lost its footing on its way up and fell crashing down on Creighton's place, carrying away the roof and a number of sandbags, and dropping one of the boxes in the middle of his bed. The padre escaped untouched. Kellas, sleeping further down the path, rushed out and found himself face to face with the runaway steed, which, still more strange to say, was also unhurt. The padre in the bright moonlight was standing in his pyjamas on the top of his steps, scratching his head, and wondering what it all meant.

The heat all through the day had been most trying, and as I trudged down The Gully by myself, Thomson remaining behind, in the sweltering heat, the whole way packed tight with ammunition and other wagons, through a dust that filled The Gully to the very brim, I felt dead tired after a hard day's work and the long tramp of yesterday, when we looked in vain for a site for a new advanced dressing station. The road seemed without end. As I neared "home" and came over the slight rise at our cemetery the moon rose through a slight haze over the classic Mount Ida, as a great blood-red ball, while on my other side, out in the Gulf of Saros, a dense cloud hung over Imbros, which every few seconds was lit up by a flash of lightning. I had little food all day, and was too tired to eat, but after a big drink of lime juice I retired to bed and slept the sleep of the just--of the tired at any rate.

And so ended a day in which we had had a good specimen of a modern battle, where both sides had shown equal and indomitable pluck.

June 29th.--Spent the day resting and washing clothes. When I can I have a washing day twice a week.

Many wounded passed through Aberdeen Gully after I left last night, the total up to some hour this morning being 566, which meant a lot of hard work.

After I left, Ashmead-Bartlett was passing, and recognising Padre Creighton he went over our Gully, and greatly admired the place for its suitability and picturesqueness, and is to give a description of it in one of his early articles to the home papers--so he says. He told our fellows the following story of a friend of his, who had been through the landing of April 25. He wrote home saying that shells flew thick about his ears, torpedoes chased him about, and mines floated all round; still he was not in the least afraid, he just thought of what his padre told them the previous Sunday, when he exhorted them when in danger to look upwards. He looked upwards, and behold! here was a bloody aeroplane dropping bombs.

Early in the afternoon we had a goodly number of shells. Yesterday, when I was up The Gully, a large piece of shell flew through our mess tent, where the servants were sitting, and landed in a jam pot on the table, splashing an orderly all over; he, mistaking jam for his own blood, did not know whether he was really alive or dead.

June 30th.--We had seven large shells during the night, all landing on our side of W. Beach. Two traction engines have been fitted up lately down on the shore, and one of these was smashed, and a tool-house beside it blown pretty well to pieces. There was also some fighting about our left and centre, but I have not heard the result. The Turks have now a plentiful supply of ammunition, and all yesterday afternoon and this morning have poured a constant stream of high explosives into the French side of Kereves Dere.

Soon after 8 p.m. lightning flashed thick about Imbros, which had an inky black cloud hanging overhead. The storm moved to the east, till it came over Achi Baba, and by this time the flashes were almost constant and the thunder loud. It was one of the grandest thunderstorms I ever saw, and what made it more impressive was the din and flashing of all our guns, the searchlight from Chanak, which always plays over the Dardanelles and us, and then we had a severe shelling from Asia all to ourselves. We just wanted a good rattling earthquake to complete this fearsome picture of hell where both man and the gods warred.