Part 4 (1/2)

Before we left rest camp all ranks underwent two inoculations against cholera.

Early in August we learned that the Brigade would shortly take over the extreme left sector at Fusilier Bluff. After a reconnaissance of the position by Colonel Morrison and the Adjutant, a party of eight officers and sixteen N.C.O.'s went forward on August 6th to spend a night in the new firing line. On the way up, as they were pa.s.sing along the westmost sector of the Eski line, one of our most promising young N.C.O.'s--Corpl. W. Wood, ”D” Company--was killed by a stray bullet.

This was an historic day on the Peninsula. Fifteen miles up the Aegean coast the first landing was being made at Suvla Bay. To divert the enemy's attention and to supplement the advance there and at Anzac, the 29th and 42nd Divisions attacked on our front that afternoon.

In spite of very terrible losses these two divisions gained some ground.

The Turks, however, threw in reinforcements from their reserves concentrated at Maidos, a force with which they had boastfully threatened to drive us into the sea. The bulk of this army stemmed the advance at Suvla, but enough could also be spared for the fight at Cape h.e.l.les to annul our success. Indeed by August 7th only the forward portion of the Vineyard, between the Krithia and Achi Baba nullahs, remained in the hands of the 42nd Division as the nett gain of the previous day's battle.

Our party of officers and N.C.O.'s spent the night at the Border Barricade sector. Up there on the left they had the pleasure of coming across our pre-war chaplain, the Rev. J.A. Cameron Reid, who was at that time attached to the 1st K.O.S.B. They got back to rest camp the following afternoon, having been compelled to lie low for a considerable time in the Gully, which had been heavily sh.e.l.led by the enemy since sunrise.

The same day our move to the left sector was cancelled, and instead we were sent up at 8 p.m. to relieve the Chatham and Deal Battalion in the Eski line and to be in general reserve to the 42nd Division in the centre sector. On the trek forward two men of ”A” Company (Captain D.E.

Brand now in command) were wounded near Clapham Junction in the Krithia nullah.

By 11 o'clock ”A” and ”B” Companies were installed in the Eski line to the east of the nullah, with Battalion Headquarters on the inner flank, while ”C” and ”D” (now under Captain T.A. Fyfe and Captain R.H. Morrison respectively), with the Machine-Gun Section, occupied the line west of the small nullah. The trench between the two nullahs was in ruins owing to sh.e.l.l-fire directed against a battery behind it.

Indeed the whole position, though more than 1000 yards from the firing line, was a particularly unhealthy one with so much desultory fire going on in front. All the stray bullets seemed to drop in the vicinity and it was obvious that the Turk, taking advantage of the observation which his higher position yielded him, had in addition rifles or machine-guns trained on it. Occasional bullets, for instance, kept plugging into the ground beside Headquarters' dug-out. One of these imbedded itself in a box which was being carried in by an orderly. After that anybody pa.s.sing in or out moved, as the Colonel described it, with a well a.s.sumed air of having something to do in a hurry.

During our seven days here, the Battalion sent forward double parties of about three officers and 100 men each for night work in No-man's Land.

They were extending No. 7 sap through the Vineyard, and digging across it a new trench, which was afterwards known to fame as Argyle Street.

It was at this time that the Colonel initiated a morning conference with company commanders, which met at Headquarters at 9 a.m. daily. It afforded an opportunity for an exchange of views upon the various questions affecting us and saved much correspondence, rendering the issue of formal Battalion Orders unnecessary except for special operations.

Preparatory to our taking over the trenches in front, Major Findlay, Captain Morrison, and Lieut. Leith spent the night of 11th/12th August in the Vineyard sector. About 7 p.m. on the 12th, however, the Turks started a determined attack on the Vineyard, and succeeded in recovering from the hardy Lancas.h.i.+re territorials most of the ground they had so gallantly captured on the 6th. During this action the Battalion ”stood to,” and ”A” and ”B” Companies moved forward to the Redoubt line for eventualities. They returned the following morning, and in the course of the same day the Battalion took over the firing line to the right--that is from the small nullah to the Horse Shoe. On the left our front line (Argyle Street) was still far from safe and required further digging and sandbagging, while on the right the chief work in progress was a tunnel which was being driven from the Achi Baba nullah up to the Horse Shoe.

Before we moved up we had received three officers from the 2/5th H.L.I., Captain P. MacLellan Thomson and Sec.-Lieuts. A. Barbe and Colvil. The former we lost at once to the 5th Argylls, who were short of Captains.

Captain A. Pirie Watson, R.A.M.C., took over the duties of medical officer from Lieut. Downes, who returned to his own unit, and for a time we lost the services of Major Neilson. He had been left behind ill in rest camp. Getting worse he was invalided home, but returned to us in record time.

On the night of 13th August, Sergt. D. Macdonald (”A” Company) who had served in the Battalion for thirteen or fourteen years, after previous service in the line battalions of the H.L.I., was killed in F12A while s.h.i.+fting a sand-bag on the parapet.

It was hard work getting our trenches into order and collecting the ammunition which was lying about in all sorts of odd corners; here a few unopened boxes, there a pile of loose rounds. The French on our right handed over to us 90,000 rounds of British ammunition, loose and in boxes, which they had retrieved in their sector. Besides ammunition, we made a big collection of miscellaneous equipment. Verey lights, bombs, etc., all of which were stacked centrally ready to be sent down to Ordnance when opportunity might offer. Good progress was also made with the reconstruction of Argyle Street.

During the night of 15th August Lieut. Leith and Sergt. G. Downie crept out from our line near the small nullah and got close up to F12 at a point where a blasted tree with a sh.e.l.l-hole through its trunk stood out a few yards in front of the enemy's trench. They heard men conversing inside, and a shot or two was fired over the parapet. Grenades were also thrown from a work of some kind near the tree. These must have been on the off-chance of catching some of our people in the open, for Lieut.

Leith was confident that he and his companion were not spotted. Nothing was observed to indicate the presence of machine-guns in F12, but the ground in front of the trench was searched occasionally by enfilade fire from F13. The conclusion at which Lieut. Leith arrived was that the trench itself was but thinly held and that for its defence the enemy relied chiefly on fire from F13. After remaining in observation for a considerable time the scouts crept carefully back, and the results of their work were pa.s.sed to the Brigade at 5 a.m. with our morning progress report.

Later in the day we were asked to report to the Brigade in writing on the enemy's trenches in front of our sector, as to the feasibility of seizing F12. Our opinion was that there would be little difficulty in rus.h.i.+ng F12 without incurring serious casualties, but that to consolidate and hold it under frontal and enfilade fire from F13 (in which the enemy appeared to have machine-guns) and possibly also enfilade fire from F12A, would be very costly. We suggested that before any attempt on F12 should be made, at least the southern portion of F13 ought to be rendered untenable.

All forenoon rumours were floating about that arrangements were being made for an attempt to retake the Vineyard by troops on our left.

Confirmation of these rumours came in the afternoon from the Brigade Major when he telephoned to inform us that the attack was to be delivered during the coming night, and asked us to send along, to a.s.sist, a catapult which was in use in our F13 bomb station, and the R.M.L.I. team, which had been left with us to work it. This was done, though the special authority of the Naval Division had to be obtained before the corporal of the R.M.L.I. party could be prevailed upon to move his catapult and team from the spot where it had been posted by his own C.O. In view of the possibility that the enemy might be tempted, when he found the Vineyard attacked, to retaliate upon Argyle Street, fifty of ”D” Company slept in F12, ready to move immediately to the a.s.sistance of the garrison of the new trench.

About 11 p.m. the Brigade gave us information as to the hour and other particulars of the attack, and instructions that we were to a.s.sist the attack by a heavy fire demonstration at 2.31 a.m. against the trenches on our front, and that if the C.O. considered the conditions justified it, we were to push forward and secure F12. The Brigadier agreed with our views put forward in our report, and impressed upon the C.O. that he did not expect him to attempt this unless an unexpected favourable opportunity presented itself, but that in any case patrols might find out more about F12. Patrols were accordingly warned to be in readiness and, in the orders issued as to the fire demonstration, the firing line and support companies were warned that they might be required to advance.

Punctually at 2.31 a.m. on 16th August, we opened fire along our whole front. The intensity and volume of the enemy's reply were startling.

Within a minute rifles and machine-guns were showering a hail of lead on our parapets. It almost looked as if they had been expecting an attack to develop from our sector. At any rate they had been very much on the alert and their trenches were strongly held. This strength they disclosed to an extent which at once proved the futility of any attempt on our part to rush F12. It was not a case of a sudden burst of fire dying away rapidly. The General had instructed the C.O. to report to him by telephone at 2.50. At that hour there was not the slightest diminution apparent in the spray of bullets which was las.h.i.+ng our front.

At least one machine-gun was pelting, at very close range, the barricade blocking the northern end of the stretch of F12 held by us--the very barricade behind which one of our patrols was waiting to slip out into the open. Others were ripping up our sandbags here and there along the line. No patrol could possibly venture out into such a storm. This was reported to the General, who asked the C.O. to ring him up again when things became quieter.

Within about twenty minutes the machine-guns dropped out. The enemy had apparently come to the conclusion that any attack we might have been meditating had been nipped in the bud. Their rifle fire also slackened perceptibly, although it continued until daybreak much heavier than their usual night firing. On comparing notes, we found that two, if not three, machine-guns, had disclosed themselves in the dilapidated length of F12 between our barricade and the ”sh.e.l.l-holed” tree--a portion of the trench which we had hitherto regarded as entirely abandoned--and that there were more of them in the same trench between the tree and the small nullah; the exact positions could not however be located.

Several had also been spotted in F13 and from the direction of F12A. The trap had been baited for us, and it was well that we had not walked into it.