Part 4 (2/2)
At 3 a.m. the C.O. again reported to the General, who was much interested to hear of the nest of machine-guns we had discovered. He asked for a written report and sketch showing approximately their positions. He also informed me that the attack on the Vineyard had not been successful. Lieut. Leith took the sketch in hand at once and we were able to send it off, with the detailed report desired, before seven o'clock.
In Argyle Street about 10 a.m. Lieut. E.T. Townsend was wounded in the shoulder by a sniper's bullet.
The same day Colonel Morrison handed over the sector to the 7th H.L.I.
and installed the battalion in reserve trenches immediately behind Wigan Road, Redoubt line and the First Australian line. Here we supplied various digging and salvage fatigues for four days. These were arranged in easy reliefs so that we were able to wipe off arrears of sleep.
This was a difficult sector for the Quartermaster and his men. Setting out from rest camp each evening with the rations--and mails when there were any--loaded on mules, they ran the gauntlet across the open to a point where they entered the Mule trench, which ran up the side of the Achi Baba nullah.
This trench was not wide enough for pack-animals to pa.s.s in it. The traffic had therefore to be run to a timetable, one battalion's mules having to make the journey up to the advanced dump and away again before the mules of another battalion entered. Casualties on the way or delay caused by a recalcitrant mule were a constant nightmare, but Lieut. T.
Clark always delivered the goods. From the advanced dump the rations were man-handled by companies to their own cook-houses.
Our water supply was carried in camel tanks, empty rum jars or petrol tins from Romano's Well. Later on water from even this source had to be chlorinated and the well lost its charm.
From now, about the end of August, till the end of October, life was somewhat monotonous, consisting of spells in the firing-line and moves to rest trenches, for short periods. While in the line we had little to do in the way of defending our trenches, as it was pretty obvious the Turk did not intend to attack. This did not, however, save us from providing large numbers of fatigue parties. The ground which we occupied soon became a network of trenches and we were always endeavouring to push forward our front line by means of T-headed saps which were ultimately linked up. The object in this was to get as near to the enemy's front line as to allow our mining operations.
We found the Turk easily got the ”wind up,” more especially at night, and for very little reason he would start a burst of rapid fire, which sometimes would be kept up for a very considerable period. The staff frequently arranged various ruses to try and draw him in this way. For instance, in the end of August, on receiving news of Italy's declaration of war on Turkey, orders were sent to the front line that at a certain hour during the night, all troops would cheer, to give the Turk the impression that we were going to attack. Of course this immediately started an outburst from the Turkish lines; rifles, machine-guns and a proportion of the Turkish artillery all joined in. To say the least of it, it was uncomfortable in the trenches, but few casualties occurred there. Most of the damage, which in reality was very small, took place well behind our lines, as the Turk on these occasions always fired high, and we came to the conclusion that they must stand on the floor of the trench, with their rifles pointing upwards over the parapet, firing as hard as they could. It certainly had the advantage of disclosing Turkish machine-gun positions, and we were able, with the help of the artillery, if not to destroy the machine-gun, at least make it move to another part of the trench.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GALLIPOLI
BATTLE OF 12th JULY, 1915]
Again, on receiving news of a big advance in France, we carried out a similar plan to annoy the Turk. This time our artillery joined in, each battery firing a salute of twenty-one guns on selected objectives. This again very successfully drew the Turk, and probably he was never quite certain of our intentions, and may have formed the opinion that our infantry was unwilling to attack, an opinion which we formed of him later on with justification.
The s.h.i.+ps which were lying off Cape h.e.l.les occasionally carried out minor bombardments. It was very interesting to watch the effect of their sh.e.l.ls bursting when they got a direct hit on the Turkish lines, as of course we had no land guns of such heavy calibre. The s.h.i.+ps were perfectly safe from any reply the Turkish artillery cared to make and we in the front line had to suffer for the navy's demonstration. No one really objected to this, although there was a lot of ”grousing,” because we were glad to feel that we had the support of these big guns, which must have hara.s.sed the enemy tremendously.
The people that annoyed us most of all, however, were the trench mortar companies, who lived in comparative comfort in substantial dug-outs behind the front line. A detachment of these people would frequently visit our trenches, take up a position and proceed to bombard the enemy's line and bomb saps with doubtful success. It was enough, however, to annoy the Turk, and very soon spotting the position of the trench mortar, he would concentrate several guns on it, and at the first sign of any enemy reply our trench mortar friends would pack up and make a hurried departure, realising that they were due at another part of the line to carry out a similar demonstration.
The sickness which had started earlier on was continuing to take heavy toll of all the troops on the Peninsula and the battalion was gradually dwindling in strength. Of the full strength battalion which had landed at the beginning of July, there were only left sixteen officers and 498 other ranks at the end of September. While these numbers further decreased later on, Corps Headquarters realised the danger of this drain on the troops, especially as it seemed impossible to obtain reinforcements from home, and started a rest camp at Imbros with the idea of giving a rest to officers and men who most required it. This camp was gradually moved to Mudros, and in all, three parties were sent, and the lucky ones benefited considerably from the change. Several officers joined us during this period; some of them unfortunately were not with us long owing to this sickness. Early in November we got our only fresh draft from home, Lieut. Andrews and forty-two men from the 2/5th H.L.I. joining us. Major Neilson also rejoined the battalion at this time.
A few days after this the Battalion moved from the line for another short spell in rest camp to an area which was new to the Battalion, but had been vacated by the 155th Brigade before our arrival, they relieving us in the line. The officer's mess accommodation was somewhat limited and it was found necessary to form two battalion messes, Headquarters and half the officers occupying a fairly comfortable dug-out with matting roof for a shade. The other mess was constructed by Captain Fyfe, who worried the Adjutant for working parties until he had dug a large enough hole in the ground as he considered would be necessary. The next problem was to get some sort of shelter, as the weather was beginning to break and we were endeavouring to prepare for rain. A large canvas sheet was produced in the usual skilful manner of Captain Fyfe for obtaining what he wanted, and then arose the question of how this roof was to be supported. Nothing daunted, he approached the Colonel and managed to borrow some precious pieces of timber which had been used by the C.O. in his headquarters during the last spell in the line. This wood had been got with some difficulty from the engineers and was very precious. Once he had it in his possession, however, he seemed to forget the use it was really intended for, and finding that the beams were much too long to support the canvas roof, instead of considering some means of raising the roof or lowering the beams into the ground, promptly sawed them in half and was perfectly satisfied with the result, which was really excellent as far as the other members of the mess were concerned. Very shortly after the mess had been finished, however, the C.O. came round to pay a visit, and was horrified, to say the least of it, to see the destruction that had been carried out on the borrowed beams. Captain Fyfe, however, had a ready answer and the trouble was smoothed over.
For some time past we had had signs that the hot weather was not going to continue and we had frequent showers of rain. One afternoon clouds began to gather from the south, and just as it was beginning to get dark we realised we were in for a pretty severe thunderstorm. With thunder we knew to expect rain and made hurried preparations, but no preparations we possibly could have made would have saved us from the deluge that came that evening. It rained steadily, in a way that few of us had ever experienced before, for several hours, and dug-outs soon filled up with water. It was impossible to go to bed, and a weary miserable night was pa.s.sed by everyone praying for the rain to go off. An unfortunate feature was that the Quartermaster the day before received from Ordnance the Battalion's winter clothing, and had issued it that morning. It had been issued by companies to the men in the afternoon and by night it was sodden with rain. It was impossible to keep anything dry, and all we could hope for was some suns.h.i.+ne to follow after the storm. In the early morning the rain went off and when day broke there were some very funny sights. Few will forget the figure of Dow fis.h.i.+ng in a deep pool of water for various articles of clothing with a stick, while his empty valise floated about on the surface. Fortunately the day was bright and warm and, as it is possible in a climate like that, we got blankets and clothing dried.
To add to our other troubles an epidemic of jaundice had broken out about this time, which accounted for a great many officers and men leaving the Battalion. Aitken, if one could judge the severity of the attack by the colour of the skin, must have been very ill indeed, because he was a deep yellow colour from head to foot. He was determined not to leave the Battalion, and during his spell in the line before coming down to rest camp he had been regularly dosing himself with various pills and only eating very light food, as far as it was possible to regulate one's diet. On reaching rest camp, however, he decided to adopt a kill or cure treatment and gave up taking the doctor's drugs.
The mess stores consisted largely of cases of tinned crab and a good supply of whisky, neither of which, with the greatest stretch of imagination, could be called light diet. Aitken, however, took large quant.i.ties of both and returned to the line, white and feeling very fit.
It is difficult to make any medical man believe this story, but nevertheless it is true.
After this doubtful rest we received orders to return to the line and relieve the 156th Brigade, who a short time before had carried out a successful attack on a small sector of the Turkish line by blowing up their position and occupying the crater. It was this part of the line just east of Krithia nullah we had to take over. On arriving in the trenches about midday on the 21st November, and during the relief, we were somewhat disturbed by the enemy directing artillery fire on the parapets and communication trenches, which, although some readers may consider strange, was quite an unusual occurrence. Little attention was paid to this, however, until about 4 p.m., when without any warning the enemy opened up a heavy bombardment on this particular part of the line which we held. This continued for about an hour and we were confident that the Turk was about to attack. Suddenly the artillery fire ceased and a red flag was seen being waved from the enemy's trenches. Shortly afterwards two Turks came over the parapet but were immediately shot down. They were followed by an officer and a handful of men, possibly a dozen, who advanced a short distance, but when about half of their number fell, the remainder turned and bolted back to their trenches. All along the enemy's line we could see bayonets appearing above the parapet and there is no doubt that he intended to attack, but, apart from the few who actually left the trenches, the attack did not develop. Our artillery during his bombardment, and more so after his artillery fire stopped, certainly directed a very heavy fire on his trenches, and we can only a.s.sume that the Turkish infantry was suffering from ”cold feet”
on account of this. Our casualties were practically negligible.
During the bombardment, an amusing incident took place with Buchanan's servant, Inglis, who was very deaf. This deafness increased with the climate of the Peninsula, but no one imagined that it had increased to such an extent as we found out that day. Inglis had gone to draw water at a neighbouring well before the bombardment started, and later, when the Turkish artillery fire was about at its height, was discovered strolling along the support in the most unconcerned manner with a bucket of water in his hand. Another of the servants, Kirk, who had been left at ”B” Company Headquarters in one of the communication trenches, was found after the bombardment lying on the ground with a dud sh.e.l.l close to his feet. This sh.e.l.l, Kirk explained afterwards, had arrived a few minutes before, and striking the parapet of the communication trench some distance away, had ricocheted and landed with a thud and a cloud of dust beside him. He was still in the state of being uncertain whether he was alive or not and was very glad, when spoken to, to find that he was able to reply.
A certain amount of repair had to be carried out on these trenches which had suffered from the bombardment and this kept us busy for the following days. After which we were relieved and moved back to reserve trenches. A message was received by the C.O. from the Corps Commander congratulating the Battalion on its steadiness during the ”attack.”
Life on the Peninsula was now becoming very uncomfortable owing to the weather conditions. We had many days of rain, and the Gallipoli soil is of a peculiar clay nature which sticks to one's boots when wet and is very difficult to remove. We had not even the luxury of roofed dug-outs in many places and had to do the best we could to shelter ourselves by means of our waterproof sheets.
The last few days of the month the weather changed again and we had several days very severe frost, which put us to our wit's end how to keep warm. Everyone wore as much clothing as they could possibly get on and some of us must have presented a very funny appearance. None will ever forget Major Findlay appearing at the C.O.'s Orderly Room with a Balaclava helmet on to keep him warm and a glengarry perched on the top of it with the intention of appearing properly dressed.
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