World's War Events Volume I Part 23

"Who have you on board?" we heard a casual English voice say, and then came the reply from our colonel:

"Newfoundlanders." There was to me something very rea.s.suring about that cool, self-contained voice out of the night. It made me feel that we were being expected and looked after.

[Sidenote: Arrival of a launch.]

"Move up those boats," I heard the English voice say, and from right under our bow a naval launch with a middy in charge swerved alongside.

In a little while it, with a string of boats, was securely fastened.

Just before we went into the boats the adjutant pa.s.sed me.

"Well," he said, "you've got your wish. In a few minutes you'll be ash.o.r.e. Let me know how you like it when you're there a little while."

"Yes, sir," I said. But I never had a chance to tell him. The first shrapnel sh.e.l.l fired at the Newfoundlanders burst near him, and he had scarcely landed when he was taken off the peninsula, seriously wounded.

[Sidenote: The Newfoundlanders land.]

In a short time we had all filed into the boats. There was no noise, no excitement; just now and then a whispered command. I was in a tug with about twenty others who formed the rear-guard. The wind had freshened considerably, and was now blowing so hard that our unwieldy tug dared not risk a landing. We came in near enough to watch the other boats.

About twenty yards from sh.o.r.e they grounded. We could see the boys jump over the side and wade ash.o.r.e. Through the half-darkness we could barely distinguish them forming up on the beach. Soon they were lost to sight.

[Sidenote: Enemy artillery in action.]

During the Turkish summer dawn comes early. We transhipped from our tug to a lighter. When it grounded on the beach day was just breaking.

Daylight disclosed a steeply sloping beach, scarred with ravines. The place where we landed ran between sheer cliffs. A short distance up the hill we could see our battalion digging themselves in. To the left I could see the boats of another battalion. Even as I watched, the enemy's artillery located them. It was the first sh.e.l.l I had ever heard. It came over the hill close to me, screeching through the air like an express-train going over a bridge at night. Just above the boat I was watching it exploded. A few of the soldiers slipped quietly from their seats to the bottom of the boat. At first I did not realize that any one had been hit. There was no sign of anything having happened out of the ordinary, no confusion. As soon as the boat touched the beach the wounded men were carried by their mates up the hill to a temporary dressing-station.

[Sidenote: Beginning of bombardment.]

[Sidenote: Coolness of the Newfoundlanders.]

The first sh.e.l.l was the beginning of a bombardment. Beachy Bill, a battery that we were to become better acquainted with, was in excellent shape. Every few minutes a sh.e.l.l burst close to us. Shrapnel-bullets and fragments of sh.e.l.l-casing forced us to huddle under the baggage for protection. A little to the left some Australians were severely punished. Sh.e.l.l after sh.e.l.l burst among them. A regiment of Sikh troops, mule-drivers, and transport-men were caught half-way up the beach. Above the din of falling shrapnel and the shriek of flying sh.e.l.ls rose the piercing scream of wounded mules. The Newfoundlanders did not escape.

That morning Beachy Bill's gunners played no favorites. On all sides the shrapnel came in a shower. Less often, a cloud of thick, black smoke and a hole twenty feet deep showed the landing-place of a high-explosive sh.e.l.l. The most amazing thing was the coolness of the men. The Newfoundlanders might have been practising trench-digging in camp in Scotland. When a man was. .h.i.t some one gave him first aid, directed the stretcher-bearers where to find him, and coolly resumed digging. In two hours our position had become untenable. We had been subjected to a merciless and devastating sh.e.l.ling, and our first experience of war had cost us sixty-five men. In a new and safer position we dug ourselves in.

[Sidenote: Four miles of graveyard.]

No move could be made in daylight. That evening we received our ration of rum, and under cover of darkness moved in open order across the Salt Lake for about a mile, then through three miles of knee-high, p.r.i.c.kly underbrush, to where our division was intrenched. Our orders were to reinforce the Irish. The Irish sadly needed reinforcing. Some of them had been on the peninsula for months. Many of them are still there. From the beach to the firing-line is not over four miles, but it is a ghastly four miles of graveyard. Everywhere along the route are small, rude wooden crosses, mute record of advances. Where the crosses are thickest there the fighting was fiercest, and where the fighting was fiercest there were the Irish. On every cross, besides a man's name and the date of his death, is the name of his regiment. No other regiments have so many crosses as the Dublins and the Munsters. And where the shrapnel flew so fast that bodies mangled beyond hope of ident.i.ty were buried in a common grave, there also are the Dublins and Munsters; and the cross over them reads "In Memory of Unknown Comrades."

[Sidenote: The incomparable Twenty-ninth.]

[Sidenote: How the hill was taken, and lost.]

The line on the left was held by the Twenty-ninth Division; the Dublins, the Munsters, the King's Own Scottish Borderers, and the Newfoundlanders made up the 88th Brigade. The Newfoundlanders were reinforcements. From the very first days of the Gallipoli campaign the other three regiments had formed part of what General Sir Ian Hamilton in his report calls the "incomparable Twenty-ninth Division." When the first landing was made, this division, with the New-Zealanders, penetrated to the top of a hill that commanded the Narrows. For forty-eight hours the result was in doubt. The British attacked with bayonet and bombs, were driven back, and repeatedly re-attacked. The New-Zealanders finally succeeded in reaching the top, followed by the 88th Brigade. The Irish fought on the tracks of a railroad that leads into Constantinople. At the end of forty-eight hours of attacks and counter-attacks the position was considered secure. The worn-out soldiers were relieved and went into dug-outs. Then the relieving troops were attacked by an overwhelming hostile force, and the hill was lost. A battery placed on that hill could have sh.e.l.led the Narrows and opened to our ships the way to Constantinople. The hill was never retaken. When reinforcements came up it was too late. The reinforcements lost their way. In his report General Hamilton attributes our defeat to "fatal inertia." Just how fatal was that inertia is known only to those who formed some of the burial-parties.

[Sidenote: Newfoundlanders run in battle.]

[Sidenote: The Turks charge in ma.s.s formation.]

[Sidenote: Terrible casualties of the enemy.]

After the first forty-eight hours we settled down to regular trench warfare. The routine was four days in the trenches, eight days in rest dug-outs, four in the trenches again, and so forth, although two or three months later our ranks were so depleted that we stayed in eight days and rested only four. We had expected four days' rest after our first trip to the firing-line, but at the end of two days came word of a determined advance of the enemy. We arrived just in time to beat it off.

Our trenches, instead of being at the top, were at the foot of the hill that meant so much to us. The ground here was a series of four or five hogback ridges about a hundred yards apart. Behind these towered the hill that was our objective. From the nearest ridge, about seven hundred yards in front of us, the Turks had all that day constantly issued in ma.s.s formation. During that attack we were repaid for the havoc wrought by Beachy Bill. As soon as the Turk topped the crest they were subjected to a demoralizing rain of sh.e.l.l from the navy and the artillery. Against the hazy blue of the sky-line we could see the dark ma.s.s clearly silhouetted. Every few seconds, when a sh.e.l.l landed in the middle of the approaching columns, the sides of the column would bulge outward for an instant, then close in again. Meanwhile every man in our trenches stood on the firing-platform, head and shoulders above the parapet, with fixed bayonet and loaded rifle, waiting for the order to begin firing. Still the Turks came on, big, black, bewhiskered six-footers, reforming ranks and filling up their gaps with fresh men. Now they were only six hundred yards away, but still there was no order to open fire. It was uncanny.

At five hundred yards our fire was still withheld. When the order came, "At four hundred yards, rapid fire," everybody was tingling with excitement. Still the Turks came on, magnificently determined. But it was too desperate a venture. The chances against them were too great, our artillery and machine-gun fire too destructively accurate. Some few Turks reached almost to our trenches, only to be stopped by rifle-bullets. "Allah! Allah!" yelled the Turks as they came on. A sweating, grimly happy machine-gun sergeant between orders was shouting to the Turkish army in general, "'Tis not a d.a.m.n' bit of good to yell to Allah now." Our artillery opened huge gaps in their lines; our machine-guns piled them dead in the ranks where they stood. Our own casualties were very slight, but of the waves of Turks that surged over the crest all that day only a mere shattered remnant ever straggled back to their own lines.

[Sidenote: The armies in a state of siege.]

That was the last big attack the Turks made. From that time on it was virtually two armies in a state of siege. Every night at dark we stood to arms for an hour. Every man fixed his bayonet and prepared to repulse any attack of the enemy. After that sentry groups were formed, three reliefs of two men each. Two men stood with their heads over the parapet watching for any movement in the no-man's-land between the lines. That accounts for the surprisingly large number of men one sees wounded in the head.

At daylight every morning came "Stand to arms" again. Then day duties began. In the daytime, by using a periscope, an arrangement of double mirrors, a sentry can keep his head below the parapet while he watches the ground in front. Sometimes a bullet struck one of the mirrors, and the splintered gla.s.s blinded the sentry. It was a common thing to see a man go to hospital with his face badly lacerated by periscope gla.s.s.

[Sidenote: When a sh.e.l.l comes.]

Ordinarily a man is much safer on the firing-line than in the rest dug-outs. Trenches are so constructed that even if a sh.e.l.l drops right in the traverse where men are, only half a dozen or so suffer. In open or slightly protected ground where the dug-outs are the burst of a shrapnel-sh.e.l.l covers an area twenty-five by two hundred yards in extent.

[Sidenote: Shrapnel and bullets.]

A sh.e.l.l can be heard coming. Experts claim to identify the caliber of a gun by the sound the sh.e.l.l makes. Few live long enough to become such experts. In Gallipoli the average length of life was three weeks. In dug-outs we always ate our meals, such as they were, to the accompaniment of "Turkish Delight," the Newfoundlanders' name for shrapnel. We had become accustomed to rifle-bullets. When you hear the _zing_ of a spent bullet or the sharp crack of an explosive you know it has pa.s.sed you. The one that hits you you never hear. At first we dodged at the sound of a pa.s.sing bullet, but soon we came actually to believe the superst.i.tion that a bullet would not hit a man unless it had on it his regimental number and his name. Then, too, a bullet leaves a clean wound, and a man hit by it drops out quietly. The shrapnel makes nasty, jagged, hideous wounds, the horrible recollection of which lingers for days. It is little wonder that we preferred the firing-line.

[Sidenote: The mode of intrenching.]

Most of our work was done at night. When we wished to advance our line, we sent forward a platoon of men the desired distance. Every man carried with him three empty sand-bags and his intrenching-tool. Temporary protection is secured at short notice by having every man dig a hole in the ground that is large and deep enough to allow him to lie flat in it.

The intrenching-tool is a miniature pickax, one end of which resembles a large-bladed hoe with a sharpened and tempered edge. The pick end is used to loosen hard material and to break up large lumps; the other end is used as a shovel to throw up the dirt. When used in this fashion the wooden handle is laid aside, the pick end becomes a handle, and the intrenching-tool is used in the same manner as a trowel.

[Sidenote: The necessity for concealment.]

Lying on our stomach, our rifles close at hand, we dug furiously. First we loosened up enough earth in front of our heads to fill a sand-bag.

This sand-bag we placed beside our heads on the side nearest the enemy.

Out in no-man's-land, with bullets and machine-gun b.a.l.l.s pattering about us, we did fast work. As soon as we had filled the second and third sand-bags we placed them on top of the first. In Gallipoli every other military necessity was subordinated to concealment. Often we could complete a trench and occupy it before the enemy knew of it.

[Sidenote: The Turks use star-sh.e.l.ls.]

Sometimes while we were digging the Turks surprised us by sending up star-sh.e.l.ls. They burst like rockets high overhead. Everything was outlined in a strange, uncanny way that gave the effect of stage-fire.

At first when a man saw a star-sh.e.l.l he dropped flat on his face; but after a good many men had been riddled by bullets, we saw our mistake.

The sudden blinding glare makes it impossible to identify objects before the light fades. Star-sh.e.l.ls show only movement. The first stir between the lines becomes the target for both sides. So after that, even when a man was standing upright, he simply stood still.

[Sidenote: Aeroplanes attacked by artillery.]

Every afternoon from just behind our lines an aeroplane buzzed up. At the tremendous height it looked like an immense blue-bottle fly. At first the enemy's aeroplanes came out to meet ours, but a few encounters with our men soon convinced them of the futility of this. After that they relied on their artillery. In the air all around the tiny speck we could see white puffs of smoke where their shrapnel was exploding.

Sometimes those puffs were perilously close to it; at such times our hearts were in our mouths. Everybody in the trench craned his neck to see. When our aeroplane man[oe]uvered clear you could hear a sigh of relief run along the trench.

[Sidenote: An air-man's adventure.]

One of our air-men, Samson, captured a German Taube that he used for daily reconnaissance. Every day we watched him hover over the Turkish lines, circle clear of their bursting shrapnel, and return to our artillery with his report. One day we watched two hostile planes chase him back right to our trench. When they came near us we opened rapid fire that forced them to turn; but before Samson reached his landing-place at Salt Lake we could see that he was in trouble; one of the wings of the machine was drooping badly. We watched him land in safety, saw him jump out of his seat, and walk about ten yards to a waiting motor-ambulance. The ambulance had just turned when a sh.e.l.l hit the aeroplane. A second sh.e.l.l blew it to pieces.

[Sidenote: A naval and artillery bombardment.]

But Samson had completed his mission. About half an hour later the navy in the bay and our artillery began a bombardment. From our trenches, looking through ravines, we could see the men-of-war lined up pouring broadsides over our heads into the Turkish lines. From our position in the valley we watched our sh.e.l.ls demolish the enemy's front-line trenches on the hill well to our left. Through field-gla.s.ses we could see the communication-trenches choked with fleeing Turks. Some of our artillery concentrated on the support-trenches, preventing reinforcements from coming up. A mule-train of supplies was caught in the curtain of fire. The Turks, caught between two fires, could not escape. In a few minutes all that was left of the scientifically constructed intrenchments was a conglomerate heap of sand-bags, equipments, and machine-guns; and on top of it all lay the mangled bodies of men and mules.

All through the bombardment we had hoped for the order to go over the parapet, but for the Worcesters on our left was reserved the distinction of making the charge. High explosives cleared the way for their advance, and cheering and yelling they went over the parapet. The Turks in the front-line trenches, completely demoralized, fled to the rear. A few, too weak or too sorely wounded to run, surrendered.

[Sidenote: The Turk's dislike for German officers.]