I am conscious that I have not done full justice to the unprecedented story of this heroic landing; but nobody yet can describe it adequately, for no one eye-witness can tell you more than of the events that happened on the mile or so of ground where he was himself engaged, and it is still too soon to gather all these stories into a clear and detailed impression of the whole great event. Many who were in the thick of it were too keenly absorbed in their own share of the action to take notice of the doings of the men who were fighting around them. I met one such, a wounded Australian, a few weeks ago, and tried to get from him some account of what he had gone through, and here is as much as he seemed to remember:
"Oh, I dunno," he said–a big, genial, reticent giant, with a bandage on his right hand. "It was just hell, but I tell you I am glad I was there. I wouldn't have missed it for a good deal. I was along with the covering force in the first boats, and though there was hardly any light I reckon there was enough for the Turks to see whereabouts we were. They kept quiet till we were pretty well in, then they let us have it. Some of our boys were hit, and it was too hot. So we dropped overboard and started wading ashore. Then we found ourselves tripping into barbed wire which they'd fixed under the water for us. We got it bad there. But we worried through or round it somehow; I scarcely know how we managed it, but we did. Not all of us. A lot of good chaps went under there, and it was nasty to hear the shots plunking into the water close around you. As soon as any of us got on to the beach we made for cover. There wasn't too much of it. I went hands and knees over a span of open, and got behind a jagged little line of rock. Several of our fellows were there already, firing up at the beggars in their trenches on the side of the hill, or the cliff, if you like to call it that. Away along the beach there was some sharp firing; other boats had landed and there was a bit of a scrap on, and we guessed by the cheering that our chaps were doing all right. But directly I crawled in among the boys behind those rocks and went to start firing, I found I couldn't use my hand. I hadn't felt anything. I'd been carrying my gun in my left hand, and when I passed it to the other it just slipped through as if the hand was numbed. Then I found it was all wet and in a mess. I'd had a shot through it. I was done. One of the others helped me to bandage it up and I lay down out of the way. It began to be painful, and I believe I must have fainted a bit. Things got muddled and there was a queer singing in my head, and I woke up, so to speak, to find the R.A.M.C. boys taking care of me, and my company was gone from behind the rocks and tearing away up the cliff at the Turkeys' trenches. It was hard luck on me, but plenty of others lying around had got it worse. They took me with a boatload of wounded out to the hospital ship. They'd chipped a bit out of my leg here, too. I didn't know that till afterwards–never felt it at the time. That's all better again; and the hand's pretty well right now. They had to amputate the little finger, but the rest's nearly all healed up and I reckon I shall be able to go back to the front in another few weeks. Do I want to go? I do that! I've still got plenty of hand to manage a gun, and I want to pay some of them for that finger. I only saw the landing, and only a little bit of that, but it beat everything in the fighting way that I have ever read about. These people at home who are grousing now and saying the job ought never to have been started, and that we ought to slope out and leave it alone–what do they know about it? Most of them have never seen the place, I guess, and none of them saw that fight. If they had they might know that the boys who could do that landing can put the whole thing bang through, if they'll shut up and back them up properly with all the ammunition and reinforcements they will need."
A faith which is amply justified by Admiral de Robeck's reference to the landing in his report on the operations. "At Gaba Tepe," he writes, "the landing and the dash of the Australian Brigade for the cliffs was magnificent; nothing could stop such men. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in this, their first battle, set a standard as high as that of any army in history, and one of which their countrymen have every reason to be proud."
| 8 |
| THE |
| DARE-DEVIL |
| ANZACS |
CHAPTER VIII
THE DARE-DEVIL ANZACS
By the trouble that never will tame you,
By the toil that will never withhold,
Whatever the dull world name you,