The 1st Regiment reached the line of trenches and took five in succession. These they held for two hours, but the Turks had the upper ground and counter-attacked with bombs most desperately. The positions were no use, in any case, and after this fact had been recognized the First retired, taking their wounded with them. Of 250 men who went out only fifty-seven returned unwounded.
I am indebted to Sergeant-Major Wynn of the 1st Regiment for some graphic details of that charge from the foot of Pope's Hill.
A Typical Trooper of the Australian Light Horse.
"While we were preparing on the evening of August 6," he says, "the scrap down at Lone Pine began. I wish I could tell you what I saw through my glasses in the odd spare moments (very few, you may be sure). It was marvellous to see the reserves dash in through the blazing scrub, without arms, to bring in any of the first or second line who had gone down. There's not enough bronze to spare to V.C. those chaps.
"About this time Abdul, facing us, held above the parado of the trench a board that said Warsaw had fallen. 'Why don't you put on your white armlets and come across?' it added. As I was just tearing up the calico to sew on our arms and right shoulders we were naturally amazed. But we made matchwood of their board; no wonder they were ready for us later on.
"At sunset the artillery began, and kept it up all night. There was one gun which drove shells just skimming over our heads in the trenches up there; I can hear it yet, and the clay and gravel rolling down where the shells exploded. That night nobody slept, for the cessation of artillery fire was to be the signal for a charge by A and B squadrons. I was in B squadron.
"When the signal came A went straight over their parapet and across the Bloody Angle to the Turkish trenches. We went down the sap to the foot of a gully at the base of Quinn's, turned to the right, and were slap into it. We cleared their first trench with practically the first bombing rush, and crouched down to gather breath for another rush.
"One of our bomb-throwers had gone down here, and he gave me a poke and pointed to a little heap of eight or nine grenades, which I was permitted to carry to the nearest band of throwers. From one I pulled the safety-pin and passed it forward as a present to the Unspeakable.
"When I returned the boys were all lying flat, and the skipper nowhere to be seen. He had got it in the first trench, and was taken out later, so badly wounded that he died at Malta. I started to shout, and I am glad I opened my mouth pretty wide. A bullet struck my left cheek, carried all my front teeth and my right ones out through my right cheek, and never touched my tongue.