[CHAPTER XIII]
THE MIGHTY NEW ZEALANDERS
Reference has already been made to the two New Zealand Outposts, at the second of which the troops to take part in the night sortie had been massed. Inland from these was a third post, once held by the Anzacs but afterwards wrested from them by the Turks. It had been the custom every night for some weeks for a British destroyer to arrive about nine o'clock and bombard the parapet of this trench for about half an hour. The Turks had learned to expect it; they always crept out of the trench as soon as the searchlight was turned on, and returned when the fun was over to rebuild their parapet and restring their torn barbed wire.
On this night of August 6 the destroyer, the Colne, came as usual and bombarded the trench. The cessation of the bombardment was the signal for the first move from Outpost No. 2. The Auckland Mounted Rifles silently rushed the trench, and had the returning Turks bayoneted almost without a shot being fired.
Just as silently the Wellington Mounted Rifles made through the scrub for the hill known as Greater Table-Top, an elevation with perpendicular sides and a flat summit, which the Turks had adorned with an infinity of trenchwork. Here the Turks were taken completely by surprise. The position, if held by an adequate force of alert men, was an impregnable one. But the men of Wellington were too much for them; they carried this fortress by assault and captured 150 prisoners.
Writing of this feat Sir Ian Hamilton says:—
"The angle of Table-Top's ascent is recognized in our regulations as 'impracticable for infantry.' But neither Turks nor angles of ascent were destined to stop Russell or his New Zealanders that night. There are moments during battle when life becomes intensified, when men become supermen, when the impossible becomes simple—and this was one of those moments. The scarped heights were scaled, the plateau was carried by midnight."
A Battalion of New Zealand Mounted Rifles
The Otago Mounted Rifles and the Maori Contingent had the task of capturing a hill mass known as Bauchop's Hill. Like the other New Zealanders, the Otago men worked silently with the bayonet. The entrance leading to this hill was protected by a trench very strongly held by the enemy, and the Maoris were sent out to charge it. It was their first opportunity to fight in the open, and they rose to the occasion. In their wild charge they drove the Turks headlong out of their trenches and pursued them through the darkness of the foothills.