By midday on August 8 there were three hundred wounded men in this place of refuge, and more were continually arriving. They were suffering from all the terrible manglings that exploding bombs and high explosive shells can inflict. And in the Valley of Torment they lay and endured. Some of them told their experiences, and sought to cheer the rest by predicting a great victory as the result of the attack in which they were taking part. Here and there a man could be heard reciting verses to those who would listen.
No one moaned, and no one uttered a complaint. When a man too sorely wounded died of his hurts, they expressed their thanks that he had been spared further pain. The filling of the little spring was eagerly awaited, so that each man could have his lips moistened with a little brackish water. So there they lay and waited for the night, which might bring them aid.
When night at last came, the weary stretcher-bearers tried to move some of them over the ridge to a safe valley which lay on the other side. A few were so moved, but these men had been working for days and nights without rest or respite, and the task was beyond their strength; for the steepness and roughness of that hillside is beyond description. A message was sent down to the dressing station asking for help, and a reply was sent in the early morning that it would be forthcoming on the following night.
Through the night the parched men were tortured by the sight of water being carried through the valley to the men in the firing line above them. There was none of it for them, and they did not expect any; for they knew the necessities of warfare, and recognized that at such a time the combatant must come first.
The next day came with a hot sun, and clouds of flies. Also there came many more wounded to the Valley of Torment, until the tale of living men exceeded four hundred. And that day many died. Among those who lived the torture from tourniquets that had been left too long on wounded limbs became unendurable. Many of them will never recover the free use of the limbs so tortured; others have already died from the unavoidable mortification which resulted from this long delay.
Meanwhile, down at the dressing stations, the weary doctors were struggling with hundreds of cases just as bad, and men seriously wounded were waiting by scores for their turn for attention. These are the necessary evils of war, accentuated at Gallipoli by the very rough nature of the country in which the fighting took place, and by the severity of the struggle and the importance of the issues depending upon its outcome.
At last that day ended too, and evening fell with a cool breeze. The exhausted men heard the stealthy approach of many men in the dark, from the safe gully that lay beyond the range. And one of them, out of thankfulness, began to sing the hymn—
At even, ere the sun was set,
The sick, O Lord, around Thee lay.
Nearly all of them took up the singing.