The Turkish Attack on our Troops at the foot of Chunuk Bair. By permission of The Sphere.
The Turks "came on again and again, calling upon the name of God, determined to drive our men into the sea. . . . Our men stood to it, and maintained by many a deed of daring the old traditions of their race. There was no flinching. They died in the ranks where they stood." (See page [280].)
A correspondent tells us that the Anzacs came down the hillside with steady, slouching gait. Except for the moonlight shimmering on the Salt Lake and the smooth waters of the bay, and the fires burning in the deserted camps, all was dark. Suddenly, four great fires sprang up, leaped into flames, and grew into one mighty bonfire. The deserted stores of the Anzacs were blazing furiously. Then, as a finale, a giant mine was exploded by electricity under the Turkish trenches. It was the Australians' "Good-bye" to the Turks. An Anzac corporal thus described the departure:—
"On the last night we kept up the usual firing, until finally there were only sixty men from each battalion scattered along the firing-line, and through a ruse—due to the inventive faculties of Corporal Scurry, of our battalion—these last men were able to get away.
"Scurry invented an apparatus by fixing a kerosene can full of water, which was allowed to drip into a large jam tin. This latter was tied on to the trigger of a rifle fully cocked and in position on the parapet. When a sufficient amount of water was in the jam tin off went the gun.
"Hundreds of these were fixed all along the line, timed to go off at different intervals, so that the usual firing was kept up for two hours after the last man had left the trenches.
"Some ruse—eh, what?"
"I hope, sir," said a New Zealander to his officer, as he crept down Shrapnel Gully for the last time, "that those fellows who lie buried along the 'Dere' will be soundly sleeping and not hear us as we march away." Many of his comrades, however, put aside such sad thoughts.
As the last transport steamed away early on the morning of 9th January 1916, the enemy's guns began to pour shells on our deserted trenches and on our burning beaches. A day or two later the Turks announced that they had driven the British into the sea. Constantinople blazed with illuminations, and Germany broke forth into loud rejoicings. So ended the ill-starred adventure. For more than nine months we had fought not only the Turks and the Germans in their strongholds, but disease and thirst, the droughts of summer, and the blizzards of winter. We had been foiled, and the British Empire was the poorer by the loss of tens of thousands of bright and gallant lives; yet there was no murmuring. The nation set its teeth and turned to the next task. It recognized that there must be failures in every great war, and that one set-back does not spell defeat.