[Photo by the Author
The "Big Sap" near Fishermen's Hut.
This view is looking back towards Walker's Ridge and was taken before the sap was widened to 5 feet.
The Maori at Anzac.
A convential figure carved in the clay wall of the Big Sap. The telegraph linesmen of the Signal Troop have condescended to drop their wire a little to avoid the figure.
Working on the Big Sap.
To get troops quickly and secretly from Anzac to the outposts and to the foot of the deres up which the assaulting columns must approach the Turk, it was necessary to widen the communication trench known as the "Big Sap." This trench had been evolved as the outposts were established, and at many places could be enfiladed by the enemy on the heights; and nowhere was it wide enough to take troops two abreast. The pack mules used it by day, and though the soldier cared little for Turkish shells, he lived in fear of the donkey's steel-shod hoofs; it was no uncommon sight to see the soldier, disbelieving the warning "No kick! No kick!" of the Indian muleteer, climb out of the trench and risk a bullet rather than encounter a transport mule.
Partly the way was through the sandhills—here the necessary width of 5 feet was easy to attain; but in the harder clay, the pioneer working parties had been content to make a narrow slit, leaving the hardest work still to do. All through July the men of No. 4 Defence Section toiled at their herculean task—the Australian Infantry of the 4th Brigade, the N.Z. Mounted Rifles and Australian Light Horse from Walker's Ridge, and best workers of all, the Maori Contingent from No. 1 Post.