“No, sir, I’m a solicitor’s clerk.”
The second man was a music-hall artiste, and the third a barber. Much discouraged, the officer ceased to interrogate.
The enemy exploded mines on the 3rd, 15th, 18th, 21st, 22nd and 29th of September, all opposite their trench in front of our right, known as “The Gridiron.” Three of these damaged our parapet, and all caused interference with our field of fire. The repairing of the damage done on September 22 was made possible by the enterprise of bombing parties of the 6th Manchesters under Lieutenant Collier, who kept up a steady hail of bombs from the lip of the crater, where they had little shelter. On the left, at Fusilier Bluff, the Mining Company had got out protective galleries in time to baffle the Turco-German miners.
At first our mining policy had been defensive, but on this same day one of our shafts reached the barricade of a favourite Turkish bombing station. A mine was exploded, the barricade levelled, and a crater forty feet in diameter formed. The sky was darkened by the earth thrown up, and men in support and reserve trenches were covered with the falling clods. Brisk rifle fire from the enemy showed that the trenches were thickly occupied at the time, and their losses must have been considerable. A rush was at once made to the crater and a barricade built across it. Captain Cawley, 6th Manchesters, M.P. for Prestwich, was shot at night by a Turkish sniper, when shooting over the parapet with his revolver, and the crater became known as “Cawley’s Crater.”
On the 17th of October General Sir Ian Hamilton relinquished the command of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force amid universal regret, and left for England. He had won the respect, and indeed the affection, of all ranks of his army, by whom he was regarded as a true friend and comrade, prompt in appreciation and unfailing in sympathy. To General Douglas he wrote: “You and your Division have always been consoling thoughts in the anxious moments we have lived through in common, and I want you to have all the luck in the world.” On Sir Ian’s departure, Lieut.-General Sir William Birdwood assumed temporary command in the peninsula until the arrival of General Sir C. Monro.
During October the South-Eastern Mounted Brigade (dismounted) was attached to the 42nd Division. The Brigade consisted of the East Kent, the West Kent and the Sussex Yeomanry, under Brig.-General Clifton-Browne. It remained attached to the Division until the evacuation, and officers and men proved the best of comrades. A system of fortnightly reliefs was now instituted, the 125th and 127th Brigades holding the right sub-sector, with H.Q. at the zigzag in the Gully; the 126th Brigade and the S.E. Mounted Brigade the left, or coastal, sub-sector, with H.Q. at Gurkha Bluff.
On the west of Gully Ravine the line was advanced by an average of forty yards on a front of 300 yards. In no place was the enemy’s line more than 125 yards from the Division’s trenches, and in places it was less than ten. On the 29th and 30th of October the Turks exploded mines near the Gridiron, blowing in fifteen yards of fire trench, killing two men, and burying six. Three of these were soon extricated, but, in spite of continued efforts, the other three—all miners—were given up for lost. As the Divisional Commander was passing along the trench three days later, he saw to his great delight two of the missing men being brought from the mine-shaft on stretchers. The third, Private Grimes, 5th Manchesters, though obviously on the border of collapse, stoutly refused to be carried. These men had had no food for three days and only one bottle of water between the three. It was largely due to the determination and grit of Private Grimes that they had had the dogged persistence to dig through twelve feet of earth with the aid of one pocket-knife, and so win to safety.
The month of November was not marked by military events of special importance, our constant activity having chastened the enemy’s offensive spirit. Reports from Turkish prisoners indicated that the thorough training that had been given in the bombing school had contributed largely to this result. Mining was very active, and the divisional miners now held the upper hand. On the 25th the enemy injected through a hole in one of the galleries an aromatic gas, which affected the eyes, but not the lungs. Parties of three or four hundred officers and men from each Brigade were sent, in relief, to a newly formed Training School at Mudros for two or three weeks at a time, and derived much benefit therefrom.
Y RAVINE. LOOKING DOWN TO THE SEA.