Crossing the top of Maclagan’s Ridge, the scattered groups of the 3rd Brigade suddenly looked down into a deep valley running right across their advance. It was the hidden valley afterwards known as Shrapnel Gully. From its issue upon the beach just south of Hell Spit, it runs up north-east for something over a mile through the very heart of the subsequent position. Many gullies and small watercourses (all dry except after heavy rain) lead into it, and it afterwards became the chief means of communication with the outposts along the centre of the Anzac lines. Down into this valley the 3rd Brigade plunged. The thick bushes and devious watercourses split them up. Battalions and companies lost touch in haphazard advance. Shrapnel from the opposite height and both flanks swept the valley in bursting storms. From the rear and every side, hidden snipers picked the isolated men off as they struggled forward. Officers fell. Orders ceased. In separate knots, without leading or control, the men ran, and leapt, and stumbled on. Right across the valley they struggled, shouting their battle-song, “Australia will be there,” bayoneting all Turks they caught, and cursing as they fell. Up the opposing heights they climbed—heights so steep on the face that, later in the campaign, steps had to be cut for paths, and supplies were hauled up by pullies. Over the top of that steep ridge the groups charged on. Many got farther than Anzacs were ever to go again. Some looked down into the valleys where the nearest Turkish camps of Koja Dere and Boghali stood. Many disappeared for ever into the unknown wilderness. “They refused to surrender,” the Turks said at the armistice of a month later—“they refused to surrender, so we had to kill them all.”
In a contest of such confusion, the thought of time is lost, and it becomes impossible to trace the course of consecutive events. But early in the morning—some say at 5.30, others about 9.30—there was a pause in the firing for about an hour. The Turks appear to have been overwhelmed by the dash and violence of an assault such as that leisurely and dreamy race had never imagined. It seems to have been about this time that Major Brand (Brigade-Major of the 3rd Brigade) with a party of the 9th (Queensland) and 10th (South Australian) battalions, standing on one of the sharp crests, and seeing a redoubt and earthworks upon a hillside below, charged down the valley and captured a battery of three Krupp guns. The Turks, after the pause, were then advancing to their first counter-attack, and the Australians were compelled to spike and destroy the guns instead of getting them away. But it was a serviceable deed.
THE ANZAC POSITIONS
So soon as it was light, the guns hidden on Gaba Tepe and hidden guns on some hill to the north poured converging shrapnel upon the boats coming to shore, and upon the beach itself, although it was to some extent protected by Hell Spit and Ari Burnu. The Triumph and Bacchante succeeded in keeping down the fire from Gaba Tepe at intervals, but it repeatedly burst out again with fury. Under this recurrent storm of shell, the 1st (New South Wales) and the 2nd (Victoria) Brigades, closely followed by two brigades of the New Zealand and Australian Division (the New Zealand and the 4th Australian), put to shore. All had landed soon after midday, and two batteries of Indian mountain guns came into action. But the losses were severe, and the shelling so heavy that the remaining artillery could not be landed. In the extremity of peril and excitement, battalions and brigades became hopelessly mixed up, and many groups lost touch with units and officers. But for the most part, the 2nd Brigade appears to have climbed to the right of the 3rd or covering brigade, to have crossed the long (Shrapnel) gully nearer its mouth, and to have advanced up the continuation of the farther ridge towards the point afterwards called M‘Laurin Hill (Colonel M‘Laurin being C.O. of the Victorians). The 1st Brigade appears to have supported the 3rd, and held a position on its left, probably near “Pope’s Hill.” The extreme left of the whole position, which gradually took the shape of an irregular semicircle or triangle, was later occupied and held by the joint Division of New Zealanders and Australians. Near the centre the Auckland Battalion under Colonel Plugge held “Plugge’s Plateau,” overlooking the beach. To the left, the New Zealanders stormed the steep ridge afterwards known as “Walker’s,” from Brigadier-General H. B. Walker, of the General Staff. Just beyond “The Sphinx” it rises steeply from the beach to a height which faces the sea in a sheer precipice of 150 feet, and its long summit became the main line of defence on the north and north-east. Moving still farther left, over a broad beach (“Ocean Beach”) and fairly open ground, afterwards crossed by the “Great Sap,” Captain Cribb with a party of New Zealanders rushed a strong redoubt and store at the “Fishermen’s Huts” and established the outlying position of “No. 1 Post.”
In the afternoon and early evening, the 4th Australian Brigade (2nd Division) under Colonel Monash, apparently advancing from the beach straight across the central ridge, filled in the dangerous gaps between the Australian brigades on the right and the New Zealanders on the left. The upper end of “Shrapnel Gully,” leading up to “Pope’s Hill” between “Walker’s Ridge” and the steep farthest line of defence afterwards held by “Quinn’s Post,” “Courtney’s” and “Steel’s,” was accordingly known as “Monash Gully.”
By the evening the Anzac position, which varied little for the next three months, was thus roughly drawn, and the names of the officers who had seized the various points were vaguely attached to them. The whole position was hardly more than three-quarters of a mile deep by a mile and a half long, not counting the outpost by Fishermen’s Huts. In fact, on the first day hardly more than a mile in length was gained. But to the end it was almost impossible to realise how small the area was, so steep are its heights and so entangling its valleys and ravines. Entangled in those ravines, exhausted by scaling the heights, and lost in the deep scrub of that unknown country, the Anzacs fought till dark to maintain their plot of ground against repeated counter-attacks. There was no time to dig in. From Koja Dere, Boghali, and Kilid Bahr plateau, the Turks rolled up waves of reinforcement. It was estimated that 20,000 came clashing against the 3rd Brigade and the left of the 2nd in the middle morning. The attack was renewed at 3 p.m. and again at 5. Groups of Australians were driven back from the most advanced positions; many were cut off and shot down. Only along the edge of the heights beyond Shrapnel Valley a thin line held, growing hourly thinner.
In the afternoon, General Birdwood came ashore with the Divisional Generals. The beach was a scene of wild and perilous confusion. Men, stores, ammunition, and watercans were being dumped on the sand as the boats brought them in. Parties loaded up with rations, water, and cartridges were climbing out to supply the firing lines. In long streams the wounded were staggering or being carried down to lie on the beach till boats could take them off, at first to hospital ships, and afterwards to any kind of ship which the navy could allot. For here, as elsewhere, the casualties had been greatly underestimated. Originally only two hospital ships had been provided for the whole attack, and though the navy lent two more, the supply was not nearly adequate. On the small beach, Colonel N. R. Howse (Assistant Director of Medical Service to the Corps) hurriedly erected a dressing-station; but the wounded, however heroic in their suffering, suffered much. And over the whole scene, shrapnel crashed and shrieked perpetually, while the air was filled with the tearing wail of bullets passing in thousands across the beach from the cliffs above, and dropping like hail-stones upon the boats and sea. At nightfall the Turks, shouting their battle-cry of “Allah, Allah Din!” renewed the attack with intensified violence. Appeals for reinforcement came pouring in. It seemed impossible to hold on. Orders to prepare for evacuation were whispered from group to group.[93]
THE FEINT OFF BULAIR
Still farther up the coast, at the head of the Gulf of Xeros, the Royal Naval Division (less the Plymouth Battalion detailed for Y Beach) was engaged upon a feint, as though a landing were intended either north of the Bulair lines, or at Karachali on the opposite coast. Accompanied by destroyers and the battleship Canopus (Captain Grant) of Admiral Thursby’s squadron, the division proceeded in its own transports. The destroyers opened fire at Karachali and other points along the shore. Towards nightfall the Canopus bombarded the Bulair lines, and preparations as though for a landing were ostensibly made. There was no answer from the enemy, but silence never proved that their trenches were not manned, and their guns ready. Later in the campaign one heard rumours of a landing having been effected here without opposition by a party of Marines, but the only man who went ashore was Lieut.-Commander Bernard Freyberg of the Hood Battalion. Painted brown and thickly oiled, he was dropped from a destroyer into a boat at 10 p.m. on the 24th and from the boat swam ashore, about two miles, carrying four Homi flares and three oil flares. Landing at midnight, he crawled 400 yards up to a trench, and there heard talking, which proved that the trenches were occupied. Crawling back, he lit three lots of flares a quarter of a mile apart, along the shore in the direction of Bulair. Two of the destroyers at once opened fire, and the Turks fired back. Lieut.-Commander Freyberg then swam out, and was picked up an hour later.
During the night the Canopus was recalled to Anzac to support the dubious contest there.