“I went on to the 42nd Division, and passing the Divisional Headquarters entered a shallow nullah, rather safer than the track; for the whole of the open ground right away from Cape Helles is exposed to shell-fire. The peculiarity of this watercourse is that there is visible water in it—a trickle of filthy greenish water unfit for washing or drinking; but still the men wash where it has settled down in the large holes made by ‘Jack Johnsons’ or ‘Black Marias’ which have pitched in its bed.
“One point where the watercourse divides is inevitably called ‘Clapham Junction.’ But Lancashire names have been given to the main trenches and ‘dumps.’ Burnley, Warrington, and Accrington have given names to the narrow clefts which are the homes of the Lancashire men, and a long communication trench, constructed by the Turks with extraordinary ingenuity, has now become Wigan Road. Like all this part of our position, that trench was captured in the fighting of June 4–6, relics of which, in the shape of the dead who cannot be reached for burial, still lie exposed in certain places among our own lines, so keen is the watch of the Turkish sniper.
“The 38th Brigade is all Lancastrian too. In its headquarters, General Baldwin was giving a discourse to his officers. A young Captain Chadwick, of the machine-guns, showed the way round the trenches. Through periscopes, or by raising the eyes for a few seconds above the parapet (for I found it hard to judge distances through a periscope), one could see the Turkish black and white sandbags only forty or fifty yards from our front, and follow the long lines and mazes of trenchwork round the base of Achi Baba. Holes through the tops of the periscopes proved the vigilance of the Turkish outlook, and in passing certain points everybody has to run.
“The rifle-fire was not very frequent. Shells kept flying over our heads, but only to burst far away upon the wilderness, or on W Beach. Except during an attack, the firing line is not the most dangerous part of the Peninsula. In the midday heat, the men who were not ‘standing to,’ were quietly engaged in cooking or eating their dinner. They cooked on little wood fires lighted in holes scooped out in the trench side, and their tin ‘canteens’ served for cooking pots and plates.
“So there these sons of Lancashire stood, almost naked in the blaze of sun, jammed between high walls of white and parching marl; some were cooking, some having their dinner from the pans, some crouching in any corner of shade that could be found, some engaged upon war’s invariable occupation of picking lice off the inside of their clothes. I don’t know what work they had done before—weaving, spinning, mining, smelting, I don’t know what—but they were at an unaccustomed sort of work now, and yet how quickly they have adapted themselves to so strange a life in so strange a land!”
MONOTONOUS FOOD
The food thus cooked was abundant but monotonous. The chief luxury was the ration of apricot jam—welcome for a time, but always apricot. Officials naturally find monotony the easiest form of supply, and forget that variety is essential in human food. The case of “bully beef” was worse. Certain kinds of it (South American) were so salt that it ought to have been stewed or boiled before issued. Salt meat, unvaried week after week under a burning sun and in stifling trenches where water is limited to teacupfuls, is not attractive. To troops afflicted with violent diarrhœa it is uneatable and dangerous. When the Anzac men threw over tins of meat to the Turks in exchange for packets of cigarettes, it was a cheap gift, and the enemy returned the message, “Bully Beef Non. Envoyez milk.” Salt, hard and distasteful food, in persistent monotony, increased the prevalent disease until the demand for castor oil (which was considered the most soothing remedy) far exceeded the calculated supply, and at Anzac General Birdwood was obliged to issue orders against excessive indulgence, lest castor oil should become Australia’s national drink. Appeals for a canteen where variety could be purchased remained unheeded till much later in the campaign. At Imbros, a few Greeks were licensed to erect stalls where fruit, cigarettes, “Turkish Delight” (lakoumi), candles, and various tinned goods could be purchased by the brigades mustering there, or withdrawn there for rest. Greek sailing-boats anchored along K Beach, the main landing-place on that island, also did a similar trade, especially in fruit. At Helles, on W Beach, stood a canteen shed, nearly always empty. Late in August or in September a canteen ship at last reached Anzac, but the supply was so small that the representative purchaser from each battalion was not allowed more than a sixth of what he asked and had money to pay for. Yet whenever the simplest alteration in rations was possible, such as the issue of rice, cocoa, raisins, or even a different jam, the health of the men improved.
WATER-CARRIERS AT ANZAC
The water supply was a perpetual anxiety, especially at Anzac. Water could be found in a few places by digging, especially near the shore, where, however, it soon became brackish. At Helles there were a few springs and a few old wells. At the extreme left or north of the Anzac position (near the hill known as Fort 3), Colonel Bauchop, then in command there, showed me in July an excellent spring of pure water, said to have been discovered by a “diviner,” Sapper Stephen Kelly, of Melbourne, with a hazel twig. As it was close to the sea, at the mouth of one of the largest watercourses that drain the range of Sari Bair, though dry on the surface in summer, it might have been possible to divine the presence of water beneath the surface without supernatural aid; but the source was soon fitted up with pumps and cisterns, supplying that district well. For the centre of Anzac and the outlying trenches along the heights, most of the water was brought from the Nile in lighters and pumped into iron reservoirs upon the Cove beach in front of General Headquarters. A larger one containing 30,000 gallons was also constructed on a platform up the cliff, but without great success, owing to the breakdown of the pumping-engine. The water was carefully rationed out into water-bottles or tins—so carefully that a man was fortunate to get a mugful for washing and shaving. “Having a good clean up?” said General Birdwood, in his friendly way, to an Australian thus engaged. “Yes, sir,” the man replied, “and I only wish I was a bloody canary!”