The Collingwood Battalion met with a very sad end soon after their arrival in my neighbourhood. They were sent up to take part for the first time in an attack on the Turkish trenches, and they were placed on our extreme right, linking up with the French. When the order came to charge, they went forward most gallantly, capturing, with little loss, two of the Turkish lines of trenches, Captain Spearman, well to the fore, leading his men. He got shot in the foot, but, ignoring it, dashed along, waving his hat in the air as he cheered his men to the assault. Unfortunately, owing to the conspicuous part he and his officers played in the attack (and it was necessary that they should do so, owing to the rawness of the men), he and practically all the other officers of the battalion were killed. Then some one, possibly a German, for there were several of them in the Turkish trenches round about, shouted out the fatal word "Retire." This was carried along the line and the men turned about and made back, helter-skelter, for their own trenches, but in trying to gain them they were practically annihilated by machine-gun and rifle fire. I was particularly sorry for Captain Spearman, who had come to our dug-out on many occasions, and had drunk an early cup of coffee with us only a few hours before he was killed.
In this disastrous retreat the Collingwood Battalion was practically wiped out. The survivors were transferred to another unit of the Royal Naval Division and the very name of this Battalion went out of existence.
CHAPTER XIII
A MAY BATTLE
During a big battle which took place early in May, I sent Gye forward with a large convoy of ammunition, and on riding out later on to see how things were going I passed over some of the ground occupied by the French, who were to the right of the British, and extended from thence across the Peninsula to the Dardanelles. A couple of miles to the rear of the fighting line extended the batteries of the famous .75s, cunningly concealed among trees, branches specially planted in the ground, reeds, etc. I watched the gunners serve their guns, and my admiration was aroused at witnessing the ease and celerity with which they were loaded, their mechanical arrangement for setting the fuse, and, above all, the beautifully smooth recoil of the barrel. This was so nicely adjusted that I might have placed my finger on the ground behind the wheel of the gun and have received no damage.
The French Army can give us points on many things, but above all stands their .75 gun. They are wonderfully accurate, marvellously quick, and seem able to pour out from their muzzles a continuous stream of projectiles. The French certainly did not starve their gunners in ammunition, and only for those .75s our position in Gallipoli would often have been somewhat precarious.
After I had watched the guns in action for a while I passed on, and going down the sandy road which led from Sedd-el-Bahr village to Krithia I came upon the first evidences of the fight that was now raging. A handsome young French artilleryman lay dead by the side of the road; some friend had closed his eyes, and he looked as if he merely slept, but it was the long sleep of death. A little further on lay some Zouaves, and yet a little further some Senegalese, all lying just as they fell, with their packs on their backs and their rifles close by, facing the foe—brave French soldiers all.
Turning a corner I found myself riding into General d'Amade and his staff, busily directing the battle. Almost at the General's horse's feet lay a Turk whose face was half blown away. The poor fellow had wrapped the end of his pugaree round his ghastly wound. Within a yard or two lay another Turk, his shoulder smashed to pulp by a shell. Both men bore up with the greatest fortitude and never uttered a groan. A first-aid dressing station was close by, where scores of wounded, French and Turks, were being doctored and bandaged. These sights of the uglier and sadder side of war are not pleasing, and any one who has seen the horrors of it can never wish to view such scenes again. I would put all Foreign Ministers, Diplomats and Newspaper Proprietors in the forefront of every battle for which they were in any way responsible. However, duty has to be done, even in the midst of horrors, so saluting the General, I pushed further along to the front, where I could see Gye with the mules in the distance.