CHAPTER XIX
VISITS TO THE TRENCHES
During one of the hot June days Gye and I paid a visit to Colonel Bruce and his Gurkhas, who were holding the left of the line down by the Ægean Sea.
The Gurkhas have done some splendid work in the Peninsula. They are in their element when out at night doing reconnoitring work. Bruce told me of the valuable report brought in by one of his N. C. O.'s, on the strength of which he took his men up the side of a cliff and was able to surprise and drive the Turks out of a very strong position which it was of prime importance we should hold. Other troops had several times attempted this feat, but failed because they attacked in the open, while the Gurkhas succeeded owing to good reconnoitring work.
The night previous to our visit the Turks had made a most determined attack on the Gurkhas, and the Gurkhas asked for no better sport. Flares, shot up by our officers, showed the Turks advancing in regular parade formation in line of columns. As soon as the Turks saw that they had been observed, they charged, yelling their war cry: "Allah, Allah!" The Gurkhas waited patiently, lining the trenches as thickly as they could stand. They allowed the Turks to approach within about fifty yards of them and then opened such a hurricane of rifle and machine-gun fire that the Turks were absolutely crumpled up in ranks as they stood. The fury of the Gurkhas was now thoroughly aroused and, the reserves having been brought up, the whole brigade made such an onslaught that practically not a single Turk out of that huge attacking force ever got back to his own trench.
When Rolo and I viewed the battlefield within a few hours of the fight, there were still some wounded to be seen in the intervening ground between the two forces, while in regular battle array lay line upon line of Turkish dead, silent witnesses to the terribly accurate fire poured into them by the Gurkhas. They are brave fellows, those Turks, and it was a sad sight to see so many gallant men laid low.
No doubt in revenge for the defeat they had suffered the previous night, the Turks were bombarding the Gurkha lines vigorously, and while I was there they landed a big "Black Maria" shell underneath a little fellow who was squatting on his heels outside his dug-out. It was an extraordinary sight to see him shoot down the hill in this position and land some forty feet away in a clump of bushes, from which he emerged not much the worse for his involuntary flight.
The Gurkhas, in one of their previous attacks on the heights occupied by the Turks, were held up by some barbed wire and had to retire. A private soldier, however, chose to remain behind, ensconced under the scanty protection of a couple of knapsacks, which he pulled together from those strewn round, thinking that he could hold his own until another assault was delivered by his comrades, when he would join them. No comrades came, however, so he found himself unable to move without being observed. He therefore pretended to be dead and lay absolutely still for hours, not even daring to move his head, except when his neck got very stiff, and then only by pushing his hat up a fraction of an inch, so that he might slowly twist his head inside it without showing any movement. At last he could stand the strain no longer, so he leaped up, raced in a zig-zag to his own trenches amid a hail of bullets, and, carefully avoiding a low spot where the Turks had concentrated their fire, expecting him to go in that way, he leaped over the highest part of the parapet and escaped scot-free.
I saw this little fellow a few hours after his exploit and he looked as though he had thoroughly enjoyed the adventure.
A few days after the big Turkish assault I was again on my way to this part of the line, when I happened to meet General de Lisle, and, on mentioning that I was going to see Colonel Bruce, he told me I would not find him, for he had been wounded on the previous night by a bomb, while gallantly leading his men.