Then there was Lieutenant O'Hara of the Dublins, who was always doing some daring feat and showing his contempt of death and the Turks on every conceivable occasion. He won the D. S. O. before going to Suvla, where, alas! his luck deserted him, and he was mortally wounded. O'Hara firmly believed that no Turk could ever kill him, for he thought nothing of sitting up on the parapet coolly smoking a cigarette, while bullets rained all round him. When he had finished his survey of the Turkish line he would get down, but not before.
Another brave man of the Dublins was Sergeant Cooke. If ever there was a dangerous job he always volunteered for it, and was constantly out reconnoitring the enemy's position and bringing in useful information to his officers. He, too, was very lucky for a long time; he was one of the few who escaped all hurt in the original landing, but at Suvla, Sergeant Cooke, while doing a brave deed, was mortally wounded, and, although he must have been in great agony for a couple of hours before he died, he never uttered a groan. Just before the last, he said: "Am I dying like a British soldier?" No soldier ever died more gamely.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE FINDING OF THE SHIELD OF DAVID
Soon after the Bulgarians had thrown in their lot against us, the Turks, who up to this time had been husbanding their ammunition, felt, I presume, that there was now no need to be so sparing in their use of shells, and they therefore took on a much more aggressive attitude.
Turkish bombardments and trench "strafes" once more became the order of the day. Not to let the enemy have everything his own way, we ourselves arranged, late in October, to make a tremendous onslaught on the Turks. One of their trenches, known as H. 12, occupied a somewhat commanding position and had been giving us a lot of trouble. It was decided, therefore, to batter it out of existence.
Sharp to time, at three o'clock on a very "nippy" afternoon, a most terrific cannonade was opened on the doomed trench. Naval guns, French guns, British howitzers and field-pieces rained a devastating fire of high explosives and, as if this were not enough, three huge volcanoes spurted out at three points of the trench, denoting that some great mines had been exploded. While the fire lasted, it was terrific, and the dust and smoke speedily hid all the Turkish trenches, as well as Krithia and Achi Baba, from our view. The infantry were then launched and the trench captured with very little loss.
Trench warfare, dull as it is, for those who prefer a fight in the open, with a good horse under them, is yet not without its moments of fascination, and I often found myself in the thick of a trench "strafe" when I really had no business whatever to be in the neighbourhood.