First line of Allies' trench zigzagging along parallel to the Turkish trenches which are not thirty yards distant[ToList]
After the block-house trench, our next move was to a part of the firing line that I have never been able to identify. It was very close to the Turks, and in this spot we lost a large number of men. From one point, a narrow sap or rough trench ran out at right angles very close to the Turkish position. It may have been twenty-five or thirty yards away. To hold this sap was very important; if the Turks took it, it gave them a commanding position. About twenty men were in it all the time, four or five of them bomb throwers. The men holding this sap at the time we were there were the Irish, the Dublin Fusiliers or, as we knew them, the Dubs. The Turks made several attempts to take it, but were repulsed. When our men were not on sentry duty, several of them spent their rest hours out in this sap, talking to the Dubs. The Dubs were interesting talkers. They had been in the thing from the beginning, and spoke of the landings with laughter and a fierce joy of slaughter. Most of them had been on the Western front before coming to Gallipoli. From the Turkish trenches directly in front of this sap, the enemy signaled the effect of our shots. They used the same signals that we used in target practice, waving a stick back and forth to indicate outers, inners, magpies, and bull's-eyes. Whoever did it, had a sense of humor; because as soon as he became tired, he took down the stick for an instant, then raised it again and waved it back and forth derisively, with a large red German sausage on the end of it. This did not seem to bear out very well the tales that the enemy was slowly starving to death. Prisoners who surrendered from time to time told us that at any moment the entire Turkish army might surrender, as they were very short of food. One thing we did know: the Turks felt the lack of shoes; out between the lines we found numbers of our dead with the boots cut off.
While we were in this place the Turks dug to within ten or twelve yards of us before they were discovered. One of the Dublins saw them first. He seized some bombs, and jumped out, shouting, "Look at Johnny Turrk. Let's bomb him to hell out of it." But Johnny Turk was obstinate; he stayed where he was in spite of our bombs. One of our fellows, the big chap whom I had heard at Aldershot complaining about being asked for his name and number, had crawled into the sap. He made his way through the smoke and dirt to the end of the sap where only a few yards separated him from the Turks. In one item of armament the British beat the Turks. We use bombs that explode three seconds after they are thrown; the Turks' don't explode for five seconds. The difference of only two seconds seems slight, but that day in the sap-head it was of great importance. For a short while the supply of bombs for our side ran out. The man who was trying to get the cover off a box of them found difficulty in doing it. The men in the sap-head were without bombs. Meanwhile the Turks kept up an uninterrupted throwing of bombs. Most of them landed in the sap. The big Newfoundlander who had crawled out looking for excitement found it. As soon as the supply of bombs ran out, instead of getting back into safety, he stood his ground. The first bomb that came over dropped close to him. He was swearing softly, and his face was glowing with pleasure. He bent down coolly, picked up the bomb and threw it back over the parapet at the Turks who had sent it. With our bombs he could not have done it, but the extra two seconds were just enough. Five or six of the bombs came in and were treated in the same way, before our supply was resumed. A brigade officer, who had come out into the sap, stood gazing awe-struck at the big Newfoundlander. Open-mouthed, with monocle in hand, the officer was the picture of amazement. At last he spoke, with that slow, impersonal English drawl:
"I say, my man, what is your name and number."
The look on the Newfoundlander's face was a study. He knew he should not have come out into that sap, and every time that question had been shot at him before it had meant a reprimand. At last he shrugged his shoulders, then with a resigned expression, answered the officer in a fashion not entirely confined to Newfoundlanders—by asking a question: "What in hell have I done now?"
Without a word the officer turned on his heel and left the sap. The big fellow waited until he felt the officer was well out of sight, then departed for his proper place in the trench. One of the Dubs looking after him, said to me:
"There's a man that would have been recommended for a Distinguished Conduct Medal if he'd answered that officer right."
That Irishman was a man of wide experience.
"I've been seventeen years in the army, and I've been in every war that England fought in that time," said he, "and I'll tell you now, the real Distinguished Conduct Medal men and the real V.C. heroes never get them. They're under the ground." Coming from the man it did, this expression of opinion was interesting, for he was Cooke, the man who had been given a Distinguished Conduct Medal for his work on the Western front. Since coming to the Peninsula he had been acting as a sharpshooter, and had been recommended for the V.C., the Victoria Cross, which is the highest reward for valor in the British army. He was only waiting then, for word to go to London, to get the cross pinned on by the King.
"There's one man on this Peninsula," continued Cooke, "who's won the V.C. fifty times over; that's the donkey-man."