The Turks made the same mistake about the Australians that the Yorkshiremen made about the Australian cricketers. They thought we were all black. (The Germans knew better, but encouraged the false idea.) In a Gallipoli paper we were referred to as Australian blacks, with the comment that this was "the first time cannibals had landed on Gallipoli." But after the wild bayonet charges our men made at Anzac they called the Australians "the White Gurkhas." Later on when our first few prisoners were taken to Gallipoli, the Turks admired their physique, and exclaimed: "These are indeed soldiers."
"Our army swore terribly in Flanders," it is written. I'm afraid that our historian will say the same of the army in Gallipoli. But this is about their only vice, and they have all the soldierly virtues that a general could desire. When the Turks made their big attack, and advanced yelling "Allah, Allah!" "Mohammed!" "Allah!" one of our devil-may-care infantrymen yelled as he fired: "Yes; you can bring them along too!"
Then there was the Turk who bowed. It was when the burial parties met between the trenches to bury the dead. The Turkish officers were polite and the Germans surly. A Turk picked up a bomb and started to run back to his trenches. A Turkish officer ran after him, kicked him, and returned the bomb with a bow to one of our officers, thus observing chivalrously the letter and spirit of the armistice. A Turkish soldier came up to one of our men and volunteered the information: "English good—German no good." It wasn't much, but it told a lot.
A number of prisoners were taken, and several more surrendered. But the Turks were between the devil and the deep sea. If they came with their rifles towards our trenches we shot them. If they came without them, their own soldiers shot them. So they had to sneak in as best they could, and risk being shot front and rear.
One of the finest things done in those first fatal days at Anzac must be put to the credit of Murphy's mules. Murphy's ambulance was looked for as anxiously as Gunga Din. It was "Murphy! Murphy! Murphy! an' we'll thank you for your mules!" As a matter of fact "Murphy" was a Scotsman, though he hailed from South Shields, County Durham. His real name was, I believe, John Simpson Kirkpatrick; some say it was Latimer, and others that it was Simpson; and he was a stretcher-bearer. He used to hurry up with water to the firing-line, and carry back the wounded. It was a terribly heavy pull up and down Shrapnel Gully, from the cove to the top of Braund's Hill, so Murphy "pinched" a couple of mules, and did yeoman service. He used to leave the mules just under the brow of the hill and dash forward himself to the firing-line to save the wounded. "Murphy's" voice near them sounded like a voice from heaven. Time after time he climbed the hill and did his noble work. Day after day he smiled and carried on. The mules were missed, and they found out who stole them. But they also found out what splendid work "Murphy" was doing; so the officers connived at the theft. They became accessories after the fact.
Murphy's Mules at Anzac.
"Murphy" on the left, his mate on the right, and little "Shrapnel" in the background.
There came a day when "Murphy's mules" came not. Stretcher-bearers were working overtime, and the wounded cried "For God's sake, send 'Murphy's mules'!" Later on they found the mules grazing contentedly in Shrapnel Valley. Then they found poor "Murphy".... He had done his last journey to the top of the hill.
"Where's Murphy?" demanded one of the 1st Battalion.