THE ANGEL OF DEATH ABROAD—THREE MATES—LAUGHING IN THE FACE OF DEATH—HARD SWEARERS, HARD FIGHTERS—A CURATE'S "LANGUAGE"—GERMAN AEROPLANE DROPS BOMBS ON TURKS—SAFETY IN AIR FLIGHT—"SAVE US FROM OUR FRIENDS"
"My turn at cooking comes round every third day," wrote a gunner of the 6th Battery, Victorian Division of Artillery, Anzac, at a time when victuals were not too plentiful. "I give them bully-beef and biscuits one day, and biscuits and bully-beef the next for a change. How I think with envy of the wonderful messes of pottage the mater used to make for the hens at Sandringham!... It is a most peculiar sensation at first to have 'Weary Willies' bursting over you and to see the pellets dropping on the dusty road like rain after a dry spell."
Anzacs in Reserve.
An Australian Brigade in dug-outs in Rest Gully
And another wrote: "The trenches are certainly the safest place to be in. One 8-inch shell took the roof (blankets) off our officers' heads, just missing Major Hunt, O.C., Lieutenant Smith and Lieutenant Perry, of our Company, by inches—not the whole shell, but a piece of it. The shell killed a couple of our men when it burst.... We were continuously at it for five solid weeks, and then we were taken to Rest Gully for a rest, which consisted of fatigues, sapping, trenching under fire and working parties on the famous beach, where 'Beachy Bill' and 'Lonely Liz' used to scatter men by the score, with also an 11-inch shell dropping now and then from the Straits. Splendid rest, this!"
Change! What change could one have there? Rest! What rest? "The Angel of Death is abroad throughout the land," said John Bright in one of his most memorable orations. "You can almost hear the beating of his wings!" But on Gallipoli you could hear the beating of his wings day and night, knowing not what the next moment might bring forth.
There were three mates in Junee, a western town of New South Wales, who used to play cricket and football together. When their country asked for soldiers they answered the call. The three enlisted together, shared the same tent in camp, and fought side by side in each successive engagement, from the landing to the fight for Lonesome Pine. One of them—Reg. Humphreys—fell with a bullet in his brain, and died in the arms of his comrade, Joe Charlton. Later in the day, Charlton fell, and the third man, Paul White, carried him back to the ship, where he died of his wounds. Out of 120 men of A Company only White and one other man remained. The rest were all killed or wounded or sick.
Such is War. And yet our boys went cheerfully on with their work. Hard work—hot work, so hot that we followed the example of the Indian Army and cut our trousers short. Very comfortable were these "shorts" when climbing about the hills. We looked like Boy Scouts. You should have seen the gunners on a hot day, stripped to the waist, and stripped from the knee to the feet—wearing their "shorts" and nothing but their "shorts"! Infantry and Light Horsemen, you could scarce tell one from the other. "Shorts" put us all on the same level. And we were all as jolly as sandboys, having our fun and cracking our jokes, reading the official Peninsula Press and enjoying the unofficial humour of our own trench organs, such as the Dinkum Oil News and The Dardanelles Driveller. We knew that Death was near, but we laughed in his face.
One day a bread ration was issued, instead of the inevitable biscuit ration. "Well, they might have given us butter with it!" exclaimed one trooper, with a smile. "Butter!" cried his mate—"you'll be wanting flowers on your grave next!"