BALLOONSHIP "ARK ROYAL" AND TRANSPORTS OFF THE DARDANELLES IN MAY.
To face p. 100.
Midnight. The moon still hung obstinately above the horizon, tipping with silver the island mountain peaks towering over the fleet. The smoke trickled from the funnels of the huge battleships that surrounded, and mingled between, the transports; it rolled in thick, snaky coils from the funnels of the low destroyers panting alongside the ships, ready for their mission. Over the whole of that army, 30,000 men, there hung a lifetime of suspense. Would the moon never go down! On the battleships, where companies of the 3rd Australian Brigade—the covering party—were waiting quietly, parting instructions were given. The voices of the high officers sounded crisp and deathly calm in the night. Against the grim, grey decks of the warships the waiting men were as patches of deeper shadow, circled by a ring of luminous paint. That line separated them into boat loads. Down the steel sides silently were dropped the rope ladders. So soon as the moon would descend, so soon would the men go down these into the destroyers—as elsewhere off that Gallipoli Peninsula, thousands would go over the sides of other transports on to other destroyers waiting to dash to the shore.
Three o'clock, and still the moon was above the horizon, but just above it. It dipped. The opaque light faded from the sky. That intense darkness which precedes dawn settled on the sea. It blotted out even the faint line of the hills. The transports steamed forward to their appointed stations off the coast. The mystery of it! The silent, terrible power of an organized fighting machine! The wheels set in motion! Alongside of each ship came the destroyers, and alongside them in turn drifted the strings of boats into which the troops had to go on the last stage of their journey. Already the men, fully equipped with their heavy packs, greatcoats, and weapons of war, were drawn up on the decks. No unnecessary word was spoken now. I believe that the troops had so much to think of, that the thought of bullets did not enter their mind at that time. Those that did not carry a pick, had a spade; and every man carried a special entrenching tool. All had bags for filling with sand, wire-cutters, to say nothing of three days' rations in their haversacks, and their packs besides. They had 200 rounds of ammunition per man. Their rifles they tucked away under their arms, gripping them with their elbows. This left their hands free. So down four ladders they dropped over the sides of the battleships and transports on to the decks of the destroyers. They were crowded there; no room to move at all. To the unknown hostile strand they went. The last 2 miles was a race against time, for soon now the Turks would know of the landing. At least, they knew not at which point it would come, so they prepared the whole of the beaches. Later I shall tell you exactly how. It was four o'clock in the morning, and bitterly cold. The men said they remembered that much, and the last warm breakfast of coffee and rolls that they had on deck; they remembered little else than that. They had a rifle and no target that they could see.
Now the Army Corps had, as I have told elsewhere, a covering force chosen specially and assiduously practised in landing on Mudros beaches—the 3rd Brigade, under Colonel Maclagan. This daring force was to blaze the way, or brush aside, in a military sense, any obstruction of the enemy; barely 3,500 men, on whom the reputation of an army and a Nation was staked.
To be more exact. At 2.30 a.m. the transports, together with the tows and the destroyers, steamed in to within 4 miles of the coast. The moon was sinking slowly, and the silver haze it cast in the heavens, back of the island of Imbros, may have silhouetted the ships dimly and served as a warning for the Turks. Probably the ships came undetected, but no sight of land could be seen, not even a signal light. From the battleship Queen, lying but a mile off the promontory of Gaba Tepe, all directions were given and the attack commanded.
Six bells and "All's well" still with the adventure. No smoking is allowed. Fierce oaths rap out at thoughtless soldiers who, by a simple act, might imperil the lives of all. Has a signal light on shore any significance? Nothing happens; so all believe it has not. The murmurs of the men had been lowered to whispers as they had last talks and confidences and chats over the "game afoot." It was only 12 miles across from Imbros to the intended point of disembarkation, but at a slow 4-knot speed, what length those three hours! Suddenly in the midst of all the whisperings and lapping of the waves on the black fleet, a ray of light stretches like a gaunt white arm far into the sky, and begins to sweep round stiffly behind the rugged hill. It rests down south at the entrance to the Straits, and then, as if satisfied in its search, roves idly along, until suddenly as it appeared, it vanishes. Yes, the fleets had escaped detection surely, for the light came from Chanak Fort, where the restless Turk spent another night in trembling anticipation. Often after did we see that wandering restless ray, with others, go streaming down the Straits in search of victims on which to train the fortress guns. That night, so well planned was the attack, it found naught of the ships lying concealed behind Tenedos, and which, so few hours later, were to set forth, British manned, at the time the Australians were hurling themselves ashore on the narrow cove that goes down to history named after them—Anzac.
Only a general idea of the shore on which the army corps was to set foot had been gained by the leaders from the decks of warships. It revealed to them, just north of Gaba Tepe, a short strip of beach, little more than a hundred yards in length, with a low plain behind it, out of which rose up the ridges and foothills, ending in the great ridge of Sari Bair and culminating in Koja Chemin Tepe (Hill 971), the objective of the Army Corps. There was to be a descent on this beach, so it was planned, and a turn north-east up along a plateau or ridge that rose rapidly to the crowning hill. Gaba Tepe itself was a headland in which the Turks had concealed batteries of machine guns to enfilade this landing and other beaches, but which same point had served for weeks as a good target for the warships. This point was to be stormed and held.
The 2½-knot current that sweeps along the coast from the mouth of the Straits, bore the bows of heavily laden but shallow draft lifeboats and barges down the Gulf farther than was intended, and so the landing beach was mistaken in the dark. The attack once launched, there was no withdrawal or remedy, so the troops began to pour ashore a mile farther along the coast to the north than was intended; not, on landing, to reach a plain, but to be faced with terrible hills and deep ravines. But was it so awful an error? Chance had carried in her womb a deeply significant advantage, for at the original point the beach had been carefully prepared with barbed-wire, that ran down into the very water. Trenches lined the shore—making similar obstacles to those the British troops faced 9 miles away at Helles. So Chance guided the boats into a natural cove, certainly not very large—just a segment of a circle some 400 yards long. Never anticipating an attack at the foot of such a ridge, the Turks had dug but few trenches to protect this spot, more so as the whole of the beach might be commanded by machine guns, concealed in certain knolls. Around the northern point of the cove, however, the breach broadened out again into what, in winter, was a marsh about 200 yards wide, which eventually, towards Suvla Bay, opened out into the marshes and plains of Suvla Bay and the valley that leads up to the Anafarta villages.