Attacks at Anzac were always determined by the time at which the moon sank. I can remember on one occasion waiting night after night in the trenches, when the Turks were supposed to be about to attack, until the moon would sink. We would rouse-up and watch its departing sickly yellow circle dip behind the hills of Troy, and then turn towards the Turkish trenches, which we could see occasionally spitting fire, and wait for the general fusillade to open. Now, on the 18th the moon dipped down at a little before midnight, and just as the midnight hours passed, from the centre of the line round Quinn's Post arose the clatter of Turkish bombs. In the closely wedged trenches the Australians answered this attack with similar missiles, and for a while a little "bomb party," as it was called by the troops, began. From an intermittent rifle fire the sound of the sharp crackle of rifles intensified and extended from end to end of the Turkish lines. It was as if thousands of typewriters, the noise of their working increased a thousandfold, had begun to work. Every second the racket grew; in less than two minutes the gullies were torrents of singing lead, while the bullets could be heard everywhere whizzing through the bushes. The rapid beat of the machine guns began, their pellets thudding against the sandbag parapets. Bombs, bursting like the roar of water that had broken the banks of dams, drowned the general clatter. Immense "football bombs" (as the troops termed them) they were, that wrought awful havoc and formed huge craters. For half an hour the fury lasted. Then it died down, much as violent storms do, arising suddenly, and departing by fading away in a curiously short, sharp burst of firing. Again the sudden rapid fire arose and then again the splutter of ceasing shots. Bombing had stopped.
THE TURKISH EMISSARY BEING LED FROM ANZAC COVE AFTER ARRANGING THE DETAILS OF THE ARMISTICE, AT THE CONFERENCE ON 23RD MAY, 1915. HE IS PRECEDED BY A STAFF OFFICER.
To face p. 160.
It is hard to know what the reason of the Turk was for this "bluff," for it was such, for no attack followed. It was not exactly an unusual incident in itself, but, nevertheless, always had the effect of rousing up the line and the troops manning the trenches. Probably the Turks calculated that we would be led to believe that the whole show was over for that night, and consequently without further bombardment they began a few hours later their extended attack.
Just in the hour preceding dawn—about 3.30 the time is given—the Turks began silently and stealthily to approach the trenches. Without a sound they came, in large and small bodies, up the gullies, working by the help of a marching tape that would keep them together. They approached to within, in some cases, 30 or 40 yards of our trenches. At that time coloured rocket shells were not so much used as they were later; no coloured green and red lights that would burn for some minutes, lit up any section of the line. But the sentries on the parapets suddenly began to detect, even in the blackness of the night preceding dawn, crawling figures. The Turk was always a good scout, and would get right under the parapets of our trenches almost undetected. But when he came to facing the Australian bayonet and jumping down into the trenches it was a different matter altogether. Now, it was just at the centre of the right of the position, at the point where the 1st Brigade and the 1st Battalion of that brigade held the line, that the alarm first was given. The sentries shot down the advancing figures. Immediately others rose up quickly and rushed silently at the trenches. A few managed to jump across the parapets and down into the trenches. It is a brave man indeed who will do such an act.
The attack was launched. Right down the Australian line now spread the order for rapid fire, for the Turks could be seen and heard calling "Allah! Allah!" They came in great numbers, dashing forward in the already coming dawn, for in the sky behind them the sun would rise, and now already its faintest streaks were appearing, casting an opaque tinge in the heavens. Gallantly as the Turks charged, the Australians stood magnificently steady, and fired steadily into the masses of moving silhouetted figures. It was "terrible, cold-blooded murder," as one of the defenders described it to me later. "They were plucky enough, but they never had a dog's chance."
Now in a few places the Turks did reach our trenches, but they found themselves trapped, and the few who escaped with their lives, surrendered. Across the Poppyfield the Turks had pressed hardest, but they were thrust back and back. Next morning, when the dawn came, their bodies could be seen lying in heaps on the slopes. It was as if the men had been mown down in lines.
While the attacks were developing against the centre of the right of the line—company after company and battalion after battalion were sent on by the Turks in their endeavours to push the Australians off the peninsula—there began fierce fighting on the extreme right, on the left, and at the apex of the position at the head of Monash Gully. It was a desperate enough position, for the Turks were not more than 10 or 20 yards away in places. Our machine guns ripped along their parapets; when one gun ceased, to fix in its jaws a new belt, another took on the fire; so the noise was insistent, and the Turks, yelling "Allah! Allah!" stumbled forward a few paces and were mown down, but never were able to advance to the trenches. Far into the morning the attacks continued. Mostly they were short rushes, opposed by terrific bursts of fire, bombs hurled into the advancing mass; a check and then a pause. As the enemy were still advancing, only at isolated points could their machine guns reply or rifles be fired. That there were some enemy bullets did not affect the troops, who regarded it as too good an opportunity to miss. The Australians' sporting instincts were roused, and at many points the men could be seen sitting on the parapets of the trenches, calmly picking off the Turks as they came up, working their bolts, loading, furiously. This was the way in which the few casualties that did occur (100 killed and 500 wounded) were sustained. It was a bloodless victory, if ever there has been one.