There is a "beach" story, too—all stories originated on the beach—far too characteristic to go unrecorded, of an Australian "pinching" extra water from the water barge one very still evening, when he was caught by the naval officer on duty, who, in the pure English of the Navy, demanded, "What are you doing thar, sir?" and up to the dugouts on the hillside floated the prompt reply, "Getting some —— wart-ar, sir."
But night has fallen and the beach wakens to its greatest degree of activity. Long since have efforts to load and land stores, to take ammunition to the firing-line, been abandoned by day. The Turkish observation at Gaba Tepe stopped that. All the hillside glows with twinkling lights; the sound of laughter or stern commands floats down from the higher steppes of the hills on to the beach. There is a fine dust rising from the strand as the traffic increases and becomes an endless stream of men, of mules, of wagons. Somewhere offshore—you know that it must be about 400 yards—there come voices across the waters as the barges are loaded and the steam pinnaces tug them to the shore. They are lashed to the narrow piers, where the waves lap their sides. Parties quickly board them to unload the food that is the life of the army, and the munitions which are its strength. There are heavier goods, too, to bring ashore, sometimes needing large parties to handle. There are rifles and machine guns, there are picks and shovels, iron plates for loopholes. Wood, too, forms not the least strain placed on the transport.
So it goes on night after night, this constant stream of material to keep the army efficient, ready for any attack, ready, too, for any offensive. The trawlers have sneaked close into the Cove. The Turkish gunners, as if seeing this, begin to shell the beach. The work in the Cove stops abruptly. Men come scrambling from the pier and the boats to seek the shelter of dugouts and the great piles of stores. The shells fall harmlessly in the water (unless they destroy a barge of flour). When the bombardment ceases the routine is resumed. From Gaba Tepe the Turks could not see into the heart of Anzac, but their guns easily reached the distance, measured exactly. Opposite the pier-heads the men congregate. You find it difficult to push your way amongst the Indian mule-carts, to reach the canvas water-sheet and the tanks from which the men are getting supplies. The traffic divides. One section goes north to the No. 2 and No. 3 outposts, 2 miles away, out through the long sap: the dust from the shore is almost choking as you reach the sap, for the strings of mules pass and repass almost endlessly. The other branch of the traffic goes south (along the beach too) in front of the hospitals round Hell Spit, and then, striking one of many paths, is diverted along the right flank of the firing-line. No long line of sap to protect you here, and always a chance of a dropping bullet.
Only when the moon rises above the horizon and the pine ridges and then above the battle front is it time for the beach to rest. Higher and higher it mounts, until at midnight it is slanting towards the entrance to the Dardanelles. One by one the lights have gone out and cooks' fires have ceased to flicker. On either flank two long arms of light, that broaden as they reach the hill, start from the sides of the destroyers. They were staring into the Turkish hills and gullies. Behind them the gunners watch all night for movements in the enemy's ranks, and the guns boom at the slightest stir. After the alarms of the night and the bursts of rapid fire, the dawn brings another lull over Anzac, when the constant rattle of muskets in the firing-line a mile away over the ridges and the swish and t-tzing of the little messengers of death as they pass out to sea, are like to be forgotten or accepted as part of the curious life of Anzac. But the work never quite ceases, and morning finds tired officers giving the last directions before they turn into their dugouts and escape the morning "hate" that the Turks with the first flush of dawn begin to throw over the beach and amongst the lingering, dawdling trawlers and transports that have drifted inshore. The shells follow the ships till they regain the circle of safety, some 2 miles from land. "Keep your distance, and we won't worry you," say the Turks.
It is exciting to watch the steamers dodging the shells just as the sun first casts a glitter on the blue Ægean. But they have accomplished all they need, and till the arrival of the daily trawlers from Imbros, Mudros, and Cape Helles, there is no need for worry. So the workers take a morning dip and turn in, while the men on the pinnaces are rocked to sleep as they lie wallowing offshore, and the pump begins its monotonous clanking.
On rugged cliffs and amongst bristling bush the heart of Anzac began to palpitate with power and life. With roads and terraces was the hillside cut in May and stripped of its bush. The throb of the heart was the pulse of the army, its storehouse and its life; but the shore of the Cove was dyed to the murmuring waters' edge with the blood of the men that made it.
CHAPTER XVIII
THROUGH THE FIRING-LINES
Anzac was divided into two parts by Shrapnel Gully, which ran from Hell Spit right up to the very apex of the position, at the junction of the ridge that the army held and the main ridge of Sari Bair. Thousands of men lost their lives in this great broad valley during the early days of the fighting, when the Turkish artillery burst shrapnel over it. That was how it got its name. It was there that General Bridges met his death, in this Valley of the Shadow of Death. In its upper course it merged into Monash Gully, called after the Brigadier of the 4th Brigade, that had held its steep sides at Pope's Hill—which was a knuckle—at Quinn's Post, and between the two the sharp depression on the edge of the ridge—"The Bloody Angle." A daring sniper might always reach the very head of the gully and shoot down the long Valley. Only, in time, the superiority and alertness of our sharpshooters overcame that menace. Few Turkish snipers that played that game returned alive.