Australia in Arms / A Narrative of the Australasian Imperial Force and Their Achievement at Anzac

by Phillip F. E. Schuler

To face p. 232.

Cheerful seems hardly the right word to use at such a grim time, yet the men who were behind the machine guns, ready to pop them above the trenches for a moment and then drop them again before the enemy could blow them to pieces, never were depressed, except when their gun was out of action. Soon they got others to replace them. They were watching—so were the men round them, with bayonets fixed, in case the Turks drove us back from Lone Pine. As we made our way along the old firing-line, it meant bobbing there while the bullets welted against the sandbags and the earth behind you. You were covered every few yards with debris from bursting shells. The light was fading rapidly. The sun had not quite set. The last departing rays lit up the smoke of the shells like a furnace, adding to the grim horribleness of the situation.

Of the inner fighting of those first two hours in the Turkish trenches little can be written till all the stories are gathered up and tangled threads untied, if ever that is possible. But certain facts have been revealed. Major Stevens, who was second in command of the 2nd Battalion, was charging down a Turkish trench when he saw a Turk about 2 yards from him in a dugout. He called over his shoulder to the men following him to pass up a bomb, and this was thrown and the Turk killed. Then Major Stevens came face to face with a German officer at the mouth of the tunnel. In this tunnel were some 70 Turks. The Australian was fired at point-blank by the German, but the shot missed its mark and the officer was shot dead by a man following Stevens. The Turks in the tunnel surrendered. They had gone there on the commencement of the bombardment, as was their custom, and had not had time to man the trenches before the Australians were on them. The first warning that had been given, it was learned from a captured officer, was when the sentries on duty called, "Here come the English!"

Farther down the trench a party of Australians were advancing against the Turks, who were shielded by a traverse. The first Australian that had run down, with his bayonet pointed, had come face to face with five of the enemy. Instinctively he had taken protection behind the traverse. He had called on his mates, and then ensued one of the scores of incidents of that terrible trench fight when the men slew one another in mortal combat. Their dead bodies were found in piles.

Captain Pain, 2nd Battalion, with a party of three men, each holding the leg of a machine gun, propped himself up in the middle of one trench and fired down on to the Turks, massed for a charge, till suddenly a bullet killed one of the party, wounded Pain, and the whole gun collapsed.

The Turks had in one case a machine gun firing down the trench, so that it was impossible for us to occupy it. By using one of the many communication trenches that the Turks had dug a party managed to work up close enough to bomb the Turks from the flank, compelling them to retire. Every man and every officer can repeat stories like these of deeds that won the Australians the day; but, alas! many of those brave men died in the trenches which they had captured at the bayonet's point.

At seven o'clock, when the first clash of arms had passed, the enemy made their first violent and concerted effort to regain their lost trenches. It was a furious onslaught, carried on up the communication trenches by a veritable hail of bombs. In some places we gave way, in others we drove back the enemy farther along his trenches. From the north and the south the enemy dashed forward with fixed bayonets. They melted away before our machine guns and our steady salvos of bombs. The Australians stuck to their posts in the face of overwhelming numbers—four to one: they fought right through the night, and as they fought, strove to build up cover of whatever material came nearest to hand. Thousands of sandbags were used in making good that position. Companies of the 12th Battalion were hurried up towards midnight to strengthen the lines, rapidly diminishing under the fury of the Turkish attack. But these men found a communication-way open to them to reach the maze of the enemy's position.

Our mines, that had been exploded at the head of the three tunnels mentioned earlier, had formed craters, from which the sappers, under Colonel Elliott and Major Martyn, began to dig their way through to the captured positions. Only two of these tunnels were opened up that night, just six hours after the trenches had been won. The parties dug from each end: they toiled incessantly, working in shifts, with almost incredible speed. It was the only way to get relief for the wounded; to go across the open, as many of the gallant stretcher-bearers, signallers, and sappers did, was to face death a thousand times from the Turkish shrapnel. So part tunnel, part trench, the 80 yards was sapped and the wounded commenced to be brought in in a steady stream.

It took days to clear the captured trenches. Australians and Turks lay dead, one on top of the other, three or four deep. All it was possible to do was to fill these trenches in. That night down the tunnel on the right kept passing ammunition, bombs—some 3,000 were used in the course of the first few hours—water, food, rum for the fighters, picks, shovels, and machine guns. Every half-hour the Turks came on again, shouting "Allah!" and were beaten back. The resistance was stubborn. It broke eventually the heart of the Turks.

Officers and men in that first horrible night performed stirring deeds meriting the highest honour. The names of many will go unrecorded except as part of that glorious garrison. It was a night of supreme sacrifice, and the brigade made it, to their everlasting honour and renown.