It was while the attention of the Turks was riveted on the fall of their trenches along the plateau at Anzac, that the Australian 4th Infantry Brigade had left Rest Gully, below the Sphinx Rock, just on the left of Anzac (where it had been for the past ten weeks), and in silence made for the seashore, actually traversing under a torrent of shell fire part of the same ground and foreshore where the troops had landed first on the peninsula. It was a start warranted to depress more seasoned troops than these browned Australians, for shrapnel fell over them, while shells skimmed above their heads on their way to the beach. But they pushed steadily on. Fortunately the casualties were light. In the far distance, from the hills on their right, came the sound of the clatter of rifles. That was the attack on No. 3 Post, for, as the troops watched the three beams of the destroyers' searchlights playing on the ridges, they saw one suddenly turned up into the sky and the noise of the ship's guns died away. The beam was the signal for attack.
TURKISH MIA MIAS OCCUPIED BY THE 4TH INFANTRY BRIGADE IN THE AGYHIL DERE ON 8TH AUGUST.
SOLVING THE WATER PROBLEM.
Tanks in the gullies into which water was pumped from Anzac.
To face p. 250.
Immediately the taking of the foothills by the New Zealanders was assured, the way was clear for the 4th Infantry Brigade, under Brigadier-General Monash, to advance from the outskirts of our furthermost outpost line. It was hardly a week since I had been to the edge of our flank and looked across the flats and ploughed lands, over which then it would have been instant death to have advanced. Now that the Turks had been to some extent cleared from the hills on the right, the column, with one flank exposed to the hills and the other on the seashore, set out, in close formation, from under cover of our outposts. The column worked in towards some raised land that made a sort of road running round the foot of the hills, and met with no resistance. But there was a considerable amount of shrapnel being thrown over the column, and the ranks were thinned. A mile from our outposts the brigade swung round into a gully called the Aghyl Dere, and was at once met by a hot rifle fire from the Turks, who had taken up positions behind hastily thrown-up ramparts in the gully. The nature of the country made it easy to defend the valley. General Monash found it necessary to spread out a screen. It was composed of the 15th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel Cannan. The advance was constantly checked by the narrowness of the defiles through which the troops had to pass. At the head of the column was a Greek, and also a Turkish interpreter.