A Naval Venture: The War Story of an Armoured Cruiser

by T. T. Jeans

Though they did this at first for fun, and because Captain Macfarlane had advised them to do it, they were very glad they had taken his advice when, a few days later, the Turks did advance their field-guns and peppered the ridge, the gully leading to it, and "W" beach itself very liberally, not only with shrapnel, but also with common shell. Few of these common shell burst, and when they did, seldom hurt anyone; but no one, however brave or however small, can stand in a place which is being shelled, without feeling that he is the biggest thing there—for miles round—or the most conspicuous person, however many others are round him. The casualties from this first day of thoughtful and thorough shelling were very slight, considering the crowded state of the area, and the men's principal anxiety was to obtain fragments of shells or intact unexploded ones, digging those out before they had time to get cool. However, the competition in making "dug-outs" certainly became much more keen afterwards.

Neither the periods of being shelled nor the making of "dug-outs" was allowed to interfere with the work of the beach parties.

Those men who happened to be off duty crawled into their "funk-holes", but the others went on working; and of course, as most of them were employed below the cliffs, they really were not—as were the soldiers' working-parties stacking stores on the slopes—exposed the whole of the time.

In those first four days an enormous amount of work was done; mountains of stores were piled on either side of the gully, mules and horses in hundreds were landed, guns and their limbers—18-pounders, long 60-pounders, heavy guns and squat 6-inch howitzers—water carts, transport carts, and ambulance wagons. Hundreds of light two-wheeled carts were brought ashore, in readiness to follow the Army when the advance, which was fated never to take place, commenced; and by the end of the first week the slope between the ridge and the cliff, from the end of the Peninsula to Cape Helles lighthouse, was one orderly mass of mule and horse lines, transport "parks" and stores, and the ground which had been so covered with grass and scrubby bushes had been worn bare, as barren as the beach and the cliffs themselves.

Until the fifth day the beach parties had lived in the open, but on that day several marquees and tents were brought ashore and pitched for them. Quite a cosy little collection of white tents they made, at the bottom of the left-hand slope of the gully.

On the Thursday and Friday very little happened. The Army was digging itself in a mile and a half from Krithia, and about three miles from the ridge over "W" beach; practically all guns had been landed; the whole of the Royal Naval Division and other reinforcements had disembarked; and several thousand wounded had been safely sent on board the hospital ships, and transports used as hospital carriers.

On the Saturday night the Turks, at about ten o'clock, commenced a desperate effort, first to pierce our lines (which they did, momentarily, but only momentarily), and afterwards to drive the French into the sea.

The Lamp-post had a night "in" that night; and when the noise of firing woke him, was comfortably snuggled in a corner of the mess marquee, rolled in his blanket. The crackling of rifle-firing broke out on the left at first, and grew so fierce and incessant that he realized this was something quite different to anything he had heard before.

That counter-attack on the first Sunday, when he and Bubbles had helped to take up ammunition, was as nothing compared to it, and had not made him feel nervous—or perhaps anxious is a better word—as this did. He then had had something to do; but now, after a very hard day's work, and two spells of being shelled, he had nothing to do but lie there and listen to the really appalling din of musketry, field-guns, and the roar of the two 60-pounders on the end of the Peninsula, above him, which, every time they fired, lighted up the inside of the marquee and shook the ground beneath him.

As he lay, undecided as to whether or no he should get up and see what was happening, the intensity of the firing grew, until it reached such a pitch of frenzy that he felt certain that this must be the prelude to hand-to-hand fighting. He could not help but feel nervous. He was not blessed with a dull imagination, and he could not prevent himself picturing what was happening beyond the ridge, and what would happen if the Turks drove in our thin lines and forced them back to the sea below. He worked himself into such a state of nerves that at last, when the French "75's" broke into rapid firing—one continuous screech—he could stand it no longer, pulled on his boots, and went outside the marquee. Out over the Straits the sea was all a glitter of transports' lights as usual, and the row of "flares" along the beach lighted up the beach parties unloading boats, and the working parties wearily carrying stores towards the two flares which marked the depots on the slopes of the gully—all went on just as usual. But horse teams with their limbers were coming down from the ridge, past him, towards the ammunition depots, at the bottom of the gully—coming down at an unaccustomed speed; and he heard their drivers shouting impatiently for their limbers to be filled.