A Naval Venture: The War Story of an Armoured Cruiser

by T. T. Jeans

In the early mornings, after these nights, the tired, haggard, earth-stained "working-parties" came back from the trenches, where they had been fighting all night, bringing tales of creeping bombing-parties, of furious rushes right up to their parapets, and of encounters between their night patrols, helping back the wounded, and perhaps escorting a few Turkish prisoners. These tales made each night's fighting a little epic of its own.

To Bubbles, the Lamp-post never confided his ideas or emotions, because that fat, joyous midshipman looked upon the whole thing as one vast "spree", with a spice of danger that only added to its attractions. Each wounded man who was sent off to the ships, he envied his honourable wound, and the fact that many of them were maimed for life never entered his mind, nor the tragedy of the women and children dependent on them.

The day after that second big counter-attack, during a bout of shelling from some field-guns concealed below Achi Baba, a shell came into a "dug-out" where a petty officer and two men of the beach party were sitting, and killed all three. After this, more spare time than ever was spent on deepening these "dug-outs". Then followed two more days of desperate fighting for the capture of Krithia village, and ghastly, never-ending streams of wounded came down the gully to the casualty clearing-station, whose white tents had been pitched above the cliffs, to the right of it. Our losses were terrific, and our gains practically nil. As a set-off to the splendid failure of the centre, the Gurkhas captured a commanding cliff on the left flank—Gurkha Bluff—and under protection of fire from the Talbot and Dublin, dug themselves in so securely that these gallant little men never let go their hold on it.

The continual strain of those first two weeks was already beginning to tell on the three snotties—hardly noticeable, perhaps, in the case of Bubbles, though he was undoubtedly thinner; but the Pink Rat was one mass of nerves—he jumped if anyone spoke to him suddenly—and he lost his appetite. The Lamp-post became more silent and thoughtful than before, and his nerves, too, were very "rocky", but he had such strong control over himself that no one could have thought that this was so.

Their clothes were stained with good honest dirt, and torn and ragged from honest hard work. They became such unpresentable scarecrows that at last the Beach-master suggested that an improvement was desirable. So they went across to the Ordnance Stores and hunted out the stock sizes of the soldiers suits in store, which would fit them best. They also obtained puttees, and after those first ten days or two weeks the only thing "naval" about them was their caps.

On the 12th May—a most perfect day it was—the three snotties were sitting outside their tent after lunch, smoking cigarettes, and watching an aeroplane, circling gracefully above them, looking for a good landing-place on the cliffs, close to the lighthouse Suddenly a great, tearing, rending noise seemed to fill all space. Everyone dropped, automatically, what was in his hand and bent his head; then, looking up, saw a cloud, black and oily—a hellish-looking balloon of smoke—suspended in the air above the ridge.

This was the first high-explosive shell which burst near "W" beach. "Gallipoli Bill"—a stumpy 6-inch howitzer—fired it, and fired many more that afternoon and again an hour before sunset, some of his shells bursting on impact, others in the air—all with that rending, awe-inspiring crash.

There was by this time, on top of the ridge, a broad sandy track, which must have been most conspicuous from Achi Baba. On each side of it, six or eight hundred horses and as many mules had been picketted, and those poor creatures suffered most. The snotties had fled to their dug-out; the Pink Rat lying flat on his face with his hands over his ears, whilst the other two peered over the edge, watching where the shells dropped. They did not—not even Bubbles—want to see them, but the terrible roar fascinated them, and they were obliged to do so. They would hear the noise of another approaching, and, three or four seconds later, up would go a cloud of black smoke and that thunderclap of an explosion—not one farther away than three hundred yards. "Right among the horses!" the Lamp-post would say, with a catch in his breath; and when the smoke drifted clear, there would they see six, a dozen—often more—of these gallant animals lying dead, or feebly trying to regain their feet horribly mutilated.

Other shells burst in open spaces, doing no harm; others among the mules and transport-wagon "parks". After every explosion, men would leave their "dug-outs" and rush to the place, a couple of stretcher-men would perhaps dash down from the casualty clearing-station; and then the noise of another approaching shell would send them scurrying back—scurrying fast, all of them, except the stretcher-men, who if they had found an injured man had to bear him slowly and steadily.

One shell, on that first day, fell right among a warren of crowded "dug-outs", and the Lamp-post turned away his head with a shudder, so as not to see what would come to view when the smoke cleared away. When he did turn round—it was so horribly fascinating—he saw men scrambling from those "dug-outs", jostling each other in the crater just made among them, shouting and laughing, and squabbling and searching for "souvenirs".