In the Line of Battle: Soldiers' Stories of the War

by Unknown

After being in the trenches at Achi Baba for sixteen days we went back to Lemnos, a big naval base about four and a half hours’ distant by transport. We were supposed to have a week’s rest, but we were at Lemnos only three days. At the end of that time we went back to the Peninsula and landed at Anzac, and went straight up to the firing-line, which had been made at Chunuk Bahr—and our regiment got absolutely cut up. It was one of the things that will happen in a war like this.

We had gone up into the trenches and nothing much happened while we were there. After our spell in the trenches we were taken up into a gulley for twenty-four hours’ rest and sleep. We were in high spirits at the prospect of such a change, and we took our equipment off and made a few dug-outs and got into them and settled down, and very comfortable and contented we were. But our rest and peace were smashed at dawn on the following morning, when we were thrown into confusion by a heavy Turkish attack. The Turks had advanced into the firing-line on the opposite side of the hill. There were plenty of them and they had machine-guns, while we were quite helpless, having no rifles nor equipment—indeed, many of us had not even our jackets on, as we were taking it easy.

There was quite a stampede for the time being, and some one passed the order, “Every man for himself!” It was a mistake, I am certain, but it added immensely to the confusion. That awful alarm caused some of our unarmed chaps to make a bolt for it, the result of temporary panic; and now came one of those splendid bits of work which are the pride of every regiment, and which no one can do better than British soldiers.

The adjutant, Captain Belcher, rallied about seventy of the men. He pulled them together, put heart of grace into them, and shouted to them to get their rifles and bayonets and follow him. There is nothing like an heroic example at such a time. The little band rallied round the adjutant, and with wild cheers and a gallant rush they hurled themselves upon the Turks, and such was the suddenness and fury of their attack that the Turks bolted like children—and big hefty chaps they were—with our fellows, some of them almost as small as dwarfs, tearing after them with the bayonet. In this furious affair one of our men got wounded and could not walk. The adjutant picked him up and began to carry him away. As he did so the Turks opened fire on him with a machine-gun, and he must have been riddled—I never saw anything more of him. At the same time Lieutenant Ratcliffe, who had been wounded, was being carried off on a stretcher. He seemed to think that the chance of escape was hopeless, and so he said to his bearers, “Put me down and look after yourselves, boys. I shall be all right.” It was a hard thing to do, but the men obeyed, and all of us who could do so got away from that fatal spot, which we were far too weak to hold, in spite of the success of the adjutant’s rally, and at last we got back to the beach.

It was then that we compared notes and heard of what had happened in various places, and the roll having been called we supposed that every man who could escape had reached the beach. But two nights afterwards we formed a search party, and went back up the hill and were lucky enough to find and bring back with us about a dozen poor fellows who had been lying all that time on the battlefield. From this rescue we supposed that there must be other men alive at the top of the hill; but there was no chance of reaching them in the daytime, and we could not go at night, for the searchlights from our own warships swept the hillside and lit it up so brilliantly that any search party would have been shown up to the snipers. So we did no more, and soon we were forgetting; for we were hard at work on fatigue, helping the Engineers to build a new firing-line, a trench about 1400 yards long. Then happened a thing so strange that it seemed beyond belief, like men rising from the dead. Fifteen days had passed since the fight, and no one dreamed that there could possibly be survivors, yet there appeared at the beach headquarters two terribly worn and haggard men, Lance-Corporal A. G. Scott of my company, and Private R. Humphries, another of our chaps. We were amazed to see them, and far more amazed to hear their story, which was that they and Private W. J. Head had been up in the hill for fifteen days and nights, unable to get away, and living on the biscuits and water that they had taken from the haversacks and bottles of dead men. The Turks, they said, used to pass them and shake hands with them, but would never give them any food or water. The three used to grope about in the daytime to get food and drink, and the Turks sniped at them whenever they got the chance. Head was quite unable to escape, having had two bad wounds. Scott and Humphries, desperate at last, crawled away and managed to reach our regimental headquarters and tell their wonderful story, and it was no sooner heard than a search party was organised, and, with Scott and Humphries as guides, went back to the old fighting-place—a slow and dangerous job. On the first night they found nothing, but on the next night the relieving party came across three fellows and brought them down. Head was amongst them—he had been out getting more biscuits and water, and while doing so his right arm was smashed by a machine-gun which was trained on him. The body of the poor lieutenant was found, with several bayonet wounds, and he, like all the other officers who fell, had been completely stripped by plunderers. The bodies had not a thing on them.

The survivors of those awful days and nights on the hillside—from August 10th to August 26th—had such a welcome as can be given only to those who return when they have been given up as lost, and Scott and Head and Humphries have been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. There have been some extraordinary incidents in this war, but not many are stranger than this adventure of this little band of men for what must have seemed an endless fortnight, and none that will stand out more finely in the annals of the Wiltshires.

There was so much to be seen and done in the three months I spent in the Near East that it is not easy to describe everything, and I must now mention only one or two things more. Very clearly in my mind stands out our attack on Chocolate Hill, after the warships had bombarded it for three days. We watched the naval guns at work, and saw the terrible havoc they caused—many a Turk we saw flying up in the air when the shells burst. When we advanced over Salt Lake we had to cross a hayfield, under a very heavy fire. The bursting shrapnel knocked many a fellow down, and we could not stop to help them or pick them up—and that was terribly hard on us, for the hayfield had taken fire and it meant that a lot of helpless men were burned alive. I saw one poor chap, a Yeoman, struck by shrapnel. This made him completely helpless for the time, and the fire got at him and burnt half his left leg off; but I am thankful to say that he managed, by a truly desperate effort, to crawl away, and he got out of it at the finish. We were in the advance, and as the field was catching fire just as we got out of it, we escaped the worst, which was to be caught in the middle, so that even those who were fit and could make a rush were badly burned and suffering intensely before they could get clear of the horrible ring of fire.

I can tell you of an extraordinary incident that happened in the Chocolate Hill attack to a man of the South Wales Borderers. In the second bayonet charge he drove his steel into a Turk—and it broke. Off he dashed without his bayonet, and rushed with his chums to the next trench, where he plumped into a Turk who was crawling through a hole. Knowing that his broken bayonet was useless, he clubbed his rifle and let the Turk have the butt. The blow smashed the butt clean off, and the Borderer tumbled down. The Turk, who was not much hurt, sprang back from his hole, and jumped to his feet with the Englishman fairly at his mercy. Luckily for the Borderer a pal rushed up and saved him by settling the Turk. It was an extraordinary thing that the Borderer first broke his bayonet and then bashed his butt, which came off as clean as a whistle.

Another thing that happened was this: An officer was wounded and fell. One of the men of his regiment heard the report that the officer was missing. “I’ll go and find him,” he said, and off he went. After an hour’s search he found the officer and asked him if he could walk. “No,” the officer told him, so the man picked him up and started to carry him—a hard and dangerous job. While the officer was being carried he was wounded again, a bullet striking him. “Put me down,” he ordered, “and look after yourself.” “No, sir,” said the man; “if you’re game, I am.” And game he was, too, for he got him safely away, and the officer, to show his gratitude, made the man a present of his revolver and a silver flask. When the soldier rejoined his regiment they took the revolver away; but he kept the flask as a memento, carefully wrapped up in all sorts of things, very proud of the gift from the officer, who had said, “I shall never forget you!” The officer was mortally wounded, and died before they could get him into the hospital ship.

It was round Chocolate Hill that we made our queerest find of all—women snipers. There was a kind of blockhouse which had been a farmhouse, and it had a very fine well, which had some very fine water—a precious thing. There was a big run on the well, and a lot of fellows were shot by snipers who could not be traced, till a fellow in a Welsh regiment swore that he could see some one moving in some trees not very far away. A machine-gun was brought up, and fifty rounds or so were fired into the trees, which dropped some very rare fruit—four men Turks and one woman Turk, all snipers. When we went up we found that they were almost naked, and had their faces and hands and bodies and rifles painted green to match the trees. And there they roosted, like evil birds, potting at our chaps whenever they got the chance, which was pretty often. This was such a good haul that firing was directed on all the trees, and more snipers were brought down, including several women. Some of the women wore trousers, like the men, and some had a kind of full grey-coloured skirt. They were as thin as rats, and looked as if they had had nothing to eat for months. I think there were six or seven women snipers caught in the trees, and it is said that the Turks have women in the trenches; but I don’t know if that is true. I saw one woman sniper who had been caught by the New Zealanders. I don’t know what was done with her; but as the men came back they told us they had bagged her in a dug-out, where she had a machine-gun and a rifle, and that she seemed to have been doing a very good business in sniping.