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

by Unknown

Our colonel—I was sitting near him in the pinnace—looked stern and calm. He knew better than most of us what it meant.

We were lucky in our landing, for we had no casualties; but a lot of the other troops who were landing at the same time and in the same way were picked off. We lay off till one of the naval boats got alongside. We all tumbled into her and were taken to the beach for landing.

The Turks saw us landing and gave us five shells, but these did not hurt anybody. We were told to hurry up; but we didn’t need telling to do that, and as soon as the boat was at the shore we hopped on to a little wharf and found ourselves in the thick of some Indians who were unloading sheep. So little did we need telling to hurry up, that I well remember how we rushed through the sheep in our eagerness to get to shelter.

We were in fine spirits and made the best of it; but as soon as we landed we realised what we were in for. A shell came and burst amongst a fatigue party, knocking the men about badly and wounding half a dozen, but luckily not killing anybody. This showed us how necessary it was to take cover, and when we had got some distance up the heights and were ordered to dig in, we set to work with a will, and we readily obeyed the order to keep our heads well down, as the shrapnel was bursting over the top of us.

Our regiment was keeping well together. The colonel was in a gulley just below me when a shell burst over us. It seemed to be high, and we did not realise the danger of such explosions. This shell seemed to be harmless; but I soon discovered that a fragment or bullet of it had struck the colonel in the leg. As this was the headquarters the doctor was handy, and he attended to the colonel straight away, and sent him to the beach on a stretcher. Two minutes afterwards, one of the squadron clerks got shot with a shrapnel bullet. This also happened near me, and I saw what happened to him. The bullet struck him just by the right temple—he had the closest possible shave of instant death—and carried the eye away. This chap was put out of action at once, and was sent on to Malta. About ten days later he wrote to us saying what rotten luck he had had. But he was a cheerful soul and made the best of things, though he said, very truly, “I have only had a one-eyed view of Malta!”

We got dug in. There were holes in front of us, about four feet deep, with head covering, about two feet of earth, on top of us; but these did not give much protection from shells that burst just overhead. Some of the men filled empty biscuit-tins with earth and put them alongside to protect their legs from stray and spent bullets, and these proved very useful. When we had dug in we were ordered to eat our iron-rations for tea; then, about eight o’clock, they called the regiment to fall in, as the Turks were going to attack us. We stood up as reinforcements at a place called Shrapnel Gulley—and well it deserved its name, as we soon learned, for there were a terrible lot of casualties there, especially amongst the fatigue parties which had to go to the beach for water.

You will see that we were initiated straight away. We did not know the danger of it at the time, and never thought that we should be so soon put through it after landing. But it was astonishing to see how well the chaps settled down to the business. We had been landed only a few hours, and yet we were standing to arms, waiting for the Turks to come on. We expected them with a rush, for we had been told that Enver Bey, the Minister of War, had ordered that the Anzacs were to be thrown into the sea. Well, we didn’t mean to be thrown.

We were standing on open ground. There were two very high hills, and we were in the gulley at the bottom. Some of our troops were dug in on the top of the hills, and the Turks were dug in in front of us, some of them being not more than fifty yards away.

It was a pitch-dark night, and a nerve-racking job waiting for the promised onslaught. Time passed and it seemed as if the Turks would never come; but at three in the morning they let themselves loose.

The word was passed along—“The enemy is advancing in front!” and we were all ordered to stand fast till two blasts of the whistle had been sounded.