A big old Turk walked towards us, and he was met by Captain R. J. A. Massie, a famous Australian amateur champion, an all-round athlete of splendid physique. The Turk was blindfolded and brought into our trenches and then taken to headquarters, and after he had been questioned an armistice was granted.
The firing ceased, and the Turks came out with all their stretcher-bearers, and our stretcher-bearers and diggers went out, too, and the burials went on—and not before they were necessary, for the stenches were awful.
This sad work was being done, when our artillery observers noticed that the Turks were bringing up guns and reinforcements from the gulley at the back of our chaps, and we were ordered to come in.
That ended the armistice for the time, and the Turks at the back were fired on and their little game stopped. Next morning there was another armistice, for it was absolutely necessary to get on with the burials. The atmosphere was almost unendurable, and, even on landing, the stench from dead mules and so on was so horrible that it nearly made me bilious.
On that second morning I was able to see that a lot of our chaps were lying between our parapet and the Turks’ parapet. We made an exchange of bodies, and having got our men’s identification discs, we buried them in the small trenches, so that the fighting-places became graves.
All these things that I have told about happened within thirty hours of our landing—and the fortune of war had sent some of the Anzacs to their last resting-place and put others, wounded, on the list for home. Men were sent off, their fighting careers ended, after having been in the enemy’s country for only a few hours.
We were pretty philosophical over the business. I remember one of the men in my squadron saying, “If your name’s on a bullet you’re going to stop it.” Soon afterwards a four-point-seven got him.
The Turks used to fire like mad. It was astonishing to see how many bullets they fired, but even at that early stage our men, when off duty, were asleep and taking no notice of them.
At this time we were opposite Lone Pine, attached to the 4th Australian Battalion as infantry. After the fighting we had exactly a month in the trenches, and then relieved some infantry who had had three weeks of solid fighting. We were relieved and went to a rest camp near Gaba Tepi. We had seven days there, with a good deal of excitement one way and another, and plenty of casualties, for we were being called out every day.
It was rumoured that Achi Baba was going to fall, and we were ordered into the firing-line as supports for the 5th Light Horse. The 5th were going out in front to draw the Turks’ fire and keep reinforcements from going down to Achi Baba. Some of the 6th and 7th Light Horse were to stand by and act as reinforcements. My troop was in the firing-line.