Eyewitness (3 page)

Close in shore one can just make out the low shapes of one or two destroyers. They were to take in the men from the ships further out and transfer them to boats. The boats were to take them from the destroyers in shore. Others were to land straight in boats from the ships. Those destroyers in shore must just be discharging the second batch now. Another is swinging round three hundred yards away from us. It must be the first to discharge us. She was due at six o’clock. It is exactly 6.30. A geyser of foam rises beside the
Galeka
. I think it is from a gun on the big hills far away to the south. It was not far off. The shrapnel is now bursting in the air a little south of the transports; three shells this time. Now another three! Those must be from guns to the south of that promontory (Gaba Tepe). We are just outside their extreme range.

The destroyer is alongside. Some men on her decks are standing round something which they have protected with a little nest of hammocks. It is a wounded man. One seems to be an Australian – another is a sailor, his face turned away from them very white and still. A seamen sits by him, holding his wrist. Now that one sees them there are half a dozen wounded men on that destroyer. Another has drawn alongside our other beam. She has a dozen wounded on her. Some of the small returning boats come along the destroyers. They lift a wounded man or two out of them also.

Still that rattle, rattle all along the hillside. It doesn’t sound as if our men had got far. The ships are roaring whole broadsides now …

Two cruisers are round the southwest of that obnoxious promontory shelling it – and the (battleship)
Triumph
. Just this side of it lies the four-funnelled
Bacchante
… Far to the south is the
Queen Elizabeth
, signalling with some brilliant light. Our men must at least have got a footing on the land for those enemy guns to the south are shelling the right-hand shoulder of the nearer hill in front – four of them were shelling it some moments ago. There only seems to be one now.

6.45: The infantry from our own ship are climbing slowly down rope ladders into their destroyers – or rather into one of them. The
Derfflinger
has just got her first destroyer away. I watch it – old Jock is in that lot. The
Michigan
has got her two away. Astern of us one can see in the distance transport after transport coming up …

Suddenly – from high up on the further hill there twinkles a tiny white light – very brilliant. What on earth can it be? We can hardly have got our signallers right up there, headquarters properly fixed and the signal communication opened up by this time! ‘It can’t be, no – must be the Turks’ is the general opinion. But what do the Turks want to helio towards us for – must be signalling to their men on the nearer hill.

Ten minutes later someone sees men upon the skyline. The rumour gradually spreads round. At 7.17 I heard of it. Through the telescope you can see them, numbers of them – some standing full length. Others moving over it. Certain ones are standing up, moving along amongst them. Others are sitting down apparently talking. Are they Turks or Australians? The Turks wear khaki, but the attitudes are extraordinarily like those of Australians. Just below them, on our side of them a long line of men is digging quietly on a nearer hill. They have round caps, I think clearly you can distinguish that round disc-like top. They are Australians! And they have taken that further line of hills! Three ridges away you can see them; the outlines of men on the furthest hill; men digging on the second hill; and the white flags of signallers waving on the ridge nearest the shore … (Eight thousand Australian troops had gone ashore by 8 a.m.)

8.30: The second destroyer (
Ribble
) is alongside – she has many wounded on board – men come to me and say that her decks are a sight – simply slippery with blood. I didn’t go to see – somehow if that sort of thing has to come it will come of its own accord; no need to go and look for it. They don’t seem to be hurrying about loading the
Ribble
– not a man is getting on to her although lots are on board waiting. I wonder why …

9.20: Another burst of firing on hills.

The …
Ribble
is alongside. Put on my packs (i.e. overcoat and one ration and towel and (waterproof) sheet in an infantry pack; two rations in brown canvas satchel which Myers gave me – also most of my papers and some chocolate; rug and leather lining to overcoat in roll). Went down onto foc’sle deck with Capt. Griffiths – got the packs slung over into the destroyer and then climbed down rope ladder.

9.40: Moved off. Waved goodbye to Bazley … Most of the batmen with our sleeping bags, horses, grooms, the French interpreters, motor cars, Maj. Watson and the pay office people remain aboard until our landing is established. Some say they may be off in two days – some a week. Of course the horses may be longer.

As we are going ashore some heavy battery fires a big shot at the
P.
of Wales
. A monstrous fountain of foam rises beside her.

Second shot at
P. of W
. Then third big shot right over the
Queen
near the
Hessen
. They’ll be sinking her if our people don’t look out. I believe i.e. quite expect to lose a transport or two and it looks as if any minute we shall see the beginning: fourth big shot alongside
Hessen
– she’s a German steamer, too. I wonder when they’ll get her moving – they’re frightfully slow. No, she’s thrashing out at last – screw very high out of water.

Then a big shot – fifth – close alongside
Minnewaska
.

Next a shot close alongside a destroyer – it seemed to explode on touching the water – wonder if it went through her – it would sink her surely. You can see a white powdery patch on her black side, where the explosion dried the spray on it, I suppose. A sailor went straight to the side and looked over to see if any damage had been done. If it had she’d have been sunk by now so I suppose it just missed her.

The Turkish gun (later dubbed ‘Beachy Bill’) behind Kaba Tepe has fired a shot at us as we came ashore – at least I suppose they were firing at us. It fell a good way short. Another destroyer was moving in parallel to us, carrying troops from other transport. About two hundred yards from the shore the destroyers stopped. There were some very big empty ships’ boats coming alongside and we clambered into them – Gellibrand and most of our party got up into the bows to be out of the way. I don’t think anybody in the boat worried about shrapnel. Somebody says another shell burst between us and the other destroyer – not far away; but I didn’t notice it. I was busy taking photos of the boats and the hills.

The sight of the hills as we got in closer and could see what they really were made one realise what our men had really done. I remember someone saying that the map ought to have been made more precipitous, that it didn’t really give an idea of how steep the hills actually were – and I understand what they meant. The place is like a sandpit on a huge scale – raw sandslopes and precipices alternating with steep slopes covered with low scrub – the scrub where it exists is pretty dense. There seems to be a tallish hummock at the northern end of the beach and another at the south end. We are landing between them.

The boat grounded in at two feet of water. We jumped out – got used to this at Lemnos where I saw many a man spilt by his heavy pack, so I got out carefully, waded to the beach, and stood on Turkish soil.

I took a photo of two of the fellows landing and then turned round to see the beach. It was a curve of sand, about half a mile long, between the two knolls before mentioned. Between them, high above us, ran back a steep scrub-covered slope to a skyline about 300 feet above us. One or two deep little gullies came down the mountainside, each with a little narrow winding gutter in the depth of it; these gutters were about as deep as a man, sometimes deeper, not more than five or six feet wide, more or less covered in the low scrub (largely arbutus) and so splendid natural cover against shrapnel whether it came from north or south. On the beach some seamen were rigging up the first pole of a wireless station; infantry and engineers as they landed were being lined up and marched off at once – mostly, I think, towards the south end of the beach. Foster and Casey met us and took us off in a southerly direction to the second gully where they said the General (Bridges) had decided to make his divisional H.Q. The place they chose was the bottom of the gully just where the gully opened out onto the sand. I chucked my pack and haversack down with others on a bunch of bush in the middle of this gully. Shrapnel had been dropping here thickly.

I think the General was away when we arrived – anyway Foster couldn’t say definitely if this would be the place for the camp; so we waited on to see where H.Q. would be. The General was there shortly afterwards. White, Glasfurd, Blamey, Howse and Foott were all ashore before us.

10 a.m: The mountain guns have just landed. There is continuous firing.

10.30: The wireless is up. The boys are digging out a place for Headquarters in this gully near the beach. The signallers seem to have been allotted a bit of the gully just above us and the artillery just above them. A Turkish prisoner is being examined at H.Q. …

We saw a few wounded men, a very few, limping or carried along the beach. I think about half a dozen poor chaps were also lying there dead – with overcoats or rugs over them. Most of these were carried away round the northern point of the beach, and away along the northern beach where they were laid out together, about 30 of them …

I didn’t want to get in the way at H.Q. so as Col. Hobbs was going up to see if he could find a position for his guns I asked if I might go with him. The Artillery staff scrambled up the gutter at the back of our H.Q. winding in and out under the leaves, dragging one another up the gravelly banks until we got to the top of our ridge. When about halfway up I noticed an insect with a soft rustle of a flight, like a bee’s, flying over – I could hear them and looked once or twice to make sure. Then for the first time I realised it must be a bullet. It was so feeble, that sound, and so spent that it was quite comforting. One had expected something much more businesslike. As we got higher up the whistle did become louder, but I hadn’t any idea whether they were near or far.

At the top we got into a path – I don’t know if it was ours or Turkish, but our engineers were building quite a fine path lower down – which led us for about half a dozen yards over the beginning of a plateau and then a shallow trench crossed our path, running from right to left; so we dropped into it. There were several men in it and I think they were chiefly engaged in passing ammunition along it. We crept along it, passing a certain number of men – Col. Hobbs seemed rather desperate of getting any artillery up this way. As we went along this trench there was a dead Turk lying in it and there was one of our own men, dead, lying just outside the trench. Some parts of the trench had a very nasty smell – there was no mistaking it – the Turks must have used it for purposes of sanitation as well as of protection – I believe their trenches serve for every purpose. Finally we got to where the trench finished abruptly on the other side of the plateau in a V-shaped cut through which you could see down into the valley and across to the other side of it. Col. Hobbs went on and had a look out of the opening and as he could do no good here we all returned to the beach. I stayed for a bit to talk to some of the men in the trench. One could hear occasionally a burst overhead and a whizz which I took to be shrapnel; but in this trench one was reasonably safe.

By the time I got out of the trench the road up to the entrance of it seemed to be nearly finished. Men bringing up ammunition were resting there for a moment. A certain number of infantry were sitting down there also for a breather. The ammunition men didn’t get down into the trench but went straight on across the plateau – where to I could not see. It was a big labour bringing those boxes up the hill – but I knew it was awfully important.

Presently four guns from the north started shelling the road up north edge of the hill, up which the troops were continually moving or else these shells were meant for the troops landing, I couldn’t say which. As I sat on the hillside above the northern knoll – just at the northern edge of the hillslope up from the beach – they were coming over my head, high over, in salvos of four and bursting rather high over the beach and the water in front of the destroyers. I can’t say I like shrapnel although it seemed to be quite familiar by this time. I sat watching it by the road for some time and then walked down through the scrub towards our gully. On the way I saw several of the men of Jock’s battalion carrying ammunition. They had a depot in the scrub there and a sergeant who evidently recognised me was in charge of it. He said the doctor had been attending to men on the beach, he thought, for a time and had now gone on with his battalion.

Then I came down to the beach and had a little lunch – that is, some biscuits, a little chocolate and some water.

The General was there – they were making him a dugout on the right-hand corner of the mouth of the creek as you looked towards the hills …

After lunch I went up the hill at the back of the beach for a bit, and finally decided to go and see if I could find old Jock. I went up to the communication trench on the hilltop and through it, inquiring where Jock’s dressing station was. Several men had told me if I went over that way I should find it down in the gully. I asked several in the trench (along which ammunition was being passed) the way, but they told me they didn’t know – they were mostly 10
^th
Battalion but also some 1
^st
… I went along the trench to near its exit on the further slope. I got a photo from this exit, but a man seemed to be sniping in at it from the other side of the valley – the men at the exit were well tucked into the sides of it so I didn’t stay there. I waited tucked up in the trench – and the shrapnel began to plump in salvos of four shots regularly into the backs of the men lying out on the opposite side of the valley. You could hear the shots going overhead and see the burst, I think, sometimes. It went on with monotonous regularity – apparently never-ending and one began to think the chaps there must be having an awful time. I couldn’t get a man from Jock’s battalion – every other sort seemed to go through the trench. A number of New Zealanders came along it and filled it up, with some officers and orders seemed to be passed along from a Col. Plugge at the back. There was a signaller in the trench, the reader in the trench with a telescope and the sender somewhere on the face of the slope outside. I knew – I don’t know how, but one guessed from the way those guns were firing, unhindered by any firing at all of ours, that the troops were being very severely tried. It was sickening to hear it. I thought there was only a party of troops on the further ridge but it was the main line of our men really. One could tell something from the messages passed along. A request came back (from 1
^st
Brig., I think) to know how the other landings were getting on. That meant they wanted something cheerful to tell the troops, I knew. I am not sure it didn’t come along twice …