Kingdoms Fall - The Laxenburg Message (3 page)

           
Above them at Suvla Point were the smoking ruins of a small Turkish outpost
that had been thoroughly battered by artillery bombardment. A dozen shattered
and burnt Turkish corpses lay about the hill. Wilkins led his company up the
hill and past the outpost to the scrub grass and sand above the beach. He
crouched behind the only available shelter – the remains of a burnt-out
shepherd’s hut. He caught his breath and quickly checked himself for wounds
while Lieutenant Gresham sat down and casually lit a cigarette. The troops
amassed before Wilkins, Keeling, Gresham, and the sergeants. In the early
morning light, Wilkins saw dozens of faces looking to him for their orders, for
tasks that would put their minds and bodies to work and distract them from the
carnage which surrounded them. Wilkins pointed up to the left of the bay.

           
“Gentlemen,” he shouted, shaking the nervous stutter from his voice, “beyond
this hut is the plain and beyond that are the hills leading up to the ridge. We
are required to cross the plain and climb that ridge today. Undoubtedly, the
Turks will give us strong resistance, but we must silence their artillery, for
until we do, both the transport ships and every man coming ashore will be their
target!” Wilkins paused before asking “where are Stickle and Black?” He pointed
at the two smallest Privates in the company, one of whom was thought to be
sixteen years of age and the other perhaps just fifteen. “You two will be my
runners. Hold our position here on the shore and run any messages up to me.
Lieutenant Keeling, take Sergeant Major Dunham and the second and third
platoons; move down one hundred yards in support of our right. The rest of you
will form the main advance with me and Lieutenant Gresham. Gentlemen, I want
you to listen to our Lieutenant here. I realize that many of you consider
yourselves experienced men, but the Lieutenant has been to the front – he’s
done this before, so keep close and follow his orders. I want to see every one
of you at the top of the ridge. Am I understood?”

           
The men did understand, and were grateful that young Wilkins did not pretend to
know how to lead the men into battle. There was a brief chorus of grunting
acknowledgments. Wilkins turned and offered Gresham a pathetic grimace. Gresham
suddenly realized that Wilkins was asking him to lead the men up the ridge.

“Yes, right,” growled Gresham unhappily. “Only
don’t stay too close; I don’t want your guts all over my only clean uniform.”
As Keeling marched his men off to the right, Gresham shouted: “Platoons will
form up, twenty yards apart, just below the top of this hill. When the Captain
blows the whistle, we will advance. You will
not
stick together in
formation. You will fan out and run as fast as your f---ing legs can carry you.
If you stop moving, you will probably be shot, so you
will
keep moving.
Sergeant Hart will reform the platoons when we reach adequate cover. From
there, we will continue forward in the same fashion, is that clear? Alright,
get up now. Sergeant, fix bayonets.”

Hart turned to the men and shouted:
“F-i-i-i-i-i-x bayonets!” At once, more than a hundred men drew their bayonets
from their belts and snapped them onto their rifles. The fresh, clean bayonets
glittered dimly in the early morning light.

The company scrambled into their positions
across the hillside just as the sun was rising over the ridges to the east.
Gresham, in the middle of the line, looked both ways to ensure that the men
were ready and then signaled to Wilkins. Crouched and alert, the Captain peered
over the hilltop, took a deep breath, and blew the whistle with all his might.
The men erupted over the hill, charged through the loose stone and dust and
scrub, and leapt over the few low barbed wire obstructions and scattered
bodies. They rushed forward barely able to see where they were going through
the scrub brush and stunted oak trees.

The incoming Turkish sniper fire was light and
sporadic compared to what Gresham had seen in Belgium, and the Turkish
artillery was busy pounding the bay. It was obvious to Gresham that the Turks
had been taken by complete surprise and had not had time to adequately fortify
their positions around the bay. It appeared that the massive artillery
bombardment to the south had thoroughly misled the Turkish commanders who had
likely rushed reinforcements and supplies to precisely the wrong place. Ahead
of Gresham, another company on the plains was taking machine gun fire from the
ridge above them.

Wilkins stayed right beside Gresham. At least
what Wilkins lacked in experience he made up for in courage, thought Gresham;
it was probably wrong to criticize a man for admitting what he didn’t know, and
if Wilkins didn’t know what to do in battle, then he was right to ask for help.
But, damn, Gresham had no desire to lead these men against those machine guns.

Behind them, Sergeant Hart was screaming at the
troops to keep up. “Fan out, boys!” “Keep you bloody heads down!” “Mind you
don’t stick your mate with that bayonet, Jenks!” “King an’ country aren’t
paying you to look pretty there, my young Galahads!”

Bullets whistled past as the men scrambled
through the scrub. Gresham looked back and shook his head in disbelief at the
men clustering in tight groups. Yes, it was natural for men to seek safety by
massing with others, but Gresham had learned that men in groups were more
likely to suffer the wrath of the machine gunners. “Spread out! Spread out and
hurry up, damn you!” he yelled.

Wilkins enthusiastically raised his pistol high
and shouted: “Charge!”

The company still had far to go, and the
Turkish troops held the high ground before them. The machine guns on the ridge
were still out of range, but every shell hole, tree and bush could provide
cover to a Turkish sniper who would harry the British troops as they advanced.
Gresham believed that if the men rushed up the hill fast enough, they could
reach the ridgeline and seize the Turkish guns before a significant number of
the troops were killed. There was no way to win a battle like this without
losing men. The only way to win was to win quickly. The one thing they must
never do is stop moving.

           
“Old Gawain didn’t get all that sweet cunny o’ his by running off, lads,”
Sergeant Hart shouted at the troops. He had taken to calling the men by the
names of King Arthur’s knights, and every time he did the men would burst out
in laughter, even as they advanced straight into the machine gun fire. To
Gresham’s satisfaction, the company was finally scrambling forward in a long,
broken and uneven line spread across a hundred yards. The mortar fire and
shrapnel shells fell constantly among them, but with the troops spread out, the
artillery failed to inflict substantial damage to the company. As the troops
passed through a line of trees, they saw a field strewn with wounded men. They
advanced cautiously, and suddenly the ground exploded beneath the feet of a
young Private. The Private’s leg was sheared off as he was hurled into the air,
and the shrapnel which flew up from the ground wounded the men who had been
walking beside him. In another part of the field, another explosion from below
killed a second man.

           
“My God, the Turks have placed mines in the field,” said Wilkins. “Have you
seen anything like this before?”

           
“No, this is new,” Gresham replied grimly. “Watch where you’re walking!” he
shouted to the troops. “Stay in another man’s footsteps and don’t step on
anything metal!”

The company advanced carefully across the field
without any further mines exploding, but it was not the last pocket of land mines
they encountered. In each clearing, one or two men would simply explode and had
to be left behind for the stretcher bearers as Sergeant Hart shouted at the
company to continue onwards.

The sun was finally rising to the company’s
right and baking the rocks, dust and brush, and the day had only just begun.
Gresham tried to count the machine gun emplacements ahead as they moved
forward. The ridge was far more lightly defended than he could believe. The
company ahead of them was already moving beyond the plain to the lower hills
below the ridge. He saw a stray shrapnel shell burst fifteen feet above the
ground, spraying iron fragments across the field like hail and a cluster of the
men fell. The Turkish machine guns, however, were poorly directed. Men were
falling, but there were too few defenders and they were too poorly equipped to
handle the massive assault. More and more British and ANZAC troops were landing
behind them every minute. It was still early in the day, but Gresham thought
the offensive was progressing well and the casualties so far had been light.

           
With Wilkins still at his side, Gresham crawled over a spur and down into a
shallow gully barely screened from the machine guns ahead. Any man who stood up
would get shot in the head. They found a mass of nearly fifty troops from the
forward company huddled together in the ditch, too inexperienced to know that a
single well-placed artillery shell would blow the lot of them to pieces. A
number of the troops were at the rim of the gully firing blindly up towards the
machine guns, even though their Lee-Enfield rifles had nowhere near the range
to inflict harm on the Turkish gunners. Gresham spied the thin, white-haired
commanding officer from the forward company crouching in the shade of a tree
deep in the gully.

           
“Major,” Gresham shouted to him as he approached the officer, “are you
wounded?”

           
The Major stood and eyed Gresham with distaste. “No.”

“You must take your men up that hill, Sir.”

           
“I will not.”

           
Wilkins scrambled over to join them. “Major Sills, Sir, what have you
discovered ahead?”

           
“It’s a damned hot fight, Wilkins. Far more opposition than we expected, I’m
sure of it. My scouts tell me there are at least two of those damned Maxim guns
just in front of us.”

           
The hill ahead was devoid of dead or wounded men, which indicated that Major
Sills had stopped all forward progress here at the gully. The machine guns were
a dangerous nuisance, certainly, but standing still even a moment longer in the
gully would invite artillery fire, and Gresham was livid that the men were
still clumped together. They reminded him of the mules on the beach, and he
could easily imagine the same slow-motion disintegration occurring at any moment.
A handful of lightly wounded men were scrambling over the spur behind him back
to the beach. “Major,” he tried, “take these wounded men back to the boats.
Your remaining men can join Captain Wilkins’ company for the attack on the
machine guns ahead.”

           
The understated threat to his command suddenly energized the Major. “Who are
you to talk to me like that, Lieutenant? I’ll have you shot for
insubordination!” He raised the service revolver in his hand and waved it about
vaguely.

Wilkins quickly stepped in front of Gresham,
who clearly had no notion of tact. “Sir, the Lieutenant is merely fulfilling my
orders. We have been instructed to advance up the ridge. We knew there would be
opposition, but despite the potential casualties, you must give the order to
your men to attack the machine guns.”

“No, I will not. No. There is no chance of
taking this ridge today, Captain. It simply cannot be done.” Major Sills turned
to his huddled company and addressed them: “Now see here, gentlemen, you’ve
done a marvelous bit of work this morning. We’ve got a good foothold ashore,
but we must secure our position. The Turks have been pushed well back today.
You men march back down to the bay and await further orders. Another day or two
of heavy artillery will soften up the Turks and destroy their defensive
positions.”

Even Wilkins understood that the Major was, in
effect, ordering his men to retreat. “Please, Sir,” he begged, “your orders are
surely the same as mine. We must take the ridge and make our rendezvous with the
Ninth Division.”

“No, young man, it is readily apparent that
this ridge is far more strongly defended than General Stopford was told. Our
plans must adapt to circumstances. I expect you will follow along directly. Now
get out of my way.” The Major again began yelling at his men to get down the
hill. But going down would be no easier than coming up as long as the machine
guns on the ridge ahead were still in Turkish hands.

Wilkins fumed silently. “I suspect you will
agree with me, Gresham, that the Major’s expectation that we will follow behind
him does not constitute an order to withdraw,” he said quietly.

“Better let him go,” Gresham whispered, “the
old bastard might have decided to take over command of your company as well, and
if he had, we probably would have all gotten killed.”

Wilkins turned on Gresham sharply. “Lieutenant,
you will please keep your opinions regarding our superior officers to
yourself.” He had nothing against the Lieutenant and was equally disgusted with
Major Sills, but he was not eager to be brought up on charges of
insubordination.

The first few men of Major Sills’ company to
attempt the descent to the bay were shot down by Turkish snipers. Major Sills
was crawling down slowly on his hands and knees, and the rest of the company
slithered behind him. Meanwhile, more of Wilkins’ company was coming up into
the long narrow gully, and it was beginning to get crowded. Mortar shells were
beginning to target them, and the men around the edges were beginning to panic,
massing together like sheep.