CHAPTER VII
AT GRIPS
Fromnow on I fancy this "history" of the doings of the Anzacs is going to be more of a diary than anything else. I kept a rough note of things as they happened day by day. For one thing the diary style pins the various events down to a kind of sequence and insures their being told in the order in which they happened; for another it saves the author a deal of labour. This by way of explanation and apology. Here goes, then—
April 17, 1915.—Sailed from Alexandria in transportA26, otherwise the s.s.Goslar, a captured German prize. We had a Danish skipper and a Greek crew—a poor lot as seamen go. We were quartered in the forepeak,the quarters being rough, but on the whole fairly comfortable. We shared them with a healthy and mighty lively lot of brown bugs. The tucker wasn't too bad.
The weather was fine and the sea calm all the way to Lemnos Island. Had a pow-wow with the O.C., who read out aloud the General's orders, informing us that we should land under cover of the warships' guns, that we were to drive the Turks back, secure a footing, and hold itat all costs. Anticipated heavy losses. When dismissed went and made our wills.
Were met on the 19th by the cruiserDartmouthand escorted by her till the evening, when a destroyer took us in charge and saw us safely into Mudros Harbour. TheDartmouthinformed us by semaphore that transportB12, steaming one hour ahead of us, had been attacked by an enemy torpedo boat, three torpedoes being fired at her, all of which missed. A number of soldiers jumped overboard,thinking the transport was doomed, and were drowned. The torpedo boat was engaged by our ships, driven ashore and destroyed.
We arrived in Mudros Harbour, in Lemnos, on the night of the 19th. It was just crowded with shipping, and looked for all the world like a big floating town. Were informed that there were over 200 transports and 60 warships gathered in the harbour. Had a splendid view of theQueen Elizabethas she lay quite close to our old hooker. The anchorage was simply alive with destroyers, torpedo boats, submarines, etc., both French and English. The French craft struck me as being a bit mouldy-looking, not so up-to-date as the British. You could always tell a French destroyer, she was so crowded up with all kinds of deck gear, and had a general Back of Beyond look about her—like a chap who had stopped washing and shaving for a longish spell.
During our stay at Lemnos we amused ourselves by practising boat drill, landing of troops, etc. It was no joke swarming down a rope ladder loaded up in full marching order—and it was just as bad climbing up again. One of our chaps let go his rifle; the rest contented themselves with language. No one was drowned.
It was while lying here we had our first solid day and night's rain, the first really heavy fall since leaving home. The temperature rapidly dropped in consequence till it became like early summer in England. Were told that we should find no firewood where we were going, and orders issued that each man was to carry a bundle of kindling wood strapped on top of his pack. We shall look like a mob of walking Christmas Trees when we get all on. Living on bully beef and biscuits now; no bread.
April 23.—Had a rather pleasant sail in one of the ship's boats to-day. Landed on asmall island in the harbour and cut a big supply of green fodder for the horses we had on board. Found the formation of the island to be volcanic in character, as all the land round about these parts seems to be. Not much sign of water, yet the sole of grass was good, and the colour a vivid green. Plenty of white clover, some of what looked like English cocksfoot, and a plant that struck me as Italian rye-grass. Heard the cuckoo and the lark, and noticed some small green lizards scurrying over the outcropping rocks.ThoughtI saw a tarantula spider, but wouldn't swear to it.
Coming back to ship found we had to beat against a head wind. Our craft was lug-rigged, the sail something like a dirty pocket-handkerchief. She had no use for beating; there wasn't a beat in her. Tried to ram an outward bound mine-sweeper which refused to get out of our way. Mine-sweeper's captain called us names that may have been true butdidn't sound nice. Doused the sail and rowed back. In the evening we watched the French and English transports and warships leaving the harbour. Rumours fill the air—the latest that we leave for the Dardanelles to-morrow (24th).
April 24.—Preparations for the big event. Told that the staff were prepared to lose 80 per cent. of the forces to effect a landing; also, that the fleet could see us ashore but thatit couldn't take us off again; once ashore we'd got to look after ourselves. The fellows stroked their chins and looked thoughtful for a spell; I reckon they were thinking of the pie that mother used to make—or of their latest girls. We were also told that as like as not all the wells on Gallipoli would be poisoned, and that we should have to do on our water-bottles for three days. Three days on about a pint and a half! And biscuits ditto! We began to cotton on to it that it wasn't a picnic or mothers' meeting we were out to take ahand in. Were served out with a 2-oz. tin of tobacco between four men, and three packets each of cigarettes. Handed in our blankets and waterproof sheets, so will be going ashore as we stand. Very stiff fight expected, as it is fairly sure that the Turks will do all that is in them to beat us back. Wonder how many of the boys will go under?
Later.—Under way. All lights out and general air of suppressed excitement on all hands. Some of the chaps making a book on the event, and laying odds on the chances of the takers getting through the slather-up unharmed. Others tossing up to see if certain of their mates will finish up in heaven or hell! No one the least downhearted; all determined to at least give the enemy the time of his life when they come to grips. They are certainly as tough a crowd as ever got into uniform.
Landing expected to take place just at daybreak or slightly earlier. Creeping along like a "mob of thieves in the night," as one ofthe chaps put it. Distance from Lemnos about 45 miles, I hear, so will be there in whips of time. Funny thing to think that one's folks will be lying in bed sound asleep at the moment we go into the enemy, and never dreaming of what their men will be taking on. Just as well, too, come to think of it. Weather A1. Sea calm; nothing to complain of in that line, anyway.
April 28.—First chance of scribbling anything for three days. Been through hell—just that. War! It wasn't war; it was just cold-blooded butchery. How the position has been held beats me. But held it has been—and it's going to be held—at a cost! I wonder what the price of crêpe will rise to out in Australia and New Zealand! Here goes for a shy at describing our amusement of the past three days.
It was dark when we left the transports off Gaba Tepe and crept in towards the denser blackness that represented the shore. Thenight—or early morning, rather—was still; everything seemed in our favour; not a sound welled out seaward, not a light twinkled in the murk ahead. Could it be that we had taken the Turks by surprise? Or were they simply lying low and playing a waiting game? Soon we were to know.
On—on crept the boats loaded to the gunwales with the citizen soldiers from the Dominions. Every jaw was set hard as agate, every eye was fixed on the forbidding-looking heights now taking form dimly as the east reddened and the sky became shot with lengthening spears of greenish-yellow. Minutes passed—minutes that seemed as hours—while ever shoreward crawled the fleet of boats, and ever plainer and gloomier loomed the frowning cliffs that dominated the Bay of Anzac. Back of the flotilla, away to seaward, lay the British warships, their grey hulls floating ghostlike in the first of the dawn—like couchant lions scenting blood. Asense of protection, modified to some extent by the stretch of intervening water and the ghostliness of their outlines, emanated from those cruisers and battleships squatting like watch-dogs on the chain, alert and eager. Our gaze wandered ever and anon from the forbidding shore ahead to where those uncouth grey hulls broke the sea-line. Would they never give tongue!
... We were close to the land. Thewouff!of a gentle surf breaking on a sloping shingle beach, followed by thesoughingof the undertow, came plainly to our straining ears. Back of the crescent-shaped strand, now dimly outlined in a flatted monotint of leaden grey, rose the darker, scrub-clothed slope, its breast seamed and gashed bydongasand water-courses, that stretched to the foot of the sheer bluff whose summit cut the sky-line 400 feet above our heads. As the minutes passed the scene changed. Sand and shingle took form and colour in the rapidly growing half-tones.The blackness of the slope beyond merged into a velvet green. The serrated crest of the ridge grew roseate as the first of the sun-rays stretched forth athwart the fields of Troy and touched it with gold-tipped fingers. A newborn day begotten of early summer had sprung from the womb of an Eastern night—a day fraught with much of suffering, much of mutilation and death, but surely a day that shall live in the history of the British Empire so long as that Empire stands....
Was it the surprise we all hoped for, after all?—the surprise that seemed beyond the bounds of possibility. Were thereanyTurks there waiting to oppose us at all? And if so, where were they hidden? In trenches cut on the beach? In the scrub? Behind the crest of the cliff? God! were they never going to show themselves——?
Crash! Bang! Z-z-z-z-z-ip!It was hell let loose—hell with the bottom out! The whole beach belched flame and spatbullets. The scrub behind burst forth into a sheet of fire. Maxims—maxims everywhere! The place seemed alive with them. It was as if we had received a blizzard of lead in our faces. The physical shock was almost more than flesh and blood could bear. For a moment it seemed as if the whole flotilla was doomed—a moment in which whole boatloads of brave men were absolutely cut to pieces and mangled out of all recognition—in which boats were blown from the water, smashed into matchwood and riddled from stem to stern by the high explosive and shrapnel fire that came over the crest of the cliff hot on the heels of the rifle and machine-gun fire. Just a moment! Then the men from the bush, the plains, and the cities of Australasia showed the stuff they were made of. In dashed the boats—in anyhow, no matter how, so long as they touched Turkish soil—some bow on, some stern on, some broadside. All higgledy-piggledy, a confusedmass like a huge dismembered raft tossed on a sea that hissed and spouted as its surface was torn by the never-ceasing rain of lead and iron. Over the sides of the boats dived and rolled those splendid infantrymen, their bayonets already fixed. They knew what to do; no need to give them orders. No time to form—no time to think. The cold steel—nothing but the steel! Off fell their packs; down dropped their bayonet points, and with a wild yell that rose even above the awful battle roar that made day hideous they hurled themselves straight as their rifles at the unseen enemy. In sixes and sevens, in tens and twenties, in platoons, in half-companies—just as they tumbled out of the boats—those great-hearted fellows dashed up the beach and into that sickening inferno. They didn't fire a shot; they didn't waste a single second. They just flung their heavy packs from their shoulders, bent their heads to the storm, and with every inch of pace at their command they chargedthe Turkish trenches, some fifty yards distant. Charge! I never saw a charge like it. It was a wild, breakneck rush, regardless of losses. Nothing short of killing every man of that magnificent soldiery could have stopped their onslaught. The machine-guns and rifles took their toll—but they utterly failed to beat down that desperate assault delivered by those iron-nerved men—those men who openly boasted that they feared "neither God, man, nor devil." In a moment they were into the enemy's front line of trench, machine-guns were captured, and the Turks got a taste of the bayonet that will never be forgotten by those who escaped. And they were few. Just a minute of hacking, slashing, and stabbing—one minute of sickening yet exhilarating butchery in which no quarter was given; when tokill!andkill!was joy unspeakable—and those long, lean, brown-faced men with the square jaws and fierce eyes were up again, their bayonets smoking, andcharging the second line of trenches with the same dare-devil recklessness. What power on earth could stop such men? Not the Turks, anyway. With imploring cries of "Allah!—Allah!" they abandoned their trenches and scurried up through the scrub, the panting Colonials straining every nerve to overtake them.
It is difficult to understand the Australasian character. He will joke even in the midst of danger, nay, death. He is, as a rule, a "hard doer"; and even his best friends must admit that he is often a hard, and fairly original, swearer. Nothing is safe from him when looking for a butt; very little is sacred, I fear, and his humour takes a queer bent sometimes: which accounted for the behaviour of the landing force on this occasion, dear reader—that and the desire to inflict all the Arabic he knew (picked up in Egypt) on the fleeing Turk.
"Imshi! Yalla!" yelled the now laughingColonials, as they followed hard on the heels of the enemy.
"Allah! Allah!" continued the Turks, and they put on an extra spurt.
"Allahbe d——d! Clean 'em boots! Eggs is cook! Three for a l'arf!Imshi, you all-fired illegitimates!"
Such, with the addition of ear-splitting coo-ees, wild bush oaths, and a running fire of blasphemy and unearthly cat-calls were the battle cries of the men from Down Under as they drove the enemy out of his trenches and up the hill, through the scrub, overdongasand gullies, right to the base of the sheer cliff itself, up which finally, all mixed together and sliding, crawling, and clinging like monkeys, scrambled pursuer and pursued in one loosely strung mob of panting, war-drunken men. It was the personification of grandeur: it was the apotheosis of the ludicrous. In a word it was the old reckless, dare-devil spirit of their ancestors—the men who carved out the BritishEmpire—re-born in those virile youths and young men from that bigger and fresher and brighter Britain overseas.
Meantime the guns of the fleet were pouring in a terrific fire, their shells screaming overhead and bursting well beyond the ridge. It was difficult at first to see what execution they were doing, and at this stage of the fight I don't think many of the enemy were bagged. As our chaps advanced farther inland the shells from the ships began to pitch amongst them, so their elevation was raised and their fire concentrated on the Turkish communications and on the dominating hills that lay on our flanks. They also tried hard to locate and silence the enemy's big guns, but they were so well concealed that it was almost impossible to silence them.
Once on top of the ridge our fellows paused for a minute or two to get their breath, then, as full of fight as ever, they doubled into the scrub and pursued the retreating Turks withunabated ardour. It was now an open battle, and except for the fact that the Anzacs were exposed to a heavy shrapnel fire, Jack was as good as his master. In threes and fours at a time the shells burst over and swept through the lines of advancing men, taking their toll all the time. The Turks took full advantage of the plentiful cover; they knew the country and we didn't. Now and then one caught a glimpse of a fleeing figure or two; that was all. We had no field artillery to cover our advance, and the consequence was we suffered heavily, our guns not coming into action till the evening, and then only one or two had been landed. Add to this the natural difficulties of a broken and rugged country which we had never seen before, and the reader will have some conception of the task that faced the Dominion troops. It was next to impossible to keep in touch with each other, let alone preserve something approaching an unbroken line. Thus the fight resolved itselflargely into one of units. Here and there isolated bodies of infantry pushed far ahead, then lying down they held on grimly until the main force came up and eased the pressure.
One or two lots got caught in the beds of deep gullies, were opened on by concealed enfilade fire from machine-guns and rifles, and died to a man. But they died fighting. One party at least fought its way almost to the Narrows, and then disappeared: not a single man returned. The rest pushed on and on, trusting to the reserves coming up and enabling them to hold the captured ground—those reserves that came in driblets only. The fact was that the men could not be thrown ashore quickly enough to reinforce in the strength required. Where battalions landed there should have been brigades; where brigades, divisions. It was just sheer bad luck. No blame attached to the fleet—every man worked like a Trojan, worked on withoutpaying the slightest attention to the hail of projectiles falling around. They were white right through, those boys from the warships, from the plucky little middies and the jolly "Jacks" right up to the senior officers. I pity the chap who ever says a word against them if any of the Anzacs happen to be within coo-ee of him! Come to think it over, I don't see that blame could be fixed on any one. The country was just made for defensive purposes; it would have required division after division to have been thrown in on each other's heels in order to reduce it, or to seize the ground to the Narrows and hang on. We simply hadn't the men. And the natural difficulties in the way of getting up such reinforcements as we had, not to speak of supplies, ammunition, etc., were nigh insurmountable. There were no tracks, much less roads; the guns thatwerelanded that first evening had to be pulled by hand through the standing scrub; the landing parties on the beach were open to continuousshell fire, not to mention snipers—altogether I don't think there was ever such a daring or hazardous enterprise attempted in the world's history.
And now strong Turkish reinforcements appeared on the scene. Battalion after battalion of fresh troops joined the enemy firing line. It stiffened up: we failed to break it. Our men were falling fast; half our strength seemed to be down, killed or wounded, while the remainder were beginning to feel the effects of their tremendous gruelling in the fierce heat of a sub-tropic sun. Still on came the masses of Turkish reserves. The naval guns, especially those of theLizzie, cut them up, but didn't stagger them. They took the offensive. For a time it was charge and counter-charge, give and take. But it couldn't last; the odds were too great. We retired fighting—and in that retirement our losses were something cruel. Machine-guns and shrapnel did the damage mostly, but theMausers took their share. Only in one thing had we the advantage—the bayonet. When we got to hand grips with them the Turks couldn't stand up to our chaps, who went for them with the cold steel like devils red-hot from hell.
No man who took part in that retirement will ever forget it. Overhead burst the shells, underfoot the dust rose and the twigs snapped as the unending rain of rifle, machine-gun, and shrapnel bulletszipped!and spattered around. Men fell fast, killed and wounded; every temporary stand we made was marked by little groups of grotesquely postured khaki-clad forms still with the stillness of death. Here and there one saw a sorely wounded man feebly raise his head and gaze pathetically after the retiring line of hard-pressed men; others (and these were many) limped and hobbled painfully along in the wake of the retreating infantry, till in many cases another bullet laid them low. Most of our wounded fell into the hands ofthe enemy. It was hard to leave them, but what could we do?
Time after time we tried to dig ourselves in. In vain! The line had to be shortened, else we should be outflanked by the enormously superior forces opposed to us. There was nothing for it but to retire right back to the ridge and hold the crest—or try to! Back then we went, retiring by companies and half-companies. There was no running, no panic at any time. When the Turks pressed us too closely we gave them a shake-up with the bayonet. In many cases men had to rely on the steel alone, their ammunition giving out. Time after time the enemy drew back while his big guns and maxims wrought their will on us. He didn't half like the steel.
We reached the ridge, and, exhausted as we were, started to dig ourselves in. Our throats were parched, for we dare not broach our water-bottles lest we should be tempted to finish them straight away. Once a man begins to drink hewill keep on. In many cases bottles had been shot through and the contents drained away. Others had left them with wounded comrades. For food we munched a biscuit—when we had time! There weren't many biscuits eaten until after nightfall.
We dug a line of holes, scratching fiercely with our trenching tools, all the while subjected to a withering shrapnel fire. The naval gunners seemed quite unable to locate and silence the Turkish artillery, so cleverly was it concealed. Lying down as flat as possible we scraped away, working frantically for the much-needed cover that should enable us to hold the position, if it were possible to hold it. At times we dropped the trenching tools—to lift our rifles and beat back the oncoming enemy. Yet it was evident that the Turks were beginning to feel the strain too. Perhaps they thought they had us anyhow, for their assaults began to lose a lot of their sting, and we were enabled to get a half chanceto dig. As the day waned and nightfall approached they came again, and we were hard put to it for a time to hang on. Charge and counter-charge followed rapidly on each other's heels, and all the time a deafening fire was kept up along the whole position. Then the brief twilight changed into night; the fire slackened off; the moon rose, and for the first time since early morning we were enabled to obtain a few minutes' rest before going on digging again in the attempt to connect up and deepen the shallow holes we had scratched into one continuous trench.
We stuck to it hard all through the night, grafting away for all we were worth. It was our only chance. Yet at times we were absolutely forced by sheer fatigue to drop our tools and stretch out for a spell. Sixteen hours of hard, solid fighting through a broken and hilly country, followed by a whole night's digging; then stand-to before daybreak, and all the succeeding hours of the second dayhold the trenches against intermittent attacks. At night go on working at strengthening the trenches; stand-to again before daylight the third day—and from before dawn till well on in the evening of that day do your bit at beating off the enemy's attack in force with a fresh army that outnumbers you by five to one—theattack by which he means to seize your positionat all costs! Just do the foregoing, dear reader, and you will realise what those Australasian troops endured. And do it (as they did) on a pint and a half of water and a few biscuits.
It was on Tuesday, April 27, that Enver Pasha launched the attack against our lines that was to drive us into the sea. All through Monday and Monday night our transports were landing fresh troops under heavy and constant shelling from the Turkish big guns; under cover of the darkness these troops were marched up and placed, some in the fire trenches to fill up the many gaps caused by the enemy'sshrapnel and machine-guns, others massed in reserve at the base of the cliff. Yet not a man of those who had stormed the position the first day, and who had been hard at it ever since, could be spared from the front line. Come to think, I don't fancy a single one would have left it. The feeling had got abroad that the change was going to be taken out of the Turks this time (it had leaked out that the big attack would certainly take place on Monday night or Tuesday morning), and the chaps were fair mad to get a bit of their own back. They did, too.
Our position as finally formed extended along the very crest, or rim, of the cliff for a distance of about two miles, or rather better. Here and there deep gullies, or cañons, ran into and cut the line, or caused the line itself to "bulge" considerably towards the enemy position. Such was "Shrapnel Gully," at the head of which lay "Quinn's Post," where our trenches had to be pushed perilously forwardowing to the configuration of the ground. "Quinn's Post," in fact, formed the key to the whole position; it lay right in the centre of the line, and had it been carried the whole bag of tricks would, in my opinion, have crumpled up badly, and a big disaster might have occurred. When your centre is pierced it's no picnic. To the left of "Quinn's" was "Dead Man's Ridge," held by the Turks, and from which they were able to snipe right down "Shrapnel Gully"—and, incidentally, our camps and dug-outs. It was from "Dead Man's Ridge" that General Bridges was shot close to Brigade Headquarters down in the "Gully." No man was safe from those snipers; they seemed to be everywhere—before, alongside, andbehindour lines even. Hence no supplies could be brought up in daylight; everything had to be done at night when there was only shell-fire to worry about. Afterwards we got those snipers fossicked out (they met strange deaths sometimes!), butin the meantime our life wasn't anything to hanker after.
Now had the enemy only succeeded in pushing us over the rim of the ridge, nothing would have saved us. Below lay the open beach. We couldn't possibly have been taken off with the heights in the hands of the Turks. I guess it would have been one of the biggest and finest wipe-outs in history. Old Enver Pasha thought it would look jolly well in the morning papers, I expect. Anyway he had no end of a hard try—and to give him and his men their due I don't mind admitting that they weren't so very far from succeeding.
I don't pretend to describe that struggle. No man could. It was grit, tenacity, and gameness opposed to overwhelming numbers. A battle of giants. It was sickening; brutal—and yet splendid. Men fought that day stripped to the waist; fought till their rifles jammed, picked up another—and went on fighting. Men with broken legs refused toleave the trench, cursing those who would have assisted them—went on firing until a second bullet crippled their rifle arm. Yet still they clung on, handing up clips of cartridges to their mates, all the time imploring them to "give the sons of —— hell!" They weren't Sunday-school models, those big-hearted, happy-go-lucky toughs from the Back of Beyond. But they knew how to fight—and die. They were men right through, not kid-glove soldiers. They lived hard, fought hard, and died hard. And what if they did die with curses on their lips! Who shall dare to judge them, dying astheydied? And it may be that the Big Padre up aloft turned a deaf ear to those oaths begotten of the life they had lived—or perhaps He failed to hear them in the noise of battle!
The Turks attacked gamely, like the big, brave soldiers they are and always were. Led by their splendid officers, they came on in masses, shoulder to shoulder, and did all thatin them lay to rush our trenches. They were met by a storm of bullets that would have staggered anything born of woman. It did stagger them: they recoiled before that leaden blast that piled their dead and wounded up in ghastly heaps and ridges like broken-down walls—before that smashing fire delivered at twenty yards range. They recoiled—yes. But run—no! They charged, charged right through that hurricane of machine-gun and rifle fire—charged right up to our parapets.
And now it was our turn. Like one man the colonial infantry leaped from their cover.Crash!They were into the Turks. Followed a wild hurly-burly of hacking and stabbing while one might count twenty slowly; then the enemy were beaten back, and the defenders ran, limped, and crawled back to their trenches and took to their rifles again.
Thus it went on from before dawn till towards evening. Charge and counter-charge, till men reeled from sheer exhaustion, and their bloodclottedweapons slipped from hands sticky with the same red paint. I am not exaggerating; those who were present on that awful Tuesday will bear me out.
We were hard pressed. The strongest men in the world are only human. Loss of sleep, insufficient food, and practically no water, combined with the exertions we had already gone through, began to tell their tale. Our losses were also very heavy; and owing to the slippery state of the clay soil, following on an all-night of rain, our reserves could not get up quickly enough. Thus yards and yards of trench were at times empty of all save dead and wounded men, and in some cases the Turks effected a footing in them; they were always driven out again, however, or bayoneted to a man. Our fellows were simply magnificent; budge they would not. To capture those trenches meant the killing of the men who held them; you couldn'tdrivethem out. And the officers were just the same.
But it was cruel to hear the continual cries of—
"Stretcher bearers!—Stretcher bearers to the right!"
"Stretcher bearers to the left!"
"Ammunition!Send up ammunition—we haven't a —— round here!"
"Reinforce!For God's sake reinforce!They're into No. 8!Christ! boys, get a move on!"
At this time we had neither support trenches nor communications— just one thin line, which, if broken, meant the loss of the ridge with all thatthatmeant. We were also so clogged up with dead in our trenches that to make room for the living we had to throw the bodies out over the back. In many cases where our line was cut on the edge of the ridge these bodies rolled right down to the foot of the cliff. At "Quinn's Post" things were about as bad as they could be. There was only the merest apology for a track from the "Gully" up tothe trenches situated on the very lip of the crest, and at one time when reinforcements were making their way in single file up this track they had to scramble in and out through and over dead men lying tossed about anyhow, while all the way, right down to the valley the wounded were lying "heads and tails" awaiting transport to the beach. It wasn't the most encouraging sight in the world for the fellows coming up straight off the transports.
In one place quite a little stack of bodies had been huddled together to one side of the track; there might have been eighteen or twenty in the lot. Owing to the water running down this stack began to move, and kept on moving till it blocked the track up altogether. I don't know how many chaps tumbled into that heap and got tied up in it, but eventually a fatigue party had to be told off to build up the bodies as you would build sheaves on a wagon. We had no time to bury our dead for the first few days—and in thatclimate you don't want to keep them above ground for manyhours.
As the day wore on it became evident that the Turks had shot their bolt. The attack died down, then ceased altogether, and save for the heavy rifle and artillery fire they kept up on our trenches, we weren't troubled by them for some time. They had lost tremendously; the ground along our front looked like a heavy crop of wheat after the binder had been through it—either 4000 or 7000 dead lay there. (And they lay there unburied forthree weeks.) At last we were able to get a little sorely needed rest. We had been pushed to the extremest limit of human endurance.