April 1915
The third morning of the Gallipoli campaign dawned just like
the second did: with a furious barrage from the giant Turkish gun situated well
back of the front line – a mile or more, if the rumours were to be believed –
that could lob shells right down to the beach, causing havoc amongst the Navy
personnel unloading the necessary supplies for the army and the soldiers who
had been tasked to help move the crates of food and equipment from the rowboats
onto the narrow beach, for later transport up to the front lines.
Some creative soldier had named the big gun Beachy Bill and the name
had caught on, the ANZACs all referring to the big gun that none of their own
artillery had a prayer of hitting and whose deadly serenade seemed to begin the
day of killing right around sunrise. It was the most fitting way to usher in a
new day of violence on the peninsula, and even if the men on the beach managed
to scatter well before the rounds actually hit, the report of the incoming
shell like a boiling kettle only twenty times louder, it was still an unwanted
danger, especially so early in the morning.
It was Beachy Bill that jolted Jack from a shallow sleep. He’d
tossed and turned, waking up six or seven times during the middle of the night,
hearing the incessant crack-crack of rifles, punctuated by the occasional
chatter of a machinegun, enemy or friendly, he couldn’t really tell. There was
no such thing as silence on this battlefield. Even in the earliest hours of the
morning, someone was shooting at someone else. The one saving grace, the one
thing that made sleeping remotely possible, was that the big artillery stopped
around sundown.
“Before that big fucking gun arcs up, it’s almost peaceful
here,” Harry said in greeting as Jack emerged wearily from his dugout, rifle
slung loosely over his left shoulder. “You could almost be back home.”
“Except for the fact that you aren’t likely to get a bunch
of Turks on your front doorstep looking to stab or shoot you to death,” Jack
replied. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Biscuit porridge and fried Bully Beef, mate.” Harry was
lording over a small campfire, cooking as they spoke, and boiling a billy of
water for tea. “Better known as the Gallipoli Special, so get it while it’s
hot. Get much sleep last night, Jacko?”
Jack shook his head. “Haven’t slept properly since we left
Lemnos.”
“Me neither. We can’t go on like this, can we? Blokes will
be dropping dead of sheer bloody exhaustion before too long.”
Nodding towards the lip of the trench – more than a few
inches taller than most men – and the No Man’s Land beyond, Jack said, “Why don’t
you sing out to the Turks and see what we can arrange?”
“Piss off, mate. Those bastards don’t want to talk to us, just
bloody shoot. Can’t say I blame them. They’ve got us in a real bind here.”
All the thoughts of Constantinople for dinner had faded, the
phrase like something from a distant memory, or perhaps another life. It was
only through sheer stubbornness that the dogged ANZACs continued to cling to
their narrow stretch of Turkish countryside, and Jack knew that one break in
the line, particularly at the crucial posts at the head of what was now being
known as Monash Valley, and they would be in big trouble. A big Turkish attack
could very well sweep the Australians and New Zealanders out of their trenches,
and all the way back to the beach, and from there, unmitigated disaster.
Sergeant Tulloch came around the corner of the trench line
at that moment, checking in with the men on the fire-step who had drawn first
watch of the day, tired and dirty men peering out into No Man’s Land through
the ingeniously-constructed periscopes, looking for enemy movement.
For the
moment at least – blessedly – it was quiet, the Turks opposite seemingly happy
to let the war continue at a slow pace, even after Beachy Bill’s salvo, the
unofficial resumption of the fight that had never really stopped. The men on
the fire-step were firing at irregular intervals, pushing their Lee Enfield’s
through gaps in the sandbag protection, just letting the enemy know that they
hadn't gone anywhere, reminding them that best practice was to keep their heads
down.
Off to the left, a machine gun opened fire, spitting out
bullets at someone, but it barely made the Australians flinch. After two days
of furious battle, the green men who had stormed ashore on the first day had
clung to the heights, killing and surviving, and were now veterans. It took a
very large explosion of fighting very close to their positions to cause a man
to turn his head. This morning they continued their breakfast without looking
up, trysting that the men assigned to sentry duty would alert them to any extra
and unusual Turkish activity.
“There’s bacon around, or so I hear,” Tulloch told his
section, accepting a mug of tea from Harry. “Some of the blokes coming up from
the beach said that the Navy’s bringing it in for the officers.”
The revelation made Harry snort. “That’d be fucking right –
and the bloody champagne won’t be too far behind, either.”
“Tough life for some, isn't it?” Jack commented dryly. “Bacon
instead of bully beef in the morning would do wonders for morale, but as long
as the bloody brass hats are happy.”
Tulloch looked at Jack and Harry. “You blokes about done
moaning?”
“By all means, sarge,” Harry quipped. “Go ahead!”
“Gracious of you, Private Price,” Tulloch replied,
successfully holding back a smile. “All right, I want you two blokes s to pop
down to the beach and bring us back some ammunition. We’re getting light on.
I’ll give you written authority from Lieutenant Wilson. And while you’re down
there…”
“We’ll have a hunt around for some bacon,” Jack promised,
picking up the sergeant’s hidden meaning. “No worries, sarge.”
They were underway a few minutes later, armed with their
lieutenant’s orders – men weren’t allowed down on the beach without authority
from a commanding officer – leaving their section of the trench line, heading
back towards the edge of the cliff, into terrain where the trenches were not
quite as deep and complex as they were closer to the enemy.
Had the two men not known that there was no such thing as a
truly safe place on the peninsula, they might’ve relaxed a little. But they
didn’t, understanding that a shrapnel burst could rain death down over them at
any moment. Thankfully, those big guns had been somewhat silent in their
section of the trench line, the battle seemingly stuck in something of a
lethargic rut three days in.
That suited the ANZACs fine. Whenever the Turks
weren’t hounding with rifle and machine gun fire them was a good, almost
heaven-sent opportunity to strengthen their vulnerable position, adding more
sandbags and machine gun emplacements, as many as possible everywhere possible.
From the edge of the cliff, the drop down to the beach was
steep. Jack hadn't been out of the front line since the landings forty-eight
hours before, and hadn't paid much attention to the mad dash from the boats,
across the beach and up the cliffs – he’d been far too concerned with climbing
and firing – and especially not to just how steep the cliff that they’d come
up, fighting through a storm of lead, actually was. He was getting a good
indication now. It seemed almost a miracle that they’d managed to get up
without machine gun and artillery fire raining down on them.
The main path to the beach went to their left, but Jack spotted
another trail that went straight over the edge and down, zigzagging steeply back
and forth for a few yards before flattening out appreciably, at which point it
seemed as though they’d found themselves a good path. Not suitable for mules
and horses or men with a lot of ammunition, but okay for one or two men
scrambling up and down. The supply dump, boxes stacked high in the air on the
sand, was just below them. It seemed perfect. That was until they came to a
small sandbagged dugout manned by a grim-looking soldier with no rank
identifiers, wearing a sleeveless khaki-coloured shirt and slouch hat.
“Fellas,” the soldier said laconically. “What’s doing?”
“G’day, mate,” Jack said with a nod. ““This a short cut down
to the supply stack?”
“It’s a shortcut to a fucking coffin, mate,” the soldier
replied grimly. “So unless you’ve got a death wish, I’d take the main path down
and come back along the beach.”
Harry noticed a sign now, crudely scrawled, in large
letters: JOKERS ONLY. He gestured to it and asked, “What does the sign mean?”
“Give me your hat, mate,” the soldier suggested. “And I’ll
let the Turks show you.”
Curious now, Harry handed over his hat and watched the
soldier pick up a long piece of wood, which he used to hold the hat up in the
air, just above the sandbags and just a little way down from his position, the
way that Jack and Harry hoped to be going. Seconds later, a machine gun opened
fire, very quickly putting four holes through the top of the hat. With a grin
and a laugh, the Australian soldier handed it back to a stunned Harry.
“See what I mean? The bastards have been there ever since
we’ve been here, knocking our blokes who didn’t know they were here. So many
bloody pockets that we haven’t cleared out yet, dug in like buggery, snipers
and machine gunners who we didn’t see when we pushed forward off the beach on
the first day, so I set up shop to warn eager bastards like yourselves.”
Taking a deep breath, Jack nodded his thanks. Appreciate
that, mate. I’m not ready to go just yet.”
“Yeah,” Harry agreed. He was shaken by what had just
happened, and glad that the soldier was there, letting people know. If not,
they might’ve walked into the death-trap.
“You’re doing a bang-up job here.”
“If I can save a few of our blokes, we’ll have a better
chance when the bloody Turks decide that they’re good and ready to attack.
Looks good, doesn’t it? Quick run down to the beach, save you a lot of time and
effort, maybe give you a chance to have a dip in the ocean before heading back?
If there’s one thing my mother told me it’s that nothing’s ever as good as it
seems. Case in fucking point right here, boys.”
Jack grinned to hide the sudden case of chills that had
gripped his body. A brush with death wasn’t fun. He’d learnt that during the
bloody landing. “I think we’ll backtrack and take the scenic route. Thanks, mate.”
“My pleasure. Where you boys stationed?”
“Up and over the hill, middle of the line, near as I can
tell,” Jack replied. He didn’t have much of an idea of the layout of the
battlefield. Since the landings, his world had existed of the twenty yards of
trench line where he was stationed and nothing more. “Our sergeant sent us
down. He wanted us to see if there was a quicker run to the beach.”
“At least you’ve got some news for the bloke. You boys close
to the Turks?”
“You could say that,” Harry agreed laconically. “When it’s
quiet, we can hear the buggers chattering away.”
“Cunning bastards, they are. I’m surprised that they haven’t
attacked yet, properly I mean, along the whole line. One section of our blokes
give in and that bloke over there” – he gestured in the vague direction of the
hidden Turkish machine gun – “will be the least of our bloody problems. We’ll
be up to our necks in the fucking Mediterranean.”
That had been Jack’s worry ever since the first night – and
the thought of so many others, he was sure – when they’d clung to weak
positions. Now those positions were a little stronger, but the ANZACs still had
their backs to the proverbial wall, with little wriggle room to speak of while
the Turks, holders of the good ground and near-unlimited reinforcements, too.
It was very true that a breakthrough anywhere on the line would quickly
collapse defences, opening the door for unmitigated disaster: the sort of
unmitigated disaster that would end with the destruction, or mass surrender, of
the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.
“Well, in the meantime, keep up the good work, eh?” Harry
shook the man’s hand. “We owe you a beer for this, mate.”
“Remember me if you get your hands on one. Good luck, boys.
Keep your bloody heads down!”
Read more at ANZAC Legacy
Read more at ANZAC Legacy
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