Channel Nine are now
running double episodes of Gallipoli to finish out the show quickly due to poor
ratings.
Tolly survives his wound, and is evacuated to Egypt, to one
of the large hospitals set up in Cairo – one of the most famous was in the
city’s Luna Park – and just when you think Cliché Central has taken hold and
you’re certain that he will fall head over heels in love with a beautiful
nurse, he’s back to Gallipoli.
It’s not a pleasant homecoming, and Tolly seems rather
confronted by the din of battle, which he’s obviously not heard for some time
during his convalescence, a period of time that was never completely made
clear. One thing is for certain, it’s not before August, and the West Australian
light horsemen (former Home and Away actor
Lincoln Lewis, amongst them) are on the Peninsula – and the butt of a few jokes
from the now-veteran infantrymen, and one side of a few scuffles with the same
infantry – ahead of their fateful engagement at The Nek.
On Lemnos, Ashmead-Bartlett excitedly takes delivery of a
new camera. Nevinson scoffs at the idea, claiming that, as a journalist,
Ashmead-Bartlett has no need of such technology, but Ashmead-Bartlett
disagrees, promising that the camera will allow people to finally see the war
for what it really is.
After being barred from Gallipoli after his London
excursion, Ashmead-Bartlett is allowed back, and lands at Anzac Cove to visit
Colonel William Malone and his Wellington battalion, the first time we’ve seen
the New Zealanders depicted. Ashmead-Bartlett trials his camera in the front
lines, and chats with the prickly, distrusting Malone.
Tolly returns to the front lines, and to his friends, in
time to see Stew venture crazily into No Man’s Land to pick up a box tossed out
by the Turks. Somehow he isn’t shot. He finds the letter isn’t in English.
It’s French – “leave the Peninsula immediately, this is your third and final
warning!”
Cliff just gets through telling the others that the Turks
“aren’t bad blokes” and a sniper shoots him below the eye, killing him
instantly. We saw the illustration of the threat of Turkish snipers in the last
episode, and they are back with similar menace in this one.
Like the death of the captain early in the first episode,
this one is shocking, as it seemed like Cliff was destined to be part of the
ensemble cast for the entire the seven-episode run. On the flip side, it’s good
to see the writers not afraid to kill characters off. No one is safe, and
Cliff’s sudden and tragic death brings about another change in wide-eyed Tolly,
who volunteers to become a sniper.
It’s in this sequence that Tolly meets Billy Sing, a
half-Australian, half-Chinese sharpshooter who is fast becoming something of a
legend amongst the Anzacs. Sing was widely credited with at least 150 kills by
the end of the campaign, and when Tolly suggests the number of dead Turks Sing
has amassed to that point, the veteran sniper replies that he wishes it was
only that many. Some documentation suggests that Sing might have had upwards of
two hundred total kills. His life is explored in the excellent John Hamilton
book Gallipoli Sniper.
So Tolly learns from the best sniper amongst the Anzacs, and
later goes out on his own to kill as many Turks as he can. The process isn’t
without it’s dangers to Tolly, working without much support in No Man’s Land,
but he shows a certain talent for the job, to the detriment of many Turkish
soldiers.
Back on Lemnos, Sir Ian Hamilton tells his chief of staff, Braithwaite, that he’s planning a fresh breakout attack, and will ask Kitchener for more men.
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