The little cove was peaceable enough on the morning of the 25th, when the Transport _River Clyde_ steamed in. It was part of the scheme to run her ashore at this beach and, as it was known that the venture would be a desperate one, what was more fitting than that she should be filled with Irish soldiers (the Dublins and Munsters)--regiments with great fighting records? With them was also half a battalion of the Hampshire Regiment. Special preparations had been made to disembark the troops as quickly as possible. Great holes had been cut in the iron sides of the _River Clyde_, and from these gangways made of planking, which were of course lashed to the ship, sloped down in tiers to the water's edge.
From the ends of these gangways a string of lighters stretched to the shore to enable the men to rush quickly to land.
In addition to those on the _River Clyde_, three companies of the Dublin Fusiliers were towed to the beach in open boats and barges by little steam pinnaces. It had been intended that these should steal in during the dark hours just before dawn, but, owing to miscalculations of the speed of the current, or some other cause, the boats did not arrive in time and only reached the shore at the same moment that Commander Unwin, R. N., of the _River Clyde_, according to the prearranged plan, coolly ran his vessel aground. This manoeuvre must have greatly astonished the Turks, but not a sound or move did they make, and it seemed at first as if the landing would not be opposed. As soon, however, as the Munsters began to pour from her sides, a perfect hail of lead opened on the unfortunate soldiers, who were shot down in scores as they raced down the gangway. Some who were struck in the leg stumbled and fell into the water, where, owing to the weight of their packs and ammunition, they went to the bottom and were drowned. For days afterwards these unfortunate men could be seen through the clear water, many of them still grasping their rifles.
The men in the boats suffered equally heavily and had even less chance of escape. Many were mown down by rifle fire and sometimes a shell cut a boat in two and the unfortunate soldiers went to the bottom, carried down by the weight of their equipment.
The sailors who were detailed to assist in the landing performed some heroic deeds. Theirs was the task of fixing the lighters from the gangways of the _River Clyde_ to the shore. Even in ordinary times it would be a very difficult task, owing to the strong current which sweeps round from the Dardanelles, but to do it practically at the muzzle of the enemy's rifles demanded men with the hearts of lions. Scores were shot down as they tugged and hauled to get the lighters into position.
Scores more were ready to jump into their places. More than once the lighters broke loose and the whole perilous work had to be done over again, but our gallant seamen never failed. They just "carried on."
Commander (now Captain) Unwin was awarded the Victoria Cross for fearlessly risking his life on more than one occasion in endeavouring to keep the lighters in position under the pitiless hail of lead.
Those naval men whose duty it was to bring the Dublins ashore in small boats were shot down to a man, for there was no escape for them from that terrible fire. Both boats and crew were destroyed, either on the beach, or before they reached it.
In spite of the rain of death some of the Dublins and Munsters succeeded in effecting a landing and making a dash for shelter from the tornado of fire under the little ridge of sand which, as I have already mentioned, ran round the beach. Had the Turks taken the precaution of levelling this bank of sand, not a soul could have lived in that fire-swept zone.
More than half of the landing-party were killed before they could reach its friendly shelter and many others were left writhing in agony on that narrow strip of beach. Brigadier-General Napier and his Brigade Major, Captain Costeker, were killed, as was also Lieut.-Colonel Carrington Smith, commanding the Hampshires; the Adjutants of the Hampshires and of the Munsters were wounded and, indeed, the great majority of the senior officers were either wounded or killed.
Many anxious eyes were peering out over the protected bulwarks of the _River Clyde_, and among them was Father Finn, the Roman Catholic Chaplain of the Dublins. The sight of some five hundred of his brave boys lying dead or dying on that terrible strip of beach was too much for him, so, heedless of all risk, he plunged down the gangway and made for the shore. On the way, his wrist was shattered by a bullet, but he went on, and although lead was spattering all round him like hailstones, he administered consolation to the wounded and dying, who, alas! were so thickly strewn around. For a time he seemed to have had some miraculous form of Divine protection, for he went from one to another through shot and shell without receiving any further injury. At last a bullet struck him near the hip, and, on seeing this, some of the Dublins rushed out from the protection of the sandbank and brought him into its shelter.
When, however, he had somewhat recovered from his wound, nothing would induce him to remain in safety while his poor boys were being done to death in the open, so out he crawled again to administer comfort to a poor fellow who was moaning piteously a little way off; and as he was in the act of giving consolation to the stricken man, this heroic Chaplain was struck dead by a merciful bullet.
Father Finn has, so far, been granted no V.C., but if there is such a thing in heaven, I am sure he is wearing it, and His Holiness Benedict XV might do worse than canonise this heroic priest, for surely no saint ever died more nobly: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
The Turkish position was so strong and they were able to pour down such a concentrated fire from pit, box, dress-circle, and gallery of their natural theatre, that every man of these gallant Irish regiments who showed himself in the open was instantly struck down. So hot and accurate was this close range Turkish fire that the disembarkation from the _River Clyde_ had to be discontinued.
The little body of men who had escaped death and ensconced themselves under the sandbank kept up a lively fire on the Turks as long as their ammunition lasted, but there they had to remain for the best part of thirty-six hours, more or less at the mercy of the enemy. An attempt to dislodge them was, however, easily repelled by fire from the warships, as well as from the machine-guns on the decks of the _River Clyde_.
It was not until after nightfall that the remainder of the Irishmen could disembark, and then all the units had to be reorganised to enable them to make an attack on the formidable Turkish trenches on the following morning.
Practically every officer of the Dublins and Munsters was either killed or wounded, very few escaped scot free. The Dublins were particularly unfortunate, for at another landing-place, Camber Beach, close by Sedd-el-Bahr village, out of 125 men landed, only 25 were left at midday. Nevertheless, the fragments of the two battalions were pulled together by Lieut.-Colonel Doughty-Wylie and Lieut.-Colonel Williams, assisted by Captain Walford, R. A., Brigade Major. It will be readily understood what an arduous task it was to reorganise men who for over twenty-four hours had been subjected to the most murderous and incessant fire that ever troops had had to face; but nothing is impossible when really determined men make up their minds that it must be done, and early morning of the 26th April found the Dublins and Munsters and some of the Hampshires, led by Doughty-Wylie and Walford, dashing at the Turkish trenches, which they carried at the point of the bayonet. They rushed position after position, and by noon Sedd-el-Bahr village was in our hands, and here the gallant Walford was killed. Sedd-el-Bahr Castle yet remained to be taken, and it was while leading the final attack on the keep of this stronghold that the heroic Colonel Doughty-Wylie fell, mortally wounded, at the moment of victory. The posthumous honour of the Victoria Cross was granted to these two officers to commemorate their glorious deeds.
At the other landing-places the fighting had also been very fierce. At W Beach the Lancashire Fusiliers had a terribly difficult task in storming an almost impregnable position, which had been carefully prepared beforehand by the Turks. The high ground overlooking the beach had been strongly fortified with trenches; land mines and sea mines had been laid; wire entanglements extended round the shore and a barbed network had also been placed in the shallow water. Like V Beach it was a veritable death trap, but the brave Lancashires, after suffering terrible losses, succeeded in making good the landing and drove the Turks out of their trenches. In commemoration of their gallantry this Beach was afterwards known as Lancashire Landing.
The 2nd Battalion South Wales Borderers under Colonel Casson were able to land at S Beach, Morto Bay, and seize the high ground near De Tott's Battery, to which they tenaciously held on until the main body had driven the Turks back, when they joined hands with the troops from V Beach and continued the advance.
X Beach was stormed by the 1st Battalion Royal Fusiliers and part of the Anson Battalion Royal Naval Division, who drove before them such Turks as they found on the cliffs. They were reinforced by two more Battalions of the 87th Brigade, and after some heavy slogging they eventually got into touch with the Lancashire Fusiliers and Worcesters and so eased the pressure on V Beach by threatening the Turkish flank.
The landing on Y Beach was effected by the King's Own Scottish Borderers and the Plymouth Battalion of the Royal Marines. These splendid fellows forced their way into Krithia village, but want of ammunition and reinforcements obliged them to fall back to the beach, where they were almost overwhelmed by the enemy and lost more than half their numbers; eventually they were compelled to re-embark, but not before they had done immense damage to the Turks and considerably helped the troops who were forcing the other landings.
Meanwhile the two Australian-New Zealand Divisions were engaged in the perilous enterprise of forcing a landing in the face of a large Turkish force at a place now known as Anzac (this word being formed from the initial letters of Australian-New Zealand Army Corps). In the dark hour before the dawn some four thousand of these splendid fighters were towed in silence towards the shore, and here again it seemed as if they would meet with no opposition; but not so--the Turk was not to be caught napping, and, while the boats were still some way from land, thousands of Turkish soldiers rushed along the strip of beach to intercept the boats, and the heavy fire which they opened caused very severe casualties in the ranks; nothing, however, could daunt Colonel Maclagan and the men of the 3rd Australian Brigade; the moment the boats touched the shore these dare-devils leaped into the water and with irresistible fury drove the Turks before them at the point of the bayonet. Nothing could stand up against their onslaught, and by noon, having been reinforced, they had "hacked" their way some miles inland, put several Krupp guns out of action, and if they had been supported by even one more Division, the road to the Narrows would undoubtedly have been won.
As it was, owing to lack of sufficient men to hold what they had made good, they were compelled to retire to the ridges overlooking the sea, and there for eight months they held the Turks at bay and hurled back, with frightful losses, every assault made on their position. Oh, if only the 29th Division had also been landed here, what a sweeping victory we would have won!
CHAPTER IX
THE ZION MULE CORPS LANDS IN GALLIPOLI
The beach, cliffs and Castle were now in our hands, and disembarkation for the remainder of the army was possible. While the great battle for the landing was going on, we had been fretting and fuming at being left so long idle spectators. Thinking that it was high time we should disembark, and finding that no orders came along for us, I felt that in order to get a move on I must make a personal effort. I therefore hailed a trawler which happened to be passing, and got it to take me over to the _Cornwallis_, on which I knew General Hunter-Weston, the Commander of the 29th Division, had his temporary headquarters.
The General was glad to see me, and said I had turned up just in the very nick of time, for my Zion men were urgently required ashore to take ammunition, food and water to the men in the firing line. He appealed to Admiral Wemyss, who was close by, to detail trawlers and lighters to get my Corps ashore as quickly as possible. The Admiral very kindly told off a naval officer to come with me, and he in his turn found a trawler and some horse boats which were soon alongside the _Dundrennon_.
From two to six o'clock P. M. we were busily employed loading up and sending mules and equipment ashore. I noticed that the officer in charge of our trawler was a bit of a bungler at his job; time after time he would fail in his judgment; when getting the barges alongside he had repeatedly to sail round and round the _Dundrennon_ with his tow before he got near enough for a rope to be cast; he was not a regular naval man--just a "dug-out." How I longed then for my friend Murley!
I must say here that in my humble opinion the Navy failed us badly in the matter of tugs, lighters and horse boats; there were not nearly enough of these, and we could have done with three times the number. My Corps, which was most urgently wanted by the General, took three days to disembark, in spite of our most strenuous efforts to get ashore as quickly as possible. The delay was entirely due to the lack of tugs, for it was only now and then that a trawler could be spared to haul us inshore. We were sadly held up and kept waiting for hours after our boats had been loaded up, ready to be towed ashore.
Who was responsible for this shortage I do not know. It is, of course, quite possible that the Navy provided all the trawlers requisitioned for by the Army.
I had taken the precaution while on the ship to fill all my tins with fresh drinking water, and these had to be unloaded by hand from the lighters. To do this I arranged my men in a long line, stretching the whole length of the temporary pier from the lighters to the beach, and in this manner the cans of water were rapidly passed ashore from hand to hand.
While we were engaged on this work the guns from Asia were making very good shooting, shells striking the water within a few yards of us, just going over our heads, a little to the right or a little to the left, but always just missing. I watched my men very carefully to see how they would stand their baptism of fire, and I am happy to be able to say that, with one solitary exception, all appeared quite unconcerned and took not the slightest heed of the dangerous position they were in. The one exception was a youth from the _Yemen_, who trembled and chattered with nervousness; but when I went up to him, shook him somewhat ungently, and asked him what was the matter, he bent to his work and the cans passed merrily along. In fact, everybody there, especially the naval men who helped us to catch our mules as they jumped from the horse boats into the sea, treated the cannonade from Asia as a joke, and every time a shell missed a hearty laugh went up at the bad shooting of the Turkish gunners. It was only a mere fluke, however, that the shells did not hit the target aimed at, because, as a matter of fact, the shooting was particularly good and only missed doing a considerable amount of damage by a few yards each time. We were exceedingly fortunate in not losing a single man during the whole period of disembarkation.
Practically the first officer I met as I stepped ashore was Colonel Moorehouse, whom I had not seen for years, and he was most helpful in the present emergency. I found that he was in charge of the landing operations on the beach, and I believe he had given up a Governorship, or some such billet, in West Africa to do his bit in the Dardanelles.
While we were disembarking, General d'Amade, who was commanding the French Corps Expeditionnaire, stepped ashore and soon afterwards the French troops began to pour on to the beach.
During the great battle which took place on the 25th and 26th for the possession of V Beach, the French battleships and gunboats, together with the Russian cruiser _Askold_, had been battering down the fortress of Kum Kale on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles, some two and a half miles in a direct line from Sedd-el-Bahr.
In the face of much opposition the French troops forced a landing, and after some heavy fighting defeated the Turks and captured many hundreds of prisoners. There is no doubt that this diversion averted much of the shell fire which would otherwise have been concentrated on those of us landing at V Beach. Having driven the Turks out and effectively destroyed Kum Kale, the French troops were re-embarked hurriedly, brought across the Dardanelles, landed at V Beach in feverish haste, and flung into the thick of the fight which was still raging just north of the village of Sedd-el-Bahr.
I watched them disembark, and it was magnificent to see the verve and dash which the French gunners displayed in getting their beloved .75s into action.
Our naval men helped to bring the guns ashore, but the moment the Frenchmen got them there they had them away and in action on the ridge to the north of the amphitheatre in an incredibly short space of time.
As soon as we had got a couple of hundred mules ashore, I was ordered to march them off to W Beach, which was on the western side of Cape Helles.
Having had some experience of the ways of soldiers on active service, I knew that we should have to keep a very sharp eye on our gear as it came ashore, otherwise it would be appropriated by the first comer. I therefore left Lieutenant Claude Rolo on the beach to look after the mules, horses and stores as they were disembarked, and incidentally to dodge the shells which more than once covered him with sand but did no further damage. I had left Lieutenant Gye on board the _Dundrennon_ to see to the work of loading up the barges.
On the way to W Beach we were fired on by Turkish riflemen who had not as yet been driven very far away from the shore, but fortunately we sustained no damage.
The Lancashire Fusiliers, as I have already described, had a terribly difficult task in forcing their way on to W Beach, and the moment I saw it I could well realise what an arduous undertaking it must have been.
It looked, like V Beach, an impossibility, but the Lancashire lads could not be denied, and all honour to them for having stormed such a fearsome stronghold. By the time I got there there was already a huge stock of ammunition and supplies piled up on the shore, and these we at once began to load up on the mules to take out to the men in the firing line, who were constantly driving the Turks before them further and further from the beach.
I shall never forget my first night in Gallipoli. We loaded up a couple of hundred mules, each mule carrying about two thousand cartridges, and with Major O'Hara (now Lieut.-Colonel O'Hara), who was the D. A. Q. M. G., as guide, we marched off into the darkness to distribute ammunition along the front.
Major O'Hara came with me, partly because he knew the way, and partly because he wanted to make sure what were the most urgent needs of the men in the trenches. We trudged together all through that trying night, so it is not much to be wondered at that we almost quarrelled once or twice--but I will say here that of all the men I met in Gallipoli there was not one who was so capable at his job, or worked so hard to see that everything for which he was responsible ran smoothly. Oh, if only our Army could be staffed with O'Haras, what a wonderfully efficient machine our Army would be!
Soon after we left W Beach in the dark it began to pour, and it poured and poured solidly for about five hours.
On we squelched through the mud over unknown tracks with the water streaming down our bodies and running in rivulets out of our boots. As soon as the rain ceased a biting cold wind set in, which froze us to the marrow. However, the vigorous walking, helping up a fallen mule, readjusting the loads, getting out of holes into which we had tumbled, etc., kept our circulation going, and when we arrived at a place known as Pink Farm, the furthest point to which we had yet advanced, there was a sudden alarm that the Turks were approaching. Nobody knew then where our front line was, or whether it linked up across the Peninsula. There were many gaps in it through which the Turks, if they had had initiative enough, might have forced their way and inflicted a considerable amount of damage upon us before we could have organised adequate resistance.
On the first alarm of the approaching Turks I sent a man out to reconnoitre, formed my little escort in open order, prone on the grass, and asked Major Moore, D. S. O. of the General Staff, now Brigadier-General Moore, to bring some men from the trenches, if he could find them, as quickly as possible, for I had no desire to lose my convoy at such an early stage of the proceedings.
Gongs could plainly be heard sounding, apparently close by, as though it was some prearranged signal of the enemy, but whatever the reason we saw nothing of the Turks, and no attack was made, so we unloaded our ammunition and were then sent back for more by Colonel B. to Lancashire Landing. Now Colonel B. of the Headquarters Staff told me personally on no account to bring back supplies, but only ammunition, as no supplies were needed at this place for the present. Unluckily O'Hara was not on the spot when Colonel B. gave me these explicit and reiterated instructions, so when we got back to the beach he wished to load up supplies, but this I refused to do owing to the specific orders I had received. O'Hara was furious but I was obdurate, so, of course, we loaded up with ammunition.
Back again we trudged steadily through rain and slush towards the Pink Farm. When we had got about half-way, we were met by a Staff Officer who told us,--to O'Hara's great satisfaction,--that it was not ammunition which was now wanted at the Pink Farm but supplies. I am not at all sure that I did not overhear O'Hara call me "an obstinate damn fool," but it is as well to be hard of hearing as it is to possess a blind eye on occasions.
The upshot was that we had to return to the beach, unload the ammunition, load up boxes of tinned beef, cheese, biscuits and jam, and then back again along the "sludgy squdgy" road we trudged once more towards that never-to-be-forgotten Pink Farm. Again we got about half-way there, when yet another Staff Officer met us, who told us that the supplies were not wanted by the brigade holding the line at the Pink Farm, but by the brigade holding the line on the extreme right, where they were urgently required, and he ordered us to take them there without delay. It was now my turn to chuckle, and I observed to O'Hara that there "really must be a damn fool somewhere about after all."