Without a murmur we turned back once more, for, not knowing the country, nor where we might bump into the enemy, we could not take a short cut across, so were forced to return to W Beach. From thence we went along the track by the Helles cliff which took us to the top of V Beach; our route then led us through Sedd-el-Bahr village, where we were warned by a French soldier that we would be sniped by Turks as there were many still lurking there.
When we got safely clear of this jumpy place, we found ourselves wending our way through some Turkish cemeteries, the tall, white, thin headstones, with their carved headlike top knobs, looking exactly like ghosts in the gloomy light. We passed through cypress groves, along sandy lanes, and rugged paths, fell into and scrambled out of dug-outs, ditches and dongas, where mules and loads tumbled about indiscriminately to the accompaniment of much profanity.
At one spot on this adventurous journey we came upon a Battalion of Zouaves crouching down for rest and shelter in the lee of a hedge. The sergeant in charge of my escort took them for Turks, and only that I was happily on the spot when he made this startling discovery, he would undoubtedly have opened fire on the Frenchmen. I must say that they looked exactly like Turks, owing to their semi-barbaric uniform.
When we got the convoy to where we thought the front line ought to be, we failed to find it, and as we were very hazy as to whether we would run into our own men or the Turks, we left the convoy under the cover of some trees, and O'Hara and I went off to reconnoitre. I believe we must have passed through a gap in our own line. At all events we wandered for some time, making many pauses to listen for any sound that might guide us, but the weird thing about it was, that the whole place was now still as death, though we must have been quite close to both armies. No doubt they were dead beat after the recent terrific fighting they had come through.
At last we luckily struck our own men, lining a shallow trench which had apparently been very hastily thrown up, for it scarcely afforded enough cover to shelter a decent-sized terrier. The men were so exhausted with the continued strain and stress of the battle, which had been continuous since the morning of the 25th, that they slept as if they were dead. The sentries, of course, were on the alert, looking out grim and watchful at the Turkish line, which we could just make out in the struggling moonlight, apparently not more than two hundred yards away.
Telling the sentinel in a low voice, so as not to draw the Turkish fire, that we had brought up a convoy of supplies, and that we were about to unload them among some trees a couple of hundred yards further back, we ordered him to pass this information on to the Brigade Headquarters, so that arrangements might be made for the distribution of the food before daybreak.
We then turned back, and taking the mules out of the shelter of the trees where we had left them, we brought the supplies as close as possible to the firing line, where we stacked them under cover.
Here again O'Hara's thoroughness and readiness to help in all things came out, for he was one of the busiest men in the convoy, helping to unload, putting the boxes in order, and removing our pack-ropes from the cases, for, of course, these always had to be untied and taken back with the mules.
We saw some pathetic sights on our way back to W Beach; we were obliged to stop every now and again so as not to bump into the wounded men who were being carried down on stretchers to the ships all night long by the devoted R. A. M. C. orderlies.
When we topped the crest overlooking W Beach, a gleam of light was coming up out of Asia, telling us of the approach of dawn, and we felt, as we wearily strode down the slope to the beach, that we had done a hard and useful night's work.
Now, when I had disembarked from the _Dundrennon_ soon after midday, I had no idea that I would be hustled off to the trenches at an instant's notice. I had expected to go back to the ship again for at least one more load of mules, and I had therefore nothing with me except what I stood up in--no food or equipment of any kind, and beyond a dry biscuit and some cheese, I had had nothing to eat since lunch-time, so that it can be well imagined I was fairly ravenous when I had finished that night's trek. There was no food to be had just yet, however, and in any case I had to see to the watering and feeding of my mules, for they, like myself, had been without food or drink since the previous midday.
This job was finished by about 7 A. M. and soon after that I joined O'Hara at an excellent breakfast, after which I felt ready for another strenuous day.
CHAPTER X
A NIGHT UP THE GULLY RAVINE
Feeling greatly refreshed after my breakfast with O'Hara, I went to select a suitable place for our camp, or rather bivouac, for, of course, we had no tents. Finding a snug little valley which stood back a couple of hundred yards from W Beach and which ran up under the protection of a rise in the ground, which gave us some slight cover from the Turks, I put all hands on to prepare and level the ground for the horse and mule lines.
We had been rushed to the trenches in such haste with the ammunition and supplies that we had been unable to bring any rope with which to tether the mules, so, seeing some ship's rope lying on the beach, I asked the naval officer in charge to let me have it for my lines. He not only did this, but lent me some of his men as well to carry it up to my little camp, where they helped me to fix it in the ground. I am sorry to say I forget this officer's name, as he was most helpful to me in many ways, and I never had to appeal in vain to him, or, as a matter of fact, to any other naval officer for assistance.
Throughout the day there was more than enough to do. The ground had to be levelled off, so as to make comfortable the mule and horse lines.
Ropes had to be pegged down and the ends of them buried in the ground, tied round sacks filled with clay, drains trenched out, and the larger stones thrown out of the way. Then the mules had to be fed and watered, and I feared the latter was going to be a difficult and dangerous business, for the only water discovered so far came under Turkish fire.
Luckily for me, however, one of my men, Schoub, my farrier sergeant, discovered a deep well carefully hidden at the corner of a demolished building, standing at the head of the little valley where we were camped. I feared that it might have been poisoned, so to solve my doubts I went to the Provost Marshal, and borrowed from him one of the captured Turkish prisoners. I felt sure that a Turk coming from these parts would know the natural taste of the water, so I took him with me to the well and asked him to drink. He was rather loth to do this at first, but at last, with a little persuasion, he took a sip in his mouth, rolled it for a moment on his tongue, then, nodding approval, drank freely of the water. As he survived the ordeal, I thought it was all right to go ahead with the mules, and later on we used the well ourselves, for it was excellent water.
All day long parties were coming and going between V and W Beaches; forage, water tins, supplies, etc.--everything had to be brought to us on our pack mules, and the day was all too short to do the many things that landing in a new country in time of warfare makes necessary. Not much time was wasted over the cooking of food; biscuits, jam, cheese, tinned beef, required no fires; only a little tea was boiled in our hastily-made camp kitchens. The only fuel to be had was obtained by breaking up some of our old packing-cases; the Turks had cleared off everything--not a man, woman, child or beast was left on the place--but this did not worry us, as we were always able to rustle for ourselves.
Before dark that night we began to load up another big convoy of munitions and supplies for the trenches.
This proved to be one of the most weird nights of many that we have spent tramping up and down the peninsula.
Of course, we had to move off after dark, otherwise the Turks would have concentrated their artillery on us and we should all have been destroyed. We went from W to X Beach, along the aegean shore, falling into trenches and dug-outs on the way, for the night was very dark, while every now and again we were caught up in Turkish wire entanglements. Then from X Beach we slowly pioneered our way through the trackless scrub and undergrowth until we came to the cliff which overlooks Gully Beach, at the mouth of a huge ravine which here opened into the aegean Sea, some miles northwest of W Beach.
On the way we had to go through some of our own guns, which were in action on this side of the Peninsula, and I had to request the Battery Commander to cease fire while we were filing past, as I feared the roar and flash of the guns might stampede the mules. He let us through in silence, but we had scarcely got fifty yards from the muzzles when out belched the guns again, the roar of which at such close range, to my surprise, did not in the least upset the mules. I shall never forget our struggling down to the sea from the cliffs above the Gully. Of course there was no road then and we had to reconnoitre ahead in the dark every yard of the way. Often I had to turn back and call out to the men to halt as I found myself dangling on the edge of the cliff, holding on to the roots of the gorse, which fortunately grew there in profusion.
After many mishaps, mules and supplies falling about among the ravines which scored the face of the cliff, we eventually reached the beach.
Then began our march up the bed of the ravine, and although the Gully was very wide and there was ample room to march either to right or left of the stream, yet we knew nothing of this, for the ground was new to us and everything was pitch dark, so the only sure way of getting up the ravine in safety was to walk in the river bed. I led the way, expecting all the time either to fall into a waterhole or be shot by an ambuscade of Turks. Cliffs loomed up on either side of us to a height of a hundred or more feet, and there was nothing to be seen but the faint twinkle of the stars overhead.
Now and again I called a halt to reconnoitre and listen for any suspicious movements ahead, as it was a most likely spot in which to be ambushed by the enemy. So far as I knew the Turks were in possession of the bank to my left, and all that part of the country right up to Anzac, where the Australians had landed. For a time everything was quiet as we splashed our way along, there being a lull just then in the fighting; all of a sudden it broke out again with feverish intensity.
The Gully Ravine made a turn at one part of its course which took us right between the line of fire of the two opposing forces. Shells from our own guns screamed and passed safely over the ravine, but the shells from the Turkish batteries often burst exactly overhead, scattering shrapnel all round, at other times plunking into the cliff on our right and smothering us with clay and gravel. The rattle of musketry was like the continuous roll of kettledrums, and considering all our surroundings, and the fierce fight that was going on, it was altogether a night to be remembered.
At last we reached the troops holding the front line; there were no supports or reserves, so far as I could see; every man had been put into the firing line, owing to the terrible losses that had been sustained.
Here in the dark, with shot and shell flying all round, we unpacked our mules and handed over the ammunition and food to the brigade.
I was right glad to be able to turn back and get my convoy safely away from the gloomy depths of this uncanny ravine.
We had again to climb the cliffs when we got back to the sea at the gully-mouth, and at the top again to negotiate our guns, which were still blazing away for all they were worth. However, by dint of much shouting when I had crawled close enough to be heard, the gunners ceased fire just long enough to enable us to slip through.
These two nights are fair examples of the work done in those early days by the Zion Mule Corps, at that time the only transport corps on the Peninsula at Helles.
CHAPTER XI
HOW ZION MULES UPSET TURKISH PLANS
It will be remembered that I left Claude Rolo on V Beach to take charge of our gear as it came off the _Dundrennon_, while Gye was left aboard that vessel to hurry everything ashore; but it was not until the third day that we had disembarked all our belongings, the delay being entirely due to the shortage of steam tugs, on which I have already commented.
During the time that our gear was stacked on V Beach, with, of course, a guard in charge of it, one of the sentries became the object of suspicion to the French, who were now in entire control of V Beach.
After a few minutes, finding he could speak no understandable language (for he only spoke Russian or Hebrew, which, no doubt, sounded Turkish to the French), and seeing that he was armed with a Turkish rifle and bayonet and had Turkish cartridges in his belt, he was taken for a daring Turk who had invaded the beach to spy out the land. Without more ado, he was tried by drum-head court-martial and condemned to be shot out of hand. He was actually up against the walls of Sedd-el-Bahr Castle, and the firing party in position to carry out the execution, when the Sergeant in charge of the Zionist Guard luckily spied what was happening, and, as he spoke excellent French, he rapidly explained the situation. The man was released, but the shock was too much for him, and when he was unbound he was found to be paralysed, and it was two months before he was fit for duty again. After this, I allowed none of my men to leave camp unless they could speak English or were accompanied by some one who could act as interpreter.
Gye and Rolo worked hard to move the pile of equipment--water tins, forage, etc., etc., to the little valley where the rest of the Corps were already snugly encamped, overlooking W Beach. I was extremely glad to have these two officers with me again, because, during these three days and nights since the landing, while we were separated, I had had a very strenuous time.
I remember when Gye saw me for the first time after coming ashore, he got quite a shock, and I believe he must have imagined that I had been indulging in some frightful orgy, because he observed that the whites of my eyes were as red as burning coals; but it was only an orgy of work and want of sleep.
I may say that when I did sleep I slept very soundly indeed, for a high explosive shell dropped within seven or eight feet of my head, exploded, blew a great hole in the ground, yet I never even heard it!
This feat was outdone by a man who, on being roused in the morning, found himself lame, and then discovered that he had been shot through the foot some time in the night, while asleep!
The work, owing to Gye and Rolo being with me, was now considerably lightened, as we each took a convoy out to different parts of the front, and so got the distribution of supplies through much more quickly. I was unable at that time to make use of my Jewish officers, with the exception of Captain Trumpledor, for they were without experience and could not speak English. Later on they were able to take charge of convoys and did the work very well.
Gye, Rolo and I made a cheery little party and never found the time hang heavy on our hands, nor were we ever dull for a moment, even when we returned from convoy work at two o'clock in the morning. We would then have dinner together, and Gye was such a wonderful story-teller, and Claude Rolo was such a good second, and he also possessed such an infectious laugh, that I have often literally fallen from the box on which I was sitting, convulsed with merriment. I am sure the men of L Battery, R. H. A., who were camped close by, must have wondered what all this unseemly racket was about at such unearthly hours of the morning.
Gye's knowledge of colloquial Arabic was profound. It is related of him in Egypt that a Cairo street loafer on one occasion maliciously annoyed him, whereupon Gye turned upon him and let loose such a flood of Arabic slang, minutely vituperating the fellow himself and his ancestors for fourteen generations back, that, despairing of ever reaching such heights of eloquence, the loafer, out of sheer envy, went straight away and hanged himself!
In this first little bivouac of ours I spread my ground sheet and blanket in the corner of what had been a house. The guns of the Fleet had evidently got on to it and now nothing was left standing but some of the walls, which in places were about three or four feet high.
A day or two after settling in here I happened to jump down from one of these walls and the ground gave way somewhat under me. We made an excavation into it and discovered, hidden away in an underground chamber, an old green silk flag, so ancient that a touch rent it, an antiquated battle-axe dating, I should say, from the time of the Crusaders, and also some antique brass candlesticks--a curious and rare find in such a place.
It must not be supposed that the Turks left us in peace during the day.
They constantly dropped shells into our little valley, tearing holes in the ground all round us, but by great good fortune while we were in this place we suffered no casualty of any kind, either man or mule.