page 66

Chapter VII Of the Holding of Walker's Ridge and of the Armistice

—C. E. W. Bean in The Anzac Book.

The men of the N.Z.M.R. landed at Anzac on 12 May and moved up at once to the trenches on the top of Walker's Ridge. They proceeded to improve the sector with great vigour and to remove the pest of the enemy snipers by counter sniping with periscope rifles.

Towards the middle of May the Turks made preparations for an attack that would "push the British into the sea." The point at which the main thrust was aimed was the trench system on top of Walker's Ridge. Here the line was in some cases barely ten yards in front of the sheer precipice that rose starkly above Mule Gully and Happy Valley. If they could smash through at this point the back of the Anzac position would be broken and there would be nothing for it but withdrawal or surrender.

The Turks brought down reinforcements from Constantinople. They withdrew men and guns page 67from Helles. On the 17th their battalions commenced to march in from Bulair and to mass behind the mountain. The movement was detected and warships smothered the roads with bursting shell. Great columns of black smoke rose slowly into the air. The Turks were scattered but in the night they came on again. Their guns retaliated with a heavy fire. The next day was quiet but all were in readiness for the attack that was known to be coming. Soon after midnight on the 19th heavy firing broke out from the enemy lines and rolled up and down from Chatham's to No. 2 Post in great bursts of musketry and machine-gun fire. The men of the N.Z.M.R. quietly filed into the trenches and packed the line until they were standing shoulder to shoulder—a bayonet to every yard. In some places the unfinished trenches were mere slits in the ground without firesteps and the men had to balance themselves precariously by bracing one foot against the back wall—in one place they had to leave the trench altogether and lie out in front.

At three o'clock in the morning the enemy guns were firing heavily. The vivid yellow flashes of the bursting shrapnel shell tore the black curtain of the night. The enemy parapet winked with innumerable tiny flashes. At every point where the lines ran closely they flung bombs by the thousand until the night was full of the sound of countless explosions. And all this while there was not a shot fired from the New Zealand line. The fury of the fire died down and the sentries were able to make out dark forms moving dimly in the night. No Man's page 68Land was of a sudden full of shouting. Crying the name of God thousands of Turks surged slowly across in dense waves, the brushwood crackling and breaking beneath their feet. "Allah! Allah! Allah!" In the dim grey light of dawn they came on toward the silent trenches shouting their war cry. Still not a shot was fired. On they came until they were not twenty yards away.

Then at last the awesome silence was broken by a sharp command, the blowing of whistles, and a blast of fire that in an instant swept away the advancing files. At fifteen yards, at twelve yards, at ten feet, at point blank range the troopers were emptying magazine after magazine—each man firing as though the safety of the whole line depended upon himself. The Turks were coming on wave after wave. At the end of the left sap there was a desperate struggle. Three times the enemy reached the line and three times they were driven out at the point of bayonet. Before the pitiless sweep of fire the oncoming lines melted away; those who came within striking range dared not make the last final rush and face the cruel, cold steel. They lay down and commenced to shoot and so the advantage passed from them. New Zealanders were dropping now by ones and twos but in the fierce excitement the casualties were scarce heeded. The Whakatane troop fighting out in the open lost two thirds of its number in a few minutes but there was no faltering and the reserves eagerly pressed in and filled the gaps. For the most part the troopers fought silently but once in answer to page 69the battle cries of the enemy there was a deepthroated roar of—

"Komate! Komate! Kaora! Kaora!"

But now the dawn was fully come. The rifle fire swelled in volume as the field of vision grew. The machine-guns rattled through belt after belt. Every field-gun that could be brought to bear was deluging the enemy slopes with shrapnel. From far out to sea came the boom of the guns from the warships. Fresh concentrations of Turks were caught out in the open and cut to pieces before they could reach their assembly trenches. Everywhere the attack had failed and everywhere the enemy were flying back seeking shelter. From the left of Walker's to Quinn's Post they had lost perhaps 7000 men.

Soon there was quietness except for the vicious sniping that broke out on both sides and the moaning of the poor Turkish wounded who lay out in the blazing sun plagued by flies and tormented with pain and thirst. Some were able to crawl painfully back to their own line. Many no doubt were rescued by their friends under cover of the friendly night, a few who lay close were brought into the New Zealand line, but hundreds lay out under the brazen sky and died, some of them very slowly— after a day, or two days, or three.

The firing gradually died down on the morning of the 21st. The Turks came out and under cover of the white flag asked for an armistice to bury their dead. Finally a suspension of arms from 7.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. on the 24th was agreed to by the Corps page 70Commander. At the appointed hour firing ceased and a party of fifty Turks wearing red crescents and fifty Australians and New Zealanders wearing red crosses met out on the extreme right and moving between the trenches marked out a centre line through the midst of No Man's Land. Heads came up on both sides and then when men were in some degree used to this new strange quietness, this unaccountable bewildering sense of security the parapet was crossed and the burying parties marched out to do their terrible task.

There was some fraternizing. Hard biscuits were exchanged for loaves of Turkish brown bread. An Australian doctor who wore Turkish decorations was a centre of great interest to the Turks, a German officer asked about his friends in Sydney. For the most part the men stared curiously at each other and made signs of goodwill; but gestures and a few odd words of Arabic did not go very far as a medium for communication.

The ground was searched for wounded and several Turks were found still alive. One poor chap after living through the torment of four days under the blazing sun and four chill and lonely nights was carried down two miles to the beach only to die as the hospital was reached. The dead lay very thickly. On one space of about an acre there were over three hundred bodies. Some were those of men who had fallen in the Battle of the Landing; but the majority were those of the Turks who had fallen in the great attack. It was soon found to be impossible to carry all bodies back across the dividing line to their own friends as had at first been arranged, and so, by page 71mutual consent both British and Turk buried all that were on their side of the line. Soon after 4 p.m. the ghastly job was done and all were back in the shelter of their trenches. The silence commenced to grow eerie until at 4.30 there was a sudden fierce fusillade and the war went on.

In war, victory and defeat alternate strangely. From the time of the first landing the warships, transports and supply vessels had lain in perfect safety just far enough from the shore to be beyond the range of the Turkish guns. No danger was to be feared. There were no submarines behind the Narrows and it was not thought possible that German U-boats could reach the Mediterranean. But it had been done and U21 had been sighted on the 24th, running up toward Gallipoli. As soon as word came there was a tremendous scatter. The transports and supply ships zigzagged away at full speed for Mudros Harbour. The battleships went for Imbros and within an hour the sea that had been so full was empty save for the Triumph which with her torpedo nets out and an escort of circling destroyers steamed up and down off Anzac.

Next day the sky was a cloudless blue and the sea a shimmering expanse of shining water. The battleship moved slowly in her fancied security and the destroyers passing and repassing scarce left a track of white foam on the shining levels. The occasional popping of rifles from the yellow crags had lost the vicious sharpness of night and early morning and seemed to blend with the peace of the splendid day. In the trenches thousands of men page 72dozed lazily after the vigil of the night or gazed dreamily out on to the beauty of the sparkling sea. But suddenly there were shouts along the whole line. Friend and enemy alike, forgetful of snipers and shrapnel leaped to every point of vantage and gazed at the extraordinary spectacle that unfolded itself before their astonished eyes.

A great pillar of black smoke touched with white foam seemed to grow slowly up from the side of the Triumph. For two or three seconds it rose silently until it reached higher than the masts and then after a space of time came the dull and muffled sound of the explosion. The column slowly sank into the troubled water. The great ship had been torpedoed. Immediately the destroyers came racing toward her. Some tore wildly round in ever enlarging circles searching for the submarine, others closed in to pick up the crew. The Chelmer nosed in against her side and the sailors commenced to march off. The Triumph listed more and more heavily until her masts were almost level with the water. She gave a sudden shudder from stem to stern. The attendant craft pulled hurriedly back. There was a cloud of escaping steam and then rolling over she floated for a while bottom upwards, her red keel shining in the sun. She commenced to settle at the bows and at last slid gracefully into the depths below. Her men cheered gallantly but it was a great victory for the Turks. A single submarine had reduced the fleet of powerful battleships that had covered Anzac from the Landing on "to the status of fat bathers in a bay full of sharks."