In the Line of Battle

I have said that I have seen every form of fighting except one – the liquid fire. I have certainly been under every sort of fire but that, and I don’t think I am saying anything unsoldierly in admitting that the fire I love best is the fire we left behind in dear old England.

CHAPTER VIII

A GUNNER AT THE DARDANELLES

[”Next I come to the Royal Artillery. By their constant vigilance, by their quick grasp of the key to every emergency, by their thundering good shooting, by hundreds of deeds of daring, they have earned the unstinted admiration of all their comrade services.” That is the tribute which General Sir Ian Hamilton paid to the gunners in his despatch describing the operations in the Gallipoli Peninsula – a document which is the story of a noble failure. Little has been told of the doings of the artillery, but we can realise what they did from this narrative of Gunner John Evans, 92nd Battery, Royal Field Artillery, who was included in the vast number of soldiers who were invalided home through sickness.]

I was in India with my battery when the war broke out. I had been in the country for seven years, and much as I liked it – I thoroughly enjoyed my soldiering there – I wanted to be off to the front. But I was kept in India for six months, training men to fight the Germans, and so doing my bit in that way. Then I came to England, where my battery had a splendid time because the people were so kind; and after that very pleasant change I was off to the Dardanelles, and went right into a fair hell of fighting. You can imagine a lot as a soldier, but no flight of fancy would ever have made you picture in your mind the things that actually happened. It is all over now, and some of us in hospital have time to think of the brave fellows who are resting in the Peninsula. They could not do what they were set to do, because that was beyond the power of ordinary man; but they did more, I think, than any other troops in the world could have done. To any man who knows what the country and climate are like, and who saw the difficulties and endured the awful discomforts, it seems that almost miracles were performed; and of all the wonderful things none was more wonderful than the withdrawal from Gallipoli.

We went straight into the business. There was no beating about the bush over the job. We got there, to the famous Lancashire Landing at W Beach, and my battery was the first to land on Turkish soil. Looking back on the campaign makes you wonder that we ever got either in or out of Gallipoli.

When our transport got near enough for us to begin our landing operations we were treated to a fine view of the desperate fighting that was going on, to say nothing of being under fire ourselves from the Turkish guns, a proper preparation for the regular hell of fire that we were under when we actually landed ourselves.

The Turks had opened fire on our transport from the Asiatic side as well as the European side, and what was happening to our own ship was happening to a whole fleet of transports and all sorts of other ships. There were warships bombarding the enemy’s position, and the din altogether was enough to stagger even a long-service gunner who thought he knew what noise meant.

This happened about half past ten in the morning. At that time the Lancashire Fusiliers were making their magnificent attempt to land, and I shall never forget their pluck and the way they stuck to their deadly job. They were being conveyed ashore in lighters, and the Turks – we could distinctly see them over the edge of the cliff, not a hundred yards from the foreshore – were pouring in a terrible fire at close range. Shells, too, were dropping from the batteries at Achi Baba, miles in the rear, with wonderful precision.

The Fusiliers’ lighters could not get close to the beach owing to the barbed wire entanglements which had been fixed in the water, so the men were ordered to get out and wade ashore. This they began to do – and it was one of the most awful jobs that a landing party ever undertook.

I could see them quite well from our transport. Without a moment’s hesitation the Lancashires clambered over the sides of the lighters and into the water they went, struggling to get ashore. It is hard enough to force your way through water at any time; put to that difficulty a heavy kit and rifle and ammunition, throw diabolical barbed wire in, and you will understand to some extent what it all meant.

As these brave fellows threw themselves overboard dozens of them were shot; a lot more were caught by the barbed wire, and as they were held helplessly, with flesh and clothing torn in their frantic efforts to get free, they were killed or wounded by the Turkish fire.

It seemed impossible for any of the Fusiliers to survive and get ashore, yet many forced their way through everything and landed on the beach, where they at once formed up roughly, and then without the slightest hesitation they charged up the face of the cliff, which looked to me almost as hard to scale as the side of a house.

As they scrambled up the cliff they were met by a more murderous fire than ever from rifles and machine-guns, and numbers were killed or wounded. It seemed to me that for every man who reached the top at least four were killed or maimed. I could see the bodies rolling down the cliff-side on to the beach.

It was only a little band of Lancashire Fusiliers that managed to scramble and rush to the top of that terrific cliff – a few hundreds or so. They must have been exhausted; but their blood was fairly up, and with fixed bayonets they charged with such fury and success that the Turks were fairly taken aback, and I could see them giving way before our boys’ cold steel.

Some of the Turks were throwing up their arms, and I could hear their shrill appeals for mercy; but the Fusiliers hadn’t too much time to listen after the awful experience they had just gone through.

After they had been driven off the Turks made a counter-attack, and the Fusiliers, being a mere handful, were forced back to the very edge of the cliff and seemed in peril of going down it; but even then they re-formed and again rushed on the Turks with the bayonet and scattered them. Back again the Lancashires were driven, only to recover in the most amazing way and charge with the bayonet for the third time. And this seemed to settle the Turks, who cleared off.

While this thrilling fighting was going on, a sight that can never be forgotten by those who saw it, our brigade was getting ready to disembark. The infantry had had a hard enough business to get ashore; but ours was naturally a lot worse, for we had to tackle our guns and horses, as well as look after ourselves.

There were lighters alongside the transport, and into each of these we got two guns and eight horses, not easy work at any time, but hard now, with such a rush on and shells dropping all around us. Some of the explosions caused havoc amongst the horses, and several shells dropped near our lighter; but I am thankful to say that they were not near enough to do us much damage.

We were towed as near to the shore as we could get, and then we began the uncommonly hard and long job of getting the guns and horses ashore. The lighters were bobbing up and down and “ranging,” owing to the run of the sea, and this unsteadiness made it very difficult to get the guns and horses overboard; but every officer and man worked with a will, and we did it. We got them out of the lighter and on to a strange kind of roadway that had been made in the water by putting sandbags tightly down. These sandbags “gave” a fair lot, of course, but we could not have done anything without them, for the wheels would have sunk too deeply in the wet soft sand.

When a gun was ready, from ten to sixteen horses were harnessed to it, and it took these and forty men on the drag-ropes to get one gun over the sandbag road on to the beach. We did our best, we strained every nerve, we were experts at the work, yet it was evening before the battery was ready for action. By that time we had got the guns on the level at the top of the cliff, about forty yards from the edge, after tremendous efforts by horses and men. I never saw such man-handling, even in India.

We had luck in the weather, for a heavy storm came on and the rain fell in blinding sheets. This, with the darkness, when it came, enabled us to take up our position without the Turks knowing of the fact.

Of course, while all this work of ours was going on the infantry were screening us in front. A constant and confused sort of fighting was taking place, and our men were mixed up with the enemy in furious hand-to-hand scraps. It was a regular bedlam, and so that nothing should be left in the way of trouble we were soaked to the skin. But we were so absorbed in the fighting, and so keen to get to work ourselves, that we did not give a thought to the drenching. We longed to get into action, but were kept back by the mixing up of our own men with the Turks, which made it impossible for us to open fire, because we should have killed as many of our own men as Turks.

We stood by till we knew that our infantry had driven the Turks well back, and then it was that the enemy got one of the biggest shocks of the day, for we simply let go at him with shrapnel at point-blank range. So well had we been handled by our officers that the first hint the Turks had of our presence was when we opened fire, and then the muzzles of our guns were almost in amongst them.

During the first few minutes of that tremendous excitement we did not bother much about the gun drill-book – I, for instance, was loading, setting fuses, ranging and doing any other work that came to hand. Despite this there was nothing whatever to grumble about in the way the guns were being served.

In the darkness we could not see what mischief we were doing, but we knew perfectly well that it must be enormous, because of the rapidity of our fire and the goodness of our shells; and when the daylight came we had proof, for ahead of us were piles of Turkish corpses, men who had been killed by our shrapnel.

We went on firing till the Turks had been driven back in complete disorder. We kept the game up throughout the day, but the darkness prevented us from following the enemy’s movements.

We, of course, had no observation-posts at that time, as there were no trenches available for the observation officers to get to know the results of our fire.

After this promising start things were fairly quiet till the small hours of the next morning, when the enemy counter-attacked with great fury. The Turks are rare good fighters, they knew the country, and they had German officers driving them on in the rear, brutes who shot them down without mercy time after time, as I saw with my own eyes.

There were some native troops on our right front, and these were so hard pressed that they were forced to give way.

A staff officer who was at hand realised instantly the serious state of the situation, as the line was broken, and he called on some of the gunners in our brigade to fill the gap.

About fifty of our men fell out at once. There were hundreds of rifles with fixed bayonets lying on the ground around us, and grabbing what they wanted of these, our men rushed up and joined in the fray, filling the gap and making good the broken line before the Turks could understand what was happening.

It was a smart little affair, and the enemy was driven back and had to scuttle for shelter to his trenches, where he was left for the time being, for our troops were utterly exhausted and a rest was necessary.

We were thankful for a bit of a break. It was not for long, but we took things fairly easily till just before midday, when another advance was ordered against Seddul Bahr, a village of great tactical importance some hundreds of yards away, on our right front.

Our brigade was ordered to get ready for action.

By this time we were better off than we had been, for we had established the necessary observation-posts, and so we were ready for anything that might happen.

At noon the order came to open fire, and we fairly rained shells into the village – hundreds of rounds of shrapnel – to help the infantry in their advance.

The Turks were just as ready as we were, and they started a bombardment both from Achi Baba and the Turkish forts on the Asiatic side.

Some of these shells were proper “duds,” and they made us laugh. It was not necessary to be told that they were made in Germany, for they dropped harmlessly into the ground, without exploding; but of course there were lots that did burst and do mischief. Many of these dropped on to the beach down below, killing mules and causing losses amongst transport drivers and the men of the Army Service Corps. Owing to the luck of war we had not many casualties in our own battery, and the losses were nothing like what you would have expected from such a lot of firing from the Turkish guns.

But we had some sad losses, all the same.

Our major was amongst the few who were killed that afternoon. He was in an observation-trench ahead, and was struck by a piece of shell which burst just near him. The news soon spread that he had been mortally wounded. He was most popular with the men, and as soon as they heard what had happened both officers and men rushed out to his post, to do what they could for him. But you can’t do much for a dying man.

The major did not last long. His last words were, “Good luck, boys. Tell my wife I died happy.”

There wasn’t a dry eye amongst the men who laid him to his last rest.

They say that misfortunes never come alone, and it was all too true of us that day, for in the evening the colonel and the adjutant were done to death through German treachery.

We heard, but not till later, that a German came along a piece of enemy trench, close to the observation-post where the two officers were.

The German shouted, in quite good English, “All officers this way!”

The colonel and the adjutant, who did not suspect anything, got out on to the parapet of the trench, and instantly a hand grenade was thrown from an enemy trench quite close at hand. It exploded and killed both of them.

That’s the sort of dirty trick which the Germans know so well how to play. They have a born gift for it – and that reminds me that the Germans who were with the Turkish forces were just as dirty and brutal in their methods as they are, by all accounts, on the Western front.

Looking through a pair of field-glasses, I have seen German officers during an attack by the Turks follow them with revolvers in hand – your German officer doesn’t lead, he drives, having a precious regard for his carcase, and no earthly sense of honour – and I have seen them shoot Turkish soldiers who have fallen because they have been shot in the leg or have stooped to pick up a rifle which had been dropped. The German would be about a hundred yards in the rear, and would run up and deliberately shoot the prostrate man. I am talking now not from hearsay, but of what I have seen with my own eyes, and it does not help you to love the Germans.

I once saw a German prisoner, a fair specimen of the Prussian bully – he was a lieutenant – knock down a British sentry who had told him not to smoke in a part of the line where lights were prohibited. It was lucky for the bully that a British captain came along at the moment, or the fellow would have got the full force of the sentry’s bayonet.