THE GREAT ADVENTURE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2701, 22 February 1916, Page 9

THE GREAT ADVENTURE

THE DIE-HARDS OF ANZAC LAST DAI'S ON THE PENINSULA (From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces). December 27. Tho "'Berliner Tageblatt," early in December, stated that tho Dardanelles undertaking would have been abandoned long ago if it were as easy to get out of the jaws of the lion as to get into them. Well, here wc aro clear out of them, spending a merry Christmas. .The jaws of the Turko-German lion snapped just a_ little too late. The beast iias been disappointed of his prey at Anzac. One man was wounded; another had his toe crushed by a cart! The story of how all this was accomplished is a fascinating one, but I find we are not allowed to tell it. It is not advisablo to inform the enemy how it was done. Meantime, the Turkish commander is no doubt bitterly reflecting upon the fact that he failed to scupper our rearguard, and that he did not capture even one solitary machine guul The great thing from our point of view was to make it appear from day to thy as if events were running their

ordinary course. The cleverness and the resources-with which this was accomplished will one day pass into history in detail. , Suffice it for the present to say that the final operation orders were models of clear thinking and organisation from the main principles down to the smallest detail of the Great Adventure, and that bne and all, from tho highest commands down to the privates in the trenches, carried them out with a < loyal co-operation and enthusiasm worthy of the best. traditions of j our race. To a non-combatant on tho Peninsula carefully watching events from day to day in tlie Anzao zone the position appeared to bristle with difficulties, some of which it seemed almost hopeless to surmount. To such an extent was this the case that the final triumphant success, wlien it did come, was a little difficult of realisation.

Towards the close of the Great Adventure the humorists got to work, and it was no uncommon sight to seo a comfortable dug-out bearing the notice "A Louer." Many of the men left messages for Abdul—"A Merry Christmas"/ and "Good Wishes for the New Year." Olio gunnery officcr gathered together all the bottles he could find and piled them outside the mess. "The Turk," he said, "will think our last strafe was the result of a great carousal." One battery away on the right left its mess-table set with bully beef, a bottle of whisky,- and some other odds and ends, "With compliments to the commander of 'Beachy Bill.'" The idea was sedulously cultivated that the men were going into rest camps: but tho intelligence of the colonial troops was of too high an order to permit of the continuance of this deception. A query to the O.C. Artillery as to when his second lot of guns wero going into tho "rest camp" elicited only a smilo, and a suggestion that the guns wero getting tirod was an insult that rankled but could not be replied to. I

In the dug-outs, in the trenches, and in tho artillery observation posts various lciudly messages, even presents of food, were left for iiur gallant foes. One Now Zealand Artillery Officer, whose skull was laid bare by a shell that came through the roof of his observation poet, left a message for the Turkish gunners to say that the shell "did not get him." That same officer carried on till his gun was withdrawn and safely placed on board on outgoing ship. In hospital I have seen his wound being dressed. It was rather an ugly one, but in a few weeks lie will bo back with his battory directing tho fire on the advancing Turks in another zone. The Serious Side. But .underlying all this fun and frolic that is so well recognised a trait of British oharacter in the presence of extreme danger, there was a deeper feeling of sadness that v/e should bo leaving, without a further struggle, tho ground so dearly won—the ilexcovered valleys jrnd hills gained and held with the life's blood of so many of the noblest ana best of New Zealand's and Australia's sons. Somewhat poetically one of the New Zealand soldiers put this phase of thought to his battalion commander: "I hopo, sir, 1 ' ho said, "that those fellows who lie buried along the Dere will be soundly sleeping and not hoar us as we march away." The idea that his dead comrades might think the living were forsaking them seemed to have made a deep impression on his mind. There was even a thought for those stricken comrades to whom, through the diro necessities of war, burial was denied, as witness the following lines: — THE UNBURIED. Now snowflakes thickly falliilg in tho winter breeze Have cloaked alike the hard, unbending ilex, And the grey, drooping branches of the olive trees. Transmuting into silver all their lead 1 ; And in between the winding linos, lt> No-Man's-Laud, Have softly covered with a glittering .shroud Th' TJnburied Dead. And in tho silences of night when winds are fair, When shot and shard have ceased their wild surprising, I hear a sound of music in the upper air, Rising and falling till it slowly dies-. It is the beating of the wings of migrant birds Wafting the souls of these unburied heroes Into Paradise.

The spirit of the men towards the close was splendid. As the last days drew near the suspense grow greater. Did the Turks know that we were evacuating? Would they attack at the last moent our attenuated lines? These wero questions that were ever uppermost in our minds; but evon up to the last day we had a supreme confidence in our ability to repel iny Turkish attack that might be launched upon us. The New Zealand general—now in command of the Army Corps—filially took all ranks into his confidence, and issued an order expressing his trust in their discretion and their high soldierly quanities to carry out a task the success of witch would largely depend upon their individual efforts. _In the case of an attack he expressed himself confident that the men who had to their credit such deeds as the original landing at Anzac, tho repulse of the big Turkish attack on May 18, the capture of Lone Pine, tho Apex, and Hill CO, would hold their ground with tho same valour and steadfastness as heretofore, however small in numbers they might be. Tho splendid spirit of the men at the finish showed that this confidence was not misnlaccd.

The Die-hards. On the Friday I went into the firing lino on the Apex—the highest ground won in all tlio fighting, and found tlio New Zoalanders, who still occupied tlio iTosfc of honour, tumbling over one another to be tlio last to leave. 'Hie colonel commanding the "Wellington Battalion called for thirty volunteers from two companies. Every man in each company volunteered, so tbat after all he had to make the selection himself. Men were coming to their commandcrs and begging that the.y might be allowed to bo in the last >»t to go. "Do let me stay," said one man. "1 vas in tlio landing, ami 1. should liko to be oho nt thn'lwjt to leave." it. ji'as iusfc ilie game with j&e Aua«

tralians—they all wanted to be in the "Die-hards."

"Have you many volunteers for tho 'Die-hard ° " I asked one commander. "Every mother's son of them wants to be a 'Die-hard!' " lio replied. And this, mind .you, was at a time when we thought that most of tho "Die-hards' would, for a certainty, be either killed, wounded, or taken prisoner—at a time when a little jmnpincss and hesitation might very well have been expcctod. In one position on tho loft, when the last lot assembled at the cookhouse, it was found that there were two missing. On had gone back to the firing-lino for his pipo; the other had gone for something he had left behind in his bivouac!

With such oxcellont organisation on the part of the staff, and sue hbravo and loyal co-operation and sang froid on tho part of the officers and men in the trenches, it is perhaps, after all, not to lie wondered at that the Turks were busy shelling the vacant trenches and the deserted beaches a day after men, mules, and guns had been silently and secretly embarked, and were already well across the Gulf of Saros, in the language of the official dispatch, "to be employed elsewhere." Thev had triumphantly sticceedcd in one of the most _ difficult of operations—in one that is unique in tho annals of warfare.