THE WATER-WIZARD OF GALLIPOLI

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2777, 22 May 1916, Page 7

THE WATER-WIZARD OF GALLIPOLI

HOW AN AUSTRALIAN SAPPER SAVED MANY LIVES Sapper Stephen Kelley, of the Third Australian Light Horse, was recently mentioned, in a belated appendix to ijir Inn Hamilton's dispatch on tho Gallipoli campaign, for his services on Gallipoli as a water-diviner. "Sapper Kelley," says writer in tlie "Sunday Times," "in very deed saved the Suvla Bay disaster from ISeing worse than it was. He was able as a water diviner to obtain at Gallipoli, where 'the Turks boasted no troops' could find enough water to make it tenable, thirty good underground springs, on. the spot. The sorry part is that he was ' not put on the jab a week, or even a few days earlier. Gallipoli might have been ours: the tala of lonely graves might not .have been so dread." To' begin at the beginning, those who read—and how many aching hearts in Australia were there not among them?— Sir lan Hamilton's historic dispatch dated Deoember 11, 1915, will recall how at every step the fell question, of water (logged and delayed movement, how of August 11 he wrote: "Tho night march and projected attack were abandoned owing to tho four commanders' representations as to the difficulty of supplying tho division with water, even should they gain the height... and General Birdwood's plans were frustrated. As all tho world knows tho splendid elan of the first day's fighting Which brought our men to the summit of the ridge was oI bo avail. They wero not followed up and backed by the strength necessary to "hold the hard-v,-on height. It was on the evening of the 11th day when the water supplies, brought at imraensd trouble by barge from far-off Malta, were almost used up that Brigadier-Gen-eral Hughes sent for Kelley and asked whether he could find water for: them there on the spot. The sapper had been iu the hot fight at, Suvla on 9th, 10th, aad 11th. with his own unit, the 3rd Australian Light Horse Brigade. He. was found badly knocked about, with shrapnel, but still cheerily holding his end up. "Could he find water?" Why, cortaiiily. He'd said all along there was water 'I'he H.Q. expert might have said in folios of foolscap there wasn't any water. "There ;.s water." Kelley said 60, emphatically! ; Delivers the Goods. Sick as he was, next morning lie set to work, a detail of 1000 men. under him, not to mention a colonel, and a squad more or less of majors. Anyhow, by midday on tho 12th Kelley had opened up the only well that had been sunk, and got it going at 201)0 gillons an. hour—it had been giving only 400! He struck water * within 100 yards of Divisional H.Q.! Within a week he had located and sunk thirty wells where—said expert opinion—no water was. Some sapper, Kelley! He worked like fury till his .job was done, and then collapsed. As they carrnxl him down to the water's edge to Jje put aboard a hospital .ship for Malta what a cheer tho boys gave for Kelley! Mentioned in ! dispatches, is he? Well, his name is blessed by the fellows who were getting their full gallon a day of pure spring water, icy cold, pumped 'up from the depths of that arid Suvla Ray sand. Something to enjoy, instead of the barge-borne lukewarm lush out of kerosene tins that had been their ration till Kelley got on the job. And even that apology lor drinking water was out and t'he men were down to their last pint on August 11.

Sapper Kelley is Kelley of Kelley and Basset, Victoria, engineers, specialising in boring' machinery. But the scnipr pai'tner is more than a trained hydraulic engineer—ho served his time at Hort's Dock —he is a born water diviner, so when ho goes boring out in the Never Never he doesn't have any Stumer bores. Ho Jinds water every time. Government contracts, work for Sydney Kidman, boring in the Ninety. Mile stretch between Adelaide and Melbourne, his plant lias made pood in all of them. He discovered his divining powers when ho was a youngster living in Queensland, where ho saw a water-diviner irt work with the usual hazel twig.. He discovered that 'when he stood just .where, this diviner "found" water he felt queer twitches in his nerves. So ho practised a bi£ and discovered that lie could get better, results with a copper rod than a twig. At Suvla Bay the handiest was the copper band of a shell, and lie used tha)t. But any old thing will do as long as it is copper—a row oi pennies held in .a continuous lino in the .palms of his hands will do.