GETTING TO GALLIPOII.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 August 1915, Page 6

GETTING TO GALLIPOII.

A HALT BY THE WAY. A NIGHT LANDING. (From Malcolm Ross, Official AVar Correspondent with the 'New Zealand Troops). Anzac, June 2y. On our ship was a man who, like the American Ambasador at the Court of St. James. wa.s the only one in plain clothes. It appeared that he was coming out to distil water for the army, and the necessary plant wa.s following him on another vessel. For two years he had been in the service of the Turks, latterly establishing a distilling plant on the shores of the Red .Sea at a place called Yembo. which is the port from which pilgrims leave for Medina. He wa3 with the Turks for three weeks after war was declared against England, but they treated him very Well, and when finally he left iii an Italian ship the local commander came on 'board to say good-bye to him and to wish him good luck. Of course he was a Scot, 'but we told him he was a degenerate one, because he was distilling the wrong article. Jn the evening we passed Crete and sailed between desolate islands with all lights out. Thus we picked our way through the archipelago, with the Spoi'ades _p,n one. side and the.Cyclade&.on the other, and i the- next morning .arrived, at an island that was the first stage of our journey. Here was a wonderful sight—a fishing village transformed into a busy harbor with many ships and much workgoing on. Rumor with a hundred tongues flew round the 'beach, and between the ships, but there was no definite news of the war or of what was happening on our particular front, except that on one day "the French had done well at Hellcs."'

Wo remained at this place for four days. On our particular ship we were a collection of odds and ends—a couple of generals, some doctors, and officers aud troops returning with healed wounds. But we could get no word of what was to be done with our particular section of the show, so we endeavored to possess our souls in patience the while we frizzled in the heat, and gazed during the many hours of inaction across at the low broken and ochre hills, with here and there a little village penciled on the slopes, or watched the ships coming and going. At one time there were six other ships moored to us, so we made a broad line of seven, and watched a kind of general post taking place from que to another, as cargo and troops and officers were transferred.

At the advanced base I met a cheery, clever person who laughed and joked and did thing's quickly and well all the time lie joked, and the result was my journey was advanced upon its final stages. That evening we found ourselves on board a "sweeper'' from the North Sea, and we steamed out through the long booms, heading a course for Anzac. One tried to get some sleep on the hard boards of the deck, but towards midnight the scene became too fascinating for sleep. Imbros, a long silvery grey shadow in the moonlight, lay on our left, and far away on the right the lights of a hospital ship gleamed against the loom of the land at Cape Helles, The setting moon made a pathway of gold along on- wake. By 1 a.m. there was land ahead on our starboard bow, and one bright i. o :-t that seemed to be beckoning ns on. Tlie land was the heights so bravely won and held above (he little cove where; the Australians and New Zealandei'3 landed on the historic morning of April 25. As we neared it other lights could be seen on the hillside. They were the lights of densely-populat-ed Amac, or such parts of it as were still awake. A continuous desultory crackle or rifle fire came from the heights, and a mile irp the coast to the northward the loud guns of a destroyer boomed as she sent shell after shell inland to a Turkish position illuminated by her searchlight. Quite close a red cross blazing in the centre of a band of green light marked a ho=pital ship waiting for her full load of sick and wounded. In the darkness—the moon had now dipped into the Gulf of Saros—we scrambled into a motor pinnace, and in a little while we were on the wharf at Anzac. with the spent bullets from the TiirnLsh snipers singing over our heads and falling with a "phut" into the water.

FIRST DAYS ON CALLIPOLI. TlllO BKACH AND THE HACK--0 ROUND. EVERYONE UNDER FIRE." SANG FROTD OF THE COLONIAL SOLDIER. Anzac, June 20. The dawn came at -1.30, and the walls of the office resolved themselves into boxes of deal all stencilled ''Biscuits. 401b5." On the tented-roof dark patches resolved themselves into constellations of (lies. All about us were great, piles of provisions and the hundred and one necessities of an Army Corps. Behind were the steep hillsides of Anzao burrowed and scarred and trenched beyond recognition. Looking up at the heights one wondered how they had ever been stormed, and wondered still more how they hail ever been held in the face of superior numbers well entrenched. On the other hand, across the water the outlines of Tmbros and of Samothra.cc grew clear in the growing light. 'Watercarls, pontoons, the keel of a sunken bout, the tops of masts and funnel of a snia'l wrecked steamer, and the wharf eroded by the Austral'im and New Zealand Kiiginoor<. also caught the eye. The little waves of the Sea of Saros lapped the sands, and in the water at our ieet lay the distending body of a ilead mule. Such was our introduction to Aiizmo beach.

and we »ayml c-oiittMid'dly at a bountiful mid peaceful s.ene. An oflieor .came up ami greeted Hie newcomers. "It would ho ii lovely place for a week-end visit." lie snii], adding, a.s if in afterthought, "if there were no war." On the whole. :i looked as if our first day at Anzac was going to be a quiet one. The men, and oflieem, too, were bathing contentedly in the clear sea. But presently there was a peculiar singing noise in the air just over our heads, a loud expKsion and a.lwrst of bullets and broken shell in the water. ' This they told ua was "Startling Annie," a Turkish gun in » bidden position eway on o\tr left, begin-

iiing her daily morning hate. But few people seemed to take any notice of her. Some of the men did not trouble to come out of the water. They went on bathing. A non-com. passing pointed' to a hole in the sack on which I wag sitting. "She sent one in there yesterday," he said. Later he showed us a fail of the broken shell. To our mind the bench did not seem to be a hcaJthy spot, but the almost diabolical nonchalance of both officers and men made us stifle whatever feelings of fear we personally may liave harbored. (Later in the clay we were shelled from the other side with a different class of gun, which exploded shrapnel along the beach and in the water, the shell itself bursting into many pieces, One exploded in front of General Godley's headquarters. That gun cleared the wharf) and sent the majority of the men to safer positions. I saw a big chunk of one shell land .within two yards of a man who was digging; but he went on digging, and another man ran to get the fragment as a curiosity. A piece of another shell came whizzing within a few yards of where I was writing, and a man who picked it up burnt his fingers with it. No place seemed safe, except one's "dug-out," and even that was not safe. A few days previously, a shell 'had plumped right into Colonel Braithwaite's dug-out, and Major Pinwill's dug-out had also been hit. In the afternoon "Startling Annie" came at us again, She had the range and was making good practice. One shell landed amongst a group of men, lulling two and wounding several others. A few minutes afterwards the men were about as usual, and another 'bathing party was in for a swim. In the hospital, which is really a clearing station, Colonel Eegg was having a very lively time. Some of his men have been killed, others wounded. Once a shell burst right in the tent while the doctors yl'ere operating. . The operating tent has simply been ncldled with bullets, but recently the hospital people have made their position more secure 'by digging further into the hill. The Turks are not, oi course, wilfully shelling this hospital, as we call it; they are simply shelling our position, and we are in such a confined space that they cannot help occasionally hitting the hospital. The hospital ship, which lies just off shore, is easily within their range, and can be seen from their observation post, but it is never shelled, though a shot aimed at our supply ships may sometimes go near it. Indeed, our fellows regard the Turks as very fair fighters, and, as a matter of fact, the much-talked-about atrocities have been very few and far between. I have refrained hitherto from writing anything in detail on this subject until 1 could make personal and definite enquiries, and, so far, though I heard innumerable stories about such deeds, I have been able to get confirmatory evidence of only two. New may therefore take with a grain of salt any wild rumors that may reach them about Turkish atrocities. AYo have also evidence that the Turkish doctors are doing all they can for our wounded prisoners. They have several of our wounded and several prisoners at Constantinople. That same evening, the Turks treated us to a little more shrapnel, and one shell burst right in front of us, amongst the bathers, one man getting a bullet through the throat. lie was able to walk out of the water, and the stretcherbearers carried him to the dressingstation. Thus elided my first day at the war. It was what they called "a rather quiet day at Anzac."

A NAVAL DEMONSTRATION'. Tlic following morning, looking away south toward ITelles, we could see some big ships; and. early in the afternoon, two battleships and a crowd of torpedodestroyers put in an appearance. It looked as if there was going to bo something doing. One of the battleships came up our way, with her attendant destroyers, and began to shell a Turkish position or Turkish troops on a plain away on our right front. From a high place, to which we climbed by steep paths and along communication trenches, we had a splendid view of the whole performance—the (lashes of flame and the smoke, from the big guns; then the burst inland with a cloud of earth and dust in the air. 11, seemed as if the battleship with one gun was dealing with something comparatively near at hand, and was treating something further inland—the result of which we could not see—with her broadsides. Away on the heights of Kilid-Bahr—a long, dominating ridge above the scrubcovered •plain—we could clearly see the bash of the Turkish guns in reply, and still more e'oarly the fleecy white pull's of smoke as the shrapnel burst about the battleship. Several of these Turkish shots were well aimed, but probably did little damage. After a time the battleship, with her attendant destroyers, turned gracefully and steamed away to the south-west. Whether anything was doing at Holies or not we could not tell. The wind being against us, we could scarcely expect to hear the sound of any firing there. Near the middle of the Kilid-Rahr Plateau—a long ridge from our point of view—we could see, right on the .sky-line, three big heaps of something that looked like brushwood. The Turks could scarcely have placed them there with the idea of getting our men to (Ire on them on the supposition that they covered gun positions. At any rate, we wasted no ammunition on them. Probably they are meant for use as a signal beacon to give a warning somewhere or other in the event of' the fall of Ao.hi-Raba. Their smoke by day and their flame by night would make an effective signal to troops in almost any part of the Peninsula. Some day. no doubt, we shall know what they mean.

It was from the left of this position, and lower down on the face of the hill that the Turkish guns wevo (lashing. The battleship ,\h\ not fire on them, and we ascertained later that her broadsides were directed at the village of Chanak, which is a. supply ba-e, covered with a .strongly I'nrlifled position, Presently the observers were able l„ report that Chanak was in (lames. From nnv of our high portions we could see ' the smoke rising in dense volume.

Till' TURKISH POSITION'. Toward* Hit' southern eml of Kilul Bahr wo could plainly ol>.s<'r\'c tl|e long communication trenches leading 11,1 to the Turkish position, si nil it seemed as if onr men would have a hard, though not an ilisupcr;iblo ta-l;. in taking this position after the possible fall ol Aclii Baha. Already there are jinn emplacements on it. though we do not know of more than the four that have quite recently appeared in that i|Uarter —the four that lired at tiie haltle-hip. From the loot of Ki lid Bahr the country is a gently-sloping plateau, with o.easional low dopresshnis leading down to the sea, On this plateau is "the olive grove," from which n field -1111—engaged liy some of tlift Australian battei'io.v—iiriM at IH. Away l,> the south, inland and rising from elevated land, is Aelii Balm, a low, pointed hill, dominating the surrounding plateau, It la a

musk lc3s conaplcuoua feature in the landscape than one imagined, but hte been very strongly fortified, Mid is a hard nut to cmUk.

TREMENDOUS DIF'FIfX'iTIBS. looking northward and eastward, one was simply amassed at the tremendous difficulties that faced the Australians and (New JSealandcrs, aind marvelled not only that they had gained these positions, hut that they were able to make good in them. The ridges are now a maze of trenches and communication trenches, and in one spot the contending parties are at close grip..) in positions that almost join-r-minijig and counter-, mining, bombing and sharp'Sihooting. A glance at the map shows such names as "SuJcide Gully," "Shrapnel Valley," "Dead Man'-s Radge," and "The Bloody Angle," One cannot, of course, risk writing anything about the positions, even in a, letter that has to travel thousands of miles to New Zealand before it is published, and the reader, in any case, would not understand the situation clearly without a map, and that, of course, it is quite impossible to publish. The names, however, give some idea of the desperate nature of the enterprise that our colonial citizen soldiers • undertook and carried out with such conspicuous gaUantry, initiative and dash. "Dead Man's- Kidge," said a man to me; "by Jove, you should have seen that day tie Marines went up! The machine guns simply swept them down in swathes, and the place was absolutely covered with dead men. They remained opposite our lines Jor eight days, and we could not get near them!" Some idea of the fighting may be gathered from the fact that in one place, on the crest of a ridge, the farthest Turkish trenches are only forty yards away, while in one spot the trenches have only about ten yards of intervening space between them, and in the listening galleries underground the miners hear each other at work. '

THE TURKISH FIRE. From our vantage point, with an ocr casional enemy bullet "pinging" over our heads, we could plainly see .the Turkish trendies to the north and northeast, and presently tho Turkish gun—a field piece that works from an undiscoverabie position inland in the direction opened on our left flank positions, sending the men into their shelter trenches and dug-outs. A crowd of bathers in tho sea on the extreme left did not bother to leave the beach, but remained there naked watching the shelling. Offshore at some considerable, distance was the balloon-ship, and in a beautiful sum-, mer sky, in front of the Island of Samothraco, floated the observation kite balloon—a strangely-shaped blob of brown against the blue. Between Imbros and the Peninsula a crowd of destroyers swept in a grand circle, keenly alert for submarines.

Later came the popping sound of a motor-engine, and craning our. necks heavenward we saw coming out of the eye of the sun a "Taube.' She hovered for a brief space over our trenches, but a well-placed shrapnel from one of our batteries scared her off. As she went she dropped a .few, bombs and what appeared to be a lot of leaflets. The latter fluttered downward, glistening in the sun as they fell, and then the "Taube"' flew to the southward and was seen no more that day.