THE GROUND WE WON.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 October 1915, Page 6

THE GROUND WE WON.

NARROW VALLEY AND SCRUBCOVERED RIDGE. THE TOPMOST TRENCHES. ' (From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces). Gallipoli Peninsula, August 16. It is after the fight. The battle was spent itself like a breaker on a rockbound shore. The backwash is gathering itself slowly together for another effort. It is a good opportunity to .make a pilgrimage to the shrine of our dead: to see the ground so dearly won. There is still desultory firing from the'guns on the cruisers and destroyers in the Gulf of Saros, the waters of which leave our curving sandy beach opposite Imbros and that other rugged isle where St. Paul worked at his Epistles. The staccato crack of an enemy maxim resounds from the hillside, and the streim of bullets hits up the sand on th* beach. At intervals—intervals long enough to suggest a scarcity of high explosives—a shell from a big Turkish jgun bursts in the sand or the sea. A sniper, who is more than a good shot, amuses himself by potting from long range at some Indians digging a grave. We turn our backs on all this and enter a trench on our left. The sap bends round on to a little fiat and leads into the mouth of a narrow valley ( up which winds a path flanked by scrubcovered low ridges. At first ; the grade is easy. On the left the sad grey of trees contrasts with the green of the ilex—the prickly dwarf oak that covers this rugged country. How our men fought .through here in the darkness is a marvel. The prickly serub tore their hands and bare knees till there was not a quarter of an inch of skin unsearified. For three days afterwards tliey fought thus, and in the end sores that had 'become septic gave the doctors much work. Wandering a little way into the scrub at the risk of being sniped you note the evidences of the advance—bits of torn garments, a puttee that had become loosened and torn from the leg, a helmet lost in the darkness, a sock telling the tale of a wounded foot, other garments bloodstained, clips of cartridges, a. broken rifle, and first field dressings torn by the unyielding branches of the sturdy prickly ilex from somewhat slender fastenings. Here and there the stench of an unburied body fouls the hot air. On the left is an, aid Turkish well, the concrete coping blows off by some shell. It is deep and narrow, and lined with stone. On the left, also,'is a barbed-wire entanglement, with which the enemy hoped to block the progress up the valley. The Maoris went at it under fire in the darkness. With clippers they cut the Mvire, and by main strength they tore up the stakes. Not a man was killed! The bulleis went flying over their heads with one continuous screech. "I tink we all get killed at that wire," said one Maori. "The bullets come ping! ping! ping! over our heads all the time; but the Turk he fire too high, Pygorry! I tink we have the lucky escape that time!" At one spot the track is overlooked by the Turkish trenches. We can see them quite clearly on the slopes of Chunuk Bair, and there are snipers who have come farther down into the scrub to take pot shots at the men passing up and down the valley. It becomes necessary to run. Sandbags are piled high at inI tervals, and we dash from one to another in fifty and hfeudred-yard sprints. Cowering under the first wall of sandbags, very I much out of breath, we look at eaieh other and burst out laughing. JVIy sprinting days are almost over, and oa such a broiling day one would almost prefer the risk of being shot. My companion—a famous English way correspondent—having regained his wind, remarks, "I'm not very fond of bullets, tut I do hate running." Then w& make another dash up to the next lot of sandbags, and fling ourselves at their base, i It, is really too ridiculous, and we look at each other and laugh louder than before.; Here there are half-a-dozen Tommies who are in the middle of the same performance. 'One points to a stone almost touching my foot. "He got one on to that stone just now," remarked one of, tlie Tommies, in a Lancashire dialect. Voluntarily I drew in my leg; I am brave only when I am fairly safe, or when enthusiasm or necessity unhinges the door of discretion! "Three sergeants were talking to one another at that bend this morning, and every one was hit," said another man. He seemed to regard it as a kind of joke. If one only had been hit that would have been an ordinary occurrence, and not worth mention. But a bag of three! — that was too funny for words. While we had been doing the last sprint it had occurred to. each of us' that we would walk the next stage: We now resolved to run harder than ever! After four or five successive sprints of this kind we were glad to moisten our parched throats with some water at a field dressing station of the 13th Division that we ran into round a bend of the track higher up. The steep spurs and precipitous sidas of "Tabic Top" were now on our right, and one marVelled how our men had got up there in the darkness. The Turks had bolted from Table Top! Half a dozen could have held the position against our men—the Wellington Mounted Rifles —coming up in single file. But we had another bit of luck here. No sooner had our men gained the position than ISO Turks, driven out of one of their forward positions by other New Zealanders, atteiuped to scale the heights. The \Y\M.R, were on Uie.iii ;n an instant, and recognising their position was well night hopeless they all laid down their arms and surrendered. Our men took 1.5S Turkish prisoners! The track winds and twists and gets steeper. A mule-train laden with ammunition and stores passes, and the protruding boxes in the narrow way threaten us with broken ribs. The steep hills have now closed in on us and we are safe from snipers. Far below, the gloriously blue and placid waters of the Gulf of Saros come into view. Up, up. up we climb. Our men had no tran'k here—naught but steep hillside, dense prickly scrub, and Turkish bullets. We wonder more than ever how they stormed the position. The English correspondent who has seen much war becomes enthusiastic. We have a few words wifcli the Brigadier-General, whose attacking column is now resting. The view becomes more extensive and more beautiful as we climb. Presently we arc in tho trenches—the highest trendies we now hold on Rhododendron Ridge—the highest on the Peninsula. The ridge itself is strewn with bodies, swollen and festering in the hot sun. Su man dare go out to bury them. Some are in strange attitudes, but mostly they have fallen forward on their faces, suggesting "tlie stout heart to the stae brae." Quite close are it Kaw /Jealandcr and a Ghurka; farther along the ridge a Turk; and, yonder, three men wiio had fallen together. Near one trench Is a bit of a body that high explosive has dismembered. Some of these are among jths "missing." The; us.f pever b«

identified; they will occupy a common nameless grave on Rhododendron Spur, far from their homes in Mother England, in sunny Australia, in distant New Zealand, and among the hill's of India. In the cleft of the summit hill away on the left is a heavy toll of Turkish dead. The men Welshmen and others for the time being occupying the position—are living in little dug-outs just below us. They take turns in the trenches. The Turks in front have sapped forward and have made a short trench facing us about fifty yards away. One shows his head above the top, and in an instant the machine-gun at our elbow is spitting at liira, each crack making a puissant throbbing in our ears, while the stream of bullets hits up the parapet in dust. The cracking and the throbbing cease, and when the dust has cleared there is no more sign of the Turk's head. Whether there is a bullet through it ok not we' cannot say, but if not it has been a very close call for that particular Turk. An officer comes along and tells us we must be out of the trenches by 5 o'clock. The guns are going to bombard, he adds, and there may be a few "shorts." We have no desire to be involved in shells bursting short, so make the best use of the four minutes left us. As we round a corner in the . trench a Turk throws a bomb, and Tommy, endeavoring to throw it back, has his right hand blown clean off. A ligature and bandage are quickly applied, and later in the evening he passes us on a stretcher carried down the winding path on his way to England. He has seen the last of the great war. Looking back to the spur on Rhododendron Ridge we cannot help thinking that he is a lucky man.

We stop awhile to take some photographs and to watch the bombardment. Then hack down the steep path between the stunted ilex. Men are -ducking into their dug-outs. A machine-gun from the left is hitting up the duat on the track. We cut out a hundred yards in quick time between two bursts of fire, and escaped unhit. All this is at the end of a long and tiring day that commenced at Imbros at 5 a.m., included a trip afcross the Gulf of Saros, a call at Suvla, a sea trip to Anzac, and a walk back along the hot, dusty path to our new position. After this other pilgrimage bully -beef And hard biscuit and tea, and the writing of despatches till midnight. Then the interests and, incidents and issues of war, ever in our minds, are pffaced by welcome slumber, that not even the crack of rifles and the booming of the bigger guns can disturb.