THE GREAT ADVENTURE.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 February 1916, Page 6

THE GREAT ADVENTURE.

INCIDENTS IN THF EVACUATION. ' THE DIE-lIARDS OF ANZAC. i SPLENDID SPIRIT OF THE MEN. (From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces). December 27. The Berliner Tageblatt, early in December, stated that the 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 we are clear out of them, spending a mer-y Christmas. The jaws of the Turko-German lion snapped just a little too late. ■ The beast has been disappointed of his prey at Anzac. One man was wounded; another had his toe crushed by a eart! 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 advisable to inform the enemy how it was done. Meantime the Turkish commander is, no doubt, bitterly reflecting upon the fact that lie failed to scupper our rearguard, and that he did not capture even one solitary machine gun! The great thing from our point of view was to make it appear from day to day as if events were running their ordinary course. The cleverness and the resource 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 a model of clear thinking and organisation from the main principles down to the smallest detail of the Great Adventure, and that one and all, from the 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 our race. To a non-combatant on the Peninsula carefully watching events from day to day in the Anzac 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, when it did come, was a little difficult of realisation.

HUMORISTS AT WORK. Towards the close of the Great Adventure the humorists got to work, and it was no uncommon sight to see a comfortable dug-out bearing the notice, "A Louer." Many of the men left messages for Merry Christmas'' and "Rood Wishes for the Xew Year,'' One gunnery officer gathered together all the bottles he could find and piled them out.skip 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 'Peachy Bill.'" In our mess, however sad or serious we might be inwardly, we managed at least to maintain a cheerful exterior, extending mock sympathy to the "diei hards," and chaffing each other as to the various capacities that, we should presently be appearing in at Constantinople. Tiip idea was sedulously cultivated that the men were going into rest camps, but the 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 gun.s were going into the "rest camp" elicited only a smile, and a suggestion that the guns were getting tired was a" insult that rankled but could not be replied to. In the dug-outs, in the trenches, and in the artillery observation posts various kindly messages, and even presents of food, were left for our gallant foes. One Kew Zealand artillery officer, whose skull was laid bare by a shell that came through the roof of his observation post, 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 an outgoing ship. In hospital I have seen his wound being dressed. It was rather an ugly one, but in a few weeks he will be back with his battery directing the fire or +he ad v a"cing Turks in another zone-

THE SEEIOUS. SIDE Jim underlying all this fun anil frolic that is so well-recognised a trait of British character in the presence of extreme danger, there was a deeper feeling of sadness that we should be leaving, without a further struggle, the ground so dearly won—the ilex-covered valleys lulls gained and held- with the life's blood of so many of the noblest and 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 hope, sir,'' he said, 'that those fellows who lie 'buried along the Dere will be soundly sleeping and not hear 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 dire necessities of war. burial was denied, as witness the following lines:—

THE UNBURIED. Xow snowflakes thickly falling in the winter breeze Have cloaked alike the hard, unbendilex, And the grey, drooping branches of the olive trees, Transmuting into silver all their lead; And in between the winding lines, in No-Man's-Land, Have softly covered with a glittering shroud Th' Unburied Dead. And in the 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 those unburied heroes Into Paradise, X'EAR THE CLOSE. The spirit of the men towards the close was splendid. As the last days drew near the suspense grew greater. Did the Turks know that we were evacuating? "Would they attack at the last moment our attenuated lines? These were questions that were ever uppermost in our minds; but even up to the last day we had a supreme confidence in our Ability to repel any Turkish attack that >—> M upon M, Jfhs Njf

Zealand General—now in command of the Army Corps—finally took all ranks into his confidence, and issued an order expressing his trust in their discretion and their high soldierly qualifies v> carry out a ta.-k the success of whijli would largely depend upon their individual efforts. In the case of an attaci: lie expressed himself confident that the men who had to their cridit such dcedi as the original landing at Anzac. the repulse of "the big Turkish attack on May IS. the eapluro of T.oue Pine, the Apex, and Hill' 00, would hold their ground with the same valor and steadfastness as heretofore, however small in numbers they be. The splendid spirit of the men at the finish showed that this confidence was not misplaced.

On the Friday L went into file firing line on. the Apex—the highest ground won in all tho-fighting, and found the New Zealandcrs, who still occupied the post of honor, tumbling over one another to be the last to leave. The colonel commanding the Wellington Battalion called for thirty volunteers from two companies. Every man in each company volunteered, so that after all he had to make the selection himself. Men were coming to their commanders and begging that they might be allowed to be in the last lot to go. I "EVERY MOTHER'S SON OF THEM. - ' I ''Do let me stay," said one man. "I was in the landing, and I should like to be one of the last to leave." It was just the same with the Australians—they all wanted to be in the "Die-hards." "Have you many volunteers for the 'Die-hards?'" I asked one commander. "Every mother's son of them wants to be a 'Die-hard!'" he replied. And this, mind you, was at a time when we thought that -*nst of the ''Diehards'' would, for a certainty, be either killed, wounded or taken iirisoiicr—at a time when a little jiunpiness and hesiation might very well have been expected. In one position mi the I—ft. when the last lot assembled at the cook-house, it was found that there were two missing. One had gone back to the firingline for his*pipe: the other had gone for something he had left behind in his bivouac!

With such excellent organisation on the part of the staff, and such brave and loyal co-operation ami sail" fro'ul on the part of the oflhens and men in the trenches, it is, perhaps, after nil, not to be wondered at that the Turks were busy shelling the vacant trenches and the deserted benches a day after men. mules and guns had been silently ami secretly embarked, and were aircadv well across the Gulf of Saros, in the bn.eua.se of the official despatch, "to be employed elsewhere' They had triumphantly"' succeeded in one of the mo<t difficult of operations—in one that is unique in the annals of warfare.