Joseph Lievesley Beeston

“ It was a great pity we did not get the gun. No wonder our guns never found the place. The ground had been dug out to some depth and then roofed over with great logs and covered with earth and sandbags; the ammunition—plenty of it—was in deep pits on either side; artillery quarters were in close proximity, and the tracks of the gun were clearly seen.
The shelling was far too heavy to let us pitch a dressing station anywhere here, so we retired to the beach to find a place more sheltered under the hills; the bearers meanwhile followed the troops. ”

“ I counted two thousand dead Turks. One I judged to be an officer of rank, for the bearers carried him shoulder-high down a gully to the rear. The ground was absolutely covered with rifles and equipment of all kinds, shell-cases and caps, and ammunition clips. The rifles were all collected and the bolts removed to prevent their being used again. Some of the Turks were lying right on our trenches, almost in some of them. The Turkish sentries were peaceable-looking men, stolid in type and of the peasant class mostly. We fraternised with them and gave them cigarettes and tobacco. ”

“ Meanwhile destroyers were passing us loaded with troops, and barges filled with grim and determined-looking men were being towed towards the shore. One could not help wondering how many of them would be alive in an hour's time. Slowly they neared the cliffs; as the first barge appeared to ground, a burst of fire broke out along the beach, alternately rifles and machine guns. The men leaped out of the barges—almost at once the firing on the beach ceased, and more came from halfway up the cliff. The troops had obviously landed, and were driving the Turks back. ”

“ At daylight we could see our men righting their way through the scrub over Sari Bair, the warships firing just ahead of them to clear the scrub of the Turkish Infantry. The foremost men carried flags, which denoted the farthest point reached and the extent of the two flanks, as a direction to the ship. With the glasses one could see that the bayonet was being used pretty freely; the Turks were making a great stand, and we were losing a lot of men. They could be seen falling everywhere. ”

“ When a mule was hit he was unhitched, the boxes of ammunition were rolled off, and the train proceeded; nothing stopped them. It was the same if one of the men became a casualty; he was put on one side to await the stretcher-bearers—but almost always one of the other men appeared with a water bottle.
They were very adept in the management of mules. Frequently a block would occur while the mule train occupied a sap; the mules at times became fractious and manipulated their hind legs with the most marvellous precision—certainly they placed a good deal of weight in their arguments. ”

“ It made one feel really that, in the words of General Sherman, "War is hell," and it seemed damnable that it should be in the power of one man, even if be he the German Emperor, to decree that all these men should be mutilated or killed. ”

“ We stayed here a week, and every day practised going ashore in boats, each man in full marching order leaving the ship by the pilot ladder.
It is extraordinary how one adapts oneself to circumstances. For years it has been almost painful to me to look down from a height; as for going down a ladder, in ordinary times I could not do it. However, here there was no help for it; a commanding officer cannot order his men to do what he will not do himself, so up and down we went in full marching order. Bearer work was carried out among the stony hills which surround the harbour. ”

“ The battalion was rather badly cut up, but a second body came across in more open order than the others, and well under the control of their officers; they took advantage of cover, and did not lose so many men. The fight was more like those one sees in the illustrated papers than any hitherto—shells bursting, men falling, and bearers going out for the wounded. ”

“ Our Brigade was camped just across the road, and formed part of the New Zealand and Australian Division under General Sir Alexander Godley.
Training soon began, and everyone seemed full of the idea of making himself "fit." Our peace camps and continuous training at home look very puny and small in comparison with the work which now occupied our time. At manoeuvres the number of troops might be anything up to thirty thousand. To march in the rear of such a column meant that each of the Ambulances soon swallowed its peck of dirt. ”

“ The new dug-outs were not too safe. Murphy was killed there one afternoon, and Claude Grime badly wounded later on. Claude caused a good deal of amusement. He had a rooted objection to putting on clothes and wore only a hat, pants, boots and his smile. Consequently his body became quite mahogany-coloured. When he was wounded he was put under an anæsthetic so that I could search for the bullet. As the anæsthetic began to take effect, Claude talked the usual unintelligible gibberish. ”

“ Those Red Cross goods saved one man's life at least. All the unopened cases were placed outside the tent. One afternoon a shell came over into a case of jam, went through it, and then into another containing socks. A man was lying under the shelter of this box, but the socks persuaded the shell to stay with them, and thus his life was saved. It was on this day that my nephew, Staff-Sergeant Nickson, was wounded. He had just left his dug-out to go to the dressing station on the beach when a shrapnel shell severely wounded him in the leg. ”

“ Everyone—officers, non-commissioned officers and men—had all striven to do their level best, and had succeeded. With one or two exceptions it was our first experience on active service, but all went through their work like veterans. General Godley, in whose division we were, told me how pleased he was with the work of the Ambulance and how proud he was to have them in his command. The Honour list was quite sufficient to satisfy any man. ”

“ For a landsman to gain a ladder on a ship's side under these conditions is not a thing of undiluted joy. Anyhow I missed the ladder and went into the water. The first fear one had was that the boat would drop on one's head; however, I was hauled on board by two hefty sailors. The inspection finished, we were rowed back to our own ship, wet and cold. By the time "home" was reached I felt pretty chilly; a hot bath soon put me right, and a dressing gown was dug out of the Red Cross goods supplied to the ship, in which I remained while my clothes were drying. ”

“ None of us could understand what occasioned the noise we heard at times, of something hitting the iron deck houses behind us; at last one of the men exclaimed: "Those are bullets, sir," so that we were having our baptism of fire. It was marvellous that no one was hit, for they were fairly frequent, and we all stood closely packed. Finally the skipper of the trawler, Captain Hubbard, told me he did not think we could be taken off that night, and therefore intended to drop anchor. He invited Major Meikle and myself to the cabin, where the cook served out hot tea to all hands. ”

“ Our troops were ascending the hills through a dwarf scrub, just low enough to let us see the men's heads, though sometimes we could only locate them by the glint of the bayonets in the sunshine. Everywhere they were pushing on in extended order, but many falling. The Turks appeared to have the range pretty accurately. About mid-day our men seemed to be held up, the Turkish shrapnel appearing to be too much for them. It was now that there occurred what I think one of the finest incidents of the campaign. This was the landing of the Australian Artillery. ”

“ While one was eating one's food with the right hand, one had to keep the left going with a wisp, and even then the flies beat us. Then we always had the comforting reflection of those dead Turks not far away—the distance being nothing to a fly. In order to get a little peace at one meal in the day, our dinner hour was put back until dusk. Men wounded had a horrible time. Fortunately we had a good supply of mosquito netting purchased with the Red Cross money. ”

“ I have seen scores of them lying wounded and yet chatting one to another while waiting their turn to be dressed. The stretcher-bearers were a fine body of men. Prior to this campaign, the Army Medical Corps was always looked upon as a soft job. In peacetime we had to submit to all sorts of flippant remarks, and were called Linseed Lancers, Body-snatchers, and other cheery and jovial names; but, thanks to Abdul and the cordiality of his reception, the A.A.M.C. can hold up their heads with any of the fighting troops. ”

“ Being accustomed to be lulled to sleep by the noise of six-inch guns from a destroyer going over my dug-out, I could now hear a pin drop, and it was far too quiet. We found we were to be sent to England. Malta was no place in which to get rid of Mediterranean fever. The treatment the people of England give the Australians is handsome in the extreme. They cannot do enough to make them comfortable. Country houses are thrown open to the invalided men, perfect strangers though they are, and all are welcome. ”

“ Many bearers were hit, and McGowen and Threlfall of the 1st Light Horse Field Ambulance were killed. Seven of our tent division were wounded. One man reported to me that he had been sent as a reinforcement, had been through Samoa, and had just arrived in Gallipoli. While he was speaking, he sank quietly down without a sound. A bullet had come over my shoulder into his heart. That was another instance of the fortune of war. Many men were hit, either before they landed or soon after, while others could go months with never a scratch. ”

“ Annie was getting the range of our dressing station pretty accurately, and requisition on the Engineers evoked the information that sandbags were not available. However, the Army Service came to our rescue with some old friends, the "forty-niners." Three tiers of these in their boxes defied the shells just as they defied our teeth.
As the sickness began to be more manifest, it became necessary to enlarge the accommodation in our gully. The hill was dug out, and the soil placed in bags with which a wall was built, the intervening portion being filled up with the remainder of the hill. ”

“ Our casualties during this afternoon were pretty considerable, and our stretcher-bearers were constantly on the "go" getting men under shelter.
Early in the morning the Ghurkas came ashore, but the Turks spotted them, and gave them a cordial welcome to Anzac. They are a small-sized set of men, very dark (almost black) , with Mongol type of face and very stolid. One was killed while landing. They were evidently not accustomed to shell-fire, and at first were rather scared, but were soon reassured when we told them where to stand in safety. ”

“ Each is in a stall of such dimensions that the animal cannot be knocked about. All heads are inwards, and each horse has his own trough. At a certain time in the day lucerne hay is issued. This is the signal for a prodigious amount of stamping and noise on the part of the animals. They throw their heads about, snort and neigh, and seem as if they would jump over the barriers in their frantic effort to get a good feed. Horses on land are nice beasts, but on board ship they are a totally different proposition. ”

“ When going through the trenches it is not a disadvantage to be small of stature. It is not good form to put one's head over the sandbags; the Turks invariably objected, and even entered their protest against periscopes, which are very small in size. Numbers of observers were cut about the face and a few lost their eyes through the mirror at the top being smashed by a bullet. ”

“ Watching the Field Artillery firing is very interesting. I went one day with General Johnstone of the New Zealand Artillery to Major Standish's Battery, some distance out on the left, and the observing station was reached through a long sap. It was quite close to the Turk's trenches, close enough to see the men's faces. All directions were given by telephone, and an observer placed on another hill gave the result of the shot—whether under, over, or to the right or left. ”