1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [212]
Pte. W. Begbie.
When I fell for the second time I must have turned my arm because I found I was lying on my rifle with the butt about a foot from the front of my head. I was wondering what would be the best thing to do when I felt the rifle rocking and when I looked up I saw the butt had a piece of shrapnel embedded in it. I turned round and crawled back passing men of our company, some dead, and some with ghastly wounds who were obviously dying.
When I reached a trench I threw myself into it. As I was struggling to get my equipment off I heard voices, then two first-aid men came. They straightened me out and bound up my thigh. One of the men helped me to stand up, and with his help I was able to hop along the trench to the aid post. The MO said to the orderly, ‘This man’s dressing seems to be OK, so if he thinks he can manage to hop to the wagons he can do so.’
The ambulance wagons were well down the cart track the engineers had gouged in the bed of Gully Ravine and it led to Gully Beach where doctors and orderlies were working flat out to save the wounded who had managed to get so far, and many did not, for no stretcher-bearers could be spared to assist them. They had their hands full on the battle-field where the worst of the wounded lay helpless waiting for rescue, and those who could hop or stagger or crawl had to shift for themselves as best they could to reach the wagons that would take them to safety. It took them a long, long time.
It had taken the Munsters a considerable time to negotiate the cliff path to the newly captured line and it was late in the day before they reached it. The worst of the heat was past. The sun was low in the western sky, lighting the peaks of Samothrace, etched clear and pink on the horizon.
Lt. R. F. E. Laidlaw.
We found ourselves in a circular trench running in a hook from our path, round and down to the sea. It was at least twelve hundred yards behind the original Turkish front line and was only connected with our new front line by a single hastily dug trench running along the top of the cliffs. It was the furthest point ever reached by our troops and, because it was captured and held mostly by the 86th Brigade, it was later known as Fusilier Bluff.
When we got into this trench it was still light enough to see it and its surroundings, as well as the many bodies lying all around. Many were Gurkhas, who had crawled far behind the enemy lines on previous days and dealt out destruction with their kukris before being killed.
I just had time before daylight failed to go round the trench, see that it was properly manned, the NCOs distributed, and a proportion of men in holes behind the parados to take their turn of rest and to act as reserves. Then the Turks made their first attack on us. They came forward out of Gully Ravine, about a hundred yards ahead, literally in masses. The men reacted wonderfully and poured in a terrific fire, rapid, well aimed and low. It was like a threshing machine going through a field of corn. None of the Turks came within twenty yards of us that time, and as they reeled back we saw what appeared to be hundreds of bodies on the ground, many of them burning, and some being blown up by the bombs they carried. Then, and in later attacks, these little fires seemed to be burning all over the landscape and the writhing bodies they lit up did not add to our joy.
At his General Headquarters on the island of Imbros twenty kilometres west of the peninsula Sir Ian Hamilton had passed an anxious day waiting for news from the front. It was sparse and fragmentary and it was five o’clock in the evening before he received definite information and learned with delight and relief that Gully Spur had been captured. But he was soldier enough to know that was not necessarily