Redemption - Leon Uris [280]
* * *
Despite an obvious defeat, the British continued to cling to their wretched acres on Gallipoli. They were confused as to what to do and desperate not to lose face.
August, September, and October came and passed. Gallipoli showed the other side of her ugly face as summer’s inferno shifted into a cold and brittle autumn. We were less prepared for the great chill than we had been for the heat.
In mid-November a blizzard of near biblical proportions tormented the trenches. An Antarctic bluster of gale force winds and blinding snows found us with little shield against it.
The day after the blizzard passed, hundreds of men were found frozen to death or blackened with frostbite, requiring amputations of fingers and toes.
Through a night in late November, Chester, Modi, and I worked at the beach and paddock unloading and packing blankets, gloves, winter coats, scarves, and getting them to the front.
A most desperate situation existed at Chatham’s Post and Ryder’s Ridge. Because of their proximity to the sea, the sting was greater.
We were going ‘round the clock and suddenly found ourselves short of trail men. Chester decided to make a night run to Chatham’s and Ryder’s. It had a bad scent to it because the Turks had set up a shooting gallery atop the Valley of Despair.
I made a run to a distribution point up Monash Gully, staggering home close to midnight. Chester’s train had returned without him. Modi had been told that Chester had taken a light wound to the shoulder on the way to Chatham’s and told the trailmaster he was walking back to Widow’s Gully to get patched up.
Modi did not panic. The pair of us went to Widow’s and uncovered the face of every man there dead or waiting for evacuation or surgery. No Chester.
In the hours before light, I did something I had not done in seven months of Gallipoli. I got on my knees and prayed.
We found him soon after daybreak on the side of the trail at Brighton Beach. He had frozen to death, curled up with his knees against his chest, not thinking to take a few of the blankets he was delivering to the post.
His wound was almost superficial. That was not what killed him. He had no strength or stamina left. He was so weakened that any hard blow was apt to do him in.
I did something else I had not done at Gallipoli.
I wept.
Late in November, secret plans came through for the evacuation of the Anzac Corps. Strangely, it was the best worked-out plan of the entire expedition. All heavy gear would be left so the men could travel unhindered. On the first night enough ships would appear to haul off as many men as possible and sail out of sight.
On the second night, the balance of the Corps would repeat the procedure. The problem was that on the second night, Farting Ferdinand and the other artillery might just light up the beach and the entire Turkish Army could pour down on us.
As fortune would have it, the main pair of eyes directing the Turkish artillery was an observation post called the Guillotine.
The Guillotine was in a freak position, so common at Anzac Cove. Mule’s Gully on our side of the line continued upwards and narrowed, with numerous S-turns. To make the Guillotine almost invulnerable, a sudden rise of sheer cliffs stood on either side of the gully. The post was embedded in solid rock and could not be reached by climbing over it or trying to outflank it.
The only option was simply to rush at it. The gully was so narrow that only two or three men at a time could make the final S-turn and mount a charge. God only knows how many men we had lost in unsuccessful attempts to knock out the Guillotine.
A day after I had seen the secret evacuation plans, Corps advised me that all the mules were to be destroyed on the final night of the evacuation. We had gathered in nearly six hundred animals for the winter’s siege.
I told command I did not want these orders to go beyond me. The reasons for their destruction were simple. There was no way on earth we could evacuate the animals. They would be left either to freeze