E. C. Buley
Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War

PREFACE

In the course of writing this book I have interviewed some hundreds of wounded Australasian soldiers in London hospitals. From their narratives, delivered with a modesty which I have not sought to reproduce here, I gathered much material not obtainable in the short official accounts given of their exploits.

The temptation to record individual deeds of remarkable bravery has been strong, but in most cases it has been resisted. This comparatively small force, which has suffered 25,000 casualties in less than five months, consists of men who are all heroes. After the first few days on Gallipoli, its officers recognized the impossibility of officially recognizing deeds of bravery, and practically no awards have been made since the end of April.

I have collected a large number of remarkable instances of gallantry, but I have concluded that to mention these would be invidious, since the bulk of such exploits has not come under my notice. Such an exception as I have made in the case of Private Simpson, the dead hero of the Ambulance section, will be pardoned. No Australasian ever speaks of him without saying, "He earned the V.C. a dozen times."

I have heard Australasian officers recount deeds of wonderful bravery which they have not cared to report, because "Any of my men would have done the same"; and, in my attempt to record the main incidents of this great adventure, I am constrained to accept this very high standard of duty. Its effect has been to win for Australasian soldiers a reputation for "daredevil bravery" in the mass, and to ignore the supreme efforts of the individual.

I have to thank the Daily Mail for the permission to reproduce three of the wonderful exclusive photographs its enterprise obtained from the Anzac zone; the British Australasian for the use of all the remaining photographs with which the book is illustrated; and the Weekly Dispatch for permission to reproduce matter which first appeared in that paper.

Finally, I have spoken to no wounded Australasian in this country who has not taken occasion to mention the great kindness shown by the people of Great Britain. Many of them, hearing that I was writing a book on Australasia's part in the war, have asked me to mention this. Their thankfulness has been so spontaneous, and they have been so profoundly touched, that I have ventured to refer to it. Their gratitude cannot be too widely made known on this side of the world; nor can the attentions which elicited it be too freely indicated to those who sent them from Australasia.

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION

The rapid exhaustion of four editions of this book has been accepted by myself as sufficient proof that I have succeeded in carrying out the main idea suggested to me by Mr. Andrew Melrose, the publisher. He divined that some continuous account of the deeds of Australasians in the war would be received with interest, pending the appearance of an authoritative work by the official historian of the Anzacs. I have now extended the book to include all the main incidents of the fighting in Gallipoli, and the evacuation of the Peninsula.

I wish to thank my many friends of the Australian and New Zealand Imperial Forces who have written pointing out errors in the original text, and amplifying my accounts of various engagements. The appreciation they have expressed of my modest performance has indeed been gratifying, and any fear I may have had of their misunderstanding the purpose of the book has been entirely removed.

I have added an alphabetical list of those members of the Anzac Army who have been decorated for services in the field, or mentioned in dispatches. I hope it will be found useful, as well as the index to the contents of the book. With these additions I am content to let the fifth edition go, in the fullest confidence that it will be accepted for what it is intended to be, a brief and simple outline of the most adventurous enterprise and most heroic deeds that the whole history of war can discover.

London, February 25, 1916.

CHAPTER I
THE LONG BLACK SHIPS

On November 1st, 1914, there steamed out of the harbour of Albany, in Western Australia, three long lines of great ocean steamships. At their head proudly steamed the Australian cruiser Melbourne; the procession was brought up in the rear by another Australian cruiser, the Sydney. So the long black ships, forty in all, set out from the last port of Australia in the golden Southern spring, bearing the army of Australasia to the Antipodes in the Old World.

If another such army has ever been seen, it must have been a goodly sight. Each man was a volunteer, who sailed away to fight, not so much as a duty – but as a proud privilege. For that privilege many thousands of fine young men had competed unsuccessfully; those selected were truly the very pick of the flower of the youth and strong manhood of Australasia. The ranks contained men from every class of life. A young barrister, who had relinquished a practice worth some thousands a year, had as his fellow ranker a kangaroo shooter from the far remote bush fastness. Well-to-do young farmers rubbed shoulders with architects and miners, shearers chummed up with city clerks. Men of all grades were bound together by the common cause that had impelled them to take up arms.

The Australasian army was a democratic army. The officers held their rank for no other reason than their fitness to command. Social station counted for nothing; soldier-like qualities alone decided the allotment of commissions, and of appointments to the non-commissioned grades. In one regiment the major was a stockbroker's clerk; the stockbroker himself, formerly the chairman of his stock exchange, was glad to serve in the same regiment as a private. Many of the officers, and especially the non-commissioned officers, had seen much active service in the Boer war. In the ranks there was a strong leavening of the young soldiers who were the product of the system of compulsory national service adopted throughout Australasia only a few years before.

Physically, the men were as near perfection as could be attained in so large a body. The average height of the 20,000 Australians was 5 feet 8 inches; the 8,000 New Zealanders averaged quite an inch more. One battalion of Australians averaged 5 feet 10 inches; while New Zealand again outdid this figure with a battalion averaging an inch better. The 12,000 horses they took with them were the very pick of two countries renowned for the stamina and quality of their horseflesh. Their equipment was all of Australasian manufacture; the khaki of their uniforms the best that could be made of the best wool the world produces, their rifles, their ammunition, and every last trifle of their outfit all home-made, and all designed to show how well the Southern Nations could answer a sudden call on behalf of the Empire. It was the first instalment of Australasia's vindication of the promise made by the Prime Minister of Australia: "the last man and the last shilling."

The offer by Australasia of this substantial aid in fighting the battles of the Empire was made before the war-cloud had burst upon Europe, but when the prospects looked very threatening.

The actual outbreak of war was anticipated by the Governments of the Commonwealth and the Dominion of New Zealand by offers of every loyal support. "All Australian resources are for the Empire's preservation and security," declared Mr. Cook, then the Australian Prime Minister; a sentiment crystallized by Mr. Andrew Fisher, then leader of the Opposition and now Prime Minister, in the phrase, "Australia will stand by to the last man and the last shilling"; which has become the war motto of the Commonwealth. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mr. Massey, said New Zealand would send an expeditionary force, and would support the Empire to the utmost of its resources. A stirring scene followed in the New Zealand Parliament, when the members rose spontaneously and sang "God save the King."

The loyal messages of the Australasian Governments were acknowledged by King George in the following cable: —

"I desire to express to my people of the Oversea Dominions with what appreciation and pride I have received the messages from their respective Governments during the last few days. These spontaneous assurances of their fullest support recall to me the generous self-sacrificing help given by them in the past to the Mother Country. I shall be strengthened in the discharge of the great responsibilities which rest upon me by the confident belief that in this time of trial my Empire will stand united, calm, resolute, trusting in God.

"George R.I.

"London, August 4."

This was acknowledged by New Zealand in the following terms: —

"I am desired by the New Zealand Government to acknowledge your Majesty's gracious message, and to say that, come good or ill, she, in company with the other Dominions and Dependencies of the Crown, is prepared to make any sacrifice to maintain her heritage and her birthright.

"Liverpool, Governor General."

Australia made a specific offer of 20,000 men as a first instalment for an expeditionary force, which was promptly accepted, as was the offer of the Australian navy. New Zealand offered 8,000 men as a first instalment, and these were also accepted promptly. The work of selecting the best men from the many thousands of eager applicants was a difficult one. New Zealand had 30,000 men in camp at the time, training under the system of compulsory national service. They volunteered for service abroad practically to a man. No immature boys were selected, the age limit being twenty; and in the end it was necessary to ballot for places among the large number of suitable men who applied for places in the Expedition.

In Australia equal enthusiasm was shown. The age limit here was nineteen, which excluded a large number of the youths training under the Australian system of compulsory service. The medical tests were very severe, as were the tests for horsemanship in the cavalry brigades. Australia had to deny thousands of highly suitable men the privilege of serving in the first contingent, but 10,000 of these were put into training at once in order to be ready for a second instalment.

An example of the eagerness to enlist was afforded by the case of a young Queensland grazier, who mounted his horse and, as a preliminary, rode 460 miles from his place at Cooper's Creek to the nearest railway station, whence he travelled by train to Adelaide. He wished to join a Light Horse regiment, and finding there was no vacancy in South Australia, he set off to Hobart, in Tasmania, by boat. There he was also unsuccessful, solely because all the vacancies were filled. Not to be denied, he took boat to Sydney, where he found his place at last, after having travelled over 2,000 miles, on horseback, by train, and by steamer, to serve as a private soldier in the Empire's cause.

The instance is not unique; it is rather typical. Men went willingly under the surgeon's knife for the removal of physical excrescences or defects which were held to incapacitate them for service. Those who could not find a place in the Australasian armies took their passages literally by hundreds to Great Britain, there to enlist in the new armies that were being gathered by Lord Kitchener for training. Others obtained promises of places in future contingents, and at once went into camp for practical training in all the duties of a soldier on active service. The men selected for the first contingent threw themselves into the work of preparation with a splendid ardour, that shortened the time of preparation and permitted a speedy dispatch of the troops to the old world. The actual work of embarkation began on October 17, and was concluded on October 22, so that 20,000 men and 9,000 horses were got on the transports in five days, a sharp bit of work. Before the actual departure, General Bridges sent the following message to the people of Australia: —

"I hope to report that the conduct of the Australians, both in camp and on the field, is worthy of the trust imposed upon them by the people of the Commonwealth. The men are a fine lot, soldierly and patriotic. I am grateful to the soldiers and citizens for the help they have given me in organizing and preparing the force now about to do its part for the good of the Empire. I venture to express the hope that no matter how great the demands on their patience, the Australian people will see to it that there is no diminution of their determination to face their responsibility. This spirit cannot fail then to pervade the troops."

Mr. Pearce, the Minister for Defence, sent to the troops on their departure the following message: —

"Upon the force devolves the honour and responsibility of representing Australia and of performing Australia's share in the great Imperial effort in the interests of justice, honour and international integrity. The ultimate issue of that undertaking can never be in doubt, but its attainment demands a steadfast display of the British qualities of resolution and courage, which are yours by right of heredity. The people of Australia look to you to prove in battle that you are capable of upholding the traditions of the British arms. I have no fear that you will worthily represent the Commonwealth's military forces. Your presence among the Imperial forces has, however, a wider significance, as representing the solidarity of the Empire and the Imperial spirit of loyalty to the King."

And now the men of Australasia are embarked on their mighty adventure. Six months later they were to thrill the Empire with a feat of arms as brave and brilliant as anything contained even in the annals of this, the greatest war of all times. So much they hardly dared to hope then, but they strove by every means in their power to keep themselves fit for the ordeal to come, when they would be matched against the trained soldiers of the greatest and proudest military Power history has ever known.

A glance around those forty troopships would reveal an interesting object lesson in the production of new types of the great Anglo-Saxon race. These are all picked men, whose parentage consisted of the same kind of Britons, drawn from the four root stocks of the islands of Great Britain. But the wide range of climate permitted between the tropical plains of North Queensland and the rugged fastnesses of the mountains of the New Zealand Southland has already produced types so divergent that it is hard to believe that they sprang from the same stock.

Compare McKenzie of Townsville, Queensland, with McKenzie of Dunedin, New Zealand, and the difference is apparent. They may be cousins: such things occurred in that wonderful army of Australasia; but the Northerner is dark, slight, lean and wiry. The lines are bitten in his browned face by exposure to many a glaring day in the merciless direct rays of a tropical sun. His broad shoulders and narrow hips make him an ideal athlete, but he is loosely built. He walks with a swing; his movements look slower than they really are; the sun has given him something of a languor that is not all graceful. But the fire of a high courage burns in his dark eyes, and the sea breezes have already brought a touch of colour to the pallor of his cheek. He is in superb physical health, for all that he is so sallow and hard bitten.

McKenzie of Otago weighs two stone more, though he has no whit of advantage in height. He carries no spare flesh, but is a big-boned, thick-set fellow, brought up on mutton and oatmeal. His cheeks are rosy and tanned with the salt wind that never ceases to blow over the wholesome island where he grows rich harvests of grain and tends his plentiful flocks. He is a stiff, great fellow, as hard as nails, and as healthy as a big bullock. His keen blue eyes look out from under a smooth brow unfurrowed by any care. He comes from a land where there is no want; his million or more of fellow New Zealanders have not yet built a big city or created a huge fortune. Easy prosperity, an abundance of physical well-being, and a continual strife for high moral excellence are the characteristics of his country, where the death-rate is the lowest in the world and the sale of intoxicants is subject to closer restriction in peace time than anywhere else in the Empire.

Between these two extremes are all sorts of modifications; the Tasmanian, who grows apples on the sunny borders of the beautiful Huon river and enjoys a country that resembles in many of its features the rustic beauty of the best parts of Southern England. He is a big, stocky fellow, this Tasmanian, with something of the rustic simplicity of an English yeoman. But he is not by any means as simple as he appears. Now look at Tommy Cornstalk from New South Wales, tall and lanky, slow of speech and swift as a miracle in action. Hear his queer slang as he talks of his "cobbers" or mates; and shrewdly reckons his chances of seeing Australia again within a reasonable number of years. The Victorian from the rich Western plains is a stouter man, who has an intimate acquaintance with that exasperating animal the cow. Butter has been to him a means of realizing prosperity; from his early youth he has milked so many cows every morn and evening. And when he wishes to express his opinion of the Germans he calls them cows. It is his last term of abuse.

The West Australians, for some reason not yet apparent, are, as a class, the heaviest and stoutest of Australians. They number many a jack-of-all-trades in their ranks, for they have learned to turn their hands to many things. They are bronzed by a climate where the sun seldom fails to shine brilliantly; healthy, shrewd, sane and full of reckless courage. The South Australians approximate more nearly to the Cornstalk type, and from them are drawn some of the finest riders in the ranks of Australia's celebrated Light Horse.

The speech of these Australasians varies remarkably. The short-clipped speech of the men from the coastal cities contrasts strangely with the monotonous drawl of the bushmen. In the New Zealanders the old accents survive strangely; many of them talking Scotch as broad as the men of a Highland regiment. Others speak English of a remarkable purity of accent, though strangely tinged with the slang of the shearing shed, the stable and the bush track.

Of the 631 officers and 17,305 men comprised in the Australian contingent, twenty-two officers only and 6,098 men had seen no previous service. The large remainder were veterans of the Boer war. Only 190 officers and 1,451 men were married, the bulk of Australia's soldiers being single men. Eighty-two per cent. of the officers and 73 per cent. of the men were of Australian birth, the ranks containing a fair percentage of "new chums" of comparatively recent arrival from Great Britain.

Their conditions of service were as follows: —

Rates of Pay. – Lieutenant, 21s. per day; sergeant, 10s. 6d. per day; corporal, 10s. per day; private, 6s. per day.

Separation Allowance. – Married members receiving less than 8s. per day – (a) for wife living at home, 1s. 5d. per day; (b) for each child under 16 years of age, 4½d. per day. A similar allowance as in (a) is paid to the mother of a member who is solely dependent upon him for support.

Pensions. – Payable to widow on death of member of the forces or to a member on total incapacity: – Lieutenant, £91 per annum; sergeant, £70 per annum; corporal, £68 per annum; private, £52 per annum. In addition, on the death or total incapacity of a member, for each child under 16 years of age, £13 per annum. In the case of total incapacity, the wife in addition receives half the rate specified above for the respective ranks.

Under these conditions they were heading Northwards, daily approaching nearer to that Old World where the war flame burned so fiercely. For many days nothing occurred to break the regularity of the discipline by which they kept themselves fit for the great task they had undertaken; then the monotony of their journey was disturbed by an event which startled them into a sudden realization of the grim imminence of battle and death.

CHAPTER II
THE END OF THE RAIDER "EMDEN"

At 6.30 a.m. on the morning of November 9 the Melbourne was steaming at the head of the three long lines of transports when she picked up a wireless message from the cable station at Cocos Island. The message was imperfect, but conveyed to the Melbourne the fact that an enemy warship was then off the island. The convoy was at the time about sixty miles away from the island, so that it was obvious there was no time to be lost. The Melbourne was the flagship, and her commander was responsible for the safety of the transports, he had, therefore, to deny himself the supreme pleasure of setting off to deal with the stranger. He sent instead instructions to the Sydney, which at once set off, gathering speed as she went.

The excitement on board the Sydney was intense. It was an open secret that the notorious Emden was somewhere in that neighbourhood, and every soul on board, from Captain Glossop to the two boys who had been taken aboard at Sydney from the training ship Tingara at the last minute, was fervently praying that it might be the sea-raider which had sunk more than twenty British merchant vessels, and bombarded Madras. Down below the stokers were at work like demons; a significant sentence in Captain Glossop's official report afterwards revealed how well they worked. He reported that the engines worked splendidly, developing a higher rate of speed than upon the official trials of the ship; as a matter of fact, the crew worked her up to the great speed of twenty-seven knots.

Meanwhile it may be as well to explain just what had happened at Cocos Island. At five o'clock on the evening of November 8 the inhabitants, who were all officials connected with the cable and wireless stations there, noticed a strange warship approaching the island. She paid no heed to their wireless signals, but after approaching very close, stood away again at night time. Early in the morning she again appeared, and as nothing could be made of her, and she was lowering a boat, a wireless call for help was sent off at random. The stranger tried to obliterate this by sending strong wireless calls, which accounts for the message reaching the Melbourne in a mutilated condition.

The message was despatched just in time, for three boats put to land with a strong party on board. They were Germans, and at once took possession of the station, and began the work of dismantling it without any delay.

The Sydney was now making good time, and at a little after nine o'clock sighted the island, seventeen miles away. To the right of the island could be seen the smoke of a steamer, quite stationary; then the people on the Sydney knew they were in time. They were going so fast that all that could be seen of them from the island was a great plume of smoke and a mighty bow wave. That was enough for the Emden– for the stranger was, of course, the German corsair. "If that is an Australian cruiser," said the captain, von Mueller, "I'm going to sink her." Out he put to make good his vainglorious boasting, and the distance between the two vessels rapidly decreased.

There was an international group of spectators for the wonderful ocean duel that followed. The people of the cable station gathered on the roof of their building to get a view of the fight; and they were joined there by the members of the German landing party, who had no time to rejoin their ship. The manœuvres of the two vessels were dictated by their armaments. The Emden had guns of only 4-inch calibre, and it was her policy to fight at comparatively short range. The Sydney had eight 6-inch guns, and Captain Glossop was determined that she should enjoy the tactical advantage due to her by reason of her heavier metal.

The Sydney's people were all aglow with excitement, but level-headed withal. Many of them were young Australians, members of the newest navy in the world, and determined that in the first important action fought by that navy all concerned should do it credit. Lads of nineteen, with eyes ablaze with excitement, stood as coolly at their guns as the veterans of a dozen sea fights might have done. The two boys from the Tingara carried ammunition about the decks at a steady run, laughing and whistling with glee.

The ships were now steaming parallel courses at a distance of about five miles, the Emden trying to get closer and the Sydney outmanœuvring her. The order was given on the Sydney to load, when the Emden fired the first shot of the duel, a salvo which went harmlessly over the Sydney; as intended, for it was meant to give the German gunners the range. The Sydney replied similarly, with a broadside from her port guns; and the fighting had now begun in real earnest. It was about a quarter to ten in the morning, with a calm sea and a clear atmosphere.

The Emden began with some very good shooting; its excellence was emphasized by the fact that the German gunners were firing at the extreme range of their guns, and had to use an elevation of about thirty degrees. The shots that struck the Sydney– there were ten in all, and all in the first ten minutes of the fighting – were falling at such an angle that their hole of exit on the starboard side was much lower than the shothole where they struck on the port side. But the shots of the Sydney went straight through the Emden, the hole of exit being practically on the same level as the entry. Such an advantage do heavier naval guns give in a duel at sea.

The fourth shot of the Emden was a good hit; it went through the Sydney's deck and exploded below, wounding Petty Officer Harvey and another man. An Australian lad who was detailed there to watch for torpedoes never even turned round at the explosion, nor did he move the telescope from his eyes. At the same time the Sydney was scoring hits on the Emden, though the first sign of it to the Australians was not observable until the fall of one of the German's funnels, which was greeted with loud cheering from all the Sydney's company. A minute afterwards the foremast of the raider toppled over, carrying with it the main fire control, and throwing its members into the sea.

When fighting had been in progress for a quarter of an hour the Sydney discharged a salvo which settled any hope the Germans may have cherished either of victory or escape. It entered the Emden's stern under the afterdeck, where it burst, blowing up the whole of the steel deck. The steel plates were twisted and shattered beyond anything that could have been deemed possible; the after gun was dismounted, and the crew blown into the sea; the ship was set afire aft, and remained afire for the rest of the fight. Most serious effect of all, the salvo destroyed the steering gear, and for the rest of the battle the Emden had to steer by means of her screw, thus reducing her speed immensely, and leaving her completely at the mercy of the manœuvres of her opponent.

The Emden now swung round, doubling in an attempt to reduce the distance; but the Sydney easily countered the move by following the operation; and continued steaming parallel with the German, and battering her to pieces. In the first quarter of an hour, and before she had received her deadly injury, the Emden had scored several important hits on the Sydney. One had struck the second starboard gun, and set fire to some cordite, which the gun crew threw overboard. This shot was followed by a shrapnel shell in the same quarter, which killed two of the gun's crew and injured all the rest except two. Another shot exploded in the lads' room, and damaged their kits; but the room was empty, and no one was hurt.

But after that explosion aft she never struck the Sydney again, though the fight lasted for an hour longer. She had been firing with remarkable speed; it is believed that the third salvo was out of her guns sometimes ere the first had reached the neighbourhood of the Sydney. In all she fired 1,400 shots, of which only ten struck their mark; and of these only three, or at the most four, could be considered important hits.

Again she doubled, with smoke pouring from her at every quarter. Suddenly the whole company of the Sydney burst into ringing cheers. "She's gone," was the shout; and indeed for a time it appeared as though the Emden had suddenly gone down. Reports from the centre of a patch of curiously light-coloured smoke dissipated the notion; the Emden was still afloat, and still fighting. The smoke that hid her was the smoke that showed how badly she was hurt. One by one her guns ceased firing, as the well-directed shots from the Sydney put them out of action; but still she ran, and still she fought her remaining guns.

One by one her funnels collapsed, and fell across the twisted deck. Only one gun was left, a gun far forward on the port side. Desperately the crippled Emden ran, and desperately she fought her last little gun. What an inferno she then was, only those who fought her can tell. Her gnarled steel work was hot with the raging fire; the smoke from her furnaces belched from the holes left by the fallen funnels, and streamed in scorching clouds across her deck. Her ammunition hoists, and most of the rest of her equipment, had been hopelessly damaged; and what ammunition was being used had to be carried to her remaining gun by hand. The ship was a shambles, with dead men lying everywhere, and badly wounded as well. But in the conning tower Captain von Mueller still fought his ship, and prayed for a shot to carry him and it away.

His ship was wrapped in flame; the stern actually glowing red hot with the fire. She no longer could be steered, even by the employment of her screws; and with her ensign still flying, and her solitary gun roaring at intervals, she ran high up on the coral reef, a hopeless, shattered wreck. Her conqueror gave her two broadsides as she lay there, with her bow high out of the water and only a short stretch of surf between her and dry land. Her ensign was still flying, and Captain Glossop had to make sure.

While the fight was in progress a merchant ship had hovered round the combatants; obviously most anxious as to the result of the duel. At one period she showed signs of wishing to take part with the Emden, and the guns of the Sydney had been trained upon her, though no shot was fired at her. She was really a collier which had been captured by the Emden, and with a prize crew from the Emden on board had met the raider at Cocos Island. Her crew had considered the advisability of trying to ram the Sydney, but were wise enough to abandon the scheme, and make for safety when the fight went so badly against their side.

When the Emden ran ashore this collier was already a long distance away; in fact she was almost out of sight. The Sydney put after her, and after a long chase came near enough to send a shot across her bows as a summons to surrender. She was boarded, but by this time she was sinking, as some one on board had turned on the seacocks, and filled her with water. The crew was accordingly taken off her, and she was abandoned to her fate, the Sydney returning to the Emden.

The tide had gone out, and the one-time terror to the commerce of the British Empire was lying high and dry, with her ensign still floating. "Do you surrender?" signalled the Australian warship. To this question the Emden replied by hand signal: "We have lost our book, and cannot make out your signal." Then Captain Glossop sent the curt demand, "Haul down your ensign." As the Germans paid no attention to this, he sent yet another message, intimating that he would resume hostilities if the ensign were not hauled down in twenty minutes. For so long he steamed up and down her stern, while the white flag with the black cross still fluttered upon the wreck. Then reluctantly, and because he had no option, Captain Glossop fired three more salvos at the defiant raider. Down came the German ensign and in its place the white flag of surrender was hoisted.

Those three last salvos, unwillingly discharged at short range into a helpless hull, did terrible havoc. The scorching decks were strewn with dead and wounded sailors, hapless victims to a tradition the Kaiser has sought to impose upon a navy that has no traditions of its own making. The Sydney could not succour them yet, for there was still work left for her to do. A boat manned by the German prize crew of the collier was sent to the wreck, with the message that the Sydney would return to the assistance of those on board early in the morning.

It is now necessary to relate what occurred upon the island, where we left the British and Germans together gazing spellbound at the opening of this remarkable ocean duel. After the deadly salvo which crippled the Emden had been fired, the German landing party recognized that their ship was doomed. They at once ordered the British off the roof of the cable station, and shut them up in a room where they could not know what was going on. They behaved courteously but firmly, taking every precaution that there should be no interference with the work now before them. There was lying at the island the schooner Ayesha, and into this vessel they loaded everything they could find that was likely to be useful for a long ocean voyage.

By the middle of the afternoon they were all ready, and about half an hour before the Sydney returned from her chase of the collier they set sail, taking with them the three boats and four maxim guns with which they had landed. They were about forty in number, and their bold plan of escape was successful. The story of their adventures on the little schooner is a romance in itself; it belongs to the history that Germany will one day produce of the daring of her own men. Before leaving, they had done all the damage they could to the cable and wireless stations.

Next morning the Sydney returned to the wreck, taking with her the doctor from Cocos Island, and all the helpers that could be mustered. The Emden was found in a condition truly pitiful. The deck was a tangle of twisted steel; so shattered that it was impossible to make a way about it. The survivors were huddled together in the forecastle, the only part of the ship which had not been made an inferno by the fire, which was still burning aft, and had scorched the stern out of all shape or even existence. There was not a drop of fresh water on the ship, and the food supplies were inaccessible or destroyed. For quite twenty-four hours the survivors, many of them suffering from terrible wounds, had been without food or even drink.

To reach the shore was a matter almost of impossibility, so heavy was the sea that was running. To make matters worse, the more experienced of the two doctors carried by the German cruiser had had his thigh broken in the action. In their despair some of the crew, including a number of wounded men, had managed to reach the shore, only to be mocked by a waterless and utterly barren patch of sand.

The work of rescue was a difficult business. Only four or five wounded men could be taken off by each boat; and the company of the Sydney worked hard all day at their task. Night fell with it still unaccomplished, but it was completed on the following day. Each wounded man meant a hard task, the work of getting the injured on the boats, and hoisting them from the boats on to the Sydney, being complicated by the roughness of the sea, and the dreadful injuries and sufferings they had one and all experienced.

The losses on both sides showed how utterly the Emden was outfought. The Sydney lost three men killed outright, while one more afterwards died of his wounds. Four were seriously wounded, four more were returned as wounded, and yet another four as slightly wounded. The men killed were: Petty Officer Thomas Lynch, Able Seamen Albert Hoy and Reginald Sharpe, and Ordinary Seaman Robert Bell.

The Emden lost, in the action and by drowning, twelve officers and 119 men; the prisoners totalled eleven officers, nine warrant officers, and 191 men. Of these three officers and fifty-three men were wounded, most of them seriously. The fight lasted for an hour and forty minutes, though after the first fifteen minutes the battle was a hopeless one for the Germans. In their manœuvres the combatant vessels covered more than thirty miles during the progress of the fight.

Every courtesy was extended to the prisoners; the officers were allowed to keep their swords, and were treated by the Australians with such consideration as their refusal to give parole permitted. The wounded were tended with the utmost solicitude, and repaid the care lavished on them with expressions of the liveliest gratitude.

The Sydney rejoined her convoy at Colombo, one of the world's great ports of call. The great roadstead was swarming with friendly vessels, the city lay white above the cliffs of Galle Face, the houses nestling among the brilliant green of the palms, bisected with startling red roads. Above, a cloudless blue sky, and the British flag proudly floating over all. Colombo is one of those "places in the sun" which have aroused the covetous greed of his Majesty Wilhelm II.

The flagship Melbourne signalled her course to the Sydney, and the victorious cruiser swung round and steamed between the long rows of transports. The side of each swarmed with Australasian soldiers, all greeting the conqueror, hat in hand. The silence was so oppressive that the captured Germans looked uneasily at one another. Every ship in the harbour showed its bunting, but no whistle blew, no cheer was raised to greet the heroes of the fight.

Piqued into an unrestrainable curiosity by this apparent lack of emotion, one of the German captured officers asked an officer of the Sydney why there was no cheering. He was told, very simply, that as there were prisoners on the cruiser, suffering from serious wounds gallantly sustained, the Sydney had sent a message asking that no noisy demonstration should mark her return to the fleet. This reply unmanned him completely. With tears in his eyes he said, "You have been kind, but this crowns all; we cannot speak to thank you for it."

For Australians not the least proud of the memories of the first engagement fought by their navy will ever be that silent greeting of the returning conqueror. The restraint imposed upon that army of Australasians, going out for the first time to make war in Europe, was hardly natural, when the thrilling nature of the incident is considered. The chivalrous care for the wounded enemy will surely immortalize the gallant sailors who desired it, and the brave soldiers who respected their wish so thoroughly.

But elsewhere such restraint was not necessary. On November 10, the news of the destruction of the Emden was announced at Lloyd's in London, the parting knell of the raider being rung on the bell of the old Lutine. The underwriters, mindful of the £2,500,000 of damage done by the raider to British commerce, burst spontaneously into hearty cheering for the Sydney and her bold crew; also for the newest navy in the world, the navy of the Commonwealth of Australia.

From all parts of the world messages of congratulation were flashed to the Prime Minister of Australia. For the first time the man in the street realized that Australia really had a navy, efficient in the highest degree as to quality, though still limited in the number of its component vessels.

CHAPTER III
IN THE LAND OF PHARAOH

The fight that ended in the destruction of the Emden was the one exciting incident that broke the monotony of the tedious voyage from Australia. When they had left Albany, the last port of call in Australia, the men believed that they would go to Great Britain, there to train for service in Northern France. The intervention of Turkey in the war on the side of the Teutonic nations caused the original intention to be altered, and the men heard that they were to disembark at Egypt. This decision shortened the voyage originally undertaken by nearly one-half, but delays, especially at the Suez Canal, made the journey still a long one. The men who shipped in Tasmania spent nine weeks on the transports before finally disembarking in Egypt; while some of the New Zealanders had even a longer spell of troopship life.

All were glad, therefore, for the break in the monotony afforded by the Emden incident; for the whole fleet witnessed the sudden dash of the Sydney at break-neck speed, and shared the glad news flashed by the cruiser by wireless, that reached the convoy some six hours later. The one menace to the safety of the convoy was thus removed, and the remainder of the journey was devoid even of the interest arising out of the possibility of attack. All were correspondingly pleased when they left the transports and entered their Egyptian camps; the Australians at Mena in the shadow of the Pyramids, and the New Zealanders at Heliopolis.

It is doubtful whether the good people of Cairo have quite yet got over the surprise occasioned them by the proceedings of our Australasian army during their first few days in residence in Egypt. The men certainly behaved as no soldiers had ever behaved before, in Egypt's fairly wide experience. They were as unlike the traditional Mr. Atkins of the British regular army – the type to which Cairo has been accustomed – as it is possible for men of the same race to be. They were young men just freed from the restrictions of life on a troopship; many of them had plenty of money to spend; few of them had ever called any man master, or been subject to any will but their own.

Their frame of mind was well understood by those in control of them; and for the first few days a good deal of latitude was allowed the newly-landed Australasians. In those few days the word went round the bazaars that all the Australasians were surely millionaires; and that many of them were many times madder than the mad English. Taxicabs (at two shillings an hour) became unattainable things each evening in Cairo; they were monopolized by Australasian private soldiers seeing the sights.

They went into camp on December 8, at the very height of the Egyptian season. A night or two later, a table was set in the most prominent part of the dining-room of one of Cairo's costliest and most fashionable hotels. The place was crowded, and many visitors sought in vain for seats at dinner; this table was exclusively guarded by an unapproachable waiter, who averred that it had been set aside for a party of most particular gentlemen. Presently these gentlemen arrived, all attired in the uniforms of privates in the Australian army, and to the scandal of some of those present proceeded to enjoy, cheerfully but decorously, the best the house could produce.

One dragoman of Cairo was accosted by an Australian private, who engaged his services, explaining that he wished to buy carpets to send to Australia as presents to his friends there. The dragoman, wishing to overawe him by a display of the unattainable, took him to a merchant who exhibited three carpets as a beginning, one of which cost £100, and the other two £75 each. While the dragoman was explaining to the seller of carpets that his would-be customer was but a private soldier, and only able to buy very cheap goods, the Australian produced the cash for all three carpets, and leaving an address to which they were to be sent, strolled off. This case is but one of many incidents which excited the keen merchants of Egypt, and gave rise to the bazaar talk of the unlimited wealth of these Australians, even those who served in the ranks.

From Cairo to the Pyramids there runs a thin asphalt road, bordered by green irrigation patches and sandy wastes of desert. Each night in those first easy weeks in Egypt, this road was thronged at midnight by all the motley vehicles Cairo could produce, all crammed with happy soldiers returning to camp after a night's fun in the city. Every day the sights of the neighbourhood were visited by scores of curious Australasians; the desire to climb to the top of the great pyramid of Cheops consumed them; no less than seven men fell in attempting it. Four of them were killed outright, and another was maimed for life.

The wisdom of affording them an outlet for their high spirits was apparent when, a week or so after landing, the work of military training began in earnest. One and all, they settled down to the collar like veterans, and soon twenty-mile marches through the heavy sand became a joke, as battalion vied with battalion in breaking records of physical fitness. "Physically, they are the finest lot of men I have ever seen in any part of the world," wrote Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, when they came under his observation at this period in their training. At the end of the year both Australians and New Zealanders were able to show at reviews how much they had already benefited by their training.

The occasion of these reviews was the visit to Egypt of Sir George Reid and the Hon. Thomas McKenzie, the High Commissioners in London for the Commonwealth of Australia and the Dominion of New Zealand respectively. The Australians were reviewed at Mena, and the New Zealanders at Heliopolis; and at both reviews General Sir John Maxwell, the officer commanding his Majesty's troops in Egypt, was present. He asked the High Commissioner to convey to the Commonwealth Government his congratulations upon the superb appearance of the Australians. The New Zealanders, with their continuous lines of six feet men, drew from him the observation, "It would be impossible to obtain better material anywhere."

The men were much pleased with the visits of their London representatives, and cheered them to the echo when they departed. At the review of the Australians, Sir George Reid addressed them in the following inspirited words: —

"Sir John Maxwell, General Birdwood, Mr. Mackenzie, General Bridges, officers, and men, – I am glad to see you all. I am only sorry that I cannot take each of you by the hand of friendship. Many anxious mothers have implored me to look after their sons. Alas! it is impossible; but I rejoice to think that you are under officers who will be true guardians of you throughout the length of this great venture.

"The youngest of these august pyramids was built 2,000 years before Our Saviour was born. They have been silent witnesses to many strange events; but I do not think that they could ever have looked down upon so unique a spectacle as this splendid array of Australian soldiers, massed to defend them. Who can look upon these majestic monuments of antiquity without emotion, without regret? How pathetic, how stupendous, how useless, have been these gigantic efforts to preserve the bodily presence of Egyptian kings from the oblivion to which all mortality is doomed. It is the soul of deeds that lives for ever. Imperishable memories have sprung from nameless graves on land and sea whilst stately sepulchres are dumb. The homes of our Imperial race are scattered far and wide, but the breed remains the same – as staunch, as stalwart, as loyal in the east and west and in our own south as in the northern mother land.

"What brings these forces here? Why do their tents stretch across this narrow parting of the ways between worlds new and old? Are you on a quest in search of gain such as led your fathers to the Australian shore? Are you preparing to invade and outrage weaker nationalities in lawless raids of conquest? Thank God, your mission is as pure and as noble as any soldiers undertook to rid the world of would-be tyrants.

"In this bright climate, beneath these peaceful skies, which tempt so strongly, do not forget the awful ordeal which is near you. Do not forget the fearful risks which you are approaching. Do not forget the desperate battles long drawn out which you must fight and win. Do not forget Lord Kitchener's warning to the soldiers of the Empire. Do not forget the distant homes that love you. Do not forget the fair fame and stainless honour of Australia committed to your keeping. A few bad ones can sully the reputation of a whole army. If such there be in these ranks before me they must be shunned. They must be thrust out. The first and best of all victories you can ever win is the victory of self-control. Hearts of solid oak, nerves of flawless steel come that way.

"Remember the generous rivalries that await you. Remember the glorious soldiers of the British Isles, of the British Empire, who long to greet you on the battle-line. Remember the heroes of Belgium, of France, of Russia, of Serbia, and Japan. Remember all the fleets watching on every sea. The allied interest is deep and vital, but there are interests deeper and more vital still. The whole destinies of the world are at stake in this titanic struggle. Shall the hand of fate point backwards to universal chaos or forward to everlasting peace. Backwards they must not, shall not, go. It is impossible. True culture, crowned with chivalry and good faith, will prove too strong once more for savage tricks and broken faith.

"Good luck. May God be with you each and all until we meet again."

The next two months were months of hard work. Twenty-mile marches through the desert sand with a 70-lb. load took all the desire for an evening's fun in Cairo out of even the friskiest of them, and in surprisingly short time they settled down into soldiers as good as they looked – steady, resourceful and disciplined, as they were soon to prove on one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Great War.

For some of them the baptism of fire came in Egypt, when the Turks made their farcical attempt on the Suez Canal. The New Zealand Infantry and the Australian Engineers took part in the engagement which ended that attempt, and comported themselves well. The New Zealanders captured one of the celebrated galvanized iron boats, which the Turks had lugged across the desert for the crossing of the canal, and it was sent to New Zealand, the first trophy of the war from the Old World for Australasia.

Training in Egypt continued till early in April, and then a large proportion of the Australasians were despatched to the Dardanelles, to assist in the attempt to force the passage of the Straits, already begun by the combined British and French fleets. The first task before the Expeditionary Force to the Dardanelles was to effect a landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

CHAPTER IV
THE BATTLE OF BRIGHTON BEACH

Four months in camp under the passionless gaze of the great Sphinx had shaken the men into a thoroughly fit and efficient army. It had also wearied them into an ardent desire to be up and doing. Each day brought them news of the fierce fighting in Belgium and Northern France. Their cousins and friendly rivals from Canada had already won undying glory, and the Australasians chafed at the monotonous round of hard work and military discipline that seemed to lead to nothing. Not for this had they come half-way across the world; they yearned to be in the thick of it, and show how they could fight for the Empire they were so proud to serve.

The glad excitement that followed the announcement that they were detailed for active and immediate service can well be imagined; and additional joy was displayed when it became known that they were to serve on the classic battleground that borders the Dardanelles. And indeed, there is something of the miraculous in the dispatch of this composite army from two nations that dwell where a century and a half ago no white man existed to the scene of the first great adventure recorded in written history: the quest of the Golden Fleece.

Their land of the Golden Fleece lay thousands of miles away, still unscarred by any war, whatever the future may hold for it. Many of them, until they embarked on this momentous expedition, had never seen any other lands than their own. They had read of the adventures of Homer's heroes, but the scene of those exploits might as well have been laid in some other planet, for all the conception they could form of it. They knew that Alexander the Great had crossed the Dardanelles with a force no greater than their own, and had returned as Conqueror of Asia. For thousands of years the possession of those few miles of narrow sea passage had been the subject of contention among nations that had passed away for ever. Now they, the first real army of the newest nations, came to dispute its possession with an old and decadent race, which for hundreds of years had terrorized Eastern Europe.

Yes, these sheep-farmers and fruit-growers, these land agents and miners and city clerks, were the new Argonauts. They had left the Golden Fleece behind them, and the peaceful sunlit plains of Australia. They had deserted the wind-swept heights of New Zealand, where the salt breeze fans the cheek, and the snow-clad summits of the mountains are mirrored in the placid bosoms of lakes more beautiful than any the Old World has ever seen. Their quest was honour for themselves and the young races they represented; they went to fight for justice, for the unity of the Empire, for the cause of the weak and small nations of Europe. Surely their dispatch to the Dardanelles ranks with the greatest of great adventures.

The whole of the Dardanelles Expedition was commanded by General Sir Ian Hamilton, a familiar name and figure to Australasians, since he was instrumental, by his report on the state of the Australasian defence forces, and by his recommendations, in the establishment of the system of compulsory military training in vogue throughout Australasia. Sir Ian Hamilton's plans provided for a number of separate but simultaneous landings on the peninsula of Gallipoli; and, as a blind, a landing by the French troops which formed a component part of the force at his disposal, on the Asiatic shore of the Dardanelles. Owing to the strong fortifications and defences which had been contrived by the Turks upon plans of German origin, the task of effecting a landing was an extremely difficult one; von der Goltz, the German general who had designed the defences, boasted that it was impossible of accomplishment. His boast, like that of the Emden's captain, was soon to be proved an empty and vainglorious one.

The place chosen for the landing of the Australasians was Gaba Tepe, a high point on the Gulf of Saros, opposite the town of Maidos on the Straits. It should be pointed out here that the landing of troops at this point was of the highest strategical importance, as the presence of a hostile force there would be a continual menace to the Turkish communications. A successful advance of such a force would drive a wedge between the strong forts at the Narrows, on which the attack of the Allies was concentrated, and the Turkish base at Constantinople.

The actual landing party was the Third Australian Brigade, a mixed body of men from Queensland, South Australia and West Australia, commanded by Colonel Sinclair Maclagan, D.S.O. These men 1,500 in number, embarked at Mudros Bay on April 24 on British battleships, and set out for Gaba Tepe. Following them were men of the 1st and 2nd Brigades, a covering force of 2,500. These were conveyed to the landing place in transports. The reason of embarking the actual landing force in warships was fairly obvious. It was hoped that a landing on the rough and inaccessible spot chosen for the Australasians might be effected unopposed; and it was argued that the Turks, who might have been alarmed at the sight of transports and so have time to prepare an opposing force, would accept the presence of warships as merely the prelude to one of the bombardments to which they were now accustomed.

As a matter of fact, the British plans were not hidden from the enemy, for the place actually chosen for the landing was afterwards discovered to have been elaborately prepared for resistance. Barbed wire was entangled under the water, and the beach was enfiladed with machine guns. The cliff was honeycombed with hiding places for snipers, and only a fortunate accident saved the Australians from a much hotter reception than the very warm one accorded them by the Turks.

The landing force arrived opposite Gaba Tepe at 1.30 a.m., and the men were transferred in absolute silence to their boats. At the same time the covering force was transhipped from the transports to six destroyers; and all made for a point about four miles off the coast. The dying moon rose as they steamed to this place, and the outlines of the ships were visible to the Turks, who were watching from the shore. At half-past three the landing force was ordered to go forward, and the tows made for the land with all dispatch.

Now occurred the happy accident to which allusion has already been made. The tows got off the line they had intended to take, and reached the beach about a mile north of the spot actually selected for the landing. A description of the landing place, which will go down to history as Brighton Beach, is given by Sir Ian Hamilton in his first official dispatch of the operations at the Dardanelles.

"The beach on which the landing was actually effected is a very narrow strip of sand, about 1,000 yards in length, bounded on the north and the south by two small promontories. At its southern extremity a deep ravine, with exceedingly steep, scrub-clad sides, runs inland in a north-easterly direction. Near the northern end of the beach a small but steep gully runs up into the hills at right angles to the shore.

"Between the ravine and the gully the whole of the beach is backed by the seaward face of the spur which forms the north-western side of the ravine. From the top of the spur the ground falls almost sheer, except near the southern limit of the beach, where gentler slopes give access to the mouth of the ravine behind. Further inland lie in a tangled knot the under-features of Sari Bair, separated by deep ravines, which take a most confusing diversity of direction. Sharp spurs, covered with dense scrub, and falling away in many places in precipitous sandy cliffs, radiate from the principal mass of the mountain, from which they run north-west, west, south-west, and south to the coast."

Obeying orders to the letter, the Australians sat as quiet as mice in the boats as the tows neared the land; on the edge of the cliffs they could see the Turks scampering along at breakneck speed, to be in the right place to receive them. And now the boats were nearing the shore, and a new sensation was provided for the men of Australia.

"You know one of those hot days when a storm blows up in Australia," said one of the party, in describing it. "The air seems heavy, as if there was lead in it. Then, splash! All around you on the pavement appear big drops, that hit the asphalt with a welt. Well, all of a sudden something began to hit the water all round us just like that. We knew from the rattle on the shore what it was. Bullets! A man two places away from me sank quietly on the bottom of the boat; something touched my hat and ruffled my hair. We were under hot fire for a start."

As the boats reached the shallow water the Australians jumped in up to the waist, and made for the sand; some of them died in the moment their feet first touched Europe. "Like lightning," writes General Sir Ian Hamilton, in his official dispatch, describing the landing, "the Australians leapt ashore, and each man as he did so went straight as his bayonet at the enemy. So vigorous was the onslaught that the Turks made no attempt to withstand it, and fled from ridge to ridge pursued by the Australian infantry."

It must be remembered that the cliff up which this bayonet charge was made was from 30 to 50 feet high, and as described by Sir Ian Hamilton, was "almost sheer." At each end of the strip of beach was a higher knoll, about a hundred feet in height. On each of these were posted scores of sharpshooters, who were firing as rapidly as they could at the men scrambling up these cliffs; the Turks at the top could not even fire at them, the cliffs were so steep.

As the men sprang from the boats they set off in groups of five or six, acting on their own initiative. They had empty magazines, all the work being left to the cold steel. In that terrible scramble up the cliffside they fell by dozens, but the rest pressed on to the trenches at the top. The Turks who waited for them there had to encounter infuriated giants. One Australian still bears the name of "The Haymaker," for his way of picking Turk after Turk on the end of his bayonet and throwing them one after another over his shoulder and over the edge of the cliff behind. Two or three more great men preferred to use the butt, smashing down everything human that dared to resist them. In a few moments the Turks had abandoned their trenches and were flying up the foothills to another trench they had prepared on the top of a ridge.

Fast as they ran, the Australians ran faster. The cries of "Come on, Australians," rang through the ravines, and warned the Turks ahead of their coming. The first ridge was occupied, and a second; finally they reached a third nearly two miles inland. It must be understood that they had waited for no orders and had not tarried for any formation. Men of different battalions and from different States swept forward together, all acting on their own initiative, and all prepared to sacrifice themselves for the main object, which was to clear the clifftops so as to permit of a safe landing for the main body of the troops. These watched the fighting in the lightening morning from the decks of the ships, while waiting their turn to land.

They could see on one ridge after another the gaunt figures of their comrades appear, only to disappear over the crest, presently to become visible yet farther inland. How they cheered as the pioneers swept the Turks off the coast and drove them into the thick scrub that skirted the more distant ranges of hills! The audacity of that landing has no superior in history, and Australian soldiers will ever be remembered for their initiative, resource, and daring. Where men less used to acting on their own responsibility would have formed bravely, and waited for orders from some superior, these men from the South dashed off in little groups, all working efficiently, as if by some tacit understanding.

So the 3rd Brigade cleared the way for the 1st and 2nd Brigades, so that 12,000 infantry and two batteries of Indian mountain guns were landed by two o'clock – smart work on such a difficult coast, in ten hours. For this splendid record the greatest credit is due to the Navy men, of whom the Australasians all speak as they would of the greatest heroes on earth. Their coolness, their unassuming courage, and their steadfast adherence to the object in view are topics of which Australians who were there will never tire of talking. And the men of the Navy have an equally high opinion of those law bushmen whom they set down on that narrow strip of bullet-swept beach.

For it must not be supposed that the clearance of the trenches opposite the landing place made the task of landing in any way a safe one. All day long batteries posted in the hills, which had the range of the beach quite accurately, continued to spray the landing with shrapnel. One sandy point was christened by the Australians Hellfire Spit, and will go down to history by that name. Their name for the landing place was Brighton Beach, which name it now bears on the official maps. British people must not suppose that this name has any reference to the seaside town which is sometimes called London-by-the-Sea. The Australians had in mind another Brighton, 12,000 miles away, where the cliffs rise abruptly from a sandy beach, and where the eye rests on slopes covered with a thick growth of scrubby ti-tree, of which the scrub on the hillsides at Gaba Tepe reminded the men of Australia. So it is Brighton Beach near Melbourne, and not Brighton Beach in Sussex, that gave its name to the landing place at Gaba Tepe.

There were also guns on each of the two knolls which terminated Brighton Beach, and from them and from machine guns very cleverly placed on high points a cruel enfilading fire was directed upon the beach. The guns on the knolls were one by one put out of action by the warships, and three were captured by the infantry, but some of the machine guns, as well as innumerable snipers, continued to fire on the boats and on the landed men throughout the day. Many a brave Australasian met a bullet before ever he set foot on the soil of Europe, and the sailors suffered heavily but doggedly as they rowed their boats to and fro between the ships and the landing place.

It is now necessary to follow the fortunes of the little bands of the gallant 3rd Brigade, whose rush had carried them over three successive ridges on to a high tableland, where the backs of the retreating Turks were still visible. "Where's the Light Horse?" the men shouted as they rushed on in pursuit. The Light Horse was then eating out its heart somewhere in Egypt, wishing that such an animal as the horse had never been created, and that they might be with their comrades of the infantry, fighting in Australasia's first great battle. Of course they could never have got cavalry up on to that plateau, though mounted men would have been very useful when the first Australian soldiers crossed the ridges, and reached its wide, scrubby slopes.

These devoted little bands found more than stragglers on that high plateau. Soon the advance guard of the main Turkish defence force arrived on the scene, and then it went very badly with these bold spirits. The fate of many of those little groups of brave, resourceful soldiers is yet to be learned; most of them appear on the sheets as "Missing." Those behind them were thrown back by sheer force of numbers, as the main body of the Turks pressed on, and fighting gallantly, fell back on the second line.

By nightfall the main body of the Australians, all mixed up just as they had landed, and without regard to battalions or anything else, was dug in on the clifftop, and fighting desperately to prevent the Turks from dislodging them.

"The troops had had no rest on the night of the 24th-25th," writes the General, "they had been fighting hard all day over most difficult country, and they had been subjected to heavy shrapnel fire in the open. Their casualties had been deplorably heavy. But despite their losses and in spite of their fatigue, the morning of the 26th found them still in good heart, and as full of fight as ever."

Such is the story of the battle of Brighton Beach, ending with our boys "in good heart, and full of fight as ever." The wounded and dying men were also in good heart. Mr. Ashmead Bartlett describes the arrival of the first batch of Australian wounded back to the ships in a passage that will stir every Australian's pulse till the very end of time.

"I have never seen the like of these wounded Australians in war before, for as they were towed among the ships while accommodation was being found for them, although many of them were shot to bits and without hope of recovery, their cheers resounded through the night, and you could just see amid a mass of suffering humanity arms being waved in greeting to the crews of the warships. They were happy because they knew they had been tried for the first time in the war, and had not been found wanting. They had been told to occupy the heights and hold on, and this they had done for fifteen mortal hours under an incessant shell fire without the moral and material support of a single gun ashore, and subjected the whole time to the violent counter-attacks of a brave enemy led by skilful leaders, while his snipers, hidden in caves, thickets, and among the dense scrub, made a deliberate practice of picking off every officer who endeavoured to give a word of command or to lead his men forward.

"No finer feat of arms has been performed during the war than this sudden landing in the dark, this storming of the heights, and, above all, the holding on to the points thus won while reinforcements were being poured from the transports. These raw Colonial troops in those desperate hours proved themselves worthy to fight side by side with the heroes of Mons and the Aisne, Ypres and Neuve Chapelle."

CHAPTER V
OCCUPYING THE LAND

The morning of April 26 found the Australasians occupying the cliff top in a long semicircle, with its right resting on the sea at a point opposite the hill of Gaba Tepe, and the left resting on high ground above the coast at a place called Fisherman's Hut. The New Zealanders were on the extreme left, with the 4th Australian Brigade in support of them; next were the 1st Brigade from New South Wales, next to them were the 2nd Brigade of men from Victoria, while on the right were the 3rd Brigade, or what was left of it.

All night they had been fighting, the Turks making brave but ineffectual attempts to dislodge them, and being quite unable to prevent them from digging themselves in. The scattered groups of pioneers were soon sorted out into their various battalions, missing men turned up from all sorts of unexpected places, and order was rapidly instituted among the ranks. This was a very necessary step, for men had been fighting side by side with perfect strangers, a state of things which afforded unlimited opportunities to the host of spies and snipers who swarmed boldly among the Australians, and, employing perfect English, did much to create confusion and loss among them.

Some incidents that occurred during that temporary confusion are evidence of the amazing audacity of these enemies, most of whom were Germans. They were equipped with undeniable Australian uniforms, and spoke with the same accent as the average Australian officer. One of these fellows encountered Captain Macdonald and Lieutenant Elston, of the 16th Battalion (West Australia), and professed to convey to them orders from a superior officer that they should at once go to a spot beyond a piece of rising ground. Unsuspectingly they went, and fell into the hands of a band of Turks, who made them prisoners. The same man delivered a similar message to Colonel Pope, also of West Australia, but on his way to the rendezvous this officer saw something which made him suspicious. He took a flying leap from the rise on which he was walking into a patch of soft sand many feet below, and just in time to save his life. The rise where this took place was promptly christened Pope's Hill; it lies to the left of the deep ravine mentioned in Sir Ian Hamilton's dispatch as being one of the main features of the ground before the Australian line.

The enemy had also become acquainted with the Australian bugle calls, and in the darkness the "Retire" was frequently sounded on the bugle, loudly and insistently. But before landing the precaution had been taken to announce that all bugles had been removed, and that other signals had been substituted. Consequently no notice was taken of this ruse on the part of the enemy, except that it made the Australians profoundly suspicious. And when their suspicions were aroused, the Australians were not easily duped, as many a bold spy found to his cost.

One fellow, in the dress of an Australian officer, ventured to convey some spurious orders to a small group of men who were holding a detached position. He was heard with a show of respect, and then the sergeant asked, "What battalion is yours, sir?" "The 22nd" was the ready reply; a very good one, if there had been a 22nd battalion. "And what ship did you cross on?" continued the questioner. "There is no need to cross-examine your superior officer" was the answer, delivered with the utmost coolness. Just then a rifle cracked, and the supposed officer spun round and fell. "Bit sudden, aren't you?" asked the sergeant of the gaunt Australian who strode forward. "What?" said the shooter, "22nd battalion! Don't know what ship he came on! Let's look at his papers." There was found plenty of proof that the summary methods of the bush were fully justified; and the example was a wholesome one for the audacious colleagues the spy undoubtedly possessed, who had found their way among the temporarily disorganized Australasians.

The snipers, with whom the hillsides were thick, showed in some instances an equal audacity, leaving their prepared hiding places in the scrub on the approach of the Australians, and joining with them in the dusk, pretending to help them look for snipers. During the first few days these marksmen accounted for many brave Australian officers, and in some instances it has been established that an Australian officer was killed by a shot fired from behind, the sniper's lair being passed by the advancing line, though that line contained many bushmen of great skill and experience.

On the other hand, a great number of these fellows were tracked to their hiding places, where they thought themselves quite safe, and got short shrift. The nature of the country made all these ruses possible to the Turks and their German tutors. Most of it was covered with a dense scrub of short, bushy trees, with branches growing right down to the ground. Set very close together, these afforded excellent cover to both sides, but the initial advantage lay, of course, with the defenders, especially in the early days before the Australasians had become familiar with the country. An instance of the density of this scrub is given by an officer of high rank, who, on a tour of inspection, found a group of some twenty soldiers advancing cautiously through the thickest of it. On asking them how they were progressing, he was told, with a great show of genuine sorrow, that they were the survivors of over a hundred, the rest having been cut off. He was able to tell the "survivors" that they were the third group he had encountered in his tour, each believing that the others were hopelessly cut off by the enemy.

In that first twenty-four hours of fighting the Australasian officers set an example of cool courage and hardihood that might have spurred men less daring than their own to deeds of the greatest courage. "The officers were splendid" is the universal verdict of the men, who are not easily moved to enthusiasm. But Australia and New Zealand paid a heavy toll of their finest officers and most trusted leaders. The first man out of the boats was Major Gordon, of Queensland, who leaped into the water shoulder high, followed by a dozen brave fellows in the same instant. But a bullet cut the gallant Major off before he set foot on dry land, the first Australian officer to give up his life in Gallipoli. In the very act of landing Major Robertson, of Queensland, fell dead; Colonel Braund and Colonel Garside did not long outlive him, nor did Colonel Clarke.

Next day saw the death of Colonel McLaurin, one of the leading barristers at the Sydney bar, and a man whose high character was renowned from one end to the other of Australia. "He was a man of singularly high, noble and chivalrous mind," wrote one who knew him well, when his death was announced. "No unworthy word ever passed his lips; it was impossible to imagine any action of his that would be other than generous and just; and there is no doubt that with his remarkable abilities, his courage, and his charm of character, he would have attained the highest position in his profession, or in the profession of arms."

An equally high value was rightly placed by Australia and New Zealand upon other of their brave citizen soldiers who perished gallantly in that first day's fighting so far from home. With simple emotion a sergeant tells of the death of the brave Colonel Clarke. "We stormed the cliff, and the Turks did not wait for us. Halfway up I came across our Colonel. He had his pack on. I asked him to throw it down, but he said that he did not want to lose it, so I carried it for him. We advanced about one mile and a half due east of our landing-place, and found the Turks holding a ridge in great strength, so we lay down and opened fire. I was alongside the Colonel, and had just given him his pack and got down again, when zip– a bullet got him in the body. He was dead in a minute. Major Elliott was sent for. He had been there only two seconds when he was hit. Another officer came up and he was hit, so we had got into a fairly hot place."

The difficult country made it necessary that officers should take great risks when making observations, and they took them cheerfully and courageously. The casualty lists show what a heavy penalty was paid in officers killed and wounded, but the success attending the operations proves that the risk and the loss was not without fruit. Those lives, so cheerfully risked and lost, were not wasted; they were spent audaciously for the purpose in view. "You cannot lead your men from the rear," was the motto of the Australasian officers at Gaba Tepe, and disregarding the imploring counsel of the men beside them they set an example that Australasia will ever mourn and cherish.

The rewards for distinguished service earned in that first day's operations are so numerous as to testify the great gallantry and ability shown in the actual onset. The D.S.O. was granted to Colonel McNicoll, of Victoria, for his gallantry and skill in leading his battalion into action; and to Colonel White, of the Garrison Artillery, for the skill he displayed in the work of reorganization after the necessary confusion of the landing. Colonel McNicoll was afterwards severely wounded when leading his men forward in the great charge at Krithia; and at the time of writing lies slowly recovering in a London hospital. Major Brand, of Queensland, carried messages personally under heavy fire on many emergency occasions, and gathered groups of stragglers into a band which, under his command, attacked and disabled three guns. He, and Major Denton, of West Australia, who occupied an important trench with only twenty men, and held it in face of repeated attacks for six days, both got the D.S.O.

Among recipients of the Military Cross was Lieutenant Derham, of Victoria, who was severely wounded in the thigh, but continued to do his duty for five days more in spite of his agony. He returned to Great Britain with five wounds. Captain Richardson, of New South Wales, led his men up the steep path of the cliff into two bayonet charges against bands of Turks five times their number. The men on either side of him were killed, and he had a bullet through his cap. Finally, an expanding bullet struck him on the shoulder, inflicting a terrible wound. Many other officers were rewarded for their grand work on that first day; the instances given are only typical ones that come to hand.

The non-commissioned officers and the rank and file displayed no less bravery and devotion. There was Sergeant Ayling, of Western Australia, who was one of a platoon which got too far forward in an exposed position, and received the command to retire. The officer in charge, Lieutenant Morgan was severely wounded with shrapnel while this operation was in progress; and Ayling, with three volunteers, returned and drove off the advancing Turks with bayonets, afterwards carrying his wounded officer to safety. Then he reformed his platoon and returned to the attack, holding an exposed position until reinforcements came.

Private Robey, of Queensland, seeing a boat drifting away from the landing-place with a wounded man as its sole occupant, plunged into the water, swam out to the boat under heavy fire, and rescued the comrade from a certain death. Sapper McKenzie, of the Engineers, displayed a similar devotion in carrying a wounded sapper to a departing boat, and pushing it off under heavy fire. He himself was wounded while making for cover. These are only examples among scores of acts of individual bravery displayed on that day of April 25. Some of them have received official recognition; some escaped unrewarded; many of the heroes of that day paid for their gallantry with their lives.

Foremost in heroism on that Sunday were the doctors and stretcher-bearers, of whom the men speak with eyes glowing with enthusiasm. Private Howe, of West Australia, tells how Dr. Stewart, who had wrenched his leg so badly that he had to be invalided, nevertheless picked him up when wounded and carried him on his back under heavy fire for half a mile to a place of safety. Major O'Neill, of New Zealand, has also received the D.S.O. for his bravery and resource in command of bearers.

The Red Cross men were glorious. Most of them worked for thirty-six hours without cessation, and some of them fell down asleep in exposed positions from sheer weariness, as they toiled about the steep rough hillsides at their grand work of mercy. "Two of them saved my life, and I don't even know who they were," said one convalescent Australian. "I was wounded in an exposed trench, and was bleeding quickly to death. My mate wouldn't stand for it; a good chap, but a bit fussy. He signalled back that a man was dying for want of a doctor, and these two chaps came out through the thick of the bullets and carried me off at a sprint. I remember no more until I was on a Hospital ship. They ought not to have come; they risked two good lives to save a doubtful one; and I don't know even who they were and can never thank them." Perhaps those two nameless heroes will see these words one day, and know that their devotion is not forgotten by its grateful object.

Their work was equally as dangerous as that of the fighting soldier, for in those first days of fighting at Gaba Tepe, the Turks made no attempt to respect the Red Cross, though their conduct in this respect improved later on. To advance into the line of fire with a stretcher, under the supposed protection of the Red Cross, was to court a speedy death, and yet there are countless instances of this being done.

One incident, for which a number of witnesses will vouch, shows that this disregard of the Red Cross was part of their training at the hands of their German tutors. A German officer who was lying badly wounded in the firing line attracted the attention of an Australian Red Cross man, who bent over him to render assistance. The return was prompt; the wounded man drew his revolver and shot his benefactor. With a roar of anger, an Australian soldier rushed forward and drove his bayonet time after time through the body of the ungrateful wretch.

The Australian Engineers, who landed about midday on that momentous Sunday, were soon busily at work under the heavy fire directed upon the landing-place. As if by magic, practical paths appeared leading up the cliffside, with sandbag protections; and thus a means of conveying stores and ammunition to the trenches above was at once improvised. The landing-place was improved, and means of getting guns and heavy stores rapidly ashore were contrived with marvellous rapidity. Soon Brighton Beach assumed the appearance of a busy little port, with boats coming and going continually, while shrapnel burst around them and threw up the sand in showers on the beach.

The Australasians completely lost their hearts to the sailormen, with whom they were working here. "I was glad to get out of the blooming boats," said one Australian when recounting his experiences; "but those Jack Tars went to and fro under the shells and bullets as if they never knew of them. You ought to have seen the little middies in charge of the boats; young boys that might have been larking at school. Just boys with round rosy faces, but so keen. When I have a boy I mean to put him in the Australian navy. It makes fine men of them."

The Australasians excited a corresponding admiration from their British sailor friends, not only for the way they fought, but for their whim of bathing under shell fire. Brighton Beach is an ideal place for a swim, barring the small circumstance that several Turkish batteries concealed in the broken ground had the range of the place, and devoted a flattering attention to it. But this did not deter the Australasians, when their time came for a rest, from trying the tonic effect of a plunge in Gallipoli waters.

One man would be stationed on the shore, to give warning, and a score would take to the water together. "Duck," the signalman would cry, as the whining groan of shrapnel shell was heard. Down would go their heads all together, and up their heels, to disappear under the water just in time to avoid the spray of bullets that tore the smooth surface into foam. Then the sailors, watching the fun through their glasses, would roar with laughter; and the gasping Australians would show their heads again, to take breath for the next plunge. It sounds reckless, but the practice continued, though many men subsequently lost their lives through it.

But these amusements were not possible in the few days that followed the first landing. Within twenty-four hours of the appearance of the first warship off Gaba Tepe, the enemy had brought an army of 25,000 men to hold the strongly-prepared positions that commanded the heights above it, and to attempt to drive the Australasians from the precarious footing they had obtained with so much daring. Furious attacks were made all along the line, the object being to prevent the invaders from digging in, and establishing themselves. The 3rd Brigade, which had led the way up the cliffs, and suffered most severely in the initial fighting, had a very hot time of it. They stood firm against repeated bayonet attacks, as did the whole line; and the work of entrenching went on steadily, in spite of the brave fury with which the Turks repeated their attacks.

The warships gave splendid help, shelling the main bodies of the defenders wherever they showed on the ridges. The Queen Elizabeth was conspicuous in this work, standing off so far to sea that she was hardly discernible, yet landing her gigantic shells with amazing accuracy among the ranks of the Turks. The havoc played by one of these shrapnel shells may be imagined when it is considered that they weigh three-quarters of a ton, and contain 20,000 bullets. Nothing impressed the Australasians more than the hideous din made by the explosion of one of these gigantic shells, and the scar on the hillside that showed after its bursting.

It was under the supporting fire of the warships that the Ninth and Tenth Infantry made a most gallant bayonet charge on the 26th, to drive the Turks from a ridge beyond Pope's Hill, which commanded the whole Australian position, and permitted machine guns to enfilade the landing-place. They advanced in open lines through the scrub, making dashes of a hundred and fifty yards at a swift run, and then dropping to take breath for another charge. Twice they drove the Turks from the position, and were in turn driven back; the third time they stayed there.

The 8th Battalion (Victoria) had to bear the brunt of repeated charges by bodies of Turks who far outnumbered them and came charging with shouts of "Allah! Allah!" The losses sustained by the enemy in these charges were enormous. The 4th (New South Wales) made one dashing bayonet charge that carried them right through the Turkish camp, but beyond they came into an area commanded by machine guns, and got off again, having lost heavily and fought most gallantly.

These are only some of the incidents detailed out of the confusion of the second day's fighting. By the end of that day the Australasians recognized that they were there to stay. A conversation in one of the advanced trenches bears quaintly upon their certainty on this point. One by one the men gazed through a periscope at the prospect commanded from the height they occupied. "Fair country for stock," remarked one, as he yielded his place. "Take a lot of clearing," commented another. The third was a miner. "Here," he said after a long inquisitive look around, "chuck me an entrenching tool; I'm going to try for a prospect."

Yes, they were there to stay right enough; until their duty should call them to fight the cause of right and freedom somewhere else. Already a lamentably large number of them were there to stay until the last trump shall sound the call to them to arise and receive the reward the hereafter holds for brave and noble men, who have laid down their lives that justice and goodness may not perish from the face of the earth. But dead or alive, the Australasians were there to stay, until such time as they should receive the command to retire.

Already they had made history after a fashion which is testified in a letter written about that time by General Birdwood, who had charge of the whole of the Gaba Tepe operations, to Sir George Reid, the High Commissioner in London for Australia. The General wrote: —

"The capture of the position we at present hold will, I feel sure, go down to history as a magnificent feat of the Australians and New Zealanders. Our one chance of success was to hurl ourselves on the position on a broad front, and just insist on taking it. That is just what we succeeded in doing. We tried our best to effect a surprise by landing at night, though this was necessarily a risky matter, but our one great chance. Our surprise, I fear, was by no means complete, as owing to the moon setting late, our ships were necessarily silhouetted against it as we approached, and we were consequently met with a heavy fire whilst still in the boats. Nothing, however, would stop the men, who just raced ashore, and up and all over this most difficult scrub-covered hill, of which we now hold a portion. In their great zeal, I am sorry to say, some detachments advanced too far, getting right away from the flanks, while the enemy held the centre in strength, and there were, I fear, completely cut off, which made our losses heavy. That, however, could not possibly be avoided, for had commanding officers and brigadiers waited to form up their commands as they normally would have done, we should probably never have captured the position at all, which great dash alone was able to take."

CHAPTER VI
POPE'S HILL AND GABA TEPE

"I heartily congratulate you on the splendid conduct and bravery displayed by the Australian troops in the operations at the Dardanelles. They have indeed proved themselves worthy sons of the Empire."

When this message, graciously sent by his Majesty King George to the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia, emerged from the fog of war, there was widespread gratification and pride throughout a continent of 3,000,000 square miles. Nobody knew what the Australians had done, for though more than a week had passed since the Third Brigade made its famous rush up the cliffs at Gaba Tepe, the Censor still nursed the secret of their bravery, lest the waiting nations of the South might communicate it to the powers of darkness in Berlin. The gracious message of the King was the first intimation that Australians were even at the scene of action, and the avidity with which Australasia waited for further details may well be imagined.

Meantime the soldiers of Australasia were fighting hard, and incurring enormous losses to make good their position. Their first important offensive operation, after the actual landing was established, was made against the knoll which now bears the name of Pope's Hill. This position, described by Sir Ian Hamilton as a commanding knoll in front of the centre of the line, was attacked on the night of May 2. Behind it was the head of the deep ravine called Monash Gully, down which the Turks directed a rifle fire so continuous that its outlet on the beach was named Death Valley. The enemy continually sought to extend their advantage to a point which would allow them to direct their fire on the Australians from the other side of the hill also.

The importance of the position can therefore be estimated. It was a sort of no-man's-land, but its possession would give the occupants a great advantage; it certainly would free the Australian lines from a continuous and harassing fire from whole hosts of snipers.

The German officers who directed the Turkish operations had themselves fully seized the value of the post to the invading force, and had posted a number of machine guns with deadly science, covering the whole slope approaching the knoll. When the attack opened on the night of May 2, the attacking force was not long in discovering the arrangements made for its reception. Line after line charged into a perfect hail of bullets from the destructive machine guns, and no less than 800 men were lost before the attackers desisted.

One incident of that terrible day was narrated to the writer by a private of the 15th Battalion who took part in the attack. Early in the morning part of his company was detailed to take a Turkish trench on the slope of the hill. The men crouched in cover about forty yards from the trench waiting a lead. It was given by Lieutenant Kerr, a young South Australian officer, who sprang forward calling on the men to follow. No sooner had he assumed an upright position than he fell dead, with a bullet through his forehead. With a yell of rage the men rushed forward and occupied the trench, bayoneting all the Turks who awaited their coming.

In this operation but few men were lost, though they deeply lamented the death of the brave young officer who had pointed the way to them. But the position soon became a most difficult one to maintain. The Turks appeared in front and to either side of them in overwhelming force, and swept the ground behind them with machine guns, so that none could come to their aid. They maintained a stout defence, until they found to their dismay that their ammunition was running short. Volunteers were quickly forthcoming to go to the rear for fresh supplies, but they could see them fall one after another, within a few yards of the trench.

They eagerly sought the cartridges still in the belts of the dead and wounded, passing them from hand to hand along the trench, one clip for each man. But this source was soon exhausted, and they were confronted with the fact that they were defenceless and practically cut off. How complete was their isolation they only realized when they saw two machine gun sections of marines attempting to advance up the hill to their assistance. Every man in both sections fell by the side of the guns under the withering fire directed upon them as they climbed upwards.

In this extremity the officer in command, whose name the narrator of the affair could not ascertain, determined to try to reach the communication trench in his immediate rear. He told his men of his resolve, and said he would do all in his power to cover their subsequent retreat, if he succeeded in reaching safety himself. The signal for their retirement would be the hoisting of an entrenching tool in the communication trench.

Having made this arrangement, the officer leaped from the trench and made a dash down the hill. Apparently he took the enemy by surprise, for he reached a safe place without a shot being fired. Then the shovel was hoisted, and the men prepared to run the gauntlet. One after another eight men bolted from the trench, not one of them going ten yards before being cut off. The ninth was the narrator of this experience.

"I knew it was death to stay," he said "and I knew it was almost as surely death to go. I grit my teeth and made a dash for it. I doubled like a hare; I checked and turned and twisted as I ran; the bullets whizzed around me and cut my tunic to rags. Within two yards of safety, and as I was preparing for the last leap into the trench I was struck in the thigh, and the force of the bullet rolled me over among my comrades."

Over two hundred men were lost in the futile attempt to hold that trench alone. For many weeks Pope's Hill remained neutral territory, a menace to the safety of the whole Australasian position at Gaba Tepe. In the end the Australasians, after capturing and losing it many times, made good their title to the position. Its importance was at once demonstrated by the control it gave them of the high ridge beyond, which they christened Dead Man's Ridge. Before the capture of Pope's Hill the enemy continually shot down Monash Valley, and caused serious casualties every day. Afterwards they were soon cleared from this commanding ridge, and the whole Australasian position was rendered comparatively safe. But this development was deferred for nearly three months after the attack of the second of May.

Another point of vantage is the hill of Gaba Tepe, which is situated on the very seaboard, at the extreme right of the Australasian line. This knoll is only 120 feet high, but the batteries upon it, until they were silenced by the guns of the warships, did an immense amount of damage to landing parties coming and going in the bay. On May 4 an attack was made upon this knoll, but proved unsuccessful, because, to quote the official dispatch of Sir Ian Hamilton, "the barbed wire was something beyond belief." Three months later Gaba Tepe still remained in the hands of the Turks.

The actual losses in these first days of fighting were excessively heavy, and the little force of Australasians, now facing a ring of 25,000 Turks, counted the missing ones ruefully, not only in grief for their dead and wounded comrades, but because the strain placed upon the survivors was by so much the heavier.

The Second Brigade, composed of Victorians led by General McCay, had landed with 4,300 men. After the unsuccessful attack on Gaba Tepe, nine days later, the roll-call showed 2,600 remaining. A week later the same brigade was engaged in a glorious charge at Krithia, and returned with only 1,600 men. In a little over a fortnight that Brigade had lost over 60 per cent. of its effectives, a heavy toll indeed.

The experience of those early days had already taught the adaptable Australasians many new things about bush fighting. They had learned, for instance, how to deal with the snipers who had infested the hillsides; and in a very short time put an end to them. This was highly necessary, for in the first two or three days' fighting the toll in officers had been intolerable, owing to the efforts of these sharpshooters, whose mission was to pick off the leaders of the men.

The Australian method of stalking them called for a considerable amount of hardihood on the part of those practising it. Two of them would go out after one sniper, having roughly marked down the spot where he lay by the sound of his rifle. They separated as they crawled near him, so that one could approach him from either side. Stealthily they crawled through the olive bush, waiting sometimes for long half hours for the crack of his rifle to assist in locating him. At last the exact thicket that sheltered him would be located; then, at a given signal, both would rush on him with fixed bayonets. Usually he was alert enough to account for one of them, but the other invariably got him. Those snipers were ready to surrender when caught and held at bay, and the self-control of an Australasian who could spare the enemy who had just shot down his comrade is hard to estimate.

Another new employment was the throwing of bombs, home-made for the greater part. An empty jam tin, with some fuse and explosive, were materials from which the handy bushmen constructed very serviceable bombs, which were employed at that part of the line between Quinn's Post and Courtney's Post, where the trenches approached very closely together.

One team of bomb throwers achieved fame as the Test team, because the sergeant always distributed the ammunition in his own way. He made the distribution a "catching" practice, the bomb forming the cricket ball. The record of no catches missed was well sustained; exactly what might have happened had one been dropped had better be left to the imagination.

It was at this period of their occupation of Gallipoli that the word by which they have since become famous was coined. Every case of ammunition and every parcel of stores landed on their beaches bore the initials of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, thus: A N Z A C, and the little cove where they were landed was quickly christened Anzac Cove. But the real popularity of the word dated from the time when an interpreter pointed out that this was really a Turkish word, meaning "wholly just."

It was at once adopted as a name for the area they occupied, and was avidly seized upon by the British and Australasian Press as a handy and expressive substitute for Australasian, a cumbrous title that has always offended those who have had to use it most frequently. So the Australasians became the Anzacs, a title under which they have won fame and will live for ever in the history of warfare.

During the whole of this time they had heard and seen nothing of their British comrades, who had landed on the southern point of the peninsula of Gallipoli at the same moment as they were scaling the cliffs above Brighton Beach. The German spies who did so much to confuse the initial operations were continually passing word to detached bands to cease firing, as the British, or the French, were immediately in front of them. Little attention was paid to these false statements, except that a vigorous search was made for the originators, and summary justice meted out to them when found. For the Australians were well informed of the movements of the other detachments of the Allied forces.

Between these and the Australasian post at Gaba Tepe towered a range of hills, rising to its highest point at Achi Baba, the Gibraltar of Gallipoli peninsula. The means of communication between the two holdings was limited to the sea, for the Turks were strongly posted, right down to the coast, in the intermediate territory.

By means of the sea, communication was established on May 6 between the two forces; and 4,000 Australasians were detached for the time being to help in the operations of the main body of the Allied armies before the village of Krithia. The men chosen were the Second Brigade of Australians, and the New Zealand infantry. They were taken off on small boats, transferred to trawlers, and carried to the major scene of operations, where they distinguished themselves after a fashion now to be described.

CHAPTER VII
THE CHARGE AT KRITHIA

The men of Anzac were now called upon to take their part in a great concerted attack, made by all the forces commanded by Sir Ian Hamilton on Gallipoli Peninsula. Those familiar with the operations in Gallipoli will remember that, simultaneously with the landing of the Australasians at Gaba Tepe, no less than five landings had been effected by the British and French expeditionary forces further south, on points situated on the extreme southern point of the peninsula.

A great mountain rampart lay between these forces and the Anzacs, culminating in the summit of Achi Baba, the hardest nut to crack in the whole peninsula. Loftily situated on the slopes of Achi Baba is the village of Krithia, protected by a maze of Turkish trenches, and a wilderness of barbed wire entanglements. Upon this village an attack was directed from as many points as practicable, and in this attack a large proportion of the Australasian troops participated.

The attack was opened by such a fusillade of shellfire from the warships of the allied fleet as has seldom been seen or heard. From all quarters they rained shell and shrapnel on the slopes of Krithia, searching the ranges one by one in the attempt to dislodge the defenders from their trenches and hiding-places along the scrubby hillsides and precipitous ravines. The enemies' losses from that shellfire were enormous, but the Turks are admirable defensive fighters, and they clung to their trenches, making the most of the shelters that had been constructed in anticipation of such an attack.

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