ANZAC COVE

Evening Star, Issue 19848, 23 April 1928, Page 4

ANZAC COVE

A SAPPER’S MEMORIES DESPERATE VENTURES Recent issues of tbo London 1 Daily Telegraph ’ have contained a ‘ Gallipoli Diary,’ by Mr Ashmoad-Bartlett, which has run through a series of issues, and which has provoked quite a lot of correspondence. One of the most interesting ot these letters is from Nat Savage, in Gallipoli days a member of the Royal Kngineers Signalling Corps Ho says:— “ Your diarist emphasises the peculiar flavor of adventure about the expedition, and a sort of spiritual exaltation at the beginning that must have, resembled the feelings of the old-time adventurers when they set nut to conquer strange lands and face novel perils. The same fantastic twist gave ‘ social ’• life at Anzac Cove a novelty which can only . be fully .realised by one who actually lived it. ‘ There was only a small body of English troops there, among the Australians and Now Zealanders, mostly Signal men 1 was a humble member of the Signal Company.. “ 1 don’t suppose that any modern military expedition ever led such a self-con-tained life. There we were, marooned on a strip of desert land together, and as near such a paradox as a military democracy as it is possible to get. The generals lived amongst us, like common men, and not as the Olympians of the western front. Wo could see all their comings out and their goings in. They stood the test. General Birdwood could ’.even abandon that without which no man ia supposed capable of dignity—his clothes—and go in for his daily swim mother-naked. “It was remarkable how the English slit If officers seemed to adapt themselves to the. breezier Antipodean standards of behaviour. 1 never heard a word of adverse criticism against them, as a class. It will perhaps be sufficient to sny that they never ducked—and that is saying a lot The most cheerful man there was Brigadier-general Leslie, the C.R.E. I do not believe he ever had a night’s sleep without being called out from his dugont fo answer the telephone several times—and Unit after long and gruelling days. I often called him out. in the small hours of the morning to come down to the signal ofiiee, and ho never was even snappy. It was a favorite ‘jape,’ of his, when aroused, to ask, with mock anxiety, Is it a lady?’ The prospects of a lady over calling up Anzac Cove can be imagined. “The life on the beach was a wonderful and curious spectacle. After a spell in the line, the Aussies revelled in the bathing, which was really glorious. It was n. dangerous business. From either flank the Turks were able to rake the beach with shrapnel. On the right was (ho notorious 4 Beachy Bill,’ while on the left was a battery known as 'Anna, of Anafarla.’ This latter was reputed to be composed of French seventy-fives which the Turks had bought for their previous wars, “ For a, considerable time those two batteries used to open up on the beach every evening at 8 o’clock sharp. In .spite of this, the shore was usually crowded with bathers. As many as thirty or forty would get hit in one evening, indeed, it was a favorite dodge for men to swim out to .laces where the shells had burst hi order to get the fish that had been killed oy the explosion and which came to the surface The precision of fire of ‘ Beachy Bill ’ was marvellous, and it was a common saying that ‘ Beachy ’ could knock a beer bottle oil the end of the jetty if it were set up for him. One of the bravest men at Anzac was a naval officer called (.'hater, who was the landing officer. Ho was a familiar figure at the end of the j f tty, however hot the fire. Bales of h;y were piled along to form a protecting wall or, the side of the jetty, but poor Chafer was eventually killed at his post. “ The mules were prominent iu beach h'e. Poor thing,- they did their duty wed, whatever their nature may be by (juio. One of i- cm even refused to leave is rlier he was dead. His corpse was towed out 1 1 sea by a picket boat, but it was ba jk again on the shore next morning, and repeatedly returned, each time in a more inflated condition. Finally, it came no more.

"There was a great submarine scare one day, A chaplain reported that ho had spied a. periscope at sea. The destroyers came out like terriers to look for the sub., hut could see nothing, and an aggrieved naval officer sent in a message requesting the chaplain to bo more discriminating next lime lie saw a mule floating with its remaining log in the air. I am firmly convinced that it was the selfsame mule having its last joke on ns. " It is difficult, from comfortable civilisation, to draw a picture of life as it was out lliore—the burning sun, the flics by dav, and the lice, by night, the shortage of' water, the mules trudging along tho saps with the bulging water-skins, and poor wounded devils glad to lick tho moisture that exuded, the extraordinary range of clothing and the rich variety of character among the overseas men. Indeed, it all seems like a dream that can never ho fully io!(l. And it never will be. Tho vast canvas of the campaign may bo roughed in by the military historian, but tho'petty shifts, sorrows, and mad exaltations ot the common soldier cannot bo wholly rescued from oblivion. Nor will the full tale of heroism ever he told. "When 1 think of the 29th Division, ihe attack on J.ono Pine, the desperate ventures of English youths at Suvla Bay, a line comes to my mind from a film which had in it something of the spirit of Gallipoli—‘Beau Gesie’: • Nobody’ll ever know just bow brave them poor soldiers was.’ ”