THE GREAT ADVENTURE

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17098, 22 February 1916, Page 5

THE GREAT ADVENTURE

INCIDENTS IN THE EVACUATION. THE DIE-HARDS OF ANZAC. SPLENDID SPIRIT OF THE MEN. (From MALCOLM ROSS, Official Correspondent with the N.Z; Forces.) December'27. The "Berliner Tageblatt," early in December, stated thai the Dardanelles undertaking would have been abandoned long ago if it were as easy to get out of the jaws of the lion as to get into' them. Well, here we are clear out of them, spending a merry Christmas. The jaws of the ,Turko-Gcrnian lion snapped just a little too late. The beast has been disappointed of his prey at Ansae' Oho man was wounded; another had his toe crushed by a cart! The story of how all this was accomplished is a fascinating one, but 1 find we are not allowed to tell it. It is not advisable to inform the enemy how it was done. Meantime the Turkish commander is. no doubt, bitterly re-

ftecting upon the fact that he failed to scupper our rearguard, and that he did not capture even oiie solitary macbino gun! The crreat thing from our point of view was to make" it appear from day to day as if events were running their ordinary course. The cleverness and the resource with which this was accomplished will ono day pass into history in detail. Suffice it. for the present to say that the final operation orders were a model of clear thinking and organisation-from tho main principles down to the smallest detail of the Great Adventure, and that ono and all. from the highest commands down to the privates in the trenches, carried them out with a loyal cooperation and enthusiasm worthy of the best-traditions of our race. To a non-combatant- on

the Peninsula carefully watching events front day to day in the Ansae 7-one the position appeared to bristle with difficulties, some of which it seemed almost hopeless to surmount. To such an extent was this the case that the final triumphant &uccess. when it did come, was a little difficult of realisation.

Towards the close of the Great Adventure the humorists got to work, and. it was no uncommon sight to see a comfortable dug-out bearing the notice "A Loner."' Many of the men left messages for Abdul—" A Merry Christmas'' and "Good Wishes for the New Year.". One gunnery officer gathered together all the bottles he could find and piled them outside the. mess. ''The Turk," he said, "will think our last strafe was the result of a great carousal." Ono battery away on the right left its-mess-table set with bully beef, a bottle of whisky, an<l|p6me other odds and ends, " With the compliments

:o the commander of ' Beachy Bill."

In our mess, however sad or serious we might be inwardly, we managed at least to maintain, a cheerful exterior, extending meek sympathy to the "diehards,'' and chaffing each other as to the various capacities that we should presently be appearing in at Constantinople. The idea was sedulously cultivated that the' men were -going into rest camps; but the intelligence of the colonial troops was of too high an order to permit of the continuance of this deception. A query to the O.C. Artillery as to when his second lot of guns were going into the " rest camp " elicited only a smile, and a suggestion that the guns were getting tired was an insult that, rankled but could not be replied to.

In the dug-outs, in the trenches and in the artillery observation posts various kindly messages, and even presents of food, were left for our gallant foes. One, New Zealand artillery officer, whose skull was laid bare bv a shell that came through the roof of his observation post, left a message for the Turkish gunners to say that the shell "did not get him." That same officer carried on tiil his gun was withdrawn and safely placad on board an outgoing ship. In hospital I have seen his wound being dressed. It was rather an ugly one, but in a few weeks he may be back' with his battery directing the fir© on the enemy in another zone.

THE SEEIOUS SIDE

But underlying all this fun and frolic that, is so well recognised a trait of British character, in the presence of extreme danger, there was a deeper feeling of sadness that we should be leuvmg, without a further struggle, th>-

ground so dearly won—the ilex-cover-ed valleys and hills gained and held with the life's blood of so'many of the noblest and best of New Zealand's and Australia's sons. Somewhat poetically one of the Now Zealand soldiers put this phase of thought to his Battalion Commander: ''l horJe. sir." he said, "that those fellows who lie buried along the Dere will be soundly sleeping and not hear us as w« march away." The idea that his dead comrades might think the living were forsaking ; them seemed to have made a deep impression on his mind. There j was oven a thought for those stricken .comrades to whom, through tlio dire necessities of waif, burial was denied, as witness the following lines:— THE UXBURIED. Now &nowfi«lces thickly falling: ill the winter breeze Hove cloaked alike' the hard, unbendingilex. And the grey, drooping branches af the olive trees, Transmitting into silver all their- lead; An'l in between the winding lines, in No-Man's-Land, Have softly covered with a glttteringshroud Th 1 Unbiiried Dead. And in the silences of night when winds are. fair. When shot, and shard have ceased their wild surprising, I hear o, sound of music in the upper nir, Risjpe and falling till it slowly dies: It is tlio beating of tho wings of migrant birds Wafting tho souls of these imburied heroes Jnto Paradise. The spirit of the men towards the close was splendid.' As the last days drew near the suspense grew greater. Did- the Turks know that we were evacuating? Would they attack at the last moment our attenuated lines? These wore questions that were ever uppermost in our minds;-but even up to tho last day we had a supreme confidence in our ability to repel any Turkish attack that might be launched '< upon us. The Now Zealand General— ' now in command of the Army Corps—finally took all ranks into his ennfi- '[ donee, and issued an order expressing his trust in their discretion and their '■ high soldierly qualities to carry out .'. a. task the success of which would larsc- • ly depend upon their individual efforts. In the ease of an attack he expressed himself confident that the men who had to their credit such deeds as the original • landing at Ansae, the repulse of the big Turkish attack on-18th May, the capture of Lone Pine, the Apex, and Hill fiO, would hold their ground with the same valour and steadfastness as heretofore, however small in num-

bers they might be. The splendid spirit of the men at the finish showed that this confidence was not misplaced. On the Friday I went into the firing lino on the Apex—the highest ground won in all the fighting, and found the New Zealanders, who still occupied the post of honour, tumbling over one another to be. the last to leave. The colonel commanding the Wellington Battalion called for thirty volunteers from two companies. Every ,man in each company volunteered, so that aft-ar all he had to make the selection himself. Men were coining to their commanders pncl bogging thru they might be allowed to be in the last lot to go. ■ "Do let me stay," said one man. i " I was in the landing, and. I should like to be t no of the last to leave." It, was just the same with the Australians —they all wanted to be in the " Die-hards." " Have you many volunteers for the 'Die-hards?' " 1 asked one commander. "Every mother's sou of them wants to be a 'Die-hard!' ", he replied. And this, mind you, was at a time when we thought that/most of the "Die-hards" a certainty, bo either killed, wouified or taken prisocnor —at a time when a little jumpiness and hesitation might very well have been expected. In one position on the left, when the last lot assembled at the cookhouse, it was found that there were two missing. One had gone

back to the firing line for his pipe; the other had gone for something he had left behind in his bivouac! With such excellent organisation on

the part of the staff, and such brave and loyal co-operation and sang froid on the part of the officers and men in the trenches, it is perhaps, after all, not to be wondered at that the Turks were busy shelling the. vacant trenches and the deserted beaches a day after men, mules and guns had been silently and secretly embarked, and were already well across the Gulf of Saros, in the language of the official despatch, "to be employed elsewhere." They had triumphantly succeeded in one of the most difficult of operations—in ono that is unique in the annals of warfare.