THE FIGHTING AT THE DARDANELLES.

Northern Advocate, 19 July 1915, Page 1

THE FIGHTING AT THE DARDANELLES.

WOMEN AS SNIPERS

THE MOUNTED MEN IN ACTION,

(By Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces.) WOMEN SNIPERS. MAY 26. One met with frequent stories of women snipers in the Turkish lines, but it was always difficult to get hVsthand information about them. A wounded Australian whom 1 met yesterday gave me an instance that had come under his own notice. These particular snipers—and no doubt many others also —had silencers on their Mauser rifles. The advancing party therefore heard only the ping of the bullet near them, and a sound like the crack of a whip. On this particular occasion they located a sniper close at hand, and went to look for him. There was another "ping!" and one of the men fell dead. Suddenly the party came upon two snipers, who held. lip their rifles in token of surrender. Their rifles were taken from them, their hands tied behind their backs, and "they were marches down to the beach. They were wearing the uniforms of dead Australian soldiers, and they had about 2000 rounds of ammunition near them, and enough food to last a fortnight. A doctor who examined them at headquarters found that.they were both women! On the following day-these Australians had to cross a gully en their right flank, and there they f rand five of their dead comrades, stripped of all their clothing, even to the boots.

The man who told me this incident had been in the thick of the fi.jhti.Lj f ">r the first fortnight, and on more than one occasion he saw the German officers driving on the Turks with revolver and sword. BRAVE DEEDS. The same man did not wish to say much about his own exploits. He, however, gave the following instances of heroic action by others that had come under his notice. One soldier working a machine gun was hit.by a bullet that just grazed his intestine. Ho continued to work the gun. Then a bullet got him in the right arm, which, was disabled; but he commenced to fire with his left hand. A fourth bullet got him fair in the forehead. My informant did not even know the man's.name. He had brought his Maxim up in a charge into the firing line through the open. It was a gun of the 10th Battalion. "Our sergeant," continued the narrator, "was wounded twice, but went on calmly giving orders. First of all, his binoculars were knocked out of his hand by a bullet or a piece of shrapnel. Then he.got a slight wound along the temple. Someone suggested that he should get out of the firing line to receive first aid, but he replied, 'No; I'll carry on as long as I can; I want to get even with the beggars.' They again urged him to get out, but he merely laughed and said it would be all; right. Ten yards farther on he was shot through the spine, and In half an hour he was dead. He was a machine gun sergeant belonging to the 4th Battalion." THE MOUNTEDS AND THE FOOT SLOGOERS. The New Zealand mounted men have left their horses behind them and have gone to the front as infantry. "By Jove, they will go into it heart and soul,'" said v wounded man to me tim afternoon. "Why?"'l asked. "Because," ha replied, "of the way our chaps have been treated."

There is,, of course, always a kind of natural enmity between the horseman and. the; foot slogger. The mounted men:used\to look down on the infari-, try,! and .jokingly refer to them as "beetleTcrusherß." And in Egypt the mounted .men certainly had the best end of the stick in so far as the training. .went; The infantry had to go through a very severe ordeal indeed. Along trie L Heliopolis-Suez road they did many a weary mile under the hot Egyptian: sun. Sometimes they did route-marcheß of twenty miles;- One day they did twenty-five miles by the map over soft desert sand with packs, rifles.and equipment weighing between 601b and 70lb! Some days they thought they would never last it out. They thought it absolute hell. But they never complained, and somehow they always managed to do it. They would,come back In the evening with eyebrows, and eyelashes and such hair aawas uncovered absolutely white. They were the weirdest looking soldiors '"imaginable. But they stuck it out. They; took it -as part of the game. On this Suez road there are at certain intervals some old watch-towers built hundreds of years ago. On e of the most usual-marches was out to the third watch-tower and back. The men got to hate that tower with an unforgettable hate. They used to see It in their dreams. One night, as the Now 'Ze-alandvrs were marching ba?k, thoy worv. mot by some Australians going but on xi bivouac. They asked where the New Zealanders had been. They replied: "To the third tower." "Where are you going?" asked a New Zealander. "To the third tower," was the reply. "But it won't be so bad next week; we're going to push it six miles nearer camp to-night!"

•When the troops were leaving Zeltoun for Lemnos, at the Dardanelles, everybody thought and said: "Well, thank God, there will be no more third tower!" But a wag In the Mounteds came up and asked: "Have you seen what the Brigadier has got in the guard's van?" "Xo," answered the "beetle-crusher," "What ia it'?" "It's the old third tower; he's taken it to pieces and packed it up," was the reply. Once aboard the troopships the men knew they were really done with the old tower. But at Lemnos they landed for a route march, and they had not gone far before they came upon an exactly similar tower! They all seemed to sec it at once; hut if: was left to a man in the ranks to neatly sum up the situation. "Good Lord," he cried "There's the old third tower; its beaten us here!"

When the foot-sloggers' went away to the Dardanelles and the mounteda had to remain behind, it v/as. the latter who came in for the chaff. They were promptly designated "The Sultan's Bodyguard!" "ily word; you'll have a fine time in Cairo trotting the Suitan around," was the- last- thrust of a departing "beetle-crusher.'* Bat th e mouateds were just dying to into it, ant} when the tibia came theydid not evenmind leaving tho'ir horses behind them. Since then- they have been in the thick of it,'shoulder to shoulder with the foot-slogtors, and many a good man among them will never see his horse again, They went bravely forward "to avenge. the -deaths of comrades who had gone before, and "" bravely they have given their.-all for Kins and country. Far away from his beloved horse—now idle in'the desert camp at a rider has padded the hoof along-the road into the Great Unknown;