WAR NEWS BY MAIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16020, 11 September 1915, Page 4

WAR NEWS BY MAIL.

FIGHT FOR ACHI BABA.

IMPRESSION AT CAPE HELLES. THE ALLIED ARMIES. SCENE OF FIERCE FIGHTING. Though Achi Baba is distant only some nine or ten miles from our position at Anzac, the character of the operations and of the country there are altogether different, writes Mr. Malcolm Ross from the Dardanelles, under date July 15. Yesterday we left for the scene of the fighting, getting in a pinnace through a choppy sea into a trawler. Two hours' steam brings the trawler to Lancashire Landing, the scene of one of the most thrilling episodes in the war. There the pinnace performance had to be repeated, and we land on a little -wharf that joins on to a beach, on which you are liable to get shelled at any time of the day, either from Asia or the heights of Achi Baba, or from both together. This particular beach is the favourite hunting ground of " Annie from Asia," and "Blustering Bill" often keeps her company, while sometimes a high velocity i shell flies over the position and bursts beyond before you can hear the sound of his coming. There have been times when between seventy and eighty shells have fallen within an hour, and there nave been occasions upon which nearly two hundred shells have been landed by the enemy within the day. The Turks have sought by this means to stop the landing operations. In this they have signally failed. Occasionally, as at Anzac, they get a man or two. Just before we arrived a transport officer was killed. From the general to the private all have to run the gauntlet, but the Turk mistakes the character of the British if, by this means, he hopes to stop either the supply of men,' munitions, or food. Day and night the operations go on, and day and night they will go on until the Peninsula is ours.

A Busy Scene. In the offing two or three hospital ships ride at anchor, and craft of various kinds, from battleship to destroyer, and from ocean liner to North Sea trawler, come and go. Close in-shore a vessel's mast and top hamper indicate a •wreck of some weeks ago. A bit of a hull awash is all that can be seen of the- Majestic. It is quite close in-shore, an indication that if the vessel could have floated a little longer she might have been beached. The little wharf, the end of which is a floating barge, presents a busy scene. Ammunition, frozen hindquarters of beef, beef in tins, and all the wonderful variety of articles required for an army in the field, are being conveyed ashore by a regiment of chattering Greeks and a crowd of Army Service Corps men. On the cliff on the right the Red Cross flies on a staff above the British flag, where there is a hospital under canvas. Beyond that a dusty road slants up between the sandy cliffs. The sand is the salvation of the beach. Were it solid rock the bursting of the shells would claim a heaw toll here. Half-way up to the crest of the first rise are tents and mules and horses and great stacks of provisions, and a few tents in high barbed-wire entanglements, where the tired Turkish prisoners are well content to be at ease after the shock of a continuous shelling from the British field guns and the French seventy-fives, the continuous fire of the rifles, and the bursting bombs. Dust Everywhere.

The chief interpreter, who has had a most adventurous career, is busy with a small staff examining the letters, records, and orders found upon officers and men. Most interesting indeed are some of these. At the top of the rise, many crosses of wood mark the last resting place of many of our gallant soldiers, and as we pass it by a padre and an army doctor are giving decent burial to such of our men as have died from wounds in the recent battle. As the stretcherbearers convev their grey-blanketed burdens from the Ambulance Corps to,, the deep-dug trench you recognise that you are very close to the grim realities of war; but bv this time you do not give the matter a second thought, and your attention is switched round to the work of the army which woes on unceasingly all around yon. A strong: wind is blowins', and the impression that is fixed indelibly on one's mind is that of a dvistetorm in a miniature Sahara, out of which mule carts, an occasional horseman, and little knots of soldiers emerge for a moment and disappear. The dust sets on your clothes and boots, and into your hair and ears and eyes. Following' the dusty road, you come upon old trenches and dug-outs, and more men. Their Baptism of Fire. The whole place, which but a few weeks ago was a beautiful garden of wild X!™' ™*™***e* with small fir and tarMl Bl?ade *<**• and an occasional with tt!\ft ™ W^ an desert ""ered «Jl* ie , aft e™»th of war. Telegraph I SathS ,meS Across along* a New Zealand colonel pished himself UVAitit. here, m charge. They are A ♦ , an attack either thatTvenTng'or to straighten up a bit of the line & til centre so that it mav come up wS ' the advance* of the French on n£ •L» ! and the British on fftt °^ d S the last two davs. There has bean some stubborn firhtinsr eo i n<r on dnrin *«T----time, and the Scottish LmI?" have bad tbmr hwtism of fire anTw more than fulfilled expectation, * fe fight has been a typical one--, «„* bombardment by th" French , nd the 7%£. tisb. then a s ,liy forth of the .™ «"" and a few hundred v*rd« 7 an S j maintained in snite of t„Vt-- v. i . ,ifl. »„. „„ ct, 0 ' K,? ;tr\i — a Tp., . udc * w; th the usual result fit thl Yet - .^ther! mvaace made? WeU please <* with the ad-

CAMPAIGN ON GALLIPOLI THE NEW ZEALAND HOSPITAL. OPENING CEREMONY IN ENGLAND GALLANTRY OF INDIAN SOLDIERS

Proceeding further towards the firingline, we gained a group of trees, under which some horses were tethered, and there, oat of the dust, we got a splendid view of the battlefield, with the gentle slopes of Achi Baba rising to a low rounded top, continued on the right by the line of a slightly lower ridge, which, once you were on top of it, would probably develop into a narrow plateau. On the" left all was quiet, but on the right the rattle of rifle-fire came down the wind, and Turkish shrapnel was bursting over the French trenches. Our field-guns were replying from hidden positions. We were well within the zone of fire, but judged that the Turks, even if they saw us, would not waste their shells upon bo insignificant - target. Bits of shell scattered about, however, showed that there were times when their fire came in this direction, and an invitation from a " Tommy" to come to a better observation point within an adjacent dug-out was accepted. On the left we saw clearly Krithia, somewhat damaged by bombardment. About half-way between that and our position was the spot where the son of the New Zealand Minister for Defence fell gallantly fighting for his country. A Typical Soldier.

We returned the way we came. Warworn, soldiers and some slightly wounded were returning along the dusty road to the base. We walked awhile with a youngster of the Highland Light Infantry and a chum severelv stricken, though Tinscratched, by a bursting shell. The youngster was full of the charge they had made, and prond of the desds of his regiment, which he detailed to us in a strong Glasgow accent. His friend's shirt had been torn to tp*.t»«rs by the bursting shell, and a bit of the shell had gone through bis trousers. Ha fell forward on his knees exhausted. We picked him TO and gave him a drink from our water bottle. " Oh, I'm all Tight." he said. "Til get there." Then, arm-in-arm with bis younger and cheerier comrade, proud of the part thw had taken in the blooding of the HL.I., they resumed their trudge along the dusty road towards the clearing station. In a few weeks the shell-shocked, nerve-shaken soldier would be all right again, and back in the firingline. Monitor at Work. As we steamed out in the little pinnae from T,ancashire landing, a strangelooking craft came down and took up a ! Position just off the cliffs to the north' of Lancashire Landing. There must have been many a Turkish telescope, from Achi Baba along the coast to Gaba Tepe. turned on her, with her great beam, her tripod mast, her Early Victorian skirt of steel j«st awash, and the two long, ATPerican-lookinp guns pointing from a barbetfca over an unobstructed forward gun platform. Such of our party as had seen her for the first time were nearly as much surprised a* the wondering Turk. Presently one of the long black fingers staking out from the barbette was elevated a few degrees, there was a groat blast of flame, a cloud of brownish smoke, and a tremendous report, as a shell of large c*>b'bT-e went tearing through the air to a Turkish gun position on the Asia coast. After seconds that seemed minutes we saw it bursting, miles awav. Cortainly. if it had got on to that Tnrkish battery tn« result must have b"»n disastrous. Pluckily. in reply, a Turkish run opened on the strange craft, and pooped her with one shot. A kitten on board went ud and examined the sh"ll carefnllv. hnt for the rn-esent ifc received no other attention. Rnbse«uentlv it was decorated as a memento of the baptism of fire of ♦his shin in the Gallinoli peas. A f *er firing about ten rounds the monitor hiaded for her harbour, . and steamed slowlv and somewhat contemptuously out of range of the Turkish guns.