THE FIRST ANZAC DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17145, 26 April 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE FIRST ANZAC DAY.

A SOLDIER'S MEMORIES. BT ONI WHO WAS THERB. This day is the 25th of April, 1919, and I sit wistfully dreaming of another 25th of April—four years ago— and another part of ' the world. Pictures come thronging beforo my mind's eye of scenes and deeds never to bo forgotten, of chums and comradea loved ard mourned; and in memory of these I essay to chronicle a few incidents from the first glorious and terrible Anzac Day. Mudros Bay, with its huge fleet of ships and boats of almost every class and sy.e, disappears rapidly from view in tho gloom behind us, while from out the unknown, mysterious gloom into which ■our ship is heading comes the sound of muffled booming, now loud, now soft. We are a tense-nerved, sober company this unforgettable Sunday morning, a,ud when the request is sent round for a church parade on the promenade deck we gather rapidly and willingly. It is a service which brings each man very closely into touch with his Maker that we hold this morning, and is conducted to tho incessant musio of battle booming ever louder and louder from the gloom ahead of us. Up the Valley of Death. Ashore at lost! Panting, struggling, striving, we form up somewhere under the semi-shelter .of the cliffs. Overhead, the air splits and. shrieks with the burst and rattle ant. | whizz of shrapnel. Around and amongst j us there spring up little spurts of dust whore the Mauser bullets strike homo in the sand; but for tho moment we are too spent with the mad dash through tho last fow yards of water, and then aorosß the littered beach, to care. Men are falling frequently. Over there one utters a smothered gasp-like groan, throws his rifle far from him, claws wildly at the air for a moment, and then crumples down .in an unnatural heap. We put him aside, with a tunic over his paling face. Another man dead, but who feels any horror? We aro too far gone for that; and it might be yours or my turn next. This is the grim game called War, which we came out hero to play. " Get up to the head of the valley quicker than quick! An Australian company is very hard pressed there, and you must help them. A guide will meet and direct you. Collar all the ammunition you can, and hold on somehow till you pre relieved. The position is a key one, i and must be kept at any cost." ! Tire panting staff-officer seemß to literally spit out the orders as he flings his way pant us along the corpse and gear-strewn foreshore. Two men to a box of a thousand rounds of the sorelyneeded cartridges, we start out on our first march up the Valley of Death. From overhead the pitiless shrapnel pours down its horrible, searching nail with greater savagery. From the sides of the valley well-hidden snipers torment and torture the column as it toils onward with these heavy munition boxes, which must be taken up in view of tho enemy. Men, comrades, fall groaning in lie path. We step over them, and leave them. Others fall, and do not groan; those do not move, either, and we know their race has ended. We struggle ahead and leave them all—the wounded and the dead, and, perhaps, the dying. Up, ever up, towards the head of the valley that seems of endless length, and all the way these snipers take their steady toD from tho thinning ranks. The ! glint of a bayonet in the pale light is the signal f or a man's passing in this Valley of Death. From some vantagepoint an enemy sharp-shooter will mark him down.

At length we gam our destination, and the men we have como to help greet us with a warmth that repays the agony of the march. Some fink down, with brimming eyes and quivering lips, too overcome to speak their welcome, for they are at the end if left unaided any longer: then, shoulder to shoulder, Kiwi and Emu man a half-dug, ditch-like trench that is almost crammed with dead and wounded, and beat off attack after attack till night falls again, when, staggering and groping, with limbs a-shake and senses partially paralysed, wo retire to make way for the Incoming relief. We have " held on" somehow, but the cost has been heavy. Night and Horning. In the gloom of the night the wounded are tenderly collected, and form an agonised band, which, despite its misery, utters but few groans. They are stoics, these stricken men! They bear their pains manfully, while exhausted, automa-ton-like stretcher-bearers remove each as rapidly as possible It is a cruel, cruel journey down the rough and pathless cliff side, but it must be made; and the heroic, patient bearers stumble no more than they can help, though their limbs shake and quiver With the strain of a work that is unending, and for want of a rest that never comes. Down tho Valley of Death this time, and in tho brilliant moonlight an occasional sniper gets home a snot) but we do not worry. Let them shoot 1 What we care about and want is some place where we can throw ourselves down and sleep, and sleep, and sleep! Just now nothing else matters. Stumbling and groping, we reach a path leading to the beach—a rough track cut by the engineers during tho day. It is cold, damp, and rocky, but when the word is passed along for the line to halt and secure all the rest possible, most of us find that mountain-path (blood-?oaked in many places) a bed of eiderdown. Too tired even to remove the heaviest equipment, we lie like logs in the dreamless Bleep of sheer exhaustion.

" Shake a log ! Shake a leg, or you'll all be dead !" A frantic, grey-haired Anatolian orderly corporal tramps about, kicking and punching ub Into semi-wakefulhess. We are soon fully awake, for the shrapnel rips and tears and thrashes in the stunted ilex bushes around us. There is practically no shelter, but miraculously we escape, with the exception of one unfortunate fellow whoso left hand is smashed to pulp by a falling timefuse. Refreshed a little by the few hours sleep, we move hastily to a safer position, and later take over the defence of Walker's Ridge, a part of the line proper. Brave Where All Are Brave. There ie nothing exceptional about big J F , other than that he stands six-feet-three and has a heart as warm as his manlv frame is large. He is a quiet, soft-speaking fellow—one of those men who impress you with having a great | deal of reserve force. As vie hasten from the shrapnelthreshed gorge, we notice that J—- is walking bare-footed, with his boots tied together and suspended round bis neck. He has a very pronounced limp with the J ritrht leg. Inquiries are made and a report passed to the officer commanding. 3 . states that early yesterday) morning a bullet pancd through the I upper of his boot and gave him 'a bit. of a nick;" but, "it didn't bleed and didn't hurt much," though it is easier with the boot off. He is "quite able to have another smack at them in bare 1 The " bit of a nick" received 24 hours previously proves to be a leading sinew almost cut through, and the result is that a man with a murage too great to recognise pain and self-danger hae to be literally ordered from the ranks so that he may receive much-needed medical attention before it is too late. . It is men like J F— who glorified the glory of Anzac, and as J— l,mped awav to the field luspiul, and we ret out'to take our part in the real '■ hanging-on" process which .asted so ' mai'v'loi ' and dreary months, we i-al-l d'th.it tie lira Anzac Day had passed „ m u> ci'i-viii' 't= burden oi achievement and valour, of a.-onv and tears, onward to a wondering world.