EVOLUTION OF ANZAC

Otago Witness, Issue 3214, 20 October 1915, Page 50

EVOLUTION OF ANZAC

CHANGING INTO WINTER GARB. SOME OF THE EARLY PREPARATIONS. (From the Special Representative of the Melbourne Age.) GABA TEPE, August 30. You can watch now the evolution of Anzac from summer to winter aspect, just as it has been possible to remark on the gradual settling down of the army on the peninsula. Of late there has been a considerable spreading out, and the crowded nature of the centra of the position has to some degree diminished. P or the past tnreo weeks there has been almost a deserted look about the lower lulls, duo as much as anything to tho presence of everybody in the fighting lino. _ ... When it became evident that no immediate change of position of the Australian lino was contemplated, many works were put in hand which have now given a very eolid and permanent, look to the position. An outstanding feature, if you regard Anzac from afar, is the number of snakelike roads that wind up the sharp spurs and disappear over tho crest into the valleys. Close inspection of these will show that they are not tracks, like those you see on the left, where the army is advancing, but roads, broad enough to haul a gun up. All along the side of the road are the dug-outs, “poseics,” scooped out of tho side of the hill, with a blanket dropped before them as a curtain from the sun. You are constantly coming on deserted homes, where, perhaps, some poor fellow has died on the bursting of a shell, or, maybe, has been called away and has never been replaced. Hanging on a bush I saw the following notice: “Telephone to Homo —Half Piastre a Second.” It was just outside a very com-fortable-looking cabin made of sandbags and beams. There was a buzzing and ticking within, and every few minutes messengers would hurry up with pink and white slips of paper. I had omitted to see tho following additional words: “You must not loiter here.” It was a central telephone exchange for the battlefield. That conveys nothing until you begin to trip over half a dozen wires after leaving the office, and find on a dark night a maze of wires round your throat. You disentaglo yourself and hang the wires on the nearest bramble, and in more cautious fashion proceed. You spend a good proportion of your time during your rambles cursing and avoiding telephone wires, but when you are on a hiltop and a battle is raging you appreciate the slender wire that enables the artillery observing officer to send a message- to each of, say, 20 guns in turn, giving them special instructions and a good target of Turks. The time to realise what tho signal system means is when you see the line repairers, as wo would call them, going out under shot and shell, tracking down the wires until tho break is discovered. But now there are appearing gaunt burdened poles, crossed and recrossed with hundreds of wires. Only a few days ago I saw a linesman on a ladder hitching on another, line as if he were linking up a new subscriber to a city telephone exchange. Pie was really linking up a new gun, a 4.7, as tho enemy discovered in due course. When the whole campaign concludes, and the peninsula is again allowed to resume its peaceful, pastoral habits, and the flowers cover the trenches and the graves, the tourist who is intrepid enough to go to the scene of action, no doubt will find the great terraces tumbling into ruin. He may have come direct from a crumbling Troy, whose fame is challenged now by the victories on the other side of the narrow strait. He may walk along w'holo galleries of what appear once to have been homes, judging by the blackened roofs whore tho smoko used to seek an outlet to the blue skies. Then he will come down nearer to the beaches, and on the lower hills find rows of cottages. Some will be in a sad state of repair, and tho roofs will bo leaking badly, but they will no doubt be covered with green grasses and the windows will still show some traces of having been wirenetted. He will even be able to trace some writing, and read a name like “ Gallipoli House,” or “The Hermitage,” or strike some pleasant remembrance of familiar scenes across the seas. ■ I saw “Dmgley Dell ” written large by one doorway. These dwellings are growing apace. They are the winter residences. INTO WINTER QUARTERS. One section of the army shrewdly suspects that it will remain where it is, no matter what the circumstances—unless they should be very tremendous, and include a cessation of hostilities. This section is the transport and mule corps. It is well protected on the higher slopes of a gentle hill. Near tho crest I have seen completed in tho last few days a fine mud and straw hut of no mean size, as dwellings go in these parts. It does not look as if it would slide down the hill with the first big fall of rain, , and tho galvanised iron roof is suggestive of waterproof qualities that have made many turn an apprehensive eye to the- sticks and bushes which have served all through the summer and glorious autumn. In fact, the residents of Anzac are taking a look at their homes. You may sec two or three Australians who have been sleeping in tho open for many weeks, exchange glances as a cool wind sweeps up a gully. They already have had two or three unforgettable experiences of the sliding, slipping, and wading that have to bo faced after an ordinary rain shower. “What are wo going to do about it, lad?” they ask ono another, and have another look at the sandbags rather out of shape—nearly empty, in fact —and the dried twigs of the toof and the blanket that keep out the sun. “ Better do something before the rain starts,” comes tho reply. Two or three agree" to live together. It will save labour, material, and ensure warmth. Orie night I watched a soldier hammering out a discarded water tin until it made quite a reasonable piece of tin suitable- for roofing. Another got some wood, and a third went to a deac’ttd dagout up another guil.y. Ho was away an hour, and then returned with two water! oof sheets Tire three lads are quite snug now against most rains. A similar, only a more expressive, process is going oil with certain officers. Generally they make a reconnaissance of the adjoining land, consult an engineer, make a few rough measurements, and in a few days’ time strips of corrugated iron begin to

arrive and roofs are made and drainage systems carried out. So Anzac is breaking up and spreading itself out. Soon there will will be i’ttlo life in the bed of the gullies. It is possible now to- go right away to the left, and haste is being made. Last season the weather broko on August 20. My informant is a man who lived not eight miles from the Anzac hills on one of the many rich farm holdings before Use outbreak of war. It might therefore be any day*" now when the conditions change from good to bad. In fact, in less than a day the storms arise without any warning. There have boon a few rather heavy rain squalls in the last few weeks, when only at the peril of your life could you scramble aboard the little pinnaces that rocked to and fro, and bumped against the sides of the jetty or the trawler. And when it does rain, I am informed, it rains inches at a time. It may bo boisterous weather for a week, and then a spell of comparative calm, fro we may expect two or three storms in September and October, and then a dropping of the mercury in the thermometer until snow follows ice and sleet, and gives a temporary respite from intense low temperature. Two or three feet of snow may bo on the ground at a time. The gullies become torrents, and land slides arc constant. No wonder, therefore, Suvla Bay was taken as a base, for tho winds I low up from the south and south-west. THE NAVY JOINS WITH THE ARMY. One may be accused of. somewhat losing sight of the work done by tho naval and merchant service in this- great combined naval and military operation of smashing the Turk on Gallipoli. One certainly might have thrust tho beach more under notice considering the largo proportion of Australians on the pinnaces, launches, and trawlers linking up the land with the sea services. It is possible now to speak a little more freely of the beach, the attentions of Abdul in that direction having suddenly diminished. I think I have already related how tho men in the trenches smile when they hear the beach being “hotted.” which it is regularly each day, chiefly when steamers come in too close, or a lino of lighters suggest to the enemy the presence of supplies that it would be advisable to sink. That they are never able to do so is due to the skill with which tho pinnaces and barges are managed by the boatswains and young midshipmen in charge: for. considering their difficulties, the Turkish shooting has not been inaccurate. His shrapnel succeeds in clearing the beach, which is something. The first shell from “Bcachy Bill,” as the lads call a worn-out, hollow, rumbling gun from the Olive Grove group on the right of our lines on tho plains of Ivlaidos, is sufficient to cause- something of a scatter. Certain men will not hasten their pace ; for the others, they get down among the Inigo pile of stores and outs and hay, and bran, and take a rest. Having hovered about for a reasonable period, tho launches dash in .again to tho pier, and the beach parties come running up from all sides at the stentorian call of the naval officer. It is no small undertaking to unload barges and load troops oa a rough day with the foreshore blocked with sunken lighters and boats of one sort and another. Tho pierhead you will generally find obscured in steam from tho pump that is sending water from the lighters -up to tho tanks in the gullies. This water supplements the well supply, which is fairly generous and ample. Generals come ofl from destroyers that steam close in and turn their how against old “ Beachy Bill,” who is foiled, search as he may, to get a good target. Of course, some morning tho Turks suddenly turn three or four guns on to the ships that have overstayed their midnight leave, and they back out quickly, surrounded by dropping- shells, any one of which would be sufficient to send them to the bottom. So you scarcely find a trawler without some signs of war about her. The wounded go off in long tows, tho bathers come down in groups and bathe from the end of the piers and off the sunken barges; the Indians, with their mule carts, back in for bran and flour. The clanging- of tho armory forge draws your attention away, and you find inside the piles of cases the officers of the great supply depot and the shops for repairing the rifles and guns. There are hundreds of men each doing a different job, or a hundred parties carrying water, mails, rations, telegrams, returned ordnance material, or loads of shells. Everyone is busy or has a job. Therefore everyone lias something to grumble about and occupy his mind, and therefore, though he docs net quite realise it, he is contented. Yet I know that 1 put the feelings of tho lads right when I say they won’t bo happy till they got away, and they won't bo cheerful again tii! they are back in the thick of it. “ See it through 1” is the motto adopted by all. And after all is said and done, that is tho British spirit, the same in the Australians as it is in the New Zealanders and Canadians. Our lad's clou/t intend that Turkey shall forget them.