THE GREAT ADVENTURE

Southland Times, Issue 17663, 22 February 1916, Page 6

THE GREAT ADVENTURE

INCIDENTS IX THE EVACUATION. THE DIE-HARDS OE ANZAC. SPLENDID SPIRIT OP THE MEN. (Prom Malcolm Ross, Official "War Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces.) 27th December. The Berliner Tageblatt, early in December. stated that the Dardanelles undertaking would have been abandoned long ago if it was as easy to get out of the jaws of the lion as to get into them. Veil, here we are clear out of them, spending a merry Chirstmas. The jaws of tiie Tnrco-Ocrman lion snapped just a little too late. The beast has been disappointed of bis prey at Anzac. One man was wounded: another hail his toe crushed by a cart! The story of how all this was accomplished is a fascinating one, but 1 find wo are not allowed to tell it. Il is not advisable to inform the enemy how it was done. Meantime the Turkish commander is, no doubt, bitterly reflecting upon the fact that he failed to scupper our rearguard, and that ho did not capture even one solitary machine gun! The great thing from our point of view was to make it appear from day to day as if events wore running their ordinary course. The cleverness and the resource with which this was accomplished will one day pass into history in detail. Suffice it for the present to say that the final operation orders wore a model of clear thinking and organisation from the main principles down to the smallest detail of the Groat Adventure, and that one and all, from the highest commands clown to the privates in the trenches, carried them out with a loyal co-operation and enthusiasm worthy of the best traditions of our race. To a non-combatant on the Peninsula carefully watching events from day to day in the Anzac zone 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 success, 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 Louer,” Many of the men loft messages for Abdul —“A Merry Christmas” and "Good Wishes for the New Year.” One gunnery officer gathered together all thebottles 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." One battery away on the right left its mess-table set with bully beef, a bottle of whisky, and some other odds and ends. "With compliments to the commander of ‘Poachy Bill.’ ” In our mess, however, sad or serious we might he inwardly, we managed at least to main a cheerful exterior, extending mock sympathy to the "diehards," and chaffing eacli 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 camp;?: but tlie 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 he 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 Xew Zealand artillery officer, whose skull was laid bare by 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 till his gun was withdrawn and safely placed 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 lie will be back with his battery directing the fire on the advancing Turks in another zone.

THE SERIOUS 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 leaving, without a further struggle, the ground so dearly won—the ilex-covered valleys and Hills gained and held with the life’s blood of so many of the noblest and best of Xew Zealand's and Australia’s sons. Somewhat poetically one of the Xew Zealand soldiers put this phase of thought to his Battalion Commander: “I hope. Sir," he said, "that those fellows who lie buried along the Dcre will be soundly sleeping and not hear us as we march away.” The idea that his read comrades might think the living were forsaking them seemed to have made a deep impression on his mind. There was even a thought for those stricken comrades to whom, through the dire necessities of war, burial was denied, as witness tiie following lines: —

THE UNBURIED. Now snowflakes thickly falling in the winter breeze Have choked alike the hard, unbending ilex, And the grey, drooping branches of the olive trees, Transmuting into silver all their lead: And in between the winding lines, in No-Man’s-Land, *• Have softly covered with a glittering shroud Tli’ Unburied Dead. And in the silences of night when winds are fair, When shot and shard have ceased their wild surprising, 1 hear a sound of music in the upper air, Rising and falling till it slowly dies: It is the beating of the wings of migrant birds Availing tlie souls of tiie.se unburied heroes Into 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 ut the last moment our attenuated lines? These were questions that wore ever uppermost in our minds: tint even up to the last day we had a supreme confidence in our ability to repel any Turkish attack that bight be launched upon us. The new Zealand General —now in commany of tlie Army Corps—-finally took all ranks into his confidence, and issued an order expressing trust in their discretion and their high soldierly qualities to carry out a. task tlie success of which would largely depend upon their individual efforts. In tlie case of an attack lie expressed himself confident that the men who had to their credit such deeds as the orginal landing at Anzac. the repulse of tlie big Turkish attack on ISth Hay, j tlie capture of Lone Pine, tlie Apex, and I CO, would hold their ground with the same \aiour and steadfastness as heretofore, however, small in numbers they iiiighf lie. Tlie splendid spirit of the men at tlie finish showed that this confidence was not misplaced. | On the I-’riday I went into the firing line on the Apex the highest ground Won in all Hie' lighting, and found the New Zealanders, who still occupied the post '>f honour, tumbling over one anj other to be tin- last to leave. The coi- | oriel commanding the Wellington Rat- ; talion called for "0 volunteers from two 1 companies. Every man in each comi [iimv volunteered, so that after all lie j had to make the selection himself. Hen I wort.* coming to thoir oommaiuloiw and ! begging that they might lie allowed to I be in tlie last lot to go, l ■■|>o let me stay," said one man. "[ was in tlie landing, and 1 should like to be one of the last to leave." It was just tlie same with tlie Aus- : tj-,.|ians—they all wanted to he in tile i ”! >ie-h ards." 1 "Have you many' volunteers for the •Die-hards?’" i asked one commander. "Every mother’s son of them wants to j he a 'Die-hard!’ h* replied. And this, mind you, was at a time j when we thought that most of the "Diehards" would, for a certainty, he either killed, wounded, or taken prisoner—at a time when a little jumpiness and hesitation might very well have been ex-pect.-d. In one position on tl i * - left, when I tile last lot assembled at Hu- cookhouse, I it was found Unit there were two miss- ! j., . one had gone hack to the liring- | lire- for ins pipe; the other had gone for 1 something he had left behind in his bivouac! WLt’a such excellent organisation on the part of the staff, and such brave and j loval 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 one that it unique in the annals of warfare.