FIRST DAYS ON GALLIPOLI.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 20436, 16 August 1915, Page 3

FIRST DAYS ON GALLIPOLI.

THE BEACH AND THE BACK-

GROUND

EVERYONE UNDER FIRE

SANG FROID OF THE COLONIAL

SOLDIER

ANZAC, 26th June. The dawn came at 4.30, and the walls of the office resolved themselves into boxes of deal all stencilled "Biscuits 401b.5." On the tented-roof dark patches resolved themselves into constellations of Hies. All about us were great piles of provisions and the hundred and one necessities of an Army Corps. Behind were the steep hillsides of Anzac burrowed and scarred and trenched beyond recognition. Looking up at the heights one wondered how they had ev«r been stormed, and wondered still more how they h;V;l ever been heJd in the face of superior numbers well entrenched. On the other hand, across the water the outlines of Imbros and of Samothraee grew clear in the growing light. Water-carts, pontoons, the keel of a sunken boat, the tops of the masts and funnel of a small wrecked steamer, ;md the wharf erected, by the Australian and New Zealand Engineers, also caught the eye. The little waves of the Sea of Saros lapped the sands, and in the water at our feet lay the distending body of a dead mule. Such was our introduction to Anzac beach.

We sat on some sacks of produce making a breakfast of biscuit and jam. The rifle fire of the night had died down and we gazed contentedly at a beautiful and peaceful scene. An officer came up and greeted the newcomers. "It woii'd be a lovely place for a week-end visit," he said, adding, as if in afterthought, " if there were no war." On the whole it looked as if our first day at Anzac were going to be a quiet one. The men, and officers too, were bathing contentedly in the clear sea. But presently there was a peculiar singing noise in the air ( just over our heads, a loud explosion and a burst of bullets and broken shell in the water. This they told us was '"Startling Annie," a Turkish gun in a hidden position away on our left, beginning her daily morning hate. But few people seemed to take .any notice of her. Some of the men did not trouble to come out of the water. They went on bathing. A non-com, passing pointed to a hole in the sack on which I was sitting. "She sent one in there yesterday," he said. Later he showed us a bit of the broken shell. To our mind the beach did not seem to be a healthy spot, but the almost diabol'ieal nonchalance of both officers and men made us stifle whatever feelings of fear we personally may have harboured. Later in the day we were shelled from The other side with a different class of gun, which exploded shrapnel along the beach and in the water, the shell ifcse'f bursting into many pieces. One exploded in front of General God'ley's headquarters. That gun cleared the wharf, and sent the majority of the men to safer positions. I saw a big chunk of one shell land within two yards of a man who was digging; but he went on digging, and another man ran to get the fragment as a curiosity. A piece of another shell came whizzing within a ■few yards of where I was writing, and a man who picked it up burnt his fingers with it. No place seemed safe, except one's "dug-out," and even that was not safe. A few days previously, a