The Anzac Book

“The Australian and New Zealand troops have indeed
proved themselves worthy sons of the Empire.”

GEORGE R.I.

The
Anzac Book

Written and Illustrated in Gallipoli by
The Men of Anzac
For the benefit of Patriotic Funds
connected with the
A. & N. Z. A. C.
Cassell and Company, Ltd
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1916

The Copyright in all
the Contributions, both
pictures and writings,
contained in The
Anzac Book is
strictly reserved to the
Contributors.

LITERARY CONTENTS

LIST OF PLATES

INTRODUCTION
By SIR W. R. BIRDWOOD

It is my privilege to have been asked to write an Introduction for The Anzac Book, and to convey the cordial thanks of all the inhabitants of our little township here to those who have so kindly given us the free use of their brains and hands in writing and illustrating this book in a way which does as much credit to them as the fighting here has done to the Force. We all hope that readers of our book will agree in this, while those who are more critical will perhaps remember the circumstances under which the contributions have been prepared, in small dug-outs, with shells and bullets frequently whistling overhead.

It may be of interest to readers to hear the origin of the word “Anzac.”

When I took over the command of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in Egypt a year ago, I was asked to select a telegraphic code address for my Army Corps, and then adopted the word “Anzac.” Later on, when we had effected our landing here in April last, I was asked by General Headquarters to suggest a name for the beach where we had made good our first precarious footing, and then asked that this might be recorded as “Anzac Cove”—a name which the bravery of our men has now made historical, while it will remain a geographical landmark for all time.

Our eight months at “Anzac” cannot help stamping on the memory of every one of us days of trial and anxiety, hopes, and perhaps occasional fears, rejoicings at success, and sorrow—very deep and sincere—for many a good comrade whom we can never see again.

I firmly believe, though, it has made better men of every one of us, for we have all had to look death straight in the face so often, that the greater realities of life must have been impressed on all of us in a way which has never before been possible. Bitter as has been my experience in losing many a good friend, I, personally, shall always look back on our days together at “Anzac” as a time never to be forgotten, for during it I hope I have made many fast friends in all ranks, whose friendship is all the more valuable because it has been acquired in circumstances of stress and often danger, when a man’s real self is shown.

In days to come I hope that this book will call to the minds of most of us incidents which, though they may then seem small, probably loomed very large before us at the time, and the thought of which will bring to mind many a good comrade—not only on land, but on the sea. From the day we were put ashore by Rear-Admiral Thursby’s squadron up till now we have had the vigilant ships of His Majesty’s Navy watching night and day, in all weathers, for any opportunity to help us. We will all of us look back in years to come on Queen Elizabeth, Prince of Wales, London, Triumph, Bacchante, Grafton, Endymion, as well as such sleuth-hounds of the ocean as Colne, Chelmer, Pincher, Rattlesnake, Mosquito, and many others, as our best of friends, and will think of them, their officers and ship’s company, as the truest of comrades, with whom it has been a privilege to serve, and as the best of representatives of the Great Fleet and Service which carries with honour and ensures respect for the British flag to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Boys! Hats off to the British Navy.

It may be that, in thinking of old “Anzac” days, the words of the Harrow school-song will spring to one’s mind:

“Forty years on, growing older and older,

Shorter in wind, as in memory long,

Feeble of foot, and rheumatic of shoulder,

What will it help you that once you were strong!”

But it has indeed helped us all to have been with strong men at “Anzac,” and whatever the future may have in store, I, personally, shall always regard the time I have been privileged to be a comrade of the brave and strong men from Australia and New Zealand, who have served alongside of me, as one of the greatest privileges that could be conferred on any man, and of which I shall be prouder to the end of my days than any honour which can be given me.

No words of mine could ever convey to readers at their firesides in Australia, New Zealand and the Old Country, one-half of what all their boys have been through, nor is my poor pen capable of telling them of the never-failing courage, determination and cheerfulness of those who have so willingly fought and given their lives for their King and country’s sake. Their deeds are known to the Empire, and can never be forgotten, while if any copy of this little book should happen to survive to fall into the hands of our children, or our children’s children, it will serve to show them to some extent what their fathers have done for the Empire, and indeed for civilisation, in days gone by.

I sincerely hope that every one of my old comrades may meet with all the good fortune his work here has deserved, and live to a ripe old age, with happiness, and be occasionally reminded of old times by a glance at The Anzac Book.

W R Birdwood (signature)

Anzac,
December 19, 1915.

“LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR W. R. BIRDWOOD

Has been the soul of Anzac. Not for one single day has he ever quitted his post. Cheery and full of human sympathy, he has spent many hours of each twenty-four inspiring the defenders of the front trenches, and if he does not know every soldier in his force, at least every soldier in the force believes he is known to his chief.”

Sir Ian Hamilton’s dispatch.

EDITOR’S NOTE

This book of Anzac was produced in the lines at Anzac on Gallipoli in the closing weeks of 1915. Practically every word in it was written and every line drawn beneath the shelter of a waterproof sheet or of a roof of sandbags—either in the trenches or, at most, well within the range of the oldest Turkish rifle, and under daily visitations from the smallest Turkish field-piece. Day and night, during the whole process of its composition, the crack of the Mauser bullets overhead never ceased. At least one good soldier that we know of, who was preparing a contribution for these pages, met his death while the work was still unfinished.

The Anzac Book was to have been a New Year Magazine to help this little British Australasian fraternity in Turkey to while away the long winter in the trenches. The idea originated with Major S. S. Butler, of the A.N.Z.A.C. Staff. On his initiative and that of Lieutenant H. E. Woods a small committee was formed to father the magazine. A notice was circulated on November 14th calling for contributions from the whole population of Anzac. Any profit was to go to patriotic funds for the benefit of the Army Corps.

Between November 15th and December 8th, when the time for the sending in of contributions closed, The Anzac Book was produced. As drawings and paintings began to come in, disclosing the whereabouts of some of the talent which existed in Anzac, a small staff of artists was collected in order to produce head- and tail-pieces and a few illustrations; and a dug-out overlooking Anzac Cove became the office of the only book ever likely to be produced in Gallipoli.

It was after the contributions had been finally sent in, and when the work of editing was in full swing, that there came upon most of us from the sky the news that Anzac was to be evacuated. Such finishing touches as remained to be added after December 19th were given to the work in Imbros. The date for the publication was necessarily delayed. And it was realised by everyone that this production, which was to have been a mere pastime, had now become a hundred times more precious as a souvenir. Certainly no book has ever been produced under these conditions before.

Except for this modification in the scheme of its production, The Anzac Book remains to-day exactly the same as when it was planned for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps still clinging to the familiar holly-clothed sides of Sari Bair.

The three weeks during which this book was being produced will be remembered by the men of Anzac as being the period during which we were visited by the two fiercest storms which descended upon the Peninsula. During the afternoon of November 17th the wind from the south-west gradually increased to more than half a gale, and brought with it, after dark, a most torrential thunderstorm. A day or two later this subsided, leaving a dishevelled Anzac. But the wind swung slowly round to the north, and by November 27th it was blowing a northerly blizzard; and the next day five out of every six Australians, for the first time in their lives, woke to find a white countryside and the snow falling. How deeply that snow impressed them can be seen in these pages—for dust, heat and flies were much more typical of Gallipoli.

The book was composed from first to last in the full prospect of Christmas at Anzac, and it remains a record, perhaps, all the more interesting on that account. The Printing Section of the Royal Engineers, especially Lieutenant Tuck and Corporal Ashwin, and Lieutenant G. L. Thomson, R.N.A.S., and certain Naval Officers helped us with some drawing-paper, ink and paints, and the Photographic Section with some excellent panoramas; but for the rest, the contributors had to work with such materials as Anzac contained: iodine brushes, red and blue pencils, and such approach to white paper as could be produced from each battalion’s stationery.

The response to the committee’s request for contributions was enormous, and in consequence the editors have been able to use only portions, even if they be a half or a quarter, of the longer articles and stories submitted to them—but they have done this without hesitation, rather than reject the articles altogether. The competitions for certain contributions resulted as follows: Cover—Private D. Barker, 5th Australian Field Ambulance; Drawing—Trooper W. O. Hewett, 9th Australian Light Horse; Drawing (Comic)—Private C. Leyshon-White, 6th Australian Field Ambulance; Prose Sketch—H. Dinning, 9th Co., Australian A.S.C.; Prose (Humorous)—Second-Lieutenant J. E. G. Stevenson, 2nd Field Co., Australian Engineers; Verses—Captain James Sprent, 3rd Australian Field Ambulance; Verses (Humorous)—T. H. Wilson, A Co., 16th Battalion A.I.F. The greater number of the contributors were private soldiers in the Army Corps. The sole “outside” contribution is Mr. Edgar Wallace’s poetic tribute to the Australian and New Zealand Force, which is included in these pages with the consent of the author.

The thanks of those particularly concerned in the production are especially due to General Birdwood, for his close and constant interest; to Brigadier-General C. B. B. White, who, though at the time burdened with most anxious duties, never failed to give some of his few spare moments to the solving of difficulties incidental to this publication; to the Commonwealth authorities and the Publicity Department in London; and particularly to Mr. H. C. Smart, for his untiring assistance, invaluable advice, and for the help of his outstanding ingenuity in organisation, and of the splendid business system and abundant facilities which he has created in the Australian Military Office in London; to the War Office and the Admiralty, and the Central News for permission to use valuable photographs; and to many others, both in the A. and N.Z. Army Corps and outside it, who have given their best help to make this book a success. For the Staff—C. E. W. Bean, editor; Privates F. Crozier, T. Colles, D. Barker, W. O. Hewett, C. Leyshon-White, artists; A. W. Bazley, clerk—the work has been a labour of love for which only they realise how little thanks they deserve.

The Anzac Book Staff.

Ægean Sea,
December 29, 1915.

The Ideal
And the Real.

C. LEYSHON-WHITE
1915

COMPLAINTS of the SEASON

The Anzac Book

THE LANDING
By a Man of the Tenth

Come on, lads, have a good, hot supper—there’s business doing.” So spoke No. 10 Platoon Sergeant of the 10th Australian Battalion to his men, lying about in all sorts of odd corners aboard the battleship Prince of Wales, in the first hour of the morning of April 25th, 1915. The ship, or her company, had provided a hot stew of bully beef, and the lads set to and took what proved, alas to many, their last real meal together. They laugh and joke as though picnicking. Then a voice: “Fall in!” comes ringing down the ladderway from the deck above. The boys swing on their heavy equipment, grasp their rifles, silently make their way on deck, and stand in grim black masses. All lights are out, and only harsh, low commands break the silence. “This way No. 9—No. 10—C Company.” Almost blindly we grope our way to the ladder leading to the huge barge below, which is already half full of silent, grim men, who seem to realise that at last, after eight months of hard, solid training in Australia, Egypt and Lemnos Island, they are now to be called upon to carry out the object of it all.

“Full up, sir,” whispers the midshipman in the barge.

“Cast off and drift astern,” says the ship’s officer in charge of the embarkation. Slowly we drift astern, until the boat stops with a jerk, and twang goes the hawser that couples the boats and barges together. Silently the boats are filled with men, and silently drop astern of the big ship, until, all being filled, the order is given to the small steamboats: “Full steam ahead.” Away we go, racing and bounding, dipping and rolling, now in a straight line, now in a half-circle, on through the night.

The moon has just about sunk below the horizon. Looking back, we can see the battleships coming on slowly in our rear, ready to cover our attack. All at once our pinnace gives a great start forward, and away we go for land just discernible one hundred yards away on our left.

—North flank—
Suvla from Anzac.

Then—crack-crack! ping-ping! zip-zip! Trenches full of rifles upon the shore and surrounding hills open on us, and machine-guns, hidden in gullies or redoubts, increase the murderous hail. Oars are splintered, boats are perforated. A sharp moan, a low gurgling cry, tells of a comrade hit. Boats ground in four or five feet of water owing to the human weight contained in them. We scramble out, struggle to the shore, and, rushing across the beach, take cover under a low sandbank.

“Here, take off my pack, and I’ll take off yours.” We help one another to lift the heavy, water-soaked packs off. “Hurry up, there,” says our sergeant. “Fix bayonets.” Click! and the bayonets are fixed. “Forward!” And away we scramble up the hills in our front. Up, up we go, stumbling in holes and ruts. With a ringing cheer we charge the steep hill, pulling ourselves up by roots and branches of trees; at times digging our bayonets into the ground, and pushing ourselves up to a foothold, until, topping the hill, we found the enemy had made themselves very scarce. What had caused them to fly from a position from which they should have driven us back into the sea every time? A few scattered Turks showing in the distance we instantly fired on. Some fell to rise no more; others fell wounded and, crawling into the low bushes, sniped our lads as they went past. There were snipers in plenty, cunningly hidden in the hearts of low green shrubs. They accounted for a lot of our boys in the first few days, but gradually were rooted out. Over the hill we dashed, and down into what is now called “Shrapnel Gully,” and up the other hillside, until, on reaching the top, we found that some of the lads of the 3rd Brigade had commenced to dig in. We skirted round to the plateau at the head of the gully, and took up our line of defence.

As soon as it was light enough to see, the guns on Gaba Tepe, on our right, and two batteries away on our left opened up a murderous hail of shrapnel on our landing parties. The battleships and cruisers were continuously covering the landing of troops, broadsides going into the batteries situated in tunnels in the distant hillside. All this while the seamen from the different ships were gallantly rowing and managing the boats carrying the landing parties. Not one man that is left of the original brigade will hear a word against our gallant seamen. England may well be proud of them, and all true Australians are proud to call them comrades.

South Flank—
Gaba Tepe from Anzac.

Se-ee-e-e ... bang ... swish! The front firing line was now being baptised by its first shrapnel. Zir-zir ... zip-zip! Machine-guns, situated on each front, flank and centre, opened on our front line. Thousands of bullets began to fly round and over us, sometimes barely missing. Now and then one heard a low gurgling moan, and, turning, one saw near at hand some chum, who only a few seconds before had been laughing and joking, now lying gasping, with his life blood soaking down into the red clay and sand. “Five rounds rapid at the scrub in front,” comes the command of our subaltern. Then an order down the line: “Fix bayonets!” Fatal order—was it not, perhaps, some officer of the enemy who shouted it? (for they say such things were done). Out flash a thousand bayonets, scintillating in the sunlight like a thousand mirrors, signalling our position to the batteries away on our left and front. We put in another five rounds rapid at the scrub in front. Then, bang-swish! bang-swish! bang-swish! and over our line, and front, and rear, such a hellish fire of lyddite and shrapnel that one wonders how anyone could live amidst such a hail of death-dealing lead and shell. “Ah, got me!” says one lad on my left, and he shakes his arms. A bullet had passed through the biceps of his left arm, missed his chest by an inch, passed through the right forearm, and finally struck the lad between him and me a bruising blow on the wrist. The man next him—a man from the 9th Battalion—started to bind up his wounds, as he was bleeding freely. All the time shrapnel was hailing down on us. “Oh-h!” comes from directly behind me, and, looking around, I see poor little Lieutenant B——, of C Company, has been badly wounded. From both hips to his ankles blood is oozing through pants and puttees, and he painfully drags himself to the rear. With every pull he moans cruelly. I raise him to his feet, and at a very slow pace start to help him to shelter. But, alas! I have only got him about fifty yards from the firing line when again, bang-swish! and we were both peppered by shrapnel and shell. My rifle-butt was broken off to the trigger-guard, and I received a smashing blow that laid my cheek on my shoulder. The last I remembered was poor Lieutenant B—— groaning again as we both sank to the ground.

When I came to I found myself in Shrapnel Gully, with an A.M.C. man holding me down. I was still clasping my half-rifle. Dozens of men and officers, both Australians and New Zealanders (who had landed a little later in the day), were coming down wounded, some slightly, some badly, with arms in slings or shot through the leg, and using their rifles for crutches. Shrapnel Gully was still under shrapnel and snipers’ fire. Two or three platoon mates and myself slowly moved down to the beach, where we found the Australian Army Service Corps busily engaged landing stores and water amid shrapnel fire from Gaba Tepe. As soon as a load of stores was landed, the wounded were carried aboard the empty barges, and taken to hospital ships and troopships standing out offshore. After going to ten different boats, we came at last to the troopship Seang Choon, which had the 14th Australian Battalion aboard. They were to disembark the next morning, but owing to so many of us being wounded, they had to land straightaway.

And so, after twelve hours’ hard fighting, I was aboard a troopship again—wounded. But I would not have missed it for all the money in the world.

A. R. Perry,
10th Battalion A.I.F.

One for Chanak.

Photograph by C. E. W. BEAN

THE SUNRISE OF APRIL 15, 1915

The small boats taking troops to the shore can be seen beside the transports and close to the land

THE REMINISCENCE OF A WRECK

[It may be necessary to explain that wood—for the roof-beams of dug-outs and the shoring up of trenches in wet weather—was priceless in Gallipoli. But whilst this book was being compiled Providence sent a storm. In the morning the beach was littered with portions of a wrecked schooner, stranded lighters, pieces of pier—all strictly the property of H.M. Government as represented by the officer commanding the Royal Engineers. “A gift from Heaven,” one Australian was heard to remark as he looked at the desolate scene next morning. Nor were his British brethren less grateful.—Eds.]

The storm had ceased, the sea was calm, the wind a trifle raw,
And miles and miles of wreckage lay upon the sandy shore;
And every time the waves came up they brought a little more.
The Sergeant and the Junior Sub. in contemplation stood.
They wept like anything to see such quantities of wood—
And then they smiled a furtive smile which boded little good.
The wood lay round in lovely heaps and smiled invitingly.
“Do you suppose,” the Sergeant said, “that this is meant for me?”
“I doubt it,” said the Junior Sub. “Here comes the C.R.E.[1]
“If fifty kings and fifty queens and fifty C.-in-C.’s
Presented fifty indents and bowed low upon their knees,
I hardly think that they would get more than a few of these.”
The Sergeant and the Junior Sub. walked on a mile or so,
Until they found a shelving bank conveniently low;
And there they waited sadly for the C.R.E. to go.
“Oh, timbers,” quoth the Junior Sub., who spoke with honeyed speech,
“I hardly think it safe for you to lie upon the beach.”
And as he spoke he stroked the backs of those within his reach.

The timbers leapt beneath his touch and hurried plank by plank;
They crowded round to hear him speak, and lined up rank on rank—
But one old timber wagged his head and hid behind a bank.
“The time has come,” the Sergeant said, “to talk of many things—
Of bully beef and dug-outs, of Kaisers and of Kings,
And why the rain comes through the roof, and whether shrapnel stings.
“Some good stout planks,” the Sergeant cried, “are what we chiefly need,
And four by fours and spars besides are very good indeed—
So if you’re ready, sir, I think we may as well proceed.”
“Oh, C.R.E.!” remarked the Sub., “I deeply sympathise.”
With sobs and tears they sorted out those of the largest size,
While happy thoughts of days to come loomed large before their eyes.
Next morning came the C.R.E. to see what could be done;
But when he came to count the planks he found that there was none—
And this was hardly odd, because they’d collared every one.

Lieut. A. L. Pemberton,
R.G.A.

Taylor’s Hollow,
8.12.15.

C. E. W. B.

Study of a battalion in Repose.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] C.R.E.—Officer commanding Royal Engineers.

AN AUSTRALIAN HOME IN 1930

When you come to an old spotted gum right on the saddle of Sandstone Ridge, after an eighteen-mile ride from Timpanundi, you’re very close to Freddy Prince’s war selection. There’s a well-made gate in the road fence on your left, and it bears the legend, “Prince’s Jolly.” Through that the track will lead you gently uphill into a wide and gradually deepening sap, until you think you’ve made some mistake. Then look to your left, and behold the front entrance to Freddie’s dug-out.

An old shell-case hangs near by, and when you strike it you’ll hear an echo of children’s voices, and a small platoon of youngsters charge you at the double. First time I blew in it was just on teatime, and my first glance in at the well-lit gallery and the smell of the welcome food are worth the recollection. Fred came out and led my cuddy round to the stable sap, where he was given what had been on his mind for some hours past. I didn’t lose much time in settling down to tea—it was already too dark to look around outside. Besides, as Fred explained, there was nothing to see of the homestead bar the inside, and by the third year of excavation most of that had been dumped into the gully and pretty well all washed away.

The meal finished, we played games with the kids. Fred seldom read the papers—he said he didn’t want to strain the one eye that was left to him—so Mrs. Prince retired to absorb the news I had brought in their mail-bag, and to prepare herself to issue it to her husband later.

Long after the children went to burrow, he and I smoked and pitched away about the past. He told me how he and many others had come to adopt the underground home. It had been the case of making a penny do the work of a pound, and Fred himself had done the work of a company. It had been a hard struggle, but the missus was a treasure, and never growled except when things were going well—as some people will do. It was just a case of dig in, dig up, and dig down. Anything in the way of iron or steel was prohibitive. Timber was too expensive, and in any case the timber that stood on the selection he had been forced to sell in order to stock the farm. It had been a problem of years, but he had made a job of it; and when he showed me round the house I didn’t grudge him his little bit of pride.

The main gallery opened to the surface at the front and back, and was about forty-five paces long. It was driven through hard ground, and was well arched so that it required no timber. On one side there was a branch to the pantries and the galley, and on the other side the dining-room and the bedrooms, which were really one big chamber with solid pillars of earth left at intervals, forming a group of rooms each with a dome roof and canvas partitions. A borehole had been put through to the surface at the centre of every room for ventilation and light, a device of reflectors enabling one to bring the sunlight in at all hours of the day.

Once, as we sat and smoked, a subdued chattering came from the adjoining room. I looked up and saw the top of a periscope over the partition. Instantly it disappeared with a noise like the scattering of furniture. Then a voice: “Oh, daddy, do you know what?”

“What’s happened, Kit?” replied the father.

“Two of your biscuit photo-frames are smashed.”

“Oh, never mind, old girl,” said Fred; “it’s time they began to break up after fifteen years. Go to sleep, both of you.”

As I lay awake next morning I overheard some homely details. How the baldy steer had hopped over O’Dwyer’s parapet into his lucerne patch; and Jimmy ought to have widened the trench last week when he was told to; and the milking sap hadn’t been cleaned out the previous day because Georgie had forgotten he was pioneer; and Jerry O’Dwyer had shot two crows from the new sniper’s pozzy[2] down at the creek—and so on.

When we sat down to breakfast Mrs. Prince was primed with news. “I told Fred,” she said, “I didn’t believe we’d taken Lake Achi Baba; the latest cable says it’s still occupied by the German submarines.” Fred nodded as if he didn’t care much.

“Achi Baba used to be a hill once, wasn’t it, daddy?” chipped in one of the youngsters.

“Yes, it used to be one time,” replied his father, looking into the blue puffs that drifted away from his pipe and out past the waterproof sheet of the dug-out door. In those blue mists of the past what he saw was the bald pate of the great hill, with the howitzers tearing earth out of the crest of it by the hundredweight, while the Turkish miners ever heaped the outside of it with the spoil from their tunnels. “Yes, it was a hill once.”

Thus Freddy and his wife and family live their life as happily as if there were no war.

“Soldieroo,”
2nd Field Co., Aust. Engrs.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Pozzy or Possie—Australian warrior’s short for “position,” or lair.

F. R. CROZIER

NON NOBIS

Not unto us, O Lord, to tell

Thy purpose in the blast,

When these, that towered beyond us, fell

And we were overpast.

We cannot guess how goodness springs

From the black tempest’s breath,

Nor scan the birth of gentle things

In these red bursts of death.

We only know—from good and great

Nothing save good can flow;

That where the cedar crashed so straight

No crooked tree shall grow;

That from their ruin a taller pride—

Not for these eyes to see—

May clothe one day the valleyside....

Non nobis, Domine.

C. E. W. B.

THE “RIC”

TED COLLES
FROM
SKETCH
BY
C. M^cCRAE

New Arrival (as something hums past the parapet): “’Strewth! Wot’s that?”
Officer: “Only a ricochet.”
N.A.: “An’ d’we use ’em, too, sir?”

THE DESTROYER ON THE FLANK
Drawn by GILBERT T. M. ROACH

THE ÆGEAN WIND

The winter winds of Lemnos,

They blow exceeding fast;

There’s nothing quite so stiff on earth

As that persistent blast.

It ducks around the corners,

Through all the hills it shoots;

It blows the milk from out your tea,

The laces from your boots.

Is this the soft Ægean wind

Which Byron raved about,

That whirls across the ridges

And turns you inside out?

Or is it some invention

Which Providence has made

To give a breezy welcome to

The Third Brigade?

H. B. K.

OUR FATHERS

Wandering spirits, seeking lands unknown,
Such were our fathers, stout hearts unafraid.
Have we been faithless, leaving homes they made,
With their life’s blood cementing every stone?
Nay, when the beast-like War God did intone
His horrid chant, was our first reckoning paid
For years of ease. Their restless spirits bade
Us fight with those whose Homeland was their own.
Rest easy in your graves, the spirit lives
That brought you forth to claim of earth the best.
Ours it is now, and ours it shall remain;
Mere jealous greed no honest birthright gives.
Shades of our fathers, hear our faith confessed,
We shall defend your Empire or be slain.

Capt. James Sprent,
A.M.C. (3rd Field Amb.).

Drawn by F. R. CROZIER

“Wandering spirits, seeking lands unknown,
Such were our fathers, stout hearts unafraid.”

C. E. W. B.

·Picture of a battalion Resting·

GLIMPSES OF ANZAC

It’s the monotony we revile, not—to a like degree—hard work or hard fare. To look out on the same stretch of beach or the same patch of trench wall and the same terraces of hostile black and grey sandbags day after day is to be wearied. There is the same sitting in the same trench, shelled by the same guns, manned, perhaps (though that we endeavour to avert), by the same Turks. Unhappily it is not the same men of ours that they maim and kill daily.

And if one’s dug-out lies on a seaward slope there is, every morning, the same stretch of the lovely Ægean, with the same two islands standing over in the west.

Yet neither the islands nor the sea are the same any two successive days. The temper of the Ægean at this time changes more suddenly and frequently than ever does that of the Pacific. Every morning the islands of the west take on fresh colour, and are trailed by fresh shapes of mist.

To-day Imbros stands right over against you; you see the detail of the fleet in the harbour, and the striated heights of rocky Samothrace reveal the small ravines. To-morrow, in the early morning light, Imbros lies mysteriously afar off like an Isle of the Blest, a delicate vapour-shape reposing on the placid sea.

Nor is there monotony in either weather or temperature. This is the late autumn. Yet it is a halting and irregular advance the late autumn is making. Fierce, biting, raw days alternate with the comfortableness of the mild late summer. This morning, to bathe is as much as your life is worth (shrapnel disregarded); to-morrow, in the gentle air, you may splash and gloat an hour and desire more. And you prolong the joy by washing many garments.

Here in Anzac we have suffered the tail-end of one or two autumn storms, and have had two fierce and downright gales blow up. The wind came in the night, with a suddenness that found us most unprepared. In half an hour many of us were homeless, crouching about with our bundled bedclothes, trespassing tyrannically upon the confined space of the stouter dug-outs of our friends—a sore tax upon true friendship. They lay on their backs and held down their roofs by mere weight of body until overpowered. Spectral figures in the driving atmosphere collided and wrangled and swore and blasphemed. The sea roared over the shingle with a violence that made even revilings inaudible.

The morning showed a sorry beach. There were—there had been—three piers. One stood intact; the landward half of the second was clean gone; of the third there was no trace, except in a few splintered spars ashore. A collective dogged grin overlooked the beach that morning at the time of rising. The remedying began forthwith; so did the bursting of shrapnel over the workmen. This stroke of Allah upon the unfaithful was not to go unassisted.

With misgiving we foresee the winter robbing us of the boon of daily bathing. This is a serious matter. The morning splash has come to be indispensable. Daily at six-thirty you have been used to see the head of General Birdwood bobbing beyond the sunken barge inshore; and a host of nudes lined the beach. The host is diminishing to a few isolated fellows, who either are fanatics or are come down from the trenches and must clear up a vermin-and-dust-infested skin at all costs.

Not infrequently “Beachy Bill” catches a mid-morning bathing squad. There is ducking and splashing shorewards, and scurrying by men clad only in the garment Nature gave them. Shrapnel bursting above the water in which you are disporting raises chiefly the question: “Will it ever stop?” By this you mean: “Will the pellets ever cease to whip the water?” The interval between the murderous lightning flash aloft and the last pellet-swish seems, to the potential victim, everlasting.

The work of enemy shell behind the actual trenches is peculiarly horrible. Men are struck down suddenly and unmercifully where there is no heat of battle. A man dies more easily in the charge. Here he is wounded mortally unloading a cart, drawing water for his unit, directing a mule convoy. He may lose a limb or his life when off duty—merely returning from a bathe or washing a shirt.

One of our number is struck by shrapnel retiring to his dug-out to read his just delivered mail. He is off duty—is, in fact, far up on the ridges overlooking the sea. The wound gapes in his back. There is no staunching it. Every thump of the aorta pumps out his life. Practically he is a dead man when struck; he lives but a few minutes—with his pipe still steaming, clenched in his teeth. They lay him aside in the hospital.

That night we stand about the grave in which he lies beneath his groundsheet. Over that wind-swept headland the moon shines fitfully through driving cloud. A monitor bombards off shore. Under her friendly screaming shell and the singing bullets of the Turks the worn, big-hearted padre intones the beautiful Catholic intercession for the soul of the dead in his cracked voice.

THE STORMS OF NOVEMBER

Transport in Trouble, November 17

After the Blizzard of November 29

Anzac Pier in the Storm of November 17

Photographs by C. E. W. BEAN

Photograph by Central News

General Birdwood taking a Dip

Photograph by C. E. W. BEAN

Shrapnel over Anzac Beach

The shrapnel cloud can be seen, and also the water off the beach whipped up by the pellets from the shells

At the burial of Sir John Moore was heard the distant and random gun. Here the shells sometimes burst in the midst of the burial party. Bearers are laid low. A running for cover. The grave is hastily filled in by a couple of shovel-men; the service is over; and fresh graves are to be dug forthwith for stricken members of the party. To die violently and be laid in this shell-swept area is to die lonely indeed. The day is far off (but it will come) when splendid mausolea will be raised over these heroic dead. And one foresees the time when steamers will bear up the Ægean pilgrims come to do honour at the resting places of friends and kindred, and to move over the charred battlegrounds of Turkey.

Informal parades for Divine Service are held on Sabbath afternoons for such men as are off duty. Attendances are scanty. The late afternoons are becoming bleak; men relieved from labour seek the warmth of their dug-outs.

The chaplain stands where he can find a level area and awaits a congregation. When two or three are gathered together he announces a hymn. The voices go up in feeble unison, punctuated by the roar of artillery and the crackle of rifle fire. The prayers are offered. The address is short and shorn of cant. This is no place for canting formula. Reality is very grim all round. There is a furtive under-watchfulness against shrapnel. One almost has forgotten what it is to sit in security and listen placidly to a sermon at church.

The chaplains have come out to do their work simply and laboriously. They are direct-minded, purposeful men. One is a neighbour in a Light Horse regiment—a colonel. He flaunts it in no sandbagged palace. His dug-out is indistinguishable from those of the privates between whom he is sandwiched—mere waterproof sheet aloft and bed laid on the Turkish clay; a couple of biscuit boxes with his oddments—jam, and milk, and bread: writing materials and toilet requisites. A string line beneath the roof holds his towel and lately washed garments. He is a simple parson, hard-worked by day and night in and about the trenches, careful for such comforts as can be got for his men in this benighted land; lying down at nights listening to the forceful lingo of his neighbours, and confessedly admiring its graphic if well-garnished eloquence. He sees his duty with a direct gaze—a faithful Churchman at work in the throes of war.

In a land of necessarily hard fare a regimental canteen in Imbros does much to compensate. Unit representatives proceed thence weekly by trawler for stores. One feels almost in the land of the living when so near lie tinned fruit, butter, cocoa, coffee, sausages, sauces, chutneys, pipes, tobacco, and chocolate. Such a repertoire, combined with a monthly visit from the paymaster, removes one far from the commissariat hardships of the Crimea.

The visualising of unstinted civilian meals is a prevalent pastime. Men sit at the mouths of their dug-outs and relate the minutiæ of the first dinner at home. Some men excel in this. They do it with a carnal power of graphic description which makes one fairly pine. One has heard a colonel-chaplain talk for two hours of nothing but grub, and at the end convincingly exempt himself from any charge of carnal-mindedness. Truly we are a people whose god is their belly. But that we never admitted until this period of enforced deprivation.

Those comforts embraced by the use of good tobacco and deliverance from vermin at night are the most desired; both hard to procure. There is somehow a great gulf fixed between the civilian quality of any tobacco and the make-up of the same brand for the Army. Once in six months a friend in Australia dispatches a parcel of cigars. Therein lies the entrance to a fleeting paradise—fleeting indeed when one’s comrades have sniffed or ferreted out the key. After all, the pipe, given reasonably good tobacco, gives the entrée to the paradise farthest removed from that of the fool.

Of the plague of nocturnal vermin little need be said explicitly. The locomotion of the day almost dissipates the evil. But it makes night hideous.

The tendency is to retire late and thus abridge the period of persecution. One’s friends drop in for a yarn or a smoke after tea, and the dreaded hour of turning-in is postponed by reminiscent chit-chat and the late preparation of supper. One renews, here, a surprising bulk of old acquaintance. Old college chums are dug out, and one talks back and lives a couple of hours in the glory of days that have passed. Believe it not that there is no deliverance possible from the hardness of active service. The retrospect, and the prospect, and the ever-present faculty of visualisation are ministering angels sent to minister.

Mails, too, are an anodyne. Their arrival eclipses considerations of life and death—of fighting and the landing of rations. The mail-barge coming in somehow looms larger than a barge of supplies. Mails have been arriving weekly for six months, yet no one is callous to them.

Of incoming mail, letters stand inevitably first. They put a man at home for an hour.

But so does the local newspaper. Perusing that, he is back at the old matutinal habit of picking at the news over his eggs and coffee, racing against the suburban business train. Intimate associations hang about the reading of the local sheet—domestic and parochial associations almost as powerful as are brought by letters.

And what shall be said of parcels from home? The boarding-school home-hamper is at last superseded. No son, away at Grammar School, ever pursued his voyage of discovery through tarts, cakes and preserves, sweets, pies and fruit with the intensity of gloating expectation in which a man on Gallipoli discloses the contents of his “parcel.”

“AT THE LANDING, AND HERE EVER SINCE”

Drawn in Blue and Red Pencil by DAVID BARKER

“’Struth! a noo pipe, Bill!—an’ some er the ole terbaccer. Blimey! Cigars, too!—’ave one, before the mob smells ’em.... D——d if there ain’t choclut! Look ’ere.... An’ ’ere’s some er the dinkum[3] coc’nut-ice the tart uster make.... Hallo! more socks! Nev’ mind: winter’s comin’. ’Ere, ’ow er yer orf fer socks, cobber?... Take these—bonzer ’and-knitted. Sling them issue-things inter the sea. ... I’m d——d!—soap for the voy’ge ’ome.... ’Angkerch’fs!—orl right w’en the —— blizzards come, an’ a chap’s snifflin’ fer a —— week on end.... Writin’ paper!—well, that’s the straight —— tip, and no errer! The beggars er bin puttin’ it in me letters lately too. Well, I’ll write ter-night on the stren’th of it. Gawd! ’ere’s a shavin’ stick!—’andy, that! I wuz clean run out—usin’ carbolic soap, —— it!... Aw, that’s a dinkum —— parcel, that is!”

Hector Dinning,
Aust. A.S.C.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Dinkum—Australian for “true.”

PARABLES OF ANZAC

I
FROM SHELL GREEN

From a Correspondent in Australian Field Artillery, “Sea View,” Boltons Knoll, near Shell Green.

I was looking out from the entrance of my dug-out, thinking how peaceful everything was, when Johnny Turk opened on our trenches. Shells were bursting, and fragments scattered all about Shell Green. Just at this time some new reinforcements were eagerly collecting spent fuses and shells as mementoes. While this fusillade was on, men were walking about the Green just as usual, when one was hit by a falling fuse. Out rushed one of the reinforcement chaps, and when he saw that the man was not hurt he asked: “Want the fuse, mate?”

The other looked at him calmly.

“What do you think I stopped it for?” he asked.

II
THE TURK IN THE PERISCOPE

The same Correspondent writes:

I am sure that wherever the old 5th Light Horsemen, who put in such a warm spell at “Chatham’s”[4] some time ago, congregate after this war the following incident will be told and retold:

Bill Blankson was a real hard case, happy-go-lucky, regardless of danger. Bill was put on sapping for over a fortnight, and at the end of that time had a growth of stubble that would have brought a flush of pride to his dirty face if he had seen it. But he hadn’t seen it—one does not carry a looking-glass when sapping.

At the end of the fortnight he was taken off sapping and put on observing.

Anyone who has used a periscope knows that unless the periscope is held well up before the eyes, instead of the landscape, one sees only one’s own visage reflected in the lower glass.

Bill did not hold the periscope up far enough, and what he saw in it was a dark, dirty face with a wild growth of black stubble glaring straight back at him. He dropped the periscope, grabbed his rifle, and scrambled up the parapet, fully intending to finish the Turk who had dared to look down the other end of his periscope.

He had mistaken his own reflection for a Turk’s.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Chatham’s Post at the southern end of the line was attacked by the Turks for several days in November.

THE YARNS THAT ABDUL TELLS

One of the chief pastimes of the Turks who live behind the black and white sandbags opposite (writes an officer who knows them intimately) is that of listening to stories told by the storytellers in the cafés of the Asia Minor villages. The hero of these stories is very often a certain Nastradi Hodja (who really existed at one time, and made a reputation by his wit as well as through his stupidity). Here is an example of the sort of story about Nastradi which especially pleases the Turk:

Nastradi Hodja’s wife woke up one night through hearing a noise. She got up, and going out on to the landing on the upper floor, outside her bedroom, called out:

“Nastradi, what was that noise?”

Nastradi’s voice came up from below. “Don’t pay any attention to it,” he said. “It was only my shirt that tumbled down the stairs.”

“Does a shirt make such a noise?” she asked.

“No,” was the reply; “but I was in it.”

A. P. M.

THE GRAVES OF GALLIPOLI

The herdman wandering by the lonely rills

Marks where they lie on the scarred mountain’s flanks,

Remembering that wild morning when the hills

Shook to the roar of guns and those wild ranks

Surged upward from the sea.

None tends them. Flowers will come again in spring,

And the torn hills and those poor mounds be green.

Some bird that sings in English woods may sing

To English lads beneath—the wind will keep

Its ancient lullaby.

Some flower that blooms beside the Southern foam

May blossom where our dead Australians lie,

And comfort them with whispers of their home;

And they will dream, beneath the alien sky,

Of the Pacific Sea.

“Thrice happy they who fell beneath the walls,

Under their father’s eyes,” the Trojan said,

“Not we who die in exile where who falls

Must lie in foreign earth.” Alas! our dead

Lie buried far away.

Yet where the brave man lies who fell in fight

For his dear country, there his country is.

And we will mourn them proudly as of right—

For meaner deaths be weeping and loud cries:

They died pro patria!

Oh, sweet and seemly so to die, indeed,

In the high flush of youth and strength and pride.

These are our martyrs, and their blood the seed

Of nobler futures. ’Twas for us they died.

Keep we their memory green.

This be their epitaph. “Traveller, south or west,

Go, say at home we heard the trumpet call,

And answered. Now beside the sea we rest.

Our end was happy if our country thrives:

Much was demanded. Lo! our store was small—

That which we had we gave—it was our lives.”

L.L.

TO A LYRE-BIRD

Oh, Lyre-bird! tethered to the earth,

Thou envy’st not the skylark in the sky,

But pour’st a thousand mocking notes of mirth,

Drowning the ravished songsters singing nigh.

If wing’d—so pure thy voice—thou might’st aspire

To drown indeed the whole seraphic choir!

And, listening to thee—captive in thy chains—

I think me of a singer such as thou

Who captured Nature’s notes for lovely swains,

And echoed them behind a mountain plough;

And moiled and sang, to prove to Gods above

The charm of earthly singing and of love.

Leave to the soaring minstrel of the sky

Her privilege of song at heaven’s gate;

Leave to the nightingale the charms whereby

She lights the grove and hushes strife and hate.

As great a boon—oh, blessed bird!—is thine,

Gyv’d to the soiling earth, yet singing still divine!

H.J.A.

8th Batt., 2nd Infantry Brigade.

GRAVES AT ANZAC

The Cemetery in Shrapnel Valley

The Grave of a Brigadier—Col. H. N. Maclaurin, killed April 27, 1915

A Cemetery by the Beach

Photographs by C. E. W. BEAN