Eyewitness (2 page)

C.E.W. Bean

C.E.W. Bean was a journalist for the
Sydney Morning Herald
when elected by his peers as the first official Australian war correspondent. He beat Rupert Murdoch’s father, Keith, for the job.

Charles Edward Woodrow Bean (1879–1968) was born at Bathurst, was educated at Oxford, but had wide experience of the outback in the course of writing stories for the
Sydney Morning
Herald
. He was inducted into military matters writing a story from aboard HMS
Powerful
with the visiting American Great White Fleet in 1909. The resulting book was
With the Flagship in the
South
(1909). Other trips for the paper resulted in
On the Wool
Track
(1910) and
Dreadnought of the Darling
(1911). These books are the bush drafts of the attitudes and characters that made the Anzac legend.

Bean told the Anzac story through the two Gallipoli volumes of the
Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918,
and the four volumes concerned with the Western Front, and edited the remaining six. The
Official History
is a masterwork of Australian literature, rich with such detail, and iconic yarns, that it has never been surpassed by later work.

Bean was influential in other ways – ensuring that the Anzac battlefield at Gallipoli was preserved by writing a report suggesting that the men be buried where they fell, and guiding the beginning and the spirit of the Australian War Memorial.

At Gallipoli he edited the men’s work that was published as
The Anzac Book
in 1916, and revisited Gallipoli leading the Australian Historical Mission in 1919. This, published as
Gallipoli
Mission
in 1949, is perhaps the best among the hundreds of books written about Gallipoli and what it means. It is a book by a journalist, one who goes to a place, observes, talks and writes it down without too many footnotes.

Bean’s authority comes from the fact that he was there, landing at Anzac on the morning of April 25th, 1915. It seemed right to begin this book at the beginning, with Bean’s own ‘rough draft’ of the history of that fateful day from his diary. He was scooped by English journalist Ellis Ashmead Bartlett in having the first account of the Anzac landing published in Australia because Bean was ashore, and Bartlett was not. In addition, Bean’s war correspondent’s licence at that time only covered the voyage to England. He needed it to be extended to cover Gallipoli, and while this was happening, he could not file any copy. Bean seems not to have minded. It gave him the time to get around and talk to the blokes, and find out what the war was like for them.

*

April 25th, Sunday
. 12 midnight: The ships have sailed from Lemnos. I have a cabin, the last in the passage, with a porthole opening onto the well deck. The porthole is just above my head as I lie in the upper bunk. Outside on the deck, amongst all sort of gear and under some of the horse boats to be used in landing, are some of the men of the 1st Battalion tucked into corners of their overcoats. They are talking quietly – two mates – outside the porthole. One has just waked.

‘What time is it?’

‘Ten past twelve – she’s sailed. Where have you been?’

‘Me and Bill have been down below having a farewell yarn.’

Some sleepy chap along the deck is singing – the words were somewhat as follows, punctuated with yawns:

‘What oh for a life on the sea.

So give it a chance

Come and have a dance

Come and dance along with me.’

The voice breaks off into some snatch of another song: ‘When I am dead and in my little grave’ and then the singer having rewound his rug around him tucks his head back onto his pack and snuggles down for another sleep. I must not oversleep – this night is too good to miss.

12.30: Came up on deck to see which course we are taking. We have just 50 miles to go and the Island of Imbros lies directly in our path …

Out on deck. It is a perfect moonlight night. We are passing the north-east point of some island probably Lemnos. I can see the dark shape of the mountains on the soft grey satin on the sea. On the end of the point a pinpoint light is flashing three times every five seconds. Ahead of us is a simple small stern light always motionless. Away to the left – far on our port bow I can see two other lights – one after the other. Astern of us is another ship. I can see the faint glow of some cabin or galley lights; otherwise she is simply a black shape. We are heading almost due north-east. Aft of the smoking room out of the breeze the guard is tucked away on the deck in deckchairs. Some are curled along either side of the promenade deck – one can just see them rolled up like grubs in their white and grey blankets and waterproof sheets. One has to look carefully not to step on them as one picks a way along the deck. One huge chap is sprawled on his face at full length without great coat or blanket, fast asleep like a boy – most of them are in overcoats and balaclavas. ‘Aho, it’s chilly’ says one yawning. And so it is.

The young officer of the guard is there on a deckchair talking to one of our interpreters. He has orders to wake the troops at four (a.m.). All lights are to be turned out altogether when we get off the mainland – Gallipoli. We wonder whether the British have landed yet. Some say they landed during the past day – I fancy they land this morning. The Turk does not realise what is in store for him during the next few hours.

2.30: Came on deck again. The moon is almost down now. Our 3
^rd
Brigade has to land in the little interval of darkness between the moonset and the dawn. They must be getting near there now – ten miles ahead of us perhaps.

We are steaming just north of a high coastline – it must be Imbros. There are clouds on the high velvet black hills. Other land, which must be Samothrace, to the north. Wonder if anyone sees us from Imbros. The light on the point of Lemnos is far behind, still winking. Two white stern lights still directly ahead of us. As I lean over the rail below the bridge watching them there is a flash on the foc’sle, a prolonged flicker of light. Some prize idiot lighting his pipe. Nothing will ever make some individuals forego that luxury.

3 a.m.: On deck again. All lights have been put out since last I was here.

3.30: We are clearing the last point of Imbros. The moon is down and it is much darker. I cannot see the land beyond although I know it is there – the distance is only 12 miles. Far on our right, either on the point of Imbros Island or on some ship stationed in the channel between there and the land are two white lights, one above the other and a little aslant as if on a mast. I shall not go down again. A colonel of the Army Corps Staff in his overcoat is leaning over the rail beside me.

Suddenly a circle of hazy misty white light appears behind some land far away to the right of us. I cannot see the land but I know it must be there because there is something hiding the actual light from which that glare comes. There is no mistaking it – a searchlight. It must be somewhere in the Dardanelles, south of the peninsula. It sweeps in a scared sort of way to right and left, shifts up a bit; fidgets and suddenly disappears. That must be one of the lights on the Turkish forts in the straits. It is just on 4 a.m. Wonder if they have heard anything – equally suddenly another searchlight – further in the straits. We can only see the haze of this one also searching round like the startled eyes of some frightened animal. There is the old searchlight again.

And just at that moment I first notice that dawn is slowly breaking right ahead – just the first faint rim of grey. Presently I look that way and the dawn is no longer there. The fringe of grey is away on our port side. We must have turned suddenly in southwards. The line of the land, a high line of hills, can be seen straight ahead and away to the left of us. We are moving in between two flanking ships, merchant ships, evidently stationed there to give us the position. It is well past four – just the time when our 3
^rd
Brigade ought to be rushing out of their boats somewhere up the slope of those grey hills ahead. There is no sign yet of action.

It is still too dark to see what I am writing. But the dawn is slowly growing. A line of officers is gradually lining the rail under the bridge, a ship’s officer or two as excited as the rest. Down on the foc’sle forward the men are beginning to cluster to the sides. Another idiot strikes a match and immediately a torrent of words bursts over him like a shell from the bridge above. Five minutes later a British officer beside me – newly arrived from England – does the same.

4.25: Still no sound. We have passed between the two ships. There are three of our sister transports ahead and we are moving in between two of them to make up a line of four. Past us on our port beam slowly moves a destroyer dragging two long wrinkles across the silky water as she moves – it is light enough to see that now.

Suddenly (4.37) from low down on the line either of sea or shore a signal lamp flashes. We can’t say if it is on some small boat close in or on the shore itself. One of the ship’s officers next me takes my telescope and looks long through it.

‘No I can’t say which it is,’ he says.

Then at 4.38 for the first time, listening eagerly, I catch faintly on a gust off the shore a distant knocking as of someone who held up a small wooden box and knocked the inside of it with a pencil.

It comes again and again continuously, like the knock-knocking of an axlebox heard very far off, very faint, through the bush. To my mind there is no mistaking it whatever. It is the first time I heard the sound, but I have no doubt on earth of what it is. It is the distant echo of rifle firing – first few shots, then heavy and continuous.

I told the ship’s officer next me to listen. He heard it too; he knew what it was. There was some doubt amongst others. But within five minutes there could be no mistake. Heavy firing was going on in the hills ahead. We could not see the flash …

4.53: Just now there was the sound like a bursting rocket high in the air a little aft of the ship. A small woolly cloud unrolled itself. Below it a small circle of the surface of the silky water was lashed up as if by a very local fierce thunder rain. Presently far away on the face of a small promontory about two miles to the south of us is a brilliant pinpoint flash. Some seconds later a curious whizz through the air – a whizz on a descending scale just the opposite to the whizz of a steam siren. The long drawn-out whizz sinks and sinks down the scale. There is a flash high in the air a quarter of a mile in front of us this time. Then a bang, the whirr of a shower of pellets sprayed as if from a watering can, the whip up of another circle of sea below and another white fleecy cloud slowly floating overhead. The wondering crowd on the promenade deck says to itself ‘So that is shrapnel.’ ‘Look mate,’ says a voice on the foc’sle, ‘they’re carrying this joke too far – they’re using ball ammunition.’

4.55: There was a bang which shook our ship – a huge bilious yellow cloud for a moment sprang out from the side of one of the warships just south of us. Far down on the point where that other flash came from, a huge geyser of yellow black earth lifts itself – a lurid red flash just showing through the cloud of it. The Infantry – they are New South Welshmen – on the deck below run to the side, cheering, delightedly.

‘Whew! That’s Pat,’ says one excited boy waving his cap.

Several of the other ships begin firing, but the shrapnel still bursts ahead. At five o’clock one seems to burst fair over the stern of a transport ahead of us carrying a battalion of the 2
^nd
Brigade.

Three minutes later we ourselves start moving in to take up our berth. Four of us, in line, are passing slowly in between the warships. Just on our port side we look down quite close upon the deck of one battleship – the
Prince of Wales
, I think … On our right the
Triumph
and
Bacchante
are firing round after round – the two big turret guns of the former roaring together.

Not a sign yet from the beach. Only that ceaseless knocking, knocking, knocking. Presently a curiously oval object floats past us low in the water. It is a small rowing boat bottom upwards.

That was the first sign we saw.

Now at last as we moved in we could see on the sea, just below the line of the beach, a swarm of small boats – small boats everywhere. They seemed to be going each on its own and going every sort of way – rowing, not being tugged some were stationary – or seemed so. It is hard to tell at this distance. ‘I don’t like the way they’re all scattered about,’ said a staff officer near me. Some seemed as though they might be helping others in difficulties.

The warships are firing more heavily now – there go two great turret guns together. The enemy is still scattering his shrapnel over the water but always between the ships or just short of them.

5.15: Two shells pretty close to us. Those small boats returning for all they are worth each on its own – we can see them much clearer now – makes one just a little anxious. Why are they going so many ways – digging out for all they are worth? Has the landing been beaten off – is this the remnant?

At five o’clock the men went down to a hot breakfast. That firing is still going on in the hills. Whilst it continues one can scarcely think of eating. ‘You’d better come,’ says someone. ‘Never know when you may get a good meal again.’ It was a very hurried breakfast the officers took – 50 or 60 of them there at the saloon tables. Shells were falling near the ship; any minute one might come through the side. You can see plainly the flash, flash of the warships’ guns – the glare flashes through the portholes like lightning. The stewards very willing this morning.

Up on deck again after a cup of tea and plate of porridge. The knockknock – still coming heavily from the shore – the hills resound with it. But look ever so hard you can’t see a flash. ‘I’m afraid they’ve not got very far,’ says a staff officer. There is one comfort. The small boats which are rowing back are surely returning to their ships. There are no soldiers in them – just four seamen with another sitting at the tiller – rowing for all they are worth to their various ships. So our men must at least be on the beach. The warships are supporting them for all they are worth – great shots are shaking this ship every 10 or 20 seconds. Far down south on the neck of Kaba (Gaba) Tepe I can see the smoke of our shrapnel bursting over the point where we must have located their guns.