Gallipoli (41 page)

Why, get to the frontline, of course. With that in mind, Bridges and Brudenell White had immediately started climbing the ridges on the southern end of the shore, seemingly oblivious to the bullets and shrapnel whizzing all around. On the way, they had passed a Battalion Commander who – under the extreme circumstances of the angels of death having been flapping their wings all over him for the last two hours – had fallen to pieces. He was quite ‘unstrung'. Bridges had no sympathy and, as recorded by Brudenell White, was ‘coldly contemptuous'.
⁶⁵

(And yet, the shattered Battalion Commander is not alone. Inevitably, in the face of the slaughter, the spirit of some men is not equal to the extraordinary task set them, and some ‘stragglers' will later be found congregating in the gullies.)

As Bridges and his Chief of Staff continue, outraged Turkish bullets start to kick up dust all around. Not happy about it at all, Brudenell White suggests they keep moving and get to a position with more cover, but – almost as a point of honour, it seems – the General ignores him. Not for him, taking shelter from mere bullets. He is of the Old School that thinks being afraid of bullets only attracts the beggars.

Miraculously, General Bridges and his Chief of Staff now reach the top of the First Ridge, only to find some more soldiers – again, not at all unreasonably – taking cover from surprisingly strong Turkish fire. ‘For God's sake,' the General roars. ‘Remember that you are Australians!'
⁶⁶

And so they do, ignoring the dangers and pushing forward once more.

9.30 AM, 25 APRIL 1915, HEIGHTS OF THE SARI BAIR RANGE

The dapper military man in the Turkish uniform lightly jumping from his horse is a study of relief and exhaustion.

After a journey of nearly two hours, Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal finally stands tall, chin up, shoulders back, atop the 850 foot high summit of Chunuk Bair, the second highest point of the Sari Bair Range and the Gallipoli Peninsula, with a small group of his senior officers. The exhausted troops they have been travelling with are some ten minutes behind, as they have been allowed a brief rest, while Mustafa Kemal races ahead to try to spy the enemy.

When he arrives, his worst fears are realised. Not only are the waters below completely filled with British warships and transports, together with many small boats crammed with soldiers pushing into the shore, but just down the slope he can now see Turkish soldiers hurrying up towards him, clearly retreating from the smaller hill they had been assigned to defend, just in front of Chunuk Bair, known to the Allies as ‘Big 700' and later as ‘Battleship Hill'. Away in the distance, Mustafa Kemal can see the enemy soldiers coming after them, completely unopposed.

‘It meant,' he later recalled, ‘the enemy were nearer to me than my own troops! And if the enemy were to advance to the position at which we were standing, my troops would find themselves in a very difficult position.'
³

Indeed. If the enemy captures these heights of the Sari Bair Range, they will control the whole area, making it nigh on impossible to dislodge them.

Mustafa Kemal – at least as he and many others will tell it ever afterwards – reacts as instantly as he does instinctively. After sending an orderly racing back to bring his 57th Regiment forward at all possible speed, he races down the slope to meet the retreating Turkish soldiers. ‘Why are you running away?' he yells at them.

‘
Efendim düşman!
– Sir, the enemy!' they reply.

‘Where?'

‘Over there,' they say, pointing to the hill they have just abandoned and the soldiers now clearly visible, pursuing them.

‘You cannot run from the enemy!'

‘We have got no ammunition left.'

‘If you haven't got any ammunition, you have got your bayonets!'
⁴

The Turkish soldiers are trapped. Behind them, swarming thousands of enemy soldiers. In front of them, one furious and very senior Turkish officer. On balance, they'd rather face the enemy …

‘
Süngü tak!
– Fix bayonets!'
⁵

Done.

‘
Yere yat!
– Now lie down on the ground!'
⁶

They lie down on the ground, their rifles thrust forward, their bayonets glinting in the sun. What will the soldiers pursuing them do, when they see this mass of men with their rifles pointing straight at them? Will they come en masse, in which case the all but defenceless Turkish soldiers will be slaughtered and Chunuk Bair taken irretrievably, or will they react … as if they are about to massacred by a rain of Turkish bullets?

It does not take long.

For as Mustafa Kemal watches closely, just moments after his Turkish soldiers have dropped down … so too do the pursuing soldiers.

The defenders have won some precious time.
⁷

And here come the New Zealanders! In the first boat approaching the shore is the handsome doctor, a veteran of the Boer War, Lieutenant-Colonel Dr Percival Fenwick, of the New Zealand Medical Corps. As a steamboat goes slowly past them, heading the other way, one of the sailors calls to Dr Fenwick, ‘The Australians have got ashore and are chasing the Turks to Hell.'
⁸
Every man within earshot lets out a raucous cheer.

In the boats around Fenwick are the first soldiers of the Auckland Battalion – many of them highly trained professional soldiers who have spent their adult lives preparing for this moment. They are no sooner ashore than they are charging forward and quickly climbing to support the Australians.

On the left flank of the Turkish defence, the troops of the 27th Regiment's 3rd Battalion, under the command of 30-year-old Major Halis, have started the fight.

The well-loved Commander – nicknamed Blind Halis for a shrapnel wound he had received to his right eye during the Balkan Wars – is in the thick of it from the first, exhorting his men to ever greater and more courageous efforts. His soldiers are mostly of ill-educated farming stock from local villages, while he is a military professional who can speak five languages, but still he has the knack of inspiring his men in battle, no matter the carnage. And carnage it is, with a terrible casualty rate all around. A third of his soldiers have been killed or wounded by 9 am, but still they keep firing, praying for reinforcements.

On the far right flank, Lieutenant Ahmet Mucip of the battalion's 12th Company, though only 20 years old, has just taken command of the company after his own Commander had been shot. Following the orders of Major Halis, he guides his men to the top of a ridge that overlooks the sea …

Reaching the crest, they fall to their bellies in the scrub and look down.

There!

They are now able to get a good look at the enemy who are climbing the other side: the
Ingiliz
!

For most of the soldiers, it is the first time in their lives they have seen this curious race up close. They are big, lithe and remarkably fair-haired. And there are so
many
of them. Lieutenant Ahmet's eyes grow wide. He looks to the left and right flanks of those climbing, hoping to see an end, but he cannot. The line is never-ending. ‘I felt,' Ahmet Mucip would recount, ‘as if my chest was about to burst …'
⁹

But the strange thing?

Even though the
Ingiliz
are climbing with such difficulty, even though they must know they are likely to soon come under attack, they are somehow advancing with great confidence. And they must be stopped.

‘Soldiers,' Lieutenant Ahmet Mucip says quietly, ‘advancing at the same speed as me, quickly and quietly.'
¹⁰

Ahmet Mucip and his men break cover and, in an instant, attacking from the high ground, open rapid and hellish fire upon the advancing enemy, chopping them down like wheat, though the
Ingiliz
are soon firing back and their dead ones are quickly replaced by reinforcements. A savage battle breaks out, and around him Lieutenant Ahmet can hear groans and death rattles as his men are hit. Many of the merely wounded are shouting to Allah as they shoot, ‘paying homage and preaching revenge for the martyrs who, in resistance and prayer, had departed this life'.
¹¹

The carnage among his own men is great, but they are still holding their ground when Major Halis arrives. He has been shot, and is bleeding, but remains for as long as he can to organise the defence, before giving the Lieutenant his final command: ‘Do not withdraw from your positions. The only case for retreat is if you send a messenger with the news that you have all died. I will send reinforcements as quickly as possible.'
¹²

With the help of a young private, Major Halis retreats. As he loses sight of his Commander, Lieutenant Ahmet Mucip once again feels the weight of responsibility return, as if he is the only man left standing to defend the homeland. But he reminds himself, ‘Is it actually like this? No … A small part of the homeland has been left in my custody, and with this comes the hearts, souls and assistance of these gutsy, fighting Mehmetçiks …'
¹³

The first troops of Turkey's 57th Regiment catch up to their Commander at Chunuk Bair around 10 am. His men must attack the enemy now coming up towards Battleship Hill.

And to his men, Colonel Mustafa's verbal order is the stuff of legend. ‘I don't order you to attack,' he is said to have told them, ‘I order you to
die
. In the time which passes until we die other troops and commanders can take our places.'
¹⁴

(Certainly, however, a written order is less prosaic: I do not expect that any of us would not rather die than repeat the shameful story of the Balkan War. But if there are such men among us, we should at once lay hands upon them and set them up in line to be shot.)
¹⁵

With the arrival of the 57th, the tone of the battle for the marauding Anzacs changes, as heavier punishment than ever pours and roars down upon them – withering fire and a shellacking of shrapnel from the highly trained and committed soldiers and gun crews now occupying the high ground along the First Ridge.

It is true, they are not much to look at, these Turks, with their mostly slight frames covered in rag-tag uniforms, but that is not the measure of them. For their bravery is beyond all doubt, and even beyond all reason, as waves of them charge at the Anzacs, shouting – what is that word, again? – ‘Allah! Allah! ALLAH!'

No matter that the first wave is cut to pieces, the second wave comes on, running over their own dead and dying.

‘Allah! Allah! ALLAH!'

How can these bastards be so unlike the Gyppos? Back in Cairo, you'd only have to raise your hand to a Gyppo and he'd cower away from you, but the Turks are not like that at all. The Anzacs not only have the fight of their lives on their hands, they are fighting
for
their lives, and many are losing as soldier after soldier is cut down.

‘Well, lads,' one officer says to his men, as yet one more wave of Turks starts to charge at them, ‘we are in a very tight corner but we'll die back to back. Fix bayonets.'
¹⁶

Like the Australians, the Turks realise the importance of the high ground from the first, and one particular hill – Baby 700, two summits below Chunuk Bair – is fought for like a football in a rugby game. No sooner would one side have it than the other would swarm all over it to wrench it from them, whereupon they are the ones who are attacked.