Made in Myrtle Street (Prequel)

by B A Lightfoot

  From behind him he heard an officer shout ‘Get Down. Find Shelter and Get Down.’ To his right he saw a small gully but the uphill struggle in intense heat and over rough ground had weakened him. The bullets flew around but the strength had drained out of his legs. The sweat was running inside his heavy uniform and the blood throbbed in his ears. He screamed at his failing body to keep going for the gully. He tripped on another rock, his unsteady legs collapsed and he fell to the ground. He lay there confused by the noise, the heat, the body that would not respond, and he waited for the bullet that would finish him. His blood raced and his lungs hunted for more air. He gasped huge mouthfuls of dust laden oxygen and from somewhere deep inside his body came a moment of stillness. He heard Laura’s words ‘Keep Safe Love’ and he felt that last soft kiss on his cheek like an angel’s touch.

  A warm surge of strength flowed through his body and he was on his feet again. He drove himself forward through the scrub and flung himself into the shelter of the gully.

  As his breathing became calmer and his heartbeat slowed, he felt a fountain of fury building up inside him. They had been told to attack and take the machine gun redoubts that were five hundred yards away and yet they only had their rifles with fixed bayonets to do it. They had not even been spared the shells for supporting artillery to give them cover. Ten days before, the regulars had failed to achieve those targets and now, after the enemy had been given more chance to consolidate their positions, they were being ordered to repeat the performance. Whoever had planned this attack in some remote office had gambled with the lives of the soldiers in these fields in a cynical attempt to retrieve what had been a poorly planned and badly organized strategy from the outset.

  Edward looked around him at the dead and dying. If an injured man moved he would be shot at by a distant Turkish rifle. Sergeant Williams shouted instructions to regroup and they slowly made their way forward, inching along the ravine by erratic, darting runs. The rocks around them splintered with the enemy bullets and they returned the fire whenever they had a view of the Turkish trenches, but it was to no avail. They made little impression on the enemy and the officers realized that the goal that they had been set was an impossible one.

  At nightfall they made their way back to their trenches bringing back all the injured that they could retrieve. Edward felt an overwhelming tiredness but couldn’t sleep. He drew heavily on one cigarette after another then said a little prayer that he would be spared to return to Cross Lane and to see Laura and the kids again.

  Edward told Liam and Big Charlie about the execution of Young Hennessy by the Major. Their stunned silence was eventually broken by Liam who asked ‘Where’s Chopper at the moment, then?’

  ‘He’s up on the hill with the 7th’

  ‘He’ll be out for blood when he hears about this.’

  ‘Aye,’ Edward said, ‘but he’ll have to watch himself or he’ll finish up in a load of trouble.’

  ‘Have a word with Frank Williams. See what he has to say.’

  During the night they again cleared away the dead and then deepened the trenches. They were told that Gully Ravine was a weak point in the Allied line because it was low down and vulnerable. Up on Gully Spur, the hill to their left that lay between them and the Aegean Sea, the 6th and 7th Lancashire Fusiliers, along with a company from Edward’s battalion, had that day made an advance of 400 yards and that had been held.

  The next morning they again attacked the enemy line but this time they had been spared the diatribe by the manic Major. Edward watched as the first groups went over, knowing that shortly it would be his turn. It was the same, disciplined precision of the countdown, the same words of command and the same mechanical response from the soldiers. The officers and NCO’s ran around, shouting and waving rifles and pistols, the men went over the parapet and then, for too many, their lives were blasted out of their bodies. Some did not even make it over the top – they fell back off the ladders and the support groups cleared them away.

  The last five minutes of the countdown began for Edward’s group. He could hear the bullets thudding into the sandbags above his head. Hopefully, the first runners would have made some progress up the valley and would be threatening the enemy lines. They had their bayonets fixed, and they had been trained to use them, but the five hundred yards of scrubland that had to be crossed first meant that there would be little chance of close combat fighting.

  Edward had been told that this time they would be going at intervals and running in small groups. That way they presented a smaller target to the Turkish machine guns. He knew, though, that the terrain in the valley and the fifty foot cliffs at the sides gave them little chance of crossing this no-man’s land.

  He heard the loud explosions as the ships in the sea beyond Gully Spur began firing on the Turkish positions but the chattering of the machine guns kept on. He saw pictures in his mind of the family room when he was a small boy. His brothers were nowhere to be seen but his mother was scrubbing the back of a man sitting in a zinc bath in front of the fire. He tried to focus on the picture but it was gone. The seconds ticked away, he said a prayer to be spared to see his wife and family again, and the shrieking whistles pierced his thoughts.

  This time Edward followed closely behind the Liverpool Sergeant, Frank Williams. He seemed to know what he was doing as he ran purposefully along, ducking low so that he gained shelter from a low ridge which Edward had not seen on his first run. Clouds of acrid, dusty smoke rolled down the valley accompanied by the rumbling thunder of the bombardment higher up. They dashed quickly over an exposed section and then they were amongst the rocks below the cliffs. The sergeant directed the group as to where they should position themselves and then they sat back to recover their breath. One man stood up to stretch his back and as his head came above the rock the top of his skull flew off. His soft hat offered no protection.

  ‘They do stop you getting bird shit in your hair, though,’ said the sergeant seeing Edward’s anguished face staring at the tattered regimental cap. ‘It’s the first in our group today so that’s not too bad’ he added ‘but keep your heads down or he won’t be the last.’

  They crawled from one sun dappled rock to another for thirty minutes, progressing with painstaking slowness up the ravine, until they found themselves crouching behind a shaded hillock just below the Turkish lines. Across the valley they could see that various groups held positions which also gave them a view of the enemy. Down the valley they had a clear sight of their own lines and of the bed of the stream clogged with the bodies of British soldiers. Some had become gruesomely distended as they baked in the hot sun. On the top of Gully Spur, over the far side of the ravine, they watched the exploding shells from the Royal Navy vessels out at sea as they tried to dislodge the Turkish machine guns. Edward could see that, although they had done a lot of damage to the enemy trenches, they would never stop the machine guns as they had been securely sheltered in the mouth of a cave.

  When Williams was satisfied that he had all the men positioned correctly he told them to ready themselves and to open fire if Turkish soldiers showed themselves. ‘Remember that they have killed your mates and they will kill you if you give them half a chance’ he said. When the soldiers in the trench above them fired on the Lancashire Fusiliers below, the sergeant’s group responded. Eventually, they were spotted by the machine gunners and were forced by the furious onslaught of bullets to shelter below the rocks. Their Lee Enfields with their shiny bayonets felt puny and inept against this tornado of fire power.

  It soon became clear that they could make no more progress and Williams guided them back down to their own trenches. They smoked, drank tea and cut off chunks of bully beef for their lunch. They talked about the events of the morning, exaggerated the number of Turkish soldiers they had seen fall, and quietly congratulated themselves on surviving.

  That afternoon they went over again. The sergeant led them on a different course, heading this time for one of the side gullies. Their route took th
em through an area of dogwood scrubland and the Turkish gunners spotted them. By the time that they reached the shelter, one man had been killed and another had a splintered arm. The sergeant fixed the arm in the best way that he could with his field dressing pack but the man needed more expert treatment. He was screaming in agony and shouting for his mother. ‘Will you bloody shut up,’ Liam said irritably, cupping his hands to be heard above the racket. ‘Every sodding sniper in Turkey will know where we are hiding with that row.’ Turning to Big Charlie he confided ‘His Dad’s that Italian joiner from behind the Church, you know. They can’t do anything quietly.’

  ‘Aye, I know. Used to be like that when he got the cane at school.’

  It was clear that they could not go forward because of the enemy gun fire and the only option was to crawl towards the cliffs and then to tack back down to their trenches.

  In the safety of the trench, they took the injured man to the first aid post for treatment and then gratefully sipped at the hot tea that had been poured for them. Food had been brought up from the canteen on the beach by the newly landed soldiers who were now gradually filling up the trenches. Although they were hungry they were too tense to eat and they were still sat in the communication trench smoking and exchanging the small details of the battle, the scraps of success that members of a beaten team use to rebuild each other’s morale, when the Captain arrived.

  He told them that they were to be relieved from the line and were to bivouac at ‘W’ beach. He said that it was still being shelled and fired upon by the Turks but they might get the opportunity for a game of soccer and a swim in the sea. ‘It’ll be just like Blackpool on bonfire night,’ muttered Liam as he picked up his enamel cup. ‘I’ll see if I can find my bucket and spade.’

  Chapter 5

  The Trenches at Krithia

  The battalion spent three busy days on ‘W’ beach. Edward and his friends helped the sappers, who had now arrived, to strengthen roads, dig ditches and to sink wells in the search for vital supplies of fresh water. They unloaded, under fire, the ships that came in and they helped the men of no.2 Transport to load the pack mules that took the supplies to dumps on the front lines. These transport men showed great initiative in finding mules, usually grazing in the fields where they had been left by the farmers, to replace those that had been killed.

  The soldiers managed to have the promised swim but the shells dropping in the sea around them took the edge off the enjoyment. Rifle fire from snipers hidden in the woods meant the games of football were short and very fast. Any movement around the area was hazardous. The casualties mostly arose, though, when they were relaxed. They lay in shallow trenches or squeezed into crevices and the snipers watched for heads to appear over the edge of the shelter.

  On the evening of the 11 May the order came through that they were to take over the front line trenches on the Krithia Nullah and the Krithia road. The nullah was another of the ravines that ran down the Peninsula from the village of Krithia and normally, unless there had been a heavy downpour, only a trickle of water flowed down it. Unfortunately, before it reached the Allied front line, the water had passed through the Turkish line and was dirty and contaminated. Although there was a deep pool which provided a decent bathing facility the water could not be used for drinking or cooking and there was a constant search for suitable supplies.

  The battalion moved into their new positions during the night accompanied by the incessant rifle fire, the constant shelling and a heavy downpour of rain. Within a very short time the trickle of water had turned into a torrent which raged through the narrow channel carrying the debris of the higher valley – broken trees, uprooted bushes and the corpses of British and Turkish soldiers.

  The bottom of the nullah rapidly turned into a quagmire and movement became increasingly difficult. Men took to the higher ground to avoid the mud but found that they were exposed to the Turkish riflemen. On the way up they passed dressing posts set up by the RAMC. Tarpaulins had been stretched over metal drums and a flag with a red cross hung damply from a pole. They saw the transport company, who were on their way down the gully, trying desperately to drive their mules through the thick, clinging mud.

  By the next morning, the Salford soldiers, a few less than there had been the day before, were established in the trench and enjoying a welcome cup of tea and a bacon breakfast in the warming sun. The landscape here was different with a few disused smallholdings and the occasional small vineyard. There were some lines of trees and bushes but generally the area was more open and was splashed intermittently with vivid red patches of poppies.

  As they ate their breakfasts they were joined by the flies that swarmed in their millions around them and then stayed all that day and every subsequent day. The food became rapidly covered with the insects, they clustered on every forkful en route to the mouth and were often eaten. Mugs of tea became full of them and they landed on every exposed part of the body. Some of the men sacrificed their piece of greasy bacon as a decoy for the flies in an endeavour to buy time to soak their hard biscuits in their mugs of tea. Corpses soon became a buzzing, heaving mass of flies and the injured would be plagued by them swarming on their open wounds. The only relief that they would ever get from this omnipresent nightmare was in the cold of the nights or during the misery of the heavy downpours of rain.

  Crouched in their shallow trenches they heard an increased level of firing from various points along the lines and some heavy artillery fire to their left. The captain told them they would be involved later in these moves which were a distraction to support a big action that was planned.

  The sun dried off their clothes that were still sodden from the previous night. They fired their limited ration of ammunition at the enemy lines, producing a heavy and disproportionate response from the Turks. A meal of bully beef and vegetables was brought up to them from the canteens on the beach by the struggling transport company and their hard pressed mules. Heavy fighting could be heard throughout the afternoon from the direction of Gully Spur to the west. The afternoon sun burned on their backs as they stood on the firing step watching through the sandbag parapet. Later in the day, they heard the wailing call to prayer from the enemy line and as darkness closed in they were gripped by the biting cold.

  Sleep did not come readily or pleasantly to the tense, nervous soldiers waiting in the Spartan trenches. When the gold fingers of the morning sun began to feel their way through the night sky the men stretched their aching bodies in the restricted space. They straightened their kit and their uniforms and enjoyed delicious freshly baked bread from the newly constructed bakery on the beach. The bacon breakfast was transformed by it. They smoked, drank tea, swatted flies and listened to the constant whine of the shells grumbling under the raucous chattering of the rifle fire and speculated on the action that the captain had told them about the previous day. Frank Williams, the sergeant that Edward had followed over the top that long week ago, told them that the Ghurkhas had pulled off a brilliant attack on the hill above Gully Ravine. In a well planned move they had scrambled up the cliffs on the far side and had taken the hill with the Turkish trenches and the machine gun redoubts that had caused so much trouble. The Turks had been taken by surprise and most had fled terrified when they saw the Ghurkhas coming.

  ‘Don’t wonder,’ concluded the thoughtful Liam. ‘Fierce looking barmpots that lot. I told you what the old fella in the Railway said. They’d cut your throat as soon as shake your hand.’

  ***

  Gallipoli

  Turkey

  16th May 1915

  Dear Pippin,

  Happy Birthday Darling. Today is your 8th birthday and I am so sorry that I can’t be there to share it with you but I have been thinking about you all day. Your Mam wrote to me and told me that she had got some flour and she was going to bake a cake for you whilst you were all at school. She said that she had made some little coats and dresses for Dorothy so that would give you a nice surprise. I hope that Uncle Jim managed to make th
e cot for you. He is very clever at making furniture.

  Pippin, now that you are growing up you will have to help to look after your Mam and the others for me because I can’t be there to help. If you see your Mam looking tired or sad then you give her a big squeeze and a kiss and say that Dad has sent it especially for her.

  I’m sorry but I don’t think that I will be home for the summer holidays. I know that this will upset you but things are a bit tricky out here at the moment. We are doing a lot of digging to find water and to make places where we can stay. We sometimes catch chickens to cook but often we have difficulty finding enough firewood to cook things. It makes my fingers ache as well plucking the feathers off.

  I told Billy Murphy’s Dad about Edward saying that we were coming down Cross Lane on camels and he laughed. He said that he would bring one home with him but the backyard would not be big enough to keep it in.

  Keep on working hard at school, Laura, because it will be important for you when you get older.

  Sending big hugs and kisses for all of you,

  Love

  Dad

  ***

  By the end of May the Salford battalion had settled into a routine and a pattern of manning the lines. They would firstly spend three days in the front line from which attacks could be mounted and which provided the first line of defence in the event of enemy attack. This would be followed by three days in the support trench, from where troops could be fed into the front line assault, and from where they moved equipment and supplies into the front line. Finally they would spend the last three days of the cycle in reserve where, despite the commitments of engineering work and other duties, they were able to relax a little more.

  Like all his pals, Edward enjoyed the reserve trench phase the most. They got more exercise, played a little football, had a yarn with their mates and attended to their personal hygiene. There were often casualties, as the Turkish snipers watched for men who were momentarily off their guard, but now they were more careful. The unfortunates who were hit were helped or taken away and those that were left got on with whatever they were doing.