by Roland Perry
Allenby arced up. ‘Who, General Chauvel?’
Paterson nodded.
‘I may well be relieving him of his command.’
‘Why?’
‘None of your business!’
‘He may not meet you at eye level, General,’ Paterson said, ‘but he has what you need to win this war.’
Allenby glared in a way that suggested an impertinent Paterson had stepped over the line. He turned on his heel and began to march off.
‘I haven’t told you the third thing!’ Paterson said, raising his voice as Allenby strode back to his staff. ‘You won’t win without those bloody milk-cart pullers!’
Allenby kept walking and was soon in front of his staff.
‘I want to see the infantry’s 10th Division!’ he bellowed as if he was addressing others beyond the group. Paterson wandered over. He was about ten paces behind Allenby. He pulled out a small notepad and began to scribble, thinking this moment might make an article. It would be censored now but not after the war when he could publish it to show a little of the character of the commander-in-chief.
None of Allenby’s entourage could tell him where his 10th Division was. He received blinks, blank looks, diffident coughs and a couple of his staff began studying their feet.
A brave young officer piped up that it was on its way from India. No one was certain if it had arrived in a camp near Moascar. Allenby, known without affection as ‘Bloody Bull’, snorted.
An even more courageous staff man stepped forward. ‘If you please, sir.’
Allenby cut him off. ‘I don’t want to hear you talk!’ he snapped.
Paterson shook his head slightly as he took down every word.
Allenby stepped up to the officer, looking as if he might strike him. ‘I have enough men following me around to staff the whole British army and you can’t find me a division!’
Paterson was distracted by Sutherland.
‘I’m told you were looking for Bill,’ he said quietly. ‘He is back from the exercise he was on.’
Paterson raised a finger to his lips. ‘No he is not,’ he whispered, glancing at Sutherland. ‘I don’t want this bullyboy going near him. Keep Bill out of the stable. Put him up the back of the paddock with the mules.’
Half an hour later, Allenby entered Paterson’s tent office. His face colour was still up. He was agitated. Paterson stood up from his desk and saluted.
‘You have some impressive horseflesh hidden in the stable, Paterson,’ he said, tapping his boot with his whip even more often than before. ‘They’ve got a bit of breeding in ’em. Where did you get ’em?’
‘I bought them, General.’
‘You mean you purchased them with remount funds?’
‘Out of my own funds.’
‘Oh, royalties for “Waltzing Matilda” have come in, have they?’
Paterson remembered telling Allenby in South Africa that he had earned a pittance from his songs and poems.
‘They are my property, General.’
Allenby leant forward, his knuckles on the desk. His manner was menacing. ‘You bought them from wages earned in the employ of the British army. You have maintained them with funds from this British army depot. They belong to the British army!’
Paterson was incensed. He was about to tell him he would take them home after the war, but checked himself. Allenby was looking to exact retribution from anyone for his ‘deployment’ away from centre stage of the Western Front. Better not to rile him, Paterson thought.
‘I have receipts for them, General.’
‘You know what you can do with them! Those horses are British property. They will stay with the army even after this bloody war is over!’ He flicked his whip at flies. They irritated him, as did the sand and heat. They added to his fury at being effectively exiled to the desert.
Paterson held his tongue. Allenby stormed out and began raging yet again to his cringing staff about his ‘lost’ 10th Division.
20
CHAUVEL’S SECOND
MASTERSTROKE
General Allenby was a more cautious commander than his aggressive demeanour implied. He took half a year to make a third attack on Gaza. Impatient as he was, he knew that a third failure to break through the Turks at this stronghold on the coast would mean he would have no hope of achieving his aim of driving the enemy from Palestine. His own record would be as a losing commander after his ‘demotion’ from the Western Front. But the careers of others hinged on this battle too. Chauvel had the best record by far of any of the generals in the field. His 6–0 battle score against the Turks in the Sinai had the respect of everyone, including, eventually, Allenby himself. Despite his gratuitous remark about Chauvel being fired, Allenby knew on reflection that he had to rely on the Australian.
At first Chauvel’s quiet defiance of Allenby’s demands raised his ire, but Chauvel refused to let Allenby link directly to Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes to demand men, money and equipment. Chauvel remained loyal to British General Birdwood, who was the connection to Australian prime ministers and had been since Gallipoli. He was one of the few British generals the Anzacs respected. Allenby was furious that he would have to go through Birdwood for any demands. He was hostile to any of the Western Front High Command generals who had conspired to dump him and send him off to the sideshow in the Middle Eastern desert. He hated having to treat them diplomatically to gain what he wanted. But once he stopped fuming over Chauvel standing his ground, he looked more objectively at what lay ahead.
He had a chance to win at the third battle of Gaza for two reasons and they were both commanders. One was Chauvel, whom Allenby now chose to run the Desert Mounted Column: 34,000 horsemen made up of 70 per cent Anzac troopers and the rest mainly British cavalry. They would attempt to smash two Turkish armies and sweep across Palestine. The other ‘reason’ for his chance to win Gaza was British espionage operative Major T E Lawrence, who told Allenby that if he was given enough guns and gold, he could induce the Arabs in Transjordan and Arabia to keep a third Turkish army occupied on its Hejaz railway. It would be distracted so much, Lawrence convinced Allenby, that it would not be able to support its brother armies in Palestine.
This had transformed the depressed, vituperative, grumpy Allenby into a man of more than hope that he could achieve something historic with the help of these two different but brilliant commanders. But first he had to win Gaza. After the now-sacked British generals had sidelined the horsemen at the failed battles, he reinstated them. The plan was to make a feint against Gaza with the infantry. Then there would be an attack by Chauvel’s Light Horse that, it was hoped, would take the village of Beersheba, seventy kilometres south of Gaza, and allow a quick, concerted assault on Gaza itself.
On the big day, 31 October 1917, Chauvel waited, as he had so effectively at Romani, until the very last moment to send his reserve Light Horse into action. But then he pulled the most spectacular surprise of the war so far. The normal modus operandi for the Light Horse was to charge close to the Turkish trenches, dismount and make their move on foot. It was what the Turks and their German masters expected, so the wily Chauvel ordered a charge without stopping. Some 800 horsemen would ride right at the 4400 Turks armed with artillery, machine-guns and rifles. They would attempt to obliterate the opposition in trenches and the village 1.5 kilometres beyond them. Allenby, about twenty kilometres away, was apoplectic over Chauvel’s delay. He sent blistering commands to him to attack. Chauvel threw the missives away. At 4 pm he gave the order to Brigadier Grant. He was to lead the charge to the trenches.
Young Ben Towers, the first person known to have stayed on Bill for more than two minutes, was a machine-gunner in the Light Horse line-up readying itself for the charge. Seeing his nerves, an older trooper next to him said: ‘You’ll be okay, son. We gotta take that town. If we don’t, we are well and truly stuffed. The wells are there. We must get the horses to ’em. Otherwise we have to back off ten mile or so to other wells. The next hour will tell everyt
hing.’
Packhorses and mules were trotted up behind and roped to the troopers’ horses. They carried their machine-guns and ammunition. Towers did a double-take at the big pack animal assigned to him.
‘Jeez,’ he said to the trooper connecting him up, ‘that’s Bill the Bastard!’
‘Yeah, you got the best packhorse in the business. Lieutenant McNee has been wounded.’
‘I’ve ridden him!’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ the trooper said dismissively, moving on to the next machine-gunner with a mule. ‘You’d be the first after Major Shanahan.’
‘I was the bloody first!’
The trooper was too busy with his job to respond.
Moments later, the order came down the lines of the 800: ‘Regiments! Form squadrons, line extended . . . form squadrons, line extended . . .’
Towers spoke into the ear of his own beloved Waler, telling him he would be getting a drink soon and trying to calm him. But the horse sensed something else. He could smell fear. It put both his rider and him on edge. The squadrons trotted towards the area behind Chauvel’s command post on a hill with a ‘dress circle view of the show’, as he characterised it. The general was there in full view of his select horsemen, who were about to make history or be consigned to oblivion.
The German officers in charge of Beersheba’s defence were standing behind the Turkish trenches. They watched the build-up from a sandy knoll. They believed that it was a mere demonstration. The Germans were on the record as saying the Australians were madmen but they were not crazy enough to charge. Besides, they had no real history of the British conventional charge as such. The Germans had done their homework. The troopers who wore the emu plumes in their hats were horsemen who could shoot. They were not British cavalry. They would always dismount and advance on foot. That approach would be accomplished now after dark, which would mean their strike would fail.
From the enemy’s point of view, the Light Horse’s first squadron emerged in a line 1100 metres long over the top of a hill, then three kilometres south-east from the trenches and less than five kilometres from Beersheba itself. It was 4.30 pm and the light was already fading fast. The horse vanguard came over the crest of the hill.
Orders were barked to the Turkish artillery men. Wheels were spun and the big gun barrels lowered. The gunners gave the order to fire.
Ben Towers was shivering. He was in the front squadron of the biggest body of horsemen in a century to line up for a cavalry-style charge. They began at a slow walk, five metres apart. A corporal next to Towers gave him a ‘thumbs-up’. Everything was going to be fine; the thrill of a lifetime. Towers glanced back at Bill the Bastard. His clever-looking head seemed to express that he was relaxed. Towers felt a strange sensation with this recognition. His nerves quietened for the moment. He was surrounded by strength among the troopers who did not look scared. Behind him was the most powerful animal he had ever encountered. The horses always gave the troopers confidence. They acted as a kind of shield for what they were about to run into. None cared to think that in a flash a bullet from a Turkish sniper, or a round from a machine-gunner, or a carefully calibrated shrapnel spray, could pull down his defences.
Seconds later the front line of troopers was thirty metres short of the crest. The brigadier commanding flexed his arm, extended it towards Beersheba again and bellowed: ‘Forwaaaard!’
The troopers roared like a crowd at a bullfight and advanced.
By the time Towers reached the top of the hill they were at the trot and in full view of the enemy. He looked around. Bill was close, bunching with him. On his left flank were artillery, other machine-gunners and reserves. Ambulances were behind them. A reserve Light Horse regiment brought up the rear.
Any independent observer would have thought the Australian charge was sure to lead to disaster. The heavy firepower awaiting them seemed too much to break through. This opened up when the Light Horse was clanking forward at a canter three kilometres from the trenches. Turkish machine-gunners began spitting out their bullets at a fearful rate accompanied by a ‘rat-tat-tat’ sound. The troopers heard it, but as nothing hit home initially, they cantered on, impressed by the ‘display’ lighting the dusk sky. It was hard to believe that it was fire aimed at them. Continuous rifle flashes outlined the position of the enemy trenches. Their field guns now came into play beyond and above the rifles, delivering the bigger, deeper light emissions.
An Essex artillery gunner on the left of the Australians used binoculars to find the source of this early fire coming from a hill almost in a direct line with them. The British officers did quick calculations. They calibrated the range and let the big guns loose. Their shells burst like a row of red stars over the enemy defence lines. By fluke or good management, the first shower of shells killed all the Turkish machine-gunners on the hill in question. It was only the beginning but it was significant. The odds improved marginally for the attackers. A direct impediment had been eliminated before close contact had been made.
Two-and-a-half kilometres from the trenches, the commander who had taken up the forward-most position pushed his arm out straight and yelled: ‘Chaaaarge!’
The troopers quickly reached a gallop. Towers could feel his heart thumping. He glanced left and right. Troopers were screaming invective. The rope to Bill the Bastard had gone slack. Towers looked back for a split second to see that the massive mount with the big weight strapped onto him was pushing close to his Waler’s hindquarters. It seemed to want to crash through and take the lead. No other pack animal was so close to his assigned trooper.
Towers heard a cry to his far left. A fellow rider had been hit. There was a thump ahead of him to the right. A horse had been struck. By the time it was down, Towers’ mount, and Bill close behind, were past it. Towers looked straight ahead now, not wanting to take in the sight of his fellow troopers and their mounts going down. Over a slight rise he could see Turkish riflemen propped 100 metres in front of the lead horses. Some managed further shots, but they were their last acts as marksmen. The rampaging horses barrelled straight through them. Towers felt his rope to Bill go taut. Bill had veered to avoid a Turk but had collected him with a dull thud, leaving him limp and exposed to trampling by scores of hooves.
The horses’ tempo increased. Their nostrils widened. They could smell the water in the precious wells of Beersheba. That is what they cared about. They had no fear, not even of the German planes swooping low above them and rolling out bombs. Pilots were finding targets difficult to set up in the fading light. Whether or not the troopers had been confident or had harboured hidden fears at the start, they were buoyed now. Some of the enemy machine-gunners had been silenced. Turkish riflemen had been trampled on. The troopers waved their bayonets. They were inspired. There was a sense that they were going to overrun the trenches. The waves of troopers were more or less intact.
Red and orange flashes seemed to Towers to be whizzing close. He could smell cordite. It was strong. There was an overwhelming odour of something burning. It was so thick in the air that some of the troopers were gagging and clearing their throats. Suddenly Towers was hit. He fought to stay in the saddle, but fell hard. His horse reared and wanted to go on, but Bill put a brake on him. The two horses stopped about thirty metres from Towers. He put his arms up to shield his head as troopers swooped by. A bullet had hit high on his right femur, shattering it. His twisting fall to the broken soil had mangled his leg. Towers passed out from the pain.
The troopers careered on, building to a racing speed half obscured in clouds of reddish dust. Their pounding hooves could be heard in the trenches as a low continuous rumble, like thunder. Chauvel, watching from his balcony seat on a hill three kilometres away, thought his force ‘seemed to move silently, like some splendid, swift machine’.
Either the Turks had failed to change their rifle sights at this point, or they were poor shots. The troopers were not being felled in significant numbers. Some 500 metres out, they could see the shallow front trench, with unf
inished earthworks nearby. The Turkish riflemen forward of the trenches saw the rolling ball of dust with the long line of bobbing horses. Their choice was simple. If they stayed in place they risked almost certain death. Most ran to rocks for protection.
The front horses were at a full gallop. They were not stopping. The Turks could hear the harrowing cries from the Australians in the lull of artillery fire and over the machine-guns. The bush cries and cooees would have been unintelligible to the Turks, but the intent was clear.
German and Turkish officers accepted for the first time that they had been duped. The Australians were not acting in a conventional way. They were not going to dismount. They were charging straight at the trenches. Time to make a hurried exit. The Germans began scurrying back towards Beersheba town. Two were assigned to blow up the wells, which would deny the attackers an important goal.
The Light Horse hurdled the first trench. The startled Turks were unable to get in a clear shot at even one mount. The troopers attacked the second, wider, deeper trench, but the men in that were too stunned to fight back. Few took shots and even fewer were foolhardy enough to lunge up at the bellies of the leaping horses. The Turks recovered some composure in and out of the trenches and fired at the troopers. In the ensuing closer combat, some troopers and their horses were shot down.
In the field, ambulance vehicles were bouncing around looking for fallen troopers. They found young Towers, still unconscious, his leg a mess and already the target of a thousand flies that feasted on congealed blood and exposed bone. Placing him on a stretcher, the medicos were shocked by a lone Turkish gunman who had wandered close. He pulled out a revolver and fired at them. One of the Australians pointed to the Red Cross markings on the ambulance. The Turk ignored him and fired at the stretcher. He missed and hit a tyre on the ambulance. It hissed flat. The Turk kept moving and was soon out of sight over a rise.
