Frank Forester: A Story of the Dardanelles

by Herbert Strang

  CHAPTER XVIII

  THE LANDING AT ANZAC

  One bright morning in April, a group of young officers sat smoking onthe deck of a British destroyer lying amid a crowd of warships andtransport vessels in Mudros harbour, on the southern shore of theGrecian island of Lemnos. They were clad in khaki, with sun helmets,which marked them out as military, not naval officers. Seated in a roughhalf-circle, some on chairs, some on the spotless deck, they appeared tobe specially interested in one of their number, at whom they werethrowing questions one after another.

  "What's the Turkish for 'Give me some beer,' anyhow?" one had justasked.

  "_Bana bira ver_," replied the young subaltern. "But you won't easilyget it, you know. Moslems don't drink it."

  "Do they grow grapes?" asked another.

  "Oh yes; _yuzum_ 's the word."

  "Don't they make 'em into wine, then?"

  "They're not supposed to, but I daresay you might get some if you said_Bana sharab ver_ very politely."

  "You won't want it, Ted," said a third. "We've plenty of our own stuff.Our Australian wine is as good as any."

  "Besides," said the man they were questioning, "you won't get manyopportunities of making requisitions of that sort. There aren't anyinns in Gallipoli, you know."

  "What's the Turkish for _inn_?"

  "Khan."

  "Say 'keep up your pecker' in Turkish: that'll stump you."

  "Not at all. If you fancy your Turk is downhearted, say to him'_Gheiret ileh_.'"

  A subaltern, who had furtively taken from his pocket a booklet with abuff-coloured paper cover, turned over the pages, replaced the book, andbending forward said:

  "Here's a poser for you. What's the Turkish for 'not to be able to bemade to love'?"

  There was a gust of laughter.

  "Tomlinson's thinking of the girl he left behind him," said one of hiscomrades. "_Gheiret ileh_, Tommy."

  "Stumped, Forester?"

  "I'm sorry for Tomlinson; he'll have a mouthful to say._Sevderilehmemek_ meets the case, I think."

  "By Jove!" gasped the last speaker. "Sounds like a bird twittering."

  Tomlinson had taken out his book again.

  "Forester's right," he said, examining a page. "What a language! Howin the world did you manage to learn it?"

  "What have you got there?" some one asked.

  "A remarkable production called 'Easy Turkish,'" Tomlinson replied. "Ifthat's easy! ... It's supposed to be a word-book for our chaps inTurkey; but while it gives you the Turkish for 'not to be able to bemade to love'--as if any sane person would want to say that!--it doesn'ttell you how to say you're hungry or thirsty. Poof!"

  He flung the book overboard.

  "Bang goes sixpence!" he remarked. "You'd better compile somethingdecent, Forester."

  "It's too late now," said Frank, smiling. "Pity; I might have made a fewhonest pennies if I had started in time."

  Frank had been taken in the hospital ship to Malta, where he found hisfather. As he made a swift recovery from his wound, he grew more andmore eager to join the fighting forces, and was on the point of applyingfor a commission when news came that a military expedition in Gallipolihad been decided on, to retrieve the failure of the naval operationswhich had been in progress for several months. With his father'sapproval he hastened to Alexandria and applied for work in connectionwith the expedition. His knowledge of Turkish and his recentexperiences in Gallipoli served him well. Interpreters were muchneeded. He was attached as interpreter to the Australian contingent withthe rank of lieutenant, and accompanied the troops when they sailed forthe base in Mudros Bay.

  "What sort of a place is this Gallipoli?" asked one of the youngAustralians, who had heard something of Frank's adventures.

  "A very hard nut to crack," Frank replied. "I don't know much about thecoast, which is mainly cliffs with very narrow beaches; but the interioris all rocky hills and ravines, covered with scrub and dwarf oaks. Youcouldn't imagine finer country for defence, and the Turks are best onthe defensive. They've had time for preparation, too. A couple ofmonths ago I saw them dragging a battery up the sides of Sari Bair, ahill nearly 1000 feet high, and since then no doubt they've planted gunsall over the place."

  "We're in for a hot time, then," remarked Tomlinson. "Well, I was fedup with Egypt. That attack on the canal was a futile bit of stupidity,and I was afraid they'd keep us there on the watch for another attackwhich not even the Turks would be asses enough to make. If we're in forthe real thing now--well, I for one am delighted, I assure you."

  At two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, April 24, the flagship took up herposition at the head of the line, and the warships passed down among theslowly moving transports amid cheers from the men on the crowded decks.Two hours later the troops were lined up with the ships' companies tohear the captains read Admiral de Robeck's final order of the day, andto join in the last solemn service conducted by the chaplains. Then thevessels steamed slowly northward, towards the scene of what was to bethe most heroic enterprise in the long annals of our history.

  All night the fleet made its slow way. On Frank's destroyer the navalofficers entertained the troops with their traditional hospitality, andthen the men--such of them as excitement did not keep awake--sleptthrough the remaining hours of darkness.

  At one in the morning of Sunday the ships hove to, five miles from thefatal shore. The men were aroused and served with a hot meal. Thestillness of night brooded over the decks, and the young soldiers,browned, stalwart, eager, chatted in subdued tones. Twenty minuteslater came the signal from the flagship for lowering the boats, whichhad been swinging all night from the davits. Silently the men moved totheir appointed places; the boats dropped gently to the water, and outof the darkness glided the steam pinnaces that were to take them in tow.Frank and his new acquaintances were to remain on the destroyer, whichwould go close inshore and land them in boats after those towed by thepinnaces had reached the beach.

  It was still dark when the boats, each in charge of a young midshipman,moved slowly and silently shoreward. The group of officers on the deckof the destroyer followed them with their eyes until they were swallowedup in the darkness. Their hearts were beating fast with suppressedexcitement. What was to be the fate of this great adventure? Couldtheir approach have been heard? Would the enemy be taken by surprise?Had the shore at this spot been fortified in anticipation of attack?Nothing was known. The dawn would show.

  Three battleships had taken up position in line abreast to cover thelanding. The boats stole past them. Through the gloom the outline ofthe cliffs was just faintly discernible. Frank gazed breathlesslyahead. He could barely distinguish the foremost boats creeping intowards the shore. All was silent; the brooding hush seemed ominous.Suddenly a searchlight flashed from a point on the cliffs, showing upthe boats as it moved slowly over the water. Still not a shot wasfired. The destroyer, one of seven, began to move. It had barely gotunder way when there was a long line of flashes at the level of thebeach, followed in a few seconds by a sharp crackle. The Turks hadopened rifle fire. Then came the faint sounds of a British cheer. Thefirst boats had reached the beach: dark forms could be seen leapingforwards into a blaze of fire. Frank watched them with a quiveringimpatience. His general instructions were to go ashore when the landinghad been made good and to hold himself in readiness to interpret so soonas the first prisoners were brought in. But in his heart he longed tobe among the gallant fellows who were braving the perils of the assault;why should he be passive when they were daring so much?

  A light mist crept over the sea, almost blotting out the cliffs.Presently the destroyer moved slowly shorewards; it stopped again, andat the moment when rifle fire burst forth with greater intensity theboats were lowered over the side. Frank sprang into the first,throbbing with exultation as it pulled in. The rosy dawn was justcreeping over the hill-tops, the mist was dispersing, and he could nowclearly see the khaki figure
s swarming like cats up the shrub-coveredalmost perpendicular face of the cliffs.

  The boat touched shoal water. Frank leapt overboard with its company,and rushed up the beach, strewn with prostrate forms and discardedpacks. Just as he reached the first trench, from which the Turks hadbeen hurled at the point of the bayonet, the man beside him reeled,gasped, and fell against him. Frank laid him gently down; then, losingall sense of his non-combatant capacity, he seized the man's rifle andbandolier and sprinted after the others.

  For a few moments he ran forward in a blind confusion of the senses.The yellow sandstone crumbled beneath his feet: in front was whatappeared to be a green wall streaked with yellow. Bullets whistledaround. Here and there men lay huddled in extraordinary attitudes onthe slope; now and then he caught sight of a figure clambering up. Onhe went, through shrubs that grew higher than his head, conscious onlyof continuous flashes, until suddenly he came face to face with a darkfigure that seemed to have sprung up out of the earth. Instinctively hethrust forward his rifle with a fierce lunge, and the next thing he knewwas that the Turk had sunk down before him, and that he was leaping intoa trench.

  Close to his right he heard the murderous rattle of a machine gun. Hestumbled along the trench for a few yards, shouting he knew not what,tripped over a man prone in the bottom of the trench, and before hecould pick himself up was kicked and trodden by a number of Australianswho had followed him. Struggling to his feet, he hurried on, to findhimself in a furious melee about the emplacement of the machine gun.Two of the Australians were down, a third was at deadly grips with threebig bearded Turks. Frank rushed at the nearest of them, and disposed ofhim with his bayonet. At the same moment the second fell to the bayonetof the Australian, and the third turned, scrambled out of the trench,and plunging into the scrub disappeared up the hill.

  "Got the gun, sir," cried the Australian with a happy grin.

  Frank, gasping, trembling, leant against the side of the trench.

  "Take it down," he replied.

  Another boat's load of men came rushing along the trench. There was noofficer among them. Gathering himself together, Frank put himself attheir head, and leapt up the hill, in pursuit of the Turks who had beendriven from the trench. The ground was broken by ridges, gullies, andsand-pits, and the scrub grew so thickly that they could scarcely see ayard in front of them. To keep a regular alignment was impossible. Themen separated, each forcing his own way. None of them had yet so muchas charged their magazines. The work had all been done with the coldsteel. Here one plunged his bayonet into the back of a fleeing Turk:there another shouted with delight as he discovered that a swaying bushwas really a sniper who had tied branches about his body forconcealment. As they mounted, friend and foe became hopelesslyintermingled. Frank caught sight occasionally of a knot of Turks, thenof a group of Australians; next moment nothing was to be seen but scruband creeper intermingled with bright flowers of varied hue as in a rockgarden. Foot by foot he climbed up until presently he found himself atthe crest of the hill, and saw the Australians busy with their trenchingtools amid a furious rifle fire from the Turks in their main position.His eye marked a steep gully which formed an almost perfect naturaltrench. Shouting to the men nearest him, he was joined by a score orso, who leapt into the gully beside him. And as the sun rose over thehills on that Sunday morning, Frank, without being aware of it, waswithin a few hundred yards of his old hiding-place, the sepulchre onSari Bair.