Five Months at Anzac | Page 9

nature of his complaint, whether morphia had
been administered and the quantity, and finally his destination. All this
was also recorded in our books, and returns made weekly, both to
headquarters and to the base. Cases likely to recover in a fortnight's
time were sent by fleet-sweeper to Mudros; the others were embarked
on the hospital ship. They were placed in barges, and towed out by a
pinnace to a trawler, and by that to the hospital ship, where the cases
were sorted out. When once they had left the beach, our knowledge of
them ceased, and of course our responsibility. One man arriving at the
hospital ship was describing, with the usual picturesque invective, how
the bullet had got into his shoulder. One of the officers, who apparently
was unacquainted with the Australian vocabulary, said: "What was that
you said, my man?" The reply came, "A blightah ovah theah put a
bullet in heah."

At a later period a new gun had come into action on our left, which the
men christened "Windy Annie." Beachy Bill occupied the olive grove,
and was on our right. Annie was getting the range of our dressing
station pretty accurately, and requisition on the Engineers evoked the
information that sandbags were not available. However, the Army
Service came to our rescue with some old friends, the "forty-niners."
Three tiers of these in their boxes defied the shells just as they defied
our teeth.
As the sickness began to be more manifest, it became necessary to
enlarge the accommodation in our gully. The hill was dug out, and the
soil placed in bags with which a wall was built, the intervening portion
being filled up with the remainder of the hill. By this means we were
able to pitch a second tent and house more of those who were slightly
ill. It was in connection with this engineering scheme that I found the
value of W.O. Cosgrove. He was possessed of a good deal of the
suaviter in modo, and it was owing to his dextrous handling of
Ordnance that we got such a fine supply of bags. This necessitated a
redistribution of dug-outs, and a line of them was constructed sufficient
to take a section of bearers. The men christened this "Shrapnel
Avenue." They called my dug-out "The Nut," because it held the
"Kernel." I offer this with every apology. It's not my joke.
The new dug-outs were not too safe. Murphy was killed there one
afternoon, and Claude Grime badly wounded later on. Claude caused a
good deal of amusement. He had a rooted objection to putting on
clothes and wore only a hat, pants, boots and his smile. Consequently
his body became quite mahogany-coloured. When he was wounded he
was put under an anæsthetic so that I could search for the bullet. As the
anæsthetic began to take effect, Claude talked the usual unintelligible
gibberish. Now, we happened to have a Turkish prisoner at the time,
and in the midst of Claude's struggles and shouts in rushed an
interpreter. He looked round, and promptly came over to Claude,
uttering words which I suppose were calculated to soothe a wounded
Turk; and we had some difficulty in assuring him that the other man,
not Claude, was the Turk he was in quest of.

[Illustration: 4th Field Ambulance in Head Quarters Gully.]
[Illustration: 4th Field Ambulance Dressing Station on the beach.]
[Illustration: My Dug-out.]
[Illustration: Major Clayton and Captain Dawson.]

AIR FIGHTING
The German aeroplanes flew over our gully pretty regularly. As first
we were rather perturbed, as they had a nasty habit of dropping bombs,
but as far as I know they never did any damage. Almost all the bombs
dropped into the water. One of them sent some steel arrows down,
about six or eight inches in length, with a metal point something like a
carpenter's bit. In order to conceal our tents, we covered them with
holly-bushes, cut and placed over the canvas. Our aeroplanes were
constantly up, and were easily recognised by a red ring painted
underneath, while the Taube was adorned with a large black cross; but
after we had been there a little time we found it was not necessary to
use glasses in order to ascertain whose flying machine was over us; we
were able to tell by listening, as their engines had a different sound
from those belonging to us.
Our aeroplanes were the source of a good deal of annoyance to the
Turks. They continually fired at them, but, as far as I was able to judge,
never went within cooee of one. The bursts of shrapnel away in the air
made a pretty sight, puffs of white smoke like bits of cotton-wool in
succession, and the aeroplane sailing unconcernedly along. It appears to
be