The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 | Page 6

apology for cover ready for
the whole Battalion, before daylight could reveal our presence to the
enemy.
As the night wore on additional parties joined up from the beach.
The Whitby Abbey had now arrived and was disembarking the left
half-Battalion. The first party of "C" Company reached the trenches
about 5 a.m. The enemy must have spotted us soon after daylight, for
they saluted us with a few rounds of shrapnel at irregular intervals.
These did little damage, but served to stimulate the flagging energies of
the digging parties, encouraging them to special effort to get the
trenches completed.
It was 8.30 a.m. before Major Jowitt appeared with the last party landed.
By this time sufficient trenches of sorts to accommodate the Battalion

had been completed.
While getting "D" Company into our most advanced trench, Capt.
Findlay was slightly wounded by shrapnel. He was sent back to Mudros
on the Whitby Abbey which had brought him across a few hours before.
His first visit to Gallipoli had not been a prolonged one.
Throughout the day the enemy sprayed our trenches with occasional
bursts of shrapnel. By this time we had discovered that they were
officially described as "rest" trenches, and were some considerable
distance behind the firing-line. So we "rested" as best we could, each
man effecting such improvements to his own personal bit of cover as
could be carried out unostentatiously behind the shelter of the parapet.
That afternoon Colonel Morrison and Major Jowitt, with other senior
officers of the Brigade, were shown round some of the forward
communication and support trenches, and had the general situation
explained to them.
The night was devoted by all ranks to the improvement of our trenches
and to sleep when we were satisfied with our handiwork. More rain fell,
and we got very wet and smeared with that remarkably tenacious mud
which only Gallipoli can produce.
The following day (4th June) parties of officers were sent forward to be
shown the Eski Lines, others going up to spend an instructive night in
the firing line in the Centre Sector held by the 42nd Division.
We could not but be surprised at the smallness of this cockpit in which
three nations battled. From the cliff at Cape Helles to the top of the
impregnable Achi Baba was only 5-1/2 miles. The distance straight
across the Peninsula at the firing line was not more than 3-1/2 miles.
On our flanks we were shut in by cliffs along the Aegean Sea on the
left, and along the Dardanelles on our right. Every acre of ground we
held was dominated by the hill in front, about 720 feet high. Our right
flank and the vitally important landing places, "V" Beach and "W"
Beach (Lancashire Landing), were under observation from Asia, less
than three miles away at its nearest point. Somewhere across there on

the Plains of Troy the Turks had at least one big gun to harass us,
"Asiatic Ann" we called her, probably a gun dismantled from the
Goeben. Their 6 in. guns on Achi Baba could reach any part of the
Peninsula they choose.
The ground we stood on sloped gently up to the hill, pleasant arable
land with here the remains of a farm and the trampled crops around it,
there an olive grove and fig-trees or battered vineyard. Elsewhere was
scrub and, in those early months, sweet-smelling and aromatic plants
and flowers round which bees hummed and butterflies hovered in the
heat.
The Peninsula was rent by three great ravines; the Gully with its
precipitous banks on our left, and the Krithia and Achi Baba nullahs in
the centre. In the dry season only a gentle flow of water trickled down
these courses, leaving enough room for a path or even a roadway to be
beaten out by which men and rations and stores could be got forward
unobserved by the Turk. Their banks were honeycombed with crude
dug-outs (mere scrapings in the ground with a waterproof sheet or
blanket for covering) in which men sought protection from shell-fire
and relief from the pitiless sun.
Monday, 5th July, was a Turkish Holy Day. Under the personal
direction of Enver Pasha, or rather Enver Bey as he then was, the
enemy marked the occasion by making a most determined attack. The
brunt of it fell upon the 29th Division.
We who were in support were awakened before daybreak by
continuous artillery and rifle fire which ominously increased in volume.
At 4.30 a.m. the Battalion was ordered to hold itself in readiness to
proceed in support of the 29th Division. Breakfasts were hurried on and
an extra 50 rounds of ammunition was issued to each man.
Our position came under the enemy's shell-fire, and we were heartened
by the very spirited reply put up by