Casca 32: The Anzac

by Tony Roberts

  The small landing boats they were packed in were being towed along by the bigger ships until it got too shallow for them, then they would be cast off and they would have to row until they grounded and then it was out and get to cover as fast as you could.

  The boat had twenty men huddled together, just like sardines in a can. One or two were leaning over the side puking. Whether it was through nerves or genuine seasickness Casca couldn’t tell. There was also the smell of piss. It was no surprise someone had wet themselves. The noise of fighting was all around them. The chatter of machine guns echoed down the rocky slopes to them, and all the time the deeper cough of the Lee Enfield .303 competed with them.

  Then there was the artillery. Somewhere high up the mountainside a Turkish battery was shelling the approaching vessels, and the British battleships were pounding away blindly, trying to seek and destroy the concealed guns. Fortunately so far no ship had been hit but Casca guessed it was only a matter of time.

  The line was cast off and the Derfflinger came to a halt, its collection of towed boats passing it like a mass of insects, their occupants rowing furiously.

  A bullet spat past suddenly, causing the men in the boat to duck involuntarily. “Jeez, that was close!” Rocky gasped, his hand clamped on his bush hat.

  “Keep your heads down,” the sergeant barked, “or Johnny Turk will shoot the bloody things off.”

  The sea was pitching them up and down, and the eight soldiers rowing them were cursing and sweating, as much as a result of the cramped conditions as anything else.

  Casca peered up at the cliff side. Almost sheer, it was pockmarked with gullies and scrub, and jagged ridges. Flashes of gun muzzles flickered all over the place, and the tiny figures of soldiers struggling up the slope could be seen. It didn’t look good. The others didn’t look too enthusiastic either. “What do you think?” Casca nudged Jeb.

  Jeb’s deep set eyes looked up, worry clearly written in them. “Bloody crazy. What joker thought this one up?”

  “Some Pom called Winston Churchill,” someone else spoke up, “so I hear. Some big shot in the Pommie admiralty.”

  “Whoever it is,” Casca growled, “we’re going to need strong lungs and stronger legs!”

  “Right,” Bill said grimly, “that means I’m going to have to carry Archie. He smokes too much to be able to run!”

  “I’ll leave you behind when we hit the beach,” Archie retorted, “cheeky bastard.”

  Bullets cut through the air again, one sending up a small fountain close by as it plowed into the water. Shouts could be heard now, men yelling and screaming. The men in the boat fell silent, but eyes kept on switching from the view ahead to each other, their silent expressions saying more than words ever could.

  Casca readied himself. The rifle was firmly clasped and ready to use, although where the enemy were was anyone’s guess. High up, probably. The rumbling roar of a battleship’s barrage drowned out any other sound for a moment, then they came to a halt as the boat scraped the bottom. They were a few feet from the shore.

  “Out, out!” the sergeant screamed and shoved the first young man over the side, not caring if the man fell or not. Casca pushed hard at the man to his left, feeling the soldier move, then he got to his feet and moved fast, vaulting the side of the boat as it rolled with the waves and the movement of the men. He plunged into the sea, up to his knees, and forced his way forward, pushing past a lifeless figure floating this way and that, arms and legs spread-eagled.

  Casca plowed out of the sea, sending spray up ahead of himself, and skipped past a feebly moving man clutching his stomach, screaming horribly, and made for the cover of a sand dune, a few feet from the water’s edge. He flung himself flat and looked round. Bill and Tom had joined him, both looking up at the slope anxiously, while Archie, Jeb and Rocky were scuttling awkwardly towards cover to the right.

  The cliffs rose from the beach almost at once, thrusting up in a series of jagged rock ridges that were broken at irregular intervals by gullies and pathways. They looked like goat tracks to Casca, and wound their way up through the successive ridges, covered in places by thick scrub, but in others they were bare and exposed.

  “We’ve got to get up there,” Casca nodded at the path rising up above them.

  “Strewth, are you kidding?” Bill exclaimed, eyes wide.

  “Nope,” Casca grunted and hauled himself up, backpack striking the rock against which he’d been lying, and tore along the dune as fast as he could, making for the gully entrance. An Anzac soldier lay there, sprawled to one side, a huge red wound across his neck. The flies were already gathering.

  A bullet struck an outcrop of the rock to his left, sending shards flying angrily through the air. One piece glanced off his spade with a sharp crack. It gave the Eternal Mercenary an extra incentive to get into cover. Casca flung himself flat in the gully mouth, glad that the undergrowth here was thick. No Turk could see him from above.

  The others came scuttling forward, then suddenly there was heard way above the rapid stuttering of a machine gun and bullets began smashing into rocks and earth, tracking towards the Australians. Two suddenly screamed and crashed to the ground and the rest threw themselves down, cursing the enemy.

  “Where are those bastards?” Rocky demanded, thrusting his rifle up.

  “Busy picking on another lot,” Jeb said, indicating the beach where the machine gun was now concentrating, pinning down the newly arriving Anzacs, sending the occupants of one boat falling in all directions, shredding the boat and turning the water around it red. Screams of men hit filled the air.

  “We’ve got to sort that out,” the sergeant said grimly. “Come on, up. Get up!”

  Casca, the furthest forward, scrambled to his feet and began climbing, his boots biting into the loose earth and stones, furiously seeking purchase. With his rifle in one hand and the other outstretched to grab hold of roots, rock outcrops and other objects to help keep his balance, Casca pounded up the path, gaining height rapidly.

  Up above he caught an occasional glance of other figures trying to get up and above the ridges, but the gun flashes were increasing along the heights as more Turks arrived. They didn’t have much time to get going. He was aware of the others scrambling up in his wake, sending stones rolling down the path or up over the narrow rise to one side and then down the slope.

  Someone higher up must have seen the Anzacs coming up the path, for a shot rang out, about fifty feet away, and spat past Casca’s face, the displaced air sending a breath across his skin. Shit, that was close! he thought, and dived to the right, into a small clear area that with some imagination might be described as a ledge. He poked his head over the top of the rock ahead of him and cautiously scanned the route ahead.

  As Tom, Archie and three others pushed on past him, Casca saw a movement up to the left and a flash as a rifle was fired. The shot took the man next to Archie in the chest and he collapsed with a grunt across the path, almost blocking it. Archie dropped to the ground behind him while Tom and the other two knelt and started shooting blindly up, having no idea where the Turk was.

  Casca did, and aimed deliberately at the ridge top where he’d seen the man shoot. As the Australians reloaded, the man rose up and aimed his rifle. Casca squinted and squeezed the trigger. The shot caused his ears to shrink, but he kept his right eye on the figure and was pleased to see it fling up both arms and fall out of sight.

  “Nice shot, Sandy,” Rocky said.

  “Get going, you drongos!” the sergeant barked and pulled Archie up as he reached him. They jumped over the fallen man and continued up the path. Now the machine gun muzzle flashes could be seen, directly above them, about a hundred feet away, covered by scrub.

  Casca, fifth in line, staggered up in the wake of the more athletic men and tried to ignore the pain in his thighs and lungs. They were now skirting the top of one of the ridges, there being a drop of fifty or more feet sheer down on one side, and a bullet took out the man behind him, sending him scre
aming down the drop.

  “Bastards!” Jeb said with feeling.

  The machine gun team now realized they were in danger and the muzzle swung down, the gunner rising up to aim at the oncoming soldiers. Rocky saw the danger and snapped off a shot, narrowly missing the cloth-capped gunner but it put him off and the burst of fire sprayed through thin air above them.

  The sergeant roared orders and the men flung themselves flat. Half of them were to keep the gunner pinned down while the other half climbed up the cliff to get at the Turks. Casca was in the group to take the post along with Tom and Archie, and eleven others. Casca dumped his backpack and sprang up, relieved at being free from its weight.

  “Roman, put your pack back on!” the sergeant snarled.

  Casca ignored him. He was amused to see the others similarly dump their packs where they were and now all of them could snake up the slope with more ease. More Turks began trying to shoot them, their rifle shot intermittent and inaccurate, but annoying all the same. The other Anzacs began laying down support fire, peppering the ridge, making things hard for the Turks to draw a bead on any of the men crawling up the sharp, stony surface of the slope.

  Casca’s hands were raw from seeking purchase over the slope, and the pain caused him to hiss every time his hands rubbed across the wickedly pointed rocks. Another reason to be sore at the enemy above him. The machine gunner decided to try something new, and raised the stock of the gun up above his head and pressed the trigger. Without his shoulder steadying it, the bucking gun swayed up, down, left and right, spraying bullets all over the slope.

  Shards of stone flew up and Casca cursed, cut across the eyebrow. He tried to bury himself into the slope, but of course it was impossible. One man rolled to one side, teeth clenched, clutching a suddenly bloodied arm. “Shoot that damned gunner!” Casca yelled back down.

  The men tried their best, but the gunner was ducking down, then rising up irregularly. Casca snarled and sprang up, thundering forward five, ten, fifteen paces before throwing himself against the next sharply rising fold of rock. He was now directly below the gun position, about twenty feet down. The gun muzzle poked out from the scrub and spat bullets for three seconds, then stopped. Casca was too close and below the line of sight to be bothered by the gunner, but he was separated from his target by a virtually sheer rock face the height of four men or so.

  He looked back down the slope. The others were pinned down, unable to make any progress. Three had been hit, and the others were exposed, so that at any time they may be hit. They couldn’t go back and they couldn’t go any further forward.

  It was now up to Casca. He looped his rifle around his neck and pulled out his bayonet. Placing it in his mouth and clamping his teeth over it, he began pulling himself up the rugged face of the rock, testing each hand and foothold before rising up another six inches here, eight inches there.

  Gunfire echoed across the cliffs and shouts in English and Turkish intermingled. That more defenders were arriving was in no doubt, and it was only a matter of time before the number of Turks made it impossible to make any more progress. Casca was dangling in full view of his comrades who were shooting away as though their lives depended on saving– or so they believed – Casca’s. Then they could shoot no more for fear of hitting him.

  The sweating Eternal Mercenary pulled himself up another foot and his bush hat touched the lowermost branch of the scrub bush the machine gun was tucked behind. His left hand slowly reached out and grasped the edge of the ridge and his right hand pulled off his hat and dropped it into the void. He wouldn’t need that, and it could give him away before he acted. He needed every second he could get.

  Once again the gun pushed out and aimed down, but now Casca was alongside, and his right hand reached the handle of the bayonet and he flinched as the machine gun blasted away again, no more than three feet to his left. The scrub shook and he saw the arms of the gunner shaking as the gun recoiled. Then the gun was released. At that moment Casca pulled himself up and launched himself over the top.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Four Turks. All wearing the khaki of their army, and on their heads the large enverieh, the cloth-covered straw-framed hat. Two were at the machine-gun, one holding the firing handles, the other the oiled and gleaming belt of bullets that was uncoiling evilly from an open metal box. The other two were crouching below the level of the ridge, cradling their Mauser rifles, all looking shocked at the sudden appearance of the dirty, disheveled man holding a bayonet.

  The gunner tried to swing the gun round. Casca struck hard and fast. Blood sprayed out as the gunner’s throat was opened, but Casca didn’t stop to admire his handiwork; the two riflemen were now reacting and bringing up their weapons to shoot the man who had invaded their position. He kicked the machine gun hard and the barrel slammed into the face of the loader, crushing his nose. The man screamed and fell back, clutching his face.

  The nearest rifleman was leveling the barrel when Casca grabbed it and tore it out of the Turk’s shocked hands. The gun was sent flying as Casca flung it aside and he sent the point of his blade up into the throat of the man and skewered him through the brain. This left the last rifleman and Casca knew he would by now be pointing his gun at his exposed back, so he flung himself forward and down. The shot he’d expected blasted narrowly over his head and sped into infinity.

  Wrenching his bayonet out of the head of his victim, he swung round and flung it with all his might at the last man, but the Turk had worked the bolt quickly and blasted off a second shot before the bayonet took him in the chest.

  Casca spun round as the shot caught him in the shoulder. He fell backwards, cursing in pain. His stupid suicidal act had got him hurt again, but at least the gun post was eliminated. He knelt and looked at the hollow scrape that had been the Turks’ last post, and saw two corpses and two badly wounded men. Gritting his teeth he tore a strip from his ripped jacket and pressed it against the wound in his shoulder. It would stop bleeding soon, and be as good as new in maybe three or four days. But the bullet would have to be taken out and that would mean a surgeon.

  A scrabbling of feet announced the arrival of his squad. Rocky got there first and looked in amazement at the scene. “Good God, Sandy, you’re a bloody maniac!”

  Casca grinned lop-sidedly. “Two of them are still alive. See to them.”

  “You’re hurt,” Rocky noted, crouching down by the faintly groaning second rifleman.

  “It’ll be okay, it’s just a graze.”

  “The hell it is,” Jeb said, arriving from the other side, “that bullet’s still in there. We’ll have to get you to the medics.”

  The rest turned up and the sergeant dressed him down for his recklessness and getting wounded, but then grinned and slapped him on the good shoulder. “Bloody good job, you madman.”

  The slope rose up steeply ahead, but to left and right a path ran along the edge of the ridge they’d just climbed. It ran down to the right and up to the left, towards where Casca had nailed the first Turk. In this direction more figures could be seen making their way towards them, unmistakably Turks.

  The sergeant organized the squad to bring the machine gun round, dragging aside the moaning loader, his face a mask of blood, the gun was aimed up at the advancing men. Two of the squad took up post and started spraying the path, causing the Turks to fly in all directions, four of them toppling to lie still. The Australian soldiers screamed in delight as the machine-gun stuttered and spat, peppering the pathway ahead with a rain of death. The Turks were burying themselves as best they could, finding any cover that was available.

  More men came up from the beach, led by a captain. The two wounded Turks were put to one side of the pit and Casca was ordered to return to the beach and await attention from one of the medical staff that were in a tent that had been set up at the waterfront. The Eternal Mercenary shrugged; he was determined not to get medical help as his condition would be found out for certain.

  But the bullet would have to come out.r />
  He waved at Tom. “Mind helping me down to get my kit?”

  Tom shrugged. “If the Captain says that’s okay.”

  A burst of gunfire from up ahead sent them ducking for cover. They were too exposed in their position and a couple of men were hit. The captain yelled orders and men scattered up and out of the pit, Casca amongst them. Tom was alongside and looked at his comrade. “You out of your mind? You’ve got to get down to the beach!”

  “I’ll be fine,” Casca hissed, the pain from his wound flaring up again. “Things are too hot to go back down there for the moment. Want me to get a bullet in the head?”

  “No chance of that, Sandy,” Tom muttered, his face pressed against the rocks, “it’s too dense for one to damage it!”

  Casca grinned. Then thought about getting the bullet out; his bayonet was still stuck in that Turk’s chest, as far as he knew. He’d have to get another. Agony to do it, but better to get it out. His body would heal soon enough. The captain was getting his men organized, but so were the Turks. They had the higher ground and there was little cover. The machine gun had run out of bullets and they had no more, so the captain got some of his men to try to find a way round by first going down.

  Casca and Tom joined them. Casca favored his good shoulder, holding his Lee Enfield in his good hand. He picked up a bayonet from one of the fallen and lagged behind. Tom turned to see if he could help but Casca sat down on a convenient rock. “I’m a little weak from blood loss,” he said. “Maybe I should go down to the beach.”

  “Want help?” Tom asked.

  “No, you go with the others. I’ll be okay.” Casca waited till the others had filed out of sight, then he slipped off the path and hid himself behind a thick growth of scrub. Shots were echoing all across the cliffs and Casca reckoned the day was a bust; the Turks were reinforcing their lines and the scrambling Anzac soldiers were finding it too hard to make any more headway. Once they were all ashore and organized then perhaps a concentrated attack on one point may break the stubborn defensive lines that were being set up.