by Jim Haynes
‘He’s stringing you!’ the other convalescent protests. ‘Go on, Donnelly; be a sport!’
‘Did you really suffer from shell-shock?’ demands the visitor.
‘Yes, from eating peanuts!’ says the incorrigible one; but a few more protests set him on the narrow pathway of truth, and you learn that after four months on Gallipoli he got so badly peppered by a machine-gun that his mates suspected him of having tried to eat it.
He was taken off to Malta with a complement of thirty-two bullets. He marks off the joint of his first finger to show the length of them. His right arm is of use only when lifted in a certain way, and it will be a week or two yet before he is able to discard the wheelchair. His legs show several crevices where bullets entered.
‘I’ll have to wear stockings in surf-bathing now,’ he says whimsically, and with eyes too rueful to be anything but comic. ‘This was a bull’s-eye,’ he continues, opening his tunic so that you can see a cup-shaped wound in his chest. The bullet came out through the shoulder.
During the Gallipoli campaign Pte. Donnelly went from a Friday afternoon until the following Tuesday with five hours’ sleep. ‘In action,’ he says, ‘you never feel tired, even when you’ve been at it for as long as three or four days; but as soon as you come off duty you go flop.
‘I remember being sent into the trenches. There were regular rooms where you could lie down. They were shell-proof, and, as you may imagine, very dim. I went along the trench looking for a place to rest, and I met one of my pals. “Oh,” he said, “the big room along here is all right. I’ll wake you when your time’s up.”
‘I stumbled along, and when I got there the place was full except for one bit of floor just big enough for me. I tiptoed over the others to it, and lay down, with my water bottle for a pillow. There were two big chaps either side of me, and as they’d been there before me I took it they’d had a pretty fair innings, so made myself more comfortable by shoving one of them against the wall. My pal woke me at 9 p.m. I asked him for a cigarette, and when I struck the match I said to him, “My word, those fellows are doing well, sleeping so long.”
‘He laughed, and I took another look at them. I had been sleeping between two dead Turks! But you didn’t take any notice of things like that out there!
‘On the day of the armistice I and two others were at a part of the lines known as the Chamber of Horrors. It was the unfinished section of what we hoped would eventually join up with Quinn’s Post. There was only room for three in it, and it was quite close to the German officers’ quarters in the enemy trenches. The enemy did not know that, though, and we had strict orders not to betray the unfinished state of the lines, as had they charged us there we should have had no place of retreat but the tunnel which was being gradually made with the idea of joining up.
‘One of the three suggested taking a peep over on this day. I did so very cautiously, and, to my surprise, saw a big German officer in his shirt sleeves advancing with a white flag. I told the others. But this time more were advancing. One of the boys in the Chamber of Horrors thought that at least this section of the enemy was surrendering. He leapt up on the parapet, shouting, “Good for you, matey! Are you going to quit? Come and shake hands with us.” He was dragged down, and the news of the armistice soon passed along to us.
‘The quietness of those few hours was almost more than we could bear after continual firing. If a man spoke to you, you jumped at the sound of his voice. It was uncanny the way all the little singing birds came back as soon as it was quiet. The whole thing got on our nerves, and we were glad when the time came for the armistice to end.
‘The Turks had the right to start off again, and I never heard anything so puny as the first shot that was fired. Then the old naval guns got to it, and we were happy again.
‘During the armistice I made friends with a Turk. He spoke perfect English. He had been coming out to Sydney to join his uncle and nephew in business, but five days before his departure he was called up. We exchanged cigarettes—I gave him a box of those awful Scotch things we used to get out there, and he gave me the real Turkish article, which, I can tell you, I enjoyed.
‘While we smoked he said, “Strange, you know! Today we smoke, chat, and are happy together; tomorrow we shall probably pour lead into each other!” He was taken prisoner afterwards, and I saw him again. He was a really good fellow, like many of the other rural Turks against whom we fought.
‘Life in the trenches? Well, there wasn’t any dinner bell! We took bully beef and biscuits with us, and opened the beef whenever we were hungry and had the chance of eating.
‘There was one fellow who had been a shearer’s cook. He made a sort of grater by piercing a piece of tin with holes. He used to grate the biscuits and beef, and make rissoles and cutlets and things. My word, we wouldn’t have lost him for a fortune. We were the envy of the lines.
‘One day someone shot a hare (the first and last I saw on the peninsula). It was a lord mayor’s banquet! We grilled it, and as soon as a bit was cooked it would be hacked off, and it was “Goodbye, hare”.’
***
Pte. Donnelly was in London for Anzac Day. He says that most of the Australians had fresh tunics made for the occasion, more smartly cut than usual. He and several others were in a theatre during the day. In the seat in front was a broad-shouldered Australian in khaki. They recognised him as a pal.
‘How bout it, Nugget?’ said one of the soldiers, laying his hand on the shoulder of the Anzac in front. ‘Nugget’ turned round, and, to their dismay, they saw the crown of a General on his shoulder. ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said they; ‘thought you were one of ourselves.’
‘Well, damn it all, aren’t I?’ said the General. ‘Come out and have a drink.’
He refused to tell them his name, and they have never discovered it.
KILLED IN ACTION
HARRY McCANN
Where the ranges throw their shadows long before the day’s surrender,
Down a valley where a river used to tumble to the sea,
On a rising patch of level rest the men who dared to tender
Life and all its sweetness for their love o’ liberty.
In a thousand miles of ugly scrubby waste and desolation,
Just that little space of level showing open to the sea;
Nothing here to lend it grandeur (sure, it needs no decoration)
Save those rows of wooden crosses keeping silent custody.
There’s a band of quiet workers, artless lads who joked and chatted
Just this morning; now they’re sullen and they keep their eyes away
From the blanket-hidden body, coat and shirt all blood-bespattered,
Lying motionless and waiting by the new-turned heap of clay.
There are records in the office—date of death and facts pertaining,
Showing name and rank and number and disposal of the kit—
More or less a business matter, and we have no time for feigning
More than momentary pity for the men who have been hit.
There’s a patient mother gazing on her hopes so surely shattered
(Hopes and prayers she cherished bravely, seeking strength to hide her fear),
Boyhood’s dreams and idle memories—things that never really mattered—
Lying buried where he’s buried ’neath the stars all shining clear.
There’s a young wife sorrow-stricken in her bitter first conception
Of that brief conclusive message, harsh fulfilment of her dread;
There are tiny lips repeating, with their childish imperception,
Simple words that bring her mem’ries from the boundaries of the dead.
Could the Turk have seen this picture when his trigger-finger rounded?
Would his sights have blurred a little had he heard that mother’s prayer?
Could he know some things that she knew, might his hate have been confounded?
But he only saw his duty, and he did it, fighting fair.
Monuments and tributes to the men who’ve done their share.
Pain and death, the fruits of battle, and the crosses tell it plainly,
Short and quick and silent suffering; would to God it ended there.
A STRANGE BOND
JIM HAYNES
In October 2004 Ali Salih Dirik and I stood at Anzac Cove and catalogued the similarities between the Turkish and Australian experiences on the peninsula in 1915:
• Both nations were involved in a war of someone else’s making.
• The Turkish troops at Gallipoli were fighting as part of a larger force, the Ottoman army, under German command. Australian troops were part of the Anzac force, under British command. Both Turks and Australians were part of larger force.
• The Ottoman army was a part of the Central Powers’ forces. The Anzac divisions were a small part of the Allied forces.
• Turkish and Australasian troops displayed courage well beyond the call of duty.
• Both Turks and Anzacs respected each other as men of honour and decency.
• The campaign would become, for both nations, a defining moment in their national history. What happened in those eight months would become an essential element in each nation’s heritage and a symbol of their national character, pride and independence.
For both Australia and New Zealand, the Gallipoli campaign was the event that would stamp them as independent nations, both at war and in more general terms on the world stage. Even more significant, perhaps, was the effect the campaign had at home on the self-perception of both nations as independent entities with their own unique characteristics which were reflected in the character of their fighting force.
The Anzacs represented a breed of men whose character, appearance, speech and attitude to life differed from that of their British ancestors and the other British troops at Gallipoli—and it is amazing to think that it was only a chance organisational move, a decision made while the troops were encamped in Egypt, that saw the Australian and New Zealand troops even fight as discrete, combined entity. They could have easily been spread throughout the other British forces as they had been in South Africa.
The way the forces were organised at Gallipoli actually made it possible for the Anzacs to be seen as separate from the other British forces. Thus their differences and characteristics were able to be perceived by all and sundry, including their allies, their enemies and those at home.
For the modern Turkish nation, the events surrounding the Gallipoli campaign represent significant milestones on the path to emerging Turkish nationalism. The Ottoman Empire was crumbling and the Turkish nation would rise like a phoenix from its ashes.
There are three elements that, in retrospect, make the Gallipoli campaign a very Turkish victory, rather than an Ottoman one: the defeat of the British and French fleet at the Narrows on 18 March 1915; the holding of the peninsula against the three-pronged Allied invasion at Helles, Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay; and the fact that Turkey’s greatest national hero, Kemal Ataturk, rose to fame as a result of his involvement at Gallipoli.
Turks refer to the Gallipoli campaign as ‘The Battle of Canakkale’ and the significant date for them is 18 March, not 25 April. This was the day the British and French fleet was defeated and turned back from its attempt to force the Straits by Turkish guns, mines and torpedoes. As a national day in Turkey, 18 March is a celebration of Turkish nationhood—not a celebration of an old Ottoman victory.
The holding of the peninsula against the Allied forces is also generally seen by Turks as one of the first acts of a Turkish nation. Yet Turks made up only a part of the Ottoman army, just as Anzacs made up only a part of the Allied army. In fact, two-thirds of the Ottoman forces on 25 April at Gallipoli were made up of Arab regiments, not Turkish ones.
For Turks, perhaps the most important element of the campaign is that it saw the emergence of their greatest national hero and the father of their nation, Mustafa Kemal, later known as Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk was elected Turkey’s first president and instituted sweeping social changes and reforms.
When you begin to consider these elements of the Gallipoli experience, the seemingly strange bond between old enemies becomes a little easier to fathom.
What Anzac means to us as a nation today, I don’t really know. When I read the accounts that make up this book I am in awe of the men who wrote them and fought in that campaign. I don’t think we ‘make ’em like that anymore’, but perhaps we can find something in the Anzac legend to make us all better citizens and better people.
THE SOUL OF THE ANZAC
RODERIC QUINN
The form that was mine was brown and hard,
And thewed and muscled, and tall and straight;
And often it rode from the straight yard,
And often it passed through the stockyard gate;
And often it paused on the grey skyline
’Twixt mulga and mallee or gum and pine.
There was never a task that it would not do;
There was never a labour it left undone;
But ever and always it battled through,
And took the rest that its toil had won,
And slept the sleep of the weary-limbed
Till the stars grew pale and the planets dimmed.
The form that was mine is mine no more,
For low it lies in a soldier’s grave
By an alien sea on an alien shore;
And over its sleep no wattles wave
And stars unseen on their journey creep;
But it wakes no more from its dreamless sleep.
O mother of mine, what is is best!
And our graves are dug at the hour of birth;
And the form that slept on your shielding breast
Sleeps soundly here in the mothering earth.
And dust to dust! When our part is played,
Does it matter much where the change is made?
O Heart that was mind, you were brave and strong—
How strong, how brave, let another tell!
You love the lilt of the bushman’s song,
And loved the land that he loved so well,
And loved—ah, well!—as well as she knew,
The sweet, white girl who was all to you.
O Heart of mine, though your love was great,
Yet another greater than Love is lord of man;
The rose-path wound to The Peaks began;
And though the storm threatened and skies grew black,
You dared the menace and took the track.
O Heart, when the cliffs were hard to climb,
How sweet was home, and her eyes so sweet!
How sweet the moments when Love kept time,
And you and her heart gave beat for beat,
And waters sang, and the sun-rays glanced,
And the flowers laughed out, and the saplings danced.
Yet better, O Heart, to do as you did
Than to lie on her breast, as your love-gift lies;
For how can Love prosper when Honour lies hid,
Ashamed to look Love fair and square in the eyes?
Though grave-mould be round you, grey grasses above,
You live, and shall live, evermore in her love!
O Man that I was, you were foe to Death;
For Life was fair to you—wonderful, rare;
You had your being and drew your breath
In ample spaced of earth and air;
While ever and always, by night and day,
Bright Promise pointed the Golden Way.
And yet ’twas your choice to be this thing—
A young man dead on an alien shore,
Where the immemorial surges sing
As once they sang in the days of yore,
When Greek and Trojan matched their might
And Troy shone down upon the fight.
O Man that I was, well done! Well done!
&nbs
p; You chose the nobler, the better part;
Though a mother weep for her soldier son,
And a fair, sweet girl be sad at heart,
Yet the soul of your country glows with pride
At the deed you did and the death you died!
THE ENIGMATIC MR BLOCKSIDGE
JIM HAYNES
By far the most enigmatic of the authors included in this volume is William Baylebridge. Born Charles William Blocksidge in 1883, the son of a Brisbane auctioneer and estate agent, he was educated at Brisbane Grammar School and had the classical scholar David Owen as a private tutor.
In 1908 Blocksidge went to London, determined, it seems, to become a poet. In London he self-published several volumes of poetry, copies of which were sent to the principal public libraries, but hardly any were sold to the public. He changed his name to William Baylebridge some time after 1923, and during his life wrote stories, philosophy, and much poetry.
Baylebridge returned to Queensland in 1919 after travelling extensively in Europe, Egypt and the Middle East. He is said to have been involved in ‘special literary work’ during the war and his familiarity with his subject material in An Anzac Muster certainly suggests that he had personal experience at the front. There is no evidence, however, to show that he belonged to any of the fighting forces.
Both in his literary and private life Baylebridge was intriguing. A tall, good-looking man, he was a strong athlete and musician with an interest in the stock exchange. There is no suggestion of eccentricity, yet, while he was anxious for literary recognition, he adopted methods of publication which made this impossible. He was continually revising and rewriting his earlier work and always self-published his efforts in very small editions.
Some considered his work to be profound, innovative and unique, while others found it just plain dreadful. A review in The Bulletin in 1912 called him ‘a new prophet, a new poet . . . or a new lunatic’ and described his verse as ‘astonishing in its gassy rhetoric and its foolishness’. In 1930, however, literary critic H.A. Kellow hailed Baylebridge as ‘the greatest literary figure that Queensland has yet produced’, and a 1939 collected edition of his earlier poems, This Vital Flesh, was awarded the Australian Literature Society’s gold medal for the most important volume of Australian poetry of its year.