Solomon's Song

by Bryce Courtenay

  He looks for Peregrine Ormington-Smith, who was in the second of the three boats carrying the platoon. All Ben can see are men milling in confusion, but groups like his own are beginning to bunch and he runs towards the five members of his platoon that Brodie has managed to gather together. On the way an officer sees his shoulder patch. ‘5th Battalion to my right, Sergeant,’ he shouts, pointing. Ben reaches the five men gathered at the top of the beach standing in comparative safety under a slight overhang to the cliff face.

  ‘Righto, lads,’ he puffs. ‘Packs off for the moment, take a break, the company’s down this end,’ he says, pointing south to a small fold between the ends of two ridges running parallel down to the cove. ‘We’ll move out as soon as you’ve all caught your breath, but scatter wide, nobody within four or five feet of the other, no bunching, you hear? Avoid other groups, a sniper will always go for the biggest target in his sights.’ They rest up for five minutes, watching the confusion on the perimeter. There are some troops walking, trying to show they’re not afraid or perhaps too dazed and confused to know any better, others have unclipped and discarded their packs and are running down the beach for dear life. Ben looks at the five men. ‘We’re shitting ourselves, that’s an order, when you get back onto the main part of the beach, run like scared rabbits! Packs on, let’s be off, lads, full pack, everyone, the only thing we leave behind is our flamin’ footprints.’

  ‘And a shit-streak or two,’ Crow Rigby quips.

  The lads arrive to find Lieutenant Peregrine Ormington-Smith with all twenty members of the platoon in his boat present. Remarkably, his landing boat made it onto the beach without a single casualty. They have taken shelter hard against a clay bank within the slight fold made by the two ridges, which now contains a mass of confused men. Officers are checking shoulder patches and trying frantically to sort them into their correct companies.

  Wordy Smith tells Ben that they witnessed the third boat carrying the remaining ten members of their platoon take a direct hit by a large shell. The boat simply disappeared in a huge flash. The only evidence of its existence comes with the afternoon tide when several dozen broken and splintered oars with various landing boat numbers marked on them are washed up onto the shore. They are gathered, with other combustibles, by members of the Engineers Unit stationed at Hell Spit and piled up outside the depot to be used as firewood.

  Among these are the oars belonging to the landing boats ferrying B Company of the 7th Battalion. Heading in to the beach on the second landing, four of the boats somehow managed to drift or were mistakenly rowed to the outside perimeter of the cove, coming under the direct fire of four machine guns. All the rowers were almost instantly killed and their oars were smashed or lost overboard. The boats then drifted helplessly, making the troops in them an easy target for the machine guns. The few who managed to abandon ship and get to the shore were cut down. Only two men in the four landing boats survived, crossing the pebbled beach and hiding in the scrub, where they were rescued two days later.

  ‘I cannot tell you how immensely pleased I am to see you, Sergeant, a chap has been terribly concerned,’ Wordy Smith says, extending his hand. Ben takes it in his own and the lieutenant shakes it over-vigorously. In his excitement he has unconsciously reverted to the syntax and accent of his English public school.

  ‘Who’ve we got, sir?’ Ben asks, still panting heavily from the sprint. He rapidly counts the men. ‘Thirty-four, one missing, five dead in my boat and the ten who took a direct hit in the third, we should have thirty-five.’

  To everyone’s surprise, Wordy Smith starts to call out the names of every member of the platoon. He knows which ten were in the third boat and abstains from naming them and as he calls the name of each of the four dead in Ben’s boat, Ben simply says, ‘Didn’t make it ashore, sir.’ When he’s called all the names and each man has answered he pauses and says quietly, ‘Private Horne is missing, let’s hope he eventually finds us.’

  Ben now calls out, ‘Privates Flynn, Phillips and Spencer, step up!’ Library and the two others move to stand in front of Ben. ‘Where are your packs, lads?’ Ben asks.

  Library elects to speak for them. ‘Dropped them, Sergeant.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the beach,’ Phillips says while Flynn nods.

  ‘In the water, Sergeant, I . . . I panicked,’ Library admits miserably, his head bowed.

  ‘Back onto the beach you three, pick up a discarded pack, a full kit, nothing missing, shovel or pick axe as well. Did you drop yer rifles?’

  ‘No, Sergeant!’ the three of them chorus.

  ‘Now bugger off, and get back here at the double . . . and keep yer flamin’ heads down!’

  The three members of the platoon return humping packs, Library Spencer with a shovel and the other two with picks attached. ‘You’re on a charge, the three of you,’ Ben says. ‘We’ll sort it out later.’

  The situation, by the time the 2nd Brigade arrives in the second wave, is perilous. Earlier, the men of the 3rd Brigade who had survived the landing made no attempt to find their companies, but in the total confusion they set out in isolated groups, ‘penny packets’, to climb after the unseen enemy. As they attempted to scramble up the rocky cliff face and steep ridges beyond, the Turkish snipers picked them off willy-nilly. Soon enough, some of the most intrepid of these unattached groups reached the first ridge, their shapes silhouetted clearly against the skyline. Those coming behind them, thinking at last they were seeing the enemy, fired at them. Suddenly those keenest and in the most advanced positions found themselves sandwiched between the Turkish snipers still higher up on the second ridge and their own rifle fire coming from below. Many of them perished in the hail of misdirected bullets.

  However, instead of waiting for their own troops to catch up with them, they are driven on by the fact that, from time to time, they witness the enemy vanishing into the dark tangle of gullies ahead of them, their shooting dying away, and so they think that victory must be close at hand. They thrust further and further inland, isolating themselves completely. They are encouraged in this perception when some of the Turkish soldiers, seeing the Australians catching up, throw down their arms and surrender. But the attacking soldiers, determined not to be slowed down by taking prisoners, simply shoot them and continue on in pursuit.

  The advancing troops are unaware that the Turks, not expecting a landing north of the Gaba Tepe headland, only have a single company guarding the slopes. But not far behind Sari Bair, the very topmost ridge and the most important objective for the Australians, there are several companies of Turkish reinforcements who are no more than half an hour’s marching distance away.

  Just before five o’clock Turkish shrapnel begins to burst among the troops along the ridges and shortly after nine the enemy reinforcements arrive. The Anzacs near the top of the second ridge see them advancing towards them. The Turkish counterattack moves up the valleys, outflanking the Australian outposts on their left, driving the scattered groups backwards and in the process killing a great many men of the 3rd Brigade.

  The Anzacs are not to know that the keenest among them would reach no further than their initial attack in the hours immediately after dawn on the first day until after the surrender of Turkey in 1918. Someone had blundered terribly. Strategically the landing at Gallipoli had failed.

  Hamilton, the supreme commander, has vastly underestimated the enemy and, to boot, possesses a sense of geography that is to cost his Australian and New Zealand troops dearly, not to mention the English, Indians and French who also die like flies in what, within the context of the total war in Europe, is considered a relatively minor diversion.

  In Australian and New Zealand terms it is a terrible sacrifice. As young growing nations, they can ill afford a vital part of their life seed to be sacrificed in places with names such as Baby 700, Lone Pine Hill, Courtney’s Post, Quinn’s Post, 400 Plateau, The Nek and what will, in time, become known as Anzac Cove.

  But now, with the sun not l
ong up, the Turkish troops have been reinforced and are advancing from the heights above the Australians. The first Australian wave is pushed back predominantly on the left flank where they dig in, hoping to hold the line. The Anzac forces in the centre and the right, or southern, flank are increasingly being sucked into the left flank, thinking to reinforce the line where the fighting appears to be the fiercest. Subsequently, the centre and southern flanks become too thinly manned and are exposed to a Turkish attack, threatening disaster for the whole assault.

  It is here, on the southern flank, that the 2nd Brigade coming into the beach in the second wave will be sent. This time, despite the fierce hail of artillery, shrapnel, machine-gun and rifle fire, which is considerably heavier than the reception given the 3rd Brigade in the first wave, the troops are directed to an assembly point, which proves relatively safe from enemy fire.

  Here they are organised into their companies or assigned to new platoons if their own has been decimated. The act of reassembling is by no means all calmness and order, instead it is a process of stop–start, with officers screaming commands at confused troops, their own senior officers frequently countermanding their instructions in a similar manner. But somehow the officers and N.C.O.s given the task of organising the troops back into a fighting unit manage to get a sufficiently concerted force together. This allows the brigade commander, Colonel M’Cay, to assemble the means to reinforce the scattered remnants of the 9th Battalion, who are grimly holding their positions on the southern flank against a now increasingly fierce Turkish counterattack.

  Shortly after eight o’clock in the morning with the 5th Company in reasonably compact order, Wordy Smith returns from a short briefing. Major Sayers, their company commander, gives the platoon officers their map co-ordinates and tells them they will be advancing up the southern flank known on the military maps as 400 Plateau where they will reinforce the 10th Battalion from the first wave who have been damn near decimated.

  ‘Packs on, bayonets fixed, let’s get out of here,’ Ben tells his platoon. Whereas the platoon officer would usually give the order to march out, such is the understanding between

  Peregrine Ormington-Smith and his sergeant that they simply communicate quietly with each other, with Ben, for the most part, instructing the platoon. Anyone looking on from the outside would assume the incompetence in Wordy Smith still exists. However, since leaving Lemnos the platoon commander has shown that he is not beyond the task of leading his troops. He simply understands he has a first-class sergeant who knows the ropes and who will consult him when needed. Peregrine Ormington-Smith is without the slightest pretension and the relationship between the two men is completely free of rivalry.

  Moreover, perhaps because of his countless forays into the wild to find the specimens for his flower paintings, Wordy Smith will show that he has a capacity to read the nature of the terrain and that he can anticipate what is to come in the field with uncanny accuracy.

  The platoon now begins to climb the steep and arduous slope. With their packs on their backs it is an enormous struggle up the narrow tracks and they find it difficult to keep up with those platoons that have abandoned their packs on the beach and carry nothing but their iron rations about their necks, their rifles with bayonets fixed, and a little spare ammunition.

  ‘S’not bloody fair,’ Numbers Cooligan gasps. ‘Look at them other bastards, rifle and just their webbing, ammo pouches, water bottle and iron rations, bugger-all else.’

  ‘Ah, stop whingeing, Numbers, it’s your fault anyway,’ Crow Rigby calls.

  ‘My fault! Shit, why?’

  ‘With a pack on yer back yer can’t run away, Ben knows this and so as not to embarrass yer, we’ve all got to carry ’em.’

  ‘Ah, you’re fulla bullshit, Crow. I’ll soon enough be watching your skinny arse fleeing back down towards the beach, no risk, mate.’

  ‘No flamin’ way, mate, it’s much too dangerous down there.’

  And so the usual silly young-bloke banter and jocularity goes on among them, to keep their minds from dwelling on the battle to come. On their way up through Shrapnel Valley they pass several hundred dead men and soon realise the danger they face. The stark reality of warfare is beginning to sink in.

  The first of the reinforcements under M’Cay, mostly the men without packs on their backs, arrive at the lip of the plateau. His orders are to advance across it so that they can get in with their bayonets among the Turks on the third ridge. With no telephone wires yet laid the brigade commander is unaware that the rest of the line at the centre and the north is pinned down with no hope of advancing and that for him to cross 400 Plateau and, on his own, attack his objective, the third ridge, is pointless. He can’t possibly outflank the Turks who are too well dug in on the high ground above the plateau.

  The sensible thing to do is to simply dig in and become the southern part of the front line, to stop just before reaching the lip of the plateau and take cover on the reverse slope. M’Cay sees at once that the plateau is covered with the bodies of the 9th Battalion from the first wave. With all their officers dead, the scattered elements remaining have dug in under the lip and are simply trying to survive the Turkish onslaught from the ridge beyond the plateau.

  Deciding he has fresh troops and is part of a front line committed to advance across the full front, Colonel M’Cay believes he has no option but to take his men across 400 Plateau and to dig in on the other side if it should become necessary.

  This proves to be a suicidal decision as the Turks on the higher slopes are reinforced, far better organised now, and virtually concealed from the Australian forces. The numbers no longer stacked against them, the Turks can stand and fight. What the Australians thought was cowardice in the Wog army was simply tactical prudence, they are in a position to call all the shots and if M’Cay attempts to cross the plateau his men are, almost certainly, dead meat.

  Ben arrives with his platoon soon after the first of the 5th Battalion troops are being fed over the rim and told to cross the plateau. Crawling up to the rim, he can immediately see what is taking place. The men attempting to cross are being cut down in waves. Not only are they subject to a hailstorm of Turkish rifle and machine-gun fire, but heavy artillery from behind the third range is raining down on them, cascading scythes of white-hot shrapnel cutting them to pieces.

  ‘We should dig in here under the lip, sir. Then, if we have to, cross the plateau tonight,’ he says to Wordy Smith, who has crept up and now lies beside him.

  Peregrine Ormington-Smith nods. ‘It’s not just crossing, Sergeant, unless I’m very much mistaken this plateau dips down into a gully, a basin at its end.’ He points to the plateau running away from them. ‘This flat ground is like the handle on a spoon. Not only do the Turks have us at their mercy as we cross down the handle but what’s left of us will simply be herded like sheep into the spoon. For them it’s like looking down into a street jammed shoulder to shoulder with people, every shot they fire will hit someone.’ He looks grimly at Ben. ‘If we persist in this, the entire battalion is likely to be wiped out, possibly the brigade. I’ll see if I can find the C.O., get further instructions, it’s sheer madness to continue like this. In the meantime, carry on, Ben . . . oh, er, Sergeant.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir, matter of fact, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. It seems to me that while we’re fighting, that is in the course of battle, me referring to a soldier as “Private” followed by his name is too wasteful of time, far better to say his surname or even his Christian name and, well, vice versa, they can call me Ben or Sarge. All of this strictly applying only within the platoon, of course?’

  Wordy Smith laughs. ‘Peregrine, or for that matter Ormington-Smith, is hardly an abbreviation, Ben.’

  ‘Right. In your case, sir, why don’t we simply continue with “sir”, it’s the quickest of the lot.’

  The lieutenant nods, not looking up. Ben can see he’s thinking, then he faces him. ‘I wouldn’t . . . er would you mind?
I mean, I’d rather prefer to be called Wordy.’

  ‘Seems like a bloody silly conversation to be having with the shit hitting the fan all around us,’ Ben says. He slides down the slope, pushing himself backwards on his belly until he is sufficiently far down to stand erect without exposing his head above the rim. ‘From now on it’s just names among us, no more sergeant or lieutenant or private, just whatever we’re called among ourselves.’

  ‘Righto, Ben,’ Numbers Cooligan calls quick as a flash.

  ‘You’ll keep, Cooligan,’ Ben says as a Turkish shell bursts alarmingly close, sending shrapnel whining over their heads. ‘Let’s dig in, lads, ain’t it grand we brought our picks and shovels.’

  ‘Bastard’s right as usual,’ Crow Rigby sighs as he unties his shovel from the back of his pack. ‘What about them poor bastards who didn’t bring nothin’, eh Numbers?’

  ‘What gives me the shits is he didn’t ask me for my permission to call me by me Christian name!’ Numbers Cooligan says, conveniently changing the subject.

  ‘Ah, you’re fulla shit, Numbers,’ Woggy Mustafa says, bringing his pick axe down into the hard earth at his feet.

  ‘Is that a Wog or a Christian opinion coming from you, Mustafa?’ Numbers Cooligan asks, picking up his shovel and starting to dig.

  ‘It is a truth that crosses all religious boundaries,’ Crow Rigby laughs.

  They begin to dig in furiously and, almost as if by telepathy, others on their left and right, those who possess the good fortune to own a pick or shovel, start to do the same.