Bill the Bastard

by Roland Perry

  ‘Under this circumstance, we should draw straws on who commands and what squadron is to be chosen,’ one officer said.

  Others commented but came to no more definitive solution. Quinn turned to Shanahan, who had kept his peace. ‘What do you recommend, Mike?’

  All heads turned to Shanahan. At forty-five years of age he was now one of the eldest of the officers and someone who already had shown strong and protective leadership in dealing with the younger troopers. Many of them were teenagers who were unnerved by the experience of being under fire in such a vulnerable position and with very little hope of even effective defence from the post, let alone retaliation. In the space of forty-eight hours, Shanahan had emerged as the embodiment of the cliché: you would want to be in the trenches with him. At Quinn’s, where nobody wanted to be, including Shanahan himself, his impact on others was paramount. Some officers and troopers were talkative; others were cheerful and kept up morale with comments and jokes to ease the tension; some showed bravado in standing up at Quinn’s, an act that had seen a British officer and two diggers killed. Shanahan was none of these. He was the classic example of ‘less is more’. He already had a reputation for taciturnity. Words from him were at a premium. But when he did speak, everyone listened. He had the rare ability of getting to the heart of a problem, including this one put by the troubled Major Quinn. Shanahan took his time before answering.

  ‘We are all volunteers,’ he said quietly. ‘This should be a voluntary exercise, at least for officers.’ He paused and added, ‘I shall lead a squadron. But it has to be done at night, not at dawn.’

  A few nights later, at 2 am, Shanahan led a silent assault by sixty troopers over the parapet. The Turks detected movement and sent up flares. Despite Godley’s certitude about there being no machine-guns in the closest enemy trench, the Turks had a bank of fifteen lined up looking right down the narrow, short slope into no-man’s land and then the post. They opened up and mowed down many in the first wave of thirty. Shanahan managed to crawl on his stomach to a rock for cover. He called for the second wave to stay put but his command was drowned out by more fire. He could hear several wounded troopers calling for help. Shanahan bent down and dived towards one, who had been hit in the arm and shoulder. Bullets spat in his direction and kicked up a spray of dirt and dust. A second flare went up. Shanahan lay still and close to the wounded trooper. When the light died he put his body in front of the injured man and manoeuvred him the five metres to the rock. Shanahan again yelled for the second wave of thirty to stay put but his order was once more drowned out. He heard the troopers scream as they charged. The machine-guns opened up again, this time without the benefit of the flare-light. But the damage was still heavy. After an hour, Shanahan was able to ascertain that he had perhaps just a handful of men who were not either killed or wounded. His squad had been decimated, literally. He ordered the troopers to withdraw.

  At dawn, Shanahan did the count at the post. Twenty-five men from his aborted mission were dead; a further twenty-seven were wounded. Just eight had survived unscathed. Of those injured, many had terrible wounds from the intense machine-gun fire which could sever a limb. Some fourteen would not fight again.

  Shanahan was devastated at losing so many of his squad. The troopers had now shared the morale-shattering experience endured by Monash and his diggers in the seventeen days before the Light Horse arrived. This had been caused by ill-prepared schemes by British commanders who had no concern for soldiers on the front line. Shanahan kept busy, preoccupying himself with looking after the wounded and not dwelling on the deadly folly he had just been through. He supervised their evacuation by a dozen pack animals from Monash Valley until two hours after dawn.

  One horse caught his expert eye. He asked a fresh-faced, pudgy medical orderly about it.

  ‘Aye, that’s Bill,’ the orderly replied as he and an assistant strapped a stretchered trooper on the back of his mule. ‘They call him “Bill the Bastard”, because no one can ride him. But we’ve had no trouble with him. One silly bugger at the cove did try to mount him for a bet.’ The orderly paused to laugh. ‘Bill hurled him so high that it took a while for him to come back to mother earth. Broke his arm in three places. No one has been stupid enough to make another attempt.’

  Shanahan walked up to Bill. Two more stretchered troopers were being angled and strapped onto his broad back. One of the two orderlies with Bill said: ‘Best damned packhorse we’ve got. He’s already been up the track twice today. Never complains, although he can be moody and it’s best to steer clear then because, boy, he can kick! But he never gets in a bad temper on the job.’ He patted Bill. ‘He’s a real digger, aren’t you, Bill mate?’

  Shanahan stroked Bill’s face before the orderly led the horse back down the track. He had a chilling feeling he would be seeing a lot of this horse for all the wrong reasons.

  He quickly learned how right he was. Soon afterwards, at 4.20 am on 19 May, the Turks hit, with more than 10,000 soldiers screaming their love of Allah as they descended into the valley with a band inspiring them with marching songs. Shanahan opted to climb up to Quinn’s to be with his men during the enemy assault. He had been in the trench for ten seconds with his head well down when two grenades were lobbed within a metre of him. A trooper fell on one with two doubled-up blankets. He pushed down hard. The explosion a split second later threw the trooper hard into a trench wall. He was stunned but relieved to feel all his body parts and limbs intact. Shanahan had nothing to smother the second grenade with. It bounced on soft earth and spun like a top in front of him. Instinctively, Shanahan scooped it up and hurled it back at the Turkish trench. It exploded. Judging from the accompanying screams it had hit home.

  Quinn’s Post was not the only one being hit as the Turks surged down into the face of a powerful defence from Anzac machine-gunners. Brigadier Monash’s engineering skills had paid off. He had placed gunners at strategic spots in a rim of trenches at the head of the valley with orders to move forward if at all possible. At first the Turkish deluge of men was not supported by artillery. This allowed Shanahan and other officers to urge their riflemen to climb onto the parapets and mow down the enemy without the fear of shrapnel raining down on them. The pre-dawn light allowed the defenders to see shadowy figures coming at them.

  ‘It became a wild-pig shoot,’ Shanahan later wrote to a relative, ‘they kept coming and we kept firing. The Turks fell in huge numbers. It was a bit liberating for my men who had not been able to put their heads up in the week they have been here.’

  The defence was effective right around the defensive rim. The Anzacs were able to fulfil Monash’s wish to set up their weapons forward of the trenches. Thousands of Turks were cut down by 8 am but they kept coming, like tidal waves, from the heights.

  The defenders did not have it all their own way. Bill and the other horses and mules were kept busy, especially when the Turks finally got their artillery operating. The Anzac field ambulancemen and animals showed as much courage as any of the combatants operating all around them as they moved about the valley retrieving the fallen. Everyone noticed Bill in particular and his minder, along with a gritty yet always cheery Englishman, John Simpson, and his small donkey. These four did not stop in the first few hours when the crossfire was at its peak. They scurried into no-man’s land, loaded up with two injured men and hurried down to dressing stations. Seeing this, the troopers and diggers applauded. This kind of appreciation from the men was repeated many times, with Bill or the donkey being led alternately into the firing zone.

  Monash, who witnessed Simpson’s selfless, fearless missions, wrote to his wife: ‘This man [Simpson] has been working in this [Monash] valley since 26th April in collecting the wounded . . . He had a small donkey, which he used to carry all cases unable to walk. Private Simpson and his little beast earned the admiration of everyone at the upper end of the valley . . . Simpson knew no fear. He moved unconcernedly amid shrapnel and rifle fire, steadily carrying out his self-imposed task day b
y day.’

  But on the day when Monash’s defence and a thousand diggers and troopers had shown enormous tenacity in holding back the onslaught, Simpson’s luck ran out. At about 9 am it was his turn to take his donkey out in front of Bill and his ambulanceman as they spotted yet another fallen digger. A spray of shrapnel hit him and his animal. Without a second thought, the ambulanceman hustled forward with Bill. Simpson, his body limp, was placed on Bill and hurried away. The Anzacs applauded again, but this time it was muted as they saw the donkey had not moved and Simpson’s body was not receiving any urgent attention from the orderlies. This wonderful and inspiring combination of fearless man and beast would no longer come to the aid of hurt comrades.

  8

  SLAUGHTER AT THE NEK

  AND QUINN’S

  After living through the hell in Monash Valley for the vital early weeks at Gallipoli, Shanahan and his battered regiment were given well-earned garrison duties away from the front line. They were positioned not far from the beach between Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay. Bill the Bastard, too, had earned a break away from the heavy and dangerous work up and down the track to the valley. He was assigned to carry the non-urgent mail in heavy sacks from Suvla Bay to the cove, trotting along beside a mounted trooper at dusk when it was much harder for Turkish snipers to strike them.

  After a four-month stalemate in which the Turks locked down the Anzacs at Gallipoli and other Allied forces at Cape Helles, in early August 1915 the British generals decided it was time to break out in one mighty coordinated attempt to take the heights. But again, the emphasis was more on using front-line fighters in big numbers in the hope they could do the impossible, somehow, rather than devising any great tactical plan that would win and at the same time preserve men.

  The prospects for the huge counterattack were not promising for the troopers, who now faced similar experiences to that of Shanahan and his squad in May. Hundreds of Light Horsemen from Western Australia’s 10th Regiment and Victoria’s 8th, at Russell’s Top on the left of Monash Valley facing the heights, would have to charge across a narrow, hemmed-in expanse called the Nek. It was about the size of two tennis courts. A serve from a bank of machine-guns would greet them.

  Across at Quinn’s seventy metres away, Shanahan and his squadron had returned for this big push. He and the other officers were under orders from Chauvel to send their men north to Baby Hill 700, where the troopers at Russell’s Top would also be heading.

  The 8th Regiment’s troopers at Russell’s Top were first over the parapets before dawn. The Turks heard them coming and opened up with 30 machine-guns that created a wall of bullets the width of the Nek. Many men were hit climbing out of the trenches. Some only managed a few paces before being felled. Most were slaughtered when still a tennis court length away from the Turkish trenches. The handful that did reach them was outnumbered by the enemy. The first line of troopers had been cut down in ten minutes.

  Shanahan led a select squad out on the order of his brigade commander, along with other officers with similar small bands of troopers. But they, too, were cut down by intense fire from trenches above them. Inside two minutes, fifty of fifty-five troopers were killed. Shanahan, who had dashed out first, was the last man back, protecting the men in front of him as they withdrew. For a third time, he was most fortunate not to have been killed. He slumped into Quinn’s. His immediate superior consulted him.

  ‘Any chance of a second wave getting through?’ he was asked anxiously.

  Shanahan shook his head as he looked around to see how many of his men had made it. That was enough for the officer commanding. He got word to Chauvel, who agreed that this battle was unwinnable.

  Troopers waiting to leap out of the trench at Russell’s Top did not have such a humane and intelligent command. Their leader, Jack Antill, an Australian who had made his name in Boer War Light Horse charges, had become a shrill and bullying commander at Gallipoli. He ordered a second wave of 150 troopers from the 8th Regiment over the top. After climbing over their fallen cobbers, they too faced the horrors of the Nek and were sliced into by the enemy machine-gunners. Then followed lines three and four, this time from the 10th Regiment. They suffered the same fate as the Victorians. Within a short time, hundreds of troopers lay dead or wounded in a sweep from Russell’s Top to the Turkish trenches. Antill still wanted action but he was overridden now by more sensible heads among Australian officers, who appealed to senior commanders. But it was far too late for some of the cream of the fighting men from Western Australia and Victoria.

  The emphasis now along the front was on retrieving the wounded in no-man’s land. This was nearly impossible given the Turkish defences. Through the day injured men were noticed moving, crawling a few paces here, raising a hand for help there. But no aid could come. The Turkish guns in the narrow corridors of these battles made it futile to send in the ambulancemen, on this occasion without their animals, which could not be brought up steep ravines or along narrow ridges.

  Bill was once more seconded to help out in Monash Valley. He trudged up the track from Anzac Cove to join a dozen other horses and mules lined up at the foot of the ridges. Stretcher bearers and medics were forced to wait until night to help the odd wounded trooper who may have lived through the very long day of 7 August 1915. As soon as dusk settled, the first of the injured were stretchered down to the head of the valley where Bill and his fellow pack animals waited. They then began their steady treks with the injured to the dressing stations.

  A few days later, he was taken back to Suvla Bay to be loaded up once more with the non-urgent mail and despatches. The inability of anyone to stay on him for more than a couple of minutes, and the fact that he could carry far more than any other animal, had so far saved him from a sniper’s bullet.

  9

  SHOOTING THE

  MESSENGER

  Each day at Gallipoli a rider carrying the more urgent despatches would make the seven-kilometre run from Suvla Bay north of Anzac Cove to British campaign headquarters at the cove. This was turned into a macabre event. The Turks in the ridges and hills would snipe at the riders. ‘It [the mail delivery] had to be done at the gallop,’ Chauvel wrote to his wife. ‘The rider was fired at from the moment he left the shelter of Lala Baba until he reached the wide communications trench near Anzac. All the Australian Light Horsemen, New Zealand Mounted Riflemen, and the British Yeomanry [cavalry] were tumbling over each other to get the job.’

  Most Anzacs, including officers, would watch. Hundreds would place bets on whether the rider and his horse would make it along the track close to the beach. This pervasive, callous gambling operation was in tune with the attitude to life and death at Gallipoli. The ‘run’ was hazardous. The Turkish snipers waited for this ‘sport’ each day and would themselves lay bets on who could hit the rider or the horse.

  Sergeant Sutherland was running the small remount depot at Suvla Bay. Early in October, he was ordered by General Godley to let an exceptional cavalryman, Captain Anthony Bickworth, mount the most difficult horse in the depot in an attempt to get a despatch through. No one had been shot on this run for two weeks and such was the careless attitude to life and death by this stage on Gallipoli, that the British wanted to change the odds to make it more ‘sporting’. In other words, a horseman had to be exceptional to both dodge bullets and keep on his mount. To make it more interesting, Bickworth was assigned to the ‘job’. He had the reputation, at least among the British, as the best horseman of the invading troops. But there was another compelling factor. The upper-class Bickworth, the third son of an impoverished landowning British count, had lost a lot of money gambling in Cairo and was deeply in debt. He would be offered an ‘incentive’ of 100 pounds to risk his skills and life on the despatch run. Bickworth had been at Cape Helles at the peninsula’s tip. He was ferried up to Suvla Bay at night.

  Anzacs and British soldiers had a meeting. The bet was that either the mail would get through, or it would not. Trooper Swifty Thoms let slip that Bill the Bas
tard would make it impossible for any rider, no matter who was on him, to make it. Sutherland was then ordered to break out Bill for this ‘special’ ride. A heavy plunge went on the mail not getting through. Thoms and a few mates, including Sutherland, now got odds up to twenty to one from the various bookies at the cove. They were betting the mail would get through. General Godley was informed that Bill would make the journey and changed his mind about the outcome of the ride. He slipped his aide-de-camp twenty pounds to put a secret bet on the mail not getting through.

  At just after 11 am on 3 October, thousands of Anzacs and British soldiers occupied vantage points above Anzac Cove and close to it to watch this ‘event’. The officers and many of the men had binoculars. All artillery, machine-gun and rifle fire stopped. The sun was out and there was a clear view of the path to be taken about thirty metres from the shoreline.

  Bickworth, a lean, bony-faced man of forty, was in full yeomanry outfit but for a strange German-style helmet when he strode into the remount depot on the beach near Suvla Bay. Horses rather than people were his passion, and he wasn’t even prepared to make small talk with Sutherland. He asked for ‘Bill the er . . . er . . . Bastard.’ The sergeant picked up on his no-nonsense, ‘superior’ demeanour and without further word left his tent and broke Bill out from a roped-off section at the little inlet of Lala Baba.

  Bickworth had a long whip, more like a stockman’s than a jockey’s. He tapped his boot with it impatiently as Sutherland tethered the horse and brought two saddlebags of mail and despatches.

  ‘Quite a bit riding on this, Captain,’ the sergeant proffered. Bickworth ignored him. He did two semicircles of Bill, being careful not to stand close to his rear.

  ‘Been fed?’ Bickworth asked.

  ‘And watered . . . two hours ago. Wee Bill doesn’t need much.’

  ‘It’s a long ride at the gallop.’