by Peter Rees
The status of non-combatant, however, does not necessarily confer invisible armour. Jack Bean had discovered this on the first day. Charles Bean had been sniped at, and knew well the sound of bullets. Two days before Paddon had offered him a shot at the Turk Bean had woken up during the night at Walker’s Ridge ‘to hear a bullet nick—PZzzzzzz—off the top of the parapet.’ The threat was there constantly as he wrote through the nights, trying to get his work done before sleeping during the morning. ‘During the night you hear all the bullets whizz down this gully, and fairly often hear them “thrpp” into the ground outside.’ The stray bullets were the worst, for they were the bullets that no one could prepare for. As Bean noted one day at headquarters: ‘The bullets flying over were only strays but there were a good many of them and a stray is just as deadly as a bullet aimed at you—only less likely to hit.’ The gap between life and death was often a matter of chance.
Bean thought it curious ‘how men get back to simple habits during a time like this. I have found one or two officers starting to read the Bible—and one told me he found it extraordinarily interesting.’ This struck a chord, for he added, ‘I wish I had the time—but I haven’t.’ Staying alive in such lethal surroundings not surprisingly turned one’s thoughts to mortality and spirituality—issues that Bean had wrestled with in his teenage years were now not quite so abstract.
18
Brothers in arms
Bean made his way along a winding dirt track to Reserve Gully on the evening of 5 August 1915. He was intent on more than the rugged features of a landscape he had come to know all too well. A briefing by Colonel Monash at his dugout lay ahead. Bean was to learn details of Monash’s role in the August offensive. This was to be General Hamilton’s final attempt to claim the peninsula after three months of continual hammering had produced no worthwhile gains. The stalemate left the Turks in control of the Dardanelles. The focus shifted to the area north of Anzac Cove, and the attacking forces bolstered by five additional British divisions.
As Bean recalled of the meeting with Monash, he had ‘strolled round to Reserve Gully, where [Monash] and his troops were perched in dugouts, as in pigeon holes round the great amphitheatre of sandy cliffs.’ The attack was set for the next day. The immediate objective at Anzac was to capture the heights, including the key positions Chunuk Bair, Hill Q, and the highest point, Hill 971, by early on 7 August. Converging attacks from the Australian Light Horse at The Nek and New Zealanders, under the command of the unpopular General Godley, from Chunuk Bair would then capture Battleship Hill and Baby 700.
The first attack at Anzac would be a feint launched at 5.30 p.m. on the 6th by the Australians. The 1st Brigade of Major General Harold ‘Hooky’ Walker’s 1st Australian Division would attack Turkish trenches at Lone Pine along the southern part of the Anzac line. The 1st Division comprised the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Brigades, which would also be responsible for holding the line at Anzac. Walker was opposed to the Lone Pine operation, believing it had little chance of success, but at least he had managed to postpone the start until after the 3 p.m. originally proposed. At 9 p.m., after the infantry attack had been launched against Lone Pine, landings would begin at Suvla Bay. The British IX Corps would proceed to occupy the hills to the north of Anzac known as the ‘W’ Hills in a bid to nullify Turkish batteries there. The ambitious plan was that once these hills had been taken, the British would link up with the Anzacs.
By then the main thrust towards the Sari Bair Range would have begun. Major General Herbert Cox would lead the force to attack Hill 971 and Hill Q, comprising Monash’s 4th Brigade and Cox’s own 29th Indian Brigade. They would advance along North Beach and make their way a kilometre up the Aghyl Dere, where two of the four Australian battalions would screen the northern flank. The rest of the troops would make the hard climb through rough and tangled terrain until they reached the Aghyl Dere’s main fork. At that point two of the Gurkha battalions would press on to attack and occupy Hill Q. The remaining Australians and Indians would continue north-east, climbing over Damakjelik Bair and then down into the Asma Dere, before reaching Abdel Rahman Spur. This would leave them just a kilometre away from capturing Hill 971, the high point.
Coinciding with this, the attack on the right would also begin, the advance spearheaded by the New Zealand Infantry Brigade, to take Chunuk Bair. The key objective was to capture this summit and the heights to its south and link up with Anzac positions at Russell’s Top. The New Zealand Mounted Rifles were to capture Turkish outposts and clear the Turks from the foothills by 11 p.m. to allow the infantry to start their approach. With the Sari Bair ridgeline taken, the 3rd Light Horse Brigade would launch their assault at The Nek at 4.30 a.m. Along with various feints to be undertaken, this was an ambitious and complex plan involving coordinated timing which would test the fittest of troops, let alone men ravaged by fatigue and disease. And it required first-rate commanders.
Bean was impressed by Monash’s explanation. ‘As a clear logical exposition of a scheme of operations, it surpassed any that I had ever listened to . . . a masterpiece of lucid explanation.’ Given the antipathy between the two, it seems reasonable to conclude that Monash briefed Bean with a view to ensuring that his role—and that of his men—in the coming attack was reported prominently. Clearly, he was confident of the outcome. The two men met again early the next afternoon. Neither was in any doubt about the importance of the next few hours.
Bean left Monash and went to see his brother Jack in preparation for the attack at Lone Pine. ‘He and I had previously been along to see where the fight could best be seen from,’ he noted. With 200 metres of No Man’s Land between the Australian and Turkish trenches, ‘Hooky’ Walker had hit upon the ruse of minimising the danger to his men by having them burst out of tiny, cramped tunnels dug into No Man’s Land. Bean wanted to be close to where his brother was located, and went to a tunnel crowded with men from the 3rd Battalion. ‘Some are crouching beside me under the parapet; others are in the body of the trench.’ Like the troops, Bean wore a white calico patch sewn onto his back. That way the Australians would not be mistaken for Turks.
Bean noted that the time was 5.25 p.m. There was an air of expectancy, with men chaffing one another, eager for action. ‘I saw not the slightest trace of nervousness,’ he wrote. ‘Men all had packs with some sort of tucker or knick-knacks in.’ The top sandbags were pulled down to make it easier for the men to scramble over, and Bean heard an officer yell: ‘Prepare to jump out.’ He then put a whistle between his teeth and blew it as the signal to attack. At 5.33 p.m. the first wave of 1800 Australians jumped out and dashed towards the Turkish trenches. Bean saw four of the Australians ‘dancing’ the last part of the way. ‘One poor fellow beside me immediately fell back into the trench bleeding at the mouth, shot through both cheeks. I can see through the periscope flocks of our men who are running forward from the trenches all along this part of the line, all racing at a good running pace through the scrub.’
But something was not quite right; the troops seemed to be bunching up. Soon they were standing like ‘spectators along a street kerb’ above trenches covered by heavy pine logs that the preparatory naval bombardment had failed to smash. They stood on top, firing through the gaps or jumping in any opening they could find. Bean saw ‘rifle butts come up’ as the troops went to work with their bayonets in the narrow trenches. As he put it, bayonets were ‘drenched to the butt with blood.’ He saw more men brave the Turkish shrapnel. ‘I follow in the periscope some man who doubles like a rabbit across that patch of fireswept scrub. One watches with his heart in his mouth, but the majority get safely over the further parapet. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Battalions have made their rush, and the 1st Battalion is now filing into the fire trench behind me.’
Turkish shellfire began hitting Bean’s trench, ‘simply lathering this line of trenches. Every man in them has been drenched from head to foot with showers of sandy parapet thrown up by the explosion.’ After ninety minutes of fighting, Bean looked forwar
d and saw men clustered in two bunches. ‘Someone looking long through the periscope notices that not one of those white-patched uniforms has stirred; they have fought their last brave fight. I suppose some machine-gun caught them lying exposed.’
Lone Pine was taken, but Turkish reserves began to arrive for the start of the long attempt to retake the trenches by bombing. Over the next three nights the Australians would experience a bomb fight such as they had never known. Bean captured the desperate madness:
Noting that the Turkish bombs had long fuses, the Australians constantly caught them and threw them back before they burst. The Turks then learnt to shorten the fuses and many boys’ hands were blown off, and others were blinded or killed. Hundreds of times bombs falling into the trenches were smothered with half-filled sandbags; but others burst, killing and wounding the groups behind the barricades, and the stream of wounded was continuous.
On both sides the dead clogged many of the trenches. When on 10 August fighting stopped at Lone Pine, six Australian battalions had lost, in all, eighty officers and 2197 men, and the Turks 5000 men. The battalions of the 1st Brigade lost so heavily that few witnesses of its efforts remained.
This, of course, was supposed just to be a feint for the main attack on the night of 6 August, at Suvla Bay. But under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Stopford, the plan had gone wrong early. At the age of sixty-one, Stopford had been appointed to a position for which he had no experience. He possessed no combat experience, and it would later emerge that he knew he was unsuited to the job and protested his appointment. Nevertheless he was given the command to guide 10th, 11th and 53rd Divisions—IX Corps. Having landed at Suvla, Stopford dithered. Rather than immediately striking out beyond nearby Salt Lake as directed, he chose merely to consolidate his position at Suvla Bay, though there were no Turkish troops to hinder the advance.
Having witnessed the start of the fighting at Lone Pine, and when he thought things ‘seemed settled here,’ Bean decided to leave the trench and have dinner. As he left, he passed men from the 3rd Battalion; someone told him that his brother had been hit in the wrist by shrapnel and was back at the beach. Soon after, Jack was evacuated to the hospital ship Sicilia. The wound turned septic and he was sent back to Egypt, en route to Britain.
Just after 11 p.m. Bean had the first inkling that plans might not be going to schedule for Monash. He heard that the New Zealand Mounted Rifles were held up on Table Top, at the foot of Rhododendron Spur. Despite this, Monash and the Indians were starting out. ‘Some small risk perhaps if [Mounted Rifles] could not clear ridges—might make Monash’s retreat difficult—but worth taking. Gen. Birdwood clearly thought so,’ Bean noted. During the night, things started to go awry; he lost his pince-nez and field glasses.
Bean made his way towards General Godley’s headquarters. On the way he passed two wounded men, left behind by Monash for the stretcher bearers. Bean knew they needed help quickly and approached a British medical officer. He refused to send his men in because the area was under fire; fortunately, New Zealand stretcher bearers he approached had no such qualms. Then there was the ‘poor chap’ he saw lying motionless on the ground. ‘I stooped down to feel for his pulse but the hand was quite cold.’
By now it was clear that the attack was falling well behind time. Reaching Godley’s headquarters, Bean was surprised to find that the general was not on top of things, having forgotten ‘an elementary part of the attack’ concerning orders given to the Indian Brigade. As bullets whipped into the sand in front of the headquarters, Godley gave him a whisky, and Bean left before daybreak to find news of Monash. Godley gave him a message to tell Monash to hurry things along. Bean left in the moonlight and headed towards the 4th Brigade’s front line, passing slow-moving Indian troops and several wounded Australians. Stray bullets were ‘lisping into the ground’ around him. He thought Monash was further to the left, and was about to head there when he heard distant fire that he assumed must be British. At that point the war became very personal:
I was moving on again when something gave me a whack (like a stone thrown hard) in the upper part of the right leg . . . I was pretty sure I had been hit by a stray which had gone in on the right and not come out, but I couldn’t feel any blood, and so thought it might not have penetrated at all. Some of the stones from shell bursts had hit me quite as hard earlier this day—but presently I felt my hand greasy in my pants, so I knew I must go back.
He limped his way back to Godley’s headquarters, where the general gave him another whisky and sent him to a dressing station. After treatment, he walked slowly ‘home’ along the sap. He heard a tremendous but brief bombardment as dawn broke. He had been given a white ticket to take to the Casualty Clearing Station, and realised that if he went there he would almost certainly be sent to the hospital ship. ‘I did not feel any trouble except a stiff leg, and so I decided to keep the ticket in my pocket and go to my dugout.’ This was fortunate, for otherwise he would have missed the rest of the August fighting.
As Bean hobbled back with a bullet in his thigh, disaster was about to beset the 3rd Light Horse Brigade at The Nek. A delay in leaving the trenches following confusion caused by the Royal Navy’s preliminary bombardment stopping seven minutes early allowed the Turks ample time to organise their defences. Despite this the Light Horse were ordered to attack on the grounds that everything must be done to assist the New Zealanders to make the main attack on the heights. When the first wave—men of the 8th Light Horse—rose from the trench, the Turks cut them down within seconds. A second wave of the 8th was similarly destroyed. There was a pause. An officer questioned the value of sending more men to certain death but the Light Horse were ordered to press on. Next rose the first wave of the 10th Light Horse. As Bean would later write: ‘The 10th went forward to meet death instantly, as the 8th had done, the men running as swiftly and as straight as they could at the Turkish rifles. With that regiment went the flower of the youth of Western Australia.’
A fourth wave of Western Australians also charged before the attack was finally called off. To Bean, this was ‘one of the bravest actions in the history of war’, in which every man knew he was unlikely to survive: ‘At first here and there a man raised his arm to the sky, or tried to drink from his water bottle; but, as the sun of that burning day climbed higher, such movements ceased: over the whole summit the figures lay still in the quivering heat.’ In the forty-five minutes to 5.15 a.m., 234 Australians had been killed in an area little larger than a couple of tennis courts.
Amid this slaughter, Bean staggered to his dugout and went to bed without waking Bazley. Later that morning, Bazley thought Bean was sleeping rather late and woke him. ‘I’ve been hit, Baz,’ Bean groaned. Bazley summoned Colonel Neville Howse, the senior medical officer, who strongly recommended that Bean be evacuated to minimise the risk of tetanus infection. Bean refused to leave. He stayed in the dugout for the next three weeks, having the wound dressed daily. Bean needed to rest but refused to stop working. Phillip Schuler helped out by keeping him up to date on the fighting. This allowed Bean to continue dictating cables to Bazley. To Schuler, Bean was ‘the most enthusiastic, painstaking, and conscientious worker that I have ever met.’
Bean rationalised that many men on Gallipoli would have a wound similar to his and would not report it, dismissing their limp as merely a strain. A few days later, Howse told Bean that he would not cut out the bullet, because if he did Bean would have to leave Gallipoli for a while. The bullet would remain in his leg for the rest of his life. On 26 August, The Sydney Morning Herald, along with other Australian newspapers, carried a paragraph from Bean revealing that he had been shot and that this would affect his ability to file his reports:
CAPTAIN BEAN WOUNDED.
Reporting from Gaba Tepe, under date of August 11 on the extensive operations of the Allied armies in Gallipoli, Captain C.E.W. Bean, Official Press Representative with the Australian Expeditionary Forces, says: I regret personally having been unable to g
et later details of the great attack, owing to being slightly wounded on the morning of August 7, whilst making my way toward the 4th Australian Brigade. This will prevent my personally moving about for a few days, and will unfortunately delay the collection of details for letters.
As he rested, Bean sent a note about his wounding to Jack, who was still in Alexandria. Jack replied, ‘Do take care of yourself in future. You know it would break [Father and Mother] if anything happened to you and whatever you may say—Your clear duty to Australia is to safeguard yourself to the utmost. A fat lot of good you’ll be to write History either wounded or dead.’ Jack didn’t like the idea of his brother nursing himself in a dugout. He thought he should be on a hospital ship, but if he was going to stay at Anzac, he should request plenty of morphia tablets, as well as some mosquito netting, creosol antiseptic and linoleum to improve conditions in his dugout. Jack was tired and in pain himself:
I can’t help getting wounded like this. I was only obeying orders—tho’ I blame myself for not moving to a safer spot when my little aid post got enfiladed as it very soon did by Turkish shrapnel. Heavens we did have a hot time. Shell after shell kept bursting quite close to us—just overhead or a few yards behind or a few in front. I got hit on the back of the neck by a lump of earth and shells exploding near covered us in a dust cloud . . . Then a man who had been detailed off to me to manage the anti-gas spray got hit by shrapnel in the chest. He was standing by me at the time and I was attending to him myself when I was hit.
Jack was depressed about his wound, fearing it might end his soldiering, and doubted if his right hand and wrist would ever be much use again. Indeed, he wrote to his brother using his left hand. ‘Hold this to a mirror and read from right to left and you will make it out,’ he suggested with a touch of droll humour that Lucy and Edwin Bean—had they known of the wounds their sons had suffered—would have struggled to find amusing.