Lone Pine was the first big attack that the 1st Brigade had taken part in since the landing. Indeed, it was the first battle these New South Welshmen had as a separate and complete operation. It was, perhaps, the freshest and strongest infantry brigade of the four at Anzac, though barely 2,000 strong. The men had been in the trenches (except for a few battalions that had been rested at Imbros) since April. They were ripe for a fight; they were tired of the monotony of sniping at a few Turks and digging and tunnelling.

It is necessary first to go back a few days prior to this attack, to the night of the 31st July, when there had been rather a brilliant minor operation carried out by the Western Australian troops of the 11th Battalion, under Lieut.-Colonel J. L. Johnston, who had issued forth from Tasmania Post. The Turks had largely brought this attack on themselves by having tunnelled forward to a crest that lay not very many yards distant from our position. We had been unable to see what their preparations consisted of, though it was known they were "up to mischief," as Major Ross told me. Exactly what this amounted to was revealed one day, when they broke down the top of their tunnels and there appeared on the crest of the small ridge a line of trenches about 100 yards in extent. The enemy had come within easy bombing distance, but it was difficult for them to locate our sharpshooters and machine guns, that were so well concealed behind the growing bush.

To overcome this the Turks would creep up near to our lines—they were very skilled scouts indeed—and would throw some article of clothing or equipment near where the rifles were spitting. Next morning these garments served as an indication (that is, if we had not removed them) for the directing of fire.

On the night of 31st July at 10.15 the attack began. The Turkish trenches were heavily bombarded, and mines which had rapidly been tunnelled under their trenches were exploded, with excellent results. Four assaulting columns, each of 50 men, led by the gallant Major Leane, then dashed forward from the trenches, crossing our barbed-wire entanglements on planks that had been laid by the engineers. The men had left the trenches before the debris from our two flanking mines had descended, and it took them very few seconds to reach the enemy's line, which was fully manned with excited and perturbed Turks, who, immediately the mines had exploded, set up a fearful chattering. The Australians fired down into the enemy's ranks, and then, having made a way, jumped into the trenches and began to drive the Turks back on either side.

On the extreme right a curious and dangerous situation arose. The Turks had retired some distance down a communication trench, but before our lads could build up a protecting screen and block the trench, the enemy attacked with great numbers of bombs. While the men were tearing down the Turkish parapets to form this barricade a veritable inferno raged round them as the bombs exploded. Our supplies were limited, and were, indeed, soon exhausted. The parapet still remained incomplete. Urgent messages had been sent back for reinforcements, and the position looked desperate. By a mere chance it was saved. An ammunition box was spied on the ground between the lines. This was dragged in under terrible fire, and found to contain bombs. Very soon the Australians then gained the upper hand. The parapet was completed, and this entrance of the Turks, as well as their exit, blocked.

But in the charge a short length of the Turkish trenches (they wound about in an extraordinary fashion) had remained uncaptured, and this line, in which there were still some 80 Turks fighting, was jammed in between the Australian lines. The enemy were obviously unconscious that some of their trenches that ran back on either flank of this trench, had been captured. Scouts were sent out by Major Leane, and these men, after creeping up behind the enemy's line, that still continued to fire furiously, cleared up any remaining doubt that it was still a party of the enemy. A charge was organized, but was driven back. Then a further charge from the original lines was made direct at the trench. The Turks turned and fled down their own communication trench, but, as we held either flank, were caught by bombs and rifle fire, and killed. The Turkish dead in this attack were estimated at 100. The enemy soon turned their guns on the position, and under high-explosive shell fire all night, our troops worked with the sapper parties, under Major Clogstoun (3rd Field Company), deepening the captured trenches and transferring the parapets, which faced our lines, to the westerly side, facing the Turks. Their own trenches had been wretchedly shallow, barely 3 feet deep. By dawn our troops had ample protection. But unfortunately their brave leader, Major Leane, fell mortally wounded. Ever after the trenches were known as Leane's Trenches—one of the many men to leave an honoured name on Anzac. Machine guns shattered a Turkish attack that was being formed in a gully on the right. The Turks never attempted to retake the trench during the next days immediately preceding Lone Pine. General Hamilton regarded the action as most opportune.

Now, while the higher commands realized the scope of the pending operations, the troops knew very little. "The 1st Brigade is for it to-morrow" was the only word that spread along the line, very rapidly, on the evening of the 5th. That it was to be the commencement of a great coup was only guessed at from various local indications. So far as was definitely known, it was to be a purely local attack. By our leaders it was rather hoped, however, the Turks would be led to believe it was but preliminary to a flanking movement from this point out towards Maidos and the plains of the Olive Grove. That was the situation on the morning of the 6th August—a bright, rather crisp morning, when the waters of the gulf were a little disturbed by the wind, and barges rocked about violently in Anzac Cove. Perhaps the arrival of the old comrade to the Australians, the Bacchante, that had been so good a friend to the troops during the early stages, might have been taken as a signal of hard fighting. She replaced the monitor Humber, that had been at work shelling the guns on the Olive Grove Plains and on Pine Ridge, 800 yards or more in front of our right flank, for some weeks.

On the morning of the 6th the heart of Anzac was wearing rather a deserted appearance, for the Divisional Headquarters of the 1st Division had been moved up to just behind the firing-line at the head of White Gully, so as to be nearer the scene of action and shorten the line of communications. Major-General H. B. Walker was commanding the Division, and was responsible for the details for this attack. The New Zealanders also had left Anzac, and Major-General Godley had established his headquarters on the extreme left, at No. 2 post, where he would be in the centre of the attacks on the left. On the beach, I remember, there were parties of Gurkhas still carrying ammunition and water-tins on their heads out through the saps. Ammunition seemed to be the dominant note of the beach. Other traffic was normal, even quiet.

Now the Lone Pine entrenchment was an enormously strong Turkish work that the enemy, while they always felt a little nervous about it, rather boasted of. It was a strong point d'appui on the south-western end of Plateau 400, about the centre of the right flank of the position. At the nearest point the Turkish trenches approached to within 70 yards of ours, and receded at various places to about 130 yards. This section of our trenches, from the fact that there was a bulge in our line, had been called "The Pimple." Their entrenchments connected across a dip, "Owen's Gully," on the north with Johnston's Jolly and German Officers' Trench, all equally strongly fortified positions, with overhead cover of massive pine beams, railway sleepers, and often cemented parapets. The Turks had seen to it when constructing these trenches that the various positions could be commanded on either side by their own machine-gun fire.

Why was it called Lone Pine? Because behind it, on the Turkish ridge, seamed with brown trenches and mia mias[2] of pine-needles, there remained standing a solitary pine-tree amongst the green holly-bushes. Once there had been a forest of green pines on the ridge. The others had gradually been cut down for wood and defensive purposes. Singular to relate, on the morning of the attack the Turks felled this last pine-tree.

Immediately in the rear of our trenches was "Browne's Dip," and it was here that the reserves were concealed in deep dugouts. Brigadier-General Smyth had his headquarters there, not 80 yards from the firing-line, and barely 150 from the Turkish trenches. It was at the head of the gully that dipped sharply down to the coast. The position was quite exposed to the Turkish artillery fire, but by digging deep and the use of enormous sandbag ramparts some little protection was obtained, though nothing stood against the rain of shells that fell on this area—not 400 yards square—in the course of the attacks and counter-attacks.

To properly understand and realize the nature of the Lone Pine achievement it must be explained that our trenches consisted of two lines. There was the actual firing-line, which the Turks could see, and the false firing-line, which was a series of gallery trenches that ran parallel to our first line beneath the ground, and of which the enemy had little cognizance. These two lines were separated by from 10 to 40 yards. The false line was reached through five tunnels. It was one of the most elaborately prepared positions on an intricate front. Three main tunnels from these gallery trenches ran out towards the Turkish line. In each of these, on the morning of the 6th, a large charge of ammonel was set by the engineers, ready to explode at the beginning of the attack. Now, the idea of the gallery trenches had been, in the first place, defensive. The ground had been broken through, but no parapets had been erected on the surface, as the enemy did not know exactly the direction of this forward firing-line. At night these holes in the ground gave the men a chance to place machine guns in position, in anticipation of a Turkish offensive. Later, however, they were blocked with barbed-wire entanglements, while cheveaux de frise were placed outside them, much, it may be stated, to the disgust of the engineers, who had prepared this little trap for the enemy with keen satisfaction.

Before the attack all this barbed wire was removed, and it was decided that while one line of men should dash from the parapets, another line should rise up out of the ground before the astonished eyes of the Turks, and charge for the second line of the Turkish works, leaving the men from the actual firing-line to capture the Turkish first works. All that was needed for the success of this plan was the careful synchronizing of watches, and an officer stationed at every cross-section of trenches and tunnels to give the signal.

Lifeless the beach and the old headquarters may have been, but there was no mistaking the spirits of the men as I went along those firing-line trenches at three o'clock on this beautiful, placid afternoon. Lying so long without fighting, there now rose up the old spirit of the landing and fight within them. "It's Impshee Turks now!" said the men of the 4th, as they moved along the communication trench from the centre of the position to the point of attack. Silence was enjoined on the men; isolated whispered conversations only were carried on. The seasoned troops knew the cost of attack on a strongly entrenched position. Most of the others (reinforcements) had heard vivid enough descriptions from their mates, and had seen little engagements along the line.

I was moving slowly along the trenches. The men carried their entrenching tools and shovels. At various points their comrades from other battalions, who watched the line of heroes who were "for it," dashed out to shake some comrade by the hand. There was a warmth about these handgrips that no words can describe. It was the silence that made the scene of the long files of men such an impressive one. It was a significant silence that was necessary, so that the Turks in their trenches, not more perhaps at that point than 100 yards away, might gain no inkling of the exact point from which the attack was to be made. As the men went on through trench after trench, they came at length into the firing-line—the Pimple—where already other battalions had been gathered. There were men coming in the opposite direction, struggling past somehow, with the packs and waterproof sheets and impedimenta that made it a tight squeeze to get past. Messages kept passing back and forth for officers certain minor details of the attack.

Our trenches before the Lone Pine position were only thinly manned by the 5th Battalion, who were to remain behind and hold them in case of failure. These men had crept into their "possies," or crevices in the wall, and tucked their toes out of the way. Some were eating their evening meal. Other parties were just leaving for the usual supply of water to be drawn down in the gullies and brought up by "fatigues" to the trenches. So into the midst of all this routine, marched the new men of the 1st Brigade, who were going out from this old firing-line to form a new line, to blaze the path, to capture the enemy's strongest post. They went in good spirits, resigned, as only soldiers can be, to the inevitable, their jaws set, a look in their faces which made one realize that they knew their moment of destiny had come; for the sake of the regiment, for the men who were around them, they must bear their share. It was strange to still hear muttered arguments about everyday affairs, to hear the lightly spoken words, "Off to Constantinople."

As I got closer to the vital section of trenches (some 200 yards in length), they were becoming more congested. It was not only now the battalions that were to make the charge, but other men had to be ready for any emergency. They were filing in to take their place and make sure of holding what we already had. Sections got mixed with sections in the sharp traverses. It wanted, too, but a few minutes to the hour, but not the inevitable moment. There was a solemn silence over the hills, in the middle of that dazzling bright afternoon, before our guns burst forth, precisely at half-past four. Reserves were drawn up behind the trenches in convenient spots, their officers chatting in groups. Rapidly the shells began to increase in number, and the anger of their explosions grew more intense as the volume of fire increased. Amidst the sharp report of our howitzers amongst the hills, and the field guns, came the prolonged, rumbling boom of the ships' fire.

There was no mistaking the earnestness of the Bacchante's fire. Yet, distributed over the whole of the lines, it did not seem that the bombardment was as intense as one expected. In fact, there came a time when I believed that it was finished before its time. One was glad for the break, for it stopped the fearful ear-splitting vibrations that were shaking one's whole body. Yet as the black smoke came over the top of the trenches and drifted down into the valleys behind, it gladdened the waiting men, knowing that each explosion meant, probably, so much less resistance of the enemy's trenches to break down. But to those waiting lines of troops the bombardment seemed interminably long, and yet not long enough. What if the Turks had known how our trenches were filled with men! But, then, what if they really knew the exact point and moment where and when the attack was to be made! So that while in one sense the shelling gave the Turks some idea of the attack, it actually told them very little. Such bombardments were not uncommon. Their gun fire had died down to a mere spitting of rifles here and there along a line, and an occasional rapid burst of machine-gun fire. A few, comparatively very few, shells as yet came over to our trenches and burst about the crests of the hills where our line extended.

It was ordered that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Battalions should form the first line, and the 1st Battalion the brigade reserve. The 1st Battalion was under Lieut.-Colonel Dobbin, the second under Lieut.-Colonel Scobie, the third under Lieut.-Colonel Brown, and the fourth under Lieut.-Colonel Macnaghton.

We were committed. At 5.30 came the avalanche. The artillery ceased. A whistle sharply blown was the signal prearranged. A score or more of other whistles sounded almost simultaneously. The officers, crouching each with his command under the parapets, were up then, and with some words like "Come, lads, now for the trenches!" were over our parapets, and in a long, more or less regular line the heavily-laden men commenced the dash across the dead ground between. They ran under the protection of the intense fire from our rifles and from our machine guns that swept their outer flanks; but it was impossible to fire or attempt any shooting over our advancing lines. The sun was still high enough to be in the eyes of the Turks, but they were ready to open rifle fire on the advancing line of khaki. With their machine guns, fortunately, they were less ready. They had the range for the parapet trenches, but not the intermediate line between, from which the first line of troops, 150 men about—50 from each of the three battalions—sped across the intervening space without very serious loss, the Turkish machine guns on this, as on most occasions, firing low.

The 2nd Battalion were on the extreme right, the 3rd in the centre, and the 4th Battalion occupied the left flank, adjacent to Owen's Gully. The men ran at full speed, so far as their equipment permitted, some stumbling, tripping over wires and unevennesses in the ground; others stumbling, hit with the bullets. A thousand dashes of brown earth, where the bullets struck, were flicked up right across that narrow patch. There was no cheer, just the steady advancing, unchecked line, till the men threw themselves on the first and second trenches. Barely a minute and they were across.

It must have been with a feeling akin to dismay that the gallant line found the Turks' overhead cover on their trenches was undamaged and extremely difficult to pierce. The first line, according to the arranged plan, ran right over the top of the first enemy trenches, and, reaching the second line, began to fire down on the bewildered Turks, regardless of the fact that enemy machine guns were playing on them all the time. This was how so many fell in the early charge. A very few managed at once to drop down into the trench. I know with what relief those watching saw them gain, after that stunning check, a footing. But the greater number could be seen lying on the face of the trench, or immediately beneath the sandbags under the loopholes. Like this they remained for a few minutes, searching for the openings that our guns must have made. Gradually, sliding down feet foremost into the trench, they melted away. Each man, besides the white arm-bands on his jacket, had a white square on his back. This badge was worn throughout the attacks during the first two days, as a distinguishing mark from the enemy in the dark; a very necessary precaution where so many different types of troops were engaged. This made the advancing line more conspicuous on a bare landscape. Men could be seen feverishly seeking a way into the trenches. One man rendered the most valuable service by working along the front of the Turkish trenches beneath the parapet, tearing down the loopholes that were made of clay and straw with his bayonet.

It was still only barely five minutes since the attack had commenced, yet the Turkish artillery had found our trenches, both the firing-line and the crest of the hill behind, and down into the gully. The whole hill shook under the terrific blows of the shells. Our replying artillery, six, eight, or more guns, firing in rapid succession over the heads of the men, and passing where the enemy's shells were bursting in the air, made in a brief five minutes an inferno that it seemed a matter of madness to suppose any one would escape.

Following hard on the heels of the first men from our trenches went a second line, those on the left suffering worse than on the right. Again some did not wait at the first trench, but rushed on to the second Turkish trench. Soon there appeared a little signal arm sending back some urgent call. It turned out to be for reinforcements. It was not evident at the time they were needed, but they went. Our firing-trenches were emptying rapidly now, and only an ordinary holding-line remained.

The Turkish guns lowered their range, and shrapnel burst over the intervening ground, across which troops, in spite, and in the face of it, must pass. Signallers ran lines of wires back and forth, only to have them cut and broken, and all their work to be done again. Five times they drew the reel across from the trench where the troops were fighting. You could gain little idea of what actually was happening in Lone Pine. Occasionally butts of rifles were uplifted. On the left flank, round the edge of the trenches on Johnston's Jolly, for a few minutes the Turkish bayonets glistened in the sun as men went along their trench, but whether they were hurrying to support their harried comrades or were the men our troops had turned in panic we could not see.

Then the wounded commenced to come back. They came back across the plateau, dripping with blood, minus all their equipment and their arms. Some fell as they came, only to be rescued hours afterwards. News was filtering back slowly. In a quarter of an hour we had won three trenches; at 6.30 we held them strongly after an hour of bloody fighting. Further reinforcements were dashing forward, taking advantage of what might seem a lull, but suffering far worse than their comrades. Shouted orders even could not be heard in the din; whistles would not penetrate.

In the midst of the whole attack one prayed that something would stop the vibrations that seemed to shake every one and everything in the vicinity. Our trenches were rent, torn, and flattened, and sandbags and debris piled up, blocking entrances and exits. Men worked heroically, clearing a way where they could. Doctors were in the trenches doing mighty work. Captain J. W. Bean went calmly hither and thither until wounded. Major Fullerton had gone with the first rush, had tripped, and fell. He was thought to be wounded, but went on and reached safely the Turkish trenches, where, for six hours, he was the only doctor on the spot.

Wounded men came pouring back to the dressing-station behind the hill in "Browne's Dip," where friends directed them down the hill. It seemed horrible to ask the men to go farther. The stretcher-bearers were carrying cases down. I saw them hit, and compelled to hand over stretchers to willing volunteers, who sprang up out of the earth. They were men waiting their turn to go forward. The ground was covered each minute with a dozen bursting shells within the small area I could see. The dirt, powdered, fell on our shoulders. The shrapnel, luckily bursting badly, searched harmlessly the slopes of a hill 40 yards away.

The great 6-inch howitzers of the enemy tore up the gully and hillside, sending stones and dirt up in lumps, any one of which would inflict a blow, if not a wound. They ripped an old graveyard to pieces. They tore round the dressing-station. We watched them on the hill amongst the trenches. Would our turn be next? No one knew. You could not hear except in a distant kind of way, for our guns fired at point-blank range, and their noise was even worse than the bursting shells. Yet when the call came, there rose from their dugouts another company of men of the 1st Battalion, and formed up and dashed for the comparative cover of a high bank of earth prior to moving off. The men went with their heads down, as they might in a shower of rain. A foul stench filled the air from explosives.

"Orderly, find Captain Coltman [machine-gun officer]!" called Major King, Brigade-Major. Away into the firing-line or towards it would go the messenger. "Orderly, Orderly!" and again a message would be sent to some section of the line. The officer giving these directions was a young man (he had already been wounded in the campaign). His face was deadly white and his orders crisp and clear. He dived into his office, only to come out again with a fresh message in his hand (ammunition was wanted) and dash off himself into the firing-line. He was back again in a few minutes to meet his Brigadier. They stood there in the lee, if one may so call it, of some sandbags (the office had been blown down) asking in terse sentences of the progress of the battle. "I think it is all right. They say they can hold on all right. They want reinforcements." I saw the signallers creeping over the hill, feeling for the ends of broken wires, trying to link up some of the broken threads, so that information could be quickly sought and obtained. Doctors I saw treating men as they passed, halting with a case of bandages; men past all help lay in a heap across the path leading into the sap. It was, after all, just a question of luck. You kept close into a bank, and with the shells tearing up the earth round you, hoped that you might escape. After a time there was so much else to think of, especially for the men fighting, that it was no time to think of the shells. They arrived with a swish and sickening explosion and a thud. Where the next was coming, except it was sure to be in the vicinity, was a matter for the Turks and Kismet. Men ran like rabbits and half fell, half tumbled into the dugouts. Somehow the whole thing reminded me of people coming in out of a particularly violent storm. Once in the firing-line, the shells were going overhead, and curiously enough one felt safe, even in the midst of the dead and dying.

To look with a periscope for a minute over the top of the parapet. The machine guns were traversing backwards and forwards, not one, but five or six of them. I was with Captain Coltman. He went from end to end of the line, inspecting our machine guns. Some were firing, others were cooling, waiting a target, or refitting, rectifying some temporary trouble caused by a bullet or a shell. Men were watching with periscopes at the trenches. It was exactly an hour since the battle had begun, and the Turkish trenches, now ours, were almost obscured by the battle smoke and the coming night. Yet I could just see the men rushing on. The 1st Battalion reinforcement launched out at 6.20 to consolidate the position and strengthen the shattered garrison. They disappeared into the trenches. In some cases the best entrance had been gained by tearing away the sandbags and getting in under the overhead cover. I was down a tunnel that led to our advanced firing-line when I faintly heard the men calling, "There goes another batch of men!" I could hear a more wicked burst of fire from the enemy's machine guns, and then the firing died down, only to be renewed again in a few minutes. In the captured trenches a terrible bomb battle was being fought. Gradually the Turks were forced back down their own communication trenches, which we blocked with sandbags. By 6.30 the message came back, "Everything O.K.," and a little later, "Have 70 prisoners." These men were caught in a tunnel before they could even enter the battle.

Cheerful seems hardly the right word to use at such a grim time, yet the men who were behind the machine guns, ready to pop them above the trenches for a moment and then drop them again before the enemy could blow them to pieces, never were depressed, except when their gun was out of action. Soon they got others to replace them. They were watching—so were the men round them, with bayonets fixed, in case the Turks drove us back from Lone Pine. As we made our way along the old firing-line, it meant bobbing there while the bullets welted against the sandbags and the earth behind you. You were covered every few yards with debris from bursting shells. The light was fading rapidly. The sun had not quite set. The last departing rays lit up the smoke of the shells like a furnace, adding to the grim horribleness of the situation.

Of the inner fighting of those first two hours in the Turkish trenches little can be written till all the stories are gathered up and tangled threads untied, if ever that is possible. But certain facts have been revealed. Major Stevens, who was second in command of the 2nd Battalion, was charging down a Turkish trench when he saw a Turk about 2 yards from him in a dugout. He called over his shoulder to the men following him to pass up a bomb, and this was thrown and the Turk killed. Then Major Stevens came face to face with a German officer at the mouth of the tunnel. In this tunnel were some 70 Turks. The Australian was fired at point-blank by the German, but the shot missed its mark and the officer was shot dead by a man following Stevens. The Turks in the tunnel surrendered. They had gone there on the commencement of the bombardment, as was their custom, and had not had time to man the trenches before the Australians were on them. The first warning that had been given, it was learned from a captured officer, was when the sentries on duty called, "Here come the English!"

Farther down the trench a party of Australians were advancing against the Turks, who were shielded by a traverse. The first Australian that had run down, with his bayonet pointed, had come face to face with five of the enemy. Instinctively he had taken protection behind the traverse. He had called on his mates, and then ensued one of the scores of incidents of that terrible trench fight when the men slew one another in mortal combat. Their dead bodies were found in piles.

Captain Pain, 2nd Battalion, with a party of three men, each holding the leg of a machine gun, propped himself up in the middle of one trench and fired down on to the Turks, massed for a charge, till suddenly a bullet killed one of the party, wounded Pain, and the whole gun collapsed.

The Turks had in one case a machine gun firing down the trench, so that it was impossible for us to occupy it. By using one of the many communication trenches that the Turks had dug a party managed to work up close enough to bomb the Turks from the flank, compelling them to retire. Every man and every officer can repeat stories like these of deeds that won the Australians the day; but, alas! many of those brave men died in the trenches which they had captured at the bayonet's point.

At seven o'clock, when the first clash of arms had passed, the enemy made their first violent and concerted effort to regain their lost trenches. It was a furious onslaught, carried on up the communication trenches by a veritable hail of bombs. In some places we gave way, in others we drove back the enemy farther along his trenches. From the north and the south the enemy dashed forward with fixed bayonets. They melted away before our machine guns and our steady salvos of bombs. The Australians stuck to their posts in the face of overwhelming numbers—four to one: they fought right through the night, and as they fought, strove to build up cover of whatever material came nearest to hand. Thousands of sandbags were used in making good that position. Companies of the 12th Battalion were hurried up towards midnight to strengthen the lines, rapidly diminishing under the fury of the Turkish attack. But these men found a communication-way open to them to reach the maze of the enemy's position.

Our mines, that had been exploded at the head of the three tunnels mentioned earlier, had formed craters, from which the sappers, under Colonel Elliott and Major Martyn, began to dig their way through to the captured positions. Only two of these tunnels were opened up that night, just six hours after the trenches had been won. The parties dug from each end: they toiled incessantly, working in shifts, with almost incredible speed. It was the only way to get relief for the wounded; to go across the open, as many of the gallant stretcher-bearers, signallers, and sappers did, was to face death a thousand times from the Turkish shrapnel. So part tunnel, part trench, the 80 yards was sapped and the wounded commenced to be brought in in a steady stream.

It took days to clear the captured trenches. Australians and Turks lay dead, one on top of the other, three or four deep. All it was possible to do was to fill these trenches in. That night down the tunnel on the right kept passing ammunition, bombs—some 3,000 were used in the course of the first few hours—water, food, rum for the fighters, picks, shovels, and machine guns. Every half-hour the Turks came on again, shouting "Allah!" and were beaten back. The resistance was stubborn. It broke eventually the heart of the Turks.

Officers and men in that first horrible night performed stirring deeds meriting the highest honour. The names of many will go unrecorded except as part of that glorious garrison. It was a night of supreme sacrifice, and the brigade made it, to their everlasting honour and renown.