Gallipoli by Richard van Emden

Author:Richard van Emden
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408856161
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

A dead Turkish sniper: his hide was located days after the landing, and close to the British camp at W Beach.

Not every man ceremoniously placed beneath a blanket on a stretcher was dead. In the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers one private was found to have stolen a rum jar and had imbibed more than his normal rations, much more.

Second Lieutenant Roy Laidlaw, 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers, 29th Division

General Hunter-Weston, popularly known as ‘Hunter Bunter’, who was much given to dramatic attitudes, came round on an inspection of the trenches. The NCO in charge of his section, realising the man’s condition and hearing that the General was even then on his way round, had the brilliant idea of having the man laid out on a stretcher with a blanket thrown over him. On seeing the stretcher and blanket, the General drew himself up to his full height and threw a magnificent salute, saying loudly ‘Your General salutes the glorious dead’. To our consternation a voice from beneath the blanket said equally loudly ‘What’s the old bugger saying?’ We managed to bustle Hunter Bunter round the next traverse on the plea that a sniper had it under observation, before any awkward questions could be asked.

Lieutenant George Horridge, 1/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, 42nd Division

I decided I was going to speak to the Quartermaster Major Cremen in his den on the bank of Krithia Nullah and see if I could get some extra food. The approach had to be carefully planned because the QM was a tough regular soldier and certainly wouldn’t yield anything out of the store without the utmost persuasion. It was pretty well known that his soft spots were (1) commiseration about his wound he had received by being hit with the nose cap of a shrapnel shell on his arm, which wasn’t bad enough to be evacuated from the Peninsula and (2) his love of cricket and visits to Old Trafford. One afternoon, I paid him a visit in his dugout and started the softening-up process. All seemed to go well and in half an hour I had got to the stage of asking for a little extra food, saying how hungry I was. ‘Really, Horridge, are you so hungry?’ and sent for the quartermaster sergeant. ‘Mr Horridge says he is very hungry and I have told him that if he will bring a sandbag down here at one o’clock in the morning you will fill it for him.’ This was great news and I went back to Cecil [a fellow officer] glowing with the excitement of a job well done. We were elated and at 4.30 we were sitting in our little hole in the ground thinking of food and how lovely it would be eating it. At five o’clock my Company Commander sent for all officers and gave us orders for a battle that was to start the next day. ‘The Company will move up into the front line and the move will begin at 10 p.m. tonight.’ That

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