Eyewitness Read Online Free PDF

its exit on the further slope. I got a photo from this exit, but a man seemed to be sniping in at it from the other side of the valley – the men at the exit were well tucked into the sides of it so I didn’t stay there. I waited tucked up in the trench – and the shrapnel began to plump in salvos of four shots regularly into the backs of the men lying out on the opposite side of the valley. You could hear the shots going overhead and see the burst, I think, sometimes. It went on with monotonous regularity – apparently never-ending and one began to think the chaps there must be having an awful time. I couldn’t get a man from Jock’s battalion – every other sort seemed to go through the trench. A number of New Zealanders came along it and filled it up, with some officers and orders seemed to be passed along from a Col. Plugge at the back. There was a signaller in the trench, the reader in the trench with a telescope and the sender somewhere on the face of the slope outside. I knew – I don’t know how, but one guessed from the way those guns were firing, unhindered by any firing at all of ours, that the troops were being very severely tried. It was sickening to hear it. I thought there was only a party of troops on the further ridge but it was the main line of our men really. One could tell something from the messages passed along. A request came back (from 1 st Brig., I think) to know how the other landings were getting on. That meant they wanted something cheerful to tell the troops, I knew. I am not sure it didn’t come along twice …
    The afternoon wore on and I suddenly saw men crossing the trench a little way to my right – amongst them was Col. Owen. I wished afterwards I had gone alone and spoken to him – that was really my chance and I should have found Jack; but he was some way away and I didn’t. The shelling went on and on – of course a good many bullets were nipping overhead – you heard the whistle and the low scrub just above the trench bank looked pretty dangerous …
    It was getting on towards evening so I decided to go on and find 3 rd Bn, if I could, myself. I went along the trench to near the mouth, jumped out, and ran across the top and at once found myself in a little dip in the front side of the hill. There were a few men there, all lying down under the brow of the slope. On the edge of the slope was standing – I think he came up at that moment – Evans, the machine-gun officer of the 3 rd Bn … and I told him I was glad to see he wasn’t hit. I lay down under the cover of the edge of the ridge – it was slight cover – but he sat up on the edge of it all by himself, treating the bullets as if they did not exist, and they were pretty thick. The men were lying down pretty closely and I did the same. He didn’t know where Jock’s dressing station was and the men of the 3 rd Bn with him didn’t either. (I think it must have been in that very place to start off with.) As I lay there a lot of New Zealanders came up the hill and lined this ridge to left and right: the firing seemed to be heavy away to our left all the time and I couldn’t help thinking that the Turks were getting round our left flank … As we were lying there six guns just behind us somewhere opened over our heads with a delicious salvo. It was like a soothing draught of water to hear those guns blaze at the Turks …
    I went down and found H.Q. about dinner time. I thought I noticed the fellows seemed rather quiet with me – I couldn’t help wondering if they had heard that anything was wrong with Jock. After dinner – I forget what time – Col. White told me that he had seen Jock. ‘He was very cheerful – I don’t think Howse thinks he’s been badly hit,’ he said. That was the first I heard of it. Howse told me he had seen him and he never saw a wounded man better – not the least sign of collapse. ‘I don’t think the bullet hit any important part,’ he said. ‘It was still in – but I