The Canterbury Scouts were all South Islanders, like myself, born and raised in hill country. In actual fact, the terrain between the Apex and Chunuk Bair was so much like New Zealand you could barely tell one from the other, except that it was green back there and brown up here.
With Calvin Norman safely gone, Chester and Modi figured they could manage without me. Once more I went around Major General Godley, directly to Brodhead, requesting a transfer to the Kiwi All-Blacks.
"I see that Colonel Malone and Major Hubble have both countersigned this request, Landers. There is a chain of command here, you know. You chaps have been running your own private war ever since Egypt."
I put on my most sincere face, which Brodhead recognized as that of a confidence man.
"Well, you see, sir," I said, "if you live in hill country you come to realize that you can always find a hole to slip through. The Ravine has a thousand twists and turns in it through rising and valley ground. After all, sir, I did manage to plot out the trail maps."
"And you have a fanciful notion you're going to locate a back door to Chunuk Bair Plateau."
"If it's to be found, we'll find it."
"You're such a liar, I'd swear you were Irish," Brodhead said, approving my transfer. I took the paper with mixed emotions, never having heard that kind of remark from him.
Apparently I was just what jeremy needed. Reconn A needed another officer, a trail man, like myself. We split the platoon in half, making a Reconn B unit and rotated leading patrols into the Ravine.
I spotted a clunky sort of lad, Lance Corporal Willumsen, who turned from human to vampire by night. Willumsen could see better in the dark than in daylight. I kept him on my right wing all the time.
The Turks weren't too frisky in the Ravine during the day. They didn't have to be. They had two positions that covered the Ravine floor-Beauchop Hill and the Farm.
By night, however, the Turk had to send in patrols to ward off sneak attacks by ourselves into the foothills of Chunuk Bair.
Willumsen was a fairly new replacement, not yet given to the "Gallipoli gallops" and other infirmities...he was healthy and with a brick-load of strength. We worked his as off. Jeremy would take him into the Ravine one night and me, the next. Each time in, old snake eyes would wiggle his way closer to the bottom of the plateau.
At the end of a week, Willumsen, myself, and fifteen men from Reconn B had settled at the bottom of a steep hill that turned to a cliff directly under Chunuk Bair.
Oh Ma, do we do or do we don't!
"We'll go up, just a few yards at a time," I said into his ear. "If we hear any activity, freeze. We do not want to engage them. Got it?"
His idea of slow and steady and my idea of slow and steady were not at all the same. He scampered up like a jack rabbit. Jesus now...I had no choice but to try to stay in his footsteps....
Just like that!
We were hauling each other up like Alpine climbers. Suddenly, out of the sheer crumbling dirt and lying there in the tall brown grass-Jesus, Mary, Mother of God...we were on Chunuk Bair!
Willumsen slithered his slimy best so a mongoose would not find him and I kept watching his heel and tried to stay on it. We went in a hell of a-ways, maybe twenty-five yards, and the field opened.
The light was right fair. There were no visible fortifications such as the Turks had at the Chessboard, Bloody Angle, and the Nek, which made Quinn's Post so inhospitable. Nor was there the carnage of battle.
It was bloody simple. So long as the Turks had an impenetrable moat, the Ravine, protecting the plateau, they didn't have to keep much of a force on top and expose them to a pounding from the naval guns.
Let's get the hell out of here!
Next morning at Joshua Malone's bunker, the Major, Jeremy, and I watched as Willumsen's dirty fingernail traced a route through the Ravine to the spot he and I had gone up on the plateau.
"God," Malone whispered, "this is the top of the milk. What's your name, son?"
"Lance Corporal Willumsen, sir."
"You're not going to sell any secrets to the Turks, are you now?"
"Are you shitting me, Colonel?"
"Willumsen, you are now on a 'need to know' clearance. Lads, are we going to be able to take the Kiwi All-Black Battalion through the Ravine at night without detection?"
"The Turks don't like the Ravine at night," Chris said.
"I agree," Jeremy added. "Every time we engage them they pull out. I think they patrol the Ravine as a matter of routine."
"Problem as I see it," Chris said, "the Turks are watching the Apex down to Rhododendron Spur very closely."
"But suppose," Colonel Malone went on, "you withdraw Kiwi from the line at dark and are replaced, then Kiwi moves behind our own lines north, past Beauchop Hill. Keep moving up to Australia Valley and then come down the Ravine on the second night to the base of Chunuk Bair to attack on the third morning."
"That's a long walk with a thousand men without being seen," Chris said.
"The question we have to ask Lance Corporal Willumsen is whether or not he can lead us down the Ravine in the dark, and I've got to tell you, the climb up to Chunuk is a man-killer," I said.
"Just why are we going to try something like this, sir?" Jeremy asked. "We know the Turks keep several divisions of reserves behind Chunuk Bair."
Colonel Joshua Malone eyeballed us. "Grab your girdles, lads. In five days the British are landing a corps of four divisions at Suvla Bay."
"Four divisions!"
"About time!"
"Glory!"
"My Gawd!"
"I see that you heard me," Malone said, going back to the map and pointing to Suvla Bay, a few miles up the coast onto gently rising land leading up to a semicircle ring of ridges.
"The Turks do not keep much on Ridge 269, because there's been no need to, and their reserves are below. So...the Suvla Corps lands, pushes quickly up to 269, while we launch a surprise assault on Chunuk Bair. Suvla Corps then connects with our left flank. Then, let the bloody Turks try to throw us off."
We studied Suvla Bay with its soft rise and salt lake to the easy height of Ridge 269.
"Suvla Bay," Malone said, thinking aloud, "is where the fuck we should have landed in the first place."
Our excitement sent us shivering with hope. If we could nail the Turks on this one, it would have all been worth it. The lot of us, including Lance Corporal Willumsen, went down to Corps where he detailed the prospective long march of the Kiwi All-Blacks to General Brodhead.
The final plan was so simple that it would be difficult for even the general staff to fuck up.
We'd do our night crawl down the Ravine to the foot of Chunuk Bair, gather the Kiwi All-Blacks at the base of the plateau, and wait.
Under dark, the ships of the Suvla Bay Corps would get into place and anchor.
At 0230 the Navy would hit the entire Turkish line including the Chunuk Bair Plateau. Whatever Turkish troops were up there were bound to drop behind the plateau until the shelling stopped. However, we would be climbing up at that point to beat them to the plateau at dawn.
At dawn, our entire line would attack. Aussies in the south would make their main attacks at the German Officers' Trench and across a narrow ridge called the Nek. These were diversionary attacks to pin down a large Turkish force and draw Turkish reserves to them.
The British Tenth, Eleventh, Fifty-third, and Fifty-fourth divisions, known as the Suvla Corps, would land unopposed at Suvla Bay and immediately push a mile or two inland and capture Ridge 269.
At the same time, the Kiwi All-Blacks would occupy Chunuk Bair Plateau, and Kiwi and the Suvla Bay Corps would connect lines.
Colonel Malone would then release several brigades of New Zealanders to cross the Ravine and reinforce us atop Chunuk Bair.
The Aussie would link up with our flank from the south.
We'd dig in by night.
On the second day, the Turks would counterattack, but troops from the Suvla Corps would continue to land and reinforce our lines.
We left Corps feeling exalted. It was your basic bread-and-butter plan. I was wondering whether or not we had enough stamina, guts, vinegar, and what have you to make the march, the climb, and then still be able to throw back the Turks.
Well, we'd soon find out.
No one knew the back of our lines better than my good self, so I led Reconn B down behind Rhododendron Spur. Colonel Malone kept Lance Corporal Willumsen alongside him as though he were a St. Christopher medal.
Although we should be out of sight of Turkish eyes, we traversed friendly terrain behind the lines with great caution. If we met an enemy patrol, Reconn B was to chase them off before they could get a look at the entire battalion. We played it tight, using this time to tape up anything rattling on the web belts and practice speaking through hand signals and semaphore. Reconn B moved a few yards at a time from safe point to safe point. Within an hour or two, it became like a dance. I was at the head of the line for this part of the journey....
By afternoon you couldn't hear a sound. I watched at every stop to see that we weren't giving off telltale dust. Nothing. Lovely...lovely.
At dark we stopped briefly under Beauchop Hill where a store of water had been laid in. It was brought down to us and we refilled our canteens and kept moving.
I held up the line! Fucking Turks were creeping down a dry river bed...God, they could wake up a dead man...I called for us to lay low and only fire after I gave the first shot...and I didn't give the first shot until they were close enough to eat our lunch...
They never knew what hit them. We crept from body to body making certain they were dead. It had to be done by bayonet so as not to make any further noise.
I went back to Malone and suggested we hold up the line for forty minutes. Sometimes the Turks doubled up on their patrols, with the second one larger than the first. Nothing came.
We moved out, still in good time.
The colors of dawn found the Kiwi All-Blacks strung out on the banks of a dry river bed called Australia Valley. We were still behind our own lines but very observable.
Being a dry gulch, the river bed had good high brush on either side. The officers went up and down the line adjusting the men so we would have the day in cover and shade.
I gave Malone the best of the cover for his headquarters, a sort of temple of five boulders that had probably rolled down the hill a million years ago. He was an inspiring sight, indeed. After we made rounds we reported to him that we were satisfied Kiwi could not be seen by the enemy.
How can I say it? He was Wellington New Zealand-Auckland New Zealand-South Island-Milford Sound-Palmerston North....
He was the kind of man, like Uncle Wally, who shook your hand and made you feel his grip and you knew his word was as strong as that grip. He was a man of straightforward values, but he also knew the inside cover of a fine book and the intricacies of battle.
We made one more run-through of the plan. I must have fallen asleep sitting up over the map because the next thing I knew, Jeremy was tapping my shoulder.
Jeez, I'd just gone to sleep and it was turning dark, already. I hefted my canteens and pondered if I could treat myself to a few sips, and did. We chewed on hardened chocolate bars, like pressed wood...supposed to give us energy.
Everything had a good feel to it. Although we were in a different location, it seemed like a normal night on Gallipoli. Farting Ferdinand started the party. Then came Turkish howitzers. Good. They were shooting from a different location than last night. This meant they were occupied during the day moving their guns and hadn't spotted Kiwi. Except for the brush along the banks, Australia Gully was not particularly sheltered. If they knew we were there, they'd certainly be laying it on us now.
Lance Corporal Willumsen was the hairy man now. He took the point. Jeremy was behind him with half of Reconn A. I followed with the second part of the platoon, Reconn B.
"We're formed up, Colonel."
"Don't let the line get strung out. We assemble at the top of the Ravine."
Willumsen put on his night eyes as we crept from Anzac lines into Turkish Territory. The Kiwi All-Blacks were glorious. You couldn't hear voice nor rattle.
2015.
Top of the Ravine Reconn A and B held as the battalion tightened up.
Subaltern Higby brought up the First Platoon of the Auckland Company with an extra pair of machine guns. Our first target was to knock out a crucial Turkish position, an observation post called the Farm that guarded the opening to the Ravine from the western side.
As the raiding party took off, Subaltern Mellencamp brought the Fourth Platoon of the Wellingtons up, had them fix bayonets, and move into the Ravine to seek and destroy any Turkish patrols.
2125.
The Ravine's echoes were voluminous. Mellencamp was hit by a Turkish ambush a few hundred yards in. Chris quickly moved in the Maori Company and they overwhelmed the Turks and abandoned the silence with a haka war cry.
...At the same time Higby had achieved total surprise at the Farm, knocking it out in one big burst.
...Higby in, Mellencamp and the Maoris back.
...Malone kept the Maoris right in back of Reconn, expecting the Turks to take a big look in the Ravine. Old Joshua was right! Wham! Fifty Turks! The Maoris, at fixed bayonets, plunged into them while the Wellington Company swung around the battle and got behind the Turks.
No Turks escaped.
We assembled, once more. It was 2350. Would the Turks come again or call it a night? When would they know for certain that the Farm had been taken? We had a small comfort in that the Turkish phones were even worse than ours were, so they might not become alarmed at the loss of contact. Activity in the Ravine? About normal for a heavy night.
"Well, let's get in there," Malone said. "We won't have to speculate long. They'll know in another hour and a half what we're up to when the Navy starts."
We moved a little more quickly now, and not so wary of maintaining silence. Abdul knew we were in the Ravine...we only hoped he didn't know how many of us were there.
0130.
There she is!
Steep, soft earth rivulets worn by centuries of water during the rainy season into perilous chimney-stack formations at the base of a dirty cliff.
Malone and Chris huddled with us for a big decision. Willumsen, Jeremy, and I could get Reconn up to the base of the cliff fore certain, so we wouldn't have far to climb at dawn. This could give total surprise.
However, we stood more than a fair chance of getting hit by our own shells if they fell short, as they often did. However-and this is some bloody "however"-the closer we climbed to the plateau and waited, the shorter distance we'd have to go at dawn and the greater the chance of effecting surprise.
"Always in a case of not knowing whether to shit or go blind," Malone said, "I opt for closing one eye and farting. We're going to lose some men falling before you get to the base of the cliff."
We agreed.