Item 02: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett articles on the Gallipoli campaign, 1915 - Page 81

You are here

Transcription

[Page 81]

advanced trench it is little more than a shallow ditch providing hardly any cover. We are in fact almost at the top of the Gully Ravine. But who will ever forget the secnes they witnessed in the captured Turkish Trenches on either side and in the Ravine itself the day after they were taken by our infantry. The first obstacles one came upon was a solid hedge of barbed wire placed right across the Gully fastened to solud stakes of wood which our engineers were busily engaged in cutting through to open a road for reinforcements and transport beyond. Our troops made no effort on the 28th to pass this way for they captured the high ground on either side and the Turks in the Ravine were either killed or fled.

But what are those awful looking black shapeless objects entangled in the wire and surrounded by a swarm of buzzing excited restless flies. At first they look like bags of old rubbish but on closer Inspection you see they are decaying bodies which have lain there for weeks. They can only be identified by their long hair which steams out in the gentle breeze showing they are some of our brave Sikhs who reached this point in one of the earlier attacks and who must have hurled themselves on the wire and were shot trying to tear it asunder. Beyond is a dirty pool of green water. It is full of bits of Turks all apparently odd limbs torn to bits by our high explosive shells. They too must have perished in one of the earlier engagements proabaly they fell at the same hour as the gallant Sikhs. On either side close by are neatly made shelters covered in with brushwood only vacated the day before where the Turkish officers and me found shelter from the scorching sun. How they could eat

This page has its status set to Completed and is no longer transcribable.