Item 02: From Australia to Gallipoli, ca. 1916 / Dudley V. Walford - Page 37

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[Page 37]

Walker's Ridge – Pope's Hill – Quinn's Post

one occasion our position looked like falling when, just in the nick of time, two machine gun sections hastily erected their maxims on either flank under terrific rifle fire. These machine guns did excellent work, literally annihilating the Turks as they advanced up the slopes, and our own men taking advantage of the situation regained the lost ground after a bayonet charge to which the Turks offered little or no resistance. A series of advancements and retirements were generally a result of the fighting which took place during the remainder of the day until nightfall, when it was found necessary for us to take up a line situated slightly to the rear. This afforded us the opportunity of making use of some of the captured Turkish trenches in which the New Zealanders, and the various units of the Australian divisions who had become intermingled took up this temporary line of defence for the night.

To these trenches our men stuck determinedly awaiting with feverish anxiety for any Turk's attack which fortunately for us never came.

At dawn the fighting again became open, and the Turks who had become by that time steadily reinforced gave much trouble and anxiety. Our positions men who were entrench along the line of the hill were offering vigorous opposition, while the stray bullets passing over their heads, lodged amongst our reserves who were lying in the open behind cover of the shrub, and not a man under moved a muscle.

I remember once an order being passed along the line from mouth to mouth, and men shouting into the

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