Volume 2: Letters written on active service, M-W, 1914-1919 - Page 59
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 59]
The explosion threw up a lot of earth and buried some of our sappers alive, and injured some of our men in the trenches, and shook the whole of the top of the hill where I was. Our chaps threw bombs and drove the Turks back again to their own trenches. We lost some men but the Turks losses were much heavier. The attack was general, but the main attack was on Quinn's Post.
When things quietened down a bit we got the dead out of the trenches and laid them on the hillside at the back of our supporting trench. This heap of dead was a ghastly sight in the daytime as most of them were fearfully mangled with bombs. Our Colonel (Burnage) was wounded on the arm by a bomb.
We were relieved about 4 p.m. by the Light Horse, and went down the valley for a spell. The Sergeant, my mate in dug out, was wounded while having a wash in a biscuit town [tin]; taken down to the valley to doctor. Most of the battalion have gone to the rest camp. Doctor Clayton of the 4th Field Ambulance sent me on a mine sweeper to Lemnos, where we boarded the Cunard liner for Alexandria Egyptian Hospital.
Above is a copy of short notes I made in my note book from time to time. I expect to be out of here and back in the firing line inside a fortnight. I have been remarkably lucky so far, having had very close shaves time out of number. There is a lot of luck in it. Chaps have been shot dad right alongside me, but I have escaped so far. However, there is a long way to go yet.
[Lieutenant Colonel Granville John Burnage, 13th infantry Battalion.
Captain, later Major, Henry John (Harry) Clayton, 4th Field Ambulance.]
[Private F.T. Makinson was evacuated to Egypt and thence to France in August 1916, where he was killed in action on 29 August 1916.]