World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Turkey -- Gallipoli Peninsula
We arrive at the gully, riding on to the beach down the winding road.
It is a beautiful starlight night. The gully and its slopes are
illuminated by a host of little lights from the dugouts of various H.Q.
signal stations, dressing stations, etc., all unseen by the enemy; but
from the sea they look like the lights of a small fishing town nestling
in the shelter of gorse-covered irregular cliffs. I call at Brigade
H.Q. and then at a dressing station, where some cheery R.A.M.C. fellows
give me a whisky and soda. Afterwards I accompany Cooke, who is in
charge of a convoy to fetch ammunition, up to Pink Farm. We ride up the
high road on to the high land, and after being stopped now and again by
the “’Alt, ’oo are you?” of a sentry, arrive at the ammunition depot
near Pink Farm, in Trafalgar Square. There we load up with ammunition,
which we cart along Artillery Road, meeting the gully half-way, dip
down, and, our loads disposed of, we ride back home, arriving there at
2 a.m. Cooke persuades me to stop at his dugout and have a “nightcap,”
which I do.
He has built for himself a nice cosy room, dug in on the cliff-side.
Sitting there in the early hours of the morning, I am reminded of
that whisky and soda most men enjoy at 2 o’clock in the morning when
arriving home from a dance. He has made a dug-out stable for his horse,
and invites me to leave mine there for the night, to save me the fag
of taking him back to his lines, and to enable me to take the shortcut
back to the dugout, which is but a little way along the cliff towards
“W” Beach. I therefore tie up my horse, water him, and give him a
little hay, and go back along the cliff to bed.
_August 2nd._
I am up at 6 a.m. on duty at the depot, drawing men’s rations from the
main supply for to-day’s issue. I pass our lines and find my horse,
which I had left at Cooke’s stable last night, standing in his proper
place again. He had disagreed with my leaving him in a strange stable
and had found his way back to his own lines and into his proper place
by some means only known to horses. A horse is not such a fool as some
people imagine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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