The 42nd (East Lancashire) Division 1914-1918Gibbon, Frederick P.
History
The 42nd (East Lancashire) Division 1914-1918
Gibbon, Frederick P.
Great Britain. Army. Division, 42nd; World War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories -- Great Britain
A new nomenclature had now to be learnt and to be created. Fusilier
Bluff, Geoghegan’s Bluff, the Gridiron, the Birdcages, Border, Essex,
Hampshire, Lancashire, Douglas, Frith, Ashton, Burnley Streets or Roads
soon became familiar signs. The derivation of most of the names is
sufficiently obvious, but the “Eski Line” puzzled the men until some
genius among them propounded the brilliant theory that “it’s the pet
name of one of the Staff-officer’s wives.” As it was understood that
he meant “of the wife of one of the Staff-officers,” the illuminating
suggestion was adopted as satisfactory, and men were heard to murmur the
name _Eski_ ecstatically. Gully Ravine took the place of Krithia Nullah
as the main road to the firing-line. The bed of the gully in September
and October was deep in loose red sand which made very heavy going for
tired troops, but when the mud came one sighed for the vanished sand. The
transport was frequently thigh-deep in liquid mud in those evil days. On
both sides stretched the horse and mule lines, and stores and dumps were
placed at suitable spots. At the last bend of the gully a wag erected
a cairn and labelled it _Third Tower_. This was hailed with delight by
parties changing over, as all men who had trained on the Cairo—Suez Road
understood that the end of their journey was close at hand. A thirty-yard
rifle-range was constructed in the ravine for the training of the
reinforcements from the third line, who had had little or no experience
of the service rifle, and the modest beginning of a Divisional School
came into being in one of the small offshoot gullies where Major Fawcus
held his bombing-class.
A “rest” was more of a reality in the new area, and it was comparatively
safe, but in Gallipoli the word _rest_ held a very different significance
from that attached to it at home. It had now become too closely
associated with hard work to be really popular, and the _dolce far
niente_ illusion had been quite dispelled. It meant heavy fatigues day
and night, much digging, the unloading of lighters and the carrying
of heavy loads; but a Beach Fatigue had its compensations, for it was
possible at times to get a bathe if one was not too fastidious to object
to coal-dust and refuse from lighters, nor to the close companionship
of the dead horses and mules that floated around. These were constantly
being towed out to sea, but the homing instinct, or the current, brought
them back again. “W” Beach even boasted a canteen (run by enterprising
Greeks), and men who had time to spare and were possessed of patience
might, after waiting for hours in a queue, come back with a bit of
chocolate and a tin of fruit—rare and precious luxuries. One day would-be
purchasers found the military police in possession. The Greeks had been
arrested as spies, and were not seen again. In due course the Division
ran its own popular canteen on Gully Beach.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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