Trooper Bluegum at the Dardanelles: Descriptive Narratives of the More Desperate Engagements on the Gallipoli PeninsulaHogue, Oliver
History
Trooper Bluegum at the Dardanelles: Descriptive Narratives of the More Desperate Engagements on the Gallipoli Peninsula
Hogue, Oliver
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Turkey -- Gallipoli Peninsula; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, Australian
The New Zealand and Australian Division had made a most gallant attack
on the hills occupied by the Turks. Pressing home the attack with the
bayonet, they drove the enemy from trench to trench and from ridge
to ridge. Deeds of valour were performed day after day and night
after night. Heroes died on every side, with no historian to tell how
gallantly they died. One of these young Australians was wounded in the
charge, and lay some distance behind the advanced position. It was then
that two fighting parsons came along a communication trench, which was
comparatively safe from rifle fire, but offered little protection from
shrapnel. From a slight hollow they saw the wounded man, in evident
agony, raise his hand, and try to move. Captain Gillison and Corporal
Pittenrigh--who is a Methodist minister when not a soldier--decided
to try to effect a rescue, though they knew a machine-gun was trained
on the trench, and had been warned to beware of snipers. Mounting the
parapet, they crawled along some distance towards the wounded man. A
couple of bullets zipped by, but they pushed on. More bullets flew, and
both the rescuers were wounded.
Then they tried to regain the shelter of the trench, and Gillison was
wounded again, but his companion managed to scramble in. Mortally
wounded in the chest and the side, the poor chaplain lay in the open,
but was soon carried in and conveyed to the field hospital. He was
conscious for a while and cheerful, though he knew his hours were
numbered. He was able to greet Chaplains F. Colwell and G. T. Walden,
who had just arrived with Colonel Holmes's Australian Brigade, and
Chaplain J. M. Dale of Brisbane. Before two o'clock he was dead, dying
as he had lived, a gallant Christian soldier.
That night, wrapped in a Union Jack, he was buried. It was bright
moonlight. Out in the Ægean the warships and hospital ships lay
passive. Back in the hills sounded the ceaseless rattle of musketry.
Chaplain-Colonel E. N. Merrington conducted a brief service, at which
were chaplains of all denominations and several officers and men of his
brigade and battalion. The little shallow grave lies a couple of miles
north of Anzac, on the edge of the five-mile beach that stretches on to
Suvla Bay. As with the hero of Corunna, "we carved not a line, and we
raised not a stone--but we left him alone with his glory." His comrades
went back to the firing-line with the memory of his self-sacrifice to
cheer them on. And we thought then of Longfellow's beautiful lines--
Dust thou art, to dust returneth,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Soon the battalion will erect a little wooden cross over his grave--one
more of those little wooden crosses that are so numerous on Gallipoli.
We who knew and loved him will never forget Andrew Gillison.
CHAPTER XXII
SERGEANTS THREE
PARKES, TRESILIAN, ELLIS--POSITION OF THE NON-COMS.--THE "FIGHTING
SIXTH"--THE GERMAN SPY AGAIN--EASILY BEATS THE CENSOR--WHAT THE
NIGGERS KNEW ABOUT US--PADDY RYAN'S LUCK
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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