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One after the other she took on the Turkish guns along Sari Bair and swept the skyline with them. A message of relief and thankfulness came out to us from the shore. Seeing how much they loved us or rather our Long Toms we hung around until about half-past eight smothering the enemy's guns whenever they dared show their snouts.
"It can't last long," they said. "We've only to climb one of them two hills either Sari Bair on the Suvla front, or old Achi Baba at Helles and the trick's done. From the top of either of 'em we shall look down upon the Narrows, and blow their forts to glory. Up'll go the Navy, and there y'are!" It would be over by Christmas, they believed; for Christmas was always the pivot of Tommy's time.
He charges it to appear in human shape, which it did. The appearance made a tryst to meet the groom, but Mr. Shaw forbade this tampering with evil in the lykness of a bair. However a stone was thrown at the groom, which he took for a fresh invitation from the bair, so he went to the place appointed.
Presumably, one of those hill-tops, just visible, was old Achi Baba, which had defeated the invaders of Helles; and another, Sari Bair, beneath which lay the invaders of Suvla, wondering if they, too, had been beaten by a paltry hill. The entrancing sight was bound to work upon Doe's nature.
"This Suvla army, unless it can get to the top of Sari Bair, is faced with destruction, and they tell me the Helles army is just the same, unless it can get to the top of Achi Baba. It never will now, sir. And how can we quit without being seen from those hills? The 'Uns know they've got us trapped. That's why they're coming through Servia, ammunition and all. They'll be on us soon."
"The attack from Anzac after a series of desperately contested actions, was carried to the summit of Sari Bair and Chunuk Bair Ridge, which are the dominating positions on this area, but, owing to the fact that the attack from Suvla Bay did not make the progress which was counted upon, the troops from Anzac were not able to maintain their position in the actual crest, and after repeating counterattacks, were compelled to withdraw to positions close below it."
In an hour or so you may walk all the way we ever got. And we did not need to have got much further than Chunuk Bair. Down below on the one hand is the sea where the men-of-war lay and thundered with their guns. But across and in front gleams in the sunlight what was the Promised Land, the roofs of Chanak and the purple narrows of the Hellespont.
The New Zealanders had reached the high ridges of Chanak Bair, but no one knew, if they had progressed at all, how far they had gone over on the Dardanelles side. Nearly all the hospital ships had vanished with full cargoes of wounded; but otherwise the whole scene was little different from that of the previous day.
With the dawn of August 7, 1915, the Turks awoke to the seriousness of the new menace. So difficult was the country in which the British troops were operating that the Ottoman commander had dismissed all idea of a serious attack from that point and had merely posted patrols in the hills guarding the flank of Sari Bair.
He richly deserved the coveted Victoria Cross which was conferred upon him. At dawn on the following day, the Australians began the attack at Sari Bair. The force at Anzac Cove had been reenforced with Indian troops and two divisions of the new troops from England.
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