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Updated: May 31, 2025
Again we crawled like snakes among the rocks and again an empty slope of waving grass met our eyes. The goral had disappeared, and even Achi could not discover a sign of life upon the meadow. With an exclamation of disgust I got to my feet and looked around. Instantly there was a rattle of stones and a huge goral leaped out of the grass thirty yards away and dashed up the hill.
As to the delay in letting me have the Indian Brigade; a delay which has to-day, so say the 29th Division, cost us Krithia and Achi Baba, I say "Unluckily Cox's Brigade is a day late, but I still trust it will arrive to-morrow during the day." Bis dot qui cito dat. O truest proverb!
For Tamuramaro was a direct descendant of that Achi no Omi who, as already related, crossed from China during the Han dynasty and became naturalized in Japan. His father, Karitamaro, distinguished himself by reporting the Dokyo intrigue, in the year 770, and received the post of chief of the palace guards, in which corps his son, Tamuramaro, thereafter served.
On later knowledge no one can doubt that a vast concentration of gun power, infinitely equipped and munitioned, a scientific use of barrage fire, nicely adjusted to the movements of a great infantry force, itself organised to develop the fullest use of machine guns, Lewis guns, and grenades, would have broken the defences of Achi Baba. Our Army knew none of these advantages.
Then there came a disorder of the mind, in which I could only repeat to myself: "The Germans are coming, oh dear, oh dear. The Germans are coming, oh dear, oh dear. The Germans Oh, drop it, for God's sake, drop it!" A night and a morning passed: and the next afternoon I was sitting on the Bluff, glumly watching a destroyer flash and smoke, as she hurled shells over my head to Achi Baba.
Like a hundred peals of thunder the Turkish artillery from both Continents let fly their salvoes right, left and centre, and the French and ourselves did not lose many seconds in reply. The shells came from Asia and Achi Baba: in a fiery shower, they fell upon the lines of our front trenches.
Had our men not been so deadly weary, there was no reason we should not have taken Achi Baba from the Turks, who put up hardly any fight at all. But we have not got our mules or horses ashore yet in any numbers, and the digging, and carriage of stores, water and munitions to the firing line had to go on all night, so the men are still as tired as they were on the 26th, or more so.
It was evident that we would have to swim, and I began to undress, inviting Achi and the wood cutter to follow; the former refused, but the latter pulled off his few clothes with considerable hesitation. It was a swim of only about forty feet around the face of the cliff but the current was strong and it was no easy matter to fight my way to the other side.
But we did not capture any of the main Turkish trenches. I still think we might have done as well at much less cost by creeping up these 200 or 300 yards by night. However! At 4.30 we dropped our high-vaulting Achi Baba aspirations and took to our spades. The Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division had been roughly handled.
From the bridge we got a fine view as our guns were being focused on and about the north-west coast. The cliff line and half a mile inland is shrouded in a pall of yellow dust which, as it twirls, twists and eddies, blots out Achi Baba himself.
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