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Updated: June 1, 2025
More rain fell, and we got very wet and smeared with that remarkably tenacious mud which only Gallipoli can produce. We could not but be surprised at the smallness of this cockpit in which three nations battled. From the cliff at Cape Helles to the top of the impregnable Achi Baba was only 5-1/2 miles. The distance straight across the Peninsula at the firing line was not more than 3-1/2 miles.
"Oh, try not to be foolish, Captain Ray," returned Doe impatiently. "Have you been so long on this cursed Peninsula without knowing that we couldn't evacuate Suvla without being seen from Sari Bair, nor Helles without being seen from Achi Baba? And, directly the jolly old Turk saw us quitting, he, and the whole German army, and Ludendorff, would stream down and massacre us as we ran.
Arriving off Cape Helles in semi-darkness about 8 p.m., the Racoon slowed down and felt her way cautiously to the landing place at Sedd-el-Bahr, better known as "V" Beach, where she brought up alongside the River Clyde. The pontoons connecting that historic hulk with the shore had been much damaged the previous day by the enemy's big shells from Asia.
People were saying that the life of a junior subaltern on Helles was working out to an average of fourteen days; and that, in the heat, the flies and dust were scattering broadcast the germs of dysentery and enteric. And I believe my restless excitement hurt her. But she only said: "I'm so proud of it all," and kissed me.
"If Asiatic Annie is going to begin," said Doe, "we'll have important business elsewhere. Hurry on. We're going to find White's grave." To get from Seddel Bahr to Fusilier Bluff it was necessary to cross diagonally the whole of the Helles sector.
I think of a fair head which I had seen matted in red mud, of young nerves of steel shattered beyond repair, of a wild night at Helles, when I found, stumbling beside me in the first bitterness of realisation, a young officer who a few yards back had been shot through both eyes. And here was this worthy man shaking his head for fear that their ideals might interfere with his business.
Our whole scheme hinges on these crests of Sari Bair which dominate Anzac and Maidos; the Dardanelles and the Aegean. The destroyers next took us to Cape Helles where I held a pow wow at Army Headquarters, Generals Hunter-Weston and Gouraud being present as well as Birdwood and Braithwaite. Everyone keen and sanguine. Many minor suggestions; warm approval of the broad lines of the scheme.
The hosts of troops that were passing through Malta must, they surprised us by declaring, be destined for some secret move elsewhere than at Helles, for there was no room for them on the narrow tongue of land beneath Achi Baba. "We're wild to know what's in the wind," said a sister. "The stream of transports has never stopped for the last few days." That we could well believe.
From the South, Achi Baba mountain is our first point of attack, and the direct move against it will start from the beaches at Cape Helles and Sedd-el-Bahr. As it is believed that the Turks are there in some force to oppose us, envelopment will be attempted by landing detachments in Morto Bay and opposite Krithia village.
The map showed us Suvla Bay far up the coast of the Peninsula, a long way behind Achi Baba. We measured seven miles, and decided that the Turks' communications with Achi Baba must have been cut. "Curse it," said an enthusiast, "we're just too late." We had visions of the Turkish Army flying from the Helles front in frantic efforts to escape the surrounding threatened by this landing in their rear.
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