Gallipoli (95 page)

Ah, but there are still a few men left behind, back from the Nek, who have been given an alternative route to descend to avoid such obstacles, given one last task before departure. For, of course, how else could such a monumental battle for the ages finally end?

Not with a whimper, but with a bang.

Over the last weeks, three tunnels between Russell's Top and the Nek have been packed with a total of three and a half tons of high explosive. The largest charge – weighing two tons – is located at the end of a tunnel directly beneath the Turkish frontline at the Nek.

The men of the Rear Party, who are charged with setting off the mines, are sitting atop Russell's Top now. Their commander is Major Richard Fitzgerald, who is ‘calm and collected' and focuses on keeping his men cheerful. At 1 am, the group had feasted on the now plentiful supplies; ‘The meal consisted of sardines, biscuits, pineapple and mock cream soup in that order! After we had finished the table was left laid for the Turks, with a note written by Major Fitzgerald, which reads:

And now, nigh on 3.30 am, the men of the Rear Party just have to wait for the word to come through that the rest of the 20th Battalion is clear and that the first of them are piling onto the piers and getting into the evacuation vessels. It is coming time; they'll soon have to blow the bastard.

High in the hills, the rhythm of gunfire slows as most of the self-activating rifles stop firing. The Turks continue to respond with a few desultory shots, and then there is … silence. In the Turkish trenches, puzzlement rises.

It's time.

Time to fire the Parthian shot to beat them all.

Satisfied that all the men are now clear down at the North Beach pier, the man that Brudenell White has designated as Rear Guard Commander, Newcastle's own Colonel John Paton, makes the call.

Moments later, high in the hills, Major Fitzgerald puts the field telephone down and gives the order ‘to fire the mines … [but] not until he had got on top of the dugout to see the effect'.
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Lieutenant James Caddy slowly, carefully pushes down the plunger before him. On the instant, the electric circuit connected to the detonator, which is some 100 yards away at the end of the tunnel that finishes under the Turkish trenches at the Nek, is completed.

For … THAR she blows! At first, there is a rumble like an earth-quake, and then a huge pillar of flame shoots skyward at the Nek, illuminating all the hills around … and goes long enough that Bean notes how its ‘brilliant glare [is] reflected on the under-surface of two clouds of dust and smoke'.
⁵⁷

Lieutenant Caddy would later recall, ‘The ground vibrated, there was a dull roar and two large craters were formed … Immediately afterwards, heavy rifle fire opened up along the whole of the enemy line.'
⁵⁸

For the first time in eight months, there is no one there to make reply. The Turks try again, with many other long bursts. One very stray bullet, flying far from home, hits a Light Horseman in the retreating boats. Mercifully, he is only lightly wounded.

And then … still nothing.

Up in the Turkish frontlines, chaos reigns. Yes, the Turks know that there have been two mighty explosions beneath their trenches at the Nek – and they have likely lost 70 men
⁵⁹
– but when all the men from nearby trenches rush forward, as they have been trained to do to stem the breach, there is nothing coming back. No bullets, no bombs, nothing. Is this another ruse designed to bring them forward en masse, only to be killed? They proceed slowly. Still, there is no fire upon them.

Halfway down the hill ahead of them, two figures are fleeing. Judging discretion to be the better part of valour, Lieutenant Caddy and his sergeant are making good their escape. It is time to get back to the beach, at all pace. A bob in, and the winner shouts!

All up, the explosions have been nigh on enough to wake the dead … and really do wake one other person.

High in the hills, a man wakes more abruptly than at any time in his life, the tons of high explosive having been detonated just a short distance from him.

Who am I? Where am I? What is
happening?

Oh …
Gawd
.

I am Private Fred Pollack of the 13th Battalion, and the last thing I remember is receiving permission to have a bit of a kip in a nearby dugout, with my mates assuring me they would wake me when it came time to pull out. And now they're not bloody well here.

I charge along the trenches but find them empty, too. Oh Gawd, oh Gawd, oh
Gawd
! Am I really the last bastard left at Anzac Cove, while everyone else has gone? Me and tens of thousands of Turks?

Oh,
Gawd.

A fire to port! From the decks of
Grafton
, Charles Bean suddenly sees what could be mistaken for a giant, mad firefly buzzing along the shores of Suvla, but it is in fact a bobbing torch flame, held by a man running along the beach and setting fire to flammable material soaked in kerosene, nestled among the reserve stores stacked up on the shore, put aside in case the evacuation was delayed.

The piles flare instantly. Fires in the night!

Tearing down the hill, Fred, a long way from Sydney Town, makes it to the beach, hoping, praying to find someone still there – a movement, a light, a boat!

Suddenly, however, he sees what may be a lantern or the like at North Pier.

Fred charges towards it along the rough sands of the beach. It is just before 4 am.

Colonel John Paton is preparing to get the last lighters away. With the explosion in the hills, it can only be a matter of minutes before this beach will be swarming with Turks. All of the departing men are gazing into the heavy shadows to look for attackers.

There!
From the north, a figure is charging at them from the edge of darkness. In an instant, the Australians reach for their guns.

Coo-ee
.

It proves to be the infinitely relieved Fred Pollack, who hurls himself into one of the last departing lighters. Saved!
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And so is Private Charles Bingham, amazed that all of his worst fears have
not
been realised. And now that it is all happening, his whole outlook has changed, as recorded in his diary: ‘It is an honour to be last here I feel now.'
⁶¹

Brigadier-General Cyril Brudenell White, too, has stayed to the last, aboard one of the lighters waiting to take the men away.

‘It has been a continuous stream for the last 20 minutes but now it is dying down. The gaps between the little groups and then between the single men grow wider and then the trickle stops. The enemy machine guns are going hard on Russell's Top now. They did not know what to make of the mine, but the bullets go into our parapets in front of the empty trenches or over our heads and into the sea.'
⁶²

The evacuation of Suvla Bay has gone equally well, with no fatalities.

Still, Colonel Paton doesn't leave; he's concerned that there may be other stragglers. And so he waits, together with several others. They continue to peer into the darkness, but by ten past four, with still no sign of anyone else to come, Colonel Paton barks a command.

A sailor slips the mooring rope before, with a running jump, he leaps onto the steamboat, the last man to leave.

The terse wireless message goes out: evacuation completed.
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The relief is overwhelming. Bean is standing next to a naval officer when the message is handed to him. That officer now turns, proffers his hand in the moonlight and says quietly to Bean, ‘Thank God.'
⁶⁴

Allah be praised.

Extraordinarily, on the Turkish side, all these months on, Private Âdil, the 17-year-old shepherd who had been in the trenches on the First Ridge on the morning of 25 April and among the first to fire on the approaching Anzacs, is
still
here.

And he is as confused as everyone else. The heavy fog that now rolls in is in sympathy with the Turks' lack of understanding.

‘We had no idea,' Âdil will later recount. ‘All the gun noises had stopped …'
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They send out a scout, who carefully makes his way forward. He comes back and tells them the blessed news.

‘
Gittiler! –
They've gone!'
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Similar scenes are taking place everywhere in the area.

And …
fire!

From the waters off Gallipoli, the guns of the covering squadron pour salvo after salvo upon the old Anzac positions, to blow up the stores and mule carts and slow the Turkish brutes down in their descent from the hills. In fact, the Turks are obliged to take shelter in the very trenches they have been shelling for the last eight months.

For the moment, many of the Royal Navy cruisers and destroyers, secure with their precious cargo below decks, stay just beyond the range of the Turkish guns. The officers keep their binoculars trained on the shore, eager to see what will happen. Just after dawn, their reward is to see Turkish soldiers charge down the hillside and onto the beaches, where their first target is the few unburned piles of stores. Like mad things, they find anything edible and start gorging themselves. The ships send some shells upon them as a chaser.

This vision of their enemies on the shore, while they are on ships headed away, is for many of the soldiers and officers the first gut realisation that they have actually done it: they have survived Gallipoli.

Around the ships, cheers ring out as men clap each other's backs and furiously pump each other's hands. In this moment, there are no Generals, Colonels, Sergeants or Privates – they are just Anzacs, men who have got clean away. They have done it! Brudenell White notes proudly, ‘… Anzac is deserted now …'
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