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Chapter VI Of a Field of Fair Flowers and the Crossing of the Daisy Patch

—Masefield: Gallipoli.

On the evening of 5 May the New Zealand Infantry were concentrated on the beach and embarked on destroyers. The sailors treated the men with enthusiastic kindness and gave up to them their own dinner and rum issue. After twelve days of bully beef and biscuits this friendly act was greatly appreciated.

The Brigade landed at V-Beach close to the stranded River Clyde and almost under the smashed and broken fortress of Sedd-el-Bahr. British Tommies, Scotchmen, French Territorials in blue, Zouaves in authentic scarlet trousers, big, black Sinhalese, and bearded Sikhs moved about the dumps on the beach or fraternized with the Australians and New Zealanders. Wheeled transport moved along page 61well-formed roads. Guns were in evidence everywhere in numbers not thought of at Anzac—howitzers, 18-pounders, French 75s. The battalions marched inland for about a mile and dug themselves in for the night.

The country was entirely different to that at Anzac. Much of the ground had been cultivated and there were trees and green fields that in the early spring were gay with flowers. The land here sloped gently up toward the crest of Achi Baba which was distant about five miles from Cape Helles. The converging thrusts of the various landings had caused the Turks to abandon the tip of the Peninsula and fall back to the slopes of the hill itself on which they had strongly entrenched themselves, buttressing their line on the village of Krithia. In front of this however they had established a defensive zone several hundred yards wide.

The English and French held from sea to sea, a distance of a little over three miles, with a depth of some 5000 yards. The whole area was under direct observation from the Turkish position. It was vital to increase this depth if the footing gained at such cost was to be held. The battle that was to be fought was for the purpose of seizing as much of the Turk's forward zone as possible and if possible to capture Krithia itself. The New Zealanders were ordered to move up in readiness to assault the village on the morning of the 8th. They reached their assembly positions during the night, but through some bungled staff work these positions were nearly a quarter of a mile be-page 62hind the front line and the Wellington, Auckland and Canterbury battalions had as it were to storm their own front line under a heavy fire before they even reached the jumping-off point. On the left the Turks had machine-guns concealed in a great ravine that enfiladed the whole front. In the centre a straggling fir wood was full of riflemen and machine-guns, while on the right other concealed guns gave cross fire over the whole field. Snipers and more machine-guns were hidden away in patches of scrub, in covered pits and trenches, behind every rise in the ground, taking advantage of every contour and natural feature that gave them a field of fire and a way of escape. Their field-guns were ranged on the patches of open ground over which any advance must sweep. For nearly four hours they had observed the attacking troops obviously moving into position for assault.

From the assembly trenches the men went forward by platoon rushes to the front line. They were under heavy fire and many were killed and wounded before, breathless and with companies very much mixed, they tumbled into the front line held by men of the 29th Division. The Regulars who had been beaten back the day before were not encouraging:

"What! are you going to cross the Daisy Patch? —Then God help you."

"Yes, of course we are going!" And on the signal the men of the Wellington, Auckland and Canterbury battalions rose up and going down a little slope came to a field of scarlet poppies and great white page 63daisies beyond which a gentle scrub-covered slope rose to a crest line in the middle distance. They were smitten by a hail of fire from the snipers hidden in the scrub, from the machine-gunners concealed in the fir wood, and from the enemy batteries back on Achi Baba. Not a man in the first wave faltered. Most of them fell. A few crossed and in the scrub beyond formed up some sort of a firing line. The second wave came on but the fiery blast smote them and they fell almost to the last man. And then the third wave went out to where their comrades lay dead and dying and sorely hit. The pleasant field of fair flowers was full of agony.

Yet men managed to get across somehow, somewhere—dashing a few yards from shallow cover to shallow cover; crawling inches at a time; changing direction slightly to avoid some place where the earth was visibly being torn to shards before their eyes. Turks in front took their toll, and then before the bayonets reached them vanished back into the scrub and from new hiding places fired and fired. The Daisy Patch itself was a tangle of Auckland dead and wounded. Even when there were no more who strove to cross, it was still swept by a hellish fire and helpless men were hit again and again and again. From the old front-line trench stretcher-bearers made gallant rescues and soon many men were lying behind the comparative shelter of the parapet. But from beyond came the moaning of scores of poor fellows lying helpless in pain. A brave doctor went out to them although the garrison tried to dissuade him:

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"How do you think I can stay here and listen to those poor fellows moaning?" he said. So he went over the top and crawled round with his orderly, bandaging wounds, easing poor sufferers into more comfortable positions, giving precious mouthfuls of water to those who were tormented with thirst until he, too, was hit.

The attack had crept forward until some three hundred yards had been won and then it stayed, for the breathless, exhausted, disorganized men could, for the time being, go no farther.

At five o'clock in the afternoon the whole British line was ordered to advance from sea to sea. All the battleships and cruisers and destroyers ran in toward the land and the great guns roared and thundered and the whole ridge was a line of tremendous explosions. The batteries on shore were firing as rapidly as the toiling gunners could serve their pieces. The roar swelled into a pandemonium. The crest seemed lifted into pieces. It was shrouded with drifting battle smoke and it seemed that surely the Turks had been blasted from their secure positions. But hardly had the line of bayonets moved forward again, than the hellish machine-gun fire burst out in greater fury. The whole air was full of screaming missiles. Death fell everywhere— death and bloody wounds. The line went on for a hundred yards had been won and then it stayed, for of desperate men crept farther until at last flesh and blood could do no more. The survivors scraped out little hollows and lay still until nightfall. The line page 65along the whole front had been advanced some four hundred or five hundred yards.

The Auckland battalion had been cut to pieces and was relieved by Otago. The Brigade held on to what it had gained for another thirty-six hours and was then relieved. For a week they remained at Helles doing working parties and then re-embarked for Anzac