SLAUGHTER AT THE NEK AND QUINN’S
After living through the hell in Monash Valley for the vital early weeks at Gallipoli, Shanahan and his battered regiment were given well-earned garrison duties away from the front line. They were positioned not far from the beach between Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay. Bill the Bastard, too, had earned a break away from the heavy and dangerous work up and down the track to the valley. He was assigned to carry the non-urgent mail in heavy sacks from Suvla Bay to the cove, trotting along beside a mounted trooper at dusk when it was much harder for Turkish snipers to strike them.
After a four-month stalemate in which the Turks locked down the Anzacs at Gallipoli and other Allied forces at Cape Helles, in early August 1915 the British generals decided it was time to break out in one mighty coordinated attempt to take the heights. But again, the emphasis was more on using front-line fighters in big numbers in the hope they could do the impossible, somehow, rather than devising any great tactical plan that would win and at the same time preserve men.
The prospects for the huge counterattack were not promising for the troopers, who now faced similar experiences to that of Shanahan and his squad in May. Hundreds of Light Horsemen from Western Australia’s 10th Regiment and Victoria’s 8th, at Russell’s Top on the left of Monash Valley facing the heights, would have to charge across a narrow, hemmed-in expanse called the Nek. It was about the size of two tennis courts. A serve from a bank of machine-guns would greet them.
Across at Quinn’s seventy metres away, Shanahan and his squadron had returned for this big push. He and the other officers were under orders from Chauvel to send their men north to Baby Hill 700, where the troopers at Russell’s Top would also be heading.
The 8th Regiment’s troopers at Russell’s Top were first over the parapets before dawn. The Turks heard them coming and opened up with 30 machine-guns that created a wall of bullets the width of the Nek. Many men were hit climbing out of the trenches. Some only managed a few paces before being felled. Most were slaughtered when still a tennis court length away from the Turkish trenches. The handful that did reach them was outnumbered by the enemy. The first line of troopers had been cut down in ten minutes.
Shanahan led a select squad out on the order of his brigade commander, along with other officers with similar small bands of troopers. But they, too, were cut down by intense fire from trenches above them. Inside two minutes, fifty of fifty-five troopers were killed. Shanahan, who had dashed out first, was the last man back, protecting the men in front of him as they withdrew. For a third time, he was most fortunate not to have been killed. He slumped into Quinn’s. His immediate superior consulted him.
‘Any chance of a second wave getting through?’ he was asked anxiously.
Shanahan shook his head as he looked around to see how many of his men had made it. That was enough for the officer commanding. He got word to Chauvel, who agreed that this battle was unwinnable.
Troopers waiting to leap out of the trench at Russell’s Top did not have such a humane and intelligent command. Their leader, Jack Antill, an Australian who had made his name in Boer War Light Horse charges, had become a shrill and bullying commander at Gallipoli. He ordered a second wave of 150 troopers from the 8th Regiment over the top. After climbing over their fallen cobbers, they too faced the horrors of the Nek and were sliced into by the enemy machine-gunners. Then followed lines three and four, this time from the 10th Regiment. They suffered the same fate as the Victorians. Within a short time, hundreds of troopers lay dead or wounded in a sweep from Russell’s Top to the Turkish trenches. Antill still wanted action but he was overridden now by more sensible heads among Australian officers, who appealed to senior commanders. But it was far too late for some of the cream of the fighting men from Western Australia and Victoria.
The emphasis now along the front was on retrieving the wounded in no-man’s land. This was nearly impossible given the Turkish defences. Through the day injured men were noticed moving, crawling a few paces here, raising a hand for help there. But no aid could come. The Turkish guns in the narrow corridors of these battles made it futile to send in the ambulancemen, on this occasion without their animals, which could not be brought up steep ravines or along narrow ridges.
Bill was once more seconded to help out in Monash Valley. He trudged up the track from Anzac Cove to join a dozen other horses and mules lined up at the foot of the ridges. Stretcher bearers and medics were forced to wait until night to help the odd wounded trooper who may have lived through the very long day of 7 August 1915. As soon as dusk settled, the first of the injured were stretchered down to the head of the valley where Bill and his fellow pack animals waited. They then began their steady treks with the injured to the dressing stations.
A few days later, he was taken back to Suvla Bay to be loaded up once more with the non-urgent mail and despatches. The inability of anyone to stay on him for more than a couple of minutes, and the fact that he could carry far more than any other animal, had so far saved him from a sniper’s bullet.