. . .
early next morning we fell in
with part of the fleet. We joined up with them and made the island of
Tenedos, which lies about twelve miles from the entrance of the Straits. On
our arrival (February 25th) we found a whole lot of French and British
warships standing by. Over at the entrance of the Straits the fleet had
already commenced bombarding the six outer forts—three on the European side
and three on the Asiatic side—and, as the day was clear, we had a fairly
good view of the operations.
The "Queen
Elizabeth," "Lord Nelson," and "Agamemnon" opened fire from a long range,
and apparently soon began to put the forts out of action. It was impossible
to see the effect on the forts themselves, as they were obscured from us by
tremendous clouds of dust and smoke; but, since the ships began to creep
nearer and nearer, it was pretty certain that they were meeting with little
opposition.
The big new
ships kept well away, but the older vessels continued their approach, and at
close range opened up broadsides time after time. It must have been hell
inside those forts with shells raining in upon them every second ; but I
have no doubt they were vacated the moment that "Lizzie's'' giant "birthday
gifts" began to arrive.
At 6 p.m.
the bombarding ships returned for the night, and we learned that all the
forts at the entrance had been silenced. Not one of. the ships had been
touched at all, so that the honours of the day fell wholly to us. In the
morning we got under way in company with H.M.S. "Albion" and some destroyers
and mine-sweepers—both French and British—and proceeded towards the Straits.
Our orders were to destroy the bridge at the back of the Kum Kale Forts.
It didn't
take us long to get across that bit of water. We prepared for action on the
way over, which is not saying much, for a warship is nearly always ready for
action, except for a few minor details. We had breakfast pretty well as
usual, but cleared up a little more quickly, so that we might be assured
that everything was in order— deadlights closed in case of fire, fire-hoses
connected and running—for the deck is kept flooded when in action.
At 9 a.m.
"Action" was sounded, and away we went to quarters ; being a signalman, my
place was on deck by the flags. The mine-sweepers led the way until we
reached the entrance of the Straits, and then we took over the lead,
ploughing our way proudly up the narrow channel.
What a
triumph for the " Majestic," to be the first ship to enter the Straits; at
her age, too ! At 9.15 we opened fire on the bridge with 6-inch shells, and
soon had the thing scattered to oblivion. It was then we discovered a party
of Turkish troops round about the ruins of the forts. Poor devils !—a few
shrapnel shells literally blew them off the earth. The few that escaped
scuttled like rabbits among the broken masonry and general wreckage.
We proceeded
slowly up the Straits, opening fire on various places that might possibly
conceal troops or batteries. For a time we did as we liked, but as we made
progress we gradually came under the fire of Turkish batteries. Now and
again would come a flash from behind a hill, and then the dull "wooff" of
,the shell as it struck the land behind us or exploded on contact with the
sea. Sometimes the impact with the water was not enough to detonate the
shell — dependent upon the style of fuse mechanism, I suppose — and all that
happened was a sudden perpendicular jet of water. The real excitement came
when the first enemy shell found its target, and the old ship quivered with
the explosion. That ought to have been sufficient to keep every one below
except those whose duty compelled them to remain on deck, but it had
precisely the opposite effect. Every man who was not on duty scampered up to
see the "fun"; most of them seemed to regard it as a kind of regatta, and
the captain repeatedly had to order them below. But still they crept up,
filled with an insatiable curiosity.
It was the
first time that any of them had been under fire, and their first natural
impulse was to see just what was happening. I reckoned that as soon as a few
men had been killed, the novelty of it would quickly wear off, and there
would be very little unnecessary exposure in the future. In all we
penetrated the Straits to a distance of five miles, pounding away like mad
the whole time, and miraculously missing the hail of shells which was rained
at us. In all we were hit four times, but the shots were small and the
damage was negligible. Best of all, there was not a single casualty on our
side, so it was argued that the old "war-horse" had acquitted herself nobly.
We arrived back at Tenedos late in the afternoon and anchored for the night.
The next day
(February 27th) we remained at anchor until 8 p.m. and then got under way to
relieve ships patrolling the mouth of the Straits. It was here that I had a
bit of an accident which fortunately had little or no effects. I was going
on watch when the syren commenced blowing off, owing to the wire having
caught under a rung of the iron ladder leading to the fore-top. I went up to
clear it, and was just doing so when my foot slipped and down I came a full
twenty-five feet on my back. I was just beginning to wonder, in a dazed
fashion, how many ribs I had broken and how long I should be in hospital,
when the doctor came, and to my utter amazement told me that I was quite
intact and that nothing was broken at all 1 I had to go bed for the night
instead of on watch, but, beyond a painful stiffness the next morning, I was
fit as ever.
The next day
was Sunday, and a wretched Sabbath it was. The weather had turned positively
filthy, so we contented ourselves with patrolling up and down outside the
Straits—a most monotonous and thankless task. After a very quiet night we
started work in earnest the next morning. The Turks were certainly wasting
no time,, and were observed to be placing some field batteries into position
on shore. Off we went to expostulate in the best practical fashion. All day
we pounded away at them, and I dare say caused them no little inconvenience,
but the actual damage could not be ascertained. We were subjected to a
pretty stiff fire ail the time, but luck was with us and we came home for
the night unscathed.
Things went
rather tamely with us until March 4th, when v/e were detailed with five
other ships to effect a landing at Seddul Bahr, on the Dardanelles side of
the village. The landing party consisted of a number of R.M.L.I. from the
various ships, and a few from one of the troop-ships which had arrived,
together with about 2,000 Marines, making a total of about 4,000 in all.
The party
was put off from the ships in ship-boats, towed by steamers which were armed
with maxim guns and light O.F. guns in the bows.
Nothing
happened until the boat was within about 300 yards of the beach, and then
Abdul opened up a fusillade of fire from various points in the hills, and
from the village itself. It was splendid to see the way the men received
their " baptism." Every one was perfectly cool and collected. A man dropped
here and there, but still the boats went on in a cool, methodical sort of
way. Luckily it was only rifle fire ; had the Turks been armed with a few
field-guns or light Q.F.'s there would have been few of our landing-party
left to tell the tale.
On reaching
the beach there was a bit of a scuffle, the Turks desperately resisting our
attempts to land. Eventually they retired to the cliffs, keeping up a
continuous fire from good cover. The landing-party made an attempt to get to
the village, but it was too weak to overcome the opposition, for hundreds of
Turks had come in from over the hills to reinforce their defence, and the
Marines were exposed to fire from every quarter without much chance of
retaliating, as isolated rifle-fire can seldom be located.
The ships
came to the rescue and began to deluge the hills with shrapnel, but though
the damage done was undoubtedly great, the advantage was always with the
enemy, and to have continued the advance in the face of circumstances would
have been madness, so the landing-party reluctantly re-embarked and returned
to the ships.
For a time,
however, the ships' guns continued "searching" the hills, and I can vouch
for some execution, for we were fortunate enough to catch a large party of
Turks in a ravine, where they got it hot from both common and shrapnel
shell. There was no means of escape for them, and we could see the flying
fragments of the shells strike in every direction, thinning their ranks
until they withered away.
We didn't
get off scot-free though; a 5-inch shell from the Asiatic shore hit the
"Majestic" about the starboard after-gangway, went through to the
paymaster's cabin, which it completely wrecked, in addition to damaging the
cabins on either side of it, and ended by setting the place on fire.
The career
of that shell was extraordinary. It came in on the starboard side, went
through the cabin, across the deck, smashing a ladder in its flight, bounced
off the side of the turret, took the top of the rail leading down below, hit
a beam overhead on the port side, threw a heap of splinters into the
wardroom pantry, which cut open the steward's head, and then finished its
course on the deck below, where a large piece of it was pounced upon by a
signalman. All that fuss, and not one casualty beyond the steward's broken
head ! I learned that the casualties among the landing-party were small
considering the circumstances—29 killed and 50 wounded, exclusive of a few
casualties among the boats' crews.
We withdrew
outside the Straits, did a little patrolling for the night, and were
released early next morning, upon which we steamed to Tenedos and anchored
for the rest of the day.
On the 6th
we made an early start for the Dardanelles, and it promised to be an
interesting day, for we learned that we were to go right up to Chanak, and
carry out a bombardment there. Chanak is twelve miles from the entrance, and
marks the beginning of the " Narrows," so it would be foolish to expect
anything in the nature of a picnic.
At 9 a.m.
"Action" was sounded, and off we went full steam ahead with three other
ships to keep us company. All the way we kept up a sort of running fire. The
ships followed each other at intervals of about one mile, this formation
being adopted in order that the following ship could take the fire of the
Turkish batteries, while the ship ahead turned to come down again. It was a
thrilling sight to watch the ships ahead dodging the fire. Great shells
would fall all round them, throwing up huge fountains of water and
smothering the ships. The firing at that time was atrociously bad ; with
anything like moderate gun-fire the ships would have been riddled. We made
six runs up in all, doing good work with our guns and escaping as though by
a miracle. At times it was perfect hell, shells screaming over head, and
sending up the water right under our bows, while the air shook with the
cannonade.
Before we
finished we had a real shock. There was a great explosion and the ship shook
fore and aft. Every one was on the alert to find out what had happened. We
were soon relieved from our anxiety. We had been badly struck on the -port
after battery door and quarter-deck. Such a pot-mess I have never seen
before. The quarter-deck was ripped to ribbons; the battery door had been
blown along the upper deck. The after bulk-head, where the shell had
exploded, was a regular "curiosity" for the heat and force from the
explosion had caused the metal to run down like treacle. Everything in the
vicinity was smashed to atoms—and yet there was not one casualty ! In truth,
we began to think that the old "Majestic" was charmed.
The same
night we went up again to cover the mine-sweepers at their dangerous work.
Theirs was a most risky job, for they were under fire the whole time. No
praise could be too great for the courage of their crews, who worked with
magnificent coolness under a hot fire. AH night we stayed with them, and on
the following day—Sunday—had a brief respite. But the work still went on.
The French went right up the Straits, performing a similar task to that
undertaken by us on the previous day. Only one ship was hit—damage unknown.
The next day
we proceeded to Mudros in the island of Lemnos, where we arrived at 8 a.m.
There was quite a fine harbour there, and to our surprise it was choked full
of troopships and merchant vessels of all classes from tramp collier to the
largest liners afloat. This was my first trip to Mudros, and I took a liking
to the place immediately. The harbour was sheltered, being fairly
land-locked with high hills all round. The more I saw of the place the
better I liked it. We got fruit and eggs from the natives which was a
pleasant change from our usual fare. Tobacco was also grown on the island,
but I never tried any of it. In former times the island was renowned for its
celebrated Lemnian earth, which was exported in large quantities.
We coaled
the ship, replenished the magazines with ammunition, and then, to our great
joy, stayed there the whole night, enjoying a good long sleep in our
hammocks. The following day we cleaned ship and put to sea at 1.30 p.m.
Arrived, in the Dardanelles, we went on patrol duty for the night; but
things were very quiet, so we continued our patrolling through the next day.
Now and again we would fire a few rounds at some suspicious object on shore,
but it was doubtful if any good came of it . . .
