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The soldiers of the 1st
Battalion were climbing down from their troopship HMT Minnewaska into their assigned rowing boats. They were going to
be towed by small British naval steamboats to within two hundred meters of the
beach where the soldiers of the First Invasion Wave had landed. They were part
of the Second Invasion Wave. They could see the Turkish artillery exploding
over the beach.
They started rowing when the
steamboats cut the lines to their strings of rowing boats. Each steamboat had
towed four strings of three row boats from the invasion armada two miles out.
Thomas and Harris were in the
third rowing boat in their string. A British naval midshipman was at the rudder
and four of his sailors were rowing with the oars. Thomas looked back towards
the ships as they were being rowed to the beach. He could not get over how
young the midshipman was. He was the same age as some of the boys and girls he
taught back in Katoomba and Wellington. The Turkish shrapnel fire was now
exploding near the boats. The midshipman yelled out, “Keep calm lads. We’ll be
on the beach soon.”
“He’s a tough little bugger
George” said Harris.
“What do you expect Tiny, he’s
a Scouse.”
Harris look confused and
asked, “What does that mean?”
“He’s from Liverpool. If you
are born there you end up working on the docks or you go to sea. It’s England’s
major port for the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve been to sea with a lot Scousers.
They’re good people. A lot of them are descended from Irish migrants.” The
young midshipman heard him and smiled.
Harris said, “Typical bloody
child whipper you are George. Giving us a lesson about England’s geography.”
The young midshipman asked,
“What do you mean by child whipper?”
“It’s an affectionate
Australian term for teachers, and by the way, I’ve never used the cane in eight
years of teaching.” replied Thomas.
Harris and some other soldiers
in their platoon smiled at Thomas. It took their minds off the battle they were
about to join. As they rowed closer to the beach, the Turkish artillery salvos
became more intense. Clouds of shrapnel were exploding nearby and raining sharp
little pieces of shell casing and shrapnel balls into the rowing boats.
A shrapnel shell exploded
directly above Thomas and Harris’ rowing boat. Its deadly contents killed the
four sailors and the soldier’s lieutenant and sergeant instantly. Their bodies,
in the middle of the boat, had been shredded apart by the shrapnel pieces and
the bottom of the boat was full of their blood. The survivors were dumbstruck
by the horror of it.
Thomas roared, “Push them to
the side and take over their oars, lads.” He yelled for two reasons: to be
heard above the noise of the Turkish artillery and to snap his comrades out of
the shock caused by what they had just seen. The midshipman yelled, “I’m in
command of this boat, Corporal.”
Harris said, “You tell him
kid, but your four sailors are all dead. And would you have given a different
order than George? Sorry, than Corporal Thomas?”
Thomas looked at the
midshipman and said, “I’m not challenging your authority, Sir.”
Thomas noticed that there was
so much blood from the dead that it had soaked into his boots. He looked at the
dead men. So did his companions, who were rowing fast and hard, uneasy about
sitting in the sailors’ blood. Harris said, eyeing the carnage, ”This is a
bloody butcher shop George. We have to get to beach, boys. Row your hearts
out.”
They were now within forty-six
meters of the beach. Thomas saw row boats from the First Invasion Wave
abandoned there, and a few figures lying on it. As they came closer, he
identified the figures as Australian dead and wounded. The water near the
pebble beach was a diluted red colour.
Thomas and Harris’ boat had
run aground on a sandbar, five meters from the beach. Thomas yelled out, “Time
to jump out, boys” and leapt from the boat. The water was a meter deep and they
waded through it onto the beach with their rifles raised.
Thomas
was making sure all of his soldiers were out of the boat and striding the short
distance to the beach. He turn around and yelled to the midshipman, “Come on,
Sir. You’ve got to get to the beach.” Harris was next to Thomas and said, “He’s
pale white, George.” Thomas strode back to the boat and noticed that a small
piece of shrapnel had penetrated the midshipman’s hat and pierced his head. He
was dead. “One young Scouse lad who’ll never see the Mersey River again, Tiny.”...........
Click on the link to order John Tognolini'sBrothers Part One: Gallipoli 1915
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