Gallipoli (49 page)

Inside
AE2
, the Executive Officer, Lieutenant Geoffrey Haggard, looks through the periscope and is aghast: ‘The torpedo boat is making ready to ram us!'
³⁶

Suddenly, however,
AE2
again responds to Stoker's commands. One more time, it hurtles downward at ‘a terrible speed and at an awful angle',
³⁷
even faster and steeper than before. Stoker has once again filled both ballast and for'ard tanks in an emergency measure. With the sub tending towards the vertical, everything goes flying once more – ‘eggs, bread, food of all sorts, knives, forks, plates, came tumbling forward from the petty officers' mess. Everything that could fall over fell; men, slipping and struggling, grasped hold of valves, gauges, rods, anything to hold them up in position to their posts.'
³⁸

‘Full speed astern,' Lieutenant-Commander Stoker orders, remarkably quietly under the circumstances.
³⁹

The engines roar back to life, but this time it has no effect. And beyond the calm he has projected to the crew, Stoker's private thoughts are rather less sanguine. ‘In heaven's name, what depth are we at? Why do not the sides of the boat cave in under the pressure and finish it?'
⁴⁰

Still there is no panic – all the crew who are not gazing with stricken eyes at the sides to see if they are about to cave in look to Stoker.

Movement!
She's coming up again!

This time, there is no stopping her.
AE2
bursts to the surface stern first, her motors roaring – there is no resistance to the screws now that they are out of the water – at much the same moment that three shells from
Sultanhisar
hit in quick succession. Hot metal fragments buzz and bounce across the confined space of the sub, even while the submariners fall to the ground, holding their ears against the deafening noise. Smoke pours from the engine room, some water floods in, and unknown to those inside, a torpedo just misses them.

‘Finished! We are caught!' Stoker realises.
⁴¹

And it could get worse. The distant gunboat keeps firing on them, even though they are clearly crippled. Miraculously, however, the torpedo boat that has slayed them now moves into the line of fire, protecting
AE2
from the gunboat, and blows its siren, indicating firing must cease.

Further resistance is useless, and Stoker has no hesitation in giving the order. ‘All hands on deck.'
⁴²

It is over.

By Captain Riza's account, ‘The British flag was slowly pulled up the mast. The sailors began to wave their shirts and their hats as they came down from the conning tower to the deck …
AE2
was slowly sinking and the sailors, one by one, were jumping into the sea.'
⁴³

Commander Stoker, however, along with Executive Officer Haggard, is still inside the sub, opening the main vents to send
AE2
to the bottom – even the seacocks are opened to speed the process and deny the Turks and Germans any chance of salvaging her and getting hold of the design of this most modern of weaponry. Haggard turns to his captain and says with a shrug, ‘Well, time to pull the plug.'
⁴⁴

The flotsam and jetsam of their quotidian lives – books, clothing, eggcups and the like – float on the rising water, which is now up to Stoker's knees.

A cry from above: ‘Hurry, sir, she's going down!'

Stoker has just seconds to get out, or go down with his ship.

In the wardroom, Stoker is just about to heed the warning when he suddenly notices his private despatch case, which, among other things, contains some money. Given he is likely to be a prisoner for some time, that will be useful. With seconds to spare, he runs over, grabs it and then scrambles up the ladder to the conning tower. As he makes his way onto the bridge, the water is just two feet from the top. The submarine is about to sink … forever. Only its stern is still above water, and standing on it, waiting for their skipper, is a half-dozen crew. With him now safe, they dive into the sea to join the others swimming through the frigid water over to the enemy torpedo boat.

Stoker steps off the edge of the conning tower and into the water a foot below. He has just made it.

No more firing now. To Captain Riza aboard
Sultanhisar
, it is obvious that the crew of the submarine have surrendered and his boat moves in to pick them up.

‘Finally, there was only the captain left,' he would recount. ‘He was refusing to leave his ship and was saluting the British flag. This demonstration of patriotism moved us immensely. We all saluted the British flag which was by now floating in the water.'
⁴⁵

Forthwith, Captain Riza calls his men to order on deck and says, ‘My sons. The reward for your zeal and perseverance is the taking of this submarine … But now the war is over. Hostility has come to an end, for now your mission is humanity. I am sure you will carry out this mission in a bold manner befitting a Turkish soldier …' And with that, the crew of the
Sultanhisar
begin to haul the sailors of
AE2
from the waters and courteously welcome them aboard. Turkish sailors hold out trays with glasses of water.

‘
Lütfen bu suyu içiniz
. – Please, drink some water.'

Ali Riza steps forward to meet Stoker, who is approaching him in his sopping-wet white uniform, and speaks in heavily accented English. ‘I am Senior Captain Ali Riza.'

‘I am Lieutenant-Commander Stoker.'

‘Never mind the loss of your submarine. Welcome aboard.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Things like this happen in war. I was hardly expecting to fight with and capture a British submarine.'
⁴⁶

AE2
's officers are taken to a cabin aft, to be given dry clothes, while the crew are taken to the forward mess deck and have their wet clothes sent up on deck to be dried.

In just a few minutes, they have gone from being enemies fighting a bitter duel to the death … to fellow men of the sea, observing the traditional duty to look after each other in distress.

2 PM, 30 APRIL 1915, MUSTAFA KEMAL DECIDES

It is time to settle this.

The invaders have been here for nearly a week now, and though a great many of them have been killed, still more boatloads keep coming. Two days earlier, the first two of four battalions of Royal Naval Division marines had begun to arrive. Still wet behind the ears, they nevertheless provide ‘immense relief'
⁴⁷
to the Anzacs, especially the 1st Brigade on MacLaurin's Hill and the 3rd Brigade on 400 Plateau.

With ‘five fresh battalions'
⁴⁸
at his own disposal and their line of trenches fast developing, it is time for Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal to launch a third and final counter-attack. He calls his senior officers together into his headquarters at Kemalyeri. The officers sit with their legs crossed –
a la turca
– in a semicircle around him, notepads on their knees, pencils in their hands as they jot down the thoughts of this man, their leader, who the day before had been awarded the Ottoman Order of Imtiyaz (Distinguished Service) for his part in the defence of Ari Burnu.
⁴⁹

‘I am convinced,' Mustafa Kemal says, looking around at his men with his piercing blue eyes, ‘that we must finally drive the enemy opposing us into the sea, even if it means the death of us all. Our position compared to the enemy's is not weak. Their morale has been completely broken. He is ceaselessly digging to find himself a refuge. You saw how he ran away when just a few shells dropped near his trenches … I cannot accept anyone among us who would rather see a repeat of the embarrassment of the Balkan Wars than die. If you feel there are such men [in our ranks], then let us shoot them with our own hands.'
⁵⁰

And so his order to the men who are going into battle the next day is very simple: ‘Every soldier who fights here with me must realize that he is in honour bound not to retreat one step. Let me remind you all that if you want to rest, there may be no rest for our whole nation throughout eternity. I am sure that all our comrades agree on this, and that they will show no signs of fatigue until the enemy is finally hurled into the sea.'
⁵¹

1 MAY 1915, MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY AT ANZAC

At 5 the next morning, the first day of May, the Turks start to rain shells down on the Anzacs, and the men advance.

The fighting rages all day, men ‘fighting nose to nose'
⁵²
on every front. But the Anzacs' defence is insurmountable. The Turks are ultimately forced to retreat, if they can. In the end, though this attack has been better coordinated, the result is the same as just four days earlier. The moment has truly passed for Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal to drive this stubborn invader back to the sea … and so trench warfare sets in.

On the side of the Anzacs, the situation is grim. After just one
week
, half of the AIF's once-proud 1st Australian Division is either dead or wounded.

Where can the Generals find the manpower they need, quickly, to keep their toehold on the Gallipoli Peninsula secure? After calling up those men who had been left behind as fatigue parties on the transports, as well as the replacements for the Australian and New Zealand battalions in Cairo, there is really only one fighting force left that can be called on, and Generals Bridges and Birdwood decide they have no choice. They will have to ask some of the 1500 men in each of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Light Horse Brigades and New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigades – all still in camp in Cairo – to leave behind their horses and come to Gallipoli as the ‘beetle-crusher' soldiers they once derided. Perhaps a beginning might be to ask for ‘1000 volunteers to reinforce temporarily the Anzac Infantry'.
⁵³

True, Bridges and Birdwood want to break the Light Horse Brigades up and send them out piecemeal to bring shattered infantry battalions up to strength, but the Commanding Officers of the Light Horse won't hear of it. They have joined up together, trained together, and now they will fight and, if necessary, die together.

Back in Cairo, the men of the Light Horse are beginning to hear the first of what has gone on at Gallipoli during their visits to some of the wounded who have made it back to the military hospitals. Trooper Bluegum is one who goes from bed to bed, gathering in the stories, listening avidly as soldier after soldier – many of them still in their uniform, slit by bayonet, caked in blood, covered with their own and others' gore – talks of the horror of the landing, the shells, the shrapnel, the deaths, the killings.

‘One Turk in a trench shot my pal on my right and a chap on my left,' a soldier tells him, ‘then when we got right into the trench he suddenly dropped his rifle and put up his hands. I reckoned that wasn't fair, so I jammed my bayonet into him.'
⁵⁴

Most in the hospital, however, are there because all the damage has been done to them.

‘My legs are tattooed prettier than a picture,' a Queenslander tells him, talking of the barbed wire he'd encountered in the shallow waters by the shore, ‘and I've a bit of shrapnel shell here for a keepsake, somewhere under my shoulder.'
⁵⁵

Another recounts, disgustedly, of being shot just about the instant he'd landed. ‘Fancy ten thousand miles and eight months' training all for nix,' he spits out. ‘Landed at 4 am. Shot at three seconds past four. Back on the boat at 5 am.'
⁵⁶

Bluegum hears of groups of Australian soldiers simply blown apart by shells landing among them, of severed heads rolling down hills, of men crawling along without legs.