of "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow." There was one man for
whom I had a great admiration--a clergyman in civil life but a
stretcher-bearer on the Peninsula--Private Greig McGregor. He belonged
to the 1st Field Ambulance, and I frequently saw him. He always had a
stretcher, either carrying a man or going for one, and in his odd
moments he cared for the graves of those who were buried on Hell Spit.
The neatness of many of them was due to his kindly thought. He gained
the D.C.M., and richly deserved it.
All the graves were looked after by the departed one's chums. Each was
adorned with the Corps' emblems: thus the Artillery used shell caps,
the Army Medical Corps a Red Cross in stone, etc.
THE ENGINEERS
The Engineers did wonderfully good work, and to a layman their
ingenuity was most marked. Piers were made out of all sorts of things;
for instance, a boat would be sunk and used as a buttress, then planks
put over it for a wharf. They built a very fine pier which was
afterwards named Watson's. Again, the "monkey" of a pile driver they
erected was formed out of an unexploded shell from the _Goeben_. This
warship, a German cruiser taken over by the Turks, was in the Sea of
Marmora, and occasionally the Commander in a fit of German humour
would fire a few shells over Gallipoli neck into the bay--a distance
of about eight or nine miles. As soon as the _Goeben_ began firing,
one of our aeroplanes would go up, and shortly afterwards the _Queen
Elizabeth_ could be seen taking up a position on our side of the
Peninsula, and loosing off. Whether she hit the _Goeben_ or not we
never heard. It was _Mafeesh_.
The Engineers also made miles upon miles of roads and, furthermore,
created the nucleus of a water storage. A number of large tanks from
Egypt were placed high up on "Pluggey's," whence the water was
reticulated into the far distant gullies.
TURKS ATTACK
One night in May the Turks made a fierce attack on us, apparently
determined to carry out their oft-repeated threat of driving us into
the sea. The shells just rained down over our gully, lighting up the
dug-outs with each explosion. It was like Hell let loose. Word came up
from the beach station that they were full of casualties and on
getting down there one found that the situation had not been
over-estimated. The whole beach was filled with stretchers, the only
light being that from bursting shells. We worked hard all night
operating and
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