The Ross Mountain Battery on service

Lieutenant A. J. Macleod

EVEN such a brief account of the doings of the Battery as this, must make some meiition of the war training period at Bedford. The training was rigorous in the extreme, and only the highest efficiency was tolerated. This was no more than we expected and wished, but in six months' time it was bound to pall and become a task very often trying and generally unpleasant, on account of the time of year. This was much more than compensated for by the very pleasant relations which were developed with the people of the town, and which extended as time went on. Not only did the intercourse with the townsfolk form a pleasant change from training, but it had an actual military value in that it welded together the many cliques within the Battery, and gave a painless death to the old inter-section rivalry which had in the meantime paid its way in providing an extra stimulus to training. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the good people of Bedford, and one would have much pleasure in dwelling on this most pleasant phase of the history of our Battery if space permitted. After many alternating waves of optimism and despair, according to whether the rumour of the moment was that we were leaving on the umpteenth of next month "sure" or were for Home Defence for the duration, we finally left in the third week of March, 1915.

We had a pretty fair idea of what our destination was. We had been transferred some weeks earlier from the Highland Territorial (51st) Division to the 29th Regular Division. We reached Alexandria in the early days of April. Here the Brigade, consisting of the Ross and Argyll Batteries with their respective. Ammunition  Column sections, and Brigade Headquarters was taken over by Lieut. -Col. F. A. Wynter, D.S.O. We were again inspected by the Commander-in-Chief (Sir Ian Hamilton) and after a week or so in Chatty Camp embarked on the "Mercian" and joined the rest of the expedition in Mudros Bay, in the Island of Lemnos. Here for nearly a fortnight we practised slinging horses and guns from the ship to the horse-boats ; landed a section once and did some drill ashore ; and got lectures on the difficulties which were known to be ahead and some which were apprehended. The Divisional Commander's Address, of which every man got a copy, made it very clear that the landing was to be a very formidable undertaking, and that heavy casualties were expected.

The expedition left Mudros on the evening of the 24th of April. The morning of the 25th broke hazy. Before dawn one could hear the rumbling of heavy guns to the north- west. With dawn a heavy bombardment developed in our own neighbourhood. To the right front we could see the entrance to the Straits. On the Asiatic side or these, the Russian "Askold"—the "Packet of Woodbines"—with apparently innumerable light guns, was noisily supporting the landing of a French detachment. To our front were the precipices of Cape Helles and Tekke Burna, with between them the small beach (W), known since as Lancashire Landing. The village and forts of Sedd-el-Bahr on the European side of the entrance, beneath which the "River Clyde" was run ashore, were being pounded by a couple of cruisers. Around us a good many battleships were shelling the trenches and wire entanglements between "W" beach and Kritkia. Heavier ships further out were hammering the landscape in a more or less general sort of way. The first boat load of casualties from "W" beach had just come alongside when the Right Section was ordered to get into the horse-boats. We were towed in by a trawler, and landed without casualty—a happy accident which can only be attributed to the local disorganisation amongst the enemy due to the heroic attacks delivered by the shattered remnants of the 1st Lancs. Fusiliers. We proceeded to the site of Helles Lighthouse and dug in. The drivers returned to the beach. The infantry were running out of ammunition and water. The drivers volunteered to supply them, and during the whole period of our stay at Helles, this extremely hazardous duty they made their own and often when parties of infantry were running short of ammunition in hot corners, they were no less pleased than astonished to see some ot these drivers leading their ponies at a canter across the open, loaded with the precious explosives. It was only to be expected that many of these should become victims both to the regular enemy and to the many snipers with whom the broken country swarmed at the beginning of the campaign. To the gunners the first night, although a bit of a nightmare, was only typical of many to follow. The infantry were so closely engaged all night that it was impossible to use the guns without endangering our own troops. A false message sent the Section back to the reserve trenches, but the error was discovered before dawn and the guns and ammunition were man-handled to the original position before daybreak.

The following day we ran on to the crest in front and had some good shooting direct at retiring enemy infantry. That evening we were rushed into the Old Castle, an advanced post which had just been taken and which the enemy made two attempts to recapture during the night. The Section, firing point blank, helped largely to repel these attacks. The following day we joined the French Corps, which now took over the right of the line, and on the 28th the Section alone supported a French attack, the rest of the artillery being unable to reach the position. The following clay the Section was relieved by the Left, and the weary gunners got a day's sleep and a good feed—both badly needed.

The following day we left French command. The same night the Left-Section, in an awkward position, got one of their guns destroyed. About this time the two Batteries were amalgamated, as the Highland Mountain Battery casualties, which could not be replaced, made this essential. It is unnecessary to give an account of doings from day to day. The Division had not much artillery. What there was ran short of ammunition. The nature of the ground made it impossible both for field and naval guns to reach many of the targets. There was no excuse for screw-guns not getting there even if we had to go up within a hundred yards of it. So it was that we got scattered, a gun here behind a trench parados, another enfilading the enemy firing line a little distance away on higher ground ; another in the support trenches waiting for any enemy machine guns to show up ; away to the left on Gurkha Bluff another can look right into a large extent of enemy trendies. A little further back the rest together lie ready to support our own or to crush the enemy's attacks. But positions were occupied only as long as there was no urgent cry from another part. One had to be ready to move wherever the need was most. The amazing accuracy of these guns would have made them popular even if any others were there to do the job. The guns were unshielded, and so the gunners had to work with next to no cover. The absence of a buffer often rendered it necessary for the detachment to retrieve the gun after every round, a fact which was much appreciated by enemy sharpshooters. Casualties were replaced from the drivers, who were, however, suffering grievously themselves. Some of the guns got worn out, and one had to be withdrawn. Disease—dysentery and enteric—began to spread. Many of the dead could not be buried, and the great heat brought plagues of flies. Fortunately when there was a breeze it generally blew towards the enemy, a fact which we could well appreciate whenever the evening whiff came our way. The most stringent sanitary measures alone could keep disease down, but in trying circumstances these were often overlooked. Reinforcements came who failed to realise the danger, and shortly the whole place was putrid with disease.

The thoughts of people were less on personal well-being, however, than on the job in hand. Everybody was needed at the moment, and all jeopardised their chances of recovery and stack to their tasks. That the spirit was as strong as ever was shown at the most trying time of the summer by the magnificent feat of No. 4 detachment on the 12th of July, when in the "Worcester" trenches, under a concentrated fire from many enemy guns, they refused to "chuck it" although all the other guns in their neighbourhood had. Their  emplacement was smashed (no fewer than six shells burst in it), several of the crew were knocked out, but the remainder kept up an accurate fire on their own allotted portion of the enemy front line, a few hundred yards away, until it was taken by the infantry, and then went on to the rest of the programme that had been given to them. This by a few lads, commanded by a sergeant who was himself a schoolboy, all more or less suffering from painful disease. So it went on. The rest might be at peace, but there was no peace for the people who had the ammunition and could get there. The guns had always to be carried, as the positions were impossible for ponies. Anvone who finds it difficult to realise the conditions can get something approaching them by trying to climb the side of o house with a sack of flour on his back whilst someone is pelting him with large bricks.

However, all good things come to an end, and those who were left at the end of July were much bucked at receiving from the Staff profuse expressions of regret at their impending departure from the command. The standing joke at Helles was that the 29th Division was going home ! The optimists thought that this hoary chestnut was going to stand up for itself. Some hopes! Within a week, most of which was spent doing fatigues on the island of Imbros, they were at Suvla Bay enacting again the scenes of the last week of April. They landed with reduced detachments, which within a couple of days were reduced by 50 per cent. In one action No. 2 Gun's crew was reduced to one man, who continued to serve it alone, until two signallers came to his assistance. Our signallers were always ready to turn a hand to anything. The arch humorist of Flanders, Ian Hay, has been rather unkind to the R.A. Signaller. Those fellows of ours were as versatile as they were daring, and their professional skill was only equalled by their acquisitive ability.

The story of Suvla is well known. Raw troops and lack of discipline, disease, and then the blizzard. Still there was no rest for the screw guns. From Chocolate Hill to Jefferson's Post, on the plain or on the ridges, they were at it if anybody was. The band got smaller and smaller. Occasionally wounded came back from Egypt, but it was very few of the old lot who were left to make the last oddments in the "Iron Duke's" cargo of soup kitchens, ambulances, bicycles, guns, and details of troops. It was with very mixed feelings, too, that one looked back at that rugged Peninsula, where so many of our gallant mates were resting their last. It felt so much like deserting them, for it was not easy to think of them but as we knew them, full of life and eager to be in the thick of it. Brought together again at Ismailia, where the Suez Canal enters the northernmost of the Bitter Lakes, we must have looked a weird assortment of human beings. Indeed, Sir Archibald Murray left us in no doubt as to that. Emaciated, haggard, weather beaten, attired in odds and ends of every possible variety of clothing, we might have been New Zealanders, Indians, or a native Labour Corps, as far as appearances went.

The anniversary of the Helles Landing saw the Battery heading for the desert on the march to Kantara. Few units could have clone that march. Between forty and fory-five miles were covered, in full marching order, over heavy sand, through marshes, between three in the afternoon and eight the next morning. A cup of tea and two hours halt from two to four a.m. was all they had to refresh them. Another march to Rcmani followed, and from then on the Battery was continually on the move up and down the Corps front, which was indeed a weary land wherein was precious little water. The Canal was being threatened by a large Turkish army. Before the attack came, however, an urgent call came to go over into Macedonia and help the Mountain Batteries there, which were unable to maintain a working strength on account of the malarious nature of the country. We looked forward very little to leaving at the time when the attack fcr which we had prepared so much appeared imminent, especially to go to a theatre which we understood to be stagnant as regards fighting and infested with disease. Our chagrin was increased when just before we embarked at Alexandria news came of the Turkish attack and the brilliant British victory at Romani, which was the beginning of the drive which wrested Palestine from the Turks. Re-equipment at Salonica occupied a few weeks ; then a three days' march brought us to our sector of the front. At dawn following our arrival we got a "reception" from an enemy field battery, which a week or two later we had the pleasure of destroying in a direct duel. Our service with the Salonica Army continued until the Armistice. The work, if less showy than that on some of the other fronts, was certainly not less trying. Generally it was either lying in forward positions under the enemy's guns, where one had to lie close all day, with nothing to look forward to but the next attack of fever, or a few 4.2's from the ridge opposite in the evening, or climbing interminable mountains by the most execrable paths, to raids on enemy posts, with a company or two of infantry. Often many miles from supplies, exposed to all extremes of temperature and climatic conditions, prevented by a vagabond existence from preparing adequate shelter (for invariably it was another move as soon as the dugout was finished), and all suffering from some form of malaria, we were yet bound together by a powerful Clan spirit which made the name of the Battery a bye-word in the Salonica Army for almost superhuman endurance and faultless behaviour in action. When "The Day" came, and the wall of the Belechitza Mountains was scaled and stormed and the Bulgar chased far into his own country, they were, as always, in the forefront, on one particular occasion even in front of the cavalry, and although the C.-in-C. has credited an English Yeomanry Regiment with the, honour of being the first British troops to enter Bulgaria, it is very doubtful if the honour does not belong to the R.M.B. Certainly they were the first artillery, as they were in Gallipoli and Sinai. Unfortunately jealousy in high circles again came between them and the honours they so richly earned ; but that is indeed a small point when weighed against the knowledge that every man has who has had any connection with the Battery, that every regiment that was ever associated with it, was avowedly proud of that Association.

A. J. MACLEOD.