Brave Bess and the ANZAC Horses Read online

  Sometimes the patrols spent the night out camping close to the enemy, listening and watching for any movement. These nights out on the listening posts were nerve-racking for both men and horses. The troopers snatched only a few hours of sleep as each man took his turn on sentry duty. Bess and the horses stood on the lines beside the slumbering men, staring out at the shadows, their ears and noses twitching. Often they sensed when danger was approaching before the sentry did. They could smell strange horses and men on the breeze and would nicker a warning. The patrol would leap into the saddles and plunge into the safety of the night.

  Hawker often joined them on these night patrols, riding out on Jack behind his master’s saddle. Jack’s master liked the little dog’s company through the long, lonely nights on sentry duty.

  It was in the middle of one of these watches that Hawker saved them all. It was a night of utter stillness and bitter cold. The men huddled in their greatcoats trying to sleep, the horses bunched together on their lines. Jack’s master sat with his rifle across his knees, gazing fixedly into the night. At some stage they all dozed off, until Hawker abruptly woke them with his fierce growling and barking. The little dog stood in front of his master, hackles raised at the shrouded figures creeping out of the darkness. Jack’s master grabbed up his rifle and fired. The shapes screamed, cursed and disappeared.

  For many days and nights, Bess and her brigade helped guard the numerous outposts dotted across the plain. Long distances separated the outposts and they needed to keep in touch with one another and the main army bases. At night, they communicated with signal lamps. In daylight hours, the signallers used a system of semaphore flags or heliographs. The helios reflected the sunlight in flashes from a movable mirror. On sunny days, Bess could see their messages flashing urgently from hill to hill.

  Sometimes the signallers used carrier pigeons to deliver important messages. They wrote the message on specially prepared paper and placed it in a little aluminium cylinder around one of the pigeon’s legs. The signaller then tossed the pigeon high into the air. Bess would watch the pigeon circle for a short time before heading off across the wide, blue skies. Their messages nearly always got through, although the pigeons often arrived back at base battered, tired, and sometimes even wounded by Turkish sniper fire.

  Finally after six months of preparation and intelligence gathering, the Allies were ready for their third assault on the Turkish line. This time they decided to surprise the Turks by attacking the town of Beersheba first, instead of Gaza. Beersheba also had a supply of deep wells and water, which the army desperately needed.

  The Anzacs headed for Beersheba on a steely, cold night. A silent march was ordered, but the heavy guns hauled by the horses rumbled and rattled, and the metal shoes of the shod mounts hammered across the hard grounds of the plains. By early morning, the great army had moved into position around the town. They could see the white-domed mosque of Beersheba against the backdrop of bare, rolling hills.

  Bess’s brigade had the task of capturing the redoubt of Tel el Saba, the hill of Sheba, which overlooked the town. The hill was the key to taking Beersheba, as the enemy had machine guns dug in at the top, guarding the town. The assault went on all day. Under constant enemy fire, Bess’s master and the troopers clambered inch by inch across the flat plains and wadi beds towards the hillside.

  It was nearly nightfall before the hills around Beersheba were in Allied hands. Time was running out to capture the town and its precious wells. An unusual and dangerous order was given to the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade: to charge on horseback directly into enemy lines, just like the cavalry days of old.

  Bess and the others watched from the hills as the Light Horse rode into history. The horses and their troopers lined the ridge as far as the eye could see, their raised bayonets flashing in the dying sun. On the order to charge, they poured down over the plains at a trot, then a canter, and, as they neared, their entire lines broke into a stampeding gallop. The sound of 2,000 thundering hooves filled the air, and the yells and hollers of the horsemen echoed around the hills. The enemy turned their blazing guns on the galloping horsemen. But the horses and their riders kept on coming. The Turks were so surprised that they forgot to lower their rifle-sights and the bullets flew overhead. The Australians jumped their horses over the trenches and charged all the way into town.

  The Turkish defensive line was now smashed. While the Allies took on Gaza for the last time, Bess and the Anzacs held back the Turks in the foothills around Beersheba. In the stony hills, they found the wadies dry and the wells and cisterns empty. In between heavy fighting, they searched desperately for water.

  At one well, the men lowered down a canvas bucket on the end of a fifteen-metre rope made up of bridle reins and leads. All they found at the bottom was a few centimetres of muddy water. It was barely enough to dampen the horses’ thirst. Bess’s mouth felt parched, and the bit rubbed against her blistered lips and swollen tongue.

  Over several days, the troopers had to lead Bess and the thirsty horses back and forth to Beersheba for water. But it was impossible for the exhausted packhorses carrying the heavy machine guns to march back so far. In one regiment, the packhorses hadn’t had a drink for seventy-two hours. One of the old horses had given up and lain down to die when he smelt water arrive on the camels’ backs. The Camel Corps had only enough water to give each man a pint, but when the old packhorse staggered to his feet a trooper said, ‘Shout the old chap a pint.’

  The precious liquid was poured into the lid of a dixie and offered to the packhorse. He sucked up every last drop. He looked so grateful that the troopers gave him another pint. By the time the regiment was ready to move, he’d recovered and was able to make the march back to Beersheba.

  Soon word came that the Allies had successfully captured Gaza. The Anzacs could now begin to push the Turks back towards the port town of Jaffa and the holy city of Jerusalem. Bess and the Anzacs set off after the retreating Turks, chasing them over rocky tracks and through hillside villages. They had little rest, some days trekking for more than forty-five kilometres at a stretch.

  The Anzac Mounteds rode through deserted Turkish camps, where abandoned wagons lay, still yoked to fallen mules and bullocks that were too exhausted to rise. Pockets of Turks fought back stubbornly from the craggy hills, but those that Bess’s brigade took prisoner looked haggard and weary. One Turkish prisoner spoke excellent English and told Bess’s master that he was tired, tired of war and killing. He gave Bess’s master a glittering green-and-gold snake made of small glass beads and said it was a symbol of good luck. Bess’s master tied it to the pommel of her saddle.

  Gradually, the countryside the Anzacs marched through began to change as they neared the Mediterranean coast once more. The dry hills gave way to rolling orchards peppered with quaint villages of white-walled, red-roofed cottages. The men felt brighter, and the horses picked up their step through the soft, green valleys. There was nothing to warn them that they would soon face their worst day yet.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Attack at Ayun Kara

  Less than a month after the battle of Beersheba, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles faced their worst single day of fighting since Gallipoli. At Ayun Kara, they fought against 1,500 Turks armed with eighteen machine guns and an artillery battery. The New Zealanders numbered little over 800 lightly armed men.

  Despite being vastly outnumbered, the New Zealanders won the battle. But at the end of the day, forty-four New Zealanders lay dead and 141 wounded. Forty-one horses were also killed.

  On a clear winter’s morning, Bess and the brigade crossed an old stone bridge over a fast-flowing river, the first real river they’d seen for many months. Nearby were the ruins of an enormous Crusader castle which had been built by Richard the Lionheart more than seven centuries before.

  They trotted through groves of oranges and plantations of olives, and to the left of them sand dunes rolled down to the emerald coast.

  A few days later, they were
ordered to attack Turkish trenches on high ground at Ayun Kara near the coast.

  In the Bible, Ayun Kara had been the place where Samson the strong man had fought the lion. The brigade didn’t think they’d be meeting any lions in this peaceful land dozing among orange groves and dunes. They thought it would be a swift and easy battle.

  When they galloped up to the ridge at Ayun Kara, they immediately ran into massive machine-gun fire. There was little cover between the dunes and the groves, and the Turks and their machine guns high on a red knoll vastly outnumbered them. The troopers fought back bravely in fierce charges, galloping their horses towards the Turks and then leaping off to do battle on foot.

  When it came turn for Bess’s squadron to go into action, they crashed through the orange groves and thundered out onto the open ground amid a splay of machine-gun fire.

  Bess’s master lay flat along her back, trying to dodge the flying bullets. They doubled back among the trees, the bullets splicing chips off the branches. Bess could smell the sweet scent of crushed orange skins and hear the sickening thud of bullets hitting horseflesh.

  They galloped on, Bess’s master clinging to her neck to miss the low-lying branches, Flame and her young master close behind. They charged from the grove and raced back out across the wide open ground leading up to the red knoll. The machine guns stuttered viciously, but they ignored the danger and galloped on through the snarling bullets.

  Bess and Flame were racing neck and neck when a deafening explosion ripped apart the red earth beneath their feet. Flame and her master took the full impact of the grenade blast and smashed to the ground.

  Before Bess and her master could turn back, the Turks fell upon them, yelling and screaming.

  The troopers dismounted and rushed forward to meet them. They wrenched their bayonets from their scabbards and plunged at the nearest Turks. Steel clashed horribly on steel, and men screamed out as bayonets sliced home. The horse-holders scrambled for the horses and dragged them from the bloody battle.

  Back on the safety of the horse lines, Bess touched noses with Jack, whose sides oozed sweat. Flame’s picket line next to them was empty.

  Bess’s ears still rang with the rattle of machine-gun fire and her body trembled uncontrollably. She waited for Flame to gallop wildly in from the battle and join them on the lines as she’d so often done in the past.

  By early evening, the fighting was nearly over. Flame and her young master had not returned.

  In the fierce hand-to-hand battle, the troopers managed to seize some of the Turks’ machine guns and turn them on the enemy’s gun posts on the red knoll. With the capture of the knoll, the enemy’s advantage was gone. The Turks fled, leaving behind many dead and dying on the battlefield. As darkness fell, the groans and cries of the wounded men echoed pitifully from the dunes and groves.

  The New Zealanders gathered up the wounded men in the fading light. The stretcher-bearers worked across the ghastly fields, gently picking up the wounded troopers and transferring them to the ambulance carts. Sturdy horses and mules pulled the two-wheeled hooded carts displaying the Red Cross. Once medical officers had checked the men and dressed their wounds, the carts rattled off to meet up with motor ambulances. From there they’d travel by dirt road to the dressing station, and finally by train to hospital. It would be a long and uncomfortable journey for the men.

  When the ambulance carts rolled in from the battlefield with the wounded men, Flame’s master was not among them. Bess’s master asked the padre if he’d seen him among the dead, but the padre had not. Bess’s master looked over at Flame’s empty picket line next to Bess, puzzled. He turned to Jack’s master and said, ‘They must be out there somewhere — we’ve got to find them.’

  They saddled up Bess and Jack and rode out into a night still tortured with the cries of the wounded. Hawker saw them leave and dashed to Jack’s side, barking furiously. ‘All right, hop on,’ Jack’s master said. The little dog bounded up behind the saddle. They trekked across the open ground leading up to the red knoll. The horses picked their way carefully through the bodies strewn across the ground. They could just see their grim outlines in the dim light.

  ‘This is where the hand grenade exploded,’ Bess’s master said, pointing to a small crater in the bleeding earth. But there was no sign of Flame or her master among the scattered bodies there. They walked on.

  They were near one of the orange groves when Bess heard a familiar whinny. It was very faint, although she answered it with such excitement that her master jumped in the saddle. She headed towards the grove without his urging. They stepped in among the fallen oranges and smashed branches. Hawker barked, leapt from Jack and scampered to a dark shape standing among the trees.

  Flame stood over her master, her bloodied head hanging low. Bess’s master jumped off her back and bent down next to the prone figure lying at Flame’s feet. ‘He’s alive!’ he called. They lifted him gently across Bess’s saddle and led them out of the sickly-sweet-smelling orange grove and back to camp.

  Both Flame and her young master had deep head wounds received from the grenade blast. Flame’s master regained consciousness as the medical officer bandaged his bleeding forehead. ‘I clung on to Flame’s stirrup, and she dragged me to the shelter of the grove,’ he struggled to tell them. ‘She wouldn’t leave me, even when they started pounding the orchard with shells.’ The medical officer lifted him into the waiting ambulance cart and, as the cart rattled off, he cried out to Bess’s master, ‘Make sure they look after her.’

  The veterinary officer who examined Flame shook his head. ‘She has a deep gash to the side of her head. We need to evacuate her to the mobile veterinary hospital to prevent infection.’ Bess and Jack whickered out to her as she hobbled away with the other badly injured horses.

  The next morning the battered brigade rode through the nearby village of Richon Le Zion. There, they met Jewish settlers for the first time. The excited villagers rushed out to greet them. They’d heard the battle raging all the day before, and were relieved to see that the ‘English’ had won. They dreamed of a life free from Turkish rule. A little girl ran up to Bess and gave her an apple, the first she’d had since leaving home. The troopers were showered with gifts of oranges, almonds, honey, fresh bread and wine. They thought about the troopers they’d left behind forever on the battlefield of Ayun Kara.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jaffa the Beautiful

  The battle at Ayun Kara helped split the Turkish forces so that the Allies could push on towards Jerusalem. Meanwhile the New Zealand Mounteds occupied the port town of Jaffa.

  In order to keep the Turks busy while the Allies mounted their attack on Jerusalem, the New Zealanders took them on at the Auja River near Jaffa. The attack nearly ended in disaster. But a few weeks before Christmas 1917, the Allies were able to successfully force the Turks out of Jerusalem. The Commander in Chief made his formal entry into the Holy City through the Jaffa Gate. A troop of New Zealand horsemen formed part of the guard of honour.

  The New Zealand Mounteds marched on to the port town of Jaffa on the coast, meeting with little resistance. They rode through picturesque villages set amidst lush orange, apple and almond groves. Crowds of villagers welcomed them with cries of ‘Shalom, shalom.’ The horses clip-clopped through shady lanes bordered by huge mimosa hedges in full bloom, their sweet perfume wafting though the air.

  In the distance they could see the red-tiled roofs of Jaffa sitting among its hillside gardens and orchards.

  The Turks surrendered Jaffa without a fight, and the New Zealanders moved in. They proudly hoisted the Union Jack outside the town hall. The Turks had expelled many of the townspeople, but now the New Zealanders occupied the town the people flocked back to their homes. They poured in from the plains and hills where they’d been hiding. They came on camel-back, on donkeys and on foot, with everything they owned packed high upon their animals.

  The word jaffa means ‘beautiful’, and to the troopers it was beautiful indeed aft
er the harsh land they’d fought and travelled through. It’s one of the oldest ports in the world, and the stone quay where the Crusaders once tied up their great ships still jutted sturdily out to sea. It was from here that Jonah reportedly set sail before the whale swallowed him up. Nearby was the great rock of Andromeda. In Greek legend, the princess Andromeda was chained to the rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster until her future husband, Perseus, saved her. Above the rock, old stone buildings clambered up the hill overlooking the harbour. The modern Jewish garden suburb of Tel Aviv spread out northwards along the shore.

  After the dust of the desert, Bess and the horses enjoyed camping in the shady orchards surrounding the town. Once they’d rested for a while, the troopers rode them to the clock square and through the wide avenues of Jaffa. The town’s children loved seeing the big horses trot past, ridden by the strange sunburnt men in their weather-beaten slouch hats, worn-out riding breeches and shabby khaki puttees. The children from the orphanage especially adored the horses, and the men liked giving them a special treat.

  The orphanage at Jaffa was home to over 300 children. The staff had done their best to care for them, but under Turkish rule they’d become hungry and sick. They’d had nothing to eat but durra, a coarse grain, for many months. The troopers set to work gathering all the food and blankets they could find for the children. Soon the children were eating well and had enough warm clothes and blankets to protect them from the approaching chilly winter nights.