Brave Bess and the ANZAC Horses Page 5

  Best of all, on fine days the troopers rode up on their horses and gave the orphans rides through the streets. The other children looked at them enviously as they rode past on the big, beautiful horses.

  The troopers chose the gentlest and quietest horses for this special duty. The fiery steeds or stubborn mules wouldn’t do. Jack was always first pick, even though he towered above the children. They loved him. Jack’s master would heave them up onto his broad back, Hawker barking excitedly. He’d lead Jack along the lanes, the big grey walking steadily and quietly, as if he knew he was carrying the most precious cargo in the world.

  While the New Zealand Mounteds occupied Jaffa, the rest of the army advanced on Jerusalem. The Mounteds had not been in Jaffa for long when they were called upon to help. They were to cross the Auja River to the north of Jaffa and try to hold up the Turkish troops there.

  When the New Zealanders rode down to the river, they discovered it was too deep and wide to cross safely, except for a few fords that were heavily guarded by the Turks. At first, the troopers and their horses took the Turks by surprise and were able to wade safely across one of the fords. But the Turks soon called up strong reinforcements and nearly trapped the dismounted troopers on the north bank of the river. The order went out to the horse-holders to ‘gallop for your lives’, and withdraw back to the south bank.

  Jack’s master was riding Jack and leading Bess and three other horses when he heard the order to retreat. He spurred Jack on, Bess and the others following. They plunged into the murky river, and immediately the horses sank up to their withers, the water lapping over their saddle flaps. Further down river, Jack’s master saw some soldiers floundering in the deep water. They were drowning under the weight of their heavy packs and ammunition. He urged Jack to swim across to them, leading Bess and the other horses. The horses surged through the water, their noses high and snorting, their powerful forelegs paddling frantically.

  ‘Grab onto the horses!’ Jack’s master yelled to the men as they swam alongside. The exhausted men grabbed for the saddles, manes, tails — any part of the horses they could. Two men clung to Bess’s neck, and she and the other horses dragged the soldiers to the riverbank as a volley of shots rang out from the Turks. En Zed machine gunners returned fire, and under their cover the men and horses scrambled up the slippery banks to safety.

  The New Zealanders moved back to high ground on the south side of the river and dug in. They expected the Turks to chase them across the river. Luckily, the Turks seemed happy to have regained the river and didn’t follow. Bess and the brigade lived to fight another day.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Down to Jericho

  In early 1918, the Anzac Mounteds trudged over the Judean Hills and down into the Jordan Valley to capture the town of Jericho, ports on the Dead Sea, and the western banks of the Jordan River. In Jericho, they found a town riddled with disease and decay and surrounded by a barren, inhospitable land.

  For Bess and her regiment, it was a wet and miserable Christmas. On Christmas Day, they marched through winter rains and cold winds to join up with the rest of the brigade at a camp near the coast.

  Some of the horses pulling the heavy guns became bogged down in a sea of mud. The mules and donkeys had to help haul them out. The poor camels were especially unhappy in the cold. Stinker sat down in the mud and refused to get up again until his handler bribed him with some dates. The men shivered in their thin cotton uniforms, and their greatcoats and the covers for the horses had to be hurried up to camp.

  The Anzacs spent the chilly winter days at camp training in between downpours of rain. Then in January they received their new orders. They were to march across the Judean Hills and down into the Jordan Valley to capture Jericho.

  The Turks still occupied an area of rough, rocky country, called the Wilderness of Judea, that lay between Jerusalem and the Jordan River. Here, they controlled the town of Jericho and the Dead Sea. Many of their supplies were shipped to them from across this inland sea. The Allies decided that Jericho and the landing places on the Dead Sea must be seized.

  In February, the brigade left their bivouacs and trekked over the old Roman road leading to Bethlehem. The road curved up into the stony hills of Judea and through terraces of grey-green olive groves. They passed ancient sites at every twist and turn of a wadi and rise and fall of a tel. Near Zakariya, in a valley sliced in two by a stony riverbed, they saw the place where David had killed the giant Goliath with a stone fired from his slingshot. The road then rose rapidly where the Romans had cut away slabs of rock to form huge steps up the hills.

  On top of a plateau, they stopped to drink from three massive stone reservoirs, called Solomon’s Pools. King Solomon had built the stone pools over 3,000 years before to supply Jerusalem with water, and later the Roman ruler Pontius Pilate extended them. Bess and the horses didn’t care how old they were; they just enjoyed drinking deeply from the fresh water after their hard uphill ride.

  The brigade reached the town of Bethlehem late in the evening and camped nearby for several nights. Many of the troopers visited the Church of the Nativity that was built over the manger where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born. The next morning, the crooked, cobbled streets of Bethlehem echoed to the sound of the New Zealand horsemen marching towards Jericho.

  For several days and nights, the men and their horses clambered up a rough mountain track leading over the Judean Hills. The track was so narrow and steep that the men had to dismount and lead their horses in single file. High cliffs rose up on either side, and among them Bess could see flocks of goats tended by Arab herders. Sometimes the goat herders played on their wooden flutes, the haunting sound drifting down from the granite heights.

  The track dropped steeply away on the other side of the hills, zigzagging down through the jagged cliffs into the wide, flat Jordan Valley. It was narrow and stony underfoot, and even the led horses stumbled in the loose shingle. Bess scraped both her knees in one fall. The long fourteen-kilometre line of horses weaving slowly down the mountainside in single file must have looked like a giant twisting snake to the Turks hiding in the valley.

  When the head of the column moved into the Jordan Valley, the Turks opened fire on them from the hills. Luckily, they were well out of range and the men leapt onto their horses and galloped for shelter. With their own machine-gunners sweeping the valley, they pressed forward under cover. Troop by troop, squadron by squadron, they galloped forward from one hillock to the next. The enemy quickly retreated ahead of them across the plains.

  On a dreary, damp morning, the leading troopers galloped into Jericho to find the Turks had fled. As they rode in, the priest of the town rang the church bell and women sprinkled water on the troopers’ heads from the balconies of their houses. The troopers later found out that this was a great honour, as it was water from the Jordan River and was believed to be holy.

  The Anzacs were shocked at the state of the town. It was squalid and filthy, its people very poor. There was a huddle of stone buildings and a mass of mud huts, and in some of the buildings the troopers found dead and dying Turkish soldiers. They had the dreaded typhus disease. Volunteers among the medical officers and field ambulances treated the sick soldiers and buried the dead. They turned one of the old stone buildings into a temporary hospital and disinfected all the other buildings.

  Meanwhile Bess and the horses rode out with their masters to check on the Jordan Valley. Everywhere were signs of Jericho’s old glory, from the days long ago when it was known as the City of Palms. Close to modern Jericho were many tels, or mounds, the ruins of the ancient city and its fortresses. These old mounds provided shelter from the Turkish snipers who lay in wait for the troopers in the valley. Across the plains were the remains of great Roman aqueducts for carrying water, and square cisterns, or reservoirs, now dry and overgrown. Bess felt jittery passing beneath the huge stone ruins of the aqueducts. The winds of the valley whistled to her through their ancient arches.

  The few p
ockets of land that were still watered produced palms and banana trees over six metres high. Along the Jordan River, a strip of vivid green twisted and turned with the river through the white chalky hills. But apart from this, the valley was a barren wilderness. Only prickly, thorny shrubs survived. One spiny shrub grew to over two metres and was covered in bright orange, apple-106 shaped fruit called Dead Sea apples. Bess stretched her head out to snatch one to eat as they walked past, but her master tugged her away. ‘No, Bess,’ he warned, ‘they’re poisonous.’ Vultures circled in the sky overhead, and on the far side of the valley the massive mountains of Moab towered black and threatening.

  About the only enjoyment the brigade got while staying near Jericho was riding down to the Dead Sea. First, the troopers seized the Turkish motor launches and dhows and reported on the stores held in the buildings near the landings. Then they went for a swim.

  The troopers laughed at the look on the horses’ faces when they took their first dip in the Dead Sea. The water of this huge inland sea is so salty that it is buoyant, and even the heavy horses felt light-bodied in the water. The troopers lay back in the sea, some reading newspapers and letters from home as they floated high on their backs. Nothing can live in or near the Dead Sea because of the high salt content. When Hawker tried to drink from it, he spat out the water quickly and shook himself with disgust.

  Early one evening, Bess and her brigade began the long, dreary march back through the Wilderness, leaving behind one regiment to keep the Jericho plain clear of Turks. As they weaved their way back down through the Judean foothills on a clear dawn, they looked across to the Holy City of Jerusalem silhouetted against a silvery sky. The ancient city nestled upon its golden hills, its temples, towers and domes hugged by high stone walls.

  The Anzacs camped near Jerusalem, and the troopers took the opportunity to visit the holy sites. They saw the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where most Christians believe Jesus Christ was crucified and rose again; the Western Wall, which Jews believe are the remains of the Temple complex destroyed by the Romans; and the golden Dome of the Rock, where Muslims believe Mohammed rose to Heaven on a winged horse.

  Towards the end of February, the brigade marched back to their old bivouac near the Jewish village of Richon Le Zion. Here the horses and their masters finally rested up after their mountain riding. Vineyards and orange groves surrounded the village, and the oranges were now at their best. The lush green trees were heavy with the bright-orange fruit. The men enjoyed a daily ration of oranges, and the horses grazed happily in the vineyards.

  Bess was picketed on the horse line alongside Jack one morning when she heard a familiar whinny. Hawker started barking excitedly, and Bess and Jack spun around to see Flame’s young master leading Flame over to them. They nuzzled one another, and Flame joined them contentedly on the line as if she’d never been away.

  Both Flame and her master had spent three-and-half months recovering from their wounds. After being discharged from hospital, Flame’s master had rested at the Aotea Convalescent Home near Cairo. This was a home set up for sick and wounded New Zealand troopers by New Zealand women who helped nurse the men back to health. On leaving Aotea, Flame’s master had returned to the base training camp on the Suez Canal. There he’d retrained for a while before rejoining the brigade.

  Similarly, Flame had been evacuated to a veterinary hospital by rail, where they’d treated her and then sent her on to a convalescent depot. From there, she had gone to a remount depot. Here she would usually have been issued to another trooper, but her young master battled to make sure that they were reunited as a team.

  After resting, the brigade began drilling and training again in readiness for their next action. The farriers trimmed the horses’ hooves and fitted them with new metal shoes. All the marching across the rough, sharp rocks of the mountain tracks had worn down their old shoes and their feet were bruised and sore. When it came Flame’s turn to have her new shoes fitted, her young master led her over to the farrier. He rolled his eyes and sighed, ‘Here we go again!’

  Flame had earned a reputation as being a stroppy mare to shoe. She hated the hiss of the hot metal on the forge and the thud and bang of the hammer on nails. Surprisingly, this time she stood quietly. Her ears didn’t flicker once, even when the farrier fired up the forge and it flared and crackled like some fire-breathing monster. Her young master watched her, then held up his hand to her ear and clicked his finger. Flame didn’t stir. He turned to Bess’s master and said sadly, ‘I think the grenade blast has deafened Flame. She can’t hear a thing.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Mountains of Moab

  In March 1918, the Anzac Mounteds were ordered back down into the barren Jordan Valley once more. From here, they took part in several unsuccessful raids over the mountains of Moab to the plateau town of Amman.

  In the first raid on Amman, thirty-eight New Zealanders were killed and 122 badly wounded. They were forced to withdraw and carry their wounded troopers back down the treacherous mountains under enemy fire.

  To their dismay, Bess and her brigade once again had to march into the desolate Jordan Valley. Their mission this time was to capture the town of Amman and cut off the Hedjaz railway which supplied the Turks with guns and food. Both men and horses were fit and ready for action after their rest at Richon Le Zion. However, nothing could prepare them for what they were about to face. The next six months were to prove the worst of the campaign and tested men and horses to their limit.

  From the Jordan Valley where the Anzacs camped, the great mountains of Moab loomed like an impenetrable black wall of rock. Its sheer sides were seamed with huge gulches sliced out by heavy winter rains. The town of Amman sat high upon a plateau on top of the mountains.

  Early one morning in late August, the Anzacs set out to cross the flooded Jordan River, scale the mountains and seize Amman. The horses were eager for a ride after their long rest. They galloped along the riverbank, Bess and Flame flicking their tails and tossing their heads. Even the transport camels enjoyed being out, and they bellowed heartily as they trotted along behind lugging their heavy loads.

  Posts of Turks guarded the river, but they eventually surrendered when besieged by rows of galloping horsemen and lumbering camels. The Anzacs built a pontoon bridge, and by nightfall the horse and camel brigades had clattered across the swollen river.

  Darkness found them struggling up the towering mountains of Moab. The weather suddenly turned bitterly cold, the freezing rain and icy winds lashing at the men and their animals. The mountain roads became little more than goat tracks over bare, sharp, slippery rocks.

  The men dismounted and led the horses and camels up the dark, dripping slopes and across the boulder-strewn riverbeds. The horses stumbled and fell, and struggled up again. The sharp rocks slashed the camels’ soft, padded feet, leaving a trail of blood behind them. Their long legs split apart on the greasy surface, and when they fell they couldn’t get up again.

  Poor Stinker slipped down the sides of a steep ravine and came to rest unharmed at the bottom. His handler scrambled down the bank and unloaded his heavy packs. But there was no way the ungainly camel could get back up the steep sides of the ravine, no matter how many times he desperately tried. His handler had to shoot him rather than leaving him there to starve.

  For three days and three nights, the weary columns climbed without sleep through the freezing cold and rain. When they finally reached the misty mountain-top near Amman, the ground was so wet and muddy that the horses and camels could barely move forward. Bess sank up to her knees in the oozing mud. The troopers set up the horse lines in the lee of the hills and tied up the exhausted animals.

  Bess and the other horses remained saddled for days in the driving rain, with little food, waiting for the moment their masters might need them to gallop forward and fetch them from battle. They listened nervously to the whump of enemy guns and the whining of enemy shells. The staccato chatter of the machine-gun fire added to the chorus of de
ath.

  The well-armed Turks fired relentlessly on the troopers from a dome-shaped hill that dominated the town, the ruins of a great Roman amphitheatre that once sat 4,000 people and had been carved out of the hillside beneath them. They were also firmly entrenched in an old Roman citadel protecting the town.

  The Anzacs hurled themselves against these strong positions for four days and nights. They fought grimly from behind stone sangars, or slabs of rock, on the hillsides. The sangars provided them with little protection from the exploding Turkish shells. Flying shards of rock and shrapnel injured or killed many of the men. When the Jordan River overflowed its banks and swept away the bridges, desperately needed supplies of food and guns couldn’t get through. The freezing, exhausted and hungry men and horses finally had no choice but to withdraw.

  All day and all the next night, the long line of weary camels, horses and men stumbled, slipped and fell back down the steep, slippery mountain tracks. Bess, Flame and Jack carried badly wounded men strapped to their backs while their masters led them.

  When day broke, they filed through a tiny village perched high in the mountains. Bess skittered nervously along the narrow lanes between the whitewashed buildings, her shod hooves clacking over the cobbles. ‘Easy girl,’ her master said, trying to calm her. Suddenly they heard a loud crack, and a horse further up the line thudded to the ground.

  ‘Sniper!’ cried her master. There was nowhere to take cover in the narrow alley. From the rooftops, the sniper shot at the line of trapped horses. Bess’s master led her to safety in a doorway. In front of them, Flame couldn’t hear the rifle shots and made no effort to escape. The sniper took aim and fired. She squealed and crashed to the cobbles, the wounded soldier she was carrying falling beneath her.