Kana St Kilties - At the Dardanelles

Текст с Bandcamp’а: “Otago Daily Times, 14 October 1915: (Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with N.Z. Forces.) August 16: The battle has spent itself like a breaker on a rock-bound shore. The backwash is gathering itself slowly together for another effort. There is still desultory firing from the guns on the cruisers and destroyers in the Gulf of staccato crack of an enemy maxim sounds from the hillside, and the stream of bullets hit up the sand on the beach. At intervals ... a shell from a big Turkish gun bursts in the sand or the sea. A sniper, who is more than a good shot, amuses himself by potting from long range at some Indians digging a grave. ...the sad grey of olive trees contrasts with the green of the ilex— the prickly dwarf oak that covers this rugged country. How our men fought through here in the darkness is a marvel. The prickly scrub tore their hands and bare knees till there was not a quarter of an inch of skin unscarified. For three days afterwards they fought thus, and in the end sores that had become septic gave the doctors much work. Wandering a little way into the scrub at the risk of being sniped, you note the evidences of the advance—bits of torn garments, a puttee that had become loosened and torn from the leg, a helmet lost in the darkness, a sock telling the tale of a wounded foot, other garments bloodstained, clips of cartridges, a broken rifle, and first field dressings torn by the unyielding branches of the sturdy prickly ilex from somewhat slender fastenings. Here and there the stench of an unburied body fouls the hot air. from The Drunken Piper of Banvie, released March 17, 2017“