“Scared?Sometimes you were too scared to be scared.I would laugh at any individual who says he wasn’t afraid.Those who say they are devoid of fear talk absolute phooey.I was paralysed with fear.”
“The ground was jumping and the bushes were swaying this way and that, and it sounded as if I were running through a giant swarm of bees on the move.They weren’t bees.They were bullets buzzing around my ears, everywhere.The landscape was alive with bullets.”
“Suddenly there was a terrific volume of rifle fire and yelling.The two men we had on watch came charging back to us and said the Turks were coming through.We was going to be pretty well in the middle of the Turks unless we moved fast.My mates said to me, ‘Well, you led us down here. Now you lead us back.’So I took off, back towards the top of Chunuk Bair, with bullets hopping around me, and the others following behind.”
“The intention was to cut the Gallipoli peninsula in two, right across to the Narrows.But we knew perfectly well that Chunuk Bair was the key – the key, that is, to victory or defeat on the peninsula.That hill was vital.It dominated the middle of the peninsula and commanded ground right down to the Narrows.And in the August offensive Chunuk Bair was the objective of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade.Victory or defeat was in our hands.”
“They just kept coming at us.If any got up to our trench, we had to hop out and bayonet them back.Otherwise we just fired point blank into the mass.Our rifles got red hot, and some of them jammed.The bottom of our trench was ankle deep in spent shells.I don’t know how long it lasted.It seemed many hours, but perhaps it was only two.I was black with bruises from the recoil of my rifle.”
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