Thomas James Richards, Diaries, Transcript Vol. 2 - Part 23

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good self, the General will be able to improve the lot
of our men.
I sincerely hope, Mrs. Cadell, that you are
in good health and not worrying your dear self to the
same extent as I have known you to do. To take matters
quieter and more philosophically seems the easiest path
to follow hereunder.
I am much indebted to you, Mrs. Cadell,
for your kindly smile and cheerful words while undergoing
my metaphysical transformation at Montazah. I had
wrapped myself up in the fiendish devilry and the prehistoric

existence during the first 17 long weeks at
Anzac that I had overlooked all about civilization and
forgotten entirely there was any consideration or kindness

outside of our own little hard cooped-up and shell-riddled
sphere to be found.
Could I ever forget lying on the deck of
the crowded hospital ship standing off Anzac Cove sick
and injured when I heard a sound so pure and sweet that
I thought of the "Heavenly Chorus." I turned the
blanket timidly from over my head and saw to my astonishment

an angel moving about talking in the soft voice
of the blessed. I listened and watched, afraid almost
to trust even my ears or my eyes. It was an angel
all right. Where could I possibly be amongst angels?
There are no angels in Hades! No.!! it could not be
an angel; it's only my idle dreaming. Angels don't
come hovering amongst dirt-begrimed and blood-spatted
soldiers. I closed my eyes a moment, and was surprised
to find an angel still there, and behold moving slowly
towards myself. She spoke to each prostrated form as
she came. Oh, would she speak to me? How would I be
able to answer her if she did? No'. it could not be.
 

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No angel would talk to a rough, primitive, unshaven
man like me!! Yet she was coming still nearer. Surely
it was only a vision. Yes, it must be, so to avoid
breaking the beautiful spell I furtively covered my
head with the blanket again. A tender hand was placed
firmly upon my shoulder, quickening my blood and stirring
my soul, then the most striking voice I have ever heard
said clearly, "You’ll have a cup of warm milk, my boy.
Come on now!" Instinctively I uncovered my head and there,
sure enough, was an angel stooping over me, but in the
guise of a woman - a Red Cross sister. And so I
gradually came back from the "wilds." Even when I met
you at Montazah I scarcely had sufficient confidence
to talk. It seemed sacrilegious for me to do so when the
voice of a woman was so rare and so precious. You
helped to bring me down from the hazy heights or rather
up from the dismal depths of the bloody inferno, and I
will respect and cherish your kindly deeds and actions
for all time. May the world in its mad whirl bear forth
peace of mind and gladsome fruits upon which to glory
and drink deep.
Please accept my love and kindest regards.
Yours sincerely,
T. J. Richards.
There was a great artillery demonstration
with the batteries on the right side against John Turk at
1.30 to-day. It was rather fine to hear them all going together.

Turk soon responded and made matters very lively
for an hour or more. Hundreds of shells changed hands
and strange to say our casualties amounted to no more than
four men.
It seems to be now that the commotion
caused the other day in looking for the submarine was a
scheme to bring our thick-bottomed warship up into position,
 

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as it came zig-zagging along looking for the submarine with
the destroyers racing and twisting round in their own
length throwing up spray in clouds, but suddenly the warship
fired broadside after broadside over in the direction of
Maidos and the other craft gave up looking for the submarine -
all a blind I think and a good one.
15th November, 1915. The day broke dull and drizzling rain
fell at intervals. The wind is blowing strongly but it is
not nearly so cold as usual.
In reading from papers the diaries of other
men it makes me rather ashamed of my own book and the value
of my own work. It is strange too that although I write a
number of long letters which the press are glad to publish,
still I never have any remarks, advice or criticism mentioned
in my letters from friends. I sometimes think that I am
doing wonders considering my lack of schooling etc. and I
know full well that there is much room for improvement.
That is why I feel annoyed at times to think my friends do
not attempt to assist me, or at least encourage me. Ralph
Hill did pay me a very high compliment but there are so many
others. But, regardlessly, I must battle along my own stolid
road and continue to improve myself as I go. It's hard work
on one's lonesome but nevertheless it's stock, stick and
still stick and I can well do it too, hard and wearisome
though it be.
16th November, 1915. For four hours the warships poured in
volley after volley until some thousands of shots must have
been fired. The ridge from the sea to the summit of Achi
Baba was a mass of smoke columns rising in rotation. The
dullness of the day prevented me from seeing the number of
ships that were firing and made the smoke columns look so
weird-like and strange.
 

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To-day has been reasonably quiet although Beachy
Bill did send a number of shots along the beach.
Broom-stick bombs are the latest devilry of the
Turks, and another batch of four men came past here just
now, one of them with his two legs blown off and argues
that he's not going to die. Not he!!
I met Fred Arons to-day. He has one star up now
and is quite proud of it. Tim Stabler with two stars up
passes my dressing station every day.
17th November, 1915. To-day is sunshiny and frightfully
blowy. The sea is covered with white horses and waves are
breaking on the beach which will prevent either provisions
or troops from coming ashore. The wounded will have to
remain here but that will not matter much as there is
excellent accommodation on shore now. There are also a
series of hospitals where minor cases are treated and
patients watched for a few days. There are a whole lot of
canvas tents about now that the big guns from over the front
of our lines have shifted across to pay attention to our left
wing, for which we Anzac residents have much to be thankful.
Yesterday the gray and blue lights of the sky, the
colour of the water and the shades on Imbros and Samothrace
were charming. It was a glorious day but, alas, to-day we
have to pay the price as the wind is banging about in horrid
lumps and filling everybody's eyes and ears with dirt and
rubbish.
A big rain-storm followed the pleasant day and by
10 o'clock all of the badly situated homes were filled with
water and the occupiers in dire trouble. I had to cover
myself with an oilsheet as the rain leaked through the roof
and by Jove the night was cold.
 

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18th November, 1915. Beachy Bill has had a regular gala
day to-day. He started early and has racked the beach from
end to end. The beach is strewn with all kinds of craft and
debris from yesterday's storm and evidently Beachy Bill was
was after the parties at work thereon but I believe he did
not knock many.
I went for a walk up Lone Pine way and saw
an unexploded stick bomb. The broom size stick is about
4 ft. long. The brass cartridge case is from a 3 or 4
pounder shell, probably 13 inches long and 2 ins. in diameter
which has a percussion cap fixed to the wooden top, the
interior of course being filled with powder and balls or
metal of some or any kind. While chatting with some
artillery men I learnt quite a lot about gunnery, and saw
a German aeroplane come over our lines. He did not venture
right across and when our anti-aircraft gun fired the first
shot, a jolly good shot too, it turned and got well out of
the way. This is the first enemy plane seen for some considerable time. Our men are extremely pleased at the nearness
and all the infantry fellows cheered it. It seemed
a break in the horrible monotony of their trench war.
19th November, 1915. It is rumoured that the Xmas mail
for Australia was sunk in the storm along with the barge
upon which it was waiting for transport. This is a very
serious matter to the boys. There was never any seaweed
on the main beach until now and now there is tons and tons
of it. I think also that we should be proud of it as it must
save our beach from being battered much worse than it is.
I went down around the beach this morning and Beachy Bill has
got them all bluffed down there. It seems that the Beachy
Bill family has suddenly increased as he blazed away at
trawlers and launches, and at the same time racked the
beach and filled up the Headquarters gully. Our guns are
 

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all firing over Gaba Tepe way but Beachy Bill and his family
take no notice whatever. I got into a position behind a
narrow row of sandbags with camera in hand watching a launch
bringing in a huge load of wood. A whole lot of shell
lobbed around but nothing came for me to photograph, although
my position was covered with pellets a dozen times. It
was exciting work, right enough, and I quite enjoyed it.
Coming back along the beach to camp I side-stepped and
ducked in surprisingly good style. I cannot understand how
it is a man gets to scorn and laugh at shell fire, particularly

when he is right amongst it and sees other men knocked
down around him.
A chap was here telling me how thickly the
big bombs were falling all last night. They were made out
of old brass shell cases from the 18-pounder shells and
fired on a stick 2 ins. thick and 5 ft. long. This style
of fighting seems to me by far the best possible method
and if our trenches were filled with mortars and an unlimited
quantity of bombs - not a few hundred hundred or thousand
but tons and tons of them. However, on second thought we
must take into consideration that the Turkish trenches may
be nearly all covered over and bomb-proof like the Lone Pine
trenches we captured from him in August last.
Without being pessimistic or unduly harsh on
our military authorities, it seems to me that with a week or
four weeks' rough weather such as we had the other day,
which with rain and slippery roads followed in the break of
the weather by a continualy bombardment day and night, such
as last night, matters will go very very hard with our men
in the trenches and the provisioning of all hands. Suppose
that the Turks make a lot of feint attacks or real attacks
and compel us to spend large quantities of ammunition also
that they pay special attention to our water condensing
plant from the air as well as from land Howitzers, the
boring plant may put that right for us. But what I mean is
 

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that looked deeply into and considered from the worst
possible point in weather conditions, John Turk can give
us particular hell right along the whole line. Fancy what
hard fighting over three weeks of bad weather in which we

could ^not get the wounded away or bring up reinforcements
would really mean to us.
There is a fatigue party going around clearing

up the graves and putting numbered crosses thereon, so
now we have little cemeteries all over the place and the
fellows returning from their resting camp on Lemnos got a
fair amount of interest in reading the names on the crosses
and discussing the individual thereunder.
It is 11 o'clock at night now. I have been
writing in the dressing station until now and find it very
comfortable. The two Victorian fellows I have with me
have not sufficient intelligence to read or write so they
sit about singing, whistling or walking up and down stamping
their feet as it is fairly cold all day long, so it is a
pleasure to get quietness, hence my reason for writing until
this time of the night.
20th November, 1915. Saturday - a day of pleasure and freedom

in Australia. Here we have had even a better day.
If not amusing, then at least one of great interest and
joyous excitement. Our aeroplane was scouting about all
over the place at 12 o'clock. A little later the sky was
dotted with white, extraordinary-looking white puff clouds.
He had got his eye on to something and the Turks were trying
to drive him off. Just then our one and only cruiser (which
by the way left us unattended altogether during the stormy
day and night) commenced to fire, and fire she did for an
hour or so with whole broadsides at a time, and as Beachy
Bill is giving our beach a raking day and night, this bit of
by-play to-day makes us feel refreshed and show that we can
kick up a bit of a noise also and I guess we did some damage
 

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to John as well.
It is a remarkable experience to hear huge
shells tearing holes in the atmosphere and the sound of the
report vibaring up and down the valley immediately underneath.
All the fellows about here are in high glee
also, regardless of the extreme cold. The wind comes strongly
from the north-east and is the dizzy limit. We are wondering

what we will do when the winter really comes along. I
have a fairly heavy singlet on, a blue flannel, a khaki
shirt and my big sweater and yet I hardly hold the pen and
it is not 4 p.m. yet. What a night there is in store for
us! Iwrote until 12.30 last night and then I got a cold
sleep.
21st November, 1915. It has been a miserable day right
through. The wind is blowing strongly from over the
trenches in a north-easterly direction and is by far the
coldest wind I have yet felt. I don’t know what I will do
if it gets much worse. I am wearing so many clothes now.
I am sorry to relate that a road is going
to be built right through our dressing station which means
that I will lose my good easy billet, I suppose. Some of
the fellows used to complain about it being lovely and
quiet up here but it suits me to perfection only that the
two illiterate fellows from Brunswick (and have never been
out of it) will not keep quiet. They walk up and down
the station all day long and it irritates me like hell.
But I am making a practice of writing at night time now
with a kerosene lamp to guide me. Then it's cold and the
loud detonations of bombs and the shake of the ground as
the big guns fire, bother me considerably.
 

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22nd November, 1915. Two registered packets and two
registered bundles of American papers came to hand from dear
old Mother to-day. In the packets were pencils and paper,
also envelopes. Mother's two ;etters - Sept. 2nd and 9th -
were full of trouble and worry. She says her life is "a
buden to her." I fear that she is fretting over Charlie's
end and also in trouble regarding Bert and myself, both of
us being ill at the end she wrote. Bill's arrival on Sept.
25th will no doubt cheer her along tremendously, as Bill is
the most lovable and consolable man in the family and seems
to show his love for mother in such a pleasing manner that
he will most surely cheer her up again and brighten her days.
But my duty seems to be to aid Mother and how I can accomplish

this is beyong my power to think out just now. Africa
is the end of the world for me. How I could go into those
mines again I cannot conceive. Gallipoli is bad enough
but African mines are, I believe, even worse. They would
batter me physically, and above all mentally, down so low
in the social plane of self-confidence that I don't think
I would ever rise again. Yet I should not bother as
matters have usually righted themselves with me. I can confidently

leave my future in the same power - the same
guiding hand.
23rd November, 1915. The artillery and bomb-throwers seem
to hold full sway still. The poor sorrowful "cannon
fodder" infantry have to sit patiently by without any
possibility of retaliation while the big guns blow their
sandbags down and the big broom-stick bombs keep them ever
harassed and on the jumpy side. The excitement is intense
as you hear a big bomb coming through the air in your
direction. Where is it going to fall? You listen all
agape, your heart swelling to breaking pressure. The
sound will betray the bomb's height in the air, the renting
 

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sizzling pace of the infernal death-dealing monster, some
of which weigh 25 lbs., filled with a terrific charge of
explosive and a thousand and more pieces of iron of varying
sizes, mostly the disc punchings of sheet iron and steel
from the engineering workshops. The bomb is whirling itself
slowly towards the position of the trench in which you are
eagerly waiting all alert and ready to dive into cover of a
funk hole of some kind instantly, but wait a while the last
two went right over the top of the trench and the one before
that fell short. Where, oh where is this one going to pitch
and scatter its load of destruction? Wait and wait, it is
still approaching. Soldiers' lives seems made up of waiting.
If you’re out of the trenches you dare not go away as you
may be called upon instantly and if you’re on duty you are
still waiting for what appears to be going to happen every
or any moment.
Lots of strange things come over the soldier
while he is waiting for the bomb that never seems to come,
but suddently he breathes quickly and freely - the bomb with
its broom-stick driving attachment has passed overhead into
the support trenches. A moment later there is a deafening
crash and for another moment you wonder how many, if any,
are killed or wounded. Then with a bitter curse you turn
to your own duty and concentrate all your forces upon it and
wait for another bomb which may come in a minute or half a
day. One must collect and subdue his shattered nerves
immediately. It would be a slow kind of torture to allow
your mind to wander from your own primeval surroundings.
In order to stick this nerve-racking business of dodging
bombs a man must live just a breath of air at a time and think
also in the same narrow proportions.
I met Whitehead to-day and after a chat
about dear Montazah we went and found Daley of the 2nd
Battery and there found Billy Watson in good health and
wearing stripes. He seems to think such a lot of brother