INDIANS: from The Story of The Anzacs

The first acquaintance formed between the Indians and the Anzacs occurred during the passing of the Australasian transports through the Suez Canal. Egypt was at this time partially garrisoned by Indian troops, and many of these lined the banks of the Canal, and cheered the new-comers heartily as they passed.

The friendship was cemented in a much more solid fashion at Anzac, where an Indian Mountain Battery supported the Australians at the Landing on the momentous 25th, and gave them indispensable help. Friendship deepened into brotherhood beneath the crags of Koja Chemen, where the Gurkhas and Australians fought side by side, and almost achieved the impossible. As has been mentioned elsewhere, the Gurkhas attacked Hill Q., while our men were engaged on their left in the assault of Abdul Rahman Bair.

The heights fronting the Gurkhas were precipitous and terrible, and they fell right and left into the chasms when the Turkish bullets hit them. They actually scaled the crest, and, like other troops on that eventful day, looked down on Maidos and on victory, could the height be once held. But they were only a handful compared with the Turks, who hurried up huge masses of men, overwhelmed them, and hurled them back. Yet if they had been baulked of their goal during the day, the vantage of the night was theirs, for when the sun had fallen they stole forth with their kukris, and when morning came there were fewer foemen for us to face on Gallipoli.

The Sikhs also showed at Gallipoli the courage which won the admiration of those who knew their record in Mesopotamia. But it was probably the Indians in charge of the mule trains who were regarded with the greatest admiration by our men, and gave them the greatest measure of relief. These men made countless journeys backwards and for-wards from the beaches to the firing line, advancing through gullies dominated by Turkish snipers, where death threatened them at every yard, and saving our men repeatedly from death by thirst.

Had the Indians lost their nerve and failed in their duty, the whole campaign must have collapsed, but they continued throughout the entire period of occupation to go to and fro silently and patiently, taking their teams into the thickest of the fray.