Letters from the hospital ship 'Maheno', No 5.

Detail from a 1916 greeting card.
https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/collection/object/am_library-ephemera-16927

A small series, of unknown length, highlighting letters from the hospital ship, 'Maheno'.

Part of my ANZAC Commemoration in the year 2020.

Assumed identity of the author:-
Name: Harold Griffith
Service Number: 1544
Enlisted: 9 Apr 1915
Unit: 17th Australian Infantry Battalion
Fate: Returned to Australia, 17 Mar 1916
Source: Australian War Memorial

Molong Express and Western District Advertiser (NSW : 1887 - 1954), Saturday 6 November 1915, page 8

"Head Down and Pecker Up." 

Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Griffith, of Manildra, have received letters from their son Harold, written from the trenches, at sea, and the Gibralta Military Hospital, on August 25, Sept. 9, and Sept. 20 respectively. Writing from the front on the back of a programme of a concert held on board the transport he travelled on from Australia, the soldier says : 

"At last we are in the trenches. We journeyed to Lemnos in a big boat, stopped at Lemnos for a day, and then transhipped into two little boats. It took us only a few hours to get off the coast of Gallipoli. We were to land at night, so we understood, and we could hear the machine guns and rifles popping a treat. As we thought we would be landing under fire, we did not feel too brisk over the matter. It certainly sent a creepy feeling up our spinal cords. We, however, did not get off until just daylight. We landed on a pier and moved up to our position. My word, I can tell you we were glad that we didn't have to land under fire. When one sees the hills, and thinks that it is up these that our men had to scramble with the Turks well entrenched and firing on them, it appears marvellous that they ever got there. I can tell you we were pleased that we could land in peace. One of the shells struck the boat we came from Lemnos in, but didn't do any damage. In the afternoon we had a surf, and the fact that Deadly Bill from Achi Bahi can land, and some times does land shells there, made it all the more enjoyable. Any how it was great. That night we shifted off from "Rest Gully," as it is called. We marched off as light as possible, and expected to be into the midst of it before morning. We got to a certain place, however, in some gully, and there we stretched out to sleep. Spent bullets were coming over all night, and one landed just about three feet in front of me, in a bush. A couple of our fellows got hit, one rather badly. It didn't disturb our sleep though.
It is marvellous how one becomes so used to things and takes no notice. We stopped there till mid-day, and then moved off again. After a pretty stiff march of a couple of hours, we came to Australia Gully. The only trouble in Australia Gully was that we were very short of water, and had to cut our supplies down very considerably. It was rather funny. We were pretty thirsty, but we're talking about the war. One man said that in a couple of months we would have to leave the Peninsula, as it rained so much that all the gullies were running full. At once a fellow said: 'My word, won't we have a drink then. Rather funny as at the time we were not thinking of water. 

We spent our first Sunday very quietly. Spent bullets were land-ing every little while, and there were plenty of escapes. One fellow got a bullet through his trousers, and another had one lob right along side his head. We have been here two days now and no one in our company has been hit yet. The first night I was on a bit of outpost duty but nothing happened. Yesterday and last night I was in the trenches. As long as one keeps his head down and his pecker up, things are al-right. At night you can watch over the parapet with hardly any danger, but not too long. 

The Turks here are very short of big guns, and we have had hardly any shells pelting round. The only trouble really is the machine guns. Shrapnel is not feared nearly so much as one would expect. It is marvellous how close a shell can burst, and not harm anyone. 

We have to cook our own meals, and make ourselves generally useful in that way. Our tucker is pretty good, and there is plenty of it. We have also plenty of water now. 

Harold Menzies is back in the trenches again. He came round to see us the day we landed, but I missed him. Charley saw him, and says he had some pretty close escapes. Charley and I are separated now. Being in different companies, we were sent to differ-ent places. When I saw him last he was O.K. 

Writing at sea on September 5, Pte. Griffith says :- Well, here I am, or as much as is left of me, on board a ship hopping away for England. It has happened — the first engagement, too, and that not a serious one. I got hit in the left hand with an explosive bullet from a machine gun, and it has left rather a bad gash, starting from about an inch back and between the last knuckle of the thumb and forefinger. It has opened up nearly the whole of the back of the hand to the wrist, where some of the fragments of the bullet appear to have gone, straight down on to the side of that little knob of bone on the wrist. Here it has cut the bone about a bit, which is the worst feature. The sinews of the first and second fingers are also knocked about a bit. One piece of the bullet seems to have come out about three inches down the arm underneath, but there must be others still in, I think. It is pretty sore, although a little easier now. Last Wednesday the Doctor in charge of us here took me up to the head Doctor of the boat to see whether the hand would have to come off. It was a pretty pass for me, and I had to sit outside the surgery for over an hour waiting. However, when we got in he had a look at it and said, "Certainly not! In two or three months it will heal up after the bone has been fixed, and in about a year you will have a very fair hand. The wrist will be stiff, but three fingers and the thumb will be alright, though one finger — the first — may be stiff too. It will have to be massaged a lot." What do you think of that? All this time since April 12th used up, just to shoot about 300 shots at the Turkish trenches — for that was all we could see — and this hand given in! 

To tell how the wound was received is the next item. Our battalion was split up as reinforcements for some of the other older battalions. Our company were sent to a place where there were some very good trenches, well advanced. We did a couple of days in the trenches on duty, and were to have a couple out. On Friday though, at 11 o'clock, just as we were beginning to pre-pare our dinner, we got orders to get ready immediately to go into the trenches. There was to be an advance on our right and left and we were to give supporting fire. At 4 o'clock a bombardment star-ted. Our guns from all over the place opened up, from sea and land. They went till 5, when we were ordered to go at it with our rifles, and the others to charge. The guns kicked up a row, I can tell you; they landed 500 shells, shrapnel and lyddite, and they did great damage. We started firing away — bob up, take a quick sight, fire, and down again. We were just firing at their trenches, and I never saw any Turks about at all. This kept up, going strong, and our rifles ran hot and were smoking. Several times, just as I was firing, a bullet struck the parapet in from of me, throwing dust etc. into my face, but that was alright. At 6.20, though, they got me. I just came up to shoot, when bang! right on the wrist, it seemed. It swung me round, and down I went. It was just as lucky I did both things, for it must have been a machine gun, as a second bullet grazed my neck and the third went through the hat just above the band. Talk about close shaves! Of course, I didn't know anything about the last two until later, when they were dressing me, they noticed the mark, and sure enough there were the bullet holes through the tunic and the hat. Every time I look at the little mark on the neck, the more I wonder how the bullet missed. The mark is almost in the middle of the throat, and low down. The only explanation of its missing was that the first shot swung me round, therefore I was at an angle. The one through the hat, too, was within an inch of the napper. 

When I stood on the bottom of the trench, one of the fellows grabbed the arm, stopping the blood a bit — it was streaming. The ambulance men ran along with a couple of bandages, and tied it up. I was pretty weak at the knees. Reg. Nunn was close handy, and he poured some water down my neck. From the trenches a fellow helped me down to the dressing station. After a while, those of us who could walk got going to wards the beach. I was a bit better, although still groggy. A man with part of his nose blown off helped me for a while, and after wards I was alright. Talk about a walk, though. Through saps and down gullies, it was a treat. When we got down to the beach, things were better. Every while we would get a bit of tea, bovril, and biscuit. My, it was great, especially having had no dinner or tea. Here a doctor examined our wounds, put on mine a dressing soaked in iodine, and a splint, and bound her up. Then he injected a goodly dose of anti-tetanus stuff, and I started away for the boat. After a little wait we were put on two small boats and set off to the hospital ship, the Maheno. It was great. They gave us tea, bovril, and beautiful bread and butter. I was put to bed, and slept fairly well. Nurses and orderlies very attentive; do anything possible. The meals were nice — porridge, sago, bread and butter, beef tea, tea, &c. On Sunday we got a shock — Maheno received word to put us into an other boat, and proceed back for another load of wounded. Accordingly, we were put off just before dinner into this boat, a captured German, and used as a troop-ship. Oh, what a change! It almost broke one's heart. From beautiful beds with sheets, everything clean, to this. Dirty! — no name for it. Our beds were the mess tables, on which one was given a dirty kapok mattress, a filthy blanket, and a pillow; and the meals beyond description. Breakfast: Bread and rancid butter; dinner : mutton, potatoes in jackets and sometimes hard, peas or beans, and soup (at times only the water the meat was boiled in); Tea: Bread and this butter again; every second day a scraping of jam; now and again some rice. Oh, it is terrible, when one does not feel like eating, to have to sit down and force this down. We cannot all expect hospital ships, I suppose. If we hadn't seen the "Maheno," mayhap, it would not have been so bad. However, don t let us complain. 

My hand gave me jip. The first night here I did not have a wink of sleep, the second hardly any better, the third none, and so on until Friday, when it was a bit better, or maybe I have grown used to the pain. When we reach England the hand will be X-rayed, and the bone put alright. My beard started to grow, and I had over a week's growth on. One morning, feeling a bit fit, I borrowed a razor and fixed it. There are a couple of rather good fellows below. One, with a wound in the leg, looks after me A1. He cuts up all my meat, and does little jobs like that. I have about the worst wound on that deck, and so am somewhat of a mascot. 

In a letter written on Sept. 20 from Gibraltar, Pte. Griffith said he had been there a fortnight. The wound was healing, but he was not allowed to get out of bed. He and his fellow patients were receiving every attention, and the people of Gibraltar were very good to them visiting and giving them luxuries. They were also receiving gifts from the Red Cross, but he had not received a letter or paper from home for six weeks. 

Writing on August 16, he said he had received a first-class certificate as the result of a school of Instruction Examination, but so as to get back to the front immediately he had had himself transferred to the 17th Battalion as a private.