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"Battles often begin in the dimness
before dawn, or in the evening at sunset. First light on 7 August was to
be the test for the Australians in the 8th, 9th and 10th Australian
Light Horse on Gallipoli. On that morning they were to make a dismounted
charge across the narrow no-man's-land which had separated them and the
Turks for the past twelve weeks. Most of the light horsemen did not show
alarm at the task they had been set. Among many there was a nervous
anticipation, for his was to be a demonstration of their worth. They
were aware that the infantrymen, who had got a tenuous grip on the
peninsula when they made their amphibious landing in late April, were
watching to see how well these more recently arrived troops, supposedly
Australia's elite, would acquit themselves.
Two hundred and thirty-four men were
killed, and about 140 wounded, in this short, sharp action. In the
trenches, from which they had begun only minutes earlier, there was
shock and chaos.
Dead and wounded were thick in
no-man's-land. For many death had been instantaneous. Others lay wounded
and isolated, with neither the strength nor opportunity to get back."
William NORTHEY was one of the members of the 10th Australian
Light horse who lost their lives during the charge at The Nek.
The Nek. The Tragic Charge of the Light
horse at Gallipoli. Peter
Burness, 1996 |
