|
General |
"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."
Edgar Vernon Brady 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 |
