Despatch Rider

Description

Limited Edition – 250

This despatch rider has just urged his mount into a gallop, as he leaves the shoreline activity and relative safety of Anzac Cove, to brave a hail of bullets over the six-mile gallop to Suvla Bay. His fellow Light Horsemen covet his dangerous mission, for he has to gallop along a six-mile beachfront with the fresh air in his face and a good horse beneath him – the joy of every horseman. Being under continuous fire was considered no less dangerous than warfare in the fetid, stifling trenches.

General Sir Harry Chauvel explains … “Following the landing at Suvla Bay in August 1915, we found it necessary to organise a despatch rider service between headquarters at Suvla and headquarters at Anzac. The distance was 6 miles, and almost the whole of the route was exposed to rifle fire from the Turkish trenches on the ridge overlooking it. The mail used to leave Suvla in the morning and return from Anzac in the afternoon. It had to be done at the gallop, and the rider was fired at from the time he left the shelter of Lala Baba until he reached the wide communication trench near Anzac. Yet all the Light Horsemen, Mounted Rifles [New Zealanders] and Yeomanry [British Cavalry] were tumbling over one another to get the job, and fortunate indeed was considered the regiment which had to find men for the duty. The ride was one of the daily entertainments. Everyone on the left of Anzac knew the moment the mail left Suvla for the rattle of Turkish musketry which began on the extreme left and continued along the line until the rider was safely in the communication trench. Strangely enough, this went on for nearly three months before either a rider or his horse was hit…there was always heavy wagering, whether the post would get through and it is probable that Johnny Turk had his bet as well.” General Sir Harry Chauvel in the Australasian 30 April1932; 27April 1935; CHAUVEL OF THE LIGHT HORSE, Alec Hill. p61