A land of sand and sin

POPULAR Berwick footballer William Watson hated Gallipoli, yet he was one of the last to leave his trench when Anzac Cove was evacuated towards the end of 1915.
He left behind a few mates, including Private Charlie Dalziel of Berwick. They took the same boat to Egypt to begin their Great War adventure together.
In a letter to Berwick State School headmaster Henry McCann, a prominent figure in the Berwick and District Football Association at the time, Private Watson reflected on life in the Dardenelles and how much they enjoyed the contact from home.
It was published in the Berwick Shire News and Pakenham and Cranbourne Gazette under the heading ‘A Land of Sand and Sin’.
“I imagined it was bad, but it is just about 10 times as bad as I imagined it to be,” he wrote. “But we are all quite happy and in the best of spirits. Some have not been too well since they came here, but I could not have been better.
“I fancied I would melt during the first week, and well I might too, for it was only 123 (degrees) in the shade the first day we were here and just coming off the boat we were rather soft. But it is just nine weeks to the day since we landed in this part of the globe, which is made up of sand and sin … and I can tell you we are not too soft now.”
He said the Australian soldiers, being “strong and athletic fellows they are”, could manage three Turks each.
“There are hundreds of wounded chaps here in Heliopolis and they are still coming in. Perhaps before this reaches you, some of us will be returning here wounded, as I believe we are to leave next Friday (20 August). Of course, I do not know for certain, but it seems to be the general opinion. We are all hoping that it is true, as we are thoroughly sick of this place.”
The News, on 17 November, reported that Watson, a former blacksmithing instructor at Dookie College, had been for some time in the trenches of Gallipoli.
“He went to Egypt in the same boat as Private Dalziel,” the report read. “His fine physique and clean life will stand him in good stead for a rough campaign.”
In March, the newspaper updated readers with the news that he “was 15 weeks in the trenches at Gallipoli but came through scathless and had no time off for sickness”.
In a sad irony, it was illness that eventually claimed him.
The Shire News reported that on 9 March 1917, Mr and Mrs Watson, of Yannathan, late of Narre Warren North, received news that their son had died of pleurisy in France four days earlier.
“Pte William Watson was known in this district as one of Berwick’s most prominent footballers,” the paper reported. “He was of splendid physique and a credit to any football team for his modesty as well as his capabilities as a footballer. He always played the game, and when the call came he played the greater game, as all his friends knew he would.
“He was an Anzac and had been in Gallipoli quite a long time and was one of the very last to leave his trench during the evacuation. He was then sent to France and volunteered for a machine-gun section.
“Letters received from him told of his experiences in the trenches on The Somme, where he had been kept, perhaps too long, but he never complained, as complaining was not part of his composition.
“Every sympathy goes out to his sorrowing relatives. He was of a type that Australia can ill afford to lose.”
His shipmate, Charlie Dalziel, was killed on 13 November 1915.
The 27-year-old motor mechanic wrote to a friend in Berwick shortly after his arrival in Gallipoli and said he was occupying a position near where an Australian officer had been killed, but he hoped he would not meet with a similar fate.
“During his residence in this district, extending over eight or nine years, he made many friends, by whom his death will be sincerely regretted,” the newspaper reported. “He left the front early this year and on arrival in Egypt he gave special study to the mechanism and working of machine-guns, showing proficiency he was given charge of a gun section.”