I ride with Thomson to “V” Beach and the River Clyde comes in sight, seen from the high ground near the lighthouse, which was the Turkish position on April 25th. I hear from him the events of that awful day. How, when the General and Costaker were hit, he was ordered to go back to the Clyde and to take Reave. How he was on one end of the hopper, lying down, and Reave the other, and had to attract his attention and call to him to follow. Then they had to get back over dead bodies and the wounded under a hail of bullets, which zipped overhead or crashed against the hopper and sides of the Clyde with a loud bang. He described the scenes on board the Clyde, and the cries of wounded; the arrival of messages on steam pinnaces, signallers at work semaphoring to battleships and transports. And there lay the River Clyde, now a haven of rest, with a solid pier built out from shore and alongside it, using its hulk as a harbour. “V” Beach, now a model of an orderly advanced base, under the organizing talent of the French, looked a different place to the “V” Beach that I saw last. We search for Costaker’s grave without success. Two huge graves are on the right of the beach looking seawards—the graves of those soldiers and sailors whose bodies I saw laid out for burial on April 27th, wired round, and with fine crosses erected on each. I ride back with him through the village, past the camp of the amusing Senegalese, and along the new road that leads to “Clapham Junction.” On either side rest camps have developed, composed of lines of trenches and dugouts, sheltered in trees and bushes.
I see several batteries of “75’s,” and one is in action.
Down a slope through trees, and over little nullahs covered with growing gorse-bush, over meadowland past the site of our old Brigade H.Q., till when within sight of our new H.Q. we come into uninterrupted view of Achi Baba, and Thomson then says we had better trot. On arrival, tea is ready, and a new cake has arrived. It had taken three weeks to come out, and yet tasted quite fresh. We have tea in the open, at the bottom of the dry brook, and afterwards I take my departure. On return to “W” Beach, over comes a big shell, and immediately all work is stopped, and one and all, General and private, make for cover. Drivers rush to their lines and untie their mules and horses, and trot, canter, and gallop to the safety of the shore at the foot of the cliffs right and left of the beach. We wait beneath the friendly, sheltering cliffs, and hear the swishing shrieks as the shells hurtle through the air, bursting on the beach and on the higher ground. Then, as one shriek does not end with the crash of an explosion and its noise continues, we look at each other with a certain amount of apprehension, until with a fearful rending it sweeps down on to us, helplessly taking cover on the steep sides of the cliff, and crashes with a deafening roar almost at our feet, as it seems, but really fifty yards away. Immediately there is a rush to more sheltered ground half-way up the cliff, and three forms are seen lying helplessly in the road. One is my staff-sergeant, with a scalp wound and badly shaken, and two are dead, mangled beyond description. Thank the Lord, my staff’s wound is not serious. Well, he is for Blighty now, and good luck to him!
We find the animals—mules and horses—have been strafed rather badly. The lines that they are on are in very exposed positions as far as shell fire is concerned, and it was not possible to get many away, and in consequence the casualties among the poor helpless creatures were serious. Hyslop, our Vet., dispatched all that he could on their last journey with one pull on his revolver, pressed to their foreheads. As a pause came in the shelling, so he rushed out from his dugout and finished off those which were wounded beyond cure, going about the horrid task coolly and methodically, at intervals, being forced to rush for cover to save his own skin, but ever ready, when chance offered, to go back to his merciful task. Though we have been on this Peninsula but a few weeks, the Veterinary Services are efficient beyond praise, and the cases of all animal patients, suffering from the smallest ailments to the most serious of wounds, are dealt with by the Veterinary Officers with the same care as the Medical Corps bestows on human patients.
Looking back on the episodes that occur when the beach is subjected to shell fire, with the fear of getting hit oneself removed temporarily, the humour of them enters into our thoughts and conversation. What So-and-so looked like when he slid down the cliffs. “Did you see Colonel —— dive behind those boxes, or the R.E. General competing in a fifty yards’ sprint with his batman?” If it were possible to record on a cinema film these scenes that are instantaneously caused by the arrival of big shells, without recording the bursting of a shell or the occurrence of casualties, then a film could be produced which would rival in knockabout comedy any film of Charlie Chaplin’s. The French have been fighting this afternoon, and the “75’s” banging away for all they are worth. A very big battle has been going on on the right. Perhaps this is why we have been given a taste of shelling.
May 19th.
I hear that General D’Amade has gone home, which we all regret. He was very gallant and brave, and was continually with his troops in the trenches. Big gun not very active to-day, thank Heaven. A couple came over, however, while Gregory and I were walking down to the beach. We both dived flat on the ground behind an S.A. ammunition-box—really no protection at all, but any cover is better than none. I got behind Gregory when we fell flat, as his “tummy,” being nice and large, made extra cover for me. I admit I considered only myself at the moment and not Gregory, and the temptation of taking shelter behind his massive form was one that on the instant I could not resist. I told him this, and he got very annoyed with me.
“W” Beach has now been officially named Lancashire Landing, after the Lancashire Fusiliers, who took the beach on the 25th of last month.
The Gurkhas in their last scrap of a few days ago took an important bluff on the left of Krithia, overlooking the sea, and this bluff has now been called Gurkha Bluff.
Just heard that one of our submarines has been up the Sea of Marmora. Not coming back for twenty-one days, it was given up for lost, but reported back safe and sound to-day, having sunk two Turkish destroyers and three Turkish transports. Commander awarded the V.C.
Aeroplanes very active now; tried to get a flight to-day, but failed. They go back to Tenedos each night, and come sailing over the sea back here after breakfast. It is too dangerous for the machines to remain on at the aerodrome here, on account of shell fire.
May 20th.
Brilliant weather once more. It gets frightfully hot now in the middle of the day. After lunch, had a delightful bathe, and then went to Brigade H.Q. in centre of position. All quiet there, but French made ground to-day on right. French now doing excellent work. At Gaba Tepe, Australians heavily attacked last night by Turks in great force, supported by artillery, including 92 gun. Attack under personal command of Von Sanders. Australians hold their own, the enemy losing heavily, leaving heaps of dead on the field. They come on in the German massed formation, yelling “Allah!” and are literally mown down. I prophesy that Dardanelles will be open by June 30th, if not before.
Hear that they now have a Coalition Government at home.
We now have issued to us regularly in print one sheet containing “wireless news” and local news. The sheet is called the Peninsula Press. At times it endeavours to become amusing at the expense of the Turk, but it falls rather flat.
May 23rd.
This afternoon I walk over with Jennings, Phillips, Williams, and Way to find Major Costaker’s grave, as there is some doubt as to where he has been buried. We had difficulty in passing through Sed-el-Bahr, as the French are very strict about others than French passing through, but an Australian military policeman came to our rescue and passed us through. The French have the advantage in having Sed-el-Bahr, for amongst the ruined houses are several untouched by shell fire, in which they are enabled to make very comfortable quarters. But the best quarters of all are in the large fort which looks over the Straits. The other fort that I have referred to stands back from the beach, on the right-hand side looking seawards. We have our photographs taken, sitting on the muzzle of one of the big Turkish guns at this latter fort; also, to the huge delight of the Senegalese, we take some photographs of their camp, and one of them insists on my being in the group. We meet with no success in finding Major Costaker’s grave, and I can only conclude that he is buried in one of the two large graves down on the beach marked “Gallant dead of the Dublins and Munsters and others.”
On the way back we sit for a while in front of Hill 138 and have a long look at the beautiful country lying between us and Achi Baba. Through glasses we notice some precipitous slopes in front of Achi Baba, and wonder how long the day will be before our troops will be storming them. Not a sign of the enemy can be seen: just now and then little white puffs of shrapnel, now from our guns over their lines, and now from theirs over ours. Now and again the French “75’s” bark out, bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang—bang-bang. About as rapid as a machine gun. The F.O.O. (Forward Observation Officer) watches the enemy as a cat does a mouse. Any sign of life in an enemy trench, such as the sight of shovels appearing over the parapet and earth being thrown up, a body of Turks moving across the open behind their lines, or a new communication trench that appears in course of construction, is immediately telephoned to the battery commander at the guns, and before it is possible to count sixty seconds, half a dozen shells burst near or on the target. No target appears too small or too insignificant for them, and ammunition is plentiful. A great pile of shells in boxes is tidily stacked against the walls of Sed-el-Bahr fort, and the stack steadily grows. We are not in the same fortunate position with our ammunition.
On April 27th, when I was at “V” Beach, I saw a “75” battery being hauled up from the shore. I was standing amongst some French soldiers, and one standing next to me turned to me and pointed to the guns, saying “Soixante-quinze, bon—eh?” He looked upon them with pleasure and almost awe. Then I did not appreciate their immense worth, but now I do. We strolled back in the evening, had a peaceful dinner, and at night, but for fitful bursts of rifle fire, all was quiet. Mowatt, my friend of Birmingham days, looks in to have a chat, but his conversation is rather depressing to us all.
If his theories are right, then we are stuck here in front of Achi till the end of the war—or driven into the sea. A listener to one of his arguments puts forward the theory that if we had effected a landing at the Bulair Lines, the Peninsula, being cut off from Turkey in Europe, would automatically have fallen into our hands; but that theory is immediately exploded by the knowledge of the fact that at present Chanak, on the Asiatic side, is the main source of supply, via Maidos on the Peninsula separated as they are from each other by under a mile of the water of the Straits, easily crossed by regular ferries. From Chanak we believe that the enemy receives nearly all his ammunition, stores, supplies, and reinforcements, which are ferried to Maidos and transported from there by pack-mules to their army on the Hill. We have seen convoys of pack-mules now and again on the slopes of Achi Baba, but they seldom show themselves, for fear of the heavy shells from the guns of the Fleet. But they must swarm over each night.
Mowatt says that if an army of ours landed at the Lines of Bulair, it would be flanked on either side by Turkish armies, one on the Peninsula and one on the mainland. Both these armies would be kept in the field by plentiful and safe sources of supply, and our army would quickly find itself in an ever-tightening vice, rendering it in a short time impotent. He argues that once it had been decided to land on the Peninsula we landed at the right place, but that the success of taking the hill might have fallen to our armies if the Australians had landed where the 29th landed, namely at Helles, on the tip of the Peninsula, and if the 29th had landed up the coast behind Achi, where the Australians had landed. The 29th, being a more tried and disciplined machine, would have conquered its way to Maidos, forming a line of steel behind the small Turkish Army (we are told its strength was about 30,000 men on April 25th), and this Turkish Army, being cut off in rear, would have fallen a victim to the oncoming gallant and all-conquering Australians and New Zealanders. The fall of Constantinople would not have been far off, the Straits would have been opened to the Allied Fleets. Another theory is that a landing could then have been effected at Alexandretta, north of Syria, and a march from there could have been made by a strong and overwhelming army of French and British to the gates of Bagdad, and that after the fall of Bagdad we should have been able to link up with the Russian Army. Then there would follow a sweep through Asia Minor to the coast of the Marmora and shores of the Dardanelles, the Fleet would dash up the Narrows to the Golden Horn, and, as the Arabs say, “Turkey mafisch.”
Mowatt appears to have studied the question logically, but it is the Staff’s job to think these things out and ours to do our job in our humble way.
However, he depresses us, and I shall have to go and have a chat to those Naval optimists again.
Sed-el-Bahr is a mass of ruins now, but, however ruined a village may be, one can always picture to a certain extent what it was like in its lifetime. Sed-el-Bahr must have been a very charming place before the bombardment, with its ancient fifteenth-century houses, orchards, and gardens. The fort, evidently fifteenth or sixteenth century, is a very picturesque and massive building, having spacious chambers with the roofs going up in a dome shape—more egg shape though, than dome—made of solid masonry, four or five feet thick. The walls also are just as thick, but the guns of the Queen Elizabeth simply smashed through them like butter.
It is wonderful how the country in our possession to date has changed. Roads are being made everywhere. Pipes lead from wells to troughs. Piers run out from beaches. Sides of cliffs have little dugouts and little houses and terraces, with names given them, such as “Sea View” and “Lancaster Terrace,” such names being officially recognized. Also camps and horse lines are everywhere. Big gun has been shelling “V” Beach to-day; “Y” Beach is now known as Gurkha Beach.
May 24th.
Perfect day after ten; very heavy rain earlier. My job to draw supplies from Main Supply depot for Division. Rotten job, which starts at six. Brigade not moved.
Hear that Italy has definitely come in. This closes a channel of supplies into Austria and Germany, and is bound to tell in a few months.
Japanese bomb shells experimented with in Australian trenches at Gaba Tepe. They are fired by a trench mortar and have a range of four hundred yards. They have a small propeller to keep them straight, and explode with great violence, blowing trench to bits.
The first one tried fell beautifully in a Turkish trench at two hundred yards’ range, and exploded with great violence. Turks started kicking up a fearful row, and about fifty rushed out like a lot of hornets. Machine gun turned on them and scotched the lot. Great request now on our part for Japanese bomb shells.
News now arrives that two submarines from Germany have got into the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar, and that they are making for this part of the world as hard as they can go. Most of the Fleet and transports in consequence move off at nightfall for Lemnos Harbour, off the village of Mudros, where our transports concentrated before the landing. Looking out to sea from the beach, the feeling of loneliness engendered by the departure of the shipping is curious—yesterday I looked seawards and the ocean was dotted with warships, transports, etc., pinnaces darted to and fro, all was hurry and bustle, during which one had a comfortable feeling that at our backs were our Naval comrades, ready to help at a moment’s notice; now, less than half the shipping lies off the coast than did a week ago, and a feeling of loneliness, almost of fear, comes over me.
Hindu as well as Sudanese labourers now working on the beach. All the time that they are carrying anything on a cart, with six pushing, one of them, evidently in authority, walks alongside laughing and gesticulating, singing something in a Gregorian chant, to which the others answer by singing three words in a monotone. This goes on all the time and causes much amusement to the Tommies, who of course imitate, whereupon the coolies laugh and sing all the louder.
We have now built a bivouac of boxes on the cliff edge, the right side of the beach looking towards the sea, and from there we obtain a fine view of the scenes on the beach and the road below at the foot of the cliff, which is gradually being widened, built up, and extended round to “X” Beach.
May 25th.
Woke up in our new “bivvy” this morning. It is very nice up here now, overlooking Imbros. From my bed I see the Swiftsure fire a shot into the water. I get up at once, and looking through my glasses, see her fire another, this time between the Agamemnon, which is moored close by, and herself. Torpedo destroyer comes dashing up, and immediately makes big circles round the two ships. A tiny little pinnace slips out with only four sailors on it, and rushes round and round the Swiftsure like a little pup defending its mother. A bugle sounds several times, and men in white swarm out from all kinds of places and stand to stations on the decks.
A submarine has been sighted right among our shipping; it had darted like an evil fish between the Swiftsure and the Agamemnon, and the Swiftsure had kept it off.
At one o’clock news arrives that H.M.S. Triumph has been torpedoed off the Australian landing at Gabe Tepe, and it is a terrible shock to us all, coming as it has so soon after the sinking of the Goliath. A good many lives were saved—nearly all the crew. No doubt it was hit by the same submarine that attempted to finish off the Swiftsure and Agamemnon this morning. We are all naturally anxious at further developments.
A Turkish battery is shelling the aerodrome on the east side of “W” Beach. Some very good practice is made and one machine is damaged.
This afternoon the same thing starts, and one shell pitches into the sea. If they move their gun five degrees right, they have the range of our “bivvy” nicely.
May 26th.
It is another perfect day, and it is absolutely ideal at our “bivvy” on the cliffs overlooking the south-west tip of the Peninsula. The sea is perfect, yet while admiring the view we hear the old familiar whistle of a shell, and one comes right over us, “plonk” into the sea. Another soon follows, and we have to go beneath the cliffs, and our aspect of the peaceful view is immediately changed. Shelling lasts half an hour, and after lunch we can come back.
Go up to Brigade H.Q. this morning, and find that South Lancashire Division have been merged with the 29th Division. Laird, quite fit and chirpy as usual, in a topping little dugout near by. Reinforcements arrive to-day, and I show them the way up. One chap asks if there is a chance of his getting into the firing-line. I answer that he will be in the firing-line in half an hour, and, poor chap! he looks queerly at me. He will get used to it, though, in a day. He asked the question as if to show that he was longing, after months of training and waiting, to get there, but had rather a shock when he found it was so near.
Flies, ordinary houseflies, are beginning to be awful pests here, simply myriads of them. People in England do not know what a fly pest is. They make a continual hum as they fly round, there are so many of them. One of our officers named Jennings gets very annoyed with them, and when trying to get a sleep in his dugout of an afternoon, has a few minutes’ indulgence in Hate, not against Germany, but against the flies, murmuring to himself “Gott strafe the flies!” over and over again.
Ritchie, my old H.A.C. pal of the Goring days, who was on the Arcadian, turns up at Supply depot and invites me to dinner in the near future. It does not seem so very long ago that we were having a pigeon-pie dinner in our barn at Stoke-on-Thames, when we were both gunners in the H.A.C.
Late in the afternoon shells come whistling over our bivouac once more, well overhead, and burst in the sea near to Supply ships. About fifteen come over, and the transports weigh anchor and clear out of the way, taking up moorings again behind the Majestic, which is lying about a thousand yards off the centre of “W” Beach. Evidently the Turks are being “spotted” for at Yen-i-Shehr, where no doubt they have many observation posts which are in telephonic communication with Chanak, further up the Straits, which in turn is in telephonic communication with Turkish H.Q. on Achi. What more ideal conditions for laying their guns could be wished for? It is fortunate for us that their artillery and ammunition are scarce. Were the full complement of artillery against us that the Germans would provide to an army of the same strength as that of the Turks, I think that we should, as things have developed now, pack up and be off within one week, and not even the dear little “75’s” could save us.
The field bakery is in working order now, in a little gully further up the coast, and we are having most excellent bread each day—not a full ration, about 40 per cent. being made up by the biscuits.
It consists of three Bakery Detachments of six Bakery Sections each, a total of twenty-four ovens, and is capable of making bread for sixty thousand men. The ovens are made of curved metal; the troughs are in a large marquee, where all the mixing of the flour and ferments is done. The bread supplied on the whole is good, but of course, under the conditions in which the men are working it is difficult to turn out bread of the quality that one expects in London. Baking goes on practically the whole of the twenty-four hours. The whole bakery is under cover, and cannot be seen in any way by the Turk, though the gully in which it has been placed can be shelled, should the Turk become aware of its presence.
I dine with Ritchie at 7.30 p.m. in his dugout under our cliff, between our position and the bakery. Five other officers are there; amongst them is Major Huskisson a charming “Gypy” Army A.S.C. man, who is in charge of the Main Supply depot here, and also a man who was in the River Clyde at the landing and who saw Colonel Carrington-Smith killed. Ritchie is O.C. a Labour Corps, camped on the side of the cliff around his dugout. We play bridge after dinner, and I actually have a whisky. First game of bridge I have had since we landed, and it is weird playing in such surroundings. Outside, a perfect moonlight night.
Elsewhere I have mentioned the Isle of Imbros by night. But really it is next to impossible to describe the beauty of these Greek islands, unless one is a poet or a painter. To my mind, Imbros is the most beautiful of any of the isles in reach of the Peninsula. But to-night, as it seemed, she surpassed herself in beauty. The sea lies like a sheet of liquid silver under the rays of the moon. There, like a precious gem, lies Imbros, sleeping on the face of the waters; her deep valleys and gorges, running down to the sea, are aswim with purple shadows, and her rugged mountain crests stand out violet and clear-cut against the star-spangled velvet of the skies. Her feet are wrapt about as with a snowy drapery, woven of the little foaming crests of lazy wavelets lapping around her. From behind her the feathery night clouds appear to swathe themselves about her, and her mountain peaks seem like a coronet set upon the dusky brow of some beautiful goddess of the night. All is silent, and she sleeps peacefully upon the waters, awaiting the coming of the fiery god of the morning, who, dashing across the sky in his chariot of flame, will awaken her with a burning kiss—driving the purple shadows from her valleys and filling them with a swimming golden glory which shall make her seem even more lovely by day than by night. Truly is she a goddess upon the waters, a rival almost of Aphrodite herself.
As I go back to bed, walking back along the foot of the cliff, rifle fire is rattling away on our left. I climb up to our “bivvy,” being challenged several times, and turn into bed.
May 27th.
Woke at 6.30 this morning, feeling very refreshed, and find it is a beautiful morning. The view is perfect from our biscuit-box “bivvy.”
I am just drowsily thinking about getting up, when a gun from H.M.S. Majestic fires. This is followed immediately by the report of an explosion, and Carver says, “Good Lord, she is torpedoed!” We rush out, and see the green smooth wake of a torpedo in a straight line horizontal with our “bivvy,” starting from a point immediately in front of us. H.M.S. Majestic is about eight hundred yards to our left, immediately in front of “W” Beach, and I see her, massive and strong, bristling with guns, and crowded with men in white, slowly tilting over with a list to her port side. Men are doubling on deck to their places in perfect order, with no shouting or panic. Then, evidently, the order “Every man for himself!” is given, for I see a figure leap into the water, making a big splash; then another and another—it is like jumping off the side of a house—until the sea around is dotted by bobbing heads of men swimming. Slowly she tilts over, and men clamber on to the side above the torpedo nets, which are out. As many as possible get away from the nets, for they make a trap. By this time, after only four minutes, she is surrounded by destroyers, trawlers, pinnaces, and small boats, and with perfectly wonderful and amazing efficiency they systematically pick up the struggling figures in the water.
One after the other men continue to leap, while the big ship lists; yet there are some, amongst whom are several officers, who stand on the side calmly waiting, and some still on the platform above the torpedo-nets. My glasses are glued on these men. I see them plainly in every detail, and almost the expression on their faces, as they stand on this platform with their hands behind them, holding on to the side of the ship. I see an officer in the centre looking anxiously to the right and the left, shouting directions. A man at the end manages to clamber to his left and slides painfully over pipe-stays and the usual fittings on the side of a battleship, falling with an awkward thud in the water, and another and another follow him. Then, after six minutes she begins to list quicker and quicker, and the remaining men on the torpedo-net platform still hang on. The nets curl up into themselves. These men are now horizontal to the ship, for she is now well on her side. The nets fling themselves into the air with a horrid curl, and disappear from view with these brave officers and men underneath. Can they dive and get free? The emerald green of the keel-plates appears, and in two minutes she turns turtle, her bows remaining highest and her stern beneath water. As she turns, men run, slip, and slide into the water, and at the finish, eight minutes after, her bows are showing and about fifty feet of the bottom of the ship above water at an angle.
Finally, one man is left on the green, slippery keel, and he, evidently not being able to swim, calmly takes his jacket off, sits down, and, if you please, takes off his boots, and walking slowly into the water, plunges in, having the good fortune to grab a lifebuoy, and is hauled to a tug.
The submarine has been spotted, and torpedo destroyers give chase, circling round and round, but all signs of her have disappeared. The destroyers, six in all, make bigger and bigger sweeps, when the sound of firing is heard out at sea, and about four miles to the east of Imbros I can see a big French battleship going hell for leather towards the island. She is firing astern, and immediately all six destroyers put out to sea as fast as they can steam; the French ship then fires an extra big shell astern, which explodes with great violence in the water; the destroyers coming up, she gives up firing and makes off to safety. Later: No news as yet of the submarine, and we await with a little anxiety further developments.
The survivors coming ashore were looked after by the Tommies, given new clothes, breakfast, and rum, and seemed none the worse for their adventure. One said, “This is the third —— time I have been sunk, and I’m getting a bit fed-up.” One quickly becomes a philosopher and fatalist on this Peninsula, and the fact that we are all a tonic to each other keeps our spirits up.
I hear that most of the crew are saved, including the Admiral and the Captain. About forty have lost their lives, and I feel sure amongst this number are those unfortunate brave men who stood calmly waiting for almost certain and immediate death, or the bare chance of continuing to live longer, on that trap of a torpedo-net platform.
I stroll down on the beach and talk to Naval officers about the loss, but they appear as optimistic as ever—tell me she was an old boat, of not much value nowadays, built as long ago as 1894, and that when once Achi Baba is taken the Fleet will get to work and make a dash up the Straits.
The scene is just the same this beautiful evening, but instead of a dignified, strong battleship in our midst, there remains her green bows, like the head of an enormous whale, peeping out of the water.
7 a.m.
Taube flies over, drops bomb; two men killed.
May 28th.
Go up to Brigade H.Q. this morning. Delightful canter along West Krithia road. I pass many camps, or rather lines of trenches on either side of the road serving as camps. Just at this time of the year crickets are very numerous. It is difficult to spot them, but they make a sound with their chirping not unlike the concerted song of a host of sparrows. I notice it more particularly at Pink Farm in the early morning, and sometimes at night on the cliffs by the sea. I find that Brigade H.Q. have moved forward a little to the left, and have dug nice quarters into the side of a small hill. They were flooded out of their previous Headquarters by a cloud burst—a curious phenomenon. We did not feel it at all on the beaches, and yet a few miles inland they experienced a veritable flood.
5 p.m.
I ride to Morto Bay across country through the white pillars, and have a ripping bathe. It is a beautiful spot, just up the Straits, three miles from the shores of Asia, flanked on its left by high ground, on which is De Tott’s Battery, and on its right by the high wooded ground behind Sed-el-Bahr. Perfect bathing, all sand, and gently sloping until one wades out of one’s depth. Plenty of French troops bathing as well. All this side of the Peninsula is in the hands of the French. As we are bathing, one shell comes over from Achi and bursts near the white pillars.
7 p.m.
Arriving back at “W” Beach, I can see about half a dozen destroyers bombarding a few villages on Imbros for all they are worth. Lord! are we at war with Greece now?
May 29th.
A beautiful day, but there are no battleships lying off, and but one or two Supply ships. The absence of shipping makes a great contrast to the busy scenes amongst the Fleet and transports of a week ago, and their absence has a depressing effect on us all.
Several destroyers are patrolling up and down the coast, and from Asia to Imbros. All is quiet on the front. But reinforcements steadily arrive, and a continued steady stream of ordnance stores and supplies is unloaded from the Supply ships into lighters, which are then towed by small tugs to the piers, alongside which they are made fast. There the stores are taken over by R.E., Ordnance, or Supply Officers, who with groups of labourers unload them from the lighters on to the piers. Greek labour then handles the stores along the piers to the beach, where they are dumped on the sand. Then officers with clerks check the stores with the figures stated on their vouchers, and Greeks load on to wagons and mule-carts, which then drive off up the newly made steep roads of the beach to the R.E. park, just half-way up the beach, to the Ordnance depot on the cliff to the right of the beach looking inland, or to the rapidly growing Main Supply depot, which will soon make a splendid target for the Turkish gunners, on the high ground at the back of the beach. At times we find that the Main Supply depot is unable to satisfy all our indents, and in consequence we have to go down on to the beach and draw from the piles of supplies which have accumulated there faster than it has been found possible to cart them away. But never on any occasion do we find that our indents have to be refused from both the Main Supply depot and the beach. For the A.S.C. out here, where there are difficulties that have never been experienced before in previous campaigns—such as transporting by sea from Southampton or Alexandria, over a sea rapidly becoming infested with submarines; unloading into lighters off shore in a rough sea, with the lighters bumping and tossing roughly against the ships’ sides; towing the lighters alongside flimsy piers, always under a constant work of construction or repair; and finally the arduous work of man-handling from the lighters to the beach, carting from the beach to the Main depot and thence to trenches, guns, and camps, with a daily ration of Turkish shells to dodge—are organizing the feeding of the men in the trenches, the man at the gun, and we behind, punctiliously as our troops are fed in France. Whatever unforeseen difficulty arises, breakfast and the succeeding daily meals are always ready at the scheduled hours for General and private, officers’ chargers and mules. One hitch, and our Army here may have to go on half rations or no food at all.
“An army moves on its stomach.” True, we are not moving; but if our stomachs are not regularly and wisely fed, we shall rapidly have to move, and then in the opposite way to our objective.
The A.S.C. officer who was at dinner at Ritchie’s the other night is with me on the beach, and, as I walk with him to the Main Supply depot, he contrasts the circumstances here with those in France under which the A.S.C works. Pointing to the pier and the stacks of supplies on the beach, he says, “There you have your Havre and base.” The wagons, limbers, and mule-carts are, he tells me, the equivalent of the railway Supply pack-trains running every day from Havre to the various railheads behind the lines. We arrive at the Main Supply depot, and he says: “We are now at one of these railheads, but hardly ever does a railhead in France get shelled, and never one of them regularly and continually, as this one will be when these stacks of biscuits grow a bit higher.” Pointing to our Divisional depot of four little dumps, one for each of our groups, just three hundred yards away from us, he says: “There is your refilling point, usually two miles or more from railhead, and then seldom under shell fire.” In our case we are actually behind railhead. An officer on duty at the Main Supply depot who has been up to Anzac, as the landing of the Australians up the coast is now called, joins in our conversation, and tells us that actually on the beach at Anzac spent bullets continually fly over from the enemy trenches, adding, “Fancy spent bullets flying round the depot at Havre!”
I ride up to Brigade H.Q. in the afternoon and have tea, and am called on to supply them with the latest beach rumours, which I glean each morning from our dump and from our Naval officers on shore.
Coming back, just in front of Pink Farm I stop at the mess of the Royal Scots, who are in a trench camp. Their mess is very well dug in, and I am surprised how comfortable it has been made. They are very hospitable, and have an overflowing larder of unheard-of luxuries in this land of bare necessity. Old Steel, the Q.M., is there, and presses “Turkish delight” on to me. As we sit talking, shrapnel whizzes over and bursts behind us fifty yards to our left, trying to get “L” Battery. I hear the account of the part the Royal Scots had taken in the last little scrap, and am told that one of their sergeants, who was a man of good position in Edinburgh in civil life, was found dead, lying with a semicircle of five dead Turks around him, their heads smashed in with the butt-end of his rifle. He must have come of a fighting stock, yet never anticipated he would end his life on the battlefield.
May 30th.
I am on duty at 6 a.m. at the Main Supply depot drawing the day’s supplies to our Divisional dump. Each of the four Supply Officers takes it in turn, so that the duty falls to me once in four days. It is a lovely fresh morning, and after signing for the supplies I light a cigarette and stroll back to my “bivvy” feeling ready for breakfast.
I meet Milward on the way, who now lives in a tent near the depot. He was our Naval Landing Officer on the Dongola on April 25th, and is now one of the Naval Landing Officers on the beach. He tells me that he is about to go back to join his original ship, somewhere in the North Sea; that he does not want to go a bit, and this side of the war is far more interesting. He also says that the piers are going to be constructed so as to be proof against the bad weather that will come in the winter. Ships will be sunk to form breakwaters. “The winter?” I exclaim. “Heavens! we shall be in Constantinople long before then; Achi will be ours by June 30th, and then we have them at our mercy.”
Milward says that it is wise, however, to be ready for a winter. Winter? Lord! what a long time ahead it seems!
This afternoon I ride with Carver, Woodbridge, Foley, and Tull, with orderlies, to Morto Bay, and on the way have a delightful cross-country canter. I have difficulty, though, in making my mare jump trenches. She jumped hurdles at Warwick race-course like a bird. Had a delightful bathe while the French Senegalese were doing likewise. Absolutely coal-black figures, laughing and playing like children. No firing from Asiatic side; their guns evidently silenced by us. Only three miles across; most beautiful view, with mountains and plains of Troy in the background. This place will make a fine watering-place after the war for some enterprising capitalist.
In the background beautiful wooded country, with the stately white pillars standing up, the whole place this side of the pillars a large French camp. I like the French. They are charming. What a difference this place is now to what it was in those first few days, when we had to toil up at night through the Turkish cemetery, past the croaking frogs, with fears of snipers.
May 31st.
A perfect day. I ride up with Foley to my Brigade in the morning, and there meet Captain Wood, the Adjutant of the Essex, and dear old Ruby Revel, of the same regiment. The messroom at Brigade H.Q., though dug in the side of a small hill, is like a country summer-house, and this morning it is very hard to realize that we are at war. Crickets are chirping in the bushes, and pretty little chaffinches with bright-coloured feathers hop about amongst the trees.
I look through a powerful telescope at the Turkish trenches, and it seems almost as though I could throw a stone at them. The precipitous slopes of Achi Baba appear in vivid detail. As for the Turkish first line, I feel that if I put my foot out I shall tread on its parapet. Yet I see not a sign of life. And all is perfectly quiet. I think that a big attack is coming off in a few days now, and great preparations appear to be going on. Many reinforcements have arrived, and we are almost up to full strength again. In fact, several of those who were slightly wounded on the first day have actually returned fit and sound to the firing-line.
Riding back, Foley and I call at his Brigade H.Q. and see Major Lucas, the Brigade Major, and later Brigadier-General Marshall comes in. Their H.Q., situated some three hundred yards behind Pink Farm, but to the right, looking towards Achi, is built in an even more beautiful spot than the H.Q. of the 88th. In fact, it can only be described as a most beautiful natural garden, and the quarters are composed simply of summer-houses nestling under trees, with flowers and meadow grass growing in beautiful confusion all around. Bullets just fall short of this spot, and shells do not drop near, for it is away from any target.
I call at the R.N.D. armoured car camp afterwards, just half-way back between Pink Farm and the beach, off the West Krithia road, to look up a friend that I hear is with them, but learn that he has not yet landed. Four armoured cars are dug in to what look like deep horse stalls of earth—beautiful Rolls-Royce cars, and I hear that they are to go into action in the battle which is thought to be coming off in a few days.
2 p.m.
This afternoon it is so hot that I strip to the waist and write on the cliff. A few transports are in. Mine-sweepers in pairs, with little sails aft, are on duty at the entrance, cruising slowly and methodically to and fro, joined to each other by a sunken torpedo-net; and woe unto a submarine that should run into that net! It will quickly meet with an untimely end; its base will hear no more news of it, and its destruction will be kept secret by the Navy. Destroyers are on patrol right out to sea. One battleship can just be seen far away towards Lemnos. Work on the beach goes on steadily. Engineers are hard at work constructing a new pier, which will serve as a breakwater as well. Stones for this purpose are being quarried from the side of the cliff. A light railway is in course of construction round the beach and along the road at the foot of this cliff and up to the depot.