Part 13

Have been at work on supplies; the firing has died down somewhat. Wounded are arriving, and the stretcher-bearers are nearly dropping with fatigue and heat as they carry their heavy burdens along to the dressing stations on the beach. Prisoners are arriving. I count a hundred, all looking frightened out of their lives; I heard we had captured four hundred prisoners, three lines of trenches, the Boomerang Fort, one four-gun battery, and twelve Maxim guns.

_6 p.m._

We are again bombarding heavily, and I hear my Brigade is attacking, but cannot see anything but smoke and dust.

_8 p.m._

It has now quietened down somewhat, but Asia is sending shells over to the 60-pounder battery once more.

_June 29th._

Early I ride up to Brigade H.Q. I find they have moved forward. I ride on past Pink Farm, to the little nullah beyond, and there find a trench has been dug leading out from the end of the nullah which I am told leads to Brigade H.Q. The trench, recently dug, is quite 8 feet deep, and roomy enough for pack-mules to pass along and men in single file to pass back in the opposite direction. All the time bullets were pinging and hissing overhead. The trench finally ended in a junction of several trenches leading in various directions to the firing-line. Dug in the sides of this junction was our new Brigade H.Q., on the level of the bottom of the trench, and taking advantage of a rise in the ground in front, affording perfect cover, except from a direct hit; on the left was Twelve Tree Wood, the scene of a bloody fight in the early days, but now used for artillery forward observation posts. Farmer, our Brigade Major, was very busy, looking ill and tired. Orderlies and telegrams were constantly arriving. The Signal Office was working at full steam—dot-dash, dot-dash, incessantly being rapped out on the buzzers. When I see the signallers at work, the scene in a London telegraph office always comes to my mind, and I contrast the circumstances under which the respective operators work. Farmer is continually being called to the telephone. Officers on similar errands to mine are waiting. It is like being in a City office waiting for an interview with one of the directors.

Not very bright news came from the Royal Scots; they were badly cut up yesterday, losing all officers, except Colonel Wilson and a subaltern. Steel is dying; he was a great pal of mine, was very decent to me before the landing, landing at the same time as myself. Captain Tressider, who arrived a month ago, is dead. On our left, however, complete victory for British arms.

On coming back, part of the communication trench is rather exposed and a sniper was busy after me, using all his five cartridges, but the bullets sailed harmlessly overhead. But the risk we Supply Officers take is not 100 per cent. of what infantry go through. A battery is sending high explosive shells over from Achi now, but they are bursting on the east side of this beach, and after firing a dozen shells they only slightly wounded a goat.

_11.45 a.m._

I was sarcastic too soon. Asia has just fired over an 8-inch, and it has passed over our “bivvy” with a horrible shriek and exploded in the sea. They would not be able to do this if our Fleet were here, and so we say “Strafe the submarines!”

_7 p.m._

All has been quiet on the front to-day, but two big guns from Asia and one 18-pounder battery have been worrying the French, and our 4.7 on the hill by De Tott’s Battery and the big French guns have been replying. The effect of the Asiatic big gun, when it hits anybody, is terrible. I picked up a jagged, flat piece of metal to-day, ¾ inch thick, 9 inches long, and 3 inches wide. When these shells burst on our beach, these pieces of metal fly in all directions, some reaching a hundred and fifty yards away.

The remainder of the Lowland Division is landing to-day. Just two more Divisions, and I believe we should very soon take Achi Baba, providing we had better supplies of big-gun ammunition. We put in two bathes to-day. We are most fortunate in getting sea bathing, as it keeps sickness down. We issue eggs now and again to the troops to endeavour to keep down dysentery. All ranks get a chance of plenty of bathing, sooner or later. Asia is very busy firing on the French batteries; later, at dusk, they fire on hospital ships, but finding out their mistake, desist. Evidently they are Turkish gunners, and not German.

_9.30 p.m._

A great gale has sprung up, and our canvas-sheet roof looks like coming off. The dust is awful. Lightning is playing over the sky and makes a very fine sight; curiously, there is no thunder.

_10 p.m._

The gale is terrific now, and I call out to our servants to come and hang on to our canvas roof, which is anxious to sail away. After strenuous effort, with dust choking us, and all of us swearing and then laughing, we secure the roof and turn in.

_June 30th, 1 a.m._

A shriek and a loud explosion awaken us, and Carver says it is a high explosive howitzer from Asia. It has passed over our “bivvy” and exploded on the beach. The ordinary long-range shell seems to miss our “bivvy” on account of the angle of trajectory.

But when a howitzer fires the trajectory is such that it could easily get our “bivvy.”

_2.30 a.m._

We are awakened by our roof blowing off, and up we have to get again and fix it. The gale fortunately is dying down, although the wind is pretty strong.

When we awoke this morning we were told that they had put several shells over in the night, and one in the Main Supply depot has unfortunately killed a man.

The result of the battle two days ago was good, the 29th Division pushing forward about three-quarters of a mile, and Krithia should soon be ours. The Turks counter-attacked last night in mass, but very half-heartedly, and lost heavily. This morning four hundred Turks were seen coming up in front of the French on our right, but the French “75’s” got amongst them, and they ran and ran for quite a mile, with the French shells bursting all amongst them, two a second. I should say very few of those Turks were left. The 60-pounder on the cliff got in a few as well. Three 60-pounders are out of action, waiting for new springs from England, and they have been waiting a devil of a time. The Turks are wonderful fighters on the defensive, with the geographical advantage all in their favour, but absolutely lack dash in the attack.

_12 noon._

A French battleship is coming in with the usual escort of destroyers and mine-sweepers, looking like a duck with her ducklings. Evidently she is going to punish Asia.

The smell of dead bodies and horses is attracting the unwelcome attentions of vultures from Asia. They are evil-looking birds, with ugly heads and enormous wings, and circle round and round overhead. Sometimes Tommies pot at them with their rifles, but get into trouble for doing so.

The smell of dead bodies is at times almost unbearable in the trenches, and chloride of lime is thrown over them. I know of no more sickly smell than chloride of lime with the smell of a dead body blended in.

In the fire-trenches the Turks will not allow our men to bury the dead unless a special armistice is arranged. In consequence, in the dead of night our men volunteer to creep out, tie a rope round a body which may be too near them to make the atmosphere bearable, and then rush back, haul the body in, and bury it in the trench, or they will soak the body in petrol, go back to their trenches, then fire into the body—the white-hot bullets soon setting the petrol on fire, and the bodies in this dry climate quickly get cremated.

Several barges were sunk by last night’s gale, and one pinnace set on fire by last night’s shelling.

_3 p.m._

The French battleship is now firing on Asiatic batteries very heavily, and it seems impossible that any one could live under her fire.

_5 p.m._

Asia starts firing light shrapnel over, which we don’t mind at all. As long as they do not fire that heavy stuff, which is on you before you can duck, they can pop away all night.

_5.30 p.m._

Asia firing heavy stuff on French lines. Now they have pitched one bang into the hospital. I—thinking every minute one will pitch in our depot—hurry up everybody, and they work with a will, taking cover when the shriek comes. Now they fall on the beach and splinters fly around us—it’s damnable! The corporal at 5.45 reports forage finished, which is a relief, as we can get to our dugouts.

On the way across to my dugout I hear the shriek coming, and there is no place to take cover, and the suspense is a bit nerve-trying. With a terrific bang it falls in the hospital, but the hospital is now clear of men.

_6 p.m._

Safe in our dugout now, and one passes over us into the sea. Now they are falling on the beach. Nearly everybody is under cover.

_7 p.m._

Shelling stopped, and we are allowed to have some rest.

As Williams has to go to Brigade H.Q., I offer to show him the way, the H.Q. having moved forwards.

We start off at 8.30 p.m. and ride at a good smart trot, as we are a bit nervy of Asia sending one of those horrible big shells over. But all is quiet, and we arrive at our Brigade dumping-ground, about three-quarters of a mile in front of Pink Farm. (Pink Farm is practically razed to the ground now by shell fire.)

We leave our horses with an orderly, who ties them up under cover and takes cover himself. Stray bullets are flying over now and again, and we get down into the nullah and go along it up the communication trench. After about half a mile of it, we pass an R.A.M.C. orderly, who says, “Keep your heads low, sir, as you pass that point,” pointing a little farther along, “as there is a sniper watching there.” Of course he is wrong, suffering from “wind up,” and what he thinks are snipers’ bullets are “overs” passing through a gap in the side of the trench. We hurry along, heads well down, as bullets are pretty free overhead. After another half-mile we come to Headquarters. The Staff are just finishing dinner in their dugout—beautifully made by the Engineers. The Brigade Major is at the telephone, and later the General gets up and talks over it. D.H.Q. are speaking at the other end, discussing some G.S. point, just as if two business men were discussing the price of some contract.

After the General resumes his place at the head of the table, the Brigade Major on his left-hand side, next the Signal Officer, on his right hand, the Staff Captain, the Brigade Machine Gun Officer and a Major of the R.N.D., who had recently arrived. Williams and I are seated at the other end. The dugout is lit by an acetylene lamp, and Miller, the Staff waiter and chef combined, is standing, acting butler.

Outside the “ping-ping” of bullets goes on incessantly.

Sitting there round the table, smoking and chatting, I could not but compare the scene with that of the after-dinner coffee and cigars at a dinner-party, when the ladies have gone to the drawing-room. The conversation is also witty and bright, with no mention of war.

Miller is a character of his own. He is as dignified as a real butler would be, and yet a Tommy of the old school, through and through. But instead of black cut-away coat and side whiskers, he wears khaki trousers rather hanging over his ankles, and a grey shirt open in the front—for the heat is excessive—and sleeves rolled up. He always embarrasses me, for every time I happen to look his way he catches my eye and beams benevolently on me. I suppose it is because I look after the Tommies’ tummies. Lightning now begins to play about the sky, which gets rather cloudy, and then “L” Battery, just to our right, barks out suddenly. That arrests my thoughts and brings me back to reality. “Y” Battery starts, and then the darling little Soixante-quinze, and bullets begin to fairly hiss over. A hell of a shindy! Our mission over, we rise to go. We salute the General, who says good-night, and off down the trench, keeping our heads very low instinctively, though really it is unnecessary.

Lightning is now flashing all over the sky, and what with the flashes and roar of the batteries near by and the pitch darkness that comes immediately after a lightning flash, the walk back along that trench, one whole mile of it, was most weird and Dante-esque. Now and again bullets hit the bank on our left, but most of them are going over. We pass troops coming up, and later see a man sitting down at the side of the trench, and finding that he had been hit in the wrist (lucky devil!), we take him along with us. Arriving at the nullah, we find another man who has been hit at the dump, in the leg, and we send them to the dressing station behind Pink Farm.

We see the transport is all right at the Brigade dump, mount our horses, which have been tied up in an awful tangle, making us use some “’orrid language,” and then “forrard away.” Off we go back, with “overs” pretty free around, and Turkish shells screaming over, well on our right.

The lightning frightens our horses somewhat, and blinds us after each flash. It is incessant, and lights up the Peninsula in detail, but no thunder follows. We hope that Asia will let us go home in safety. She does, but half an hour after we arrive home, and when everybody except night-workers and guards and pickets have turned in, heavy shells come over, and at the rate of two an hour they continue all night, and so our night’s rest is not as good as it might be.

JULY

_July 1st._

On duty at depot at 6 a.m. I find one shell has pitched in my Supply dump during the night, leaving a jagged splinter a foot long, and 4 inches in its widest part. Ugh! those naval shells. At eleven o’clock shelling starts again, and we have it hot and strong for an hour and a half. The transports get it as well from the hill, and one ship nearly gets holed. Moon, one of the Signal Officers, riding up the beach has his horse killed under him, and he himself is wounded in chest and leg. Not seriously, but he looks pale and frightened. Very few casualties, as people keep under cover pretty well. During the shelling, this morning, one of the hospital marquees catches fire, but not through the shelling, and is burnt to the ground. A Turkish prisoner had dropped a smoking cigarette on some muslin. The marquee contained Turkish wounded, but I think that they were all saved. Joy of joy! Allah be praised! and glory be to God! a real plum cake and chocolate just arrived from home. What joy to get your teeth into a slice!

_Evening._

Since noon the day has been quiet, and Asia has left us alone. Over Imbros the golden sun is slowly setting, and above, the clouds are a lovely orange red. A strong wind is blowing in from the sea, which is very rough, necessitating the suspension of the landing of supplies and ammunition. Casualties in Monday’s battle were 2,500, Australians and New Zealanders included. These, at Anzac, engaged enemy while the 29th Division attacked, in order to keep some of them away from us. They, however, made no progress their side, and were not expected to. Their casualties were 500. A Turkish officer who was captured said that if we had pressed forward all along the line we should have taken the hill, as reinforcements of one division that the Turks were expecting did not arrive. They have since arrived. However, this may have been a yarn. Last night was very quiet.

_July 2nd._

I go up to Brigade H.Q. before breakfast, leaving my mare in the nullah in front of Pink Farm, where the Brigade Staff’s horses are stabled. The General’s groom, now knowing my mare well, gives her breakfast, good cool water from a well which has just been found there, oats from the Argentine, and hay from Ireland. As I walk up the trench I feel very limp and weak. Something is wrong with me. Half-way up the trench, I see part of the parapet which has been knocked down by a shell recently, and from there obtain a good view of our trenches and Sphinx-like Achi Baba. She is almost human, and in my imagination appears to be smiling at the vain efforts of our little, though never contemptible, Army to conquer and subdue her. I shake such thoughts off. I am run down, and in consequence imagine things worse than they are. Arriving at Brigade H.Q., I find the General and Staff up in the trenches, and talk to Brock, of the Gypy Army, the Staff Captain. He tells me all about the Sudan—how he has two months’ leave and is spending it on Gallipoli. What a place to spend a holiday! He reads my thoughts, and says, “People in Egypt do not realize what things are really like out here.” He then tells me that lately orderlies and others have been disappearing in a curious way. A driver last night was sent up the gully with two mules to fetch a watercart. Neither driver nor mules returned.

On the way back from Pink Farm I call on the R.N.D. armoured cars and see a friend. Then to the beach. While issuing, shells burst on the top of the high ground and back of the beach. Feel rotten, and so turn in for a rest. Sea very rough, and we are unable to land stores, etc. Rather cloudy day, cold and windy.

_7 p.m._

Sixty-pounders on our right start firing again on to the hill, and Asia answers back with that 7·5-inch. Shells come screaming over to our cliff, and we have to take cover again.

Doctor has given me medicine, and I feel a bit better, but horribly nervy and jumpy.

Brigade coming back to-morrow.

My complaint is only bilious attack, and when one is like that, shells make one jump. Nearly everybody is getting jumpy, however, as we are so exposed and get no peace day or night. Several men and officers are being sent away for a rest. There is rumour that when the hill is taken the 29th Division is going to be withdrawn for a complete rest. Things will be much easier here when the hill is taken. At present it is _awful_. Oh! for tons and tons of ammunition. Buck up! you workmen at home. The army with the most guns and unlimited shells wins in modern war. You should see the damage the dear little French “75’s” make, and they pop off day and night. God knows what we should have done without them.

_July 3rd._

Turks shell transport this morning, but no damage done. Feeling very run down and seedy, and doctor orders me away to Alexandria for a rest, but I do not think I shall go, as I should be fit in a day or so, if only they would stop shelling on the beach; we could then get exercise. Men fall ill day by day through having to continually lie in their dugouts and then go out in hourly fear of “Asiatic Annie’s” shells. It is much worse over in the French camp by Morto Bay.

The doctor says I have to catch the 2.30 boat for Lemnos. I tell him that I have decided not to go. He replies that in the Army you are under two forms of discipline—one when on the Active List, and one when on the Sick List; that I am on the Sick List, and that until an M.O. certifies that I am fit for active service my O.C. will be an M.O., whose orders I am bound to obey; that he has certified me as sick, for the Army cannot have men on the Peninsula who feel faint when they walk ten yards. This eases my conscience; I was beginning to feel like a man who was getting “cold feet,” and I tell him so. He tells me that a sick man always gets “cold feet” from shelling, and that it is due to his being a sick man more than to the shells.

So I proceed to catch the 2.30 boat. What are my honest feelings? I do want to stay and stick it out, and yet I want to go. There, I am quite honest about it—the two thoughts are equally blended. I go down to the beach along the Red Cross Pier, on to a lighter bobbing about in a rough sea, and then I wait. Sick officers and men dribble down steadily, each with a label attached to his tunic; my label has written on it “Syncopal attacks.” I look enviously at the labels on which are inscribed different kinds of wounds. By comparison with their inscriptions, mine reads like another title for “cold feet,” and I long to get up and walk back up to the beach.

We are towed away out to a little steamer called the _Whitby Abbey_, in charge of a good fellow, a “pukkah” Naval Lieutenant. I sit on deck and watch the land gradually get further and further away. Krithia looks but a short walk from “W” Beach, yet it is well within the Turkish lines. Never before did I realize what a little insignificant bight of land do we hold on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and Achi Baba looks impregnable. Tommies on board are telling each other how they came by their respective wounds. A few Punjabis, wounded, sit apart philosophically and say nothing. Officers in wardroom, mostly wounded, have tea and chat shop. I, not wounded, and A.S.C., sit in a corner by myself.

We arrive at Lemnos about 8 p.m. and enter the harbour that I was in last April. What a lot has happened since those days, and what ages it seems ago! We go alongside a hospital ship, the _Sicilia_, and our stretcher cases are taken off on to the ship. Have a look through the port-hole and see a very big saloon full of beds and doctors, orderlies and very smart and efficient nurses busily in attendance. Then we go nearer into the shore and get on to a pinnace, and go to a pier. Here three of us—namely Weatherall, Williams, of the Royal Scots, and myself—get into an ambulance motor and are driven inland, and arrive at the Australian hospital. Then we go into the orderly tent, and a sergeant takes down our names, etc., and religion. Religion! Let us talk of religion when all Huns are exterminated. Then a pleasant-looking Australian Captain comes in, diagnoses my case, and says “Milk diet,” which is entered in a book.

We are then taken to another group of three marquees joined together, full of wounded Tommies in bed. Then a Major Newlands, one of the leading surgeons of Australia, comes in and sees me, and after a cup of tea we go to sleep—at least, we are supposed to. Several of the Australians are chatting, and it is interesting listening to them. Suddenly one of the wounded stirs in his sleep and says “One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four,” several times, and finishing by “One, two, three, four,” and then a pause, and then “Five,” said with a sigh of relief. He sits up in bed, and making the row that one makes with one’s mouth when urging on a horse, he says, “Go on.” One of the orderlies goes over and gently puts his head back on to the pillow. He was fast asleep, and was going over in his dreams the taking up of ammunition to the trenches.

_July 4th._

I and three other officers are in a ward with Tommies, for the hospital is overflowing. Orderlies bring around basins of water to wash, and then breakfast of bread and milk. Then the Major comes round and sounds me pretty thoroughly, and orders me to stay in bed until further orders.

Lunch: rice and milk. Very hot; nothing to smoke. Flies damnable, and I find myself actually longing to get back to work on the Peninsula. But I do certainly enjoy at present the relief of being away from shells and bullets and the horrors of war.

_July 5th._

Awakened early by one of the wounded crying loudly for a doctor. The poor chap had been hit in the leg by an explosive bullet and had a pretty bad wound. He was in great agony, and amongst other things cried out, “What a war; and this is what they do to me!” and then he made a continual cluck with his mouth that one makes by putting one’s tongue to the roof of one’s mouth and drawing it away when annoyed.