Part 19

“The Defence of Lucknow” was recited by Lieutenant Butler, of the Worcesters, an actor by profession and a good fellow, and it went splendidly and gripped us all. New Brigade Major arrives, Wilson, of the Royal Fusiliers.

_September 7th._

Awake at five, and on becoming conscious of the fact that to-day I have to go back to that Peninsula, to remain there for Lord knows how long, I have the same depressed feeling, only more so, that one has in the days of school on the last day of the holiday.

At 6 a.m. Phillips and I and the Supply Section embark, and on a tossing trawler, bucking about like a wild horse, we undergo the misery of a four hours’ crossing in a very rough sea to Suvla Bay, where we arrive at 10 a.m. We lie off the _Swiftsure_ for an hour, and then two pinnaces come alongside, to take us on shore. Shrapnel is bursting steadily over the low lands, and one or two high explosives are now and again bursting on “A” Beach and “W” Beach. We land soon after 11 a.m., and on arrival back at our part of the promontory we find that our camp has been moved to the end of the long gully, where on the side of a hill D.H.Q. are dug in.

The contours of the country are curious. Great natural scars run down to a flat plateau washed by the waves. In these gullies hundreds of men and animals are getting what protection they can. The Engineers are building a road, on one side of which is a row of dugouts, artfully hidden by a row of great boulders. This is our advanced Horse Transport depot, and a pretty hot shop, as the Turks have the exact range. In front of the dugouts are the horse-lines, where rows and rows of mules and horses are packed into the throat of the gorge for shelter. A dry watercourse winds down the gorge, so the place will be impossible in winter; as it is, Death takes his daily toll of men and animals, while down the path comes a never-ending procession of sick and wounded from the front line, and very occasionally a prisoner or two. Up the same path, at night, the reinforcements march to rest in dugouts just behind the line until their turn to take over arrives. To the left of the gorge a huge rocky point runs out to the sea—this point also is a thick mass of men and animals, practically in the open, so limited is space. Truly an unfriendly and uninviting country. The hot dust is over everything—the flies torment, and shells take their toll of us, while we are powerless to hit back. The mouth of the gorge widens to the beach, where there are three tiny bays, which with the plateau form “A” Beach: Kangaroo Beach, with its lighter and pontoon quays, its sand-bagged dugouts, and the like; West Beach—the main landing-place, with rather better piers and offices; and Little West Beach, a sort of overflow to West Beach proper, embellished with a tram line for horse-drawn trucks, the Ordnance depot, etc.—all these places are swarming with men, and over all hangs the eternal dust!

Further along on the plateau from West Beach, and looking towards Lala Baba, is the Supply depot and the watering-places for the animals, all in the open, with no protection at all: a wonderful spectacle, if you like to think of it, and only possible because John Turk is short of ammunition. Here in the bare open the troops live from day to day, a few sand-bags only between them and death, and very few of the dugouts boast a real roof; blankets and waterproof sheets answer that purpose, and so it is not difficult to imagine the havoc wrought when shrapnel is about. To the north lies the bold, forbidding point, before mentioned, with the waves flinging their white manes in anger against its sides. Such, roughly, is Suvla Bay as I see it now, and I cannot say that it impresses me as a practical proposition.

Dug in on the side of a slope the others have built a house, or, as far as dugouts in Gallipoli go, a summer residence. The door faces the rise leading up to the rugged point, from the craggy back of which one sees the cliff-side dropping sheer to the sea.

The roof of corrugated iron slopes at the same angle as the slope of the ground in which we have dug. For walls, the dugout earth forms the back wall, and the side walls are built of biscuit boxes. We spend the day improving on this. Immediately in front is our Supply depot, divided into three dumps, one each for the 86th, 87th, and 88th Brigades. At dusk the pack-mules and A.T. carts form up, and we load on to the set of mules or carts allotted to each unit the rations and fuel. The transport then moves off by Brigades to the front, the mules led by Drabis, the carts driven also by Drabis, and the whole escorted by Indian N.C.O.’s under a white N.C.O. Q.M.S.’s Transport N.C.O.’s, guides of the units, and the A.S.C. Transport Officer accompany them to the respective battalion and dumps, situated a distance of two hundred to three hundred yards behind the front line. In some cases convoys proceed direct to the regimental cookhouses. The transport dares not show itself by day. To-night our Brigade arrives from Imbros, and is to spend the night in De Lisle’s Gully, some short distance to the left of the road that leads to Lone Tree Gully, but up the hill rather, and so our rations go there. Water has been put there for them by Carver last night. We watch this water question closely. It needs careful handling and foresight. A man can go hungry much longer than he can go thirsty, and water is far more difficult to transport by sea than food. Imbros is the source of our supply, and water-tank lighters are filled there and towed over each day.

The water dump is on “A” Beach, and all the Divisions that are being supplied from this promontory draw from this dump. An able man, one Private Jones, is in charge. Though before the war an L.C.C. school-teacher, he appears to be the one man in the world who could be chosen to be the most efficient and tactful organizer of the difficult task of satisfying an army of 30,000 men with their daily requirements of water, from a limited source, and by means of a limited supply of receptacles, steadily diminishing in number.

At seven I go up with Carver to the H.Q. of the 86th Brigade. Instead of walking up the road that leads to Pine Tree Gully, we bear off to the right, and pass along a lower road through the wooded, gorse-covered low lands for a distance of about a mile and a half inland, until bullets are merrily singing their song of war overhead. “Zi-i-ip” goes one between us. A pause in the conversation, and Carver says, “That was not pleasant,” to which I agree, but adding, “If hit, it means Blighty, my boy, the Savoy, and theatres, or ‘Finish,’ as we say in Egypt.”

We come to a wide space in front of us, and to our left is high ground, rising in one place to about 30 feet. Carver tells me that we are at Brigade dumping-ground. A.T. carts are packed here in readiness to bring the baggage back to the beach for the 86th Brigade, as it is their turn now to go to Imbros.

He searches for his Staff Captain in the dark, and I go up to the bushes in front and talk to Baxter, the Quartermaster of the Munsters, and a few other officers who are sitting down on a rock. As I stand there I hear close to my ear “zi-i-ip”—an unseen hand appears to strike a bush with a big stick on my left. Baxter says, “You are standing in a place where bullets keep dropping. You should sit down. One just passed your head.” I am always sensitive as to how to behave on these occasions, with men whose lives are always passed in the trenches, and so I reply “Did it?” I heard the thing plain enough, and sat down promptly. I have learned to take my cue as to what to do from such men, and they are always right. Many a man has been hit by totally disregarding the necessity of taking cover, believing that others may think he has “cold feet,” and he wishes to prove that he is brave by bravado. He forgets he is more useful to his country alive. There are many times when he must take risk, so it is wiser for him to reserve his bravado for those times.

I sit down, and a minute after, “zi-i-ip” again, and thud into the bush. Baxter tells me that it is only this corner which is dangerous, but that they are sitting there because it is a nice seat and the only one handy for waiting. If you walk about the rest of the space, the bullets are flying high and one is safe. This happens all over the Peninsula, owing to the curious formation of the land. At one area of a certain spot, bullets may hit the ground regularly on or near that part, while a few yards away they fly high. Soon one becomes familiar with this peculiarity and acts accordingly. It is because some Turks may be on a rise, others on the ground. They generally fire at nothing in particular, but straight in front of them. All night they fire away—crack, crack, crack, crack—and must waste a lot of ammunition.

Carver, having finished his arrangements, calls me, and we walk back a short distance over a small rise, threading our way along a path no doubt used not long since by Turkish farmers; descending a slope, we pass to the right by a little hill not more than 30 feet high, and make towards a light, which is 86th Brigade H.Q. We are walking up to the door, and can see General Percival and Thomson sitting in the mess-room dugout. When we are four yards away from them the General says, “Good evening, Carver,” when Carver, to my astonishment, using a fearful oath, disappears into the earth. The light from H.Q. mess dazzles my eyes somewhat, and I stop dead, still looking at the place where Carver had performed his pantomimic vanishing trick, when he again appears, looking foolish. He had neatly stepped into a dugout, which, I found out after, was waiting to be filled in, and we had not noticed it on account of the light in our eyes. We go in and chat, and I tell them of the joys and beauty which they are to taste and see on Imbros.

Back to the beach, where I find our Staff Captain, Hadow, arrived. The Brigade is arriving, hundreds of dark, shadowy figures quietly falling in in platoons and marching off inland. I talk to Mould awhile about the eternal topic—water—and then turn in.

_September 8th._

To-night I go up to Brigade, this time a different way across country, following a guide who has been down for rations and tells me he knows a quick way. We pass in and out of boulders and clumps of gorse, down the rocky gully where D.H.Q. were for a few nights, past clumps of trees, over grass, over an open space with more pinging bullets than ever, at last to H.Q., and find them all sitting in darkness, and the General rather anxious about the non-arrival of two of his battalions, who have missed their way and are having a country night ramble all over the place, groping about in the dark.

Coming back, I pass the Hampshires, and an officer asking me the way, I direct him to H.Q.

_September 14th._

The past days, since I last entered up my Diary, have been so monotonous that in a fit of sulkiness I threw it on one side, saying I would not record another day’s events, for nothing happens. The monotony knocks Helles sideways. I go up every morning to D.H.Q. at the top of our gully to take instructions. I see the Main Supply depot to arrange drawing the day’s supplies. I wire the strength of the Division to G.H.Q. I read papers three to four weeks old; I answer letters of the same age. Some days I go up the slope opposite our bivouac, and, climbing down the cliff on the other side, have a topping bathe. I strafe flies by the thousand—they are a damnable pest. I watch the battleships pooping away, and at odd times have to duck from a Turkish shell. At dusk I superintend the loading up of rations and water, and go up to Brigade H.Q. for a chat. The atmosphere of their company, however, always bucks me up.

Our guns poop off at odd intervals each day, and ammunition appears to be becoming more plentiful. The Turks are continually busy with shrapnel over Chocolate Hill and the low land, especially at Hill 10, where we have several batteries, and now and again the beaches.

“C” Beach, on the other side of Lala Baba, over the bay, however, gets it far worse than we do. However, generally speaking, I do not think that the Turk fires as much as we do.

Well, I will continue the Diary: things cannot go on like this for ever, and the best thing to do is to accept the life as it comes and treat everything as a matter of course—even shells. All of us who have been on here any length of time feel that our time to get hit will eventually arrive. Personally, I prefer the sledge-hammer blow from the unseen hand—namely, a bullet from a rifle.

I have been feeling very seedy the last few days, with the common complaint that men are going sick fast with now.

I went up to the Brigade to-night, but felt very ill when there, and was glad to swallow a strong brandy which the General offered to me. Coming back over the gorse, bullets seemed freer than usual, thudding into the bushes on my right and left. I felt sick and faint, and sat down waiting for an empty mule-cart returning on its way to the beach. One soon came, with two men of the Essex, and I was thankful for the lift home. “Pukka” original 29th men of the Essex, and good fellows.

About a dozen motor-lorries have landed, and I have managed to snaffle four of them to draw supplies from the Main Supply depot to our divisional depot, both now at this end of the promontory. Transport at this end of the promontory, if not too congested, only gets shelled at very rare intervals during the day—not sufficient to stop its work. Motor-lorries make the time that we take in drawing much shorter, and I wonder that they were not at Helles. Before, we used A.T. carts for this drawing here, and it took up practically the whole morning.

We do not have such good targets as the Turks have. To them we are laid out as a panorama, and to us they are dug in out of sight on the slopes of rocky, almost impregnable fastnesses.

To-day we have heard the boom of guns from the south, and there must be a heavy bombardment going on there.

The weather has broken, and we get a strong wind blowing each day now, frequently developing into a gale. A cold wind is now and again thrown in, and at nights we get a little rain. It is very rough, and difficulty is being experienced in landing stuff.

Told that good news will be published to-night.

_September 15th._

Heavy rain before breakfast this morning. Clears off later.

Everybody busy digging in. Can see new airship going up at Imbros. It has not yet made an active trip. _Prince George_ is firing with a heavy list in order to get long range. Probably firing at Chanak.

_September 16th and 17th._

Each day the battleships, at odd intervals, fire at various targets on shore—first, a small hill rising from the high ground on the Turkish right, which we have named the Pimple, and on which Turkish batteries are in position; next on Anafarta and Burnt Hill, behind Chocolate Hill; next on to the slopes of Sari Bair. Our batteries on shore occasionally fire off a few rounds. Owing, I suppose, to the fact that there are hills in front of us, the sound of guns firing is louder than it was at Helles. When our 18-pounder batteries on shore fire, the noise of the report is very much like a door upstairs banging loudly on a windy day.

I am getting much fitter, and think it is because I manage to get a bathe now and again.

There is a good place where I bathe and often visit, not so very far from our dugout. It is a little cove, plentifully besprinkled with huge boulders and protected on all sides. We walk up the rugged slope opposite our dugout to the top of the cliff. Then there is a difficult descent down the sheer face of the cliff to the water’s edge. It seems so odd, to be on this little patch of rock where we seem to leave the war miles behind us. Then we hear it muttering and grumbling in the hills above and behind us—sometimes, when least expected, a battleship looses off with a roar that shakes the crags above us—but we are safe, quite safe, as no shells can reach this spot; and so, in the midst almost of this welter of blood, disease, and death, quite light-heartedly we proceed to the most peaceful of pastimes—bathing.

I go up to H.Q. after dinner and enjoy the walk, feeling ready for bed when I return.

_September 18th._

It has been very quiet this morning. The work of getting supplies on shore, carting them up to the Main Supply depot, and from there to the several divisional depots, goes on now day and night like a well-managed business. The Main Supply depot is rapidly accumulating a reserve of supplies for us to fall back on should bad weather set in and prevent us landing on some days. I learn that we now have sufficient preserved food in the Main depot to feed 60,000 men and 5,000 animals on shore for a month, and soon there will be stores for six weeks.

At five o’clock the Turks sprang a surprise bombardment on to the left of our line, and simultaneously, just as I was walking the few yards from our Supply depot to our men, four 18-pounder shrapnel burst overhead. All about the depot dive for cover, and many of them rush into our dugout, it being the most handy. A minute only and four more come, burst overhead, the bullets rattling on the shrapnel-proof roof. Foley is with me; Way and Carver are up on the cliff in a safe spot. Petro is up on the high ground behind our dugout, having gone there to watch a battleship firing on to Burnt Hill, while Phillips is down on the beach, looking after a water-cart. Never before have we had 18-pounder shrapnel burst as far up the promontory as this, and we are naturally surprised how the Turks could have pushed one of their batteries so close up to get the range. As fast as we put our heads out to see if Phillips or Petro is about, a salvo of four shells arrives over, most of them bursting in the neighbourhood of our depot and a few on the beach further over to the left. No one is about; all have gone to ground like rabbits. They give it us hot and strong for fifteen minutes, and then stop. All the time the battleships have been firing, and I think must have got on to this particular battery. We cautiously come out of our dugout and look about. Gradually men all over the beaches appear from all directions and go about their respective jobs. Petro turns up from a dugout close by, beaming all over his face, and says that he had done a hundred yards’ sprint over boulders and rocks in record time, at the finish making a beautiful head-dive into the nearest dugout that he could see, on to a half-dozen Tommies crouching inside. We then see Phillips limping up from the beach, being helped by two Tommies. I run down to him, and we go to the 11th Division Casualty Clearing Station. We unwind the puttee of his left leg, which had been hit, when a shrapnel bullet rolls out and runs along the floor like a marble. I pick it up and put it in his pocket. It had drilled a hole clean through his leg, just above the ankle, through which blood is pouring freely. He is bound up and, though in great pain, perspiration pouring off his face, keeps smiling and cheerful. One of the most painful parts of the body to be hit is just above the ankle. When the first four shells burst he fell flat behind a big boulder, which protected all of him but his long legs, and after the third or fourth salvo he felt the sledge-hammer blow of a bullet and knew he was hit. Lying there wounded while other shells burst overhead was a beastly experience for him, and he thanked his stars when it was all over. With one arm around my shoulder he leans on me and slowly limps back to our dugout, I hoping that they won’t burst out again. I lay him on my bed; the swarms of flies that are with us always now buzz round the wound, which I cover up with muslin. I go up to O’Hara to tell him, and find there some of our D.H.Q. Staff, just back from the line, having had to clear quickly when the attack opened.

When O’Hara gets back with me we find Phillips has gone off, assuring the others that he will be back in a month.

The Turkish gunners were too quick for old Phillips this time, giving him no chance to read their minds. But thank the Lord he is wounded and not gone West! I miss him to-night, and feel depressed, and wonder how long I shall remain on this God-forsaken place or how long it will be before my turn comes to get hit.

It is now a beautiful moonlight night, quiet, calm, and still, and an enemy aeroplane sails over, making a circle of the bay.

I have got an idea that the old Turk is laughing at us now.

_September 19th._

A fairly quiet day. Beautiful calm moonlight night. Have to get water up from “A” Beach to De Lisle’s Gully ready for the 86th, who arrive to-morrow. Thank Heaven it is moonlight. Go up first to H.Q. of Brigade by car. Country smells lovely. We have not been here long enough yet to spoil the land. Hardly a rifle shot in front. Go over to De Lisle’s Gully and back to D.H.Q., up to Brigade again, and once more; then to the gully, arriving home at midnight. Actually enjoyed the trip, but looking at the calm sea and moon, and the landscape of mountain and gorse, with the continual chirping of the crickets, how I longed, craved, and yearned for the day when Peace will be declared.

_September 20th._

Turks shell us unceasingly all morning, several shells coming near our depot, but they are only light shells, and many of them do not explode. A Newfoundland regiment joins our Brigade. They get shelled while on the beach, just an hour after landing, and suffer casualties. They appear to look upon it as a huge joke.

Way and Carver come back. 86th Brigade due from Imbros to-morrow. Hear that Captain Koebel, who came over with me from Alexandria at the end of July, has died of wounds. We became great friends on board the _Anglo-Egyptian_ in July.

Go up to Brigade by night. Beautiful moonlight night again. Go up by car. Nothing doing. Lachard joins us now in place of Phillips.

_September 21st._

Fairly quiet to-day so far. Though just as I go over to depot this morning several shells fly overhead. Horrid feeling when you are in the open. Very fine day, but flies terrible. All quiet on front. Exactly a month now since last battle.

_September 22nd._

All quiet up to 3.30 p.m., when we had a very bad shelling, and there were several casualties in the valley. Fortunately it only lasted half an hour. Our men are busy making shrapnel-proof head cover. One gun somewhere by Sari Bair is very fond of chucking over, to our camps on this promontory, 5·9 shrapnel. One does not hear the boom of the gun, which I think must be a howitzer. The first warning one has of the thing coming is a sound like some one blowing with his lips very softly. This gets louder and louder, until with a cat-like shriek and bang it explodes over one’s head. Having to depend on being warned by such a common sound is of course the cause of many false alarms. In fact, a man blowing with his lips is sufficient to make another man cock his ears and listen.

_September 23rd._

A quiet day, but for the usual cannonading on both sides, a few 5·9 shrapnel shells coming our way at four in the afternoon. Reinforcements arriving daily. A cold gale blowing all day. At six we have another bout of shelling, while we are loading up A.T. carts, one shell pitching right in our depot, and one of our poor chaps being badly hit, from which he is not expected to recover. (He has since died. A nice boy, only nineteen.)

_September 24th._