Part 24
The evacuation of Suvla, which was decided on before the storm and then cancelled, I believe has now been finally decided on. Parties are now hard at work at night improving the second line, which stretches behind our first line on the same latitude as our C.R.E. dump, across the Gibraltar road and over to Hill 10. A third line is being dug just a short way in on the mainland from “W” Beach, and over the hill of the promontory a fourth line also. Our dugout is now being rapidly repaired, and the dugouts behind on the higher ground, one story higher, are now finished. All the dugouts are built together as a whole, really forming a picturesque house. On the ground floor, up a short path bordered by little gorse-bushes and a rockery, one enters our messroom, furnished with a table, arm-chairs, and a stove made from an oil-drum. Two smaller rooms lead out from the left, and two from the right. One is the clerk’s office, in which he sleeps, and the other three are each occupied by Horne, Elphinstone, and myself.
Next to our dugouts, on the same level, are the dugouts of the Q.M.’s of a few regiments, which are built on the same scale as ours, but separated by a flight of about a dozen steps running up in a bend to a row of smaller dugouts, which house the N.C.O.’s of our Supply Section, a few quartermaster-sergeants, regimental N.C.O.’s, and the two Brigade postal staffs. Opposite, in the gully, as the trenches that we had made are now damaged beyond repair by the recent storm, the remainder of the men live in shelters made from sailcovers and tarpaulins, with shrapnel-proof roofs, built in places where boulders and mounds of earth protect them from high explosive shells. Behind us is an Egyptian encampment, situated in full view of the Turks among rocks and boulders. But as they sleep most of the day, working only at night digging on the beaches, they cause very little movement to be seen by the enemy, and in consequence have been very little shelled. If a shell does come near them, however, they make no bones about running as far away as possible, chattering like a lot of chickens.
All day cases of frozen men, now happily diminishing in number, are being shipped off. It was the most terrible storm I have ever witnessed.
DECEMBER
_December 1st._
A beautiful day, but very cold. Turks shell the beaches pretty heavily in the morning and afternoon with high explosive and cause some casualties. Quite a new kind of shell, I think, and from new guns. One shell hits our depot, smashing our clerks’ office, but fortunately nobody is hurt. Poign Destre, of the Munsters, a charming boy, comes to spend a few days with us. He was out on the parapet during the night of the storm and was carried back unconscious, but is now quite fit again. Times are rather anxious just at present. Troops arrive this morning to reinforce. Evacuation of stores and equipment proceeding full steam ahead.
_December 2nd._
Drafts arrive for the 29th Division. A beautiful day and not too cold. Turks busy with shrapnel. Go up to Brigade H.Q. with Horne. While up there, Turks shell beaches. Suddenly they open fire with two guns and shower of 5·9 shrapnel along the new second-line trenches which we have just passed. We have not had this 5·9 shrapnel since October 27th. About forty shells come over in rapid succession, two at a time. I hope they do not pepper the beaches with them. The ground is still damp after the flood. We are warned to expect many of these floods and blizzards. We pass General Byng and Staff while up at Brigade. General Cayley still as cheery as ever. Everybody busy repairing damaged dugouts. Work of evacuation proceeding very well. I wonder if John Turk can see. We have the advantage of the piers and beaches being under cover.
_December 3rd._
We now hear a rumour that we are not evacuating at all, and that only the 29th are going, but I do not believe this. We learn this rumour from Sergeant Jones, of Jones’s water dump. Every day rumours are circulated from Sergeant Jones’s dugout on “A” Beach. All day officers and men who pass call in here and say, “Good-morning [or good-evening], Jones; what is the latest rumour?” They are invited to sit down while Jones tells the latest and best that he had heard from all sources—trenches, Navy, and beaches. I have seen at one time in Jones’s dugout a Brigadier, Major, and two Captains and a corporal all sitting round the oil-stove fire while Sergeant Jones, at his table, is eating his supper. As an officer comes in, Jones stands up, saying, “Good-evening, sir; what can I do for you?” If it is water required, then that worry has to be settled; if it is an ordinary call at this half-way house, then the officer is invited to sit down by the fire, Jones adding, if he should be at supper, “You will excuse me going on with my supper, won’t you, sir?” One night he said to me, “May I press you to a plate of porridge, sir?” We do not look upon him as a soldier or an N.C.O. It is difficult to describe how we regard him.
He is popular with everybody, and all officers, after a while, fall into the same manner of dealing and talking with him. Personally, I feel my relations with him are as they would be to the landlord of a familiar roadside inn. “A” Beach now being deserted, all and sundry, with the exception of Jones, being shelled out, Jones has to remain there, for this beach is the only possible place for a water dump. Dugout and dump remind me of a lonely roadside inn where I call on my journeys between the beaches and the line. He gets shelled now and again, and has had some remarkably lucky escapes. Men have been killed right and left of him. But most of the drawing of the water is done under the cover of the night. Happily, for our Division the water question has been nearly solved by our Engineers finding wells behind our part of the line, although we still have to draw water by cart from Jones to augment the supply from the forward wells. Other Divisions, however, are not so fortunate. They continue to nightly draw water from Jones for the troops in the line and reserve nullahs by all kinds of receptacles, and cart it up on A.T. carts.
Scotch mist and drizzly rain all day. Hardly any shelling on our front or on part of Turks. More drafts for 29th Division arrive. We are now making a rest camp in one of the nullahs, where men can change their clothes in case the weather gets bad again.
_December 4th._
A very calm day, cold, cloudy, and dull. All last night there was quite a lot of rifle fire and bombing. Starting at daybreak, Turks get very busy with shrapnel, of which they appear to have plenty. At midday they are bombarding our position very energetically. We reply, and the battleships join in. In the afternoon our neighbourhood is shelled with these new high explosive shells, one shell dropping in our Supply depot; but no one is hurt. Dusk, and all is quiet. A relief. Poign Destre leaves Peninsula. Lucky devil! We have shipped off to-day a lot of base kits, surplus baggage, ordnance stores, and even food supplies, by means of the A.T. carts and on the tramway running in the sunken trench. A.T. carts returning empty from the trenches have been bringing large quantity of surplus kit and stores away during the last few nights. Under the cover of the protecting mounds of earth they have been off-loaded on to lighters, which with no attempt to disguise their intentions have been towed out to supply ships, making fast on the side away from the enemy, their cargo being loaded by the ships’ derricks into the various holds. Very little of this work has been done so far, but it is obvious to all that we are evacuating in the near future. I can’t describe our feelings. Up to a short time ago stores were being busily unloaded day and night, and now the reverse is happening. It is as if a High Commander had suddenly shouted the order, “As you were.”
_December 5th._
Heavy gunning all day by both sides—very heavy and continuous. From twelve to one the Turks give us a general bombardment, and we get our share in our little camp. Men’s cookhouse wrecked, but no one hurt; the cook happens to be at the depot a hundred yards down the gully drawing rations. It is evident that the Turks are now getting regular supplies of ammunition, probably direct from Germany. We are looking to Russia. If only she can come through Rumania and attack Bulgaria in the rear and cut off Turkey, Turkey is finished. We get rumours that she is through, and are rather looking towards her as a besieged city looks towards its deliverers. Snipers busy just now, on account of the exposed position of our washed-out trenches. Fresh drafts arrive for the 29th. Is it to be an evacuation for all, or is the 29th only going. If so, why do drafts arrive for the 29th?
_December 6th._
A very beautiful day. Turks busy shelling us. We reply energetically. One continued roar of guns all day. Our beaches shelled midday and late afternoon. But very few casualties, the mounds of earth affording excellent cover, and all shells are high explosive, no shrapnel. Trenches are still in muddy state in low land. At night we shell their positions.
_December 7th._
A very beautiful, cool day, but it is getting colder. Turks start shelling us early. Their shells are much improved and are evidently new. Horne and I start off to Brigade H.Q. after lunch, walking up our gully. We pass a boxing match in full swing. I do not think that the men know anything of the evacuation. I hear unofficially that it has been postponed indefinitely. Perhaps it is off altogether. We appear to be getting through the winter so well, that perhaps it might be as well to stick these storms and not give up this job of forcing the Dardanelles, which if successful would mean so much to the cause of the Allies. As we near the top of the gully, we hear the boom of a gun, coming from the direction in which we are walking. It is the first time that a shell for the beach has come from this direction. By its sound I know instinctively that the beastly thing is coming down very near us. I shout to Horne, “Drop flat!” and both of us fall beside a prickly gorse-bush as the thing bursts with a deafening explosion on the high ground on our right. We get to our feet and look back at the boxing match, and cannot help being amused at the way the Tommies have quickly cleared or lain down, with the instinct of “veterans of the beaches.” The combatants in the ring, who have paused, resume their match. The crowd again collects, continually being added to by a stream of men coming over the skyline from the next gully. This should draw Turkey’s fire; and sure enough it does, for as we reach the hill at the top of the gully we hear another coming. We duck behind a boulder as it passes over our heads and bursts twenty yards our side of the boxing ring. This clears the crowd and ends the match for the day. The Turks cannot see the gully, but know that men are collecting there by the procession of them streaming over the skyline of the promontory. As we walk on towards the 88th Field Ambulance, about four more shells scream over the hill to the gully, which by this time is deserted; and as we sit in the ambulance waiting for a friend who is walking up with us to Brigade H.Q., the Turks increase their range and send a few nice fat, juicy ones over to the beaches.
Leaving the ambulance, we walk down the slope to the Gibraltar road and meet Grant, our G.S.O.3, who has just come back from the trenches. He is in shorts, caked with mud up to his knees and thickly bespattered over the rest of his body, which gives evidence of the present state of the trenches, even though it is over ten days since the storm. He tells us that in fifteen minutes we are going to open fire with all guns on to the unfortunate Pimple. We continue our way up the Gibraltar road, when at four o’clock precisely the ships’ guns—with a roar that makes me jump, for I am again walking in a direct line from which they are firing—fire, and the great shells screaming overhead can be seen bursting with great violence on the insignificant geographical formation. Almost at once all shore batteries pour shells in rapid succession on to the small target of the Pimple, which disappears from sight under a great cloud of drifting dust and smoke of all colours.
Arriving at Brigade H.Q., we find McLaughlin on the roof of his dugout looking at the show through glasses, and we join him. As is always the case when John Turk is being bombarded, the bullets become free and frequent, and “overs” begin to fly about us. We have tea with McLaughlin and sit around the nice brick open hearth, in which a log fire is burning, and chat. The General and Brigade Major are up at Gun Hill observing the show. Heavy gunning is heard in the south all the afternoon; at night the Turk sends a shell over our way at odd intervals, but in our gully we are practically safe, for his targets are usually the beaches.
_December 9th._
Yes; the evacuation of Suvla is now a reality. I hear to-day that we have now begun the intermediate stage of the evacuation. It has been a reality for some days. The storm only delayed it. We have just completed the preliminary stage. We hear that it will be but a few days now when not a British subject will be left alive here unless as a prisoner. The shelling to-day is in fits and starts. High explosive shells are searching the beach, bursting well and with a louder explosion than in past days. But West Beach is well protected, and the steady shipment of vehicles and ordnance goes on all day. At night, empty ration carts go up to the line to bring back men’s surplus kits, blankets, surplus ammunition, and the surplus part of the usual accumulation of baggage that a regiment takes with it to the trenches and to dumps just behind.
Horne, Elphinstone, Hunt, and I are on the beach all night, taking shifts in superintending the unloading of the carts as they arrive back full. They come back in a steady stream. The carts that have taken up rations, stores, special ammunition, such as bombs, etc., earlier in the evening, all return loaded with kits. We have a few men to help us, but hardly enough, and we therefore work ourselves to keep warm. It is a monotonous job. The Drabis appear fed-up, and we have to watch them carefully to see that they do not slope off with their loaded carts to their lines. Kipling once said “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” Is this correct? I wonder. For our Tommies seem to work amicably with the Drabis. The white transport corporal, who is with us marshalling the transport, on receiving an order from me, shouts out into the darkness of the beach to the Indian jemadar, “Mahommed Hussan!” A voice answers back with a drawl, “Hullo”; my corporal shouts back, “Wait ’arf a mo, will yer?” and the voice answers “A-all ri-ight.” East—and West.
All night, lighters are being loaded up and towed out to the ships. Last A.T. carts unloaded at 5 a.m. We turn in at 5.30 a.m., ready for sleep.
_December 10th._
A fine, cool day. Usual shelling with “hot-stuff” shells. Evacuation of stores going on apace. I think the 29th is to be the last off. Medical comforts in the way of champagne, port, brandy, and whisky are now going cheap, and I send them round to all the battalion messes, the two Brigades, and Divisional H.Q. They are not troubling to evacuate this stuff, and I am trying to get a full share for the 29th. Personally, I should like to give them champagne dinners every night, after what they have been through. No food being landed now, except a little bread and fresh meat. Instead of that, the reserve at the depot is being steadily reduced.
_December 11th._
Last night work went steadily on—the loading up of lighters and the towing of these to ships, where the derricks, rattling away feverishly, emptied them. A surprisingly large quantity of all kinds of material has been evacuated, yet the beaches and the life thereon appear unchanged. All tentage and camps are to be left standing, and up to the last day as much transport as possible will move about on the top of the promontory. To-night the 89th Field Ambulance has left, together with some men on light duty. Also a large number of men from the 11th and 13th Divisions.
_December 12th._
Nothing of much account to-day. Everybody hard at work, dismantling and getting away all impedimenta. It can readily be realized what a vast amount of all kinds and conditions of stores and equipment this impedimenta represents for an army of 60,000 men who have been stationary on a small bit of land for over four months. The work goes on, punctuated at intervals by a few shells from the enemy’s batteries; but it is quite normal shelling, and I feel sure the Turks know nothing. They can see nothing. The Staff work is excellent. The beach each day appears unchanged. Many troops, beach details, etc., move off.
_December 13th._
A cold south wind is blowing and makes us all very anxious. Is it going to develop into another storm which will upset all our well-laid plans and so place us at the mercy of the Turk? These are anxious days. We are now issuing rations from the forward reserve stock in the C.R.E. nullah nightly, and our dump on the beach is now clear. Medical comforts are liberal, and also milk, which the troops appreciate, but bread and meat are issued only in very small quantities. The rations at Hill 10 are untouched, remaining there to be issued should we have to hold the second line of trenches, which are now complete. Work is being carried on feverishly for completing the third line. All work on the low ground has to be done at night, but on the high ground, where nullahs and dips in the ground afford cover, work goes on by day and night. Meeting-places have been arranged, where the troops will concentrate before proceeding to the beaches on the night that they have orders to evacuate. They are termed “posts,” and are lettered “W,” “Y,” “Z,” etc., the letters showing illuminated through a dark background. Of course, all such posts are placed in positions which are under cover. Each unit is to be guided to the post allotted to it, there to await orders, which will be telephoned up to the post from the piers. An officer of the Evacuation Staff will wait at the post telephone for the message from the beach, after marshalling and checking the troops on arrival there.
I see Brigade H.Q. each night now, when I am up at the C.R.E. dump issuing the daily rations. Their H.Q. are now in the same H.Q. as the C.R.E. had. Next door is the Brigade H.Q. of a Brigade of artillery, the guns of which are in position near by in front, just behind and round about. While there, an officer told me that if necessary his guns will be putting up a curtain of fire over the Turks should they attempt to follow on after our troops have evacuated the first line. Their guns are being left in position for this purpose, and will be rendered useless after the infantry have passed back. Two medical officers and about twenty R.A.M.C. men have been detailed to remain at the casualty clearing station after all troops have left on the last night. Their duty is to attend to any wounded who may have to be left to fall into the hands of the Turk, they of course giving themselves up as prisoners.
If it is at all possible, pinnaces from one of the battleships will be ready to take them off, provided there are no wounded. Their tents are being lined with sand-bags as protection against bullets. The Turk will not shell them.
_December 14th._
The time gets nearer, yet the aspect of the beaches does not change. Shelling is about the same, but getting rather bad, at odd, but fortunately rare, intervals. The days are now lettered, but the letter of each day is secret to all but a very few. All we know is that when the last night does arrive it will be “Z” night. I have a shrewd idea that to-day is either “W” or “V” day, so that the time is near. It will be hard luck if I collide with a shell now, after dodging them all these months. What of the schemes for evacuating the first line when all those in rear are clear away? The line for the last few nights will be very thinly held by us.
The second and third lines are thickly wired with barbed wire in front, which stands in fences 8 feet high. At intervals there are passages through these fences to allow us to pass through on our way to and from the line. On the last night these passages will be closed, and the only way to get through will be by barbed wire gates across the few roads. Officers will be on duty at these gates, and they will have fixed thereon telephonic communication to the beaches. The final evacuation of the front line will be carried out as is the present daily evacuation of troops, keeping to a strict programme. The officer in charge of the last party down a certain road will report his unit and name to the officer in charge of the gate. This will be checked by the list which the officer will have with him of the last parties down, and if correct the officer, who will then know that the last troops have passed through, will telephone this information to the beach, close and bar the gate, and proceed with the party to the next line and himself report to the officer at that gate, where the same procedure will follow. And so on to the beaches, the only way to which is by the roads. After the last parties have passed through the last line, then those on the beaches will know that all have passed safely through, and that there are three lines of trenches thickly protected by barbed wire between the beaches and the enemy. The last parties to leave will be hurried on board the waiting destroyers, trawlers, and ships; the skeleton framework of the Supply depot, the remaining stores which have been unavoidably left, will be set ablaze by the igniting of petrol-sodden hay. The remaining officers will make a bolt for the few remaining pinnaces. That is the scheme.
The British population of Suvla daily dwindles away, unbeknown to the ignorant Turk. Ammunition and ordnance and all manner and kind of stores and equipment are daily disappearing into the holds of the waiting ships. These ships are not more numerous than the ships which have lain in the bay in the safety of the boom since August 6th, so that from their presence our plot is not given away. To the enemy our daily life appears the same, and he gives us our daily ration of shells—now of good quality and effective—and no doubt is laughing at us, with the memory of the recent awful storm and the coming blizzards of a rigorous winter. If all goes well, if the well-laid schemes of our G.S. “gang not agley,” and no bloody rearguard action is forced upon us, it will be our turn to laugh in a few days. To-night the wind has changed to the north-west; we may hoodwink the Turks, but not the mighty elements, and we pray that they will be our allies in our task. If our enemies, then we must give ourselves up in unconditional surrender, hoping for no mercy.
Carver has just arrived from Helles on a mission quite apart from the scheme of evacuation. To our surprise he is unaware that we are evacuating, and tells us that all at Helles are also ignorant of the coming event. No preparation of any kind is being made to evacuate Helles. He leaves again to-night, back for Helles. The 86th Brigade and part of D.H.Q. are now moving off. I go to “Y” forming-up post, just at the foot of our gully, and view the scenes there. The beaches have been shelled this afternoon. If they but drop a few over this evening they cannot fail to claim many victims. Shadowy figures march up in perfect order and form up. Roll-calls are made, sharp commands issued: “Stand at ease!” “Stand easy!” whereupon the figures talk, lean on their rifles, or lie down resting on the ground.