Part 6
We are issuing stores now from one depot for the whole Division, and to all others who come. Way and Carver are running it. I simply hold a watching brief for my Brigade, but give a hand when I can in helping the business to run smoothly. Foley is up the coast a short way at “X” Beach, running his own depot for the 87th Brigade, and wires constantly come in from him indenting on us for stores he has not in stock. It is just like a business store, and we are running short of supplies, but a Supply ship has come in to replenish our stock and form a large reserve depot. Our depot is the hot-bed of rumours and news, and we feel the pulse of the Division through the news that the Quartermasters and ration parties bring. Bad news has arrived this morning. Captain Reid, to whom I was talking last night, has been killed, and Major Lee, his C.O., with him. I inquired as to what time it happened, and learn that it was at eleven o’clock. I was talking to him at ten. It appears that shortly after I had left him, word was passed down the trench for C.O.’s and Adjutants to go to the end of the trench to meet the Staff. Major Lee, accompanied by Captain Reid, immediately went, and met two officers dressed in khaki with Staff tabs. One of these officers fires a revolver in Major Lee’s face, killing him instantly, while the other murders Captain Reid. In their turn they were quickly bayoneted by Lee’s and Reid’s orderlies. The line is attacked by some two hundred Turks, who are met in the open by our men and quickly retire, getting hell from the French “75’s” in doing so. The two officers dressed in our Staff uniform proved to be Germans, and their action was an attempt to break our line.
I hear also that Godfrey Faussett, Colonel of the Essex, has been killed. This upsets me far more than danger, and I have the nightmare question running in my head sometimes now, when talking to my friends or seniors whom I knew so well in England, “I wonder if I shall see you alive again.”
A few snipers have been caught, and they present a weird and uncanny appearance. They wear uniforms of green cloth, to which in some cases are attached or sewn sprigs of gorse-bush and small branches of trees. Their rifles, hands, and faces are painted green, and they can be passed unnoticed at but a few yards’ distance. Most of them have been found in holes and dugouts underneath clusters of bushes, with two or three boxes of ammunition, and enough bread and water to ration them a fortnight.
This morning the Fleet and the few guns which are on shore are bombarding the Turkish positions heavily, and the slopes of Achi Baba are alive with bursting shrapnel and spouts of earth and smoke shooting skywards, but through it all Achi Baba looks calm, dignified, and formidable, like a great giant saying “Thus far and no further.” Verily it looks the fortress gate of the Peninsula, and we are but on the threshold, or rather on the footpath leading to the threshold. Turkish artillery replies but feebly with shrapnel, but the shooting appears good.
I hear the crackle of rifle fire and learn that we are again attacking. Good luck to the 29th!
_Afternoon._
Guns of the Fleet and shore batteries steadily boom away. Rifle fire has died down. Wounded are beginning steadily to come in, and as fast as possible are evacuated on to hospital ships. I go up to Headquarters and find site for dump for rations retired somewhat. I passed many wounded and stretcher-bearers coming back. I saw Colonel Williams, our new Brigadier, calmly walking about in the most exposed positions. A regiment of Gurkhas are on the right of our line, and those in support have dug themselves each a little dugout, just room enough for a man to lie in, rolled up. These little dugouts are in regular lines, and each one being occupied with a little Gurkha makes a most quaint scene. I take snaps of one or two, to their intense delight. They look very workmanlike in their shirts, wide hats, and shorts.
It is now dusk and we hear that we advanced, but soon after had to return to our former positions. We are now badly outnumbered. The enemy have lately received many reinforcements, and are receiving them daily. We want several more Divisions to carry this business through. We have dinner, and I go to bed rather depressed. Heavy rifle fire bursts out at night, and in the middle of the night our Adjutant has to get up and organize a convoy of pack-mules to take up ammunition.
_May 3rd._
It is a perfect morning, but it is getting very hot. I ride up about 10 a.m. with the company sergeant-major to as far as the furthest of the white pillars, and there we tether our horses to a tree and walk the rest of the way up the white road. All is absolutely quiet on the front—not a shell, not a rifle shot.
All firing from the Fleet has ceased, and the gunners on shore are busy cleaning their guns and digging gun-pits and dugouts. It is quiet and peaceful. At the front line I cannot see any signs of the enemy. I chat with Major Barlow of the Essex, who was at Warwick with me. He is now O.C. Essex. It is strange being without the roar of the guns once more.
The Fleet has been treated to rather a hot reception, and finds it advisable to lie a little further down the entrance to the Straits, which it accordingly does. The mouth of the Straits looks glorious: the intense blue of the sea, with the warships and transports with their motley collection of lighters, picket boats, etc., all stand out strongly against the steely blue of the sky. Further off, the lovely Isle of Imbros shimmers like a perfect gem set in a sapphire sea. One can just make out the lovely violet tints of her glorious vales, tempered by the pearly grey mists that lightly swathe her mountain crests, as she stands out sharp against the sky. A beautiful sight and not easily forgotten. Looking landward, the trees are all bursting into leaf, the country is wrapped about in a cloak of flowers and flowering grasses, with Achi Baba as a grim and rugged sentry, its sides sloping away to the sea on either hand. Truly a grim and forbidding sentinel, but one which most certainly has to be passed if we are to do any good at all.
To-day an enterprising Greek landed in a small sailing vessel with a cargo of oranges, chocolate, and cigarettes, and in a very short time was quite sold out. We shall be having a Pierrot troupe on the beach next.
At night as the moon rises to the full the picture is perfect. The coast of Asia—that land of mystery and romance, with the plains of Troy in the background, immortalized for ever by the sweet singers of ancient Greece. One can almost picture those god-like heroes of the past halting in those titanic fights which their shades perhaps wage nightly in the old battlefields of Troy, halting to gaze in wonder and amazement on the strange spectacle unfolded before them—modern war, that is, and all its attendant horrors. Hector, Achilles, and Agamemnon in their golden harness—their old enmities forgotten—must surely gaze in astonishment on the warlike deeds and methods of another age than theirs. The soft, shimmering sea merges into liquid silver where in the dim distance the little wavelets lap around the silent sleeping isles. There is Tenedos, standing like a sugarloaf in a silver bowl, silent as the night itself, and filled with mystery. Further off Imbros, that queen of the isles, sleeps like a goddess wrapt about in a garment of violet and silver, all unheeding apparently of war’s alarms—surely on such a night as this the mythology of the ancients becomes a living thing, and it does not tax the intellect much to imagine Diana, queen and huntress, surrounded by her attendant maidens, pursuing the quarry through the violet vales of the isles. Again, one can almost hear the splashing of Leander as he swims the Hellespont to keep his tryst with the lovely Hero.
Most of those living on the beach have dugouts now, but I still live in a little house made of biscuit-boxes. The Royal Scots came into action the first time last night. The Munsters were taken by surprise and had their trench rushed, and the Royal Scots were given the job to retake it, and cleared the trench of the enemy with two platoons at the point of the bayonet in twenty minutes. Greek civilian labour has now been landed, and we use them for unloading the lighters. A Turkish spy could with ease pass himself off as a Greek labourer of one of the gangs. Personally, I think we are making a mistake in employing them.
Carver tells me that the other day he noticed one sitting half-way down the cliff in full view of Yen-i-Shehr, waving to and fro a fly-whisk with a metal band fastened round the handle which clasped the ends of the horsehair; he feels confident that by the way he was waving the whisk, with the rays of the sun reflecting from the metal band, he was signalling by code to the Turkish observation post on Asia. I think it was quite possible for him to do so, for a bright piece of metal reflecting the strong rays of the sun in the clear atmosphere of this part of the world can be seen a long way off, and I should say quite easily as far off as Yen-i-Shehr is from “W” Beach. To a casual passer-by the Greek would appear to be waving flies away from his face with the whisk. Flies are daily becoming numerous here. One of the Greek foremen, who spoke English, assured me that it was only a matter of weeks now before Greece would come in on our side, and that he looked forward to the day when he would take his place in the ranks.
It is strange how very silent everything is to-day—not a gun nor a rifle shot—and we stroll about the beach chatting with the Naval officers.
_Afternoon._
I hear that there was an armistice declared for the purpose of burying the dead of both sides. It lasted about two hours, during which both Turks and our men sat on their respective parapets watching each other with interest while parties were out in front, mixing freely with each other, clearing away their own dead. It was an extraordinary situation. One of the Turks picked up two of our live bombs which had fallen short and had failed to explode, and was making back to his trench with them, when his officer, spotting him, called him back and made him hand the bombs back to our men, and apparently gave him a good cursing in strong Turkish. A short time after, both sides are back in their trenches, and if a head should appear over the parapet of either side it is in danger of being promptly blown off.
At dinner I express the thought that I wished Turkey would throw over the Germans and become our allies. Our Tommies and theirs were so near this morning, and, by God! they would fight well side by side. I say that Turkey is the most valuable asset to have on either side. If she were our ally the Dardanelles would be open to the Allies, and the Central Empires would be utterly defeated in a year. As an enemy she will cause the war to drag on Lord knows how long, providing we are unsuccessful in forcing the Straits. I am “howled down,” and am told that Achi Baba will be ours in a month’s time, and once ours, Turkey is finished. But strolling up to the top of the cliff after dinner, I take a long look at Achi. Ours in a month? I wonder. I turn, depressed and pessimistic, into my house of biscuit-boxes, and bless the man who invented sleep.
_May 4th, 5th, 6th._
Nothing much to record. Have been very busy these last few days forming a Supply depot of my own for the 88th Brigade. I go up to Brigade each day, riding as far as the white pillars, but go bang across country now and not through Sed-el-Bahr. Our line is quite deep and well dug in now. Firing going on steadily at night. Quite heavy rifle fire, but it is mostly Turkish. I learn that at night he gets the “wind up” and blazes away at nothing. One or two parties have made sorties, but our machine guns have made short work of them. The Division is like one big family party; we all know each other so well now, and one can go through the trying vicissitudes of war with greater vigour if with men who have become intimate friends. The horrible part is losing friends; much worse, I think, than having to go oneself. Good friends leave such a large gap. Tommies seem pretty cheerful at night on the beach. After dinner we sit outside our biscuit-box houses and have coffee (not a word! I got some coffee by exchanging jam with a Frenchman the other day—strictly against rules), and looking out to sea, enjoy some excellent cigars of the C.O.’s. “Any more for the _Arcadian_?” is constantly shouted out by a Naval officer on the beach, calling those who live at G.H.Q. who are billeted on the _Arcadian_ to the pinnace. I often wish I could say “Yes” one night, and go on board and have a good bath and a whisky and soda. Tommies play on mouth-organs and sing Tommy’s tunes. At Lemnos, Tommy was marching round the decks of the transports singing “Who’s your Lady Friend?” A few days after he goes through one of the most sanguinary fights of the war; a week after he is on the beach with a mouth-organ making a horrible execution of “A Little Grey Home in the West.” A unique creation, the British Tommy. If he ever does think of death or getting wounded, he always thinks it will be his pal and not he who will get hit, and goes on with his mouth-organ, washing his shirt, or writing to his latest girl at the last town he was billeted in. Those with girls are the cheeriest.
_May 7th._
To-day we are bombarding Turkish positions heavily and the village of Krithia preparatory to advancing our lines to the slopes of Achi Baba in the hope of my Brigade taking the hill. In the morning I issue at my dump, and after lunch ride with Carver and Sergeant Evans to find our respective Brigades. We ride up the west coast across grass and gorse, and arriving at a gully, encounter shell fire, which is now getting more frequent. We leave our horses with an orderly at this gully and proceed on foot, skirting the edge of the coast. Shells are bursting furiously over Krithia, which is again on fire. We reach a very deep and beautiful gully, which appears to run inland some long way, and we climb down its slopes to the shore. There we find an advanced dressing station, to which wounded are continually being brought by stretcher-bearers, or helped along by R.A.M.C. men. Several of the wounded are R.A.M.C. also.
I inquire at a tent, which is a signal station, of the Signal Officer in charge, as to the location of 88th Brigade H.Q., and learn that they are inland. We chat awhile to this officer, who appears strangely familiar to me, and at last I place him. I find that I dined with him four years ago in Edgbaston, and his name is Mowatt, a Birmingham Territorial in business on his own, which through the war has gone to the winds. He tells me he has been here for four days and is often troubled by snipers. They had caught one four days previously in a dugout which, facing the gully, allowed his head and shoulders to appear, giving sufficient room for him to take aim through a screen made by a bush growing in front. The entrance to his dugout was from the cliff side facing the sea, along a passage ten yards in length. He gave himself up, though he had food and water for some days more. As we talk, two wounded limp down the gully through the water, for the bottom of the gully is in parts a foot deep in water, and I question them as to how they were wounded. They reply, “Either spent bullets or snipers,” and that they were hit about a mile further up the gully.
We go back, climbing up the cliff, and walk along the cliff’s edge to where we had left our horses. A detachment of New Zealanders, I should say about a thousand, are moving slowly in several single files across the gorse to take their place on the left of our line to relieve some Gurkhas, and I have a good opportunity of studying them at close quarters. I am struck by the wonderful physique of the men, all of them in splendid condition. I am rather surprised to see them, for I thought that they were up country with the Australians. I leave Carver at this point, and Sergeant Evans and I cut across country, and trotting up the track which is now called the West Krithia road, reach Pink Farm. We go beyond there, find H.Q. in a trench, and learn that rations are to be dumped at Pink Farm. We are warned that we should not be riding about there, as we might draw shell fire. Krithia is getting it terribly hot from our shells, and is well on fire now. We learn that the French have had a check, and that we in consequence have been unable to advance. We come back and have a delightful canter all the way back to “W” Beach. I have a meal, and then, with Williams, at dusk escort rations, this time in limber-wagons as well as on pack-mules, up the West Krithia road to Pink Farm, where I find Leslie waiting, and we come back on a limber, I squatting on the rear half and Williams in front; quite an enjoyable ride. Star shells are now in use, and they go up at odd intervals, poising in the air for a second and then sailing gracefully to earth, illuminating the immediate vicinity. It was fairly quiet all night; just an odd shell or two fired by our Fleet at intervals.
_May 8th._
Before breakfast this morning I am ordered to take two hundred rations up to some Lancashire Fusiliers (Territorials) who have found themselves in our part of the line. Arriving at Pink Farm, shrapnel begins to come over, and I get the mules under cover of the farm as best I can and go on to H.Q. I continue to walk along the road, and then cut across the open country to the trench where the Brigade are. They are sitting in the trench having breakfast, and tell me that the Lancashire Fusiliers have now gone to the beach. Festin, of the Border Regiment, is now our Brigade Major, and he asks me to take a message to the Field Company of Engineers attached to the Brigade, just behind Pink Farm, off the road. As we talk, shrapnel bursts over Pink Farm and to its left, probably trying to get at a battery which is in position there. I take my leave, and on getting back to Pink Farm I find that one of the Syrian mule-drivers has been hit in the stomach by a shrapnel bullet. He is lying on the ground behind the walls of the farm groaning, and on seeing me cries piteously to me in Russian. I send over to an Indian Field Ambulance close by, and in a few minutes two native orderlies come running over noiselessly with a stretcher. They stoop down, and with the tenderness of women lift the wounded boy on to the stretcher and carry him away. We trek back, and on the way I deliver the message to the Field Company.
For transport we now have little A.T. two-wheeled carts, known in the Indian Army as ammunition transport, drawn by two little Indian mules. These are in camp near the lighthouse, between “W” Beach and “V” Beach. Delightful place this, and most interesting. The orderliness of everything is astonishing; the quaint little tents—oblong, with sloping sides—are arranged in neat rows. The inhabitants are surely the most cleanly people on earth. Here I see groups of them, stripped except for a loin-cloth, busy washing their shining, dusky bodies. After this, little brass jars are produced, from which oil is poured over them and rubbed in. Others, having finished this, are industriously combing their long black locks and bushy beards. Others, again, are making chupatty, a species of pancake, in broad, shallow metal bowls—I taste one and find it excellent. Other groups of these dark warriors are sitting outside their little tents smoking hookahs; all the men we meet salute punctiliously. Near by are the white officers’ tents, quite luxurious affairs. The whole place is delightful and looks almost like a riverside picnic, only everything is very orderly. As to the carts before mentioned, these are most ingenious. They are little two-wheeled affairs with a pole, like the old-fashioned curricle; each is drawn by two small mules, not larger than ponies. Wonderful little fellows they are, bred in Northern India—Kashmere and Thibet, I believe. Lord! how they work—they can pull almost anything, and they are so surefooted and the little carts so evenly balanced that they can go about anywhere. It is a very interesting sight to see a convoy of these carts on the move, with their dusky, turbaned drivers sitting crouched up like monkeys on them, chanting some weird Oriental ballad as they go, to the accompaniment of jingling harness. They are well looked after, too, these little mules—the drivers have had the care of them for years, perhaps—and their training is perfect. They look as fat as butter, and their coats shine like satin—very different from the hulking, ugly brutes that we have brought—American. They appear to be quite docile, and it is not necessary to have eyes in the back of your head when walking through their lines.
I hear to-day that Major Barlow, to whom I was talking a few days ago in the trenches, has been badly wounded.
One aeroplane has been very busy going out and coming back after short trips over the enemy’s positions, followed by little puffs of bursting shrapnel when over their lines. The weather is perfect.
_Swiftsure_ and _Queen Bess_ are now up the coast off the gully, and are giving the left slope of Achi Baba and Krithia something to write home about. Torpedo destroyers are also joining in, and later the shore batteries take up the tune, and a bombardment similar to yesterday’s starts, preparatory to another battle.
French “75’s” are barking away incessantly, and the bombardment is increasing in ferocity.
New Zealanders are on the extreme left, then the 87th Brigade, next the 88th and 86th, or what is left of it, with the new Territorial Lancashire Fusiliers. Next come Australians, up on the hill by the White House; and on the extreme right down to the edge of the Straits, the French. The line forms the shape of a ◡, the extremes resting on ground on either side of the Peninsula.
Through glasses at six o’clock I can see little figures running here and there on the high ground to the extreme right beyond the White House—now taking cover, now running forward, now disappearing on the other side; ugly black shells rain amongst them and make a sickening sight. Turkish artillery appears to have increased considerably. Their shells rain all along our line, but none come on the beaches. All their artillery seems concentrated on our trenches. Again and again I see shells fall right in the middle of men who seem to be running. It is difficult to discern whether they are Turks or our men.
I watch till the sight sickens me, and then I come away and arrange the rations to go up to-night, seeing the boxes roped up on to the pack-mules or loaded on to the A.T. carts. Two shells come near the beach, bursting with a black explosion in the air. Rifle fire goes on all night, but artillery dies down to fitful shelling. I hear that the net result of to-day’s work is a gain of five hundred yards, but that we have had great casualties.
_May 10th._
Another most perfect day. All day yesterday wounded were being evacuated as fast as possible. I now have to feed a Brigade of Australians as well as my own Brigade. I go up in the morning to their positions, and for the first time get amongst them at close quarters. They have honeycombed the land near the white pillars with dugouts and have their H.Q. at the White House on the hill. I see Captain Milne, their Supply Officer, and arrange matters with him.