Chapter 16

_September 23rd._--As it was getting dark last night the A.D.M.S. ordered me to join the Lancashire Fusiliers at once, and to remain with them, they having no Regimental M.O. I hurriedly put everything necessary into my pack, and with Conroy, as servant, set off to the slopes of Hizlar Dagh. I reached my post in half an hour, and was assigned as my quarters a scraping in the earth not a foot deep. Here I spent a most wretched night, an icy cold wind blowing down the depression in the hill where the Battalion is encamped. I simply shivered and shook till the sun rose at 6 o'clock, when I felt too cold to wash and shave, but so did every one. I breakfasted with Lt.-Col. Pearson and his Adjutant, Captain Johnson (killed three months afterwards), and at 10 held Sick Parade. The Turks can fire straight along our hollow, and General de Lisle made a wise proposal yesterday to run a long series of terraces crossways, each with a back about 7 feet high and a trench 7 feet wide in front. If this is continued to the foot there should then be room for 5000 troops. The Turks have not yet found us out, although they gave us a few shells yesterday, otherwise they could have made it too hot for us to continue operations. All have been busy to-day digging, picking, and quarrying stones, and already we have fairly safe trenches for one company. The Lancs., who have a large number of miners in their ranks, have been selected to do this job, otherwise they would have taken up a position half a mile further back as was first intended.

In the afternoon I strolled down to our Advanced Dressing Station which is only half a mile off, at the foot of the hill. Stephen had walked out as far as this with me last night, and to-day I find the place in charge of Sergt.-Major Shaw. Agassiz had paid them a flying visit very early this morning on his way to the C.C.S., he too being sick. All our original officers are now away or at present ailing except Q.-M. Dickie and myself, and it looks as if he and I were to be left alone in a few days.

_Later._--Had a note from Stephen saying Fiddes has gone off sick along with Agassiz, and that his own temperature is 101--this looks bright.

_September 25th._--After writing the above two days ago, and about 10 p.m. when I had retired to bed, the Adjutant announced to me that another M.O. had been found and that I was to be relieved. This had been arranged owing to the shortage of officers in our Ambulance. I therefore left the Lancs. yesterday morning, Touhy, an Irishman, taking my place. I was enjoying myself thoroughly with the Lancs., and regretted this change as we were going into the front line in a day or two. Colonel Pearson is very popular with every man in his Battalion and is a most charming man, and I regretted leaving him.

Stephen went off sick to-day. Hoskin joined us yesterday, being detached from hospital work at Imbros. He is a good fellow, and eager for work and still more for excitement.

This morning I went up to our Advanced Dressing Station at the foot of the hill. It has now to be run without a permanent medical man. I saw the sick and wounded who had come in; took the Sick Parade of the London R.E.'s who are at present without an M.O.; returned and had our own Sick Parade; attended the sick in our hospital; saw several relays of Royal, Dublin, and Munster Fusiliers; returned to the dressing station at 6 p.m. and saw some fresh cases of sick and wounded; besides other duties, and altogether had an unusually busy day. Something of this sort will now go on daily until the D.M.S. sends us more officers.

There was fighting all along the line last night, especially about Anzac where we hear the Australians advanced half a mile.

The R.C. Padre who is attached to the Munsters, and has messed with us for the last week or so, leaves us to-morrow to our general regret. He is the most amusing man I have met in the army. Now that the hardiest of us, although we are still carrying on, are far from fit, and our spirits none of the best, we will miss him sorely.

_September 27th._--I have had a very busy day especially at the dressing station. A messenger came from there a few minutes after midnight, and I had to go up to see some Munsters who had been wounded two hours before in a scrap with the Turks. As I tramped back alone in the dark (this is entirely against orders) the frequent ping of bullets was not too comforting, and as I neared our base several shells came about, at no great distance, when I found myself pushing my fingers inside my shirt to make sure that I had my identity disc round my neck, a habit I have got into when alone and in a hot corner. When I returned in the evening I found still another officer had been attached to us--Stott. The padre told us many amusing stories at dinner. He said he knew one of the Dewar family who always began his speeches with the remark that he was not a speaker but a "doer," and ended by saying, "I must now do as the lady of Coventry should have done, and make for my 'close'".

The Regimental M.O.'s are too lenient--that is my experience at any rate--and send too many away to the base hospitals, and to-day Hoskin and I returned ten of their cases to their lines, which we have the power to do. Probably 150 a day are leaving Suvla alone on sick leave, many with mere trifles, and a large number through sheer funk--I approve of getting rid of these, they are worse than useless, they cause panic very often. Last night we had two cases of acute insanity from this cause, both boys of nineteen, and to-day I sent off one of seventeen with the same trouble.

_September 28th._--Last night about 7 a furious attack was made by the Turks which lasted half an hour. A gun behind Sari Bair, which has bothered us before, threw about twenty shells round our base, their objective being either the road in front of us, or the ships behind. Pieces were flying about in all directions. This was followed by a quiet night, only one shell going over us and out to sea about midnight.

8.15 p.m.--I have come out to our dressing station for the night, and am in a newly made dug-out, which has been deepened and heightened by myself since I arrived here three hours ago. Its back towards the enemy is 7 feet high, dug into a bank, with a high parapet of earth and a stone lined face. (It is never advisable to build with stone, a shell landing among stones can do a great deal of damage. In this case I could not do otherwise, sand bags were very scarce by this time, and it was with great difficulty we got any from the R.E.'s for the protection of our patients. A little after this date these stones of mine were sent flying.) It is of course open to the heavens where the stars are unusually bright to-night. It promises to be a warm night, the wind being S.W., very unlike what we have had of late when the winds were from the north and keen by night. Just as it was getting dark--before 7--I watched an aeroplane, evidently in difficulties from its low flight and with its engine knocking badly. It descended on a wide dusty road behind our base, when I expected the Turks to open fire on it, as they once did on a similar occasion at Helles, but they have left it in peace.

General Percival, our Brigadier, paid us a visit here a couple of hours ago, and I tried to get the date of our next stunt from him but failed. I admired his caution--if he knew. He tells me a special telegram came from Kitchener to-day announcing the capture of 23,000 Germans in France, and forty guns, and more coming in all the time.

One can do little here after dark--and so to bed. Between mother earth and myself is a ground sheet, near my feet my pick and spade, handy if I should feel cold and wish to do some digging during the night, as I may do when the moon rises about ten; beside me a miserable candle lamp and my revolver, and after getting into my heavy overcoat, with my pack for a pillow, hard though it is with mess-tin, jug and other such like material inside, and a blanket over my feet, I hope to get a few hours' sleep.

_October 1st._--During the last few days I have been very busy at our dressing station preparing for the big attack which we know is near and to be on a big scale. We are told that next time we must push through and seize the Turkish lines of communication. We did some heavy work, and as I had been the Engineer of the alterations and earth works I felt responsible and was more on the spot than I would have been otherwise. I thoroughly enjoyed it all the same, and all the while did my full share of navvy work. We had large numbers of sick and wounded to see to at the same time, Hoskin and I seeing about 100 a day between us. I was roused one night to see a case of snake bite, the first I had seen or heard of out here--and I had my doubts about this case, although the man declared he had none.

We had orders the other day to change our base to a site well up the side of Hizlar Dagh, well back towards Divisional H.Q. where we should be fairly safe from gun fire, although in full view of the Turk, but we now have faith in his respect of the Red Cross. The winter rains are probably not far distant now, and here there should be no danger of being washed away. I am there now, our men having pitched two tents yesterday as an experiment to see if the Turks would leave them alone. Stott and I came up to it last night after dark. Everything is very simple--so much so that we had to forage to get some food. In my pack I luckily had a tin of café-au-lait and one of us had a mug so we stirred up a spoonful in cold water and both pronounced it remarkably good--as everything is when you are almost dying of hunger and thirst. Stott, a famous raconteur, contributed to our amusement with drawing-room stories till 11 o'clock when both fell asleep.

This morning I wandered out of our tent about 6.30 to find a very thick mist, the first time we had seen a trace of this. The tents were soaked and the ropes as tight as fiddle strings.

We had been here about ten minutes last night when a rifle shot went off behind some bushes beside us, followed by howls from some one in agony. A soldier lay on his back with his rifle beside him, his left foot merely held on by his puttee. We learned that at the end of the war he had to undergo some years of penal servitude for some offence, and his comrades, I see, are convinced that this was an intentionally inflicted wound. I have never before seen a man shoot off more than a finger or toe, carrying off a foot shows that the man has plenty of pluck of a sort.

_October 2nd._--A terrifically hot day.

Everything seems to be upset to-day. We have been slaving and preparing for a big stunt, and now it is said that no such thing is in contemplation. In my opinion this change of plan is due to the position Bulgaria has definitely taken, or seems certainly about to take, in the present troublous times.

For some strange reason she has taken the side of Germany and Turkey. We must reserve our strength, according to a statement made by Sir Edward Grey in the House of Commons, as we have promised to assist Servia with troops should this eventuality come about. We half expect some of us will be withdrawn from here and landed in Greece or wherever it is most suitable for a march on the Bulgars. Many of us would go right gladly, the monotony of living all these months on a small patch of ground gets more irksome as time goes on.

I am now at the dressing station, having come out for twenty-four hours' duty. We have a collecting station, where we keep a few stretcher squads, half a mile in front of this, and this is to be withdrawn to a site near our old station in Azmak Dere, but slightly further forward, between the Green Pool (a filthy hole full of frogs and tortoises) and the end of a communication trench. I had to inspect the situation this evening, and marked off the boundaries, and to-morrow our men start to dig themselves in. The position is very exposed and I reported that I did not like it. Three artillery officers who passed said they were to plant a battery a few yards in front of us, and they thought the place anything but safe. However, the spot was chosen by General de Lisle and there is no getting away from it.

_October 3rd._--Dressing station. I was up to-day at 6.30 and at once set to work with pick and spade, not stopping till breakfast was announced at 8, when Morice, the cook, brought me three huge slices of bread, two chunks of very fat bacon, and a mug of black dixie tea that had boiled for a full hour, all on such a lavish scale that at ordinary times they would have taken away my appetite; but not so to-day, I devoured the lot and never enjoyed a breakfast more in all my life. I next had a large Sick Parade drawn from twelve units, and returned to their duties several who were on their way to the C.C.S. with very trifling ailments. This will put up the backs of the Regimental M.O.'s, but in such serious times, with our numbers getting more depleted every day, manners must not be considered. I mentioned this subject to the A.D.M.S. to-day, and he backs me up and is to see what can be done to check this wastage.

Padre Mayne held a short service under the tarpaulin-covered space we reserve for patients, his congregation being twelve poor beggars on stretchers waiting to be sent down, and about twice that number of sick walking cases. The wounded tried to cheer up and suppress their groans, but these occasionally got the better of them. Then I returned to my spade and worked till 12.30.

I returned to our new base for lunch and am now sitting on the edge of a dug-out in the setting sun, which has annoyed us all day. It is a most glorious evening, not a breath of wind, and deep down below me the Aegean glistens without a ripple; all is at peace, except the big guns, and they are very busy, the ships having fired incessantly for the last two or three hours at the Sari Bair ridge. The Anzac guns are also very active. But the Turks are at present lying low and not making a single reply.

I was explaining the position of our collecting station to the A.D.M.S. to-day, telling him about the proposed battery in front of us, and the preparations to build a bridge over the gully just beside us. He had not heard of either of these, and he now thinks our site will have to be given up for one further back. To-morrow the C.O. and I go over to inspect the ground on this side and report.

Our magnificent dressing station, over which I have taken no end of trouble, is to be given over to the 88th F.A. Their Colonel jokingly thanked me for all we have done preparing for him--we give it up with regret.

_October 4th._--The day opened with a violent bombardment about Anzac and the adjoining end of Sari Bair, this spreading gradually along the ridge to our right centre. The C.O. and I should have started for the centre of the line after breakfast but this journey had to be postponed till eleven, when there was again quietness, and before lunch we surveyed the ground already occupied by our men in digging, and other probable sites behind that in case we should have to retire further back. The position we do not consider good, but we can find nothing more suitable, and we examined the ground all the way back to Hill 10. The work must therefore go on as arranged. We passed Azmak Dere, the warm spot we held so long, and Col. Fraser had a look at it for the first time.

Col. Riley, D.D.M.S., to-day says we are to retain our present dressing station, and being Divisional and not Brigade troops, it does not matter which Brigade we serve. Still we hope in our present position to be able to attend the sick and wounded of our 86th Brigade, and are willing to take all others who come our way. The 86th have moved from our extreme left--where we are--to our right centre, hence the re-arrangement of Ambulances.

_October 8th._--Daily writing of these notes gets monotonous as there is nothing much doing. Artillery duels are constant, and during the last few days the naval guns have fired more than usual. Occasionally a Taube flies over us and drops bombs, but such things are now not worth noting.

Four new officers joined us yesterday--Captain McLean, Lieutenants Russell, Campbell, and Hodgkinson, and to-day Lieutenant Fyfe, so that we now have ten medical men in our unit, or one over strength. Forty medicos landed at Suvla yesterday, fifteen at Anzac, and fifteen at Helles, and more are landing to-day. More than enough surely, but all units must be very short.

The Turks used poison gas to-day for the first time. Tomlinson of the Lancs., who told me his experience, says it made him feel sick and his eyes smarted, but his respiration was not affected. One or two men were overcome by it but none fatally. Curiously the evening before all our naval and field guns were bombarding Jeffson's Post, the front line of the Turks on Hizlar Dagh, and on climbing to the top of the hill behind our camp to see what was doing the smell of chlorine was well marked, although I was nearly a mile from the above place. The shells were bursting well over the Turks who had to fly into the open where our machine-guns got them. (The smell of chlorine probably came from chloride of lime somewhere near, this being much used as a disinfectant.)

_October 11th._--The statement that the Turks used gas the other day now turns out to be false, it was ordinary lydite the Lancs. mistook for one of the new fangled German devices. My apologies to the Turks.

Yesterday we had a visit from General Sir Julian Byng, our Army Corps Commander (formerly in the 8th Army, we are now in the 9th). He roughly inspected our camp, and the C.O. being in undress and unshaved I had to take the party round. Sir Julian was complimenting the Turks on their straight fighting.

_October 13th._--A day of intense cold after a still colder night. Last night while we were at dinner a terrific rain came on suddenly, and when I got over to my tent it was to find my bed soaked through, as was almost everything I possessed.

To-day we had a lecture on the hillside by Sir Victor Horsley on surgical wounds in warfare, mainly of the head. A very good lecture it was.

This afternoon one of our aeroplanes came down in the Salt Lake. It was well shelled and must be useless for the present. The two aviators were seen leaving it amidst a storm of shrapnel, one evidently getting hit, he was seen applying something white round his leg.

This is one of the great routes for the migration of birds. Yesterday and several times to-day I saw flocks of geese flying over our heads and steering south, likely on their way to the Nile and great African lakes. During last night they kept up a constant cackle as they flew over us.

_October 14th._--Geese in large flocks are crossing to-day, mostly in V formation of twenty-five to thirty. A good many are in two V's and some of the largest flocks must number about 500. Many thousands must have crossed before 11 a.m. when they suddenly came to an end.

A shrapnel shell struck the back of my dug-out at the dressing station two nights ago, blowing all the walls down. Two of our new officers were in it at the time, one being rather badly hit on the head by a flying stone. He is besides badly shaken and has had to go to a hospital ship. The other was blown right into the trench in front, got well shaken up and had a hand cut, but he looks on it all as a bit of a joke.

_October 15th._--I have been off colour for some little time, and I question if I'll be able to carry on much longer. Of the ten officers we had the other day only three are quite fit, and most of them landed but a few days ago.

_October 16th._--This morning, about 4 o'clock, the orthodox hour for attacking being one hour before dawn, a furious gunfire opened on Sari Bair, which I got out of bed to watch. Many shells were bursting simultaneously all along the ridge and down this side of the hill. It is hard to say whether the Turks or the Australians were the assailants, but I noticed in the forenoon the Turks were shelling a spot near the bottom of a gully which crosses Sari Bair, and which a few days ago was in their own hands. All forenoon a most interesting shelling went on in these hills and foot hills, but after watching it carefully I cannot satisfy myself that there is any material change of position. The Turks and ourselves have fired many thousand shells to-day, and the Turks have kept the end of Sari Bair held by the Australians enveloped in a continuous smoke.

About three days ago the Turks had placed a new gun of large calibre in the line of Hizlar Dagh, and its huge shells come screeching over our heads on their way to Little West Beach at all hours of the day and night. Its first day's bag I hear was forty-one, and its second eighteen. This is the busiest landing place we have, men in large numbers embarking and disembarking all night long.

A Turkish aeroplane crossed over our camp about 10.30 a.m. flying so low that, when I heard it in my tent, I said to myself only one of our own machines could fly at that height. It must actually have gone right over an anti-aircraft gun on the top of Hizlar Dagh, almost immediately behind us, and before this fired a shot it was allowed to go nearly a mile. Then it opened fire and shells went after it in quick succession, but every shot burst, as is almost invariably the case, hundreds of yards behind it. The machine glided gaily along past the point of the bay, straight over the British lines to Sari Bair, rifle shots being fired in a regular fusillade. It turned, perhaps three miles from here, went to its right, came straight over the warships in the bay towards us, all the time flying at the same low elevation. It then went to the east right over our centre lines where all our infantry opened on it, but it never veered from its straight course. I was watching all this with an officer of the London Territorial Fusiliers, and asked if he thought there could have been 20,000 rounds fired, and after thinking a little he said there must have been twice that number. At least fifty shells also went after it. I hope the aviator got a V.C. or its equivalent on his return to his own lines. Our shell fire was atrocious; I felt so thoroughly ashamed of it that I hoped the Turks were not watching the puffs of smoke as the shells burst a good quarter of a mile behind their mark. When the machine came within range again on its return journey the anti-aircraft gun opened fire on it again and did no better than at first, but at the very end there was a distinct improvement. I can't think how all these shots at such a short range could have missed a vital spot. The man's sailing over us a second time was the coolest act I have ever witnessed, and I would have been sorry to see him drop.

As McLean was coming in from the dressing station after dark last night two bodies of troops passed each other, a sergeant of one shouted to a ditto of the other, "Are you the West Ridings?" "No," was the reply, "we are only the bloody Monmouths walking."

Lt.-Col. Fraser, our C.O., who has been ailing for some time, left for hospital to-day. This leaves me as C.O. of the Ambulance, Dickie and I being the only officers remaining of the original ten.

Up to the present time our losses are six killed (including one officer), two died of disease, and either twenty-four or twenty-five wounded (including two officers). (This is an under-estimate.) Sickness has also been excessive, and we cannot have more than a third of our original men. We have had four drafts, mostly Englishmen.