Monday, July 19, 1915.Kaba Tepé.My dugout has now become a centre for Australian and New Zealand officers, all good fellows. I had it made small on purpose, so that no one would offer to share it with me, and that makes it less convenient for the crowd that now sit in it. Two old friends come when the day’s work is over, and grow sentimentalby moonlight; both ill and, I am afraid, getting worse. All the talk is now about gassing. It is thought that they will do it to us here. As usual, new troops are reported to be coming against us.
Tuesday, July 20, 1915.Kaba Tepé.There is always something fresh here. Now a lot of sharks are supposed to have come in. During the last two days there has been absolute silence, no shelling at all, nothing but the sound of crickets and at night a singsong chorus as the men drag up the great tanks prepared for water. S. B. yesterday worked out a theory to prove that the Turks were to attack us last night. (1) No gunfire yesterday; the reason being they (the Turks) were moving troops. They didn’t want us to fire at their troops, therefore didn’t draw fire by shooting at us. (2) Ulemas have come down. There must be a special reason for this. (3) 10,000 coming up. Gas being prepared. All this means an attack on Anzac. To wipe us out would be a great feather in their cap. I am inclined to doubt another great attack.... Tempers all a bit ruffled. General Birdwood is sick. The heat is fierce and the stillness absolute. This afternoon I heard from Dedez, who asked me to go to Tenedos for a time....
Wednesday, July 21, 1915.Kaba Tepé.There is something uncanny about this calm. No shots at all. News that the Italian Ambassador at Constantinople has gone nap. We have had very little news of Italy.... I wonder if the Turks are likely to attack on the eve of Constitution Day.
Saturday, July 24, 1915.Imbros.On Wednesday I went over to G.H.Q. and met old friends amongthe war correspondents. Met some of the New Zealanders who had come over for a rest, but were coming back for the expected attack. Meanwhile, they had been kept on fatigue most of the time, and were unutterably weary. At Imbros I was ordered to go to Tenedos and Mytilene.
Thursday, July 22nd.Came back to Anzac in the same boat with Ashmead Bartlett and Nevinson,18and got leave to take them round in the afternoon.
Later on, during one of the worst days of the Suvla fighting, I met my friend Nevinson picking his way amongst the wounded on their stretchers under fire. “After this,” he said, decisively, “I shall confine myself strictly to revolutions.”
Diary.July 23rd.Started for Imbros and went in theBacchantepinnace, which was leaking badly from a shell hole. There were six of us on deck, and one man was hit when we were about a hundred yards out. We put back and left him on shore.
Saturday, July 24th.Imbros.Went for a ride on a mule, and had a bathe.
At this point in the campaign, though the morale was excellent, depression began to grow. There was a great deal of sickness, from which practically no one escaped, though it was less virulent in its form than later in the summer. I had been ill for some time, and was very anxious to avoid being invalided to Egypt, and was grateful for the chance of going to the islands for a change of climate and light work, for the few days that were sufficient to give another lease of health.
The feeling that invades almost every side-show, sooner or later, that the home authorities cared nothing and knew nothing about the Dardanelles, was abroad. The policy and the strategy of the expedition were bitterly criticized. I remember a friend of mine saying to me: “All this expedition is like one of Walter Scott’s novels, upside down.” Walter Scott generally put his hero at the top of a winding stair, where he comfortably disposed, one by one, of a hundred of his enemies. “Now,” he said, “what we have done was, first of all to warn the Turks that we were going to attack by having a naval bombardment. That made them fortify the Dardanelles, but still they were not completely ready. We then send a small force to attack, to tell them that we really are in earnest, and to ask them if they are quite ready. In fact, we have put the man who ought to be, not the hero, but the villain of the piece, at the top of the corkscrew stair, and we have given him so much notice that when the hero attacks the villain has more men at the top of the circular stair than the hero has at the bottom. It’s like throwing pebbles at a stone wall,” he said, mixing his metaphors.
Diary.Sunday, July 25, 1915.On the Sea.I left for Tenedos; a most beautiful day. We have just been to Anzac, very burnt and wounded amongst the surrounding greenery. Pretty peaceful there, only a few bullets coming over.
Perhaps the record of a sojourn in the Greek Islands on what was really sick-leave, as the work was of the lightest, should not be included in a war diary, but the writer looks back with amusement and pleasure to days that were not uneventful.They were passed with friends who were playing a difficult and most arduous part, and whose services, in many cases, have not received the recognition that was their due.
It was pleasant once again to be lord of the horizon, to have space through which to roam, and lovely hills and valleys to ride across in the careless, scented air of the Mediterranean summer, with the sea shining a peacock-blue through the pines. It is this space and liberty that men cramped in a siege desire, more than the freedom from the shelling of the enemy’s guns. There was much, too, that wasopéra bouffein the Islands, that made a not unpleasant contrast to the general life at Anzac.
If there was spy mania on the Peninsula, it was multiplied tenfold, and quite reasonably, on the Islands, where part of the population were strongly pro-Ally, another part pro-German, while others were anti-British by an accidental kind of ricochet. These were the royalist followers of King Constantine, who hated Venizelos, and consequently the friends of Venizelos, Great Britain and France.
The situation on the Islands was one with which it was extremely hard to cope. We were very anxious to safeguard the lives of our men, and to prevent information going to the enemy, and, at the same time, not to pursue German methods. It was unceasing work, with a great strain of responsibility. There was an inevitableva et vientbetween the Peninsula and Imbros. From Imbros boats could slip across to Tenedos, Mytilene or the mainland. The native caïques would drop in at evening, report, be ordered to stay till further notice, and would drift away like ghosts in the night. Men,and women, performed remarkable feats, in appearing and disappearing. They were like pictures on a film in their coming and their going. Watchers and watched, they thrust and parried, discovered and concealed, glowed on the picture and darkened.
Anatasio, a Serbian by birth, was one of our workers, conspicuous for his quickness and intelligence. At the outbreak of the war he had already been five months in an Austrian prison at Cattaro, but the prospect of battle stimulated his faculties, and he escaped. One day at luncheon I asked him where it was that he had learned Italian, which he did not talk very well. “While I was in prison at Smyrna,” said he. “What for?” said I. “For stabbing a Cretan,” said he, and added that he would rather be five years in prison in Turkey than one in Austria. Then there was Avani, one of the most vivid personalities that I have ever met. He was a poet and a clairvoyant, a mesmerist and a masseur, a specialist in rheumatism and the science of detection, once a member of General Chermside’s gendarmerie in Crete, and ex-chief of the Smyrna fire brigade. The stories of him are too many, and too flamboyant, to tell.
Diary.Avani mesmerized the wife of the Armenian dragoman. Unfortunately it went wrong. Her obedience to his volition was delayed and she only obeyed his commands in the wrong company some hours after.
He had given proof of rare courage, and also considerable indiscretion. On one occasion, armed to the teeth, he burst into a perfectly innocent house at night, and, revolver in hand, hunted aterrified inhabitant. His only evidence against this man was, that when he had been caught and hurled to the ground and sat upon, his heart had beaten very fast, which would not happen, insisted Avani, if he had not been guilty of some crime.
Amongst our opponents were the romantic but sinister Vassilaki family, two brothers and three lovely sisters. Talk about them in the Islands was almost as incessant as was talk about shelling on the Peninsula.
Diary.Monday, July 26, 1915.Tenedos.Yesterday I was very ill, and again to-day, but was injected with something or other and feel better, but weak. Tried to sleep yesterday, but one of our monitors at Rabbit Island bombarded hugely, shaking the bugs down on me. This place is clean, but there are bugs and some lice. Last night I dined with the Governor, Colonel Mullins, and a jolly French doctor, and Thompson, who has fallen ill. Am carrying on for him at the moment.
Tuesday, July 27, 1915.Tenedos.Went to the trenches at Tenedos. They face the enemy. That is the most military thing about them. Thompson went out to see the inhabitants. I was going with him, but felt worse and went to rest. The Turks here are in a very bad way. We do not allow them to work. It’s inevitable. They mayn’t fish or work at the aerodrome.
Wednesday, July 28, 1915.Tenedos.Interpreted for the Governor of Tenedos, who, like Jupiter, rules with might, in the afternoon. In the evening I saw the Mufti, who had a list of starving, widows and indigent.... Last night the Cretan soldiersstarted ragging the Turks and singing, till I stopped them. They were quite good.
Still ill, but better. Had a beautiful walk in the evening, and a long talk with the Greek refugees working in the vines by the edge of the sea. The old patriarch addressed me all the time as “chorbaji”—that is, Possessor of the Soup, the Headman of the village.
Thursday, July 29, 1915.Tenedos.Yesterday I rode over to the French aerodrome, coming late for luncheon, but had coffee with about twenty French officers, all very jolly. Promised to let me fly over the Dardanelles. I went on to the Cretans in a pinewood. Their officer, a Frenchman, very keen on a show in Asia Minor.... The elder Vassilaki has been arrested. His brother saw him go by in a trawler. Am going to Mytilene, then return after three days, and leave here on Tuesday for Anzac. No news of anything happening. Tenedos is a beautiful town in its way, surrounded by windmills, with Mount Elias in the background. Its streets are narrow, picturesque and hung with vines that make them cool and shady. At the end of the town there is a very fine old Venetian fortress, but its magnificence is outside; inside it is furnished with round stone cannon-balls, ammunition for catapults. In the last war the Greeks took the island, but one day a Turkish destroyer popped her nose in. All the Greeks fled, and the Mufti and the Moslems went and pulled the Greek flag down. Then in came a Greek destroyer, and the Turkish one departed. The Mufti and the Turks were taken off to Mudros, where he and they were beaten. He narrowly missed being killed....
Friday, July 30, 1915.Tenedos.Slept verybadly again. Had a letter from the O.C. Poor Onslow killed, lying on his bed by his dugout. A good fellow and a fine soldier. Aden nearly captured. I prophesied its capture in Egypt. I shall be recalled before anything happens.
The radiant air of Tenedos gave health as it did in Homeric times, and I left with the desire that others should have the same chance as myself of using that beautiful island as a hospital; but all the pictures there were not bright. Under the windmills above the shining sea there were the motionless, dark-clad, desolate Moslem women, sitting without food or shelter. Their case, it is true, was no harder than that of the thousands of Greek refugees who had been driven from their homes, but these at any rate were living amongst kindred, while the unfortunate Moslems were without help or sympathy, except that which came from their enemies, the British.
Diary.Friday, July 30, 1915.Mytilene.I left by the Greek boat yesterday. On the boat I met a man who might be useful as an interpreter, Anibal Miscu, Entrepreneur de Travaux Publiques, black as my hat, but talks English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, Arabic, Bulgar, Russian and something else. The boat was stopped by our trawler, No. ——, and searched for contraband of war. The Greeks were furious. I landed at Mytilene, not having slept much and feeling bad. Avani said they had tried to bribe him to allow some raisins through, and kicked up the devil of a row. He seemed to think that the raisins were dynamite. He was left guarding the raisins, all night, I believe, with his revolver.
I was given a warm welcome by Compton Mackenzie in Mytilene. He, fortunately for me, had been sent there by G.H.Q. I found several old friends—Heathcote-Smith, the Consul, whose work it would be impertinent for me to praise, and Hadkinson, whom I had last seen at my own house in England, where he was staying with me when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been murdered. Hadkinson had passed most of his life on his property in Macedonia. Of the Eastern and Southern languages he talked Greek, Italian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Serbian and Albanian. His voice was as delightful as his knowledge of Balkan ballads was wide, and his friends made him sing the endless songs of the mountaineers. His personality had carried him through experiences that would have been disastrous to most men; battles decisive in European history had raged in front of his doors, while his house had remained untouched; brigands of most of the Balkan races had crossed his farm, rarely driving off his stock, and most of the local peasantry in their misfortunes had come to him for help, for advice, doctoring or intercession. Until the European war had crashed upon the world, Hadkinson had been a good example of the fact that minorities, even when they are a minority of one, do not always suffer.
The people of Mytilene, at that time, were very pro-English, though the officials were of the faction of King Constantine. The desire I frequently heard expressed was that Great Britain should take over Mytilene, as she did the Ionian Islands, and that when Mytilene had been put in order it should be restored to Greece.
Diary.Friday, July 30, 1915.Mytilene.—— and Hadkinson have gone out with a motor-boat and a machine-gun. The Vassilakis, or some of them, have been deported, Vassilaki to Imbros and the beautiful sisters to Mudros.... It’s a blazing, burning day.
Saturday, July 31, 1915.Mytilene.A gaming-house. Moved from my first hotel to a larger and more disreputable one. Lunched with Hadkinson and Compton Mackenzie19.... At Thasos the Greeks have arrested our agents under the orders of Gunaris. Have worked, and am feeling better.
Later.The three Miss Vassilakis have not gone to Mudros. They turned up this morning, and I was left to deal with them. Not as beautiful, except one, as I had been led to believe. They got Avani out of the room and wept and wept. I told them their brother would be all right.... They wanted to know who prevented them leaving. I said it was the Admiral. That good man is far away.
Sunday, August 1, 1915.Mytilene.Avani went off with the three Miss Vassilakis, in hysterics, last night. They were very angry with us. It seems probable that we shall have a landing on the mainland here to divert attention from the Peninsula. Sir Ian Hamilton is coming down to have a look. A good deal of friction over the blockade. The present system causes much inconvenience to all concerned.
They were enchanting days of golden light or starlit darkness, while one drank health almost in the concrete from the hot pine-scented air andthe famous wine of Mytilene. The conditions of others was unfortunately less happy. There were some 80,000 Greek refugees from the mainland, for whom the Greek Government had done practically nothing, while the patriotic Greek communities of England and America had not had the opportunity of relieving their necessities. We all did what we could to help these people.
There was another question allied to this to be considered: whether a Greek Expeditionary Force, largely composed of these refugees, should be sent into Asia Minor. The danger of such a campaign to the native Greeks was obvious; mainly for this reason it was not undertaken. But while no expedition occurred, there was much talk about one. The fact that Sir Ian Hamilton had come was widely known. It was said that great preparations were being made, and these rumours probably troubled the Turks and kept troops of theirs in a non-combatant area.
Diary.Sunday, August 1, 1915.Mytilene.Lunched with Mavromati Bey. He was very heroic, saying he preferred to die rather than to live under the German yoke, but there were no signs of a funeral at luncheon, which was delicious.
Dined with Hadkinson, and was taken ill, but got all right and went off with him on the motor-boatOmalaafter dinner. H. said that for a long time he had felt that I was coming, and had ordered a lamb for me to be executed the following day; told the cook, too, to get some special herbs.
The object of our journey was to find a wonderful woman, lithe as a leopard and strong as ahorse, and put her somewhere near Aivali to gain information.
Monday, August 2, 1915.“Omala.”Off Moskonisi.At dawn this morning we came to Moskonisi, luminous in the sea. A decrepit shepherd led a flock of sheep along the beach. His name is Panayotis and he has a Homeric past; he killed two Turkish guards who courted a beautiful sister-in-law before marriage. Then he killed two others for a pusillanimous brother-in-law after marriage, and he has also sent two other Turks to their rest, though H. does not know the reason for their death.
Hadkinson had collected a large band of Palikaris, but the motor-boat only held a few, the cream of them. He had English names for most of them—Little John, Robin Hood, etc. They were tall men, with very quick, clever eyes and lithe movements, picturesquely dressed. One of them had a cross glittering in his kalpak, and A. M. (for Asia Minor) on both sides of the cross. He said to me, pointing to Aivali: “There is my country; we are an orphan people. For 150 years we have shed our blood and given our best to Greece. Now in her hour of triumph and in our day of wretchedness she denies us help. May she ever be less!” Another Greek had been to Mecca as a soldier and stayed there and in the Yemen for some years. The Captain was a quiet man, but apparently very excitable. They were delighted with their army rifles. The woman, Angeliko Andriotis, did not turn up at Gymno, so we went on to Moskonisi, the men often playing on a plaintive flute, and sometimes singing low together. At breakfast, soon after dawn, we had a sort of orchestra.
We arrived opposite to Aivali. The Turks havesunk three mauna.... Hadkinson saw one of their submarines.
The situation at Aivali is curious. It lies at the head of a bay. Above it there are hills, not high hills, but high enough, the men said who were with us, to prevent its being bombarded by the Turks. They looked at it with longing eyes. Their families were there. They kept on cursing the “black dogs” and saying they would eat them. There were 35,000 people in Aivali, now only 25,000; 10,000 have left lately. The sword of Damocles hangs over the rest of them, for they might be sent off into the interior at any moment. We went on to the channel between Moskonisi and Pyrgos. There we found the child of the woman, who was sent with a note to her. Men were moving in the olives and the scrub some distance off, whom the Greeks said were their own compatriots.
The boy, who was thirteen, took the letter and put it under his saddle. He went off calmly to get past the Turks, without any air of adventure about him. The others realized the stage on which they were acting, and swaggered finely. I got off on Pyrgos with Hadkinson, and went to a small, rough chapel, where they were bringing the eikons back in triumph.
The beauty of it all was beyond words. I bathed on a silver sand in transparent water between the two islands. Moskonisi, by the way, doesn’t mean the Island of Perfume, but takes its name from a great brigand who practically held the island against the Turks about thirty years ago.
After a time the boy returned with a letter from his mother, and a peasant with binoculars. Heand the peasant both said that they had seen a great oil-pool in Aivali Bay. We thought that this must be from a submarine, and dashed round there at full speed, but found nothing. Then we decided to come home. We picked up some of the men we had dropped en route; and they brought us presents of gran Turco, basilica and sweet-scented pinks. Then they played their flutes as the sun set, and Hadkinson sang Greek, Bulgarian and Turkish songs, singing the “Imam’s Call” beautifully and, to the horror of his Greek followers, reverently.
We might have bagged the twenty-five Turks, or whatever number there were, quite easily, but H. thought this would have produced reprisals. He was probably right.
Tuesday, August 3, 1915.Mytilene.We got back last night after dinner and heard that Sir Ian Hamilton, George Lloyd and George Brodrick had been here.... One of the poor Whittall boys very badly wounded. They were a fine pair.
August 4, 1915.Mytilene.Yesterday we heard that the Turks had sent the town-crier to the equivalent of the capital of Moskonisi to say that any Greek going beyond a certain line would be put to death. Miss Vassilaki turned up, and said that she and her sister would come with me to Tenedos. I said they couldn’t.
We dined with General Hill and his Staff and slept on theCanopus.... Mackenzie no better.... A good deal of friction in Tenedos. Athanasius Vassilaki has escaped, and every one is annoyed. Some men have been arrested for signalling.
Thursday, August 5, 1915.Tenedos.Most of the officers sick. I was asked to stay on at Tenedos,but felt I must get back at once. Christo says that it’s dull here, and Kaba Tepé is better than this house. Turkish guns have been firing at our trawlers. A couple of men wounded. Examined a man just escaped from Constantinople. Constantinople is quite cheery: theatres, carriages, boats, etc. The Germans say we can’t hold out on the Peninsula when the bad weather comes.
Then I examined a Lebanon French soldier who had arrested a child and an old man for signalling....
Here there are some pages of my diary missing, but the events that occurred are still vividly in my mind.
In company with other officers I went first to Imbros, hearing the thunder of the guns from Helles. In passionate haste we tried every means to get on to the Peninsula for the great battle. I left Christo to follow with my kit, if he could, with the future doubtful before him, and no certainty, except that of being arrested many times.
In the harbour at Imbros on that night there was a heavy sea, and in a small, dancing boat we quested through the darkness for any ship sailing to Anzac. One was found at last that was on the point of sailing, and off we went.
The instructions of my friend Ian Smith were to get to Suvla, and luck favoured him, for at dawn we lay off Suvla, and a trawler took him ashore.
Along the heights and down to the sea-shore the battle growled and raged, and it was difficult to know what was the mist of the morning or battle smoke. I got off at Anzac, which was calm, realizing that I had missed the first attack.
Diary.Saturday, August 7, 1915.Kaba Tebé.I went out to Headquarters, which are now beyond Colonel Bauchop’s old Headquarters. He, poor fellow, had just been hit and was said to be dying. Dix20again wounded in the leg and Cator killed when he had just been promoted. I saw the General; on the way out I met 300 Turkish prisoners and was ordered to return and embark them. We came to the pier on the beach, then three shells fell on and beside it; both S. B. and I thought we were going to have a very bad time, packed like sardines, with panicky prisoners. Embarking them took time; we were all very snappy, but we got them off. I was glad to find S. B. and Woods. All the dugouts here are desolate. I saw General Birdwood, who was very sad about Onslow.21He talked of the water difficulties. He was cheerful, as usual, and said he thought we should know which way things were going by 5 o’clock. S. was less cheerful.
I went back to Headquarters, a weary trudge of two hot, steaming miles, past masses of wounded. The saps were constantly blocked. Then back to Anzac for a few hours’ sleep, till I can get my kit.
Sunday, August 8, 1915.Near Anafarta.Slept badly last night at Anzac. The place was very desolate with every one away. I got up before a clear dawn and went out to the observation post, where I found General Godley and General Shaw. Our assault began. We saw our men in the growing light attack the Turks. It was a cruel and beautiful sight, for it was like a fight in fairyland; they wentforward in parties through the beautiful light, with the clouds crimsoning over them. Sometimes a tiny, gallant figure would be in front, then a puff would come and they would be lying still. We got to within about forty yards of the Turks; later we lost ground. Meanwhile, men were streaming up, through awful heat. There were Irish troops cursing the Kaiser. At the observation post we were being badly shelled. The beauty of the place was extraordinary, and made it better than the baldness of Anzac, but we were on an unpropitious hillside, and beyond there were mules and men, clustered thickly.
Then I was sent back to Kaba Tepé, where I found a lot of wounded prisoners, who had not been attended to. I woke a doctor who had not slept for ages. He talked almost deliriously, but came along and worked like a real good man. I saw General House, V.C., and suggested attaching one doctor to the prisoners, so that we should not get contagious diseases.
Returned to Bauchop’s Post and examined a couple of Germans from theGoeben. Got a good deal of information. Then I was telephoned for to interrogate a wounded Greek, who had, however, got lost. I went back outside the hospital, where there were many wounded lying. I stumbled upon poor A. C. (a schoolfellow), who had been wounded about 3 a.m. the day before, and had lain in the sun on the sand all the previous day. He recognized me, and asked me to help him, but was light-headed. There were fifty-six others with him; M. and I counted. It was awful having to pass them. A lot of the men called out: “We are being murdered.” The smells were fearful.... I went down a sapto the north to find the Greek. Fierce shelling began. The sap was knocked down in front and behind.
I came to a field hospital, situated where the troops were going through. There no one knew where Taylor’s Hollow, the place where the Greek was supposed to be, was. While I was there shelling was bad. Several of the wounded hit again. One man was knocked in on the top of me, bleeding all over. I returned to meet Thoms, who said he knew the way. We ran the gauntlet....
I had a curious, beautiful walk, looking for the wounded Greek, going to nineteen hospitals. Many wounded everywhere. First I saw one of our fellows who had met ten Turks and had ten bayonet wounds. He was extremely cheerful. Then a couple of Turks in the shadow of some pines, one dying and groaning, really unconscious. I offered the other water from my bottle, but he refused because of his companion, using Philip Sidney’s words in Turkish.
Men were being hit everywhere. After going by fields and groves and lanes I came back to where the wounded were lying in hundreds, in the sap going to the sea, near Bauchop’s Fountain. There a man called to me in French. He was the Greek I was looking for, badly wounded. He talked a great deal. Said 200,000 reinforcements were expected from Gallipoli. No gas would be used here....
Monday, August 9, 1915.No. 3 Outpost.Slept uncomfortably on the ground. Went before the dawn to observation post; returned to examine prisoners. Had an unsuccessful expedition with Hastings to find some guns which he said had been lost between the lines.
Bullets came streaming down our valley, and we put up a small wall, of sacks, 3 feet high, behind which we slept. I was sitting at breakfast this morning listening to Colonel Manders22talking, when suddenly I saw Charlie B. put his hand to his own head and say: “By G——, he’s killed!” Manders fell back dead, with a bullet through his temple. He was a very good fellow.
Sir Ian Hamilton came ashore. I saw him for a moment. Then to Kaba Tepé; going and coming one passes a line of bodies, some dreadful, being carried for burial. Many still lying out. The last wounded have been more pitiful than anything I have seen. Cazalet is badly wounded; I hope he will recover; he is a good boy. Colonel Malone was killed last night and Jacky Hughes wounded. Lots of shelling.
Coming back I had to go outside the crowded sap, and got sniped. Thoms and I had a very lively time of it.
Came back for Manders’ funeral. I was very fond of him. General Godley read a few sentences with the help of my electric torch, which failed. Four others were buried with him. Later I saw a great shell strike the grave. A cemetery, or rather lots, growing up round us. There are dead buried or half buried in every gully.
Tuesday, August 10, 1915.No. 3 Outpost.Christo arrived with my kit and some grapes last night. While we were eating these, two men, one of whom was our cook, were hit, and he being the second cook, it was decided to change our quarters, as a lot of bullets streamed down the gully and we had been losing heavily. I was called up in thenight to see about some wounded. The General had said they had better go by boat, because of the difficulty of the saps, but there were no boats, and Manders’ death had caused confusion at the hospital. The doctor on the beach said he could not keep the wounded there any longer, because of the rifle fire. I woke Charlie B. We got 200 men from the Canterbury reinforcements. They had been fighting without sleep since Sunday morning, but evacuated about 300 wounded to below Walker’s Ridge. There were no complaints. The Turks still had to be left. They called to me at night and at dawn. I gave them drinks, and later, after sunrise, shifted them into the shade, which made them cheerful. The General had not slept for three nights. The day went badly for us. We lost Chunuk Bair, and without it we cannot win the battle. The Turks have fought very finely, and all praise their courage. It was wonderful to see them charging down the hill, through the storm of shrapnel, under the white ghost wreaths of smoke. Our own men were splendid. The N.Z. Infantry Brigade must have ceased to exist. Meanwhile the condition of the wounded is indescribable. They lie in the sand in rows upon rows, their faces caked with sand and blood; one murmur for water; no shelter from the sun; many of them in saps, with men passing all the time scattering more dust on them. There is hardly any possibility of transporting them. The fire zones are desperate, and the saps are blocked with ammunition transport and mules, also whinnying for water, carrying food, etc. Some unwounded men almost mad from thirst, cursing.
We all did what we could, but amongst so manyit was almost impossible.... The wounded Turks still here. I kept them alive with water. More prisoners in, report another 15,000 men at Bulair and a new Division, the 7th, coming against us here. I saw General Cooper,23wounded, in the afternoon, and got him water. His Staff had all been killed or wounded....
If the Turks continue to hold Chunuk Bair and get up their big guns there, we are, as a force, far worse off than at Anzac. What has happened is roughly this: we have emerged from a position which was unsatisfactory but certain, into one that is uncertain but partly satisfactory. If the Turks have the time to dig themselves in, then we are worse off than before, because we shall again be held up, with the winter to face, and time running hard against us, with an extended front. The Turks will still have land communications, while we shall only have sea communications, and though we ourselves shall be possibly better off, because we shall now have a harbour, the Turks some time will almost certainly be able to break through, though possibly not able to keep what they take. But the men at Helles will not be freed as our move proposed to free them.
I thought one of the wounded Turks had cholera to-day. There is very little water, and we have to give them water out of our own bottles. We have a terrible view here: lines of wounded creeping up from the hospital to the cemetery like a tide, and the cemetery is going like a live thing to meet the wounded. Between us and the sea is about 150 yards; this space is now empty of men because of the sniping.There are a number of dead mules on it, which smell horribly but cannot be moved. A curious exhibition of sniping took place just below us this evening, about 50 yards away. Two men were on the open space when a sniper started to shoot at them. They popped into a dry well that practically hid them, but he got his bullets all round them—in front and behind and on the sides. They weren’t hit. The camp watched, laughing.
Thursday, August 12, 1915.No. 3 Outpost.At 4.30 in the morning I got up and walked with the General. We went up to Rhododendron Ridge to have a look at the Turks. It is a steep, beautiful walk, and a glorious view—trees everywhere and cliffs. We are fastening the cliffs up, and camouflaging the trenches.
I took Nikolas the miller round the observation post in the morning. A new Division is supposed to be against us, the 8th. In the afternoon walked into Anzac to get a drink of water as have had fever and a cruel thirst. The dugouts smell, and washing’s difficult. Anglesey gave me excellent water.
Friday, August 13, 1915.No. 3 Outpost.Nothing doing. Bullets singing about, but nobody getting hit. The heat’s ferocious, and everybody’s feeling ill. Macaulay’s wounded.
Worked yesterday morning, also started on new dugout. In the afternoon went with Turkish papers to Anzac. I saw C. He said that this beach for cruelty had beaten the Crimea.... Savage feeling with the R.A.M.C....
Streams of mules took water out in the evening as the sun set. I met several men with sunstroke coming in. I saw George Hutton, Royal WelshFusiliers, who has become a Colonel. He had a hand-to-hand bayonet tussle with a Turk, in the last fight. Another man came up, and killed the Turk with his bayonet. Then, he said, the man, instead of pulling his bayonet out, dashed to another man and asked him for his bayonet, saying: “I have left mine in the Turk.”
The battle-cries, by the way, were for the Turks the sonorous, deep-voiced “Allah, Allah,” and “Voor” (“God, God,” “Strike”); while the New Zealanders used often to shout: “Eggs is cooked.” This apparently irrelevant, unwarlike slogan had its origin in Egypt. There, on field days in the desert, when the men halted to rest, Egyptians would appear magically with primitive kitchens and the cry of “Eggs is cooked!”
Diary.Monday, August 16, 1915.No. 3 Outpost.Christo will spit on my razor-strop; otherwise he is a good servant.... Bathed with Charlie B. yesterday afternoon.... I don’t think we want Roumania in. If she has no ammunition and takes a very bad knock from Germany, it would give Germany a very strong strategic position. The Turks who have come in do not really seem very disheartened.
At about this time the Expeditionary Force entered upon a new phase. The agony of the struggle had passed its crisis. Both sides sat down grimly, to wait for the winter. In many ways our position had distinctly improved. There was more room, and space banished the sense of imprisonment that had afflicted us. The country was not as battle-scarred as Anzac, and walking over the heights at sunset was a feast of loveliness.
We moved our Headquarters again, and I went up to a large dugout in what had been a Turkish fort. The troops quartered in this fort were an Indian Field Battery and sixty-three New Zealanders, all that was left of their battalion. These men had been in the first landing. They had, every one of them, had dysentery or fever, and the great majority were still sick and over-ripe for hospital.
As time went on, and illness increased, one often heard men and officers say: “If we can’t hold the trenches with sound men, we have got to hold them with sick men.” When all was quiet, the sick-list grew daily. But when the men knew that there was to be an attack, they fought their sickness, to fight the Turk, and the stream to the hospitals shrank.
I admired nothing in the war more than the spirit of these sixty-three New Zealanders, who were soon to go to their last fight. When the day’s work was over, and the sunset swept the sea, we used to lean upon the parapet and look up to where Chunuk Bair flamed, and talk. The great distance from their own country created an atmosphere of loneliness. This loneliness was emphasized by the fact that the New Zealanders rarely received the same recognition as the Australians in the Press, and many of their gallant deeds went unrecorded or were attributed to their greater neighbours. But they had a silent pride that put these things into proper perspective. The spirit of these men was unconquered and unconquerable. At night, when the great moon of the Dardanelles soared and all was quiet except the occasional whine of a bullet overhead, the voices of the tired men continuallyargued the merits of the Expedition, and there was always one end to these discussions: “Well, it may all be a —— mistake, but in a war of this size you will have mistakes of this size, and it doesn’t matter a —— to us whether we are for it here or in France, for we came out to do one job, and it’s nothing to us whether we finish in one place or another.” The Turks were not the only fatalists in those days.
We were now well supplied with water, but food of the right kind was a difficulty. It was very hard to obtain supplies for sick men, and here, as always, we met with the greatest kindness from the Navy.
Horlick’s Malted Milk and fruit from the Islands did us more good than anything else. Relations of mine in Egypt sent me an enormous quantity of the first, which I was able to distribute to the garrison of the fort. Later, when I was invalided, I bequeathed the massive remnants to a friend who had just landed. Greedily he opened my stores, hoping for the good things of the world—tongues, potted ham and whisky—only to find a wilderness of Horlick’s Malted Milk.
Our position had at last been appreciated at home, and we were no longer irritated, as in the early days, by the frivolity and fatuousness of London. Upon one occasion, shortly after the first landing, one of the illustrated papers had a magnificent picture entitled, if I remember right, “The Charge that Won Constantinople.” The picture was of a cavalry charge, led quite obviously by General Godley—and those were the days when we were living on the edge of a cliff, where only centipedes could, and did, charge, and when wewere provided with some mules and my six donkeys for all our transport.
There was a remarkable contrast between our war against the Germans and the Turks. In France the British soldier started fighting good-naturedly, and it took considerable time to work him up to a pitch of hatred; at Anzac the troops from the Dominions began their campaign with feelings of contempt and hatred, which gradually turned to respect for the Moslems. At the beginning the great majority of our men had naturally no knowledge of the enemy they were fighting. Once, looking down from a gun emplacement, I saw a number of Turks walking about, and asked why they had not been shot at. “Well,” said one man, “it seems hard on them, poor chaps. They aren’t doing any harm.” Then up came another: “Those Turks,” he said, “they walk about as if this place belongs to them.” I suggested that it was their native land. “Well,” he said, “I never thought of that.”
Diary.Monday, August 16, 1915.No. 2 Outpost.It’s curious the way the men speak of the Turks here. They still can’t be made to wear gas helmets, because they say the Turks are clean fighters and won’t use gas....
It’s good to be high up in this observation post, above the smells, with a magnificent view of hill and valley. We shoot from here pretty often at the Turkish guns. Last night the Dardanelles droned on for hours. This morning the machine-guns on both sides were going like dentists’ drills. To-day it’s absolutely still, with only the whirr of aeroplanes overhead.
Bartlett turned up to-night. He had not much hope.... Poor Bauchop is dead. News came to-night.... A gallant man.
On Wednesday, August 18th, I was sent to G.H.Q. at Imbros, and heard a full account of the tragic battle down at Helles, and the condition of the wounded at Mudros.
When men have gone to the limits of human endurance, when blood has been spilled like water, and the result is still unachieved, bitter and indiscriminate recrimination and criticism inevitably follow. But Anzac had one great advantage. Our leaders had the confidence of their men. The troops were able to see General Birdwood and General Godley every day in the front trenches with themselves, walking about under fire as if they had been on a lawn in England, and the men knew that their own lives were never uselessly sacrificed.
The work of many of the doctors on the Peninsula was beyond all praise, but there was black rage against the chiefs of the R.A.M.C. at Imbros and in Egypt. The anger would have been still greater if their attitude of complacent self-sufficiency had been known.
Diary.Thursday, August 19, 1915.No. 3 Outpost.Returned to the Peninsula with Bettinson and Commander Patch and Phillips, the navigator. When we had come up to the fort I told them not to show their heads at the observation post, as the fort did not belong to me, and I did not want to become unpopular. I got Perry, Captain of the fort, and he sat them down on the parapet, showing them the lines of our trenches. While we talked, a sniper shot at Patch, just missinghim, and hitting the parapet beside him. They were very pleased, though the others said I had paid a man to shoot in order to give them fun. Perry said in a friendly way: “That’s a good sniper; he’s thirteen hundred yards off, so it was a pretty decent shot.” Then he talked to them, and they felt what any one must feel talking to these men. They gave us a lot of things, and are sending all sorts of things to-morrow for the men here.
Friday, August 20, 1915.No. 2 Outpost.Last night was the first cold night. This morning I went out with the General, who was like a bull-dog and a cyclone. We met Birdwood, who was there to see the last Australians arrive, 17th and 18th Brigades, in Reserve Gully. They looked a splendid lot, and it did one’s heart good to see them. Some more officers from theBacchanteturned up with stores, and special cocoa for me. I was just going off to find Perry when I met him. He is off out; there is a fight to-morrow. I gave him the cocoa. He was glad to have it.... The men are all tired out with heat and dysentery and digging and fighting. The General and I went up to Sazli Beit Deri. I didn’t think it over-safe for him.
Saturday, August 21, 1915.No. 2 Outpost.Work in the morning. Was to have gone with the General in the afternoon, but prisoners came in to be examined. They said: “Curse the Germans! We can’t go on. There are no more men left.” One of them was killed by their own fire after I left. G. L. came to luncheon. Charlie B., he and I started off together, I feeling pretty bad. It was very hot. We went at a great pace over two or three ridges and across valleys, our guns thundering about us. Finally, I felt so bad I letthem go on, and came back.... The battle developed and the shooting was fierce and general. While I hunted for General Monash’s Headquarters I met Colonel A. J., who was rather worried. We had a close shave.... I left him, and had an odd adventure.... Went home alone through deafening noise, all the valleys under fire.... Got at last into a shallow nullah that led into a regular gully, and so home.
That day I saw an unforgettable sight. The dismounted Yeomanry attacked the Turks across the salt lakes of Suvla. Shrapnel burst over them continuously; above their heads there was a sea of smoke. Away to the north by Chocolate Hill fires broke out on the plain. The Yeomanry never faltered. On they came through the haze of smoke in two formations, columns and extended. Sometimes they broke into a run, but they always came on. It is difficult to describe the feelings of pride and sorrow with which we watched this advance, in which so many of our friends and relations were playing their part.
Diary.August 21st.Charlie B. and G. L. came back all right.... The Turks had come over in three waves down Chunuk Bair. The first two were destroyed by naval fire; the third got home into our trenches. Charlie B. was full of admiration for one old fellow whom he had seen holding up his finger and lecturing to the men when they hung back.
Hutton is wounded again.
Sunday, August 22, 1915.No. 2 Outpost.Last night, or this morning at 1 o’clock, I was called up. They said there were 150 Turks in one placeand others elsewhere, anxious to surrender. I took the miller, Zachariades and Kyriakidis out to Headquarters. Sent back Kyriakidis and the miller, as there was nothing doing and I wanted to keep Kyriakidis. Went on with Zachariades and guides sent by Poles to Colonel Agnew to his H.Q. There we lay on the ground, very cold. They said the Turks had wished to surrender, but there had been no interpreter, and they had been fired on. The Turks were then attacking heavily. Eastwood telephoned that they had fourteen prisoners. I went back to see if they could give any news about our immediate front.
Every one worried. The —— Battalion of Australians had gone wrong. Nobody knew where they were. I sent my escort to try and find them. The Hampshires, who ought to have arrived, had not come.... They came along gradually.
We attacked at about four in the morning. The Turkish fire tarried a little, then got furious. We went towards Monash, and met the Hampshires, very tired and wayworn. Bullets sang very viciously, and burst into flame on the rocks. There was a thunder of rifle fire and echoes in the gullies, men dropping now and then. Lower down the gully I found the Hampshires running like mad upwards to the firing line; beyond this a mixed crowd of men without an officer.... My guide, wild as a hawk, took us up a ridge. I fell over a dead man in the darkness and hurt my ankle. We had to wait. There seemed a sort of froth of dust on the other side of the ridge, from the rifle fire, and I told the escort to take us down and round the ridge across the valley. He admitted afterwards we had no chance of crossing the otherway. In the valley the bullets sang. We came to the half-nullah where I had taken such unsatisfactory cover in the afternoon. There we waited a bit, and then ran across the hundred yards to the next gully. Zachariades and the escort grazed. Found the prisoners; the other Zachariades examined them.... Spent bullets falling about, but the Greeks never winked. A surrendered Armenian could only tell us that the Turks were very weak before us. The rifle fire died away in the end, and we walked back at dawn, getting here by sunrise. Then examined more prisoners till about 11, and slept till 1.
The position is still indefinite. It’s on the same old lines, on the hills we are the eyebrows and the Turks are the forehead.
Monday, August 23, 1915.No. 2 Outpost.Perry is wounded, but not badly, I hope, in the arm. There is hardly any one in the fort. The interpreter question becoming very difficult. They are all going sick. Had a quiet evening last night, and read on the parapet. It will be very difficult to keep these old troops here during the winter. The Australians and New Zealanders who have been here a long time are weak, and will all get pneumonia. There was a great wind blowing and the sound of heavy firing. I went to Anzac to-day, and found men bombing fish. They got about twenty from one bomb, beautiful fish, half-pounders.
Tuesday, August 24th.No. 2 Outpost.General Shaw has gone sick to England; General Maude has taken his place. He commands the 13th. He and Harter dined here last night. Longford was killed, Milbanke said to be killed or wounded, and the Hertfordshires have suffered.
This morning we talked about the winter seriously and of preparations to be made. I am for a hillside. The plain is a marsh and the valley a water-course. We ought to have fuel, caves for drying clothes, cooking, etc., and mostly this hill is made of dust and sand. A great mail came in last night, but the machine-guns got on to the men as they passed by the beach in the moonlight, killed some and wounded five men. So there are the mails lying now, with the machine-guns playing round them....
I advised Lawless yesterday at Anzac to move out from the beach, lest the sea should rise and take him like a winkle from his shell.
Saw D. to-day. He has a curious story to tell of the other night, when I was telephoned for. He said I was called three hours too late. A lot of Turks had come out of their trenches, some unarmed and some armed and some with bombs. He had gone out and pointed his revolver at one of them, who shouldered arms and stood to attention. Some of the Turks came right up, and the New Zealanders said: “Come in here, Turkey,” and began pulling them into the front trench. D. had feared that the Turks, who were about 200, might rush the trench, and had waved them back and finally fired his revolver and ordered our fellows to fire. It was a pity there was no one there who could talk. Later I saw Temperley, who said when we took Rhododendron Ridge there were 250 Turks on the top. They piled their arms, cheered us and clapped their hands.
To-night I went to Chaylak Dere with the General and saw General Maude, and his Staff, who looked pretty ill, also Claude Willoughby, who was anxious to take the Knoll by the Apex.
There was a tremendous wind, and dust-storms everywhere. In the gullies men were burying the dead, not covering them sufficiently. My eyes are still full of the dust and the glow of the camp-fires on the hillside, and the moonlight. It is an extraordinary country to look across—range after range of high hills, precipice and gully, the despair of Generals, the grave and oblivion of soldiers.
Here the diary stops abruptly, and begins again on Saturday, September 23rd.
No. 2 Outpost.After writing the above I had a bad go of fever, and was put on to hospital ship. Went aboard with General Birdwood, General Godley and Tahu Rhodes. The Generals had come to inspect the New Zealand hospital ship, which was excellent. That night there was a very heavy fire. I felt some friend of mine would be hit on shore, and the next morning I found Charlie B. on board, not badly wounded, hit in the side.
My friend Charlie B. had a temper, and was often angry when others were calm, but in moments of excitement he was calm to the point of phlegm. When we were off Mudros there was a great crash, and a jarring of the ship from end to end. I went into Charlie B.’s cabin and said: “Come along. They say we’re torpedoed. I’ll help you.” “Where are my slippers?” he asked. I said: “Curse your slippers.” “I will not be hurried by these Germans,” answered Charlie B., and he had the right of it, for we had only had a minor collision with another boat.
At Mudros the majority of the sick and woundedon our hospital ship were sent to England, but my friend and I were luckily carried on to Egypt.
Diary.September 23rd.There was a remarkable man on board theManitou, Major K. He had led 240 men into a Turkish trench; three had returned unwounded, but he got most of his wounded back with eighteen men. The Adjutant was killed on his back. He himself had already been wounded twice. Finally, he left the trench alone, and turned round and faced the Turks at 200 yards. They never fired at him, because, he said, “they admired me.” This officer found a D.S.O. waiting for him in Egypt, and has since earned the V.C. in France, for which he had been previously recommended in South Africa. He and I returned to the Dardanelles together while he still had a long, unhealed bayonet wound in his leg.
At Alexandria, fortunately for myself, I had relations who were working there. I went to the hospital of a friend. It was a great marble palace, surrounded by lawns and fountains, and made, at any rate, gorgeous within by the loves of the Gods, painted in the colours of the Egyptian sunset on the ceilings.
The Englishwomen in Alexandria were working like slaves for the wounded and the sick. They did all that was humanly possible to make up for the improvidence and the callousness of the home medical authorities. Thanks to their untiring and unceasing work, day and night, these ladies saved great numbers of British lives.
One day the Sultan came to inspect the hospital where I was a patient. For reasons of toilette, I should have preferred not to have been seen onthat occasion by His Highness, but the royal eye fixed itself upon my kimono, and I was taken aside for a few minutes’ conversation.
Diary.(Subsequently written on the Peninsula.) The Sultan said that he was very grieved about the Conservative party, because of the Coalition, I suppose, and also about Gallipoli. There I cordially agreed.
I went up to Cairo for a few days, and found the city and life there very changed. Shepheard’s was filled with the ghosts of those who had left on and since April 12th.
In Egypt the danger of the Canal had passed, but anxiety had not gone with it. There was much doubt as to what the Senoussi would be likely to do and what consequences their action would have. They had little to gain by attacking, but all knew that this would not necessarily deter them. I was in Cairo when Fathy Pasha was stabbed, and those in authority feared for the life of the Sultan.
My friend Charlie B. and Major K. and I left Alexandria in brilliant moonlight. Our boat could do a bare twelve knots an hour. On the journey rockets went up at night, S.O.S. signals were sent us, all in vain: we were not to be seduced from our steady spinster’s course to Mudros. When we again reached that place we found that our sister-ship, theRamadan, had been torpedoed.
Diary.(Written September 23rd.) General Godley was on theLord Nelson. He had been sick for some time, and had been taking three days off. Roger Keyes desperately anxious to go up the Dardanelles, come what may. He is the properman to do it, but I think it’s only singeing the King of Spain’s beard.
At Imbros the General, Charlie B. and I had a stormy row ashore and a long walk to G.H.Q., where I found Willy Percy, who had been badly wounded, now recovering. I saw Tyrrell, G. L. and Dedez. The news had just come through of Bulgaria’s mobilization, but they did not know against whom. I wonder if the Bulgars will attack both the Serbs and the Turks. That would be a topsy-turvy, Balkan thing to do, and might suit their book. We ought to have had them in on our side six months ago. From G.H.Q. we came back to Anzac. The General has had my dugout kept for me in the fort, where Christo and I now live in solitude, for all the rest are gone. I found a lot of new uniforms and a magnificent cap. When I put this on Christo cried violently: “No, no, no, not until we ride into Constantinople as conquerors.”
H.Q. are on the other side of the Turkish fort, in a tiny valley across which you can throw a stone. They have all the appearance of a more comfortable Pompeii, and are scarcely more alive; it is the quietest town I have ever seen; there lies in front a ridge of valley, a dip of blue sea and a good deal of the Anafarta plain. The first night on arriving the cold was bitter, also next morning. Pleurisy has already started. This morning the General went up to the Apex and behind it. He was not at all pleased with the fire trenches. He nearly drove C., the officer at that moment instructing the Australians, mad, first by criticizing everything—I thought pretty justly—and then by standing about in view of the Turks and not worrying about shells or bombs. I did my best to get him in. TheAustralians were all laughing at C. for his caution and fussiness. Incidentally, one of the big mortar-bombs fell in the trench as we arrived. Hastings is Intelligence officer. It’s luck to have got him.
Sunday, September 24, 1915.No. 2 Outpost.A lovely morning. There was a bracing chill of autumn and yet warm air and a smiling, southern look across Anafarta plain, with great hills on the other side, stately and formidable. Swallows everywhere. Up till now it’s been very silent. I thought that the noise of war was past, but bullets and shells have been whining and moaning over us. At Anzac yesterday morning they had about twenty men hit by one shell, and I saw a lot of mules being dragged down to the sea as I went in. We walked through the “Camel’s Hump” with Colonel Chauvel and Glasgow, on to No. 1 Outpost, now deserted, with the beautiful trench made by the six millionaires. I wonder what has happened to them all.
Cazalet, of whom I had grown very fond, is dead, Hornby’s missing. I was very sad to hear that Reynell was killed on the night of the 27th, when we left. A fine man in every way. His men worshipped him....
A lot of French transports were leaving Egypt as we left, maybe for Asia. We shall do nothing more here unless we have an overwhelming force. We have never done anything except with a rush. Directly we have touched a spade we have ceased to advance, and have gone on adding bricks to the wall which we first built and then beat our heads against.
This morning we had a service in the valley, which is extraordinarily beautiful. The flies areawful, horrible, lethargic; they stick to one like gum. The men in the trenches are wearing the head-dresses that Egypt has sent. I went with the General in the afternoon to Anzac. We walked back as shelling began. We had one whizz round us, and a man fell beside me on the beach. I heard a tremendous smack, and thought he was dead, and began to drag him in to cover, but he was all right, though a bullet had thumped him.
The flies and their habits deserve to live in a diary of their own. They were horrible in themselves, and made more horrible by our circumstances and their habits. They lived upon the dead, between the trenches, and came bloated from their meal to fasten on the living. One day I killed a fly on my leg that made a splash of blood that half a crown would not have covered.
Diary.Monday, September 27, 1915.No. 2 Outpost.Last night F. dined. He said that the Indians could get back from Mudros if they gave the hospital orderly ten rupees. The hospital orderly would then certify them as having dysentery. Most of them did not want to go back, some did. When they were reluctant about fighting, he thought it was due to the fact that it was Moslems they were against.
This morning the General and I went round Colonel Anthill’s trenches. Billy H. was there, as independent and casual as ever. He came out here as a sergeant and is now Acting Brigade Major. I am giving him a shirt.
Billy H. was not the only member of his family who was independent. His father, a well-known Australian doctor, on one occasion gave one ofthe chiefs of the British R.A.M.C. his sincere opinion about the treatment of the sick and wounded. After a while the chief of the R.A.M.C. said: “You don’t seem to understand that it is I who am responsible for these things.” “Oh yes, I do,” said the Australian doctor, “but it’s not you I’m getting at; it’s the fool who put you there.”
Diary.Thursday, September 28, 1915.No. 2 Outpost.Last night I dined with S. B. and H. Woods. Walked back through a still, moonlit night, with the sea and the air just breathing. Very bright stars. We sent up flares. The General was ill this morning, so did not go out. The Greek interpreters have been called up for mobilization. This Greek mobilization ought to do some good about the German submarines. Last night at Anzac they had iron needles dropped from aeroplanes. I always objected to this. This morning over our heads there was a Taube firing hard at something with a machine-gun. It produces an unpleasant impression, I suppose because it is unfamiliar, to hear the noise straight above one. Two bombs were dropped—at least, I suppose they were. They fell with a progressive whistle, but not close to us; another big one, however, an 8-inch one, I believe, from the Dardanelles, fell with a tired and sensuous thud just over the ridge.
Wednesday, September 29, 1915.No. 2 Outpost.The General went out at nine this morning, P. and I with him. He went to the Apex and round. In the evening Kettle and I talked in the fort.
Friday, October 1, 1915.No. 2 Outpost.Yesterday morning General Godley, General Birdwood, de Crespigny and I went round the trenches, Apex,Anthill’s, etc., from 9.30 until 3. A very hot day; I wish that Generals were a hungrier, thirstier race. We had some light shelling, into which the Generals walked without winking or reason, though they made us take intervals.
G. L. has gone home. Ross turned up last night; glad to see him again. He said that a statement was to be made almost at once, and that we weren’t going to be here for the winter. He had a notion that the Italians were going to take our place....
This morning there was a very heavy mist; the hills and the sea were curtained in it. My clothes were wringing wet. The Greek interpreters have been called up by the Greek mobilization and have gone to Imbros, some of them to try to avoid going. They have, says Christo, “kria kardia” (cold feet.) Xenophon, in a moment of enthusiasm, changed Turkish for Greek nationality. He now speaks of the days of his Ottoman nationality with a solemn and mournful affection, as of a golden age. He envies his cousin, Pericles, who was not so carried away. Kyriakidis is too old to go, thank goodness.
Going into Anzac with the General, and glad to be quit of the trenches. It’s a weary business walking through these narrow mountain trenches, hearing the perpetual iteration of the same commands. The trenches are curiously personal. Some are so tidy as to be almost red-tape—the names of the streets, notices, etc., everywhere—and others slums. (Later.) I went into Anzac with the General to see General Birdwood, but he had gone out to see the bombardment from the sea. The General went off to the New Zealand hospital ship,Mahino. I went to get P. off, who was ill.The General and I had a very philosophical talk coming back. There was a radiance over Anzac; the sunken timbership shone against the sunset, with the crew half of them naked. Shells screamed over us, and in the Headquarters hollow parts of them came whimpering down.
Saturday, October 2, 1915.No. 2 Outpost.This morning General Godley, Colonel Artillery Johnson and I went round to see the guns, all across the Anafarta plain. Yesterday they had been shelling a good deal and had killed some Gurkhas.... We trudged about in the open, the Turkish hills in a semicircle round us. We kept about fifty yards apart.... I thought it very risky for the General; however, nothing happened. Have been meeting various school acquaintances these days....
Sunday, October 3, 1915.The General and Charlie B. went to Suvla. I lunched with S. B. and H. Woods. We played chess. A good deal of shelling. A fair number hit....
Monday, October 4, 1915.Changed my dugout this morning with an infinity of trouble, I didn’t like doing it; it involved men standing on the roof, and if one of them had been hit I should have felt responsible. However, we did it all right. I stole some corrugated iron, and am well off. This morning the Turks had a fierce demonstration. The bullets kicked up the dust at the mouth of the gully. Colonel Artillery Johnson just missed being hit, but only one man struck. They shelled us with big stuff that came over tired and groaning, bursting with a beastly noise and torrents of smoke. General C. lunched. He said people sent curiously inappropriate stores sometimes. In the middle of the summer they had sent us here mufflers and cardiganjackets, and two thousand swagger canes. These were now at Mudros. Chauvel has taken over command while the General is sick. He borrowed all my novels.
Tuesday, October 5, 1915.General C.O. turned up. He said we are going to attack through Macedonia. Heaven help us! Bulgaria has been given twenty-four hours’ ultimatum by Russia.
Went into Anzac, to go by boat to Suvla. Met C., who was at W—— (my private school). He said there was no boat. I went on and played chess, coming back through one of the most beautiful evenings we have had, the sea a lake of gold and the sky a lake of fire; but C. and I agreed we would not go back to Anzac or to W——, if we could help it.
Wednesday, October 6, 1915.I was going into Suvla with Hastings, but in the morning a Turkish deserter, Ahmed Ali, came in. He promised to show us two machine-guns, which he did (one German, immovable, and the other Turkish, movable), and seven guns which he had collected; this he failed to do, and also to produce three more comrades by firing a Turkish rifle as a signal.
In the afternoon I had a signal from S. B. to say he was leaving, sick, for Egypt. I walked in to see, and found he had gastritis....
Thursday, October 7, 1915.N.Z. and A. H.Q.This morning we went up with Ahmed Ali, and lay waiting for the Turkish deserters until after six. One Turkish rifle shot, a thicker sound than ours, was fired at Kidd’s Post, but no Turks came. Ahmed Ali was distressed. The dawn was fine; clouds of fire all over the sky.
The Turkish deserters and prisoners were put through a number of inquisitions. There was first of all the local officer, who had captured the Turk and was creditably anxious to anticipate the discoveries of the Intelligence. Then there was G.H.Q., intensely jealous of its privileges, and then Divisional H.Q., waiting rather sourly for the final examination of the exhausted Turks.
The Turkish private soldiers, being Moslems, were inspired rather with the theocratic ideals of comradeship than by theesprit de corpsof nationality, and spoke freely. They were always well treated, and this probably loosened their tongues, but Ahmed Ali was more voluble than the majority of his comrades, and I append information which he supplied as an illustration of our examinations and their results. The two sides of Turkish character were very difficult to reconcile. On the one hand, we were faced in the trenches by the stubborn and courageous Anatolian peasant, who fought to the last gasp; on the other hand, in our dugouts we had a friendly prisoner, who would overwhelm us with information. “The fact is you are just a bit above our trenches. If only you can get your fire rather lower, you will be right into them, and here exactly is the dugout of our Captain, Riza Kiazim Bey, a poor, good man. You miss him all the time. If you will take the line of that pine-tree, you will get him.”
Diary.Saturday, October 9, 1915.A. and N.Z. H.Q.Ahmed Ali proposed coming to England with me when I went there.... Last night we had bad weather; a sort of whirlwind came down. It whizzed away the iron sheeting over my dugoutand poured in a cascade of water, soaking everything. Iron sheeting was flying about like razors; it was not possible to light candles. Finally, Ryrie came and lent me a torch, and I slept, wet but comfortable, under my cloak. Our people and the Turks both got excited, and heavy rifle fire broke out, as loud as the storm. An angry dawn, very windy and rifles crackling.