I found Chaytor with an Australian officer. He said to him, ‘Go out along the flank and find out where the Canterbury Battalion is and how strong. On the extreme left there is a field ambulance. They must be told to lie down so that the Turks will not shoot them.’ I said: ‘Let me go out. I will look after them and if necessary interpret.’ He agreed and we started. I heard the Australian officer ordering the Canterbury in support to retire. I said: ‘But are your orders to that effect? A support is there to support. The Canterburys will be routed or destroyed if you take this support away.’ He said: ‘Well, that’s a bright idea.’ He went back, and I heard him say: ‘This officer thinks you had better stay where you are.’ I don’t know if he was a Colonel or what he was and he didn’t know what I was.
I found the field ambulance, a long way off, and went on to the outposts. The field ambulance were touchingly grateful for nothing, and I had some tea and yarned with them till morning, walking back after dawn along the beach by the graves. No one fired at me.
When I got back I heard the news of Doughty’s36 death, which grieved me a great deal. He seems to have saved the situation. The description of Helles is ghastly, of the men looking down into the red sea, and the dying drowned in a foot of water. That is what might have, and really ought to have happened to us.
One hears the praise of politicians in all men’s mouths ….
I was brought a Turkish officer’s note-book and the photograph of his little girl. His name was Mulazim Evvel, 1st Lieutenant, 1st Company, 1st Battalion, 72nd Regiment. Hussein Effendi; also Mehmed Debe 15th Platoon, 8 Company of 27th Regiment. I showed the photograph to the General; he dropped it as if a wasp had stung him. Also a little pocket book with bottles of horrible sticky sickly scent. 3,000 casualties at Helles we hear.
In the last twenty-four hours I have expected (1) peace for a time (2) death from the big howitzer (3) to be once again a prisoner of war with the field ambulance. We have blue hot weather and cold grey weather; and the ordinary man has passed from anxiety to weariness; the Generals have been tortured with anxiety, some of it in some of them quite unselfish.
I have done my best to prevent the killing of prisoners. They realize now, the Australians I mean, that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and they cannot expect to receive quarter if they give none. I spent the afternoon with Chaytor wishing that poor Doughty hadn’t been killed, and wondering how many more of my friends have gone the same way.
A beautiful night, last night, and a fair amount of shrapnel. Every evening now they send over a limited number of howitzers from the great guns in the Dardanelles, aimed at our ships. That happens also in the early morning, as this morning. To-night an aeroplane is to locate these guns, and when they let fly to-morrow we are to give them an immense broadside from all our ships.
At this time the weather had improved, but we were living in a good deal of discomfort. We were not yet properly supplied with stores, the water was brackish, occasionally one had to shave in salt water, and all one’s ablutions had to be done on the beach, with the permission of the Turkish artillery.
The beach produced a profound impression on almost all of us, and has in some cases made the seaside distasteful for the rest of our lives. It was, when we first landed, I suppose, about 30 yards broad, and covered with shingle. Upon this narrow strip depended all our communications: landing and putting off, food and water, all came and went upon the beach – and the Turkish guns had got the exact range. Later, shelters were put up, but life was still precarious, and the openness of the beach gave men a greater feeling of insecurity than they had in the trenches.
Diary. Our hair and eyes and mouths are full of dust and sand, and our nostrils of the smell of dead mules. There were also colonies of ants that kept in close touch with us, and our cigarettes gave out. Besides these trials, we had no news of the war or of the outer world.
Diary. Tahu and I repacked the provisions this morning. While we did so one man was shot on the right and another on the left. We have been expecting howitzers all the time, and speculating as to whether there would be any panic if they really get on to us. The Turks have got their indirect, or rather enfilading, fire on us, and hit our mules. One just hit a few yards away. There is an extraordinary unreality about this whole situation; so much of the war that I have seen has been unreal as a picture or a romance. Mons, Landrecy and Compiègne were all like dreams in a sense, but they had nothing of the opéra bouffe about them. This is different. Here Imbros and Samothrace are clear and delicate between the blue sea and the hot sky. The riband of beach is crowded with transport and Jews, Greeks, Armenians, New Zealanders, Australians, scallywag officers and officers that still manage to keep a shadow of dandyism between their disreputable selves and immaculate past. And there is the perpetual ripple of the waves that is sometimes loud enough to make the nervous mistake it for shrapnel which is perpetual, splashing in the sea or rattling on the beach. There is very little noise on the beach in the way of talk and laughter. The men never expected to be up against this. When we left Lemnos we saw one boat with an arrow and in front of it ‘TO CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE HAREM’. Precious few of those poor fellows will see Constantinople, let alone the Harem.
May 1st. A dawn too beautiful to tell, but defiled by a real hymn of hate from the Turks. Last night the Torgut Reiss sent us some shells. This morning it was supposed to be the Goeben that was firing. I woke to hear the howitzers that have been haunting men’s minds here droning over us, and watched them lifting great columns of water where they hit the sea. Then there came the sigh and the snarl of shrapnel, but that to the other is like the rustle of a lady’s fan to the rumble of a brewer’s dray. This hymn of hate went on for an unusually long time this morning from the big stuff. A lot of men were hit all round and it has been difficult to wash one’s face in the sea. All the loading, unloading etc., is done at night. The picket boats are fairly well protected. The middies are the most splendid boys, but this position is an awful one. We are all so cramped and the mules add to the congestion. We shall have a plague of flies before we are done if we don’t have a worse plague than that. I don’t know how the Australians will stand it. The New Zealanders are all right. The first charge has bucked the Australians tremendously, and it was a very fine performance, that storming of the hill, but they are uncivilised and are not gentlemen as so many uncivilized people are. Still all this has taught and sobered them.
Smith and I talked for hours last night of what we would do if we live through this. George has gone back. His dugout, where he can’t sleep because there isn’t room for Smith and him, has a very nice window on the sea. I don’t know why it should be called George’s dugout as he doesn’t sleep there and Smith does. Colonel White, Rickes, who is a bad levantine cad, and Murphy all hit at breakfast this morning, but not hurt. One of the Greek donkey boys says he is a barber. This would be a great advantage, but he is obviously a nervous man and starts when shrapnel bursts.
We are making no headway but holding on. The fleet of hydroplanes don’t seem much use at spotting, or so say the soldiers. An order has come from Kitchener that we are to take prisoners. I am glad of this. Skeen is less fanatical now, and I have worried away at this on intelligence lines. For how can you get information if you murder all your prisoners? There is a fleet of boats in front of us and even more at Helles; the Turks must feel uncomfortable, but another landing between us would be pretty risky. They are fighting splendidly. Opinions are divided as to what would happen if we fought our way to Maidos. Many think we could be shelled out again by the Goeben. This expedition needed at least three times the number of men. The Indians have not come and the Territorials cannot come for a long time.
General Godley wants to change Headquarters for us. Colonel Artillery Johnston’s battery is on our right, facing the Turks, and only a few yards away. The Turks spend a lot of time shooting at it, missing it, and hitting us. Another man killed just now. Shrapnel, heaps of it, is coming both ways on us.
Nobody speaks on the beach. We have two tables on the top of the dugout. One is safe, and the other can be hit. The punctual people get the safe table.
Bennett, a naval brigade man, has lunched. He says that Rupert Brooke died at Lemnos. I am very sorry; he was a good fellow, and a poet with a great future. Bennett was blown up by a shell yesterday. His nerve has obviously gone, he ducked whenever a shell came and when I filled his cigarette case I saw how bad he was. He has to go back to-night. I am sorry for him. While we lunched a man had his head blown off twenty yards away. The attack we were to have made is off for to-day. I am getting rather bored at the General refusing to allow me to go to these things; still I don’t mind so much as it is the Turks we are fighting. I hear that Tenedos and Lemnos are to go to Russia. This seems to me absolutely wild extravagant diplomacy. Orders have come that we are to entrench impregnably. We are practically besieged, for we can’t re-embark without sacrificing our rearguard, and if the howitzers come up we shall be cut off from the beach and our water. A lot more men have been killed on the beach.
Sunday, May 2nd. 6 a.m. Shrapnel all round as I washed. Beach opinion is if this siege lasts they must be able to get up their heavy guns. The Indians have gone to Helles, and the Naval Division is being taken away from us. New Turkish Divisions are coming against us. There are no chaplains here for burial or for anything else.
Waite took a dozen prisoners this morning, gendarmes, nice fellows. They hadn’t much to tell us. One of them complained that he had been shot through a mistake after he had surrendered. There ought to be an interpreter on these occasions.
It is a fiery hot day, without a ripple on the clear sea, and all still but for the thunder coming from Helles. I bathed and got clean. The beach looks like a mule fair of mutes, for it is very silent. We are to attack to-night at seven. We have now been here a week, and advanced a hundred yards farther than the first rush carried us. There is a great bombardment going on, a roaring ring of fire, and the Turks are being shelled and shelled.
At night the battleships throw out two lines of searchlights, and behind them there gleam the fires of Samothrace and Imbros. Up and down the cliffs here, outside the dugouts, small fires burn. The rifle fire comes over the hill, echoing in the valleys and back from the ships. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether it is the sound of ripples on the beach or firing.
Monday, May 3rd. I was called up at 3 a.m. to examine three prisoners. Our attack had failed, and we have many casualties, probably not less than 1,000. The wounded have been crying on the beach horribly. A wounded Arab reported that our naval gun fire did much damage.
The complaint is old and bitter now. We insist that the Turks are Hottentots. We give them notice before we attack them. We tell them what we are going to do with their Capital. We attack them with an inadequate force of irregular troops, without adequate ammunition (we had one gun in our landing) in the most impregnable part of their Empire. Last night our own guns destroyed our position and the Turks swarmed in. They can bring any amount more men against us. This has been folly. We should have pretended we were going to have attacked Alexandretta or Syria instead of telling them where we were coming.
The Goeben is shelling the fleet and (11.30) has just struck a transport. The sea is gay and a fresh wind is blowing, and the beach is crowded but there is not a voice upon it except for an occasional order.
Thank heaven we haven’t got any locusts; all the other plagues but that. ‘Why do the heathen rage so furiously’ and ‘Shelter me with thy wing’ were the appropriate psalms for yesterday. I saw the prisoners off and paid them the money that had been taken from them. The Turks are now expected to attack us. We suppose people realise what is happening here in London, though it isn’t easy to see how troops and reinforcements can be sent to us in time; that is before the Turks have turned all this into a fortification. A good many men hit on the beach to-day. The mules cry like lost souls.
Tuesday, May 4th. The sea like a looking-glass, not a cloud in the sky, and Samothrace looking very clear and close. The moon is like a faint shadow of light in the clear sky over the smoke of the guns. Heavy fighting between us and Helles. A landing is being attempted. Pessimists say it is our men being taken off because their position is impossible. The boats coming back seem full of wounded. It may have been an attempt at a landing and entrenching, or simply a repetition of what we did the other day at Falcon Hill or Nebronesi, or whatever the place is.
Shaw wants me to find out about the Turkish spies who are said to call to our officers by name and the pigeons which are said to carry a post regularly every morning. I don’t believe it. Men can’t go about with pigeons crooning under their arms, and besides a carrier pigeon goes home, not to a Turkish commander who has been good to it.
The attack has failed this morning. Letter from George. Worsley wants me to go to Samothrace to start stories there. Perfect peace here except for rifles cracking on the hill. Smith and I wandered off up a valley through smilax, thyme, heath and myrtle to a high ridge. We went through the Indians and found a couple of very jolly officers, one of them since killed. There are a good many bodies unburied. I thought we were going to be shot and so we should have if we had taken the short cut that I wanted to. Not many men hit. We helped to carry one wounded man back. I didn’t realise what hard work it is. Another man was terribly wounded. The stretcher bearers are splendid fellows and have been awfully good too about the wounded Turks. On the way back we passed Birdwood; he is a dear. At one place we saw a horribly muddy little pond with a man standing in it in trousers shovelling out mud, but the water in a tin was clear and cool and very good. There is a horrible smell of death passing down the valley.
It is curious that the men seem to like the Turks much better now that they see what fighters they are. No one seems annoyed when I say they are good fellows, and they now realize that war isn’t a one-sided affair like shooting rabbits. You’ve got to be killed as well as kill. A Company of the Auckland has got cut off but may be able to return. General Godley went further and to the left with Tahu this afternoon. Smith and I to the right. The General and Tahu got up to the Turkish trenches, quite close to them. The Turks threw hand-grenades and our supports broke. The General and Tahu rallied the men but a good many were killed, amongst them the General’s orderly, a gentleman ranker and a first-rate fellow.
Wednesday, May 5th. Kaba Tepé. The other day, when our attack below failed, the Turks allowed us to bring off our wounded. This was after that unfortunate landing. Went on board the Lutzow to-day, and got some of my things off. Coming back the tow rope parted, and we thought that we should drift into captivity. It was rough and unpleasant.
I suggested to General Godley (1) to send for spies from Egypt (2) to have an armistice for the burial of the dead. I would go out and arrange it with the Turks, though one might get hit before one reached them. Smith has been sent for to the Arcadian. I use his dugout for writing. The Lutzow is in and I have got wine and a spoon and a clean shirt from her, also Christo Karalampa, the General’s cook. I did not much care for being under fire on the sea, but the others minded more I think.
Thursday, May 6th. Very windy cold night. The dead are unburied and the wounded crying for water between the trenches. I have got the doctors to talk to Birdwood about an armistice. He thinks that the Germans would not allow the Turks to accept an armistice. Colonel Essen landed this morning. He has brought the rumour of 8,000 Turks killed lower down. We attacked Achi Baba at 10 a.m. There was an intermittent fire all night.
This morning I went up to the trenches with the General by Walker’s Ridge the view was beautiful. The plain was covered with friendly olives that reminded me of Annah, I think, between Bagdad and Damascus. There was my General and Birdwood and Mercer. A perfect maze of trenches. As we went along the snipers followed Onslow’s helmet, stinging us with dirt. Many dead. I saw no wounded. Here, on the beach the shrapnel has opened fire from a new direction. It is generally a few yards off the beach but near enough to
ruffle it considerably. On the roof of this dugout it pipes to us swiftly and threateningly. I had always put the big Turkish attack for to-day, but it doesn’t look as if it is going to come off. I suppose they are making light railways to bring their howitzers up and then rub us off this part of the Peninsula. This last shell that has just struck the beach has wounded two officers and killed and wounded several men, killed and wounded twenty-two mules. Many more mules are now reported hit. We wonder how the attack is getting on in the south, and if they are getting it as hot as we?
Friday, May 7th. A bitter night and morning. I have asked to be allowed to go and tell the Turks that if they surrender they will not be killed. It’s taking advantage of old friendship but that can’t be helped. The General doesn’t want to say yes, but he has consented. I can get within twenty-five or thirty yards of them. Hay, who is a proper bully, tried to make Harold do this. If Harold is killed his wife won’t get a single penny. I told Hay that if anyone did this it should be him, and he could do it to the Arabs. He shut up at once. Then General Birdwood wants the Arab officer prisoner to go and shout to them. I am not in love with the idea myself, but if he is sent Hay should go too. A shell just passed overhead and burst when I heard maniac peals and found the cook flying up. He had been hit in the boot and was laughing like mad. It is a nuisance one has to sit in the shade instead of sitting in the sun. They have got our exact range and are pounding one shell after another. I hope it means I may have a quieter walk this afternoon and that they will have a rest for this has been pretty bad. Am hoping to get letters again. Great battle at Helles now going on.
Yesterday one man among those killed on the beach had a bullet through his heart while he was sleeping. Not a bad way to end, without hate. A shell has just burst over our heads and has hit a lighter which it has set on fire.
Mons, Anzac and Kut Page 9