The dead mules that have been towed out return to us. Two boats needed to take them away again. I have borrowed a megaphone from Commander Dix (wounded). Shellfire very good but the cases don’t burst so most of the wounds are simple shrapnel wounds, not case wounds. I am getting quite deaf from the shelling. This is the twelfth day. It doesn’t seem possible not to have been hit. Three cases of self-mutilation on N. Brigade. Commander Dix is a very fine fellow, a West Country man. He lays down the law on everything, has been everywhere and done everything. When he was hit in the head Turkish Charley told him that his brain was hanging out of his skull. He said he could see and feel it.
At 1.30 I went up the Monash Valley which the men often call the valley of death. I passed a stream of haggard, tragic figures, wounded and unwounded, coming down through the brilliant sunlight. I saw Monash37 at his HQ and General Godley with him. General Godley said he wouldn’t have standing-up shouting when I made my speech to the Turks. I must lie down etc. The shelling overhead was terrific, but it did no damage as the shells threw forward. I don’t know how many burst a minute, but the smoke made a shadow between us and the sun. It was like the crash of a train going over the sleepers of a railway bridge. Old Monash, whom I had last seen on review days, an incongruous figure in the desert, tried to speak on the telephone and say I was coming, but it was a difficult business made worse by the noise. Finally I went up the slope to Quinn’s post, with an escort, running and taking cover, and panting up the very steep hill. It felt as if bullets rained, but the fact is that they came from three sides and have each got about five echoes. There is a décolleté place in the hill that they pass over. I got into the trench and found Quinn, tall and very open-faced, swearing like a trooper, much respected by his men. He sent for his officers but they slept, and it was difficult to get them. The trenches in Quinn’s Post were narrow and low, full of exhausted men sleeping. I crawled over them and through tiny holes. There was the smell of death everywhere. I spoke in three places. In the first place my speech elicited a furious volley which, or part of which, came through the sandbags, but after that silence and amazement. I didn’t lie down, it was no use doing that. I said: ‘Comrades, keep your head down, lest while I speak an accident should befall you. I am an English Officer and do not lie. If you want to surrender throw down your arms, hold up your hands and come across in daylight. You will have good food and good water given you. This is a German business. Between us and you there is no quarrel. Eski dost dushman olmaz (An old friend cannot be an enemy.). Allaha ismarladuk (farewell). Then they shot again. The Australians were very interested and biddable. They said: ‘Law, I wish I could do that.’ I felt sorry for them. They are children who can only see their own side. They feel they are justly aggrieved when the Turks have shot their pals.
Going back the men in the valley were terrified at snipers, though I do not think there are many, but it is not good for morale when they lie in funk holes and shout to everybody ‘Lie down, curl up, get out. There’s a … sniper round the corner.’ It isn’t really worth while taking cover and it’s very undignified. It’s a good thing to make the men do it, but except in the case of shrapnel it’s better not to oneself. It does help in the case of shrapnel. On getting back here we had a very heavy fire which broke up our dinner party, wounded Anderson, stung Johnny38, and hit me. Jack is sick. Men digging all round now at night. I am writing by candlelight blown by the wind. I wonder what the Turks are thinking. They fairly buzzed their bullets at us when I said that the Germans are not good fellows. Eastwood dined. He had humorous stories to tell of the first day’s fighting. I think the Australians must have got two miles beyond our present position. Brown has gone down with the Otagos to Helles. I hope that Cazalet and he are all right. The wounded have been left to die of thirst between the trenches. The Turkish wounded and ours too. It is a filthy shame and could be prevented.
Johnny and several others are ill. A good many have chills and stomach trouble. Dead mules come floating back to the beach and perfume the air. I discovered that Pirie Gordon and Hay had forged a letter signing the name of a Turkish prisoner to it. I objected to this most strongly. Saw Skeen and Villiers Stuart39, and said though it was none of my business I thought it was a pity as it was not at all straight. I should have very much objected if the Germans had forged a letter in my name when I was a prisoner. They agreed. Letter suppressed. Goodbye Gordon, goodbye Hay. There are no clouds but the air is fresh, though the smoke from the steamers is rising straight up and the noise of rifle fire is no louder than cricket balls on the bat. Here are the three things we have to fear:
1 Any attack that took the height. The Navy couldn’t help them. We should soon be too much mixed.
2 The blessed big guns to lollop over Howitzers.
3 Disease. The Turks already have dysentery.
There is an uncanny whistling overhead. It must come from the bullets and machine guns or Maxims a long way off. It sounds eldritch. T. very sick after seeing some wounded on the beach, and yet his nerves are very good. Eastwood told me that he was sure to get through. I told him not to say such things. He had three bullets through his tunic the other day. I went on the Lutzow to get the rest of my stuff off, and found Colonel Ryan (‘Turkish Charlie’)40 full of awful descriptions of operations. Many wounded on the boat, all very quiet. Had a drink with a sailor, the gloomiest man that ever I met. He comes from Southampton, and thinks we cannot possibly win the war. It’s become very cold.
Diary, Sunday May 9th. Came back last night on a picket boat with a big steam launch and 200 men of mixed units. The little Lieutenant in charge and an amazing little Welsh RN futile as a moth but kind. He said the whole organization was too hopeless. Old Colonel Patterson, fat old fool, thought you could embark or disembark 100 men in ten minutes. The sailors have to work sometimes 20 in the 24 hours. Sometimes no sleep at all. It seemed likely we would be left out all night, the men under no kind of cover from shrapnel and without food. If we were given food it would be by the kindness of the sailors giving us their own food. At last we got in. Old Patterson ought to be sent to an asylum. He is weak as a rabbit and obstinate as a mule. This morning is still and lovely. Yesterday while I was away they were shelled pretty badly here. It is begging now with the big guns. There is a rather fearful moaning and screaming, and then a crash and high columns of water shooting up. A fortnight ago we began this adventure. I wish we were the servants or victims of dreamers and not of gamblers. It’s neck or nothing with the politicians now, so I don’t suppose any compromise will be considered. When I went to wash in the sea this morning a dead mule stopped me. There are many along the beach. They charge you when they are alive and prevent you washing when they are dead. The other day one came at me open-mouthed and when luckily having my stick I whacked his head, he turned round and kicked. That was in Monash Valley, and that same afternoon I saw another methodically clear the narrow path on the beach, kicking first to the right then to the left. The firing was so hot yesterday that when the General and Tahu were waiting for twenty minutes to get past a point he actually smoked a cigarette. Worsley41 says it’s very hard to get work done on the beach; in fact it’s almost impossible. They said that the gun which had been enfilading us was knocked out, but this is not true as it is enfilading us now and it looks as if we shall have a pretty heavy bill to pay. The beach is holding its breath, and between the sound of the shrapnel and the hiss there is only the noise of the waves and a few low voices. Harrison, who was slightly wounded a few days ago, was yesterday resting in his dugout when he was blown out of it by a shell. To-day he was sent to the Lutzow, and we watched him being shelled the whole way, his boat wriggling. It seems as if the shells know and love him. I am glad he won’t be dining with us any more; a magnet like that is a bore, though he is a very good fellow. The land between us and the 29th is reported to be full of barbed wire entanglements. Tomorrow the General has decided to move HQ to a safer place. I shall however stay here if I can; then I can have a dugout to
myself. Privacy is more important in war than is safety.
I wish I had the Iliad. I am reading the Revolt of Islam which I do not care about. Shakespeare and the Old Testament. Monday, May 10th. Raining and cold. Jack better.
Colonel Braithwaite42 woke me last night with the news of the sinking of the Lusitania. Last night we took three trenches, but lost them again this morning. We have been attacking in this way lately. I think you have got to hit the Turks or they will hit you, that is the same with every Eastern or Western Front too, but it is becoming expensive in life. The attackers lose. Nikolas, the interpreter, was anxious to bribe Essad Pasha (not the Albanian) who was reported to have sold Janina for 20,000. I doubt if he did, and I doubt if you could, and am rather a Pharisee about it, but it certainly would save a lot of lives. Have discussed this. I proposed to the General to go out with the Greek Nikolas at night towards Anafarta and there dig in or hide in a wood, while he got hold of Greek notables and then arrange for Greeks to come in every night with information about enemy guns etc., these men to be paid by results. They jumped at this. They always do seem to jump at any chance of sacrificing an interpreter. (1) Will Balas, the guide, come out? (2) Are any Greeks left? (3) By boat or land? (4) In uniform or Mufti? (5) Payments on what scale to be promised?
(Major) Sam Butler came last night; I was glad to see him. S.B. had been a great friend of mine in Egypt and brought me and others letters, of which we were badly in need, and stores, which were very welcome. We met upon the beach, and decided to celebrate the occasion in the Intelligence dugout, for my friend had actually got some soda and a bottle of whisky, two very rare luxuries on the beach.
This morning dug new dugout. Felt very well. Shells coming back to HQ, one hit seven men and killed five – two of them asleep. The Turks get their wounded in by means of grapnels.
Diary. We went into the Intelligence dugout and sat there. Then a shell hit the top of the dugout. The next one buzzed a lot of bullets in through the door. The third ricochetted all over the place and one bullet grazed my head. I then said: ‘We’d better put up a blanket to save us from the ricochets.’ At the same time Johnny was shot next door and Onslow’s war diary was destroyed. A pot of jam was shot in General Cunliffe Owen’s hand, which made him very angry. Vyvian, the Beachmaster, dashed into our Intelligence dugout gasping while we held blankets in front of him. Two days ago a man was killed in his dugout next door, and another man again yesterday. Now two fuses had come straight through his roof and spun like a whipping-top on the floor, dancing a sort of sarabande before the hypnotized eyes of the sailors. Also Sam Butler’s whisky was destroyed in the luncheon basket. He broke into furious swearing in Arabic. The naval people are now ultimating against shrapnel and against war. All this is a bore and rather a strain on some men’s nerves in the end. I saw one man hit walking with the General the other day, dancing round him, in front and behind, and all over the place. I own to having lain down the first day myself. Time, men, money, ammunition are all being wasted here.
Wednesday, May 12th. Rain, mud, grease, temper all night, but we shall long for this coolness when it really gets hot. No bombardment this morning, but the Greek cook, Christo Karalampa (Christopher of the Black Lamp), came and gave two hours’ notice, with the rain and tears running down his face. I am not surprised at his giving notice, but why he should give me notice and be so meticulous about the time I can’t think. However I soothed him. Bored to death with the shelling. No one talks of anything else. Yet it must be worse for the Turks. I had a curious walk through the dark last night past Greeks, Indians and Australians, across a rainswept, windswept, bullet-swept hillside – one through my coat. The Indians and the Deal Battalion are on the left of the New Zealanders’ position. The Imperial Officers on the Staff of some of the Colonels of colonial troops complain that their COs don’t understand the functions of a Staff and give them perpetual little odd jobs, corporals’ jobs. They have too to stand to arms at every burst of firing in the night. However, this is getting better. Many of these Colonels are business men, who never in their wildest dreams contemplated being in such a position, and they have really risen to the occasion splendidly. The Generals have at last been prevailed upon not to walk about on the beach in the daytime dangling their Staffs after them. Two German and one Austrian submarine expected here. The transports have been ordered to Mudros.
Thursday, May 13th. Very calm morning, the echoes of rifle fire on the sea. I went with Cunningham to take General Russell43 up from Reserve Gully to Walker’s Ridge. I like General Russell and dislike Cunningham. I wish it wasn’t the 13th. I got rid of Cunningham and came back alone by the beach. It was as beautiful a morning as I have ever seen with the sky flaming softly, not a cloud anywhere and the sea perfectly still. I lay in the scrub with wild flowers all round and watched, and not even the dead mules could spoil it. Guns thundered in the distance like at Mons. The Turks are fighting very gallantly. The position is no clearer. It is very difficult to remedy the bungle. I think it would be better for our prestige at all costs to stay here even if we get wiped out or taken, than to leave.
After breakfast I examined an intelligent Greek prisoner from Taifir Keui. I was telephoned for by Colonel Monash in great haste and went off up his valley as quickly as possible. There I found all the men in a state of nerves and panic along the road because of snipers. The Turks had put up a white flag above their trenches opposite Quinn’s post. I think this was an artillery flag and that they hoped to avoid the fire of the fleet by this means. I talked to one of them about twenty-five yards off through a hole. While I was there a captain was hit. I saw Quinn, who was going for a rest, looking very jolly. After that I came back and had a long talk with the General. The people at Helles aren’t making headway, and it seems unlikely except at tremendous cost and possibly not then, that they will. We are pretty well hung up except on our left; why not try there? The Turks are not yet entrenched or dug in there as in other places. I am so deaf from the fire this morning that twice I did not hear a shell and therefore did not take cover and nearly got shot.
I had to bully Yanni of Ayo Strati till he sobbed on the cliff. I then threatened to dismiss him, after which he grew cheerful, for it was what he wanted. The General wanted to know if his wages had been paid. I told him no, they had only been docked. For the month he has been here he has lost five shillings which I fined him for detrimental cowardice.
The Turks have again got white flags out. Have been ordered to go up at dawn. Skeen44 wanted Kyriakidis to come, I said it wasn’t fair.
Friday, May 14th. 4 a.m. Last night at 9.15 a foolish order came to me from the General to take up the Greek with me to shout to the Turks that he was well-treated and well-fed. I found Villiers Stuart with difficulty and explained that the Greeks would have about as much influence with the Turks as an Italian organ grinder would with me. I got the order rescinded.
I walked up the valley. The crickets were singing in the bushes at the opening of the valley and the place was cool with the faint light of coming dawn. Then a line of stretcher-bearers with the wounded, some quiet, some groaning. Then came the dawn and the smell of death that infects one’s hands and clothes and haunts one.
They weren’t over-pleased to see me at first, as after my speech the other day they had had an awful time from hand-grenades, and their faces fell when I appeared. I spoke from the same place. Then I went to another, and lastly to a trench that communicated with the Turkish trench. The Greek who had surrendered last night came down this trench and the Turks were said to be five to ten yards off. It was partly roofed, and there were some sandbags, between two and three feet high, that separated us from them. Leading into this was a big circular dugout, open to heaven. I got the men cleared out of this before speaking. In the small trench there were two men facing the Turks and lying on the ground with revolvers pointed at the Turks. I moved one man back out of the way and lay on the other – there wasn’t anything else to be done – and spoke for five minutes with
some intervals. Once a couple of hand-grenades fell outside and the ground quivered, but that was all. I got the guard changed then left the trench, pleased that it was over, and began an argument with a Major, Glasgow, who had only just come, as to whether the Turks were good fellows. A lot of bullets were going over and past, but I thought we were under cover until one touched my hand. I said: ‘Look at that.’ The Major, to whom this was a new experience, bullets coming from three different ways each with a lot of different echoes jumped, and said: ‘Well, probably you are right. They may be good fellows. Now I am going back.’
The loss of the Goliath is confirmed and the fleet has gone, leaving a considerable blank on the horizon and a depression on the sunlit beach. Four interpreters were arrested to-day and handed over to me. I put them on to dig me a new dugout, round which a colony of interpreters is growing: Kyriakidis, who is a fine boy, aristocratic-looking, but very soft, who I want to send away as soon as possible, and others. My dugout is in the middle of wild flowers, with the sea splashing round. Since the ships have all gone we are, as a consequence, short of water. The submarines have done in another way what so many men expected the Turkish Howitzers to accomplish. The Queen Elizabeth is to go home. The Turks have been shelling our barges hard for an hour. We are to make an attack to-night and destroy their trenches.
Saturday, May 15th. The attack on the trenches has failed. There are many of our wounded outside our lines. Have been asked if I will go out with white flag. Of course. Am to see Birdwood in half an hour, but I shall say that the order by us not to pay respect to white flag should be rescinded. Why should Turks respect it if we don’t? Saw Skeen and suggested (1) that this order be enforced (2) that an arrangement be come to with regard to the wounded on both sides. He agreed to (1) but he said (2) was not possible. While I talked to Skeen a shell hit one man in the lungs and knocked Colonel Knox in the back without hurting him. General Birdwood was hit yesterday and General Trottman45 the day before. While we talked water arrived. A message then came from Colonel Chauvel46 to say there were not a lot of wounded, only two. I said I proposed to go straight up and nip out with a white flag and bring them in. Skeen said ‘no’. A thing like that may lead to trouble and make any future arrangement impossible. Maxims are searching all the time, and though the Turks in front of you may respect the white flag, a Maxim two miles away won’t see it and then there will be accusations of treachery. Meanwhile the two wounded had to be saved, and another scheme drawn up. This Skeen sat down to do. In a few minutes a telephone message arrived from the doctor in the trenches that the two wounded had died. I came back to HQ and heard General Bridges47 asking the General if there was any objection to his going up the Monash Valley. In a few minutes he was shot through the thigh. The snipers are getting many of our men. If the Germans were running this show they would have had 200,000 men for it.
Mons, Anzac and Kut Page 10