Diary. Monday, August 16th, 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.
Stopford81 has now gone home. It hasn’t taken long to finish him. I am beginning to wonder how long it will take to finish us. Hamilton will continue his policy of pebbles to the end. Well, perhaps it’s better from the garrison’s point of view to have half a dozen little sieges than one big one. Poor Colonel Bauchop is dead. News came to-night. A gallant man.
On Tuesday I went into GHQ with Levick82, Guise and another, Bacchante. Levick had got on a wounded boat at Mudros, 800 wounded men, many of them with maggots from neglect; four doctors. Other fleet surgeons were sent but at once recalled, so was he. He refused to obey and stayed four days. When he went back Boyle began cursing him, and he claimed a court martial, heard no more about it. He said he wanted to save the wounded in future and punish the responsible people. I said I too was out for vengeance but the only thing to do now was to see if we couldn’t save the wounded next time.
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 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 RAMC 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 19th, 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 missing him, 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 anyone 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.
Before lunch I went to a New Zealand dentist, MacKenzie. He began by telling me two stories about myself, both of them caricatures. I interrupted in the second and told him who I was. He then pierced the wrong gum and I moaned like a dove. The RAMC Colonel there had insulted him by saying they could not have him as an honorary member of their Mess; he knew no one and nightly went up on a hill looking across at the New Zealanders and moaning his complaint. Roger Keyes he said was a white man; he had shown him the letter of the RAMC Colonel and Keyes had been very abusive. I also was very abusive. I thought he would be less likely to hurt me. I am never going in uniform again. It prevents one making a fuss before one is hurt.
Friday, August 20th, 1915. No. 2 Outpost. Last night was the first cold night. This morning I went out with the General, who was like a bulldog 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 the Bacchante turned 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 oversafe for him.
Saturday, August 21st, 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. At lunch George came. Charlie Bentinck, he and I started off together. I felt rather sick. It was very hot. We went at a great pace over two or three ridges, our own guns thundering about us; I finally felt so sick I let them go on and lay down for a bit. Meanwhile the battle developed and the shooting became fierce and general. While I hunted for General Monash’s HQ I met Colonel Artillery Johnson. He seemed rather grumpy and very worried. We walked along side by side, and a bullet came between us. He told me afterwards that Colonel Parker had said he would not carry out his instructions and that General Cunliffe Owen had come and upset his whole scheme of artillery bombardment this morning. He was going to Cixs. I said I was going to Monash but lay down behind some rushes. Several bullets buzzed through, and I got up to go back feeling too sick to carry on. I wandered along through deafening noise but quite alone. Then I heard a thud and saw a cloud of dust and knew that shrapnel had hit the ground about ten yards off. Judging the shrapnel had come from the left, as I reached it another burst came hitting the tree on both outer sides and scratching my hand. I felt, however, fairly comfortable until vicious bullets began pecking round me. There was a sniper who was taking an interest in me. I had to move round until I was unprotected from the shrapnel. A lot of stuff sighed and groaned over; it sounded like two currents of air meeting, our shells and the Turks crossing. The sniper wasn’t very regular, but I felt uncomfortable and got up and ran, with not much happening, to a very shallow nullah. I walked down this and came to a regular gully and so home. I thought the Turks must be in force from the fierceness of their rifle fire. I lay down, had soup and felt recovered.
Diary. August 21st, 1915. Charlie B. and George 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.
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.
Sunday, August 22nd, 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 place and 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 HQ. 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.
Everyone worried. The 18th 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 other way. In the valley the bullets sang. We came to the halfnullah where I had taken such unsatisfactory cover in the previous 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. 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 23rd, 1915. No. 2 Outpost. Perry is wounded, but not badly I hope, in the arm. There is hardly anyone 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, 1915. 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. Longford83 was killed, Milbanke84 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 watercourse. 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 Doddington 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. Doddington 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 Maude85, 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 hill-side, 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.
On Wednesday the 28th I saw Rochdale86 early. He said he had been home when summoned to the House of Lords; that he had seen A.J.B, Asquith87, Bonar Law88 etc. A.J.B. and B.L. said he had told them nothing new, but the Dardanelles Committee seem to have no suggestion to make in view of a possible disaster. Asquith was very angry with him, and told him he was an officer, had no right to criticize the campaign, and asked him what his solution was. He said that he had never been shown any intelligence papers and therefore wouldn’t say what he thought, but he said it would be a good thing to clear Asia of guns. It would indeed. He said we were bound to get a disease in the autumn, both from lack of room for sanitation and the men buried in the gullies; that the distance we had achieved had brought us no nearer to our object and had cost us ten men a yard. He told me that twenty-four hours after landing he had been ordered to take some trenches that the Brigadier of the KOSBs had refused to take. That he had done so at great loss. Later when he was given a similar order he expostulated to Hunter Weston89 and said: ‘Do you want to wipe out the 42nd?’ Hunter Weston said: ‘Why not? I have wiped out the 29th, why not the 42nd.’ That was the way he always talked. Rochdale said that Hunter Weston never went near the trenches, but I had not heard that before. He thought evacuation was the only possible thing. If we do, we must make some great advertising coup.
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 Bentinck on board, not badly wounded, hit in the side. My friend Charlie Bentinck 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 Bentinck’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, 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 wounded on 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 the Manitou, Major Kelly90 of the Norfolks was there. He had led 240 men under orders into a Turkish trench; three got back unwounded, but he carried most of his wounded back with eighteen men. The Adjutant was killed on his back. He 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’. I never met a more gallant man, or one so proud of his courage. This officer found a DSO waiting for him in Egypt and has since earned the VC 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 Sultan91 came to inspect the hospital where I was a patient. For reasons of toilette, I should have preferred not to have been seen on that occasion b
y His Highness, but the royal eye fixed itself upon my kimono and he pulled me into a corner and said he was very grieved for the Conservatives in England, because of the Coalition I suppose, and he was also grieved about Gallipoli. There I cordially agreed. He said there were peace negotiations in the air, Franco, Turko, Anglo, Russo peace. He said that France and Syria would be the difficulty. He sent many messages to Birdwood, of whom he is very fond.
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 Kelly 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, SOS 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 our sister ship, the Ramadan, had been torpedoed.
Mons, Anzac and Kut Page 17