No Better Death
Page 15
At night 8.20pm I went to Cairo, and sent Mater a cable hoping she was quite recovered and sending my love.
March 28th 1915
A horrible Khamsin wind day, the dust awful, so also the heat, 3 days of it I suppose. Went to mass at Heliopolis, and stayed at House Hotel there for lunch and to get out of the horrible dust at camp. Wrote to Mater, one letter to London another to New Zealand. Genl and Lady Godley came in while I at lunch. The Genl very genial, unusually so, and asked me to sit with them, but I was under way so stayed where I was. After lunch the Genl gave me particulars of the expedition on which we shortly go to help force the Dardanelles. An army of allies.
British 20,000
British Naval Troops 18,000
French 15,000
Russian 40,00056
NZ’s and A’s 35,000
128,000
Gen Sir Ian Hamilton57 to command. He inspects us tomorrow.
The Genl told me to go and see Luxor. I said I would want 3 or 4 days leave. He said all right. I had worked very hard and had had no leave yet. I think I’ll go....
March 29th 1915
Review of NZ and A Division by Genl Sir Ian Hamilton, 12 noon to 4.30pm, very hot and dusty. A good show. Put in for 4 days’ leave and got it promptly. Entrained at 8pm for Luxor....
30th March to 1st April 1915
During his first period of leave since joining the NZEF Malone visited the important archaeological sites in the Luxor area; generally with Major Temperley and Captain Arthur Critchley-Salmonson,58 adjutant of the Canterbury Infantry Battalion.
April 2nd 1915
Crossed the Nile, then per donkey to the Temple of Queen Hetetu, [?] a beautiful piece of work. Then to the Tomb of Queen Nefertari, 2nd wife of Ramese II or III,59 visited also a private tomb or rather the tomb, of some court official. Then to the Temple of Medmet Habi [Medinet Habu]. To my mind this is the best of the temples.... Back to hotel by 1pm. Lunch. Wrote to Mater, to London, because on Monday I got a cable from Harry Penn that she and family leaving on 8th inst, by Rotorua. I was so glad to get the cable and thus know that Mater is all right again, and something definite as to action. I have asked her to spend a honeymoon, on a dahabeh [sic, dahabeeyah]60 on the Nile, after the war is over.
Left Luxor by 6.10pm train by which as it happened Genl Birdwood was travelling. He asked me to dine with him on the train, and as there was for the night no Restaurant car on, I was lucky. I got a jolly good dinner, and the most interesting of company....
April 3rd 1915
Reported back at camp at 8am. We are to embark next week for Turkey! Everybody getting ready. I am to be O/C Troops on HM Transport Itonus. We will sail about Thursday next which coincides, strangely, with Mater’s sailing from New Zealand. Riot in Cairo last night. Some of the Australians and New Zealanders wrecked some brothels, where they had been badly treated. If they had burnt the quarter down, it would have been a good thing.
April 5th 1915
Inspection of troops by Transports. An awful day Khamsin wind, and accompanying sand and dust storm. It is like being in a hot dry fog, full of grit. The heat is sweltering, the wind is as coming from a furnace. Still we are cheerful knowing that we will soon be away, and that we might have been and be much worse off. All the same it is most unpleasant, to put it mildly, in the tents and outside—! One thing I expect a letter from Mater tomorrow and that will refresh me. Still the Khamsin generally lasts 3 days! The temperature is 100° Fahr![38° C] The Maoris are off to Malta. I forget if I have recorded their arrival 500 strong, mostly big hulking gone-in-the-knees walking men. I think the War Lords don’t quite know what to do with them. They look soft, and I fancy were not killed with work on the Transports. Captain McDonnell didn’t get the command of them. A Major Herbert,61 a Mounted Rifle officer has been appointed. McDonnell would have been a much better man. Our own destination is not at present known to us. England, I hear, expected Greece to come in and give us a base for the troops attacking the Dardanelles, and when she didn’t come in, bought Lemnos Island, for a million or so of pounds.62 Transports French and English were directed to Lemnos, but the troops didn’t land, there is no water on it i.e. for troops in numbers!!! The French troops have landed at Alexandria and the English too. Now it is stated that we shall force a landing on Turkey and establish a base there. In the meanwhile Alexandria will be our base. We shall therefore apparently soon be up against the Turks. Heavy fighting is expected, but D.V.63 we shall come out of it all right. Then, for a big flank attack on the Austrians and Germans, via Servia. Perhaps the Greeks, Italians, Bulgarians and Romanians will join in. If they [do] what a polyglot lot we shall be!...
April 6th 1915
Another hot dusty day. At last we have got definite orders for embarkation. My Bn entrains tomorrow night in 2 trains, leaving Helmieh at 11.20pm and 1.20am respectively. We go straight on board 2 ships Achaia and Itonus. I on the Itonus, taking also two companies of Canterbury Bn. Our destination is unknown to us at present, but we have a notion that we have to land in face of the enemy (Turks). Everybody busy fixing up and completing equipment. The Divn will take 3 days to embark. I got a letter from Norah last night and was very disappointed that there was nothing from Mater, poor girl, she was too ill to write. I am so glad to think that she is now all right, and hope the voyage home will set her up altogether. I wonder where and when I shall get her next letter.
[MSX 2550]
Zeitoun
Egypt
6.4.15
My dear Denis and Barney,
Many thanks for the letters etc you sent me. I am sending you some photos I took, also some P.P.cards [picture postcards]. I saw all the places depicted. I went to Luxor for 4 days on leave. Mummy has told me all about your staying at Nelson. I hope you will always be good boys, working hard at everything. I am very well. I hope to be able to see mummy, Norah and Molly, before very long, but I am afraid it will be a good long time yet. We are leaving Egypt this week and go to Turkey I think to take Constantinople. It is very hot and dusty here. It was 100° Fahrenheit inside my tent yesterday! but it is so dry one does not get knocked up. Don and Billy are very fit, and frisky. Billy bucks and kicks up....
With much love,
Your Daddy
[MSX 2545]
April 7th 1915
Our departure is postponed for 24 hours. The Bn went out, as at war, every man fully equipped and formed, every horse, vehicle. We tramped in all 14 miles. It was very hot, and a feat of endurance for all hands. The march discipline was excellent. I was very pleased and am so proud of the Regiment. The others, though perhaps I shouldn’t say so, are not in the same line.
A soldier in Malone’s battalion, Private William Hampton, had a rather different view of the day. He wrote in his diary: ‘Fall in 8am. Had a dammed heavy march with full pack ... about 18 miles. Very hot. All [the] men call Colonel Malone a rotter.’ [W.A. Hampton diary, 7 Apr 1915, KMARL.]
April 9th 1915
We definitely depart tonight. Entraining at 2.20 and 5.20am. I motor cycled in the afternoon and took photos of the graves of the 3 men of the Bn who have died, Campbell, Cooper and Simpson.64 I thought their people would like the photos.
This morning busy packing up kit. Got it all into 1 roll. Left at base the leather trunk (E.L.M.), one Gladstone bag and contents, one green canvas bag and contents, one box of books etc. Sending these by Mrs Home, to Mater to whom I wrote today.
The grave of Private John Campbell. Malone wrote in his diary that ‘Campbell was a Catholic, a good soldier.’
Malone Family Collection London
3
‘The world never saw better men or braver’
* * *
Gallipoli: The landing and the struggle for Walker’s Ridge
April–May 1915
* * *
[MSX 2546]
April 10th 1915
Left Zeitoun last night, 10.20pm, by troop train carrying 1/2 Auckland Bn in advance of my Bn so that I might see that th
ings in order on HMT Itonus. Arrived at Alexandria at 4.15am. The Itonus was out in the stream, but I only found this out after I had tramped round the biggest part of the Docks. She came alongside at 8am.... She is properly fitted up as a troopship, but only for 800 men. We will be over 1100, still we will be all right. The hammocks however are not available unless we care to take the risk of measles. The last troops she brought from Australia had measles, and the authorities had refused to have the hammocks fumigated. We decided to take no risks and the men will sleep on the bare decks, which are wooden. On the Achaia however, which carried 1/2 my Bn, the decks are iron and hard sleeping that – no mattresses, no straw.
We soon embarked, and hauled out at about 3.30pm, and sailed for Lemnos, where we get further orders. The troop ships are sailing independently and without escort. We are going to land on the Galipoli [sic] peninsula. The landing may be in face of the Turks, and will be within 3 weeks. The voyage to Lemnos takes normally about 50 hours, but we are towing a steam-tug and 2 big barges, and cannot [sic] only steam at 2/3rd speed for fear of swamping them. I was very much impressed by the naval transport officers at Alexandria. We wanted certain things, life-belts cleaning materials, and a cooking range, for the ‘Achaia’. I and Hart went to see the NTO and met a Mr Peacock I think. He was admirable. He listened to our requests, asked a plain question or two and at once acceded to our requests. No argument no petty objections, no evading responsibility, no callousness to needs of our men, a careful consideration and prompt decision. So different to our experience with our own staff. They either promise and don’t perform or else bluff or cheese pare1 or refuse and say buy what you want and pay for it yourselves out of your regimental fund. The injustice of it all.
I have a roomy 3 berth cabin to myself, and the captain and officers of the ship are most obliging and pleasant. Our voyage is they say to be a smooth one. I turned in early.
April 11th 1915 – Sunday
Sea smooth weather fine but with a decided cold twang about it. Busy all day getting a good hold of everybody and everything. It is really interesting having 1/2 the Canterbury Bn to handle. We could soon bring them up to our standard. They have been loosely handled. Mass at 10am. Fr. McMenamin is now our Chaplain in lieu of old Luxford, who is transferred to Otago Bn.2 Everybody is glad. He (Luxford) ought to have been left at the base. He is a useless specimen of an army chaplain, but has curried favour with the Genl and others. Young active amicable and amiable parsons left behind and he the reverse of those things taken to the Front. We are on the lookout for submarines, one is supposed to have torpedoed a transport off Smyrna3 last week.
This boat carries a Lascar4 crew, miserable specimens of humanity. The 1st officer amused me today. We have not enough lifebelts, by some 100 and not enough boat room for some 500 of us, in addition to these Lascars some 120 in number. In arranging about boats in case of collision or torpedoing etc. he said that we were to have all the boats and the Lascars could swim or drown. We were far too valuable beings and they too worthless! He meant it too and I think he is right, but I told him it could not be so, the ship’s company gets 1st serve and we take what is left of the boats. We are sorting out all those who are good swimmers and telling them off to any gratings, seats, benches etc available. If anything happens to us we expect our wireless would bring help within a few hours – so the position is not very bad. Still it is not pleasant to think that some of us may drown like rats. One thing everybody accepts the position most philosophically. The men are splendid. They have settled down without any bother and there are no complaints.
April 12th 1915
...Up early and about, seeing if all other officers properly supervising. I took special notice of the Canterbury men [Canterbury Infantry Battalion]. They are good stuff, but want shaking up. Not their fault – their COs. The officers are I think quite a good lot, and are responding keenly to our demands....
April 13th 1915
A wet rough morning. The tug and 2 barges that we were towing broke away from us last night. We stood by and picked them up this morning, and started towing them to lee of an island 3 Lascars and the 1st and 2nd mates got into them. It came on to blow harder and harder and the sea was running high. Before we got under the lee of the island the tow line parted and then we had a big job, getting round and picking the men and mates up. The tug was sunk. The barges are all right but we had to let them go....
Port Mudros on Lemnos crowded with ships as the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force prepares for the Gallipoli landings, April 1915.
Malone Family Collection London
Our soldier men acted well. Two boat crews, from my Bn were told off, and got into the boats ready for lowering one of the boats swung in and out and began to smash things, obviously with considerable danger to the men in her. Yet they sat cooly still and took their danger as a matter of course. It was only when I told them to come out that they moved and then without flurry they came aboard. It was a good job we didn’t have to lower the boat. I doubt if she could have lived in the big sea that was running. It was a good thing to see also how the 1st and 2nd mates got the 3 miserable Lascars aboard, before they moved themselves....
Arrived at Lemnos, Port Mudros at 6am. A good harbour. It is almost full of men-of-war (British, French and 1 Russian) and Transports: A great sight. The shore is hills up to 1,000ft here and there, but mostly undulating land. Several small towns.... No trees to be seen anywhere. Hardly a shrub. Farmhouses here and there. Generally the country looks like sheep country, one can see sheep and cattle.... The port is protected by a line of netting bouyed [sic] from shore to shore, with guns mounted at each end. We anchored out in the Bay until about 4pm and then the Assistant Kings Harbour-Master [AKH] came off and took us thro’ the boom to the harbour, where we again anchored. The A.K.H. Master was on the Ocean, which was sunk in the Dardanelles. She was torpedoed from the shore.5 He says there are 150,000 Turks and 16,000 Germans on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and that we will get a warm reception. Apparently they cannot force the Dardanelles without a land force – to demolish or complete the demolition of the Turkish forts. That will be our job after we have driven back the Turkish army. The job is going to be a big one. There will be difficulty about water. There is none on Lemnos (for an army) and we will have to depend on ships for all our water and supplies. We have to darken the ship tonight. 2 Turkish or German aeroplanes were over the harbour yesterday and dropped bombs.... The crew, [of the Itonus] Lascars, are a queer lot – very small and weedy, yet good workers and attentive....
[The lecture outlined below gives a good insight into Malone’s thinking. There is, however, no indication in the diary that he delivered this lecture.]
[MSX 2551]
Lecture HM T[ransport] ITONUS Lemnos 14 April 1915 Subject: Officers’ Efficiency and how to obtain it...
Preparation: Habits
Cleanliness, order and method, industry, early rising, abstemiousness, thoughtfulness. Special study of books. Which?
Ingrainment of principles
Application question constant [sic] if such and such happened. What will I do. Concentration, modesty, always room, and power to learn, consult experts. No jumping to conclusions. Appreciation of situation – all thro. General Birdwoods four Cs: concealment, cover, communication, control.
Practice: Physical fitness. Know job, do it to exactitude. Punctuality, care, complete, no “near eno”. Habit of thoro’ness. Good form always. Clear command. Insistence [on] performance. Supervision. Non interference.
Position: Word of command. Determination.
Relations with superiors, equals, inferiors
Superiors: Absolute loyalty.
Non criticism.
Obedience to orders.
Orders: “Nil nisi bonum”6
Equals: Courtesy – loyalty too.
Cooperation.
Competition not opposition in job.
Good form always.
Inferiors: Dignity.
Manners [?].
Camaraderie, not friendship.
Care, health, comfort.
Knowledge without intimacy.
Example to.
Lead, not drive.
Conclusion Self Criticism and Examination of Conscience.
Highest standard. Every man has limitations. Modesty non conceit. Have I done my duty? Why not. Sorrow[?], intention, amendment. Renewal of original good intention.
Amendment.
[MSX 2546]
April 15th 1915
Went off to HMS Arcadian naval HQ ship, to see whether our Divl or Bde HQ ships were in. Later went off to Lutzow, Divl HQ ship. She was one of the Nord Deutche boats – captured and now a transport! A fine boat, luxurious.... I saw Genl Godley. He was genial! I asked him to sanction disembarking all the troops on my ship, as practice. He most readily agreed and at once issued an order for all troops to do the same. Got permission to buy flour and fresh meat for the men. They have been on bully beef and biscuit since Friday last. After lunch went ashore with Capt Carey, Master of Itonus and explored Mudros Town.... The people seem friendly and are all Greeks. Population 2000. It is quite refreshing to see Europeans, men women and children. The women are rather good looking but mostly old. I think the young ones keep in, with so many soldier men, filling the town. The children seem strong and healthy, and are good looking. The men are not tall but strong. All seem fairly clean and tidy.... Soldiers and sailors, English French, Australian and New Zealand are everywhere – well behaved and quiet. We quite enjoyed our walk round. In the harbour there are now some 100 ships. Say 25 men of war 75 transports. The Queen Elizabeth is here, tho’ most of the other men of war seem somewhat old fashioned. It is a great sight and a stirring one.7 Weather fresh, breezy but fine.