 14. August 8-20, 1915. August 8. Rather a stormy day, not much shelling on W. Beach. One can see plainly through glasses where the new landing has taken place. Hospital ships, transports, destroyers, and three battleships are off there. Rumor hath it that the landing was successful, and that they are advancing across the peninsula. Heavy firing goes on all day from batteries on shore and warships on sea, answered but feebly by Turkish batteries, which however do not fail to pay their usual unwelcome attention to W. Beach. A Turkish battleship on the way down here to support landforces was sunk today by one of our submarines, which is a great event. Heavy artillery fire goes on tonight on our left. August 9. Usual shelling and some nasty ones amongst them. Right up the gully and have a good gallop on a new little horse with Williams. Afternoon. Can see new landing through glasses. Gorse there seems on fire. Transports very busy going to and fro on horizon. Right up the gully along the top road at night with cook and have a chat with a few Irish Royal Army Medical Corps pals. Artillery duels on our front all day. Hear that in addition to Turkish battleship being sunk. Also Turkish gunboat and empty transport. Submarine also open fire on Turkish battalions marching on shore. Our submarine commanders are some lads. Heavy firing from battleships goes on all night up north. Good rumors come in from time to time that the new landing forces have captured the hills in front of them and Anifarta and are overlooking the straits the other side. If this is so, then this show will be over in a few weeks. August 10. Very quiet on this front, but a little shelling as usual onto W. Beach. When up the gully in the afternoon, brigades still in rest there, shells come over to gully beach. Cruiser firing up coast again. Turks attack at 8 p.m. and again at 11.30 p.m. August 11. Slight intermittent shelling on beaches and roads from Turks all day. Afternoon. French battleship Saint-Louis takes a position off our part of the coast, but before she fires Turkish batteries open fire on her and one shell hits her and through glasses I see something catching fire and men running. Fire extinguished. Battleship maneuvers for fresh position and, having taken it up, fires with all her six-inch guns on West of Achibaba. All the while heavy fighting is going on on our right by French. New landing has now linked hands with Anzac and is three and a half miles inland. Our troops at the new landing are not moving as fast as was at first expected, but reports are that Kitchener's army are fighting magnificently. The Indian brigade, unfortunately, had to give ground last night, but not of much consequence. I semaphore a message from the beach to McArthur on a submarine and submarine smartly picks it up and acknowledges. It is from a lady friend from whom I have just received a letter to a friend of McArthur's. On the way back a shell comes near, goes right through the roof of the Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General's office as I was passing, and penetrates the earth wall on far side while Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General is riding at his desk. It did not explode, and he was most fortunately unhurt. Afterwards he said that he dropped his pencil with surprise. August 12, a fairly quiet day, rode with his slop to the gully, hardly any shelling on W Beach, and what shells did come over were only poop squeaks, the majority not bursting. I suppose the Turks are taking the artillery away from here two positions against our men at Suvla, airplanes buzzing about as usual this end, and one of the E-type submarines comes down from the Straits, but the Navy keeps things dark, and since the last submarine stunt we have heard nothing, destroyers off W Coast find a target on West Ridge of the Hill, Finlay Smith comes to dinner. August 18, very hot and a calm sea, not much shelling, but a few poop squeaks fall in supply depot, one man wounded, shelling seems to be dying away, rode to the gully to Kreegan, on duty at depot in the afternoon, fighting last night in center and again this morning. Notice very big explosions in Turkish trenches on their right, throwing earth and smoke quite 300 feet. An inquiry found that they were our trench mortars at work throwing 100 pound shells, that will shake things up a bit, very quiet night. August 14, on duty at depot at 6am, very quiet, no shelling, wonderfully quiet altogether now, hardly a rifle shot, rode up to the gully beach and then rode out with Matthias to pink farm and walked up the trench to brigade headquarters, hardly a shell and only a few bullets. What is happening? Anyway, it is nice for us and it is a relief to be able to ride about in safety. Found way at headquarters and also saw Thompson once more, was very glad to see him, rode with way back to the gully, passing old Butler asleep under a tree, told him that a shell would soon pitch on his tummy, to which he replied, It is all right, the Turks think I'm a mule. Call on monster fusiliers beyond gully beach in dugouts on cliff, half way to shrapnel point, and have tea with Gettys and Nightingale. We passed General Delisle superintending the building of a new pier off gully beach. Have a nice canter home. After dinner a Turkish foregun battery on Asiatic side fires over a salvo of high explosives, followed by another and another in quick succession. It was a surprise to us, but did not last long, as our friends the monitors got onto them, on which I suppose they limbered up and bolted. I hope they will not do it in the middle of the night. The shells burst in the Arabs camp beyond the Aerodrome, causing them to clear, making a row like a panicked, stricken poultry yard. No news from the north. 10.30 p.m. Turkish battery at Yenis Cher again starts firing salvos, very rapidly, and shells four at a time come over in succession. Shells almost reach W. Beach. And anticipating their arrival near us, Phillips and I curse, and have to get up and leave our tent and go to dugout. Suddenly a great flash over the sky behind Rabbit Island is noticed, and shortly afterwards a great bursting flame behind Yenis Cher, a very awe-inspiring sight. After quite a pause there follows a great peel of thunder rumbling on, which ends with a great crash. This happens once or twice when the Turkish battery shuts up. It is the monitor behind Rabbit Island, firing its great gun. The whole incident was like a few naughty boys throwing stones at a house, the owner of which telephones to the police, the monitor behind Rabbit Island, who without delay take effective measures to stop the nuisance. It was really nothing more than a nuisance, and gained no military advantage for the Turk. August 15. A very windy day, almost the Gallipoli Gale blowing down land, and in consequence, dust storms start as usual. Two guns on Achi start firing towards our tents. Why, Lord knows, for there is nothing here to fire at but our tents, and those can't be seen by them. They do no harm, but are a beastly nuisance, as we keep on having to duck. The wind is so strong that we do not hear them coming till they are right onto us. After lunch I ride along the top road with Carver, and dipping down onto Gully Beach, ride up the Gully a little way, and turn off to the left into a ravine where we leave our horses. Climbing up the cliffs we call at the mess of Major Gibbons Battery, where tea is awaiting in a delightful summer house, surrounded with rocks and shrubbery. Duff is there, and Monroe too. The battery is in position a few yards away in an artfully hidden spot, never as yet having been discovered by the enemy. Out to sea a small cruiser is in action, firing on a target on the left of Achi Baba. A Turkish battery on the extreme right is in action against her, recording a few hits without causing much damage, but making it necessary for the cruiser to maneuver constantly for a fresh position. Heavy firing occurs in the night, and the enemy strongly attack the Anzacs with no success. August 16th. Having been invited to breakfast with the Hampshire's, who are up the line, I ride up to the Nullar in front of Pink Farm, and leave my horse there, for he is given his breakfast. On arrival at the Brigade Headquarters at the end of the long trench, or the Mule Track as we now call it, I am given a guide to the Royal Scots, who however has difficulty in finding the Battalion Headquarters. We wander about a while before we reach our destination, reminding me of an endeavor to thread away through Hampton Court Maze. Up one long winding trench my guide puzzles me somewhat by the remark, Be trench, sir, but not a beeline. At first I am puzzled as to what he is driving at, but gradually it dawns on me that he is cracking with difficulty an obtuse Scottish joke, occasioned by the long winding walk up the trench, which I notice is called be communication trench. Battalion Headquarters found at last I have an excellent breakfast of hot cocoa, sardines, bread, and jam, and at the end of the meal I am taken up to do a tour of the line. First we make a visit to the Battalion Headquarters of the Essex, where I see algae wood and kernel rice. Then I am shown the cookhouse of the Hampshire's. Owing to a curiously small and deep ravine, it has not been found necessary to dig trenches here. Instead, communication trenches lead off from the small nulla, only a hundred and fifty yards away from our front line, in five different directions, like streets leading off from a circus. We pass up that part of the communication trench leading to the line which the Hampshire's are holding. On arrival here I am greeted with a wave of sickening odor, a blend of decaying bodies and chloride of lime. The scene in the first line trench is alive with interest. There officers and men are on the alert. Every four yards men are standing on the fire steps, looking out through periscopes held in their hands or fixed to rifles. Others are cleaning up the floors or sides of the trench, as the parlor maid would do the room of a house. Others are improving parapets, leveling the sides and floors of the trench. A few are still at breakfast, one I noticed consisting of two fried eggs, a piece of steak, bread, and honey, and hot tea. I am taken up a sap by one of the officers on duty in the front line, a cheery young man named Moore, who has recently won the Victoria Cross. At the sap head looking through a periscope, I see, not fifty yards away in front, a sap head jutting out from a Turkish trench. Turning the periscope round from left to right, I see a site which fills me with sorrow. I see, lying in all postures, some alone, some in groups of three to six, the dead bodies of brave British Tommies, who a fortnight ago were alive and well, merry and bright, enjoying the bathing off Gully Beach. They had lost their lives in the battle of August 6th, and had never even had the satisfaction of reaching Turkish territory. After the battle our positions in the H trenches, as this part of the line is termed, remained unchanged from what they were before, but hundreds of brave men had gone forth from their never to return, and I am afraid few became prisoners. The end of the sap in which I am standing is protected from enemy bombs by a roof of wire netting. A drain pipe penetrates the earth at the end of the sap, with its mouth filled by a rolled-up, empty sandbag. For my benefit this is taken out, and, looking through, I see, quite close to me, the corpse of one of our brave fellows, blackened by exposure. Efforts will be made to recover some of these bodies as soon as opportunity allows. Looking further ahead through the pipe, I have a good view of the Turkish front line. A sentry is sitting beside the pipe, and at intervals he removes the sandbag from the mouth, carefully looking out for any activity on the part of the Turk. I prefer to look through a periscope, and take it up once more. Not being used to them, I raise it too high, my arms appearing above the parapet. A thoughtful Tommy alongside of me gently pulls my arms down behind the cover of the sandbags. The Turkish sniper is always on the lookout for the careless, who expose themselves even a few inches, and is often clever in getting a bullseye at the first shot. However, one through the arm would be luck. What could be better than the pleasure of lunching at zeroes with an arm and a sling from a wound? I take a careful survey of the Turkish line, running along a gentle rise in front of me, and after a while I notice a shovel lifted over the parapet and a spray of earth thrown over, and this happens several times. A Turk at work, probably improving his fire-step. As I go back into the front line I notice that at intervals we have fixed into the sandbag parapet iron plates with little holes punctured in them, protected by a small shield hanging on a hinge like a shield to a keyhole. Through these holes, when necessary, our men place their rifles, firing with good protection to themselves. I am shown our catapults for throwing bombs, almost the same as the ancient weapons of Rome. Also trench mortars, funny squat cannons with short wide gaping mouths. Occasionally, during the tour, bullets come over. They zip over up here and ping with a long ring further back over the roads behind our line. Now and again they strike our parapet, sounding like the blow of a great brick thrown with a great force. The trenches are full of flies, hot and stuffy, with that ever sickly smell of the dead and chloride of lime, but fortunately quite dry and very clean, and the men are merry and keen and delighted to show round one who seldom enters a trench and is ignorant of the life spent there. Evening. It has been very quiet during the day, but a few shells came over to W. Beach. Most of them did not explode. August 17. It is a wonderfully clear day, and we can see the Asiatic side and the plains of Troy in vivid detail. Some six inch shells come over from Asia to W. Beach this morning, and after lunch we receive a few more, one very close to our Bivouac, falling into the sea and throwing up a large water spout. August 18. So far it has been a very quiet morning, not a single shell on the beach. The other day one of our machines dropped bombs on a Turkish transport in the Sea of Marmora, sinking her. One of our transports, on the way to Suvla, has been sunk, and nearly a thousand lives lost. Rumor now whispers that the Suvla Bay Landing has not been as successful as was at first thought. But we learn that many more troops are being landed. We are still hoping for victory, which so far we have not tasted. Dismal News reaches us from Suvla. A naval officer just returning from there informs us that we are digging in hard a line at the foot of the hills, and that the Turks are also doing likewise. Also, we must now face a winter campaign. No common is necessary as to our feelings. We are shelled a little at night, but are too tired and bored to bother, and so go to sleep. I am still sleeping in a tent with Phillips, and if a shell does hit us clean while we are asleep it is of no consequence, for then we shan't wake up the next morning with another awful day before us to live. August 19th. Before breakfast this morning I ride up the west coast road, my mount being fresh and lively, enjoying to the full the canter I give him up to artillery road. The ride along that road beats so far any ride I have ever had for enjoyment. The soft going, though it may be rather dusty, the view, the sea on the left, imbrose shrouded at her feet by blue-gray mist, the sound of the waves gently lapping the shore on the road below, the view in front of stately and formidable Achibaba, and of the mountains of Asia, with now and again a glimpse of the blue waters of the Dardanelles on the right. All is quiet, I might be miles from war, and yet I am in the center of war on a large scale, concentrated in an area that would be lost on Salisbury plain, to obtain an idea of on how large a scale the war on this little tip of land is, as far as fighting is concerned, one has only to compare our casualties here, up to now, with those of the South African War. And now we have Suvla Bay, where six divisions are on shore. Passing the road leading down to Gully Beach, my horse shies badly as two sixty pounders in action on the cliff overlooking the beach, fire over our heads. These sixty pounders have moved forward from their original position on the cliff by the beach, much to our satisfaction, for they were too near our Bivouac, and a sixty pounder is a noisy toy. I ride down from artillery road and, turning to the right, ride up the foot of the beautiful Gully, now more honeycomb than ever with dugouts and terraces and flights of steps. Leaving my horse at a small camp near Bruce's Reveen, named after the gallant Colonel of the Gurkas, who sailed on the same hospital ship in which I went to Alexandria in July, because of the gallant and victorious fight the Gurkas made for the capture of Gurka Bluff in the early days. I walk up this Reveen, used as a mule track, to the trenches up on the high ground on the left of the Gully, forming the extreme left of our line. And after a short walk through a series of trenches, forming our support line, I turned down a communication trench, which, after a while, brings me out onto a long and wide terrace overlooking Y Beach. Y Beach was the scene of a terrible fight between the King's own Scottish borders and the enemy on April 25, in which the King's own Scottish borders were successful in affecting the landing only to evacuate a day later, but how they landed there at all is a feat to be marveled at, for the beach can hardly be called a beach. It is a narrow Reveen, widening slightly at the water's edge to a width of not more than a hundred yards, and flanked by steep, almost precipitous, gorse-covered slopes to a height of a hundred and fifty feet. Troops attempting to land on such a beach from small open boats could not be expected to even reach the shore, yet by the night these Scotsmen had conquered the heights and penetrated in shore, but their position was too precarious and it was a wise move to order them to evacuate. At the end of the terrace on the north side of the top of the Reveen, my brigade headquarters is comfortably dug in, and it is a pleasure sitting there, talking with such a picturesque view to enjoy from the position. It is far the prettiest sight our brigade has had up to now for their headquarters, and also convenient, for they are situated but a few hundred yards behind the front line. As I am about to take my leave, four shrapnel shells come over from a Turkish battery on our extreme left, which burst low on the opposite slopes of the Reveen, with the trenches of two regiments in reserve for a target. They are followed steadily by several salvos, one or two of the shells bursting in the air near our headquarters, and one in particular throwing a few bullets onto the ground at my feet as I stand at the door of the general's mess. The general invites me to step inside, saying, unless you want to get shot, Anne gives me a topping breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast. After breakfast I go back with Mathias and Arnold to Gully Beach, and see eighty-sixth brigade headquarters, Anne Sinclair Thompson, and then ride with Arnold to W. Beach. Mathias and Arnold come to lunch as a parcel had arrived, and we enjoy the luxuries thereof. After lunch I receive orders to go with eighty-eighth brigade and eighty-sixth brigade to the new landing, way also under orders to go. So, after nearly four months of hanging onto this tip of the peninsula, the poor old twenty-ninth division is to leave, and try its luck at the new landing, and Archibaba still remains impregnable. I look forward to the move with mixed feelings, relief at getting away from this end, and new feelings at the prospect of being more heavily shelled than we ever were here. However, perhaps the move may be a successful one, and the end of the campaign in this area nearer than we think. At nine p.m. I go down to W. Beach and make inquiries. As usual, nobody knows anything, and all is confusion. The piers are very congested with the baggage being shipped onto lighters, which are then towed out to trawlers. All such work, of course, has to be done after dark. At twelve, after making exhaustive inquiries and with no result, way and I walk over to V. Beach. At the fort on the left of V. Beach, looking showwards, we find that a lot of Lancashire and Munster fusiliers are taking shelter as the Turks had been shelling the beach. We lie down just outside the fort on the stone floor and try to get some sleep. A perfect night, and as I look up at the stars, I wonder what it was like here a year ago when war had not devastated this land. August 20. At 1.30 a.m. we get up and go down to the River Clyde. The River Clyde is now supporting a very fine pier that the French have constructed. The French are excellent people at organization. After waiting some time, a military landing officer tells me that the 88th are not going till the following night, and so I say good night to Wei, who is going off with the 86th, and proceed to walk back the mile and a half to V. Beach. I take the wrong turning, inquire the way of a French soldier who puts me wrong again, and I find myself in a perfect maze of French dugouts. Once in the maze I have an awful job to get out, and after stumbling and falling about for some time, manage to find the road. Feeling very tired, I stumble along in and out of the shell-holes, it being very dark, and at last I arrive at V. Beach. I find Major Blackburn, camp-commandant, still at work in his office in a dugout on the side of the cliff, and he very kindly revives me with a whiskey. It is now 3.30 a.m., and after chatting with him, he, giving a most dismal and chilling outlook of Suvala Bay, twenty thousand casualties and only just hanging on to the lowland, I go back to the tent, have no bed, my kit having gone on. I lie down like a dog, and sleep soundly till five o'clock, when I am awakened by the cold. I go out to try to get warm and see the sunrise. The breath of the coming winter seems to be in the air. Phew! In winter we shall be washed off by rain, not driven off by the Turks. I sleep again, and then have breakfast with Philips. Heavy artillery duels all day, and the gully people get it badly, twelve men wounded. I rest during the day, as I shall be up all night again to-night. I wonder how many other people are keeping diaries on Gallipoli besides me. It would be interesting for me to read them, for they must all be told from far different points of view. The impression the Gallipoli campaign has on the minds of the men in the trenches, by far the most important men in the machine of the Dardanelles army, must be widely foreign to the impression made on the mind, for instance, of a lighterman. The man in the trenches, probably, if he has been to France and many here have, sees no great difference from life in the trenches in the Ypresalian. An army service corps baker views life here through quite differently colored spectacles from the army service corps driver, the army service corps driver from the signal operator, the officer in the observation balloon from the military officer of a regiment, the platoon commander from the military landing officer, the aviator from the gunner officer, the commander of a submarine from the veterinary officer, and yet each respective outlook on life to each officer or man is one of far more vital and of greater importance than all the views, opinions, thoughts, and actions of any of his comrades or neighbors or any newspaper or public opinion. It is for him, his destiny, the carrying out of orders given to his particular self, though of seemingly little importance in comparison to the working of the large army machine, is to him, perhaps, a matter of life or death. Death or grievous wounds may prevent him carrying out an order, in that event he will be excused, but while alive and effective he must carry out that order to the letter. The position that destiny has placed him in, as part of the huge machine, controls his thoughts, actions, character, and outlook on life. His daily work may bring him in a constant danger of sudden death, and he naturally views his life from the point of view of the probability of leaving it suddenly, and, possibly, in an awful manner. That constant thought usually makes a man braver than we would expect, for his will forces him to carry out to the letter his orders and rules his mind, which is fully aware of the danger he incurs in doing so. As well as making him braver, the thought decides his will to make the most of the pleasures of life that may pass his way, and as a result he is usually to be found of a cheery, optimistic nature, easily pleased and hard to depress. For optimists go to the frontline trenches, or the navy, and for pessimists go to overworked administrative officers. If it were possible for all ranks, from officer commanding to private, in an army fighting in any certain campaign, to keep an accurate diary of all they do and see, then there could be published a perfectly true record of the development and history of that campaign. So it is not possible, and never will be, for the truth of all happenings in that campaign to be known, and it never will be in any campaign. Hundreds of deeds, gallant, tragic, cowardly and foolish occur which are never and can never be recorded. When the daily press, armchair critics in clubs, etc., criticize any statesmen or army staff, they are simply talking hot air. For how is it possible for them to judge when their source of information is as unreliable as a W. Beach rumor? So why waste words? Much better go and do something useful, or shut up and go and hide. War is like a big game. This war we must win, or we shall lose. If we lose, it is on too huge a scale to be through any man's fault. It will be destiny. At 9.30 p.m. I walk over to V. Beach again and find much more order than last night. Our brigade is moving off systematically from the pier alongside the river Clyde. I embark with the Essex onto a small trawler. Algy Wood is with me. We are a merry party. We cast off and steam out to a paddle boat which we come alongside and make fast to transship. We are packed very closely together. The skipper makes all the Tommys laugh by shouting through a megaphone in a deep naval drawl to a small tug in the offing. Finished with you, Jesse! And off we steam north for our unknown fate at Souvle Bay. A Tommie expresses his feelings by the remark. I don't know where I am going to, but I shall be glad when I get there. So shall I. I take a farewell glance at the river Clyde and Sedel Bar, and express the prayer that I shall not see either again during this war, and lie down on deck to sleep. End of Section 14. Section 15 of Gallipoli Diary. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Sue Anderson. Gallipoli Diary by John Graham Gillum. Section 15. August 21 to 29, 1915. August 21. I awake at 2 a.m. and find a blaze of lights on our starboard, and so sleepy am I that for the life of me I cannot make out what is happening or where I am. There seem to be thousands of little fairy lamps, and at first I think that we are entering an English watering place alongside an illuminated pier. Coming to my senses I find that we are passing close to three hospital ships, which are always illuminated at night, and entering a small bay. After a lot of maneuvering, we get off into lighters and are towed for a mile, coming finally alongside an improvised pier where we disembark, thence onto a sandy beach where inquiries are made as to our future. I go off in search of a supply depot, but can only find one belonging to the 11th Division. The brigade move off inland to a place called Chocolate Hill, the other side of a salt lake, and I lie down for an hour behind some hay. I awake at 5 a.m., get up and shake myself and wander about, endeavouring to gain some information. I find Pantton with whom I go up onto the high ground behind the beach. I learn that this is called Sea Beach. It is a small beach, flanked on its north side by a high rocky promontory called Lalababa, the other side of which is Suvla Bay. Suvla Bay is in turn flanked on its north side by a high rocky promontory jutting nearly two miles from the mainland into the sea. For the bay washes the mainland there starts a salt lake, looking like a large, flat, sandy plain, evidently under water in the winter. In the background are high rocky hills, covered with gorse, looking beautiful in the early morning sun. At the foot on the left and right of the salt lake lies Meadowland, with occasional clusters of olive groves. The hills on the promontory to the north of Suvla Bay continue in a range inland, curving round the lowland immediately in front of us, when to the right of where I am standing they join and rise to a high peak called Sarri Bear. Sarri Bear, which commands the right of our line, for I learn we are on the low land, sweeps down to the Australian's position at Anzac or Gabbatepe. One or two smaller hills, from fifty to a hundred feet high, stand near to us, rising out of the low Meadow and Wooded land. Some are in our hands, and some are still Turkish. One hill in particular, lying at the other end of the salt lake inland from its center, is called Chocolate Hill, and I learn that division headquarters are to be there tonight. I hear also that there is to be a battle today. Many troops are landing, including a whole division of Yeomanry, amongst whom are the Worx, Worsters, and Glosters. I meet one of our division headquarters staff, and he, with panton, proceeds to Chocolate Hill, while I continue to make inquiries as to where I am to go. Nobody appears to know or to care, and so I go to the top of Lalababa and have another look round. On the opposite side of the bay I see the promontory alive with troops. In the center of the bend of the bay I see hospital tents pitched. Four battleships are at anchor in the bay, together with a few transports and supply ships. They are shut in and protected from submarine attack from the outer sea, by a boom of submerged nets stretching between the ends of two flanking promontories. Over the wooded lowland, now and again, there begins to burst Turkish shrapnel. Halfway up the promontory, on the opposite side of the bay I see stacks of supply boxes. I go back to Sea Beach and call at the depot to make further inquiries, and learn that the supply depot that I have seen on the other side of the bay is on A Beach, and, as no orders have been received to feed the 29th from Sea Beach depot, the A Beach depot must be my destination. As I stroll across Sea Beach, I notice a damaged aeroplane around which men are clustering, inspecting it with curiosity. A naval lieutenant comes up and clears them away, saying to me that, if only a few men collect together in a bunch, they are very soon shelled by a Turkish six-inch gun on Sarri Bear, which commands the beach. I walk up to the back of the beach once more, and start for a tramp round the bay to the supply depot that I see in the distance. It is to be a long tramp, and I feel a bit tired and devilish hungry. On the other side of Lalababa I pass 18-pounder batteries in position, hidden from the enemy by little rises of the ground, and screened from aeroplane observation by gorse bushes. Their position tells me that our front line cannot be very far inland. Presumably the same thing has happened that happened at Hellas on April 25th. We have got on shore all right, but that is all. The Turks hold all the prominent positions, and appear to have us in the hollow of their hands. I walk along on the sandy beach, very tiring for my feet, until I reach B Beach, which is in the center of the beach running between the two promontories of the bay. There I come to a casualty clearing station of the Welsh Division. I am dog-tired and almost faint from hunger, and call in begging some breakfast. They tell me breakfast is at eight, and make me lie down to get an hour's sleep, for it is seven o'clock. At eight I wake up and join the officers at breakfast. Hot cocoa without milk, for milk is reserved for the patients, bacon, biscuits, and jam. No bread has been issued at Suvla up to now. I then learn some news. We had actually taken the high hills on the left of Anifarta village, which lies just behind the lower hills in front of us. The Gherkas and Australians had actually been on top of Sarri Bear, had been treated to the joy of looking down onto the Dardanelles on the other side. Something went amiss. Our troops had to retire, and now our line ran from the hills on the left of the bay, but about a mile and a half inland on the mainland, dropping down to the lowland in front, continuing in front of Chocolate Hill, which was ours, across the lowland on the right of Chocolate Hill, then running gently a short way up the slope of Sarri Bear. Finally joining hands with the Anzacs in position some distance up the slope of the hills in front of Gaba Tepe. Burnt Hill, a small eminence in front of Chocolate Hill, is to be attacked today. This is so named because of the gorse which had been burnt by the shelling at the landing. We saw this burning gorse from Hellas on the seventh and eighth. Once Burnt Hill was ours, the Turks would be forced to retire to Anifarta. A further attack on our part would capture Anifarta and the high hills on our left, enabling the Anzacs to capture Sarri Bear, thence Tomatoes, Achibaba cut off, and the Dardanelles forced. I am just about to leave thanking them for their hospitality when shrapnel burst outside overhead. I say to them, surely this hospital does not get shelled, and they tell me that, now and again, a stray shrapnel does burst here, but that they are shelling a small column of carts passing along the beach, a small cluster of horsemen riding in Salt Lake, or a few men passing over the flat wooded country. No target appears too small for their shrapnel, even people bathing. The shore in the center of the bay is within easy reach of their field-gun shrapnel, but as a rule they respect this Welsh hospital, though it is within full view and easy range of their guns. I continue my walk and keep close to the water's edge, for shrapnel, now and again, bursts not more than a hundred yards inland. I reach the supply depot that I had seen from Lalababa, and learn that we are now ninth core, that I have arrived at the core reserve supply depot on A Beach, that they get shelled regularly every day, also that Foley and Way are further up the road towards the end of the promontory. I walk up there and find them sitting in a small depot that they have formed with a little camp of wagon covers and ground sheets, supported by logs obtained from a broken lighter. I feel glad to see them. O'Hara comes up soon after with Badcock, who is over from general headquarters to get transport and order, having been here since the landing. We make ourselves a little more comfortable during the morning. A bivouac for Way and myself is made of a tarpaulin stretched over balks of timber, forming a little house open at the sides. We are out of range of shrapnel, but I learn that high explosive and howitzer shells often come our way. In the morning I see Cox, who has returned from Alexandria, and learn that the 88th Brigade are not to be in action today, for which I am thankful. We get ready to send operations by Army transport carts and pack mules tonight. At one o'clock, Way goes up to see his brigade headquarters, the 86th, on Chocolate Hill. The 87th and 88th are there as well, and division headquarters and headquarters of other brigades, and the side of the hill must be very congested. I can see hundreds of troops sheltering on the low ground by La La Baba across the bay. 230. The four battleships and all our guns on shore open a heavy bombardment on the Turkish position on the hills in front, and especially on Burnt Hill, and an hour later the gorse on that hill and on the low ground to the right of Chocolate Hill catches a light, and is soon burning like a roaring furnace, spreading like the fire on a prairie. At 330 I hear rifle fire, and learn that our attack on Burnt Hill has started. The artillery simultaneously increases its range. The bombardment, however, does not ring so confidently as did our bombardment in the victorious battle of June 28th, nor does it appear to be so powerful. I see the Yeomanry now marching steadily in open order across the Salt Lake. It is the first time that they have been in action. Several years ago I was a trooper in the Warwickshire Yeomanry, who are now, with the rest, marching into battle. The Worsters, Glosters, Middlesex, Sharpshooters, Sherwood Foresters, Knotts, and Derby are there, and I think several other regiments. All troopers and troop leaders on foot, their horses left in Egypt. Little did they think when they trained on Salisbury Plain for cavalry work that, when the hour came for them to go into battle, they would go in on foot as infantry. When they did their regular 14-days annual training, some of their friends used to laugh at them, saying that they were playing at soldiers. What I see before my eyes now is no play. Yet they look the same as they did on Salisbury Plain. Ah, the real thing for them has come at last, though many of them only landed this morning. For I see a white puff of shrapnel burst over their heads. It is quickly followed by another and another, developing to a rapid concentrated fire. They run the gauntlet without losing their Salisbury Plain steadiness, except for an occasional bunching together here and there. Soon casualties occur, and prostrate khaki figures can be seen lying on the sandy salt of the lake for the stretcher-bearers and ambulance wagons to pick up, the harvest of war. At last they are at Chocolate Hill, where they nestle under its slopes for protection till further orders. At 6 p.m. Wei returns and tells us that Chocolate Hill was red hell while he was there, smothered in shrapnel and flying bullets, that an officer in division headquarters had been killed quite near him, but O'Hara is safe. It was not safe for Wei to leave until five o'clock. Dusk arrives, and the moon is rising. Major Badcock is going up with kit for division headquarters to Chocolate Hill on four little box-cars, and I ask if I can go with him to see my brigade headquarters. He gives me a lift, and off we go along the bumpy track from the promontory to the mainland. When, bending to the right, through clusters of trees, and in and out of gorse bushes and boulders, we arrive at last on the flat, growthless plain of the Salt Lake. Instead of being heavy going over soft sand, as I thought it would be, it is very good going over a hard binding surface, and we get along at a fine pace, which in the moonlight on such an occasion is very exciting and enjoyable. Soon I see the shadow of trees and cultivation, and know that we are nearing Chocolate Hill, and almost at the same time I hear and almost feel the unpleasant whiz of many bullets overhead about and around. We stop, but the noise of the pulsating engines of the car drowns all other sounds, and we walk a little way in front and hear the regular rattle of heavy rifle fire. The spot where we are standing is receiving the benefit of the overs, many of which kick up the dust around us. Now and again shells scream over, but not many. We drive on to the trees in front and dump our kit. At this point the bullets are flying fairly high, and we feel safer, though I expect all the time that blow of a sledgehammer which comes with a hit of a bullet. We unload the kit by some trees, and some men nearby are instructed to go to the division and tell them that the first batch of their kit had arrived, and one man is left in charge. We turn to go back, and I notice a wounded man on a stretcher being carried away, and I ask them to put him in the car. I offer him water, but he refuses, saying that he has been hit by a shrapnel bullet in the stomach, and water makes him vomit. His voice sounds familiar to me. I look at his face. I ask him if he is Howell of the Warwickshire Yeomanry. He replies yes. We rode next to each other years ago as troopers. Many wounded are lying here, there, and everywhere, and we load up our empty cars with as many as we can, and steadily and gently go back. Firing dies down. It was only wind up on the part of the Turks. I leave Howell at the Welsh Casualty Clearing Station on the B beach. He is quite cheerful. His experience of actual war started when he had landed this morning, and ends now as he lies wounded, waiting to be properly attended to, and he had trained and given up his spare time for years past for these few hours. He shakes me by the hand. After this war I do not think that people will be amused at the playing of soldiers of Yeomanry and Territorials. Back at the beach I load the four cars once more with Division Headquarters kit, and off we proceed on a second journey. I am alone in charge this time, for Badcock has to go up to core headquarters. The full moon brilliantly lighting up everything helps us to get along at a good pace. On arrival at the trees on the other side of the Salt Lake, where we had dumped the first loads, I find no signs of this first batch, and a few men about appear to know nothing whatever about it. We go steadily along, feeling our way carefully, for there is no road towards Chocolate Hill. I leave the cars two hundred yards from Chocolate Hill and walk the rest of the way. I pass men hard at work digging a trench. I arrive at the foot of the hill and find it congested with all manner and kinds of parts of units of an army. There are some infantry of our brigade awaiting orders, mule carts with drabbies sitting cross-legged unconcernedly thereon. Bullets do not appear to worry them. I believe they think they are butterflies. A first-line dressing station is chock full of wounded, and the medical officers are hard at work attending to the cases. Signal stations are tap-tamping and buzzers buzz-buzzing. I walk up the slopes of the hill, wending my way past dugouts all around, to my right and left and above, in which are headquarters of various brigades. I step over poor, broken dead men, lying nestling in the gorse, and curse from the bottom of my heart the rulers of the German Empire. And seeing an officer standing outside a dugout, I inquire for Major O'Hara of the 29th Division, and told that he will be back shortly. I then ask for 88th headquarters, and he comes along with me to help me look for them. We find them eventually, and I learn that rations have been received. I also learn that the day has not gone well with us, but that we will probably attack at dawn, and that the 88th will this time be in action. The Yeomanry, shortly after arriving at Chocolate Hill, had gone up beyond to our front line under a terrible fire, but in perfect order, quietly and orderly, as if on parade. We had not advanced our position, which was the same as before the battle. The gorse is burning fiercely on my right, lighting up the immediate neighbouring country. Several wounded were caught in it and burnt to death before they could be rescued, but many were saved, and some gallant deeds were done in their rescue. So John Milbank, Victoria Cross, has been killed. Practically his last words were, Great Scott, this is a bloody business. We go back to the dugout of Division headquarters, before we find O'Hara, and also Bray, the assistant provost-martial. I had often heard of Bray several years before the war, for my brother-in-law was his pupil. He asks me if I am any relation to his pupil's wife, and so we meet and are introduced. I hand the kit over to Bray. I am instructed to go back and fetch up two of the cars loaded with tins of water for a trench. As I leave, a rattle of musketry again bursts out from the jumpy enemy, and bullets zip past, seeming to come from all directions. Parties which have been standing about in the open move for cover. I again load up my four cars with wounded, one case being that of a man who has just been hit in the leg while digging in the trench that I had just passed. Back at A Beach I apply for water at the water dump, and am told that it cannot be issued without a chit from the officer. Where is the officer? In his dugout. Where is his dugout? Two hundred yards up the beach. Arrived officer's dugout, officer asleep, wakened up. Can't have water without chit from core. I reply, I shall get my water, and at once please. He replies, what's that? I repeat, I am refused a chit. I politely explain that the reason he is peacefully enjoying his slumber undisturbed by Turkish bayonets is because our Tommies are in the front busy seeing that the Turks do not come over our line and rush the trenches. Also, that some of those Tommies want water, and that I have been instructed to take it to them. The water loaded on two cars, the other two holding chit, off we proceed once more on our third trip. But alas, the moon dips down into the sea. A shout from behind and a car full of chit overturns in a trench. It is left with the driver till morning. On we go, first bumping into large stone boulders, then into large clusters of thick gorse, and two more cars are finally out of action in deep holes. On I go with the third car, groping our way across the salt lake, for it is now pitch dark, and at last when near the advanced dressing station flames spurt out from the bonnet of the car, and halting we find something of fire in the almost red-hot engine. We stop. I walk over to the dressing station. There is not much firing, only an occasional sing of a bullet, and no shells. I learn that they are getting water now from a well, but want receptacles. I offload my tins from the car into an ambulance-wagon, which proceeds up to Chocolate Hill two hundred yards away. We wait until the engine is quite cool, and then grop our way back. Dawn is breaking, and it becomes gradually lighter. Arriving at my bivvy, I fling myself on my camp-bed, and am fast asleep in two seconds. We did not attack at dawn, and so the 88th have not been in action. We are as we were. Yesterday's battle is not to be recorded as a victory for us. Machine guns again from right, left, and center fired from behind great boulders of stone and hidden hillocks covered with gorse, and wave after wave of our men were moaned down as with a sigh. Twice we captured the burnt hill, but twice were driven off, and burnt hill remains Turkish. The yeomanry were unable to get to grips with the enemy. But for gallantry in that march from Chocolate Hill to our front line, four hundred yards in front across the open, in the daylight, under a hail of shrapnel and machine gun bullets, their behavior could not have been excelled. Their officers represent the best blood of England, and their men good old country blood of the hunting and farmer class of old England, with many a man of good birth in the ranks. How could such men behave otherwise than gallantly? Tonight I take up the remainder of division headquarters kit to their new quarters, not so far forward as Chocolate Hill, to a rocky hillock covered by gorse, inland from the mainland, a distance of about a mile, in a line with our promontory. The place, if found out by John Turk, will prove to be a perfect shell-trap, and the shells bursting on solid rock will burst some. They will be foolish to stay there. August 24. Today we had a terrific thunderstorm, forked lightning all over the sky and heavy rain, but it lasted only an hour. We chose a new site, further up the side of the slope of the promontory, yet under cover of a slight rise of ground. The formation of the land here is full of dips and rises, not noticeable from a distance and thereby affording excellent cover, for which we thank Providence. We have to move, for the core reserve depot is getting such an unhealthy spot on A-beach that it is shortly moving to where we are now. All day long the battleships pop off at the Turks on shore. The row from the guns echoing and rebounding with deafening reverberation from the hills and sides of the promontory. I go up with rations to our brigade tonight, a beautiful night, with a convoy of mule carts driven by the imperturbable drabbies who merely chant Indian songs. The moon at night simplifies our work considerably. By day it is dangerous for transport to go far field. August 25th. It is now four long, terrible months since we landed, and we are still on the lowlands at the three landings. The positions in front of us are formidable, almost impregnable, and unless the Balkan states are drawn in on our side, never shall we open the Dardanelles. The task is now impossible for us, and we have lost our opportunity at the start by only landing with one division. Our effort has failed, though we have made good our landing. The shipping here gets shelled as at Hellas, and this morning a battleship was hit twice. We can hear heavy firing down at Hellas. August 26th. Everywhere, everybody is hard at work making dugouts. In the line our infantry are feverishly making a line of defense, digging night and day without cessation. A beach gets shelled, but no shells reach our end of the promontory. Our battleship's guns were out continually, all day, as if in sullen anger at the recent failure, at what I am afraid will be our last effort. My brigade has moved over from Chocolate Hill, and is in the line on the low part of the slope of the high hills which form the left flank next to the sea of our position. And brigade headquarters is dug in behind a hillock in a gully which has been called Lone Tree Gully. August 27th. A violent gale blowing to day. Carver, Petro, and Phillips are now here as transport officers. Work on the beaches now goes on feverishly night and day. Each day a new sandbag dugout appears. Additions are made to the piers. Two off west beach are complete. One further up, towards the end of the promontory, is being built rapidly and skillfully by a brigading party of regular Australian Army engineers. I am told by their warrant officer that there is a regular Australian Army, but that it is being jealously guarded in Australia, and that really it is only a framework of an army. The bridging section, however, at Suvala, is part of this. The fighting army of Australia and New Zealand is voluntary since the war, yet is superior in fighting qualities to the Prussian Guard. Further up, towards the end of the promontory, two small beaches or coves are rapidly being turned into fitting order to receive the steady requirements of food, ammunition, small arms ammunition stores, ordnance, etc., and piers there are rapidly being thrown out. At night, long convoys of Army transport carts and packmills form up, loaded with rations, Army service corps and ordnance stores and ammunition, and proceed along the promontory towards the mainland. On arrival there, they branch off in various directions to their respective destinations, just behind the line. Early on their journey they encounter the song of bullets flying from the Turkish line continually all night. I think that the Turks in the front line must be given so many rounds of ammunition and told to loose off in the air in our direction, not aiming at anybody, but firing blindly in the hope of a victim. Now and again a bullet does find a victim, but ongoing up regularly each night one gets so accustomed to the sound of their flight that one walks on taking no notice. Although if by any chance a rifle is pointing directly your way, even at a thousand yards range, it sounds as if it is fired close to your head, and almost simultaneously, whose ping goes past you very near, and then unconsciously you duck. The drivers on the Army transport carts, however, worry about the bullets less than anybody, remaining sitting on their carts and chanting away, contentedly. Tonight trouble with water occurs, and I am up with O'Hara and Hadow, our staff captain at Brigade Headquarters, on the job. Our headquarters now are at Lone Tree Gully, about 400 yards behind our front line. One is quite safe there unless they choose to shrapnel it, but a Gully in front was badly shrapneled the other day, and the Royal Scots being caught in it were severely mauled. For the back on the road, though, for some distance, one has to walk along through a zone of overs, and two found a target tonight in a sergeant and corporal on transport duty. As I walk along that road, I am always ready, waiting for the sledgehammer blow from the unseen hand, always hoping that it will be a blighty one, through the soft part of the arm or leg. A large proportion of our water has to be brought ashore by water lighters, pipes leading from them to the shore. Tanks are filled from the pipes, and all kinds of receptacles filled from the tanks, such as petrol cans, milk cans, fantasies, and goat skins. The cans can be loaded onto the Army Transport carts, while the fantasies and goat skins are loaded onto mules, in each case two on a mule, one hanging on either side. The Army Transport cart form of transport is much preferable to the packed mule, for the latter is fond of bucking and throwing off his load, which on a dark night on convoy means great trouble. The engineers are hard at work finding wells, but such wells as we have cannot by any means supply even half of the requirements of water. After we have turned in tonight we hear a heavy roar of musketry from Anzac, and soon the battleships and shore-batteries join in. It is a clear night, and the roar of the musketry echoes over the bay remarkably loudly. I have never heard such concentrated rifle-fire so loudly before. It lasts for about two hours, and then dies suddenly away to the incessant crack, crack, crack of the regular nightly rifle-fire. August twenty-eighth. Gale still high. Today I, with foley, pay my first visit to a battleship, the Swift-Chure. She is easily distinguishable from other ships by two large cranes in position amid ships on either side. I had previously signaled to fleet surgeon Jeans on board, sending an introduction to him, given me by General Cayley, our brigadier. A penis arrives for me. We skim over the calm water of the bay, smartly pulling up alongside the great ship. My quest was a case of whiskey for brigade headquarters, stuck up in dugouts and lone-tree gully with no chance of getting any. This is the first time that I have been on a battleship, and as I climb up the rope ladder I remember that I had read somewhere that in the days of Nelson one saluted the quarter-deck when one steps there on. As I was first up I did not know whether it was correct, but I did so, and noticing some naval officers following me behind, also saluting, saw that I was correct. They entertained us royally on board. I nearly had a nervous breakdown when they offered me a whiskey and soda. Naval officers cannot be beaten as hosts. A howitzer has been potting at us today, a good many of the shells going right over the cliff into the sea on the other side. Convoy work again at night to lone-tree gully and a chat with the general in his dugout. A lovely moonlight night, and calm again after a three-days beastly gale. August 29th. Go to division headquarters in the morning, who have now moved back to a gully alongside core headquarters, nicely dug in the side of a hill near us. Their quarters, as well as those of core, are built amongst the green gorse, which with paths running in and out and terraces about, makes a lovely garden. Very nice conditions under which to work. I am riding this on the heights of the shale cliffs of the northern promontory of Suvla Bay. The sea is calm, and a deep, lovely blue, suddenly changing to green at the foot of the rocks. Suvla Bay, with Salt Lake and the wooded and gourced lowland, and the hills and the mountains in the background, are laid out in beautiful panorama. Achibaba can be seen in the distant south, and I have been so used to seeing it from Cape Hellas that the view is quite a novelty. Off the bay are three battleships, supply ships and trawlers, lighters, etc. An aeroplane is humming overhead, and our guns on shore are continually barking away, while little puffs of shrapnel from the Turkish batteries burst over and about the wooded lowlands, Salt Lake and Chocolate Hill, where our front line runs, denoted by the crackle of musketry. The view is most interesting, the brownish green gorges leading to the sea, with their clouds of dust denoting the industry within. Behind me, purple Turkish hills, every point of which is held by the enemy. Then in between our line and the hills the scrubby lowlying country, all buff and green, the cultivated land and the olive groves. I look at it hopelessly, for I know now, as we all do, that the conquest of the peninsula is more than we can hope for. All that is left to us is to hang on day by day. It is anything but a cheery prospect. Death in various forms walks with us always. The sad processions of sick and wounded, chiefly the former, move down to the hospital ships every day. We see all our best friends taken, one after the other. And at what end? The golden chances have been allowed to slip by. We can never win through now. So we have to cling on to the bitter end. End of Section 15. Section 16 of Gallipoli Diary. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sue Anderson. Gallipoli Diary by John Graham Gillum. Section 16. August 30 to September 17, 1915. August 30. A beautiful day again. Turkish batteries very busy all day. Shrapnel and high explosive shell and also dueling between fleet and land batteries. Otherwise all quiet, nothing doing. Brigade moves down from trenches to a beach west and news that we are to go to Imbrose for a rest is circulated. Enemy airplane swoops over like an evil looking vulture and tries to drop bombs on fleet, but has no direct hit to record. At nightfall, brigade starts to embark, ready to sail at daylight. Officers have cabins, and so I am enabled to have a sleep. I'm suffering from one of my beastly colds, however. Nice to get away after the disappointments of that worst of all months, August, when we had expected so much. August 31 arrive at Imbrose at 8am and brigade proceeds to camp on the lowland by the sea. I mess with the general and staff. And again, parcels arrive, opportunity with masterpieces of cakes and sweets, which are seized by the mess waiter and dangerly served up at table. Oh, the relief to get away from shellfire and the chill atmosphere of death in its crudest form. September 1 start off with my man Lewington on donkeys and a pack pony across the hills over a stony narrow path with three little boys in charge of the animals. The way is sometimes over and sometimes round a line of irregular conical shaped hills, some almost mountains, covered with thick green gorse, large boulders, rocks and small stones. The few valleys are beautifully wooded and dotted with vineyards growing luscious dark grapes and also groves of fig trees. One gets glimpses of the Blue Aegean now and again, and the distant isthmus of Gallipoli and the island of Samothrace with the coast of Bulgaria still further off. After two hours trek, during which I felt as if I was a character in the scriptures, we sighted the village of Panagia and we had a sporting trot down a narrow, sandy, steep path. One little boy on a donkey who joined us raced me and beat me by a short neck. Poor old Lewington was hanging on to his mok with a pained but polite expression on his face, and heaved a sigh of relief when we arrived at the village. We pulled up at the Grand Britannia Hotel, recently so named by a Greek. It is a little broken down house, having on the ground floor a boot shop and on the first and top floor two small bare rooms. After a meal of partridge, omelettes and honey, with German beer to drink, I am taken out to an empty house and shown to a room furnished only with a bench. My man slept on the landing and I in the room, and I soon fell fast asleep. At midnight I am awakened by certain creepy insects. I light candles and awake my man and we conduct a massacre. Our landlord arrives on the scene much disturbed and places my bed in the center of the room, whereupon I turn in again and sleep peacefully for the rest of the night. After a second, awaken the morning with the sun streaming in and with the sounds of cocks crowing and chickens clucking, looking out the view of the conical, beautiful hills makes me almost catch my breath, and, God bless my soul, a Greek peasant maiden beauteous to look upon and fear of complexion is feeding her pigs and chickens. After breakfast at the Grand Britannia Hotel, sounds like the Ritz London doesn't it, Duff of all people rolls up with Monroe, we all lunch together and then roam around the village, buy a few things and take photographs. After tea Duff goes on to Castra by the sea on the other side of the island and Monroe and I go back to camp. It is beautiful riding back through the hills in the late afternoon. Perfect day and coloring gorgeous. Nearing camp we get a fine view of Gallipoli. All is so peaceful where we are, but just over that narrow strip of sea war rules in its most horrible form. Have dinner with cocks of the Essex, who turns in at 8.30, and I go back to headquarters and have an after-dinner smoke with the general and staff sitting round a little table in the marquee, lit by candlelight. Start off with Philips on a donkey and pony respectively over the hills again. A gorgeous morning and it is good to be alive. Peasants give us delightful grapes as we ride along. Sheep are grazing, their bells tinkling, with a few cows and bullocks, and now and again a cubby of partridges rises. Arriving at Panagia we have a bottle of beer and then go along the road to Castra by the sea. Castra is situated on a high hill overlooking the sea, with a few fisherman's huts on the beach. The Isle of Samothrace, which is a cluster of mountains rising sheer from the sea, lies opposite. The sea is dead calm and of a gorgeous blue. A few fishing boats lie in a tiny little harbor on the right of the little bay, which is flanked by hills. In the background are more hills and low-wooded valleys, and we feel as if we had stepped into the garden of Eden. Duff is here and we have lunch, after which Duff returns to camp. Philips and I go up on the cliff and have a delightful sleep. Everything is dead quiet and there is not a cloud in the sky. We are right away from the world, and the scene before us, that of the blue Aegean with Samothrace a few miles away, has not changed for thousands of years. After tea we have a bath in beautifully clear warm water and no rocks. The evening closes in, and the coloring thrown by the declining sun on Samothrace is beautiful. A boat with a square sail comes sailing home, looking like the return of Ulysses. After dinner we turn in and sleep on the floor of the veranda. September 4. Wake up early, a perfect morning but a high wind, seen beautiful. Talk to an old Greek who has been all over the world and in all the ports of England and who has come home to his native island for the rest of his days. Try fishing but catch nothing. After lunch start back to camp on ponies, stopping at Panagia for tea, arriving home at 6.30. September 5. Start off again for Panagia with Duff and Elliot and have lunch there. After lunch we go off to another village where an annual holiday is being held. Bands are plain and the inhabitants are dancing weird native dances, appearing very solemn about it. Parties are going round from house to house, visiting and partaking of refreshment, such as grapes, figs, wine, and liqueurs. An old Greek invites us in, and his wife forces us to have grapes, melon, jelly, and liqueurs. I take a bite of cake and was nearly violently ill. We came back another way through vineyards where grapes can be had for the asking, olive groves, and fig tree orchards. September 6. A fine day again but windy. No news but a rumor that Bulgaria is in against us now and that we shall be in Gallipoli for the winter. We go back tomorrow night. We get up a concert, which takes place in the evening. We rig up a platform, borrow a piano from the YMCA, and make up a program. I snaffle some champagne for headquarters, and after a cheery dinner we go to the concert. We have some excellent talent and everybody thoroughly enjoys it. It is a sight worth seeing, the platform lit by candles, and the brigade seated around on the sand. Some of those who took part in the landing, some recently in the fighting at Suvla, and new drafts who have not yet tasted war. The defense of Lucknow was recited by Lieutenant Butler of the Worcesters, an actor by profession, and a good fellow, and it went splendidly and gripped us all. New brigade major arrives, Wilson of the Royal Fusiliers. September 7th. Awake at five, and on becoming conscious of the fact that today I have to go back to the peninsula to remain there for Lord knows how long. I have the same depressed feeling, only more so, that one has in the days of school on the last day of the holiday. At six a.m. Phillips and I and the supply section embark and on a tossing trawler bucking about like a wild horse. We undergo the misery of a four hours crossing in a very rough sea to Suvla Bay, where we arrive at ten a.m. We lie off the swift shore for an hour, and then two penises come alongside to take us on shore. Shrapnel is bursting steadily over the low lands, and one or two high explosives are now and again bursting on A Beach and W Beach. We land soon after eleven a.m., and on arrival back at our part of the promontory we find that our camp has been moved to the end of the long gully where on the side of a hill division headquarters are dug in. The contours of the country are curious. Great natural scars run down to a flat plateau washed by the waves. In these gullies hundreds of men and animals are getting what protection they can. The engineers are building a road on one side of which is a row of dugouts, artfully hidden by a row of great boulders. This is our advanced horse transport depot, and a pretty hot shop as the Turks have the exact range. In front of the dugouts are the horse lines, where rows and rows of mules and horses are packed into the throat of the gorge for shelter. A dry watercourse winds down the gorge, so the place will be impossible in winter. As it is, death takes his daily toll of men and animals, while down the path come a never-ending procession of sick and wounded from the front line, and very occasionally a prisoner or two. Up the same path at night the reinforcements march to rest in dugouts just behind the line, until their turn to take over arrives. To the left of the gorge a huge rocky point runs out to the sea. This point also is a thick mass of men and animals, practically in the open, so limited is space. Truly an unfriendly and uninviting country. The hot dust is over everything. The flies torment, and shells take their toll of us, while we are powerless to hit back. The mouth of the gorge widens to the beach, where there are three tiny bays, which with a plateau form a-beach, kangaroo beach with its lighter and pontoon quays, its sandbag dugouts, and the like. West Beach, the main landing-place with rather better piers and offices, and Little West Beach, a sort of overflow to West Beach proper, embellished with a tram line for horse-drawn trucks, the ordinance depot, etc. All these places are swarming with men, and over all hangs the eternal dust. Further along on the plateau from West Beach, and looking towards Lalababa, is the supply depot and the watering places for the animals, all in the open, with no protection at all, a wonderful spectacle, if you like to think of it, and only possible because John Turk is short of ammunition. Here in the bare open the troops live from day to day, a few sandbags only between them and death, and very few of the dugouts both stay real rough. Blankets and waterproof sheets answer that purpose, and so it is not difficult to imagine the havoc wrought when shrapnel is about. To the north lies the bold, forbidding point before mentioned, with the waves flinging their white mains in anger against its sides. Such roughly is Suvla Bay as I see it now, and I cannot say that it impresses me as a practical proposition. Dug in on the side of a slope the others have built a house, or, as far as dugouts in Gallipoli go, a summer residence, the door faces the rise leading up to the rugged point, from the craggy back of which one sees the cliffside dropping sheer to the sea. The roof of corrugated iron slopes at the same angle as the slope of the ground in which we have dug. For walls the dugout earth forms the back wall, and the side walls are built of biscuit boxes. We spend the day improving on this. Immediately in front is our supply depot, divided into three dumps, one each for the 86th, 87th, and 88th brigades. At dusk the packed mules and army transport carts form up, and we load on to the set of mules or carts allotted to each unit, the rations and fuel. The transport then moves off by brigades to the front, the mules led by drabbies, the carts driven also by drabbies, and the whole escorted by Indian non-commissioned officers under a white non-commissioned officer. Quotemaster's sergeants, transport non-commissioned officers, guides of the units, and the Army Service Corps transport officer accompanied them to the respective battalion and dumps, situated a distance of 200 to 300 yards behind the front line. In some cases convoys proceed direct to the regimental cookhouses. The transport dares not show itself by day. Tonight our brigade arrives from Imbrose and is to spend the night in Delisle's gully, some short distance to the left of the road that leads to Lone Tree Gully, but up the hill rather, and so our rations go there. Water has been put there for them by Carver last night. We watch this water question closely. It needs careful handling and foresight. A man can go hungry much longer than he can go thirsty, and water is far more difficult to transport by sea than food. Imbrose is the source of our supply, and water tank lighters are filled there and towed over each day. The water dump is on a beach, and all the divisions that are being supplied from this promontory draw from this dump. An able man, one Private Jones, is in charge. Though before the war a London County Council schoolteacher, he appears to be the one man in the world who could be chosen to be the most efficient and tactful organizer of the difficult task of satisfying an army of 30,000 men with their daily requirements of water from a limited source and by means of a limited supply of receptacles steadily diminishing in number. At seven I go up with Carver to the headquarters of the 86th Brigade. Instead of walking up the road that leads to Pine Tree Gully, we bear off to the right and pass along a lower road through the wooded gorse-covered lowlands, for a distance of about a mile and a half inland, until bullets are merrily singing their song of war overhead. Zip! One goes between us. A pause in the conversation, and Carver says, that was not pleasant. To which I agree, but adding, if hit it means blighting my boy, the Savoy and Theaters, or finish, as we say in Egypt. We come to a wide space in front of us, and to our left is high ground, rising in one place to about 30 feet. Carver tells me that we are at Brigade dumping ground. Army transport carts are packed here in readiness to bring the baggage back to the beach for the 86th Brigade, as it is their turn now to go to Imbrose. He searches for his staff captain in the dark, and I go up to the bushes in front and talk to Baxter, the quartermaster of the Munsters, and a few other officers who are sitting down on a rock. As I stand there I hear close to my ear, Zip! An unseen hand appears to strike a bush with a big stick on my left. Baxter says, you are standing in a place where bullets keep dropping, you should sit down, one just past your head. I am always sensitive as to how to behave on these occasions, with men whose lives are always past in the trenches, and so I reply, did it? I heard the thing plain enough and sat down promptly. I have learned to take my cue as to what to do from such men, and they are always right. Many a man has been hit by totally disregarding the necessity of taking cover, believing that others may think he has cold feet and he wishes to prove that he is brave by bravado. He forgets he is more useful to his country alive. There are many times when he must take risk, so it is wiser for him to reserve his bravado for those times. I sit down, and a minute after, zip again and thud into the bush. Baxter tells me that it is only this corner which is dangerous, but that they are sitting there because it is a nice seat and the only one handy for waiting. If you walk about the rest of the space, the bullets are flying high and one is safe. This happens all over the peninsula, owing to the curious formation of the land. At one area of a certain spot, bullets may hit the ground regularly, on or near that part. While a few yards away they fly high. Soon one becomes familiar with this peculiarity and acts accordingly. It is because some Turks may be on a rise, others on the ground. They generally fire at nothing in particular but straight in front of them. All night they fire away, crack, crack, crack, and must waste a lot of ammunition. Carter, having finished his arrangements, calls me, and we walk back a short distance over a small rise, threading our way along a path no doubt used not long since by Turkish farmers, descending a slope we pass to the right by a little hill, not more than thirty feet high, and make towards a light, which is eighty-sixth brigade headquarters. We are walking up to the door and can see General Percival and Thompson sitting in the mess room dug out. When we are four yards away from them, the General says, Good evening, Carver. When Carver, to my astonishment, using a fearful oath, disappears into the earth. The light from headquarters mess dazzles my eyes somewhat, and I stop dead, still looking at the place where Carver had performed his pantomynic, vanishing trick, when he again appears looking foolish. He had neatly stepped into a dugout, which I found out after was waiting to be filled in, and we had not noticed it on account of the light in our eyes. We go in and chat, and I tell them of the joys and beauty which they are to taste and see on Imbrose. Back to the beach, where I find our staff captain Hadow arrived. The brigade is arriving, hundreds of dark, shadowy figures quietly falling in in platoons and marching off inland. I talk to Mold a while about the eternal topic, water, and then turn in. September 8. Tonight I go up to Brigade, this time a different way across country, following a guide who has been down for rations and tells me he knows a quick way. We pass in and out of boulders and clumps of gorse, down the rocky gully where division headquarters were for a few nights, past clumps of trees, over grass, over an open space with more pinging bullets than ever, at last to headquarters, and find them all sitting in darkness, and the general rather anxious about the non-arrival of two of his battalions, who have missed their way and are having a country night ramble all over the place, groping about in the dark. Coming back I pass the hamsters and an officer asking me the way I direct him to headquarters. September 14. The past days since I last entered up my diary have been so monotonous that in a fit of sulkiness I threw it on one side, saying I would not record another day's events, for nothing happens. The monotony knocks hellish sideways. I go up every morning to division headquarters at the top of our gully to take instructions. I see the main supply depot to arrange drawing the day's supplies. I wire the strength of the division to general headquarters. I read papers three to four weeks old. I answer letters of the same age. Some days I go up the slope opposite our bivouac, and climbing down the cliff on the other side have a topping bathe. I strafe flies by the thousand. They are a damnable pest. I watch the battleships popping away and at odd times have to duck from a turkey shell. At dusk I superintend the loading up of rations and water and go up to brigade headquarters for a chant. The atmosphere of their company, however, always bucks me up. Our guns pop off at odd intervals each day, and ammunition appears to be coming more plentiful. The Turks are continually busy with shrapnel over Chocolate Hill and the lowland, especially at Hill Ten, where we have several batteries, and, now and again, the beaches. Sea Beach, on the other side of Lala Baba, over the bay, however, gets it far worse than we do. However, generally speaking, I do not think the Turk fires as much as we do. Well, I will continue the diary. Things cannot go on like this forever, and the best thing to do is to accept the life as it comes and treat everything as a matter of course, even shells. All of us who have been on here any length of time feel that our time to get hit will eventually arrive. Personally, I prefer the sledgehammer blow from the unseen hand, namely, a bullet from a rifle. I have been feeling very seedy the last few days, with the common complaint that men are going sick fast with now. I went up to the brigade tonight, but felt very ill when there, and was glad to swallow a strong brandy which the general offered to me. Coming back over the gorse, bullets seemed freer than usual, thudding into the bushes on my right and left. I felt sick and faint, and sat down, awaiting for an empty mule cart returning on its way to the beach. Once soon came, with two men of the Essex, and I was thankful for the lift home. Puka, original 29th men of the Essex, and good fellows. About a dozen motor lorries have landed, and I have managed to snaffle four of them to draw supplies from the main supply depot to our divisional depot, both now at this end of the promontory. Transport at this end of the promontory, if not too congested, only gets shelled at very rare intervals during the day, not sufficient to stop its work. Motor lorries make the time that we take in drawing much shorter, and I wonder that they were not at Hellas. Before, we used army transport carts for this drawing here, and it took up practically the whole morning. We do not have such good targets as the Turks have. To them we are laid out as a panorama, and to us they are dug in out of sight on the slopes of Rocky, almost impregnable fastnesses. Today we have heard the boom of guns from the south, and there must be a heavy bombardment going on there. The weather has broken, and we get a strong wind blowing each day now, frequently developing into a gale. A cold wind is now and again thrown in, and at nights we get a little rain. It is very rough, and difficulty is being experienced in landing stuff. Told that good news will be published tonight. September 15. Heavy rain before breakfast this morning clears off later. Everybody busy digging in. Can see new airship going up at Imbrose. It has not yet made an active trip. Prince George is firing with a heavy list in order to get long range, probably firing at Chanak. September 16 and 17. Each day the battleships at odd intervals fire at various targets on shore. First a small hill rising from the high ground on the Turkish right, which we have named the Pimple, and on which Turkish batteries are in position. Next on Ana Farta and Burnt Hill, behind Chocolate Hill. Next on the slopes of Sarri Bayer. Our batteries on shore occasionally fire off a few rounds. Owing, I suppose, to the fact that there are hills in front of us, the sound of guns firing is louder than it was at Hellas. When our 18 pounder batteries on shore fire, the noise of the report is very much like a door upstairs banging loudly on a windy day. I am getting much fitter and think it is because I managed to get a bath now and again. There is a very good place where I bathe and often visit, not so very far from our dugout. It is a little cove, plentifully besprinkled with huge boulders and protected on all sides. We walk up the rugged slope opposite our dugout to the top of the cliff. Then there is a difficult descent down the sheer face of the cliff to the water's edge. It seems so odd to be on this little patch of rock where we seem to leave the war miles behind us. Then we hear it muttering and grumbling in the hills above and behind us. Sometimes, when least expected, a battleship loses off with a roar that shakes the crags above us. But we are safe, quite safe, as no shells can reach this spot. And so, in the midst almost of this welter of blood, disease, and death, quite lightheartedly, we proceed to the most peaceful of past times, bathing. I go up to headquarters after dinner and enjoy the walk feeling ready for bed when I return. End of section 16.