ANZAC, 1915

When I was passed fit for Active Service, after some time in hospital, I left England for Egypt with five other officers. Four of these had strange histories. One is, perhaps, the most romantic figure of the war, another now governs a great Province, while two, after many adventures, were prisoners of war in Turkey, for different but dreary periods.

I was sent to the East because it had been my fortune to have travelled widely, and I had a fairly fluent smattering of several Eastern languages. On arriving at Gibraltar about December 14, 1914, we heard the first news of submarines. One of these was reported to have passed through into the Mediterranean a few days previously.

When I reached Egypt just before Christmas, superficially everything was calm. This calm did not last very long. I was given Intelligence work to do, under Colonel Clayton, who has played a very great part in achieving our success in the East. Reports constantly came in from Minia, Zagazig and Tanta of Turkish and German intrigues. General Sir J. Maxwell commanded the Forces in Egypt. Prince Hussein had just been proclaimed Sultan, and Egypt had been declared to be under British protection. Rushdy Pasha was Prime Minister and a triumvirate of Sir Milne Cheetham at the Residency, Sir R. Graham as Adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, and Lord Edward Cecil as Adviser to the Ministry of Finance, directed the Government.

It was difficult to believe that the Egyptian, who then had all the advantages of neutrals without any of the disadvantages, really meant mischief. Most people, I think, agreed with Lord Cromer, and believed that his policy of making taxes light and life easy for the Egyptian had succeeded, but the East is never logical, as we all know, and the natural consequence constantly does not follow the parental cause. Mecca rose to join us after Kut had fallen; the rebellion in Egypt only took place when the English had achieved a complete victory over Turkey, and held Palestine and Syria. I quote the following incident as an illustration of the difficulty of sometimes following this mentality:—

A Syrian reported to me that a great Egyptian family, whom I will call the Ashakas, had conspired to bring 15,000 rifles into the country and to engineer a rising. The rifles were to be imported from the Greek islands and from Greece, by means of Greek sponge-fishers. One of these, who had the pleasant and appropriate name of Son-of-the-Dagger, met me in a café in an obscure side street in Cairo. There he revealed the conspiracy, explaining that only the landing-place for the arms had still to be decided upon. He and his companions were to receive a commission on every rifle landed, and he wanted to know what the British Government would be ready to pay for his betrayal of his patrons.

On reporting this to the proper authorities, I was told that they were aware of the existence of this plot. The next day frantic messages from the Greek came, and I met him, disturbed in his mind. He said that the Ashakas had become suspicious of him and the other Greeks, and that he feared for his life. He asked to be arrested immediately after the seizure of the arms and thrown into prison with the Egyptians, and then to be flogged before them, in order to convince them that he was acting honourably by them. He was very anxious to be paid for both pieces of treachery, by the Egyptians and by us. On making my report to the authorities I learned that the Ashakas had betrayed the Greeks by denouncing them as traitors.

The whole affair had been a result of Levantine nerves. The Ashakas in the past had been strong Nationalists. When the war between the Turks and ourselves broke out, in spite of the fact that it seemed possible, and indeed likely, that Egypt might again become a Turkish province, their politics changed, and they hastily became Anglophile, but their past record haunted them. They feared the British Government almost as much as the Turks, and yearned to prove themselves loyal.

After much thought it appeared to them that the simplest way of achieving this would be to supply valuable military information to the British. That, however, was an article which they did not possess, and they therefore hit upon the idea of getting up a bogus conspiracy in order to be able to denounce it. This seemed the simplest way to safeguard themselves, and they hurriedly adopted the plan. The instruments that they chose were subtle Greeks, who were more proficient in the art of intrigue than the Ashakas, and had an even more degraded morality. It took only a few days for the Ashakas to realize the infidelity of the Greeks, and to inform against them still more hurriedly, but meanwhile the Greeks had spoken first. In the end, when the hair of the Ashakas had turned grey, they made a clean breast of the whole affair to the British authorities, and were, I believe, forgiven.

“Happy is the country that has no history” is a proverb which is often untrue, but Egypt was certainly happy, compared with the rest of the world, early in 1915. Then history moved rapidly towards us. The thunder of the guns in France was no longer something remote and irrelevant. The Turks massed across the desert, and prepared to attack the Canal. Many of the English thought that we were living on a sleeping volcano, but there was general confidence, and no one doubted our power to cope with the situation. The Turks attacked skilfully and bravely, but the odds against them were too heavy. They were, however, able to shell H.M.S. Harding in the Canal, and a few of their men swam across to Egypt. Complete serenity reigned in Cairo. I remember going to the Opera that night. General Sir John Maxwell was listening, quite unruffled, to the performance. I heard a civilian say in a scandalized voice to him: “They have gone and broken the Harding. What next?” To which Sir John answered: “Well, they’ll have to mend it, I suppose.” Two ladies landed at Port Said and had their train shelled as it steamed slowly along the banks of the Canal to Cairo. They wondered placidly if this was the normal state of things in Egypt.

These attacks added to the labours and quickened the energies of the Intelligence in Egypt, but still there were only vague rumours to be heard. One of these foretold that there was to be a general rising of Islam on April 27th.

I remember long conversations with a specialist with regard to this possibility; he disbelieved in it, then or at any time, for, as he said very rightly, Islam had to contend with great difficulties from the point of view of communications—waterless deserts, impassable seas, mountain ranges, unbridged by our telegraph. My friend, who was remarkable, would not have an office like any other man in his position; he disconcerted friend and foe alike by changing his address every few days, and when one wished to see him, and after the unusual event of catching him, he would make an appointment such as: “The third lamp-post in the Street of Mohammed Ali at dusk.” When he had gone beyond recall, one remembered that the Mohammed Ali Street was several miles long, and that he had not said at which end was the appointed lamp-post; so he was well qualified to speak of the disadvantages accruing from lack of communications.

Prisoners began coming in, but not much news was to be obtained from them. They were mostly shattered and rather pathetic men. The first to arrive were some escaped Syrian schoolmasters, who had been conscripted by the Turks, and gave a very graphic account of a hot and harassing journey ahead of their comrades to Egypt, where their friends and relations lived. Then came a blind old gentleman of eighty, who fell into our front-line trench. It had been his habit, every two years, to visit his son in Egypt, and he had not realized that there was a war going on.

Amongst the Turkish prisoners of the first attack there was one old quartermaster seriously ill, whose manners and courage made him the friend of all his captors, but, like the rest, he told us nothing. There was probably more information amongst the prisoners who had been interned, if they had been willing to speak, but they were not. I met one of these to whom fate had been unusually cruel. He was an Albanian whose home had been in Montenegro. When the amiable Montenegrins seized the land of the Albanians, he had been beaten and cast out; thence he had gone to Turkey, but the Albanians had been the first to attack the Turks, and were, indeed, the main cause of the ruin of the Ottoman Empire, so in Turkey he was bastinadoed and thrown into prison. Somehow he managed to escape and arrived in Egypt. In Egypt he was arrested as a Turk, and again thrown into prison. In prison he was continually beaten by his fellow-prisoners, who were Turks, as an Albanian and an enemy of Islam.

There were no tangible proofs of a conspiracy; one used sometimes to get black looks in the bazaar, and scowls from the class of the Effendis. On the other hand, we were very strongly supported by men of the type of the late Sultan Hussein and Adly Yeghen Pasha.

It would be difficult to meet a more attractive or courteous gentleman than the late Sultan. He was of the advanced school of enlightened Islam; neither his literary tastes, his philosophy, nor his pleasure in European society allowed him to forget his own people for a moment. Adly Yeghen Pasha, then Minister of Education, is an exceptional and outstanding figure in Egypt, with a marked personality. The other Ministers mixed freely with European society, and there was no sign of anything but friendliness.

At the end of February I was sent on the battleship Bacchante, commanded by Captain Boyle,1 which lay for about a fortnight off Alexandretta, occasionally bombarding telegraphs, or wagons that were said to be loaded with artillery wheels. One morning we saw two carts crawling along, drawn by bullocks, carrying the alleged wheels of artillery northward from Alexandretta. In order to warn the two drivers shells were fired from the great battleship a hundred yards ahead of them. The men left their oxen, taking refuge in a neighbouring ditch, while the oxen went slowly forward alone, like automata. Our guns then fired upon the carts, which were about half a mile distant, and one of the oxen was immediately hit. On this one of the two Turks left the ditch, cut the wounded animal free, and continued to lead the two carts. Again our guns fired ahead of him to give him warning, but he went on steadfastly at about a mile an hour to what was certain death. In the end he was left lying by his dead oxen and his broken cart. We had given him every chance that we could, and if the admiration of a British ship for his courage could reward a dead Anatolian muleteer, that reward was his.

Life outside Alexandretta was uneventful. Occasionally a Turkish official came out to discuss various questions that arose. He used to sway and bow from the tiller of his boat while I swayed and bowed from the platform below the gangway of the cruiser. It is perhaps worth saying that when I expressed to him Captain Boyle’s regret for the death of the Turkish muleteer it was an event that he would not condescend to notice.

We discovered one curious fact of natural history, that with a searchlight you can see the eyes of dogs or jackals at night more than half a mile away. A previous ship had reported that men came down to the shore with electric torches, and it was only after some days that we discovered that these will-o’-the-wisp appearances were in reality the eyes of dogs.

But though life was uneventful, it was very pleasant on the ship, and all were sorry when the cruise came to an end.

I remember the last night at dinner in the wardroom the name of a distinguished Admiral occurred in the conversation. He was a man who had a great reputation for capacity and also eccentricity, that came mainly from his habit of concentrated thinking. When he was deep in thought and his eyes caught any bright object, he would go up to it like a magpie and play with it. He would sometimes go up and fiddle with the button of a junior officer on the quarter-deck, looking at it very attentively, to the great discomfort of the junior officer, or even with that of a stranger to whom he had been introduced. The legend grew from this idiosyncrasy, that those may believe who wish to. It was said that one night at a dance he sat out for a long time with a girl in a black dress. His eye caught a white thread on her shoulder, and unconsciously while he talked he began pulling at it. The story goes on to say that when the girl went home she said to her mother: “I know I went out with a vest to-night, and now I wonder what has happened to it.”

I remember at the same dinner Dr. Levick, who had been with Captain Scott in the Antarctic voyage, told a curious story of prophecy. He had been to a fortune-teller after the idea of going with Captain Scott had occurred to him, but before he had taken any steps. The fortune-teller gave a description of the melancholy place where he was to live for two years, of the unknown men who were to be his companions, and particularly one who had strangely flecked hair.

I returned to Cairo and office work with some reluctance. Friends of mine and I took a house, which somehow managed to run itself, in Gezireh. It was covered with Bougainvillea and flowers of every colour, and was a delight to see. Sometimes it lacked servants completely, and at other times there was a black horde. Gardeners sprang up as if by enchantment, and made things grow almost before one’s eyes.

I quote from my diary of March 8, 1915:—

News to-day that King Constantine won’t have Greece come in, and that Venizelos has resigned. At a guess, this means that either Greece or King Constantine is lost. If Constantine goes, Venizelos might shepherd his son through his minority.

March 14, 1915. I left Luxor Tuesday night, after a wonderful time. My guide was a Senoussi—something-or-other Galleel. He had a tip of white turban hanging, which he said was a sign of his people. He was rather like one of the Arabs out of a Hichens book, and I expect about as genuine. A snake-charmer came with us. He gave me the freedom of the snakes as a man is given the freedom of a city, but as one scorpion and two snakes—one of them a so-to-speak soi-disant cobra—stung and bit him during the day, it’s not likely to be of much help to me. He did some very mysterious things, and called snakes from every kind of place—one from a window in the wall, a 5-foot long cobra, and a Coptic cook found its old skin in the next window.

In justice to the snake-charmer it ought to be said that he was only stung and bitten as a consequence of a quarrel with an archæologist.

In Egypt every archæologist looks upon the local magician or snake-charmer as his competitor, and hates him. When the archæologist is telling the tourist the history of Rameses II the attention of the tourist is distracted by a half-naked man doing the mango trick. My archæologist friend, irritated by the presence of the snake-charmer, declared that his snakes were all doped and his scorpions were tame town scorpions, green, and not yellow like the country scorpions. He found a bucolic scorpion under a stone, of the proper colour, which instantly stung the snake-charmer; he then insisted upon stirring up his snakes with a stick, with the unfortunate results that have already been mentioned.

The Egyptian has always seemed to me harder to understand than his neighbours. It may be because there is less in him to understand. The Greeks, Turks, and Arabs have all got very salient characteristic qualities, but though the characteristics of the Egyptians are probably as strongly marked, they are less conspicuous to the foreigner’s eye; in other words, the Egyptian has less in common with the outer world than any of the Asiatic, or even African, peoples who surround him. Lane, in his Modern Egyptians, says that they refused to believe that the ordinary traveller was not an agent for the Government, because they could not understand the desire for travel, and their character has not changed since his day. Here is a story of Egyptian guile and credulity:—

An Egyptian was anxious to get some job profitable to himself done, and he went to one of the kavasses (guards) at the Agency for advice. The kavass professed himself able to help. He said: “The man for you to go to is Mr. Jones, that high English official. He will get what you want done, but I warn you that Mr. Jones is an expensive man. Give me three hundred pounds, and I will see what can be done.” The three hundred pounds was duly paid, and for a long time nothing happened. The petitioner grew impatient and importunate, and was eventually satisfied for the moment by an invitation to lunch with a Levantine who passed himself off as Mr. Jones. At luncheon the Levantine, who was of German extraction, wore his hat, banged his fist on the table, smoked a pipe, interrupted, and generally acted as an Englishman abroad is supposed by some to behave. Then occurred an interval of inaction; the petitioner again grew restive, and this time he complained to the authorities. Finally the transaction was discovered, and the kavass was sent to gaol.

Events moved in Egypt. The Australian and New Zealand troops poured in, and splendid men they were. But there was little love lost between the Australians and the Egyptians, though the British troops and the natives fraternized occasionally. The native Egyptian was, it must be admitted, constantly very roughly treated, for the average Australian, while he was at first apt to resent superiority in others, felt little doubt about his own claim to it. The Australian and New Zealand Corps was commanded by General Birdwood, and the New Zealand and Australian Division by General Godley.

I joined the New Zealand Division as Interpreter and Intelligence officer, and we all made preparations to start early in April. I was anxious to buy a beautiful snow-white Arab, that had won most of the races at Cairo, from a friend of mine, but General Godley spoke simply but firmly. “You aren’t the Duke of Marlborough,” he said. “You can’t have that white pony unless he’s dyed, and even then it would wash off in any rain-storm. You may get yourself shot, but not me.” I agreed with the less reluctance because I had found that the pony pulled furiously and would certainly lead any advance or retreat by many miles.

The day for our departure approached. The golden sunlight and tranquillity of Egypt was tragic in its contrast to what was coming.

Every Intelligence officer was a Cassandra with an attentive audience. In every discussion there was, as far as I saw, unanimity between military, naval, and political officers, who all wished the landing to take place at Alexandretta, and deplored (not to use a stronger word) the project of the Dardanelles, which the Turks had been given ample time to fortify.

The heat increased, and the English officers’ wives, who had come to Egypt to be with their husbands, were given a taste of a ferocious khamsin that affected their complexions. In the spring of 1915 this wind came in waves and gusts of lurid heat. It was like a Nessus shirt, scorching the skin and making slow fire of one’s blood. After the khamsin, which has the one advantage of killing insects with its heat, locusts came. They made a carpet on the ground and a shadow against the sun. Life was intolerable out of doors, and they followed one into the recesses of the house. A friend of mine said to me: “What on earth had they got to grumble about in Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs? They had one plague at a time then; we are having all the lot at once.”

I quote from my diary:—

Yesterday I saw Todd, who had been on the Annie Rickmers when she was torpedoed off Smyrna. The crew was Greek. There were five Englishmen on board, and a good many wounded. The Greeks were all off at once, taking all the boats. They had no interpreter with them. He said the English in Smyrna were angry at being bombarded, and came aboard with Rahmy Bey, the Vali, to complain. Rahmy was always Anglophile.

Early in April Sir Ian Hamilton came and went. He had a great review of the troops in the desert on a glorious day. It was a very splendid sight, and one I should have enjoyed better if I had not been riding a mountainous roan horse that bolted through the glittering Staff.

Many old friends, Ock Asquith, Patrick Shaw-Stewart, Charles Lister, and Rupert Brooke, had come out to Egypt in the Naval Division, and we lunched, dined, and went to the Pyramids by moonlight.

The first week in April we made our preparations for leaving, and I went to say good-bye to native friends. One of them was an old Albanian Abbot of the Bektashi sect, whose monastery was in the living rock in a huge cave behind the Mokattan Hills. He had a fine face and a venerable beard, and I spent much time talking to him, drinking his coffee, by a fountain in the cool garden outside his home. I was sorry to say goodbye to the delightful Zoo in Cairo, with the hawks calling unceasingly in the sunlight, and a hundred different birds. Another pleasure there was Said, an attractive and intellectual hippopotamus, who performed a number of tricks.

On April 10th I went to Alexandria to report aboard the German prize ship Lutzow, and on the 12th we sailed. We discovered that night at dinner that the puritanical New Zealand Government had ordained that this boat should be a dry one, but it made no difference to our mess, which was very pleasant. On April 13th we made a new discovery, that the boat was even drier than we expected, as there was not enough water, and the men had to shave in salt water. On April 15th we came into Lemnos Harbour, with a keen wind and a rustling deep blue sea, and white-crested waves, with cheer on cheer from French and English warships, from German prizes with British crews, from submarines, and even from anchored balloons.

The next day I went ashore with a couple of other officers to buy donkeys, who were to carry our kits. Mudros was not too bad a town, and was a very curious spectacle in those days. There were great black Senegalese troops with filed teeth who chased the children in play, though if the children had known what their home habits were the games would probably have ceased abruptly.

There were Greeks dressed in fantastic costume and British troops of all sorts. Many old friends from the East were there, among them Colonel Doughty Wylie, who in a few days was to win his V.C. and lose a life of great value to his country.

I met a friend, Bettelheim, nicknamed “Beetle,” whose life had been one long adventure. When last I had seen him he had been an official in Turkey, and in a rising had been dragged from his carriage on Galata Bridge in Constantinople by the mob, with his companion, the Emir Arslan. Emir Arslan was torn to pieces, but “Beetle,” with his marvellous luck, escaped.

Many of us lunched together under a vine, drinking excellent wine at a penny a glass. Everybody was extremely cheerful, and there was great elation in the island air. The talk was, of course, about the landing. A friend of mine said: “This is a terrible business; entire Staffs will be wiped out.” He seemed to think that the Staffs were the most important thing.

After lunch I went to see the Mayor, to help me buy all that I wanted. He was rather shaky with regard to his own position, as Lemnos had not yet been recognized by us as Greek, and our recognition was contingent on the behaviour of the Greek Government. He was a very good linguist, talking French, a little English, Italian, Greek, Turkish and Arabic. I think it was he who quoted to me the story of the Khoja Nasr-ed-Din. Nasr-ed-Din was lent a saucepan by a friend; he returned it with another small saucepan, saying it had produced a child. Next year the friend offered a huge saucepan at the same date, which the friend considered the breeding time of saucepans. Later on, when his friend applied for the return of the saucepan, Nasr-ed-Din said: “It is dead.” His friend expostulated: “How can a saucepan die?” “Well,” said Nasr-ed-Din, “if it can have a child, why can’t it die?”

Lemnos itself, though then it was a pageant, is on the whole a dreary island. The land was green, as all lands are in the spring, but there was not the carpet of anemones that one finds in Crete, Cyprus, and other islands, nor was there even asphodel.

On Friday, April 16th, we heard that the Manitou had been torpedoed, and that a number of men had been drowned. This was not the case, though she had had three torpedoes fired at her.

At this time we believed that we were to make three simultaneous attacks, the New Zealanders taking the centre of the Peninsula. A rather melancholy call to arms was issued by General Birdwood, the pith of which was that for the first few days there would be no transport of any kind. This made it all the more necessary to obtain the donkeys, and with the help of the Mayor of Mudros I bought six, and one little one for £1 as a mascot. It was a great deal of trouble getting them on board. The Greek whose boat I had commandeered was very unfriendly, and I had to requisition the services of some Senegalese troops.

Diary. April 21, 1915. Mudros. Inner Bay. Monday, the 19th, I tried to dine on H.M.S. Bacchante, but failed to find her. Dined on the Arcadia. Came back with Commodore Keyes.... Met —— (a journalist turned censor). He said that the Turks had thirty 15-inch howitzers on Gallipoli, also wire entanglements everywhere. The general impression is that we shall get a very bad knock, and that it may set the war back a year, besides producing an indefinite amount of trouble in the East.

Tuesday, April 20th. I went ashore to get porters, but the Mayor was in a nervous state, and I failed. I tried to get back in a dinghy with a couple of Greeks, and we nearly swamped. A gale got up. Finally I made the Imogen, tied up by the Hussar, and at last reached my destination. Great gale in the night. I hope we don’t suffer the fate of the Armada. It is said that our orders are to steam for the outer harbour at once.

It was curious to see the Imogen, once the Ambassador’s yacht at Constantinople. In those days she was treated with reverent care. The Mediterranean had to be calmed by the finest of weather before she travelled. Now she had to sink or swim with the rest. Her adventures did not end at Lemnos. Travellers may see her name written proudly on the harsh cliffs of Muscat in the Persian Gulf, and to-day she is probably at Kurna, the site of the Garden of Eden.

On Thursday, April 22nd, I was able to get two Greek porters, Kristo Keresteji (which being interpreted means Kristo the Timber-merchant) and Yanni, of the little island of Ayo Strati. Kristo was with me until I was invalided in the middle of October. He showed the greatest fidelity and courage after the first few days. The other man was a natural coward, and had to be sent away when an opportunity offered, after the landing.

Diary. Friday, April 23rd. I have just seen the most wonderful procession of ships I shall ever see. In the afternoon we left for the outer harbour. The wind was blowing; there was foam upon the sea and the air of the island was sparkling. With the band playing and flags flying, we steamed past the rest of the fleet. Cheers went from one end of the harbour to the other. Spring and summer met. Everybody felt it more than anything that had gone before.

After we had passed the fleet, the pageant of the fleet passed us. First the Queen Elizabeth, immense, beautiful lines, long, like a snake, straight as an arrow. This time there was silence. It was grim and very beautiful. We would rather have had the music and the cheers.... This morning instructions were given to the officers and landing arrangements made. We leave at 1.30 to-night. The Australians are to land first. This they should do to-night. Then we land.... Naval guns will have to cover our advance, and the men are to be warned that the naval fire is very accurate. They will need some reassuring if the fire is just over our heads. The 29th land at Helles, the French in Asia near Troy. This is curious, as they can’t support us or we them. The Naval Division goes north and makes a demonstration.... The general opinion is that very many boats must be sunk from the shore. Having got ashore, we go on to a rendezvous. We have no native guides.... The politicians are very unpopular.

The sea was very quiet between Lemnos and Anzac on April 24th. There were one or two alterations in plans, but nothing very material. We expected to have to land in the afternoon, but this was changed, and we were ordered to land after the Australians, who were to attack at 4.30 a.m. Some proposed to get up to see the first attack at dawn. I thought that we should see plenty of the attack before we had done with it, and preferred to sleep.

Diary. Sunday, April 25th. I got up at 6.30. Thoms, who shared my cabin, had been up earlier. There was a continuous roll of thunder from the south. Opposite to us the land rose steeply in cliffs and hills covered with the usual Mediterranean vegetation. The crackle of rifles sounded and ceased in turns.... Orders were given to us to start at 8.30 a.m.... The tows were punctual.... We were ordered to take practically nothing but rations. I gave my sleeping-bag to Kyriakidis, the old Greek interpreter whom I had snatched from the Arcadia, and took my British warm and my Burberry.... The tow was unpleasantly open to look at; there was naturally no shelter of any kind. We all packed in, and were towed across the shining sea towards the land fight.... We could see some still figures lying on the beach to our left, one or two in front. Some bullets splashed round.

As we were all jumping into the sea to flounder ashore, I heard cries from the sergeant at the back of the tow. He said to me: “These two men refuse to go ashore.” I turned and saw Kristo Keresteji and Yanni of Ayo Strati with mesmerized eyes looking at the plops that the bullets made in the water, and with their minds evidently fixed on the Greek equivalent of “Home, Sweet Home.” They were, however, pushed in, and we all scrambled on to that unholy land. The word was then, I thought rather unnecessarily, passed that we were under fire.

It was difficult to understand why the Turkish fire developed so late. If they had started shelling us during our landing as they shelled us later, our losses would have been very heavy. We frequently owed our salvation in the Peninsula to a Turkish weakness and a Turkish mistake. They were constantly slow to appreciate a position and take full advantage of it, and their shrapnel was generally fused too high. Hardly any man who landed escaped being thumped and bumped on different occasions by shrapnel, which would, of course, have killed or seriously wounded him if the burst had not been so high. I remember on the afternoon of the first landing a sailor was knocked down beside me, and I and another man carried him to what shelter there was. We found that, while the bullet had pierced his clothes, it had not even broken his skin. Said the sailor: “This is the third time that that’s ’appened to me to-day. I’m beginning to think of my little grey ’ome in the West.” So were others.

We had landed on a spit of land which in those days we called Shrapnel Point, to the left of what afterwards became Corps Headquarters, though later the other spit on the right usurped that name. I took cover under a bush with a New Zealand officer, Major Browne. This officer had risen from the ranks. He fought through the whole of the Gallipoli campaign, and in the end, to the sorrow of all who knew him, was killed as a Brigadier in France.

The shrapnel fire became too warm to be pleasant, and I said: “Major, a soldier’s first duty is to save his life for his country.” He said: “I quite agree, but I don’t see how it’s to be done.” We were driven from Shrapnel Point to the north, round the cliff, but were almost immediately driven back again by the furious fire that met us.

Diary. We were being shot at from three sides. All that morning we kept moving. There were lines of men clinging like cockroaches under the cliffs or moving silently as the guns on the right and left enfiladed us. The only thing to be done was to dig in as soon as possible, but a good many men were shot while they were doing this. General Godley landed about twelve, and went up Monash Gully with General Birdwood. We remained on the beach.... We had no artillery to keep the enemy’s fire down.

We spent a chilly night, sometimes lying down, sometimes walking, as the rain began to fall after dark, and we had not too much food. My servant, Jack, who was a very old friend, and I made ourselves as comfortable as we could.

There was a great deal of inevitable confusion. We were very hard pressed; as every draft landed it was hurried off to that spot in the line where reinforcements were most needed. This naturally produced chaos amongst the units, and order was not re-established for some time. It was a terrible night for those in authority. I believe that, had it been possible, we should have re-embarked that night, but the sacrifices involved would have been too great. Preparations for the expedition had been totally inadequate. The chief R.A.M.C. officer had told me the ridiculously small number of casualties he had been ordered to make preparations for, and asked my opinion, which I gave him with some freedom. As it was, we had to put 600 men on the ship from which we had disembarked in the morning, to go back to hospital in Egypt, a four days’ journey, under the charge of one officer, who was a veterinary surgeon.

Diary. Monday, April 26th. At 5 o’clock yesterday our artillery began to land. It’s a very rough country; the Mediterranean macchia everywhere, and steep, winding valleys. We slept on a ledge a few feet above the beach.... Firing went on all night. In the morning it was very cold, and we were all soaked. The Navy, it appeared, had landed us in the wrong place. This made the Army extremely angry, though as things turned out it was the one bright spot. Had we landed anywhere else, we should have been wiped out.

I believe the actual place decided on for our landing was a mile farther south, which was an open plain, and an ideal place for a hostile landing from the Turkish point of view.

Next morning I walked with General Godley and Tahu Rhodes, his A.D.C., up the height to the plateau which was afterwards called Plugges Plateau. The gullies and ravines were very steep, and covered with undergrowth. We found General Walker, General Birdwood’s Chief of the Staff, on the ridge that bears his name. Bullets were whining about, through the undergrowth, but were not doing much harm, though the shelling on the beach was serious.

Diary. We believed that the Turks were using 16-inch shells from the Dardanelles, and we were now able to reply. The noise was deafening, and our firing knocked down our own dugouts. The Generals all behaved as if the whole thing was a tea-party. Their different Staffs looked worried for their chiefs and themselves. Generals Godley and Walker were the most reckless, but General Birdwood also went out of his way to take risks. The sun was very hot, and our clothes dried while the shrapnel whistled over us into the sea.

At noon we heard the rumour that the 29th were fighting their way up from Helles, and everybody grew happy. We also heard that two Brigadiers had been wounded and one killed.

The Australians had brought with them two ideas, which were only eliminated by time, fighting, and their own good sense. The “eight hours’ day” was almost a holy principle, and when they had violated it by holding on for two or three days heroically, they thought that they deserved a “spell.” Their second principle was not to leave their pals. When a man was wounded his friends would insist upon bringing him down, instead of leaving him to the stretcher-bearers. When they had learned the practical side of war, both these dogmas were jettisoned. In Egypt the Australians had human weaknesses, and had shown them; in Gallipoli they were the best of companions. Naturally, with the New Zealand Division, I saw more of the New Zealanders, who had the virtues of the Australians and the British troops. They had all the dash and élan of the Australians, and the discipline of the Englishmen.

Diary. Tuesday, April 27th. Last night, or rather this morning at about 1 o’clock, I was called up by C. He said: “We are sending up 40,000 rounds of ammunition to Colonel Pope.” Greek donkey-boys, with an Indian escort, were to go up with this ammunition. I asked if any officer was going, and was answered “No”; that there was no officer to go. I said that I would go if I could get a guide, but that I did not talk Hindustani, and that the whole thing was risky, as we were just as likely without a guide to wander into the Turks as to find our own people; also that if we were attacked we should be without means of communicating, and that the Greeks would certainly bolt. At the Corps Headquarters I found an absolutely gaga officer. He had an A.D.C. who was on the spot, however, and produced a note from Colonel Pope which stated that he had all the ammunition he wanted. The officer, in spite of this, told me to carry on. I said it was nonsense without a guide, when Pope had his ammunition. He then told me to take the mules to one place and the ammunition to another. I said that I had better take them both back to my own Headquarters, from which I had come. He then tried to come with me, after saying that he would put me under arrest, but fell over two tent-ropes and was nearly kicked by a mule, and gave up in mute despair.

I may add that this officer was sent away shortly afterwards. The next night he was found with a revolver stalking one of the Staff officers, who was sleeping with a night-cap that looked like a turban, to shelter his head from the dew. My persecutor said that he thought he was a Turk.

Diary. Three of us slept crowded in one dugout on Monday night. The cliff is becoming like a rookery, with ill-made nests. George Lloyd and Ian Smith have a charming view, only no room to lie down in. Everybody’s dugout is falling on his neighbour’s head. I went round the corner of the cliff to find a clean place to wash in the sea, but was sniped, and had to come back quick. The Gallipoli Division of Turks, 18,000 strong, is supposed to be approaching, while we listened to a great artillery duel not far off. An Armenian who was captured yesterday reported the Gallipoli Division advancing on us. On Tuesday night things were better. I think most men were then of the opinion that we ought to be able to hold on, but we were clinging by our eyelids on to the ridge. The confusion of units and the great losses in officers increased the difficulty.

This was the third day of battle. My dugout was twice struck. A tug was sunk just in front of us.... The interpreters have all got three days’ beards which are turning white from worry. The shells to-day did not do so much damage; they whirled over us in coveys, sometimes hitting the beach and flying off singing, sometimes splashing in the sea, but a lot of dead and wounded were carried by.

About this time the spy mania started, which is one of the inevitable concomitants of war. Spies were supposed to be everywhere. In the popular belief, that is “on the beach,” there were enough spies to have made an opera. The first convincing proof of treachery which we had was the story of a Turkish girl who had painted her face green in order to look like a tree, and had shot several people at Helles from the boughs of an oak. Next came the story of the daily pigeon post from Anzac to the Turkish line; but as a matter of fact, the pigeons were about their own business of nesting.

We had with us, too, a remarkable body of men who were more than suspect, and whose presence fed the wildest rumours. These were called Zionists, Zionites, and many other names. They were the Jewish exiles from Syria, who looked after the mules, and constituted the Mule Corps, under Colonel Patterson, of lion-hunting fame. They performed very fine service, and gave proof of the greatest courage. On several occasions I saw the mules blown to bits, and the men of the Mule Corps perfectly calm, among their charges. One night it did seem to me that at last we had got the genuine article. A panting Australian came to say that they had captured a German disguised as a member of the Mule Corps, but that he had unfortunately killed one man before being taken. When I examined this individual he gave his name as Fritz Sehmann, and the language in which we conversed most easily was German. He was able to justify himself in his explanation, which turned out to be true. He had been walking along the cliff at night with his mule, when the mule had been shot and had fallen over the cliff with Fritz Sehmann. Together they had fallen upon an unfortunate soldier, who had been killed by the same burst.

It was a work of some difficulty to explain to the Colonial troops that many of the prisoners that we took—as, for instance, Greeks and Armenians—were conscripts who hated their masters. On one occasion, speaking of a prisoner, I said to a soldier: “This man says he is a Greek, and that he hates the Turks.” “That’s a likely story, that is,” said the soldier; “better put a bayonet in the brute.”

The trouble that we had with the native interpreters is even now a painful memory. If they were arrested once a day, they were arrested ten times. Those who had anything to do with them, if they were not suspected of being themselves infected by treachery, were believed to be in some way unpatriotic. It was almost as difficult to persuade the officers as the men that the fact that a man knew Turkish did not make him a Turk. There was one moment when the interpreters were flying over the hills like hares.

Diary. Wednesday, April 28th. I got up at 4 a.m. this morning, after a fine, quiet night, and examined a Greek deserter from the Turkish Army. He said many would desert if they did not fear for their lives. The New Zealanders spare their prisoners.

Last night, while he was talking to me, Colonel C. was hit by a bit of shell on his hat. He stood quite still while a man might count three, wondering if he was hurt. He then stooped down and picked it up. At 8 p.m last night there was furious shelling in the gully. Many men and mules hit. General Godley was in the Signalling Office, on the telephone, fairly under cover. I was outside with Pinwell, and got grazed, just avoiding the last burst. Their range is better. Before this they have been bursting the shrapnel too high. It was after 4 p.m. their range improved so much. My dugout was shot through five minutes before I went there. So was Shaw’s....

Colonel Chaytor was knocked down by shrapnel, but not hurt. The same happened to Colonel Manders. We heard that the Indian troops were to come to-night. Twenty-three out of twenty-seven Auckland officers killed and wounded.

11 a.m. All firing except from Helles has ceased. Things look better. The most the men can do is to hang on. General Godley has been very fine. The men know it.

4.30 p.m. Turks suddenly reported to have mounted huge howitzer on our left flank, two or three miles away. We rushed all the ammunition off the beach, men working like ants, complete silence and furious work. We were absolutely enfiladed, and they could have pounded us, mules and machinery, to pulp, or driven us into the gully and up the hill, cutting us off from our water and at the same time attacking us with shrapnel. The ships came up and fired on the new gun, and proved either that it was a dummy or had moved, or had been knocked out. It was a cold, wet night.

The material which General Birdwood and General Godley had to work upon was very fine. The Australians and the New Zealanders were born fighters and natural soldiers, and learnt quickly on Active Service what it would have taken months of training to have taught them. But like many another side-show, Anzac was casual in many ways, as the following excerpt from this diary will show:—

Diary. Thursday, April 29th. Kaba Tepé. I was woken at 2.30 a.m., when the New Zealanders stood to arms. It was wet and cold, and a wind blew which felt as if it came through snowy gorges. The alarm had been given, and the Turks were supposed to be about to rush the beach from the left flank in force. Colonel Chaytor was sent to hold the point. He told me to collect stragglers and form them up. It was very dark, and the stragglers were very straggly. I found an Australian, Quinn, and told him to fetch his men along to the gun emplacement, beyond the graves, on the point where Chaytor was. Every one lost every one.

I found Colonel Chaytor with an Australian officer. He said to him: “Go out along the flank and find out where the Canterbury Battalion is, and how strong. On the extreme left there is a field ambulance. They must be told to lie down, so that the Turks will not shoot them.” I said I would look after them. We started. I heard the Australian, after we had gone some hundreds of yards, ordering the Canterburys in support to retire. I said: “But are your orders to that effect? A support is there to support. The Canterburys will be routed or destroyed if you take this support away.” He said: “Well, that’s a bright idea.” He went back, and I heard him say, in the darkness: “This officer thinks you had better stay where you are.” I don’t know if he was a Colonel, or what he was, and he did not know what I was.

I found the field ambulance, a long way off, and went on to the outposts. The field ambulance were touchingly grateful for nothing, and I had some tea and yarned with them till morning, walking back after dawn along the beach by the graves. No one fired at me.

When I got back I heard the news of Doughty’s2 death, which grieved me a great deal.... He seems to have saved the situation. The description of Helles is ghastly, of the men looking down into the red sea, and the dying drowned in a foot of water. That is what might have, and really ought to have happened to us.

One hears the praise of politicians in all men’s mouths....

A beautiful night, last night, and a fair amount of shrapnel. Every evening now they send over a limited number of howitzers from the great guns in the Dardanelles, aimed at our ships. That happens also in the early morning, as this morning. To-night an aeroplane is to locate these guns, and when they let fly to-morrow we are to give them an immense broadside from all our ships.

At this time the weather had improved, but we were living in a good deal of discomfort. We were not yet properly supplied with stores, the water was brackish, occasionally one had to shave in salt water, and all one’s ablutions had to be done on the beach, with the permission of the Turkish artillery.

The beach produced a profound impression on almost all of us, and has in some cases made the seaside distasteful for the rest of our lives. It was, when we first landed, I suppose, about 30 yards broad, and covered with shingle. Upon this narrow strip depended all our communications: landing and putting off, food and water, all came and went upon the beach—and the Turkish guns had got the exact range. Later, shelters were put up, but life was still precarious, and the openness of the beach gave men a greater feeling of insecurity than they had in the trenches.

Diary. Our hair and eyes and mouths are full of dust and sand, and our nostrils of the smell of dead mules.

There were also colonies of ants that kept in close touch with us, and our cigarettes gave out. Besides these trials, we had no news of the war or of the outer world.

Diary. Tahu and I repacked the provisions this morning. While we did so one man was shot on the right and another on the left. We have been expecting howitzers all the time, and speculating as to whether there would be any panic if they really get on to us. The Turks have got their indirect, or rather enfilading, fire on us, and hit our mules. One just hit a few yards away.... Imbros and Samothrace are clear and delicate between the blue sea and the hot sky. The riband of beach is crowded with transport, and Jews, Greeks, Armenians, New Zealanders, Australians, scallywag officers, and officers that still manage to keep a shadow of dandyism between their disreputable selves and immaculate past. And there’s the perpetual ripple of the waves that is sometimes loud enough to be mistaken for the swish of shrapnel, which is also perpetual, splashing in the sea or rattling on the beach. There is very little noise on the beach in the way of talk and laughter. The men never expected to be up against this. When we left Lemnos we saw one boat with an arrow and in front of it “To Constantinople and the Harem.” Precious few of those poor fellows will ever see Constantinople, let alone the Harem.

May 1st. A beautiful dawn, but defiled by a real hymn of hate from the Turks. Last night the Torgut Reiss sent us some shells. This morning it was supposed to be the Goeben that was firing. I woke to hear the howitzers that everybody had been talking of here droning over us, and watched them lifting great columns of water where they hit the sea. Then there came the sigh and the snarl of shrapnel, but that to the other is like the rustle of a lady’s fan to the rumble of a brewer’s dray. This hymn of hate went on for an unusually long time this morning from the big stuff. A lot of men were hit all round, and it has been difficult to wash in the sea. All the loading, unloading, etc., is done at night. The picket-boats are fairly well protected. The middies are the most splendid boys. We are all very cramped and the mules add to the congestion. We shall have a plague of flies before we are done, if we don’t have a worse plague than that. The New Zealanders are all right....

Colonel White, Rickes and Murphy, all hit at breakfast this morning, but not hurt. One of the Greek donkey-boys says he is a barber. This would be a great advantage if he wasn’t so nervous and did not start so much whenever there is a burst.

There is a fleet of boats in front of us, and even more at Helles; the Turks must feel uncomfortable, but another landing, between us, would be pretty risky. They are fighting splendidly. Opinions are divided as to what would happen if we fought our way to Maidos. Many think we could be shelled out again by the Goeben. This expedition needed at least three times the number of men. The Indians have not come, and the Territorials cannot come for a long time.

General Godley wants to change Headquarters for us. Colonel Artillery Johnston’s battery is on our right, facing the Turks, and only a few yards away. The Turks spend a lot of time shooting at it, missing it, and hitting us. Another man killed just now. Shrapnel, heaps of it, is coming both ways on us. Nobody speaks on the beach. We have two tables on the top of the dugout. One is safe, and the other can be hit. The punctual people get the safe table.

B. has lunched. He says that Rupert Brooke died at Lemnos. I am very sorry; he was a good fellow, and a poet with a great future. B. was blown up by a shell yesterday. He has to go back to-night. While we lunched a man had his head blown off 20 yards away....

Orders have come that we are to entrench impregnably. We are practically besieged, for we can’t re-embark without sacrificing our rear-guard, and if the howitzers come up we shall be cut off from the beach and our water. A lot more men have been killed on the beach....

Sunday, May 2nd. 6 a.m. Shrapnel all round as I washed. Beach opinion is if this siege lasts they must be able to get up their heavy guns. The Indians have gone to Helles, and the Naval Division is being taken away from us. New Turkish Divisions are coming against us. There are no chaplains here for burial or for anything else.

Waite took a dozen prisoners this morning—gendarmes, nice fellows. They hadn’t much to tell us. One of them complained that he had been shot through a mistake after he had surrendered. There ought to be an interpreter on these occasions....

It is a fiery hot day, without a ripple on the clear sea, and all still but for the thunder coming from Helles. I bathed and got clean. The beach looks like a mule fair of mutes, for it is very silent. We are to attack to-night at seven. We have now been here a week, and advanced a hundred yards farther than the first rush carried us. There is a great bombardment going on, a roaring ring of fire, and the Turks are being shelled and shelled.

At night the battleships throw out two lines of searchlights, and behind them there gleam the fires of Samothrace and Imbros. Up and down the cliffs here, outside the dugouts, small fires burn. The rifle fire comes over the hill, echoing in the valleys and back from the ships. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether it is the sound of ripples on the beach or firing.

Monday, May 3rd. I was called up at 3 a.m. to examine three prisoners. Our attack has failed, and we have many casualties, probably not less than 1,000. The wounded have been crying on the beach horribly. A wounded Arab reported that our naval gun fire did much damage.

The complaint is old and bitter now. We insist that the Turks are Hottentots. We give them notice before we attack them. We tell them what we are going to do with their Capital. We attack them with an inadequate force of irregular troops, without adequate ammunition (we had one gun in our landing) in the most impregnable part of their Empire. We ask for trouble all over the East by risking disaster here.

The Goeben is shelling the fleet, and (11.30) has just struck a transport. The sea is gay, and a fresh wind is blowing, and the beach is crowded, but there is not a voice upon it, except for an occasional order....

The Turks are now expected to attack us. We suppose people realize what is happening here in London, though it isn’t easy to see how troops and reinforcements can be sent us in time—that is, before the Turks have turned all this into a fortification. A good many men hit on the beach to-day. The mules cry like lost souls.

Tuesday, May 4th. The sea like a looking-glass, not a cloud in the sky, and Samothrace looking very clear and close. The moon is like a faint shadow of light in the clear sky over the smoke of the guns. Heavy fighting between us and Helles. A landing is being attempted. Pessimists say it is our men being taken off because their position is impossible. The boats coming back seem full of wounded. It may have been an attempt at a landing and entrenching, or simply a repetition of what we did the other day at Falcon Hill or Nebronesi, or whatever the place is.

The attack has failed this morning. Perfect peace here, except for rifles crackling on the hill. Ian Smith and I wandered off up a valley through smilax, thyme, heath and myrtle, to a high ridge. We went through the Indians and found a couple of very jolly officers, one of them since killed. There are a good many bodies unburied. Not many men hit. We helped to carry one wounded man back. The stretcher-bearers are splendid fellows, good to friend and enemy. At one place we saw a beastly muddy little pond with a man standing in it in trousers, shovelling out mud. But the water in a tin was clear and cool and very good....

General Godley and Tahu Rhodes got up to the Turkish trenches, quite close to them. The Turks attacked, threw hand-grenades, and our supports broke. The General rallied the men, but a good many were killed, amongst them the General’s orderly, a gentleman ranker and a first-rate fellow.

Wednesday, May 5th. Kaba Tepé. The other day, when our attack below failed, the Turks allowed us to bring off our wounded. This was after that unfortunate landing.

Went on board the Lutzow to-day, and got some of my things off. Coming back the tow rope parted, and we thought that we should drift into captivity. It was rough and unpleasant.

Thursday, May 6th. Very cold night. The dead are unburied and the wounded crying for water between the trenches. Talked to General Birdwood about the possibility of an armistice for burying the dead and bringing in the wounded. He thinks that the Germans would not allow the Turks to accept.

Colonel Esson3 landed this morning. He brought the rumour that 8,000 Turks had been killed lower down on the Peninsula. We attacked Achi Baba at 10 a.m. There was an intermittent fire all night.

This morning I went up to the trenches with General Godley by Walker’s Ridge. The view was magnificent. The plain was covered with friendly olives.... General Birdwood and General Mercer, commanding the Naval Brigade were also there. The trenches have become a perfect maze. As we went along the snipers followed us, seeing Onslow’s helmet above the parapet, and stinging us with dirt. Many dead. I saw no wounded between the lines. On the beach the shrapnel has opened from a new direction. The Turks were supposed to be making light railways to bring up their howitzers and then rub us off this part of the Peninsula. This last shell that has just struck the beach has killed and wounded several men and a good many mules....

Friday, May 7th. A bitter night and morning.... This morning a shell burst overhead, when I heard maniac peals of laughter and found the cook flying up, hit in the boot and his kitchen upset; he was laughing like a madman. It’s a nuisance one has to sit in the shade in our dining place and not in the sun. They have got our exact range, and are pounding in one shell after another. A shell has just burst over our heads, and hit a lighter and set her on fire.

The mules, most admirable animals, had now begun to give a good deal of trouble, alive and dead. There were hundreds of them on the beach and in the gullies. Alive, they bit precisely and kicked accurately; dead, they were towed out to sea, but returned to us faithfully on the beach, making bathing unpleasant and cleanliness difficult. The dead mule was not only offensive to the Army; he became a source of supreme irritation to the Navy, as he floated on his back, with his legs sticking stiffly up in the air. These legs were constantly mistaken for periscopes of submarines, causing excitement, exhaustive naval manœuvres and sometimes recriminations.

My special duties now began to take an unusual form. Every one was naturally anxious for Turkish troops to surrender, in order to get information, and also that we might have fewer men to fight. Those Turks who had been captured had said that the general belief was that we took no prisoners, but killed all who fell into our hands, ruthlessly. I said that I believed that this impression, which did us much harm, could be corrected. The problem was how to disabuse the Turks of this belief. I was ordered to make speeches to them from those of our trenches which were closest to theirs, to explain to them that they would be well treated and that our quarrel lay with the Germans, and not with them.

Diary. Friday, May 7th. At 1.30 I went up Monash Valley, which the men now call the “Valley of Death,” passing a stream of haggard men, wounded and unwounded, coming down in the brilliant sunlight. I saw Colonel Monash4 at his headquarters, and General Godley with him, and received instructions. The shelling overhead was terrific, but did no damage, as the shells threw forward, but the smoke made a shadow between us and the sun. It was like the continuous crashing of a train going over the sleepers of a railway bridge.

Monash, whom I had last seen at the review in the desert, said: “We laugh at this shrapnel.” He tried to speak on the telephone to say I was coming, but it was difficult, and the noise made it impossible. Finally I went up the slope to Quinn’s Post, with an escort, running and taking cover, and panting up the very steep hill. It felt as if bullets rained, but the fact is that they came from three sides and have each got about five echoes. There’s a décolleté place in the hill that they pass over. I got into the trench, and found Quinn, tall and openfaced, swearing like a trooper, much respected by his men. The trenches in Quinn’s Post were narrow and low, full of exhausted men sleeping. I crawled over them and through tiny holes. There was the smell of death everywhere. I spoke in three places.

In conversations with the Turks across the trenches I generally said the same thing: that we took prisoners and treated them well; that the essential quarrel was between us and the Germans and not between England and the Turks; that the Turks had been our friends in the Crimea; and I ended by quoting the Turkish proverb “Eski dost dushman olmaz” (An old friend cannot be an enemy). These speeches probably caused more excitement amongst our men than in the ranks of the Turks, though the Constantinople Press declared that a low attempt to copy the muezzin’s call to prayer had been made from our lines. There were many pictures drawn of the speech-maker and the shower of hand-grenades that answered his kindly words. It must be admitted that there was some reason for these caricatures. Upon this first occasion nothing very much happened—to me, at any rate. Our lines were very close to the Turkish lines, and I was able to speak clearly with and without a megaphone, and the Turks were good enough to show some interest, and in that neighbourhood to keep quiet for a time. I got through my business quickly, and went back to the beach. It was then that the consequences of these blandishments developed, for the places from which I had spoken were made the object of a very heavy strafe, of which I had been the innocent cause, and for which others suffered. When I returned two days later to make another effort at exhortation, I heard a groan go up from the trench. “Oh, Lord, here he comes again. Now for the bally bombs.” On the first occasion when not much had happened it had been: “Law, I’d like to be able to do that meself.”

Diary. Friday, May 7th. On getting back here we had a very heavy fire, which broke up our dinner party, wounded Jack Anderson, stung Jack (my servant), hit me. Jack is sick.... Here are three unpleasant possibilities:—

1. Any strong attack on the height. The Navy could not help then. We should be too mixed in the fighting.

2. The expected blessed big guns to lollop over howitzers.

3. Disease. The Turks have dysentery already.

There is an uncanny whistling overhead. It must come from the bullets and machine-guns or Maxims a long way off. It sounds eldritch. T. very sick after seeing some wounded on the beach, and yet his nerves are very good. Eastwood told me that he was sure to get through. I told him not to say such things. He had three bullets through his tunic the other day. I went on the Lutzow to get the rest of my stuff off, and found Colonel Ryan (“Turkish Charlie”)5 full of awful descriptions of operations. Many wounded on the boat, all very quiet.... Had a drink with a sailor, the gloomiest man that ever I met. He comes from Southampton, and thinks we cannot possibly win the war. It’s become very cold.

Most of the diary of May 9th is too indiscreet for publication, but here are some incidents of the day:—

Worsley6 says it’s very hard to get work done on the beach; in fact its almost impossible. It was said that the gun which had been enfilading us was knocked out, but it is enfilading us now, and it looks as if we shall have a pretty heavy bill to pay to-day. The beach is holding its breath, and between the sound of the shrapnel and the hiss there is only the noise of the waves and a few low voices.... Harrison, who was slightly wounded a few days ago, was yesterday resting in his dugout when he was blown out of it by a shell. To-day he was sent to the Lutzow, and we watched him being shelled the whole way, his boat wriggling. It seems as if the shells know and love him. I am glad he won’t be dining with us any more; a magnet like that is a bore, though he is a very good fellow. The land between us and the 29th is reported to be full of barbed wire entanglements.

Monday, May 10th. Raining and cold. Jack better.

Colonel Braithwaite woke me last night with the news of the sinking of the Lusitania. Last night we took three trenches, but lost them again this morning. S. B. came last night; I was glad to see him.

S. B. had been a great friend of mine in Egypt and brought me and others letters, of which we were badly in need, and stores, which were very welcome. We met upon the beach, and decided to celebrate the occasion in the Intelligence dugout, for my friend had actually got some soda and a bottle of whisky, two very rare luxuries on the beach.

Diary. We went into the Intelligence dugout and sat there. Then a shell hit the top of the dugout. The next one buzzed a lot of bullets in through the door. The third ricochetted all over the place and one bullet grazed my head. I then said: “We’d better put up a blanket to save us from the ricochets.” At the same time J. was shot next door and Onslow’s war diary was destroyed. A pot of jam was shot in General Cunliffe Owen’s hand, which made him very angry. V., the beachmaster, dashed into our Intelligence dugout gasping while we held blankets in front of him. Two days ago a man was killed in his dugout next door, and another man again yesterday. Now two fuses had come straight through his roof and spun like a whipping-top on the floor, dancing a sort of sarabande before the hypnotized eyes of the sailors....

Also S. B.’s whisky was destroyed in the luncheon basket. He broke into furious swearing in Arabic.

Wednesday, May 12th. Rain, mud, grease, temper all night, but we shall long for this coolness when it really gets hot. No bombardment this morning, but the Greek cook, Christopher of the Black Lamp, came and gave two hours’ notice, with the rain and tears running down his face. I am not surprised at his giving notice, but why he should be meticulous about the time I can’t think. Conversation about the shelling is getting very boring.

Had a picturesque walk through the dark last night, past Greeks, Indians, Australians, across a rain-swept, wind-swept, bullet-swept hillside. Many of the Colonels here are business men, who never in their wildest dreams contemplated being in such a position, and they have risen to the occasion finely. The Generals have at last been prevailed upon not to walk about the beach in the daytime.... Two German and one Austrian submarine expected here. The transports have been ordered to Mudros.

Thursday, May 13th. Very calm morning, the echoes of rifle fire on the sea. I went with C. to take General Russell7 up from Reserve Gully to Walker’s Ridge. It was a beautiful morning, with the sky flaming softly, not a cloud anywhere, and the sea perfectly still. The scrub was full of wild flowers; not even the dead mules could spoil it. Guns thundered far off.... After breakfast examined an intelligent Greek prisoner, Nikolas, the miller from Ali Kenì. Then I was telephoned for by Colonel Monash in great haste, and went off up his valley with a megaphone as quickly as possible. In the valley the men were in a state of nerves along the road because of the snipers. The Turks had put up a white flag above their trenches opposite Quinn’s Post. I think this was an artillery flag and that they hoped to avoid the fire of the fleet by this means.... The people at Helles aren’t making headway, and it seems unlikely, except at tremendous cost, and probably not then, that they will. We are pretty well hung up except on our left; why not try there? The Turks are not yet entrenched or dug in there as in other places.... I had to bully Yanni of Ayo Strati till he sobbed on the cliff. I then threatened to dismiss him, after which he grew cheerful, for it was what he wanted....

The Turks have again got white flags out. Have been ordered to go up at dawn.

Friday, May 14th. 4 a.m. Walked up the valley. The crickets were singing in the bushes at the opening of the valley and the place was cool with the faint light of coming dawn. Then a line of stretcher-bearers with the wounded, some quiet, some groaning. Then came the dawn and the smell of death that infects one’s hands and clothes and haunts one.

They weren’t over-pleased to see me at first, as after my speech the other day they had had an awful time from hand-grenades, and their faces fell when I appeared. I spoke from the same place. Then I went to another, and lastly to a trench that communicated with the Turkish trench. The Greek who had surrendered last night came down this trench and the Turks were said to be five to ten yards off. It was partly roofed, and there were some sandbags, between two and three feet high, that separated us from them. Leading into this was a big circular dugout, open to heaven. I got the men cleared out of this before speaking. In the small trench there were two men facing the Turks and lying on the ground with revolvers pointed at the Turks. I moved one man back out of the way and lay on the other—there wasn’t anything else to be done—and spoke for five minutes with some intervals. Once a couple of hand-grenades fell outside and the ground quivered, but that was all. I then got the guard changed....

The loss of the Goliath is confirmed and the fleet has gone, leaving a considerable blank on the horizon and a depression on the sunlit beach. Four interpreters were arrested to-day and handed over to me.

I put them on to dig me a new dugout, round which a colony of interpreters is growing: Kyriakidis, who is a fine man and a gentleman; Ashjian, a young Armenian boy, aristocratic-looking, but very soft, whom I want to send away as soon as possible; and others. My dugout is in the middle of wild flowers, with the sea splashing round. Since the ships have all gone we are, as a consequence, short of water.... The Turks have been shelling our barges hard for an hour. We are to make an attack to-night and destroy their trenches.

Saturday, May 15th. The attack has failed. There are many of our wounded outside our lines. Have been told to go out with a white flag. Was sent for by Skeen8 to see General Birdwood in half an hour. While Colonel Skeen and I were talking a shell hit one man in the lungs and knocked Colonel Knox on the back without hurting him. General Birdwood was hit yesterday in the head, but won’t lie up, General Trottman the day before. While we talked water arrived. A message came from Colonel Chauvel to say there were only two wounded lying out.... In a few minutes a telephone message arrived from the doctor in the trenches that the two wounded had died.... I came back to Headquarters, and heard General Bridges9 asking the General if he might go up Monash Valley. In a few minutes we heard that he was shot in the thigh. The snipers are getting many of our men. If the Germans were running this show they would have had 200,000 men for it.

Last night Kyriakidis heard a nightingale. I notice that the cuckoo has changed his note, worried by the shrapnel. I don’t blame the bird. My new dugout is built. It has a corridor and a patio, and is sort of Louis Quinze. The food is good, but we are always hungry.

Went out with Colonel N. He is a very great man for his luxuries, and looks on cover as the first of these. He is very funny about shelling, and is huffy, like a man who has received an insult, if he gets hit by a spent bullet or covered with earth. They have got the range of our new Headquarters beautifully—two shells before lunch, one on either side of the kitchen range. The men and the mess table covered with dust and stones. The fact is our ships have gone; they can now do pretty much as they like.

Most people here agree that the position is hopeless, unless we drive the Turks back on our left and get reinforcements from Helles, where they could quite well spare them.

Sunday, May 16th. A day fit for Trojan heroes to fight on. As a matter of fact, there is a good deal of Trojan friction. Went into the Intelligence dugout, as five men were hit below it. They have just hit another interpreter, and are pounding away at us again. I was warned to go out with a flag of truce and a bugler this afternoon.

Monday, May 17th. I walked out to the left with S. B., and bathed in a warm, quiet sea. Many men bathing too, and occasionally shrapnel also. There was a scent of thyme, and also the other smell from the graves on the beach, which are very shallow. I got a touch of the sun, and had to lie down. When I got back I heard that Villiers Stuart had been killed this morning, instantaneously. He was a very good fellow, and very good to me.

Tuesday, May 18th. Last night Villiers Stuart was buried. The funeral was to have been at sunset, but at that time we were savagely shelled and had to wait. We formed up in as decent a kit as we could muster, and after the sun had set in a storm of red, while the young moon was rising, the procession started. We stumbled over boulders, and met stretcher-bearers with dead and wounded, we passed Indians driving mules, and shadowy Australians standing at attention, till we came to the graves by the sea. The prayers were very short and good, interrupted by the boom of our guns and the whining of Turkish bullets overhead. His salute was fired above his head from both the trenches....

We shelled the village of Anafarta yesterday, which I don’t much care about. A good many here want to destroy the minaret of the mosque. I can see no difference in principle between this and the destruction of Rheims Cathedral. Kyriakidis told me a Greek cure for sunstroke. You fill the ears of the afflicted one with salt water; it makes a noise like thunder in his head, but the sunstroke passes. Christo thereupon got me salt water in a jug without telling me, and several thirsty people tried to drink it....

A German submarine seen here.... A day of almost perfect peace; rifle fire ceased sometimes for several minutes together, but 8-inch shells were fired into the trenches.... Men are singing on the beach for the first time, and there is something cheerful in the air. The enfilading gun has been, as usual, reported to be knocked out, but gunners are great optimists. No news from Helles.... Turkish reinforcements just coming up. Attack expected at 3 a.m. We stand to arms here.

Wednesday, May 19th. Work under heavy shell fire. This grew worse about 6.30. Several heavy shells hit within a few yards of this dugout and the neighbouring ones, but did not burst. A little farther off they did explode, or striking the sea, raised tall columns and high fountains of white water. Colonel Chaytor badly wounded in the shoulder. A great loss to us. He talked very cheerfully. I have got leave to send away Ashjian.... This, after all, is a quarrel for those directly concerned. The Germans have brought up about twelve more field-guns and four or five Jack Johnsons, and the shelling is very heavy. Saw a horrid sight: a barge full of wounded was being towed out to the hospital ship. Two great Jack Johnsons came, one just in front of them; then when they turned with a wriggle, one just behind them, sending up towers of water, and leaving two great white roses in the sea that turned muddy as the stuff from the bottom rose. They had shells round them again, and a miraculous escape. It’s cruel hard on the nerves of wounded men, but of course that was bad luck, not wicked intentions, because the enemy couldn’t see them.

If the Turks had attacked us fiercely on the top and shelled us as badly down here earlier, they might have had us out. Now we ought to be all right, and they can hardly go on using ammunition like this. Their losses are said to be very great. New Turkish reinforcements said to be at Helles. They have done what we ought to have done. Now they are throwing 11-inch at us. It’s too bad.... I saw Colonel Skeen. He said to me: “You had better be ready to go out this afternoon. We have just shot a Turk with a white flag. That will give us an excuse for apologizing”; quite so: it will also give the Turk an excuse for retaliating. A Turkish officer just brought in says that the real attack is to be this afternoon, now at 1.30. I spent an hour in the hospital, interpreting for the Turkish wounded. The Australians are very good to them. On returning I found the General’s dugout hit hard. Nothing to be done but to dig deeper in.

From the third week in May to the third week in June was the kernel of our time at Anzac. We had grown accustomed to think of the place as home, and of the conditions of our life as natural and permanent. The monotony of the details of shelling and the worry of the flies are of interest only to those who endured them, and have been eliminated, here and there, from this diary.

During this month we were not greatly troubled. The men continued to make the trenches impregnable, and were contented. It was in some ways a curiously happy time.

The New Zealanders and the Australians were generally clothed by the sunlight, which fitted them, better than any tailor, with a red-brown skin, and only on ceremonial occasions did they wear their belts and accoutrements.

Our sport was bathing, and the Brotherhood of the Bath was rudely democratic. There was at Anzac a singularly benevolent officer, but for all his geniality a strong disciplinarian, devoted to military observances. He was kind to all the world, not forgetting himself, and he had developed a kindly figure. No insect could resist his contours. Fleas and bugs made passionate love to him, inlaying his white skin with a wonderful red mosaic. One day he undressed and, leaving nothing of his dignity with his uniform, he mingled superbly with the crowd of bathers. Instantly he received a hearty blow upon his tender, red and white shoulder and a cordial greeting from some democrat of Sydney or of Wellington: “Old man, you’ve been amongst the biscuits!” He drew himself up to rebuke this presumption, then dived for the sea, for, as he said, “What’s the good of telling one naked man to salute another naked man, especially when neither have got their caps?”

This month was marked by a feature that is rare in modern warfare. We had an armistice for the burial of the dead, which is described in the diary.

On the Peninsula we were extremely anxious for an armistice for many reasons. We wished, on all occasions, to be able to get our wounded in after a fight, and we believed, or at least the writer was confident, that an arrangement could be come to. We were also very anxious to bury the dead. Rightly or wrongly, we thought that G.H.Q., living on its perfumed island, did not consider how great was the abomination of life upon the cramped and stinking battlefield that was our encampment, though this was not a charge that any man would have dreamed of bringing against Sir Ian Hamilton.

Diary. Wednesday, May 19, 1915. Kaba Tepé. General Birdwood told me to go to Imbros to talk to Sir Ian Hamilton about an armistice, if General Godley would give me leave.

Thursday, May 20, 1915. Kaba Tepé. Have been waiting for four hours in Colonel Knox’s boat, which was supposed to go to Imbros. Turkish guns very quiet.... Hear that Ock Asquith and Wedgwood are wounded. A liaison officer down south says: “When the Senegalese fly, and the French troops stream forward twenty yards and then stream back twenty-five yards, we know that we are making excellent progress.” There is a Coalition Government at home. We think that we are the reason of that; we think the Government cannot face the blunder of the Dardanelles without asking for support from the Conservatives.

6 p.m. “Arcadian.” Found George Lloyd. Have been talking to Sir Ian Hamilton with regard to the armistice.... Clive Bigham10 was there. He lent me some Shakespeares.

Friday, May 21, 1915. Kaba Tepé. Saw Sir Ian Hamilton again this morning. The Turks are said to have put up a white flag and to have massed behind it in their trenches, intending to rush us. Left with four “Arcadians.”

There was a parley yesterday while I was away. The Turks had put up some white flags, but it was not a case of bad faith as the “Arcadians” believed. We are said to have shot one Red Crescent man by mistake. General Walker went out to talk to the Turks, just like that. Both sides had, apparently, been frightened. I walked back to Reserve Gully with the General, to see the new brigade. The evening sun was shining on the myrtles in all the gullies, and the new brigade was singing and whistling up and down the hills, while fires crackled everywhere.

Saturday, May 22, 1915. Kaba Tepé. S. B. was sent out yesterday to talk to the Turks, but he did not take a white flag with him, and was sniped and bruised.... This morning, suddenly, I was sent for. S. B. and I hurried along the beach and crossed the barbed wire entanglements. We went along by the sea, through heavy showers of rain, and at last met a fierce Arab officer and a wandery-looking Turkish lieutenant. We sat and smoked in fields splendid with poppies, the sea glittering by us.

Then Kemal Bey arrived, and went into Anzac with S. B., while I went off as hostage.

S. B. and Kemal Bey, as they went, provided the Australian escort with much innocent laughter. Our barbed wire down to the sea consisted only of a few light strands, over which the Turk was helped by having his legs raised high for him. S. B., however, wished him, as he was blindfolded, to believe that this defence went on for at least twenty yards. So the Turk was made to do an enormously high, stiff goose-step over the empty air for that space, as absurd a spectacle to our men as I was to be, later, to the Turks. The Australians were almost sick from internal laughter.

Diary. Kemal Bey asked for a hostage, and I went out. They bandaged my eyes, and I mounted a horse and rode off with Sahib Bey. We went along by the sea for some time, for I could hear the waves. Then we went round and round—to puzzle me, I suppose—and ended up in a tent in a grove of olives, where they took the handkerchief off, and Sahib Bey said: “This is the beginning of a life-long friendship.”

At one moment, as I was riding along, the soldier who was supposed to be leading my horse had apparently let go and had fallen behind to light a cigarette or pick flowers. I heard Sahib Bey call out: “You old fool! Can’t you see he’s riding straight over the cliff?” I protested loudly as I rode on, blind as fate.

We had cheese and tea and coffee, Sahib Bey offering to eat first to show me that it was all right, which I said was nonsense. He said: “It may not be political economy, but there are some great advantages in war. It’s very comfortable when there are no exports, because it means that all the things stay at home and are very cheap.” He tried to impress me with their well-being. He said he hated all politicians and had sworn never to read the papers. The Turks had come sadly into the war against us, otherwise gladly. They wanted to regain the prestige that they had lost in the Balkans.... He said, after I had talked to him: “There are many of us who think like you, but we must obey. We know that you are just and that Moslems thrive under you, but you have made cruel mistakes by us, the taking of those two ships and the way in which they were taken.” He asked me a few questions, which I put aside. He had had a conversation with Dash the day before, when we parleyed. Dash is a most innocent creature. He had apparently told him that G.H.Q. was an awful bore, and also the number of Turkish prisoners we had taken....

Sunday, May 23, 1915. Kaba Tepé. We landed a month ago to-day. We now hold a smaller front than then. Also the Albion has gone ashore. The rest of the fleet has left; she remains a fixture. All the boats are rushing up to tow her off. The Turks are sending in a hail of shrapnel.... It will be a bad business if they don’t get her off.... They have got her off, thank the Lord, and every one is breathing more freely.

We wonder if all the places with queer, accidental names will one day be historical: Johnson’s Jolly, Dead Man’s Ridge, Quinn’s Post, The Valley of Death, The Sphinx, Anzac—by the way, that’s not a name of good omen, as “anjak” in Turkish means barely, only just—Plugge’s Plateau. Plugge is a grand man, wounded for the second time. The New Zealanders are all most gallant fellows....

The big fight ought to come off, after the armistice. Two more divisions have come up against us. All quiet last night, but a shell came into the New Zealand hospital on the beach and killed four wounded men and a dresser and some more outside. It’s these new guns whose position we still do not know.

Tuesday, May 25, 1915. Kaba Tepé. We had the truce yesterday. I was afraid something might go wrong, but it all went off all right. Skeen, Blamey,11 Howse, V.C.,12 Hough and I started early. Skeen offered me breakfast but, like a fool, I refused. He put some creosote on my handkerchief. We were at the rendezvous on the beach at 6.30. Heavy rain soaked us to the skin. At 7.30 we met the Turks, Miralai Izzedin, a pleasant, rather sharp, little man; Arif, the son of Achmet Pasha, who gave me a card, “Sculpteur et Peintre,” and “Etudiant de Poésie.” I saw Sahib and had a few words with him, but he did not come with us. Fahreddin Bey came later. We walked from the sea and passed immediately up the hill, through a field of tall corn filled with poppies, then another cornfield; then the fearful smell of death began as we came upon scattered bodies. We mounted over a plateau and down through gullies filled with thyme, where there lay about 4,000 Turkish dead. It was indescribable. One was grateful for the rain and the grey sky. A Turkish Red Crescent man came and gave me some antiseptic wool with scent on it, and this they renewed frequently. There were two wounded crying in that multitude of silence. The Turks were distressed, and Skeen strained a point to let them send water to the first wounded man, who must have been a sniper crawling home. I walked over to the second, who lay with a high circle of dead that made a mound round him, and gave him a drink from my water-bottle, but Skeen called me to come on and I had to leave the bottle. Later a Turk gave it back to me. The Turkish Captain with me said: “At this spectacle even the most gentle must feel savage, and the most savage must weep.” The dead fill acres of ground, mostly killed in the one big attack, but some recently. They fill the myrtle-grown gullies. One saw the result of machine-gun fire very clearly; entire companies annihilated—not wounded, but killed, their heads doubled under them with the impetus of their rush and both hands clasping their bayonets. It was as if God had breathed in their faces, as “the Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold.”

The line was not easy to settle. Neither side wanted to give its position or its trenches away. At the end Skeen agreed that the Turks had been fair. We had not been going very long when we had a message to say that the Turks were entrenching at Johnson’s Jolly. Skeen had, however, just been there and seen that they were doing nothing at all. He left me at Quinn’s Post, looking at the communication trench through which I had spoken to the Turks. Corpses and dead men blown to bits everywhere. Richards was with me part of the time: easy to get on with; also a gentleman called indifferently by the men Mr. or Major Tibbs. A good deal of friction at first. The trenches were 10 to 15 yards apart. Each side was on the qui vive for treachery. In one gully the dead had got to be left unburied. It was impossible to bury them without one side seeing the position of the other. In the Turkish parapet there were many bodies buried. Fahreddin told Skeen he wanted to bury them, “but,” he said, “we cannot take them out without putting something in their place.” Skeen agreed, but said that this concession was not to be taken advantage of to repair the trench. This was a difficult business.