Note 179 — Chapter XII · SUVLA BAY

Sir Ian’s dispatch gives a full account of the warships, lighters, and trawlers sent with the landing-force, together with details about the water-supply provided. He does not mention the large transport Minneapolis, which I think must have taken the place of the sloop Aster, for we certainly had batteries of mountain-guns with their teams on board. She was a liner, taken over with all her staff; and as instances of petrifying routine I remember that, as I hoped to land at 4 a.m., I asked if one could get a cup of tea then, and was haughtily informed, “On this ship breakfast is always at 8.30”; and later in the morning, when the fighting was at crisis, the “stewards” were sweeping out the gangways with vacuum-cleaners as they had swept for years. Habits of routine were, however, fatally disturbed in the following spring when the Minneapolis was torpedoed between Egypt and Salonika.