Note 184 — Chapter XII · SUVLA BAY

So Major Bryan Cooper in The Tenth (Irish) Division, p. 129. My impression at the time was of no rush, but a calm though laborious trudge. Major Cooper, however, continues: “The 7th Dublins in particular were much encouraged by the example of their Colonel.... While every one else was dashing swiftly across the neck, or keeping close under cover, it is recorded that Colonel Downing—a man of unusual height and girth—stood in the centre of the bullet-swept zone, quietly twisting his stick.” “Dashing swiftly across” that sand would, I think, be impossible under any impulse, and cover did not exist; at least I never found it, though I toiled over that spit many dozen times, and it always remained exposed to shell-fire from W Hill.