Our Church Parades, which were only possible when in rest camp, were peculiarly impressive. To assemble the men during daylight was out of the question; the services were therefore held under cover of darkness. Although attendance was voluntary there was almost invariably a good turn-out. None of us is likely ever to forget these little gatherings; the solemn quiet which the distant crackle of rifles seemed but to emphasise; the Psalms and Hymns, in which all joined devoutly but in tones muted and softened in harmony with the evening stillness; the short lesson, read by the light of a screened candle or electric torch; the simple prayers for our comrades facing death, for the sick, the wounded, and the dying, for the bereaved, and for the dear ones waiting for us at home; the brief, practical address; and—to finish—the National Anthem, which one sang with dimmed eyes and a lump in the throat—it seemed to mean so much. No service in the finest man-built place of worship, with pealing organ and highly-trained choir, with sermon earnest and inspired, could have such power to move and impress, to convey such certainty of the near presence of the Almighty and the Eternal, as did these humble, informal meetings under the stars, the congregation dimly visible as it clustered on the parapets of the nearest trenches or squatted on the ground at the Padre's feet.
While we were taking our leisure (!) in rear of the firing-line, things in front of us were comparatively quiet. There must have been times of anxiety for the higher commands, but we knew nothing of these or of what might be impending, except that everyone must have realised that our available force on the Peninsula was none too strong for the task which it would have to face if the enemy should make a determined effort to pierce our lines. At the end of the first week the Battalion was again placed at the disposal of the 29th Division, then holding the extreme left of the British line. The chief use they made of us was to call for large fatigues to construct terraced dug-outs for them in the sea-cliff, but for several successive nights we had to sleep in our boots with equipment and ammunition beside us, ready for an immediate move. We had also to link up all our lines of rest trenches with communication trenches to render movement possible under shell fire and to excavate at high pressure a communication leading up the west side of the Pink Farm Road into one of the main cross-cuts. We cannot recall the official designation of this trench; we always spoke of it as Armstrong Alley, in compliment to our Brigade Major who had driven us to the task of constructing it.
It happened one quiet forenoon that a batman was cleaning his officer's revolver. In rest camps revolvers are not supposed to be loaded, but this one was, and the batman was so unversed in the ways of revolvers that he failed to recognise the fact. A revolver in the hands of a novice is almost as dangerous as an automatic pistol. In fact it spells considerable danger to all in the vicinity. It was therefore scarcely surprising that the batman let off a round in his efforts to remove the cylinder. As ill luck would have it the Divisional General chanced at that moment to be passing through our lines preceded by an orderly. The bullet whizzed close past the General and brought down the orderly with a wound in the leg. The thing was, of course, a pure accident; but the possible consequences of carelessness in handling loaded fire-arms are so serious that the man who accidentally lets off a round is invariably punished for his negligence, even when no serious harm has resulted. In this particular instance the offender would have appeared in ordinary course at the regimental orderly room the following morning, when the circumstances would have been enquired into and the claims of justice satisfied. But the General, who was naturally annoyed—to put it mildly—departed from the normal procedure and, taking the matter into his own hands, sent for the culprit and interviewed him on the spot, whether for purposes of admonition or of punishment we know not. After an impassioned harangue in which, with many winged words, he fully expounded the enormity of the offence, he concluded dramatically somewhat in this fashion: "I hope you are satisfied with your morning's work! You see what you have done. You have wounded this poor fellow, and you very nearly hit me! Are you satisfied?" It was an awkward question to answer with due tact. Rattled as he was by the dressing down he had just received the man could hardly be blamed if his reply was ambiguous. At least it might have been more neatly expressed. It was "No, sir."
On 29th July a letter written by Lieut. J.G. Milne from hospital at Alexandria brought us the bad news that Major Jowitt had died of septic poisoning on the hospital ship Rewa on 17th July, while on the passage to Alexandria, and that Major Downie, who had been on the same ship, had succumbed to his wounds in hospital on the 20th—the day after being landed. The loss of two officers so deservedly popular was sincerely mourned throughout the battalion. Major Jowitt's death was wholly unexpected. His wounds had not been considered serious and the possibility of complications had not suggested itself to any of us. From the first we had known that Major Downie's case was a critical one, but our latest word of him before the hospital ship left Helles had been that "he was getting on better than could be expected," and all had been hoping for further news of good progress.
Before we left rest camp all ranks underwent two inoculations against cholera.
Early in August we learned that the Brigade would shortly take over the extreme left sector at Fusilier Bluff. After a reconnaissance of the position by Colonel Morrison and the Adjutant, a party of eight officers and sixteen N.C.O.'s went forward on August 6th to spend a night in the new firing line. On the way up, as they were passing along the westmost sector of the Eski line, one of our most promising young N.C.O.'s—Corpl. W. Wood, "D" Company—was killed by a stray bullet.
This was an historic day on the Peninsula. Fifteen miles up the Aegean coast the first landing was being made at Suvla Bay. To divert the enemy's attention and to supplement the advance there and at Anzac, the 29th and 42nd Divisions attacked on our front that afternoon.
In spite of very terrible losses these two divisions gained some ground. The Turks, however, threw in reinforcements from their reserves concentrated at Maidos, a force with which they had boastfully threatened to drive us into the sea. The bulk of this army stemmed the advance at Suvla, but enough could also be spared for the fight at Cape Helles to annul our success. Indeed by August 7th only the forward portion of the Vineyard, between the Krithia and Achi Baba nullahs, remained in the hands of the 42nd Division as the nett gain of the previous day's battle.
Our party of officers and N.C.O.'s spent the night at the Border Barricade sector. Up there on the left they had the pleasure of coming across our pre-war chaplain, the Rev. J.A. Cameron Reid, who was at that time attached to the 1st K.O.S.B. They got back to rest camp the following afternoon, having been compelled to lie low for a considerable time in the Gully, which had been heavily shelled by the enemy since sunrise.
The same day our move to the left sector was cancelled, and instead we were sent up at 8 p.m. to relieve the Chatham and Deal Battalion in the Eski line and to be in general reserve to the 42nd Division in the centre sector. On the trek forward two men of "A" Company (Captain D.E. Brand now in command) were wounded near Clapham Junction in the Krithia nullah.