“His Majesty the King recognises that it is due to the keenness and co-operation of all ranks that the 10th Division has reached such a high standard of efficiency.”

“The General Officer Commanding 10th Irish Division has much pleasure in informing the troops that Field-Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, the Secretary of State for War, expressed himself as highly satisfied with all he saw of the 10th Division at the inspection to-day.”

After these two inspections the men began to hope that they would soon be on the move, but the regular routine continued, and all ranks began to get a little stale. The period of training had been filled with hard and strenuous work, and as the days of laborious and monotonous toil crept on, one felt that little was being gained by it. It is not an exaggeration to say that so far as physical fitness was concerned, the whole of the Division which went as an organised whole to Gallipoli was in better condition at the end of April than when they left England. Infantry, engineers, and the Royal Army Medical Corps were all fully trained and qualified for the work they were called on to do. The transport were not, but then the transport were left behind in England. It is possible, too, that the artillery gained by the delay, but they did not accompany the Division, and the two brigades that eventually landed in the Peninsula were completely detached from it. The staff certainly gained much experience from their stay at Basingstoke, but on reaching Gallipoli the Division was split up in such a manner that the experience they had acquired became of little value.

Just as we were beginning to despair of ever moving, on the 27th of June the long-expected order arrived, and the Division was warned to hold itself in readiness for service at the Dardanelles.

CHAPTER II
MUDROS AND MITYLENE

“When in Lemnos we ate our fill of flesh of tall-horned oxen.”—Homer.

It will now be proper to describe the doings of the Division in somewhat fuller detail.

The immediate result of the warning received on June 27th, which was officially confirmed on July 1st, was to throw an enormous amount of work upon officers and N.C.O.’s. Already the gaps in our strength had been filled up by drafts drawn from the 16th (Irish) Division, and now it was necessary for the whole of the men to be re-equipped. Helmets and khaki drill clothing had to be fitted, much of the latter requiring alteration, while the adjusting of pagris to helmets occupied much attention, and caused the advice and assistance of men who had served in India to be greatly in demand. At the same time new English-made belts and accoutrements were issued, the American leather equipment, which had been given out in March and had worn very badly, being withdrawn. We had gained one advantage from the numerous false alarms that rumour had sprung upon us, the men’s field pay-books and field conduct-sheets were completely filled in and ready. This turned out to be extremely fortunate, as the company officers, sergeant-majors, and platoon sergeants found that the time at their disposal was so fully occupied that they would have had little leisure left for office work. The pay lists were closed and balanced, and sent with the cash-books to the Regimental Paymaster; any other documents which had not already been sent to the officer in charge of records were consigned to him, and at last we felt we were ready.

One symptom of the conditions under which we were going to fight was to be found in the fact that we lost some of our comrades. The Heavy Battery and the squadron of the South Irish Horse were transferred to other divisions destined for France, while the transport, both Divisional and Regimental, was ordered to stand fast at Basingstoke. Worse than this, all regimental officers’ chargers were to be handed over to the Remount Department. This indication that we were intended for a walking campaign caused considerable dismay to some machine-gun officers, who had invested in imposing and tight-fitting field boots, and were not certain whether they would be pleasant to march in. As for the men of the machine-gun detachments, their feelings were beyond expression. The knowledge that gun, tripod, and belts would have to be carried everywhere by them in a tropical climate deprived them of words. However, they were too delighted to be on the move at last to grumble for long.