A road has been made the whole length of The Gully, and the whole way is occupied by our troops, especially Indians, many of whom were engaged in their ablutions as I passed. The sides of The Gully would average 100 feet in height, many parts being higher. The sides slope steeply in parts, in many places are quite perpendicular or over-hanging, the walls being the usual hard, marly clay, while I noticed broad layers of conglomerate and sandstone also occur. I was charmed with the whole place, and when describing it at the mess I was thought to be romancing. The heat in the depths of The Gully was very intense and without a breath of wind.
May 24th.—A little rain fell in the morning, and it was more or less cloudy during the day. We watched a fierce thunderstorm, which came round the south side of Imbros, up its east side, then it turned west towards Samothrace. Much shelling to-day, but mostly short and some way from our camp. I hear of no damage.
May 25th.—Had another walk to-day to the top of The Gully with Kellas, Agassiz, and Thomson. Plenty of shells over our heads. Twenty-six shells were fired this morning at several aeroplanes that had landed on our aerodrome. Two were more or less damaged, one with a hole through its petrol tank.
As we were returning from The Gully and were ascending the high bank of Gully Beach I saw something was wrong out at sea, three or four ships being apparently huddled together in one mass. Through my glasses I saw the stern of a ship in the air, preparing for its final plunge to the bottom of the sea. In three minutes or so she had entirely gone. Strange to say what we had been watching was the last of the "Triumph" which had been torpedoed by the submarine that caused the excitement the other day. She is said to have sunk in twenty minutes. We have not yet heard how many perished in this most regrettable disaster, but if it is true that her magazine blew up, as we hear, the loss will likely be heavy. H.M.S. "Triumph" did much useful work out here. This is the second warship we have lost since we arrived in Gallipoli.
May 26th.—Yesterday we opened a dressing station one and a half miles up the Krithia road. It was the duty of Fiddes and Whyte to be posted there for twenty-four hours, beginning at 3 p.m., but the latter having been kicked by a horse yesterday I offered to take his place. I am there now sitting on the edge of a deep funk hole which I have strewn with a thick layer of thyme, meaning to have a pleasant night between "lavender sheets," but I am told by Stephen and Thomson that there is no sleep to be had out here owing to the terrible din that goes on. At present—7.30—there is a violent interchange of shells going on, the enemy's mostly flying high over our heads on the way to our Beach. The aerodrome beside it has been very furiously attacked during the last two days with considerable damage.
Beside us is the grave of a Turk who smells as all Turks do. Our men, I fancy, think they do not deserve much burial. This reminds me of a Turk on the top of whose grave I lunched with Pirie up in the firing line last Sunday. A man the day before was digging a funk hole, and coming on something soft he plunged his spade into it. The smell was so terrific that he threw his spade and bolted, and the Turk had to be covered up by sand thrown from a distance of several yards. Then the night before one of our men, when it was getting dark, saw a suspicious object slipping down the side of The Gully, as he thought, so he proceeded to stalk it through the dense shrubs that clothe all the slopes of The Gully, and, on getting close enough to get a view of it through the bushes he recognised the Turkish uniform and sprang on the man like a tiger driving his bayonet clean through him. The Turk had been dead for nearly a month, and his assailant, like the other man, had to make a hasty retreat.
We are to have a very lively night, that is evident. The Turks usually cease firing their big guns by this time of night, but their shells are still flying thick. The British guns are at present quiet, but the French 75's are barking furiously. It is a delight to hear their sharp, clean bark. The enemy's machine-guns have also been very active this afternoon, the crack, crack, crack, of the Turkish one being easily distinguishable from the noise made by ours. The day of our landing taught me this.
May 27th.—I must have slept three or four hours last night, but not soundly. There was constant rifle fire beside us with one big fusillade before midnight. But what annoyed me was the smell of the thyme and other sweet-smelling herbs I had made a bed of, covering all over with a new rubber ground sheet which was very odoriferous. The mixture of odours was not pleasant. I had trampled the plants with my boots to produce as strong a smell as possible, and succeeded so well that it actually made my eyes smart all night. I rose early and was over near Gully Beach about 6 o'clock. Since then shells have been flying on our four sides and high in the air, and I hear of considerable damage.
We are much upset by the news which reached us at 7.45 that at 7 another of our ships had been torpedoed, lying just off our Beach in full view of all there. It is rumoured that it is the "Majestic," but her name we are not yet sure of. The men who brought this news out to us say they saw the men on board line up before she went down, and dive into the sea. Terrible news!
May 28th.—Back at W. Beach. What we heard yesterday about the "Majestic" was only too true. She lies in front of our camp, about 300 yards from the edge of the cliff, a considerable part of her still above water. There is much discussion as to what part of her it is that is visible, but it appears to me to be the keel, certainly the ram is there. The killed and drowned are between fifty and sixty. Several I have spoken to distinctly saw the wake of the torpedo for many hundred yards. The "Majestic" was lying in the midst of other shipping—only supply boats of no great size, besides trawlers and destroyers, but a gap must have been left and through this the torpedo had found its way. The Admiral and Ashmead-Bartlett were both on board. The latter was on the "Triumph" when she went down two days before.