We had seven aeroplanes up at one time this evening, viewing the land and the movements of the Turks, preparing for to-morrow's row.
June 28th.—After an early breakfast Thomson and I set off for Aberdeen Gully, and as our three mule ambulance wagons were going up for the day we had a ride in a four-in-hand to Gully Beach. All the way out we watched the Turks' shells falling right along The Gully, all the batteries, which are numerous there, getting their attentions, while we sat and wondered what we were to do. At the foot of the steep descent into Gully Beach Major Bell shouted to me from a high terrace in which he lives, and advised us not to risk taking the wagons and mules further, especially as mules were getting scarce and are very valuable, so, after consulting with Col. O'Hagan, he suggested parking them where they were. Col. O'Hagan, thinking this gave him the power to do with our wagons as he liked, dared our men to do anything without consulting him, otherwise he would put them under arrest—a threat not much to the liking of Serg. Philip.
We now decided to give The Gully as wide a berth as possible and took the track by the foot of the rocks to Y. Beach, about 2¼ miles further on. The attack was to commence at 9 a.m. and we had three-quarters of an hour to do this, climb the long, steep ascent at Y. Beach, and cross by the sunk mule track to Aberdeen Gully. The guns had been unusually active for the last two days, and to-day from daybreak the heavy howitzers had been throwing shells among the Turks to knock in their trenches, and these and many others were dropping their shells a short way to our left as we crossed the mule track. The heat by this time was intense, and I was absolutely soaked by the time I reached the top of the cliff, scrambling through the Gurkha and Sikh dugouts by the nearest cut possible, not much to their relish I thought. Many of the Gurkhas were handling their knives, and one or two sharpening them on stones. These knives of theirs are not so sacred as some say they are, although I was once warned sharply not to touch one I was to pick up beside its owner. I have often seen them chopping wood and meat with these, hence the necessity for their requiring sharpening this morning. Poor Gurkhas! later in the day some of our men mistook them for Turks and mowed down seventy of them with their machine-guns. In every battle we have had some such mistake, and the Dublins in the afternoon had the same experience as the Gurkhas.
We were not many minutes in Aberdeen Gully when the Turks shrapnelled the mule track very thoroughly, as they did in our last battle, and wounded came in thick from here. Of course the Turks, by means of spies, who are said to be numerous, knew the exact minute of the attack, and were fully prepared to give us a hot time. The mule track is merely an old trench widened and deepened, and when there is fighting many troops pass along this, and the Turks guessed they could get a rich harvest here.
From 9 to 11 every gun on the peninsula fired as fast as it could be loaded—between 300 and 400 guns. We were in the thick of it, between the two artillery lines, and the shells of both passed directly over our heads. Orders to the artillery were that ammunition was not to be spared.
At 11 the infantry assault on the first Turkish trench was to be made, and the guns were then to lift and be trained on the third. All along the first line seemed to fall easily, and many of our men rushed to the second, some even taking a third, while a Scotch battalion even took five. This sort of thing usually proves disastrous, as most of our own big guns are out of sight of their objective, and fire entirely by range, and in this case the guns were trained on the third trench while this battalion rushed through to the fifth, with calamitous results. This battalion—either Royal Scots, Scotch Fusiliers, or K.O.S.B.'s I forget which—had lost all its officers, but, with no one to lead them, they dashed on, greatly to the admiration of all onlookers. Two Munster officers had finally to go forward and recall them. Pushing forward at this rate, even apart from the chance of running into your own artillery fire, generally ends disastrously; if too much progress is made we can rarely retain our position.
The Turks were entirely demoralised by the heavy bombardment and cleared out of their trenches, some of our men, as they came to us wounded, complaining that they ran so fast that they could not get near them. Many got down on their knees and surrendered, still shouting their war cry, "Allah, Allah".
Large bodies of prisoners, all motley crews, passed us during the day, and we had a good many wounded Turks to attend to. I dressed one I was much interested in—a short, swarthy chap of middle age, who was brought in by some Fusiliers. This man had jumped on the parapet of his trench, where he coolly stood upright and shot five Fusiliers dead before they managed to bowl him over, but a shattered left arm left him helpless. He walked in with about sixty other prisoners, with a bullet through his upper jaw and tongue, which had come out at the back of his neck; another shattered completely his left arm, the splintered humerus being at a very sharp angle, and a third through his thigh. He had lost much blood from the divided brachial artery, and was very thirsty, and soon drained the fill of a feeding cup of water, in spite of the state of his mouth. He soon wanted more "su" (Turkish for "water") and was given a bowlful, but he would have nothing to do with the bowl, he stuck his finger to its side to show that he wanted the one with the spout. Evidently he was surprised I did not cut his throat, and all the time I was dressing him he patted me with his sound hand.
All the guns were trained on a small patch to begin with, a troublesome part known as the "boomerang," a redoubt with sixteen machine-guns. This was blown to smithereens.
The whole fight was on our extreme left, with a front of not much over half a mile. This must have been very thoroughly ploughed up, and a large number of Turks blown to pieces. One woman was found among the dead, but it is believed that many of them had their wives with them. Many of their underground dwellings were so elaborate that they had evidently made up their minds that they were to spend the coming winter here.