At 10 o'clock the Q.E. was steaming slowly Northwards and had reached a point close to the old "Y" landing place (well marked out by the glittering kerosine tins). Suddenly, inland, a large mass of men, perhaps two thousand, were seen doubling down a depression of the ground heading towards the coast. We had two 15-inch guns loaded with 10,000 shrapnel bullets each, but there was an agony as to whether these were our fellows falling back or Turks advancing. The Admiral and Keyes asked me. The Flag Captain was with us. The thing hung on a hair but the horror of wiping out one of my own Brigades was too much for me: 20 to 1 they were Turkish reinforcements which had just passed through Krithia—50 to 1 they were Turks—and then—the ground seemed to swallow them from view. Ten minutes later, they broke cover half a mile lower down the Peninsula and left us no doubt as to what they were, advancing as they did in a most determined manner against some of our men who had their left flank on the cliffs above the sea.
The Turks were no longer in mass but extended in several lines, less than a pace between each man. Before this resolute attack our men, who were much weaker, began to fall back. One Turkish Company, about a hundred strong, was making an ugly push within rifle shot of our ship. Its flank rested on the very edge of the cliff, and the men worked forward like German Infantry in a regular line, making a rush of about fifty yards with sloped arms and lying down and firing. They all had their bayonets fixed. Through a glass every move, every signal, could be seen. From where we were our guns exactly enfiladed them. Again they rose and at a heavy sling trot came on with their rifles at the slope; their bayonets glittering and their Officer ten yards ahead of them waving his sword. Some one said they were cheering. Crash! and the Q.E. let fly a shrapnel; range 1,200 yards; a lovely shot; we followed it through the air with our eyes. Range and fuse—perfect. The huge projectile exploded fifty yards from the right of the Turkish line, and vomited its contents of 10,000 bullets clean across the stretch whereon the Turkish Company was making its last effort. When the smoke and dust cleared away nothing stirred on the whole of that piece of ground. We looked for a long time, nothing stirred.
One hundred to the right barrel—nothing left for the second barrel! The tailor of the fairy tale with his "seven at a blow" is not in it with the gunnery Lieutenant of a battleship. Our beloved Queen had drawn the teeth of the Turkish counter-attack on our extreme left. The enemy no longer dared show themselves over the open downs by the sea, but worked over broken ground some hundreds of yards inland where we were unable to see them. The Q.E. hung about here shelling the enemy and trying to help our fellows on for the whole day.
As was signalled to us from the shore by an Officer of the Border Regiment, the Turks were in great strength somewhere not easy to spot a few hundred yards inland from "Y" Beach. Some were in a redoubt, others working down a ravine. A party of our men had actually got into the trench dug by the "Y" Beach covering party on the day of the landing, but had been knocked out again, a few minutes before the Queen Elizabeth came to the rescue, and, in falling back, had been (so the Officer signaller told us) "badly cut up." Asked again who were being badly cut up, he replied, "All of us!" No doubt the Q.E. turned up in the very nick of time, at a moment when we were being forced to retire too rapidly. A certain number of stragglers were slipping quietly back towards Cape Helles along the narrow sandy strip at the foot of the high cliffs, so, as it was flat calm, I sent Aspinall off in a small boat with orders to rally them. He rowed to the South so as to head them off and as the dinghy drew in to the shore we saw one of them strip and swim out to sea to meet it half way. By the time the young fellow reached the boat the cool salt water had given him back his presence of mind and he explained, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, that he had swum off to get help for the wounded! After landing, a show of force was needed to pull the fugitives up but once they did pull up they were splendid, and volunteered to a man to follow Aspinall back into the firing line. Many of them were wounded and the worst of these were put into a picket boat which had just that moment come along. One of the men seemed pretty bad, being hit in the head and in the body. He wanted to join in but, naturally, was forbidden to do so. Aspinall then led his little party back and climbed the cliff. When he got to the top and looked round he found this severely wounded man had not only disobeyed orders and followed him, but had found strength to lug up a box of ammunition with him. "I ordered you not to come," said Aspinall: "I can still pull a trigger, Sir," replied the man.[13]
To-day's experiences have been of the strangest. As armies have grown and as the range of firearms has increased, the Commander-in-Chief of any considerable force has been withdrawn further and further from the fighting. To-day I have stood in the main battery which has fired a shot establishing, in its way, a record in the annals of destruction.
On our left we had gained three miles and had been driven back a mile or rather more after doing so, apparently by fresh enemy forces. What would have been a promenade if our original covering party had stuck to "Y" Beach, had become too difficult for that wearied and greatly weakened Brigade. On the British right the 88th Brigade pushed back the Turks easily enough at first, but afterwards they too came up against stiffer resistance from what seemed to be fresh enemy formations until at last, i.e., about mid-day, they were held up. The Reserve were then ordered to pass through and attack. Small parties are reported to have got into Krithia and one complete Battalion gained a position commanding Krithia—so Wemyss has been credibly informed; but things went wrong; they seem to have been just too weak.
Hunter-Weston is confident as ever and says once his men have dug themselves in, even a few inches, they will hold what they have gained against any number of Turks.
We have been handicapped by the trouble that is bred in the bone of any landing on enemy soil. The General wants to strike quick and hard from the outset. To do so he must rush his men ashore and by very careful plans he may succeed; but even then, unless he can lay hands upon wharves, cranes, and all the mechanical appliances to be found in an up-to-date harbour, he cannot keep up the supply of ammunition, stores, food, water, on a like scale. He cannot do this because, just in proportion as he is successful in getting a large number of men on shore and in quickly pushing them forward some distance inland, so will it become too much for his small craft and his beach frontage to cope with the mule transport and carts. Hence, shortage of ammunition and shortage of water, which last was the worse felt to-day. But the heavy fighting at the landings was what delayed us most.
An enemy aeroplane (a Taube) has been dropping bombs on and about the River Clyde.
There is little of the "joy of the contest" in fighting battles with worn-out troops. Even when the men respond by doing wonders, the Commander is bound to feel his heart torn in two by their trials, in addition to having his brain tortured on anxiety's rack as to the result. The number of Officers we have lost is terrible.