(Here he quotes the cable already entered in by me yesterday.)
K. goes on, "I hope all your troops are being kept ready to embark, and I would suggest you should send the Territorial Division if Hamilton wants them. Peyton's transports, etc., etc., etc."
The second cable quotes mine of last night wherein I ask leave to call for the East Lancs. and says, "I feel sure you had better have the Territorial Division, and I have instructed Maxwell to embark them. My No. 4239 addressed to Maxwell and repeated to you was sent before receiving your telegram under reply. You had better tell him to send off the Division to you. I am very glad the troops have done so well. Give them a message of hearty congratulations on their successful achievement to buck them up."
Bravo K.! but kind as is your message the best buck up for the Army will be the news that the lads from Manchester are on their way to help us.
The cable people have pinned a minute to these two messages saying that the two hours' pull we have over Greenwich time ought to have let K. get my message before he wired to Maxwell. He may think Maxwell will take it better that way.
Before going to bed, I sent him (K.) two cables—
(1) "Last night the Turks attacked the Australians and New Zealanders in great force, charging right up to the trenches, bugles blowing and shouting 'Allah Hu!' They were bayoneted. The French are landing to lend a hand to the 29th Division. Birdwood's men are very weary and I am supporting them with the Naval Division." These, I may say, are my very last reserves.
(2) Telling K. how "I shall now be able to cheer up my troops by the prospect of speedy reinforcements, whilst informing them of your congratulations, and appealing to them to continue as they have commenced," I go on to say that we have used up the French and the Naval Division "so that at present I have no reserve except Cox when he arrives and the remainder of the French." I also say, simply, and without any reference to the War Office previous denial that there was any second French Division, "D'Amade informs me that the other French Division is ready to embark if required, so I hope you will urge that it be despatched." As to the delay in letting me have the Indian Brigade; a delay which has to-day, so say the 29th Division, cost us Krithia and Achi Baba, I say "Unluckily Cox's Brigade is a day late, but I still trust it will arrive to-morrow during the day."
Bis dot qui cito dat. O truest proverb! One fresh man on Gallipoli to-day was worth five afloat on the Mediterranean or fifty loafing around London in the Central Force. At home they are carefully totting up figures—I know them—and explaining to the P.M. and the Senior Wranglers with some complacency that the sixty thousand effective bayonets left me are enough—seeing they are British—to overthrow the Turkish Empire. So they would be if I had that number, or anything like it, for my line of battle. But what are the facts? Exactly one half of my "bayonets" spend the whole night carrying water, ammunition and supplies between the beach and the firing line. The other half of my "bayonets," those left in the firing line, are up the whole night armed mostly with spades digging desperately into the earth. Now and then there is a hell of a fight, but that is incidental and a relief. A single Division of my old "Central Force," so easily to be spared, so wasted where they are, could take this pick and spade work off the fighters. But the civilians think, I am certain, we are in France, with a service of trains and motor transport at our backs so that our "bayonets" are really free to devote their best energies to fighting. My troops are becoming thoroughly worn out. And when I think of the three huge armies of the Central Force I commanded a few weeks ago in England—!
29th April, 1915. H.M.S. "Q.E." Off the Peninsula. A biggish sea running, subsiding as the day went on—and my mind grew calmer with the waves. For we are living hand-to-mouth now in every sense. Two days' storm would go very near starving us. Until we work up some weeks' reserve of water, food and cartridges, I shan't sleep sound. Have lent Birdwood four Battalions of the Royal Naval Division and two more Battalions are landing at Helles to form my own reserve. Two weak Battalions; that is the exact measure of my executive power to shape the course of events; all the power I have to help either d'Amade or Hunter-Weston.